Rnordman

You can’t handle the truth! That’s what a lot of brands think when they have to share news with their customers. But guess what brands? When you’ve got something to say to your customers and instead of telling them the truth you wrap it up in this enormous layer of BS, guess what? You look stupid, and your customers trust you less, not more.

I had an amazing experience last night checking in at the Four Seasons Boston. There was a delay at check-in. I’m like, “What’s going on here?” A couple minutes later, the manager comes out and says, “Mr. Baer, we’ve got bad news. The room that you were supposed to be in, the room that you were assigned, the guest who is in that room is too ill to leave the hotel.” Which actually, given current events, is a little worrisome, but that’s a different point.

So he says, “Mr. Baer, the bad news is we can’t put you in the room. The other bad news is we’re sold out. The good news, however, is we only have one room left in the hotel. That’s the Presidential Suite. So we’re going to put you in there.” Ladies and gentlemen, this room is the bomb

I’m going to give you a little tour of my room right now. (see video below for glorious tour)!

This is one-fifth of my room.

Okay Jay Today friends, there’s the piano I was just playing, and now here is one of the sitting rooms in my room here at the Four Seasons. There’s the balcony that looks out over the garden. There’s this sitting room here. Here’s the entry and a hallway. There’s a statue down there of some guy.

Then we’ve got the dining room complete with crystal chandelier. That’s pretty sporty. Then if I go down here, we’ve got a full size kitchen. Full size kitchen with a coffee maker, blender, a few other things in here.

I have a closet that’s bigger than my closet at home. I have this office, which comes with a Mac and a fax machine. So I want somebody from the Jay Today fan club to send me a fax. That would be fantastic.

Then I have the bedroom, which I like to call my bed chamber, because it’s more grand. There’s the bed. We’ve got a sitting area there, another sitting area here. Needless to say, this room is pretty fantastic. (I counted after the video….35 chairs in the room)

The Other Side of the Coin

Okay, so I am back at the piano, and I want to tell you why this room had such an impact on me in addition to the fact that it’s just a great room. Today, the exact same day that this whole thing happened at the Four Seasons, I got an email from my friends at Delta. I’m a big Delta supporter, a Delta frequent flyer, and I fly Delta as much as I can.

The email says, here’s the headline: “If everybody is an elite frequent flyer, then nobody is.” I’m like, “Hmm, what does that mean?” I read down, and they say, “Well, that’s why we’ve decided to change the threshold qualifications for frequent flyers for next year.”

Essentially instead of it requiring this many dollars to be silver, gold, diamond, platinum, it now requires many more dollars. They’re changing the prices required to be a frequent flyer. They’re making me do more to have the exact same benefits, not more benefits. They’re making me spend more for the exact same thing.

Delta Delta Delta can I Screw Ya, Screw Ya, Screw Ya?

I’m like, wow, that is pretty ballsy to essentially take a price increase and say the reason we’re increasing prices is because if everybody’s a frequent flyer, then nobody is. To me that’s offensive. It’s offensive on two counts. One, do they really they think they can send out millions of emails to frequent flyers who fly every day and make them think that, oh, this isn’t actually a price increase, what we’re trying to do is keep all the riffraff off the planes?

Two it’s offensive because they think that we believe that we want riffraff off the planes. I mean they’re essentially saying, “Look, instead of telling you the truth, that prices have gone up, so we’re going to have to change our prices,” they’re trying to wrap it up in some sort of class warfare, or frequent flyers versus non-frequent flyers warfare. It is absolutely appalling.

Look Delta, we fly you all the time. Why don’t you just send me an email from your CEO that says, “Look Jay, here’s the story. Prices of flights have gone up. Our pricing has gone up. There are too many people in each of the tiers. We’ve got to change the tiers a little bit. So what we’re going to do is make the qualifications a little bit higher for next year. Understand?”

I’d be like fine, I totally get it. But instead, they wrap this whole thing up in this enormous, enormous layer of BS. They think that I can’t handle the truth! But guess what? I can, and because they had the gall to think that I can’t and try and fake their way through this thing, it has cost them trust in my eyes, and I’ve got to tell you I’ll bet the eyes of a lot of other frequent flyers out there. Shame on you Delta. You should know better.

Sprout Social Shoutout

Here’s Jess getting all Mary Tyler Moore

Today’s Sprout Social Shoutout is for my friend Jess Ostroff. Jess runs Don’t Panic Management, fantastic virtual assistant company, does tons of work for us at Convince & Convert, including the production of these Jay Today videos, does our Social Pros Podcast, and the award winning Convince & Convert blog (this one that you are reading!). She helps lots of other people as well. Follow Jess in social media. She’s super funny and smart.

This video is from Jay Today is my near-daily 3-minute video where I talk about social media, content marketing, business and life. JayToday is available on Youtube, iTunes (as a video podcast, and now as an audio podcast too), and at JayToday.tv.

The show is sponsored by Sprout Social (which I use for my social media), and Candidio (a great video editing service).

More Jay Today Videos From This Week:

       

I’m often asked by live audiences and via email about how to price services. I hear questions like “Should we start with a high price and offer a discount?” “Should we work on an hourly or project basis?” “Should we be the low-bidder and then use change orders to recapture margin?”

Price Anchoring

Price anchoring starts with a high price, and then offers the purchaser a discount. This creates the illusion of value (“I bought this $350 item for only $179”). While this approach can be very effective in the business to consumer (B2C) environment, when selling services, the buyer might think “What’s wrong with their service if they are discounting it?” If you win on price today, you’ll probably lose it a year from now on price. If you win on value, a competitor with a lower price might not be enough to pull the client away from you.

Hourly or Project Pricing

When selling business or professional services, you have a choice of selling your services on an hourly basis or for a fixed fee for the project. When I speak with CEOs and executives, they often fear fixed-fee pricing. They tell me they fear that the project might require more effort than they envisioned. Those surprises could turn a profitable project into one that loses money for you.

Recognize that when you charge by the hour, you are selling effort not results. Hourly billing is the fastest way to turn your services into a commodity. Realize that when you charge by the hour, the client pays more when you are less efficient. The faster you deliver what they need, the less they pay. That’s backward. Nobody ever sat at their desk hoping for 12 hours of your time. Clients want results. If your business allows you to focus on results with your client, then manage your interactions to focus on results instead of resources.

If you are selling baby-sitting services, then charging for effort might make sense. If you are a litigator, the other party can easily change your level of effort. If someone just wants your brain in the room, hourly billing might make sense. But, don’t just stay with hourly billing because it’s what you have always done. Figure out a way to link your fees to expected results, and you’ll be better off in the long run.

Low Bidder and Change Orders

If you know the client is considering alternatives, you might be tempted to propose a low, fixed cost. You’ll win as the low bidder. Then, once they need changes, you can charge a premium for the additional work. The problem with this approach is that you are consciously engaged in a bait-and-switch business model. It’s tough to build long-term customer loyalty when your client feels they always have to guard their wallet. The way to get out of this trap is to discuss (early – before the procurement comes out) the notion that their results matter. Not every client will appreciate your approach. But, the ones who do will want to figure out how to work with you.

The Right Way to Price Your Services on Value

Your customer might want to pay by the hour. But, in most cases, this is in neither party’s best interest. They might want you to be the low-bidder. So how do you shift the conversation? Focus first on the challenges they face and work together to quantify the impact of not solving those issues. Then, be sure to ask them how you can work together to define success. You might ask how will they measure this initiative to know if it is successful six months or eighteen months from now? Having that discussion will put both of you on the same side of the table to overcome their issue and achieve results. If you can define what success looks like, then you and your client will both know when you have reached that goal.

Your client might have come to you asking for resources – They might not know any better. But, by helping them to define the outcome that defines success, you both can appreciate your value. If you can’t deliver the results they need, then politely opt out of the opportunity.

It’s Your Turn

When did you focus on results and help the client better appreciate your value? When have you been on the buying side and seen this type of approach work successfully?

I met a smart, focused, insightful young entrepreneur recently who reminded me of myself three years ago. And it drove me crazy.

New in business, she was in pursuit of something I worked a long time to achieve: a 6-figure business that I started on a $200 budget. But I could tell right away that she’d never get there without raising her prices.

Significantly.

My new friend didn’t even need to tell me how much she charges her clients; all she said was that it “wasn’t enough”, and I could tell that it was true. I made the same mistakes a few years ago. I knew I was charging half – or less – of what my competitors were charging, but I was afraid I’d lose all my business if I raised my rates.

In fact, the opposite was true. By looking at what profits I wanted to make, evaluating my competitor’s pricing, and selling my services based on the value I knew I could provide, demand for my business planning services actually increased.

The thing a lot of new service-based business owners miss is that even if you work from home and you don’t employ any staff, it still costs money to run a business. It also takes significant time to market for new clients – up to 50% of the entrepreneur’s time, in fact. For these reasons, a lot of people who are new in business don’t realize that not only do they have half the billable time they thought they had…but the time they do bill for doesn’t go directly into their pockets, and they often end up working more than full time hours.

Wondering if you’re anything like my friend – or the 3-years-ago-me? See if you relate to any (or all) of the following reasons your pricing strategy might be killing your business:

1) You set your pricing based on what you consider a “good” employee’s wage.

If you used to make $20 per hour at your job working 40 hours a week, you might think charging clients $30 per hour is plenty. But you’re not accounting for the time it takes to go out and get that work, and that could be up to 20 hours a week. A quick calculation reveals that your income just dropped from $800 to $600. Not good – and then you have business expenses to pay out of that. Ouch.

2) You apologize for your prices, or set them based on what you think each lead is willing to pay.

I used to feel guilty about how much I was charging – like I was somehow taking advantage of people. Since I developed the understanding that I was providing a massive return on investment for my clients, and I learned how to explain this to them, I’ve managed to double my prices – twice – and still maintain a full practice. Don’t be sorry for your prices (they are probably too low). Remember that people want to work with you because you can solve their problems. They are willing to pay for that. So give them another way to evaluate what you’re worth, beyond the sticker price.

3) Your prices don’t accommodate for increased costs as you grow your business.

Sure, these are many ways to run a business for cheap or free. Unfortunately most of them aren’t scalable – if you want to grow your business, you’re eventually going to need tools, people, and resources that all cost money. So building those costs into your pricing now is key, so your price increases can be gradual instead of sudden.

What can you do if you’re priced too low?

Give your current clients and leads a heads up that you’ll be raising your prices soon. This lets them know that you appreciate them, and you want them to stick around, but that you’re also in demand. Raising prices signals that you offer high-value stuff that’s worth paying for, so in order to serve your best clients better, you have to charge more. I usually tell my clients about a price increase a month or two before it happens, and give them a chance to make a purchase at the discounted rate now.

Whenever you’re talking to leads or clients about your prices, emphasize the value and benefits of working with you. Avoid words like “discount”, and when you give a quote, don’t ask prospects if the price is okay with them – the price is the price. You don’t need to apologize or offer money off at the first sign of resistance.

Your low prices might not be killing your business now, but they will. What step can you take today to create a pricing strategy that’s fair for both your clients and your bottom line?

We continue our series sharing summaries of principles The Container Store follows to achieve its long-lasting success. These principles are detailed in the book, UNCONTAINABLE, written by Kip Tindell (co-founder, ceo and chairman, The Container Store).

The Container Store Retailing Philosophy

Kip Tindell shares a great story in the book about a conversation he had with retailing pioneer Stanley Marcus of Neiman-Marcus fame. They were discussing the importance of a retail business having the right mix of products, service and price.

Kip recalls the conversation…

“I loved to talk with Stanley Marcus about selection, service, and price. Stanley always said that if you do one of these things really well, you’ll be very successful. He said if you do any two of them well, you’ll have the number one business in your niche. Then he said you can’t do all three because price is absolutely mutually exclusive to both selection and service.”

The best products with the best service at the best possible price is nearly impossible to do.

Zappos can lay claim to selling the best products with the best customer service but not at the lowest price.

Costco competes brilliantly on selling products at a very low price but that comes at a cost. They do not have the best selection nor do they have the best customer service.

The Container Store would love to, in Kip’s words, “… hit the triple crown every day—offering a well-edited, carefully curated collection of 10,000 products, free expert advice and service that customers delight in, and prices competitive with the mass merchants.” But they can’t.

The Container Store can deliver the best products with the best customer service, but not at the best price.

As a former retail marketer for Whole Foods and Starbucks, I know firsthand the struggles dealing with price perception issues. Whole Foods especially struggles with the perception its prices are too high. It’s true that one can buy cheaper natural/organic food elsewhere and one can buy a cheaper latte from someplace other than Starbucks. However, Whole Foods and Starbucks have found retail success by not competing on lowest prices.

I really like Kip’s perspective on a retailer competing with higher prices. Kip writes…

“We’re not the only retailer that gets an unfair reputation when it comes to price. But it’s the retailers that focus solely on price that get the credit for great pricing. And it’s surprising to me how overcredited discounters are for pricing and how unfairly retailers who focus on service and quality are marked as overpriced.”

The Container Store, Starbucks and Whole Foods all suffer from being known as too pricey. However, these higher prices result in better products with better customer service. If I’m starting a retail business, I’d focus on delivering better products and service. Yes, prices will be higher but the overall experience will be richer.

The Container Store posting series:

The post The Container Store Retailing Philosophy appeared first on Brand Autopsy.

You're probably patting your financially responsible self on the back for opening and contributing to your 401(k).

According to Chris Costello, however, that might not be enough.

Costello is the cofounder and CEO of blooom (yes, three o's), a 401(k) management service that won best of show at the 2014 Finovate fall conference, a trade show that unveils and highlights the latest innovations in banking and tech.

"In the 19 years I've been in this business, helping people my parents' age, I've been keenly aware that people my age have been largely shut out of the quality investment advice space for lack of a big enough account," 41-year-old Costello explains.

He says that since he left Wall Street in 2004 and started his own financial services firm, The Retirement Planning Group, the most common question he gets is, "Hey Chris, I have this 10-k-4 thing at work and I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing with it. Could you take a look and tell me what I'm supposed to do?"

"80% of the time when I'd look at their statement," Costello recalls, "I'd see that it was significantly screwed up. It would be a 29-year-old with his entire 401(k) in bond funds, or a 33-year-old with her entire account in company stock. I'd see every shape and size, but almost never an appropriate balanced, diversified allocation."

Costello isn't the only one who's detected an issue with how Americans approach their 401(k)s. CNBC reports that only 10% of account holders make a change in their investments over the course of the year, according to data from Fidelity. And an ING Direct USA survey found that 50% of American adults who have participated in employer-sponsored retirement plans abandoned them when changing jobs, contributing to the 15 million "orphaned" accounts that made up over $1 trillion in 2010. 

Between the investors ignoring and abandoning accounts, it seems that many Americans could use some help getting the most from their 401(k)s.

That's why Costello and his partners started blooom, which manages your 401(k) or other employer-sponsored retirement account.

Once users sign up, blooom first uses an algorithm to determine the most advantageous mix of available investments for the individual user. It then checks the account every 90 days.

At that 90-day mark, the user receives an email that either says the equivalent of "all good," or "we had to make some tweaks." Every few years, blooom rebalances the accounts according to the client's time horizon. As Costello points out in his Finovate presentation, a blooom client can choose not to look at his 401(k) for the next 20 years.

"We're 401(k) custodians, and employer agnostic," Costello says. "It doesn't matter where you work. All you need to have is an account and an online login."

Currently, blooom is very much a startup. The service has about 100 users and has established itself using $400,000 of the founders' own cash. They're now looking to expand and secure additional funding, and in early 2015, they plan to release iOS and Android apps to accompany the web platform.

Right now, the service costs $10 a month if you have more than $5,000 in your account and $1 if you have less. Before the end of the year, the pricing will change to $1 a month if you have less than $20,000 in your account, and $15 if you have more. This is more expensive than other similar services like Wealthfront, which charges $25 a year to manage $20,000.

It's worth noting that although blooom falls squarely in the robo-adviser space with algorithm-based online investment platforms like Betterment and Wealthfront, other services generally don't touch 401(k)s. Investment adviser Financial Engines is the exception — the publicly traded company offers retirement account management as an employee benefit with contracted employers. 

Costello explains that the dearth of 401(k)-centric services is because 401(k)s are spread among employer-selected brokerages like Fidelity and Vanguard and are therefore harder to consolidate and manage. "There's an additional layer of challenge involved in scaling up a business when you have all these institutions to work with," he says. "That's why the market hasn't been as exploited as with other models."

Although blooom is in its nascent stages, there's a pretty obvious way to figure out whether it's a service worth trying: If you don't already have professional advice, are you completely confident in your 401(k) investments? If so, nice work. If not, it might be worth $15 or less a month to be so.

SEE ALSO: Here's What To Do With Your 401(k) When You Leave Your Job

Join the conversation about this story »

By Kerry Gorgone, {grow} Contributing Columnist

Social scoring and ROI are two hot topics for marketers, and right now they’re largely separate considerations. But what if you could know which people were truly influential in terms of driving revenue for your brand?

Instead of guessing based on follower counts or shares, what if you could dig deep into customer data and predict which customers would drive more spending through social media? Marketers have been wondering about this for years. In his 2012 book Return on Influence, Mark Schaefer predicted that companies would seek to assign dollar values to influencers.

Even then, Schaefer saw influence as having a direct and measurable impact on the bottom line. “As companies begin to connect the dots between online influence and offline activities, real dollar values can be placed on customers and the demonstrated impact of their influence.”

The Crowded Landscape

The options abound for enterprises interested in a predictive analytics tool: with so many vendors in the space, it’s easy to find comprehensive articles like this one that compare the features and limitations of each possibility.

Major players like IBM, Dell and Oracle are facing increased competition from start-ups claiming to have cracked the code for measuring and predicting social influence on revenue.

Newcomer Ninja Metrics, for instance, superimposes purchase data over a customer’s social graph. Their algorithm purportedly enables companies to see who influences whom, and specifically how much money people spend as a result of their influential friends’ purchases.

Blue Yonder, another contender, has a team of scientists powering its software, which pairs predictive analytics with automation to create “automated, high-performance forecasts for buying behavior.” If that sounds like a risky proposition, that’s because it is. Given the wildly variable nature of consumer psychology and behavior, any solution offering full automation must be carefully scrutinized.

Although automation in this area may be fraught with risk, predictive modeling does provide some potentially powerful data. Armed with accurate predictions of consumer behavior, companies could drive customer acquisition and retention, increase consumer spending, and reduce churn. But any tool is of questionable benefit unless its predictions can be tested against actual results.

How does it work?

By examining spending correlations between users, predictive analytics software determines who drives others to make purchases. Depending on the tool, companies can parse the data extremely fine to figure out exactly how much revenue users bring in because of their social interactions.

Using analytics, it may be possible to adjust the lifetime value of existing customers upward (or downward) based on the amount of money they bring in above and beyond their own spending.

But according to Dmitri Williams, CEO of Ninja Metrics, the classic big spenders (or “whales”) aren’t necessarily the same people who drive social spending.

“Classic whales may spend for enjoyment or conspicuous consumption,” explains Williams. “That’s different from people who are extremely tied in with their friends, and spend money to enjoy their company. “

With “social whales,” spending is about the relationship. “They don’t necessarily wind up spending a lot for that,” says Williams, “but they cause a lot of people to join them and share in the experience with them: there’s a very different sociology to the spending pattern.”

Is this really new?

Start-ups often tout their analytics and modeling tools as revolutionary, but predictive modeling has been around for 15 years or more, according to Burke Powers, a senior managing consultant and practice lead for the IBM Business Analytics Solution Services team.

“It’s the same idea as when ice cream parlors used to give coupons to cheerleaders,” says Powers. “The cheerleaders had the social influence to bring their friends in, turn the parlor into a cool place, and drive business. Predictive modeling uses the same process, only now it’s online.”

Businesses have long tried to use social influence to drive sales, and they’ve never had more data at their disposal. “The impact of social influence on selling has been widely studied,” says Powers. “Marketers can compile full psychological profiles, do product profiling, create complex, actionable clusters of data—all this data can be added to the social graph and used to predict customer behavior, so the technology is there.”

Social Scoring vs. Quantifiable Influence

In order to drive actual revenue, predictive modeling and influence measurement would need to go well beyond social scoring services like Klout, Kred and PeerIndex.

“[These services] assume influence,’” Williams observes, “based on who’s being retweeted the most. But that’s not anything you can really prove. As a scientist, you can’t publish that.”

The key, according to Williams, is to think about the friendships themselves, rather than the relationship between the brand and the customer. “People enjoy products and services together,” he explains, “so what’s really important is their relationship: if you can reinforce that, you can sell more.”

The question, as Powers sees it, is less about identifying “social whales,” and more about determining what kind of influence these people have. Can they influence others to come to a business (and stay)? Use a product or game? Influence them to buy? And how can companies channel influence into sales? Without the ability to act on this insight, companies are unlikely to see the value, according to Powers.

Can you measure influence?

Theoretically, predictive analytics could revolutionize marketing.

Marketers could target “social whales” based on quantifiable, provable influence, identify which key users are at risk to stop using the product or service, and test the impact of win-back messaging, marketing campaigns, coupons and other tactics all the way through to the individual spend.

So why don’t more companies use predictive modeling? Because it has the potential to be creepy if used without thinking about how customers will react, explains Powers.

“The technology exists, but many companies are still coming to terms with the complexity and working out how to implement in a customer-friendly way,” he says.

Essentially, with enough data, it’s possible to predict influence, but you might creep out the influencers or those being influenced. Powers’s prediction: “There are going to be a lot of mistakes made before best practices are well understood.”

The mystery of “which 50% of your marketing works” could finally be solved, but can businesses effectively use this knowledge without being ham-fisted about it?

What do you think? Can you measure influence to such a granular degree, and is it worth the cost of collecting the data you’d need to power this type of algorithm?

Kerry O’Shea Gorgone is a writer, lawyer, speaker and educator. She’s also Instructional Design Manager, Enterprise Training, at MarketingProfs. Kerry hosts the weekly Marketing Smarts podcast. Find her on Google+ and Twitter.

The post Can Marketers Predict and Measure Influence, Down to the Dollar? appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

        

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Pricing a product or service “right” is among the most difficult decisions that any company makes. Pricing is a choice, and one that carries enormous ramifications. The “right” price is highly subjective but essential to achieve your business goals. Here’s why:

Is the price right?

Your pricing strategy should support your overall business objectives.  What’s your business strategy? Price must align with your business objectives. For example, most people know that Amazon pursued a “land grab” strategy by growing its customer base early on at the expense of profit, and priced their products to fulfill that objective. Consider your own strategy and price accordingly.

Price is a HUGE differentiator. And sometimes the only differentiator. Many times the only major difference between products is its price. Last time I shopped for a tennis racquet, the store offered hundreds to choose from. They were lined up in price order, least expensive on the left, most expensive on the right. I noticed the expensive ones tended to have larger racquet heads. When I asked the difference, the sales person said that once you get about to about $150, there is little difference other than racquet head size and price. He said older people generally want a larger head size, and have more money to spend, so those racquets cost many multiples more. And guess what? They buy them.

Photo: OTA

Price defines your brand. What do you think about when you think Hyundai? And what you think about when you think Audi? Much of what defines a luxury brands is it’s high price sticker.

Price defines your customer. What kind of customer do you want? Your price will define the kind of customer you will attract, so proceed with an understanding of the ramifications.

Price will alter your business operations. A value (inexpensive) provider operationally needs to be structured to handle a higher volume business. That can be very challenging. A luxury provider has be alluring enough to attract those willing to spend the money to purchase an exclusive product or service. Generally that means less customers overall.

Price will affect the way you market and sell your product. An item that costs $4.95 has to be marketed very differently than one that costs $499.95 or $4,995. Let’s say your business model allows for an expenditure of 20% on average for marketing against the sale of an individual product. So for an item that costs $4.95, your marketing spend is $1; for an item that costs $499.95, it’s $100. The more expensive the item, the more flexibility you have with how you can market it.

Understand how price sensitive your market really is. For some product and services, price sensitivity is incredibly high. The more commoditized your product is, or the more generic it seems to your marketplace, the more sensitivity there will be. Uniqueness has value, and therefore is less sensitive. Other market conditions – such as doing business with highly funded markets – typically lends itself to less price sensitivities.

So to sum up, don’t slap a price on your product and see what happens. Businesses generally think a long, hard time about what the right name is for their business. That’s good, because the right name is a fundamental marketing tool. So is pricing. Think long and hard about it too.

LinkedIn is the number-one professional networking tool online. It has grown substantially over the years, and it is now considered the biggest and best networking site for businesses.

If you already have a presence on LinkedIn, you may not be aware of the opportunities available for lead generation on the website. Here are three that you can use.

1. Join groups and get involved in discussions

Using LinkedIn to improve your outreach is a great idea, and joining groups is an excellent place to start. You can use groups to not only share your expertise but to also connect with industry leaders and stay on top of the main goings on, which you can then use to assist your own customers.

Many people use discussions to search for answers, and you can provide them with what they need to know by using your expertise, which can be an excellent way to form relationships.

Open groups can also be found in the search engines. If you provide useful information and have a strong presence, more people are likely to consider you a trustworthy source.

2. Publish content

Content is always a good way to make leads, and you can publish content directly on LinkedIn via Pulse and promote it via the platform.

Using your own content, you can educate leads, provide value and form relationships. Content helps you to engage with your clients, and you can use it to provide advice and information.

Think of interesting information you can provide on topics related to your products, as well as news, research and anything else of interest. Then encourage people to respond through comments to generate even more engagement.

You can also publish content via your website’s blog and set it up so that the content is also published on LinkedIn, which can help to save time and effort.

3. Invite people to your network

Perhaps the simplest way to generate leads via LinkedIn is to invite people to your network. However, rather than just sending out lots of invites using the default option and hoping for success, be more selective.

Write personal invites and explain why you want to connect with someone. If you have met them before, remind them in your invite.

Spend some time each day looking for connections, and use group discussions as a source of possible connections. LinkedIn premium may also be a good option because you can use it to send invites to more users.

Generate more leads on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a great network for businesses, and it is easy to get involved and make a presence for yourself. Spend a bit of time each day on generating leads, and this consistent activity will gradually help you to build your network over time.

Sell Me This Pen – Really?

On occasion I’ve come across the “Sell Me This Pen” concept. The first time I actually heard somebody use the phrase was in the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street”, and since then I pay attention when I hear it. Just recently I read a post on LinkedIn explaining that apparently this challenge is part of some sales interviews. The article also stated that this sales interview question (and other similar questions which seem easy enough to answer) has been around for quite some. So, what do you?

Don’t Sell the Pen, Build a Relationship

When companies hire sales people who can answer such a question easily pointing out how great the pen is, they shouldn’t be surprised if they get practitioners who focus on selling the features of their offering rather than adding value to their clients. In my years consulting with Fortune 1000 companies, and small businesses alike, their sales people who live in the B2B world have always performed better when identifying client needs rather than simply selling their product or solution on its features and benefits. When sales people are trained to sell the features of their service/product, rather than being a resource to their clients, they forget about the needs and the business goals of their prospects. This can also lead to talking themselves out of a sale.

There Will Always Be a Cheaper Pen, Won’t There?

Another challenge with the concept of selling on features is that it commoditizes your offering. If you focus on your product/service without regard of your prospect’s situation, the next question will be about price and then (in most cases) the price shopping starts. Selling only on the features of a product/service means you are disregarding your audience’s true needs. And you might be forcing what could turn out to not be a good fit. But let’s assume it is a good fit. Remember, there will always be somebody who will offer the same or similar product/service cheaper.

Help Your Prospect Grow Their Business

In a consultative sales environment you’ll want to move away from a tactical approach of “selling” something, and instead become a trusted advisor. There are no long term prospects for a tactical approach. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being “sold to”!

If you start building a relationship instead, uncovering your prospect’s needs beyond the obvious, and providing a solution that is relevant to their business goals, you will not be as easily replaced by someone who just sells stuff – cheaper!

Once you focus on your prospect’s business needs and how you can help them grow their business, you will not only get their attention, you will also develop longer lasting relationships. Your sales will be more profitable. And as a result, your business will grow, too!

Less Talking & Selling, More Listening

Sales people who are in “selling” mode, simply don’t ask enough questions. And the questions they do ask do not motivate their prospects/clients to speak openly and freely about their true needs. With this approach, sales people are far too focused on the features and benefits of their offering rather than uncovering the needs of their prospect/client. You want to truly be a resource to your prospects, don’t you?

Slow down, listen, ask open-ended questions, and invite your prospect to open up about their business challenges. Then, determine if your offering is a good fit.

If it is, move ahead, make your case and focus on how you can add value.

If it’s not a good fit, explain why, leave a good impression, and perhaps refer a resource and move on to the next prospect. At least you were able to build an honest relationship. If the prospect’s situation changes in the future, they will certainly think of you as a good advisor.

Hire the Right People-Ask the Right Questions

Maybe “Sell Me a Pen” is a funky or challenging way to interview, but it doesn’t reflect what constitutes best practice in a solution-oriented or consultative selling environment. Look instead, when hiring, for sales people who are capable of building long-term relationships and providing value in the eyes of your customers.

It might seem easier to train sales people on using a script and selling a “pen”. But when you consider the costs of on-boarding, training, etc., you don’t want to have them leave and end up at your competition. Especially in industries where sales people are almost a commodity, only management can change the conversation.

I deeply believe selling cannot be about convincing people to buy something that they don’t need, but rather, adding value to your client by providing solutions to help them be more successful. In my opinion, smart managers looking for valuable sales people will be asking different questions, like “How can you help your client grow their business?” What do you think?

Building a strong, quality email list and executing a consistently successful email marketing campaign often takes time — especially if you’re just starting out. But that isn’t always comforting to those who want immediate results.

While many different factors influence a person’s decision to sign up for an email list (e.g. ease of signing up, perceived value of subscribing), there are ways in which you can give your subscriber base a quick healthy boost — you just have to act quickly. Here’s how you can get started now:

1. Import your existing list.

If you’re moving from another email marketing service provider, the first thing you should do is import any existing list(s) you already have to AWeber. You found a new provider, so why wait any longer before sending awesome emails?

If you’ve been holding off because you’re not sure if you’re required to reconfirm subscribers when switching to a new email marketing service, check out this quick read to help clarify the issue. Need help importing your existing list? Watch this how-to video for easy instructions!

2. Be discoverable.

The more opportunities people have to sign up for your email list, the greater the chance they’ll actually do so. With that said, you’ll want to include sign up forms in areas both online and offline.

Place sign up forms in strategic areas on your website — in your sidebar, on a landing page, etc. The idea here is to reach your customers no matter where they are in the sales process. You might also want to give serious thought to using a lightbox pop up form to collect new subscribers. Despite any preconceived notions you might have about them, they can actually help you gain hundreds (and possibly even thousands) of new subscribers, as long as it’s done right.

If you have a storefront and/or frequently attend networking meetups and events, be sure to bring along a clipboard or tablet to collect email subscriptions in person. This is your chance to make personal connections with prospective customers and brand ambassadors, so leverage this critical time to continue the conversation even after your interaction ends.

3. Run a contest.

Another quick and easy way to obtain new subscribers is by hosting a contest with a valuable prize and a short entry period. By creating a weeklong contest, for example, people will be more likely feel the pressure to enter right away instead of assuming they have plenty of time to do so.

There are a number of tools available that can help you easily host a contest, such as Heyo or Contest Domination. All you have to do is promote it on social media and your website, and let the emails pour in! But setting up the contest is the easy part. Whatever your prize is, make sure it’s a valuable something-they-can’t-live-without item or offer.

Feeling uninspired? Consider offering incentive items, exclusive sneak-peeks for upcoming product releases, or even a complimentary service or consultation!

4. Give a coupon code.

Coupon codes that are only valid for a few days can be a great incentive for retailers to get people to sign up to their emails. To do so, you might want to distribute cards with codes on them at your store, or feature the offer in a lightbox form on your website.

Tobi, a young ecommerce fashion retailer, offers first-time website visitors a 50 percent off discount code when they submit their email address. This lightbox form not only entices people to give them their address willingly, but to get frequent updates on the latest items as well.

5. Tell a secret.

Consumers love anything that’s labeled “free” and/or “exclusive.” Whether it’s a limited edition item or something that’s only available to a select few, they want to know they’re getting extra special treatment or part of an private crowd.

Fortunately, as an expert in your industry, you have a lot of “insider” information that you can exclusively share with your email subscribers. An owner of a local gym, for example, may want to educate his readers with exercises and workouts designed to target various parts of the body. Just make sure it’s information they can and should implement right away!

6. Cross-promote your list in another list.

Have a list that already gets a lot of traffic? Consider promoting your new email series or newsletter to encourage those subscribers to also sign up for your new list. The idea here is to convince people that there’s value to be obtained from your other email list, and now’s the time to subscribe so they can get something immediately in return.

A marketing consultant that generally focuses on sending email content related to general digital marketing tips might want to narrow in on certain topics and start a new email series specific to content marketing or email marketing. By informing her current subscribers that they can get even more helpful information by signing up to the other list, she can get a jump start on her subscriber base.

Or, you might want to team up with another business that has an email list with people that might be potential customers. To pique their subscribers’ interest, you could feature your contest or another great incentive to raise awareness and encourage sign ups to your list!

7. Add incentives after a purchase.

Not every customer that purchases an item or service from you will always return. You can, however, work towards building customer loyalty with your emails. By leveraging the point of purchase to collect email addresses, you can bring them closer to becoming repeat customers and hopefully future brand ambassadors.

Michael’s craft store, for example, gives customers an offer with their receipt to fill out a survey online to obtain an additional discount that would only be valid for a week after the day of my purchase. It’s a simple way to obtain valuable information about their customers, and for customers to get a discount coupon for a future purchase. Win-win!

How have you increased your subscriber base? Share your success stories with us below!

If you’re still looking for more information to grow your email list, don’t forget to sign up below to get helpful posts like this one delivered right into your inbox!

The post The Ultimate Copy Checklist: 51 Questions to Optimize Every Element of Your Online Copy [Free Poster] appeared first on Copyblogger.

Things move incredibly fast in the world of social media, so innovating and staying ahead of the curve is extremely important when it comes to enhancing your social media efforts.

To help you maximise the value of your social media monitoring achievements across your business, we’ll be talking through a selection of the most powerful features in a social listening tool and demonstrate how you can use these clever approaches to return business-changing results.

Seeking to improve your social media monitoring efforts but not sure how to get the ball rolling?

Worry no more. In this post, we’ll be covering the five most effective ways of boosting your social media analytics. So, here we go:

1/ Automatically turn mentions into actions

Monitoring the buzz related to your brand, products and services can definitely have a positive impact on your social presence.

Nevertheless, going a step further and managing them in a customised way by creating rules, categories and tags can definitely suit your business needs more specifically.

Auto-categorisation with rules enables brands to prioritise social media efforts to correspond with their most critical business goals.

2/ Bulk up to take on big data challenges

Social listening allows businesses to monitor brand mentions across as many social media sites as possible.

However, the challenge remains making sense of large datasets and easily manage them.

Narrowing down your facts and figures, so that you’re looking at just a single sub-set of particularly interesting data (such as only negative mentions from Twitter, or blog posts with more than five comments) can help marketers glean extremely granular, relevant insights.

3/ Benchmark campaigns across time for continuous improvement

Social media analytics enables users to track how their messages or grow (or shrink) in effectiveness over time.

Through campaign tracking with the Date Range Comparison component, you can quickly grasp the relative volume of a single query within multiple timeframes.

Additionally, this feature allows you to measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns by answering questions such as: Are there seasonal changes to audience receptivity? Or, how did this year’s holiday campaign compare to the year-ago period? and so on.

4/ Let the insights come to you

The features we’ve talked about so far are great when you know what you’re after (categories or alerts based on particular subjects you consider important).

However, sometimes, you don’t know what you’re going to find interesting until you’re shown it – and that’s where Brandwatch’s Topics component comes in.

It can help you discover various things you previously knew nothing about, such as: new product issues, new competitors, associations with other products, feedback or suggestions, and much more.

5/ Home in conversations worth joining

How can social media analytics help you keep track of high-profile discussions taking place online that could impact brand perception?

One of the first things that most Brandwatch customers do, is to begin listening to their industry keywords and set up alerts to spot and participate in “hot” discussions relevant to their brand.

The key to making this strategy work involves monitoring buzz for a period of time, developing a strong list of industry-keyword queries and routing alerts to the most knowledgeable subject matter experts who could provide the most value in discussions.

Social listening has evolved tremendously over the years to enable users to perform both basic and highly advanced SMM.

The goal for all first-time salespeople is to take the initial steps from the sales development world toward becoming a closer. For most sales professionals, developing yourself into a closer is a journey, but for a select group, that have the natural ability to close, what comes next? I’ve thought about the mindset and milestones I’ve encountered during my short tenure as salesperson, and discovered that it’s about looking for repeatable tools and skills to deploy across my team. I believe that if you’re mindful of these four factors you’ll be able to accelerate your career, your personal growth and move ahead in any situation:

Act The Part:

Do your job, but also do the job you want — before you have it. Mold yourself into the person that currently does that job. In order to do this, find a mentor that is currently in that role, they will help and coach you. You need people to sing your praises internally; a mentor is more than a person that can help you identify and fill-in your gaps, they will make you successful faster. Because of your personal relationship with them, they’re much more likely to give you a positive recommendation. Additionally, part of ‘acting the part’ is to become one of them – participate in after work bonding, inside jokes, etc. You need to be the whole package.

Campaign Effectively:

You know what you want to accomplish, but who else needs to be on board? Work the room — from the people on the floor all the way to the top of your sales organization. Everyone needs to be on board with the idea, and you have to be the clear choice for your next gig. Make it your goal to earn the respect of your current team members, and become the go-to person for information and advice. Once you have earned your team’s respect and proven your credibility, take that and run with it. Choose one or two things you’ve done well that you think can be replicated and present them to the next level up to achieve buy-in – this is a great way to separate yourself from the pack.

Seize Opportunities:

There are two things that need to line up in order for you to seize an opportunity. The first is availability, and the second is timing. These two things can be extremely tricky to align in perfect harmony but there are a couple things you can do to influence the alignment. You need to make it known that you want a shot at the next level before an opportunity is made available. If you’ve laid the groundwork and accomplished the other things I’ve described like campaigning, acting the part and performing, you’ll be first in line when the time comes. I’ve seen many people passed over as potential candidates because they simply don’t anticipate the availability of the next role, and when they finally ask for the opportunity, it’s too late. Don’t let someone else beat you to the punch. One approach is to take the hiring manager to lunch, and communicate that you are interested in moving up and share examples of how you are different from your peers.

Perform At Your Peak:

I think that it might go without saying, but in order to stand out from the rest, you need to be an A player. No one will take you seriously until you prove yourself that you can be a top performer. Do what is expected of you, and then do more. You’ll need to take on more responsibility, and be more creative and proactive than others around you. Document examples of your performance and when your number is called, share your unique portfolio that demonstrates you’ve been adding value and are prepared for the next big thing.

Anyone looking to move up in their sales organization should be thinking about developing these big-ticket items. I’m a big believer that you should always be put in a position that maximizes your potential. If you feel like you’re reaching a plateau in your career, create new short-term goals to push through– and then find what you want to work towards in the long term (which will probably include a new set of skills). In the end, follow the road less traveled and be a leader. It will be bumpy and less defined but it will lead to faster personal and professional success.

What are your thoughts about how to move up in an organization? How can you start taking advantage of opportunities in your current role? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

The great thing about email marketing (well, one of the many great things) is the instant insight you get after sending a message. Did your audience love it? Did they hate it? Which links are getting the most hits? You can see the results roll in as time goes by. But it can be easy to get distracted by the data, rather than focusing on the key performance indicators (KPIs) that indicate the health and success of your email campaigns.

Let’s take a look at five email metrics that matter to marketers – and the teams they work with – and discover some of the ways you can improve these numbers.

For email marketing, the important metrics start with the basics: delivery, opt-ins, opt-outs, opens, and clicks. These can reveal key insights into your customers and prospects as well as about your marketing efforts.

1. Overall Delivery

Delivery is foundational to the success of your email marketing campaigns. If your audience isn’t receiving your messages, your conversion rates will suffer. If they’re identifying your messages as spam, your entire organization will have to deal with the consequences.

• Total sent: How many emails were actually delivered to recipients on the list? This number will tell you how many valid email addresses there are in your list.
• Not sent/suppressed: How many recipients were not sent a message? This includes invalid email addresses, duplicate email addresses, or those who are suppressed (because they have opted out or for another reason; perhaps you’ve sent them similar messages recently).
• Bounce rates: How many emails bounced back?
  • Soft bounces happen due to a temporary issue, like a full inbox. It’s okay to resend to them, although at some point (say after three soft bounces) it’s a good idea to put them into a suppression list.
  • Hard bounces mean the email address failed permanently – the address doesn’t exist, for example, or is no longer good. Don’t just suppress them; regularly move them out of your marketing lists.
• Abuse complaints/number of emails marked as spam: A spam or abuse complaint occurs when a recipient marks your email as spam, not when a webmail provider (or email client) tags your email as spam. Note that unsubscribes do not hurt deliverability, but spam complaints and hard bounces do. Your campaign’s complaints rate should always be below 0.1%.

If suddenly you have a spike in your bounce rates, look first to email content and structure. Your marketing automation service provider may be able to provide feedback about potential issues around your IP address. You may also need to clean out your email lists by purging or re-engaging anyone with a lack of activity.

Keeping your lists clean and your sending reputation good is a key step in your email success. Check out this eBook to learn more about the best practices to manage the critical factors that affect the deliverability of your email messages.

2. Opt-ins

The opt-in rate tells you how many subscribers are on your list, as well as how quickly your list is growing. This metric gives you a good idea of the overall strength of your email programs. Slow growth may mean that you should be promoting your email more prominently.

There are many ways to boost opt-ins for your email campaigns:

• Feature the email subscription prominently on your website, and make the benefits of signing up very clear.
• Test different versions of your opt-in landing page to optimize the volume of email subscriptions.
• Make it easy to sign up by asking for as little information as possible. Consider using progressive registration pages, so every time a prospect returns to your site, they encounter another form asking for additional data.
• Use a pop-up window or a splash page to encourage website visitors to sign up to receive email.
• Use “gated” content to acquire email addresses. Visitors must provide their information before they can download a white paper or watch a video. Remember that the form should include language asking them if they want to opt-in to receive email from you. Don’t use a pre-checked opt-in box; it’s perceived as an unwelcome assumption, and it’s illegal in some countries
• Run a contest. Use a prize to entice visitors to provide their email address, and encourage them to sign up for your email as well.
• Increase the reach of your message by adding social sharing links as well as a “Forward to a Friend” link in your email.

Remember, getting permission to send messages is not only the right thing to do; it’s the right way to ensure email marketing that actually gets results (and to stay on the right side of anti-spam laws). The most effective way to grow your email list is to do it organically. You will get better response from people who actively desire to receive your emails.

3. Opt-outs

How many people have unsubscribed from your list? Do you know why? An increase in unsubscribes could indicate that you’re over-messaging your audience or sending them content that’s not relevant to their interests. Generally speaking, an unsubscribe rate of around .5% is average, but it depends on the industry and the audience. Use your own historical average as your benchmark.

Keep an eye out for sudden spikes, and take action quickly.

• Take a good look at what you’re sending. Is it all hard sales, all the time? Is it marketing fluff? Or is it useful content that the recipients of the email will find valuable? Put yourself in their shoes. Would you unsubscribe from your email?
• Provide more content tailored to the specific interests and behaviors of your subscribers.
• Don’t over-message your audience. Too-frequent emails are a good way to drive up op-outs.
• Provide the option to receive emails less frequently on your subscription (and unsubscribe) page. Give your audience a personalized preference center where they can update their information, manage their options, indicate the content they want to receive, and choose how often they are sent messages.
• Ask people why they’re opting out with a short survey so you can understand the reasons they’re leaving. Be sure this is an optional step during the unsubscribe process.
• Set expectations up front about how often people will receive emails from you (daily, a weekly round-up, as items become available or go on sale). If you send infrequently, make that clear.
• Ask them to whitelist you (add your email address to their contact list) as they opt in.
• Confirm or double-confirm subscribers who opt in, when possible.
• Determine an optimal mailing time and frequency by looking at previous open and click trends.
• When people opt-out, take them off your list as soon as possible. Continuing to email them (even if you are doing so within the legal limit before opt-out must take effect) may irritate them enough so that they mark your message as spam.

4. Open rate

Which emails did they open? How many times did they open them? This is an extremely useful metric to indicate how interested your email recipient is, although clickthrough rates are a better indicator of active engagement. Here are a few tips for improving your open rates:

• Make sure your list is high quality. Rather than purchasing lists, grow your database organically.
• Personalize the subject line and continually different test subject line options.
• Choose the right From name and email address.
• Test the frequency of sends as well as send times.
• Make sure the preheader text is pulling its weight.

Certain situations might affect your email open rates. For example, if the reader has images disabled, the invisible pixel graphic used to track opens will not be viewed, which means an opened email won’t register as having been opened. Viewing an email on a mobile device or as a text-only version can also fail to be noted, artificially lowering open rate measurement. To the same effect, if the reader views the email in the preview pane but doesn’t actually open it, it might not register as having been opened, even though they may have actually read the content.

5. Clickthroughs

How many people clicked a link in your email, and how many links did they click? This is a clear indicator of engagement. We’ve already covered quite a few tactics to improve clickthrough rates, but here’s a summary of key points:

• Make sure the rest of your message follows through on the promise of your subject line.
• Focus on delivering high-quality content to your audience.
• Use segmentation strategies to increase the relevance of your offers.
• Test different call-to-action links and buttons.
• Make sure your email is optimized for mobile devices.
• Keep your call to action clear and simple.
• Entice action with a bonus, incentive, discount, or at the very least, some kind of value for the reader.
• Provide a call to action near the top of the email so the recipient doesn’t have to scroll down to click on it. They might even click on it through the preview pane.

What’s considered a good open or click rate? It depends on your industry and what kind of messages you’re sending.According to the Q1 2014 Email Trends and Benchmarks report from Epsilon, email open rates have continued to go up over the last few years, while click rates have remained about the same.

Depending on the type of campaign you’re running, there may be other key metrics that matter to you and your clients, such as the amount of social sharing happening, the number of forwards, which email clients recipients are using, how many are using mobile devices, and so on.

Just getting started with email marketing?

Get the jump on it with this free toolkit:

You want to design attractive landing pages, but there are many elements that effect conversion rate optimization that go into the process.

Color, layout, form design and even font can have an impact on conversions. A lack of consistency between the ad and the landing page can hurt CRO as well.

Here are some considerations for creating high converting landing pages:

1. Really Think About Fonts

If you aren’t a designer by nature, fonts are an aspect of landing pages that often fall to the wayside. You need to consider what message a particular font will send to viewers, according to Marketing Land.

For example, Comic Sans is almost universally hated and may cause your website to seem unprofessional. Fonts can send a psychological signal to visitors. Serif varieties can communicate a sense of tradition, respect and even comfort, while sans serif fonts are often seen as slightly more modern, clean and objective.

Some serif fonts can even cause readers to find the content more credible. Depending on the goal of your landing page, your typeface choice could be driving viewers away.

In addition, font size is important and 12-point typeface was found to be the most readable. Anything bigger or smaller causes a slower read time. However, you need to consider the width of the page, and 12-point fonts should never be used for headlines. If you target older consumers, larger may still be better. Line spacing makes a difference as well.

A good rule to remember is less is more. Stick to a limited number of fonts per page and be consistent across your website. Multiple typefaces need to complement each other to avoid being distracting for visitors. A/B testing is crucial for getting it right.

2. Know Your Audience

This is one of the most crucial aspects of CRO. A page can be visually appealing, but if the content doesn’t speak to the target audience, it isn’t going to convert.

CRO is one small aspect of creating a great online experience, but knowing your customers is what holds everything together, Forbes stated.

Marketers need knowledge about their ideal clients’ wants, needs and pain points to write copy that causes these leads to take the next step.

3. What Value Does the Product or Service Offer to Potential Customers?

Understanding your value proposition can help you write more compelling copy that’s aligned with your target audience.

The best landing pages often have a unique selling proposition, specific benefits, social proof and a single call to action. You need to create an offer than stands out from competitors to command attention.

Plus, the call to action needs to relate directly to product value, otherwise it can confuse visitors. Having too many different steps can cause people to leave the page rather than do any of them.

4. Use More White Space

Because landing pages have a relatively limited amount of space, especially if you’re trying to stay above the fold, it may seem counterintuitive to utilize more empty space.

Employing white space can call attention to specific elements of the page, such as the headline, brand logos, product image or CTA.

It also makes the text more readable. No one wants to sift through a giant block of text. Adding bullet points is a great way to quickly communicate important information and utilize more white space.

Ultimately, more clutter doesn’t do much to unite the different elements of the landing page, so this approach ensures your pages drive more conversions.

Are There Any Other Elements You Use to Boost CRO?

There’s this almost religious debate among sales professionals: should you work with or without a script?

The answer is not either or, but instead do both!

What are the common arguments made against sales scripts?

Professionals who believe sales scripts don’t work often defend their position with these points:

Sales people don’t want to act and sound like robots.

Nothing worse than reading a sales script verbatim on the phone. You can’t build rapport that way, and it turns the creative part of selling into mindless assembly line work. This is how low-quality, high-quantity telemarketing works, but I trust that as a reader of this blog you’re not in the business of selling lottery tickets to random strangers over the phone.

Telling ain’t selling.

Sales people who work from a script typically listen less to the prospect, because they’re focused on the script, the anti-script proponents say.

Experienced high-performers dislike scripts.

You can’t hire top-notch sales talent if you expect them to work from a script. Experienced, successful sales people want to autonomy. They trust in their own ability to handle prospects more than in a written script.

Developing a sales script is tedious.

Writing a sales script is the kind of work most sales people would rather avoid. It’s a boring process that involves a lot of editing, structuring, slow detail work, which are all tasks that run counter to the natural DNA of most sales professionals.

Updating sales scripts are a piece of work.

A sales script isn’t like a great novel that you write down once and it’s done. Sales scripts need to be managed, maintained and constantly updated. You’ll need to continually revisit and improve it when your product changes, your market changes and you find opportunities to optimize.

I think most of the people who are anti-sales script simply don’t know how to use scripts effectively. They just see scripts being used badly, and assume scripts are intrinsically worthless. What they fail to see is that scripts, when used right, have many benefits.

Why you should be using a sales script.

Refine your methodology.

Sales scripts force you to really think things through. By developing a sales script, writing things out word for word, you bring structure and clarity into your thinking, and polish your process.

Raise your entire teams sales IQ.

You can create a constant feedback loop if you involve your whole sales team. Let reps share success stories, best practices and new creative ideas. There’s a lot of great sales knowledge in the room that typically is just stuck in someone’s head. By collaborating together, you get access to that vast reservoir of insights, and everyone benefits from that.

Improvements spread faster throughout your whole team.

When you have a sales script everyone is using, and one sales rep deviates and tries a different approach, and find it consistently performs better - that improvement now gets shared! The whole team learns this way, rather than it being just one creative sales genius. You continuously elevate the skill level of your whole team.

Less low performance days.

A lot of sales reps have strong fluctuation in terms fo results they deliver. Some days are amazing, and some days suck, and it’s very much dependant on the state of the individual sales rep. By having a script, you basically create a safety net for shitty days that prevents people to perform shitty.

Develop a scalable sales process.

You’ll train, manage and scale your sales team better. Building an effective sales operation is not about finding individual sales superstars. It’s about creating an all-star team. You don’t want to be the team that has the best individual players, you want to be the strongest team. A sales script helps you to bring new people up to speed faster, train and benchmark them better and just generally scale your sales faster.

Sales scripts empower your reps to be better listeners and be more creative.

If people have a good sales script, they are actually better listeners, not worse. A sales script frees your mind up to really pay attention to what a prospect is saying, because you don’t have to think so much about what you’re going to say next, you don’t have to constantly compute your own answers all the time.

Think of a basketball team: they train pretty much every single day. They practice their footwork, shooting, rebounding and dribbling day. When they play a game, they can perform more freely and creatively. Their brains take care of all the individual actions automatically, without conscious thought, so they can play the game on a higher level. The same is true for sales: you want your reps to have individual sales maneuvers so deeply ingrained that they always have at least one option to respond effectively to a prospect.

How to use a sales script effectively.

Develop a sales script. Involve everybody in the team in the initial creation of the script.

Train your sales reps to know the script by heart and really commit it to memory. Let them role play, practice and study it until you could wake them up 3 a.m. and tell them:

“Well, your product is great, but it’s just too expensive for us.”

And they’d respond without blinking: “At which price would you buy?” (Or however you handle the pricing objection).

Once they know the script inside out, you give them the freedom to experiment with their own approaches, trust their instincts and be better than the script. You don’t want sales robots, you want sales reps who bring in their own personality, ideas and creativity. But equip them with the mental sales tools they need to confidently face every situation in the first place.

Once or twice a month, have a team meeting where you all collaborate on improving the script. Discuss what works and doesn’t work, ask questions, bring in your own experiences and then edit the script so you come up with the next version. This continuous improvement will result in steady, unstoppable growth of your sales force.

tl;dr

Despite the many reasons sales script opponents cite, there’s tremendous value in developing and continuously improving your script.

Just don’t use it robotically, but mindfully. Require your sales reps to study the script, but give them the freedom to deviate and experiment with their own approaches as much as they want.

Regularly collaborate to improve the script and spread new learnings throughout your entire sales force.

Don't have a sales script yet?

While creating your first sales script can be a daunting task, we've made it as easy as it gets. Schedule three hours and use this quickstart guide - you'll have a solid minimum viable script ready real soon!

Looking at new ideas everyday has helped me see the value with respect to improving processes and generating new projects for our company. Why should I collect ideas from others?

Every day, we receive ideas or suggestions from upper management, our co-workers other managers. If you are not receiving ideas, you may be doing something wrong with respect to your management style. I’m serious when I say this. There was a time that I thought ideas only came from certain people. That is simply not a good approach in looking at ideas.

Client ideas are the best type of ideas to capture. Make sure you are listening to their underlying needs and see if you can make a difference in the way they conduct their business.

Collecting ideas from others, indicates a culture where people’s needs are taken into consideration. If you are a leader at your company, you are already doing this in some way to earn people’s respect.

How Should I Collect Ideas?

There are many ways to capture ideas: suggestion boxes, feedback surveys, meetings. The key here is that you, as the leader need to start. The great part is you can lead no matter where you are in the company. Some of the best idea generators come from average people at your company. The trick here is to listen and capture.

Suggestions For Capturing New Ideas

Keep a log book – Put in the date and the particular idea.

Try to package ideas together in a project – Continue to look for new project work at your company and incorporate as many ideas as you can.

Put ideas out there – Ask people for input on various ideas. Write the ideas on a whiteboard and let people read the ideas and think about them.

Continue to think revolutionary thoughts – Take someone else’s ideas and not only use them but build on them.

Summary

The key here is to capture and have a list somewhere to refer back to. Many times ideas are generated and discussed, but never acted on. If you want to build a culture around ideas, you need to see the process through from start to finish.

Getting prospective customers to do what you want them to do can be like herding cats. They abandon shopping carts before checking out, they don’t sign up for your beautifully written newsletter, and they don’t even have the common courtesy to read your blog posts all the way to the end.

However, there is hope. To get your prospects to do what you want, all you have to do is include a compelling call to action. Simple, right? Well, it’s actually harder than it sounds. Fortunately, there are many companies who have already done the hard work of A/B testing their calls to action, so you don’t have to.

In today’s post, I’m going to show you 11 kick-ass call to action examples, and explain why they work so well. So grab a coffee, a pen and paper, and get ready for the deluge of conversions you’re about to experience.

1. Crazy Egg – ‘Show Me My Heatmap’

We’re big fans of Crazy Egg here at WordStream, and not just because they offer a cool product. Crazy Egg’s messaging is also right on the money, as demonstrated by this compelling CTA:

Why It Works

This CTA hits several major marks. First, it establishes why trying out Crazy Egg is risk-free, using simple language that reinforces the safety of trying out their service.

It lists several reasons why you’d want to do this, using simple verbs. Finally, the CTA button itself (“Show Me My Heatmap”) taps into the power of using the voice of the customer, making it irresistible.

2. Manpacks – ‘Build a Manpack’

Speak your prospective customers’ language and you can get them to do pretty much whatever you want. Case in point, this call to action example from men’s grooming product site Manpacks.

Why It Works

On their own, underwear, razors, and condoms might not be terribly exciting, but appeal to men’s desire to build something and you’re onto a winning strategy.

By combining imagery that might otherwise be stereotypical (a man in a plaid shirt sawing timber) with strong phrasing (“Build a Manpack”), this company makes putting a male grooming gift box together sound as exciting as building a house – or a log cabin in the woods.

3. GiftRocket – ‘Send a GiftRocket’

Let’s face it – gift certificates and off-the-shelf greetings cards are pretty much the laziest ways to show someone you care. However, GiftRocket manages to combine the two into a surprisingly compelling package that can actually result in a decent gift for the people you love.

Why It Works

This CTA is so effective because it doesn’t ask you to “Sign Up Now” or “Get Yours Free,” but allows you to “Send a GiftRocket,” a much more interesting and exciting way to send a gift.

This landing page features simple yet striking imagery combined with short sentences and active verbs, resulting in a compelling experience. Why send a gift card when you can Send a GiftRocket?

4. Contently – ‘Talk to Us’

It’s no secret that Contently puts out some of the best content around, but their landing pages also incorporate some great calls to action.

The design of this landing page is a little unorthodox. Personally, I think they could get away with scrapping the “You’re interested in…” field, but the CTA itself – “Talk to us” – is brilliant.

It could have said something bland and generic like “Submit” (which would have been borderline criminal), but instead uses friendly, approachable language that reinforces the importance of relationships to Contently’s operation. It also hints at what prospects can expect from Contently, which is dialogue – not being sold to.

5. Less Accounting – ‘Let’s Do It!’

Getting prospects to take an action that might be perceived as risky – even if it will ultimately benefit their business – is really hard. This is especially true for SaaS companies, and even more so for firms offering financial software. This is why our fifth kick-ass call to action example, from Less Accounting, really shines.

Why It Works

This landing page makes use of a muted color palette to evoke calming emotions, but the CTA is what sets this example apart.

Yes, they’re asking the prospect to sign up a free trial of their accounting software, but the way they’ve asked – “Let’s Do It!” – is particularly compelling. Firstly, the CTA itself implies a partnership; they’re not just trying to get their hands on the prospect’s personal data. Secondly, the use of an exclamation mark conveys excitement about the product itself, which is quite an accomplishment, given the nature of the product. Overall, a great example of a kick-ass call to action.

6. Square – ‘Get Free Card Reader’

Offering something your prospects really want is a great way to increase conversions. If you can manage this, your CTA doesn’t have to be particularly innovative or exciting, as demonstrated by this landing page by Square.

Why It Works

This landing page itself appeals to small-business owners by highlighting the benefits of using their product, namely being able to accept credit cards for transactions – something that was previously out of reach for many merchants before Square came along.

The CTA itself uses simple language that can be successful for many types of business, as the inclusion of the word “get” is often highly motivating. The fact that Square doesn’t charge for its product is likely to be genuinely surprising to many prospects, which reinforces the value of the offer and makes it more tempting.

Between the minimal form (just three fields), the strong indicator of potential benefit (“Start accepting credit cards today”) and the great offer (the free Square card reader), this landing page/CTA combo is a winner.

7. Basecamp – ‘Give Basecamp a Try’

Everything about project management software platform Basecamp is designed with ease in mind. From the style and tone of its website copy to its minimal, approachable design, Basecamp intends to simplify life for project managers everywhere.

Basecamp’s call to action is another variation of a tried-and-true CTA – the free trial – but features some subtle, and effective, differences:

Why It Works

Basecamp’s CTA is effective because it simultaneously reinforces the risk-free nature of the free trial while using casually persuasive language. “Give Basecamp a try” is a lot less intimidating than something more direct such as “Start Free Trial Now.”

In fact, the CTA’s diction almost suggests a blasé attitude – sort of like, “What’s the worst that could happen?” This is precisely what Basecamp is trying to achieve, as they’re so confident that users will try (and subsequently love) the product, they don’t need to make an aggressive pitch with a potentially confrontational CTA. Very clever.

8. My Perfect Resume – ‘Create My Resume’

Writing a resume from scratch can be a pain in the ass, a fact that My Perfect Resume capitalizes on excellently with its service.

Why It Works

This call to action example, by itself, is very simple. However, its positioning alongside the step-by-step graphics above it make it extraordinarily clickable.

The one-two-three progression flow suggests that My Perfect Resume does the lion’s share of the work for you, making the “Create My Resume” button a very tempting proposition for people who lack the time or inclination to write their resume themselves. A great example of how a simple CTA, combined with graphical elements, can be very compelling.

9. Point Blank SEO – ‘Be Awesome’

Newsletter sign-up CTAs can be tough. Yes, you want prospects to “Sign Up,” but asking them to sign up is, well, boring. If you’re struggling to boost the readership of your newsletter, take a page out of Point Blank SEO’s book:

Why It Works

This CTA is highly effective for several reasons. Firstly, rather than ask you to click a boring “Sign Up,” or worse, “Submit” button, Point Blank SEO make signing up for their newsletter fun and even somewhat comical – after all, who doesn’t want to “Be Awesome”?

Secondly, it creates a sense of urgency and immediacy by using a direct call to action in an interesting way. This is reinforced by the navigational link to the Point Blank SEO blog to the right, which uses an exclamation mark to create excitement about a simple navigational element. Finally, the color scheme – bold orange and black – is visually striking, which further enhances the CTA and navigational cue to the blog.

10. KISSmetrics – ‘Log In With Google’

No blog post about calls to action would be complete without mentioning KISSmetrics. Arguably one of the simplest of these examples, this CTA from the KISSmetrics homepage is also one of the most persuasive:

Why It Works

Rather than launch into a detailed breakdown of KISSmetrics’ bells and whistles, the homepage simply explains what the platform does.

However, what makes this CTA so compelling is that it requires as little input and effort from the user as possible – just a URL. The “Log In with Google” button tells users exactly what they can expect, and makes it ridiculously easy for them to get started. The phrasing of the explanatory text also serves to pique users’ curiosity, and the mention of Google reinforces the prospects’ need for security – no mention of OAuth or any other verification technology necessary.

11. Quick Sprout – ‘I Want To…’

Our final kick-ass call to action example comes from Neil Patel’s Quick Sprout.

Similarly to newsletter sign-ups, encouraging users to engage with educational content can be challenging, particularly as this traffic might not necessarily be considered a qualified lead right off the bat. That doesn’t make these visitors any less valuable, but it does require a different approach.

Why It Works

To drive traffic to Quick Sprout’s educational content, the site utilizes two simple, yet highly compelling, CTAs – both of which manipulate prospects’ desire to solve a problem.

The first appeals to the more “selfish” goal of driving traffic to the prospect’s own website. Helpfully, this CTA button offers a suggestion based on the type of user, which makes it even easier to choose one of the two options (and reduces the likelihood that the prospect will bounce away without taking any action).

The second CTA reinforces the value that Quick Sprout’s educational content can offer to agencies and consultants by creating a deeper connection with the content itself by highlighting the payoff of learning. It suggests that, by reading (or downloading) Quick Sprout’s content, users can make themselves more useful (and, by extension, essential) to their clients, which strengthens the desire to become more effective at their job and capitalizes on their desire for greater job security or a bigger paycheck. Again, very clever.

Be Awesome

Well, that just about does it for this post. I hope these call to action examples give you some food for thought for your own CTAs. If you’re using effective variations on common CTAs, let us know in the comments.

Welcome to the first edition of our brand new weekly series, Break the Rules. Each week our plan is to highlight something you will have heard from some marketing expert as a best practice to be disobeyed at your peril. And we’ll tell you why it’s a rule you should break.

This week’s rule = Use Shorter Subject Lines

If you’ve ever read anything about email marketing, you’ll be familiar with this rule. Heck, it’s even one of my 50 Golden Rules of Email Marketing.

The concept is simple. Subject lines get cut off after so many characters when viewing them in many different email clients, such as Gmail or Outlook. So in order to get your message across, you should deliver it in as few characters as possible. I usually recommend no more than 60.

But more recently, studies have shown that better subject lines get more clicks, no matter how long they are. Subject lines that are “too long” often get more clicks if they are more meaningful than their shorter counterparts.

As it turns out, length may not be the most important characteristic of subject lines.

The goal of a subject line is to get people to open your email. Think of them as a headline, and the content of your email is the article that follows. You want the headline to get someone to read the article. So it has to promise value and be enticing. If you can do that in less than 60 characters, do it. But if you can’t, you should ignore that rule and use as many characters as you need to.

Next time you send a marketing email, A/B test two different subject lines. One should be short and sweet, and the other should be longer and more descriptive. Then tell me which one gets more people to open the email.

Have a “rule” you think we should write about? Share it with us in the comments below.

The Harvard Business Review came out with its list of the 100 best-performing CEOs on the planet last week.

Amazon head Jeff Bezos topped the list.

As we've mentioned before, the exec has grown his company's value to $140 billion in the 20 years the company has been around, and in that time Amazon has brought in a massive 15,189% on industry-adjusted shareholder returns.

But what's also compelling about Bezos is the degree he earned back in his days at Princeton University: a Bachelor of Science in computer science and electrical engineering. 

Many of his peers on the top-100 list have a similar background. A full 24 of the 100 best-performing CEOs have a Bachelors or Masters degree in engineering.

That's nearly the same number of people who earned the more traditional merit badge in business — 29 people on the list have MBAs. 

So why would an engineering education be nearly as well represented as an MBA? 

"Studying engineering gives someone a practical, pragmatic orientation," Harvard Business School dean Nitin Nohria told HBR. 

He should know: Nohria got his undergrad degree in chemical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai. 

"Engineering is about what works," he continued, "and it breeds in you an ethos of building things that work — whether it's a machine or a structure or an organization."

That much can be seen in the efficiency that Bezos has bred in Amazon, a place with an extreme emphasis on building the most customer-centric product possible, to the point that politeness and other social niceties are famously cast aside. 

But that's not everything that an engineering degree gives would-be leaders. 

"Engineering also teaches you to try to do things efficiently and eloquently, with reliable outcomes, and with a margin of safety," said Nohria.

"It makes you think about costs versus performance," he continued. "These are principles that can be deeply important when you think about organizations." 

SEE ALSO: The 25 Best-Performing CEOs In The World, According To The Harvard Business Review

Join the conversation about this story »

It occurred to me that amongst the Econsultancy blog team we certainly have our favourite companies as far as digital ambition and execution are concerned.

So I'm simply going to round up some companies that have done good things on this front and see if our readers get annoyed by any omissions or, indeed, inclusions.

So, here are 18 digital trailblazers. A lot of them are involved solely in ecommerce but not all of them.

N.B. I've deliberately excluded agencies and what I think of as tech companies, though that distinction is a little difficult to make in some areas.

AO.com

Graham Charlton, Econsultancy Editor, holds up AO.com as an example of ecommerce best practice.

Read his review of AO.com for detail on exactly what constitutes best practice at this white goods pureplay.

AO.com has also had success on social media, growing its Facebook following significantly, from 2,500 to 1m in the space of two years

Argos

Argos has to be included for a number of reasons.

Not only does its ecommerce site work very well indeed, but its click and collect service has been a bit of a pioneer in the industry and now accounts for 42% of online sales. Indeed, eBay now uses this service in a tie-up deal across 650 stores that brings in around half of Argos' referral traffic.

On top of this, Argos stores are being revamped, featuring tablets instead of catalogues and digital displays at the same time as trying to improve the quality of face-to-face service.

The retailer has also explored digital technologies such as augmented reality in its catalogues, whilst ensuring that important functionality, such as a slick mobile app, is prioritised. In a sign of a business that's confident online, Argos also finds room to create digital pilots or one-offs, such as a Christmas gift guide site from 2013.

ASOS

OK, another pureplay, but we're often delighted by little features and content that ASOS produces, not just the bigger picture of a well-oiled persuasive website.

Highlights include content, such as its #bestnightever campaign which garnered 5.6m positive acts of engagement across social media platforms. Indeed, ASOS's website redesign in 2013 put content at the heart of the homepage.

Social is fertile ground for ASOS with Pinterest, as an example, allowing the retailer to rack up 122,000 followers at time of writing.

On-site features such as a fit visualiser and creative product video are the types of functionality that still separate the men from the boys when it comes to ecommerce.

ASOS's 2013 redesign put content at the heart of the homepage

Booking.com

Booking.com makes my list, again for persuasive ecommerce design as championed by Paul Rouke on the Econsultancy blog.

Check out his posts for many insights into how Booking.com achieves it.

Burberry

We've all heard about Burberry's investment in digital, and what with Angela Ahrendts' departure to Apple, Burberry has obviously made waves.

Although I've found not all of the brand's web properties are beyond reproach (its personalised fragrance site didn't work on mobile, for example, see below), it's Burberry's ambition that is to be saluted.

A lot of this ambition is manifest both in store and in its support of new artists and live events. In store, high fashion is the perfect arena to experiment with technology and Burberry has done it in a way that hasn't felt superfluous.

From clientelling (asking a customer to log-in and identify their history with the retailer in order to tailor an in-store experience) to RFID tags in clothes allowing accurate stock check but also activation of 'video mirrors' in changing rooms.

It's doing well on social, too, as seen at 2014's London Fashion Week.

@danbarker I liked it but once I've added my initials it tells me to order from a desktop computer. I'm sat at one though, so can't complain

— Ben Davis (@herrhuld) September 2, 2014

GDS

It's not a company as such and it's probably defined as a tech organisation, but even so I had to include UK's Government Digital Services for the groundbreaking work it's been doing in service design.

From its style guide to its agile methods of working, the team has rapidly redesigned many features acoss the Government's diverse remit. Whether you're paying council tax, renewing a passport or investigating the NHS, GDS is making it less of a headache.

The transparency and invitation for feedback in the work undertaken is refreshing and, more importantly, effective.

GE

On the Econsultancy blog team we used to notice GE pop up in the early days of Vine and Instagram video and this is surely a sign of a brand wanting to try new things in content and social.

Indeed, this is where GE excels. Its YouTube videos called GE Masterclasses are the finest examples of combining brand with education and humour (see below).

The content on GE's owned media is similarly fun and easy to interact with, eschewing white papers for bright articles, gifs and more. 

The Guardian

The Grauniad is the first company I think of for innovation and excellence in publishing. Partly this is because of its development team, the silky app, the way the website puts out new features in beta such as responsive content and the mastery with which the design team handle graphics and interactive features.

But it's also the way The Guardian is pragmatic and is killing sacred cows when it sees fit. With its own native advertising unit set up to unite audiences and brands, The Guardian is ensuring revenue streams are taken advantage of.

When it comes to content, the paper always goes for the story but at the same time weighs up SEO benefit and international audiences. The paper's success with the Snowden unveiling, Scottish independence election coverage and many more have allowed it to built big traffic figures from the US in particular.

IKEA

A Qubit UX study showed IKEA to be second top out of a selection of homeware retailers when it came to online experience.

However, the retailer came top for 'choosing' and 'buying', two pretty important categories. The website's search functionality and product pages are both very good.

Elsewhere, buying furniture is one of the few areas where augmented reality has a cast iron use case and IKEA uses it to allow customers to picture items in their homes.

IKEA has been innovating on Facebook, too, where it has enjoyed many successful campaigns. One of its early efforts in 2009, pre Facebook competition rules, is legendary for its gamification of the platform, allowing users the chance to win items in a showroom if they tagged themselves on the related item in a photograph (see below).

Check out the brand's latest apeing of digital technology where it points out that perhaps there's a place for browsing through sheafs of paper.

John Lewis

John Lewis is consistently ranked highly for customer satisfaction, in recent years losing out only to Amazon within retail.

The company's long line of massively anticipated Christmas TV ads have debuted on YouTube in recent years and generated enormous social buzz, contributing to much multichannel activity. Christmas 2013 saw online sales up 22.6% with a massive 75% of these on mobile or tablet devices.

The retailer also has a healthy attitude to attributing online sales. In the words of Sean O'Connor:

..shops and online sales are all part of our total catchment sales. This enables the shop team to see how they in their shops contribute to the overall catchment result.

It has helped us break down any barriers for Partners. For us it is not whether a customer shops online or within a shop, it is all about customers shopping with John Lewis.

UX has always been done well at John Lewis online. Here's a piece from David Moth looking at what the brand was doing well in 2012. A lot of the features and salient points still seem fresh in 2014.

LEGO

LEGO is a universally loved brand and it makes it on to my list because of its use of social media to create communities around the product.

Obviously, The LEGO Movie did nothing to harm awareness of the toy, but the breadth of ideas for competitions and community involvement on social media ensures the big LEGO fans are kept engaged.

The fact that LEGO Ideas allows Joe Public to get their LEGO idea actually produced (and to share in the profit) is about as far as customer experience can be taken in my opinion. Check out our interview with LEGO's head of social strategy.

Manchester City

This is a case of digital chiaroscuro. As good as City is (and as much money as it is spending on digital), its rivals are often abject.

That's starting to change slowly and it shouldn't detract from the great things Manchester City have been doing.

There's a great app for mobile and optimised for tablet (below). The club excels on a range of social media networks, notably getting traction through Google Plus when other clubs hadn't yet touched the platform. It's also doing well with email.

Here's a Q&A with two of City's digital marketing team.

Schuh

Schuh have long been a favourite of ours at Econsultancy. By no means the biggest shoe retailer, Schuh manages all of its development out of its head office in Livingston, Scotland.

With a modestly sized team it hits a lot of ecommerce and in-store best practice nails right on the head.

The retailer has a mobile first strategy. It's using in-store tech sensibly to improve operations and customer satisfaction. And the love it receives from its customers is commensurate, often playing out over social media.

Love my new converse! I also love the great service I received when buying them at @schuh today! #schuhsday pic.twitter.com/9qX5cGuI84

— Rebecca Barber (@BeckyyRayy) April 8, 2014

Starbucks

An easy and obvious choice? Maybe.

Still, it's amazing to think that payment by the Starbucks app has now been happening for five years. In the first two years they took 26m transactions via this method alone.

Geofencing and ordering on the go is surely not far behind.

We've also praised the coffee shop for its communications, including email and social. The fact that Starbucks adopted Wi-Fi in store relatively early means it must now have lots of data on its customers, at least in those places where one has to log in to use the service.

We're excited to announce @Tweetacoffee, a new way to share the gift of Starbucks: http://t.co/E9OKYKYyV8

— Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) October 28, 2013 

Volkswagen

Volkswagen stands out for its usable website (in contrast to many others in automotive), bold content marketing and success with video that does well on TV and online.

Walmart

OK, Walmart is another massive company. Yet it isn't resting on its laurels. Another trialler of geofencing, Walmart is also using push notifications.

It does what retailers of this size would consider the basics right, too, like mobile checkout and dynamic pricing online.

All this is partly down to a company culture that has led to the creation of a lab to enable innovation.

Zappos

Zappos is an oft-used case study for great customer service and rightly so.

Recognition for staff and service for customers make this a rare company, one that still fits the age of mission statements and empowered communities.

Read Graham Charlton's article on how the company does it.

The retailer has also long championed free shipping and returns and understands well the psyche of the customer when shopping online for shoes and clothing.

Three Squirrels

I thought it worthwhile including a Chinese retailer. Three Squirrels is pretty much a cartoon network monetised by selling nuts. Well, it's a nut retailer that has created brand mascots and a whole visual identity around the brand that's symptomatic of the Chinese market.

The videos are popular on Youku and nut buyers are referred to as owners, rather than customers.

LINGsCARS

A last nod goes to LINGsCARS. Decide for yourself (click through below), but read Paul Rouke's meditation on the website.

Sometimes a new client just lands in your lap. And sometimes you have to work harder than usual to make a sale. Wouldn't it be nice if they were all effortless—that buyers quickly get to know, like, and trust you?

It actually can be easier if you follow a few practices that show you have the greatest expertise and the best solution to resolve buyer challenges. Here's a look at a few things you should do:

Content marketing is a very powerful digital marketing tool that businesses of all sizes can leverage to drive not only significant brand awareness but leads and sales conversions as well. With up to 76% of companies in the B2B arena owning one, blogs have proven to be a very effective content marketing tool for business, as confirmed by up to 52% of professional digital marketers.

Business blogging is geared towards providing your brand and business not only with greater online visibility but also a means of interacting or engaging directly with targeted audiences online. As more and more businesses are gearing up towards a boost in their content marketing campaigns through their blogs, its high-time small business owners who have not yet initiated their own campaigns to start doing so.

If you are still very skeptical about the powers of business blogging, then the following reasons should convince you to start taking action – and start churning content for your business blogs.

The infographic (click to zoom):

Embedded from Digital Marketing Philippines.

Making money on Twitter requires more than just creating an account and posting promotional messages. This post gives you real advice for how to make money using this popular , fast-moving social media site.

How can I write an article on how to make money on Twitter with confidence? Because I’ve done it myself on many occasions through various ventures and helped my clients do so:

- I’ve sold books (print, eBooks and Amazon Kindle books) using Twitter

- I’ve found new clients thanks to Twitter

- I’ve helped my Twitter clients attract more customers to their businesses (on and offline)

- I’ve sold affiliate products on niche websites with the help of Twitter

- I’ve gained new email newsletter subscribers through Twitter

Some people believe that all they have to do to make money on Twitter is create an account and start posting ads or links every day. That’s simply not the case. Here is a quick rundown of the steps to making money on Twitter.

Create a Mini Twitter Marketing Plan

Before you start using your Twitter account to make money, it’s important to take the time to create a mini-marketing plan. Know exactly how and why you’re using Twitter for business. When I’m creating my Twitter marketing plan I simply focus on answering five questions, which includes the 4 Ps of marketing:

-          Who’s the target audience (gender, age, interests, location, etc.)?

-          What am I selling and what value does it have to my Twitter followers? (Product)

-          Where are people going to purchase my product or service? (Place)

-          What is the price point of what I’m selling on Twitter? (Price)

-          How will I promote this product or service on Twitter? (Promotion)

How to Make Money on Twitter

Once you’re clear about these details, you can go forward to craft your Twitter profile and bio, write appropriate tweets and choose the right people to follow. Do this for every venture you have planned.

Optimize Your Website or Blog to Convert Quick Sales

I talk about this topic in an entire section of my eBook, Easy Twitter Marketing Tips for Business Success. Once you get someone on Twitter to click to your website or blog, you’ve got just a few seconds to grab their attention. Make sure that your site is optimized not only to hold their attention, but also to give them an easy way to click to buy your product or service (such as sidebar and in-text ads).

Mix Valuable Tweets with Your Promotional Tweets

As mentioned earlier, you don’t want to post ad after ad on Twitter every day — that’s just annoying to your followers and will likely get your account blocked, muted or unfollowed. The best strategy to make money on Twitter is posting a nice mix of non-promotional tweets along with your promotional tweets that advertise your products or services.

I suggest posting no more than one promotional tweet to every five or six non-promotional tweets to keep your followers engaged. A note to retailers: coupons and deals work best when posting on Twitter.

Write and Post Informational Blog Posts

I’m always pleasantly surprised by how many clicks my blog posts receive when I post them on Twitter. All that you need is an attention-grabbing blog post title and subject matter that will “Motivate, Educate, Enrich or Entertain” them (read my eBook to learn more about my M.E.E.E. theory). Once you have your Twitter followers clicking around on your website or blog, you have a much better chance of converting them into buying customers.

Use Twitter Ads Strategically

If you want to make money on Twitter, consider the value of investing in Twitter Ads to hasten your goals. Twitter Ads offers a number of objectives to business users, but if your ultimate goal is to start making money, focus on one or more of following objectives:

-          More Followers

-          More Website Clicks or Conversions

-          More Leads on Twitter

Twitter offers a number of options for setting up your campaigns that allows you to target the people who are most likely to be interested in your products and services. Whenever I initiate a Twitter ads campaign for my clients, their website clicks and impressions go up significantly.

Give it Some Time

Twitter is all about instant information and entertainment, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to get instant results from your efforts to make money on Twitter. Be patient and remain consistent — it could take a few months, a year or more to start seeing a regular profit from your Twitter promotions, but it will happen.

Let’s start with some introductions. Content Marketing, meet Software Development, whose job is to continually deliver high-quality, functional software. And Software Development, meet Content Marketing, whose job is to continually deliver high-quality content that has an impact. You have some big things in common.

One of the most helpful shared topics is how to run “The Factory.” For content marketers, it’s the Content Factory, and for developers, it is the Product Factory.

Incredible time has been devoted to increasing the throughput and quality of content or software development. The number of new tools, new processes, new practices, new paradigms, and new philosophies is increasing rapidly. However, one revolution in software development stands out, above all else, over the last 20 years: the rise of Agile software development.

Agile is rooted in a set of core principles, which were first codified in 2001. The principles have been adopted in several software development practices with names like Scrum, Lean and Feature-driven Development. One of my greatest professional joys has been leveraging the core Agile principles and methodologies both in software development and, more broadly, in other business functions.

It all started when I was the CTO of a growth-stage software company and implemented Agile Scrum to increase our product development efficiency and effectiveness. I witnessed how changing to this model not only increased our pace of delivering new features, but also improved the quality of the final product. I was thrilled to see the team transform into a cohesive group of committed, empowered, dynamic teammates who reveled in their delivery of product. Based on this success, I took Agile practices to the company’s professional services team, and even to the executive team, as a way of accelerating business velocity.

Now is the time to shine the Agile spotlight on content marketing. We’ll start with the 12 Principles behind the Agile Manifesto, slightly reworded, from the original Agile manifesto. (All words changed to adapt for the content marketing audience are italicized.):

1) Our highest priority is to impact the audience through timely and continuous delivery of valuable content.

It all starts with the audience, the buyers, and the consumers, and delivering valuable content to them where and when it will have impact. This is the mission of content marketing and takes its worthy spot as the first principle.

2) Welcome changing requirements, even late in content creation. Agile processes harness change for competitive advantage.

It is never too late to halt or change the creation of a piece of content. It will happen – a customer case study will be compromised by an account management issue, a competitor will beat you to the punch on a thought-leadership topic, or the market context will shift and make your white paper outdated. It is far better to shift gears even at the last minute than to deliver something misaligned or irrelevant. Welcome the opportunity to get it right rather than be frustrated over the causes of change.

3) Deliver content frequently, from a couple of minutes to a couple of months.

Each channel or media format has its own nuances and time cycles for creation and consumption. From spontaneous social posts to long-form white papers, be clear and realistic about delivery-time cycles and expectations.

4) Business people and content creators must work together daily throughout the project.

Continuous dialogue around prioritization, progress, roadblocks, and needs with an informed and empowered delegate from outside the content team is essential to keeping the factory running at full steam. In software development, this role is filled by the product manager. In content marketing, this role is typically filled by the managing editor.

5) Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

Software developers and writers share many traits. They need to blend creativity with science. They need to collaborate, yet go heads-down with focus on their individual tasks. And they don’t like people looking over their shoulders and micromanaging them. Figure out what your content marketing team members need to be successful, provide it, and trust their commitment and motivation to get the job done.

6) The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a team is face-to-face conversation.

Ever notice how an internal email about a content asset can have 10 times as many words as the content asset itself? This is all too common and inefficient. Conversations – not more emails – will cure this inefficiency and remove ambiguity and misunderstanding among content creators and their subject-matter experts, product managers, etc.

7) Impactful content is the primary measure of progress.

Impact will be measured in different ways for different teams. But progress should be measured in metrics that drive the business and revenue, such as leads, conversion, sales, up-sells, and cross-sells, etc.

8) Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, content marketers, and audience should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.

A well-tuned factory can produce at a predictable, sustainable, and high-throughput capacity. Sustainability prevents burnout on the team and loss of quality at deadline crunch time. It is also important to think about sustainability of the audience. Why generate more content than the audience can actually consume?

9) Continuous attention to writing excellence and good production practices enhances agility.

High standards for writing lead to lower editing costs, better reusability, and an overall faster completion time. Likewise, rigor on asset production makes repurposing, rebranding, and content updates much more efficient. Can you repackage all your collateral with one update to a template? If not, there is a lack of efficiency to be fixed.

10) Simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount of work not done – is essential.

Keep things simple, avoid unneeded cycles, and create straightforward processes. For example, do not have content creators putting pen to paper without full clarity on what they are creating – the difference between a writer having full persona profiles or not can be a factor of two in terms of time and cost to generate a piece of content.

11) The best ideas, content creation, and production emerge from self-organizing teams.

You will get greater results by giving 10 tasks to an empowered five-person team than by assigning two tasks to each of the five people. Self-organization leads to a culture of ownership and accountability, and is more adaptable and resilient.

12) At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

Continuous improvement is a hallmark of all Agile practices. Honest reflection and evaluation lead to improvements. Don’t be afraid to experiment, try new things, or stop doing things that aren’t working. What’s imperative is to instill team ownership of the Content Factory – everyone on the team needs to be part of the process evolution, not just following orders from above.

These Agile principles are just the start to understanding how an Agile methodology can be applied to your content marketing efforts. There are incremental gains from simply adopting one or more of these principles into your content marketing operations. Maybe one of these 12 items even solves a huge frustration point within your team or organization. However, the real magic of Agile happens when you practice it fully as your operational model.

Want more insight on how to manage today’s biggest content marketing challenges? Sign up for the Content Marketing Institute Online Training and Certification program. Access over 35 courses taught by experts from Google, Mashable, SAP, and more.

Cover image by Peter Griffin, Publicdomainpictures.net, via pixabay.com

The post Go Agile: Adapt 12 Principles to Content Marketing appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

Over 300 million members in 200 countries use LinkedIn as a favorite professional social network, a way to connect with both friends and potential employers. But if you consider it merely a job search and recruiting tool, you’re missing out. LinkedIn is the single most powerful tool for business development and sales leads—if you know how to use it. Lucky for you, we do. Let’s get LinkedIn to work for you.

Before we can start, there are three preliminary steps you must take:

Create your profile with your audience in mind.

Under your profile summary and the description under your current job, write a small “pitch” on behalf of your company…while still conveying who you are as a person.

For instance, you might say, “I have been a sales and business development professional for the last ten years, and it is my personal mission to ensure customers have the best possible experience when they work with my company. If your company needs to convey its strategic value to its target clients, call me. My company can help yours shine.”

Make it easy to contact you: Add your email, Twitter, and even phone number to your profile.

Connect to your existing contacts.

Ideally, you should be linked to more than 500 connections. Your colleagues, former and present, should be the first people you contact. Quality counts as much as quantity. Make sure you are linked to a few leaders of your industry…even if you don’t know them personally.

It may take time for some people to accept your invitations. Be patient.

Join relevant Groups.

Join up to 50 professional associations, industry groups, alumni groups, or geographically specific groups. Remember to focus on the most popular ones in your field.

LinkedIn’s search algorithm gives you results that are displayed in order of keyword relevance, as well as your degree of connection. Those who are first-degree connections come first, followed by second-degree connections (you know at least one person in common), followed by people with whom you share a group, followed by 3^rd degree connections and those you have no connection with. Therefore, joining all the right groups is crucial to adding connections.

Once you have set your account up for success, you can leverage the Advanced search of LinkedIn, a powerful tool for reaching the right decision-makers.

To do this, click on the word “Advanced” next to the small magnifying glass icon on the top of the screen.

On the next page, you’ll see the “Relationship” section in the middle. It will default to only selecting 1^st/2^nd/Group-level connections. Be sure to select 3^rd degree connections to get all results.

Here’s where the fun happens:

Search for your future client by job title and company name. If you want to find all the chief technology officers at Aetna, you can complete that exact search. (To make sure you are getting search results of only people currently at Aetna, select “Current” under “Company.”)

Search by a specific phrase, using quotation marks. For instance, if you are searching for alumni of Columbia University, you can do an Advanced Search and enter list “Columbia University” (in quotes) to get alumni of Columbia University. If you search just for Columbia University (no quotes), you will find alumni of the University of British Columbia and several other unrelated schools.

You can use Boolean search terms as well— “OR” “AND,” or “NOT” (in all capital letters). For example, perhaps you want to search for CTOs and CIOs at Aetna. You can enter, under “Job Title,” the following search string: “Chief Technology Officer” OR “Chief Information Officer” OR “CIO” OR “CTO.” To generate a list of CIOs in the oil and energy industry within 50 miles of Houston, you can search by job title and delimit by industry and zip code.

Note: If a contact is a 3^rd degree connection, you can either upgrade and send InMail, or copy and paste the person’s “headline” and first name into Google, which usually reveals their full profile and a “Connect” button.

Within your search results, look at the left-hand side of the page. You can also find the top five current companies of people with certain job titles, which can help you expand your search:

You can also look under company pages to find other companies that “people also viewed” to find similar companies and key groups:

And for many individual people in your search results, you can find “people similar to” and “people also viewed” for that contact person—all great sources for additional leads.

Here is an example of “people similar to”:

And “people also viewed”:

Once you find your ideal target, you have to connect with them. To connect, be sure to click to view the person’s full profile (clicking the “Connect” button from the search results page—or from the mobile app—will not allow you to customize your invite message).

Finally, write your crucial introduction message, something like, “Does your company need a secure, cloud-based platform for sales management, which allows for your sales team to connect from their mobile devices? I’d love to tell you more about our new software that is perfect for mid-sized companies like yours.” If the invite is accepted, you can follow up with a longer message and a request to chat.

The rest is business history.

Are your lead generation efforts lacking? Are you not sure why you don’t get as many leads as you should?

You might be doing the same things again and over again. If these strategies don’t pan out, you need change your views and try something different.

For example, are you not getting the sales and clicks from your email marketing or your on page time for your blog posts are low, change things up. This means thinking differently about your marketing and finding different ways to generate more leads and convert them into sales.

Try some direct mail – In today’s online world, not too many marketers use or even think about direct mail. It’s usually a multitude of online areas, but using this avenue can bring big results. Since email and other online messaging can get caught in a busy decision maker’s spam box, direct mail has a more direct approach – offline. In fact, many B2B marketers still use direct mail as a main lead generation source for their business.

Don’t forget calls to action – Many marketers organize their blogging well; send out emails and occasionally use landing page, but don’t include a call-to-action in their messaging. Sure, some might, but it could be a weak one or they may use passive words for lead generation.

Instead, use active messaging words and tell them what they should do. Get them to do it and you’ll see more conversions from all your marketing efforts.

Use social media – Social media isn’t just about selfies and hashtags, you can really boost your lead generation efforts with the right social strategy. Sure, it may take more time than other marketing tactics, but the payoff can be huge. Not to mention, social can help with brand awareness and other important marketing objectives.

A few ways to use social media for lead generation could include:

• • Link to landing pages
• • Use social media WITH your marketing – not in place of it
• • Put calls to action in your social profiles
• • Focus only on where your audience is; don’t get on every social network out there

Offer your audience incentives – Another great way to improve your lead generation and conversions are offer up some incentives. Many look for the deal and their motivation peaks with something that saves them money. To make this work, try different types, including time sensitive offers to instill a sense of urgency to act.

Boost Your Lead Generation Efforts

Generating leads from your marketing efforts don’t always need to come from the same ideas. Mix things up and try some old or new or different options to boost lead generation and your bottom-line.

It’s hard to get SEO right because search engine algorithms are so complicated, not to mention, forever changing! Fortunately there is one thing you can count on: search engines focus on creating the best possible user experience. If you make this your focus too your SEO will sky-rocket!

So where does Content Marketing come into this?

Content marketing is the latest generation of marketing. It’s the process of making marketing interesting and engaging in order to capture the attention of your ideal audience. And it works! 93% of marketers use content marketing, and it has been proven to generate 3 times more leads than other strategies!

High Quality Content

Content marketing is maturing with time. It’s no longer acceptable to stuff your webpage with keywords. Nowadays, content has to be of the highest quality to feature on the first few pages of search engines. Obviously, what is considered as high-quality content will differ from person to person. Some people may fall in love with a glossy video like this one we made around the time of the World Cup (it managed to clock up over 17000 views — and counting!).

Others may be attracted to a blog or ebook bursting with rich text and topical facts.

To improve SEO, your content should always be relevant to your site and interesting to users. It’s important to point out that content marketing is not about generating direct sales, it’s about raising awareness. The content you create should be shareable and appeal to your current users and potential ones.

You’re only as strong as your weakest link!

If you can build links correctly within your content you’ll have a very powerful tool to improve your SEO. Like with keywords, your links need to be very relevant, and used sparingly.

Getting backlinks to your site is great for improving your SEO, but that doesn’t mean you should link to just about anyone! If you link to dodgy sites, or sites that are filled with low quality content then you will be tarred with the same brush, and your search visibility will be seriously damaged. To make the most of your content marketing you need to link to a variety of high-quality sites. Another factor that can make your links appear weak to a search engine is linking to the same web address several times. Once is enough to get the job done, try to leave it at that.

Internal links are great too! They can improve your SEO, as well as your brand awareness because the user is already viewing your content, and may want to see more. It’s easy to create subtle links that do not distract users away from the content they are viewing. For example, if you want to see photos of the beautiful Wyzowl team you can click the highlighted word. If you don’t want to see, you can carry on reading without interruption. And, if you do click the link then the page will open in a separate tab anyway so that you can still return to the original content. Win-win.

Brand Awareness

Using content marketing will increase your brand awareness, and in turn, it will definitely improve your SEO, because more people will be searching for you, engaging with your site, and sharing your content. This blog has been quite word-heavy, and we congratulate you for researching hard on how to improve your SEO through content marketing! Your reward? The coolest content marketing examples we could find from some awesome brands!

The Microsoft Stories Blog is always fun! Click here to check out this interactive post about their new Xbox One game ‘Project Spark’!

Fashion designer Lauren Conrad created this infographic to get brides excited about their big day, and even more excited about her website.

Budweiser’s videos never disappoint, and they are always shareable! From the talking frogs, to the annoyingly popular Wazzup!, to their latest ad – this lovely puppy video that we can’t stop watching!

This simple yet emotional video has already reach almost 20 MILLION views on YouTube!

And the thing that links all of this content marketing magic together?

Consistency!

It’s imperative that you are consistent with your content marketing if you want to improve your SEO. Google hates sporadic bursts of content — it makes you look shifty, and like you’re cheating the system. For example, if you have no backlinks to your site for a month, and then you randomly have thousands overnight, Google will make the likely estimation that you have obtained them by unfair means, and your ranking will heavily drop.

Having a consistent plan will also help you to effectively manage your content marketing, and assist you in gaining a base of anticipating users to engage with your content. Different brands have different marketing needs and it’s important to discover yours. Should you post a blog every week, or every month? Or, should you stick to visual content?

Here at Wyzowl, we specialize in content marketing, from engaging infographics, to shareable videos, to blogs like this one! We create tailor-made plans depending on your brand image, your audience, and the message that you want to reflect. We’d love you to check out our examples page and let us know what you think. If you like what you see, give us a call and get 10% off your first months content!

Data, data and more data: As content marketers, social media managers and journalists, we’ve been taught to love it. And yes, data like page views, followers and clicks can be valuable. But I’m here to tell you there is so much more to a successful content marketing program than metrics.

When Google announced in September 2013 that it would begin encrypting nearly all keyword data, marketers collectively panicked. Within a few days, the content marketing world was talking about how “this is actually a good thing” and “it was never really about keywords anyway.”

That’s fine to say on Twitter, but it never felt authentic. We all knew this marked a major shift in the way we measure and report for clients, bosses and investors.

For a long time, keywords were easy to measure. Even mediocre SEOs could whip up a nice-looking bar graph that showed how well a site was ranking for search terms. But that’s over and we, the content marketing faithful, need to take a hard look at how we measure our work.

For years, humans have been held captive while the robots ran wild. It’s time to reintroduce humans to their natural habitat.

Lead with content, not bait

I read a blog post recently that changed the way I think about content. Andy Beaumont, the technical director at Albion London, wrote about his accidental viral blog Tab Closed; Didn’t Read in a Medium post.

In it, he describes his frustration with marketers’ desire to overlay content with calls to action and completely obscure the content that people have come to read in the first place. “Why would anyone in their right mind hide the content that visitors are there to see?” asks Beaumont.

Analytics, he says, “prove” that overlays work, but any reader will tell you they are simply intrusive.

Analytics will show you rising graphs and larger numbers. You will show these to your boss or your client. They will falsely conclude that people love these modal overlays.

For the record, overlays are an imperfect science. They work but they also annoy more people than they convert. We are still experimenting with the best ways to use them.

The transition to better analytics starts by trying to understand the story behind the numbers. Even if the metrics show rising numbers, it doesn’t mean you are creating more value.

Metrics might help you highlight short-term gains but without a mutual understanding of their meaning, they likely cannot help you instill faith in your client that your work is delivering value.

Let’s say, for example, that you can attribute real value – leads, sales, a new monetization strategy, etc. – to your recent work but see a decline in an important metric like organic search or bounce rate. Are you failing or succeeding? Keeping your eyes on the prize will help you move past numbers that don’t directly impact the bottom line.

Invest time in defining goals and measuring outcomes

Data or no data, you need concrete goals in order to measure success. Challenge yourself to think in terms of micro-wins and overall value as opposed to clicks and +1’s. Yes, they can be meaningful, but let’s look at new ways to measure content.

• The Micro-Win. Comments are one of the highest forms of engagement on the web. If your post moves a reader to leave additional information, ask a question or even troll your site, you might be on to something. If you’re truly leading with content, readers will comment often. In fact, if your content isn’t spurring discussions in the comment thread, you are doing something wrong. There are many forms of micro-wins. For example, it is easy to show the value of a Twitter mention from a key influencer. Maybe this only happens now and then, but it’s proof that your content is resonating with the right people.
• The New Value Proposition. In the attention economy, content is currency and it’s a buyer’s market. Marketers need to accept that their content will make up only a fraction of their readers’ day if they are lucky enough to be noticed. If you can nab five minutes of someone’s time on the web, you are succeeding. Instead of thinking about cumulative counts – like page views and followers, which are nearly meaningless in the battle for attention – think about time. A high Time on Page is considerably more meaningful than lots of views in this paradigm.

The bottom line: Define what value means to your reader before you define what value means to your business.

Take a day off from analytics

I challenge you to dedicate a day to the post-analytics world: no Google Analytics, no Buffer stats, no Moz and no Raven Tools. I love each of these tools but sometimes you need to spend time with people, not numbers.

Instead, use that time to:

• Talk with your followers on Twitter and find new, interesting people to follow.
• Exchange content ideas with other marketers in a forum. (I’m personally a big fan of Inbound.org and GrowthHackers.com.)
• Find the other sites your readers visit and study them.
• Sift through your comments and Twitter mentions to get a better understanding of your current readers. You think you know them, but I bet you’ll learn something.
• Identify your biggest fans and figure out how they found and fell in love with your content.
• Look for the most valuable piece of content in the last year. Not the most viewed, the one that had the most impact.
• Write down your goals for the next twelve months.

It’s an exciting time for content marketers. We want to hear how you are measuring, delivering and showing value. Let us know in the comments.