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Points of Contact

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Pull out your business card and have a look and see how many points of contact do you have on your card? One? Two? Three or more?

It seems that many feel that because they have an email address or a website, they no longer need to add any further contact information on their business cards. I believe this is the wrong way to think and you need to make it easy on your prospective clients.

As an avid networker I go out regularly to meet with other business people and what they put on their business cards always interests me. Sometimes it’s just a phone number. Sometimes just an email address. Sometimes just a website. Very rarely an address or a location.  One person I met today I queried about it and he’d forgotten to add his phone number and location when he got them printed in a hurry. oops! And in his field location is an important piece of information.

There are many different personalities out there and clients with different needs. Some want to visit your website and learn about you and your services before they make contact. BUT, that doesn’t mean they want to fill out a form, or even send an email. What if they have problems with typing, or with their ability to write and put sentences together? What if people prefer to speak with you on the phone? What if they want to find out if you’re local to them first (important if the line of work they want done requires face-to-face contact or passing on of work).

Don’t shut out some of your target market by making it harder for them to contact you. Make sure you provide the information they need to make it easy to contact you:  Phone number, suburb/location (or address), email address and website should be on your cards. Give them options and appeal to everyone, instead of just a proportion of your target market. Just because you favour one point of contact, doesn’t mean your clients do. And let’s face it. If clients are not computer or internet literate it’s all the more reason why they need your support services – give them a phone number! This is my current business card and on the back I have some information on the types of services I provide and my postal address.

ACSbuscard2011

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Kathie M Thomas

Do they know how to contact you?

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I’m seeing an increasing trend of people creating brand new websites for their businesses but neglecting to put the most important information on their sites!

Namely, how to contact you.

Personally I don’t like doing business with people who only have a contact form and no other form of contact on their site. Makes me wonder what they’re trying to hide. I know, from personal experience, that many prospective clients like to pick up the phone and talk to me. Why wouldn’t clients want to do the same with you?

The various rules of marketing I’ve read over the years have also indicated you should provide several forms of contact methods for your business.  Here is a list of things that you can choose from and you should have at least 3 of these on your site.

  • Phone number, with country and state codes. Remember that your business is global when it’s on the Internet so treat it accordingly.
  • A form that leads to your email account – especially if you don’t want to have your email address listed. Or there are codes you can use to help protect your email address from getting picked up by harvesters.
  • A postal address, but if you only have your home address, then your city, state and country. Don’t leave people guessing where you might be. Some clients like to know they’re working with a ‘local’ even if it is virtually.
  • Fax number if you have it.
  • Social media account links – let them find you in other places too!

contactinfoMake this information easy to find. For example, you might want to have it all on the contact page BUT having a phone number in the very top of your site will increase the number of calls you receive – this has to be a good thing!  Also having your social media links visible on the home page works well too.

Additional items that I feel are very important:

  • Your name – let people know who you are and who they are addressing. Not just your business name.
  • Currency – if you’re going to list rates, then include your currency. Clients like to know what currency they’ll be paying in.
  • About information. Don’t hide behind a business name. Use your own name and list your experience – let clients know why they should be using you based on what you have done in the past. Anyone can say they’re a premium service or provide fantastic support. Back it up with your knowledge, experience and background.

If you want people to do business with you then make it easy on them to learn about you and how to contact you.

 

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Kathie M Thomas

Do you have a Facebook profile?

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If you have a Facebook account, and are in business, it would make sense to ensure that your business details are listed in your About tab. It amazes me that so many do not have their business websites linked in the About tab on their personal profiles at Facebook. If you have your privacy settings on, people won’t be able to see your other details but they will be able to see what is in the About tab. So it makes sense to make use of that piece of real estate.

If you’re a member of a group (and particularly a business group) you can only join as a person, rather than as a business, so wouldn’t it make sense to make sure that anyone there (and any other visitor for that matter) can look to see what your business is, or what you do for a living?

When someone at a group (or even a page) makes a comment I find interesting and I want to find out more about who they are and what they do, the first thing I do is click on their name and go to the About tab. There I should be able to learn about their work and see their web addresses.

If you haven’t yet done this, may I encourage you to take a few minutes to complete this important part of your Facebook profile.

facebook-about

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Kathie M Thomas

Sign off your emails!

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This is a message for anyone in business – Virtual Assistants, their clients and others.  Please sign off your emails properly. Even if you have an existing relationship with someone you’re emailing, it still makes sense to use your signature.

Why? Because not everyone remembers your phone number off by heart, or has it in their database, or knows what your website is (especially if your email address does not reflect your business website address), your fax number or whatever.

Sometimes I just want to pick up the phone straight away to ring someone and their number is not there in front of me and even if I go through several past emails, often I don’t find the phone number.  I have to google them to find their website to get the phone number. What a waste of time.

Sometimes I want to pass on details of someone to someone else – how much easier that would be if it was there in a signature block for me to copy and paste and then forward on.

Think how more often you might get click throughs to your website if that address was included in your signature block. Come to think of it, I had a photography forum email me last week saying I hadn’t been there for awhile and I was missed, please come back.  And yet, they did not include their domain address at the end of the email, and nor did their email reflect the website address.  Lost opportunity.

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Kathie M Thomas

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