January 19, 2012 by Annie Tsai - Director, Client Services
By now you’ve sent enough in the way of Newsletters and Custom Promotions to know the basics. Here are a few tips on how to supercharge your Newsletters and Custom Promotions to get what you really want from email marketing – more business:
Tweak your subject lines so your customers are enticed to want more.
The subject line is the awesome new sign you put outside your business so people walking across the street are curious enough to walk in and check things out. Here are some tips to make your Email Subject Line pop and increase open rate:
Keep your subject line under 45-50 characters. Many email clients cut you off right around there.
Segmentation is important here – you can have a friendlier tone with customers who’ve been in more recently, but perhaps you want to be more formal with your inactive customer base.
If you have an incentive in your email, try to include it in your subject line message.
January 17, 2012 by Shine-Ning - Services Implementation Specialist
The phrase “plugged-in” has become an ever-expansive and all-inclusive mantra for many businesses today due to the rapid growth of social media in general. While we’ve all heard of Facebook, Yelp, and most recently Google+, there are many other social media platforms that, when utilized effectively, can leverage your business to a whole new level and help you grow as a brand.
We asked the Demandforce Customer Success managers how they measured the potential of ongoing revenue growth for a particular business. Response: “The ratio of emails a business has compared to the amount customers – the higher the amount of emails the better off the business.”
Are you surprised by this answer? One of the greatest features about Demandforce is that we automate your communications (using such tools as email) so confirmations, promotions, surveys and reviews can be sent and tracked in ways that help you grow your revenue. Read the rest of this entry »
January 4, 2012 by Jennifer Rose - Community Manager
This a two-part series created to help our Demandforce customers utilize the most important, yet sometimes overlooked, features of their Demandforce D3. Part I dives into the 5 initial steps for success while Part II focuses on the next 5 steps.
Make Sure Demandforce Is Working For You
2012 has arrived, and with the advent of the New Year comes good intentions to work on areas in your life that may have gone unattended. Most of our resolutions tend to be around appearance, money and family. While those are worthy subjects, why not add your business to the mix?
As a Demandforce user, one of the most effective ways to help your business succeed in 2012 is to take the time getting to know your Demandforce D3. The best thing about Demandforce is that its entire job is to work for you. But that means doing a few things upfront on your end to ensure that you are getting the most out of the system. To make this as easy and painless as possible, we’ve identified the top 5 areas to focus on and tips to getting started. Read the rest of this entry »
December 27, 2011 by Eric Ng - Social Media Specialist
And The Winner Is…
You may remember the video contest Demandforce hosted last month, calling for fun and helpful stories from our customers to share with the rest of the Demandforce community. We received some awesome submissions and can’t wait to share what we learned with you.
Recently we interviewed Sylvia and Kathy from Hernando Dental Group Family Dentistry, the winners for Most Dramatic Video in the Demandforce Tuned-In Video Contest. Below is some great insight and feedback that may help you with your practice, shop or salon.
December 19, 2011 by Bonnie Wang - Manager, Online Services
With only 24 hours in a day, wouldn’t it be great if you could automate some of the minute-munching business work and take back that time to reinvest in your business, your family or your hobby? Good news–there are some excellent tools available today that can help you do exactly that. If you own an appointment-based business like a dental office, auto shop, spa or salon, this article is dedicated to helping you get back your time.
1. inDinero – Automate your bookkeeping
What Mint does for your personal finances, inDinero does for your business finances. It allows you to spend less time with bookkeeping and more time running your business. This tool automatically download your transactions and balances from all of your business’ financial accounts and then categorizes them into the right buckets. Instead of contacting your accountant and waiting for a response, you can simply log in to your inDinero account to view all the metrics that matter to you. Like a superhuman accountant, inDinero also monitors any irregular account activities, 24/7.
How engaged are you in your social media? Odds are that your business already has a registered Twitter account. Maybe you consider yourself a certified tweeter. Or maybe, you feel like you’re the only one who’s not tweeting. Don’t fear, we’re here to help you assess this Twitter situation and find out if its a right fit for your business. Take a look at Flowtown’s Twitter Decision Tree for some guidance.
December 8, 2011 by Shine-Ning - Services Implementation Specialist
Meet your San Francisco small business leader and the winner of TunedIn Demandforce Video Contest- Popular Mechanix. Nestled within San Francisco’s Mission District, the yellow and blue façade of Popular Mechanix makes this local auto repair shop really eye-catching. It’s in an “automotive alley” of sorts, operating next to several other automotive service businesses.
Andy and his Golden Rules
Andy Gescheidt, founder and owner of Popular Mechanix, has been working with vehicles for 30 years. He’s a whimsical man who acts with purpose and possesses an easy laugh. “We fixed anything that rolled,” he said, recalling the early days. But after partnering up with another neighboring repair shop, Andy decided to rebrand the businesses and specialize in Volvos. It’s became his philosophy to find one thing to focus on and be the best at it instead of dealing with a little bit of everything. In 1998, Andy was involved in a freak accident which nearly took his life – a dewired trolley pole from a bus fell and struck Andy in the back of the head as he was walking down a street, throwing him to the sidewalk and fracturing his skull. He was in a coma for a month and was not expected to live. He woke up, however, and learned to love and appreciate every minute of his life and his work. In a way, this accident has committed him to running a high quality business for the long haul. Read the rest of this entry »
December 1, 2011 by Eric Ng - Social Media Specialist
During the holiday season, more and more of your customers, patients, and clients will be spending their free time online, so its important that you stay active and keep your business on their radar. Below are the top 5 tips and best practices to keep those customers coming in. Read the rest of this entry »
November 22, 2011 by Danny Leung - Services Implementation Specialist
We’ve all gotten those well intentioned, but brisk, reviews that customers have left after their last visit consisting of “Great!” “Awesome auto service” or “Best doctor ever”, but what do these simple one or two word reviews really say about your business?
A good review should be simple, concise and hopefully grammatically correct. In about 3-5 sentences a review should say everything a potential customer needs to know to convince them to do business with you. Any longer and it becomes more like an essay (who has time for that?) and we’ve seen the pitfalls with anything much shorter.
So, how do you go about getting these types of reviews for your business? It’s all about asking questions. Read the rest of this entry »
Demandforce provides the leading consumer demand creation solution for small business. Our software-as-a-service application is used by thousands of customers to grow revenue, keep clients coming back, and manage operations more effectively. We help small business thrive in the Internet economy.
Given Apple’s various announcements yesterday, I thought it’d be nice to republish this blog post highlighting Apple’s brand promise. —- When you see a brand logo, what sort of expectations come to mind? Let’s take a look at Apple, a brand that successfully brings the brand promise to life in all incarnations of the experience. When […]
Annie
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