PromoEngine by connectchief promotes referral marketing techniques over traditional online marketing approaches like ads, email newletters or social media marketing. Get started with connectchief for free to find out how well it works for your business
Here are some of the advantages of Referral marketing over traditional or online ads?
Trust: Referral marketing is built on the trust of personal recommendations from satisfied customers, making it more credible and trustworthy than online advertising.
Cost-effective: Referral marketing is often cheaper than paid online advertising.
Targeted audience: With referral marketing, the target audience is more likely to be interested in the product or service being offered.
Higher conversion rates: Referral marketing typically leads to higher conversion rates, as the people being referred are already pre-qualified and interested in the product or service.
Better customer retention: Referral marketing often leads to better customer retention, as referred customers tend to be more loyal to the brand.
Viral potential: Referral marketing has the potential to spread quickly through word of mouth, leading to a wider reach and increased brand exposure.
The amount that small businesses spend on Google or Facebook or other online Ads varies widely, and there’s no set “average.” The amount a small business spends on Online Ads depends on several factors, including:
Industry and competition: Some industries are more competitive than others, and therefore require more investment to drive results.
Budget: The budget available for advertising will directly impact the amount spent on Online Ads.
Target audience: Reaching a specific target audience will impact the cost, as more specific targeting often requires a higher budget.
A small business can spend anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars per month on Online Ads, but most small businesses typically spend between $500 and $1,000 per month. It’s important to note that the best budget for a small business will depend on their individual goals and advertising needs.
In addition, Businesses can spend anywhere from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars per year on third-party social media management and online review management, with most small to medium-sized businesses spending between $2,000 and $10,000 per year.
As opposed to the above, a small business can utilize the tools from connectchief to reach their target audience at almost half the cost of their typical online ads budget. Get started with connectchief for free while the software is in beta phase.
Co-operation teaches us to seek out other individuals to boost the outcomes we want. It is because of co-operation that humanity achieved it’s greatest findings
BusinessConnect by connectchief is all about nurturing cooperation between businesses that can help each other grow. BusinessConnect should remind you of symbiosis from biology.
Slow days are not good for any business. But every business knows they have to account for slow days.
With the tools in our connectchief chest, your business to make your slow days a little or a lot better. We want to talk to you about how you can take advantage of flash announcements to engage with customers on slower days.
We will take 2 examples –
End of day flash sales
Special time-limited promotions or announcements to draw in consumers
First, lets understand how flash sales work for you –
Every business receives its personalized SNC code with connectchief.
Businesses print & place these SNC codes as various places within their establishments.
Customers scan these SNC codes to avail promotions, review your business and even follow your business.
Customers who follow your business are the ones who are most likely to frequent your business and are the ones you should be engaging with on an ongoing basis
To do this we suggest doing the following –
Regularly create time-bound promotions that can you can send out as announcements to your target customers
Some example activities that some of our businesses can do
Denise’s cupcakes has a few dozen cupcakes left over and there are only 2 hours left before store closing…
Denise decides to go into connectchief & create a today only promotion announcing everything in the store at 50% off.
She attaches this promotion to an ad that she associates with her store. Connectchief broadcasts this ad to all connectchief & insideconnect users within a 5 mile radius of Denise’s storefornt.
She also sends the same promotion out as an announcement to all customers that follow her store. Connectchief then sends the announcement out to only those customers who are within a driving distance of Denise’s store and those who have previously marked Denise’s store as a favorite in their insideconnect app
Advantages for Denise’s cupcakes – They created amazing engagement by attracting existing and new customers during the final 2 hours of their day’s operations. New customers were able to try out Denise’s because of the flash sale pricing. Those who were in a short radius of Denise’s discovered here store. And Denise’s avoided having to throw away/discard product at closing time.
Advantages for customers – Those who loved Denise’s products were happy to come in and buy product on an impulse (the draw in was created by Denise). Those who had never tried Denise’s product were happy to come in and try out Denise’s products
Ron’s Sandwich shop can do exactly that same during the lunch hour …
Ron can create a lunch hour only promotion on a Tuesday and broadcast it out to his target customers in his area so he can turn the typical slow-at-lunch Tuesday into a more exciting day for business.
It is absolutely OK to thank customers for the effort they make in writing a review for your business. However, its OK only as long as the business owner does not have any influence on what the customer writes on the review.
In fact, we’ve taken a few measures at connectchief to enable business owners to be able to get more real reviews from real customers.
The best time to ask for a review is when your business is top of mind
They say, theres a time and place for most things. So because you know your business better, we will prefer that you make that call. However, we are almost too sure that a customer is more likely to write a positive review for a business that they enjoy visiting, visit frequently or one at which they have just had a great experience.
Reviews are work. And the customer doesn’t need to do it. So its OK for you to return the favor.
Its perfectly OK to incentivize a customer to write a public review. We actually make it easy for you to offer such an incentive to your customer by enabling you to create a promotion that the customer can claim only after they write a review for your business. In complete transparency to visitors , such reviews are tagged on trustENGINE to indicate that the customer was incentivized to write the review.
Offering incentives indicates that you appreciate the customer and are seeking their support to let others know what they think of your business and its people, products and/or services.
Our mission is to help our clients grow their business. In interacting with various clients we have come to understand that most businesses do not spend enough energy in building a coupon or promo code strategy simply becuase its very hard to actually implement.
We see a lot of traditional stores, particularly grocery stores and some big box stores spending a lot of their marketing budget in putting out weekly / periodic sales flyers that include a large number of items that are on sale. It is common sense to assume that this is quite an effective way to market your products because we’re seeing large businesses do this for decades now and the activity has not stopped. If this form of marketing didn’t work, then clearly the big box and national chain stores would have stopped doing this a very long time ago.
Large e-tailers do the same thing by issuing 1000’s of sales & discount coupons on products and services from time to time. In fact, deal-finding sites make millions of dollars in commissions every year by simply helping consumers find the right coupon that they can apply to their shopping cart? So clearly coupons & promotions work
Why does this work?
Weekly ad flyers and coupons enable a business to stay at the top of mind of its customers. Brand retention and recall is half the battle in any competitive market.
Coupons or special pricing can create that extra motivation a consumer needs to ‘tap buy’. It helps you capture customers whose need exists but may not be urgent yet.
Impulse buyers can be motivated through coupons or ads
Frugal buyers plan ahead, they closely manage their expenses and are most likely to buying products when they go on sale. They are also likely to shop at stores that they perceive to have ‘wallet-friendly pricing’
Online shoppers can shop from a lot of businesses sitting at home, so ‘better prices’ play a greater role in their purchase decisions. The success of platforms like slickdeals, honey and various others are a testament to the fact that coupons & promotions work as well in the online world as in the brick & mortar business space.
Despite all this traction, we do not see too many small businesses (brick & mortar or online businesses or even ecommerce businesses successfully executing a STRONG COUPON & PROMOTIONS strategy)
How is connectchief helping businesses build a better coupon & promotions strategy?
We strongly believe that discounts is not a good strategy for every business. If by giving a discount, the perceived value (worth) of your offering gets diminished in your customers mind, then steer clear of discounts & coupons. But if you are not in that category of business, then we’ve created promoEngine for you. Using the connectchief scan & connect code, you can present your customers with a promotion or discount right at the time when they are at your store. You can also distribute your promotions digitally via the connectchief platform so customers can see your promotions when they are patronizing a business that collaborates with you. As an example: A customer can a coupon to visit your ice-cream parlor right when they are done paying the bill at a pizza place. Ofcourse, you will be returning the favor back to the pizza place by sharing their coupons with customers who might visit you.
We’ve created many simple coupon & promotions templates that enable our customers (business owners like you) to create coupons that can be published by them on the connectchief promoEngine platform.
So what is the custom promotions API
Sometimes, you need to be able to create custom promotions because the basic promotions do not quite fit in with your business scenario. You can now do that through our promoEngine API (application programming interface) and some simple programming activity on your side.
As an example – An ecommerce website could design a promotion in promoEngine for its customers to buy a 1-year subscription to their service and receive 1 extra month if they purchased the subscription before January 10, 2023.
They would simply define a promotion in promoEngine using our API and specify the customer facing parts as in a catchy Title for their promotion, Add a banner image, Add a description describing the promotion & its terms in plain text. In addition, they can now setup a small set of rules in their preferred format that they can save alongside the promotion for it to be provided back to their ecommerce software when that promotion is being redeemed by a customer on their website. See the graphic below as a simple explanation.
Every small business owner we’ve spoken to is no stranger to the challenges and triumphs that come with running your own venture. Whether you own 1 storefront or a chain of 10, the challenges remain.
When we looked around we have discovered something untapped. Hardly anyways has considered the untapped potential that lies in collaborating with fellow local businesses in the communities they serve. So, we at connectchief decided to build BizzConnect a way to help our patrons explore the power of collaboration, where the combined efforts of non-competing businesses can lead to unprecedented growth, mutual support, and an uplifted community.
So, we delved into the world of collaboration, drawing inspiration from the successes of global corporations that have proven the undeniable value of working together. We found so many amazing examples and proof of yet another thing that all small business owners need to be doing more of – COLLABORATING!
Think about tech titans Apple and Nike. While they operate in vastly different industries, their collaboration led to the creation of the Apple Watch Nike+, a marriage of technology and fitness that resonated with consumers worldwide. This partnership not only showcased innovation but also tapped into the strengths of both brands, enhancing their offerings and captivating a wider audience.
Now, consider the alliance between Starbucks and Spotify. Recognizing the shared interests of their customer bases – coffee and music – these two industry giants teamed up to curate unique playlists for Starbucks stores. This collaboration turned Starbucks locations into music discovery hubs, enriching the café experience and boosting Spotify’s user engagement simultaneously.
These examples offer invaluable insights for small business owners –
Elevated Exposure: Collaborations between global giants magnify their reach, driving awareness among each other’s customer bases. The same can be applied at the local level, where cross-promotion between non-competing businesses can lead to increased foot traffic and sales.
Resource Sharing: Just as Apple and Nike combined their expertise, local businesses can share resources like marketing strategies, maybe space, or even staff training, amplifying their collective potential.
Community Enrichment: Partnerships between big corporations often extend to social initiatives, displaying a commitment to community betterment. We’ve seen local businesses already mirror this by collaborating on local projects, fostering goodwill and positive impact.
Innovative Synergy: The Apple-Nike and Starbucks-Spotify collaborations exemplify how diverse entities can come together to create innovative products or experiences. By working alongside non-competing businesses, you can spark creativity that might otherwise remain dormant. Think of the businesses that are around you and the ones that you need to be forming relationships with.
Shared Growth: Just as global collaborations lead to shared profits, local partnerships result in a strengthened community economy, benefitting everyone involved. Most importantly, if you are serving a common customer audience, its a no brainer for your businesses to be finding ways to collaborate
bizCONNECT by connectchief can make collaboration easy. We can help you promote each other. Keep track of your cooperative efforts and do this not just across 2 but across over a 100 potential simultaneous partnership arrangements.
Drawing inspiration from these giants, local businesses can embark on collaborative journeys that enhance their own fortunes and that of the entire community. The lessons are crystal clear: unity breeds success.
We’re building connectchief as a collection of tools that help businesses be more efficient at utilizing their resources, tools can that help raise the value businesses can offer to their customers with the ultimate goal of helping you (the business owner) grow your business.
There are many aspects to connectchief and many more to be added as time progresses however we can share with you a few things that your business could do with connectchief. So if you are a business that can envision doing one or more of the things below, we have the tools to help you succeed.
Grow your business network by partnering / collaborating with non-competing businesses so you can promote/introduce each other to your customers (see more about promoEngine)
Capture 1 click input from your visitors about their experience (visitXP is coming soon)
Ask repeat customers or satisfied customers to review your business publicly (see trustENGINE)
Every business has customers who face problems. However, not all businesses are able to handle those situations very well.
There is a simple formula when it comes to customer engagement for solving problems-
Be transparent – when the customer is facing an issue, be transparent with them about your problem. Mistakes happen, its only human
Be communicative – Keep in constant communication with your customer. Sometimes the problem you are trying to solve for them is taking too long. It may be a refund you need to process, something you need to fix or mend or anything else for that matter. As long as you keep them in the loop on your progress on finding a solution for them, they are a part of the process. Your customers will be OK with you taking the time to fix the problem if they know what’s going on.
Be responsive – Always keep the communication channels open. Follow a simple protocol. When they point out an issue, respond quickly even if its simply to let them know that you are in receipt of their communication and will get back to them. Next, find the isssue and own up to it. Explain what caused it and ultimately always offer a resolution.
Problems happen – almost every day. Challenges and problems are part of learning & growing. The important piece is to respond, to constantly communicate and finally to learn from it so those problems do not reoccur.
You must remember – Customers that are kept in the loop stay loyal
