By Paul Rosenfeld on May 25th, 2011
What are the top six things fans want from you on new media? While the experts might prod you to fuzzily “engage your fans” it seems the top request, by far, is just “show me the money!” At Fanminder we don’t believe in just one strategy for all customers but we do believe in giving fans what they want!
By Tracy Grover on May 19th, 2011
Update
Grab to Phone for the Facebook Savings Page feature now works as of 2pm on Wednesday 5/25/11. Thanks for your patience and don’t be shy with your feedback. Write to iwant@fanminder.com.
Update
We restored all functionality as of Friday, May 20th EXCEPT for grabbing the coupon to your phone from the Facebook Savings Page. We are working to resolve this issue and we’ll post another update as soon as it’s resolved.
Original Post
We launched a super cool feature late last night that added to our Facebook offering but unfortunately a Facebook bug got in our way. We have written to Facebook and we hope to have the issue resolved within the next 4-12 hours. We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience.
Unfortunately this impacts our current clients who have scheduled campaigns on Facebook.
Here’s the nitty gritty:
- All text campaigns and social page links will work without a hitch. Whew!
- Facebook campaigns wont work for another 4-12 hours. Ugh!
Hopefully our new feature was worth it. I think you’ll love it but you be the judge….
Facebook Savings Page –Designed to be so easy a small business owner can have his/her page up in a few minutes’ time. No techy needed! Your custom page displays your Offers to incent your fans to “Like” your Facebook Page and return frequently for additional specials. Your fans easily grab your Offers to their phones and redeem them in your store. Everything is tracked so you know which Offers work.
What do you think? Do tell?
I’ll post an update as soon as I hear from Facebook.
If you need assistance, please contact me at help@fanminder.com.
Hopefully this will be resolved before anyone wakes up.
By Paul Rosenfeld on April 28th, 2011
Your first step towards building repeat business begins with you aggressively – and consistently – promoting your Fan Club in all your customer interactions and marketing. Make a three to four month commitment and stick with it. Call us now to print your signs for maximum fan sign-ups.
Here are time-tested, best practices:
At your place of business:
- Place table tents, posters and counter signs throughout your business as the easiest way to get started. We’ll even make them for you. Or make them yourself with these examples and template.
- Keep Fanminder open on the POS or counter computer. Then simply ask callers or each in-store patron for their mobile phone and enter it on the spot. What could be easier?
- Embed your Fan Club in all your marketing. With a level of pigheadedness the exclusive province of Winston Churchill, get your message on hanging banners outside your store, box/bag stickers, tear sheets, take ones, receipt tape, counter mats, check presenters, your menu, buttons, and business cards.
- Create some space on your existing New Customer forms by adding a field for the mobile phone number with a checkbox and phrase like this one: “Yes, I would like to join the mobile fan club to receive promotions and announcements.”
On Social Media or Online:
- Introduce your Fan Club on your social media profiles by posting requests to join like your Facebook Page or join your Fan Club.
- Install the Fanminder Sign-up Widget to your website’s home page so visitors can sign-up directly from your site. Contact us with the URL of your website.
- Email If you already conduct email marketing, place our online or a call-to-action such as “Text <your keyword> to <our short code> to join…”
In your advertising:
- If you run radio spots or ads in the local newspaper, then your mobile nickname is the perfect way to quickly add fans. Just create One, Big Ass Offer with the following call-to-action: “Get <One Big Ass Offer> by texting <your mobile nickname> to 244326 to join our Fan Club.”
Offsite at events or, well, anywhere:
- When you’re out and about, it’s a snap to to ask potential or current customers to pull out their phone and text <mobile nickname> to 244326 to join your Fan Club.
Make all of the above even more exciting with a Monthly Sweepstakes:
Import a list of mobile phone numbers if you already have a list AND you have their explicit permission to send text messages, you may email us a CSV or XLS file and we will gladly import it for you.
Next: Making your signs
By Paul Rosenfeld on March 30th, 2011
Create your Fanminder Trial Account:
- Visit www.lovealocalbusiness.intuit.com/playbook
- If you don’t see your business on the screen, then enter your email address in the “How’s Your Business Doing?” field in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
- Now click the blue Text2Vote link on the left hand side of the screen.
- When Fanminder opens, click “Grow more with Fanminder” in the bottom right corner.
- Finish creating your Fanminder account.
By Paul Rosenfeld on March 30th, 2011
With so much on your plate, it’s seductive to just stop communicating with your fans. Avoid this by rallying the troops to promote your fan club. There’s simply no more effective way to grow a large fanbase.
1. Start Here: Motivated staff promoting your fan club in-store
- Your staff should be selling your fan club in your business. Period. Motivated staff are 100X more effective than signage alone.
- Staff will be naturally resistant, since this is “marketing”. They can’t sell anything unless they believe in it and know how to do it. So your job is to take the time to continually reinforce the details of your fan club and how it works. Remember that REPEAT CUSTOMERS ARE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF YOUR BUSINESS.
- Make it SIMPLE and CLEAR: Write a 2 sentence script of the key benefits that fans get from your Facebook page and/or fan club.
- Rehearse it, role-play, and monitor with staff until it becomes second nature.
- Explain how customers can like you on Facebook or subscribe to your email/mobile lists.
2. Designate staff members as Facebook Administrators for your Business Page
- Go to your Facebook Business Page
- Click the Edit Page button in the upper right hand corner
- In the left hand navigation, click Manage Admins
- Type in the email addresses of each person you want to become an Admin
3. Have staff engage your fans on social media
- Start by asking staff what ideas they have for fan engagement. They’ll surprise and delight you.
- Select 1-2 staff members to start. Ask for volunteers as it’s difficult to force people to write.
- Remember, your staff are not professional marketers, so you’ll need to give some guidance on what general topics to post about. Sample topics can include: Promotions and specials; Store news; upcoming events; and “chewing gum” posts that are simply lighthearted fun like trivia.
- Take a look at posts as they’re composed or immediately after and work with your staff member to refine posts until you both have the same expectations.
- Finally, set a simple and clear goal of at least one post per staff member per week, depending on when their shifts are and how many you have.
4. Have Admins use the “Suggest to Friends” feature
- Page Admins can suggest their Page to friends by selecting the “Suggest to Friends” link in the upper left side of the Page.
- Naturally because it’s a personal recommendation from people who may use Facebook often, it has potential to result in more fans.
5. Have your staff compete for a prize
- Motivate staff to get sign-ups or likes. Ask them to encourage customers to pull out their phones and like your business or add their email to your mailing list. Keep a chalk board where staff can keep tally on the honor system.
- Hold a competition by different store locations if you have more than one location. See how Crazy Dough’s did it.
And for when your staff alone won’t cut it, ring us: 800-335-0520
