Rnordman

It's no secret that Mac owners have historically enjoyed fewer viruses and malware attacks than their PC counterparts.

Of course, Macs are hardly immune to cyber attacks, but hackers and attackers usually target the most popular operating systems, and before the rise of the Mac, that meant targeting the PC more than the Mac.

But with more and more people buying Macs in recent years, the number of cyber attacks has also spiked, and 2015 has been a particularly brutal year.

The Mac has seen more malware attacks in 2015 than the past five years combined, according to a new cyber-security report from the Bit9 + Carbon Black Threat Research team.

The team's 10-week analysis looked at more than 1,400 unique OS X malware samples and revealed a surge in malware attacks in 2015.

"As big-picture trends from the data began to emerge, one data point struck the team as particularly noteworthy: 2015 has been the most prolific year in history for OS X malware," the research team wrote in its report. "In 2015 alone, the research found, the number of OS X malware samples has been five times greater than in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 combined."

The report cites the Mac's growing market share in recent years as Apple devices including the Mac have become more mainstream. Apple has also entered the enterprise space, which means that more and more companies are allowing their employees to use Macs, which attackers could target in the hopes of accessing sensitive employee data.

"This rise in Mac OS X malware comes after several years of rapid OS X market share gains, with 16.4 percent of the market now running OS X, including expanding deployment in the enterprise," the report says. "This represents a growing attack surface for sensitive data, as 45 percent of companies now offer Macs as an option to their employees."

So what can be done to prevent these attacks?

All Macs have cyber-security software called "Gatekeeper" installed on their Mac, though it runs in the background and can't be accessed. If you're a consumer, it's also a good idea to make sure you have an antivirus software program installed and that it's up to date. Enterprise companies should also make sure their employees have antivirus software on their computer and that it's in use with the latest update installed.

Both PCs and Macs will continue to face cyber attacks, and the spike in Mac attacks and vulnerabilities is no reason to panic. Many vulnerabilities are often discovered by cyber-security firms and researchers and never are weaponized by hackers. But reports like these are a good reminder that both operating systems are susceptible to attack, and it's always a good idea to make sure you have the proper antivirus software installed and run frequent checks to decrease the chances of your computer getting infected.

You can read the full report from the Bit9 + Carbon Black Threat Research team by clicking here.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We tried the 'Uber-killer' that offers flat fares and no surge pricing

All businesses today rely on data. But what type of data am I referring to and why is so much money being spent on “data?” The term “data” is actually very nebulous and can refer to just about anything — so it helps to contextualize the information I’m about to present.

When I say “data” in the context of this post, I am talking about customer data. You’ll also read terms like “first-party” and “third-party” data, which will be explained throughout the piece.

To start, we’ll actually go straight to the end goal and talk about why brands care so much about customer data. The end goal I am referring to here is monetization. Businesses are trying to get to know their customers better so they can make more money. As “free” as the Internet seems, nothing is produced for free, and whether you as a consumer typically read the news or watch videos online, all of that content needs to be paid for. This is where customer data comes in.

You, as an Internet user, have a value to every digital property (website, mobile application, connected device, etc.) you interact with. That value grows as the quantity and quality of the customer data you provide to a digital property or to the property’s affiliates and partners increases. To that end, as you become more known within a website, the site can recommend more relevant products to you, surface content similar to what you usually read, or display ads about brands you like. All of these interactions are based on the amount of customer data these sites are able to access.

Does this sound scary? It really isn’t.

Take this example: you walk into a clothing retailer and look at a shirt. At this point, you have neither opened your mouth, nor have you engaged with a sales associate. Here is what the business knows about you right away: your gender, your age range, possibly your marital status, your location, and a product that interests you. That’s a lot of data! Having access to this information allows a store employee to walk up to you, greet you with the proper pronoun, and recommend additional products you might like.

Online retailers want the very same interaction, and that is where your customer data comes in.

So what is all this “first-party versus third-party” data about? It comes down to how the information is collected. First-party data refers to data that you, yourself, choose to provide to a business. If you fill in a registration form with your email address, name, and any other required information, you’ve just supplied some first-party customer data. The business gained the data directly from you. Social network login and customizable registration options are particularly valuable because they help businesses acquire more data points that users have provided themselves — information such as Facebook Likes and interest data. Brands use this information to gain insights into who their customers really are, customer preferences, and which products are most appealing — whether that product is a T-shirt, an article, a video, etc.

Third-party data then refers to customer data this is gained indirectly from an outside party. Take for example a business that does not have a registration system, but wishes to advertise to consumers in some way. The business can either integrate technologies on its digital properties that recognize visitors’ IP addresses, use tracking cookies placed within browsers, or implement other not-so-transparent mechanisms to help identify users. The business can also simply purchase large customer data sets that other businesses collect and provide at a cost. Typically, free tools that provide engagement functionality like sharing or commenting collect and then sell this data as a source of revenue.

By and large, third-party data is very readily available, but it is considered less valuable than first-party data when it comes to reaching users on a personal, one-to-one level. That’s because a lot of third-party information is assumed and based on things like browsing habits and web pages visited, rather than being explicitly provided by consumers. Very small percentages of third-party customer data are actually considered correct and reliable.

As a trend, more and more online users are finding value in registration and providing businesses with first-party data and insights into who they are as it relates to the websites they engage with. This is because businesses are getting smarter about how customer data is used. Brands are becoming more transparent with how they utilize customer data, and are providing more personalized experiences to their known customers as a clear value exchange.

This trend has given rise to the customer identity management industry as a whole. As businesses shift from assuming who their customers are to directly asking users for access to first-party customer data, they need technologies and strategies that make asking for and housing that customer data as seamless as possible.

So many emails to unsubscribe from

Over the last few weeks, I have really worked to clean up my professional email. Sadly, I am one of those people who signed up for subscriptions to various blogs and news services and read a few articles here and there but was overwhelmed by the number of emails coming into my inbox and going straight to the trash, because I could never make the kind of time to read them.

What I didn’t encounter is that many of the sites that I had signed up with also included me on other lists like conferences, new products, breaking news and other types of information. I am sure this information was in fine print when I signed up for these publications, but I think I really underestimated how much information I had really signed up for.

After two weeks of unsubscribing from numerous sites, I am beginning to see a huge time savings in the way I look at email and use email. I really did not need to be signed up for all of those sites and I can now focus on those few sites I like to read that offer the most value to me.

This was the first step. The next step was looking at a service I have used for years and taking it to another level.

A much better approach to getting better, quality information

Google Alerts – This service offers people the ability to have Google search for key word phrases in the background. All I simply do is put in the key word phrase and submit it. If Google happens to find that particular phrase, it will send a link to my assigned gmail address. I have a dedicated email just for this type of search information.

The best part is that I can look at the title, author and quickly glance at the article and determine if the article is worth reading or not. In addition, I can delete the email knowing I will not be receiving any emails associated with that article.

Google Alerts also looks at a much wider view of information and it is much more refreshing to read articles from sites I normally would not take the time to seek out and read. It is a much fresher approach to reading and receiving content.

I use Google Alerts in the following manner:

• Follow my personal brand, “Brent Pohlman” as a keyword phrase
• Follow company brand. – See how fast Google is indexing your own content you are posting.
• Follow certain people in the industry “First Name, Last Name”
• Follow competitors “Company Name”
• Follow specific topics in industries. “calorie counts on menus” “soil testing”
• Follow specific blog sites “Title of the Blog”

Lesson for Marketers

Make sure you treat people like people and not like another number. People want better information and certainly deserve better quality information. If you are asking people for their email address, make sure you are doing it in a way that encourages people to take the next step and you actually provide them with valuable information.

Also, consider using your time wiser by setting up alerts to deliver the pertinent information you are looking for. This may allow you to use your time in a more productive manner.

To hire or not to hire, that is the question. It’s one that seldom comes with a clear-cut answer. We’ve all had employees that shined in the interview process but fizzled once they entered the office. So, how do you take some of the guesswork out of hiring? To start, look for these seven traits:

1. They have goals. When you ask your potential hire what an individual envisions his or her career to look like in the next 5-10 years, the individual  doesn’t need to have a concrete answer. However, that person does have to be motivated to want to give you one. Having an idea of where he or she wants to go in life lets you know  there is passion to make things happen.  If you don’t feel like that individual wants to improve his or her own life, why would there be any motivation to want to improve the life of your company? It stands to reason that those who display a desire to achieve should stay on your radar.  
2. They have courage with a capital C. In any business you’re going to be faced with nerve-wracking decisions or interactions that will put your mental fortitude to the test. When the time comes to deal with those situations will your new hire have the courage to face them, or will he or she balk at the thought of feeling uncomfortable? As the saying goes, “only the strongest will survive.” Make sure your hire is one of the survivors.
3. They have empathy. Not only is compassion for your fellow man a good personality trait to have in general, but it also promotes creativity in the workplace. Employees that have and radiate empathy allow for a safer, more open environment that’s conducive to intellectual discussion. The more your workers feel safe expressing their ideas in a group setting, the more they will be willing to contribute original thoughts and ideas for consideration. If you value a culture of transparency and empowerment, empathy is a key trait you’ll need in your employees.
4. They’re open to criticism. Nobody is perfect and there will certainly be a time when you’ll have to deliver some constructive criticism. It’s important to feel that your prospective hire will take it constructively and not go on the defensive. Everyone learns by making mistakes, but it’s how we accept responsibility for those mistakes – and improve for the future – that matters. It’s also important that we all attack the ball and not the player, so while you’ll look for people who can take feedback, it will always be everyone on the team’s responsibility to make sure the feedback is targeting the problem and not the person.
5. They’re versatile. You might be hiring for a client-facing position but will your potential employee be able to navigate internal management as well? Does your hire seem capable of restructuring a pre-established plan of attack when a new circumstance arises? How he or she is able to deal with change could be one of the most important traits on this list.
6. They’re loyal. The hiring process is no picnic on either end of the table. You’ll want to feel assured that if you extend an offer of employment, you won’t be looking to fill that same position again in a week or two. An indication might be how many jobs they’ve had over the past two years. If that number is greater than two, you’ll definitely want to dig into and learn more. Sometimes there is a mismatch which is understandable so short tenures are not necessarily bad, but if you can avoid extending an offer to a job hopper, do so.
7. They are a team fit. This one seems to go without saying, but the amount of times someone is hired without meeting anyone on the team they will work with is mind blowing. If you are going to be working with someone day in and day out, wouldn’t you want to meet him or her first? Arranged marriages went out of style for a reason. Even if your team members – the candidate’s future colleagues – don’t have a say in the assessment, they should at least have a say in team fit and culture. If you want your team to run smoothly, treat them like adults and give them some say in who joins.

No one trait is the magic answer to your hiring dilemma. However, by keeping your ears pricked and eyes open for people that possess these qualities, you’ll have a much better chance at spotting a winner amongst the candidates and insuring your company is setup to allow every great hire to flourish.

Early on in my career I recognized that the strongest corporate cultures truly took the ‘people-first’ approach to heart. It seemed obvious to me that every company would adopt this approach but I have been unpleasantly surprised more than a few times.

I always found it comical when other organizations I worked for, who didn’t necessarily adopt that style, soon saw a backlash from their key players. Of course, they did everything they could to recover by forcing ‘fun outings’ down our throat. But it never seemed genuine. It just seemed reactionary and as an attempt to save face. Not a good look.

Do you remember the challenges of your entry level role?

It takes a unique level of toughness to cold call throughout an entire day with a smile. Don’t get me wrong – there are going to be days when your SDRs feel a bit beaten up. If you can help them to maintain a positive outlook even when that not-so-positive prospect tells them where to stick it, then I feel it’s safe to say you’ve won. This is a mindset that we strive to instill within all of our new hires when they come on board. It’s important for them to know that this job is not always going to be a breeze, but with the appropriate mindset they will overcome the tough days. And believe me, there will be tough days. If it were easy, every sales guy and gal would include it in their daily routine. But they don’t. Because it isn’t.

It’s important to stay connected.

I’ve recently changed roles here at QuotaFactory. Within the new position I’ve become more focused on helping the managers and directors with the challenges they face day-to-day while also trying to bring in fresh faces to the organization. As much as I’ve liked it so far, I’ve found myself trying my best to remain connected to the true heartbeat of the organization: the sales development reps that make our business run every day. Luckily for me, this is something I gravitate towards. However, it’s been my experience in other organizations to see managers disappear from the scene. It’s definitely understandable, since technically they are not directly involved with their former employees’ development any longer. But, when taking on a larger role, I feel it is still your responsibility to keep your finger on the pulse of the organization by remaining in regular contact with the people in the trenches.

A good example of this within our own company has been our initiative to heavily involve our SDRs with the development of our QuotaFactory PRM platform. We have found them to be our best resource to go to since they are faced with the traditional challenges that any inside sales rep runs up against every day. From our perspective they can provide just as much value as a 15 year inside sales vet…like the stiff writing this blog.

Take the time to learn.

My CEO has an interesting spin on how we should look at the organization as a whole. He said that managers should always approach their job with the best interest of their employees in mind. Meanwhile, the employees should have the best interest of the clients in mind. They really should be interchangeable. This could be Operational Management 101 for many of us, but I can say with confidence that every organization should adopt this mindset.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that we all have something to learn from each other, no matter our role or our tenure. As you rise through the ranks of your organization, take the time to stay connected to those in the position you started in. If most of your time is spent working out issues with your customers and not enough time is spent engaging and learning from your employees, you’re most likely never going to work out those aforementioned issues with your customers.

Sales managers still have much to learn from those they manage. What have you learned from your team?

I saw this statement in the Economist piece on Blockchains:

Bitcoin itself may never be more than a curiosity. However blockchains have a host of other uses because they meet the need for a trustworthy record, something vital for transactions of every sort. Dozens of startups now hope to capitalise on the blockchain technology, either by doing clever things with the bitcoin blockchain or by creating new blockchains of their own.

Obviously Bitcoin could become “nothing more than a curiosity” if all the action moves to other blockchains. But right now the Bitcoin blockchain has an order of magnitude more hashing power and market cap, so we are certainly not seeing any other blockchains developing the kind of network effects that Bitcoin has. Of course, that could change. It is something I check on at least once a week and will continue to do so.

But if we see “a host of other uses” materialize “by doing clever things with the bitcoin blockchain”, I have always assumed that would be a catalyst for Bitcoin itself, both in terms of value, but also liquidity and importance of the currency.

Is that a flawed assumption?

Think that email marketing has fallen out of favor, or become old-hat when compared to modern advances like social media and SnapChat?

Think again.

Many marketers still count email among the very best, must lucrative marketing channels in existence. We’d tend to agree. Not only do we send regular email blasts on behalf of our own brand, but we strongly recommend it to all of our clients.

If you’re skeptical of email’s potential impact, we invite you to consider a few counterarguments. Hopefully, these will convince you that email is still a platform your marketing team should be implementing!

Why Email Still Makes Sense

1. It’s simply the easiest way to reach consumers on their phones. We don’t have to tell you that we all live in an increasingly mobile world, and you probably won’t be surprised to know that, statistically, most people check email from their mobile phones at least once daily. By contrast, SMS tends to be unwelcomed by most consumers, and in some cases actually costs recipients money. Not a good way to make a positive impression.
2. You can send customers mobile offers. With email, you can easily send your customers coupons or discount codes—offers they can store on their phones and pull out when they come into your store or meet with your sales representative.
3. Email is an invaluable content delivery vehicle. Want to get more traction on company blog posts? More downloads on your latest white paper? Email the link. Let people who may not follow your company website know that there’s some fresh content waiting their review.
4. Email doesn’t cost much money. Even if you pay for a premium email distribution service and hire a company like Grammar Chic to do the content writing, you’re still looking at a few bucks per month—a pretty small investment, in the scheme of things, with the potential for significant value.
5. Email is actually a lot more effective than social media. Bottom line: If you’re looking to do just one thing to increase conversions, this is the one thing you need to do.

Invest some time in email marketing—and be strategic about it.

Real estate costs in B.C. are a rising cost that everyone must manage, including non-profit organizations. What if there was a recognized model for assessing returns on real estate investments that factored in the social gains of putting money into buildings that included facilities such as child care and treatment centres for young people?

Facebook, at last count, has 1.5 billion monthly active users.

YouTube has 1.2 billion users (watching 6 billion hours of videos!). Instagram has an estimated 400 million users.

Those are some big gigantic numbers!

[Sidebar] I'm experimenting with sharing short stories via an insightful newsletter. I'd love for you to sign up: The Marketing Analytics Intersect. Thanks! [/Sidebar]

I believe that every human with time to spare, and a connection to the web, should be on social media. The benefits are numerous. Facebook allows you to stay close to people you choose to. YouTube has democratized entertainment and education. Instagram allows you to express your creativity, and soak up expressions from others. Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, others have a role to play as well.

Humans, check.

But, what about businesses? Companies small and big? In India or Japan or the United States?

It comes down to two important questions: 1. Do the big gigantic numbers imply that your business should use these social media channels? 2. If yes, should your participation be the same as regular humans?

I believe that we have never answered the first question. Businesses were told: "The numbers are HUGE!" The second question was never answered either, but because all businesses know is how to pimp that became their default strategy.

The assumption is: Big Social Audiences + Big Pimping = Big Social Profits.

Big mistake.

You know that of course because for your business, after five solid years of investment, this has not proven to be true. Even the people who powered your investment in Social Media, the Gurus, have, reluctantly, accepted this reality.

I believe that it was erroneous not to answer the two questions above, it was erroneous to be tempted by the Big Numbers and not understand how Social Media channels actually worked (streams, home pages, personalization, rankings and more).

So, let's fix that error.

In this post let's look at each Social Network, see what B2B and B2C brands are doing there today, from that draw lessons as to 1. if your business should be on that network and 2. if yes, what should your content (and marketing) strategy be.

The post is conveniently broken up into these sections:

You are welcome to jump to the network you are BFFs with, but I highly recommend reading the strategic knowledge contained in the Higher Order Bits section immediately below. It provides four critical lenses through which we will look through. If you skip that section, you might not understand why I'm saying that you should immediately stop all your efforts on Twitter!

Ready to smell some ground truths? Here we go…

The Higher Order Bit.

There is a lot that you are going to disagree with in this post, because when one is proven wrong it is always hard to accept. We are only human. But, if you read this section carefully, the higher order bits might create enough of an opening for you to read the rest of this post (which I'm convinced will result in major riches for you – after a change in business strategy of course!).

Human vs. Business.

You read this above, but I want to point out again that this post is not about if humans should use Social Networks. They should.

Last week I'd asked this question on my Twitter, Facebook and Google+ pages: What's the point of Pinterest? For businesses? Could you help me out?

Many people were kind enough to reply. Most answers were what you should do on Pinterest or who is on Pinterest. Those are helpful. What I wanted to try and understand is why a business should be on Pinterest.

Just because you and I find value on a Social Network does not imply automatically that a business should be on it. There are plenty of Social Networks where humans find value from other humans and businesses should just butt out. (You'll see examples below.)

It is a good idea to separate value for a user from the value to the business.

Success Metrics.

Any business venture should yield short and, hopefully, long-term value. In my Oct 2011 post, Best Social Media Metrics, I'd created four metrics to quantify this value.

Conversation Rate (CoR) is a ratio of comments per post (or video or tweet or pin etc.) to overall Followers (or Page Likes). Is what you are saying interesting enough to spark the most social of all things: a conversation?

Amplification Rate (AmR) is the ratio of shares (or retweets or repins etc.) per post to overall Followers (or Page Likes). Is what you are saying so incredible and of value that I'll stamp my brand on it and forward it to everyone I know?

Applause Rate (ApR) is the ratio of favorites (or post likes or +1s or hearts etc.) per post to overall Followers (or Page Likes). Do I think the content you've posted is interesting, even if I won't bless it with my stamp and forward it on?

Economic Value (EcV) is the value of short and long-term revenue and cost savings. Do we make any money from being on Social Networks?

Using a tool like True Social Metrics, you can quickly create a glorious centralized dashboard like this one for your Social Media efforts…

Please see the post for more details on how to calculate each metric. For the rest of this post, I'm going to use the first three to capture the essence of social engagement and brand impact, and one to measure impact on the business.

A simple way to have a thoughtful discussion with the Social Media Gurus, and your boss.

PS: There is a belief promoted by some that the value of being on Social Media is simply the impressions. "So what if no one interacted with your Twitter feed, at least they saw it!" How do you know? "It's ok if no one engaged with the three seconds of auto-play, it still creates a memorable impression!" How do you know that? I believe the best way to measure success is to measure the above four metrics (actual interaction/action/outcome). But, if you believe the aforementioned assertions, you should prove them via controlled experiments. It is not that hard. See Lesson One and Two on proving Causality. The causal impact does not have to be on Revenue. It can be a brand metric, say Likelihood to Recommend. Unless you prove this, impressions is just like selling air.

The Business Framework.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that perhaps the single greatest thing ever created here, :), is a simple framework you can apply to your entire digital strategy. It covers, content, marketing and measurement. It's called See-Think-Do-Care.

The framework is not a funnel (#funnelsaredeadlonglifefunnels). Its beauty is that it moves away from company selfishness and solves purely for audience intent. If we have an opportunity to engage with an audience, what's the intent that that audience is expressing through their digital behavior. Due to this beautiful fact, it does not also worry about age, gender, income and other demographic or psychographic attributes. We have intent, why be the terrible Marketer that discriminates?

Every marketing channel we have access to, solves for some audience intent. For example, Paid Search solves for Think and Do intent. Social Media solves for See and Think intent primarily. If you have an effective Care content strategy, some Social Networks can solve for Care as well.

This is very important to remember as it helps us identify what we are solving for with Social Media. An example of the implication: Don't expect short term sales/revenue from any social participation. There is no Do intent!

MoR Test.

It is pronounced the more test. It is an acronym for a test I often use in my consulting engagements. It stands for: Money off Roof test.

It is a simple test: Would we create more Social Media activity if we took all the money we are currently investing in Social Media and threw it all off the roof of our office building?

The way it works is that you compute the total cost of your Social Media program: SM employee salaries and benefits, agency fees, content acquisition/production costs, analyst salaries, executive time invested etc. Then, you withdraw that amount of money in $5 bills. Now you take the elevator, or stairs to be healthier, to the roof of your office building. During prime time, say noon, you throw the cash, off the roof. Surely, when cash is floating down from the say, people will grab it and tweet it, write posts on Facebook, post pictures on Instagram, and of course videos on YouTube. Measure all this Social Media activity.

If the Social Media activity is more than what you are currently getting on your current social platforms, why are you on Social Media? If you simply want buzz, you are better off just throwing cash off your office building once a month. No?

You'll see examples of this below. Google SMB channel on Facebook fails (massively) the MoR test. Innocent does not. Toyota and Febreze fail as well. Galco does not.

The serious point is that when we choose to invest in Social Media, it comes at a cost. Not just what we are investing on Social Networks, but also what else we are not doing. The opportunity cost . Many of the companies below don't have mobile friendly websites. Their mobile apps, if they exist, are atrocious. When you search for them, if you find them, you end up on sub-optimal landing pages. Most don't have decent display advertising strategies with Yahoo!. Their email marketing programs are, literally, leaving money and customer love on the table. Some have the worst lead gen page known to womankind. But. They have a regular presence on Social Networks.

If they fail the MoR test, why not take that money and invest in the aforementioned six ideas? The brand and performance ROI to the company is clear and direct.

We'll apply the MoR test as we go along.

With these higher order bit taken care of, let's look at each Social Network to identify if we, as a B2B or B2C business, should be on that network, and, if yes, what should our participation strategy be.

2BR02B: Facebook for Businesses

Facebook, deservedly, is the king of Social Media. The employees at One Hacker Way have managed incredible growth, tried to out-innovate themselves out of jams that killed earlier networks, and have made tons of money. Their strategy on mobile is rightly lauded by everyone.

Every human should be on Facebook. But, should every business be on Facebook?

As with all other Social Networks below, let's take a look at some B2B examples (good and un-good), some B2C examples (good and un-good) and arrive at the optimal answer.

The Google Small Business page on Facebook is an example of a B2B strategy. With 1.6 billion monthly active users on Facebook, the theory is that it is a good way to get to the 28 million small businesses in America (more impressive SB facts).

We all know that Page Likes is a profoundly sub-optimal metric. It's only purpose now is to get a hypothetical sense for definitely unreachable audience size, and to trick gullible Sr. Business Leaders.

The Google SB page has 34k Likes.

On average, the AmR (Amplification Rate, my most holy social metric) is Zero.

As in, no one believes anything contributed by Google on this page passes this test: Is what you are saying so incredible and of value that I'll stamp my brand on it and forward it to everyone I know?

Check it out…

The ApR (Applause Rate) is usually under ten.

I want you to think about that. T. E. N. Not ten as in ten thousand or ten million. Think of Google's size. Think of how many people engage with Google's various marketing bits and pieces every day. On Facebook Google manages ten (on a good day).

You'll also notice that CoR (Conversation Rate) is usually two or three. Recently, this is how bizarre it is, the exact same two entities make the same non-value added comment on every single post, and one of them replies to the other!

And, no one from the Google SB Facebook management team seems to care enough to check-in with these two folks and figure out what the heck's going on.

For now Google SB Facebook page, without replies, without any care for ApR or AmR or CoR, continues to post couple times a day. Likely because someone somewhere, employee/agency, has a contract to post something every day.

Examples of this lack of accomplishing anything are in every post…

So, why does Google stink so much?

Yes, a part of this is the changes to the Facebook algorithm that has minimized the number of your Likers who will see your content organically. And, the more you stink, rightly, Facebook will show it to even fewer.

But, most of it is the strategy executed by Google, and many companies, on Facebook. I call it the "checklist strategy." Be on Facebook, because the Marketing team has a checklist of things to do.

The checklist strategy does not give a gosh darn about what is actually happening. You'll notice the Google SMB Marketing team has never replied to any comment by anyone, nor has it ever engaged with anyone on anything on it's Facebook page. How is that being social?

They consistently and only pimps random Google things on Facebook, five years after it was established how sub-optimal this strategy is. How quickly would you get tired of someone telling you everyday how pretty they are?

Finally, remember the number above. There are 28 mil small businesses in America. Why not focus on a cluster, or in each post focus on a type or location or something that shows you care, and then talk about them? The current generic slather approach currently, wrapped in Google pimping, is mis-directed.

Here's how heartbreaking things are. The video kicking off #socialmediamonth has 4 video Likes, 61 views!

You see this strategy on almost all of Google's Facebook pages, here's the one for my beloved AdWords…

Yes. Two people on planet earth thought this was of value.

Actually only the first post. Zero for the second one. And, Zero most of the time when the AdWords marketing team posts content.

They have 420,152 Page Likes. AdWords made $35+ billion last year.

They post everyday. Often multiple times a day. What problem is the AdWords marketing team solving by engaging two people on Facebook?

All of Google's numerous Facebook pages fail the MoR test on a colossal scale. That is painful, but Google does have money to expend in value-deficient activities.

What is makes me weep is that people use Google as an example of how to do things right. Even if ten more small businesses open Facebook pages because Google has one, and emulate Google, that is ten people sent in the wrong direction by Google. This hurts.

Google of course is not alone in being a B2B company that executes this checklist, non-social, non-audience-centric, MoR test failing strategy on Facebook.

Here's another big company… General Electric… I've computed the ApR, AmR and CoR for you…

Zero point zero one five percent. Zero percent. Zero point zero zero one percent. Let that sink in.

What business value, brand or performance, was delivered?

GE, another company with tons of money to expend in no-value activities, has not seen a fad it won't jump on. I'm convinced that there is an army of 20 people at GE, and 25 at their agencies, simply waiting for the next flavor of the month to show up so that they can be there first to engage with the 14 people there. It matters little if those 14 people are relevant.

If you don't believe me… launch a Social Network called Slapchat tomorrow, I promise your the first business account will be opened by GE ready to slap whomever shows up.

There is value in being first, but I'm not sure that is a smart social strategy.

You are welcome to look at the Social KPIs and decide for yourself…

With 1.5 million Likes, is it possible that only two people amplify the content because of the millions snapping chats there is no one who cares about GE? Checkout both the comments above.

Think of how many people love college football in the US. Millions upon millions. 40 people Liked GE's invitation to tailgate on Snapchat with GE. It had AmR of one!

GE is at the other spectrum of Google. It's trying too hard to be relevant/cool. What it shares with Google, and other B2B companies on Facebook, is that it has not figured out what content actually adds value to people who might choose to like GE on Facebook, and it does not seem it has figured out how to talk about anything else other than itself.

Clearly GE, or it's agency/ies, is spending lots of money producing videos, graphics, words. When you sum up the cost, there is no way it passes the MoR test.

Are you at a B2B company? Say, TEKsystems on Facebook. Take these filters, now go look at your AmR, ApR, CoR. What do you see? While Facebook's algorithm will not share your content with all your Likers, are you seeing anything decent?

Does your company pass the MoR test?

Maybe the problem is B2B. Who want's to be reminded of work when they are on Facebook? Let's look at B2C companies.

FritoLay has products that touch every single American, every single day (some, multiple times!). It's Facebook page has 2.3 million Likes. It AmR hovers around zero or two. On rare occasions it breaks double digits. It's ApR is in the low to mid-double digits. The CoR is in the very low double digits.

This even though it is clear from the page that FritoLay/agency is pouring tons of money into creating content. The problem of course is that for FritoLay the Earth revolves around the Sun. Sorry. The world revolves around FritoLay, as illustrated by it's content.

You can also checkout any random FritoLay brand on Facebook and if could possibly pass the MoR test.

Consider Tostitos. Big company, big billboards, big tv commercials, big in-store posters and banners. They have over three-quarter of a million Likes on Facebook. AmR of their last few posts (as of Oct 30): 0, 2, 19, 2, 28. CoR? Between two and 20 on average. Out of three-quarter of a million Likes!

Why?

All they do all day long is pimp. Or, think Facebook is a place to run contest. On a See-Care channel, they are executing a Do strategy.

Want to see an example of that strategy in all it's massively unproductive glory? Switch from food. Try H2O Plus on Facebook. It is unclear from their content, and performance that they are aware of the golden formula for Social Media success: Entertain me. Inform me. Provide Utility.

Let's pivot even more, try the most B2C of entities, a car company. Let's take a look at Toyota on Facebook…

2.5 million Likers. But, small AmR, ApR and CoR.

And, the above post is one of the more popular ones. As is this one…

Certainly better than GE numbers, on any given day. But, reflecting to the world what it sees in the mirror every day is adding negligible value to Toyota. You don't even need the metrics to see that.

In the absence of actual value (Inform, Entertain, Provide Utility), many Facebook visitors use the opportunity to ask for help or complain about problems they are having…

All in all, a profoundly sub-optimal performance no matter how you look at it.

Here's the ironic thing: If you search on Facebook, tons of people love their Toyotas. They share meaningful human stories. Even on Toyota's Facebook and comments. Yet. Toyota's SM team / agency / PR entity continues to use Facebook to primarily pimp.

MoR test outcome? Sad.

Let's look at a B2C and B2B example of companies that do pass the MoR test on Facebook.

One of my favourite examples of a consumer brand, that beautifully truly gets social, is Innocent Drinks. They have 500k Likers, and they routinely whip brands much, much bigger. In fact, pound for pound, they do much, much better, with every post, than the company with 94 million Likers, that owns them: Coca-Cola.

Checkout the AmR, ApR and CoR. To me, that last one is impressive. I'm hundreds of people engage. They are just as funny/snarky/insightful as the brand itself.

Every once in a while there pimping by Innocent, most of the content is topical, relevant for the audience, and geared towards making them smile…

Not every post gets ten thousand shares (#omg), but you'll see a persistently positive outcomes for the three social metrics.

Innocent does well because it executes entertain me and provide utility so well.

It is nearly impossible to find a single example of B2B that passes the MoR test. But, there is always one exception to the rule. For me, that's the impressive accomplishment of Fluke on Facebook.

Their strategy is to focus on inform me and provide utility. Here's one example of their content…

Fluke has 143k Likers. As you can see above they do really well for their size when it comes to our three social media metrics.

I have not spoken to Fluke's Sr. Management in a little while, but I think what they have done that is great is get a really solid understanding of who their audience is. And, through experimentation, what is it that they want on Facebook…

Content perfectly targeted at their audience, in the above case to try and provide value to help them do their jobs better. Yes, hopefully, with Fluke products. But the emphasis is not on selling (overtly or covertly).

Here's another example of content that engages, and add value… beyond the "enter our contest" or "take our quiz about pants we are wearing today" that are far too common on Facebook pages…

On a See and Care audience intent channel, Fluke's content is created for their Largest Addressable Qualified Audience and Extra-Loyal Customers. They have, rightly, skipped obsessing about Think (Weak Commercial Intent) and Do (Strong Commercial Intent). Because, that strategy simply does not work on Social Networks!

It is very difficult to do what Fluke, for B2B, and Innocent Drinks, for B2C, have demonstrated above. It is not a money thing. It is not we have x agency or y employee thing. It is a DNA thing.

Let's answer our two questions we started with, for Facebook:

Should your business be on Facebook?

User interactions as a percentage of Likers is now 0.216%. This is provocative, but your business should not have a page on Facebook. Claim the URL. Leave it blank. No one will miss you in this world.

As a business you should take advantage of Facebook's immense audience by having a paid advertising strategy on Facebook. Purchase display ads, purchase video ads, purchase any other ads available.

Ads targeting See intent and Care intent will work the best. Measure them just as you would any other display or video ads on any other property.

Think and Do intent is not expressed on Facebook (if you insist on Think and Do ads, use Assisted Conversions and Conversion Rate to identify how very wrong they are for Facebook).

What content should you publish on Facebook?

No. Just buy ads. Target See and Care intent clusters.

If you insist on publishing content on your Facebook page… 1. Solve for See and Care intent (entertain, provide utility). 2. MAKE SURE you buy advertising from Facebook to "boost your posts". Organically you'll reach a couple percent usually, to reach rest of your Likers pay to boost your posts.

Bonus: Facebook Advertising / Marketing: Best Metrics, ROI, Business Value.

2BR02B: YouTube for Businesses

YouTube is incredible. Any stat you look at is impressive. Here's one: The number of people watching YouTube per day is up 40% YoY since March 2014! You would think that everyone who is supposed to be watching YouTube every day was already doing it! Apparently not.

Two things I'm personally most impressed about are: 1. The raw number of individual superstars YouTube has created. There is no other social network where that would have happened. Food. Comedy. Music. Education. Therapy. Pick your favourite. 2. From Egypt to Ferguson, the ability of video to foster change. Some for good. Some not. Change nonetheless.

And, I'm totally ignoring the fact that prior to YouTube I could not binge watch Ira Glass or Jeremy Paxman for hours!

So. An amazing platform.

Let's look at B2C, B2B examples of what businesses are doing on YouTube and answer our two questions.

The tendency of most businesses is best expressed by this example of Febreze. The thinking goes: "YouTube has a billion people watching videos. We currently target people watching video type entertainment on TV. We have TV ads. Let's continue our spray and pray strategy!"

In case the content left you in doubt (and it does not), the title of the video makes the purpose quite clear.

The problem for Febreze, and everyone looking to simply replicate spray and pray, is that YouTube is not TV. For example, unlike TV, people pull content proactively. There is a lean-in nature to content consumption, rather than lean-back. And, unlike TV, here there is a feedback loop. People hate you on TV, you have no way of knowing. All you measure are GRPs. If you truly, gloriously suck on TV, perhaps there's a report on some paper out there. On YouTube, your feedback is attached to your content…

If you have as many thumbs down as thumbs up, I assure you, you are doing something massively wrong. There will always be thumbs down (dislikes). For even decent content, the thumbs up will dwarf the dislike.

And, why are people doing thumbs down?

I thought you would never ask. Just look down a bit more at the comments. The person cursing the brand has six thumbs up, and zero thumbs down! And, replies!!

The problem in the case of Febreze was not just the spray and pray, it was also the content in the ad. When I first saw it, and the other ads, I wondered if any ads could be any more clichéd. The traditional gender roles. All people of the same skin tone. Women good. Men bad. Women laundry. Men lazy. And more.

Turns out, I was not alone…

So. Febreze has 326,091 views for this ad. What's the business outcome? Yes, it is likely the Brand Manager considers this to be a success as they were only solving for reach. But. The brand is being hated. Was trying to reach that billion users with a strategy not built for the channel worth it? Here's the important part, every Febreze employee, and Febreze agency employee, has access to all of this data. Still…

Another Febreze video is above. Checkout the up/down numbers. You can also look at the entire collection. Nothing in that collection reflects Febreze's basic grasp of what YouTube's true strengths are, or that with just a little effort Febreze can build an incredible owned audience on YouTube that will rival anything it does on any other channel – online or off.

Febreze has a Do intent cluster strategy on YouTube. What YouTube is really fantastic at is See, Think and Care.

Massive missed opportunity. Collecting anti-brand-love along the way.

Febreze of course is hardly the only brand is possibly failing the MoR test.

Much of the content on Colgate Oral Care's channel is an example of the above.

You can also checkout Colgate's channels in Brazil, Mexico, India, Philippines, Australia, UK or others you'll see on the right above. Same mis-match.

And, there are other examples as well across the entire business spectrum. You can use the same filters to measure their impact.

Here's the Tide Pods: Waitress commercial on YT. 41 up. 17 down. It's a great clue, even without reading comments, even if the views were 4.6 million. Ignore the comments. If people can't even be bothered to thumbs up/down your content, what's the point of all that shouting? 58 people love/hated it out of 4.6 mil! Four point six million! At least get more hatred!! Or better, do something worth talking/sharing in a medium that's magnificent at it.

Here's Liberty Mutual Insurance. 605k views. 213 up. 248 down! And, the comments. Oh, the feedback in comments. :(

There is no dearth of sub-optimal strategies. It is not just about shoving your TV ads (when you could just as well create wonderful alternatives easily!). It is about this whole self-first and self-only strategy that is widely prevalent in B2C companies. Here are some examples: Bank of the West. Kroger. HP. Sprint. Oh, and Finish. #heartbreaking

Let's switch gears and look at examples of B2B companies.

Over the last month 146 videos have been uploaded to the Cisco YouTube channel. The highest view count for a video is 3,794! In fact there are on only three videos of 146 that cracked three digits. The average number of views seems to be around 150.

Consider this… Cisco has more than 150 buildings here in the valley. Each of those buildings full of hundreds of people. Yet. 150 views. Some of this content seems like polished, expensive content produced by Cisco's agencies. All of whom, of course, have way more than 150 employees. That implies that even people producing Cisco's content are not watching it!

So. What's the point of being on YouTube?

And, Cisco has 25 other channels full of videos. On so many of them, videos rarely cross into double digits. (Ex. Check out Cisco Switzerland .)

Is Cisco simply executing the "checklist strategy" on YouTube? We are a business. We have to upload videos on to YouTube. No. No, it does not matter if anyone is watching them, or that those who do find them to be of value.

Cisco is by far the most unique in under-leveraging a platform with more than one billion engaged monthly users. Go, pick a random B2B company, there will be a YouTube link on their home page, give the channel a quick review.

The problem? B2B companies treat YouTube (and Facebook above, and three other Social Networks below) as their PR channel. This would encompass TV ads, newsroom things, obligatory CEO keynotes/interviews, dense product stuff, and much much more.

If you step away from the mirror and give my business framework a thought, it is all about our customer and not us. B2B companies usually don't consider customer intent. They only care about themselves. YouTube is best at delivering against the intent of your largest addressable qualified audience, an audience with some weak commercial intent and your extra-loyal customers. The intent can be best met with content that informs, entertains, and provides utility.

Since we are on B2B, let's look at an example of a couple of B2B companies that do get the above paragraph.

I love Galco Industrial Electronics' G-TV channel, it uses YouTube's strengths perfectly.

Galco is a distributor of industrial electrical and electronic components. Sexy! (Ok, I'm a Mechanical Engineer.)

(In the five days between taking the above screenshot and today, their YouTube subscribers have gone up by 400. That is how you know you are doing YouTube right.)

It's YouTube videos are primarily focused on Think and Care audience intent clusters. Though videos like the one below could just as well be solving for audiences with See intent.

You can see in the videos that Katie Nyberg is not just an expert, she is also passionate. While she might just be doing here job, it makes learning about he SLM 700 Modular Electronic Sounder so much more fun.

This screenshot gives you a sense for Galco's content strategy on YouTube…

While they have just under 10k subscribers, and Cisco has 117k, you'll notice that almost all Galco TV videos have more Views than those of Cisco.

Another comparison. TechwiseTV is a Cisco thing on YouTube. The last episode, very slick, very polished, very well produced, has 125 views, zero comments, zero thumbs up or thumbs down. People can't even be bothered to hate on it!

How incredible is that? You solve for audience intent, and they show up and engage!

And, just to show you that B2B companies, even esoteric ones, can do more than PR, here's FANUC America Corporation.

Most of their content is solving for Care audience intent. A little bit of it is solving for Think. Most of their robots are for cool things you might not care for. But, here's one that is way cool: A robot that cuts cakes and packs them!

That's B2B. If you want to consider B2C businesses, there are tons of great examples. Let me share two from my experience.

I love the consistent and wonderful effort from Carphone Warehouse on YouTube.

They've sharply defined their focus as See and Think audience intent, and they have a wonderful emphasis on Inform and Provide Utility. Here's a great example, comparing the Nexus 5x and Nexus 5. I'm not sure I get their See (Entertain ) content, Keith Lemon videos. But, perhaps it's a British thing. :)

Air New Zealand's YouTube channel is an example from a different industry.

The customized YouTube page is a nice touch. You can see the latest video, you can see the header on the top that brings up more customized pages, and at the bottom is always the route map of where Air New Zealand flies. You can search directly from YouTube!

What is remarkable about Air New Zealand is that it not only has the obvious things like safety videos, they have custom series they've produced just for YouTube, they have location delights, they have extensions they've made for their TV ads (unique for YouTube, for example for Hobbit), and so much more.

They are solving for See and Think audience intent clusters – both YouTube strengths.

It is really hard to beat Air New Zealand. I think, WestJet is even better. It is perhaps easiest to share that with this exercise that I encourage you to undertake on your YouTube channel…

WestJet warms my heart. For their content strategy above, but for one other reason that they are uniquely amazing at.

WestJet does these "big bang" videos. Their last one was the WestJet Christmas Miracle. Amazing. 42 million views. Many companies do this. Big bangs. Then. They go away to make the next big bang. Or, the Brand Manager's already promoted and so they are on to their next thing and there is nothing sustainable left behind.

WestJet is unique. They have a big bang strategy, and it works. Additionally, they are consistently on YouTube creating See, Think and Care content for all the days that are not Christmas or big bang days. This is rare. Companies are rarely this committed, rarely understand what it takes to build an owned audience this much. And, their creativity is not limited to that one trick (give free trips on Christmas). Most brands get stuck on their big bang.

Here's one more B2C example,Absolut is doing an amazing job.

Finally, if you want to do even better (is it even possible!!), checkout Unilever's excellent All Things Hair UK. Their strategy is to own the conversation around Hair on YouTube. Here's my write-up on six things they did different, really different.

It is an example of perhaps the best strategy I've seen executed by a big company on YouTube. Just one of the many small clever things they are doing: The gadget on the right detects my local time, temperature and weather. Knows it's raining here. Links to a "Let your style brighter up a rainy day" video. #omg

On YouTube uploading videos is not enough. You have to have an owned, earned and paid acquisition strategy.

REI, as an example, has amazing YouTube content. Yet. Nobody is watching it.

You can't just post content on YouTube and wait for your audience to arrive. You have to have a strategy to bring your largest addressable qualified audience to your channel (TrueView, Display Ads, See-Care Search ads/SEO), you have to invest in inviting your existing customers (Care). You have to have a specific strategy to convert them into Subscribers, rather than solve for the empty calories of Views. You have to build an owned and engaged audience. At a certain point your Subscribers will start to drive the first hundred thousand plus views, you only have to worry about the subsequent hundreds of thousands.

Another, smaller example, is Colgate's attempt at Tooth Tube . The videos could be of value, but they were uploaded and forgotten. They have 10k views, or less.

Let's answer our two questions we started with, for YouTube:

Should your business be on YouTube?

YouTube presents a very distinct opportunity for B2B and B2C companies to build an owned audience, rather than just renting them from TV or magazines or newspapers.

The caution is that a strategy of simply uploading and waiting for the world to discover your glory is a terrible one. You have to have an owned, earned and paid acquisition strategy. If you can't invest in these three, you just might be better off skipping YouTube.

For the paid acquisition strategy, try to avoid years of sub-optimal habits from TV. Skip demographics and psychographics. You have intent on YouTube. Use intent to target your paid efforts.

If you want to put your TV ads on fast rotation on YT, it might not be the wisest strategy in the world. See above.

What content should you publish on YouTube?

See, Think and Care intent clusters.

Measure them using metrics in the bonus link below.

Bonus: YouTube Marketing And Analytics: A Primer For Magnificent Success.

2BR02B: Google+ for Businesses

There are many good reasons for humans to be on Google+, but there is no current reason for any business to be on Google+.

You should wait and watch and see the evolution that happens in the product over the next 12 months.

2BR02B: Pinterest for Businesses

This was the meme that inspired me to post my why should any business be on Pinterest question.

There is absolutely no question that Pinterest is a phenomenon. In categories like Food & Drink, Home Decor, Fashion, Pinterest's 100 m monthly active users find immense inspiration. It's users are 81% female, though Males are growing quite nicely.

More recently Pinterest has shared that 70% of its users engage by saving or clicking on something. I know of a number of people who practically live on Pinterest! They contribute tons of content, and consume voraciously.

Our questions are the same for businesses. Should we be on Pinterest, and, if yes, what should we publish.

Let's look at B2C and B2B examples.

Starting with someone who might be a perfect fit, L'Oreal Paris. I love the brand.

Here's their presence on Pinterest…

They have several boards, solving for See and Care intent primarily, though there are elements of Do intent content or calls to action sprinkled throughout.

As with other social channels, we can measure three of our four metrics, Amplification Rate (repins), Applause Rate (likes) and Economic Value.

L'Oreal has 7.7k followers. A small number for such a big company. It's boards have inspiring information, this one closer to matching Care audience intent…

As you can see it has 6.9k followers. Most of the pins are repinned around fifty times, or less, with ten or less likes.

Is that level of engagement of value to L'Oreal, given all else that it is engaged with in digital marketing. Can it find 8k people to engage with in fifty or smaller chunks anywhere else?

Checkout BCBGMAXAZRIA on Pinterest. Many more followers, 125k. If you look at their Front Row Seat at NYFW board, you'll see similar low engagement rates. Less than 40 repins, less than 10 likes per pin.

Even Target with it's currently 338k followers, on its Epic Halloween board with 89 pins, averages to 23 repins and 10 likes.

If you switch over B2B, here's the Pinterest presence of Cigna Insurance…

What is great is that it is extremely focused on helping people be healthy. This is wonderful. We would consider it solving for See audience intent cluster. This would be a fit for Pinterest.

Their overall Follower number is 673, after 1,600 pins on 20 boards.

If we look at one of the boards for Salad Bowl Monday, it is clear that Cigna is investing money to produce good professional content. But, the engagement rates are quite low. Few to none like numbers and very small repin numbers (if any).

This is not uncommon for B2B companies that are attracted by 100 million MAUs for Pinterest.

To look at another example, here's IBM…

It is unclear why IBM is on Pinterest. They have very few followers, and low engagement.

For example, the Cognitive Cookbook has 46 pins with most having zero repins and zero likes (or just a couple). IBM Design board, you might consider it to be a closer fit with Pinterest audiences, has at most one repin and/or one like on each of it's pins. Perhaps less than might be required to pass the MoR test.

Let's answer our two questions we started with, for Pinterest:

Should your business be on Pinterest?

For B2B companies, the answer is a pretty straight-forward no. Take the money. Do many of the six things mentioned at the start of this post.

For B2C companies, for some categories there might be value in having an organic presence. Check for how your peers are doing. For example, David's Bridal or Lowe's both have quite low engagement as measured by repins and likes (I don't really have sales numbers, but each repin would have to result in massive average order value to justify).

For B2C companies in Pinterest's top boards categories (like the ones mentioned above), leveraging Promoted Pins or Buyable Pins might be an excellent way to monetize Think and Do intent expressed on Pinterest. (You can measure it using Assisted Conversions and Conversion Rates.)

If you really want to focus on inspiring but selling stuff as well, I would recommend Houzz type strategy, rather than Pinterest. There are many others like Houzz as well for different categories.

What content should you publish on Pinterest?

If you choose to have an organic presence, focus on the See and Think intent clusters.

If AmR and ApR metrics justify it (i.e. they indicate a passing grade on the MoR test), you should continue that presence.

2BR02B: Twitter for Businesses

Twitter, my first Social Media love.

It is unclear what Twitter is for at the moment, it is undergoing a key reflection at the moment. The next 12 months will be interesting.

Twitter has 270 million active users global, with a penetration of 16% among the US population. It is really fabulous as the news breaker of the web. If you follow a manageable number of accounts, and are good at weeding out, then it is also a really wonderful way to know what your friends, people you find interesting, are reading/recommending.

Let's flip the order and look at B2B businesses first on Twitter.

Can you get more B2B than Deloitte? I think not! Deloitte's account has 267k followers on Twitter, quite healthy. Here's what they tweet about…

As you can see, Deloitte's tweets struggle to crack double digits when it comes to AmR (retweets) and ApR (favourite). If you click on any of the above tweets (or click on the time stamp), you can see the amount of conversation they are fostering. For almost all of Deloitte's tweets, that number is zero.

The audience on Twitter best expresses See and, possibly, a little bit, Care intent. It is primarily about your largest addressable qualified audience, and delivering value to them.

Deloitte, global account or US, mostly simply looks at itself and what it cares for. Hence, the audience does not care for almost all of what they say. For the US account, it is not unusual to see tweets with zero.

It does not seem like Deloitte is investing a lot in Twitter, even with that low engagement it likely fails the MoR test. There are literally 50 other things Deloitte can do to have 10x the impact it is having on Twitter.

As always, another example you can check for effectiveness, or lack there of, is General Electric. They are on every single social channel on the planet. :) You'll see in GE's Twitter presence, AmR and ApR rarely crosses 15. One five. Their current follower count is 382,000. Divide fifteen by that number. There's your effectiveness – value. No argument about what the MoR result is.

One more example from a different industry is LogMeIn ….

A very different profile, very different audience focus, yet the same results. Mostly zeros across the board, or once in a while the number one. Fails the MoR test.

If you look across B2B accounts on Twitter, you'll this same pattern of very quickly failing the MoR test.

Let's switch to B2C and analyze performance.

Expedia's Twitter account might be a great place to start. If Twitter is a perfect fit for See audience intent, Expedia should be the perfect entity to deliver that.

Expedia stays focused on vacations and travel (as one might expect). Most of their content (above, below) is solving for Think audience intent (largest addressable qualified audience with weak commercial intent) and a little bit for Do audience intent (largest addressable qualified audience with strong commercial intent ).

As a result, you can see AmR metric is either zero or a tiny handful and ApR is a little better but rarely crosses double-digits.

There is a tiny handful engagement on Do intent, but the numbers simply can't justify a pass for the MoR test given the size of Expedia and the sheer number of people it touches every day with Think and Do intent. What is sad is that often there are no replies from the account, even when people ask for inspiration…

There are exceptions, of course. Here's an example of one such exception for Expedia. If that is what works, most of the time why does Expedia do everything else that does not?

Sticking with the travel theme, we can checkout my fav Hilton Hotels (this year I'll sadly miss being Diamond VIP by a little bit, for the first time in five years!).

Here's their presence on Twitter… Lots of asking people to look at how very cool Hilton is (PR angle rather than solving for See audience intent)…

As you can see the numbers, publicly visible to anyone who wants to see them, including the Hilton Social Media team, are in low double digits, or single digits. You can't quite see the Conversation Rate (CoR) above, but do click on any random tweet. It's usually Zero.

So, why is Hilton on Twitter?

Actually they are not only there, they are also on Periscope (they are the GE of the B2C world! :)). I watched the most recent one, as I was doing research for this post…

I was on Wi-Fi but the video I got was 33.5 kbps circa 1999 quality. And, the wonderful Hiltonite just walked around the hotel pointing things out. It was unclear what problem Periscope was solving for Hilton.

Is it not possible to see pictures of the pool and exercise area of the Beverly Hilton at their website? Or a decent quality video on the site or YouTube? Or, were the handful of people who watched the stream live, in the process of considering a vacation in Southern California and hence this tour was held for them? What is the value of this to Hilton (even from a branding perspective)?

Switching gears to a B2C company with 1.72 million (!) followers, Target ….

On a See channel, Target is executing a Do strategy.

The result of that mis-match is clear in the AmR and ApR metrics you can compute above. Almost always, zero point zero zero something percent. Except for the Calum Hood tweet. More Calum please!

These are of course not the only examples of B2C companies with MoR test failures.

Try Urban Outfitters on Twitter. Or Old Navy. Or Skechers USA (The average amplification? 2! Applause? 5!) Or winners of possibly the most sub-optimal understanding of why social media exists: Wrangler Jeans (Close to zero on either metric). Yet, they are Vine'ing away!

Not convinced? Try any Kellogg's brand. Pop-Tarts is a brand would seem like a brand that should have social in it's DNA. They tweet everyday, sadly they prove that they don't. Also, try Kellogg's Krave. [Don't click on any of the three links in their Twitter bio, all 404.]

Even the amazing and impressive Nike should rethink what they are trying to do on Twitter with their organic participation. With almost four million followers (!), the very best they can do is AmR of around 150 and ApR of 450. Think about that. You have a, on paper, chance to engage and excite 4,000,000 people. You do that for 150/450. Success?

Should Nike continue tweeting because these 150/450 happen to the most influential customers? The highest purchasers? Superstar humans?

I know, it sounds crazy. But. Give me 60 seconds. Clear your mind. Think about it.

If Nike is hard to think about, try Coke. What are they accomplishing with 3.12 million followers that they can't using maybe 5% of the investment they are currently making in their Twitter strategy?

And, if the mighty Coke and Nike are at this low level of value… What does it say about the rest of us and our far, far, far smaller brands?

Let's answer our two questions we started with, for Twitter:

Should your business be on Twitter?

No.

And, unless you are targeting Journalists or Social Media Gurus, the ROI on buying Twitter's advertising offerings will yield sub-optimal results.

What content should you publish on Twitter?

If you are the exception to the rule for a B2B or B2C business that passes the MoR test… focus on See intent of your largest addressable qualified audience. [Though the difficulty in finding that is exactly the reason you should not be on Twitter.]

2BR02B: Instagram for Businesses

The social network I currently love the most.

Just a few months ago Instagram had 300 million MAUs, it has 400 mil as of this month! The daily actives are around 75 mil, an impressive number. 70% of the users are outside the US (in contrast to Pinterest). Perhaps most impressively, Instagram boasts the highest user interactions with brands as a percentage of a brands' fans of 2.26%. This has fallen from 2014, it was 4.21%. But, consider that the number for Facebook is 0.21% and Pinterest, as is obvious from above examples, is 0.04%.

A quick note on our standard metrics. ApR and CoR do exist on Instagram. But, Amplification Rate as a concept does not really exist on Instagram, though the facility is there. As no URLs or clicks are possible (except if you hunt the bio and even then it is unclick able), Economic Value as a concept does not exist.

Let's look at some B2B and B2C examples.

Dolby Labs markets its brand to us normal humans, to entice us to ask for equipment with Dolby, but most of it's sales are to other businesses.

Here's their Instagram profile…

From the 2,296 followers Dolby has, the engagement is around 50 likes (ApR) and mostly zero comments (CoR).

Every once in a while you'll see a comment, but it is not clear if it is the audience that Dolby wants…

You can contrast their performance with my Instagram account – business vs. normal human…

That helps you understand who Instagram might be for.

Another B2B plus B2C combo company we can look at is Dell…

Dell has 52k followers on Instagram, from 569 posts. The ApR is right round 500. CoR is between 5 and 40, though closer to 10.

Consider Dell's size, it's marketing activities, even the number of emails you can possibly guess Dell sends every day. If all of those big numbers are a way to tell people about Dell, what might be a good reason to be on Instagram to tell people about Dell as well.

There are too many B2C examples out there, let's look at one where you might expect massive engagement, drinks all around!!!

Sadly that is not really the case.

It is the pimping problem again. Is the above being truly social? And, this is a social product!

Instagram as a channel is best at See audience intent. Just See. Though, in this case what's unique is that if you are really good, really, really good, you might collect around yourself your largest addressable audience and not just your largest addressable qualified audience. And, in this case, it is a good thing.

You have to, of course, play to it's strengths.

This company does, guess who…

Yep, GoPro!

Beautiful brand, with a built in advantage to shine on Instagram. With almost 7 million followers, and gloriously magnificent ApR and, even better, CoR, it does really well for itself.

A great example of B2B business is Mailchimp. It might seem like no creativity can flow from someone selling email marketing solutions. But, you would be wrong to think that…

Mailchimp executes a near perfect See (and a bit of Care) intent strategy. It's ApR and CoR numbers reflect that.

One of the more clever things that you'll see on their account is introductions to the employees. Many people do that. Mailchimp's is unique. They tell you a little bit about the person, but, as you might expect on Instagram, it is the picture that takes the cake…

Very clever, very creative, perfectly suited for this channel.

Let's answer our two questions we started with, for Instagram:

Should your business be on Instagram?

Yes, and no.

For B2B companies, the medium might not offer a fit. You'll fail the MoR test.

For B2C companies, if you have a built in advantage like GoPro, Bonobos, Adidas, Virgin America, Instagram is a great medium for your See audience intent strategy.

If you don't have that advantage, you are likely going to fail the MoR test quite easily.

Instagram has a limited advertising strategy (image, video, carousel ads). If you buy them, you can tie value to increase in followers to your Instagram account or with a, likely big, controlled experiment the impact on your brand metrics.

What content should you publish on Instagram?

If you are Instagram, See audience intent content with a special emphasis on creativity.

That's it!

We are done with our quest!!

Social Networks are still in their infancy. It should be clear by now that chasing them purely because of large audience numbers on these networks is a failing strategy. I hope the specific recommendations in this post will ensure that your valuable marketing dollars are being spent in the most valuable manner possible.

Infancy also means that things will grow and change and crash and evolve and everything in-between. As long as you remember the higher order bits at the start of this post, regardless of my specific recommendations above, you'll be able to make the best decision for your company.

All the best!

As always, it is your turn now.

Do you have a higher order bit you bring to Social Media thinking that I've missed? As you reflect on your company's Social Media existence, would it pass the MoR test? Is there a Social Network where your recommendation would be different than the one I suggest? Why? Is there a specific strategy, on any of the above Social Networks, that you've found to create sustainable business value? Do you love a SM metric that I've not mentioned above?

Please share your feedback, critique, stories, pain and success via the comment form below.

Thank you.

How To Suck At Social Media: An Indispensable Guide For Businesses is a post from: Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik

The sales funnel continues to transform with emerging technologies. At this point, probably every B2B marketer has seen this stat (or one like it): B2B buyers complete 57% of their research on a product before speaking to a sales representative.

What does that mean for you? Embrace the change.

Cutting-edge companies have embraced this shift to digital/inbound/content (whatever you want to call it), rather than resisting it by maintaining old techniques and hoping it works.

Data from digital footprints reveals important details — when a lead participates in a webinar, “likes” a piece of content on social media, or submits answers to a quiz, they’re sending us a subtle signal that they’re interested in our offering.

According to the Harvard Business Review, “Such data points, when collected and analyzed, can enable marketers and sales teams to pinpoint where prospective customers are in their exploration — and when and how they can step in to engage them.”

In a sales funnel dependent on targeted engagement, teams need to broaden their perspective and embrace data-driven opportunities. Gerry Murray, a research manager at IDC’s CMO Advisory Service told HBR that if companies “are still training salespeople on the old model, you are going to struggle to connect with buyers.” In order to continue to accelerate growth, companies need to roll with the changing habits of buyers.

Interactive Content Empowers The Sales Team

Content helps bridge the gap between digital experiences and sales teams, but not all content is created equal.

Interactive content is the not-so-secret weapon of strong sales development. With higher engagement and deeper data than static alternatives, it’s the best way to motivate leads down the sales funnel and invigorate your sales process.

Personalization

Interactive content offers personalization opportunities at every turn. With assessments or interactive infographics, marketers prompt their leads with questions that pave an individualized path. It matches the unique needs of each reader with their best options for growth, just like an in-person conversation.

These kinds of unique experiences increase the chances of a positive buying experience. A survey by Infosys found that 78% of customers are more willing to develop a longer-term relationship with a company when they receive personalized offers.

It’s not just the case with B2C sales, either. B2B marketers experience 40-45% opt-in rates with interactive content, making them a best-bet for any sales-driven company.

Awesome Data

Interactive content supplies treasure troves of data to salespeople. With each answered question from a lead, you clarify the needs and interests of your audience, both collectively and individually.

Is there something your sales team needs to find out about your prospects? Weave relevant questions into your content, and your sales team can learn as much about each lead as each prospect learns about your business.

Data empowers sales teams to target optimized leads who are ready to buy. Meanwhile, your marketing team can continue to nurture individuals who need more time down the sales funnel without a pushy sales call.

Data-based segmentation meets buyers where they are in their buying journey. And it makes sales emails a dream, allowing for easy personalization while saving your team time.

High Conversion Rates

The right interactions with consumers bring sales teams closer to their quotas, setting them up for slam dunks. Interactive content has been found to convert 2x better than static content, giving marketers more opportunities to score those leads and tip them into the MQL bucket to send to sales.

Sales teams can also use interactive content during their sales conversations to demonstrate more value in concrete terms to potential buyers. Blackbaud, for example, reached 133% of its sales quota by using interactive content in just this way. That means not only is interactive content converting more visitors to leads, but it can also help convert more leads to sales. What salesperson wouldn’t like those odds?

Increased Social Sharing

Social media marketing has fast replaced advertising as the way to break into new markets. Interactive content yields a 15% share rate on social media, amplifying lead generation. Salespeople can increase their sales numbers by capitalizing on social media to explore and fortify relationships. By sharing interactive content, they crack through the invisible barrier between companies and consumers, complementing existing marketing strategy to their own benefit.

Conclusion

As marketing gains more and more responsibility for delivering business results, it makes sense that many of us are thinking about ways our content can support the sales process.

With interactive content, top-performing marketers are providing their sales team with better opportunities for content personalization; awesome insight into buyer profiles and preferences; better conversion rates; and increased social shares.

Ready to think about interactive content for your own marketing team? Download our Demand Gen Marketer’s Guide to Interactive Content!

My friend Kelly Riggs got me all wound up on this topic I hope had died, but apparently hasn’t had the sense to die. As you look at related titles at the bottom of this post, I’ve run out of titles and use variations of the same one over and over.

Kelly writes about an infographic on the death of selling that’s making the rounds. I understand the infographic, buying into it makes you want to buy the author’s products and services. I don’t really blame them, they’re selling, just like many of us do in our sales and marketing campaigns.

The infographic in turn is based on a research report published in the Spring by a large consulting company. There’s been a lot of discussion about the research, I’m not sure how many people have actually studied it.

As usual, when one is trying to present a certain point of view, you parse your words carefully, present data in a way that supports the point you want to make. (Mandatory reading for all sales and marketing is How To Lie With Statistics. It was written in the 40’s, is a short, informative, hilarious read.) We all present data that supports and reinforces our points of view. This research report is no different.

Whenever we read research and data, we should have some healthy skepticism, understanding the assumptions, biases, and points of view underlying the data. In this case, it’s useful to dive into both the original research and the infographic, to understand what the real issues..

The infographic cites the research report as saying the number of B2B Sales People will decline from 4.5 t0 3.5 Million by 2020. The research report is a little confusing, they have their own assessment, but also cite data from the Bureau Of Labor And Statistics (BLS). The BLS data clearly shows growth in sales overall. They show some segments declining, but overall there is quite a healthy outlook for the profession of sales.

The research report also cites certain companies that no longer have sales people. It’s interesting, some of those companies are actually clients. Yes, those companies do not have job titles that have the word “sales” in them, but, based on our engagement with them, they have some of the best sales people I’ve ever seen. They have people responsible for generating revenue, people who are on quota and measured on things like revenue attainment, and people who do the activities sales people do–prospect, build pipelines, identify opportunities, close deals. These people just aren’t called sales people, yet the do the function of sales people. So saying these companies no longer have sales people really isn’t true.

The infographic says new technology will beat old technologies. Well, tell me something new! Sales people used to go from town to town in horse covered wagons. In cities, they used to go door to door. We used terms like “wearing out shoe leather.” Phones displaced a lot of door to door. Direct marketing helped the outreach to drive inbound calls. Today, we leverage a number of technologies. Sales like every other profession is constantly changing, there are new tools, new methods,

Declaring sales dead, because the old tools are no longer useful is craziness. It’s similar to declaring engineering dead because the slide rule, drafting tables, and the T-Square have gone away.

The infographic outlines, “The Cold Call Is Dead,” 97% of cold calls do not work. That is a statement about execution, not about employment. In fact, one of the fastest growth areas in sales is SDR’s. That might cause one to say, well executed cold calling is still in high demand, and those that specialize in doing this well have a great future.

It also cites, “The Closer Is Dead,” 48% of buyers are frustrated with aggressive sales people. Again, this is a statement about execution, not employment. And it’s not particularly new, insightful or revelatory. Apparently, Adam was deeply frustrated that Eve kept saying, “Adam, just imagine how great that apple would taste!” She was, apparently, relentless–he finally gave in and we know what happened.

The infographic cites, “No More Scripts,” 39% of buyers are frustrated with overly scripted sales approaches. You know where I’m going to go with this, so I don’t even have to say this. If you’re going to talk about employment data, then stick to the topic!

The infographic then moves to leveraging the research again, citing who will take our jobs. Apparently, it’s all the Social Platforms: Google, LinkedIn, Twitter and other sites replace sales as a source of product information. Machines will rise (I saw Terminator as well) and sales professionals are already in trouble. Well, ugh, ugh……… Yes, but so what, tell me something new. The assumption is the only role of a sales person is as purveyors of product information.

But we’ve known for a long time that sales people do more than provide product information. From my point of view, making sure that customers get 100% of their product information from the web can’t come soon enough! It frees sales people up to focus on what their customer really cares about. Change–identifying ways to grow and improve their business! Opportunity/Problem Solving—ways to make them better. Customers really don’t care about products, except as means to help them achieve their goals. The real value of sales people is in instigating and leading those discussions.

Yes, those sales people who define themselves as people who educate their customers about products will find very limited employment opportunities. But I can see no end to problems, no end to discovering opportunities, no end to customers needing help to achieve their goals. So sales people who do that, will be well employed. While I don’t have research data to support this, since the world is getting more complex, the number of problems and opportunities grow at a rate faster than we can identify and address them, it would indicate the need for sales people who help customers address these might grow.

The infographic leverages more of the research. Here, it’s actually more informative to look at the research directly and how they carefully present data and parse their words. Again, I’m not criticizing it–we all do it, but it’s just important for thoughtful people to recognize this.

The infographic states, “Nearly 75% of B2B buyers now say that buying from a website is more convenient than buying from a sales representative.” The research actually goes into this more deeply and presents more data. But when you look at the data, they are speaking of the physical (or virtual act) of entering the order. An example might be buying a book from Amazon-I sign into my account and enter an order electronically.

Again, my reaction is Ho-Hum. Tell me something new, let’s talk about sales. In my career, I can count on one hand the number of orders I’ve had given physically to me, or that I’ve entered myself. Orders were mailed in, faxed, phoned, or have you every heard of EDI—it’s been around for decades. The research implies that selling is all about that physical act of dealing with the order. The research does not address the activities the customer went through (yes a lot was online research), to get to the point they wanted to buy and wanted to enter an order. In my experience, the smallest part of B2B sales has always been order entry. In our own company, since inception, 100% of orders have been electronic. Yet 100% of those orders have been driven by strong engagement of our team with people solving tough problems and choosing us to help them.

The infographic and research state 93% say that they prefer buying online rather than from a sales person when they decide to buy. I’m frankly surprised the people building the infographic chose this piece of data–the research has other more compelling data about not using sales people. But addressing this specific data point, it’s only an order entry statement. It says nothing about the customer activities, needs, behaviors in getting to that point of purchase. Again, in our company, 100% of our customers “buy” online because that’s the way we designed the process. It’s not a statement about selling.

The research is a little more clever in making statements about people’s “preferences to not deal with sales people.” They present a lot of “preference” data. The problem is preference doesn’t describe behavior. For example, I have a very strong preference never to see a dentist. Yet I see mine regularly every 3 months and wouldn’t think of not seeing the dentist. I have a preference for paying no taxes. But I know the consequences of acting on that preference, so I religiously pay all my taxes. I have a high-performance car, I have a preference to drive fast and not obey speed limits. But I know the consequences…oh well, never mind. 

So when one sees the word “preference,” one must be very careful about how it is interpreted. Preference doesn’t mean behavior.

Unfortunately, the study doesn’t dive into buying activity and selling activity to describe the types of selling activities buyers find useful and as adding value. That would be very compelling research (Check the CEB, Gartner, Sirius Decisions, Aberdeen and others. They have good data on this.).

The infographic goes on to describe the categories of “sales” jobs that will be lost and the one that will grow, “Consultants.” There’s not much useful there, the research goes into more, but still tends to look at the “old roles of selling,” with very little emphasis on the new roles of selling. We all know the old roles of anything die, the world changes, we need to change. It’s true of every profession, so limiting the discussion to the old and not researching the new doesn’t add much to the body of knowledge.

The infographic ends with “There’s no survival, just evolution,” with an argument for relevant digital channels and the piece of data, “80% of buyers know what they want before they even contact a vendor.” Well we know what this company is selling–digital solutions, I’m all for that, but this 80% number is not terribly useful or informative in isolation.

That number itself is questionable. I’ve seen variations from 57-90% (The original research this infographic is based on posits a 90% figure.). But then one contrast that with CSO Insights data about a very large number of Forecast Deals ending in No Decision Made. So if customers know what they want to buy, why are so many failing to buy? CEB data shows a huge number of “deals” blow up 37% into the buying process–before they research solutions, simply because of the frustration of buying.

Finally, and this is the big one, no one ever talks about all the opportunities that exist, but customers don’t know there is a better way. They aren’t into a opportunity/problem solving cycle, consequently never enter a buying cycle. This is the real stomping ground of the sales person of the future, it’s getting customers to recognize not changing is unacceptable.

There’s a little more–but I’m bored, you get the point.

There will continue to be discussions about the death of sales people because the people in whose interest to declare the death of sales people have something to sell you. In truth, I will always be talking about the future of selling being bright–but that we as a profession need to continue to learn, change, adapt, and improve because I have something to sell you.

Most of you will never be my customers, however. But I still believe the profession of selling is very bright because there is no end to the opportunities and problems our customers face. But we have to change, improve. If we don’t, we will certainly die.

Let’s shift the discussion about how we grow and improve and stop talking about the death of our profession. Frankly, it bores me to tears!

Rant over, thanks for your patience.

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca 

The challenge with Return On Investment or ROI calculations and calculators is that they are only truly effective with a small segment of buyers. Part of the challenge is that many of these calculations are based on the most idyllic circumstances, leading many to doubt the projected returns. Even for those who accept the projected benefits, they don’t always see how those will apply to them.

I remember in the late 1990’s, during the dot.com boom, my employer seized on a stat that showed that about 30% of white collar workers’ work time was spent searching for information they need to do their work. Based on this data, which completely lacked context, the number crunchers in marketing came up with a calculator where you can put in the number of white collar workers at your company, their average salary, and presto, instant profits and returns. If you had 100 employees making an average $60,000 per year, that’s $1,800,000 in savings right there. Wouldn’t you want to spend $250,000, just once so you can lock in that annuity? Even if the numbers were half accurate, still a great ROI; yet there were no lines around the block looking to buy the product.

Having an overly aggressive ROI calculation is more likely to be ignored and lead to a credibility issue than accelerate the sale in a way realistic calculation will. Remember most business people will take a reasonable say 5% uptick, while big numbers will seem unattainable or carry hidden and unnecessary risk.

The challenge is that most ROI calculations fail to drive action on the part of the buyer. One reason is they do not always align to buyers objectives, thereby failing to address the real issue, “what will I do with the ROI?” I remember watching a rep present the above ROI with great gusto. When he was done, one of the buyers asked “how can you ensure that the recaptured time would be put to company use and benefit, and not for an extra smoke or more time surfing the web?” Had the rep been able to demonstrate how the product would address that next step, there could have been a sale. But like many ROI calculations, they usually demonstrate a false affordability for the product, but not the return for, or impactful outcome for the business.

Without the alignment to objectives, and how the return is not in the form of dollar savings but objectives achieved, and the impact or return on those objectives, the ROI measure will continue to be a decorative piece. The sad part is that it would not take much to modify the calculation to reflect the above, and deliver actionable insight that drives positive results for buyer and seller.

Another overlook factor with traditional ROI’s is risk, most people are more likely to take action to avoid risk, than take action for a questionable return. Studies suggest that 70% of the population are ‘away’ people, meaning they will move away from risk. The remaining 30%, will move toward realistic risk for a measurable return on the risk.

Given this, it is probably better for sales people to spend time developing and presenting Loss On Inaction, or LOI calculations. Left to their own devices, people will usually opt “keeping on as is”. It is always easier to rationalise not doing anything, than doing even the slightest thing. Leaving you with one choice, raising the risk factor of where they are. You need that ‘away’ hormone to kick in, where level of risk crosses and rises above the line of inaction. Until then, the alternatives we offer are interesting but not compelling enough to drive action.

An LOI calculation can quantify and graphically demonstrate the risk and cost of inaction. That allows you to then initiate and facilitate the cycle, and as a bonus, when that gets started, you can still go back to your ROI, with much more impactful effect.

Tibor Shanto    

We recently published the 2015 State of Pipeline Marketing report and shared our findings on how pipeline marketers track and grow demand.

It was a lot of data to share. The coverage was broad, so we are blogging a series of deep dives into our survey data to uncover industry and firmographic trends.

For this post we focus on the marketing channels that have the greatest impact on revenue.

And if you’re curious whether it varies by industry, you would be correct.

Depending on which industry you’re in, you can expect success from certain key marketing channels and activities.

Meet The Industries

The 370 marketers who took our survey come from five major industries.

–Business Support, Logistics and Manufacturing

–Technology, SaaS

–Education

–Financial Services

–Healthcare and Pharmaceutical

The marketers surveyed are all investing in online marketing and are part of fast growing companies.

Email Marketing Is The Most Effective Marketing Channel For Manufacturers And Logistics Companies

Our survey data shows that marketers in the manufacturing sector have success with email marketing. In fact, it is highlighted as the marketing activity with the greatest impact on revenue by the majority of marketers in the manufacturing sector. 

We’ve written about email marketing tactics before and manufacturers may have the most success with email marketing due to limited audience size and seasonality. Highly specialized widgets, for example, components for the wings of a commercial aircraft probably don’t require a large rolodex. Boeing, Airbus, and a handful of known regional brands make up the market.

Distribution channels and intermediaries also limit the need to engage in activities like outbound calling and prospecting. With the former, established relationships create opportunities for upselling. Seasonal factors may also explain why email marketing is so effective. Offers or specials based on distributors’ busiest months fits with the strengths of email marketing: relationship building via 1 to 1 communications.

TV, Radio And Print Ads Work In Education

Go where the students and parents are. Often times this means a table at a recruitment event, partnering with campuses and community organizations, and ads in magazine read by parents.

Here are the most effective marketing and recruiting activities for education institutions.

In Finance Your SEO Better Be Strong

Local search listings matter as marketers in the finance industry name SEO as their number one most important channel for revenue. This is followed by email marketing and outbound calling.

Where SEO may play a major role in web traffic and inbound calls, email marketing may be the the nurturing activity that helps close clients. Generating revenue for financial services may depend on personal consultation, lengthy consideration process for prospects, or seasonality (tax), each of which can be addressed via email campaigns.

Content Marketing And Events/Conferences Generate Business For Tech Companies

Technology and SaaS companies rely on events and conferences, along with content marketing to be “found” by their prospects. Where new and sophisticated products are born, so too is the need to notify the masses and find qualified buyers. Using content marketing, these marketers can communicate the value proposition, and establish a need — which is critical for new products and technologies to gain adoption by users.

Health And Pharmacueticals Should Keep Sticking With Content Marketing

Rounding out our industry analysis is the health and pharmacuetical industry. For these marketers, content marketing works. This may be because consumers prefer to do online research when it comes to learning and making decisions related to health and wellbeing. Whether it’s due to privacy or being informed prior to picking up the phone, content marketing is working for health and pharmacueticals.

What’s With The Don’t Know?!

Every marketer should be able to answer the question, “What’s the activity that’s generating the most revenue?”

For some marketers this isn’t the case.

In the results above, marketers chose “Don’t know” as a response to the survey question, “What’s the activity that’s generating the most revenue?”

Without an attribution model, identifying the strongest and weakest channels is difficult. An accurate attribution model begins with understanding the customer journey and the major transition points within the funnel.

Just how widespread is the lack of attribution models across industries?

This circle packing chart below shows the attribution models used by marketers across industries. The larger the circle the more marketers use that respective attribution model.

The majority of marketers in technology, manufacturing and advertising industries are not using an attribution model (as shown by the larger dark navy blue color). The dominant models in use today are single-touch models. Multi-touch models are burgeoning, represented by the light brown circles.

Click the chart below to view it larger in a new tab.

When marketers can distribute revenue along the key funnel transition points, they gain an accurate and detailed view of their funnel and pipeline. They know where there marketing budget is going at every stage of the funnel.

No marketer should be lost when it comes to examining how marketing activities generate leads, sales opportunities and revenue.

As our recently released State of Pipeline Marketing report shows, revenue-focused marketers are leading the way in proving the value of their marketing budgets.

They say it takes six good reviews delivered by word of mouth to make a lasting impression, and only one bad one. Whatever numbers represent the truth, it is certain that it is hard to get people to like you, and terribly easy to get them to dislike you, especially if you happen to be a business.

This basic truth also goes for entire industries. For some reason, some people imagine that certain industries are evil incarnate, as if other industries were the paragon of virtue. But neither impression represents the truth. That is simply not the way business works. Businesses are made of people. And people can behave well or poorly at any given moment. Put enough of them together in one place, and any presence of good and evil cancel each other out.

While most industries are viewed with suspicion, some have an utterly irredeemable reputation. Here is a brief look at three of them, and why I think they may have been given a bad wrap. Each of these industries serve a public good that should not be overlooked. Here they are in no particular order:

Credit

We live in a credit economy. It would be shocking if the credit industry did not exist. It would also be shocking if the credit industry didn’t have an extremely bad reputation. After all, the industry deals with money, the life blood of our economy. If money and power are corrupting influences, imagine what all that money and power can do.

But it’s not just the industry. Everyone gets a little crazy when money is involved. As individuals, we overextend our credit, making purchases with money we don’t have, and might never get. When a shiny new product is announced by Apple, out comes the credit card with the expectation that the bill will be paid eventually, hopefully, maybe. If, at times, the credit industry goes a little too far, it’s because they are dealing with difficult clientele.

But rarely is the credit industry celebrated when it helps someone get their lives back on track. This heart-warming testimonial video is the perfect example of the good that is quietly done everyday in an industry that is much maligned. Sometimes, the biggest crime of the credit industry is giving us too much of exactly what we demand.

Telecommunications

AT&T, Ma Bell, Baby Bells: whatever you call it, the telecommunications industry is one of the most hated of them all. No one loves their carrier. Choosing a carrier is a choice of the least of the available evils. That said, we tend to think every industry is evil when it offers a service that everyone has to have. We can rage-quit one company. But we can’t quit them all. We’re stuck with them.

Then again, every one of those companies allows us to pick up a brand new smartphone every year or so, that costs 462.42 GBP. We were walking out with them for about 132.12 GBP. Now, all of the Big Four have deals that allow you to walk out with a new phone once a year, or more, with no money down on the deal. Despite all their antics, they are helping us feed our tech fetish for less up-front cash than ever before. That deserves some, dare I say, credit.

Cable

Have you heard how hard it can be to ditch your cable company? The worst part is that so many people want to cut the cord. They are trying various alternatives. It is not because they don’t want to watch the content offered by the cable companies. They do. It is just that they are increasingly offended by the way the cable companies do business.

But at the end of the day, most people still come back to cable. That is because it is still less expensive than cobbling together an a la cart package that still leaves out local channels and live events. One thing we have learned with the cord-cutting experiment is that the cable companies were not gouging us anywhere near what we suspected. It turns out that basic cable is a pretty good deal.

The credit, telecommunications, and cable industries have a lot for which to answer. But they have also done a lot for which we should be very grateful.

When The Economist was creating its first-ever college rankings, it excluded vocational and trade schools.

The decision makes sense because schools for specific professions tend to be considered in isolation. Few people have to choose between one mechanics' school or another, or two competing culinary schools.

Plus, a number of these specialized schools wouldn't have fit the list's emphasis on four-year programs.

However, before culling these schools from their data, The Economist's authors highlighted an interesting trend: “filling prescriptions behind a drug-store counter is perhaps the safest route to the upper middle class in America today.”

The three schools that would have dominated the rankings, had they been measured, were all schools that train students to become pharmacists. Ten years after entering undergraduate programs:

• Alumni from the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences made a median salary of $110,600,
• Alumni from the St. Louis College of Pharmacy made a median salary of $111,600,
• And alumni from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences (MCPHS) made a healthy median salary of $116,400.

The highest median earnings from a non-vocational college? Ten years after entering college, alumni from MIT brought home a median salary of $91,600 — about $20,000 less than pharmacy school grads.

The Economist’s article on its rankings explains why the pharmacists do so well by this metric: “whereas 28-year-old surgeons are poorly paid hospital residents, 28-year-old pharmacists are near their peak earning potential.”

Better yet, getting into a good pharmaceutical school isn’t nearly as competitive as small liberal arts colleges. MCPHS took 89% of its applicants last year.

When you compare salaries for college alumni 20 years out, rather than 10, you would likely get different results, as some career paths take longer to reach their biggest paychecks. In fact, the schools at the top of that list might producing the most anesthesiologists.

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Sometimes you just get stuck trying to come up with a great headline that will make your visitors go “Wow! I must read that!” and hook them to the post, start to finish.

It’s difficult when you have to stick to an editorial calendar that is demanding of headlines and story ideas. The risk to come up with the same ol’ trite title is hiding behind the corner, as well as the risk to come up with ineffective headlines.

Blog idea generators help because they take the burden of getting started off your shoulders, so all you have to do is grab the prompts generators throw at you and rework them into great headlines that convert.

I have tried 15 generators over the last two months and they really helped with coming up with effective titles. However, I must warn you:

Generators have a tendency to churn out the same headline structures for every blogger that uses them, so you can’t just grab a title and go with it— you have to get creative!

In this post you will NOT find a detailed review of each tool, but a small introduction followed by tips to get the most out of each of them.

1. WordStorm

I found this tool on the HubSpot’s blog while I was looking for productivity tips. The tool struck me as helpful at first try — it was quite easy to get my first blog post ideas down for my technology and fiction blogs.

For example, I stormed the word/topic “robots” and I found two interesting association on the grid: “robot visions” and “sophisticated robots”.

WordStorm may not give ready-made titles, but it makes it easy to create word associations you can use in a headline. It works even better with the following workflow:

• Use WordStorm to associate 2 or more words related to your topic
• Run a forum and social media search to see what’s trending in your topic of choice
• Come up with a blog post idea that puts your wordstorm and a trending angle together

Also, you can use WordStorm in conjunction with any of the generator tools below.

Visit URL: http://www.lonij.net/wordstorm/wordstorm.php

2. Blog Post Idea Generator

A tool that generates silly titles?! How could that possible help you?

It can help you when you want to add a bit of humor and catchy words to your headline, because sometimes the opportunity presents itself.

You can use these titles as a base for niche headlines. For example, I could turn “I wanted to learn more about Horrid Henry” (??) into “25 Blogging Success Tricks You Absolutely Want To Learn”.

What did I use here? The notion of “wanting to learn” about something, actually, and since my blog is about blogging success, there goes the inspiration.

Visit URL: http://www.generatorland.com/glgenerator.aspx?id=122

3. The Blog Post Ideas Generator

Some ideas generated by this tool will not be good for a niche blog, but you can use some of the ideas it throws at you together with WordStorm or just get creative about it.

For example, “How To Survive Your First…” became “Surviving Your Rejection – A Freelance Writer’s First Aid” for one of my blogs.

Look at the example in the screenshot above: what would you turn “The All Time Best Way To____” into?

Visit URL: http://www.buildyourownblog.net/the-blog-post-ideas-generator/

4. ContentIdeator

ContentIdeator is a keyword-based tool that generates titles of such a high quality that you could use them right away.

However, as Neil Patel recommends in a short review of this tool, many bloggers will be using these same ideas, so the general rule of thumb of editing your generated titles stays valid.

You can personalize “4 Great Content Marketing Tactics”, for example, by turning it into “4 Content Marketing Tactics That Worked For Me In 2015” or “4 Great Content Marketing Tactics To Use With Older Posts”.

The tool allows you to save ideas you like in the “Saved Ideas” sidebar by clicking on the small arrows on the right of each title.

Visit URL: http://www.contentforest.com/ideator

5. Blog About…

Blog About… is an heavily graphical tool that guides you through the headline creation process in an intuitive way.

For example, it will give you a “fill the blanks” title like “____ Truths About ____ That Every ____ Should Know” and filling the blanks with your niche words is all you have to do.

The way this tool works requires little brainstorming, as you can fill the gaps with much more that one word and you can edit your final result anyway.

The headline formulae used will not lead you to trite titles if you play your cards well. As an example, the title I mentioned above can become “15 Truths About Successful Bloggers That Every Newbie Blogger Should Know (And Learn From)”. You can use the tool for the first part of this headline, then add the part in parentheses directly on your blog.

Visit URL: http://www.impactbnd.com/blog-title-generator/blogabout

6. Portent’s Content Idea Generator

Portent’s tool is lively and playful in its appearance, but also powerful in the way it headlines that work, because it also explains why a certain headline structure will work.

I tried to generate some headlines for my “robocity” fiction blogs and I got this headline: “Why Our World Would End If Robocity Disappeared”.

Besides the fact this is a silly headline that could actually work in a fictional setting, this is what Portent’s tool tells me about the structure of this headline (in balloons):

“Why Our World” — Use contractions for a more conversational tone

“Would End If” — Take a risk with your content and see if readers follow

“Disappeared” — Someone can’t live without you. Make your topic essential

The great thing about these tips the tool throws at you is that you can use them to not just improve your final headline, but even to come up with more headlines yourself, without the help of the tool.

Visit URL: https://www.portent.com/tools/title-maker

7. Blog Idea Title Generator (Kill Writer’s Block) by InboundNow

InboundNow’s tool generates headlines that are readable for humans and not just good for SEO. This is a plus point, because so far this tool has demonstrated one of the highest quality around.

Look at the example in the screenshot above — the tool itself guides you to fill the blanks in the headline and does so with special attention to your audience and your niche needs (the prompts are spot on).

Another example of good headline with tips this tool generated for me is: “Ultimate Guide To [something of popular interest]”

If the generator is not enough to give you idea, the page also offers a “Need more Inspiration?” button that will get you a Google search form to run a keyword/long tail search in your niche.

Visit URL: http://www.inboundnow.com/apps/kill-writers-block/

8. TweakYourBiz’s Title Generator

This generator churns out tons of headlines! Even too many, most of which have nothing to do with your niche, so this tool actually requires a lot of work on your part.

However, it offers a good base for your blog post inspiration if you know what you need and in which category (Lists, How To, etc.). For example, the second title under “Lists” in the screenshot above is a good pick, but it would still benefit from some editing: “Believing These 8 Myths About Blog Marketing Keeps You From Growing”.

Be careful, because some titles will make no sense with your keyword, so once again don’t go verbatim with usage.

Visit URL: http://tweakyourbiz.com/tools/title-generator/

9. BacklinkGenerator.net’s Article Title Generator

Some topics generated by this tool are a bit generic, but still interesting and quality enough to take and edit to make them into something your readers will love.

Like with other tools, you can mix two or more titles together to create something unique.

Visit URL: http://www.backlinkgenerator.net/titlegenerator/

10. WebpageFX’s Blog Topic Idea Generator

The tool replaces their headline blanks with the keyword you entered, so choose your keyword carefully or the end result may not make any sense (like the example above!).

As the main title for the tool says, it helps with killing your writer’s block but don’t rely on the tool without editing. Reword the title to suit your needs. For example, the title from the screenshot above may become “A Simple Guide To Blogging Success For New Bloggers”.

Visit URL: http://www.webpagefx.com/blog-topic-idea-generator/

11. DIYToolkit’s Fast Idea Generator

It’s a PDF, not a generator tool!

How many ways you can make a blog idea unique?

Take the first suggestion in the document: inversion. If you were thinking effective networking tips for food bloggers, try to invert the rule — what about effective food blogging inspired by networking events?

Follow the grid as it’s displayed; it guides you through all the steps.

Visit URL: http://diytoolkit.org/tools/fast-idea-generator-2/

12. Seopressor’s Blog Title Generator

For my “content marketing” example and “a generic term” from the drop-down menu, the tool gave me these ideas in the list:

• How To Learn About Content Marketing In Only 10 Days.
• Learning Content Marketing Is Not Difficult At All! You Just Need A Great Teacher!

These ideas are quite interesting by themselves, but like with the other tools, I can’t rely on ready-made titles, so I put these two ideas together to generate this headline:

• “How To Become A Good Content Marketer In 10 Days With The Help Of A Mentor”

Seopressor’s tool generates good titles that might be used verbatim in some circumstances, but it may also generate nonsensical post ideas, so always double check that the ideas you’re picking make sense in the context of you niche and won’t look like auto-generated spam.

As a general rule of thumb, don’t use generator tool results verbatim. Always review your titles and improve them before using in a real blog post.

Visit URL: http://seopressor.com/blog-title-generator/

13. Buzzsumo

You can use Buzzsumo to find the most engaged and shared posts in your niche and “join the discussion”, using these popular topics to come up with yours or write about the same topic but from a different angle.

I searched for posts related to “blogging success” for the screenshot above and just looking at the first three titles I could brainstorm a new headline: “7 Tips to Start A Successful Fitness Blog On The Basis of Your Daily Routine”.

Visit URL: https://www.buzzsumo.com

14. Twitter Trends

Hashtags.org reports trending topics in Twitter in the form of graphs and you can really use the homepage for this tool to choose what to blog about among the most trending topics in the last 24 hours.

Just click the “Trending Hashtags” tab to view a list of trending topics on Twitter.

For example, this is what I see today:

For example, in the screenshot at the beginning of this subsection I asked the tool to analyze the #contentmarketing hashtag over the last 24 hours (a stable trend, as it seems).

Browse tweets under your chosen trending hashtag: what’s the most shared post? What does it talk about? You can use this factor to create a post about your own angle of the topic.

Also, as you can see, my example hashtag gets the lowest activity between 8 PM and 1:30 AM in the Chicago timezone, so you can also use this tool to know when to schedule your posts about a certain topic or when to join the discussion if your chosen hashtag is part of a Twitter chat or “forum thread”.

Visit URL: https://www.hashtags.org/trending-on-twitter/

15. Klout

What Klout labels as “On Target” are topics that your Twitter audience is likely to be interested about (usually Klout gives you a percentage of interest, too).

For example, I follow SEO news on my Klout account for inspiration. Today I’m given a few interesting news to share with my audience on:

• How to improve Alexa ranking
• Tips to attract more links to your content
• SEO for WordPress
• Traffic from Wikipedia

If I wanted to write a new post for my SEO blog, I could write about “How To Use Wikipedia As A Source To Attract Even More Links” or “Will Improving Your Alexa Rank Also Improve Your SEO?”.

This is simple brainstorming, because all these topics are related and I could easily find associations to come up with my own headlines.

Let trending topics on Klout inspire you and write your own angle of the topic.

Also, it helps (especially for connections) to link to the blog post that inspired you.

Visit URL: https://klout.com

Not Just Tools…

… but wonderful lists of ideas from experienced bloggers, too!

Our Lori Soard wrote 50 blog post prompts and 20 idea starters with detailed advice on how to use them, that Jerry Low even made into an infographics.

Also, Mike Wallagher’s 101 Blog Post Ideas That Will Make Your Blog “HOT” is another great list of blog post ideas to drive more readers to your blogs.

Finally, what’s better than Arianne Foulks’ 260 blog post ideas for creative businesses?

And once you have your headline…

… check its potential with CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer.

Alright, now that headline is quite sci-fictional, but the example is just there to review purposes. ;)

CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer is simple to use: just enter your headline in the field and hit “Analyze Now”. You will get a detailed analysis of your headline, including:

• An overall score (65 in the case of my Sci-Fi headline)
• A review of word balance that will show you how many common, uncommon, power and emotional words your headline contains
• Your headline type (a List in my case)
• Length analysis (character and word count optimization)
• Analysis of keywords and sentiment

The analysis will help you improve your headline if it’s too weak (below a 50 score). Of course, this is just a tool and it will never beat your best judgment, as nobody knows your audience better than you do, but it’s helpful to keep around for when you are in doubt.

Your turn

What brainstorming tools or techniques do you use to generate blog post ideas?

Share in the comments!

The goal of self-service is to make things easier for both the customer (to find information) and customer service agents (to deflect information requests from assisted service). But making things easier always begins with hard work.

Expectations for, and of, self-service are growing at a rapid pace. For the first time in the history of Forrester Research’s North American Consumer Technographics Customer Life Cycle Survey, consumers now say they are using self-service FAQ pages on a company’s website for customer service more often than speaking with a live agent on the phone. According to Microsoft’s own Global State of Multichannel Customer Service Report, more than 90% of the 4,000 consumers surveyed say they now expect brands and organization’s to have a customer self-service offering.

Despite a growing preference for self-service, Forrester shows that assisted channels still lead when it comes to satisfaction, with satisfaction ratings for phone at 69% and live chat at 63%, while web self-service trails at 58%. Leaders in customer self-service are starting to bridge that satisfaction gap in six key ways:

1. Strategy. According to Gartner Research analyst Brian Manusama in his recent research note, Why You Need to Rethink Your Customer Self-Service Strategy, “by the end of 2016, at least 80% of organizations that fail to plan their self-service implementations will incur higher customer service costs and will not achieve the savings and benefits expected.” Leaders in customer self-service define budget, baselines, objectives, promotion, delivery, escalation methods, maintenance and more right from the start.

2. Knowledge. At the heart of a successful customer self-service offering is a well-developed knowledgebase. Leaders invest in the technology to easily add, edit and deliver information and use customer feedback from across channels, agent knowledge of frequently asked questions, keyword search data and more to provide the answers and information customers want and need most. According to Gartner Research VP and Distinguished Analyst Michael Maoz in his research note Knowledge Management Will Transform CRM Customer Service, “by 2018, the rapid creation and retrieval of relevant content (KM) will be a key attribute of leading enterprises.” Maoz notes in the same report that customer support costs can be reduced by 25% or more when a proper KM discipline is in place.

3. Transparency. Leaders in customer self-service are also more authentic when sharing customer-facing knowledge. Notes Microsoft general manager Bill Patterson in a new MyCustomer and Microsoft Self-Service Guide, “these organizations are a little forward leaning in terms of their willingness to reduce the barrier of information that needs to be held inside their corporate walls.

“What customers truly appreciate are brands that are transparent and willing to admit their faults as much as their successes. That authenticity drives a higher degree of loyalty with customers that are engaging with those brands.”

4. Delivery. Brands and organizations leading in customer self-service deliver consistent information that is searchable and well organized by topic, most-viewed, most-recently-added, etc.

Their self-service offering seamlessly matches their organization’s visual branding to assist in adoption, trust and repeat use, and top placement for trending issues or popular topics makes it a go-to destination for customers seeking timely information. Increasingly important is a mobile-responsive self-service offering. In Microsoft’s 2015 Global State of Multichannel Customer Service Report, 60% of the 4,000 consumers surveyed said they have a more favorable view of a brand that offers a mobile-responsive support portal.

5. Self-to-Assisted Escalation. Leaders in customer self-service make it easy for customers to escalate to an assisted channel if needed by providing phone, email, support ticketing and live chat options as part of their self-service offering. They also give assisted service agents key insights into what the customer has already tried through self-service (for example, self-service articles viewed) so that the customer does not have to convey or repeat their previous experience to achieve resolution.

6. Maintenance. ThinkJar Principal and Founder Esteban Kolsky, in a recent blog post, notes that just 34% of companies have proper maintenance budgets for knowledge management maintenance. When ignored, self-service content quickly becomes dated and/or inaccurate, and use and customer satisfaction swiftly decline. Leaders not only maintain their self-service offering; they add to, delete or revise based on usage reports, customer feedback, ratings and keyword searches.

Customer self-service allows brands to consistently provide the right answers across channels, 24/7, at scale. Not only does an effective self-service offering satisfy the customer, but it also benefits brands through deflection of frequently asked questions, lowering costs and giving customer service representatives more time to spend with customers needing assisted service for more complex questions and issues. Forrester Research estimates that an average of $22 million is spent in unnecessary service costs due to channel escalations, meaning that if customers can’t effectively self-serve, it costs brands money.

Leverage the six tips above to become a leader in this increasingly preferred and expected customer service channel.

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• Using IVR, video, crowdservice and virtual agents for self-service
• and how to measure ROI.

The report features interviews with top analysts in customer service including Forrester Research VP and Principal Analyst Kate Leggett, Gartner Research VP and Distinguished Analyst Michael Maoz, and more.

Whether you’re planning a customer self-service initiative in 2016 or looking to improve your current offering, this complimentary guidebook is a key resource for brands and organizations of all sizes. Click on the button below to download.

Google is going to consolidate Android, its mobile operating system, with Chrome OS, its operating system for laptops, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

That's a smart move from Google because it would allow Chromebooks (the laptops that run Chrome OS) to run Android apps. And app selection is something that Chromebooks are seriously lacking.

It's still unclear what form this new operating system would take. Would it look like Chrome OS with access to the Google Play Store? Or will it look more like Android does now, but redesigned to look and work like a desktop operating system?

Either way, if we're going to start seeing Android, or a variant thereof, on laptops, Google needs to address a couple elephants in a very small room. 

Security

Android isn't exactly the most secure operating system. According to BI Intelligence, Android devices obtained an "abysmal security score" of 2.87 out of 10 in a study performed by the University of Cambridge.

The BI Intelligence report also says that the reason behind the low security score is because third-party Android smartphone manufacturers, like Samsung and LG, are slow to roll out security updates to their phones.

We saw evidence of this over the summer when the Stagefright bug came to light. Stagefright allowed hackers to access an Android device with a simple text message. Google pushed out a security update to Android, but many devices couldn't receive it right away.

Hopefully, this next generation of Android will force manufacturers to uniformly accept new security updates to keep users safe.

Getting app developers on board

The main difference between a productive laptop and a casual tablet can essentially be boiled down to the operating system, mouse compatibility, and apps. 

If a device running an Android/Chrome OS hybrid were to have a mouse, which it should if it wants to be called anything but a tablet, then Android app developers would most likely need to redesign their apps to be usable with a mouse. The problem is that, historically, developers haven't exactly shown an eagerness to make new versions of their apps for unproven devices.

Take the first Microsoft Surface RT tablet that was released in 2012. It was a tablet that ran Windows RT, which was a light version of Windows 8 that you could navigate with a mouse and keyboard, and it had huge potential for productivity. But barely any apps were made for it. Not even Facebook. And it failed as a result because people want apps.  

There are still so many unknown details about the Android/Chrome OS combination, but security and apps are universal requirements for any device, and the success of whatever Google is conjuring up rests upon them.

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"I‘m just an obnoxious guy who can make it appear charming, that’s what they pay me to do," said Bill Murray in an interview with T.J. English for Irish America in 1988. In the newest episode of PBS Digital Studios’ “Blank on Blank,” Murray cracks wise on giving back to his mom when he made it big, hijinks on the set of Ghostbusters, the spiritual change that saved him from destruction, and how fame sort of helps with talking to women.

I’ve seen thousands of pitch decks. The vast majority are horrible.

There’s the corporate vanity deck. It always has a lot of slides. Usually it mentions the customer name in about 3 places, on the cover slide, the second to last slide, and the last slide. The rest of the deck is all about the vendor. You are regaled with size, locations, financial performance, logos of customers, and all sorts of stuff telling the customer how wonderful they are and why the customer would be a fool to buy from anyone else.

There’s the product presentation deck. These are huge decks, usually each slide is done in 12 point font, because they have to tell you everything about the product and how wonderful it is. Here too, the customer name is usually on the first, second to last and last slide, but the rest is about the products.

If the customer has days to waste, sometimes the corporate vanity deck and product presentation decks are combined. This is where the term “Death by Powerpoint” was created.

Lately, we’ve become a little more sophisticated with our messaging–we created decks filled with Insight. They’re actually focused on the customer, their needs, their problems, opportunities for them to improve. We want to be customer focused, we want to demonstrate the depth of our knowledge, and we want to teach them.

We rehearse an polish our performance in delivering the Pitch. We know when to pause, how to provoke, when to add humor. We even practice our “ad hoc” pitches on White Boards, perfecting our artistry in delivering the pitch.

This last version of pitch deck is far preferable to the former. But it also has the same problem as the others.

The problem with pitch decks of any sort is they absolve the sales person and the customer of the responsibility of having a conversation.

The engagement in a highly interactive pitch resembles a ping pong game–Pitch-response, Pitch-question, Pitch-response, and on and on. The sales person presents data or a point of view, the customer responds in acknowledgement or asks questions, but there is no real engagement. Data is shared, insight is shared, but it’s very structured and stilted.

Conducting a conversation mandates engagement of all parties–by definition, otherwise it’s a monologue. If we engage our customers in conversations each person has a responsibility for the success of the conversation, each person becomes invested in the conversation.

We can’t really fake conversation, that is if we are really listening, present, paying attention and engaging.

But since engagement–at least deep engagement isn’t a mandatory part of the Pitch Deck, we or the customer can fake it.

Consider walking into the room with a proposed agenda–or agree on the agenda at the outset of the conversation. Beyond that, take paper, pencil, two ears, a brain, a sincere interest in learning, engaging, sharing, listening.

As elegant as our Pitch Decks are, however customer focused they may be, however well rehearsed they are, they don’t hold a candle to a conversation.

You won’t find the best sales representatives asking the same-old interview questions. Your sales interview questions should be about the specifics of the sales process, and should be relevant to your industry.

Ask sales candidates these interview questions, to find the best fit for your team:

1. Why do you want to work in sales?

Candidates who struggle to answer this interview question should signal a red flag. Look for candidates who are passionate about their work and who want to work in the field for more than superficial reasons.

2. What motivates you to sell?

Engagement is a huge problem in the workforce. According to Gallup daily tracking polls, only 30 percent of American workers feel engaged in the office. Knowing what motivates sales candidates can help you choose a rep who will stay engaged, and will fit in with your team and culture. Look for reps who are motivated by personal goals, not commission.

3. How do you stay informed on your market?

Sales reps need to be able to actively research and stay up to date with market news and trends. Especially if a candidate is moving from one sales market to another, you need to know they can find and read the most relevant news outlets and trade publications in your niche.

4. Which part of the sales process is your least favorite?

This sales interview question rephrases the age-old question about strengths and weaknesses and ties it directly to sales. A candidate’s least favorite part of the sales process is most likely one of their weak points. In addition, if a candidate dislikes a critical part of your process, the rep isn’t for you.

5. Tell me about a time when you didn’t meet your quota.

If a candidate says they’ve always met their quota, they’re lying. Everyone has off periods. Brief slips in numbers happen and are OK — it’s how the rep handles the situation and turns it around that matters. Look for sales reps who acknowledge their past failures, share what they learned from the experience, and how they rebounded.

6. Was there ever a time when a past employer didn’t deliver on a product or service? How did you handle the situation?

How does the rep react under pressure? What will they do in crisis situations? You want a candidate who can handle difficult situations and maintain client relationships through it all.

7. How do you use social media in your selling process?

Depending on the industry, social media can play a large role in the sales process, from researching leads to building relationships in the industry. You want a candidate who is in touch with social media and uses it to their advantage. If a rep doesn’t use social media, it’s not a dealbreaker. Look for reps who are open to learn new strategies.

8. What research do you do before meeting with or calling a potential client?

Before entering conversations with new clients, sales reps should be familiar with their business, in addition to personal interests, to build relationships. Look for reps who use every available tool and dig deep to prepare for a client chat. Those who skim through company websites will be ineffective.

9. How do you prepare for client objections?

You don’t want a sales candidate who responds to client objections on the spot. Find candidates who have a process for identifying potential objections and preparing responses to them.

10. When do you stop pursuing a client?

The ideal answer to this sales interview question will vary depending on your company’s process and strategies. But overall, you want to know a sales rep is aggressive and persistent when pursuing leads.

11. Have you ever asked a lost prospect to explain why they didn’t buy? What happened?

You want a sales rep who will take the initiative to learn from their mistakes to do better next time. Candidates who follow up on missed deals are motivated to improve their performance and learn from every experience.

12. Have you ever turned a client down? Why?

Although you want an aggressive sales rep, they shouldn’t be reckless. Occasionally, a potential client may be a bad match for your service, or the product may not be in their best interest. Sales reps should know when to close a deal and when to reconsider a prospect.

13. What do you think is worse: missing your quota or having unsatisfied customers?

This sales interview question shows a candidate’s priorities and if they align with those of your company. What are your company’s goals? Do they match with the candidate’s?

14. What do you think our company could do better?

This interview question shows you what the candidate knows about your company and how much research they did before the interview. In addition, it also reveals their critical thinking skills, their industry know-how, and their ability to develop solutions.

Finding the right sales rep for your team can take some time, but asking the right questions can help you narrow down the best choice.

What are your go-to sales interview questions? Let us know in the comments below!

There are millions of blogs out there pumping out tens of millions of posts every week.

How do you stand out in such a crowded field?

Simple: by creating incredible content and following it up with extraordinary content and social media marketing.

Fortunately, when it comes to blogging, you have plenty of examples of talented bloggers to follow. We’ll take a look at four such successful bloggers, and how they’ve attracted massive audiences through some unusual blogging tactics:.

1. Curate the best content on a topic – Brainpickings.org
Maria Popova runs the incredibly popular BrainPickings blog. Besides attracting an audeince in the millions, she has also been featured in a NYT story.

BrainPickings works because of two reasons:

• It curates the best content on any given topic.
• It presents the content in the best possible manner.

Whether it’s a 12th century Jewish philosopher or Kafka on love and patience, BrainPickings goes in-depth into every idea it tackles. It has a very strong literary bent, but you’ll find that it curates everything from illustrations to artwork that corroborates the core idea.

All this makes for a delightful and inspirational read – and helps it stand out from the crowd.

The lesson: Curating top notch resources can be more powerful than coming up with original content.

2. Post infrequently, but make every post count – Backlinko.com

In a field as crowded as SEO blogging, Brian Dean of Backlinko has managed to draw an audience of 100,000 by writing just one blog post a month.

The secret to Backlinko’s success? Fresh ideas and ridiculously in-depth content. As is fitting for a marketer who came up with the ‘Skyscraper Technique’, every single post on Backlinko is often the definitive post on its topic.

The lesson: focus on quality, not quantity. How often you post matters a lot less than what you post.

3. Leverage your to create a multi-author blog – BoostBlogTraffic.com

 

Jon Morrow’s BoostBlogTraffic is one of the best resources for writers and bloggers online. However, if you take a close look at the blog, you’ll be surprised to see how seldom Jon actually writes. Instead, most of his content is created by writers for free who just want to leverage the BoostBlogTraffic brand.

Jon is able to do this because he has built up an enviable network of writers and editors who want to work with him. Instead of creating content himself, he leverages this network and the BoostBlogTraffic.com authority to attract some of the best writers online.

The lesson: build up a platform, then leverage your network to create fresh content with the help of guest bloggers.

4. Offer critical insights on industry trends – Daringfireball.net

John Gruber writes DaringFireball, one of the most popular tech blogs around with a strong Apple flavor. That Gruber has managed to create such a valuable blog without any external help is all the more remarkable.

The DaringFireball model is built on Gruber offering his own insights on tech industry trends. Most of these concern Apple, but there’s plenty of insight on the broader tech industry as well. Gruber usually picks up a news story and breaks it down for his readers. This way, he’s managed to turn DaringFireball into the most insightful source of tech news and knowledge for his readers.

The lesson: Original content is nice, but insight is far more valuable. Curate the best sources on a topic then offer your insight on it to win big.

Let’s sum it up

Rather than reinventing the wheel from scratch, you’ll save yourself a lot of pain (and marketing dollars) by following what successful writers and bloggers already do. For starters, follow the four unusual strategies outlined above to kickstart your blogging success.

The National Retail Federation conducted a Halloween Consumer spending Survey and found some interesting results.

157 million Americans will celebrate Halloween in 2015, spending an average of $74.34 per person, which is down from last year’s $77.52 average.  Though total spending is expected to reach $6.9 billion.

“After a long summer, consumers are eager to embrace fall and all of the celebrations that come with it,” NRF president and CEO Matthew Shay said. “We expect those celebrating Halloween this year will look for several different activities to do with their family and friends. Consumers are ready to take advantage of promotions on candy, decorations and costumes, and retailers are ready to serve them.”  – (NRF)

Consumers will spend around $1.2 billion on costumes for themselves, $950 million on children’s costumes and will spend $350 million on costumes for their pets.  It is estimated that about 68 million people will dress up this year and 20 million will dress their pets.

31.4% will find inspiration for costumes online and “millennials remain the drivers of Pinterest traffic around Halloween though with 24.9 percent of 18-24 year olds and 23.7 percent of 25-34 year olds using the site for costume inspiration.”  (NRF)

93.7% of Halloween shoppers will purchase candy, for a total spending of $2.1 billion.

Nearly 66% of consumers started shopping for Halloween prior to October 1.  “People shouldn’t be too surprised when they see Halloween candy and decorations available in stores as early as September first,” Prosper Insights Principal Analyst Pam Goodfellow said. “Given that more than a third of Americans enjoy taking advantage of early-bird deals to kick off their fall celebrations, it seems there’s plenty of appetite among consumers to enjoy a perfectly ‘frightful’ Halloween.”  (NRF)

Hopefully if you are a retail operation you have already cashed in on the Halloween spending this year, if not there is time to plan for next year.

In any case, Happy Halloween!

Image Sources:  http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/pumpkin-costume-photo-p224856http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/halloween-background-zombie-hand-photo-p303330http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Halloween_g164-Halloween_Pumpkin_p106837.htmlhttp://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/jack-o-lantern-photo-p239979http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/halloween-background-photo-p357101http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/a-happy-halloween-pumpkin-with-candy-basket-photo-p293383http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/halloween-icon-photo-p303329http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/happy-halloween-photo-p364719http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/bats-halloween-indicates-trick-or-treat-and-celebration-photo-p272369http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/happy-halloween-photo-p357012

I’m often asked about the intersection of technology and corporate philanthropy. What are the innovations on the horizon, and how is technology evolving to meet the demands that employees have for giving back?

The Future of Online Giving

Let’s take corporate giving, for starters. Up until very recently, employees had become accustomed to clunky technology that simply automated spreadsheets and paper pledges and served one purpose: creating a payroll deduction, requesting a match and ‘setting it and forgetting it.’ This type of technology is no longer relevant, useful or sought after in today’s market.

Today’s employees and the employees of the future want to be able to give in whatever form they can, including credit card, payroll, commissions, points, Apple Pay and, for those unique few, bitcoins. They want their giving to happen in real time, not three months later.

People Will Seek Purpose, Not a Job

Employees are also seeking to create a deep and meaningful connection with their supported charities. They want to track their impact, not just dollars raised. They want to see the ways that they’re benefiting their local communities and helping to chip away at the global issues of our times. They want to understand how they’re contributing to their company’s ambitious social impact goals. And as they’re seeing all of this change happen in real time, they want to be able to share their stories and do so through their social media identities.

Administrators want an online volunteer and giving platform that will encourage mass adoption and that will prompt user actions. It should allow for easy tracking of impact and, though administrators want to encourage social sharing, the system should still allow for monitoring of those lines of communications. They want a system that won’t need complex upgrades but one that naturally evolves with the changing technology landscape. Their system should be sturdy, reliable and keep pace with whatever new HR, payroll and/or intranet systems they adopt and the technical enhancements they support. Opportunities for streamlining processes through web services, APIs and greater mobile functionality will be key.

Customer Support Gets Real

The next generation of workplace giving software will also continue to extend beyond technology and provide a human service component that is insightful and reliable. Employees want to be satisfied with and inspired by their customer experience. Gone are the days of missed emails and/or no real-time chat support. The software of the future is just as much about providing a genuine human connection as it is providing state of the art technology.

Widening the Intersection of Education, Technology and Opportunity

The technology that powers progressive modes of giving back is most effective when it’s integrated into a company’s shared values and, better yet, its business model. Corporate citizenship isn’t just about volunteer days, and workplace giving is no longer just about charity drives. Technology that meets companies at the point of cause innovation are where breakthroughs occur for society, individuals and corporate America.

For example, I’m inspired by an initiative called LRNG, which redesigns learning for the 21st century. As laid out by Blair Taylor, Chief Community Officer for Starbucks, and Connie M. Yowell, Chief Executive Officer for Collective Shift and Director of Education for the MacArthur Foundation, LRNG creates solutions for “opportunity youth,” the seven million Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither in school nor working and are in danger of falling through the cracks, with no pathway out of the educational gap and into the workforce.

“These opportunity youth are comparable to the veterans of 25 years ago,” writes Raechel Banks for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation. “Due to a lack of shared language around translating their skills, there is a vast pool of untapped latent talent. Five trillion dollars in untapped potential, in fact.”

LRNG meets this gap by working with cities and businesses to create an alternative learning approach based on digital badges, which can be earned for a wide range of skills, including teamwork, and can eventually lead to internship and job opportunities for opportunity youth. The program has been piloted for three years now and is about to break out more widely throughout the country.

Starbucks has placed a great deal of focus on youth unemployment, having recently announced its 100,000 Opportunities Initiative, a national coalition of leading U.S.-based companies committed to hiring at least 100,000 Opportunity Youth by 2018. LRNG takes this goal a step further by asking cities, nonprofits and businesses to reimagine the role they can play in this issue, and then using technology to bridge those efforts and power the way.

Welcome to CSR 2.0

Technology is reshaping our world every day, and it’s essential to the future of our planet that technological innovations propel new forms of giving back. I launched my company, Causecast, precisely for this reason. My hope was to accelerate the ways that companies could create sustainable solutions through technology and to magnify the role that employees occupy in this effort.

Every company that cares about engaging employees should be using a volunteer and giving platform that can adapt to the evolutions of workplace giving. Whether it’s a new feature that encourages teaming, points and/or gamification or an integration with a new workplace wellness application, volunteer and giving platforms should be built for the future. When your technology meets your philanthropy at the point of innovation and engagement, anything is possible.

Believe it or not, most marketers are always thinking about ways to make life easier for salespeople.

It’s true! As marketers become increasingly responsible for delivering ROI in the form of more sales opportunities and closed-won business, our fates are intertwined with our sales team counterparts.

That’s why more marketers are turning to interactive content for sales enablement. It’s a relatively new medium, especially in the B2B space, but marketers are seeing some amazing results – from top of funnel all the way through customer retention.

How exactly are marketers using interactive content to support sales? By amplifying what we’ve always done to support sales – passing more and better data on each contact so salespeople can have more informed, productive conversations to solve their prospects’ problems.

When it comes to interactive content, that translates to finding out what your prospects really want; building rapport more quickly; and providing tools to sell your solution internally.

1. Get the Full Story

With interactive content, you can gather a huge amount of information in a more engaging way, while giving your audience something valuable along the way.

Your typical prep for a sales call could include looking at your prospect’s title and responsibilities on LinkedIn, and matching that to what marketing has included in their buyer persona profile. You might hit the nail on the head in terms of your prospect’s pains and needs, but everyone is unique – they might not fit the mold.

Imagine if that prospect had filled out an assessment and answered specific questions about their challenges and opportunities. You could then start off your conversation from a much more relevant place and ensure your prospect knows exactly how your solution could help them.

Could marketing capture that breadth of information with a lead form? Possibly – but long lead forms can cause fewer conversions, as found by HubSpot’s Dan Zarella (ideally, keep your forms to 3-4 fields.)

With interactive content, marketing can include a lead form to collect basic demographic data, and use the questions and answers to gather the specific qualifying information you need for the sales process.

That’s just what the team at Ecova did with a recent piece of interactive content. They repurposed an existing assessment into a SnapApp quiz: “Good Utility Drives Good Decisions,” a short and compelling assessment to let consumers know if they were on the right track to getting good utility data.

This five-question quiz includes questions the Ecova sales team uses during the qualification process, speeding up qualification and disqualification so the sales team could focus on the hottest leads.

2. Better Rapport, Faster

What does your prospect really care about? How do you know?

The quickest way to great rapport with a prospect is finding common ground. After all, Dale Carnegie – the expert in how to win friends and influence people – said “To be interesting, be interested.”

Expressing interest in your prospect as a person can come in the form of referencing a shared alma mater, asking about their hobbies, or pointing out a unique commonality in your background.

But stalking your prospect online to find icebreakers isn’t always enough. Interactive content gives you a great talking point to get the conversation going. Rather than saying “I saw you downloaded our white paper – what did you think?” you can dive right into their results from a personality test or calculator and relate to them as a person.

3. Make the Internal Sale

One of the most challenging parts of the sales process is supporting a champion to make the internal sale. Once you’ve handed them off to convince their boss this is a great solution, influencing that conversation can feel like a black box.

Why not send your prospect back to their team with an ROI calculator or product picker? Your prospect can walk their boss through the steps of the interactive experience, letting the content speak for itself – and ensuring management sees the clear value in your solution.

Conclusion

As marketing technology advances, there are more opportunities than ever for marketing to facilitate new connections for sales.

The rise of interactive content is one of the most exciting ways to improve sales/marketing alignment – marketing can now give sales not just more qualified leads with better profile data, but they can also supply tools that make closing the deal that much easier.

How do your sales and marketing teams work together to accelerate sales?

A recent study published on Universum found that an impressive 55% of future Generation Z (born between 1996 and 2000) say they are interested in starting their own company. The study found an even higher number of students wanted to become their own boss in emerging markets.

This doesn’t surprise me at all, but what did was that most of them are interested in starting their own business because they believe it offers more job security. Having witnessed many large corporations shedding jobs in the never ending rat race of improving efficiency, share price increases and shareholder value (even senior jobs are no longer sacred, see Standard Chartered Latest Decision to Cut 1000 Senior Jobs) they have now come to the conclusion that it’s safer to run their own company. And I can’t agree more. There’s a reason why I think Building a Successful Consulting Company is a real good way to go.

Earlier this year I wrote about the Skillpreneurs Revolution where young talent market entrants are no longer interested in joining the ‘old blue multinational’. Instead, these Skillpreneurs are more interested in developing and branding their own specialized skill sets to companies who can ‘hire’ them on a temporary basis. As long as the company has a reputation, Skillpreneurs can learn while they work. If the work is challenging the Skillpreneur will want to be part of your organisation and add incredible value.

But this magic doesn’t happen on it’s own. You have to prepare your company for a world where Generation Z wield great power. 3 things you can do are:

1. Build Company Reputation

In order to attract Generation Z, your company reputation is key. They won’t be interested in run of the mill. The have to believe in the ‘why’ you do things and not just the ‘what and how’. They’ll be looking at the reputation of your leaders, their ability to teach and the facility to have line managers as mentors. Lastly they’ll want to know how you impact the community in which you operate. If you haven’t got your 3P’s (profit, people, planet) all humming in a common direction your Millennials and Generation Z won’t come near you.

2. Get Your Pitch Right

Generation Z (as well as their predecessors the Millennials) are looking for flexibility, autonomy and challenges. You have to find ways to package your requirements in their terms and put a value to it that excites the individual. The value isn’t always monetary since the potential value for Generation Z talent is also in learning, diversification, association, network and experience gained through the assignment.

3. Go Digital

Generation Z is the first generation of talent who will come into the market being fully immersed and plugged into the digital word (using on average 5 different devices to stay connected). Future employers need to approach Generation Z in a 100% digitized way, a way that is visual, fast changing, smart and interesting. “Internet Policies” have been replaced by “Social Media Policies” and rather than curb online communication at the workplace, you need to encourage and drive it.

It really seems like leaders and organizational theorists are constantly changing tactics and priorities to keep up with the fast paced nature of employee requirements.

Pay per call advertising is on a hot streak. Mobile is driving calls, and advertisers are recognizing the value of pay per call. Pay per call provides better engagement, which in turn results in higher conversion rates. And it can be cost-effective, too.

However, not all calls are created equal. Call tracking metrics are a necessity to ensure your campaign is receiving quality leads.

Call tracking solves the mystery of what happens before, during, and after a customer calls. By generating unique phone numbers that track a campaign’s performance, call tracking collects pertinent customer data. It can narrow down why calls are lacking or why there’s little conversion. Then you take that information and adjust your campaign accordingly.

Don’t throw money down the drain. Focus on these four call metrics to ensure your campaign is optimized for maximum ROI.

1. Duration

You may be getting a high volume of calls, but remember quality leads are often derived from longer calls. No one is going to chat you up unless they’re seriously interested.

Be sure to establish a minimum call-length that qualifies as a lead. A two-minute call might be too short, a 10-minute call too long, but a five-minute call is just right. Like Goldilocks and her porridge, try to find a happy medium.

If you find that five-minute calls are the ones that turn into conversions, make five minutes your benchmark.

2. Time of Day and Location

If you’re running ads overnight, but are only open during normal business hours, how’s anybody supposed to reach you or your reps? Stop wasting money! Instead use dayparting to better target your customers.

Let’s say Fred’s Falafels is open for business 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Click to call is a popular option for Fred’s customers to pre-order order their hot, delicious falafels.

Day parting will ensure that Fred’s ads stop running around 7:30 p.m., prior to his business closing for the day. If Fred’s ads continue to run until 10:30 p.m., it’s likely there will be some some sad college kids lamenting the missed opportunity for some falafels. Don’t deprive college kids their falafels, that’s just cruel.

For optimal scheduling, consider using geotargeting, too. Geotargeting will only show your ads to customers in select locations. Pete from NYC likely won’t travel to Philadelphia to get falafels, so don’t waste your precious ad spend on him.

3. Landing Page Performance

Curious which landing pages are most effective at generating phone leads? Use analytics tools to tell the tale.

Have a look at which landing pages are driving the most calls, producing the best quality calls, and giving the best conversion rate.

Try segmenting this data by device. If your mobile conversion rate is performing much worse than your desktop rate, maybe you need to optimize your landing page for mobile devices. Perhaps the phone number is visible on the desktop version, but no one sees it on the mobile version unless you swipe down. Try some A/B testing to pinpoint the problem and adjust accordingly.

4. Conversion Rate

If you only focus on one metric, make sure it’s the conversion metric. View your campaigns and see where each customer entered the funnel, how long it took them to become a lead, and when they became an official customer.

Google’s AdWords Call Conversion tracking tool is great for comparing which calls are website call conversions versus regular phone leads. This can help you determine where your advertising is excelling, and where it needs improvement.

By focusing on these four call metrics, you’ll be able to determine what’s working and what’s not working for your campaign. Experiment with some A/B testing, adjust what’s needed, and start boosting that sweet ROI.

Image Source: Kissmetrics.com

 

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GUEST:

Marketers love metrics. Any acronym that starts with a capital C makes a marketer’s ears perk up — CPA, CPL, CPC, CPM, CTR. But while these metrics make perfect sense to marketers, there’s a common problem in connecting them back to actual business results. The root of the problem is that marketing teams don’t often do the upfront legwork to connect their marketing metrics to financial metrics. Having gone through this process myself, I’ve laid out a simple five-step process that other marketing teams can follow to better align their metrics with the business results the rest of the company cares about.

1. Determine your source(s) of truth

The first step is to make sure everyone in the organization is speaking the same language when talking about business objectives and defining company success.

Dig into your CRM, or whatever database houses your customer data. Make sure you can clearly articulate what information you’ll need to get from your database to help you measure marketing performance. Most importantly, customer data needs to be tagged with marketing campaign data or you’ll never be able to connect the dots.

Even if you think you have the cleanest CRM since Salesforce brought them to the cloud, it’s a critical first step to invest some time and resources on a data hygiene project. Not only will this save tons of time and energy down the line, but more importantly, it gets a cross-functional team working together and speaking the same language. There are always things you can do, from deduplication to improving lead routing process, follow up SLAs, and automated scoring.

Once you have a good base to work with, agree on what database to query for which items. It’s critical to ask these questions at the onset to avoid discrepancies or confusion down the line. Getting this cross-functional team together will help everyone understand where deficiencies exist, what data is possible to get, and what isn’t.

2. Get on the same page with finance

How many people take the time to develop their marketing metrics with the finance team?

… No wonder you have hard budget conversations.

Get the metrics from Finance that you’ll need to build a comprehensive backward-looking ROI model that tells an accurate story:

• Net Customer Lifetime Value (LTV): calculate the future profitability of a customer relationship. As you get more sophisticated, you can build out LTV for different customer segments to get a better pulse on what business is driving profits.

• 12-month Average Revenue Per User (ARPU): measure the revenue generated per unit to factor in speed of payback, and assess which products are high- and low-generators.

• Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC): include all components and resources involved in acquiring a new customer to fill out your model.

Once you have these numbers, work with Finance to set goals. How much new vs. existing revenue do you need to add to achieve your operating plan goals?

3. Build the historical model

Put together a historical model to look at how marketing is driving revenue, from customer awareness to conversion. Together with the metrics you gathered with Finance, you can then determine how much revenue resulted from these efforts.

Start from the top of the funnel and work your way down. Note where you got every single piece of data, and whether it’s an assumption or observed. Use the data you got from step two for all the assumptions you need to fill in to get to revenue contribution.

Once you’ve put this all together, review again with Finance. Now you have an agreed upon view of what actually happened in a given time frame.

4. Reverse the model

AKA: Planning kung fu!

Now that you have agreement on what happened as a result of your marketing investment, you can invert the model to start with how much new revenue you want to generate and work backwards to the necessary investment level.

Use the historical model you now have to figure out how much budget you’ll need to meet revenue goals. Start with how much new revenue you want to add, and work your way up the funnel this time. At the end, you’ll arrive at a required budget to hit your targets.

Of course, you can discuss how different assumptions will change in the future and how you’ll improve efficiency in marketing. However, it’s much easier having this conversation with a baseline of what actually happened in the past. We can assume different scenarios going forward, but based on everything we know, this historical model is the reality and therefore calculates the necessary metrics and budget levels to achieve next cycle’s revenue targets.

5. Broadcast

Finally, make sure you’re consistent in referring back to the plan and communicating progress and performance to keep everyone excited and aligned.

Document your plan to hit revenue goals, making note of the agreed upon metrics you’ll monitor to track success.

Share frequent updates on how you’re tracking to schedule. Highlight areas where performance has been stronger than expected and what you did to push this along. Make sure you also point out areas where you might be lagging, and follow-up with steps you’re taking to bring these up to speed.

Over-share what’s working and what’s not based on your metrics so that you keep everyone engaged in continuing to push these efforts forward.

Adam Berke is president and CMO of AdRoll.

Someone just made a purchase on your site. Naturally, you send them a order confirmation email notifying (and hopefully thanking) them of their completed purchase. For some businesses, the customer experience ends there (sale made, done deal), but we’re about to show you how much money you are leaving on the table by doing that.

According to Receiptful, confirmation emails have an open rate of over 70%! To put that into perspective, the average email open-rate isn’t even 18%. What’s more, it has been shown that it’s up to seven times more expensive to acquire a new customer in comparison to marketing to previous customers! On top of that, eCommerce spending for repeating customers is on average more than two times greater (McKinsey)!

What does all this lead to? It leads us to understand that sending order confirmation emails can be an extremely effective cost-saving strategy to boost your sales faster and to greater sums than ever. Without further ado, I present to you seven (and a bit more) order confirmation emails that’ll skyrocket your sales!

1. A Golden Opportunity to Get More Reviews

Product review sell, and that’s a fact. You’ll find thousands of similar results to what Kissmetrics found:

How to get reviews from order confirmation emails:

1) Send it as soon as possible after the purchase. This is fresh in their head, and now is the time to capitalize on that.

2) Say “Thank you”. When was the last time you didn’t like feeling appreciated? Saying those two words trigger positive emotion that will increase the likelihood of someone following through.

3) Use an attractive image. We live in a digital realm in which visuals sell.

Notice that DSW sends an email with a fantastic, attention grabbing image that resonates with their shoe-loving audience. That’s as simple as it gets.

If you aren’t getting as many reviews as you’d like, or you want to get dozens of reviews in a short period of time, then incorporate urgency into the email. Notice that Warby Parker added a little something to sweeten the deal: a giveaway offer.

Pro tip: if you are offering any kind of deal, make that the center of attention. Conversion rates are at their best when urgency plays a role.

2. Upsell to Your Customers

The upsell tactic is something every eCommerce business should try at one point or another. There is no wrong time to turn a first time customer into a returning one.

Regarding upselling, you can divide this tactic into two: recommended products and discounts/special offers.

A. Recommended Products

How to use recommended products to upsell via confirmation emails:

1) The upsell offer should not be the first thing that is noticed when opening the email.

2) Make sure that the recommended products are relevant. This should be personalized based on what was purchased and not the same products you show every customer.

3) Don’t give your customer too much to think about by offering too many products. Just like you’ve got five fingers on your hand, you should limit the email to include at most five products.

Notice in this example, that the order confirmation is by far the most important ingredient in this email and takes up the entire center fold. On the right sidebar of the email, WalMart adds their recommended products.

Below, you’ll notice that Dollar Shave Club also offered an upsell in their confirmation email. Is the promotional offer the prominent ingredient of the email? No, as it shouldn’t be. After the customer has seen that the order is of liking, only then does he scroll down and see the other recommended products.

B. Discounts

We’ve covered this topic quite generously over the last few months, so this should not be something new. With only 32% of customers, on average, becoming returning customers in their first year, this is probably the best way to turn them into that faster than the average pace.

Here are a few different discount offers to run:

1) 10% off has been shown to be the “sweet spot” when it comes to regular sales.

2) If it’s a very limited-time offer, try using a bigger percent off, such as 60% like Raw Generation.

3) Offer package deals that help you get new products out to your customers.

4) Offer free shipping (which happens to be a huge benefit for customers during the holiday season)!

No magic needed here. It’s a simple offer, that most people, including myself, save for purchasing a new domain or something else of the sort.

3. Integrate Social Media ASAP

When it comes to ROI of marketing efforts, there is no doubt about it, email beats social media. For as much attention as it gets, social media is still second to email. However, its value to consumers is still high on the list: 46% of online users count on social media when making a purchase decision.

Using social media in order confirmation emails also has two categories: the first, asking the customer to follow you on a certain network and the second, asking them to share an image of the purchased product on one of their social media profiles. The email templates for both are quite similar in terms of strategy.

How to get more social media followers and shares via order confirmation emails:

1) A creative “Thank You” should go before any mention of your social media profiles

2) Unlike other emails you might be sending, in this case social media profile icons should not be in the footer, rather in the body of the email.

3) Do not add all of your social media profiles, just like you shouldn’t add dozens of products in efforts to upsell. The last thing you want is information overload. Our tip is to stick to four profiles at most.

4) You should most definitely include a call to action as to why they should follow you.

This is a great example of how to get more followers. They give their fans only one option, but they also explained what the benefit would be to joining them on Twitter.

Can this email be improved? You bet! Embedding a popular tweet could have gone a long way toward increasing the number of followers they got. If embedding is too much, then even a screenshot of such a tweet would have been a wise move as well.

Here’s another perfect example of how to add social media to your emails. Who wouldn’t click on one of these?

Notice that this is not an order confirmation email, rather a promotional one. Removing two of the networks and placing it later on in the email is one strategy that works.

For product shares, as you can see, you don’t need to try to create the universe in seven days. Just stick to the above basics.

4. Getting User Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) is on the rise in the social realm and in 2016 will most definitely be one of the keys to driving an above average social media profile.

This is not under social media, because the strategy that goes into getting a good amount of this type of content is a little bit different than that mentioned regarding increasing the number of followers and getting products shared on social media.

How to get UGC with order confirmation emails:

1) Ask customers to share an image on one (maximum two!) social media networks (if you are using Pinterest, create a group board to add all the UGC).

2) If you are asking people to share on Instagram or twitter, then have them tag your brand as well as use a specific hashtag. If you want it on Facebook, just have them add it to your page.

3) Show other UGC between the headline and the call to action.

4) This email should be sent twice. Once after the order has been placed and again after they should have received the product. Unless all of your customers are brand ambassadors, many will forget to share if you don’t remind them.

This is a great email template as well, although it could be better off focusing on the one hashtag that they want the customer to use (#AsosUnbox):

One more tip regarding UGC: If you aren’t getting as much as you’d like, either turn it into a contest or some other attractive offer to generate urgency within your customer.

5. People Want Great Content

This is your opportunity to tell a customer how they can get the most out of their new purchase. The customer experience no longer ends at point of purchase, rather is a flow that continues until the product is in the customer’s hands.

P.S. statistics show that 41% of shoppers read reviews and blogs before making an online purchase.

How to share content in order confirmation emails:

1) Context is everything so make sure you are not sending out your latest blog post or piece of digital content because it is the newest. Send the content that is targeted for each type of purchase, either by category or type of product.

2) Add a call to action for the content. People are busy and hold a short attention span. Just like you’ve got a call to action on your product page, here too add a catchy call to action like, “Get Started”, “Learn More”, “Read Now”, or “See How”.

3) Keep it visual and keep the text on a diet.

This email from GoDaddy is pretty good. The nature of the content they are providing is not promotional in any way, rather something that is 100% helpful for the user, and hence there is no wrong in placing it first, above the order confirmation.

Unlike GoDaddy, you sell a product, so be sure to add some type of image with the text.

6. Referral Program

One of the most effective marketing techniques is a good old fashioned referral program. As we previously mentioned, 65% of new business comes from referrals (New York Times) and 92% of respondents trusted referrals from people they knew (Nielsen) (want more stats? Check this out).

How to effectively use a referral program in order confirmation emails:

1) Use a friendly headline, that isn’t called simply , “referral program”.

2) Make it a “can’t miss out on” deal. You’ve got to be willing to give something to customers to create a referral program that leaves you better off. It’s give and take relationship.

3) Make it easy to share via two or three social networks at most as well as via email.

This email from Dollar Shave Club (yes another example from this awesome brand getting so much right) gets an A+. The referral offer isn’t the first item on the agenda, rather it starts off with a nice appreciation message, the receipt, and only then comes the offer. Wouldn’t you share that?!

7. Buy a Gift

As of this post, we are just over a week from Halloween, and if this year shoppers are acting like they have in the post, 40% of all holiday shopping will have been completed by October 31st!

How to get customers to buy gifts via order confirmation emails:

1) This is a type of upsell, so first things first, get to the receipt.

2) Ask them if they need to do any holiday shopping. Maybe something along the lines of, “Do you still have holiday shopping to do?”.

3) Add a relevant call to action, such as, “For Him”, “For Her”, or “For Them”.

4) Sweeten the deal for them not only because they just made a purchase, but also because it’s the holiday season.

A possible example” “You’re the best. You really are, so here’s 15% off of any purchase until Christmas Eve to do your holiday shopping → “Shop Now”

This email is a grand slam, and I’m sure they are getting a pretty nice CTR on that offer. It has everything to be a hit: matches the brand, mix of matching colors, a relevant call to action, and a cute image.

It’s Your Time to Act

We’ve put the statistics in front of you. You say you’re willing to work to generate more sales, well we just gave you an early christmas gift, so good luck. Which type of emails will you be sending first? Have you tried any of these in the past? Feel free to share any thoughts or questions in the comment section below.

Image via Receipt.ly