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As the Los Angeles Times recently put it, gift cards aren’t just for the big boys anymore. Small businesses are reaping the benefits as well.

However, according to the Times article, only about 8 to 10% of small and mid-size merchants have used them.

For the 90% of small businesses who haven’t gone this route, here’s three simple reasons why implementing a gift card program can help your business grow.

It Increases Spending

According to industry research, consumers are likely to spend more than the initial value of the gift card they received, and a majority of merchants who implement gift card programs report an increase in their sales.

To top that off, gift card users are more likely to buy full-priced items over sale items, and are less likely to bring items back for exchanges or refunds.

It Builds Brand Recognition

The benefits here are twofold.

First, someone has vouched for your business by giving your gift card to someone else—probably to a friend or family member. We all understand the power word-of-mouth can be to creating trust and awareness, and a branded gift card does this overtly and in a very tangible way.

Just as importantly, a gift card serves as a reminder, like an advertisement that burns inside a wallet or purse. Depending on the value of the card, an individual may keep it with them for days or weeks at a time. Think about the last time you needed something that you already had a gift card for—whether it’s dinner or for a free oil change. It’s a win for both you and your customers.

It Generates Repeat Business

Your gift cards users are not only more likely to spend more money at your establishment, but they’re also more likely to visit your business on more than one occasion.

Who wouldn’t want to increase repeat business?

Here’s a bonus reason—they’re cost effective

Sure, the above reasons sound great, but what will it cost you, right? Believe it or not, gift cards are incredibly affordable, which is why they’re becoming increasingly popular among small business owners.

And even better—we can help you. If you’re a US-based business, and you’re interested in learning more, shoot us an email at community@newtektechnologyservices.com (and be sure to ask us how you get can get your first 100 gift cards free).

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If you’re an iPhone owner (or even if you’re not), you probably already know that Apple’s There’s an App for That ad campaign isn’t some overstated marketing slogan. With over 100,000 applications, there’s pretty much something for everything—or if not, it’s probably on its way.

But as the App store continues to grow, and applications fight for attention and exposure, it can be increasingly difficult to discover the best apps for a particular need, especially productivity-type applications that business owners might find useful.

So, to highlight a few that might make your day-to-day grind just a little more convenient, here’s our list of 10 Handy Apps for Small Business Owners (in no particular order):

1. iXpenseIt

Price: $4.99
Category: Finance

With what some iPhone users might consider a steep price for an app, iXpenseIt makes up for it by doing a good job of simplifying your daily expense tracking and monthly budgeting.

Taking a client to lunch that you’ll be expensing? This app lets you document the expense in seconds, and even stores photo receipts.

2. AT&T Virtual Receptionist

Price: Free
Category: Business

If your concerned that your businesses’ small size might scare off some customers, this app can help. With AT&T Virtual Receptionist, you get your own business phone system, with custom call forwarding, an auto-receptionist with company greeting, visual voicemail, and even 60 free toll-free minutes.

3. Dropbox

Price: Free
Category: Productivity

Once you start using it, you’ll see why Dropbox for iPhone is one of the most popular productivity apps available. Like a virtual drive that exists everywhere you need it, you can store, access, and share your files between your phone and any computer.

4. Scanner Pro

Price: $6.99
Category: Business

Straight out of a spy movie, Scanner Pro turns your iPhone into a portable scanner. Scan items such as documents, business cards, receipts, notes, and even whiteboards, then either email them or upload them to Dropbox.

5. Evernote

Price: Free
Category: Productivity

This brilliant little app sort of works like a personal assistant that follows you around and jots down all of your great ideas you. Easily create notes, snap photos, and record voice memos that you can later access from your iPhone, computer, or online.

6. Easy Task Manager

Price: Free
Category: Productivity

Don’t just make a to-do list on a pad of paper (what is this, the 80’s?), stay organized and get things done with the help of your iPhone and EasyTask Manager. It syncs up with your Mac or Windows computer, and even supports David Allen’s GTD (Getting Things Done) method.

7. UPS / FedEx Mobile

Price: Free / Free
Category: Business / Business

If your business ships items through either UPS or FedEx on a regular basis, these apps are a must have. Track packages, assign nicknames to shipments, find pickup locations or delivery times, and more.

8. mSecure Password Manager

Price: $2.99
Category: Productivity

I don’t know about you, but I have at least a dozen extremely important logins and passwords to remember at any given time, and if you’re a business owner, you probably have even more. mSecure Password Manager gives you a way to securely store your important information (via data encryption), like passwords or even credit card numbers.

9. Analytics App

Price: $6.99
Category: Productivity

A bit on the steep side in terms of price, this app quickly earns its costs if you’re regularly on the road or in a meetings when you need to check Google Analytics for your website stats. In fact, this app is probably easier to use than a web browser. Get a quick view of reports or drill into your site’s traffic data, all on the fly.

10. BeamMe

Price: Free
Category: Business

Run out of business cards at the conference (or forgot them at home)? This networking application lets you send your contact information to any phone or email address, and even integrates with Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

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So there you have it — just a few of many iPhone applications out there you might find handy. Have any that we didn’t mention? Let us know in the comments below.

The term Style Guide is rather broad, and it can mean different things to different people in different professions. Traditionally, however, it usually refers to publication guidelines.

Journalists, for example, follow usage and punctuation rules as outlined in the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook; book publishers usually adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style; academic papers in the social sciences–at least in American Journals–follow the style guidelines set by the American Psychological Association (APA).

These guidelines cover things like how to refer to organizations and places, how to cite sources, and even tell you how to use commas. The purpose, of course, is for consistency. A newspaper article in the Big Bend Sentinel, in Marfa, Texas, follows the same editorial rules as one written for the Baltimore Sun.

Corporations and large organizations commonly have their own publication style guides as well, which helps keep their brand, identity, and message consistent across any number of media. To get an idea of what I’m talking about, take a look at the University of Pennsylvania’s web style guide.

As a university with a lot of moving parts, different schools and departments that, to some degree, operate independently from each other, Penn ensures a high level of brand consistency with their style guide. So when anyone within the university, or someone working on behalf of the university (such as an outsourced web design company), publishes content–say, a new website or page–guidelines have already been established. This includes everything from approved colors, logos, branding standards, and general content guidelines.

But what about small businesses? Do they need a style guide too?

Your business might not have the prestige and crafted image of an Ivy League Institution, like the University of Pennsylvania, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have just much control in how  your brand is transmitted to the world.   So the the answer is yes, you should create  a style guide, especially if you have several employees that have a hand in communicating externally, or if you’re looking to hire a third-party firm to develop your web presence or market your business, although you might want to keep in mind that your style guide will probably be on a much smaller scale. We’re talking something that might be, at least  initially, as short as one printed page long, which outlines the set-in-stone aspects of your business’s identity.

This might include:

• Branding: Example — your business is registered as Southern California Decor, but in terms of how you want to market your company, you’re always referred to as SoCalDecor, which is ALWAYS spelled as one word.  List all specific ways your brand should be and should not be displayed and referred to, including trademark usage and abbreviations (e.g. Do not refer to SoCalDecor as “SCD” unless “SoCalDecor” is previously mentioned in the same paragrpah).

• Color values, preferred fonts, logos, and required elements such as slogans.

• Tone: Example — your business doesn’t take itself too seriously, so you might want your image to reflect that, from the design of your website to the language used on your web pages, media relations, and printed collateral. Write out a description of how your brand should present itself externally.

• Usage:Example –  Only refer to staff as Yard Architects and never “landscapers.”

Of course, once your business grows and evolves, your style guide should grow with it.  And don’t forget, the next time you’re working with a web designer, a copy writer, or a marketer, be sure to tell them, Hey, here’s my style guide, it’s important that you follow my branding guidelines.

So what are your thoughts on creating a style guide for your small business? Do you feel setting your own style guidelines is an important aspect of protecting your brand? Let us know in the comments below.

So, if you’re starting an online business, no doubt someone…somewhere…has mentioned “SSL”. It may have been in a casual, inquisitive manner, or it may have been a more frantic “you got a SSL certificate, right? Oh…you HAVE to get a SSl certificate or all of your customer data will be stolen!”

The purpose of this post is to allay some of the fear and uncertainly about SSL and give a short primer on what it is, what it means, and what the differences are between the various alternatives.

SSL – What Is It, and Why Do I Need It?

Put simply, a SSL certificate is used to create a secure, encrypted link between a person’s browser and the web server used to host the page they’re on. The encrypted connection ensures that any data that is transferred from the browser to the web server – for example, when someone fills out a form – remains private during transmission. The certificate is provided by a “Certifying Authority” (CA) like VeriSign or Trustwave (though there are many others), and is most commonly associated with the lock icon that appears in the browser window when someone visits a secured page.

SSL is important because it gives visitors to a secured page of your website “peace of mind” knowing that the information they are inputting on that page is encrypted and not traveling in plain text. Therefore, the potential for that data to be usable should it fall into the wrong hands is greatly, greatly reduced.

What Types of SSL Are There?

Shared SSL
This means that your hosting provider has (usually) purchased a SSL certificate that can be used by multiple people. This generally works by attaching the SSL to a generic domain (though some hosting providers use their own domain), then providing customers with a path to use for encrypting the connection for their individual sites. An example of a shared SSL path would be https://www3.ssldomain.com/customer-domain-name/page-name.html.

Great For:
1. New sites just getting started.
2. Basic forms.

Not So Great For:
1. Ecommerce
2. Any form asking for extremely personal information (e.g., social security number)

Dedicated SSL
This is where you purchase a SSL certificate for YOUR domain. The pathing for secured pages when using a dedicated SSL certificate is really not different than any other page of your site, except for the “S” – https://www.your-domain.com.

Great For:
1. Any use – form information, credit card purchases, FTP access – anything you want to secure and encrypt on your site.

Not So Great For:
1. Some may argue larger scale purchases (in the tens of thousands of dollars), but that’s just because there is an alternative, and it is….

Extended Validation (EV)
This is a new type of SSL that entails a greater degree of authentication and validation by the CA. The benefit to an EV certificate is that the CA has to go through many more steps prior to issuing an EV certificate. Some of these steps entail a physical visit to the requestor’s location and a signed letter by an executive of the company (usually a CFO or some designee); therefore, quite a bit more than is needed for a standard SSL certificate.

Great For:
1. Large ticket items, generally in the thousands of dollars per item.
2. A company wanting to prove its commitment to security.

Not Great For:
1. Anyone without deep pockets. As this certificate entails a bit more labor on the part of the CA, they are a “bit” more expensive.

Finally, a quick word on “Premium” and “Enterprise” SSL certificates. Some companies sell different levels of certificates, and they’re usually labeled something like “premium” vs. “enterprise”, or even “enterprise” vs. “premium enterprise”. The difference between these certificates generally comes down to bit level encryption and/or level of warranty provided by the CA. The CA may even attach some identification scheme to prove the level of security offered, add scanning services, real-time authentication, etc. There are pluses and minuses to all of this, so use your best judgement when deciding what you want to pay for. A good, solid SSL certificate issued by a reliable provider is fine for most companies. If you really want to prove your level of commitment, then adding services is a good idea and may be worth the additional cost.

So there you have it: a decent primer on SSL. This is, of course, not a complete breakdown of SSL, much less a discussion of the technology behind SSL. So, if you have additional questions, please feel free to ask us – we’re here to help! As an aside, Newtek Web Services provides a dedicated SSL certificate on our Storefront Builder plan, and SSL can be added to the Website Builder or any custom site build.

If you’re one to follow technology news, as I do, you’d probably notice that “mobile” pretty much dominates the chatter these days. Thanks to the iPhone, of course, first introduced in 2007, we’ve all witnessed an ever-increasing craze for mobile gadgetry, which can be explained by both innovation in smartphone technology and its head-on collision with our other tech obsession: social media—or, more specifically, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, and location-based services, such as FourSquare, which all thrive on mobile platforms.

As our personal and social lives radically change before our very eyes, what are the implications for small businesses? Does your business need a mobile website now? Or, even more daunting, an iPhone app? An iPhone app AND an Android app? What about an iPad app?

Before we go any further, lets make sure we clear up any confusion between what a mobile website is versus a mobile app.

A mobile website is just that—a website. It’s built just like any other website (i.e. in HTML) and is hosted on a web server somewhere, just as your “regular” website might be hosted at Newtek Web Services. The difference, however, is that a mobile website is optimized for a small screen.

For an example, check out ESPN’s regular website compared to it’s mobile version. If you’re on your PC right now (and not your mobile phone), you’ll get the full affect of how dramatically different the two versions are. A mobile website will typically lay all of its navigation in a single, vertical column, and remove much of the pizzazz that you would normally see on a regular website.  And when you visit a website that has a mobile version available, it will detect whether or not you’re on a mobile device, and then automatically route you to the appropriate version.

A mobile app, on the other hand, is a piece of software that is installed on your smartphone, just as, say, Microsoft Word is installed on your PC. While many of the most popular mobile apps are video games or social tools, like the Facebook app, there are businesses that do offer a mobile app as an alternative to its website. For example, Ebay has an iPhone App and a mobile website, both of which serve the same purpose.

So which one of these does your business need—a mobile site, an app, or both?

Well, the answer is perhaps neither. Here’s why:

1. You sort of have a mobile website already

If your business already has a “regular” website, you pretty much have a mobile website already, too. On most next generation smartphones—the iPhone, Android, Palm Pre, or a recent Windows Mobile or Blackberry—the included web browser can render a website in nearly the same fashion and quality as the web browser on your PC can. The main difference between the two, of course, is the screen size. And as time goes on, mobile browsers will only get better and faster.

2. Your business type may not warrant the effort

There are only so many apps a user is able (and willing) to have installed on their smartphones. Until recently, iPhone users could only have 180 apps installed at any given time. The most popular apps are games, social media tools, news, and utilities that help you get through your day. So unless your business fits into one of these categories, you’ll want to really think about the return on investment before putting any money on building a mobile app.

As for a mobile site, unless your website is content heavy, and involves a lot of pages, categories, and navigation (such as ESPN), acquiring a mobile website is probably not necessary. You’ll notice that just about every website that does offer a mobile version will be a pretty “big-time” company or webiste (other than ESPN, think Wikipedia.org, Amazon.com, etc.), and this is for the simple reason that “regular” websites with a lot of navigation and content can be a bit more difficult to experience on a 4-inch screen.

3. Your “regular” website needs more tender loving care

The smartest thing to do, especially if you’re watching your budget, and unless you have a website that fits into one of the niche categories that would warrant a mobile site or app, is to put all of your web efforts into your business’s primary website. After all, in this day and age, your website will continue to be the face of your company.

So if you’re looking to expand your web presence, be sure your “regular” website is up to today’s standards. If you have an ecommerce site, you’d be better off investing in a dedicated SSL certificate, finding a better shopping cart, acquiring a more affordable merchant processing solution, and making sure your website attracts visitors and is easy to navigate.

Not sure about these things? Have one our experts give your current website a free analysis. Give us a call today or email us at community@newtektechnologyservices.com.

Let us know what you think. Have you been considering a mobile site or app for your business?

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve always been troubled by Earth Day. On the one hand, it’s nice to give Mother Earth a day all her own. A day when we all stop to recognize her beauty, and make a more conscious effort to treat her right. Which leads to my trouble with Earth Day. It’s frightening that she only gets one day. ONE DAY?! Surely she deserves more TLC than one day’s worth. She deserves 365 days of TLC. After all, she’s no spring chicken.

That said, whether you’re an eco-conscious employee or a tree-hugging business owner, every little bit counts. But let’s take it beyond that one bleeding heart office worker who is always fighting the good fight alone. Make it a top-down initiative.

If your entire office is chipping in to reduce the ecological footprint, imagine the difference you can make. Large businesses matter. Small businesses matter. Heck, even solo-operation home office workers matter.

Take a look at the list below to see how you can improve your efforts. I’m not asking you to physically hug a tree or make a decision to “live off the land,” but I am asking you to implement at least five things on this list. You can do that…right?

Paper, Products & Supplies

1. Institute an office recycle program by planting clearly posted bins in high traffic areas of your office for paper, and do the same in your kitchen area for aluminum cans, bottles and cardboard.
2. Purchase green or recycled products. If you’re interested in seeing how far we’ve come in terms of greening, check out this Wall Street Journal “by-the-numbers” overview.
3. Attach a “think twice before printing” line to your email signature and follow suit…avoid the “Command + P” or “Ctrl + P” button.
4. When you DO need to print, set up your printer to print double sided and in draft quality. If you need multiple copies, print one and copy the rest. According to this ZDNet post, it takes about 10 times more energy to manufacture a sheet of paper than to copy an image onto it.
5. Remember note taking? If you’re an old schooler like me who still uses the occasional pad of paper, reuse the blank side of used sheets of (recycled) paper. Waste not, want not.
6. Upload all user guides, employee handbooks, benefits packets and any other forms to shared drives or intranet portals.
7. Use environmentally safe cleaning products. There are loads of brick-and-mortar retailers that carry them, or you can buy online.
8. Institute laser and ink cartridge recycling programs. You can even make a bit of money by taking them to your local Staples store through their Eco Easy Program. (You might even consider donating the proceeds to a local environmental organization.)
9. Ditch the plastic ware and stock the office kitchen with reusable dishes, cups and mugs. While you’re at it, keep your caffeine addicts running with fair trade coffee.

   Equipment

10. Set all office equipment (including computers) to energy save mode. Pretty self-explanatory. Most devices have an energy setting. Find it. Use it.
11. Disconnect all equipment before leaving for the day. Also, if there’s equipment in the office you only use sporadically, only plug it in when you need to use it.
12. Place ads for any outdated furniture on recycle sites such as Freecycle or One Work Place.
13. Be sure to maintain your HVAC systems by replacing outdated equipment and regularly changing ac filters.
14. In the summer, set temperature controls to 75 to 80 degrees during regular office hours and above 80 once employees have left for the day. The same applies for the wintertime with heat settings.

    Lighting

15. Replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lights. Also replace incandescent EXIT signs with LED signs. According to Salt River Project, they use about one-tenth the wattage and last 50 times longer than incandescent-lamp signs
16. Set your lights to function on a timer so they automatically turn off after regular business hours. Also, turn the lights off when no one is in the room (such as the kitchen, meeting rooms, bathrooms, etc.)
17. Use natural light whenever possible to avoid using unnecessary overhead lights. A little Vitamin D is good for you.

    Transportation

18. Provide incentives for employees who drive hybrid vehicles, vanpool, carpool, bike or take public transportation to work. Gift cards, extra vacation days and raffle entries are all great ways to entice employees to commute smarter.
19. Whenever possible, encourage employees to telecommute. In fact, telecommuting can actually increase productivity and lower costs. The White House even conducted a study to support this notion.

    Miscellaneous

20. Avoid spreading harmful metal contaminants into the environment by recycling batteries. You can even find battery-recycling centers near you.
21. Either get qualified yourself or send a company representative to a LEED certification course. It could save your company a significant amount of money AND benefit the environment. A win-win, yes? Find a U.S. Green Building Council Chapter near you.
22. Enlist your office green thumbs and start an office garden. Not only will you and your employees be eating healthier, but you’ll be able to take comfort in knowing you’re doing something extremely innovative and altruistic.

Granted, some of these are merely common sensical reminders, but hopefully some of the tips listed above get you thinking about changing some of your office habits. And not just on the 22nd of every April but year round.

There are probably hundreds, maybe even thousands of ways we can all be better environmental citizens and we’ve only touched on 25 of them here. What are some other ways you’ve found to conserve resources in your business operations? Leave them in the comments below and help us grow the list.

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It’s true these days, that you don’t need to know much about back-end coding to have a good website. In fact, there are a lot of really great web tools out there that can help you build a website rather quickly.

But what about SEO (or search engine optimization)? Do you need to know much about that? Well, yes…and no.

SEO can be a tricky, tricky beast, but most builder tools, including Newtek’s SiteCenter, have some pretty nifty components built in to help. And a basic understanding doesn’t hurt either.

Last week I sat in on a Social Media Club Phoenix seminar delivered by Evo Terra, an authority on the subject. Without getting too bogged down in the minutia of it all, he said there are only 5 things that matter for SEO, and as long as you pay attention to them, you’ll be well ahead of most others in the SEO game.

In case you don’t have time to listen to Evo’s presentation (even though I urge you to invest 15 minutes of your time because it will be worth it), here are the 5 things that really matter:

Write great content: According to old school thought, most always believed that there was a tried-and-true formula for achieving keyword density. Ignore this. Just write great content that will truly add value. Key things to keep in mind:

• The more pages on your site the better (Just make sure each and every page is necessary and adds value)
• Roughly 500 words is the sweet spot for amount of content per page. Obviously if the page doesn’t call for it, don’t worry about it.
• Investigate the popularity of your keywords. Find the phrasing that your audience will likely be searching. In addition to Google’s Keyword Tool, try using Google Insights for Search as well. Here’s a screen shot of a search I ran:

Write Smart Titles: This is SO crucial! Keep these tips in mind:

• Put your keywords up front in the title. If you’re writing a blog post on your site about hiking with dogs, title it “Hiking with Dogs: Three Safety Tips to Keep in Mind” RATHER than “Three Safety Tips to Keep in Mind When Hiking with Dogs”
• Don’t try to be pithy, cute or clever. Title your pages and posts in a way that gives away the secret. There are no spoilers in SEO.
• Invest 10 minutes to find the best title that will deliver the best results. Write out three different titles and pick the best.

Use H1 Tags: This is the tag that really tells the reader what the page is about. Revisit the “Write Smart Titles” tip because the same rules apply here as well. Also, make sure you only use one H1 tag per page. Using more than one will only confuse Google.

Link Text Matters: Link text is the text you use to link to various pieces of information both on your site and off of your site. Key tips to keep in mind:

• For better search results, link concepts, not things. Take this sentence for instance:

• Keep the conversation going with additional links, not only to your own content that relates, but outside content as well. It just makes you a better digital citizen. If you have a blog on your page, look into Zemanta.

Clicks Come From Descriptions: Today, description tags play a singular role: to entice visitors seeing you in a search to click to your site. So in other words…write it well, and write it for human beings, not Google crawlers.  Here is what the description looks like in a search:

Like Evo said, pay attention to these five things and you’ll already be ahead of the game. When it comes to the basics of SEO, have you found there are other foundational things to pay attention to when optimizing your website or blog? Leave your helpful nuggets in the comments below and let’s keep the conversation going.

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If you are engaging in email marketing but not seeing the results that you were hoping for, you probably need to change some aspect of your email.  But what could be the problem?  This is where Split Testing, aka A/B Testing, can help.  Split Testing is a fast, free and easy way of testing a single variable to help improve your open stats. Split testing simply put is testing two variables against each other to see which one receives better results.

How Should I Split My Distribution List?

The easiest and most common approach to split your list is to simply split your list in half. For example, if you have 500 people in your distribution list you will send the control email to the first 250 people and the test email to the other 250 people.  Then simply see which one performs better. The better performer will then be used as the control for the next test.  Keep split testing your campaign until you received the desired results.

Below are some key areas to focus on when conducting your A/B Test.

TIP: Email Service Providers like Mail Chimp allows you to segment your list based on location. This allows all of your recipients to receive your emails at 9am on Wednesday even if you are sending it to several different time zones.

It all comes down to lots and lots of trial and error. At some point you’ll find a formula that makes sense. What’s more, split testing is a free and easy way to help increase your open rates and something you can easily incorporate into your next marketing email campaign.  Does your business employ split testing for marketing email campaigns? If so, please share your results in the comments below. Which change(s) had the biggest effect on your results?

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Do you have a favorite establishment that you visit routinely? I do. Would you even go so far to say you’re a bonafide brand loyalist? Meaning, whenever possible (without being obnoxious), you sing the praises of your favorite brand to friends, family and colleagues? Yep. I do that, too. See the picture to the left for my vice.

And do you know why it’s my vice? It’s because this particular brand does something that no other business does for me. In addition to having a great product that speaks for itself, the employees of this company have befriended me. Before I even pull up to the window, they’ve greeted me by name, asked how my dogs are doing, commented on my new haircut and have my drink ready to go. They already know what I want before I even reach the window. (Which is helpful given my indecisive nature.) And that is why I’m a Dutch Bros. brand loyalist.

Is this something only restaurants, coffee purveyors and retail stores can do? Certainly not. Any business can cultivate brand loyalists, though it takes work. Lots of “going the extra mile.” But the benefits are endless considering you’ll not only develop deeper relationships with your customers that may very well result in creating lifelong customers, but it makes the job of marketing a whole lot easier.

Here are a four easy ways your business can begin cultivating brand loyalists or “friendomers.” Friend + customer = friendomer. (Yes, I did in fact just make up that word. Feel free to spread it liberally.)

Take some time to focus
Lines may form, call queues may build. Remain cognizant of performing efficiently but above all, give each customer as much time as necessary. Encourage your employees to engage customers in small talk and get to know a little about their lives – not just what kind of coffee they’re ordering or what service they’d like to add on to their account.

For example, if a customer calls in to make a change to their account before leaving on vacation, make note of it. Imagine how that customer will feel next time they call in and the employee helping them asks, “How did you like Fiji?” Do you think that customer will remember that conversation? You bet they will…

Incentivize Them
Customer loyalty programs are becoming the norm, so your customers have come to expect it. You may not win any loyalists for this step alone, but it’s a critical piece of the equation. We’re all familiar with them. In fact you probably have at least one or all of the following on your keychain right now: a supermarket, video rental, retail, gas, or coffee rewards card. If you don’t currently have some type of loyalty program in place, change that. ASAP. But don’t just do it for the sake of doing it. Do it in a way that really makes the offer compelling.

At Dutch Bros., not only do I keep my coffee punch card nestled securely in my visor flap, but I’m enrolled in the mobile VIP club that alerts me of generous weekly promotions. I actually anticipate those text messages. Can you imagine that? If you’d like to kickstart a loyalty program, you can either run a few appropriate keywords through a search engine and find multiple customer loyalty management companies that can help, or you can visit this resource list compiled by PR guru Kevin Laverty.

Better yet, Surprise Them
This is where it gets interesting…and with its unlimited potential, it could really help you build a diehard cadre of “friendomers.” Have you looked into Foursquare or Gowalla? If you haven’t I won’t judge, but I feel compelled to command encourage you to take a closer look at both. Both Gowalla and Foursquare are geo-location apps that are picking up serious steam among social media users.

Indeed, the growing popularity of smart phones and geo-location apps is a trend worth noting…so what are you going to do to capitalize on it? One great way to build a “friendomer”? Reward them with a free meal or deep discount on their 10th check in. If a customer holds onto the mayorship for more than a month, give them free meals until someone knocks them out of their position. There are loads of ways to have fun with this, and the potential is hard to deny. Jay Baer said it best in his post, Ignore Foursquare at Your Peril – An Analysis of Potential. It’s worth checking out.

This concept doesn’t just work for brick-and-mortar businesses though. If you’re a consultant or own a small creative agency and have been working with a client consistently, why not cut them a significant deal on the 5th or 6th project? Obviously they like your work. Go the extra mile to make them a lifelong client. Be more than a business partner. Be a friend.

Spread the Mindset
Sure you see the value of creating raving fans out of your customers, but that vision has to extend beyond the owners/management staff. Empower your employees to read between the lines and provide a little extra something to customers if the occasion calls for it. By all means, don’t encourage them to “give away the farm” but DO encourage them to recognize situations to connect with customers, and give them the license to act on those situations.

For example, one of your employees may have found out through a conversation with a customer that this is their 20th purchase with your company. Provide them with a toolbox of “incentive” goodies that they can take liberty in doling out to repeat customers. This simple act will speak volumes. And chances are, that customer is going to tell a friend about that interaction.

So does building a base of “friendomers” require some extra effort from you and your staff? Sure. But hopefully you’ll find the investment justifies the effort.

Let’s keep this list going. In addition to those mentioned above, what has your company done to build brand loyalty? Drop them in the comments…