Whether or not you think we are currently experiencing a full-blown recession, I think that most people would agree that the financial markets have seen brighter days. People are tightening their grasps on their wallets, so it can be challenging for businesses to approach the same kinds of sales figures that they may have seen in previous years.

There’s still money to be made during these economic hard times, but you do need to approach the market in a slightly different way. Instead of making a larger margin on each transaction, possibly a more lucrative strategy during these times is to make up the different in volume. Instead of making $1 on each of 10 transactions, you can try to make 50 cents on each of 20 transactions. The net result is still a $10 profit.

One company that seems to be taking this approach is Denny’s Restaurants. I haven’t seen the promotion in Canada (yet), but I’ve seen a few commercials saying that Denny’s now has full breakfasts available for just $4. This is a lot cheaper than their usual breakfasts, which typically fall more in the $8-$10 range.

For $4, you can buy a Weekday Express Slam, which includes two pancakes, two eggs, and two bacon strips or two sausage links. This isn’t nearly as much food as a Grand Slam, but it gets people in the door and there’s still profit to be made. Not only should you consider a similar strategy for your own company if you find that sales are lacking, but it’s important to let your “discounted” items be known in the marketplace.

After all, what’s the point of having these attractive deals if no one knows about them?

Last week we asked how many times over your entire lifetime have you moved and 65% said Six or More. This weeks question is…

Spam is not a pleasant thing. We are inundated with the stuff in our email inboxes and it’s not out of the ordinary to find some spam through your blog’s contact form either. Further still, you’ve probably received boatloads of spam through your blog’s comment system. While Akismet is able to catch most of the bad guys, you can never be too safe and secure.

Rob Malon recently wrote a post that describes yet another way that you can combat comment form spam. More specifically, it is designed to fight the spam left by bots. This method won’t work against the human spammers, but bots make up the majority of your problems anyway.

In a nutshell, Malon describes a method where you insert a hidden form field as part of your comment form. The actual site visitors that you get will not see these fields, because they have been hidden. The forms are, however, visible to bots, because bots take a look at your code and not at the physical appearance of your site.

In this way, the bots will want to fill out these hidden form fields, whereas actual people will not. As you can imagine, all comments that have something in the hidden field are filled out by spam bots.

Full instructions can be found at RobMalon.com.

Is your business unclear on what Social Media can do for sales?

Social Media is the new SEO for Businesses. If you do not have a strategy that works then you should attend this course. You will learn about Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In and more.

Chances are if you are not Linked In your competition probably is!

Some might view social media marketing as a royal waste of time. Others view it as a gold mine and still others spend countless hours “twittering” away but what do they really accomplish

When is the course happening?
Thursday, November 27, 2008 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Where is it happening?
Ceili’s Irish Pub & Restaurant – 670 Smithe Street - Vancouver

Registration
To register for this event you need to register here.

Course Fee
This event costs $200.00.

Attention bloggers if you have manually installed WordPress then you should immediately upgrade to 2.6.5. There are security issues in 2.6.3 which are now fixed in 2.6.5.

For those who installed WordPress with Fantastico, Netenberg usually has the upgrade released a week or two later. We do post Fantastico updates on the blog so keep an eye open for that.

Please also note we will post when it is time for Managed Blog hosting customers to upgrade in this blog.

It has long been said that it is much more cost-effective to retain a customer than it is to attract a new one. That’s why it is so important to offer quality customer service and ensure that each and every customer walks away fully satisfied with his or her experience with your company. But how do get these people to come back and buy from you again?

There’s a reason why so many stores take advantage of loyalty-based programs these days, because customers are much more likely to return to a store where they gain additional benefits over other stores where such benefits exist. For example, if you have a Safeway card, you’re much more likely to return to Safeway to buy groceries than you are to go to Save-On-Foods or IGA. The same can be said about the numerous reward programs offered by gas stations and other service-based industries.

In a nutshell, there are at least three ways that you can organize your company’s loyalty program. First, you can offer a “member’s price” on your products and services. Going back to the example of Safeway, you’ll find that many of the items in the store have a “club price” that is substantially lower than the regular price. Second, you can have a rewards program where members collect points, redeeming them for free gifts and other benefits in the future. Third, you can offer special benefits for members who return to your store. For instance, shoppers who use Starbucks’ gift cards can get free Wi-Fi, free refills on brewed coffee, and free flavour shots.

The first and third methods are likely the easiest to implement, because you only need to know whether or not a person is a member. A very simple database can track that. The section option, a rewards program, can be a little more costly on the administration side, because you need to track the number of “points” that a member has accumulated to date. You also need to organize a catalog from which they can order.

If your business is starting to feel the economic crunch, consider implementing a loyalty program that will keep customers coming back to you rather than “the other guy.”