ROI is so much more than sales

There is a common syndrome haunting many marketing leaders: increasing ROI no matter what. The missing point here is that ROI is so much more than sales. Still many companies today are not looking beyond anything other than their current sales performance. If ROI is the ultimate goal many might fantasize about, still there are several steps that should be followed in order to achieve this.

ROI depends on the right positioning of your brand

What every company should take into account is that an essential element of a coherent and effective communication strategy is the proper positioning of your brand. In other words, a key performance indicator is the right positioning of your brand in the market place. What you really have to keep in mind is that how the product is positioned within the market will dictate the kind of values the product/service represents, thus how the target consumers will receive and perceive your brand.

Fear is the ruin of your brand

What we frequently notice right now, especially under this unstable global economical situation, is some sort of fear “veiling” over certain companies and their marketing decision makers. There is a tendency to adopt the belief that if you focus your brand on solving a certain problem for its target, you won’t be solving many other problems. Briefly speaking, they fear their brand won’t be attractive to “everyone”. The wrong solution they can find is to bomb the consumers with thousands of values and benefits their brand can bring into their lives. Hm, it sounds more like something supernatural, isn’t it? Well, there is a simple saying: if you try to appeal and please everyone, you’ll end up appealing to no one and having an artificial attitude and a completely false discourse. The same can be applied to brands, too. If you position your brand as “being good for everything and everyone” that doesn’t confer it any credibility or trustworthiness. Let’s face it: the target ain’t that stupid.

The central point is that a successful brand doesn’t have to serve all the segments of the target. It just has to serve one, but very well. In fact that’s the essence of the positioning strategy: to please and be right for some people but not to all of them.

source: pr-nightmare.com

Any marketing business is simply curtailed without an advertising agency. It is an essential aspect of any company that desires to get a leading position in its industry and develop an important branding strategy that is one of its kinds. To help with branding or promotional activities, a company appoints a brand manager and a team as advertising staff. They work in sync and see to the complete promotional and branding activities of the company.

A mid size or small firm does not hire a brand manager. They just hire an agency to manage the branding and other marketing and promotional activities entirely. The agency is an essential tool between the company and the media or the market. They are the service providers that make certain that the company is absolutely represented to the end customers.

Advertising agency is responsible for creating a matchless and compelling ad campaign for their valued client to create a favorable space in the clutter of other competitors. They even assist to develop a brand space in the minds of the target audience.

When an agency is hired, they start with knowing well the product and the targets of the company. Identifying the target audience well will also assist them to prepare, produce and implement the advertising campaign well.

To plan an advertisement campaign, to implement it and to have the preferred outcome on the end customer is a challenge in itself. A good lot of research and statistical data is needed to recognize and understand the end customer. The company’s purpose, requirements and perception has to be kept in mind too.

A client’s prospect from the advertisement campaign and the advertisement agency can vary from growing sales of its products and services to presenting new products, reiterating the brand merits or simply connecting with the old and new consumers.

Keeping all the above points in mind an effective advertisement campaign is prepared. The entire campaign should contain eye catching slogans, melodious jingles to interesting body content. All of this has to be within the budget too.

If the advertising agency is not able to influence the client or if they simply dislike the entire campaign, the agency has to start again the work from scratch. Therefore, the presentation to the client should be made accurately with a lot of thought and understanding or it may only prove to be a waste of time, energy and effort.

An advertising agency can be of several sizes. It can be a full grown company with skillful and expert staff in each department or it can just be a small unit with a few highly talented and dedicated people. Whatever may be the size, the agency should be able to handling the campaign from print media to radio or TV.

An ad agency spells profits for sure, if picked carefully. It facilitates in increasing the business and also adds in greatly in increasing the sales. The advertising agency selected by you should work within a certain limited budget prcised by you.

Advertising agency leeds offers a fast and reliable, online marketing service that will increase your online sales. Advertising leeds can offer your business with the image and reputation required to explode your sales.

source: blog.echoenduring.ccom

As designers, creativity is generally understood to be a big part of our industry. Often, people in this field are actually referred to as “creatives” and I’ve heard and been a part of discussions that label the design process as “doing the creative”. Obviously, there’s an important relationship, but the question that I want to consider in this article is: just how much of a role does creativity actually have in design?

On Creativity and Design

The question itself depends a great deal on your definition of creativity. In my view, there are basically two ways of looking at the concept, one of which is very broad, while the other is really somewhat restrictive. In this article, we will consider the meaning of creativity and work towards a possible understanding of its role in the design process.

Broad Creativity

The way of understanding the concept of creativity is simply that being “creative” is a matter of having the ability to create. By this definition, the human being is, at its core, a creative creature. We make all kinds of things. We craft tools, construct buildings, build communities and so forth.

From this perspective, I truly believe that all people are ultimately creative in some capacity. We all make different kinds of things, and most of us take some form of pride in the product.

Getting back to the question of design, however, if we take this very broad understanding of creativity, then I think that it’s safe to say that most (if not all) of the design is creative. After all, the entire process is centred around creating something. Each step contributes to the same ultimate goal (or at least it should), namely to create the finished design, whether it be a poster, a logo, a website or something else entirely.

Now, I can already anticipate a counter argument suggesting that some parts of the process aren’t creative. For instance, I’m currently in the process of developing a skeleton WordPress theme that I can use as a tool for more rapid development of custom (and perhaps in the future, premium) themes. The argument could, perhaps, be made that because I am reusing the same product, that this part of the process is not creative at all.

But why not? Simply because there is nothing new about it?

If we look at our first understanding of creativity, however, it includes absolutely nothing about the need to be new. It is simply a matter of creating something. If an artist paints a painting with brushes that they have used before, is the creativity of the piece in any way compromised because the brushes are not new? Not at all!

If the creative part of design is based solely in the creation itself, then my simple skeleton theme is as much a part of the creative process as anything else.

Restrictive Creativity

However, by emphasizing the importance of newness, this particular argument does bring us at least part way to second definition of creativity, and the one that I think resonates more strongly through our culture. In a nutshell, that definition has to do with originality and innovation.

By embracing this definition of creativity, we are ultimately saying that the creative person is he or she who is blessed with the ability to conceive new and original ideas, moving things forward in interesting and previously un-conceived (or at least un-attempted) ways. Creativity, then becomes the realm of a certain form of genius – that which we so often call the “creative genius”.

When it comes to design, this ultimately changes everything surrounding our driving question. If creativity does, in fact, exist in the realm of the new, the original and the as-yet-unseen, then I would have to say that very little about design actually has to do with creativity.

To start with, how many websites are there out there that look exactly like all the other websites out there? I’m not asking this question with any form of judgement, since many of these similar looking sites are actually very attractive, have good usability and ultimately accomplish their missions admirably. There’s just nothing all that creative about them.

Moreover, even in websites that do have some level of creativity involved – perhaps a unique overall appearance or a new and innovative way of framing content – there will also be other elements that simply are not as creative. Using a basic grid? That’s a great way to add some much needed structure to your design, but it’s not creative. Adjusting typographical properties in order to improve overall readability? Perfect! But unless you’re doing something really radical, it’s not really all that creative either.

The same can also be said to apply in other areas of design too, where we follow certain rules and conventions – not because we lazy or uncreative, but simply because they have are proven choices and methodologies for achieving an effective design. Thousands of years ago, somebody had the very creative idea that led to the wheel. In all of the years that have followed, has anybody been able to develop a better solution?

Not really.

It’s just another example of the old adage: if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.

Originality vs. Functionality

Interestingly, the further I ventured down the road of this particular line of thought, the more I found myself wondering if creativity (measured by the terms of our second definition) and design might actually be mutually exclusive from each other. By this, I simply mean that each can exist independently of the other.

Creativity certainly doesn’t need to manifest itself only through design. Interestingly, though, neither does design necessarily need to be coupled with some form of creativity. In fact a good piece of design can be utterly and completely unoriginal. This is not to say that it can be a blatant rip-off, merely that that there is no individual element within the design that is entirely unique or new.

Take the website of designer Owain Lewis, which I stumbled across over at Minimal Exhibit.

Owain Lewis’ beautiful website

Altogether, it’s a beautiful and well designed site. At the same time, however, there really isn’t anything about the design that I haven’t seen before. From this perspective, the site seems more like execution of sound design principles rather than an expression of creativity – at least the kind of creativity that demands originality and newness.

Ultimately, the conclusion that this brings me to is that, while this restrictive form of creativity itself is focused on originality and newness, design itself is more about functionality. And I don’t necessarily use the term in the context of interface or web design. I simply mean that a good design is meant to fulfill a particular purpose. As such, it needs to function in particular way – even if that way is primarily the visual incitement of a particular response (psychological, emotional etc).

Creativity, then is not mandated in design, though neither it is necessarily excluded.

Conclusion

So where does that leave us? If we think of creativity as simply being the act or function of creating something, then the definition is so incredibly broad that every part of the design process can be considered to be creative. On the other hand, if we think of creativity in the more restrictive context of having to do with originality and newness, then, to some degree, the relationship between creativity and design becomes almost mutually exclusive!

From this context, it may seem impossible to make any conclusion about the relationship between creativity and design. This is not entirely true, however. I think that there is at least one conclusion that we can reach, and that is this:

By and large, our focus should be on the design, not on trying to be creative.

From the perspective of broad creativity, where every act of making something is a creative act, then trying to focus on being creative is entirely redundant. If the active of design is creative in and of itself, then trying be creative isn’t going to get you anywhere – except perhaps running in circles.

On the other hand, if creativity is entirely about being original, then it seems to me that focusing a great deal of effort on trying to be creative might (in many cases) be equally pointless. In the vast majority of cases, there is really no need to create something entirely new. Yes, it should be your own work, and yes, you should put your own spin on it, but there’s no need to reinvent the proverbial wheel with every single design you do.

As we draw to a close here, I can already anticipate a lot of people reacting very strongly to this article. So, I want to stress that the point is not to say that design can never be creative, or that designers should not be creative people (which they generally are). I am simply suggesting that creativity and design can operate independently of each other.

When you think about it, this can really be a liberating concept.

This autonomy means that, even if you’re not feeling all that creative, or are seemingly unable to come up with a new or original concept, you can still effectively fulfill your role as the designer. Just design smart. Use the principles that you’ve learned through your education and/or experience and implement them in the execution. They will serve you well.

source: www.noupe.com

Whether we like it or not, most of our professional lives are going to have their fair share of time spent in meetings. Be it with our coworkers or clients, a measurable fraction of our working lives will more than likely be taken up in an engaged discussion of tactics, projects, progress, etc.

Unfortunately, many of us in the professional world absolutely detest meetings, and abhor giving up any of our precious time to them as they usually end up being a complete waste of that time. As many professionals do not know how to effectively organize and operate a meeting for maximum results, or any at all for that matter.

It’s not necessarily our faults that our tend meetings tend to fall short of our expectations given that most of us have not had the best models to learn from. If you have ever sat through an hour plus long bickering banterfest where nothing was decided or no conclusions were every substantially reached, then you can identify with and feel our pain. So below are a few tips for helping get the most out of your meetings. Now given that our meetings tend to fall in one of two categories, either co-worker or client, and also considering that both of these types of meetings are completely different and require different handling, the post has been broken down into advice on both fronts.

Consider some of our previous articles

• Getting Clients: Approaching The Company a post from the Smashing vaults about how to handle your initial client meetings.
• 8 Strategies For Successful Relations With Clients is another post from the Smashing archives with advice on dealing with clients.

Meetings With Co-Workers

The first type of meetings that we are going to discuss are those we have with our co-workers. Given that in most professional environments, these are the meetings that populate most of our day planners. Be they collaborative, implementive, or simply informative there are a few different guidelines you can follow to help ensure that the pace and productivity of the meeting both work out in your favor. Hopefully, turning things around in your meetings and making the most of them will take the sting out. And who knows, if they begin working out, you might just start looking forward to them. Maybe.

Appoint a Runner

Now this is assuming that you have the control over this aspect of the meeting, but the first thing you want to do is to appoint an appropriate person to run the show. To be honest, not everyone has the ability or desire to head a meeting and try to keep everyone on topic and everything progressing towards some sort of end. Basically you need someone steering the ship, controlling the flow of the discussion and moving things on when appropriate, otherwise people are likely to go on and digress. Essentially derailing your dialog.

It is not even that people will do it on purpose, but given the opportunity to veer off track, a surprising number of folks will unwittingly fall into this trap. So you need to pick someone who is good at wrangling in the conversation, and not making others feel like they are being cut-off or rushed. If that air appears over the discussion people will withdraw from the dialog, believing that they are not being listened to anyway so why try. This is not the way to get the best from your co-workers on whatever project or issue has brought you all together.

So you will want to choose a runner who is patient, but at the same time resolute. Someone who is organized and focused with a natural knack for engaging people so the meeting does have active participation from all of those who are present. If everyone just sits back and absorbs the information offered, but does not contribute to the dialog, then the meeting is not a meeting, and could have been handled via e-mail. So be sure that the runner allows for and encourages input from everyone that has gathered.

Things to Keep In Mind Before You Move On

• Without someone to steer, the meeting will most certainly veer off course.
• Pick a person who can engage the others and keep them reigned in.
• They should have strong organizational skills that can stay focused amid the chaos.

The Agenda

The next topic we are going to cover is perhaps one of the most important elements of a meeting that we will discuss, and that is the meeting agenda. This organizational tool should include all of the relevant topics that the meeting will cover, along with any decisions that need to be made or issues that should be addressed. The agenda is extremely helpful when it comes to staying on track and making sure the meeting does not stray to far from relevance itself. There is always a guide to come back to should the digressions interrupt the flow of purposeful dialog, so the runner and everyone else in the meeting basically knows where the discussion is at.

To this end, it is ever so important that if you have a meeting agenda, that you in fact stay on the agenda and do not let your meeting’s productivity slip. Also, in order to help facilitate this productivity for your meeting try and get the agenda laid out ahead of time so that you can send a copy of it to all of the participants. This gives them a heads up as to the purpose and topics for the meeting so they can also be prepared and have some idea of what they would like to bring to the table, so to speak. If they get into the meeting and then have the agenda given to them, they have no time to prepare and that can unintentionally slow your meeting way down.

It may also benefit you to get input from all of those involved in the meeting as to what should and should not be on the agenda. This can be done as suggested edits being sent back to you once you have supplied them with their advanced copies of said agenda, or it can be done even before that. As one meeting winds down with your co-workers, you could begin working on setting up the agenda for next one that you will all have. Naturally, this does not cancel out the need to get them all copies of the finished agenda ahead of time for preparation, but it does go ahead and get them thinking about the next steps. It also encourages their participation and lets them know that their input is a valued addition to the meetings.

Things to Keep In Mind Before You Move On

• Stay on the agenda, and do not allow the discussion to digress often or productivity will suffer.
• Be sure that you get a copy of the agenda out to all participants ahead of time.
• Begin working on the agenda for the next meeting as you wrap-up the one you are in.
• Get the meeting participant’s input to set agenda for more active engagement.

Someone’s Rules of Order

Once again we find ourselves looking at yet another way to control the chaos of the meeting room which can often invalidate your time spent inside it. This falls heavily on the runner to ensure the proper implementation, but following some sort of rule of order for the meeting is a near must. Though it may frequently rear its ugly head in them, chaos is not the effective way to manage a meeting, so make sure that you have some sort of system for running the meeting in place for making things get done. Robert’s rules tend to be popular in the United States, however other parliamentary procedures might be better suited for your needs. Whichever way you go, make it orderly and fair.

Not only does this ensure that everyone has an opportunity to be heard, and counted in the context of the meeting, but it helps to keep the flow maintained without as much pressure on the meeting runner. So long as everyone understands the procedures that you have implemented. This is also a good reason to adopt a well known system that is easy to explain and reference for everyone, so the participation procedures do not make anyone feel like their input is not welcome or encouraged. This would be an unfortunate side-effect to not filling everyone in on the system you have in place for managing the meeting, which once again will impact the meetings productivity.

This is something that we keep coming back to, because of its importance in keeping up the positivity and the energy of the meeting so that you and your co-workers are using this time to effectively maximize your projects and professional standing. If run in a consistent, orderly fashion then you and your co-workers will enthusiastically approach these meetings inspired with fresh ideas to bring into the mix. Actually gaining from the experience, instead of dreading it and taking nothing away from it whatsoever.

Things to Keep In Mind Before You Move On

• Establish some sort of parliamentary procedure to run the meetings by.
• Be sure everyone who participates in the meeting is aware of said procedure.
• Through this process, be sure everyone has the opportunity to be heard in the meeting.

Be Aware of Time

Another area to keep in mind when it comes to running a meeting, that also can impact the productivity is the length of time that the meeting runs for. Yes, you want to ensure that no one is rushed or that the discussion is allowed to have the necessary time to develop and grow, but if the meeting begins to drag on too long, you risk losing the participant’s attention. And that, unfortunately, can spell disaster for your meeting. For if you are unable to keep their interest held in whatever is being discussed or decided then chances are, very little progress will be made.

Time is not something that you want getting away from you just as you do not want your participants to suffer the same fate. If you lose them, it will be that much harder to get them back on track and keep the correct flow so that you can accomplish what you need to. The more they drift, the more time will slip from your proverbial grips and drag you all down the rabbit hole, where all you are doing is going through the motions without actually making anything happen. As previously stated, keeping on the agenda, sending it out ahead of time, and running the dialog in an ordered, controlled fashion can all assist you in keeping the length of your meetings from getting out of hand.

Your organizational skills can also come into play in these meetings with your co-workers. As you are putting together the meeting agenda, try to feel out how much time to devote to each section of it, and if necessary, even make notes about these suggested time frames in the margins. Some people even set a maximum time limit to keep the participants tightly focused on the matter at hand. Some people who respond well to more pressure-type situations may thrive in this kind of meeting environment. This may not work well for everyone and every meeting, but on occasion may prove extremely useful in getting in and getting right to your goal. If the agenda starts to feel too full, perhaps you should split it up into two meetings that can be handled in a much more expedited fashion. This way, the meetings can be held days apart and neither gets bogged down and overly lengthy. So keep everyone focused and fresh, be sure that one eye stays on the clock as you plan and hold your meetings.

Things to Keep In Mind Before You Move On

• Do not allow time to get away from you, or you risk losing the attention of your participants.
• Allotting a time frame for each section of the agenda can help keep things moving smoothly.
• Break up agenda into two meetings if necessary to keep time under control.
• Use short focused meetings to keep everyone on point and on their toes.

Make Sure Something Happens

As productivity has been somewhat of a main focus, naturally we are going to wrap up the co-worker meeting end of the discussion talking about just that. Productivity. You certainly don’t want it to all be a waste of time, so be sure that something gets accomplished in the meeting. You have all come together for a specific purpose, and if you are going to claim victory over the disappointing, unproductive meeting gods, then you are going to have to make measurable efforts towards satisfying or achieving said purpose. So above all else, make sure that some sort of decision gets made.

If you have taken care to ensure that the other steps have all been seen to properly, then you are almost guaranteed some level of productivity to stem from your meetings, but that does not mean that we can simply assume all will go smoothly towards a resolution. We never want to take our eyes off of the prize, for that is the easiest way to lose sight of an objective. Literally. But the moment that our goals slide from our glance, it can be easy for us to deviate from our chosen direction. A good rule of thumb is to include your meeting objectives in your agenda, even if it is only in your own copy, and to close the meeting with a full summary of said objectives and goals. This summary is an easy way to ensure that what was decided, and aimed for is all fresh on everyone’s minds as they leave the meeting.

And as long as you have the goals listed on your agenda, no matter what happens throughout the course of the meeting you have the visual reference right in front of you to keep you grounded in your purpose. And just as it may be necessary to divide up the meetings when the agenda items stack up, it may become necessary to table an issue to committee. It is generally never a good idea to table an issue or idea for fear that it will never rise again, and simply become lost in an eternal tabling loop meeting after meeting. Once an issue has been tabled, it is usually harder to get it revisited given that they were already stumped by it. So you may need to establish a smaller group to committee an issue and settle it without an overwhelming number of people getting involved and delaying the action further. These assignments are another area you want to recover as the meeting closes for sure. This way, progress is always on the horizon.

Things to Keep In Mind Before You Move On

• Be sure that you accomplish something so the meeting is not a waste.
• If you cannot reach your goals, assign tasks to help keep the wheels turning outside the meeting.
• Keep your objectives listed on the agenda in front of you to never lose sight of them.
• Summarize the meeting and all points of interest as you wrap to keep it all in everyone’s focus.

Meetings With Clients

In this next segment of the post, we are going to talk about the other type of meetings that we see a lot of in our professional lives, and those are the ones we have with our clients. Now these types of meetings are completely different from those we have with co-workers, and as such, demand different handling to make sure they are effective. This section also gets broken down into the initial project meetings, and then the follow-ups. The initial project meetings are those when the client first brings us the project they would like us to tackle, and then the follow-ups are just that. Sort of progress reports or idea presentation proposals, in a nutshell.

Initial Project Meetings

When you first sit down with a client on a project, you want to hit a few recognizable benchmarks to steer the meeting towards a successful resolution. Now in this context, we are measuring success by the following criteria: that ideas were coherently exchanged, that both parties heard what the other had to offer, and that the meeting ended with a clear and agreeable decision reached by both parties. This simplified chain of events would generally be characterized as an effective initial project meeting, so this is where we shall aim our advice.

Now you can approach this type of meeting in many ways, but an easy to follow three-step plan of attack that tends to work from personal experience is listed below. If you go into the meeting prepared in this way you should be able to successfully navigate through to other side where the work begins and things get fun again. Each of the three parts of the process below corresponds and helps to satisfy the criteria mentioned before regarding measuring our meeting’s success, and if you decide to go in with your own approach, just be sure that you note and hit those benchmarks in your own way and you should still be fine.

Part One – Investigative

In this part of the meeting process you essentially sit back and let the clients do the talking. This is their opportunity to let their enthusiasm for the project run and they tell you everything that they need this project to be. Not only do you want to listen intently as they lay out the project, it may also be a helpful tip to take notes to reference later in the discussion. This further shows that they are being heard and considered, and that you are not being dismissive to their input. Get as many details from them in this stage as you can. Ask the questions, and get the facts all in line so you have as solid an understanding of their needs as possible.

Part Two – Informative

Now we move into the second stage of this approach, where the talking tables effectively turn to you. This is where you take the time in the meeting to tell them just what it is that you can offer them. Go over in detail not only how you can meet their needs, but why you are the best person for the job. You want to return that same sense of enthusiasm for the project that they showed to you, back to them through your presentational portion of this initial meeting. Furthering their excitement for the idea and their confidence that they came to the right person with this project. Here is where you can initially use all of the notes that you took earlier, so that you can cover specific points that they raised.

Part Three – Get Confirmation

Then we transition to the final phase of our three-pronged plan of attack, wherein we wrap up the discussion and get some sort of confirmation from the client to move forward on. You do not want to seem pushy in your approach to this step, but you do want to be sure that the time was not wasted. So do what you can to get an answer from them one way or the other. Whether it is to move forward with a contract and get rolling on the project together, or simply to set up another meeting after you have both had further time to think over the discussion you have just had. Either way, just make a decision. Let the client know that you understand their time and project are important and that you do not want to slow them down. This way you are getting confirmation and instilling in them that you will meet their timetable.

Things to Keep In Mind Before You Move On

• Initial project meetings with clients differ in format and handling than co-worker meetings.
• At first, collect all the data on the project from the client in the beginning of the meeting.
• Take notes to reference later in the meeting and in follow-ups.
• Then cement with the client why you are the person to handle their project.
• Do not end the meeting without a solid answer one way or the other on where things stand.

Follow-up Meetings

Now we are going to talk about how to approach your follow-up meetings to maximize their potential as well, and hopefully yield you the most positive results from these engagements. In these meetings you are generally presenting the client with the ideas that you have come up with based on the initial project meeting and as such, there are certain expectations that will be placed on this meeting that perhaps were not on the first. Remember in the initial project meeting, you essentially set the bar for this one, so now is the chance for you to live up to it and wow the client even more. It is time to deliver.

Once again, the approach below is broken into three steps so that you can systematically tackle the follow-up as easily as you did the initial project meeting. Hopefully doing so will keep the meetings short and productive, taking the dread we tend to feel for them away and replacing it instead with enthusiasm. Because it does not matter to our clients whether the lackluster feelings they read from us are because we are simply in a meeting or not. They will more than likely take it as a comment on the project or themselves, and that is not what you want to happen. So perhaps turning your meetings around productively will keep any negative body language from speaking up during these client interactions.

Present Your Ideas

The first step in the follow-up meeting that we are going to cover is a reversal of sorts on the last intial project meeting, because in the first step here, you steer the show not the client. This is another chance for you to prove to them why it is they have hired you as you present to them what you have come up with. Be clear as you present your ideas, and even take the time to explain to them why you made the choices that you made. This is also a excellent opportunity to highlight for them what choices you made based on their initial input and the notes that you took. You want to pull out all the stops in your presentation to drive up their confidence level in you and your work. This is razzle dazzle time.

Get Their Feedback

Then we keep the meeting moving forward and we enter the next phase of the process where they give you their feedback on your presentation and approach. Remember that even if they are not as constructive as you would prefer in their critiques that you go with it, and try not to take it personally. Here you still want to steer this part of the meeting as much as possible, meanwhile actually listening to what the client has to say. You do not want them to feel like you are not giving their concerns or ideas the same attention you have expected from them or shown them in the past, so be mindful of how you navigate this terrain. If their concerns are unfounded, simply acknowledge that you understand how they could see this as a potential problem area, and then explain why it will not be an issue here, but never come across dismissive.

Make Sure that Everyone is on the Same Page

Finally, the last stage of the meeting can be entered into, wherein you make sure that everyone is on the same page about everything that has been presented and discussed. As always, clarity is everybody’s friend here, so take care to not let things end in any sort of vague areas. Do a quick summary of the meeting out loud for the sake of everyone attending, so that once again all points of interest are addressed and all decisions can be reiterated. Make sure that everyone knows where the expectations are at this point as you move forward to keep the project on point and progressing smoothly.

Things to Keep In Mind Before You Move On

• Be sure that you steer the follow-up meeting (subtly not forcefully) from beginning to end.
• Apprise the client of your progress, be clear on why you made what choices you made.
• Listen to their feedback, without ego, and never be dismissive of their concerns.
• Never adjourn without clearly noting that everyone is on the same page with all decisions made.

The Wrap

So as your next meeting approaches, remember that with some easy effort and preparation, you can reach the full potential that the meeting has to offer. And the more times that happens, the less likely we are to dread the time we have to spend in them.

source: sociatic.com

How many leads do you generate every month with social media? If you’re not getting enough leads, today is your lucky day.

After reading this article, you’ll have 10 ideas you can use to increase your website traffic and leads. You may already know some of the ideas but trust me; there will be some you don’t know. So make sure to read through all the ideas and let me know if you’re already using any.

Let’s begin.

1. Create a digital product, write guest posts and offer your product for free in your byline. The product could be an eBook, infographic, themes or any other digital product. Make sure you have your website links in the document. You can also encourage people to share it and put a link back to your site. Tip: A little bird told me that Infographics spread like wildfire .

2. Search Twitter for discussions related to your niche. If there are any questions, answer them with an @ reply and provide a link back to your blog post or any relevant page on your site. This tip doesn’t necessarily grow your traffic but it sure will give you quality leads if done right.

3. Turn your blog posts into slide presentations and upload them to slideshare and scribd. Put your website and social media profile URLs in there so people who view your slides can pay you a visit. This is a cool way of repurposing your blog posts and regaining some value back.

4. Plan a series of Videos and use Tubemogul to post them to the various video sites. Make the videos as interesting as possible. By interesting, I mean enlightening, funny, … something people will remember. At the end of each video, ask people to go to your site and sign up for your newsletter in order to receive new video alerts and other updates from you.

5. Answer relevant questions on Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers, Yedda and Answers.com. Ask people to Google “your business name or any keyword you rank #1 for” and click on the first result. You can post your website URL straight away but do that less often so you’re not seen as a spammy contributor to these sites. One more thing, answer the latest, freshest questions if you want to see any relevant increase in traffic.

6. Post short useful articles on forum sites relevant to your niche and leave a link back to your site.

7. Create an eBook. Take a sample out and make a PDF out of it. Share it on Lulu and Docstoc. At the beginning and end of the sample, provide a link to a page where people can put in their email addresses to receive the full book/report. Encourage people to share it with their friends and colleagues.

8. If you want to rank high for any keyword or phrase, make that phrase your anchor text in your guest post bylines. For example, say you want to rank high for the key phrase, “brand communication”, you use that as your anchor text and put your website link there. The higher the PR of the blog you are posting on, the better your chances of ranking higher. Do this consistently for all guest posts you write and use the same key phrase until you are on page 1 of Google’s search. I am on page 2 of Google right now for the key phrase, “brand communication” and I only used that as my anchor text in just one guest post. When I use it again on a top PR (page rank) blog, I will rank even higher. Try it for yourself. By the way, this is a neat trick I learnt from Brian Clark’s “How to Create Compelling Content That Ranks Well in Search Engines”. Download a copy on this page: SEO Copywriting Made Simple.

9. Answer Questions on LinkedIn. Connect with other professionals. Ask your past customers for recommendations. Jason Falls wrote an article on how to make LinkedIn answers part of your routine so head towards his blog to read about it.

10. Run a survey on your blog, Twitter and Facebook and share the results with other people. Explain the methodology and findings of your survey and publish the results in PDF format and share it on your site and other sites. Send a message @ everybody who participated in the survey on Twitter with a link to the results. You can also contact bloggers in your niche and ask them to share your findings. Tamar Weinberg shows you how to pitch superstar bloggers here: How to Get an Influencer’s Attention.

Phew! That was a short ride . Okay, seriously, you should apply these tips. You don’t have to implement all at once. Bookmark this page, start with 2 or 3 strategies and come back later to try out the other ones. Some may work for you and some may not.

Remember, social media is a lead generation tool and newsletters are your lead collection and sales tools so have your newsletter signup boxes ready to collect email addresses. Prepare some bait for the stubborn ones .

What strategy do you use to build more leads, links and traffic?