April 2010 –
Estimated Reading Time: 60 Seconds
60 Second Articles:
- There’s An App For That. Should Your Business Have One?
- How To Get Sales Leads From Twitter
- The 60 Second Close: One Quarter Down, Three More To Go
1. There’s An App For That. Should Your Business Have One?
- A few years ago, getting a frequency reward card into a customer’s wallet or onto a keychain was a strong barometer of their loyalty to your business. Now, whether you’re in the retail, professional services or manufacturing sectors, those cards, and the loyalties that go along with them, are quickly being replaced by smartphone apps.
- By offering an app to your customers and prospects, your business gets a strong visual presence on their smartphone screens. In addition, you show your customers that your company is “tech savvy” – now a key component in whether a customer continues to do business with you.
- One of the biggest reasons your business should consider offering an app is simply to have one before your competition does. If your competitor beats you to it, they may become your customers’ first choice in loyalty and making purchasing decisions.
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2. How To Get Sales Leads From Twitter
- While the world is in a Facebook frenzy, Twitter is quickly becoming a player in generating sales leads for companies. It takes some patience to dig through the thousands of innocuous posts, but the “gold” is there. There are many tools available that search through tweets and allow you to drill down to a specific topic or even a specific geographic location.
- How do you do it? Test drive a variety of Twitter search programs to find the one you are most comfortable with. Our favorites are TweetDeck (www.TweetDeck.com), HootSuite (www.HootSuite.com) and Monitter (www.Monitter.com).
- Each program allows you to select various keyword phrases and see who’s tweeting about that phrase. Select a phrase that’s relevant to your business category and then tweet that person back. That conversation could be the start of a big sale!
- Also, try out some of the Twitter alert services. Programs like Tweet Beep (www.TweetBeep.com) will send you alerts whenever someone tweets about a specific phrase that have pre-selected.
- When people are tweeting about a topic or category that you have an expertise in, you’ve got a great chance to jump in on the conversation. And, what could be the biggest benefit of all, there’s no gatekeeper to screen you!
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3. The 60 Second Close: One Quarter Down, Three More To Go
The first quarter is over. What’s the score? Are you winning and can you hold onto the lead? Are you behind? If so, what’s it going to take to gain that lead?