Author: Sam Silvey

Categories
Business

How To Skyrocket Your Return On Investment For Your Business

einstein quote on email

When company’s want to increase sales, the vast majority just start blindly spending money on advertising.  The irony is that advertising has one of the worst returns on investment for marketing dollars spent.

MarketingProfs.com did an extensive study on marketing spending returns on investment.

The design team at Spectruss took the data and made the image below.

 

Email ROI - Return On Investment

As you can see, email marketing dominates with SEO being a distant second.  Banner Ads are literally in last place for a return on investment.

Most people get intimidated with email marketing – however it’s exceptionally easy to get started.

Here are some places to collect email addresses to quickly build your list.

 

Facebook Messages

Recently a friend sent me a message asking for my email address.

I instantly gave it to him.

It turns out he is opening up a restaurant and wanted to invite me to the launch party.

Twitter

Twitter has a very low response rate with just getting customers from this platform.  However, they let you set-up “cards” where someone can opt-in to your email list with just one click.

If you are already active on twitter I recommend this strategy.  You can create a twitter card and use it for free.  We will post an in-depth guide to this in the future.

Checkout Receipt

This should be very easy to do with your check-out system especially if you are online.

What’s more important however is that actual customer’s email is exponentially more valuable than an email from a non-customer.  Ramit Sethi from iwillteachyoutoberich.com provided the following statistics:

You can see that it’s extremely valuable to get the email from people who have already trusted you with their money.

Giveaway

Giveaways are a great strategy to build a large email list in a short amount of time.  The key here is to make your giveaway relevant to your core customer.  For instance, if you owned a children’s boutique you don’t want to have a giveaway for a set-of tools.

Landing Page

This is an obvious one that Groupon.com made extremely popular.  The key with a landing page is enticing someone with something VERY valuable.  A limited-time discount code is a great giveaway as well as a free report or checklist.

Don’t overthink what you need to giveaway as an email opt-in.  A lot of people prefer short resource guides compared to large eBooks.

 

All Spectruss sites are fully integrated with the email service provider Mailchimp.

Do you use email in your business? The CAN-SPAM Act establishes requirements for commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have you stop emailing them, and spells out tough penalties for violations.

  1. Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.
  2. Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the message.
  3. Identify the message as an ad. The law gives you a lot of leeway in how to do this, but you must disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an advertisement.
  4. Tell recipients where you’re located. Your message must include your valid physical postal address. This can be your current street address, a post office box you’ve registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox you’ve registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established under Postal Service regulations.
  5. Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future. Craft the notice in a way that’s easy for an ordinary person to recognize, read, and understand. Creative use of type size, color, and location can improve clarity. Give a return email address or another easy Internet-based way to allow people to communicate their choice to you. You may create a menu to allow a recipient to opt out of certain types of messages, but you must include the option to stop all commercial messages from you. Make sure your spam filter doesn’t block these opt-out requests.
  6. Honor opt-out requests promptly. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message. You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days. You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honoring an opt-out request. Once people have told you they don’t want to receive more messages from you, you can’t sell or transfer their email addresses, even in the form of a mailing list. The only exception is that you may transfer the addresses to a company you’ve hired to help you comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.
  7. Monitor what others are doing on your behalf. The law makes clear that even if you hire another company to handle your email marketing, you can’t contract away your legal responsibility to comply with the law. Both the company whose product is promoted in the message and the company that actually sends the message may be held legally responsible.

Source: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business

 

Categories
Events

Spectruss Presents: Tim Hinck Performing Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations

Spectruss is pleased to announce our collaboration with musician and composer, Tim Hinck, in providing him with a new identity and web presence in time for his preformance this weekend. Starting tonight at the Chattanooga Theatre Centre, Tim Hinck will create a multi-sensory experience for his audience while performing Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. Exploration and discovery are the fundamental elements of Hinck’s performances, and audience members are surprised every time they step into a performance.

Doors Open at 7:30. Show starts at 8:00.

Don’t miss this multi-sensory experience.

Categories
Business

Increasing Online Sales Around the World

After the recession of 2008, sales have continued to increase for both brick-and-mortar stores and online stores.  Most retailers discount online sales and think of it as an activity that is “not worth my time.”

However, online sales are accelerating at a significant pace.  Before, people were hesitant to shop online due to privacy reasons. many people were afraid to use credit cards and reveal personal information.

However, online stores have introduced better return policies, faster delivery and some of them offer free shipping. This has attracted a lot of consumer traffic toward online stores. Moreover, online stores have started operating in different niches and they offer a variety of styles within one category of consumer goods nowadays.

Online Sales in the USA

According to a Forrester report, online sales in the US are expected reach $370 billion by 2017. One of the most famous online retailers in the USA is Amazon. Apple and Wal-Mart are big names as well in other online shopping stores of USA. Online sales were even increasing and doing well during the years of recession.

Moreover, the US population has taken more and more to work from home which has decreased commuters on the road and added positively to the green movement. As more working people stay home, they are making major purchases from online stores.  Online sales hit a boom during the holiday season as well. you can find great deals from the online retailers that attract huge consumer traffic.

Online Sales Around the World

The rest of the world has also seen an increasing trend of online shopping. Countries around the world that have seen a boom in online shopping include United Kingdom, India, Germany and Brazil. The biggest example of a worldwide retailer is Amazon. Amazon started as an online book retailer from Seattle. 

Amazon spread its wings from books to other large variety of consumer goods including electronics. The success was so huge that now, Amazon is leading online retailer around the world and is counted as number one on a global basis.

A huge boom in online sales has also been witnessed in the Asia region. China leads the Asia region in regard of online retailing due to the economic boom experienced by the country. It is estimated that China will have produced an eightfold increase in online sales by 2018.

Online sales have also increased as the stores have come up with mobile applications for the ease of online shoppers. With this convenience, people can shop on the go now. The most popular products that sell online include clothing, electronics and home appliances. However, regional differences are expected.

Summary

If you are a brick and mortar retailer, now is a great time to add e-commerce capabilities.  This will increase revenue and profit for a relatively minor investment.

Categories
Marketing

The Promobot Revolt and The Rise of Clever Marketing

A Day like Many Days

June 15th, for many a day of work, a day of living and breathing the realities of being a marginalized cog in the wheels of industry. No one expected June 15th to be the day the machine took a stand, the day the revolt…the uprising of Promobot would begin.  It all began in a small town in Eastern Russia as these things typically do. While FUBAR may not be the right term, it isn’t a stretch to say that in the world of gate security someone dropped the ball. 

Promobot is a robot designed to be a marketing statement of sorts. This robot takes on the form of a character – the “Promobot” character if you will. From there as it works in stores, its main designation is to attract a customer stream by not just standing out but also by running through a number of automated tasks that will ultimately improve the experience of a customer. It’s both a full time employee and marketer! 

A Clever Concept with Big Results

While there is no definitive proof this was a fabrication, the manufacturers of Promobot used their star to create a viral hit. The premise? Simple enough, Promobot escapes their lab by running through the office and out the door where he was met with a security gate that had accidentally been left open. It was shortly thereafter that the robots battery had died leaving him stranded in the road. This caused a small traffic incident that prompted the police to arrive and remove him from the road. Coincidentally a DSLR camera happened to be perched and did a fantastic job of catching the final moments of the revolution in stunning HD quality. 

It’s a fantastic ruse (most likely) setup by the company itself to create the viral sensation. Within two days of the video hitting the internet it had gained an audience of over 420,000 and counting. There is a terrific lesson to be learned here. It’s easy to be caught up in our business and work taking it very seriously. It’s easy to forget that human beings loved to be entertained and perhaps the best way to entertain human beings is by giving them something super funny to talk about. 

A Lesson Learned For Us All

Marketing as it is does not have to be cut and dry, it does not always have to represent your brand and business to the highest degree of seriousness. It simply needs to get people to take a second look, showing a bit of personality is a great way to do that. I think for a lot of people when coming up with a plan to market their business we run down the normal checklists of social media, sharp web content, nice print designs if needed and everything is branded. While this works great to establish an identity, often times it does little to capture attention.

Simply put, when working on your next plan to get your business name out, maybe think outside the box. Consider an approach to humor your audience, to give them a treat, a breakaway from their normal day to witness something delightful and then leverage that to create a subtle but impactful way to bring it back to your business.

Categories
Marketing

9 Things To Do Before Launching Your Website

After helping build hundreds of websites we came up with the top 9 things to do before launching your website. Most of these things are not obvious and we hope you find the list helpful.


1. Back-Up Solution

It’s not a question of “if” but “when” your website is going to be temporarily down. If multibillion dollar sites like Netflix and Instagram can go down, your site can also go down.

It’s crazy how many people invest $50k to $100K in their site yet do not invest in any kind of a backup solution.

The easiest solution I have found is directly backing up the cPanel onto your hardrive. Follow these instructions:

  1. Log into your cPanel control panel.
  2. Click on the “Backup” icon.
  3. Select “Generate / Download a Full Backup”.
  4. Select “Home Directory” in “Backup Destination” and enter your email address, before
    clicking the “Generate Backup” button.
  5. You’ll receive an email when the backup is ready.

The major risk with this backup solution of-course is if your hard drive goes bad, so does your backup. This is why I also recommend cloud backup solutions like Amazon S3 and Dropbox.

Dropbox of-course wasn’t meant for this but there is a wordpress app that makes this backup fairly easy.
Whatever option you chose understand it’s not the hosting company’s responsibility to backup your site – it’s the site owner’s responsibility.

2. The 404 Page

Every website will have a 404 Page – which is simply a page that will show up if you use a wrong link.

Here is an example of a typical 404 Page:


The problem with this is that it doesn’t offer any guidance on what to do next besides go to the homepage or go back.

Unfortunately, most web users just quit when they get to this page instead of trying to figure out your website.

This is why you need an optimized 404 page or at least one that’s fun!

Here are some interesting 404 Pages that we like at Spectruss:

 

3. Email Integration

Whether your site is designed for direct sales, leads, or simply to provide information. You need to be collecting information about the people going to your site and wanting more information.

Most people put their email opt-in on the sidebar as an afterthought. However, you can easily put multiple form fields in multiple places on your site, without it affecting the design and flow of your site.

Before you launch you need to test the email integration with your email service provider.

What does “integration” mean exactly? You simply want to make-sure that when someone enters their email information that your email service provider collects the information and then sends them whatever information they asked for.

4. Hosting

Deciding on a domain name and which host you use is arguably the most important decision you will make when launching a website.

Did you know Mark Zuckerburg couldn’t afford facebook.com – even after raising million in VC funding? He instead launch with thefacebook.com.

Instead of trying to get the perfect .com domain name try and get a domain name that accurately tells what your brand represents. Our client Tech Town did a great job with this. You can see more of our client case-studies here: https://spectruss.com/case-studies/
The obvious reason hosting is critical is that it determines your website’s reliability. The vast majority of new website’s launch with shared hosting options from cheaper hosting companies.

This works fine for very low traffic sites. However, if you plan to have any significant traffic to your site and have a lot of heavy data usage from large files – you will need to choose a host with a dedicated server(s) for your site.

5. SiteSpeed

– browser caching/ compression /

Obviously your host is critically important to the reliability and speed of your site. However, you are responsible for organizing your website for speed.

At Spectruss, all of our customer’s websites are audited on a regular basis for browser caching and data compression to make sure the site’s are loading as fast as possible.
A quick tip is to remove code comments and unused code for optimization. Google recommends YUI Compressor for JavaScript.

We also see a large opportunity in browser cashing at Spectruss. Browsers cashe a lof of data so that when a visitor comes back to your site, the browser doesn’t have to reload the entire page. You can set an expiration date set for your cache, then set when the date “expires” so you can ensure your visitors are always looking at up-to-date information.
You can learn more about increasing your site’s speed by contacting us at Spectruss or testing it for yourself here: https://developers.google.com/speed/

6. Analytics

It’s amazing how many people spend $50K-$100K on their site – and then they don’t look at the analytics that their site produces.

This is equivalent to openeing up a retail store and not paying attention to how many people come in the front door every day. What is worse – is that because you aren’t tracking how many people are coming into the store you don’t know what your conversion rate is for how many people are buying.

Google Analytics is a free resource that can give you a ton of valuable information.

We recommend installing this and some basic dashboards to keep up with your site’s performance.

The most valuable information I have found in Google Analytics is to see what type of content get’s shared the most. This is the content that your customer care so much about they are wanting to share it with their followers.

7. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

There have been entire books written about Search Engine Optimization – so obviously we can’t cover everything here.

Before you launch a site there is not much you can do for SEO – however you can’t have some things in-place to ensure success later on.

The first thing to do when launch a site is put a “coming soon” page up. It takes a long time to build a site, and this is away to start engaging with potential followers early. Google Webmasters even recommend this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9JvBLjLrUI
The next thing we recommend is when coding your site make sure each page has a meta description. Meta descriptions are a part of the HTML code that provides a short explanation of what each web page does. This snippet of code is what search engines display in search results.


8. Check Your Links

We see a lot of problems when sites are moved from a staging server to a live server. The problem is when the absolute links are not changed to the live links and relative URLs are used instead of the absolute URLs.

This is easily fixed with a 301 redirect. Google actually recommends this method as you don’t lose any SEO value for doing this. Additionally, all the SEO value that was placed on the link that was moved get’s transferred to the redirected link.

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/93633?hl=en

9. Social Integrations

Before you launch your site you won’t to make sure that your site can easily be shared across social media. An important factor to keep in-mind is to be open to change with social media. You will hear a lot of absolutes like: “you have to be on Facebook” or “Twitter works for everybody.” However, you don’t know what social medium your users will use until you launch.

It’s important to be open to change and experiment with all of them.

Before your site launches build all of your social media links into your site to see which medium your users like to share your content.

BONUS: Sitemaps

After redesigning a site you should always re-submit the new site-map to Google, Bing and Yahoo.

This is a major problem we see all the time at Spectruss. A site get’s redesigned and the new site’s architecture isn’t submitted to Google and Bing. Yes, I said Bing.

Did you know 20% of all search traffic is from Bing?
Source: http://searchengineland.com/bing-reaches-20-percent-search-milestone-in-us-market-218574

Summary

This is just a quick list of things to think about before you launch your website.

If you would like a complimentary strategy session with Spectruss about your new site click here

If you would like to do everything yourself and start on your website today click here

 

Categories
Uncategorized

Spectruss Client Story – East By Main Starts Construction in the Southside!

Construction is about to begin next week on a new modern town home development in Chattanooga’s dynamic Southside neighborhood. Local real estate developer Thomas Connolly and Nashville developer Buck Snyder teamed up on the development side.  Collier Construction is the builder and the project was designed by Cogent Studio. The website for this project was designed and built on the Spectruss CTR platform.

“The Southside is characterized by its diverse selection of local food joints, entertainment options, creative office space, and art studios. The individuals that work and play on the Southside need unique housing options at a size and price point that makes sense for them.” Thomas Connolly stated. “That is what we hope to provide with East by Main townhomes.” There is opportunity to fill a void as almost all of the new residential construction on the Southside is in the form of 2,000+ square foot single family homes, ranging from $315,000 to $450,000.

East by Main townhomes will be three story homes with one bedroom and one bathroom. They feature a flex space that opens up to an oversized outdoor terrace. Other amenities include stone counter tops, hardwood flooring, built in shelving, efficient building practices, and onsite parking. “We designed East by Main as a collection of homes connected by a series of pedestrian paths, gardens, and parking courts with the intention of creating a unique urban lifestyle.  With this level of density, great care was given to provide high quality public and private outdoor spaces.” Added architect Jared Hueter of Cogent Studio. The great Main Street location puts the owners just a few steps from all the restaurants and entertainment located near the Main and Market Street commercial corridor, but also just a five minute walk to Jefferson Heights Park which features a walking path, sand volleyball court, and pavilion.

“Just like I’ve seen in Nashville, I know there are a lot of people out there, ranging from first time home buyers to empty-nesters, who want to live in a low maintenance, simple townhome that is a short walk to everything. Why spend your weekends doing yard work or cleaning an oversized house when you could be sitting on the patio of Flying Squirrel, biking to the Chattanooga Market, or enjoying a cup of coffee at Mean Mug?” said Buck Snyder, “Not to mention, these homes could also make great AirBnB or VBRO rentals for owners to supplement their income.”

When asked about the trend toward apartment development and living, Thomas responded, “We’ve seen a lot of emphasis on apartment development over the last few years, but rents have risen significantly and are often much higher than what a mortgage payment on one of our units would be. While a lot of individuals will continue to rent, we also know that there are plenty of people who are ready to buy. Interest rates are still low and unlike most condominiums, these townhomes will have the option of low down payment FHA financing.”

The townhomes are expected to be finished in early 2017.  Price points have not been set at this time, but interested buyers can see more about the project and get presale contact information at www.eastbymain.com.

Categories
Marketing

Take The Stress Out Of Subscription Business Models

The lifeblood of your business is repeat customers. But customers can be fickle, markets shift, and competitors are ruthless. So how do you ensure a steady flow of repeat business? The secret—no matter what industry you’re in—is finding and keeping automatic customers.  

 

John Warrillow, author of The Automatic Customer

 

You don’t need to know the benefits of a subscription business model:

:: Recurring Cash-Flow
:: Knowing How Much Inventory To Keep
:: Forecasting Your Growth

 

Instead, you need to know how to overcome the stress of starting and building a subscription business model.

 

Types of Subscription Business Models

First, let’s start off with the 3 general types of subscription models:

Membership Model – the most common membership models that people use are Netflix and Costco.  However, several small businesses use sites like contractorselling.com and dancestudioowner.com to grow their business.

Simplifier Model – this model takes a “to-do list item” off the list and simplifies their life.  An example of this model is Mosquito Squad which handles mosquito eradication for an annual fee.  There are numerous home repair companies that charge on a monthly or annual basis for routing home maintenance issues.

Surprise Box Model – Companies like BarkBox send surprise dog treats every month to thier customers.  My wife signed me up for foot cardigan for my birthday and I really like it.  Every month I get a fun new set of designer dress-socks.  

 

Challenges of Subscription Business Models

We already covered the benefits of subscription business models.  However, there are several risks with starting a subscription business model.

The main risk is time.

Business owners generally don’t have excess free time to start an entirely new business model while also running their current business.  Exacerbating this problem is the employees of the business don’t have the time or the skill set to bring the new subscription business model to life.

 

Accurate Billing

A good example of this is our recent customer RestroomFresh.  The company provides some amazing products that obviously keep your restroom clean and smelling well.  However, since they have multiple SKUs and different price points that can be ordered you want an accurate collection system that is easy and intuitive to use.  You can learn more about our recurring billing features here:

https://spectruss.com/spectruss-ctr-now-supports-recurring-billing/

 

Infrastructure

It’s one thing to have a website that has decent content and produces leads.  It’s a completely different thing to have an entire business running in the cloud that can scale rapidly and securely as you grow this new business.  Security isn’t just a primary issue here at Spectruss – it’s paramount.

 

Design

The design of your subscription business model is absolutely critical.  If a new customer comes to your site and gets frustrated with purchasing – not only have you lost a potential customer, but you have a person that will now talk negatively about your new business.  Obviously you have also lost out on potential referrals from that customer as well.

 

Summary

While it’s extremely exciting to think about a new source of recurring revenue for your business there are several risks that need to be identified and addressed early on.

If you are thinking about starting a recurring business model online and would like to book a complimentary strategy session with Spectruss please fill out the form below.
If you would like to get started on your own, click here: https://spectruss.com/pricing/

 

Categories
Events

South Side Racing presented by Peak Powersports goes for a little roll…

This weekend the South Side Racing, presented by Peak Powersports, RZR went for a little roll at the Method Race Wheels Laughlin Desert Classic. For all of those motorsport enthusiast out there, don’t forget to buckle your helmet! Luckily, everyone was okay and the RZR was able to keep on rolling with minor damage.

Keep the rubber side down boys!

Categories
Design

Passageways Sketch

We’re very excited to see Passageways all over the press! To get our creative juices flowing this week, we worked on a quick sketch to visualize how these alleyways can be utilized to create a new network of spaces within the urban fabric changing the way we circulate around our city. It’s been a pleasure working and partnering up with  AIA Tennessee and River City Company on this community outreach project and we can’t wait to see what the participants have in store for the opening! Get more information at http://passagewayschattanooga.com/

Categories
Projects

Spectruss launches Passageways for AIA Tennessee

With the American Institute of Architects Tennessee annual convention approaching on August 24th it is time to begin the unveiling of some of the exciting projects that will happen as a result. Today we are proud to launch the website for the joint venture for AIA Tennessee and the River City Company – Passageways. 

passagewayschattanooga.com

Passageways is an open competition where teams will be able to rejuvenate alleyways within Chattanooga in the spirit of collaboration and with the hopes to inspire, and spark a sense of interest through great design and creativity.

This event coincides with the annual AIA Tennessee convention. This convention brings some of the best and brightest in the world of Architecture to our own city, Chattanooga Tennessee. Spectruss is proud to be the chosen firm to represent
AIA and their branding goals for this years event. It was our goal from the start to set an aesthetic that could illustrate the importance of the work AIA is linked to.
This years theme “IMPACT” was created to instill a sense of gravity to the themes overall
atmosphere, highlighting the importance and impact of Architecture around the world. Stay tuned as we unveil more for this years convention as we are able too! It is going to be a fantastic AIA Tennessee event.

If you are excited about this years event checkout their websites and learn more about both the AIA Passageways competition and the convention itself. Chattanooga is a rapidly growing city and while Spectruss works with companies all over the country it is a pleasure to be able to dedicate time to a prestigious event in our own hometown. It’s both a humbling experience, and a ton of fun!