With springtime being a period of new beginnings and renewed growth, we want to help you feel refreshed when it comes to your communication.
All of us have so many platforms, tools, and accounts for connecting with each other. It’s really amazing how closely you can stay in contact, even without going into work every day or spending time with loved ones.
This article will help you clean up and organize your business communication as well as your personal communication. It’s a lot of simple actions that can go a long way.
Audit Your Address Book
This applies to your personal phone, Skipio account, email, wherever you currently store contact information. Archives exist for a reason!
That person who never “opted out” of receiving texts or emails but who also wasn’t a great fit and never bought and who you haven’t talked to in a year? Their information doesn’t need to be taking up active space in your contact list.
Even if you already keep your address book up-to-date (kudos if you do), this is your opportunity to create or better utilize groups. That way you’re prepared to contact specific people without having to manually search for them in the future.
We’ve seen our clients have great success when creating groups based on purchasing habits, product preferences, goal setting, and the like. It really helps them send targeted, personalized texts whenever needed. They then receive more responses and engage in more conversations. And that’s success however they define it: boosted sales, greater attendance, happier customers… The list goes on.
And Your Social Media Accounts
You know those sayings that encourage you to surround yourself with good people? That 100% applies to your personal social media accounts.
Working remotely and staying home likely means you’re spending more time on social media. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing! Those tools and platforms are what keep us connected, whether that’s to friends and family or team members and customers.
But now is the perfect time to unfollow some accounts and maybe even find others that help you stay in a better head space. Like all those brands you followed when you entered that contest on Instagram? You can probably drop a few of those.
And why would you want to spend time looking at posts that just make you feel bad? This doesn’t mean unfollow all the people you disagree with or unfollow all the news sites, but it does mean taking a close look at the pages and people who aren’t doing your mental health any favors.
Surround yourself on social media with posts that…
- inspire and motivate you
- keep you informed and teach you
- help you smile and laugh
- give you a new perspective
Unsubscribe and Clear Out Messages
Many people download interesting case studies, reviews, and guides from other companies. When you do, you usually end up on a marketing or sales email/text list. The number of lists you’re on can add up quick, so take a few minutes to unsubscribe or text stop. You probably receive even more marketing emails to your personal email. Liberate yourself from those lists!
If you decide you want more info from a business in the future, it doesn’t take much to get in contact again.
As you go through unsubscribing, delete and archive other messages as well. Whether or not you read any of the messages before getting rid of them is between you and your inboxes. After all, if someone REALLY needed to get in contact, they probably would have figured out a way to do it by now. Might as well bulk archive or delete those messages.
Set Communication Hours
Here at Skipio we love healthy communication boundaries, especially when it comes to business communication. Working from home during this spring (and potentially beyond) makes this all the more important.
It’s so easy for work life to bleed over into everything else you do at home. That isn’t healthy in “normal” circumstances, let alone the high-stress circumstances we’re all currently trying to handle.
Set specific hours of availability for…
- checking your personal work email and texts
- reading and responding to customer support inquiries
- answering sales questions
- posting on social media and interacting with posts
- engaging with prospective customers
Make sure the relevant times of availability are communicated to your team members, employees, customers, etc. Telling your family or friends about your business-specific communication boundaries may also be valuable. Then they can keep you accountable and ensure you honor your off hours.
Create a Digital Business Card
People aren’t out and about, having in-person meetings, or attending conferences right now, so a physical business card isn’t doing you much good. A digital business card can be used now and well into the future.
Think about how convenient it is to deliver all your contact info to someone’s phone. Multiple Skipio team members set up a keyword campaign within their Skipio accounts that contains all the contact info a business connection needs. People text the keyword to the number, and they immediately get a text with the “business card.”
This text includes:
- a photo of the person
- their Skipio email address
- a link to their LinkedIn profile
- the social media handles they use
And of course this digital business card means the connection has their Skipio phone number!
Evaluate Your Marketing and Sales Strategies
The second quarter of the year just started and with stay-at-home orders and social distancing in full swing, you need to be looking at your engagement and interactions. The first quarter certainly can’t be used as a benchmark for the second… We’re living in a completely different world. Even what you thought would work a week or two ago may no longer be effective.
But we want to talk less about adapting your marketing and sales to maximize growth and more so about maximizing personalization.
We really encourage you to focus on the human elements of any marketing and sales outreach that you do. Think about how to show customers appreciation and help reassure them that you have their back. Giving people whatever peace of mind you can will go a long way in helping make their lives easier.
If you offer great solutions that will really help individuals or businesses, do what you can to make those solutions more widely available. Now is the time to reach out and help each other. That could be free services, discounted upgrades, or extended trials.
Be Gentle With Yourself
Apart from making sure your marketing and sales messaging is appropriate, none of these things are time sensitive. Don’t feel like you have to do all of them right now or all at once.
