Author: Allison Doyle

This Thanksgiving, Thank Your Customers!

by Allison DoyleBuild Your BusinessLeave a Comment on This Thanksgiving, Thank Your Customers!

As a small business owner or entrepreneur, you might spend a lot of your time deciding what to focus on based on ROI and perceived value, but sometimes, you need to stop and remember that it’s your customers that really count.

So as we approach this Thanksgiving, we wanted to share a couple simple ways you could thank your clients.

Send a handwritten note or card

It’s always nice to receive a handwritten note or card, even a short Thank You, and these can be sent quickly and cost-effectively from a host of places (Staples, online card printing sites); and they go a long way.

Give a freebie

Sending a personalized gift is a great way to not only express your gratitude, but also create a lasting impression with your clients. A gift can be personalized to your clients to show your connection with them, or it can represent your business in some way. Some ideas are: logoed mugs, keychains, or bottle openers. It could be a notebook, or even something like a free muffin that week for customers. You could also go as elaborate as sending a entire goodie bag, it’s up to you!

Offer an upgrade

Depending on the type of business you run, you can also offer an upgrade as a Thank You for your clients. If you’re a technology start-up or business, you could offer an upgrade to the next level of your service; but even if you’re a bakery or entrepreneur, you could offer an upgrade to your services, or a coupon for a percent off (or entire price cut off) as a Thank You gift.

Create a social media Thank You video

You don’t need to be a videographer or stellar actor to shoot a video on your smartphone and upload it to social media, or send it out in a dedicated email. This is a great way to thank you customers with a 30-second shout-out, or thank you statement that you can share on your website, on Twitter, and on Facebook. You can tag the customers you want to show it to, and it doesn’t cost a dime!

Host a Customer Appreciation Night

The holidays are always a good time to host a party or celebration, so if you have the budget, you can always host a customer appreciation event and invite your VIP customers to it as a Thank You. This is not only a great way to bond with and spend time with your clients outside the work environment, but it also gives your client the opportunity to network, and allows them to see the diverse group that you work with. A customer appreciation night doesn’t need to be a huge event; it can range from a casual get-together at your local coffee shop or a networking event at a rented restaurant. You can introduce upcoming upgrades or products, hold a raffle, or even provide hors d’oeuvres and drinks for a cocktail party feel.

If you’re looking to invite your current customer list to an event, do you know how to easily email the group? Full Slate offers the ability to keep email correspondence in one place, and you can keep track of all your customers in its database. Try Full Slate for free by clicking here.

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An Easy Choice This Election Season – Get Full Slate for Your Business!

by Allison DoyleBuild Your BusinessLeave a Comment on An Easy Choice This Election Season – Get Full Slate for Your Business!

This Tuesday, the U.S. will choose its next President, and we won’t even go into that today – but if you’re looking for an easy choice this November, we have one for you: Get Full Slate for your business!

Full Slate is a comprehensive appointment scheduling software that helps small businesses with everything from appointment scheduling and reminders, to credit card payments, class sign-up, staff scheduling, client reviews, and more.

Not only does Full Slate help take the stress out of scheduling, it also syncs with QuickBooks, allowing your scheduling software choice to communicate seamlessly with your accounting software. You can record payments and give up manually entering data!

This QuickBooks integration is so important, we wanted to go into a bit more detail today. Two of our most Frequently Asked Questions about this process are:

Can I Sync My Client Contact Info with QuickBooks?

The answer is: yes! With QuickBooks Sync, your client list is shared, so clients within Full Slate appear in QuickBooks, and vice versa. This means all their contact info, including name, email, phone, address, and any client notes.

Before you sync, it’s also a good idea to backup any client information within Full Slate, which you can do under CLIENTS > LIST.

Can I Sync My Payment Transactions to QuickBooks?

Again, yes! Full Slate will automatically sync your payment transactions entered via Checkout each time you save a transaction. That means that when you open QuickBooks, your transaction should immediately show up.

If you go the opposite direction, and change something in QuickBooks, such as modifying a sales tax rate, you’ll need to go into Full Slate’s menu SETUP > QUICKBOOKS SYNC and click “Synchronize now” to see those changes reflected in Full Slate. You also may need to refresh your browser.

Note: transaction sync works one-way from Full Slate to QuickBooks, so any transactions recorded or modified in QuickBooks cannot be synced to Full Slate.

To read more about the QuickBooks Sync and Checkout integration with Full Slate, click here.

To try Full Slate for free, sign up for our trial! No credit card is required, and there’s nothing to install! Plus, we offer free setup and support. Check it out: https://www.fullslate.com/try-free-online-scheduling

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5 Scary Social Media Myths – And The Truth Behind Them

by Allison DoyleSocial MediaLeave a Comment on 5 Scary Social Media Myths – And The Truth Behind Them

Happy Halloween! From all of us here at Full Slate, we hope you enjoy the holiday and perhaps book some special holiday appointments – or enjoy your day off! Today we wanted to share 5 scary social media myths that we’ve heard around the campfires – and the real truth behind them.

You can’t measure social media.

Wrong! You can measure social media, by using the native platforms’ analytics reports – though yes, it can be tedious. You can also measure this through automation tools like paid social or community management.

Social media doesn’t covert into buyers.

False. Social media advertising is directed at a highly targeted audience, and thus reaches prime customers for your business – as they are aligned with your brand already in some way.

My clients aren’t on social

While there may be a segment of clients who aren’t on social media themselves, they have used it and seen it before.

You have to be on every social media site

Not true. You only have to be active on social media platforms that make sense for your brand. You need to engage where your consumers are engaging. But you do NOT need to be on a social media site just for the sake of being on it. Doing so will only be a time suck, a resource drain, and a stress. Focus your efforts for much better results (and a stress-free life).

It’s worthless unless I can have a large following

It’s not as simple as this. While the size of your following can act as “social proof” and help your online reputation, it does not directly affect the success of a social media strategy. You can have a small community but if you connect with your engaged clients and foster loyalty and brand advocates, that’s a success.

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Should You Send Emails to Your Customers Over the Holidays?

by Allison DoyleEmail MarketingLeave a Comment on Should You Send Emails to Your Customers Over the Holidays?

With the holidays coming up, a question that you might ask yourself is: should you send emails to your customers over the holidays? The answer is more complicated than you might think.

When deciding whether or not to send an email over the holidays, there are several factors to consider:

  • What type of email are you planning to send?

  • What goal are you trying to achieve with your email?

  • Do you have the time and resources to split test?

  • Who are the people on your distribution list?

Let’s examine these one at a time.

What type of email are you planning to send?

If you are a small business or retailer, you might want to consider not sending an email during the holidays, because tons of discount and “holiday deal” emails are sent during the holidays, and recipients tend to mark any as SPAM. Or worse, sometimes you’ll get unsubscribes just from sending an email on a certain date. A study by Inc. and Delphi showed that holiday greetings can have a five times higher chance of unsubscribe as opposed to other messages.

However, if you’re sending an email to keep top-of-mind, and wish your clients a happy holiday, these might not get unsubscribes, but they also might get a lower open rate.

What goal are you trying to achieve with your email?

Because many holidays fall on or around the weekend, it’s important to consider the difference between weekday and weekend email sends as you consider whether to send a holiday email.

According to a 2014 ExactTarget mobile behavior report, emails sent on Saturday and Sunday had the lowest volume rates, but the highest open and clickthrough rates. (17.8% for both days – the highest percentage of the week). What this means is that although the weekend was not the most popular time to send emails, those who opened weekend emails were much more likely to engage and clickthrough.

Data from Harland Clarke corroborates this, as on Saturday, only 5.5% of total emails tracked were sent, yet they were viewed at 32.5%. So if the recipient chooses to open the email on the weekend, you have a higher ROI – but overall, open rates tend to be lower than weekdays.

This is a good argument for trying to send on a holiday, as you might be able to cut out some of your competition and engage with quality prospects – a good strategy, especially for start-ups or smaller businesses that might not have as many regular email marketing resources as larger businesses.

Do you have the time and resources to split test?

If you have the ability and resources to split test emails, you might want to consider doing this for the upcoming holiday. Try to test an unconventional time and holiday with a more traditional time, and see what results you get.

Who are the people on your distribution list?

During the holidays, many people might not be checking their emails, especially if you’re sending to an office or office manager’s work account. When they return, they’ll be inundated with emails, and those with a marketing or spam look to them will be deleted without a glance. Therefore, if you’re sending to work emails and offices, you might want to avoid sending emails during summer holiday season, around Christmas, or New Year’s.

To help improve holiday email engagement rates, GoDaddy recommends brands avoid sending emails on Thanksgiving Day altogether. “On Thanksgiving Day, open rates hit their lowest rate for the entire month of November,” says GoDaddy.

So the general consensus seems to be: avoid sending email marketing over holidays, as the potential for unsubscribes outweighs the goodwill and recognition you might experience by sending out a Happy Holidays message. But then again, if you’re looking for an unconventional way to get an edge on your competitors, holiday emails might be a good test for your business. In general, if you want to send out email marketing messages, but set them to automate (and not worry about them afterwards!), consider a free trial of Full Slate – we have that functionality and more!

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A Full Slate Facebook Update

by Allison DoyleAnnouncementsLeave a Comment on A Full Slate Facebook Update

Here at Full Slate we always want to keep our users informed of the latest and greatest happenings at our company, so we wanted to let you know of a change you’ll start seeing in the coming weeks and months. First and foremost, we’re sorry we’ve been so quiet lately! We recognize this, and are working to set new processes to keep the blog alive and well!

Also, if you’ve been keeping track – we’ve currently been utilizing our Facebook page as a de facto Help Center for our users. We announce maintenance times and respond to customer inquires there, and while that is all great, and we love chatting with you and always want you to be up-to-date on what’s happening with the software and your business, moving forward – we’ll also now be posting more interesting articles, fun images, and relevant content geared to you.

We will of course continue to announce any important updates or planned downtime we might have, and you can always reach out to us on our Facebook page if you have questions or concerns. However, you can also send us a direct message if you’d rather communicate privately with us, or visit our Help Center to see if your question already has an answer!

If you haven’t yet, visit us on Facebook and LIKE our page! Thanks so much!

https://www.facebook.com/fullslate

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