That’s all for today.

Marissa

CRM or customer relationship management is a very popular buzz word that has been being thrown around a lot in the business and marketing circles.  Unfortunately, most people don’t address small scale customer relationship management, and how valuable it can be to a local business. CRM is basically just keeping in touch with your customers in order to build a strong relationship with them so that they hire you to do their parties and recommend you to their friends and families.  Now that you know what it is, lets get started…

First things first, you will need to build a customer database, now this isn’t hard so no worries.  The first step in this process is to get a spreadsheet program.  If you have Microsoft’s Excel, this will work very well, however you can also use Open Office which is a free download that has similar features to the Microsoft Office Suite.

So go ahead and download that or open up Excel.  Now go to this link, and download the template I created for a very simple customer database.  Now when a window pops up that looks like this:

click the save file toggle then click OK, a second window should pop up and you should be sure to save to Desktop.

Now open up your Spreadsheet program, click open and select the file titled CRM, this will open the template.  Which should look a lot like the image above.  Now just save the file in your business folder so you can use it later with ease.

Now that you have a simple database, begin collecting the information for the database from you customers.  Maybe you have a list of names and emails, or a list of old phone numbers etc. Compile all of this information into this database for easy reference.  Don’t forget, when a new customer comes in, have them write down all their information.  This simple database will become invaluable in your CRM program.

The next step in the process is to begin managing you customer relationships…use the database and shoot an email or a simple letter out to the customers who haven’t got a Tat in a while, encourage them to come back with a small discount or special offer of some kind, like a free glitter tat kit. If they come back, great, if not find out why and try to fix it if you can.

Another way to use this is to send your customers holiday promotions.  If you have time, shoot an email out to your entire database, use customer names, and encourage them to come in for a valentines tat for their loved one or to celebrate that they don’t have one.  Include one or two high quality pictures of Valentines day themed Tats, use your imagination.  This will be sure to bring in customers that forgot all about you and are in need of a unique gift idea. Doing something like this for every holiday, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Mothers Day, Father Day, Fourth of July, will increase the amount of times your customers come in, and its completely free.

But, this isn’t just for holiday advertising, keep in touch with your customers, after they get a tat, shoot them an email and see if they have any questions, if they had a party ask them if they had a good time and remind them that they should refer you to their friends and family, if you haven’t heard from them in a while, send them an email to find out why.  This gives customers a reason to come back and keeps your business in the forefront of their mind.

And, that’s it, use your imagination, and you’ll be sure to retain more customers and increase your sales and your businesses reputation.  If anyone has any questions please feel free to email at marissa@tatstore.com.

Today we are going walk through using YouTube to market your business. YouTube is an incredibly valuable tool to inform and educate customers and to bring in new customers. It is the quickest way to effectively tell customers about your services. You could put up a video of you explaining how to care for their tat, a video talking about tat parties, or even videos of customers getting tats. Much like the idea of hosting customer photos on your website, this is a method of driving traffic to your website. We’re going to talk about putting customer videos on the web, as it will likely be the most viral type of video.

The first step in this process is to get a video camera. Don’t go wasting your money on a complicated setup that will just make the process more difficult and more expensive anyway. I’d recommend Creative Vado Pocket Video Cam, it is simple to use and a steal at only $79.99 and free shipping. This also uses a hard drive so you won’t have to deal with pricey disks or tapes. While you’re at it, buy a cheap tripod.

Once you have a camera, you need to get a YouTube account. Go to www.youtube.com, and in the upper right hand corner click the sign up button. Fill out the form to the right and click create my account. Now you will have to check your email for the confirmation YouTube just sent you. Click the link in the email to confirm. Now you will be taken to the YouTube page. Congratulations you now have a YouTube account.

The next step is to video tape your customers. Do a couple practice rounds with a friend or spouse and see what angle looks best. Now when a customer gets their tat picked out start videotaping it. Make sure you stop rolling as soon as your done so you don’t take up all the space on the video camera. When your customers are finished, let them know they can find their video on YouTube by visiting your website and clicking the YouTube link. Continue to video tape all of your customers throughout the day. At the end of the day, use the software that came with the video camera to break up all the videos by customer.

Now you need to upload the video to YouTube. Go back to www.youtube.com and sign in. Now click the yellow upload button in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Click the grey browse button and find the file where you saved the video files and upload each video. Now you will be taken to a screen where you need to fill out title, description, keywords and category. In the title be sure to put the name of your business and the first name of the person being tat-ed. Add a small description, and be sure to put keywords. For category, I recommend “how to and style.” Now click the save changes button, and then repeat the above process until all of your videos are uploaded.

Now in the upper right hand corner of the screen click your screen name. This takes you to your YouTube profile. Copy the address in the address bar and add the link to a prominent area on your website, instructing visitors to click it to find their video.

You should at this point go back to your YouTube page and click the yellow “edit channel” button in the upper left hand corner of the page. Fill out the form on the next page and leave the default toggles selected. Click update channel. Now go to the channel design link at the left of the page. Here you will pick a color scheme and a featured video. Then click update channel. Now in the upper right hand corner of the screen click “account”. On the left click profile setup. Now upload a picture of your business’s logo or another photo that accurately represents your business. Then write a description and put your website’s address into the website box. In addition fill out the hometown box, so that those in your town can easily find your business.

Now you are done setting up your YouTube account. Encourage customers to comment and share their videos, and before you know it all of their friends will be coming to you wanting to get that TAT they saw on YouTube.