1. The pacesetting leader expects and models excellence and self-direction.  This is the “do as I do, now” style.   This is great for an already motivated and skilled team and quick results are needed.  If it is overused it can overwhelm team members and squelch innovation.
2. The authoritative leader mobilizes the team toward a common vision and focuses on end goals, leaving the means up to each individual.  This is the “come with me” style.  This is best when the team needs a new vision because circumstances have changed and inspires an entrepreneurial spirit and enthusiasm for the mission.  It is not ideal if working with a team of experts who know more than the leaders.
3. The affiliate leader works to create emotional bonds that bring a feeling of bonding and belonging to the organization.  This is the “people come first” style.  The affiliate leader is best in times of stress or when the team needs to rebuild trust.  Sole reliance on the praise and nurturing from this style can cause mediocre performance and a lack of direction, so it should not be overused.
4. The coaching leader develops people for the future.  This is the “try this” style.  This style effectively builds lasting personal strengths in teammates making them more successful overall.  It is not affective with defiant teammates, teammates unwilling to change, or a leader lacking proficiency.
5. The coercive leader demands immediate compliance.  This is the “do what I tell you” style.  This is most effective in times of crisis, company turnaround, takeover or during an actual emergency such as an earthquake or fire.  This style controls a problem teammate when everything else has failed but should be avoided in nearly every other situation.  The coercive leader tends to alienate people and stifle flexibility and inventiveness.
6. The democratic leader builds consensus through participation.  This style is summed up as the “what do you think” phase.  The democratic leader is most effective when the leader needs the team to buy into or have ownership of a decision, plan or goal.  It also works when the leader is uncertain and needs fresh ideas from qualified teammates.  It is ineffective in emergent situations, when time is limited, or when teammates are not informed enough to offer sufficient guidance.

1. Broken links including broken social media links.  Typos happen but when the typo that is supposed to link back to your business website or your Facebook page is broken it does not make a good impression.
2. Spelling and grammatical errors.  If you have a grammar/spelling whiz in your life, make use of them.  Spell check sometimes gives you the wrong version so you cannot always trust it.
3. Distorted images.  Make sure your images display they way you want them to.  Distorted, stretched or squished images do not impress.
4. Color issues.  Not all color fonts and backgrounds are easy to read.  Some email programs your recipients may use do not show background color.  If you use a dark gray background and white text and my mail client does not accept the gray background, I cannot read your white text.  That means I hit delete and miss your message.  In my opinion white background makes the most sense.
5. Subject Line/Sender Name – the personal touch is always best.  Emails sent by a person are more likely to be opened than those sent from a company.  Also, subject lines with more than 50 characters are likely to be cut off.  Keep it short and to the point.
6. Fulfilled CAN-SPAM Requirements.  I posted an article in September 2011 called CAN-SPAM compliance…what you need to know.  I suggest you review that article to make sure you are compliant.
7. Plan text formatting.  Some email recipients prefer text only emails so they will not receive the pretty formatting and images you included.  NALA’s email program allows you to view the text format.  Don’t forget to make sure it is enabled and look it over.

Tip #1:  Give incentives for making more frequent purchases.  Increase revenue by encouraging customers to make purchases more frequently or offer deals and specials exclusive to your social media followers.  You could post a secret word on your Facebook page every day, and customers that come into your business and utter that word, receive a pre-determined discount or special.  Make sure your staff know in advance and create marketing in your business alerting customers to the social media promotion.

Tip #2:  Give customers a reason to spend more at each purchase.  Promote package deals for services that bundle offerings together.  Use social media to drive awareness of the offerings with a clear call to action.

Tip #3:  Combine email-marketing offers.  Make sure your email marketing provides social media share buttons.  You can also upload your email marketing to your social media.

Tip #4: Educate your customers about other products and services.  Make sure customers are aware of other types of services and products your company offers.  You can feature a product or service of the week on social media.  Make sure you follow he 20% rule below though.

Tip #5:  Provide Consistent Value.  If you customers find value in the content you provide they are more likely to keep coming back.  For this reason remember the 20% rule.  Only 20% should be about your company with offers and promotions.  The remaining 80% should provide information of interest to your customers.  That information should ignite conversation between your social media followers and you.

Did you know the NALA has a Daily Deal program available for members?  Members can contact their project manager can tell you all about it.  In addition, as a member of the NALA,  eListings creates a local page for your business, so getting started in promoting your business products and services is easy.  Here is what you need to know directly from the Facebook Help Center.

1. Free to post and free to claim.  That means you will not pay for posting your offer in your news feed.  It also means Facebook is not charging when someone buys your offer  so you keep 100% of the proceeds.
2. When someone claims an offer, that offer also ends up posted on your customer’s news feed, increasing your exposure.
3. The larger your fan-base the better response you will get for your offers.  Facebook is hoping you will buy ads to increase your fan-base.  You can do this by running an ad or a sponsored story.
4. You must have a local business page and right now they are limiting the number of those.  They expect to be out of the beta phase soon and launch the program broadly.
5. If you want the ad to stop you simply delete it.  No worries about selling more discounted deals than you can afford to deliver.
6. There is no minimum discount however they do recommend discounts of at least 20% off regular price.  That is a recommendation, however that is entirely up to you.
7. To claim an offer people click “Get Offer” to see the details and terms and conditions you created, click claim offer to have it sent to their email address, and bring the offer with them to redeem at your business.  They do not make purchases in advance.

For more information check out the help center link above or contact your NALA Project Manager.

Think of an email subject line like a newspaper headline attempting to attract your attention.  Because it is so similar to a headline, the same rules for headlines apply here.

Headlines should be useful, ultra-specific, unique, and express a sense of urgency.  Emails are similar but different in the following ways.

1. Identify yourself.  Your recipient agreed to receive email from you so make sure they know you are the one sending it.
2. Focus on useful and ultra-specific but make sure you do not overuse unique and urgency or you may begin to sound like a spammer.
3. Only use urgent when there is a compelling reason to act now.  Perhaps you are sending out a Memorial weekend sale email or some other time sensitive information.  If everything is urgent though then nothing becomes urgent.
4. Rely on spam checking software and when trigger words come out replace them.  It won’t matter how compelling your subject line is if you land in a spam folder.
5. Shorter is better.  Subject line real estate is valuable and short.

My best advice is to open your own inbox and make note of the emails you open and the emails you don’t.  Are there specific subject lines that draw you in and others that cause you to delete without opening?  If you have any insight in this please share it.  I would love to hear your thoughts.

Last year I posted an article offering reasons why SMBs should support charities.  Recently I came across an article from Growth University called Small Business Marketing & Charitable Partnerships that offered a few simple tips to create effective charity partnerships of your own.

The goal of involving your business with a charity is threefold.   Hitting all three below is a recipe for success.

1. Improve the life of the charity
2. Create a sense of goodwill with your customers and your community
3. Create a positive buzz in your community.

Three tips for creating effective partnerships are:

1. Create seasonal campaigns avoiding December.  Many charities do well in December and struggle the rest of the year.  Pick a charity you believe in and ask if they have anything coming up that you can participate in.  Maybe you can sponsor a booth at a fundraiser or offer items for a silent auction, or even allow your business to be a donation drop-off point.
2. Brand your campaign.  If you name the charitable campaign in a way that makes it easier to spread the world, it can increase the level of attention you receive.
3. Press the issue.  Press releases are powerful methods of otherwise free advertising.  The NALA offers a press release product that will not only write the release based information you provide, but also distribute it to the appropriate news agencies on and offline.

Reviews provide customers the ability to voice their praise and their problems in a forum you can address directly.  Taking the time to address negative reviews not only allows you to repair a customer experience but show others your commitment to quality customer service.  The 7 reasons you can adopt for your business are:

1. Ask for them.  Trip Advisor asks for reviews politely and reminds you that your review will be of assistance to someone else.
2. Make it easy.  Reviews on TripAdvisor take just a few clicks.  There is plenty of room for detail but most reviewers take about a minute.
3. Offer status, not incentives.  Do not pay for reviews as that will have a negative impact on the credibility of reviewers.  TripAdvisor provides badges.  They have no offline value but they are nice to receive nonetheless.  I am proud to say I have Contributor status but I am working on becoming a Senior Contributor.
4. Insist on honest reviews.  TripAdvisor provides an honesty check box that must be checked prior to submitting a review.  Granted, checking a box does not guarantee honesty but the extra step shows your commitment to this policy.
5. Help them share it.  After you write a review you can share it on social media such as Facebook or Twitter.  This is feedback they left because they want others to see and sharing it provides a great word of mouth opportunity.
6. Say thanks.  I have left may reviews on TripAdvisor and I always appreciate the thank you note they send out.
7. Give Feedback.  A week after posting a review TripAdvisor lets you know how many people have read your review.  I love knowing how many people read my review and how many found it helpful.  It is the reward for taking the time to write it.

All the steps above may not be applicable to your business but try out the ones that are.  Let me know what sort of results you get.

Begin by segmenting your email list and create a separate list specifically for these non-responders.  There is no need to make drastic changes to the people already engaging with your email communication unless your email format has not changed in a long time.  You don’t want to risk your emails becoming stale and creating more non-responders.  From there try these four tactics.

1. Subject lines are a great way to mix things up.  Alter your length, approach and cadence and see if that increases your open rate with this group.
2. A good percentage of your list stopped opening your emails because you have been sending the same template with varying text that is never updated for six months or more.  Freshen up your email and don’t forget to consider many email recipients open email on Smartphones nowadays.
3. Place your offers at the top of the page.  Whether you are a B2C or B2B company, your email recipient needs the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) up front.  If they have to scroll you may lose them.
4. Frequency is a debatable topic.  Many feel sending emails less frequently is the best approach.  This article actually recommended the opposite. Similar to in-person sales, staying in front of the prospect may be the better approach.
5. Ask your non-responders for feedback or confirmation regarding receiving email from you.  They gave you permission once and they haven’t opted out.  Perhaps the key to turning non-responders into responders is to ask they what they would like or need.

If you try any of the above or have suggestions for motivating non-responders to become responsive, I would love to hear them.

1. Create a website.  As a NALA member you already have a web page and the NALA does invest to drive traffic and engage in search engine optimization.  The article mentions Google templates available for a fee or WordPress which is a blog based website.  The upside to WordPress is that it requires no website coding and is free.  The downside is customization is limited unless you hire someone who can code in WordPress.  Templates also offer limited customization but both options will get a website up at a lower cost than hiring a web programmer.
2. Utilize Facebook.  NALA members that have an eListing product already receive a Facebook page created for you.  The question is, are you using it?  Facebook and other similar social media create a two-way conversation between you and your customers or potential customers.  Social media humanizes your business.  Additionally, Facebook includes helpful tools to measure and adjust your performance, allowing you to view the demographics of your fans.  That information can help you decide how to react and what to post.

   A couple Facebook tips:  Don’t over-post.  Your posts should be thoughtful, engaging, conversational, and if possible contain some form of media such as a photo or video.  As a NALA member you can attach the commercial included in your membership.

3. Invest time & money in Google apps.  Last week I talked about the various tools with Gmail but there are others.  They also have Google Docs to store and share documents with others, Google Calendar, Google Analytics that enables you to track how people find the website, and Google Alerts.  Google Alerts will allow you to plug  your company name in and  receive an email alerting you to articles, blogs, and mentions of that company name anywhere on the web.  You can set up multiple alerts and have them delivered as often as you choose for FREE.  That way if someone makes a new negative review on Yelp you will know about it that day and have the opportunity to address it.  Addressing the negative is one of the best ways to build loyal customers through social media.  You might consider setting up alerts for your competitors as well…
4. Yelp!  Just mentioned above, is the national review site that is broken down locally.  Customers write reviews about your business and those reviews are tied to your listing on the site.  Responding to good and bad reviews creates and opportunity to engage in a conversation that takes place whether you want it to not.  It puts you in the driver’s seat to generate word of mouth advertising.
5. Twitter.  Twitter is a short message social network that allows for 140 characters in a single tweet.  Twitter has become a worldwide phenomenon allowing individuals, SMBs, corporations, newspapers, magazines, schools, celebrities, and government officials to have a voice on a level playing field.   The good news is that services like Tweetdeck and Hootsuite allow you to tweet and update your Facebook status simultaneously.  Additionally, you can schedule your posts in advance, which can be extremely convenient.

The great news about social media is to get your feet wet is free.  You might invest in a social media consultant, talk to your NALA Project Manager, or just dive in and do some experimenting on your own.  Regardless, testing the waters is an important step in the right direction.