If you are not including misspelled search terms in your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) process you are missing out on connecting with many potential customers.

It is no secret that the Internet has created our enormous global market. Customers, speaking any of thousands of languages, from every nation can make purchases online from a marketplace where everyone can be an international vendor. Understandably, most small- and medium-sized e-merchants can’t afford to build their Web stores in dozens of parallel pages to handle dozens or hundreds of languages. But they can make their main sites more efficient by using SEO tools to cast a broader net and reel in customers who misspell keyword search terms. In our case, we want to catch those customers who seek our business-planning software products, but speak English as a second language, or don’t speak English at all.

As just one example, how many ways can you misspell restaurant? Recent visitors to our sites who were searching  for sample business plans for eating establishments used these misspellings (and others as well) in their searches:

• restaraunt
• restauraunt
• restaurent
• resteraunt
• restruant
• restrunt
• resturant
• restuarant

Not getting any results, they also tried the plurals of these not-words by adding s and es as well. Maybe these were merely sloppy typing errors, or perhaps the searchers really did not know the correct spelling. (Sorry, claiming that since restaurant is a French word, and so, is difficult to spell in English is a specious argument, since much of American English came from so many other languages.)

With so many gazillion e-merchants out there, search engine optimization is essential to our success and survival. We must use every opportunity, every tool, every search to entice, suggest, direct, link, and otherwise bring potential customers in to our websites where we can sell them our products and services.

The developers, webmasters, and editors of our websites collect, track, and analyze all these bad searches. Then we add the misspellings into keyword fields and other code, behind-the-website-scenes, so that from now on anyone who makes an attempt to search on our sites with any of those misspellings will still  receive a list of free restaurant business sample plans.

I am saddened though, to think how our facilitation of successful Internet searches is enabling birth-tongue English-speaking people to slip into illiteracy. Effective SEO is proactively driving down the lowest common denominator in vocabulary and language usage skills. Internet users are becoming less literate every day, and we are enabling them to do it. They don’t need to know how to spell correctly to generate a successful Internet search. Anything that is a close approximation of a word will do.

And truly, from the retail business standpoint I can’t say this is wrong. Sad yes, but not wrong.

Steve Lange
Palo Alto Software

By Fiona Friesen, president and founder of Glue

No matter what stage your business is at, you can benefit from a marketing kit. What’s a marketing kit, you ask? A portion of the Duct Tape Marketing system founded by John Jantsch, a marketing kit is the foundation of your corporate messaging. It’s a flexible and in-depth package consisting of separate pages of information that are interchangeable depending on your audience. You can pick and choose from your marketing kit to easily create all kinds of things your business needs, such as a website, brochures and direct mail pieces. Here are five ways your business can benefit from a marketing kit.

1) It keeps your marketing efforts consistent

A marketing kit is your one-stop-shop for content that will come in handy in your marketing strategy, such as FAQs, Remarkable Difference Summary, and Ideal Clients. Some of this information is for internal reference, while some is for the world at large. Whoever your audience, using information from a single source means that everything you create will carry the same tone and voice. This is ideal for building brand awareness and trust.

2) It tells customers why they need you

Each component of a marketing kit is directed sharply away from fluffy jargon and focuses only on facts that your client can really use. It tells them, quickly, that you know their frustrations and why they can trust you to help. Marketing kits also help you stand out from the crowd by showing your prospective clients that you’re a real person who loves what you’re doing. These are all factors that anyone would find appealing, especially prospects.

3) It keeps you on track

What’s your process? What’s your unique difference? A marketing kit can tell you. It contains everything your clients will want to know about your operations, your motivations and your results. Gone are the days of conflicting intentions and veering wildly off-course into bad marketing decisions. Knowing exactly what your business is all about will help you capture your unique positioning.

4) It keeps you flexible

A marketing kit comprises several pages of information that are separate from one another and usually printed on standard office printers. This makes it easy to update if things change, like you add a service or a customer gives you a testimonial. You can also mix and match the contents depending on which potential client will be receiving the information. This results in a perfectly customized package of information for each client, which is more than can be said for a generic brochure.

5) It saves you time

How much of your time is spent re-inventing the wheel when it comes to your marketing materials? With a marketing kit, everything you’ll need to follow up with a lead is right there. You no longer need to rewrite bios, search through files for case studies or ask past clients for testimonials – again. Simply refer to your marketing kit for all you need. Then, spend your saved time doing what you do best – making your clients happy!

Fiona Friesen is a certified Duct Tape Marketing Coach located in Calgary, AB, Canada. As president and founder of Glue, Fiona cares about client success – and it shows. She loves taking her clients’ marketing headaches away with a custom-tailored, systematic Duct Tape Marketing program. Her clients love their increased sales, higher productivity, and true customer connections.

By Joe Dager, Business901

Are your projects flowing smoothly? Are you assigning responsibilities, deadlines and tasks, but it is just a headache to keep up? A likely problem is that tasks are not getting handed off well or at the right time to others. Another problem may be that everyone’s priorities seem all mixed up, and one or two people or departments seem to be an enormous bottleneck. A project management system is not a cure-all, but it certainly is a start.

In marketing, I’m always amazed at the lack of formalized project management systems. Most marketers resist the idea, misunderstanding the role of detailed planning for marketing projects. They assume that the purpose of a detailed plan is the same as it would be for other repetitive activities like manufacturing. The purpose of a project plan in marketing is to coordinate many of the uncertain activities that happen. And possibly more importantly, a good project plan will coordinate the activities of your resource requirements. Not everything will be predictable, but if we can make even some of the unpredictable predictable, we will increase the likelihood of success.

Within a project plan, we can establish overall and individual process metrics. We will need metrics to produce information quickly. The value of these types of metrics is that they will allow you to take action during a project where and when you can still influence its success. Measurability is perhaps the most important feature of the project plan.

Project management covers all aspects of planning: coordinating activities and resources and forming a baseline from which to manage the project. This gives everyone involved the same reference point. Once a schedule is completed, it should be posted or made available to all stakeholders of the project. Constant updating should appear and be visible to all parties.

It is very easy for a team to want to jump straight in, generate a schedule and get on with the project. There is more to project planning than this. A project plan is an active document, and should be used to manage the process. A schedule is the translation of the project plan into individual tasks, identifying durations, responsibilities, start and finish dates, resources, flow and milestones.

Everyone knows we cannot do enough planning, but it’s the time factor that prevents us, right? How much time does it really take to plan? From my experience you should use a baseline of around 5% of your project’s time in planning. So if you have a project that will consume 400 hours, that would be 20 hours. Do you think that is unreasonable? Do you believe that a plan would produce fewer negative consequences, or less than 20 hours of non-productive, reactive activities, putting out fires?

Now, what happens if planning takes longer? You need to treat your planning process like any other process. Using a standard methodology, such as Lean Six Sigma and the toolset that it employs, will allow you the opportunity to get the most out of your planning cycle. It will improve your planning process, removing the waste that you have accumulated in it. I have found most companies actually enjoy planning, the collaboration and decision-making that take place during it. What everyone doesn’t like is the waste in planning, so get rid of it!

The first thing you can do is plan the planning process. Take 5% of your planning time to improve your planning. Set objectives, milestones, create key performance indicators and, most of all, create a standard work plan. After doing this a few times, planning will become very easy, intuitive and more productive. Consider that if you significantly improve your planning process, you will stop fighting such an uphill battle and create considerable down-flow opportunities of greater savings. Try it!

About the Author

Business901.com provides direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and the Duct Tape Marketing System. Business901 has designed their services and product offerings so that they are implementable systems that work in the real, not enough time, not enough people world we operate in. We provide tools that simplify the marketing process, not complicate it. Joe Dager, President of Business901, is a Duct Tape Marketing Certified Coach and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.

English has a certain something, a  je ne sais quoi, which makes it such a creative language for presenting your marketing message. It has a sponge-like ability to absorb and use words and phrases from other languages. And we quickly adopt these loan words into our daily usage, and adapt them to our advertising.

We regularly use nouns from other languages to improve the image of the same items in our product or services offerings. Pomme de terre frites, (or simply pomme frites) appears on fancy menus instead of French fries. Grande and Vente make our cappuccinos and caffè Americanos taste far better (and cost more) than simple big cups of coffee.

Atelier (a workshop or studio) is a popular addition to the store names of artists, or specialty shops or boutiques (to use one French word to describe another French word [wink]).

We use abbreviations such as R.S.V.P. instead of spelling out répondez s’il vous plaît, when please respond is just as succinct and stalwart.

When applying for a job we’ll prepare a summary of our accomplishments and call it a résumé, unless it is a job in academia, in which case that summary might be called curriculum vitae.

Our business plan financials are often labeled pro forma (in advance, or as a matter of form).

Your physician’s protégé may give you a pro bono prognosis and prescribe a placebo and wish you prosit. Geshundheit!

Can you tell the difference between ad lib., au-h2o, ca., circ., ebit, e.g., et al., etc., i.e., ibid., lsmft, v., vs., viz, v.s. or v.v.? Can you spell out all these abbreviations?

It is so easy for us to read over, past or through these foreign words that are emigrating into English. Many times we simply make a guess on the meaning, based on the context of the sentence, because we are too busy, or too lazy, to look them up. But then many of us compound the error. We incorporate them into our own marketing writing, advertising, and branding efforts, still without knowing what we are actually saying.

So, what can you do? Obviously the first thing to do is use your dictionary. There is the old standby, the printed book (our Documentation team has six different editions from different publishers). There are plenty of online dictionaries as well. Google or Yahoo! search and you get a plethora of links. Bookmark your favorites and return to them often.

There are a couple free translators on the Internet as well, such as SDL Free Translation.com and Babel Fish, though they don’t translate Latin.

And, here are two good reference books I’ll recommend to you.

Latin for the Illiterati: Exorcizing the Ghosts of a Dead Language by Jon R Stone. Over 5,000 entries of Latin words and phrases that turn up regularly in modern English.

Oxford Dictionary of Foreign Words and Phrases edited by Jennifer Speake. Covers 8,000 words and phrases from over 40 languages.

Give your marketing message that certain indefinable quality (je ne sais quoi ) of worldliness when you drop in phrases from other languages. No faux pas.

Steve Lange
Senior Editor
Palo Alto Software, Inc.

by Cidnee Stephen of Strategies for Success www.strategiesforsuccess.ca

So you have some money to spend on marketing. The big question is, how do you know what to spend it on to minimize risk and maximize return? The answer is through your balanced marketing portfolio.

We all understand the importance of having a balanced financial portfolio, but what about our marketing portfolio? If we invest the bulk of our marketing in limited activities, we are putting ourselves at risk of achieving a less than desirable return on our investment.

While in finance we want to balance risk and return, in marketing we want to balance 3 crucial elements – control, cost and credibility. Look at the diagram at the end of this article.

Each of these 3 areas has varied degrees of control, cost and credibility.

For example with advertising, we are pretty much in total control of when, where and how we place an ad. Of course we also have to pay more to have this control. But how much credibility do we gain by telling others we are great?

If we’re to rely heavily on advertising, chances are we could very quickly deplete our marketing budget before we reach our goals.

On the other hand if were to look at low cost items with high credibility, like PR and to some extent Referral marketing, we have very little control on when, where and how it occurs.

In this instance we could run out of TIME before we reach our goals.

Therefore, divide your budget up in 2 ways.

1. Allocate a lot of your marketing dollars to savvy advertising and promotions (the key here is savvy)!
2. Allocate more of your marketing TIME to referral marketing and PR activities.

Don’t forget. Just like your financial portfolio – it’s important to measure your return on investment on all your marketing activities as well!

Is your marketing portfolio balanced? Does it exist at all? If you answered no to either of these questions, chances are you are missing out on maximizing your bottom line and minimizing your costs and time.

How balanced is your portfolio?

About the Author…
Cidnee Stephen is the owner of Strategies for Success – a marketing company that focuses on the needs of budget-minded small businesses and professional services. She has helped hundreds of small businesses get out of their peak and valley ruts to finally achieve that next vital level of success. Cidnee is also a sought-after speaker, writer and blogger on marketing topics that affect small businesses and B2B service based operations. Subscribe for Free to her bi-weekly marketing tips for small businesses and also receive a special report on the 7 Steps of Marketing Success.

by Cidnee Stephen of Strategies for Success www.strategiesforsuccess.ca

Business Card or Marketing Tool?

Do you have a box of business cards on your desk that you hardly seem to put a dent in before the information changes and a new box is ordered? Or worse yet…are you still working on that same box of business cards that you printed 3 years ago!

Business cards can be a great inexpensive marketing tool for a small business. They say exactly what you do and give people all the contact information they need to get a hold of you. Yet oddly enough we tend to use them only for networking, and even then, we aren’t really sure if people are holding on to them.

Here are 7 different ways you can turn your business cards into a low cost marketing machine!

• Keep them on hand
• Situate them with strategic alliances
• Include them in your correspondence
• Direct people to your website with them
• Put something useful on the back
• Use them for jotting down information
• Use them as part of your referral system

Keep them on hand – even when you are popping to the convenience store or running a short errand. You never know who you will run into or what opportunity might present itself. It’s wise to keep your business cards in multiple locations, like your wallet or purse, your car, or your favourite coat, so that you won’t be left empty-handed. Words of advice….invest in some simple card holders so your cards are protected instead of bent or soiled.

Situate with Strategic Alliances - This is highly effective if you market to consumers, but can also be used business to business. Business cards can be placed at grocery stores, car washes, or restaurants, for example. How about placing them with a graphic artist if you’re a sign company, or a realtor if you are a mortgage broker? Keep your eyes open for opportunities to get your business cards in front of your target audience!

Include them in your correspondence – If you are sending out invoices or other correspondence to your target market, make sure you include your card. Consider enclosing a couple and ask your loyal suppliers or clients if they can pass them on. I know a travel agent who even included hers with her utility payments.

Direct them to your website – Face it! More and more people are turning to the web for information. Yet some people still forget to include their website on their business card. If you are proud of your website and it promotes your company, point this out to people when you hand them your card.

Put something useful on the back – By useful, I mean something that makes them want to hold on to your card. It can be a calendar, a discount, a FREE Trial or a Free Report. Think of something that your target market will value and you’ve increased the longevity of your card.

Use them for jotting down information – So someone asks you for the name of your dentist or you are trying to explain a point. If the information will fit on your card, use it. By doing so you are guaranteeing two things. They will remember you for helping them and they will hold on to your card longer.

Use them as part of your referral system – Business cards can be an integral part of your referral system. I’m not a huge advocate of handing out 2 or 3 cards to people you have just met. I am however a big believer in making sure happy clients and strategic alliances have extra cards on hand.

Consider marking the cards in such a way to track the referral source. Offer a discount or prize if someone hands in the card. A good referral strategy can be one of the most powerful alternative uses for your business cards.

Think about it. You have in your possession 500 – 1000 pieces of marketing in those little business card boxes. The idea is to get them in the hands of people that can grow your business. In order to do that you need to devise a strategy to utilize them in creative ways. Ideally you want all of those cards out of your office and into the marketplace as quickly as possible!

About the Author…
Cidnee Stephen is the owner of Strategies for Success – a marketing company that focuses on the needs of budget-minded small businesses and professional services. She has helped hundreds of small businesses get out of their peak and valley ruts to finally achieve that next vital level of success. Cidnee is also a sought-after speaker, writer and blogger on marketing topics that affect small businesses and B2B service based operations. Subscribe for Free to her bi-weekly marketing tips for small businesses and also receive a special report on the 7 Steps of Marketing Success.

This article was taken from CRM Assist

What is CRM?
Customer Relationship Management is an information industry term for methodologies, software, and, usually, Internet capabilities that help an enterprise manage customer relationships in an organized way. For example, an enterprise might build a database about its customers that described relationships in sufficient detail. Therefore, management, salespeople, people providing services, and perhaps the customers could directly access information, match customer needs with product plans and offerings, remind customers of service requirements, and know what other products a customer had purchased. According to one industry view, CRM consists of:

• Helping an enterprise to enable its marketing departments to identify and target their best customers, manage marketing campaigns with clear goals and objectives, and generate quality leads for the sales team.
• Assisting the organization to improve telesales, account, and sales management by optimizing information shared by multiple employees, and streamlining existing processes (for example, taking orders using mobile devices).
• Allowing the formation of individualized relationships with customers, with the aim of improving customer satisfaction and maximizing profits; identifying the most profitable customers and providing them the highest level of service.
• Providing employees with the information and processes necessary to know their customers, understand their needs, and effectively build relationships between the company, its customer base, and distribution partners.

Brief history of CRM
With the advent of e-commerce comes the e-customer. According to Vantive, a customer relationship management solutions provider, the e-customer expects constant access to a company; through e- mails, call centers, faxes and websites. They demand immediate response and a personalized touch. Meeting their needs places new demands on the enterprise. Since traditional enterprise resource planning applications did not include a customer management aspect, CRM was the logical next step. Vantive, for example, has been developing and implementing customer-facing applications since 1992.

Two trends have brought CRM to the forefront, explains Boston University professor Tom Davenport, who directs Andersen Consulting’s Institute for Strategic Change. First, as global competition has increased and products have become harder to differentiate, “companies have begun moving from a product-centric view of the world to a customer-centric one,” says Davenport.

Second, technology has ripened to the point where it is possible to put customer information from all over the enterprise into a single system. “Until recently, we didn’t have the ability to manage the complex information about customers, because information was stored in 20 different systems,” says Davenport. But as network and Internet technology has matured, CRM software has found its place in the world.

Why is it necessary?
Many companies are turning to customer-relationship management systems to better understand customer wants and needs. CRM applications, often used in combination with data warehousing, E-commerce applications, and call centers, allow companies to gather and access information about customers’ buying histories, preferences, complaints, and other data so they can better anticipate what customers will want. The goal is to instill greater customer loyalty.

Other benefits include:

• Provide faster response to customer inquiries.
• Increasing efficiency through automation.
• Having a deeper knowledge of customers.
• Getting more marketing or cross-selling opportunities.
• Identifying the most profitable customers.
• Receiving customer feedback that leads to new and improved products or services.
• Doing more one-to-one marketing.
• Obtaining information that can be shared with the company’s business partners.

Market leaders
The top vendors of CRM software include Siebel, Vantive, and Clarify along with ERP vendors Baan Co. and Oracle Corp. These top five vendors contributed 40 percent of overall CRM revenue, with the market leaders growing a hardy 90 percent combined in 1998.

In the growing segment of CRM professional services, market leaders include Andersen Consulting, Cambridge Technology Partners, CSC, Deloitte Consulting, EDS/Centrobe, eLoyalty, Ernst & Young, IBM Global Services, KPMG, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

The future of CRM
AMR Research expects the CRM market to change dramatically, reaching $16.8 billion by the year 2003. The CRM segment is expected to witness 60% revenue growth this year, with compound annual growth of 49% by 2003. Companies are developing business plans with CRM strategies as the driving element, as customer service is a top priority.