RAMON GIL

How to Market Your Business on Facebook

This may be a heretical thing to say but I don't believe Facebook marketing works. Okay, just so I don't draw the ire of social media experts everywhere, I will qualify that statement. I don't believe Facebook marketing works the way most people think. Let me s'plain.

Unless you've got a huge fan following like Hall & Oates (Did I just date myself?), most business-related status updates don't really get that much attention. Like paid ads, we've learned to ignore them. UNLESS the post is entertaining, provocative or useful to the reader. I see lots of experts post updates on Facebook about their latest speaking engagements or any PR that they scored. But does anyone really read them? I rarely do and I suspect most people are the same. 

So can Facebook be used for business marketing at all? Well yes and no. While it probably doesn't hurt to talk a little bit about your business on FB, I think there's a better use for it in relation to marketing. I call it "Facebook Networking."

I've said it time and time again, business is all about relationships, so why not use Facebook to cultivate them? I am a Social Media Butterfly. As long as I remember meeting you, I will confirm your FB friend request. (And sometimes even if I don't remember someone, but their picture is incredibly hot, I will be their friend anyway.) Why do I do this? Because I want to get to know people and I want them to get to know me. In my last blog post, I talked about the "Power of Options." Well this is sort of an extension of that. The more people I know on FB, the more relationships I can cultivate. And the bigger my network and potential pool of business and resources.

Building and cultivating relationships is all about keeping in touch, getting to know each other better and finding commonalities. In the old days, you had to do it in person or on the phone. But now, you can do it virtually! How cool is it that you can now get to know a person's family, hobbies, activities and (most embarassing of all) musical preferences, all online? Is it an invasion of privacy? Not if they're uploading things on the World Wide Web! And let's face it - if your FB friends are posting pictures and status updates, then they obviously want you to see them. They want you to get to know them, connect with them and reaffirm them. It's human nature!

The flip side of this is that people get to know you as well. And that's the secret ingredient. People don't want to do business with "companies." They want to do business with PEOPLE. People they like. And the only way they will have the opportunity to like you is if they get to know YOU personally.

Now I'm not advocating that everyone "fake" being friendly to people on FB. You can limit yourself to friending people you genuinely like (which makes for stronger relationships anyway). Luckily for me, I'm a natural extrovert and love learning more about folks. And I just love being able to post witty comments on people's walls.

Another good thing to do is be helpful and giving if people need recommendations, advise, or just a little empathy. We all could use a little of that. Especially New Yorkers.

So yes! Have a seperate FB page for your business (so that people who are curious can see what you do). But also focus on leveraging your personality and be a friend who keeps in touch, is helpful and wants to grow the relationship.

The other day, I was on the bus and someone whom I had met only twice before sat down next to me but we knew (sort of) what was basically going on with each other's lives (through Facebook). How's that for virtually strengthening the friendship? 

People ask me all the time, if I've gotten any business from Facebook. And my answer is "No, I haven't gotten any business from FB. But I have built friendships on Facebook and they've given me business." See the difference?

So feel free to "Facebook friend" me at http://www.facebook.com/ramonsgil. Just please don't hold the whole "Hall & Oates" thing against me.

The Holy Trinity of Sales

Did you ever wish you could guarantee how much revenue was coming in to your business from one month to the other? Well, there are no guarantees in life and business but we can come pretty close.

While it's true that we can't control how much business we get from our clients, we can often reasonably predict the amount of business we get and do things to help insure that we get what we need. In order to do this you need to know three things. The amount of business in your Sales Pipeline, The average amount you make on a sale (or project), and what your closing ratio is. All of which you should be able to figure out based on past experience.

1. The Sales Pipeline
Make up a chart with columns representing the next 6 months. In each month's column, list the names and dollar amounts for projects you know are coming in based on commitments made by customers. Also list out any sales that regularly come in based on past patterns and experience. If you're not sure about some of them, then make the dollar amount a percentage of how likely you will get the sale (example, if there's a 50% chance that you will land a $3000 project in June then put down $1500). Do the same for any jobs you are currently pitching. Pretty soon, you will have a good picture of which months will have enough income and which months won't.

So say you need $10K a month to meet all your expenses, and in July you notice you're short by $6K, here's what you can do to help make sure you make that extra six thousand.

2. Your Average Sale Amount 
Take all the jobs you've done over the last 3-6 months and average them out. And let's pretend that each project comes out to about $2,000. How many projects will you need to add to June? Three! Now we we're getting closer to knowing how much selling we're going to need to do in the month of May. With me so far?

3. Your Closing Ratio
Again go count all the business pitches you did in the past six months and count how many of them were successful, in other words, how many of them resulted in a sale. Now you should have a your closing ratio. Let's imagine that your closing ratio is 1/3. Now we have all the information you need.

Do The Math
IF you know how much more business you need to raise in June ($6K) and if you know what your average sale is ($2K) then you can figure out how many projects you need to add, right? (3)

And IF you know how many projects you need to add (3) and if you know what your closing ratio is (1/3) then you can figure out how many new business pitches you need to make in May (9). Make sense?

So if you do whatever it takes to make 9 business pitches in May, and indeed you get 3 new projects at an average of $2K each, the you just made your June quota!

Viola!

You can also make your life easier by either increasing the amount of your average sale by raising fees or adding more services, or you can increase your success rate when doing business pitches by learning to be a better closer, or BOTH!

Grab Them By The Jugular - Better Click Rates for Your eBlasts

It seems that nowadays, everyone who runs a business is sending out a regular e-newsletter or eBlast. But truth be told, how many of them do you actually read? Or turn it around, how many actually read yours? They say a 10% open rate is good. Well, let me show you how to double that!

1. The Subject Heading
This is the first thing people see when they check their inbox and this will determine how many people will actually open your email. Here are some "boring" subject headings. "The Latest News from ACME Consulting," "Weekly Update from the Stonecutters Association" or "Some Great Tips for Marketing Your Business" Now here are some "Not Boring" ones. "How to Avoid Killing Your Web Designer," "Don't Hire Your Friends" and "Here's Your Share of the Stimulus Package - FREE INTERNS!" Get the picture? Make it specific to the content of the eBlast (in these cases my actual blog entries), make it intriguing, fun or provocative and most of all don't make it broad, generic and the same from one eBlast to the other. If they know from the subject line what it's about,  and if it interests them, they will open and read it. If they only see a mundane headline that doesn't tell them anything, they will pass.

2. Make It Valuable
Nobody cares about what your company did, what awards you received, or what new clients you just won. There are lots of radio stations out there but everyone mostly listens to WII FM. "What's-In-It-For-Me." So give them something they can actually use. NOW give them those marketing tips. Tell them about business resources. Invite them to events where they can network. Then at the very end, toot your horn a little - a project, client or award we won. (Yes, I know I said they don't care but hopefully the first two items will make them feel obligated.)

3. Keep it Short and Sweet
Nobody wants to read a dissertation. I like to keep it down to 3 topics with brief synopsis (no more than 2-3 sentences) for each one. The first being the intro to a blog that gives them tips about something. The second is usually a link to a resource they might find useful. And last, some PR for yourself. Basically, you want to keep each item so short that they don't have enough time to decide they're not interested.

4. Subheads Subheads Subheads
Use subheads to not only separate the items on your eBlast but also to give readers a clue as to what they're about. That way, if they're only skimming, they'll get the gist of the topics and will read deeper if it interests them. And again, make the subheads fun and catchy (See #1). This is true not just for eBlasts, but for ALL text-heavy documents.

5. Use Links to Track Response
As in all marketing, you need to measure results. As I mentioned in #2, I link to the blog, I link to the resource and I link to the press release about my company. The reason for this is that the eBlast services (ConstantContact, iContact, Vertical Response, etc)  can track click-rates from those links -  giving you an idea of what your readers are interested in. Wouldn't it be valuable to you to know which 23 of your readers clicked on the link about your latest website redesign project? But no links, no tracking.

6. Clean Layout and a Picture
The simpler the layout the better. Sidebars and boxes, and different sections are too much. The nature of emails is that they are quick. They are sent quickly and read quickly. The more complicated the layout, the harder it is to read fast. I like to keep my emails plain white, one column, topics separated with thin rules and a logo on top. And if you can, use one or two small pictures that relate to your content. If there's one point you need to drive home, make it a caption under the images. Everybody reads captions!

As a caveat, keep in mind that some of these suggestions may not be appropriate for all types of business or organizations. Funeral homes, divorce lawyers and NY State Governors come to mind. You get the picture.

How to Be Happy

Not sure if I got this from the New York Times, CNN or TED. But the formula for getting out of the doldrums and feel better in general is as follows:

1. CONNECT - invest time and energy in your relationships with your loved ones.

2. BE ACTIVE - best way to change your mood is to step outside in the fresh air or turn on the tunes and dance.

3. TAKE NOTICE - be aware of things around you, the seasons, messages within your body, subtle rhythms of life.

4. KEEP LEARNING - be curious, be open to trying new things.

5. GIVE - generosity and compassion are hardwired to the reward mechanism in our brain. It just FEELS GOOD.

And if that doesn't work, it's been scientifically proven that it is impossible to frown and eat ice cream at the same time. Not sure if it works for just chocolate.

How to Avoid Killing Your Web Designer

The funny thing about web design is that it's probably one of the most complicated marketing tools you can choose to use and yet many people hire the most affordable designer they can find, which often times means, they may have the least experience in getting through a web development project. 

They may be great designers, but more than any other kind of design project, websites take a long time to complete, involve a LOT of content, and usually have more complex structures than you first think. Lots of things can and often do go wrong. I've heard (and been part of ) so many situations wherein the clients are never satisfied with the work and the designers are frustrated with the amount of revisions being asked for. One of our clients even went to court with their previous designer, which is almost unheard of in this industry. 

The key to making this process as painless as possible is to have a written contract that specifies deadlines, design fees, all deliverables, exclusions and as many contingencies as you can think of. Here are some other mandatories for your contract. 

1. Agree on the number of concepts, the number of design revision rounds, and the number of content revision rounds. As a general rule, the less rounds the better. Maybe 3-5. This forces everyone to be decisive and thus saves time and money. 

2. Think about everything else. Will the designer do the maintenance as part of the contract or is that extra? Or maybe you want to have a content management system (CMS). Who's in charge of getting the web hosting account? Buying the domain name? Choosing keywords and submitting the site to search engines? Who will promote the site, submit to other sites for cross-links, measure traffic? All this should be spelled out clearly in your agreement beforehand. 

3. Create a wireframes or "text-only" website with no graphic elements. This will give you the client the opportunity to proof and finalize the navigation before the designer actually builds the "designed" website. Everyone should test and approve this wireframe site before moving forward. It's usually easier and less frustrating for the designer to make changes to structure and navigation in a text-only site instead of a fully designed one. 

4. Test, Test, Test! You should test your wireframes site, your employees should test it, your friends and family should test it. The object is to find shortcomings in the way information is accessed. Should you have the contact info be under "About Us" or should it be on it's own page or on every page? Should the testimonials link from the products page, the about us page or both? Should you have a FAQs page? a Bios page? A News Page? Decide all these BEFORE building the final site. If you keep changing your structure as the actual site is being built, the designer will want to charge you more. 

5. Agree on a launch date and stick to it. But this also means that you need to approve and give feedback in a timely manner. If you tell the designer you need this website up on March 1 but you don't approve the design or content until February 25 when they submitted it to you 3 weeks earlier, then you're not being fair to the designer. 

Building a website, is like constructing a building. You need to know which rooms are going to go where, where the lobby will be, and where the stairs are going to go first. You wouldn't build one without a final architectural plan now would you?