Well, having looked into the rise of Smartphone usage within and outside the UK and I am bound to say yes, and this is why …

Smartphones – the figures

According to a 2011 survey by Ofcom over a quarter of all adults (27%) and almost half of all teenagers (47%) use a Smartphone with the Apple iPhone the most popular brand (32% ownership for adults) followed by BlackBerry (the favoured device for teens at 37%).

Taking adult Smartphone ownership, 58% are male and 42% female. For the teens there is a reversal with girls at 52% and boys on 48%.

Interestingly, when it comes to being addicted to their Smartphone 37% adults and 60% of teens agreed they are.

Finally, it has been recently reported that in 2011 Smartphone sales exceeded PC sales.

What do we now know?

If your target market is adults then it seems that over a quarter of all adults use Smartphones with the vast majority (81%) never switching them off. Nearly a quarter admitted to using them during meal times.

This is why the time has now come to upgrade your website to give them a good browsing experience.

Most websites are not geared to the small screens on Smartphones so the user has a lot of zooming in and out, scrolling left, right, up and down just to read what you have to say.

Wouldn’t it be nicer if you made this a lot easier and gave them an enjoyable browsing experience? It would certainly encourage them to contact you.

How can we help?

Talk to us about upgrading your website for use on Smartphones … Smartphones are taking over!

The problem

The client became concerned that rental income was being eroded through increased booking commission charges and decreasing occupancy levels.

In 2011 the booking company appeared to be struggling to attract visitors. To overcome this they actively encouraged owners to reduce their prices to stimulate bookings. At the same time they continued with the same percentage commission payment, abet on a lower base price, and appeared to be offering owners approximately 15 weeks occupancy per year.

The solution

Faced with these factors the owner commissioned a holiday cottage website to be built that presented the cottage and the surrounding area in the best possible way.

It should:

• Allow guests to book online or make payments by cheque.
• Have the ability to manage booking and information enquiries.
• Display a calendar showing availability including provisional bookings.
• Display weekly pricing including special offers.
• Be owner self managed for both bookings and website content.

The holiday cottage website was published at the end of March 2011and the contract with the national booking company cancelled at the end of 2011.

The result

In 2011 the occupancy level increased to 34 weeks. The national booking company booked 15 weeks and the owners own marketing achieved an additional 19 weeks. The website investment paid for itself in less than 9 months.

More information?

For more information on holiday cottage letting websites and to discuss the costs and benefits please contact us.

If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions then have you considered running your own holiday cottage letting website?

With your own holiday cottage website you can present your property, its facilities, the local amenities and visitor attractions in the area in a way that prospective guests will find attractive.

Does this sound a lot better than being one of a crowd, in competition with others in your area, and having to conform to a strict presentation style that doesn’t show off your property to best effect?

Why run your own Holiday Cottage Letting Website?

Prospective guests increasingly research the area and available properties using internet searches; just as you do when you look for holiday property lettings.

They are looking for its condition and facilities, the area, amenities, testimonials and how popular the property is. They will be delighted when they arrive on your website and find these questions answered.

Your holiday cottage website allows you to present this information together with your wealth of local knowledge in an attractive way supporting an informed decision to book.

The old adage is true; people buy from people and with your own holiday cottage website guests communicate directly with you rather than through a 3rd party. This allows you to add that personal touch, build rapport and answer any questions they may have either before or after booking.

Taking Payments

Guests like to pay in different ways so payment flexibility is key. Whilst on-line payment of deposit and balance are popular options some guests prefer to use cheques. Your holiday cottage letting website should support both options.

Taking credit/debit card payments doesn’t always require the trouble and expense of having an internet merchant account and paying the monthly fee that involves. It is quite possible to have an e-commerce payment solution that works on a small percentage of any payment made and supports all major credit and debit cards.
So, if your guest pays the deposit on a card and the balance by cheque the only charges you pay are on the card deposit.

In Summary – Your Holiday Cottage Booking Website

For your guests

• More information about your holiday cottage to make an informed decision.
• Property calendar showing availability and pricing.
• Direct contact with the owners for that personal touch.
• Book on-line to reserve their holiday dates.
• No additional, and sometimes compulsory, 3rd party costs covering holiday insurance and cancellation fees making your holiday let more expensive.
• Variety of payment options for deposit and balance.

For you

• Present your holiday cottage in the best possible way.
• No more commission payments to 3rd party booking agents.
• No 3rd party commission payments for weeks you sell.
• Ability to offer competitive pricing and generate higher rental returns.
• Complete control over pricing enabling ‘special offers’ to fill booking gaps.
• Availability calendar encourages early booking if weeks are being sold out.

Want to find out more?

For more information on holiday cottage letting websites please contact us.

Communicating with your database

If you take the approach that everybody on your database will buy from you at some point then you could just simply blast them with emails on a regular basis until they submit. Of course others do this to you and eventually you start to resent them, deleting without reading or unsubscribing. You don’t want your database to do any of these things do you?

So the key thing is targeted communications based on their interest, where they are in the sales pipeline and importantly, how they are responding to your communications.

An example …

Mary saw you at a show in London and asked for some information about one of your products. So after a 3 minute conversation you know:

• Her name.
• Her email address.
• The types of shows she attends.
• Her geographic location.
• Her interests.
• The level of interest in one of your products.
• Her awareness of your competitors.

… and importantly, you have also started a business relationship with her. So the question is how to develop and nurture this relationship into a future sale?

Generating awareness and closing sales

Generalising there are two sales streams; the ‘slow lane’ where leads are gathering information and the ‘fast lane’ where leads are well disposed to purchase. How you separate these two groups out depends on a number of factors. However, it is important to recognise that both groups have differing information needs.

For the ‘slow lane’ your communication may well be less frequent with content biased towards authority and brand building whereas for the ‘fast lane’ communication is likely to be more frequent with content targeted towards reinforcing and closing sales.

To continue our example …

Where is Mary? Because you have started a conversation with Mary you know where she is in the sales pipeline and can target your communications appropriately either reinforcing your brand and authority or providing her with additional sales information as she requested.

CRM customer record is key

In either case it is key that the CRM record for Mary can record and track where she is in the sales pipeline for you to be able to accurately target your communications to meet her information needs.

For more information please see the article CRM in the Sales Process and details of our CRM Business Service.

Sales status

The sales process can be managed and monitored using a CRM system. The sales process drives the sales pipeline. All sales opportunities can be be categorised by sale value, timing and probability.

• Sale value. The estimated value of the sale based on current knowledge.
• Sale timing. The date the sale will be closed.
• Sale probability. The probability of winning the sale.

Sales pipeline management

Milestones and probability

By establishing a set of milestones and assigning a percentage probability of sale against each it is possible to factor and hence track the value of all sales over time. Thus your complete sales pipeline can be tracked and appropriate sales activity applied to close sales.

An example …

A sale opportunity is identified with an estimated value of £10,000 with delivery in 6 months time. As the opportunity has not been qualified you may give it a probability of 5%. The future value then of this sale is therefore £500.

However, 3 months on:

• You have made a proposal and the value of opportunity now £12,000.
• You are not in exclusive discussion with the customer.
• You think you may be the preferred supplier.

The sale probability is now 60% so the future value has risen to £7,200.

Finally, after 6 months hard work you win the deal, the contract value is £14,000 and you start next week!

Assignment of sales milestones and probability

With a range of businesses out there it’s not possible to give firm guidance on milestone vs. probability.

However, the best policy is to apply your business knowledge to identify a small set of milestones that are clear and unambiguous that relate to progress through the sales pipeline. Follow this with % probabilities at each milestone of closing the sale based on past business experience in winning orders.

How can we help?

We can work with you, using our proven ‘Business First’ approach, to identify and implement a sales pipeline tracking system for your business. To discuss further please contact us or see our CRM Business Service.

Using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system will enable you to develop a deeper relationship with your sales leads and customers through targeted communications, tracking actions and modifying your engagement approach based on results.

What CRM options are there?

There are a number of CRM solutions available to businesses at various price points either delivered as an internet based service or run locally. The optimal solution will be dependant on the complexity your customer base, mix of products and/or services and who will require access to your data.

Regardless of solution, flexibility and day-to-day ease of use are key to making your data work for you.

CRM basics?

There are three principle elements to building and using a CRM system:

• Capturing contact data. Designing a contact record to capture the right level and granularity of information to enable targeted correspondence with your customer base.
• Filtering data. Being able to ‘slice and dice’ your information to target individuals accurately with relevant communications. This is where a CRM system releases the potential of the information you have recorded.
• Recording results. Being able to track the results of your communications such that future communications can be based on this ongoing dialogue.

The CRM contact record – some basics

Every business has different information needs however, the basics of any CRM system is to be able to characterise individuals or companies with a series of attributes.

Mandatory data

Some attributes should be mandatory, for example the persons last name or their address post code. Wherever possible dropdown selections, tick boxes and the like should be used as this forces consistency in data entry which makes subsequent filtering much easier.

Consistency of data

Consistency of data is the biggest problem in any CRM system as inconsistent data makes data filtering very difficult (that well known expression of ‘rubbish in – rubbish out’).

For example, Hampshire and Hants are the same county but only the first 2 letters are the same. Filtering to get everyone in ‘Hampshire’ would miss out everyone in ‘Hants’ and visa versa.

Who owns your CRM data?

A strange question possibly, but very important. As your business grows many people will have access to your business data; both reading and entering information. Without somebody having overall data ‘ownership’ your CRM data quality will inevitably decrease which has a direct bearing on its value to your business. The data ‘owner’ has the responsibility of ensuring data quality through audits and staff training.

Finally, as your customer database is your business it makes business sense to guard who has access and the type of access they have to avoid both data loss to competitors and data breaches.

How can we help?

We can work with you, using our proven ‘Business First’ approach, to identify and implement a CRM system for your business. To discuss further please contact us.

To find out more about building customer relationships read our blog on Customer Relationship Management and see details of our CRM Business Service. For more information on email direct marketing see our blog on Email Direct Marketing.

The problem – how to manage your business contacts list?

As businesses we all collect contact details and other information about our customers and sales leads. The question is how to organise and use this information to benefit your business?

Understanding your business relationships

If you understand the business needs of your contacts you will be in a good position to create sales opportunities and build deeper business relationships.

Broadly, your business relationships fall into two categories:

1. Sales leads. Those people who have shown an interest in your business but have yet to purchase from you.
2. Customers. People who have purchased from you. You will be in a good position to develop this relationship further resulting in future sales opportunities.

Managing your business relationships

Communicate with your sales leads and customers in what ever format is most appropriate; email, text, letter, fax, telephone or even face-to-face! The key things are:

• Relevance. Make what you say relevant to their needs.
• Records results. These results will inform you how to continue an ongoing dialogue to grow the relationship.

How can we help?

We can work with you, using our proven ‘Business First’ approach, to identify how best to manage your business relationships. To discuss further please contact us or see our CRM Business Service.

For more information on email marketing see our blog on Email Direct Marketing.

A QR or Quick Response code is a code that is readable by camera ‘phones and bar code readers.

Where would you use it?

The pattern contains encoded information provided by you; your website URL, text or some other data. Typically this is added to your website or business card to enable visitors to capture your contact details quickly and efficiently.

This is my vCard QR code. It contains:

• My name.
• Company name.
• Telephone number.
• Email address.
• Postal address.
• Website address.
• Additional information.

The QR code can be used in all sorts of innovative marketing situations from flyers to marketing ‘give aways’ to estate agent for sale or let boards to provide visitors with a website URL or additional information.

What else can be encoded?

In addition to the vCard used above you can create a QR code containing various other pieces of information (this one is a brief description of our business using the Text option). These are:

• Text (as shown to the right).
• Website URL.
• Telephone number.
• SMS message.
• Email address.
• Email message.
• Contact details (vCard as shown above).
• Event (vCalendar).
• Google maps location.
• Wifi login (Android only).
• Paypal ‘Buy Now’ link.
• Social media.
• iTunes link.
• YouTube video.

With this range of options the possibilities are only limited by your imagination!

How do I generate a QR code?

Google QR code of course! There are many websites offering the capability to create QR codes.

Generate or buy a list of email addresses, create an email, blast everybody on a daily basis and wait for results.

The recipients mark your emails as spam and delete them; you derive no business benefit, it harms your reputation and likely you get reported as a spammer. Game over!

Let’s consider the fundamentals …

Build an email distribution list

First your list must only contain people who have opted in to receive emails from you else you and your business will get classed as a spammer.

Some ideas to use in building an email distribution list:

• Via your website where people can opt in to receive regular communications.
• ‘Give to get‘ where visitors provide their email address in return for receiving some specific information.
• Asking existing clients and contacts to subscribe to your distribution list.

Before you build your email list consider how you will want to ‘slice and dice’ or segment subscribers to your list(s) to enable you to target specific groups.

This email list will form a key element of your customer relationship management (CRM) system.

Target your emails and measure response rates

Key to email marketing is:

• Ensure everybody on your list has opted in – absolutely fundamental.
• Get a validated email address – absolutely fundamental.
• Allow people to unsubscribe – absolutely fundamental.
• Make the email subject line engaging.
• Target decision makers and make it personal.
• Content should be well crafted and relevant to the recipient.
• Visually interesting and consistent in branding and structure between successive emails.
• Include a ‘call to action’, ideally time limited to generate urgency.
• Don’t make it too long. Include hyperlinks to relevant web pages for further information.

Measure your email response rate

Email campaigns should not be considered a ‘fire and forget’ activity. It is important to measure the campaign response rate in order to feedback into future campaigns.

Response rate measurement can be further enhanced by undertaking comparison testing between different email formats within the same campaign. This indicates relative effectiveness between the various formats and is a very powerful way of improving your ongoing email marketing.

Email marketing and email list manager service

If you bulk send emails use an email marketing service. These services are set up for high volumes and will be registered with internet service providers (ISPs) as non-spammers.

These services also provide automatic recipient unsubscribe facilities as well as email development and response measurement tools like opening and clicks – vital for feedback on how your emails are being acted upon.

Email list security

Your email list is a key part of your business. It takes time (and therefore has a value) to build so don’t loose it or give it away.

Benefits and disadvantages of email marketing

Driving visitor traffic to your website to ‘find out more’ broadens your opportunity to cross sell other goods and services and additionally, aids site search placement ranking.

The disadvantage of email marketing is that it is uni-directional. You are totally reliant on the receiver doing something with the email which is why it is so important to make it interesting, relevant and include a ‘call to action’.

How can we help?

We can work with you to:

• Set up a suitable email marketing service.
• Identify how to segment your customer base for maximum benefit in email campaigns.
• Develop email templates for use in your direct marketing email campaigns.

Additionally, if we build your website we can include an opt-in email marketing sign-up for your web visitors linking to an email marketing service should you require this.

Contact us to discuss setting up your email direct marketing solution.

Actually, both. So, what is the relationship between marketing and sales and how do they work together to generate new business? Start with an overview …

Marketing

You might have the best product or service available but without marketing you have no business.

Marketing raises your profile so letting customers know you exist and what you can do for them.

Key to marketing is knowing where purchasing decision makers look and how to make contact with them.

A website supports your business marketing. Visit these links to find out why a website supports your business marketing or to find out why you should have a website.

Our ‘Business First’ approach to website development is geared towards understanding your business and marketing needs.

Marketing generates sales opportunities which transfer to your sales pipeline.

For more marketing ideas see Email Direct Marketing, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), CRM and Customer Engagement and details of our CRM Business Service.

Sales

Sales opportunities, either from your marketing efforts or prospecting existing customers are added to your sales pipeline and some ultimately convert into orders.

The timeline for closing sales in the pipeline varies depending on the type of business your run. Inevitably along the way some sales opportunities will be lost through being qualified out either by the customer or you, lost to competitors or the opportunity just goes away.

The key thing to remember is that if you are not talking to your prospects then they could be talking to your competitors.

For more information on sales development see CRM in the Sales Process and qualifying to win new business SCOTSMAN.

Performance Measurement

The third element of any the marketing and sales process is measuring your marketing and sales effectiveness. Through this measurement process you will be able to improve your sales conversions into orders.