Feedback
Outsourcing |
I’m sure most of you have heard of the four hour work-week. Is it really possible? Thanks to the “leveled playing field” and “following the sun work hours” it may be somewhat realistic. So you like to be in control and keep an eye on each and every tiny wheel that turns and keeps your business running smoothly. Instead of burning the candle at both ends and killing yourself, it is better if you get other people to do the job for you.
Outsourcing is really cool because you can get area experts with special skills and training to do a million things which take up your time and resources. It also gives you an outsider’s view about your business. It can be a bit scary at first as you might feel that you are letting other people in your own territory but remember it is you who holds the reins and these people are just providing you their services.
There are some really good outsourcing platforms out there. You can read my post on an analysis of different outsourcing sites here. I have personally used Elance.com to find most of my team - everyone from designers, writers to SEO experts. I make sure I meet with them over Skype regularly to keep a tap on the work. Having a solid plan for performance measurement and deliverables helps in managing the teams better.
We’ve outsourced much of our SEO and writing related work to different offsite teams. Once you get over your initial hesitation to outsource, it actually ends up becoming much easier to manage your time this way. Also, in this way we have dedicated people working on their areas of expertise. We mostly use Elance.com for finding providers. Outsourcing is a heaven-sent so do make your life easy with it…
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Traffic Through Wikis, Forums & Groups |
In Hawaiian, wiki means “fast” and this is how your marketing flourishes if you use wikis. What makes wikis powerful is their ability to enable multiple people to work on the same platform from miles away - it promotes values of contribution and sharing. It is the basic foundation of the openware movement that began a few years ago and continues to be so. For those of you who don’t know, wikis support hyperlinks, allow you to create new pages and link several internal pages.
We’re driving traffic into our sales funnel through multiple channels and sources, including (but not limited to) wikis, forums and social groups. The groups are from different social networking platforms like Yahoo, LinkedIn and Facebook. We already have a presence on those groups and have active followings. The idea is to drive that traffic into the sales funnel so that they can individually decide whether or not they want to be part of our launch.
In certain groups, such as LinkedIn, we’ve used their Q&A system to get in touch with industry leaders and other prominent people in the market. We’re running a side campaign of super promoters alongside our launch preps and are going through a heavy drive to identify and sign up prospective promoters into the system. The promoters are people who wish to monetize on their lists and are looking for a means of significantly chunky side income. Through the Q&A we get in touch with prospects and direct them into our sales funnel - which typically involves their participation in our surveys. The surveys are meant to put a realistic picture on the usage of social media apps in the industry which will not only help us identify our markets better, but will also give us an idea on how much detail to get into in our upcoming ebook; these people are, after all, our targeted readers. Valuable insight into the statistics of these surveys will also be beneficial for anyone working in or curious about the industry…
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Customer Feedback |
Feedback is one of the essential elements of good communication and we take it very seriously. Feedback is a chance to understand what the customers want, what they like or dislike, what their expectations are. Once you interact, relate, bond, build trust; then only can you market and promote. We always encourage feedback at every step of the way throughout our prelaunch and launch campaign. We have dedicated people parsing through the feedback to get valuable insight and information out of it. If needed, we alter our tactical level plans to be best in line with the customer’s feedback and expectations.
This communication doesn’t stop at the initial stage. You have to be WITH the people at each and every stage and be able to gauge their thoughts about what you are doing. You can and you must use your visitors feedback to make your campaign perfect.
At Events Listed, we believe that getting to know the mindset of your visitors and getting their feedback can turn them into buyers and eventually regular customers. The easiest way of getting feedback is that you simple ask them. NEVER assume that you know what they want or what they are thinking. And don’t just ask but act accordingly.
You can ask them through online questionnaires and surveys. The questions should be simple, succinct and to the point. If you have a questionnaire, ask a few key questions and keep them interesting so people feel like answering them. Convey to the people that giving feedback is in their best interest as it will mean better quality for them. Remember that you can strengthen your relations through feedback. You can collect the feedback via email, feedback buttons on your website, polls, blogs or through a ratings list…
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Feedback |
OK now I have my opportunity sketched out in my mind - backed up with research that confirms I will be able to attract a huge volume of traffic at varying degrees of cost. It’s time to see what the market thinks about the idea before I commit to executing it.
So I’ll search for forums, communities and groups based on my listed keywords. I will also engage people directly in different social networking sites - like Google groups, Twitter & Facebook groups. These platforms are the real world equivalent of a group of people all standing in a huddle on a street corner whom you know are all potential customers. Not just any customer, they are targeted customers who have joined a community of other likeminded folks who all have an interest in what you have to offer. Event planners and promoters.
Just like in real life, you wouldn’t walk into a private group of people with a big banner ad and fliers, spamming people in social networking sites is no different. Engage them in conversation and ask them their interests before asking them if they would mind taking time out to give you some feedback on your new website opportunity. Offering to remunerate them for their time is even better etiquettes, some say. I work my way across the networks until I find 100 or more people who are perfect candidates for my survey.
I have only spent a thousand dollars or two on paid ads to date so paying 100 people $10 each for answering a quick survey of 10 questions is only going to cost me another $1000. This is cheap insurance before forking out tens of thousands or asking an investor to fork out hundreds of thousands of dollars to launch a site that until you ask 100 people you have no idea how it will be received anyway. You are going to need an online survey, I use survey monkey it only costs around $100 for a year to use their paid service, which is very effective.
I will always write a brief outline of the opportunity and post it in the intro of any survey - an example of which you will see at www.EventsListed.com/EventLine
I then add 10 multiple choice questions that give me the surety on questions you must be asking yourself at this stage about what exactly may or may not be needed in a site like the one I am assuming the market wants.
If done right these survey results will hold all your answers and as stated, for a cost of no more than $2000 you have everything you need to confidently decide to spend a lot more money executing the opportunity or at worse you have invested $2000 and some time to save you wasting a lot more time and money on an venture that would most certainly not have paid off.
Simon U Ford (SUF.EDBD)
Today’s tip! Twitter delivers Events Listed more traffic than Google search on any given day. Become immune to the Google slap by managing your Twitter campaign professionally.
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