B2C Company Using Social Media? Follow the Lead of Eventful Florals.

I love seeing our clients do creative things using social media. I noticed Eventful Florals doing something interesting recently that I thought was a great idea. They are offering a 10% discount to anyone who becomes a fan of Eventful Florals on Facebook. This is great because their customers feel great about getting a special deal, while Eventful Florals now has a growing list of permission-based contacts who have opted in to receiving updates via the fan page.

Additionally, Eventful Florals is distributing “daily tips for the modern bride” via Twitter, which is also awesome. Brides-to-be will follow to get wedding planning tips (very valuable info) and Eventful Florals gains a captive audience of potential customers. The updates are also posted to the fan page.

Kudos to Eventful Florals for being innovative and using social media to build value and grow brand awareness with permission marketing.

Oh, and they have a nice web site, too :-)

The Art of the Email Introduction

As a member of various networking organizations like BNI and Rainmakers, I make an effort to create referrals for people in my trusted networks. One of my favorite ways to create connections is through an email introduction.

So much of the time, I see attempts at referrals take the form of someone saying “call so-and-so… I told them about you” or “I told so-and-so to call you” or perhaps your referral source just throws a phone number at you (which is really just a lead).

While the phone has its place and is certainly a great communication tool, it also has some disadvantages. If you start off a connection with a phone call, you are in danger of getting sucked into playing phone tag since we are all busy and more often than not we get voice mail. Also, calling someone out of the blue can catch them off guard and might not be as well-timed as you would like. Finally, while not really a cold call, it does have a certain element of chilliness in that a phone call does not give you a chance to prep the referral with any background information about you. You are forced to start off with a verbal introduction which limits the depth to which you can teach the referral about your company or what you do.

For this reason, I prefer an email introduction. If you are the one making the referral, a good email introduction starts off with you (the connector who is making the referral) sending an email to the referral (the person that you are connecting your referral partner to – we’ll call him “Bob”). The email should explain that an introduction is being made, should also contain an endorsement or testimonial for your referral partner (we’ll call her “Mary”) that highlights something unique about her services (for example “Mary specializes in providing marketing services for chiropractors that typically increase incoming patient volume by 70%”), and a call to action encouraging communication (“I would encourage you to give Mary a call to see if there are any opportunities for her to help you”). You then include Mary’s contact information in the email (phone, email, website, etc.). One final but important point is that you should CC Mary on the email.

Following that, Mary has the responsibilty to click “Reply to all” in her email program and create a followup message that includes you and Bob. This way, you are able to easily see that Mary followed up and can rest assured that the handoff has been made. Mary should thank you for making the referral, should thank Bob for his willingness to connect with her, and should request further communication. Mary should use this opportunity to send Bob a link to her web site and perhaps explain a bit more about her service. She should then attempt to set up a phone call or a meeting with Bob based on a few times that she provides. This way, Bob can plan for the meeting and both parties can be prepared. At this point, it is an extremely warm referral that has given all parties involved lots of background information and has set the stage for a comfortable conversation via phone or meeting.

It may seem like more work, but it’s a much better way that simply calling out of the blue. Next time you want to facilitate a warm referral for someone in your network, try an email introduction. It may lead to a more successful connection.

The death of the webmaster

Ok, not literally… perhaps another title might be “The re-assignment of the webmaster” but that doesn’t sound as dramatic. In any case, I still see a particular trend on this subject that bothers me. SpinWeb works with a lot of associations which are typically led by a board of directors and sometimes assisted by a staff. What I still see in many cases is the old-fashioned concept of the traditional “webmaster”. The webmaster is typically a single person within the association, either a volunteer or a staff member, who is in charge of updating the association web site. This person may have special technical knowledge that makes him or her qualified to write the code necessary to make changes on the site. All changes go through this webmaster and only he or she holds the keys to web content.

This structure is antiquated and problematic because it creates a bottleneck that delays content updates. If all updates are channeled through one person, then the association’s web site is in a very precarious position. The association’s web site should be the most current and most active communication tool in use and key leaders in the organization should be able to post content in real time without having to channel it through a webmaster.

The more enlightened model that I like to recommend is that associations manage their web sites via a mature Application Suite (also sometimes called a Content Management System) that allows multiple board and/or staff members to update the association web site in real time. News, events, and other information can then be managed by those people who actually create the content. For example, SpinWeb creates sites that allow association boards and staff members to give “keys” to specific people throughout the association that allows those people to update content within their areas. No special technical knowledge is required… only basic computer skills. We have created sites in which the entire board of directors has control over website content and can make up-to-the-minute changes 24/7, which allows them to react very quickly and communicate to members in a timely fashion.

If your organization is still in the world of channeling website updates through a “webmaster”, please talk to me. There is a better way :)

Symmergy Clinic Web Site Launched: Need Chiropractic or Electro-acupuncture?

At SpinWeb, we recently lauched the new web site for the Symmergy Clinic. Dr. Ken Golden opened this clinic a few years ago and I must say it is one of the most awesome medical offices I have ever been in. The interior design is modern, high-tech, and very cool. Various genres of music play throughout the office each time I visit, including jazz, classical, and other ambient blends. The technology is very slick and overall, it feels less like a traditional yucky doctor’s office and more like the sick bay of the Starship Enterprise.

Aside from all that, Dr. Golden is a great chiropractor who uses a blend of traditional chiropractic and electro-acupuncture to treat all sorts of conditions. He did wonders for my tennis elbow.

The new web site allows Dr. Golden to distribute an email newsletter containing health and wellness tips, publish articles to a blog, and post a calendar of seminars complete with online registration.

It’s great to see a local Indianapolis chiropractor embracing the web to grow his practice and provide more value for his patients. Check out the Symmergy Clinic at:

http://www.symmergy.com

Improving the Usability of your Pricing

Our Creative Director at SpinWeb, Rob Alan, sent me this blog post today that I absolutely loved:

Is there a better way for you to price your product? – (37signals).

I was very happy to see it because it validates something we’ve been doing for the past year – improving the usability of our pricing.

As an interactive agency, we come from a world where most companies like us are used to a sales process that involves lots of planning meetings, big proposals that go back and forth, free consulting to create estimates, and vague pricing based on a mysterious number of hours that it may take to complete a project. From what I’ve seen, this process typically leads to projects that go over budget and time, disagreements over money, and end up with both parties unhappy.

I’m very happy to say that SpinWeb has adopted a much simpler pricing and delivery process that involves three phases: blueprint, design, and deployment. Our pricing is 100% transparent. We don’t talk in terms of “hours” or “estimates”. We break our service down into smaller, logical chunks of work that we can predict and deliver with confidence. We also tell our clients exactly what each chunk will cost. I’ve sometimes met with a prospective client for the first time and then within 45 minutes the paperwork is signed and web site is in production simply because we make our process so easy to understand. In less than an hour, any prospective client can have all the information he or she needs to make a decision. It’s very refreshing.

This model has completely revolutionized our business. Arguments over money have virtually disappeared, we’ve shortened our sales process by about 90%, and our clients are happy. I never would have thought that an agency that creates web sites could “productize” design services like this but I’m amazed at what we’ve done. Additionally, it allows us even more design creativity because we can focus our time and energy on great design rather than on managing inefficient production processes.

Take another look at your business and try to find ways to create repeatable processes and pricing models. It might be easier than you think and it just may help your sales, as well.