Friday, 30 November 2007
Marketing Tips - Envelopes are more than just holders of mail
| Direct mail marketing isn't just about the content. What motivates people to open mail? In my experience curiosity is one of the biggest factors in getting people to open mail. Think about it for a moment - if you get an envelope plastered with logos and slogans from a company and it is obviously direct mail - how many people don't even bother opening it and bin it instead? My local post office kindly provides a bin near the post office boxes so people can "sort" their mail straight into the bin. Now imagine you get a hand written plain envelope that has something lumpy inside that crinkles a bit when you touch the envelope. Would you open it to see what was inside? Most people would. (I personally used this approach last month when sending out instant coffee bags with a mail out about my Instant HR Policies and Procedures Manual - they crackled and made the envelope lumpy enough to be interesting). If the mail is opened you have a chance to have your message read. Tap into curiosity and you are more likely to have your mail opened. Broadcast your wares on the outside of an envelope and there is no mystery left to be revealed. Until next time Ingrid Cliff Heart Harmony http://www.heartharmony.com.au/ Business development ... through copywriting and marketing Labels: direct mail, marketing envelopes, marketing tips |
Thursday, 29 November 2007
Marketing Tip - Manage your team changes with clients
| Marketing isn't just about selling a product - you also are selling your team, your skills and your brand. One of the most forgotten marketing areas is planning for team transitions. Losing a key contact in your business through resignation, promotion or even just an extended holiday is often a time when your key clients make a choice to go elsewhere with their business. Without effective planning for this transition you may find your customers follow the person leaving, get confused about who to talk with about their issue or even get frustrated about having to repeat their history to a new person. Some tips to manage the marketing of succession:
Managing a transition doesn't have to mean losing customers - if you deal with it correctly. Until next time Ingrid Cliff Heart Harmony Business development ... through human resources and marketing
Labels: customer service, customers, hr planning, marketing tips |
Wednesday, 28 November 2007
Marketing Tip - Campaign alignment
| The most effective marketing campaigns align with the goals of the campaign. Each part of the campaign builds on a previous part. For example a print ad may lead people to a website "squeeze page". This page needs to be consistent with the information contained in the ad otherwise people will click away without leaving their details or taking action. Once they get taken through to the website - the page they land on must be consistent with the previous page information. Everything must seamlessly flow through. The more aligned your material - the better your results. Until next time Ingrid Cliff Heart Harmony www.heartharmony.com.au Business development ... through marketing Labels: alignment, marketing campaigns, marketing tips |
HR Tips - HR Planning
| Most people understand the need to plan their business and their marketing, but the need to plan for their team often gets pushed down the list. Your people will make or break the implementation of your business vision and direction. Unless you have the right team with the right skills at the right time in the right place your vision won't be realised. Once you have planned for your business direction stop and ask:
Until next time Ingrid Cliff Heart Harmony http://www.heartharmony.com.au/ Business development ... through human resource management Labels: hr planning, hr tips, recruitment, skill assessment |
Marketing Tips - Maximise Christmas
| It is that time of year when people are desperately trying to find suitable presents for people. Put yourself in most present buyers shoes for a moment - they are tired, worried about the cost of buying for everyone on their list, most hate shopping at the best of times and really hate crowded shopping centres, they have very little time and want things to be made easy for them. You can help both them (and the people around them) and your business by understanding these needs and taking action. Gifts: How can your product or service address these needs? How can you make it quick and easy to shop with you? How can you present your products already wrapped ready to give - at a great price? Service: How can you make their day a little bit more pleasant? How can you make their lives a little bit easier and stress free? The extra time you take looking after your customers this time of year will pay dividends for both you and them. Until next time Ingrid Heart Harmony www.heartharmony.com.au Business development through marketing Labels: christmas marketing, customer service, marketing tips |
Tuesday, 27 November 2007
Patterns with people
| Hi This week I have been reminded that we attract into our lives the same sort of people over and over again. I was working with a business that had a history of poor hiring decisions. Each person turned out to be "full of hot air" with no substance beneath to back up their talk. Many had money problems that lead to suspected or proven pilfering and many had aggression problems. But something changed ... all of a sudden these people started resigning and were replaced by decent, solid, reliable team members. What was happening with the managers? At the same time some key managers had separated from their partners (who also happened to be aggressive etc) and were now dating solid, reliable, stable people. What was the difference? The most significant change was the thoughts of the key managers about who they were and what they would and would not stand for. Once the thoughts changed then the environment around them changed. Look at your work environment - what is it telling you about your thoughts? Until next time Ingrid Cliff Heart Harmony http://www.heartharmony.com.au/ Business development ... through human resource management Labels: attitude, law of attraction, staff hiring, thoughts creating things |
Sunday, 25 November 2007
25 New Articles Posted
| Hi everyone I have just uploaded 25 of my business development, human resource management, marketing and personal development articles to my website. Happy reading! Until next time Ingrid Cliff Heart Harmony www.heartharmony.com.au Business development ... through copywriting, marketing and human resource management Labels: articles, business development articles, HR articles, marketing articles, personal development articles |
Thursday, 22 November 2007
Shared Visions
| Hi This week while I was facilitating a planning workshop I was reminded about the power a group of people talking about their visions, hopes and dreams can have. Each person added a piece to the jigsaw puzzle that was the vision of their company. Each person was needed to complete the jigsaw as each person held a piece that was unique to them. Each person left feeling heard, excited about the potential of their future and full of energy to step into their vision. Sort of reminded me about life - each one of us has our unique piece of jigsaw that we need to put on the table to create the bigger jigsaw. We need to share, speak up and not be afraid to show our jigsaw piece as without it the bigger picture may not develop. What is your jigsaw piece that you are meant to share? Have you shared it fully? Until next time warm regards Ingrid Cliff Heart Harmony www.heartharmony.com.au Business Development ... through personal development Labels: jigsaws, personal growth, planning, vision |
Thursday, 15 November 2007
One of those days
| Hi Have you ever noticed how your business profitability reflects your own internal profitability? The days when you are on top of the world with your confidence and everything in your business flows smoothly compared to the days when you are feeling flat and want to curl into a ball and your business heads the same way? Many of the positive thinking gurus talk about this phenomena - what you focus on you get. But there is more to it than just thinking about it. On the flat days you need core skills and grit to keep going until you are "up" enough to take action to improve yourself further. Abraham says it well (and I am paraphrasing here) - some days even anger is better than depression. You can't get to feeling aligned straight from depression - anger is at least heading in the right direction as it has energy behind it. So on a really flat day - don't go for the rah rah hype - get good and angry ... and once that is done you may be able to reach for a wry smile rather than a million dollar focus! Until next time warm regards Ingrid www.heartharmony.com.au Labels: anger, law of attraction, positive thinking |
Monday, 12 November 2007
Customers as a mirror
| Hi Shakti Gawain talks about all people as being mirrors to your personal development - either showing you great parts of yourself or bits you need to heal. I agree and take it one step further. In business - your customers are a reflection of who you are, your current level of thinking or your next step in your business. For example - if all your customers are angry people trying to rip you off ... guess where your thinking is likely to be. If you have brilliant happy customers who genuinely enjoy working with you then it is likely that is what you are giving out. Me ... well I have been looking at my customers over the past few months and I have noticed a marked trend for high profile public speakers on topics such as wealth creation and internet marketing. All are lovely people in their own right. Draw your own conclusions on this one! Who are you attracting at the moment? warm regards Ingrid www.heartharmony.com.au Labels: customers |
Thursday, 8 November 2007
The Things We Do In Traffic ...
| Hi Yesterday I was in the car driving to meet some clients down the Gold Coast - usually about an hour and a half trip but ... there was some problem with the highway and my quick trip turned into a 3 hour marathon. So I got to spend a lot of time looking at the people in cars around me while ants sped past me. Some people looked resigned and bored, some were quite angry and aggressive, some were using their time talking on their mobiles and I heard a lot of music playing - sometimes people were singing along. Me - I started by talking on the phone to clients (until my battery ran out). I then found myself getting "antsy" and ended up taking the next exit and going exploring in areas I had never been before, until I found a way to where I needed to go that avoided the highway. It seemed that the delay in traffic revealed a lot about how people viewed life. Some were resigned to go slow, some were angry that they weren't going faster but didn't do anything about it, some distracted themselves and some connected with other people on the journey. I learnt about myself that I love connecting with people but I still love moving forward and am willing to get outside my comfort zone and get lost for a time before I find my way ... but I am not willing to stay stuck. Kinda nice really! What do you do in traffic? warm regards Ingrid www.heartharmony.com.au Labels: personal growth, time management, traffic jams |
Tuesday, 6 November 2007
Lessons from Christmas Lights
| Hi Every year my family and I spend a few weeks covering our house and gardens with loads of Christmas lights. I swear that when they are all switched on the load on the whole of Brisbane electricity circuit hits a spike. Last weekend we started our self appointed annual task. And as I was sitting on the lounge testing yet another string of lights for dead bulbs and cursing the task I reflected on what Christmas lights can teach us about life. We start with an idea - a hope - an inspiration and set off with high ideals. We try and enrol people in our vision of the future. But often when we are in the middle of the mammoth task it can seem endless - as if we will never get to the end of it. The tangles can feel impossible to unravel. We can feel that the whole task is pointless and that things would be lots easier if we just hadn't started the whole thing anyway. We can feel unsupported and abandoned by the people we tried to enrol in our vision. We can feel frustrated and angry - lashing out at people around us in our frustration. We can find many dead ends and many things that no longer work and can't be fixed. We can fantasize of how much easier it would be if we could just buy more new things or pay someone else to do it. Many people give up at that stage of the game saying that it was not meant to be. But if you stick with it and hold true to your vision, eventually you will come to the end of the challenge. Eventually you will start to see your vision taking shape. Eventually you will have glimmers of people getting behind your dream and helping convert it to reality. Eventually you will start to see the odd miracle occurring (for me I interpret a strand of lights with no dead bulbs after a year in storage as a miracle!) Once you have all the basics done, you get to finally "switch on" and then enjoy your creation - first by yourself and then a few people come by to admire the view and then a few more and finally busloads of people stop and admire your work. All marvel at your perseverance in your creation and comment they would not have the patience ... But you know that it was just done one step at a time. So why do I do the lights? It started just as a few strands for my kids. Then a few more and a few more. Soon we found that even though we may not see people at the end of the street for the rest of the year, as soon as the lights went up we would meet people in our community as they went for a walk each night to our house to enjoy the lights. For a few brief weeks each year we were part of a bigger community - we could bring joy and happiness to our neighbours as well as ourselves and we could bathe our house in love and awe. We could bring people together to share friendship and common bonds. I even started to market my business to all the passing traffic through cards attached to gifts of lollies for the families and I met some great clients as a result. All of these are pretty great reasons to do the lights! This week I am in the boring stage of creating my vision, but I know in a few weeks it will all be done and the results will be brilliant. So - as you look at a strand of Christmas lights, ask yourself ... what can the lights teach you about how you tackle life? warm regards Ingrid Heart Harmony http://www.heartharmony.com.au/ Labels: Christmas lights, motivation, perserverance |
Thursday, 1 November 2007
Halloween in Australia
| Hi everyone Last night was Halloween in Australia. I have 2 kids who love dressing up and generally having a good time - so it seemed like a great excuse for a party. Many workplaces had people in costume throughout the day - so we thought we were in good company. We hit the net to find out how to carve pumpkins (as we were pumpkin novices) and took great delight in setting up our lit pumpkin on our driveway entrance. We had lots of local cars go past and slow down for a look throughout the night. But what was the response when we were talking about our great pumpkin to people - "Why would you do that - it's only something done in America not here". My kids along with a few ring ins wanted to try "Trick or treating". We have a close neighbourhood - everyone knows everyone in our street - but the response was quite underwhelming. We may have come a long way in Australia - embracing multi-cultural food and people from different backgrounds - but last night watching my kids try something a bit different made me realise how much further we have to go. It also highlighted for me how hard it must be for people from different backgrounds to celebrate their personally significant cultural and religious events in a meaningful way in our present culture. Many of our major public holidays are around Christian celebrations of easter and Christmas. But what about employees with different needs such as around Ramadan? Businesses need to recognise that not everyone comes from the same background and put in place procedures that validate different employees backgrounds and allows them to take time if needed to celebrate their events. As for us - we will continue to celebrate Buddha's Birthday as well as Panyiri and yes even Halloween. We will take sweeps at Melbourne Cup and mourn the fallen on Anzac Day. I believe in the richest possible experience in life and for my family. Happy All Saints Day! warm regards Ingrid www.heartharmony.com.au Labels: halloween, public holidays |