The Art of Gift Giving

As the owner of a Gift & Incentive program I study people's reactions to gifts. I've made it my business to learn that as Linda Lynwander of NewJersey.com put it in this article;

" When I was a newlywed and even after, I'd try to get the perfect present for my in-laws. It never happened. Again and again, I'd wind up returning all those sweaters, slippers, hats. I never got it right.

Sometimes I'd try for whimsy (the gadget that instantly iced your cocktail glasses, the automatic card shuffler); at other times I'd get something kind of personal. It became a bigger and bigger challenge, and after awhile I began to take it personally. I mean, sure, sometimes you deserve to stand in a long line with your after-Christmas returns because whose fault was it in the first place that you thought that garish tie was kind of cute? But I'm talking decades of mistakes here.
Why did it happen year after year?...........

I've come to realize it's really a gift to have the gift of knowing what to give. Most of us can't get it right because we're thinking of what we personally would want when we approach the store counter. " click here to read full article.

Knowing what to give depends upon the knowing that person. My kids and I played a game called Apples to Apples over the Christmas holiday and once again winning this game depended on how well you knew the other players likes and dislikes.

My business thrives on the fact that we don't always know what our clients, family and friends would like so let's let them choose for themselves; hence the reason I started The Closing Touch - the ultimate gift - the gift of Choice!

Get the What Matters Now ebook (and spread it)

by SethGodin

We want to shake things up. More than seventy extraordinary authors and thinkers contributed to this ebook. It's designed to make you sit up and think, to change your new year's resolutions, to foster some difficult conversations with your team.

On this page you will find some links where you can find the ebook, along with a few of the books the contributing authors have written. (Download it here). All Squidoo royalties from this page go to charity...

The authors that have contributed to the freebook have written other books here is the list:

Click through to see the plexo

Positive start for U.S. shopping season

Online retailers await ‘Cyber Monday'

"Online sales on Thursday and Friday, however, rose 11 per cent to $913-million, according to data released Sunday by comScore, an Internet research firm.

According to preliminary figures released Saturday by ShopperTrak, a research firm that tracks more than 50,000 outlets, sales rose 0.5 per cent to $10.66-billion Friday, compared with a year ago. That was on top of a 3 per cent increase last year."

Read full report from The Globe and Mail - The Associated Press

Presenting Gift Giving by The Closing Touch

A presentation on the innovative gift giving experience that is unique to The Closing Touch. We realize every touch with a customer/employee is an opportunity to create a special memory.

Tct Sept09

View more presentations from The Closing Touch.

Choosing the Right Social Media Tools for Your Business [Video]

Staying on top of Social Media tools is a huge undertaking and I prefer to watch those that are leading the way and read their reviews. Then I choose which to test for myself. It's been said that "experience is the best teacher"; while I subscribe to the school of thought that "wisdom learns from other's experience".

All parents hope their child would be willing to learn from their experiences, that is after all why we walked both ways uphill to school barefoot. I do believe we can save a lot of time and money from learning who to follow and allow to influence our decisions. Mashable.com has proven to be an invaluable resource time and again as I keep up on whats happening in the wonderful world of Social Media.

Enjoy this video and article I found on the Mashable site. It is a daunting task to filter through and determine which Social Media tools are best suited for your business.



I encourage you to get started...pick one venue and build your web footprint!

Happy marketing!

About 80% of online retailers predict growth this holiday season.

In a recent article by The Wall Street Journal-Geoffrey A. Fowler it is stated that:

The Web is shaping up to be one of retail's bright spots this holiday season, thanks in part to a new take on an old-fashioned retail idea: good service.

At a time when traditional retailers are being ultra conservative, many Web sites have been spending to make shipping times faster, consumer-generated reviews better, and to offer new features such as online layaways. Amazon.com Inc. is rolling out more "frustration-free" packages that replace hard-to-open plastic clamshells; eBay Inc. is highlighting merchants with the best ratings; and Sears Holdings Corp. is launching online layaway.

In contrast, many traditional retailers have cut way back on inventory levels and holiday staffing, hoping to avoid the massive profit-eroding discounts of last holiday season.

Neiman Marcus, for instance, has slashed merchandise orders more than 20%. Saks Inc. has cut its merchandise by about 20%, but provides access to its web site at cash registers so clerks can help customers locate merchandise online.



Click here to read the full article...

Are you convinced of the need for Social Media?

Social Media....the buzz, the confusion, the variety and the Choice!

After spending over 20 years in the technology field, I decided to build my own website to promote my existing Gift & Incentive business online. Now everyone knows that the place to build retail businesses right now is online, correct?

In fact I was introduced to the S-Curve of technology - a theory by Harry S. Dent when I first began with an online business in 1999 and as predicted by this theory Internet shopping has passed the 10% mark in the past 10 years. Therefore, over the next ten years we are going to be witnesses to incredible growth.

With my product offering in the Gift & Incentive market and experience with website development from my full time job at a website solution company Lone Wolf Real Estate Technologies, I decided to launch a website. Next came the marketing research...social marketing that is. I reviewed all the traditional marketing methods and put my plan together to begin with the less expensive social media arena.

After many, many hours I learned some incredible lessons about social networking and believe I was born for this time in history. Social marketing is nothing more than relationship building! This has always been and will always be the root of sales; customers are people that need to be respected, appreciated and provided with a value in order to part with their hard earned money.

There are incredible resources available to learn where and how to begin your path of creating a web footprint, regardless of your industry. I know the first thing I do when I meet a prospective client or source is to search them online to check their reputation. Have you checked yours? What does the first page of the searches tell you about your company?

Creating loyal customers is part and parcel of brand recognition, integrity and the relationship building. Customers purchase based on trust. I encourage you to do your homework, check out some of these resources and become proactive about your reputation. It won't consume you if you understand the big picture and know where to start and what to spend your time on.

I recommend reading this USA Today Article about More marketers use social networking to reach customers!

1) Chris Brogan is a NYT and WSJ best selling author for his book Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust. Chris is a ten year veteran of using social media and technology to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. Chris speaks, blogs, writes articles, and makes media of all kinds at chrisbrogan.com.

Here is a link to one of Chris's articles; Starting Your Social Media Case

2) Seth Godin's latest book, Tribes, is a nationwide bestseller, appearing on the Amazon, New York Times, BusinessWeek and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. It's about the most powerful form of marketing--leadership--and how anyone can now become a leader, creating movements that matter. The Miami Herald listed it among the best business books of 2008. Seth writes the most popular marketing blog in the world;
is the author of the bestselling marketing books of the last decade;
speaks to large groups on marketing, new media and what's next;
and is the founder of Squidoo.com, a fast-growing recommendation website.

Here is an excerpt from his blog; "Connecting people to people. Over and over again, that's what lasts online. Folks thought it was about technology and it's not."

3) Social Media training; that's right if you don't know where to begin, ask someone. Invest your money in someone that has done the research and let them shortcut your learning curve and teach you what works. Your future is in your hands! Feel free to contact me for direction and encouragement, it really is not difficult to maintain if you are setup correctly and ready to recognize that an hour a day online marketing is a fundamental part of business.

Wishing you all the success you are willing to work for!

OfficialWire: Four Tips For Effective Social Media Use

There is no question about it- social media are changing our lives. Here are four tips on the effective use of social media for individuals and companies

Social media loosely defines all types of communications channels where the contents are created and shared by the people. There are so many types of social media- blogs, flickr and other photo-sharing media, YouTube, LinkedIn, Multiply, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Digg, etc. They have become so ingrained in people’s daily lives and in our society that they really are changing the way people communicate and even how they live their lives.

There are so many uses for social media, and individuals and companies decide how they can really benefit from them. Here are some of the things people should consider doing to maximize the full potential of social media:

Read full article by Lawrence Perry

STUDY: Time Spent on Social Networks Has Tripled

Social networking usage by Americans continues to soar. According to a new report from The Nielsen Company, Americans spent 17% of all their Internet time using social networking sites. This was nearly triple the time spent a year ago.

As users spend more time on social networks, advertisers are starting to take notice and move their campaigns to social networking sites. According to Nielsen, the online advertising spending on top social networks and blogs was estimated at $108 million for August 2009, a 119% increase over August 2008 figures.



Full article by by Christina Warren on www.mashable.com

Customer Acquisition and Retention Top Priorities - eMarketer

Social media big winner in marketing mix

Marketers’ top priorities for 2010 will be customer acquisition and retention, followed by thought leadership, according to a survey by virtual events provider Unisfair.

Six in 10 marketers polled said acquiring new customers would be critical in 2010, while 48% would focus on retaining current customers—a particularly important effort in the recession.

Read full articel on www.emarketer.com

The Real-Time Web: A Primer, Part 3

This is part 3 of a three-part series on the fundamental characteristics of the real-time Web.

In part 1 and part 2, we looked at how the real-time Web is a new form of communication, creates a new body of content, is real time, is public, and has an explicit social graph associated with it. A final characteristic of the real-time Web is that it carries with it an implicit model of federation.

A number of sources both generate and consume real-time streams. As a result, many of these new companies are becoming communication carriers, passing their users' real-time threads through their networks to other networks. This is more than simply being open (i.e. more than allowing data to be imported and exported). Just as in shipping and transportation and other communication industries before it (telephone, Internet packets, and email, to name a few), the real-time Web is developing a federated model of transmission whereby companies formally or tacitly agree to facilitate transmission and perform actions on behalf of end-users within the eco-system.

It's hard to say whether this model has arisen because of a conscious strategic effort to build a new industry, or because building a fully closed world would have required just too many resources, or because of a collective effort among business friends and acquaintances to develop open products and open interactions so that cool new things could be created. It's probably a combination of all three, but considering the history of the people at Twitter and FriendFeed (Paul Buchheit, one of FriendFeed's founders, is credited with coining Google's unofficial "Don't be evil" slogan), the open and cool factors are probably a big part of the equation.

Read the entire article on ReadWriteWeb

The Real-Time Web: A Primer, Part 2

This is part 2 of a three-part series on the fundamental characteristics of the real-time Web.

In part 1 we looked at how the real-time Web is a new form of communication and creates a new body of content. The immediacy of the Twitter channel is a third fundamental characteristic of the real-time Web and one of its prime currencies, not surprising given the name of the space. Because of demand within the eco-system, quite a bit of effort is being made on storing, slicing, dicing, and disseminating information as quickly as possible. The fundamental implication of this activity (without any explicit markers being laid down) is that the velocity of information within the Web data system has just increased by an order of magnitude.

Click to view the entire article by ReadWriteWeb

The Real-Time Web: A Primer, Part 1

This is part 1 of a three-part series on the fundamental characteristics of the real-time Web.

Like cloud computing less than a year ago and social networking two years ago, the real-time Web is the new black on the tech circuit. The trend has been publicly bandied about this summer, starting with a few industry get-togethers, followed by several enthusiastic testimonials from investors (notably angel investor Ron Conway's widely posted list of ways for Twitter to monetize). It was then capped by a glowing report in BusinessWeek in early August.

That a serious trend is on the rise would not be doubted by those watching Twitter's rise in usage and media popularity. In fact, the debate this summer has centered not on whether something is afoot but rather on what to call it. Ron Conway favors "now media" in the belief that it's a media phenomenon. But most commenters, led by several bloggers and lead investors, prefer to call it "real-time Web" ("real-time stream" is also popular).

Click to view the entire article by ReadWriteWeb

Social Media is where you'll find your customers

Businesses spend billions on marketing to reach customers. When I decided to launch my retail business online, I did the research. Where are people today? Online!! How do I reach these people - marketing! Therefore, people + internet = social media. Now wading through the numerous social networks to find and transition leads to customers is a little more complicated and time consuming, thats where over 20 years of business and technology experience comes in....stay tuned for The Social Marketing Touch! In the meantime, enjoy this video:

Customer Loyalty Begins with Experience

So, Why Isn’t Everyone Doing This?
— Posting from my iPhone at LAX. I’m flying Virgin America today for the first time, and I’m waiting at the gate to board a flight to JFK/New York City.
I’m already impressed. When I walked up to the ticket counter, hip music was playing. The counter is lower than other airlines, so you don’t perceive a barrier between you and the ticket agent.
After my bags were checked, the agent stepped from behind the counter to hand me a boarding pass and point me to security. The way she handled ...

Q 154: Is there any recent research about employee loyalty?

Q 154: Is there any recent research about employee loyalty?

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If You Build a Branded Online Community, Will Customers Come?

One of the key benefits of branded online communities relates to the idea of treating customers as cocreators or codevelopers. With the advent of social networking, companies can further automate and expand their efforts to involve customers in the innovation process. For most companies, innovation is the only sustainable competitive advantage.

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Mashable

Mashable’s Twitter Guide Book Now Available for Download

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Taking the Measure of Social Media

destinationCRM.com:
SIDEBAR: The Metrics of User-Generated Social Media

Need a pneumonic device to recall what to measure? Try this one: "Only the SAVViEST marketers grasp the nuances of social media metrics." (The "Vi" in the middle stands for "Virality.")


Sentiment: The positive, negative, or indifferent consumer reaction to your brand or a topic, which can be measured by text analytics and natural-language processing.

Author (Influencer): The people talking about your brand and their social media impact (e.g., number of followers, readers, commenters).

Volume: The number of comments, blog posts, tweets, links, etc., about your brand, your competition, and your field.

Virality: The reach of your brand and relevant topics around your brand (e.g., how many people are reading, posting, linking, and sharing).

Emotion: The reasons that a consumer felt good, bad, or indifferent that point to how you can resolve her problem or how your business can change and improve.

Source: Where the conversation is occurring (e.g., Twitter, blog, discussion board).

Topic/Issue: The context (e.g., product, customer service, advertising, competitor, etc.) in which your brand is being discussed. Nielsen’s Brand Association Map helps visually associate the relationship between terms; a Google AdWords keyword-expansion tool helps improve the relevancy of your selections.
Source: Alex Burmaster, Nielsen Online

Three keys to successful recognition programs

Looking for recognition ideas that get results?

The most common characteristics of high-ROI recognition programs — regardless of their monentary value — are their spontaneity and perceived value by employees themselves.

In reality, the cost of some of most effective spot awards and bonuses often amount to less than 1% of base pay — and the awards don’t even have to be given in cash.

Less sense of entitlement

1. Creativity is crucial
2. Make it personal
3. Add structure

Read the full article by Bill Meltzer:

Three keys to successful recognition programs

Customer Loyalty Reward Programs: A Way to Increase Revenue

So, what can we learn from these examples? First, it’s a great idea to offer a customer loyalty/reward program. It’s less costly to keep current clients than it is to find new ones. Add to that the idea that you should try to capture all of the business you can get from your current clients and you’ve got the foundation for a loyalty program.

Second, make sure it’s something easy to implement and explain. If it’s too complicated no one will use it because they won’t understand it. Moreover, you don’t want to create a plan that is costly.

Third, create a program that can’t be hi-jacked. Consider the Panera example. The loyalty card was too easy to duplicate so someone did. Unfortunately, there are unscrupulous people out there.

Interestingly, participation in loyalty/reward programs is up in this recession. According to Colloquy research,

“U.S. consumer participation in rewards programs is on the rise across all demographic segments, . . . Consumers are leaning on loyalty programs to stretch household budgets further by earning rewards for their purchases.“

What does this tell us? That using loyalty/reward programs can be an effective strategy for increasing revenues even in a recession.

Excerpt from Small Business Trends article by By Diane Helbig read the full article here ... http://cli.gs/Rz0T62

Employee Loyalty & Productivity Soars with Workplace Flexibility Tips from 2009 Sloan Award Winner

Phoenix, AZ (PRWEB) July 17, 2009 -- Autohaus Arizona, Inc. (AutohausAZ.com) again gained national recognition June 11, 2009, when it received the 2009 Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility as part of the Chandler Chamber of Commerce's management of When Work Works, an initiative of Families and Work Institute, the Institute for a Competitive Workforce, an affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Twiga Foundation. This prestigious award recognizes organizations that continually strive to find new ways to make work "work" in today's challenging economy and successfully use workplace flexibility to meet both employer and employee goals.

Read complete article on wwww.prweb.com....

Loyalty is critical to all success

Great website and must read book from www.whyloyaltymatters.com

Does Loyalty Matter?
More Than You Think.

For decades we’ve been told that we live in fast-paced dog-eat-dog world, that loyalty gets you nowhere, and that we must look out for number one! We’ve been told that to succeed we have to constantly reinvent ourselves, let go of past relationships, and move on to greener pastures. And we’ve been told that all this is good. But it’s not good.

Most Comprehensive Loyalty Study Ever

Why Loyalty Matters is grounded in the most comprehensive study of loyalty ever conducted, and what it reveals can change your life. The science is very clear – when it comes to business success, satisfaction in our relationships and even overall happiness, loyalty is essential.

Renowned loyalty experts Timothy Keiningham and Lerzan Aksoy combine their own groundbreaking research with the leading thinking in philosophy, sociology, psychology, economics and management to provide a comprehensive guide to understanding what loyalty is, what it isn’t and how to unlock its power in your personal and professional life.

Check out the video too!

Personal Gift Giving Survey Results

We conducted a pre-launch Gift Giving Survey and here are the results from the questions concerning Personal Online Gift Giving habits. The Closing Touch offers very Unique Gift Card Collections for all your gift giving needs.

How Social Media Can Make History by Clay Shirky

Here are 17 minutes that just might help you understand the true power of everything we're experimenting with online, and give you a small glimpse into how technology is connecting us all.

Clay Shirky (author of the book, Here Comes Everybody) is one of the brightest thinkers (and speakers) on the topic of new media. Here, in this recently posted TED Talk, Shirky looks at "how Facebook, Twitter and TXTs help citizens in repressive regimes to report on real news, bypassing censors (however briefly). The end of top-down control of news is changing the nature of politics."

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The Business Success Zone!

This picture is an excellent visual of True Success in Business!

This is from Bud Caddel's blog http://cli.gs/hYp6b4. We are all given unique strengths and I believe a passion that drives us, if we allow it. Far too many times we get caught in a trap of a career path or business that has somehow become our fate.

It's time to take hold and find that elusive feeling of Success - being paid to do what you enjoy, and are gifted to do!




Wishing you all the success you are wiling to work for!

The Corporate Gift Giving Survey Results

Our pre-launch Gift Giving Survey asked a series of questions for both Corporate and Personal Gifting habits. These are the results for the Corporate portion of our Survey:


Here are the questions we asked:

I/We use Gifts as a reward for Referrals?
I/We have an Employee Incentive plan?
I/We use Gifts as part of a Customer Retention Program?
I/We have an annual budget for Gifts & Incentives
I/We spend more than 1 hour a month shopping for Coporate Gifts?
I/We have made purchases online?

Thank you to all the participants. We look forward to being able to assist you with your Corporate Reward and Incentives plans at http://www.theclosingtouch.com/

We've Launched!

Wow! What a fantastic experience yesterday. Launching our new website with a Webinar was a blast. The responses were fantastic and we look forward to continually updating our site as we move forward with our new initiatives.

Thank you goes out to all those who responded to our pre-launch Gift Giving Survey; and the winner is..........Tom Elmer. You will find the results of this survey posted later today.

One of the driving forces behind our new mandate is best described in this video: Did you know?

Have a great day! I am going to rest!

Today is the DAY!

The way we operate in business has so dramatically changed and yet stayed the same. It has always been and always will be about relationships. What's changed is the medium by which we communicate. We are social beings, we excel in communities. The Internet has been taken back by people to be our platform rather than an information source. Check out this video: Did you know?

As a result, we are launching a new website for www.TheClosingTouch.com today. This site will assist Corporations with their Gift & Incentives program development as well as offer access to Personal Gift Giving via Gift Cards.

As a pre-launch celebration we are performing a Gift Giving Survey. Please take a 2-3 minutes to make your opinion count! To Thank You for participating you will be entered into a drawing for one of our Gift Cards value at over $400.00. This draw will take place at the launching ceremony on Monday, June 15, 2009 at 8:00 pm.

To attend the Launch Webinar, Register here!

Thank you and happy Gifting!
Kathy@theclosingtouch.com

What is the purpose of The Closing Touch?

What is The Closing Touch?

The Closing Touch is the ultimate way to give a gift. Everyone likes to choose their own gifts and The Closing Touch offers you the opportunity to give exactly what the recipient wants through a unique Gift & Incentive Program.

We will assist you with Customer Retention, Rewards, Referrals as well as Employee & Sales Incentives.

Benefits

1) You choose the price of the gift card. There are over 10 different collections to choose from.
2) The recipient chooses the gift that they want from the collection.
3) The gift is shipped directly to the recipient.
4) The cost of shipping is included on the gift card.
5) This program is simple and easy to use! No more guessing, gift receipts or travelling to return unwanted gifts. Give exactly what they want…hassle free!

We are launching a new website for http://www.theclosingtouch.com/ on June 15, 2009. Become a Fan of Facebook Page http://cli.gs/dGRAM0 to be kept updated.

Take a few minutes to answer our simple survey and as a Thank You, we'll enter you into a draw for a $400 gift card so you can experience the simplicity of our program first hand by clicking on http://cli.gs/Rb5YX6

Gift Giving Survey

We are preparing to launch our new site on June 15, 2009. In order to better serve your needs we would like you to answer a very quick survey on your Gift Giving habits. You submission will be entered in a draw for a Gift Card valued at over $400.00.

The Survey results along with the winner will be posted on the TheClosingTouch.com on June 15th!

Using Twitter for Business

There is so much information out there on what is happening with social media/ especially twitter. Here is a resource as to what is happening with twitter and business. http://cli.gs/7r24JJ

Once you make the leap and start with twitter I highly recommend the most comprehensive Guide to Twitter I've found: http://cli.gs/MZyhLa

This link tells you who you are following that is not following you back and the opposite: http://friendorfollow.com/

Wishing you all the success you are willing to work for!

Perception is Reality - Visualize Success

There have been so many books/movies based on the Law of Attraction. Who and what you attract are a reflection of where you are in your thought patterns. To choose to continue to spend time with people that are not going to be part of your future; is not moving you in the direction of your dreams and goals. It is counter-productive. Enjoy this article and begin visualizing your success. http://sbinfocanada.about.com/cs/management/qt/visualizesucces.htm

Embracing Your Inner Customer

Customer Service through Embracing Your Inner Customer

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The Essential Guide to Social Media

This free ebook by Brian Solis, San Francisco, CA, United States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Solis contains a great explanation of how to start down the Socail Media path.

B2B Gift Card Incentive Video

Employee Incentives motivate Wellness Programs

Many Employers are realizing the benefits of Wellness Programs to reduce their Health Benefits costs. Employee Incentives can increase participation in these Programs.

10 Ways Twitter will Change American Business

What is your stance on marketing online? What is social media? Have you watched a teenager lately? I've had the privilege of raising a generation that cannot comprehend how we operated in the past. They live on Facebook, Cell Phones and all other forms of Social Media. They are our future leaders.

Amazon.com has created 6 Malls of America (based on volume) in the past 3 years and we haven't taken notice because it happened online. If that had happened with brick and mortar we would all know about it.

We at The Closing Touch will utilize every aspect of Social Media and provide the details on how it grows our business with you. Enjoy this great Time article about Twitter!

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1901188,00.html

Personal Gift Giving Video

Making Customer Retention No. 1

As we prepare to launch our website on June 15, 2009 we've been researching Customer Relationships. With the empowerment of the Internet allowing everyone the opportunity to be heard we will strive to provide our followers with the most relevant information available. Enjoy this article about Customer Retention