Elements, in partnership with a leading online survey company, has just completed an extensive mail and online survey of United States Franchisee locations, on behalf of franchisors who want to know more.

After extensive analysis it became increasingly clear that franchisees believe the local independent competitors are significantly beating them at obtaining on line leads. The graphic below shows that over 75% of the respondents feel that local independents are doing a better job.

The International Franchise  Association’s (IFA) Annual Convention in San Diego, CA offered a wide variety of very relevant roundtable discussions to attendees. ELEMENTS Inc.’s executive team, Jeremy LaDuque (CEO), Michael Boyer (CMO) and Steve Bridge (CFO), participated in six of them covering topics such as lead generation, online marketing and optimizing follow-up on online leads.

Immediate follow through is one of the most powerful things franchisors said will help generate more leads and create more closed sales from those leads.

1. 24-Hour follow up

The number one most effective strategy is to follow up with in 24 hours of the initial contact with your potential client. Statistics show that the success of following up on a lead increases by 70 percent if you follow up within this critical time. The consensus at the Internet Marketing Roundtable showed that immediate follow up is the most effective way to guarantee positive results from internet leads.

2. Automate your response to customers

Use an auto-responder program. This program or function is usually offered by your email provider and sends an automated response when a specific email address receives an email., You may already use this for an automated reply when you’re on vacation. However, you can employ the same automated response system with your sales force. When a potential client emails sales@yourfranchise.com, they receive an automatic response thanking them for their inquiry. This provides your client with immediate assurance that you are interested in their business and will contact them soon.

3. Use a drip campaign

By putting together a drip campaign, your franchise will send out emails on a predetermined schedule automatically. For example, you may send out an email every two weeks for several months. Your email topics would provide your target audience with more in-depth information about your franchise; then a customer testimonial; followed with news or an update on your products, its use or your community participation. There are several great reasons for a drip campaign:

• You keep your name fresh with your users, prospects and clients
• You proactively provide news and updates to your users
• Your target audience continually sees that good things are happening with your company.

One franchise owner said that he has used drip campaigns for many years and swears by them. He referred to recently closing a deal with a client who had submitted an inquiry on their website four years ago!

4. Spend time on those that matter

In order to use your time efficiently, invest in some type of sales automation software to qualify leads from the internet. Automating the first few steps to qualify prospects is key. For example, if your automated reply asks a question or prompts the user for more information and they respond, you can qualify that person as a more serious prospect than someone who does not follow up with you.

5. Think like a buyer, not a seller

One of the main issues discussed throughout the IFA convention was that marketers typically think as sellers of their products and services. The consensus solution was by thinking creatively, sales and marketing need to think as buyers of their products and services. This manifests itself in many ways. One primary example is focusing on your benefits instead of your features.

6. Social Media

Social Media…one of the hottest topics everywhere. We discussed obvious heavyweights such as Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn and concepts like blogging (with WordPress or BlogSpot, for example) and micro-blogging with Twitter. Taking the time to participate in this huge and growing phenomenon seems to be universally beneficial, both for your website and for business. Ideas about social media include

• Starting or investing time in your Linked In profile to connect with others
• Starting a corporate Facebook account; creating a Myspace account.
• Upload videos about your company story, or client testimonials to You Tube.

By doing this you can provide links to these rich and engaging videos in your auto-responders and create drip campaigns from any social media sites.  And most importantly was to provide links to your social media and networking accounts on your website, email and any other forms of electronic communications.

7. Start your own blog

One of the easiest ways to get involved with social media that seemed to be prevalent amongst franchises was blogging. There are many services that will allow you to create your own blog. An even easier way to participate without maintaining your own blog is to comment on other blogs and include links back to your site.

8. Per Click Advertising

Pay per click (PPC) advertising is an Internet Marketing strategy that everyone has obviously been using for several years now. The advantages are that you can control it, measure your return and track everything. However, as more and more people use PPC it gets more competitive, thus more costly. The most frequently asked question was ‘how do we continue to use PPC and get the most return from this strategy?’ We had the opportunity to discuss how to optimize marketing dollars with a few franchises and suggested a simple but more effective way of devising pay per click terms.

First, use what are called ‘geographic’ and ‘long tail’ terms. Start with geographic terms. For example, ‘closets san diego.’ This will cost less than ‘closets california’ or ‘closets new york’. Then, as geographic terms become more competitive start to look for ‘long tail’ terms. A long tail term is one that takes advantage of the 80/20 rule. This rule suggests that 80 percent of people look at 20 percent of search terms. This leaves 80 percent of search terms available and the other 20 percent searching them. Another way of putting this is to devise longer keyword phrases, like ‘closest installers san diego’  because they cost less. Research also suggests that the more people think about the terms they type in the more serious they are about buying and not just shopping.

9. Use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to the fullest

Research shows that over 70 percent of people on search engines such as Google will chose an organic listing, or one that shows up naturally, that’s not listed under ‘sponsored links’ over paid-for links in the sponsored areas. So, logically getting your website ranked organically using SEO techniques is one of the best methods of online marketing. The challenge most franchises face is understanding SEO is laborious and confusing and often they don’t know where to turn for help. Our ElementsLocal software provides our clients with a solution that helps them take full advantage of natural SEO. Let us know if we can provide you with SEO services.

10. And always track

The saying is ‘you can’t manage what you don’t measure.’ You can rinse and repeat what is working, what’s not and what’s getting you the best return on investment (ROI) if you track your online marketing. There are many different, yet effective, methods of tracking their online marketing. Solutions ranged from: Google Analytics, custom in-house solutions, fully outsourced solution providers who deliver reporting monthly and systems that leverage off-the-shelf software like SalesForce.com.

Use these techniques to boost your marketing campaigns and online marketing strategies. All marketing programs take time and effort, but your work will be rewarded when you can measure that investment and see a return. Employing even a few of these strategies should help decrease your costs and increase your success.

As an interactive marketing agency, we are always trying to find new ways to save time, provide better quality, or to check in on the ‘Jonses’ and see what they are offering their customers

Widgets

This first tool is a customer service dream. It’s called ‘Jing‘ and essentially, it allows you to take quick pics and videos of your screen and then share it with other people. If you’ve created an image, Jing will allow you to use some general tools to make the image more lively, such as an arrow or text box.

What’s even cooler, is that this tool comes with a very useful feature, a free account at Screencast.com when you give Jing a try. Once you have uploaded your image or video to Screencast, it auto-generates a link for you to send to someone else who can now view your newly created image or video. Screencast even auto-generates embed code…WOW!

Check out this image I created.

And here is a video I created.

For more info, go to techsmith.com, a great company with great ideas.

Lets move onto some real fun. I play a little game here at the office. It’s called, ‘Copy-Mac.’ The rules of the game are simple:
1. Listen to the cool features Mac users say they have that PCs do not.
2. Find a PC tool that copies those features exactly.
3. Show them…

One feature many Mac users love, is the tile-window feature. I have recently come across a tool that lets me continue to play this game. The tool is called ‘Admiral’ created by Mexircus and it’s not only useful, it’s fun to use, especially if you are like me and have tons of windows open at any given time.

Compare: here is the PC view with Admiral; and below that is the Mac version,

PC View:

Mac View:

These are just a couple of tools that I have found to be fun and useful.

Photo Sharing

Flickr – almost certainly the best online photo management and sharing application in the world – has two main goals:
1. We want to help people make their content available to the people who matter to them.

Flickr is the WD-40 that makes it easy to get photos or video from one person to another in whatever way they want.

2. We want to enable new ways of organizing photos and video.

Once you make the switch to digital, it is all too easy to get overwhelmed with the sheer number of photos you take or videos you shoot with that itchy trigger finger. Albums, the principal way people go about organizing things today, are great — until you get to 20 or 30 or 50 of them. They worked in the days of getting rolls of film developed, but the “album” metaphor is in desperate need of a Florida condo and full retirement.

In Flickr, you can give your friends, family, and other contacts permission to organize your stuff – not just to add comments, but also notes and tags. People like to ooh and ahh, laugh and cry, make wisecracks when sharing photos and videos. Why not give them the ability to do this when they look at them over the internet? And as all this info accretes as metadata, you can find things so much easier later on, since all this info is also searchable.

Others:

Webshots
Share your pictures through photo messages, online photo albums, custom prints and gifts. |

Snappages
Fully flash built interface with 3D slideshows and an image editor.

Fotki
Free unlimited photo hosting for blogs, 9 cent prints, and photo contests.

Shutterfly
Free unlimited storage, 12 cent prints, as well as calendars and photo books.

Contacts/Business Network

Linkedin – Your professional relationships are key to your professional success. Our mission is to help you be more effective in your daily work and open doors to opportunities using the professional relationships you already have.

LinkedIn is an online network of more than 25 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries.

Others:

BNI International Web Site
BNI – International Website … BNI is the largest business networking organization in the world. We offer members the opportunity to share ideas, …

Ryze business networking
Ryze Business Networking, make business connections, make new contacts and … The prospects of social networking sites that focus on business-oriented …

Project Management

Basecamp takes a fresh, novel approach to project collaboration. Projects don’t fail from a lack of charts, graphs, stats, or reports, they fail from a lack of clear communication. Basecamp solves this problem by providing tools tailored to improve the communication between people working together on a project.

Others:

AceProject.com
Ace Project PM Software website. Commercial.

EasyProjects.net
EasyProjects PM Software website. Commercial.

ProjectInsight.net
ProjectInsight PM software website. Commercial.

People Search

Spock is “Google,” but for people. I use Spock to find out more about other companies or people I interact with. If i know more about them, I can probably help them more effectively. Of course the most relevant use is to find old friends, collegues, or even your boss…

Others:

Wink
Search using the world’s largest people search engine. Find people by name and get their phone number, address, Websites, photos, work, school, more.

PeekYou
PeekYou’s free people search engine allows you to find, contact, and track anyone online. Find photos, links, work, school and family info and much more.

Video Sharing

YouTube
Hosts user-generated videos. Includes network and professional content.

Break.com
Hosts user-generated videos. Includes network and professional content.

Viddler
You need to be logged in to use this feature. If you don’t have a Viddler account, you can join Viddler right now. It’s easy and free! …

5min
Find the best how to, instructional and DIY videos.

The list could go on forever…

What are your Favorite online tools?

The world wide web of social networking has reached a level of saturation that has far surpassed anyone’s expectation of this outlet’s popularity. Myspace and youtube are the trailblazers of this Pandora’s Box.

Anyone who has joined one of the many social networking sites, or remembers the already dead sites, should ask themselves, “Does this help me?”

I can honestly say, “yes…sometimes.” I know that doesn’t sound too solid, but there are many occasions where I can identify positive reasons for being part of a social networking site.

For example, Myspace can be used very successfully for bands trying to get exposure and establish a fan base without wasting a lot of time or money.

LinkedIn can be used very successfully to find forums, contacts and peers within your industry.

The down fall of this current environment is that there are just too many social networking sites…the choices can be overwhelming.

Because this networking environment is so inundated, my suggestion is to identify one social network that works for you. Joining every possible outlet to connect with people and keeping up with all of these sites could take over your life. So find a niche and connect with the people who are also interested in reaching out.

Here is a comical video highlighting the current downfall of social networking sites.

After nearly a decade as New Image Technologies we are changing our name to ELEMENTS™.

The genesis of our new name comes from our product called elements CMS™. This product changed the way we did business six years ago, by providing our clients with the power to control their own websites. Today we continue to hold true to that belief. We enjoy building knowledge and know-how, websites and software and condensing all of that into tangible world class services and technology for you.