Debbie Mayo-Smith: Free and easy strategies are the way to make your business grow

Looking forward to 2010 and beyond, one thing is certain. You'll have to continue to accomplish much more using fewer resources. Therefore your company should become a champion of free and easy. I've coined a term for this: Freasy. It just makes so much sense.

Doing the Freasy means making a change to at least a portion of the traditional way you conduct your marketing, promotion and customer service.

It's easy to pick up the phone and place an ad or radio spot. It brings customers to you, but it's not free. Once you have them, it's figuratively easy to let customers pay and just walk out the door. But not smart.

It's very easy to ignore all the yakkety yak concerning social media. Twitter this, Facebook that. Especially if you have no interest in it or think it's for kids. You've thrown this great free resource away.

Let's look at two Freasy marketing and promotion concepts your company should be employing for future business growth.

Freasy one: Database
You can't go past this formula for the ultimate in free and easy. It's one I have used with enormous success for years and forms a core of many of my business presentations: Information + communication + automation = PROFIT.

Business income is driven by the people that know you, customers and the referrals they bring. Advertising, website and internet strategies introduce you to prospective customers. Similarly, the desired outcome of attending networking events is to meet new prospects. It's common sense to have processes to ensure that the time, effort and money spent is capitalised on, rather than being wasted.

The three Freasy processes that spell profit are as follows.

Information

Collect information about all your customers and prospects and put it in a database. Ensure the details you keep are sufficient to target and be relevant to them (not only to you). This is free and easy.

Communication

Keep talking to them. Form a "what is in it for them" (WIIFM) communication plan. Most businesses get the communication plan wrong. Their approach is completely self-centred. Instead, turn it around, focusing on how to make your customers and prospects more successful. Savings, better know-how, ideas, industry news ...

Automation

What's special about this formula is the magic you can make using everyday technology tools to work with the information you've collected and then to distribute the communications. Use a multimode approach: emails, print, conversation, sms, mms ... This is simply clever thinking and it's free. The result is that you form your own database (rather than giving it away to credit card companies and Flybuys). You use it to bring back and create customers when you want them.

A database marketing and communication strategy brings in income, adds value to your customer service and lowers your marketing, administration and advertising costs. Most of it is free. And easy.

Four database tips:

* Never let anyone go (unless they ask). Have forms and signups on all sources of customer contact. On receipts, at the till, on all webpages, newsletters ...

* Use the internet well. Have a website that gives information plus helpful advice. Provide demos. Have a social media presence.

* Communicate regularly. Persistence pays. HEAPS! Most businesses don't have the consistent WIIFM followthrough.

* Use your software well to save time. Time is money.

Freasy two: Facebook

Does your customer demographic include individuals aged 15-35 and over 55? Then it is simply criminal to ignore being creative with Facebook. Last week the social media community was abuzz with the story of how Ikea, the Swedish furniture company, used this network to promote a new store opening in Malmo, Sweden.

First they created a Facebook profile for the store manager. Over a fortnight they uploaded 12 showroom setting photographs on his photo album. A feature of Facebook is the ability to click on part of an image and identify (tag) a person. When someone is tagged, all their "friends" are notified and shown the picture. Thus it spreads virally.

Ikea put a clever twist on this feature. They created a promotion that allowed the first person to tag their name on an item in the picture (a chair, bed cover, curtain) to take it home. You can see how this would spread exponentially by word of mouth and the built-in viral nature of Facebook friends.

Just think how you can customise this. Instead of tagging items, you could do a weekly "spot the different item" competition. The permutations are endless.

One note. I would have done this a bit differently, using a business fan page for the store as opposed to a personal profile page. Facebook has a policy of not using a personal profile page for business. Second, business fan pages don't require people to be a member of Facebook to view it, increasing your reach. Why not use the summer break to study and decide if Facebook is right for your business? Here are six ideas:

* Follow the fan pages of influential people in your industry. Watch what they do, learn from the content they point you to. You'll get a quick education.

* If you are keen to learn about social media and don't have much time, sign up for the www.mashable.com Facebook page.

* Have a smartphone? Download and use the free Facebook application so you can learn in your downtime.

* Join Facebook with a personal page (don't do a business one until you learn and absorb). Become a fan of a selection of brands, products and company pages to find things you can emulate and eliminate.

* Refer to my Time to Join the Facebook Revolution article at http://bit.ly/4Bxb6E

* Why not join my Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/debbie.mayosmith.motivational.speaker.

Debbie Mayo-Smith is a best-selling author and international speaker. www.debbiespeaks.co.nz