Medios Marketing Blog

Your company’s success is only as good as your customer’s feedback. Selling is not the only sign that your customers are happy. Their feedback is the lifeblood for future sales.

Most companies only hear from their customers when they complain. However, Medios is helping its client, Selected Energy to urge all agents to get as much feedback as possible from their clients, regardless whether the feedback is negative or positive. This information will provide valuable insight on service delivery and how to plan for sales in the future.

Encourage feedback from your customers. Guiding their thoughts can support positive feedback. Supply them with all tools available to make contact. Each agent can use a tool best suited to him, whether it is e-mail address, customer friendly telephone number, fax number or feedback forms.

A customer making effort to provide feedback needs to be contacted. Let the person responsible for making contact with the customers know who has made the effort. This way the necessary recognition is given and the consumer knows his voice is heard.

Don’t bombard the customer with feedback requests, as it can upset them and discourage feedback. If the consumer is not willing to participate, ask him questions to get an understanding of his feelings. Feedback is important to understand necessary changes to improve you business. Only with change can a business evolve and grow.

Feedback will give Selected Energy and understanding of what customers want and need. It will also help us understand our customers’ concerns. The information gained will impact the position of the company in the marketplace.

Posted by Derik van Wyk for Medios Marketing Communications

The other day I was reading through an entrepreneurial magazine that I subscribe to. I came across an article that answered a question a lot of people have difficulty with.

The article was about developing a sales pitch that best suits you. By following these four simple steps, you’ll easily communicate your product offering and turn communication into sales.

1) Be clear about you. As you start your sales pitch, make sure you state your name and your business. This is key to establishing an immediate relationship with your customer.

2) State what you do. Make sure you’re specific about your area of expertise. State whether you are a financial planner or interior decorator and be careful not to mention too many titles. You’ll be lucky if your customer remembers one, let alone a few.

3) State in two sentences why you are the best at what you do. This step would be the most confusing and challenging for most people. Be clear in the message you want to convey. Choose the correct strategy. The shorter the message, the more carefully you have to choose your words. Pitches sometimes only outline benefits. Be careful not to fall into this trap. Rather have a pitch that reflects the unique voice of the speaker.

4) The call to action. This step is crucial. The three previous steps will fall by the wayside without a call to action. A good call to action can include plans to meet for coffee to continue your conversation, a date to chat over the phone or a meeting at your office.

The correct implementation and usage of these four steps will enable you to develop the perfect sales pitch. It really is as simple as 1, 2, 3, 4.

Regards,
Claudio – for Medios

If you’re starting a business, you must make sure you understand the three Ms. As with anything, you need to do your research and homework before you enter into a venture. To give your business a chance of surviving, you must consider the following three elements: market demand, market size and structure and money.

1) Market demand means understanding the customer. To do this you must know who your target customer is, what your value proposition is and what value you will provide that will make your customer buy your particular product or service. You must be very objective in trying to evaluate who the target market is. You need to understand what is going to make them pay for your product over other products that might satisfy their needs in a similar way. Just because you think your idea is a good one that you’ll be willing to pay for, doesn’t mean everyone else will.

2) Market size and structure focuses on the industry itself. Is it an emerging, declining, fragmented or concentrated industry? To understand this you need to ask yourself who your competitors are, what they are offering to their customers and to what degree you can offer a product or service that is different. In other words, you have to identify your competitive advantage.

3) Lastly, you need to understand how much it is going to cost to produce your product or service and for what price can you sell this product or service. Make sure you have enough money in the bank to support yourself for about a year. This is about the same period it will take you make profit from a new venture.

Understanding these three important components and implementing them successfully into your business strategy, will put you well on your way to establishing a successful and profitable venture.

Claudio

Posted by Claudio Silva for Medios Marketing Communication

We all make mistakes. Opening a blog with a horrible cliché like “We all make mistakes” proves my point. Over the past two years, I have written many, many letters of apology (on behalf of others. I’m not that dreadful!). Although the events leading up to the letters differ, all letters of apology share certain traits (an apology, for instance). Should you find yourself at the sharp end of the disciplinary stick, follow these guidelines to write a kick-ass letter of apology. You can also download the Wordsmyth letter of apology template here.

1. Understand the drama

It’s often easier to know when someone’s upset than it is to figure out why they’re upset. In a business environment, the aggrieved party is usually peeved because you’ve cost them money. Make sure you understand how and when you’ve inconvenienced them and how it affected their business before writing the letter.

2. Make sure you agree

Once you understand why the recipient of your intended letter is upset, make sure you agree that you have erred. If you don’t agree, change the angle to a letter of explanation. Use it to point out that you weren’t responsible and chuck in a few niceties to smooth things over. If, however, you agree that you were wrong, proceed to step three.

3. Identify the responsible party

In business, people rarely fly solo. If you’re writing a letter of apology, chances are that you weren’t responsible for the mistake. Make sure you know who was and decide whether you should apologise on behalf of your company, department or team, or whether the apology should come from the person responsible.

4. Apologise

Your opening lines should be an apology, containing the name of the responsible parties, the exact blunder and how it inconvenienced the affronted recipient. For example:

I’d like to apologise on behalf of Wordsmyth for setting fire to your fax machine. I understand the incident traumatised your staff, prevented you from sending or receiving faxes for three days and cost you a considerable amount of time and money.

5. Explain

In your next paragraph, try to give an honest account of the events that lead up to your error in judgement. You don’t have to explain that it was a mistake or accident. It’s usually implied in your explanation.

On the morning of the incident, I tried to perform a trick with matches, a lit match slipped from my hand and landed on the fax machine.

6. Accept responsibility

Don’t try to wriggle out of the fact that you slipped up. It’s cowardly and makes your apology sound insincere. Accept responsibility in the next paragraph:

I understand that it was irresponsible and unprofessional to perform a match trick in the office.

7. Offer a solution or compensation

While it’s very noble to accept responsibility, it’s meaningless if you don’t attempt to undo the damage. Think of a way to make the incident less painful for the injured party:

Wordsmyth would like to replace the fax machine and pay for damages to the carpet. Please send the invoice to our accounts department. I will also write a personal letter of apology to the staff.

8. Express a desire to move on

By the time you reach your closing paragraph, the recipient should understand that your are really sorry, that you understand the consequences of your blunder and that you’re willing to fix your mistake. Your closing paragraph should indicate a desire to put the incident behind you and continue your professional relationship on good terms:

I can assure you that this was an isolated incident. Wordsmyth looks forward to a continued professional relationship with you and your company.

9. Presentation

Like any other business letter, your letter of apology should be on a company letterhead. Remember to check your spelling and grammar. If you’re not sure, find someone to proofread your letter before sending it.

10. Enjoy!

While it can be difficult to admit that you were wrong, writing a letter of apology can be quite liberating. A sincere letter of apology will probably disarm the angry party and result in a happily-ever-after, or a happy-until-you-screw-up-again scenario. Win!

Posted by Kristia van Heerden for Medios Marketing Communications

It struck me the other day that many of my clients rely on a myriad of newsletters, twitter feeds, LinkedIn streams, blogs and more for advice. The volume of advice out there is staggering.

It’s no surprise that there is so much advice available. Every marketing vendor worth his salt knows the new mantra – content, content, content.

The problem is that my clients are often distracted from their marketing vision. They run into my office wondering whether we shouldn’t rather be doing this, instead of that. They get distracted, seem gullible to every suggestion and are willing to stray from the course they have set.

The volume of available writing makes it seem like the world is moving faster than it is. The customers that read too much marketing advice second-guess successful strategies.

The reasons for this become evident when you look at the available advice as a whole. I have read so much writing from marketing experts that I’m able to discern a few trends:

1. Marketing experts sometimes contradict each other. Obviously this is to be expected. Experts have different viewpoints. My problem is that it is often the same sources taking different viewpoints on different occasions. The reason is that the writers are often unable to explain the context of their comments. One article by the same source said that return on investment is the marketing panacea that social media offers. That same source later said, “small business over-measure everything.”

2. No one who dispenses marketing advice do so because they are benevolent. They do so because they want your business. This includes me.

3. There is a lot of writing that says nothing new. Sure, old concepts are presented in a new light, but there’s little innovation.

4. Very few articles offer practical advice.

5. The majority of the articles present advice in a “perfect world” scenario. They assume that the reader has the access, the resources, the skill etc. to implement the plan.

6. The writer isn’t honest about what he really thinks the reader should do, namely hire him to implement the plan. For the record, I think you should hire Medios Marketing Communications to implement the advice I give in this blog.

7. The practical advice they offer is difficult to follow. Most don’t take into account the limitations you may have.

8. Few mention the downside of social media: the cost. To do it right, you need a massive investment in time, not only from a dedicated social media tsar, but also from a wide range of people in your organisation.

Now don’t get me wrong, there is good advice out there and lots of it. Most of what is said is applicable. Just choose your sources, look at trends, not individual blogs, posts, etc. Don’t accept that everything is applicable to you. Don’t feel too bad if you cannot implement all the advice. You aren’t operating in a prefect world.

One other thing, if you think that it is hypocritical of me to criticise my competitors while doing exactly what they are doing, you’re right. It is. But think of it this way, at least my message is honest, fresh and my motives are clear. And if you end up using Medios’ services, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Cheers
Jacques

Posted by Jacques van den Bergh for Medios Marketing Communication

As marketing 2.0 specialists, we are trying to adapt our marketing strategies to facilitate communication between our brands and the consumer.

The new way of marketing – that is, giving valuable information to our consumers and attempting to facilitate the communication – is not as easy as it seems.

I like the idea of getting consumers more involved in the brand. There’s only one obstacle: lazy consumers.

I recently attempted to contact a hair school on behalf of my client, Organic Root Stimulator. The response to my phone call was, “I have never heard of your brand, I don’t like your marketing!” At first I thought I wasn’t listening properly. Attacking “my brand” with get you karate chopped in the ovaries.
I had to wonder whether the marketing and PR we are doing for ORS isn’t what it should be. The alternative (and my preference) was to understand that consumers, especially those who proclaim to be “industry experts” could just be lazy. In order to proclaim oneself an expert, you have to seek out all kinds of knowledge, not just wait for a brand to speak to you.

How could someone who should be an ethnic hair industry expert not know a product that is the number one ethnic hair product in the US? It’s especially shocking when you consider the product prides itself on the education of both its consumers and the salons that use its professional range.

As brands we have to find ways to speak to those lazy consumers. In this case we can just accept that some people can, by their own stupid statements, take away their titles as industry experts.

Silly billies
Abs

Posted by Abigail van Zyl for Medios Marketing Communication

When asked whether Google Analytics (GA) was better than Web Trends (WT), my immediate answer was no. I thought a paid resource simply must be better than a free tool.

However, I decided to do a bit of research and found that this debate has been raging since Google bought over Urchinn (now GA) in 2005. According to the research, the majority of people prefer GA to WT. Admittedly I was almost convinced myself.

However, GA isn’t equipped with certain functionality. While I do agree that it isn’t really important to report on Search Bot traffic and to record the number of hits, I think more information is better than less. I also think that having a tool that can easily export to excel format is a time saver, a big advantage when taking into account that time in business really is money.

GA offers 90% of what WT offers. Keep in mind that GA is a free tool, while WT will set you back quite a few thousand rand. I wondered how WT could still be making money or even be in business. The answer turned out to be quite simple: GA offers a high level overview of your site, but it cannot track individual reader metrics. If your company is interested in return on investment (ROI) then this one point alone should sway you towards WT.
In my opinion WT is better due to the fact that it is a customer engagement tool. It makes it easy to track real time metrics and to make informed decisions. Should something go wrong with the software or you simply have a query, WT offers both online and telephonic support.

While the basics are free, it’s the insight into your customer and the potential customer’s mind that is the vital metric. I would go as far as to say it is priceless for your business is to prosper. I have no doubt that the battle of opinions will go on, but for now WT has won another supporter in me.

The philosophy still stands – you need to spend money to make money!

Posted by Warren Anderson for Medios Marketing Communications

All businesses are built on a single principle: You give something to get something. Although the offer and rewards differ from one individual to the next, the principle applies to everything from prostitution to barters.

Medios functions on exactly the same principle, but what we offer and get in return isn’t always easy to define. On the surface, we exchange our expertise for money. We have performance bonuses, we try to earn commission by bringing in new clients (by “we” I mean “Abs”) and we ensure that we put in the hours necessary to be successful.

However, in a certain sense Medios is a family business. None of us are related, but we’ve come to treat and regard each other as kin (I’ve always wanted to use that word in a sentence). The exchange between us is much more complicated than mere trade. Sometimes our interpersonal transactions make for an extremely rewarding business environment. When I know that my presence in the company contributes positively to the lives of my colleagues, I like being here.

The flipside of that fuzzy coin is that the things you offer and accept from your colleagues come at a price. Of course, it would be politically incorrect to admit that you want reward for your loyalty/dependability in all circumstances/unpaid overtime. However, we all feel we owe the others something. We can’t define it, but we know it’s there. Because it’s difficult to know what you should give to whom, we focus our payments on the common denominator: Medios.

A recent shakeup in the Medios ranks drew my attention to this odd phenomenon. A colleague announced that he’d like to go for an interview at another company. The news shocked all of us, because we simply couldn’t imagine quitting Medios. What about the interpersonal debt?

A couple of days after the colleague’s interview, my favourite publication Mail & Guardian advertised an opening for an online journalist. If it’s possible to salivate mentally, that’s exactly what I did. I considered applying for a moment, and then let it go. While part of my reluctance was due to the fact that I’m extremely satisfied and happy in my working environment, part of it had to do with my interpersonal debt.

I’m a bit of a wanderer. I like the challenges involved in uprooting. Of course I don’t love it while I’m doing it, but I get restless when I don’t. Lusting after a new job, especially an online (!) position at the Mail & Guardian (!), isn’t odd for me. What’s odd is that I put it out of my head without any further investigation.

I spent the weekend wondering about this. It’s a silly Calvinistic need to label occurrences as positive or negative. I can’t help it.

I guess interpersonal transactions could pressure people into doing what they don’t want to, and that’s no good. To grow you must necessarily step out of your comfort zone. With that in mind, colleagues must come and go, regardless of the real of perceived interpersonal debts.

However, to cultivate rewarding relationships in a business environment is uncommon. When you profit from interpersonal (and traditional) trade, you stay. This thought is slowly ushering me out of my own (ironically uncomfortable) comfort zone. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is nothing at all.

Posted by Kristia van Heerden for Medios Marketing Communications

I have come to realise there is an emerging trend in the way effective marketing companies operate. Companies are shifting the focus from traditional, basic marketing strategies to online marketing strategies. This could yield more profits in the long run and enable the company to run as effectively and efficiently as possible.

In order to boost profits companies must understand and implement a number of key strategies. The following three strategies could help:

1. Know how to optimise for search engines and drive free traffic to your site. Focus on getting your business’ name to pop up in search engines by providing useful info, valuable content and links related to your business and by keeping your content current.

2. Take advantage of profit generating opportunities with pay-per-click advertising. Use the most relevant keywords to get top results in search engines. This would probably be the easiest and fastest way to attract potential customers to your site.

3. Integrate blogging into your online marketing strategy. Blogging can boost your ranking in search engines, increase your traffic and improve your credibility. Blogs are easy to start and maintain and are a simple way for anyone to post new content in an easy to read website format.

Another important component is to understand the more user-friendly your website is, the more sales it will generate. Elements like an attention-grabbing headline, user-friendly navigation, well chosen images, a strong opt-in offer to remain in contact with your customers through email, an About Us page, a FAQ page as well as optimised content, your site will be well on its way to creating a platform that will attract all the sales you need.

Cheers
Claudio

Posted by Claudio Silva for Medios Marketing Communications

In my opinion only two general laws of the universe are worth observing. The first is the law of averages, and it is very relevant to the topic of this blog: information overload.*

Don’t sigh. I know it has been covered to death, but if you read this one last article you’ll be able to lighten your load, promise.

The problem is the amount info available. If you’re reading this blog I don’t have to say any more on the Internet. The second problem is the amount of channels through which the information is distributed. Email, Twitter, your mobile phone, texting, magazines, journals, newsletters, seminars, meetings, books, e-books, websites… Make it stop! Make it stop!

Avoiding all the info out there is not ideal. You still need to know what is new in your industry. I make a living taking on what others choose to ignore “because it’s just too much”. The trick is simply to know how to work your way through the massive amounts of info available.

Making the most of the avoidable info without having your head explode in a somewhat artistic red mist is twofold. The first step is to take control of the channels that feed information. The second is to know the value of paying attention to the person selling the information – and they are always selling. Remember, no free rides.

The first step is easy. Split your personal communication channels from your business channels. Stop direct access and filter information through channel managers like Google Reader and TweetDeck. Dedicate time to looking at information and ignore information coming outside of that time.

The second part of the solution depends on how much you think you know. If you are a twenty-something it’s probably less than you think. Look at your seniority in the organisation where you work. If you are the boss chances are that your attention is worth more than the intern’s.

The information out there is like training. If you are short on experience and knowledge you need a little more than someone else. Adjust the volume you expose yourself to.

Those who sell information do so because they fish for leads. They hope that you will return to their site, submit a question, take part in a survey, and communicate with them.

Information sources that value your attention will post valuable, relevant information. Look out for people who try to build a reputation as a supplier of valuable content. Allow these people to filter the online noise and deliver distilled information to you.

Now for some practical advice:

Understand that information won’t get stale in a half an hour. In other words, you have time to read it at your leisure.

If you miss something, the information isn’t gone. Businesses want you to visit the website.  By the time you read an article someone else has written about the same topic. It is the point of information overload. There is no shortage.

Find the few you trust. Follow them and read their stuff. Rotate some of the others. Delete information sources you don’t get around to reading, even if they are valuable.

Seek new sources and delete some of the old ones.

If someone’s message becomes monotonous, can them.

If you receive contradictory information from the same source, get rid of the source.

A little humour and some entertainment value go a long way.

Use the tools like Google Reader and TweetDeck.

Find sources that give you synopses of what everybody else is saying. If there is a topic you think you need to know about, the info will be out there.

Read reviews of books. Sometimes it will save you having to read the book but still tell you what you need to know

I hope this blog helped. Remember not to cut me from list of regulars and visit my website. I need the leads, man!

Cheers

Jacques

*The second is: All clichés are true. Not that relevant to this week’s post, but now you know.

Posted by Jacques van den Bergh for Medios Marketing Communications