S3 Blog

Emails are one of the most popular forms of communication today and people spend a great deal of time reading their e-mail each day. In order to get the most from your e-mail marketing you need to make sure that you are following the 10 best e-mail marketing practices, which are:

1. Be consistent - regardless of what type of business you are if you frequently e-mail your customers you need to keep the look of your e-mails consistent. This will help to imprint your brand image into the minds of your customers and will keep your subscribers coming back for more.

2. Think about the Tuesday / Wednesday response time - this is the theory that the best time to send a business e-mail is on Tuesdays or Wednesdays as people are more responsive to e-mails on these days.

3. Utilise a sign up confirmation - in order to avoid your e-mails being classed as spam you should go for a double process for your customers to opt in. So after a customer has entered their e-mail address on to your website you should send them an e-mail to confirm their subscription. It also appears to contain a link to your e-mail marketing program within the e-mail which will help to verify that your customer signed up to your e-mail subscription.

4. Give subscribers a one click unsubscription option. If subscribers no longer want to receive your e-mails allow them to opt out using a one click unsubscription.

5. Be personal - make sure that you address your subscribers by their name in the first line of the e-mail. Doing this helps to build customer confidence in your brand as they feel as though they already have a personal relationship with your business.

6. Avoid spam filters - spam filters will take any e-mails that they consider as spam and either put them into a spam box or block them totally. So when you’re writing your e-mails try to avoid words such as discount, free, save or any monetary symbols.

7. Half second subject line - make your subject line of your e-mail is short and punchy. When we e-mails subscribers usually spend approximately half a second reading the subject of each e-mail, so make sure you capture their attention with a short subject line.

8. Offer a free bonus - although many e-mails claim to offer something for free many fail to deliver. So for your customers a money off coupon or even a free e-book if they subscribe to your subscription - and make sure that you give it to them.

9. Always have a signature on the bottom of your e-mails - by providing your name company details, a link to your website and the cover how to unsubscribe your e-mails will be more attractive to your subscribers.

10. E-mail based information /learning -why not offer a 10 part in learning course which will be e-mailed to subscribers? This type of e-mail is hugely popular and can help your subscription list to grow substantially.

One of the main reasons that businesses fail today is that they do not stay in touch with what their customers want and begin to appear dated in the way that they advertise, conduct business and contact their customers. What might have worked well for a business 20 or so years ago will not cut it in the consumer world of today and businesses are realising they need to reinvent themselves to keep up to date. Initially it can seem like a costly venture for any business owner to reinvent their business, but thanks to S3 CRM it is much more cost effective than you might think.

S3 CRM can help businesses to reinvent themselves by streamlining their procedures and process through:

1. Providing the means to create easy to access and add to customer and employee contact databases.
Creating invoices and quotes quickly and easily and attaching them to customer contact details.
Plan projects and assign them to employees using S3 CRM, business owners are also able to see who has the most projects, which projects are open and which are approaching their deadlines.
Set alerts for when projects and tasks are nearing completion dates.

2. Create email marketing campaigns using an easy to follow structure which means that even a novice can successfully create email marketing campaigns in minutes. Email marketing is one area that many business owners are wary of as they believe that it takes certain expertise to do so and as a result shy away from attempting to produce them. With S3 CRM a business can move forward and reinvent themselves adding email marketing to their methods of contacting customers. Once an email marketing campaign has been sent users can check on its effectiveness using the reporting tools available through S3 CRM.

3. Send SMS messages using S3 CRM – this is another great way for businesses to stay in touch with customers.

4. S3 CRM also has additional reporting tools which can allow business owners to see the conversion rate for quotes, which customers have the most outstanding invoices, which customers have the placed the most orders and so on. In fact using S3 CRM can help a business to get the best from reporting so that it can increase profits and reduce outstanding invoices.

5. Each individual user is able to customise their own dashboard upon which they can place widgets of the features they use most often, this helps to cut down on the time spent opening different features and scrolling through screens.

6. As S3 CRM is web based users can access their account from anywhere in the world with internet access, this allows a business to provide the same service from anywhere – a total reinvention if users previously all had to be based in the same office.

These are just a few of the ways that S3 CRM can help businesses to reinvent themselves and there are many more to choose from.

When your business is doing well it is all too easy to rest on your laurels and believe that this will continue indefinitely, but this is not the case, particularly in light of the recent recession that has hit the UK. Business owners are now facing the fact that they need to compete or get beat and as a result they are looking for ways in which to do this. Here are a few suggestions on how you can compete and beat your competitors:

1. Do away with old and outdated ways of recording customer contacts, using complicated and ineffectual methods to record customer contacts creates confusion and vital information is sometimes missed. Without streamlined way to record contacts conversions can be missed and customers lost.

2. Cut down on the number of software applications your business uses – spending thousands each year on software licenses eats away at money that could be spent on other areas of your business, such as advertising.

3. Check out what your competitors are doing – if you have no idea what your main competitors are doing you need to find out, and fast! In order to compete you need to know and understand your competition or your business is out of the running and is already beaten.

4. Use email marketing to reach more customers – more and more businesses are seeing the value of email marketing as it is a fast and effective way of sending advertising directly to their customers. S3 CRM offers email marketing as one of its features and this can help any business to instantly compete with its rivals by enabling users to plan, create and send email campaigns in minutes.

5. Create a business website if you don’t already have one. The internet is an amazing way of generating business and the chances are that your competitors are already doing all they can to increase their internet presence.

6. Think about using other internet methods to further spread the word about your business brand. This can be done in many different ways including blogging – these are massively popular right now and a great way to engage with your customers and keep them interested in your business, social networking sites – create a profile for your business and spread the word, or you might want to take out advertisements on these sites as they get huge amounts of traffic. Not only are these types of methods effective, they are also cheap and they encourage customers to visit your business’s website more often.

As you can see there are a variety of ways in which you can start to actively change the way that your business competes with your competitors if you are not already doing so. Customers are becoming more and more fickle when it comes to choosing who and where the purchase good and services from so it is essential to engage with them and make them feel valued to retain their custom.

Finding a software solution that you can virtually run your business from can seem like an uphill struggle and that is why a great deal of businesses wind up using several different software applications. This is not only hard to work with (no one likes to have to have four or more applications open at one time and have to flick between them constantly) it is also very expensive. Due to this many small to medium sized businesses find that they have to cut corners or decide which software solutions they can afford to run at the expense of others. If you are the owner of a small to medium sized business that wants an amazing all round CRM solution S3 CRM really is a one stop shop. Here is what you can expect from S3 CRM the most flexible, accessible, comprehensive, cost effective and user friendly CRM solution available:

- Customer contact and employee contact information storage – here users can store all customer and employee contact details in different categories for easy retrieval.

- Storage features – quickly and easily store all information relating to a customer with their contact details so no information will ever go missing again.

- Quoting and invoicing tools – create quotes in moments on multiple lines and with VAT added as standard. When a customer accepts a quote users can easily turn these into invoices to be sent at a later date.

- Employee calendars – this feature allows a business owner to see which employees are available, on holiday or away sick.

- Project tools – use this feature to plan and implement projects, assign projects to users and see which users are in charge of which projects. Using this means that no project deadline should ever be missed, even if the user in charge of a project is absent.

- Email marketing – create email marketing campaigns in minutes and send them to your email marketing list.

- Reporting tools – see which invoices are outstanding, who has replied to email marketing, which customer has the most repeat orders and much more.

- Easy to use dashboard – users can create their own dashboard with all their regularly used features and tools on it. Business owners can tailor theirs so that they can see their business at a glance.

- Accessibility – as S3 CRM is web based users can log into their account from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection which means that business owners can stay in touch with the office even when they are not in the country.

- Easy to use – S3 CRM is so easy to use that anyone can learn how to access and it’s features in just a few hours – so say goodbye to long and expensive training days for employees. Just sign up a new user and they can be using S3 CRM in well under one day – without any intensive training.Cost effective – S3 CRM costs £4.99 / $9.99 per month which makes it one of the most reasonably priced CRM solutions on the market.

In addition to these features S3 CRM also offers – document storage, meeting planning tools, route optimisation tools, recycle bin – the list is endless, proving that S3 CRM really is a one stop shop.

Today the amount of business that is solely conducted via the internet is staggering, for some consumers it is the first place that they will look if they want to buy certain goods or obtain certain services. Due to this it is essential that if you own a business you have an online presence as this will not only boost your profits but it will also make more people aware of your business and brand. If you are unsure how to do this here are the top 10 things that you should do to maximise your online presence:-
 
1. Create a website for your business – this is one of the most obvious ways to get an online presence, yet some businesses do not have their own website, so make sure that you have one for your business.

2. Create a blog for your business – once again this is another way of raising your online presence and is also an excellent way of communicating information with potential customers.

3. Create a profile on a social networking site for your business – many businesses now do this and they have their customers listed as their friends, once again this is a fantastic way of communicating with customers.

4. Generate an email marketing campaign – this will help to raise awareness of your online profile and can reach thousands of people for very little effort and even less cost.

5. Submit articles relating to your site to directories and submission sites – these are another way of promoting your business and should have links that go directly to your website.

6. Create good SEO for your website – SEO is the term given for Search Engine Optimisation which is the process of tailoring your website content so that certain keywords that relate to your business are included in certain percentages. Doing this will help to get you on the first page of search engine results pages.

7. Submit your website to as many search engines as you can – this might take some time but can pay off large dividends in the long run. Aim for the largest search engines first and work your way down to lesser engines.

8. Invest in pay per click advertisements – if you feel that your business can afford such a form of advertising use PPC as this is a great way of driving traffic to your website and maximising profits.

9. Have a customer referral program – these are very useful if you want more people to know about you, offer your existing customers an incentive via a referral program for every new customer they refer to you.

10. Take advantage of forums – join as many forums that are related to your business as possible and comment on them, placing links back to your website. For example if you pet products join a site for pet lovers and watch your online presence grow.
 
Remember the more your business is mentioned on various websites the greater your online presence will be, so get out there and do so promotion!

Is the snow preventing you getting out to see your customers?

Is the snow preventing your employees getting into the office?

Is your productivity down?

S3 CRM can help you resolve all of these issues and ensure your business stays ahead of the competition during the current disruption the UK is facing.

S3 CRM can help you remain in contact with your customer through its email marketing tool. All communication with your customers can be recorded centrally against their account.

Your employees can carryout their work at home or anywhere there is an Internet enable device - they don’t have to be in the office. They can all access documents centrally and track each others progress using the project management functionality

By working at home and also remaining in contact with your customers your productivity as a business will not be affecting ensuring you stay ahead of your competion

Just a couple of ideas of where S3 CRM can help during this snowy period.

Enjoy the snow

Sarah

Marketing is a method that businesses the world over use to advertise their services, products and the business and brand itself. With a growing number of businesses having their own websites email marketing is big business with new customers subscribing to newsletters, updates, press releases and promotional emails with their favourite companies. Using email marketing is a cheap, fast and effective way of delivering news and other information to customers directly with none of the usual marketing costs associated. This makes it the ideal marketing tool for any business that is looking to reach a wide audience almost instantly directly into their customer’s inboxes. Not only that but email marketing is the preferred option for businesses who want to be seen as Green and thinking of their impact on the environment.

For email marketing campaigns to be successful they must target people who are likely to a) read the email, and b) likely to respond to it. Here are a few hints and tips to make sure that you are maintaining your email marketing list so that you are getting the most from it;

1. Get your customer’s email addresses on your contacts list – this might seem straightforward and common sense but it is surprising how many businesses fail to ask for this information during a phone call. Obviously if a customer contacts you by email their email address can be collected easily – but make sure you add it to your contact list.

2. Make sure that you don’t send too many email marketing campaigns out each month – repeatedly getting emails from a business is a sure fire way to annoy your customers and potential customers. No one likes their inbox being flooded with marketing emails so make sure each one you send has something worth reading.

3. Use S3 CRM to create and send your email campaigns then you can check on the reports to see which emails have bounced back. By doing this you can delete any email addresses that are no longer valid, this will give you a better indication as to how successful each campaign you send is.

4. Delete any subscribers from your list who wish to unsubscribe, once again doing this will give you a clearer view of how many subscribers are reading their emails and clicking through. After all if you send an email to 1,000 people and 100 of these expressed a wish to unsubscribe you are losing out on 10% of your potential unique reads before you have sent a single email.

By adhering to these few hints and tips you will be able to successfully maintain an email marketing list that works with you and presents statistics that are more valid than one that is filled of bounced back emails and people wishing to unsubscribe. If you get into the habit of maintaining your list you will find that it takes less and less time each week or month as you will only be adding new contacts and deleting old / expired ones as you find them.

Dear All,

It has been a very busy year at S3 CRM.  Since the launch of the service in July this year we have been constantly releasing new functionality and making improvements based on feedback from you the customer.

Our biggest launch, this year has been our email marketing tool which enables you to connect with all your customers at the click of a button and at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing techniques

Our roadmap for 2009 is just as exciting as 2008 has been.  Our first  development will be the integration of S3 CRM with the IPhone.  As always please let us know your thoughts on this and also your requirements

I want to take this opportunity to thank all our customers for their support during this period and to wish you all a Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

Kindest
Sarah

the tough get emailing!

Have you had chance to check out our email marketing tool?

Keep in touch with all your customers, update them on your latest offers, products & services, also contact new customers - all of these functions are possible using S3 CRM’s email marketing tool.

Let us know what you think?

Sarah

Reason No. 4

“Marketing information and tools – For CRM to be a complete success you need to be able to store and extract data which could assist marketing and sales such as average revenue per customer and instant invoicing tools.”

It costs over 35p to send an A4 letter through the post in the UK today. Sending the same information via email is less than 1/10th of a penny. Not only that - using eMail marketing tools you can see who actually read your letter, when they read it and whether or not they clicked on any of the links within it.

eMail marketing, when done correctly, is a powerful and effective way in which to grow your business.

Regards

Dean