Many companies that are reluctant to dive into social media tell me that they are afraid of their brand being “out there” for public criticism — whether it is deserved or not. Reputation management is one of the key objectives for which SMM (social media marketing) can be used, and that same “report card” lesson applies.

No one can debate the benefits that a good review or customer comment can provide to any business.  But a bad review, or blog/Twitter comment, can be just as useful if it is addressed correctly and in a timely manner. Below are some tips on how to make lemonade out of that potential lemon of a review.

Assess the damage –

• Take some time to figure out what kind of comment it is, how it’s intended and where it’s coming from.
• Is it constructive criticism? If the customer truly caught a problem and is bringing it to your attention, that’s a very good thing.
• Is it seemingly well intentioned?  The tone, message, or verbiage may be cutting but is the intention good — to help you as a business owner recognize a problem and address it.
• Is it venting after a frustrating experience?  The venting might be volatile and angry, but if it’s ultimately helping you recognize a problem, it’s still a good thing.
• Does it sound just hurtful?  You know pure anger when you hear it.  You may then decide whether or not to respond.

Decide how you are going to respond, but whatever it is, respond quickly.

• Be sure to respond directly and personally (in tone) and don’t hide behind corporate speak
• Stay proactive, positive and productive
• Don’t ever be defensive – that never helps anything.
• If criticism identifies a real problem – cop to it, offer information on solutions that are already in progress, or at least offer some info on your intention to address the issues.
• If reviewer discussion is too hot and you do want to respond and find that it is appropriate to respond, then take it off line. Provide an 800 number or email address or just your business phone number and invite the commenter to call to figure it all out.

When NOT to react –

• If you are too angry – chill for a day or so.  Reacting in the heat of battle will never result in anything positive
• If the reviewer is angry at the world, not necessarily your business
• If the review is spamming or trolling, just looking for linking or trackbacks – just ignore it. This is one of the artful aspects of good PR – knowing when NOT to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Even a bad review can be good.  Remember that mantra of social media connect/create/engage. The secret sauce is transparency. A bad review addressed is a very good thing. Don’t be afraid to have your brand out there, it’s all good.

Business Coach Kellie D'Andrea

Kellie is a business coach and master marketer.  She has help everyone from the smallest entrepreneur to the largest organizations realize tremendous growth. 

 In today’s economy many business owners are faced with tough decisions that will streamline their business to save a few dollars without compromising service. As unemployment hits an all time high and people and businesses are not spending as much as they did in years past, what can a small business do to survive in a tough economy?

1. Become the ultimate deal maker: With everyone pinching pennies and looking for new ways to save money, this is a great time to offer excellent deals for your products or services. Now is the time for you to be strategic about making deals with your customers, vendors and service partners. In fact, try bartering for services, ad space or product. Every business is looking for ways to save money so do not be afraid to renegotiate contracts with your current vendors and to offer more value to keep your current customers.

2. Look for efficiencies: Take a look at all of the processes in your business and see if there are ways to streamline and become more efficient. Look for areas that are manually heavy tasks and see if there is an opportunity to automate. Look for areas that are paper heavy and duplicated and see if you can tighten up. Combine like tasks for greater productivity and do not shy away from investment opportunities that may reduce your overall labor in future periods. For example, investing in technology that could would reduce labor by 50%. Although there is an upfront outlay of cash, the investment will pay for itself.

3. Up your marketing: Now is the time to increase your marketing. Studies have shown that in times of a downward companies, small business that increase marketing have a greater chance of growing their business since there are so many business owners that cut back on their marketing. Here is a great opportunity to stand out from your competition and grab more market share. Marketing is a process and a continuous one so to get customers in your sales funnel, you need to continue to market your business.

4. Bring additional value to your customers. Since your customers are why your business exist, show them how much they mean to you. This is the time to reach out and strengthen the bond you have with your customers and show them how much you appreciate their business. Try offering them an appreciation day, or discounts for their continued business. Offer rewards and frequent buyer programs and see where you can add more value to your current service model. Perhaps a free bonus, an extra drink, a whitepaper… be creative and think out of the box.

5. Plan. Take out that marketing and business plan and review it and revise it. Now is the time to build a plan a new plan and create new financial projections based upon the current economic climate. By shifting your business to be more efficient now and to train your team to do more with less, you are setting the business up for success when the economy comes back. Once a company knows how to run lean and mean, it stays during the economic swing upward resulting in more profits. Do you know that many successful businesses were started during a recession? Having a strong foundation in branding, leadership and selling techniques will help you weather any economic storm and position you for long term growth.

The classic lead funnel has 4 stages — brand awareness, lead generation, lead nurture and finally the sale. Let’s look at it another way, from the prospects perspective — the  Know/Like/Trust/Sale continuum with a focus on the inner 2 stages.  One of the best-kept secrets of converting a prospect to a buyer is making sure that the bait used to hook them is in alignment with what they are expecting, wanting, and needing AT EACH STAGE OF THE FUNNEL. That will differ, and there is the difference.

2.  Like – Stages 2 and 3 are really the important pieces, in my mind. You are now building a level of involvement and increasing intimacy with your prospect. This may sound like a romantic, consumer-ish, and odd concept. But buyers are people. And people make decisions more with their emotions than with their brains, whether they are buying blade servers or scented soap.  Knowledge about the product, features, and benefits, are all part of what needs to be communicated. But that is truly not what makes a sale happen. This is the time to provide value at no cost; white papers about a pain point in the industry, resources for problem solving, a free e-book pertaining to a specific concept  of particular interest to your prospect.  Give all this away.  Give lots away, and give it frequently and often. If you are providing truly valuable (to your prospect) information, frequent contact will not be perceived as harassment, so don’t be shy. But don’t ask for the sale, not yet.

3.  Trust – This is an even more intimate stage, and the nurturing process should reflect that.  Podcasts and interviews tend to be more personal and more involving, and this is the perfect stage to integrate them into the lead-nurture process. There is something about having an ear-bud plugged in to your ear that creates a very intimate relationship between the listener and the presenter. Emails with a brief embedded video create direct interaction and conversation (if comments are allowed) with the viewer. Here is where personal stories from the sales rep or CEO, or longer off-topic lunches (in old sales parlance) make a difference in the quality of the relationship. You are building trust. Use Social Media at this stage as well on a more intimate level; invite prospects into your blogging community, internal wikis or mini-sites to gain a more human perspective on your company, brand or people. Invite them to participate as a guest blogger, interview them for an internal video, and involve them in the social media community.  Envelope them with social media love and you will be holding them very closely.

4. The sale – If you have done steps 2 and 3 in a truly nurturing way (this is a Mom speaking, but it’s still true), then asking for the sale is easier, and more comfortable for all concerned — almost a natural and expected progression.

Think again about levels of intimacy and how and where to include social media into the nurturing stages of the lead funnel.  Your close rate will certainly improve.

David Spark

I’m delighted to announce that my friend and collegue David Spark of Spark Media Solutions will be joining us for an inteview August 11, 2010, at noon Pacific Time (3 pm Eastern).  David’s topic will be “Blogging for Business – for People Who Have NO Time to Blog”.

You my know David from his regular TV appearances or reading his many articles and columns. He is a 14-year veteran tech journalist and founder of Spark Media Solutions, specialists in developing industry voice through storytelling and social media. David has written for more than 30 media outlets in print, radio, and TV including eWEEK, PCWorld, TechTV, and Wired News. He’s currently a regular contributor to ABC Radio, Mashable, Socialmedia.biz, KQED, and John C. Dvorak’s “Cranky Geeks.” Spark blogs regularly at the Spark Minute.

David is a wonderful speaker and a fun interview, but he is also very practical.  David will give us some great tips on how to make the blogging process a part of your daily business life, and keep the creation of blog material seamless as well as painless.

Please join us!  Sign up below and we will send you an email with dial-in information.

Whether you are just launching your list-building efforts or have had a mailing-list for a while, the choice of Email Service Providers is critical to the success of your email marketing efforts. But what to look for in an ESP can be complex -– yet it shouldn’t keep you from making the best decision for your company’s current stage of list development.  Below are 10 considerations for evaluating an ESP.

1.  Deliverability

Deliverability stats are easy to document if the ESP is a good one. A few signs — will the ESP allow a third-party deliverability audit by a company such as PivotalVeracity or Return Path before requiring a contract? Do they consistently monitor deliverability? What about data hygiene services? Does the ESP scrub against known spam traps, active complainers, and undeliverable addresses? Can you have your own dedicated IP mail server address, or can you elect to be in a shared or distributed IP mail server pool? And really important, I’ve found — does the ESP have a team of postmasters to interact with ISPs? This is an area that takes babysitting and diligence.

2. Training

Some ESP platforms are very intuitive, but many are not.  Are there costs for initial or follow-up training? Is training available both online and live? Is training mandatory before being allowed to call customer support? Do new software releases include training? You want an ESP that offers easy access to resources to ensure your ramp-up time is minimal. Spend a bit of time exploring their online training options (videos, tutorials) and see how comfortable you are.

3. Both broadcast and autoresponder options

Broadcast is when you set up a message to be sent out immediately or at a certain day/time. A broadcast is going to go out to your full email list. Autoresponders, both drip and triggered, are emails that are set up to be delivered automatically at certain intervals after someone signs up to your list. As someone who uses email marketing, you want both options as they’ll be useful to you in many ways while you work to reach your market.

4. Customer service

With over 100 ESPs to choose from, much of email service is being viewed as commodity-based. Therefore, level and quality of service is a prime differentiator. Consider the overall account servicing. Check their website or sales people to find out if you will have online or email access to immediate customer support, or will it be next day with a ticketing system? Ask for references from current clients –- this will be most telling.

5.  Personalization capabilities

Adding personalization to your emails is a great way to increase interest and conversions. You can personalize emails with first names but you can also use functions like where they live, what hobbies they have, or other categories to call out your prospects.

5. Multiple email lists hosting

Some programs only allow you to host one email list. You will likely want to keep separate email lists for different websites, topics or even to separate current customers from potential customers.

6. HTML and Text email creation

Some people prefer to send plain-text emails while others like to add images and html code through an HTML email. Be sure your ESP can do both. HTML with a text backup will always get a higher open and read rate, and presumably click-through rate as well.

7 Easy and flexible sign-up form creation

You will want to have the option of creating multiple sign-up forms that will create multiple lists.  This is crucial for better targeting as your marketing becomes more complex. Check on the ESP’s form-creation opyions and capability -– if they even have one.

8. Reporting and analysis

If you’re sending out emails without knowing the results, then it’s very difficult to be successful. Make sure you’re clear on the metrics that matter for your business, and review how well the reporting capabilities of the ESP match those needs. Standard metrics should include sends, deliveries, opens, click-throughs and forwards. What level of detailed reporting is available for bounce messages (i.e. why did a message bounce)? Take a look at the standard reports -– this should give you a good overview.

9. Templates and design assistance

If your design skills are limited or non-existent, templates can be very helpful. Some companies make it easy to get a professional email campaign going by providing templates. If this would be helpful to your organization, this feature is a must.

10. Pricing

You don’t want to choose your ESP based solely on price, but you do want to know exactly what you’re getting. Some ESPs require a 12-month usage/revenue commitment, while others have a pay-as-you-go model scaled for volume.  Which optional features have costs? Ask for contracts from potential ESPs and have them reviewed for any red flags before final vendor selection. If you are in a larger enterprise, get a copy of the agreement from ESPs that are finalists so that your legal department can review indemnity and liability language. The inability of either side to be flexible can be signs of difficulties to come. All that work you put into finding your favorite ESPs can be wasted if you can’t come to terms.

The best way to figure out if a program is the right one for you is to do your research first, then explore the option of taking a trial of the program. Your email list is without a doubt one of the biggest assets you will ever have in your online business. Take some time to do your homework and set it up correctly, and that initial investment of time and effort will pay off in multiples for years to come.

1. Direct Mail is back – have I said this enough yet? Yes, I know postage is going up, yes I know this seems old school. But mail boxes are pretty light these days, so there is not much competition for your prospects’ attention. Mail a piece that has your company’s Twitter handle on it. Invite viewers to follow you, and set up an autoresponder to their follow that includes a special offer with a quick timeline to drive that call to action (example: 20% off on your next order if you place the order by Friday).

2. Send a postcard (snail mail) and include a QR (Quick Response) code that can be scanned by your smart phone to send the reader to mobile enabled page of your website with a special offer, or to a training video that tells a better story or demo of a product, or even a free donut if they come into your store or place of business. (Keep donuts on hand, then!)

QR Code generators are simple apps and easy to use. Do a Google search on QR Code generators and find the top rated suppliers, and jump in.

3. Or on that same postcard, send them to a squeeze page on your website with a specific white paper or eBook in return for registering for your newsletter. Now you have proved your value with some educational material for your prospect, and you have gleaned their email address as well for ongoing marketing. Not a bad quid pro quo. I’m a big believer in the give-to-get mentality.

4. With that same email registration (see #3), set up an autoresponder email to thank visitors for their registration to your newsletter, and link to your Facebook page, inviting them to “like” your page (FB, please change that concept — such an awkward verb), and set up a special tab with a timed offer. Now you have a postal address and their email address and have gained more traffic on your FB page — all for future marketing.

Sound gimmicky? Not at all, certainly not these days and very easy to do.

If there’s a struggle on the OUTSIDE, it means there’s a struggle on the INSIDE.

This is how Marketing and Success Mindset Expert, Fabienne Fredrickson describes why you might not be experiencing the success in your business that you should be.

As Fabienne explains, once you shift the internal mindset barriers that are sabotaging your success, you have the ability to be prosperous and to multiply your revenues, over and over again, with ease–but only when you get to the root of what’s holding you back.

Pretty intriguing, don’t you think?

Fabienne is taking her Mindset teachings on the road at three One-day LIVE events titled, ‘Millionaire Entrepreneur Mindset Secrets’:

San Diego, CA: July 22nd

New York, NY: July 29th

Atlanta, GA: August 5th

(Even if you’re not living in these cities, this event is worth flying in for, taking the train or going on a road trip with friends…)

During these events, you’ll be “stretched” by Fabienne to see a much bigger vision of what’s possible for you, and you’ll begin to uncover the hidden reasons why you’re not currently making more in your business. You’ll also discover the exact process to shift your mindset, transform your in-come, and upgrade your entire life–both personally and professionally.

‘Millionaire Entrepreneur Mindset Secrets’ promise to be a real game changer for entrepreneurs ready to truly experience success–something that will immediately impact your business and your life.

Fabienne is known for her down-to-earth, yet powerful presentations so I promise you, you won’t want to miss this event! She is a trusted business mentor and coach to thousands of heart-centered entrepreneurs around the globe. Now you can have her teach you the same mindset principles that she teaches her clients, for a fraction of what they pay. (Only $95 and you get to bring a guest for free!)

Watch Fabienne’s new video about this event, here: http://bit.ly/92zYYF

So expect a full afternoon of Fabienne teaching you the secrets she personally used to transform her own business and multiply her in-come, dramatically by using proven internal mindset principles. Fabienne uses these principles daily to keep doubling her business every year, and her private students are doing the same…and you can too!

Get all the event details here:

http://bit.ly/92zYYF

 The event also includes high-level networking, “mindset makeover” hotseats conducted by Fabienne, as well as a gourmet hors d’oeuvres reception immediately following–so you can meet and talk to Fabienne personally.

It’s only $95 to register (and, each paid participant gets to bring a guest for free.)

There are only 100 seats available per location, so register quickly before they sell out.

I hope to see you there!

http://bit.ly/92zYYF

I should explain. BSK is in the middle of an industrial area, which is to say, almost nowhere. There is no foot traffic, no retail buzz, no reason to be in the nabe except to pick up pipe for that construction project, or to drive by on your way to IKEA or Best Buy.

But somehow (and my bet is thru Tanya’s excellent food and Phil’s wonderful touch with their social media efforts) they have built a standing-room-only crowd on weekends — and some weekdays as well.

So, in my new series of interviews on the use of social media for small businesses, I’ve asked Phil to share his secrets. If you have any kind of small biz, retail store or restaurant, I’m sure you will get lots of great ideas to incorporate with your social media marketing plan. And maybe a recipe or two…can’t promise, though.

When: Monday June 14th, 1 pm Pacific time

If you would like an audio file of the interview, please sign up below.

• Local.com went public Oct. 2009 raising millions then acquiring 30,000 hosting companies
• Apple buys Quattro mobile ad-network 2009 Q4
• Google acquires AdMob mobile ad network 2009
• Google attempts to acquire Yelp for $500 million but fails: 2009 Q4
• Wall Street is backing other companies in the local services as well — Supermedia, ATT Yellow Pages, etc.

We have talked in a previous blog post about the impending tsunami of mobile marketing and Geo-Marketing.  With the smart-phone market exploding, GPS apps on the rise, and location-based sites like Gowalla and Brightkite gaining traction daily, this is a marketing phenomenon that can’t be ignored.  Is your company ready to ride this wave?  Is  your company Geo-Social ready?

Please join me for a webinar to find out what the new breed of Geolocation-enabled services and applications is doing for brands, for businesses and for consumers, and how your company can be a part of it.

In this webinar we will discuss the benefits and components of Geo-Marketing, including Geo-Listings on local sites like Yelp, Google Places, the upcoming trends in Mobile Marketing and Geo-Social Marketing and how each should be a part of your marketing plan. Webinar attendees will walk away with a thorough understanding of:

• What is Geo-Marketing and what are the trends?
• What are Local Listings and how will they impact search and social media?
• How Local Listings will increase your online visibility, store or business traffic and bottom line
• Geo-Listing Security
• the impact of consumer reviews, and the importance of reputation management
• How to get your business Geo-Marketing ready

The Webinar is a joint venture between Elymedia, a San Francisco-based media strategy and buying agency, and SmartFinds Internet Marketing, a Detroit-based national firm which provides businesses with Internet marketing services and solutions.

Please sign up below, and we will send you an email to set up a date and time for  the event.