18
May 12

How to get Medicine Hat people to unsubscribe in record time

By Darryl Stewart, Head of the Herd

Day three of our “Why not Medicine Hat?” campaign started full of promise:

  • We had researched almost 100 small business people in Medicine Hat.
  • We had crafted a 30 second survey to help up figure out how to best serve Medicine Hat.
  • We had secured a special gift for each person who took the survey and written a wonderful email explaining what we are up to.

We felt we would not upset anyone with the offer of a bestselling book in return for a 30 second survey.  The worst that could happen is that we would be ignored.  The best is that we would get to understand Medicine Hat people and businesses a little better and start a few real conversations.

Basically the worst happened.  We were totally ignored.  We also saw the highest unsubscribe rate we have ever had on an email campaign and one of the lowest open rates ever.  At first we were stunned. Had we really missed the mark that bad?

The post mortem revealed some glaring errors in our approach.  Basically, we interrupted a bunch of busy business people with what appeared to be a spam email at the busiest time in the business day.  We got exactly what we deserved!

Why write about our mistake?  We are all about helping other businesses and organizations.  If our lesson helps someone else, then something good came out of this.

As far as Medicine Hat, there is some good news.  The personal touch works much better.  If we take the time to seek people out, listen to their needs and have a real conversation, we get to meet some really cool people, in a really cool place.  More on that in future posts.

Anyone else want to share a marketing mistake?


16
May 12

Why not Medicine Hat? – Day 2

By IBEX Staff

Yesterday we blogged on our decision to focus all our marketing efforts on one city, the blog title pretty much gives away where.   Why not Medicine Hat?

We started off conservative on day one by sending an email to 35 business contacts in Medicine Hat asking if we could talk to them about our unique payroll value proposition.  10 people opened the email and no one replied.   So day one results were not too hot!

It takes more than that to move an IBEX; we are far from done with this idea.

Today we are upping the ante.  We want to show Medicine Hat how sincere we are about this.

Unconditional giving is one way to build relationships.  That is the plan for today.

We are offering 109 Medicine Hat folks Winnipeg’s hottest selling cookbook for free if they fill out a very short survey.  They can give us permission to call them or they can tell us not to, either way we are still sending the book.

Stay tuned for the results…

Have any other ideas how we can get closer to Medicine Hat?

Here is some info on the book we chose:

Getty Stewart recently made the rounds on Winnipeg breakfast TV stations after launching her book,  The Prairie Fruit Cookbook.    Getty’s book is currently #1 on the McNally Robinson Bestseller list (paperback non-fiction category).   It is a wonderful book full of amazing recipes for using our prairie fruit (strawberries, saskatoons, raspberries, apples and many more) in wonderful and creative ways.


15
May 12

Why not Medicine Hat?

By IBEX Staff

Yesterday morning one of the IBEX payroll Goatbuzzsters had an interesting idea.

“Why don’t we try focusing most of our marketing efforts on one place for a while?”  This seemed like an interesting idea to the rest of the IBEX Goatbuzzsters.   Goatbuzzsters is the name of the marketing team here at IBEX.

We decided quickly on Medicine Hat Alberta.  Not too big, not too small and a place none of us knew very much about.  We had all driven past many times.  Why not stop and smell the roses, at least figuratively and if this goes well maybe literally?

For the rest of the day, as news spread around IBEX herdquarters about what we were up to, one question kept emerging.  “Why Medicine Hat?”

At first us Goatbuzzsters started trying to give a rational answer, but by the end of the day we had come up with an answer that seemed to put the discussion to an end.  We would say right back with confidence and gusto “why not Medicine Hat, you got a problem with that?”  Problem solved.

So with the rest of the IBEX Payroll Herd officially backed off, now we can go to work learning about Medicine Hat and seeing if “twice as good for half the price” resonates in the Gas City.

On day one of our efforts we did some research.  We learned that Blake Pedersen of the Wild Rose party won the last provincial election in April and we learned there are literally hundreds of businesses in Medicine Hat that IBEX could work with.  We added sixty of them to our database and sent out emails to see if anyone would be interested.

What do you know about Medicine Hat?  Have you ever been to Medicine Hat?  Do you know anyone from Medicine Hat?

Today is day two of the Medicine Hat project.  Stay tuned for updates!


14
May 12

Victoria Day: Hail to the Queen!

By Spencer Yarnell, Head of Spreading the Herd Word

Cheers to the ole gal! She’s great ain’t she?

As you know the Victoria Day long weekend is fast approaching and this member of the IBEX Herd is looking to celebrate in style. Be that a lounging barbeque, an escape to the lake or all these things with the companionship of beverages.

But why do we celebrate? Besides the fact that this is one of the first long weekends where we can celebrate outside without being swaddled in pounds of coats and sweaters, it’s also a tip of the hat to Queen Victoria herself whose birthday was May 24th. Back in good ole 1901 when Queen Victoria passed, the British Empire declared by royal decree that May 24th be Empire Day – which in Canada came to be known as Victoria Day. The actual day of the holiday wasn’t set (there were a lot of royal decrees, tiresome stuff really) until 1953 when it became the first Monday before May 25th.

Queen Victoria

Queen Victoria photographed by Alexander Bassano (1882)

Victoria Day is a nationwide banking holiday which means all Monday payrolls will be moved to Friday, May 18th and as a consequence we ask that all input and numbers be in by Wednesday, May 16th to prevent finger wagging. Here at IBEX, we take our Queens and our holidays quite seriously, so you should know that our office will be closed on Monday, May 21st to allow the Herd some sober ruminations on the effects and consequences of monarchy. We’ll be back on Tuesday May 22nd at 8 AM.

The IBEX Herd won’t be alone in absconding from work seeing as most stores and retail in Manitoba will be closed since Victoria Day is a general holiday. That means you can all join us in the fun!

In Manitoba, workers who do work Victoria Day are entitled to 1.5 times their regular pay in addition to 5% of their earnings in the 28 days leading up to Victoria Day, not a bad gig. Businesses who are closed on the holiday must still pay employees 5% of all their earnings in the last 28 days prior.

Since provinces are all different and can hardly agree on anything, here are some links to learn more about Victoria Day legislation across the country:

Alberta

British Columbia (pdf)

Manitoba

Ontario

P.E.I.

Quebec (they call it National Patriot’s Day)

New Brunswick

Nova Scotia

Newfoundland

Northwest Territories

Saskatchewan

Yukon (pdf)

Well this Herd member is getting antsy just thinking about the beach. What are you doing for Victoria Day? What does Victoria Day mean to you? Comment below and I may just bring you into another blog posting!


03
May 12

IBEX Classic or IBEX Direct – You Decide

By IBEX Staff

For the last 2 years IBEX customers have been switching over to our new payroll platform that we call Everest.

We noticed that after the switch to the new system, some of our customers started relying on us less and less and became more and more independent.  They were basically doing their payroll in self-serve mode.  After their initial orientation and a few calls to verify procedures, they hardly called us at all.

We were curious – why were they not calling us?  Don’t they love us anymore?  Do they still need us?  We decided to call them and ask what was going on. They said things like:

  1. We’ve gotten used to this new system and like the fact that we can do our own payroll whenever it’s convenient for us – without having to rely on anyone else.
  2. After the orientation, the new system was easy use.
  3. We like that IBEX is still behind this making sure all the calculations are correct and up to date and making our remittance payments on time for us.
  4. We appreciate that IBEX is always there to help us with the system and to answer payroll questions.
  5. We like that if we have staff turnover, or when our payroll person goes on holidays or is sick, IBEX can step in and do everything for us without us having to learn the system.
  6. We like that IBEX always answers the phone without making us wait.

Some also said they would like to pay a little less since they do most of the work themselves!

Well now we had gone and opened a can of worms!

In the IBEX tradition we started working on a win-win solution to this.  How could we reduce the price for self-service clients and not shoot ourselves in the foot?  We went back to the drawing board, took out our calculators and designed a new self- serve option that recognizes that you’re doing much of the payroll processing work yourself, recognizes you for doing so, and solves a problem for IBEX.

Introducing IBEX Direct

The result is what we call IBEX Direct.  Our new self-serve payroll processing system that will save you approximately 40% compared to IBEX Classic.

Keeping the Familiar – IBEX Classic

What if you don’t want self-serve and you hate those self-check in/checkout thingies?  Well, we thought of that too.  In fact, we came up with a brilliant solution… Change nothing.

Keep everything just the way you like it.  As in, stop reading now and forgive the interruption!

You just keep on doing what you’re doing, the way you’re doing it and nothing changes.  IBEX Classic continues to be the best option out there for flexible, full service payroll.

Since IBEX Direct is new, let us tell you more about how it works.

What part of the payroll processing do you do?

  • Take Everest training (at half the cost of new customers)
  • Login to Everest to be part of each payroll
  • Create your own input sheet for every payroll
  • Enter your own hours and adjustments for every payroll
  • Preview and approve each payroll
  • Print off your own T4’s and ROE’s
  • Add your own new employees to Everest
  • Pay for your payroll by online bill payment, rather than traditional pre-authorized debt.

What does IBEX do?

  • Automatic remittances
  • Offer ongoing support for things like setting up a new deduction, setting up a tricky ROE, interpreting payroll laws
  • Jumping right in for you when your payroll staff is ill, on holidays or retiring – at no extra charge

How can IBEX afford to offer IBEX Direct at 40% of the cost of IBEX Classic?

When you do most of the payroll processing work yourself, we save staff time.  It only makes sense to pass on those savings to you.  But staff savings is only part 1 of the answer, because, after all, our staff will still be there to support you when needed.

The other reason we’re able to pass on such phenomenal savings to you has to do with reducing our credit risk and administration costs.  With IBEX Direct, customers will pre-pay us by online bill payment.  For you, this means you’ll be paying the full amount of your payroll 3 days prior to payroll day by online bill payment.  We have no more bad debts and no more overhead dealing with collection issues for IBEX Direct customers and in return we charge you less for our services.

IBEX Direct will be available to existing IBEX clients starting in October of this year, so you have plenty of time.  If you are interested, please click the link below and fill in the form to let us know, or call Alpine Crew to talk it over. If you decide to go ahead, we will schedule training for you prior to your switch to IBEX Direct, and if you are not in Everest yet, we will make sure you are converted in time to get going.

 

I’m interested in going Direct