A David Creation

Before people purchase a product or hire a service company, they typically will do at least two things: 1) View a companies’ testimonials and 2) View their work or images of products. How do people view your current website? Do you have good testimonials and a quality portfolio? What about effective and short video clips?

Videos are growing in popularity do to companies like YouTube and Vimeo.  A YouTube video, for example, actually can help drive traffic to your website. In any case, videos are an effective marketing source. If done correctly, you will see sales increase. If the video content or filming is poor, you will see your “bounce rate” go up (people will leave your site). Video advertising should be look upon as a piece of the marketing pie: websites, proximity mailers, newsletters, customer marketing, video, events, etc. A quality video is worth the investment.

If you commit to doing a video on your website as a service company, I’d suggest filming simple clips of your office staff, your shop, your crew, customer testimonials or even your sales process.

Visit the links below to see how some larger companies use video testimonials to sell their product/service. The clips are short and simple, yet effective. You’ll see two types: testimonials and how to videos.

1. 37Signals: “What Customers Have to Say” Section
2. Highrise CRM Tour: Short How To Videos
3. Apple’s iPad Video: (was on home page) After watching the video ask yourself, “Do I want one?”
4. Kindle on Amazon.com
5. Plumbing Company in Boston (good videos: though I would have let people know how long the clips were before clicking on them and slowed it down a tad)

I recently decided to give the voice to text application, Jott a try, and so far, I really like it. I am fast at typing on my computer and iPhone. However, when I’m driving my mind thinks about a lot of things: reminders, appointments, follow ups, ideas, etc. I cannot always get out my phone and type everything down the moment I think about it. Now, with Jott I can voice what I want done and in seconds, my voice is recorded, turned into text and recorded in the proper place. For example, if I want to set an appointment on my Google calendar with a client for 1:00PM on a Friday, I call the toll free Jott number, Say “Google Calendar” and after the beep I respond with “Marketing Meeting with Client Today at 1PM.” I then hang up…and in a few minutes, my Google Calendar displays “Marketing Meeting with Client” at 1PM.”

Jott is a great way to send yourself reminders and voice memos via email or right on your calendar. So instead of texting while driving, use Jott on your mobile phone. Oh, and you don’t need an iPhone. It works with just about any device. The cost is around $3.95 a month. If it saves you time, it is definitely worth it. Jott also has a more expensive subscription for Salesforce CRM users. This price is $25 a month. To me, it is very steep, and I don’t know who would use it as Salesforce alone is already pricey at $65 per mobile user.

I recently purchased a $.99 App for my iPhone called Swipe that makes receiving credit card payments easy while on the go. I am testing this App to see how easy it is to use for mobile users. I thought this would be a great tool for service companies. With a few simple clicks and entering a credit card, a Swipe user can accept payments in seconds and email receipts. So far, I’m very impressed with this new App. For Blackberry users, try this free Credit Card App.

Most paint companies I work with request an up front deposit. Getting the deposit can be difficult if you don’t do it on the spot. If you had a mobile credit card application for your mobile device, the customer has no excuse but to pay right away.

It might look something like this, “Mr. Franklin, I’m really looking forward to working with you. All I need is a signature approving our proposal and what method of payment you wish to use for the deposit?” if they don’t write you a check which would be great then you’d say, “Oh and by the way, we take VISA, MasterCard and American Express, and I can run the card right now and send you a receipt. What card would you like to use?”

The major complaint most folks have with Credit Cards is the transaction fees. The second complaint I hear often is, “I can never collect a deposit in a timely manner.” Well, even though there is a transaction fee, you might want to at least consider pushing the deposits on a credit card. It is easy, and you get your money typically in less than 24 hours.

Oh…and depending on the types of services you perform, Swipe makes it easy to type in a list of services and pricing. So, for Painters, you can have a “Color Consultation” $95 fee or “Painter For a Day (full day) $500 etc.

The setup for Swipe was very easy. The hardest part was looking up my merchant account from Authorize.net.

I am sure some or all of this video is staged and you’ve seen a few of these clips before. However, whether they are staged or not, it is a great 4 minute break to watch what some of us feel like doing at times!

Enjoy a: Bad Day At the Office

I’ve been using a product from a company called 37 Signals for quite some time now called Basecamp. Basecamp is a web-based, project management program that allows for good collaboration within a company on projects. It offers a message senter, uploading of files, to-do list, milestones, a whiteboard and the ability to comment on anything posted. My favorite feature is the emailing of reports, when someone post a comment and reminders of when assignments are due. I’ve tried out a number of other project management programs and Basecamp is at the top of my list.

37 Signals also created a number of other helpful programs that help small, medium and large businesses to be more organized and productive. The one I’m recommending is called Highrise. Highrise is a less complicated CRM, contact manager program. Most CRMs (Customer Relationship Management) have a lot of gadgets and functionality. I’ve discovered that in the small business world, most folks end up only using a small portion of the functions: emails, to-dos, calendar, and opportunities. Highrise developers cut some of the fat from large CRMs and simplified the functions of their web-based Highrise  to offer a more user friendly program and productive software. Highrise is quite simple to use and affordable. While most CRM programs (like Salesforce, SugarCRM and countless others) charge a monthly fee per user, Highrise is available for a small monthly fee and allows for a bundle of users. For example, for $25 a month, a company can have up to 6 users have full access to Highrise with limited deals or opportunities. The best rate is $50 a month for 10 users and unlimited opportunities. For a small business guy like me, I can utilize the free version…and absolutely love it! If you think $50 a month is high, ask me why I think it is affordable and very reasonable! If you want the full capabilities, say from Salesforce (mobile included) you will likely spend $65 per month per user.

One of my favorite things I like about Highrise is the to-do list/task function. I always have a pile full of small projects going on. Highrise makes it simple for me to write down the action items and be sent an email when those items are due: even down to the minute!

(note: I do like Salesforce CRM and endorse it. I also realized a lot of small business users (my audience/clients) cannot afford or will use all the functions Salesforce has to offer. If you have the money and want a lot of functions…oh and will use them…go with Salesforce!)

Ok, so maybe I’m getting a little to nerdy for most of my clients regarding technology. However, there might just be a few of you out there who would like to try an incredible App for your iPhone. Let’s say you run out of your office for an appointment and forgot to send an important email before you left, or forgot the address of where you were headed. Using this cool little application on your iPhone, you can login to your desktop computer, Mac or PC, take over your computer as though you were right in front of it, send your email or get the address you forgot in seconds! It’s called “Ignition” by LogMeIn. The application is an expensive app: currently at $30, but hey…if it saves you a trip back to the office, it pays for itself! Also, there is not subscription required. If you access only the computer that are yours (multiple ones too: office and home) it is free! The paid versions are more for computer technicians.

I’ve been playing around with this nifty app and love it! It works great! Watch the LogMeIn Video.

The Blackberry was once the leader in Smartphone technology. The phone was excellent for organizing your emails, contacts and calendar. It is still a great tool for those three items…oh and checking the weather. Besides that, the Blackberry has finally begun to be outdated and lagging behind the new leaders: Google and Apple. I had several Blackberries for a few years and enjoyed the basic functions. That is until I switched to the iPhone. I recently helped a customer troubleshoot his Blackberry and realized just how sluggish a Blackberry continues to be! He had a Storm 2, which is new!

From a developing standpoint, it is far more difficult to create business apps and mobile websites for a Blackberry. This is why the iPhone has over 150,000, Google has 40,000+ (?) and the Blackberry has….probably less than 20,000. Apple and Google have made it easy for nerds to create apps for their devices while Blackberry continues to be difficult.

The reason I believe it is time to ditch the Blackberry is because the Apple and Google phones are great for business users. For example, within a few months, a technician can take an iPhone with him to a job site, do a repair, type up an invoice, take a credit card, swipe the card, receive payment and email a receipt. How cool will that be? You can manage and schedule appointments from multiple calendars from an iPhone, not from a Blackberry. The ways you can run a business remotely and easy on an Apple or Google phone are far more powerful than a Blackberry. The phones are also a lot more faster to operate, search the web and easy to use.

If you are holding on tight to your Blackberry because you don’t want to switch to AT&T or you don’t like Verizon’s Droid, hold off just another month or so until the Nexus One hits the stores. You can’t go wrong with an Apple iPhone or Google’s Nexus One! BUT…if you just want to keep life simple: email, contacts and calendar: stay with your Blackberry.

A lot of time is being spent on creating and sending email blast to customers and prospects today mainly because it is affordable. A service company can create and send an email blast in as little as 2-3 hours the first time around and 45-60 minutes for additional emails, depending on how much content they have inserted. Some email blast companies even offer free accounts, like MailChimp (a list under 500). So its cost effective and simple to use software, emailing is a great way to reach customers. The one problem that most companies I’ve talked to have had is getting their customers to open and view their email. This is known as “open rates.”The higher your open rate, the more viewers read or glanced at your email newsletter.

If you create a beautiful and well thought-out email campaign only to get low open rate, it can be quite discouraging. I wish I can share good news, but email marketing typically does not produce high open rates. Consumers are getting use to hitting the delete button when they see a familiar email come into their inbox. I believe there can be a couple of ways to increase your opening rate. The first way is simple: 1) Have a good list with loyal customers/fans. Think about it, what emails do you open on a regular basis? I tend to open emails from Amazon.com, Apple and Peets Coffee. Why? Because I buy from them and they have good content. I use to open emails from LL Bean until I started receiving an email a week. I thought it was getting out of hand and unsubscribed. So, make sure you have the right people subscribed to your emails and make sure your content is very useful and interesting to your audience.

The second way I believe you can increase your open rate is by having a good “Title.” Most professional writers and journalist, I’ve heard, spend the same or more time thinking of the title of their article as they do on the research and writing of the article. It is the same for an email campaign. Think carefully about what will strike the interest of your readers. I recently put together an email blast for an organization that had a painting tip that mentioned a bank and marketing. So, because my readers were painters I titled the email blast, “Talk to your bank about advertising.” We got a 40% open rate. The industry standard for a non-profit is about 19%. The next email blast, we got a 45% open rate due to another fun and creative title. Am I happy with a 40% open rate? Absolutely! Some emails end up going into the spam box, and there is nothing you can do about it (without paying extra!).

Finally, is it possible to get a very high open rate such as 75%? To be honest, I don’t know. I’ve never seen an open rate above 65%. If you have a list of 20 people who are absolute raving fans of your company, it might be possible to get 75%…but realistically, I’d say you have a very successful campaign if you are above 25%.Also, if you have a low open rate it means you are either sending too many emails to often, don’t have a good list or a clever title.

It was just a week and a half ago I was invited last minute to attend PACE, the national conference of the Painting and Decorating Contractors of America (PDCA). This year’s event will be held in Phoenix AZ. I got all my plans set in stone, hotel, flights, business cards, etc…then Southwest announced the cancelling of all flights out of BWI from Friday afternoon through Sunday morning. We have a big snow storm ready to begin in just a few hours.

So, I am sad to say that I will not be able to make PACE this year. I was really looking forward to the trip. I can probably find a late flight on Sunday but then I’d only be in Phoenix for just over a day before returning. It is not worth the travel time. I hope it is a great conference and look forward to hearing from some of you who went.

If you are interested in a unique leave behind gift, consider creating a unique coffee blend for your  business, packaging them into 1/2 lb bags and giving them out to your clients and potential clients. You’d be surprised at how well this works for referrals and more business.

The difficult part is getting a coffee company to work with painting contractors. They typically show a lot of resistance, because they don’t think there is much money to be made. If you are interested, I do have connections! Send me an email to learn more. I have done the research and have very good prices: cheaper than you can get at Starbucks, Peets, etc…and it taste good too! Fresh is the key!!! Email David