Company Core Values: Why Your Company Needs Them

When you look at your company, do you see a brand? When you think about your business, is there a culture or vision that underpins everything you do? We call this company core values.

If you have driven your business growth to the point where you now employ several people, across a few departments or if you’ve launched a new company like we did with Office Kitten recently, it may be time to establish a set of company values so that everyone is pulling in the same direction.

What will be the benefits of having a company DNA, or set of values, written down in this way?

Well, it spells out to all of your staff exactly what the business stands for; it will aid recruitment and will also help you win future business (hopefully).

Company Core Values: Where to begin?

Where do you begin? A small focus group will be the best starting point, taking at least one person from each department internally. Try to mix up the seniority of the people involved, to ensure you are getting the widest possible range of opinions.

Once you have your group gathered together, get them engaged on the subject of the company – what are the things that make us successful? What do they think we stand for? What are our strengths? What makes the company stand apart from the competition? What makes them proud to work here? How should we be conducting ourselves internally and externally?

Ensure someone is leading the process and someone else is taking notes – keep the session light and fast-paced and don’t let it slide into any mud-slinging, although all opinions on the company should be heard.

This will give you a great start in the process. Encourage those in your focus group to go away and tell the others in their department what’s been going on, to get a buzz going around the business.

Once this is over, attempt to simplify everything that’s been said as much as possible. Don’t make it a shopping list – less is definitely more, as staff get bored if there’s too much to understand.

Keywords

Look for four or five keywords that dominate from your group session. Can these work as headings for your values?

Perhaps it’s broad terms such as ‘passion’, ‘pride’, ‘knowledge’, ‘ambition’, ‘can-do’ or ‘solutions’. You can then describe under these headings what it is specifically that you mean in a practical, day-to-day sense.

Get these down, consult with senior colleagues and, when you’re happy, share with your workforce.

The ideal way to communicate your newly defined set of values is via training. This can be done either by department or all together and it’s vital that you get everyone fully involved and engaged.

Your workforce has to live and breathe this set of words; if they don’t buy into it, then the whole process has been for nothing.

It might work well to start by displaying your ‘headline’ words and asking staff to show you how this word will work in practice? Ask them ‘what does this mean to you?’ ‘Do you do this every day?’ ‘What does it mean to our customers?’

Part of daily life

Your values must be more than just a piece of paper, so ensure they are part of daily life in the workplace. It might be good practice to include the terms in staff one-to-ones and appraisals – how far is the employee living up to the values of the company in their actions?

Finally, your brand DNA and values must be ever evolving. The direction of a business can change quickly as new contracts or clients come on board, so make it an annual process to review the values and question if they still apply to the way the business is operating today.

With a defined set of values in place, you will be able to present yourself in a clear and attractive way to potential new customers and employees. It’s the next step in your business growth and you will reap the rewards by approaching it in the right way.

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3 Ways SMEs Can Maximise Online Marketing With no Additional Spend

There are around 58.6million internet users in the United Kingdom. Accounting for around 90 per cent of the population, it makes online marketing one of the most compelling activities to reach new customers.

With this in mind, here are three tried, tested and proven ways that any SME in any industry can reach more potential customers online without any additional spend, other than time, of course.

Embrace Twitter

Do you use Twitter? If so, how quickly is your following growing, and do you see any meaningful engagement? Popular automotive publication, Car Waffle, were able to double up on their Twitter following, hitting 31,000 followers and almost one million Tweet impressions a month in just three months, and crucially, without any spend.

In addition, their Twitter account is currently growing at rate of 5,000 followers per month, and as their audience grows, their rate of growth increases too. They also drive a whopping 10,500 link clicks every month.

What’s most interesting is the fact that if you too were able to drive this number of link clicks and the traffic only converted at a rate of 0.5 per cent – which is rather modest – it would account for 52 sales, web enquiries or email subscribers, depending on what your goal was.

That’s a fairly big deal considering Twitter is just one of many social networking platforms out there. Harness the power of others and social media alone could drive hundreds of additional conversions month in month out.

How did they do it?

Timing – Naturally it’s best to tweet when your audience is online and you can use a free tool such as Manage Flitter in order to determine this.

In addition, Twitter engagement for brands is 17 per cent higher on weekends, so if you don’t tweet on a Saturday and Sunday – which most brands don’t – you’re missing out on tons of extra engagement.

Images – Research shows that Tweets containing images will generally receive twice as much engagement. This is because the human brain can process images 60,000 times quicker than text. With Twitter’s new multi-image upload tool you can now add up to four per tweet, though one will usually suffice.

Links – Using the Bitly link shortener can make a tweet look far more visually pleasing than simply pasting in a full URL string, thus increasing the likelihood of it being retweeted. Using a link shortener also frees up more characters for you to be able to deliver your message.

Hash Tags – Use them, but use them sparingly; talking at an Expo just the other day, Georgina Parnell from Twitter said she recommends using a combination of no more than two blue elements per tweet (i.e. links, Twitter handles and hash tags).

Engage – Failing to engage with your audience by way of replying to their comments, tweets or mentions is one of the worst things you can do. Even if you don’t have time to reply to them all, you should reply to some.

Run Competitions

Let’s face it, everybody likes a good competition, right? Of course they do; however, most of us will only ever enter a competition if the prize is extremely relevant to our interests, or a lump of cash, naturally.

Although there are exceptions to the norm such as the online community of serial competition entrants, or ‘compers’ as they’ve become known. These individuals are often willing to take surveys, subscribe to mailing lists and engage via social media indiscriminately in exchange for the opportunity to win a prize.

Harnessing this community can produce an enormous boost in traffic, almost instantly. Just look at the graph below which Stoneacre Motor Group agreed to share, it shows an almost doubling of traffic to their website. Visits rose from 3,000 visits to 6,000 shortly after they announced a competition to win VIP tickets to an open air concert featuring One Direction.

However, it’s not all about traffic; a competition can be run with the aim of driving email subscribers too. Parenting blogs have proved to be particularly good at this with some adding over 10,000 email subscribers from a single competition.

Another good example is CCF, who set out to conduct a car tax disk survey and used a competition in order to drive participation, offering £100 worth of high street vouchers to one lucky winner. This resulted in 850 entries, email subscribers and completed surveys.

How do you get the most out of an online competition?

Make it simple

The more barriers you place between a visitor and your competition, the fewer entries you will receive. Competitions that perform best are those that simply require a retweet or a comment. As a general rule of thumb, try to keep the number of required actions to a maximum of two and if you ask people to enter by joining your mailing list don’t ask for too much information, a name and email address should suffice.

Harness your existing audience

If you already have a large number of email subscribers use them to drive additional engagement. The chances are they will be on social media and the average Facebook user has around 130 friends and the average Twitter user, 127 followers. By encouraging them to like, share or tweet your competition, you can very quickly spread the word to a much larger audience.

Competition Forums

There are literally dozens of online competition platforms. Most allow you to submit a competition for free. In addition, you can add a massive boost via paid competition platforms such as myukcompetitions.co.uk, who will guarantee 1,000+ genuine entries. They do this by promoting your competition to their list of 10,000 email subscribers, but a minimum prize value of £500 is required.

Here’s some of the best free to submit competition platforms:

Money Saving Expert – forums.moneysavingexpert.com

Loquax – loquax.co.uk

Twitaculous – twitaculous.com

Use Emojis

Emoji is Britain’s fastest growing language, according to Professor Evans and the research he conducted in conjunction with Talk Talk Mobile.

The research found that 8-in-10 of us use emojis when we communicate; that amounts to huge potential for businesses willing to communicate in this way, and though some may see it as unprofessional, many have already introduced its use across their digital marketing campaigns.

As far back as 2012, Experian analysed some of these businesses, 56 per cent of which reported an increase in open-rates when symbols such as emojis were included in the subject line of emails. In other research, a simple snowman symbol was shown to lift open-rates to a staggering 65.72 per cent. Considering the average email open-rate for business is 21.59 per cent and eCommerce just 16.89 per cent, that’s a pretty impressive result.

However, the use of emojis to enhance engagement stretches much further than just email campaigns. Examples of emojis being used across other marketing channels include the case of tennis player Andy Murray, who tweeted about his entire wedding day in a single tweet made up of 51 emojis; this earned him a staggering 13,848 retweets and 29,500 favourites.

In addition, some marketing executives have begun using emojis in their page titles which then show up in Google Search.

How to use emojis

Finding emojis – There are a number of online resources that list all available emojis one of the best by far is getemoji.com, as it allows you to quickly and easily copy & paste the emojis that you wish to use.

Where to use – Emojis can be used in status updates on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook as well as in email subject lines and web page titles that show up in Google Search, and even in printed material.

How many – According to software engineer Thomas Dimson, almost half of all comments and captions on Instagram are made up of emojis and it seems the more you use, the more engagement you get. However, for use in email subject lines a maximum of five seems to work best. For Google Search no more than three is advised.

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Dream Big, Win Big at #IBYE 2015

The Search is on for 93 of Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneurs.

Through Ireland’s Best Young Entrepreneur competition (#IBYE), over 90 people aged between 18 and 30 will win €10,000 – €20,000 to invest in their own businesses in Ireland this year.

That lump sum can buy that new piece of equipment you need; it can pay the salary of a new employee joining the team or it can fund that marketing campaign that will help your business expand into new markets.

Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Richard Bruton TD, pictured with the 2014 winners of the #IBYE competition. Photo: Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland

Last year, Philip Martin used his prize money to buy specialist machinery, helping him to open Ireland’s first tortilla-making factory in Tipperary (Winner: Best Business Idea).

The money also helped Eamon Keane take on highly skilled staff at Xpreso Software in South Dublin (Winner: Best Start Up Business/ Overall Winner). And it came in very handy when Dean Gammell from Westmeath was expanding his group booking software business into the UK (Winner: Best Established Business).

Every Local Enterprise Office (LEO) around the country has €50,000 (each) to invest in three local businesses and start-ups – and with 31 LEOs, that bring the total number of winners to 93. Each local winner will get an injection of cash between €10,000 and €20,000 to put straight into their business.

And that’s just the start!

Up to 500 young entrepreneurs and business owners will also be invited to take part in Business Bootcamps around the country, helping them finely tune their business plans or learn new enterprise skills. One-to-one mentoring and business coaching will also be available, through all 31 LEOs.

To be in with a chance to win, complete the entry form through the IBYE website on-line. But hurry, the deadline to enter this year’s competition is July 31st 2015.

There are some competition terms and conditions (you have to be aged between 18 and 30 for a start and your business idea or existing business must be in Ireland), but if you don’t try, you can’t win!

So, why not ‘Dream Big and Win Big’ at #IBYE 2015!

See more about #IBYE here on YouTube

(#IBYE is completely free to enter and is part of the Action Plan for Jobs 2015. It is supported by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation through Enterprise Ireland and the Local Enterprise Offices http://www.ibye.ie)

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Are You Living in Tomorrowland? Science Fiction to Science Fact

I had the pleasure of seeing Paul Hayes of BeachhutPR at work with a group of start ups. He explained that successful starts ups frame the future of the sector they operate in. Preferably in 5 words.

You need a vision

Which means you need to have a vision of that future. In order to do so you need to understand future trends in your sector. Without that you cannot frame the story.

No direction

But it is amazing how unaware people are of future trends and as a result do not have a vision, let alone a sense of direction.

Play Xbox and read science fiction

We regularly speak to groups of businesses about future proofing their business. The advice we give is this. Play Xbox and read science fiction. Because science fiction is becoming science fact. If you are a science fiction fan, you must have read “Neuromancer” (1984) by William Gibson. Or “Snow Cash” (1995) by Neal Stephenson. Cyber punk is now around the corner. If you belief in “Filter Bubble” then “1984” has already happened.

Tomorrowland

That is the world of “Tomorrowland” by Steve Kotler”. The co-author of “Bold”, the author of “The age of Superman”. A man steeped in science, technology and entrepreneurship. We reviewed it on Newstalk.

Sciencefact

In “Tomorrowland” Kotler describes how science fiction is now science fact, covering:

bionics
mind uploading
augmentation
flying cars
space diving
genetics
nuclear power
asteroid mining
life extension
stem cells
synthetic biology
religion

We are stepping into a weird and wonderful world. Exponential change is changing everything.

Kotler goes back to Kevin Kelly and “What technology wants”, claiming that technology in itself is an organism with an inevitable trajectory to AI, singularity (by 2029) or Skynet.

Some examples of science fact

We are building new bodies, soon we will build new brains. They are building intelligent prosthetics, they are building soul catchers (a micro memory chip implanted in the brain, capturing your life. IBM already build Watson but are now building a blue brain. They have built artificial eyes. We are (re-) terra forming the Everglades and will start applying that to other planets soon. We are 5 years away from asteroid mining (building an oil platform is more difficult). We can build portable safe portable nuclear reactors, which would address some of the climate chance and carbon issues we are (not) facing.

Climate change

Because of our involvement in Climatekick, solving the carbon problem is close to my heart. If an American got all his or her lifetime electricity solely from nuclear power, that person’s share of waste would fit into one soda can. If an American got all his or her electricity from coal, that person’s waste would weigh 68.5 tons and fit into six 12-ton railroad cars. And their share of carbon dioxide coal emissions would come to 77 tons. Nuclear reactors, meanwhile, have virtually no carbon footprint

Immortality

If Kurzweil is right, you will be able to download your brain onto a lap top. Immortality is around the corner.

Hacking biology

Evolution at the speed of Moore’s law. We are hacking Darwin. How long after that until parents are saying: I bought you the best brain money can buy — now why don’t you use it?

Biocrime

Did you ever read “I am Pilgrim” by Terry Hayes? Biocrime is new. But did you know that that the Secret Service is already taking extraordinary steps to protect presidential DNA. According to the Daily Mail, in May 2011, when Barack Obama stopped off for a pint of Guinness at Ollie Hayes’s pub in Moneygall, Ireland, his service detail quickly removed the glass from which he’d drunk.

They have created the world’s first self-replicating, synthetic chromosome. Synthetic Genomics is working on a designer algae that consumes CO2 and excretes biofuel. DuPont recently designed an organism that utilizes corn syrup to create a widely used polymer base for plastics manufacturing, saving 40 percent on energy costs.

Imagine organisms that can thrive in battery acid or on the surface of Mars, or enzymes able to polymerize carbon into diamonds or nanotubes. The ultimate limits to synthetic biology are hard to discern, and have yet to be explored.

Why is this relevant?

We can already hear the questions. Why is this relevant? This has nothing to do with business. Or the best one “this does not apply to my sector”.

Here are some examples of what that means:

If you are in computing or health; $ 2.7 billion to sequence DNA in 2000. Now it costs $ 1,000. It will cost a penny by 2020. It will be cheaper to sequence your DNA than flushing your toilet.
If you are in transport; a Predator drone cost 4 million. The crowd can build if for $ 300. The development of drones is accelerating at twice the speed of Moore’s law.
If you are in farming or retail; in 3 years there will be nano fridges that can print broccoli.
If you are in pensions; in 5 years there will be at least 2 million people that are completely digitized. DNA, neuro-profiles, bio markers, bacteria, food intake, etc. You will live to be 200 years. That is the current pension system gone.
If you are an accountant; Bitcoin will make accounting obsolete.
Builders need to be aware of 3D and 4D printing.

2020

By 2020 there will be fifty billion connected devices. A trillion by 2030. We will have robots, virtual technology, sensors everywhere, augmentation, AI, solar, nano, collaborative consumption, open innovation, local Techshops everywhere, neuro-enhancements, drones, Bitcoin, quantified self (everything in your life is measured).

It is coming your way

Name it. Impacting every industry. Doubling the speed of development every year. Getting cheaper, better, smarter.

Frame your future

Now frame your sector, your business and your success in that future. If you need help, that is what we do. And reading Tomorrowland is a good start.

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Free Trips to Silicon Valley for Tech-Focused Irish Startups

DCU Ryan Academy and Welcome are looking for 7 top Irish startups to win 7 great prizes…

Free trip to Silicon Valley

First up is a FREE trip (including travel) to Silicon Valley for 2 tech-focused Irish startups followed by an EU Roadshow giving your startup the opportunity to meet investors, corporates and international media.

You’ll spend 3 weeks in Silicon Valley at the Mind the Bridge Startup School to immerse your company into the Silicon Valley tech community. And when you get back – you’ll visit 4 EU cities – Milan, Berlin, Madrid and Salamanca and pitch your startup to leading members of their tech ecosystems.

Applications are via f6s and close Sunday 5th July so apply now!

2 major European tech events

Next up we are offering Europass places to 3 lucky startups. Winning companies will attend 2 major European tech events for FREE (including travel) – events like South Summit, Madrid in September and Slush, Helsinki in November.

Applications will open soon and close before the end of July. Keep an eye on our Twitter account for more info.

Special Silicon Valley Package

Last but not least, if you are a later stage tech startup (raised €50k+) we are offering a Silicon Valley package tailored for you.

We’re looking for 2 Irish startups to join our partners Mind the Bridge for a week in Silicon Valley where you will pitch, network and attend the MTB Startup School as well as taking part in European Innovation Day – a unique event designed to expose European startups to American investors. Startups will need to fund their own travel to Silicon Valley (for this trip only) but the value of the prize is €5,000 per startup.

Applications are open now via f6s until 20th July.

All of these initiatives are supported by the Welcome Project – a Startup Europe Initiative and funded by the European Commission.

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5 Interview Questions You Cant Ask (Legally)

Job interviews are difficult on everybody involved, and the employer or HR manager is not an exception. Treading lightly around questions that involve personal life is smart, but it can also keep you out of hot water in the legal sense. Read on for our 5 interview questions you cant ask…

1. Are You Married?

Unfortunately for many employers, litigation for these cases regarding questions just like this one often make it to state and federal courts. Interviewers are often tempted to ask this question, and those like it, because they want to know about their potential level of commitment to a career. Asking about an employee’s marital status or sexual orientation is illegal.

2. How Many Children Do You Have?

You cannot ask a potential employee if they intend to have children or if they already have them, according to the law. You are also not allowed to ask who is going to look after the children during work hours. Again, this is another question used to gauge the level of commitment to work. Instead of asking this question, revert to something along the lines of, “Will any of your responsibilities interfere with job requirements?” or “How many hours can you commit each week to work?”

3. What is Your First Language?

You might notice that the individual you are interviewing has an accent or does not seem to be a native speaker; however, making assumptions about their language is not a good idea. It is legal to ask instead, “What languages do you read and speak fluently?” If you slip up and ask a prospect’s first language, the applicant could potentially take you to court. If you find yourself in this predicament, consider asking for professional advice from Sattiraju Law Firm or a law firm in your particular area.

4. How Old are You?

It is understandable that you want your candidate to be mature, but asking about your employee’s age is not legal. Additionally, you cannot ask your candidate about plans if retirement may be nearing. On the other hand, it is legal to ask if your candidate is over the age of 18.

5. What Religious Holidays Do You Celebrate?

While this question seems innocent as a reference to whether or not holidays will interfere with work schedules, asking an employee about their religion is not legal. If you are looking for a way to get around the question without being inappropriate, you can ask, “Are you available to work on Sundays?”

If you find yourself in a position where an illegal question has been asked, it is wise to hire an attorney with a specialty in employment law to help see you through an otherwise trying process.

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How Well Do You Sell?

Conversions are the end product; no way, we can avoid that argument. The question though is not of how to convert: it is of how well can you convert. Converting well is an art, like any kind of well executed business process. But how does one recognize, measure or otherwise gauge how are they faring in this tricky art? If you have bones about the fact that digital marketing does work in as much complication then that’s one topic you can always research more on. The complication for marketers today is not getting conversions done, it’s knowing whether their customers are going home happy or not.

Selling online is easy, selling well is not. Selling well can mean two things really, either your products or services are being sold in tens and hundreds daily or your customer becomes happy with you and you have a constant stream of revenue from a few possible customers. The rest of the gritty details are what we can refer to as extras which can enhance or sometimes destabilize our working flows. As a marketer though, you want to be able to realize what these details are because they can further help us in optimizing the conversion part of our sales campaign.

PR campaigns

Lot of the marketers around the optimization niche recognizes PR as the kind of pivot which a business must adopt in order to establish a more concrete selling policy. PR has taken a new turn though because while readers love blogs where the writers and admins take effort to answer each individual comment, the mass of the building has gone to the social media. Answering the tweets, retweeting the important ones and updating information regularly not only promotes your written article, it also builds positive value for the audience.

Using CTAs

Calls to actions have been around since marketing itself. In fact, it’s debatable as to what came first. Digitally, your one good CTA can make quite a difference in how well you convert your leads to sales or subscription. Remember how performable increase their revenue by 21% just by changing the color of the CTA button.

What surprises people often about CTAs though is how often they can easily end up creating a lot of leads for their websites but no actual conversions, which brings me to the next part of my equation.

Feedback tools

Chat software and heat maps serve an integral part of this conversation. Each serve a different purpose in terms of the data they give and yet the data they end up presenting serves to be equally important. The key driving action behind feedback is improvement. Any feedback you get from your customers can give you a better chance to improve your site’s action. Plus, with tools like live chat and heatmaps you can literally drive your traffic to the point of active conversions. The key highlight is to always note the driving motivator behind your high performing site areas though and then work on the rest of your site according to your findings.

How do you put all this together?

Marketing is a composition game at the end of the day. I can give out a thousand tools and share insights by a thousand gurus but the key to any successful marketing campaign is composition. Your content, your collateral and your website have to make impact, period.

Impact however is only the beginning, once the traffic comes in the thousands and once the content gets read by even more that’s the stage where you need to accurately sum up what you have been doing with the traffic.

As it is though, selling is an art of common sense. Cater to the needs and requirements of the audience and that’s your branding done, go the extra step with their needs and they convert.

Rocket Science? It’s not but then the many variances and complications within it make it fascinating and determine the good marketers from the exceptional ones.

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5 Things That Your Small-Business Website Needs

A couple of weeks back, I happened upon a website that probably defined what you “don’t” want in your website. I honestly don’t know where to begin. The website had no proper home page and opens directly to the ‘About’ page, which is practically blank. In fact, when you click on the home page link, it redirects to the pricing page. There was no call to action, the content was far from engaging and there were so many broken links.

A mere glance at it and you could understand how unprofessional the website was. There are so many horrendous sites on the Web that it goes beyond bad web design. In fact, the success of a website depends on numerous things and its aesthetic appeal is just one of them. What is more important is to have a user-friendly website that your customers/potential customers not just love to browse, but actually do business with.

The following are 5 essential elements your small business website must have to boost your business.

1. Have a Simple Web Address

Why make things unnecessarily complicated ?

Your domain name should be simple and easy to remember. Remember that it’s like your brand and therefore must be easy enough for users to remember and type into a Web browser. A “.com” domain is recommended by most marketers. In fact, almost 52 percent of all websites are .com domains. You should therefore try to by a .com site unless it is a government, non-profit or organization website. Even in case of latter, it is recommended to have a .com version as well so that you don’t lose traffic, should a user type the .com address accidently.

It is easy to recall a .com site, which also makes it a default domain extension. Many use dash, hyphen or an underscore if a .com name is not available for their business. While you may choose do so, it is recommended to avoid such practices as they often look spammy apart from causing SEO headaches. The same goes for using numbers in your website address as it usually causes confusion for customers.

2. Say More about You

Take the guessing game out of your business website. When a visitor comes across your website, it should take no time for him/her to understand what you do/offer. In other words, you should clearly state your name along with a brief introduction of your products or services right on the homepage.

This is why experts often advice against using homepage carousels, especially for B2B websites. If possible, avoid them for any kind of websites as they are frustrating for users and bad for both SEO and usability.

As an entrepreneur, your goal is tell people who you are, what you do and how you can help them through your website. A clear description is what you need to tell your visitors that they have come in the right place. In fact, a proper description of who you are and what you do can help you attract visitor’s attention within 2-3 seconds and also encourage them to stay longer and browse through your website.

3. Easy Navigation

Your visitors are no explorers; so stop expecting them to browse through the website to find what they are looking for. Instead, you need to guide them through your website. Clear links and a site map to take your visitors to the important pages of your website is crucial here.

In other words, your navigation should be clearly laid out. Using dropdowns in your navigation menu is one of the best ways to ensure that your visitors can easily see the content you offer throughout the site under every heading.

4. Incorporate a Proper ‘Call to Action’

Just like you need to show your visitors where to go, you would also want to tell them what to do. And while you are at it, make sure you use clear tones of commend to do it. Also use the special call to action (CTA) buttons or at least highlighting the text to make your message stand out again the background and other content.

There are several types of call to action buttons and each serve a different purpose. So the first thing you need to understand is what the purpose of your call to action is – do you want your visitors to sign up or call for free quote, or to download what you have to offer.

It is the most significant part of your landing page. And if you don’t want to join the list of pathetic CTAs avoid using term like “submit,” “buy now” and “click here” etc. Your web designer should also avoid these CTA mistakes that cost you a lot in the long run.

5. Add Fresh, Quality Content

Your website is an opportunity to make a great first impression on your customers. Content is your secret weapon to do it. When you provide your customers with exactly what they’re looking for, they are more likely to come back for more and perhaps also do business with you.

The content therefore should be valuable, original and well written. Besides, Google’s obsession with fresh, quality content is another reason why you need to start adding valuable content to your website on a regular basis. It is a goldmine for SEO.

Incorporating a blog into your business website and updating the same with insightful posts related to your domain, is a great way keep your content fresh. This also ensures that Google and other search engines crawl your website on a regular basis, which again is key to improve your ranking on the search engine result pages.

For example, a web design firm based in Charlotte that keep its blog updated with regular and high-quality content has better chances of ranking on the search result pages when someone searches for a “Web Design Charlotte” company.

Additionally, you can connect your social media feeds to your website for the same purpose.

Conclusion

When developing your business website, remember that it’s not about you but your customers. This is applicable to all aspects of your website, from design and usability to content. Consider what your target audience needs. For every decision you make, ask yourself: “Will my target audience find it useful?” If not, think what you could do differently to increase its value to your target audience. Finally, remember that your focus should be on “user experience” and you goal is to make it as “seamless” as possible.

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Helpful Healthcare: What Are Clinics Doing Differently To Retain Clients?

Starting a new clinic can be quite challenging, and retaining patients is one of the many challenges new clinics face. Patients are often loyal to doctors they’ve been going to for years and just starting out it can be hard to generate reviews right away. Today there are many things new clinics are doing in order to retain clients, and below is a list you can adopt for yourself to get started.

Implementing a Referral Program

Implement a referral program where new patients who refer friends and family get rewards and discounts. These programs are not only great for recruiting new patients, but can also help the staff build relationships with their existing patients. If patients get a reward for referring other patients, then they will likely continue going to the clinic.

Surveying Patients

Clinics today are asking patients to give their feedback whenever possible. Surveys help give your business an idea of what they can do to improve their service. One of the key things is to offer quality care. If you are thinking about surveying new patients, it’s important to remember that a very short survey can give an indication of the patient’s opinion of their visit. Some clinics have patients complete a five-question survey about their visit before they leave which can be great for feedback on the clinic itself and the kind of care given by staff.

Reminding Patients of Their Appointments

People today are extremely busy and can easily forget about the appointment they have scheduled. It’s common practice now to call patients the day before in order to remind them of their appointment. Emailing and texting is also growing in popularity or you might consider hiring patient engagement solutions like Solutionreach to do the work for you. You can go even further by asking which reminder method they prefer, and what time of day wouldn’t be an interruption for them. Extra courtesies like these can be just the thing to win over new patients.

Convenient Waiting Rooms

Visiting any clinic is a stressful experience for many people. Try your best to make the waiting experience more convenient where you can. For example, you could have a TV and remote set up for patients to use or you could offer bottled water when they first arrive.

Follow-Up with New Patients

It’s always a smart idea for new clinics to follow up with a new patient. For example, a receptionist may call and ask about how their visit went. Patients may also receive an email asking about their visit. Calling and emailing help clinics build relationships and strengthen bonds with loyal customers.

It is not easy starting a new clinic since some struggle to retain patients at first. However, many practices are growing because they have implemented a referral program, follow-up with their patients, and ask them to take a survey. Small touches can be the key to giving new patients what they need and an experience they won’t forget.

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How These 4 Companies Made a Successful Comeback

Many big companies that have filed for Chapter 11 or been the brink of bankruptcy have been able to take incredible steps to organize hugely successful comebacks. The decisions made by company leadership during times of crisis and during restructuring have been crucial to the companies’ comebacks and provide critical lessons for businesses looking to transform challenges into opportunities for growth and improvement.

Apple Inc.

Steve Jobs orchestrated one of the best-known company comebacks for Apple, Inc. He negotiated a deal with Microsoft in 1997 that saved the company from bankruptcy with a $150 million investment and updated the Mac version of Microsoft Office. Jobs studied the organization and implemented a change management strategy that propelled Apple into developing cutting-edge technology for more than a decade.

Instead of banking on the success of the late 1990s, Jobs looked ahead. He connected the iPod, iPhone, and iTunes Store to open new markets that would change the way we interact with our personal technology and media. One of the keys to his success was good project and change management strategy. Change was part of his strategy from the beginning until the end. He adopted change as part of the company’s success. With excellent organizational consulting firms like Ruota Consulting, specializing in helping companies face challenges, companies can develop and pursue successful change management strategies like what Steve Jobs put in place for Apple.

Continental and United Airlines

Continental Airlines suffered two bankruptcies, one in 1983 and the other 1990. Though it continued to operate flights, thanks to the Bankruptcy Protection Law, the airline struggled into the 2000s. In 2002, United Airlines faced bankruptcy as well. The two airlines commenced negotiations of a merger that would pool together their resources and hopefully minimize the damages of bankruptcy. This merger finally took place officially in 2010, and the two became United Continental Holdings. By 2015, United Continental Holdings had become the 345^th largest company in the world, according to Forbes Global 2000 ratings.

Marvel Worldwide, Inc.

Marvel entered bankruptcy in 1996, as it became clear that comic books were a dying medium. Though instead of allowing the company to join the ranks of forgotten heroes, the company’s leadership did a serious self-evaluation during this crisis and made critical decisions based on this assessment. Years later these good decisions paid off, with the company carrying a $4 billion price tag when Disney Company acquired it in 2009.

The key to Marvel’s comeback success was looking inward and carefully and accurately evaluating the strengths of the company. Marvel’s core business strengths included a highly loyal customer base, powerful brand, thousands of widely known characters, and even thousands more already-proven successful stories. Its executives keenly identified that profitability in a digital entertainment industry would come from proprietary content and banking on high-paying repeatable formulas for the digital medium. Today, Marvel is a movie giant, and its stories and characters are essential elements of popular culture.

Trump Entertainment Resorts

Donald Trump companies have bankrupted four times. Each bankruptcy though has provided an opportunity for Trump’s companies to restructure and improve their financial position. Trump has also lost the great majority of ownership and been forced to resign. However, this too is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, it’s hard to fix mistakes with the same leadership. Change is not always bad, and with an estimated net worth of $4.1 billion dollars in June 2015, according to Forbes, it’s clear that Trump is not bad off after multiple bankruptcies and losing influence in his company.

Companies should always act responsibly in managing their resources. However, sometimes crises are unavoidable, and can bring on needed change. These moments provide critical opportunities for good leadership to take hold and effect changes that will put the company in a better situation down the road. A company that takes the time to recognize these opportunities, equip itself with support, and develop plans for change can actually come out of a financial challenge like bankruptcy even stronger than before.

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