Yellow Dog Consulting

Sales & Marketing Consulting for solo-preneurs.

3 Newsletter Tasks to do Your First Year in Business

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3 Newsletter Tasks to do Your First Year in BusinessWhen you’re starting a business it’s hard to figure out what all you SHOULD do, versus what you want to do, need to do and have to do. When I am working with a company as they are about to launch a business I recommend three things when it comes to a newsletter.

  1. Send Out an Announcement Email –  I can’t support you and hire you if I don’t know you’re in business. It’s a big deal! You’ve started a business! Tell all your friends, family and colleagues about it! Get that announcement email out to your contacts. I recommend you do this almost immediately – but at least within the first 3 months
  2. Setup an Email Capture Form on Your Website – The sooner you can start collecting contact information from people, the better. Eventually you can setup a free gift but for now, just make sure you have a way for people to subscribe and give you their contact info. MailChimp makes this really easy with their forms – and your web developer will know how to do it too (and it’s a giant red flag if they don’t!)
  3. Start a Monthly Newsletter – You thought I wouldn’t suggest this? Once your business is up and running it’s time to have a monthly newsletter. Yes monthly. Once a month reach out to your contacts and let them know what you’re up to. What awesome tools have you discovered? What successes have you had with clients? What kinds of projects and services do you offer that people need to know about? I can’t hire you if I don’t know what you do. And I won’t hire you if I forgot you were in business.

Starting your own business is a LOT of hard work. And there are a bazillion moving pieces. It’s hard to figure out what you have to do, what you should do and what can wait. I can give you a million more ideas of what to do, but these are three things that I guarantee will set you up for success in the long run.

5 Marketing Tasks to Automate (to Keep You Sane)

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5 Marketing Tasks to Automate (to Keep You Sane)Automation is a pretty great tool that companies of all shapes and sizes take advantage of. Are you? It can seem overwhelming to get it setup but once you’ve made the time to automate your systems, you’ll have more time to take your pup to the dog park (or read a book, or watch TV, or get your job done…) Here’s 5 Marketing Tasks you can (and should) automate!

  1. Your Contact Form – If someone reaches out to you on your contact form, you’ll most likely get back to them within a day or two (or a week if you’re not awesome at follow up and have an inbox that stresses me out to think about.) Setup your contact form to send a quick thank you note. “Thank you for contacting Yellow Dog Consulting, we’ll get back to you within one business day.” You can (and should) also invite them to check out a couple of things on your site – a link to your services page, a free download, or a link to your most recent newsletter are great ideas…
  2. Free Downloads – Do you have a snazzy free giveaway on your website that folks give you their email and then magically a PDF appears? I thought so! Make sure this system is automated so that it can happen while you sleep. You should also include a drip campaign with this so they hear from you more than once and really get an idea of how awesome you are so they hire you faster.
  3. Bookkeeping – Sure it’s not a marketing task, but automating my bookkeeping is one thing that keeps me incredibly sane each month.
  4. Social Media – I never thought I’d say this but I finally am. Each week I have a blog post. And I don’t trust that you’re going to check out my website each week looking for it – so I share it on social media. A few times. I talk often about my system but a few simple clicks save me hours of time and increases my site traffic…
  5. Reviews – Yes, you should automate your review process. Figure out the appropriate variable to reach out to new clients and ask for a review, then set that system in place. Maybe it’s monthly when you add your new clients to your newsletter list. Or at the completion of a project. Reviews are such an important part of helping your business grow, make sure you get this system in place!

There are a lot of other marketing (and small business) tasks you can automate, these are just a few that I tend to help clients with and that have helped me stay sane. What other marketing tasks do you automate?

5 Ways to Ask For a Review

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5 ways to ask for a reviewOn an almost monthly basis I refer current and potential clients to this blog post from a few years back about asking for reviews. We all know that reviews are an important part of your business. You want those gold stars next to your business on Google! You want people to sing your praises so that other awesome clients will find you! But, how do you go about asking for a review? It can feel awkward to reach out to someone and ask them for a review, so here’s 5 things I recommend:

  1. Ask at the end of a Project – Did you just complete a big piece of work together and they’re happy? Now’s a great time to ask! “Hey would you mind writing a review or testimonial for me?” Make sure to include links to where you’d like them to review (and give them options, we all know I’ll never write a review for you on Facebook!)
  2. When They Say Something You Want to Frame – If your client responds to a project with a really nice note about it – ask them if you can use it as a testimonial – or ask if they’d mind posting that on a review site for you. That’s often how I handle review requests – when they’ve already said something!
  3. At a Specific Interval in Your Work Together – I have one client where we setup a review system to email new patients about a month after their first visit. We created an automated email that goes out asking how it went – if they like it, we ask for a review. If it didn’t go well, we send them to a survey monkey survey to find out what went wrong. You may find that for ongoing clients specific intervals are a good timeline for requesting reviews.
  4. In Your Newsletter – If the majority of people who subscribe to your newsletter are clients (current or past) then adding a review request to your newsletter is a great way to ask. Just a little box near the bottom of the newsletter may be all it takes to remind folks they should say nice things about you.
  5. Annually – You might want to setup a system so that at the end of the year you reach out to your clients from the past year and ask for reviews. Or maybe in the summer when business can be a little more quiet for some folks. Find a time of year when business is quiet for you and reach out and ask!

What other intervals do you find are the right time to request reviews and testimonials from clients?