Tag Archives: marketing blog

4 Tools Essential To Your Online Business

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When starting out you can be swarmed with the endless possibilities of starting, promoting, and ensuring the longevity of your online business. The mass amounts of information at your fingertips is astounding, and you can end up drowning in that info. Here are some of the tools essential to your online business. These tools can also be translated into brick & mortar locations as well. The bonus with online is you don’t have to get into a 5-year lease on a physical location at $20 – $40 (or more) per square foot. You can invest that money elsewhere – like marketing your biz seeing as you won’t have any foot traffic.

apps, iphone, iphone apps

Shopify

Any e-commerce tool like Shopify or Bigcommerce is absolutely essential if you don’t want to develop, and pay big $$$ for your own website. Simplified templates, amazing apps, fantastic support, and a low monthly rate give you the opportunity to test, and develop your offering without diving head first, and pumping tens-of-thousands of dollars into something you’re not 100% certain will work.

I prefer Shopify as it’s Canadian although you still have to pay in USD for their services. Do your homework on the other e-commerce platforms out there, but Shopify or Bigcommerce are great places to start. There are free options, but even the paid options are affordable. I pay $30 a month.

Wave Apps

Another Canadian app essential to your online business – or any startup for that matter. Wave is your online portal to accounting. You can send invoices, pay bills, track payments and do day-to-day bookkeeping. Come tax season – Wave is your friend. Instead of using a bookkeeper Wave will produce all the essential reports you need to file your taxes, on top of being able to keep your finger on the pulse of your business. Plus, they offer professional bookkeepers to help you out when you’re in need.

You’ll still need an outstanding accountant who can help you out with the bigger picture stuff like tax breaks, filing, etc…, but Wave is a free tool you can use when starting out (some options like invoicing and paying bills require an affordable monthly fee).

Social / Search

While I dislike having to pay Silicon Valley for my marketing / advertising dollars they are an essential piece to your complex online puzzle. Unless you have an amazing product / service that people already know about, and a following of devoted followers – you’re going to have to invest some $$$ into social / search. If you’re a product based business – you should dabble in Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. It doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to use these tools, just start and you’ll figure it out as you go. Here’s a quick starting point. If you’re more service based – think consulting – use Twitter and possibly Instagram and YouTube. Video is a HUGE differentiator in the market right now. If you can provide weekly or even daily videos about your product / service – you’re going to excel. Cost per day is anywhere from $5 per day to $20 per day.

As for search – you have to fight the Google and Microsoft battle. My biggest thing is to own your name. Using Google Adwords and Bing Ads ensure you’re the top ad that shows up when someone searches for your name. For example – when you search Ever Rose on any platform – my wife and I’s online dress shop is the first thing you’ll see. Cost is $5 per day on both Google and Bing.

From there – you can start pulling back your dollars and invest it more in the people who have visited your page or have purchased from you. You can do this through your weekly e-marketing campaign from Mail Chimp or Klaviyo (a cool Shopify app). Don’t inundate your fans with e-blasts. A weekly update will do with new products / services. Even a special deal exclusive to them is always something to keep in mind.

Spreadsheets

It’s a bit old school, but having a few trustworthy spreadsheets will help you in being able to breakdown a few key items. One of my favourites is the profit workbook. When starting out it’s essential to know you’re making a healthy profit, so you can invest back into the business to help it grow. I have a sheet that calculates to the percentage point – how much Ever Rose is profiting from the sale of our goods.

If you’re interested in diving deeper into any of the tools above – a quick online search will help you out or connect with me by leaving a comment below or finding me on Twitter.

Love you,

Jordan ‘The Guy with the Bow Tie’ Rycroft

You Say You Do But You Don’t

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It’s one of the most frustrating things to come across, and you’re guilty of it too. You say you will, but in reality you don’t ACT on what you say you will act on. How many times have you heard your friend or even yourself say, “I should really work out, but I’ll do that tomorrow.” Then tomorrow comes and you’re on the couch binge watching Netflix.

This is ingrained in our psyches, and it develops through time. This is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome when you’re selling a product or service. And we’re all in sales in one way or another. Whether you’re selling yourself in a job interview or selling a physical product. The customer / client / interviewer will say something when they really won’t follow through. People are guarded, and they build up walls.

I dont trust words I trust actions, actions speak louder than wordss

 

A couple real life examples

1) In my wife and I’s online dress shop (EverRose.com) we carry a few Fair Trade products (on top of trying to carry as many conflict free items as possible) from India where women are paid a living wage to design, and produce amazing looking dresses. We decided to carry this particular line of dresses because in our research we found this was a particular issue with our fans. They wanted Fair Trade dresses, at least that’s what they said. In fact, not a single one has been purchased. Maybe the design isn’t appealing or maybe the price is too high (they usually run $5-10 more). Whatever it is, there’s also a bit of psychology at play. Sometimes you just aren’t who you THINK you are.

2) I publish a couple small community magazines, and one of my tasks is to encourage companies to advertise and connect with this niche market. Rejection comes along quite a bit, and the most often thing I hear is, “Send me something.” I continue to ask for the specifics on what they’d like to see. I then send them what they requested, and guess what – 90% won’t even take a look at it. How do I know? I follow up. Maybe my pitch is off or maybe there’s not enough time in the world, but when you say to send you something, you better take a look at it. Again, there’s a bunch of psychology at play here.

You say these things because you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings, or you don’t have a good enough excuse at the time to turn someone down. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy dealing with US business men and women. Business is more black & white, and decisions are made quickly. In Canada – especially in the smaller communities – emotion plays too much in business decisions involving money changing hands. What can I say – us Canadians are too nice, almost to a fault.

Instead of the possibility of hurting someone’s feelings – you’d rather stretch out a decision, waste a bunch of time, and not even take the 2-minutes to look at something from someone who’s trying to help grow your business. Once you’re aware of this – stop doing it. I answer every sales persons email, and phone call whether I’m interested or not. I value other people who are just trying to make a buck, and the last thing I want to do is waste their or my time. On top of that – I may find something I didn’t know about that could be extremely useful to my business.

Actions speak louder than words

In business – while research is a great tool – you also have to be ready to move with what your customers / clients are actually doing. In the dress world – my wife and I have found our best sellers are more form fitting dresses opposed to A-line dresses. Therefore, we’re stocking more form fitting dresses, and getting more sales.

In the consulting world – I’ve moved away from big business, and I’ve started working more with entrepreneurs where English is their second language. In doing what I do – I’ve found this to be the best market for me at this time, and it’s where I can provide the most value.

However, you’ll never know these things unless you act. You can spend thousands on research, and surveys, but you’ll never REALLY know what’s going on unless you do. You have to remember people will not act the way they say the will. They will act the way they act. Saying and doing are completely different things.

Love you (and I’m not just saying that),

Jordan ‘The Guy with the Bow Tie’ Rycroft

Summer Marketing Checklist

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Kids are out, it’s hot…damn hot, and people are spending money more frivolously. What are you doing to stay in front of your potential and existing clients? Are you speaking to them in their language, about what they care about at your point of contact with them? If you can or can’t answer these questions – here’s a quick summer check up:

Your customers / fans:
What’s their mindset for summer?
Where are they going? Beach? Lake?
Where are their kids going? Camp?
Do they have kids?
Are they using their vehicles?
Are they on their mobile devices more or less? If so, what programs / apps are they using?
Are they going to weddings? Or having babies?

You as a marketer:
Is your marketing touching on these points? Is it related to summer?
What colours are you using in your messages? Do they reflect summer?
Do your social media sites reflect the summer? Does it reflect what your potential customers are doing?
Is there something topical (event or otherwise) you can piggy back on to get your message across? For example – it’s the Calgary Stampede and we ran targeted marketing to those in and around Calgary with a message that would resonate with the market.
Is there something you can sponsor or fundraise for?

The Top 3

1) What’s going on in your potential customers head? Lock yourself away for 5 minutes and think like your customer. Or think about what you do in summer. Most likely, a sum of your market will be doing or consider doing the same thing. Is it the beach? Family vacation? R&R while the kids are away at camp?
2) Based on the above – where can you place your message? The goal is to hit as many people as possible within your budget. Whether it’s a community board at your local beach or a national mass media marketing campaign. Figure out where your potential customers are going to be and hit them with your message.
3) The ‘summery’ message: Once you have the first two down, how will you relay your message. Don’t use a generic message or branding. Target it specifically to what your potential customers are doing or may be doing this summer.

Here’s a hard example from a campaign my wife and I ran for Ever Rose leading up to and during Calgary Stampede:

Stampede, Calgary Stampede, Facebook Ad, Stampede Facebook Ad

Hyper-targeted, hyper local, and the message resonates. What are your marketing plans for summer? Come fall everyone is gearing up for the holidays, so now’s a great time to get your message out, and avoid all the noise that will follow.

Love you,

Jordan ‘The Guy with the Bow Tie’ Rycroft