Posts for January 2010

Blogging businesses benefit best

A new report into the benefits experienced by small and medium businesses with blogs has been conducted by social media research specialists, Hubspot. Having previously released findings that demonstrate blogging businesses experience 55% more visitors to their target website than those who do not, the latest research has shown the overall reach a blogging business can expect through Twitter increases by 79%.

The most impressive statistic for small businesses with blogs is that small businesses that blog, on average have 102% more Twitter followers than those who don't. This highlights the personal relationship and down-to-earth communication a small business can take advantage of over big businesses and businesses that do not make the most of blogging opportunities. The more open and regular your conversation with existing and potential customers, the more likely they are to invest time, an online connection through a follow or subscription and ultimately, financial commitment.

The report, which looked at a dataset from 2,100 Hubspot customers, concludes,

“…businesses of different sizes and service nature can reach more potential customers via Twitter by enriching their Twitter streams with content from their blog.”

A blog alongside your business website is a great way to add that splash of personality and open up your day-to-day business experience with your customers. Everytime you publish a new blog post, tell your Twitter following all about it, you are writing for them as much as for yourself and so you should let people know and join up your online community dots.

The more you engage with your customers and link up your communications through Twitter and blogging, the greater the opportunity you have to be noticed as an expert in your business area and as a small business, you offer personality, understanding and an environment where consumers build-up trust and a relationship with you the company and the products or services you can provide. So, why wouldn’t you want to put your business in the proverbial shop window?

What do you use your blog for? How do you make your blog stand out from the other 126 million?

Track your marketing campaigns with Internet telephony

VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol offers businesses the lead when it comes to communications.  It’s a cost-effective, flexible and professional option for businesses that want to benefit from the cutting edge of communication technology.

But can VoIP (or Internet telephony) really help your company improve its marketing? Well, the short answer is yes.  Clearly, the most frequently given reason that people switch to VoIP from traditional calling plans is the amount of money that can be saved.  VoIP uses the Internet to call, which massively reduces your calling costs, especially if you call long distance or overseas.

VoIP offers many more advanced features than regular landlines could ever provide.  Nevertheless despite the technological advantage and the greatly reduced costs, it’s the marketing benefits that must not be so easily overlooked.

When VoIP is used for business, it helps to improve the relationship and communications with your clients.  The VoIP system allows you to easily track and monitor calls and offers a professional front for anyone calling you.  You can create specific numbers and attach them to particular promotions, products or services.  Your staff can answer the phone with this already in mind and offer the caller a specific greeting that’s particularly targeted to the promotion, product or service that’s associated with that particular phone number.

By choosing to use a range of phone numbers for different types of marketing (newspaper ads, emails, website or poster) you’ll be able to tell which campaign is the most successful and tailor your future marketing strategy accordingly.

Using Gradwell’s unique VoIP control panel, you can produce monthly reports showing precise call statistics : how many calls were made to your numbers, which number was used most frequently, how long the call were and more. You can also relate the data to the productivity of your employees for motivational purposes.  Reports can be exported and circulated for analysis in your marketing strategy meetings.

While each of your marketing methods may display a different number, all of the calls can be directly routed to come through to just one desk, one office or a whole call centre.  Furthermore, when someone calls one of your VoIP numbers, a short piece of text can be displayed to your staff  telling them which product, service or promotion the caller is interested in learning about, preparing them for the call.  It really is that simple to improve your marketing efficiency and reporting with VoIP.