What grocery chains can teach small business owners about consumer marketing

We small business owners really could learn a thing or two from the Krogers, Wegmans and Whole Foods of the world. Grocery stores truly epitomize a classic consumer marketing case study:
Quick, high-volume turnover
Wide range of consumer demographics
Seemingly infinite product placement scenarios
Tens of thousands of products, including global brands and private labels

There are plenty more… but for now, let’s leave it at that and focus on the end user. After all, those people out there buying groceries don’t just eat and shop — they move on to consume other goods and services, including the ones offered by your company.

How do the big grocery chains engage their customers? You probably have the evidence right in your wallet: those “club cards” that give you all kinds of savings at no apparent cost to you. A few dollars of savings is enough incentive for you to run your card through the scanner–and the rich demographic profile now associated with this collection of consumer products in your shopping cart is worth more than a few bucks to them.
Thanks to collaborative filtering, that data can be used to make predictions about what you’ll buy next time, with several possible conclusions, including:
Help close the sale with some more savings
Optimize allocation of inventory on store shelves
Test the consumer’s reactions to an upcoming product launch
Steer the consumer’s attention to similar products which are overstocked
Convert shoppers into loyal repeat customers who just love the savings!

This is, once again, the Long Tail at work. The grocery chain, having invested in very cheap technologies to collect this consumer data and continually refine its store visitors’ profiles at a tiny incremental cost, now has a broad set of insights with which to bump up its store’s margins.

Anyone can predict that ice cream will sell well in August. But really, how many store managers would instinctively know which of their top sixteen savory snack brands to position on the front end of Aisle 2 during September?

An entrepreneur can arrive at the same kind of insights, by leveraging local search on the Internet.

Set yourself up in all the local channels, using both organic search and paid search placement. Install analytics software to follow the range of keywords driving traffic and sales. If clicks aren’t enough, there are also call tracking technologies out there which can do the exact same thing through the telephone.

Enough marketing principles; time for some fun. Here’s a glimpse of the shopping experience of the near future, brought to you by the Apple iPhone — particularly the Maps application delivered by Google. Watch as Steve Jobs demonstrates the future of consumer behavior in about 90 seconds:

Sales Copywriting, Sales Talk-What a Difference a Phrase Makes to the Bottom Line

Small business owners beware-your sales copywriting and sales talk, the written or spoken words you use to describe your products and services, can have a huge impact on your bottom line. Yet most of us never think of carefully planning precisely what words or phrases we need to use every time we introduce our business to others in print or in person. We often fail to consider what words will compel someone to take action.

Big companies hire experts to take care of sales copywriting for them. Some of them succeed impressively; others still don’t hit the mark. But as a small business we need to master the skills of writing sales copy and the 30 second verbal sound byte. We are constantly bombarded with marketing messages to the point where we tune out a majority of them. Knowing how to make your message stand out above the crowd is essential if you want to see significant business growth take place.

Over and over I see small business owners make the same mistakes, causing potential customers to pass them over or ignore their message, when just a few tweaks in wording could have captured that person’s attention. As competition has heated up in every industry, and as the Internet has made marketing innovation essential, staying cutting edge with your message has become enormously important. The Internet has exposed us to creative marketing minds from all over the world. We are no longer only competing with the ads in our local publications. Our message gets measured against global standards, even if our business is primarily locally based, and many small businesses are coming up short and experiencing disappointing results.

Here are a few glaring sales coywriting mistakes that can cost you plenty and some ways you can correct them:

Web content-many websites read like a 1980’s sales brochure. “We” this and “we” that, all about what we can do for you. This is boring and uninteresting and it doesn’t engage the reader by letting her know up front that you get her pain or problem clearly.

� Re-write content, particularly on your home page, using bullet points and short paragraphs that immediately capture the visitor’s attention by listing the problems you solve and the benefits you offer. Then include text links to your different service and product pages. Writing web content is an art that can strongly impact how you rank with the search engines and how many visitors you convert to prospects or clients.

Web product/services pages-Take a look at the pages on your website that introduce your products and services. Are they simply a listing of what you offer?

� Instead, most of the copy should be dedicated to defining in detail your customer’s precise problem, pain or want, then giving them a wish list of solutions, a good reason for solving their problem immediately, and finally explaining how your product or service will do just that. On the web, a guarantee of some sort is a very wise idea, since you may attract buyers who don’t know you or your company personally.

In-person networking intro-How many times have you gone to a networking event and asked someone about their business and they say something like, “I’m a financial planner”, or “I’m a personal trainer”. Boring!

� Write and rehearse a simple, sincere 2 or 3 sentence introduction that talks about the problems your customers face and what happens after they’ve worked with you.

For example, the personal trainer could say something like: “I work with stressed business owners who are having trouble finding time to exercise, but who want to be healthy and in shape. I go to their offices to give them a customized 30-minute workout and they love the convenience and how they feel afterward.” If you’re a stressed business owner who is feeling guilty because you haven’t been exercising, your ears might perk up when you hear that introduction.

To get specific ideas on how to write sales copy that works, search the web for sales copywriting you find intriguing, or look at websites you know sell lots of products or services and have tons of traffic. An example of a product page on my website that uses this approach for my group coaching program, Go Global Web Tactics can be found here:

http://www.go-global-web-tactics.com

�Little by little, spend some time re-writing your web copy and re-thinking your live introduction. Simple re-writing of a single key phrase can have an impact. You will definitely see better conversion rates as you begin to use more customer focused sales copywriting and sales talk.

How to Update WordPress at Yahoo Small Business Hosting

You may have noticed that we’ve had some problems with the blog again. It turns out that it is rather complicated to upgrade WordPress if you are hosted at Yahoo Small Business.

The first time I tried to upgrade, I could no longer access the blog at all. All that came up was a blank screen in the browser. I couldn’t find a solution. Yahoo couldn’t help me. I gave up. I backed up the database with MyPhpAdmin, and recreated the blog from scratch. (To do this, backup all your images and customized files, etc, then create an sql backup of your database using MyPhpAdmin to export. You can dump your old database on the new installation – of the old version – by running the export as an SQL query. I got server 500 errors, but eventually one of them worked.)

After quite a bit of research and experimentation, the blog is now updated. Since Customer Care is unfamiliar with the host issues, and corporate HQ is unresponsive to contact from clients, I have recommended feature requests via email from Yahoo Small Business: a one-click update feature (or auto-updates) so that their version of WordPress is reasonably up-to-date, and a feature request/status page. In the meantime the addition of instructions to their online help files would be helpful.

WordPress has upgrading instructions here, with common installation problems here.

If you are on Yahoo Small Business, though, here’s what you’ve probably got to do (thanks to the resources at the WordPress codex and users’ forum – which were buried a bit, but there – and some very helpful advice from Ray that got me going on the right track).

I’ve documented everything, and I hope that this is a helpful post for other Yahoo-hosted bloggers.

First, update your plug-ins (Akismet will update by itself in the upgrade).

Use the WordPress backup plugin to do a backup of your WordPress directory. Download it for safekeeping. You can also use your friendly ftp program to download the entire WordPress directory onto your hard drive, too. (Better safe…)

Use MyPHPAdmin to export a back up your WordPress SQL database. Make several versions if you are unfamiliar with this. Make sure that use the right character set for export. Make one in the most recent sql, and any other format you might require – so that you have some options later if things look off.

Go to the WordPress dashboard and disable all your plugins. This will save you a lot of headaches. Just trust me (and the people at WordPress).

Now it gets complicated. From your WordPress backup on the hard drive, open the current wp-config.php file in the main directory. Delete the line “Define(’WP_CACHE’, true); //Added by WP-Cache Manager” and then save the file. Also save a copy of it under another name, like wp-configorig.php. You’ll need this file later.

Edit wp-config.php file in the main Wordpress directory that you downloaded and change DB_USER and DB_PASSWORD with your yroot user and yroot password and save the file. That’s the username and password you set up to administrate your databases. Yahoo describes these here: http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/webhosting/mysql/mysql-09.HTML. Ftp the new wp-config file.

Now run upgrade.php by browsing to http://YOURSITE.com/YOURBLOG/wp-admin/upgrade.php. It should succeed, in theory.

Before you go any further, look at your blog and make sure it’s there. Is it? If you get a blank page, then you’ve put the wrong yroot user and password in the config file. Make sure it’s right and try again.

If none of this is working for you, you’ll have to download the latest version of WordPress, ftp it up, and then run upgrade again.

You may have to play with the permissions settings in MyPhpAdmin. Make sure that you have any needed permissions. Customer Care can help you with this part if you run into trouble.

Assuming that your blog is up, check to make sure that your category links and other links are displaying. If you see an error like [Unknown column ‘link_count’ in ‘where clause’], you’ve got to detour at this point (Try a web search on the exact phrase of that error to get a sense of how many blogs are affected). If you’re upgrading from the version at Yahoo, there has been a major change in the way categories are indexed. I haven’t been able to find the perfect fix for this if the upgrade doesn’t do it, but there are two suggestions. The first didn’t work for me in MyPhpAdmin on Yahoo – perhaps because of yet more permissions issues, or maybe an older version of MySql – but you could try it because it’s probably the better fix:

Run this SQL query:
ALTER TABLE --database--.wp_categories ADD COLUMN link_count BIGINT(20) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0 AFTER category_count,

ADD COLUMN posts_private TINYINT(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0 AFTER link_count,

ADD COLUMN links_private TINYINT(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0 AFTER posts_private;


The second suggestion did work on Yahoo, but I hope it doesn’t mess anything up:
First, save your home copy of wp-admin/upgrade-functions.php under another name, like you did with the wp-config file. Then, edit the original file and delete where it says
// We are up-to-date. Nothing to do.
if ( $wp_db_version == $wp_current_db_version )
return;
Ftp it up and run upgrade.php again. Then upload the original version to restore it.

Now, go get the wp-configorigin.php you saved earlier. Rename it back to wp-config.php and ftp it up.

In your blog template, replace the current call for your blogroll with < ?php wp_list_bookmarks('title_after=&title_before='); ?>. Some of the older tags have been depreciated.

Enable your plug-ins one by one to make sure they are compatible. If something breaks the blog, use ftp or the online file management at Yahoo to delete the applicable folder from the wp-content/plugins.

Another problem solved: The bottom navigation on the index page disappeared. Some think that it has to do with plugins as well. I’m not running a “sticky post” plugin, which seems to be the primary problem for others. There is also a thought that there might be an incompatibility between the upgraded Akismet plugin and the Yahoo hosting. Aha! I fixed it by removing a call to the FAlbum plugin on the Index page.

Interactive, Fun, & Practical “Smart Technology for Smarter Business” Seminars in Bahrain & Morocco

The Smart Technology for a Smarter Business Program is a highly practical training curriculum that enables small business owners and managers to build smarter businesses with technology. Unlike traditional training experiences that focus on either technology or business, the program targets the integration of both. Multi-faceted, innovative, and experiential, the program addresses 19 different business topics, in 5 different languages, and includes case scenarios, virtual entrepreneurs, technology demos and activities, facilitated discussions, and computer-based simulations. It introduces up-to-date technologies in the marketplace that are accessible worldwide.

Micro- and small business owners worldwide share many of the same benefits and challenges, and this proved to be the case in Bahrain and Morocco – two countries where Smarter Seminar Workshops were recently conducted. In these workshops, participants noted that as small business owners, they enjoyed the flexibility of their schedules and the exhilaration of pursuing one’s own dreams. They also face similar issues. For example, participants noted the difficulty of having to deal with multiple business challenges at once (finances, unskilled employees, competition, market expansion, etc.) while having fewer people to rely on compared to managers in larger companies. Therefore, they expressed the need to become more self-sufficient and organized and the desire to become more technologically savvy.

Each workshop held was one day-long in duration and was delivered three times in consecutive days to a total of 50 to 60 participants in each country. The goals of the workshops were:
To introduce small business owners to more advanced software tools that can help their businesses
To facilitate networking and knowledge sharing among participants

The workshops addressed three of the curriculum’s nineteen business topics: expense tracking, project management, marketing, and customer relationship management. The participants, who had varied levels of PC experience, were engaged in group discussion, exploration, and hands-on simulation-based activities. They learned how to use MS Excel, budget tracking pivot tables, customer relationship management techniques, and participated in hands-on business case scenarios. The participants were equipped to instantly put technology to use in their businesses.

The most exciting topic of the day in both Bahrain and Morocco was that of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Attendees worked through a simulation of CRM software and learned the advantages it offers in client relations and the sales process. Attendees expressed their realization for more efficiency and organization in both areas. A few days after the workshop, one Bahraini participant in Bahrain said “I told my company we need CRM software and we are going to research it immediately!”

The workshop was highly commended by the participants, especially for its interactivity, enjoyment, length, practicality, and relevance to their businesses. Attendees also appreciated the many networking opportunities that the workshops provided. In addition, participants in Bahrain pointed to the role-play marketing session as another highlight of the workshop. In both countries, attendees expressed their desire to research training and purchasing options for the technologies presented in the workshop and their eagerness to apply their new skills to improve their businesses.

These Smarter Seminars Workshops are a part of the larger export and trade training programs provided by IESC. The Smart Technology for a Smarter Business Program was developed by the Making Cents Consortium which includes IESC Geekcorps, Making Cents International, and MediaSpark. The Program is sponsored by HP.

A great tool to help speed growth

If you’ve never heard of the company before, you should head over to www.37signals.com and check them out.

37 Signals designs web applications that are very simple and elegant yet powerfully effective. The one that really has me excited about using at my current business and sharing with our clients is Campfire. Campfire is a web based group chat tool that makes collaborating on an idea very efficient.

We just opened a second office of our small business IT support company, and it’s about 2000 miles away from our first office. The first thing you notice when you do this is that you have to really make an effort to keep communication flowing and keep a sense of being “one team”, which is critical to our service model. Campfire makes this a lot easier to do.

The benefits of using it in our situation are huge:
Less time in meetings
Fewer meetings
Better communication on initiatives that require participation from people in both offices

Because of all of the above, ideas get shared and discussed faster, and therefore get executed on faster. All of this leads to a faster operating rhythm and faster growth!