Thursday 19 February 2009

Know who's knocking at your door

Working with a website can be really frustrating. You can see hundreds, if not thousands of hits but you haven't got a clue who your visitors are. Analytics can only go so far in justifying your spend especially if you use PPC advertising. However, you must constantly justify your spend as the web can be a big black hole for marketing budgets.

I have been working with a new system called Trovus Revelations (http://www.trovus.co.uk/) and the results look really promising. In their own words "Trovus Revelations™ shows you exactly who's visiting your site and why. Your clients and prospects are showing you why they are interested in your company. Start a rewarding dialogue with them today."

In the short time that we have been using the system we have certainly identified a small number of visitors that have turned into clients but more importantly are seeing some interesting trends.

Take a look at the system and I would encourage you to start a dialogue with the guys at Trovus - and please tell them that I told you to.

Friday 6 February 2009

Green shoots

At the risk of being shot down (like business minister Shriti Vadera Telegraph online) is anyone else starting to see the green shoots of recovery?

I hear many more people talking about when (not 'if'') the upturn comes and now seems to be a good time to think about investing in our businesses. I'm not just talking about money, although that helps - a positive attitude is the first step. The much quoted comment by Sam Walton of Walmart applies. When asked what he thought about a past recession he commented "I thought about it and decided not to participate".

Given the magic of technology and the internet it is possible to achieve an increase in marketing output whilst saving money. Combine your CRM system with some old fashioned marketing savvy to generate well targeted and cost effective campaigns. If you don' t have a CRM system, vendors have some great offers at the moment! Looking at previous recessions it seems clear that organisations who invested in marketing towards the end of a recession benefited the most as recovery started.

If you want an interesting take on how to operate in a recessions I would recommend going along to one of the Shirlaws 'Thrive not survive' workshops.

Monday 2 February 2009

Snow stop play


Why does it always happen - a little bit of snow and the whole south of England grinds to a stop! OK so it wasn't a little bit of snow this time but you know what I mean.

The thing is, work doesn't need to stop (or even slow down) it can go on wherever your employees are - office, home, hotel or on the road. Businesses need to expect more from their systems. Many CRM systems can be accessed securely via the Internet so sales, marketing and customer service people are covered. Take today as an example - I have support being covered from Brighton, client service from Woking and sales from Crawley and Billingshurst. In addition some of our team made it into the office and two are at an exhibition in New York! However this isn't unusual, as we expect this functionality from our system - SageCRM.

If you are reading this and thinking that its all well and good for sales people, but HR systems don't work that way - think again. Our HR systems, breatheHR and HR.net, allow HR people, managers and employees to get access to the system from anywhere. Many of the HR people we help regularly work from home or travel between multiple offices.