A salesperson is never going to close 100% of their deals, just like a baseball player isn't going to hit 100% of the pitches thrown to him. Perfection is simply not possible in either case. But just like a hitter training to bump up his batting average by a few percentage points can
Google executives gave an update on how well their attack on one of Microsoft's most important businesses is going:
Pretty well.
Google executives say the company is getting over 1,800 signups per week for its $10 per user/per month Google Drive for Work cloud service.
This service gives users unlimited cloud storage, email, and access to what used to be called Google Docs, its alternative apps to Microsoft Office, i.e. a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation software, etc.
Google's chief business officer, Omid Kordestani, explained:
Finally, we’re seeing remarkable momentum in our newer non-ads businesses, whether it’s Play, Hardware or Google For Work, we continue to see strong growth and we’re thrilled to be a platform for our partners' successes as well.
For businesses, what was called Google Enterprise, is now simply Google for Work. This business has great traction. In addition to the tremendous growth in our [Google Play] apps business, we have more than 1,800 signups for Google Drive for Work every week. Plus there are almost 250 billion active Google Drive users, including consumer, education and business users.
That's not to say that these people have completely ditched Microsoft Office.
When Google first announced this new pricing, it also admitted that many of the documents that people store in Google Drive are actually Microsoft Office documents.
But it's working on that. Google acquired a startup that made an app called Quickoffice back in 2012. Quickoffice lets you work on Office documents on iPads and Android devices.
When Google launched the new Drive for Work in June, it baked Quickoffice into the service so that people could create Office-compatible documents, or edit them, right from Drive on their Android or Chrome devices.
Meanwhile, Microsoft says its Google Drive killer, the cloud version of Office known as Office 365, is doing well, too. In July, it said it had 5.6 million users of its two consumer versions, Home and Personal.
It didn't release numbers for its business users, but Microsoft is set to announce earnings next week, and we expect to hear an update then.
SEE ALSO: Meet VMware, The Scrappy Company That Everyone Wants To Buy ... Or Crush
Do more –achieve more is a recipe for exhaustion and collapse. And you are probably tired of being tired, right? Doing more does not make you more productive or efficient. In fact, the more that you heap onto your plate, the less you are able to effectively manage. Your proficiency decreases.
Identify the essential and eliminate the unnecessary.
Learn to think creatively to find more effective ways of getting things done is nothing new- work smarter, not harder. Putting in laborious hours into your day doesn’t necessarily equate to powerful payoffs of valued activities. Just think of the wasted hours surfing the net or scrolling through social media updates. That is time used. Time wasted. Get the things done that add value and impact to your life and your business.
How is that possible?
It sounds pretty silly doesn’t it?
Kick start doing less:
How could you give up tasks and projects yet increase your productivity and effectiveness? Here’s the little secret …
D E L E G A T I O N
Entrepreneurs are accustomed to doing it all from changing printer ink, uploading tweets, proofing blog posts, and ordering supplies to curating content, creating images, retweeting and sharing content, and testing the latest social media apps.
This is just the short list of every day, mundane To Dos that eat up time and energy. Have you ever truly kept track of the hours you spend on the low payoff routine activities? What is your tally? 20+ hours perhaps?
This is time you are not working ON your business. If you aren’t, then who will? With only one person at the helm, there is only so far that you can scale. While it isn’t easy to relinquish some of your daily demands, it is a tremendous benefit to free up your valuable time and avoid burnout.
VALUED FOCUS
As a business owner you need to focus on the items that are of the most value to you and your company. Simply put, the things that YOU and ONLY you are capable of doing. The core business activities that: generate income, build relationships, nurture clients, develop new leads or foster a positive customer experience. You get the idea. Structure your day around these key elements.
Remember that old 80/20 rule?
Apply it here. You know that 20% of your efforts yields 80% of favored results. The trick is to determine what represents that 20% and DO MORE OF IT! Live and breathe that as your core genius.
The Pareto Principle, or “80/20 Rule” as it is frequently called today, is an incredible tool for growing your business. For instance, if you can figure out which 20% of your time produces 80% of your business’ results, you can spend more time on those activities and less time on others. This doesn’t mean that the low payoff tasks and projects aren’t useful or worthwhile to your business – they are. BUT, they don’t exemplify the best use of YOUR time.
You’re the CEO, not an employee. Of course it can be a challenge to step outside of that role, removing a few hats, and grabbing the reins. However, as the President you owe it to your company to take charge. You owe it to your clients and prospects.
If you buried deep in paperwork and social icons, how do you intend to shake hands and build long-lasting relationships? You all have a propensity to take on more work, do every task or project which leaves you overwhelmed and distracted. This cycle needs to stop before you do.
Don’t keep adding more work.
Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all. Peter Drucker
When you are able to focus on fewer things you increase your productivity and achieve better results. AND you want results. Every business owner does.
Ask yourself these questions:
You now have some key items or tasks that you have identified that do not need your focused attention. You have three options: do, dump or delegate. Make an executive decision on how you will manage or pass off these non-essentials. Consider what you will gain when you are no longer tied up doing some of the daily minutia.
Do less Achieve more!
What will you give up….. to gain?
I recently had the pleasure of hosting a webinar on lead generation strategies with the incredibly knowledgeable Tim Paige, Conversion Educator at LeadPages.
LeadPages is a dynamic software company headquartered in Minneapolis – and they’re growing fast. They just launched in 2012 and already have millions in revenue from over 30,000 customers. LeadPages hit a $3.5 million run rate nine months after launching and are now growing at a rate of about 20% each month.
Tim and I got together to share the lead generation strategies we’ve used to build our companies far quicker than most are able to achieve. My own company, WordStream, is now seven years old and has grown 677% in the last three years, to $6.6 million in annual revenue.
So how do you DO that?
Have a look at what LeadPages learned from processing over 4 million opt-ins a month and how WordStream used PPC to increase revenue and clients ten-fold in three years!
Webinars, free reports, live demos… don’t stop at just one or two opt-ins. Turn every blog post into an opt-in page. You can give away recipes, PDFs of your blog posts, worksheets, resource guides and more.
Get the opt-in box out of the sidebar and make a pop-up. Force users to make a decision. Do you want this or not? It’s easier to say no when the option is just sitting there in the sidebar and saying no is as easy as ignoring it.
In testing, this increased conversion by 32%.
You can’t make them say yes, but you don’t have to make it so easy for people to say no.
Getting great advice is a good thing, but it’s dangerous to think that because it worked for someone else, it’ll work equally well for you. That doesn’t mean you should ignore great advice, but that you need to test, test, test – and do it right.
Split test even where you think you don’t need to. Sometimes the results amongst your audience will seem counter-intuitive, but this is why testing is critical. In this test, for example, you might think the use of “my” or “your” would have little effect.
The treatment actually resulted in 24% fewer conversions!
Point of view can be impactful. In this test, changing “your” to “my” resulted in a 90% increase in conversions:
Other aspects you’ll want to test for are immediacy, concreteness, images, and more. Split test your headline, your button copy, and your background image. The results might surprise you, but you’ll be making better, more informed optimizations.
Tim shared their best-ever converting landing page; check it out:
Why is this so effective? Tim explained that it doesn’t require the user to process very much information, like a 3-minute video or a whole page of copy would. It outperforms a free report because a lot of people are feeling information overload and don’t want to download something even longer to read.
Video lead magnets have suffered an image problem lately, in part because of the proliferation of launches and lack of time. For these reasons, this landing page was a hot performer. It also helped that people genuinely want to know which tools other people are using and this fulfills that desire.
Anyone can do this – dentists, plumbers, architects, whoever. This type of page can be set up in under a half hour and is definitely worth trying out.
I’ve been saying this for a long time and it’s still true – most ads just suck. They’re boring, they’re all the same, and one isn’t any more compelling than another.
Take a look at these ads:
If you’re the searcher, you really have no reason other than price to choose one over the other. This is what I call an AdWords Jackpot for an advertiser. When everything looks the same, there’s a huge opportunity to come in with something different and blow the competition away!
Writing better ads can raise your CTR above the expected average, giving your Quality Score a boost.
Unless you’re one of the very top advertisers, there’s a ton of room for conversion rate improvement. In fact, the top 10% of landing pages have conversion rates 3x to 5x the average. How do they do it?
One creative way is to give better offers. This is far more meaningful than your typical, run of the mill optimizations – changing button color, font type, spacing, etc.
Every software company offers a free trial. Every plastic surgeon offers a free consultation. What do you have to offer that is unique, compelling, and offers real value to the visitor?
For WordStream, it meant rethinking our standard free software trial offer. We decided to offer a free AdWords Grader, instead.
Conversions went through the roof! We had found something non-committal that people could actually use and weren’t asking them to take all the steps of downloading, installing, and then actually using our software. To date, this has proven to be one of our most effective lead generation strategies.
If your conversions are 2% or lower, you need to try something drastic like changing up your offer big time. Small optimizations will beget small results. The top 25% of advertisers have an average 5.31% conversion rate and the top 10% are hitting over 11%, on average! You have a ton of room to grow.
Remarketing enables you to tag site visitors and get back in front of them as they go about their business around the web, checking their email, watching YouTube, searching Google, and even hanging out on Facebook.
It helps turns abandoners into leads, which is huge considering that 97% of people will leave your landing page without converting. Remarketing amplifies the effect of all of your other marketing activities – content marketing, social media marketing, etc. – by positioning you in front of your audience again.
Remarketing using the Google Display Network gives you 92% reach in the U.S., across millions of websites, videos, and devices. We’ve found that remarketing ads fatigue is about half the rate of regular ads, so be aggressive!
Tim and I have seen great success in our respective companies and at a far faster clip than average. If you want to grow and grow fast, you need to prioritize your lead generation strategies and use tactics like the ones we’ve recommended above to get as many qualified prospects as possible into your funnel.
The utilization of landing pages is crucial to develop a stream of online revenue. Businesses, small or big, should experiment with varied landing pages to understand the target market.
Landing pages are basically a targeted page where visitors are directed using methods like search engine advertisement, email marketing, social media marketing and so on. The purpose of a landing page is singular: to sell a value.
If you’re planning to create landing pages for a certain purpose, keep these optimization tips in mind.
Here we go:
The first thing that a landing page should never be is cluttered. Remember that it was created to serve a purpose. Filling the page with unrelated factors will dissolve it of its purpose.
Therefore, identify what you want to achieve with the landing page and make a list of items to be included in that page.
For instance, if you want email subscribers against a freebie such as an eBook or any software download, the landing page should include:
…that’s it! You don’t need anything else.
It is important to track the performance of landing pages. You need to know:
Tracking is unavoidable. It will help to calculate ROI. Tools like Google Analytics, Google Webmasters Tool, WordPress plugins like Thirsty Affiliates and endless number of tools are there to help in tracking.
For landing pages to deliver maximum results, get involved in experimentation through split testing. Split testing is all about creating the multiple versions of the same landing page and analyzing which version delivers the best results.
You will find that user response to these pages will vary, even if slightly. You may find users responding to a particular landing page more than others. The landing page which receives the best response should become your primary landing page.
A landing page isn’t a blog or a full website. As such, the content needs to be precisely targeted into communicating the intent of the page. It should be crisp, concise and self-explanatory. The landing page title should be attractive and optimized to grab the attention of the potential visitor.
I am sure you realise that the first thing a reader notices, despite what method of promotion is being used, is the title. Therefore, spend time on deciding the landing page title.
There are many more optimization tips for landing pages. But, these four should cover the basics. You can research further to know more on landing pages optimization.
The post How to Optimize Landing Pages for Better Result? appeared first on Blogging Tips.
Online video ads are one of the fastest-growing ad mediums, far outpacing growth in spending on television and other digital formats. Online video ad viewing exploded in 2013. Over 35 billion video ads were viewed in the U.S. in December.
Video ads provide a level of visual and narrative richness that nearly equals television, while offering all the advantages of digital, including advanced targeting, tracking, and increasingly, automated buying of video ad units.
In a new report from BI Intelligence we explore the key drivers of the skyrocketing growth of video ads, examine the cost and performance of the emerging digital ad format, and look at the major players that are shaping the industry.
Access The Full Report By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today »
Here are some of the key trends we explore in the report:
In full, the report:
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: 14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do
SAN FRANCISCO – Google Inc. is still pulling in money hand over fist, but Wall Street is hungry for the company’s next move.
On a conference call with analysts Thursday, after Google reported its third-quarter earnings, the questions came fast and furious: How will Google match Apple’s new payment system? Can YouTube topple television? Is Google serious about trying to challenge Amazon on same-day delivery?
The problem was that in the earnings report, the Internet giant showed signs that its ultraprofitable business in search advertising was starting to slow.
In almost every way, Google has become a victim of its own success. Its search engine remains dominant in desktop computers and mobile phones, and businesses like YouTube and the Google Play store are growing quickly. The company churns out billions in quarterly profit and has a US$60 billion cash hoard.
The thing that worries investors, though, is that the company’s golden goose – its search engine – is showing signs of age. Paid clicks on advertisements increased 17% in the third quarter compared with the same quarter last year. But in the second quarter, paid clicks were up 25% from a year earlier.
“Google’s core search business is the best Internet business model ever created,” said Jordan Rohan, founder of Clearmeadow Partners, a strategic advisory firm focused on Internet companies. “Every other business Google is in looks pedestrian by comparison.”
I think we just need to keep innovating and experimenting here to get it right
Another concern for analysts is the cost per click, the average price the company is paid each time a user clicks on an ad. The cost-per-click measurement has fallen for several years as people spend more time on mobile phones, which have smaller screens and are harder to place ads on.
In the third quarter, the cost-per-click measure again fell, down 2% year over year and flat from the second quarter.
Google executives get annoyed with analysts’ fixation on clicks and cost per click. Mobile advertising is still pretty new, they point out. It accounts for about 11% of U.S. ad spending, according to the research firm eMarketer. Even mighty Google is trying to figure it out.
“I think we just need to keep innovating and experimenting here to get it right,” said Omid Kordestani, Google’s chief business officer.
Google does not release figures for mobile ad revenue separately from desktop ad revenue, so it is hard to know exactly how Google is doing in this area.
Mobile is likely to be one of Kordestani’s chief business problems. During the conference call, the company announced that Kordestani, a longtime Google executive who stepped into the role after the departure of Nikesh Arora for SoftBank, will be in the job permanently.
Despite its challenges, Google remains a fast-growing business. Third-quarter revenue increased 20%, to US$16.5 billion. Net revenue, which excludes payments to the company’s advertising partners, was US$13.2 billion, up from US$10.8 billion in the same quarter of last year.
And the company is making money in many new kinds of ways. Google reported that “other revenue,” a large portion of which is Google’s Play Store, increased 50% from the same quarter of last year, to US$1.8 billion.
But research-and-development costs have soared, to US$2.7 billion from US$1.8 billion from the same quarter a year ago.
“People are certainly concerned about the expenses,” said Ben Schachter, an analyst with Macquarie Securities. “Revenue growth is slowing while the company continues to hire a significant number of engineers. As long as the core business holds up, that’s fine, but if the core slows dramatically, that’s a problem.”
Net income in the third quarter was US$2.8 billion, down from just under US$3 billion last year. But excluding the cost of stock options and the related tax benefits, Google’s profit was US$6.35 a share, compared with US$5.63 in the third quarter of 2013.
Overall, the earnings were somewhat short of expectations. The stock closed Thursday at US$524.51, down 1%, and it was down about 2% in after-hours trading.
People are certainly concerned about the expenses
Over the past year, Google has begun several programs to nudge advertisers to buy more mobile ads. The most significant, Enhanced Campaigns, forced advertisers to think about mobile by having them bid on ads across several devices at once instead of creating different campaigns for different devices.
Google also faces continuing problems in Europe, where it is being buffeted by slow growth, unfavorable currency movements and tax and regulatory problems that inspired a top German official to call for the company to be broken up.
Google’s long-running efforts to settle accusations by the European Commission that the company’s search results favor its own sites over those of its competitors have been delayed by the objections of powerful European publishers and U.S. rivals including Microsoft and Yelp.
Google has dispatched its executive chairman, Eric E. Schmidt, to mount a public relations offensive.
This week, in a Berlin speech that cited various inventors along with Mark Twain and Jennifer Lopez, Schmidt praised the success of Google’s competitors but suggested that their antitrust complaints were an impediment to global technological progress. Meanwhile, several European Union countries, including Britain, France and Germany, have questioned Google’s tax structure in Europe.
And Ireland’s government said it would close the “double Irish” provision that allows a number of companies, including Google, to reduce tax payments by making royalty payments for intellectual property to a separate Irish-registered subsidiary that, though incorporated in Ireland, typically has its home in a country that has no corporate income tax.
The New York Times News Service
RnordmanApp Buying Auctions -
I don’t say this often, but there’s a new app that just might dramatically change the way you shop, and it’s called Greentoe.
Actually, Greentoe’s been out of beta since last year on the Web, but it just released an iOS app for its service, which lets shoppers buy items at “market prices,” the lowest prices retailers are willing to sell an item for. It also raised $1 million in seed funding after its graduation from Y Combinator in August.
The thing about market prices is that while retailers are willing to sell at them, they’re not encouraged to advertise those prices. In the US, setting minimum advertised prices (MAPs, that is, minimum prices manufacturers request that retailers don’t sell below) has been ruled illegal, although it is still common practice for retailers to observe them.
As a solution, Greentoe started as a “name your own price” marketplace. On its site, shoppers find the product they’re looking for, submit the price they’d like to pay alongside a gauge that tells them the likelihood of a match, and a partner retailer accepts the offer. This way, retailers are avoiding advertising their MAPs, yet are still able to tacitly agree on them with shoppers.
“People don’t want to deal with haggling, but they also don’t want to get not the lowest price,” Greentoe co-founder Joe Marrapodi told VentureBeat in an interview
Greentoe’s new mobile app is taking this transaction idea to a new level. The app’s been designed in a way that enables both sides of the market to come to an agreement without spelling out their prices. It works thanks to a dial that shoppers press and slide; it turns green to signal they’ve reached an agreed price with the retailer.
Greentoe’s partner retailers are all authorized, which means that their customers receive manufacturer warranties on the items they purchase.
In terms of revenue, the company is currently taking a cut from the sales, between five and 15 percent on average. The company is currently processing “millions of dollars a year in gross sales,” according to Marrapodi.
Greentoe is taking on retail favorites like Amazon, whose prices it beats by 14 percent on average, Marrapodi said. Although Greentoe is mainly selling electronics, photography equipment, music instruments, appliances, and baby products, the company wants to expand to as many categories as possible.
“My vision is that we’re gonna be selling paper towels in five years,” Marrapodi said.
Greentoe is also in a unique position, as it is truly an independent marketplace unlike Amazon, for example, which fulfills a large amount of its orders, and therefore would benefit from not allowing prices below its own on the site.
“We are scratching the surface of a revolution, and that revolution is bringing market pricing to retail,” Marrapodi said.
Currently, Greentoe’s site gets about 100,000 unique visitors per month, and 34 percent of its customers come back for a second purchase. Photography and music items are Greentoe’s most popular categories right now, though the company will focus on building out its electronics category — arguably the category with the most potential — once it raises its next round of funding.
Greentoe’s investors include Y Combinator, Dave McClure, Anand Swaminathan, Eric Witte, Mikihiro Yasuda, Craig Albrecht, Parker Thompson, Kevin Yorn, Joe Marrapodi, and the Bodley Group, according to the company’s AngelList profile.
Greentoe was founded in 2012 by Andrew Kurland and Joe Marrapodi, and is relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area from Los Angeles.
Y Combinator is a venture fund which focuses on seed investments to startup companies. It offers financing as well as business consulting along with other opportunities to 2-4 person companies looking to take an idea to a product. Y Co... read more »
Greentoe.com is a next generation e-commerce marketplace that enables consumers to set the price for the products they want to buy. Created to change the way people shop, Greentoe shakes up the traditional retail model by putting consu... read more »
Apple didn't just unveil its new iPads on Thursday — it announced a separate, less advertised product that could mean trouble for wireless carriers.
With its new iPad Air 2, Apple customers will have the option of buying a cellular version loaded with the company's new "Apple SIM" card, as Dan Frommer at Quartz points out. A SIM card is that tiny piece of plastic in your phone that allow you to connect to a carrier's wireless network.
Typically, a SIM card is programmed to work with one specific carrier. So, if you buy a phone on a two-year contract from AT&T, it'll come with an AT&T SIM card inside. If you wanted to use that same phone on Verizon, you would have to buy a SIM card from Verizon and put it in that phone.
But Apple wants to change how that model works. Apple's SIM card works with multiple carriers, so you wouldn't have to purchase an iPad or SIM card from a carrier. To be clear, this isn't like simply buying an AT&T SIM card directly from Apple instead of AT&T. With Apple's SIM card, you can switch carriers whenever you please without having to commit to a two-year contract or make any purchases directly through the carrier.
Here's how Apple explains it on its website:
The new Apple SIM is preinstalled on iPad Air 2 with Wi-Fi + Cellular models. The Apple SIM gives you the flexibility to choose from a variety of short-term plans from select carriers in the U.S. and UK right on your iPad. So whenever you need it, you can choose the plan that works best for you — with no long-term commitments. And when you travel, you may also be able to choose a data plan from a local carrier for the duration of your trip.
With a device like the iPad, the impact on carriers likely won't be that significant. Many users opt for the Wi-Fi only version of the iPad, and tablets aren't as heavily subsidized as phones on a two-year contract. For example, an iPhone 6 through AT&T on a two-year contract starts at $199, which is substantially less than the full price of $649. AT&T only cuts $100 off the iPad when you commit to a two-year contract, which isn't that much of a difference compared to the iPad's full price.
If Apple rolls this SIM card out for the iPhone, however, it could mean trouble for carriers. Consumers may begin to pay the full price of a new iPhone in order to save money on data and switch between carriers that offer cheaper competing plans whenever they please. Carriers may have to offer other perks besides cheaper prices to convince consumers they should keep buying iPhones from them instead of Apple.
It's even possible that one day you could turn on your iPhone, then have options for which carrier you want to use. And those carriers would compete against each other to offer you the best deal.
There is going to be a lot of push back from carriers, and it's unlikely that ever really happens. But this is an interesting move from Apple that holds long term promise, and short-term intrigue.
SEE ALSO: Which Carrier Is The Best?
People with multiple projects running inside the Google public cloud can now manage payments for them all in one central place, Google announced today.
What’s more, Google is giving people more options for who can handle billing.
We know that sometimes you want another person (e.g., your accountant) to have access to your billing information but don’t want to grant them ownership permissions on your projects,” Dan Stokeley, a Google product manager, wrote in a blog post this morning. “You can now invite additional billing administrators from the Developers Console who can view and manage your billing details but are not automatically project owners.”
The announcements are small, but they could make Google easier for developers and even companies to adopt and stay on in the highly competitive public cloud market, where Microsoft and Amazon Web Services move hard and fast.
Google has spent time adding features to the nitty gritty of cloud billing. Earlier this year it announced a Cloud Pricing Calculator that estimates developers’ needs for storage, memory, CPU, and other resources. And late last year Google started previewing a way of creating a large file showing cloud-usage data that customers could then download or access through an application programing interface (API).
Google Cloud Platform enables developers to build, test and deploy applications on Google’s highly-scalable and reliable infrastructure. Choose from computing, storage and application services for your web, mobile and backend solutio... read more »
You’ve got a great idea for your next blog. It’s interesting and helpful. The value is there, but how do you present your information in a way that gets people to read it? If you’re looking for ways to organize blog content to make things easier on yourself and on your reader, implement these four ideas.
You have information that’s valuable for the reader, but the way you organize this information is just as important. Keep it conversational and don’t be afraid to jump right in to your topic. Make sure your information is broken down into the most valuable pieces and presented in a way that’s easy to read. Length or the number of words does not equal quality; use as much or as little space as you need to present your information. Your ending is just as important as the bulk of the information. Those last sentences are what the reader will takeaway from your blog, make them count!
Recovering after a media or 
brand crisis can be a make it or break it moment. Some businesses handle crisis well, some take precautions and learn from previous mistakes, and some will freeze and fail. Recovery potential and duration vary based on several different factors: the scale of the crisis, the brand’s reputation prior to the crisis, and the sincerity of the apology and cleanup efforts. In this article we will explore three brands that trumped controversy with flying colors.
Taco Bell’s parent company Yum! Foods faced a lawsuit from an Alabama based firm claiming that the fast food chain’s beef was not FDA approved. The prosecutor sought to force Taco Bell to stop calling the meat that they served beef based on rumors that Taco Bell meat contained only 35% beef. Naturally, this raised a lot of controversy amongst Taco Bell consumers and put the spotlight on Taco Bell for a quick response.
How they responded: Taco Bell addressed the allegations as “absolutely wrong” by launching an entire campaign that disclosed its meat ingredients. The campaign included full-page ads in major newspapers, television spots, and YouTube videos to proclaim its taco filling as 88% beef and 12% “special ingredients,” which were later unveiled as seasonings and water for moisture. The prosecutors responded by withdrawing the lawsuit. As a result, Taco Bell gained a lot of positive media buzz, and its reputation amongst consumers actually saw a positive increase.
The Domino’s scandal is a perfect example of employees owning a big part of a company’s brand. Several years ago, a YouTube video was posted showing two Domino’s employees doing some pretty disturbing and unsanitary things in their workstation. The woman in the video was also later unveiled to be a registered sex offender. The video inevitably went viral and Domino’s received a lot of distrust and a heavy backlash from the public. If you haven’t already seen the video, you can check out news coverage about it here.
How they responded: Domino’s immediately issued this statement:
“The opportunities and freedom of the Internet is wonderful. But it also comes with the risk of anyone with a camera and an Internet link to cause a lot of damage, as in this case, where a couple of individuals suddenly overshadow the hard work performed by the 125,000 men and women working for Domino’s across the nation and in 60 countries around the world.”
The President of Domino’s USA also responded with this video within 24 hours:
The company fired the employees and stated that it would revamp its hiring practices, while police issued a felony warrant for the two people involved. While the perception of Domino’s quality among consumers “went from positive to negative” according to YouGov, a research firm which holds online surveys of about 1,000 consumers every day in regard to hundreds of brands, the brand’s immediate response did help to soften the blow and reassure consumers that the acts committed were not acceptable.
The “Chicago Tylenol Murders” is another exemplary display of how a company effectively handled a media crisis. Johnson & Johnson, parent company to Tylenol (which was the US top pain killer brand in America at the time), faced a huge crisis when 7 Chicago citizens were reported dead after consuming their extra-strength medicine. Reportedly an unknown suspect had tempered with the capsules by adding 65 grams of lethal cyanide to an unknown supply of bottles. It was reported that the suspect removed the bottles from the shelves, added the cyanide, and replaced them. This had a huge affect on the brand as Tylenol controlled 37 percent of its market with revenue of about $1.2 million. After the cyanide poisonings, its market share was reduced to seven percent.
How they responded:
Because there was no way to tell how many bottles had been tampered with, Johnson & Johnson issued warnings to hospitals and distributors and immediately stopped all production and advertising. They then issued a nationwide recall of all Tylenol products, an estimated 31 million bottles. The retail value lost by the company was over US $100 million. The company actually paid for advertisement in the national media to encourage the market to not consume any products that contained the acetaminophen painkiller. After it was concluded that capsules were the only products tampered with, Johnson & Johnson offered to exchange all Tylenol capsules that had already been purchased with solid pills. The company received a lot of positive media buzz over the way that they handled the matter and the incident actually brought light to the issue of inadequate packaging.
Mistakes happen and a brand crisis could be around any corner. When crises arise, the bad PR is separated from the good, and the good from the great. Each of these well-handled faux pas had two things in common:
There are many mistakes you can make as an entrepreneur: marketing mistakes, decision-making mistakes, technology mistakes, and so much more.
But there are mistakes that slow you down and ones that can stop you dead in your tracks. A recent discussion on Quora focused on the unavoidable mistakes that new entrepreneurs often make. There were many good suggests from businesspeople who chimed in. Here are 13 that were particularly insightful and sticky.
When things go wrong, what you absolutely, positively, without a doubt should not do is hide. Only when you face the issues do you have a chance of finding solutions. That also means to avoid pretending that all is well with investors and staff. They can often be helpful, so why not let them?
You can never please all the people all the time. One implication is that you will never develop a product or service that is attractive to the entire market, let alone all people. Don't bother. Focus on what you can do for a particular subset.
You want a product or service that will startle everyone and draw buyers. It's understandable, but there's a tradeoff. If you spend too much time chasing perfection, you won't have the time to chase customers, allowing a competitor to slip in with a product that may not be as amazing, but that has the advantage of being available for purchase.
You will (or should) talk frequently to staff, investors, vendors, prospects, and customers. They can offer great insights and advice that can improve your business. But that only happens when you actually listen to what they say and not dismiss it. Not that you should automatically do what everyone tells you, but if you dismiss anything that doesn't immediately agree with your assumptions, you're going to tank your business.
You've seen the new tech company, restaurant concept, consumer product, or some other successful new business. It's an enormous mistake to try to copy what you just saw. You will have different abilities, resources, ideas, and opportunities. If you can't significantly improve the idea, do something else. Why start off as an also-ran?
Ralph Waldo Emerson was wrong. Build a better mousetrap and the world will not beat a path to your door. You need to create a strong business, learn to market, and handle problems. Only a fully-developed company will succeed. A great product alone is likely to fade into obscurity.
You're sure that you know what people want. Of course you do. But what if you're wrong? Unthinkable, of course, but it's all too possible. Rather than assume your omniscience, test your ideas. Better to find and fix the problems at the start so you can proceed more smoothly and successfully.
You want your business to be a blockbuster. But don't plan on it. Building an infrastructure and hiring the people necessary for a big rollout is a mistake if you do that too early because you'll burn through resources before you can justify the expense. Catching up to growth is painful, but never catching up to capacity is much worse.
Entrepreneurs are often passionate about their concepts and plans. That doesn't mean the world is. People may react differently than you expected. Changing circumstances might close some doors or open others. Adapt your idea as necessary to make the business work.
Money is the blood of your company. If you don't cut expenses wherever possible without threatening the quality of your products or operations, you open a corporate vein and bleed onto the floor. Forget the fancy office or perks. The more money you save, the more time you have to get things right and see the business blossom.
You go into business with a partner, maybe an old friend, and suddenly things don't work the way you expected. Someone isn't putting in the effort or can't get the necessary results. If you haven't considered such issues as a parting of the ways, who has the final say on decisions, or how or when you cash out, then you are an accident waiting to happen. Get the details straight at the beginning.
Hiring is a painful and expensive undertaking. You meet people who seem to be matches and so want to bring them on. Resist and create a real HR process. Evaluate and vet candidates, and get the types of expertise, both technical and managerial, your company will need.
A bookkeeper and a copy of QuickBooks is not a financial system. If your intent is to make the company grow, you need accounting that is complaint with generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, as that's what investors, acquiring companies, or the stock market will expect. Set it up right from the beginning. In addition, work out what metrics will be most important to various aspects of the business and generate those numbers. Know the incremental cost of an additional product unit, how expensive it is to acquire a news customer, the average customer's lifetime value, or whatever else might make a difference to how you make decisions.
Silicon Valley Street Style is a weekly feature that looks at the intersection of fashion, technology and taste.
Only in Silicon Valley can a simple design set against cotton blend say so much.
Youth, ease, confidence, arrogance, membership, laundry day … the startup shirt is a free piece of wearable, washable advertising that can reflect upon the wearer any or all of these qualities. It's like a sandwich board you can wear to the gym.
Adaptable to all manner of tech culture, the startup shirt is the one true defining fashion statement of the San Francisco-based tech industry. It doesn't matter if your game is hot yoga or "Call of Duty," this versatile apparel fits any body type, while creating a strikingly similar impression on all.
There's no empirical evidence supporting a branded t-shirt's ability to inspire an angel investor to open his wallet. But perhaps there's a more important question to consider.
Are startup shirts fashionable?
“Startup shirts are the opposite of fashion,” Cory Sklar, creator of the Dudes In Startup Shirts Tumblr, tells ReadWrite. “There is absolutely nothing individual about the items or the wearers. They are the epitome of ‘norminess’ in the worst sense.”
Sklar says he was inspired to curate a collection of startup shirts because as a San Franciscan, he’s constantly surrounded by the trend. Why then, in a town where techies struggle to stand out, do so many people in the industry make this sartorial choice?
“Two reasons,” Sklar says. “One, because they are too clueless to buy their own clothes even though they are making more money than 99% of the people on Earth. Two, to promote their sh***y app.”
The Dudes In Startup Shirts Tumblr showcases the best of men (and some women) wearing startup shirts, decked out with hoodies, sunglasses, and my personal favorite—underneath a blazer. Your business in the front, Dad's business in the back.
Like the Dudes In Startup Shirts gallery, Silicon Valley startup culture is a strange mix of low-end and high-end. The low-maintenance, grassroots quality that birthed the tech scene is, more often than not these days, a facade of authenticity for the wealthy and well-connected.
In HBO's Silicon Valley, the ubiquity of the startup shirt is showcased via a rainbow of jersey logos worn by attendees at TechCrunch Disrupt. Characters wearing startup shirts are painted in a deeply aloof, goofy way—almost as if their claims of "making the world a better place" and "local, mobile, social" are as empty and devalued as the startup shirts themselves.
See Also: At TechCrunch Disrupt, Attendees Construct Their Own Fashion Framework
Yet, one need not be entrenched in Silicon Valley’s startup culture to judge what is worn there, let alone judge it harshly. Rusty Foster, author of the popular tech newsletter Today In Tabs and Kuro5shin founder, takes issues with advertorial tees.
“What I find embarrassing about them is the neediness of farming out your resume to the words printed on your torso,” Foster tells ReadWrite. From his vantage point in Maine, Foster sees those words that hold certain value splayed across your chest as a vain attempt to convey that value to the world.
See Also: At TechCrunch Disrupt, Attendees Construct Their Own Fashion Framework
“'I want you to see what famous company I work for and/or admire!’” Foster mocks, going so far as to call such fashion choices “a kind of assault.”
“I wish we could issue remedial white t-shirts and require some basic education before people are trusted with the responsibility of putting words on their clothing,” he says.
Style blogger and Googler Elise Armitage of WTFab has a more friendly, neutral outlook to startup shirts, although she admits that the ones that she owns are only worn in private.
“My Google shirts are pretty much reserved for when I'm at the gym, sleeping, or working from home,” says Armitage, “When I see someone wearing a startup shirt I just assume that they probably live in the city and eat oysters at Dolores Park on Sundays.”
Street style photographer Ryan Chua agrees that startup shirts should be left to certain occasions, but he also argues that unity and loyalty to one’s brand is an admirable trait for any wearer.
“Startup shirts are fashionable if worn at the proper events, such as a conference or industry mixer,” says Chua, “My rule of thumb is to always dress accordingly to the occasion."
At a tech conference or similar event, Chua says that there's nothing more fashionable than a team wearing startup shirts signifying unity and company spirit. "But if that person wears a startup shirt way too much, people will start thinking, maybe that is his or her only shirt.”
Photos courtesy of Dudes In Startup Shirts and HBO's Silicon Valley
Rashid,* the CEO of a high-tech company and a client of mine for nearly a decade, called to tell me we had a major issue with some of the newer members of his leadership team.
What comes to mind when you think of what might constitute a “major issue” with some senior leaders? Maybe they’re in a fight? Maybe they’re making poor strategic decisions? Perhaps they’re not following through on commitments they made about the business? Maybe they’re being abusive to their employees? Maybe they’re stealing?
I’ve seen all of those problems in the past at various companies. But none of that was happening at Rashid’s firm. The major issue he was talking about was far more subtle — and in most places even acceptable.
Rashid had heard, through the grapevine, that two new team members were quietly questioning whether they should be honest about the gaps they saw in the business.
Is that really such a big deal? How many of us would prefer to keep the peace and avoid being the naysayer? Or prioritize being seen as a team player over identifying problems that may lie in someone else’s department? Or downplay an issue of our own team, hoping we’ll be able to fix it before anyone notices?
The truth is that it’s hard to speak up about potentially sensitive issues. But Rashid’s company’s fast growth and strong results were based, more than anything, on one underlying requirement for anyone in a leadership role: courage.
Courage underlies all smart risk taking. And no company can grow without leaders who are willing to take risks. If we don’t speak the truth about what we see and what we think, then it’s unlikely that we’ll take the smart risks necessary to lead.
So, yes, it’s a major issue if direct reports to the CEO aren’t willing to say what they really think. In fact, I’d say that there’s little value to having senior leaders in an organization who don’t speak their minds.
It’s worth asking if Rashid is creating a safe enough environment for people to speak up. That’s a good thing to consider and, in part, it’s my job to help him do that.
It’s also worth asking if the leaders have the skills to talk about sensitive topics with care and competence. This is important because it does take tremendous skill to raise hard-to-talk-about issues in a way that convinces others to address them. But, I would argue, at this point in their careers, they should have that ability. And, if they don’t, it’s easily trainable.
Ultimately, those are not the most important questions. Rashid is not running a training program or a kindergarten. He’s running a company with highly compensated leaders who are running large and complicated businesses of their own, and it’s fair for him to expect them to be brave enough to tell him what they are thinking.
How could people who have been so successful in their careers not be courageous about communicating the problems they see in a business for which they are responsible? I think that the bar for leadership in most organizations is too low. We allow politics to supersede performance. And it’s hurting good organizations.
The biggest challenge we face as leaders is rarely about discovering the perfect strategy or developing a smarter product or figuring out the gaps in the business. It’s about being courageous enough and willing to take the risks necessary to talk about the difficult, sometimes scary truth and do something about it.
That’s been the secret to Rashid’s company’s growth and the success of his leadership team. Good leaders almost always know what needs to be done. Great leaders actually do it.
So, Rashid asked, what should I do?
You have to talk to them, I said. Be direct about how you believe they’re hurting the business. Lead by example — it’s the only way.
*I’ve changed his name to protect his privacy.
How Long Does It Take To Win? is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino
It takes time to nurture and develop your prospects. It isn’t easy to be known for the value you create or to prove you have ideas. The longer it takes you to prove you have the ideas and the ability to help, the longer it takes to create and win an opportunity.
It takes time to work through the discovery process with your dream client once they agree to meet with you. Trying to spend less time working to understand your client’s needs–and helping them to understand them–only increases the time it will take you to win that opportunity. If you win it at all.
Rushing to present your solution in hopes of speeding things along actually slows the process of creating and winning an opportunity. It doesn’t mean that all the work that you should have completed up to that point doesn’t still need to be done. But it does mean that what you present isn’t going to be dialed in tight enough and that you aren’t likely to have the consensus you need.
You can sometimes find an opportunity at just the right time and acquire orders without following your sales process at all. That seems really fast. Until you actually start doing the work and realize that you and your new client didn’t do any of the work together that might have given you a reasonable opportunity to succeed together. Now what you won is at risk of being lost forever. The time you gained is now lost dealing with challenges you hadn’t anticipated.
You gain speed by having all the conversations and gaining all the commitments you need to create and win an opportunity. The sooner you have those conversations and the sooner you gain those commitments, the sooner you win your opportunity. Skipping stages to speed things along actually slows things down.
In all things with human beings, fast is slow and slow is fast. If you want faster results, do the work.
The stats we've seen this week continue a trend for the past year.
There's lots about advertising, lots about mobile and plenty about where the two collide. Other highlights include the dreaded 'millenials' and their economic outlook and some interesting insight into the state of mobile in MENA specifically.
As always, if these stats don't sate your hunger, head on over to the insights and data in our Internet Statistics Compendium
YouGov surveyed 2,034 consumers on behalf of Unique Digital Unique about their use of apps for banking, purchasing insurance and booking hotels, flights and car hire.
The survey found that ‘search & purchase’ on mobile exceeds ‘search only’ (37%) for first time in the sample set.
Adobe’s Digital Index team has just published their Q3 Digital Advertising report and it includes some interesting insights for advertiser in the lead up to the holidays.
There's plenty in the report. Here's a snapshot.
SEM ad spend
SEM CPCs
The Guardian has reported record traffic of almost 114m monthly unique browsers in September 2014, according to the latest digital ABC figures released today.
On Device Research has surveyed 1,500 mobile internet users in September 2014 to reveal mobile consumer behaviour in the MENA region.
81% of the connected consumers in Saudi Arabia and UAE and 40% in Egypt have stopped a purchase while in store because of comparison shopping on mobile or feedback received from friends or family.
The number of mobile internet users in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE is rapidly growing - roughly 40% of the participants of the research went online for the first time within the last 12 months. Combined with one of the highest smartphone penetrations in the world (76% in KSA, 75% in UAE) this audience is a huge opportunity for region’s retailers.
Growing user numbers combined with increasing media time on mobile offers a unique new opportunity for retailers to target buyers with location and time-specific offers while people are in or near their store.
Smartphones and tablets account for 30% of conversions on Google and 35% of conversions on Facebook , according to a new report by Marin Software.
Highlights of the report include:
The Council of Economic Advisors has produced a delightful Medium post with some millenial stats. Here's a snippet from the intro and one of the charts about life goals. Though most of the stats don't relate to marketing or the internet, it's a great insight into the economics an influential demographic.
Millennials, the cohort of Americans born between 1980 and the mid-2000s, are the largest generation in the U.S., representing one-third of the total U.S. population in 2013.
This is the first generation to have had access to the Internet during their formative years. Millennials also stand out because they are the most diverse and educated generation to date: 42 percent identify with a race or ethnicity other than non-Hispanic white, around twice the share of the Baby Boomer generation when they were the same age. About 61 percent of adult Millennials have attended college, whereas only 46 percent of the Baby Boomers did so.
Their early adult lives have been shaped by the experience of establishing their careers at a time when economic opportunities are relatively scarce.
In 1980, IBM’s first gigabyte hard drive weighed 550 pounds and cost $40,000. Today, consumers have access to 3 terabyte hard drives — 3000 times the size — that weigh under 3 pounds and cost around $100.
Customer services teams and social marketers working for retail brands in the UK need to improve how they monitor and respond to complaints via social media.
That's according to a study by delivery specialist Hermes, which surveyed 2,000 UK consumers and 1,000 each from France and Germany.
More figures to confirm ad spend increase across search and social.
New Kenshoo research shows global year-on-year paid search and Facebook social ad budgets increased 19% and 81% respectively with revenue growth outpacing spend.
Among the key findings in the research:
Click to enlarge this complementary infographic
Neustar's recent research into domain maturity has revealed differences in the way B2C and B2B businesses manage and protect their websites. Quocirca interviewed 300 senior European IT managers on the challenges faced and the measures they are taking to ensure domain performance and security.
B2B businesses are lagging behind in areas such as Continuous DDoS Protection and Fraud Detection Technology.
Here are the key findings:
In a world increasingly shaped by software, developers are market makers. Nowhere is this more true than in the burgeoning Internet of Things market.
See also: The Internet Of Things Will Need Millions Of Developers By 2020
Currently riddled by a mess of competing proprietary standards, the winner in the Internet of Things will be the one that goes furthest to make developers' lives easier.
Though VisionMobile estimates put the total Internet of Things developer population at 3.2 million today, only a fraction of those are dedicated to IoT. Even so, this dedicated core of developers will more than double by 2015, and increase more than tenfold by 2020, according to VisionMobile:
For those trying to reach them, there is no particular center of gravity:
This presents both opportunity and challenge to those hoping to harness developer productivity, as VisionMobile points out:
[Internet of Things] developers are everywhere—from Silicon Valley to Hanoi and Kuala Lumpur, from small towns to mega-cities. There is no single area that dominates [Internet of Things] innovation in terms of developer population. This is good news for entrepreneurs all over the world. You don’t need to be in the right spot, because there isn’t any.
That's the good news. The bad news is that with such a diffuse developer population, most of which is sequestered in startups of fewer than 50 people, reaching them becomes extremely difficult. In a recent survey, 50% of developers told VisionMobile their primary way of getting information is through online communities.
Which is just one more reason to believe the only way to reach Internet of Things developers effectively is through open source.
Developers have turned to open source and cloud computing to escape artificial constraints on their productivity, and the same will be true in the Internet of Things.
Big companies hoping to compete for Internet of Things dollars clearly understand this. Among the various technology standards competing for attention, various open source alternatives are on the rise, including one from the very promising AllSeen Alliance.
Bosch, a significant contender and a member of AllSeen, describes why open source is so important in its proposal for the Vorto project, which aims to standardize IoT information models:
Drilling into those assumptions, Bosch notes:
All of these reasons point to open source. And yet, as ARM's Bill Curtis has pointed out, "Because most Internet standards are too complex for the constrained devices in the [Internet of Things], these devices tend to run proprietary protocols, creating data silos." Because of the proliferation of "standards," proprietary and open source, device manufacturers are tightly coupling proprietary sensors into proprietary networks.
This can't last.
It's way too soon to declare a winner in the Internet of Things. It's too new and there's far too much noise around competing standards.
Ironically, most of the noise today comes from competing open source standardization efforts, with a recent ruckus caused by Intel refusing to join AllSeen and Broadcom dropping out of the Open Interconnect Consortium. Both bailed the respective consortia because of IP issues.
But let's be clear: None of these companies lining up to join this or that foundation will prove dispositive in cementing any particular standard as the open source standard. Developers do that.
And developers are attracted by tools and platforms that make them more productive, fast. Getting a marquee list of donors to a foundation is meaningless if the foundation doesn't generate code that appeals to developers. (Just ask OpenStack, which continues to attract more vendors than buyers/developers, as Jack Clark highlights.)
Companies will win over Internet of Things not in the boardroom, but on the command line. The consortium that gets excellent code to market first, with a community that provides great documentation and an inviting atmosphere, will win. So far, only AllSeen has done that, with code available for download today. Whether it will retain that advantage is for developers to decide.
Lead image via woodleywonderworks
If marketing cannot reach potential buyers, if it cannot engage them, if it cannot capture and hold their attention, even briefly, marketing will disappear. It will be like the tree that falls in a deserted forest.
Of course, this would never happen… or would it?
I recently attended LinkedIn’s Tech Connect 14 event. It was a great event, but my single biggest takeaway was actually the opposite of the message I heard from the stage. As a marketer there was a clear and distressing undercurrent: we have lost touch with today’s buyers.
There is a deep and growing chasm between potential buyers and B2B marketers. As marketers, we recognize this gap exists, but we aren’t acknowledging just how wide it is. Despite efforts to modernize our approach, our buyers are changing far faster than we are changing as marketers. The gap isn’t closing, it is getting wider.
It’s true, information is more accessible today than ever before. Many buyers turn to Google, not sales, to find the information they are looking for. As marketers, we are seeing this gap and we are turning to content to fill it.
To differentiate our content, to get it seen in the ever expanding sea of freely accessible and discoverable content, we strive to create higher and higher quality content. We replace long slideshows with voiceovers (webcasts) with quick, to-the-point videos. We turn white papers into carefully crafted eBooks or even infographics. We ask people to share it with their friends or colleagues. Or even with their mom.
But this is just a distraction. The growing chasm between buyers and marketers has nothing to do with sales losing its position of power as the conduit for buyers to a library of mediocre white papers and solution overviews. The real change is one of expectations.
I’ve written about raising the bar for content quality before. I missed the bigger picture: Expectations aren’t simply rising, they are fundamentally being changed. “Content quality” isn’t even the right bar anymore!
LinkedIn’s event opened with a presentation by Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy. Khan Academy’s vision is “a free world-class education for anyone anywhere” and they are already doing an amazing job of delivering against this vision. One of the things about Khan Academy’s learning model that struck me is the focus on ensuring someone learns what is being taught. Programs aren’t structured to simply cover the material and move on, they assess understanding.
This is the world tomorrow’s buyers are being raised in and today’s buyers are seeing their children go through. As marketers, we are still busy making information more accessible, but buyers are learning to expect high quality education and understanding. How will you deliver a world-class education, free from propaganda and bias, to your buyers and market?
Similarly, TED is changing our expectations. Speakers and presentations that used to only be accessible to the elite with the pocketbooks to prove it are now available to everyone. Some of these presentations are incredible (you can see a top 20 list here).
A client recently mentioned she watches a TED video every evening instead of watching TV. I’ll venture she doesn’t think very highly of the average corporate talking head video still put out by marketing departments everywhere.
When your audience looks to sources like TED for ideas worth hearing, how does the last thought leadership video you created compare?
No, you’re not.
Every business needs to try out more marketing channels than they currently use, because only by experimenting with as many channels as possible does any company discover and grow its revenue generation. Your business is no exception.
B2B marketing channels are diverse, and each comes with its own strengths, weaknesses, budget constraints and time commitments – but you shouldn’t automatically dismiss any given channel until you’ve thoroughly and robustly tested it.
Here are a few strategies and guidelines to remember as you experiment with new marketing channels for your business:
Contrary to popular belief among small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), you are able to calculate the return on investment from your marketing efforts. Tracking marketing ROI isn’t just for big brands or multinational companies. It should be a part of every single one of your marketing channels or campaigns.
For example, you should be analyzing each channel and evaluating whether it is worth the investment of time and money or failing the ROI test. Any channel that isn’t performing well should be trimmed from your marketing mix, and any channel that generates leads and revenue should be continually optimized.
However, don’t just look at marketing channels in a silo. While the ROI of a particular marketing channel might be fantastic, its combined effectiveness with a different channel might show that your efforts aren’t as effective as you’d hoped. You must evaluate the best portfolio of channels at the strategic level – not just by looking at the ROI of channels on the individual level.
Return on investment isn’t the only metric to measure your marketing channels against. Customer acquisition cost is also essential. Many companies don’t measure the cost per customer acquisition for each of their marketing channels, yet it’s one of the easiest ways to compare performance between different channels.
One word of caution, though: Customer acquisition costs need to be calculated all the way from initial contact to final close. You shouldn’t just measure the costs of the final, closing channel. Rather, you need to count all of the costs that led prospects along their journey to a finalized deal.
In any multi-channel marketing strategy, you need to put the right tracking technologies into place to ensure that you have the most accurate insight into the performance of each marketing channel. Especially for telemarketing and call center channels, this means that you need to use a different phone number for each campaign, channel or piece of content.
With the right tracking IDs on your inbound calls, you’re able to see which channels are driving the most calls – and which channels are driving the most closed sales. But don’t forget: If you change the frequency, the content or any other detail of your campaign, you need to measure the corresponding performance of that particular tracking ID or phone number.
Finally, your marketing channels must overlap. For example, if you’re conducting a cold calling campaign alongside an email marketing campaign, your marketing efforts should naturally crossover to some of the same prospects. Why? Because overlap ensures that you’re reaching your entire target audience.
Otherwise, if your email campaign doesn’t overlap with your cold calling efforts or your pay-per-click campaign, then you’re missing some prospects between those channels. For maximum lead generation and sales, your marketing channels must create overlap.
No matter the size or scale of your business, you need to be testing and experimenting with more marketing channels than you currently are. When you continually research and robustly measure the results, you set your business on a course for consistent growth.
Interested in driving more growth for your business with a metrics-driven approach? Click below to download a tip sheet from Invenio Solutions™ and discover how the Science of Sales™ helps you generate warmer leads and optimize your sales and marketing channels for maximum profitability.
Accurate sales forecasting requires technology, process, and accountable people. The technology has to very easy to use. The process needs to be embedded in the technology. The people all have to use the technology to ensure they follow the process. If any one of these pieces is missing, forecast accuracy is greatly diminished.
With regard to technology
, the key is to give the sales reps a forecast methodology and a very easy and intuitive screen to create a forecast natively in your CRM system. Not just report the forecast, but to have an actual worksheet where they can create it and update it. Sales reps should be able to create a forecast in less than 15 minutes, in real time and roll-up automatically to each management level. The technology should eliminate your dependence on clunky, time consuming and frustrating spreadsheet roll-up exercises.
With a strong forecasting platform (real-time worksheet/reporting, methodology and trained-up sales reps/managers) in place, you would think you would be good to go and have an accurate forecast. That assumption would be incorrect. An accurate forecast also depends on the quality of how your sales pipeline is being managed. Bad data in your CRM system will only lead to bad forecast accuracy. The four rights of forecasting are focused on ensuring you have quality pipeline data.
Right #1 Reps need to be working on the right opportunities.
Successful selling involves asking some tough questions early in the engagement and being honest about the answers. The tough questions should ensure you are selling to your target customer persona. Does the buyer fit that persona? Is there sufficient magnitude or urgency in solving the business challenge? Does the project have sufficient political sponsorship to shepherd it to completion. If the prospect’s intentions do seem credible, is the opportunity right for your company?
Ideally, you should be using a sales methodology that will help you to qualify the bad opportunities out by your proposal stage. Reps who work on unqualified opportunities will typically push those deals along the sales process until it is too late. Too late to save your company money (cost of sale increases as deals progress) and save themselves time – which is their most valuable resource. Unqualified deals that make it to a forecast will destroy your accuracy and consume valuable resources, as they are focused on the wrong potential revenue.
Right #2 Opportunities need to be in the right stages.
Opportunities that are not in the right stage means your sales rep is either not in sync with your sales process or with your buyer. To ensure that opportunities are in the right stage, you have to get back to the basics of following your sales process. To be effective, a sales process should be based on the customer’s buying process, which is the set of decisions that the customer wants to make, in the order that the customer wants to make them.
Each stage of your sales process should have a customer-validated activity that ensures that the opportunity has a right to be in that stage. The customer should tell the seller when to move along, not vice versa. For example, a key validation activity after a needs dialogue would be for the sales rep to send a summary email of the meeting along with next steps and the ask that the buyer respond with approval to take next steps. If the prospect does not respond, the opportunity does not move to the next stage until the prospect confirms.
When strong customer validation is in place, opportunities will very seldom be in the wrong stage. Opportunities in the wrong stage will inflate your forecast, chew up valuable resources and foster “deal pushing” behaviors.
Right #3 Opportunities need to have the right value.
Although it can vary by industry, valuing an opportunity is usually practiced more as an art than using principles founded in reality. Many managers actively ignore opportunity value until the deal is actually committed – because they don’t actually believe the numbers – but in doing so, they allow forecasting and even cash flow problems to grow wings. Also, loose deal valuation leads to loose opportunity management from the very start of the sales process, as evidenced in poor questioning, poor deal strategizing and weak management of stakeholders.
It is wise to have minimum deal values, early in the sales process that are increased over time, versus the more usual practice of reducing the deal value, as the deals get closer to the end of the sales process. We’ve all experienced the end-of-quarter forecast collapse, as big deals turn into nothing more than small trials of the product or service.
A best practice recommendation is for sales reps to use their historical average deal sizes for the early stage valuation if they have no clue as to the value, but they know the solution they will offer. This will greatly help to reduce the guessing. Second, track late stage deal valuation changes to determine discount trending. Having this knowledge will give you additional insight into how over-inflated the bottom of your pipeline could be.
Right #4 Opportunities need to have the right close date.
CRMs have turned close dates into a mandatory and potentially meaningless “field”, yet it’s the one of the main metrics that drive a forecast, tells us how optimistic or realistic the rep is, and how well informed they are about the opportunity. And it’s the metric that tells us the extent to which the rep is tuned into the buyer’s timeline – which in turn, drives the sales forecast. Managers need to encourage reps to develop two specific behaviors with regard to close dates:
World-class sales managers don’t allow close dates to be treated as a guessing game; they make accurate close date recording part of sales performance measurement, correction and recognition. Here’s a great tip, know the average sales cycle of each individual rep. When reps first enter opportunities into your CRM system, they may not have a handle on the close date. Coach them to use a date in the future that is out at least the same number of days as their average sales cycle. If you have software that can predict a close date based on the sales reps historical performance, all the better to give them deeper insight into a more accurate timeline.
By helping sales people to focus on the four rights of accurate sales forecasting, you can eliminate most of the manual forecasting efforts, remove your dependence on spreadsheets and give back to your sales team more time that they can spend on closing business.
Content marketing measurement is something that has received a lot of attention lately, and it’s not hard to understand why. According to our new research, B2B Content Marketing 2015: Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America:
In fact, when we had our Executive Forum in the spring, finding the best way to measure was the “big idea” most of the marketing leaders wanted to solve.
That said, to solve this challenge, it’s useful to understand where we are so we can see what makes this so difficult. The second video in our B2B research roundtable series talks about the challenges that marketers are facing and offers one key solution to consider.
A big thanks to Ardath Albee, CEO and Marketing Strategist at Marketing Interactions; Carla Johnson, Principal at Type A Communications and Vice President-Thought Leadership at the Business Marketing Association; Nick Panayi, Head of Global Brand and Digital Marketing at CSC; Gary Van Prooyen, Senior Director, North America Demand Center at Motorola; and Steve Rotter, Vice President, Digital Marketing Solutions at Brightcove, for participating in this conversation.
Let’s walk through where we are and where we are going.
Nick Panayi sums up the ideal to which many marketers aspire:
An ROI [for content marketing] from a business standpoint basically says, “Did you move the needle? Did you move the business forward based on what you, as a marketing organization, have committed to do?
At CMI we talk about it far too often, the content you create needs to directly impact your business goal(s). If you don’t know how your content will move the needle for your business, it probably won’t.
While understanding your goal(s) is a first step, the real challenge is figuring out how to connect the content you publish to how the business is improving. Content is only one variable. Ardath Albee explains:
At the end of the day it’s about revenues, new customer acquisition, or whatever the business goal is. But marketing by itself does not achieve those things. Marketing plays a particular role, but which levers is it pulling? What are they doing that enables sales to complete the achievement of that KPI? How do you measure that incrementally and connect the dots so that it’s more of a collaborative metric?
Add to this the challenge of too little or too much data. Even when you know what you should be tracking, it can be tough to get this data. Chances are you simply can’t get the data you need (such as attribution data that tracks to what extent each piece of content has an impact.)
Or, on the other end, there are so many different places where you can get the data that you often are left with “multiple views of the truth.” Who hasn’t seen different data in their email tool versus Google Analytics, for instance? How do you know which one is right?
Gary Van Prooyen articulates this issue:
We have reporting coming out of our ears. But to be able to connect all those things into one cohesive view that connects it to business metrics is hard. It really is.
The secret to measurement isn’t something that can be distilled into a single blog post, but my favorite aha moment came from Nick who shared that his company, CSC, has developed a dashboard that both marketing and sales can access. He explains:
We’ve created our analytics almost like a newspaper with a front page. The front page is basically the answers the executives would need to know right away . . . I will tell you more has been done for that relationship between sales and marketing ever since we put together a dashboard that is a single version of the truth. There’s no questioning of the data. It’s linking up marketing land to sales land and there’s no question about that. Then discussion becomes, how can we get more effective versus hey, you are not doing anything with the leads.
Whether you have the means to develop a custom dashboard or simply send regular email updates, the most important thing to do is to try to get to one single version of the truth that includes all of the KPIs that the leadership team agrees on. It’s also key to share it with everyone on the team as well so they know what kind of contribution they are making.
While what you find important may change, having all of the information in one place is a great way to make conversations around measurement much more productive.
As mentioned, measurement is complex topic, and there is no one, easy answer. Over the coming months, we’ll delve into this topic in more depth. If you have specific challenges – or you’re having success – please let me know in the comments so we can address these ideas in future posts.
Want more expert advice on addressing content marketing’s biggest challenges? Check out all the fantastic CMW sessions that are available through our Video on Demand portal.
Cover image by PublicDomainPictures via pixabay.com
The post A Single Version of Truth: One Key to Content Marketing Measurement Success appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.
Chances are you’ve heard the saying, “referral business is the best business” more than once in your career. And there’s plenty of hard research to support that.
For example, there are approximately 2.4 billion brand-related conversations every day, according to data from the Word of Mouth Association. People often talk about products or services, and companies they buy from.
As reported in The New York Times, referrals account for 65% of all new business. Thus, two out of three buyers act because someone they know has pointed them to a specific product or service.
Nielsen research backs up the potential of referral marketing, and says people are four times as likely to buy when a friend makes a referral. What’s more, research published in the Journal of Marketing found that referrals produce higher profit margins than other customers — because of the lower cost of acquisition — stay longer and thus produce a higher lifetime value (for example, when compared to buyers attracted by a discount or two-for-one offer).
Chances are you’ve already taken Referral 101, and you know to (1) “plant the seeds” early in your relationship, and then (2) find a good time to ask contented customers for the names of others who might benefit from your product or service. Top performers do this all the time, and some reach the rarefied air where 80% of their business comes from high-potential referred leads.
But there’s new research indicating that you can take your referral quest to the next level, creating even greater sales opportunities. Let’s dig into it and then see how you can best apply this new learning in the real world.
Find the opinion leaders
A study in the realm of pharmaceutical sales found something that can apply to nearly any B2B or B2C sales situation. In any market there are people whose opinions really matter. And these key influencers are not necessarily the people on everyone else’s radar screen.
The researchers found that, while the pharma sales reps had been targeting department heads at teaching hospitals or the leaders of highly visible group practices, they had overlooked one physician, anonymously referred to as #184. Yet, when the researchers asked other doctors whose opinion they trusted, it was Doctor 184 whose name came up over and over again.
In the intensely competitive world of pharma sales, that doctor was a critical target. If she got good outcomes with patients from a new drug and recommended it, she could influence hundreds of other physicians in the market. And if she passed the word that a particular sales rep was worth seeing, that would carry a lot of weight, too.
Doctor 184 was no “rock star” or academic heavyweight. She didn’t speak at conferences or chair committees. But her opinion was trusted, and she shaped opinions in her market.
That’s a key point. Opinion leaders don’t wear uniforms or belong to a union, and they may not stand in any way that lets you easily identify them. But they do get asked for advice a lot, by people looking for actual answers. And that gets us to the “next level” referral question, one that can open doors to many more high-quality prospects and enhance your own visibility and reputation among potential buyers.
“Whose opinion do you trust?”
You’re certainly on the right track to ask happy customers for the names of other potential buyers. That will not only turn up good leads, but also acknowledge your customer’s own influence. It communicates that you think of them as someone who is well connected and whose name would carry weight, too.
But here’s the question that will unearth an even better prospect: “I know how much people trust your opinion, so I appreciate your willingness to recommend us. But while we are on the subject, whose opinion do you trust?”
Ask that of every one of your customers and prospects, and you’ll most likely find out who is shaping opinions in your market, just the way Doctor 184 does. It may confirm what you already know, but it could bring to the surface an opinion leader no one else knows about — and one your competition has overlooked — because they aren’t asking.
What’s even better is that you now have a perfect way to approach this opinion leader. Let’s say everyone looks to Joe Marshall for advice. You can reach out to Joe and say something like, “I’ve been asking my customers who they trust, and your name keeps coming up. Fred at Monolith Industries, Bill at Mountain View, and Sally from Big Fortune. They all tell me they respect your opinion the most. I’d sure like to meet and get your insight on _______________.”
It’s very likely that Joe will agree to a meeting. He may or may not buy from you. But either way a conversation with Joe will have a high payoff. Because he’s connected to the same people you are, networked in the market, and that relationship can lead to many high-potential opportunities.
And marketing automation, too, can help you close deals. See how in this free tool kit:
In the age of the tweeting refrigerator, salespeople are transitioning. The process of a sale no longer unfolds over just one platform; however in many cases it does involve multiple buyers. Bar the anomaly that is the Girl Scout Cookie, the face of the company is no longer the salesperson. As a result, marketing analytics have taken the front seat in driving sales, opening up a whole new industry of firms offering to find niches for their customer’s product or service, to build and develop online content, and to manage existing consumer bases.
Ever since the concept of currency was introduced to the Roman Empire, entrepreneurs have been developing new sales methodologies in hopes to, in today’s terms, generate leads and keep conversions high. One of the most memorable of the early strategies is often referred to as that of the snake oil salesman. In the 1800s, Chinese railroad workers brought snake oil to the US, and it quickly became popular due to its alleged healing powers.
However, when American entrepreneurs began emulating the concoction, it proved to be much less effective, and snake oil quickly became a symbol of fraud. In the time of the snake oil salesman, the salesman himself had agency. If you needed to know the price of the product, you asked the salesman. If you needed to know the specifications of the product, you asked the salesman. Although it was an informal role, he could sell his product by manipulating the consumer with an exaggerated and inaccurate description of the product.
The idea of a salesperson developed throughout the 19th century, so that by the dawn of the 20th century, it became a professional role. Whether calling upon buyers’ emotions, building trust, overwhelming the buyer with pseudoscience, or using psychological tactics, the person’s performance, rather than the product or service itself, was largely responsible for the sale.
As concepts such as marketing and publicity took form in the last half of the 20th century, the salesperson’s role started to change, as well as the role of the buyer. Buyers started to do their own research on the product or service’s reputation and brand. Generating sales was no longer a matter of catching someone off guard and convincing them that they could not live without your product. It became a matter of trust, of value, of helpfulness.
Today, the traditional salesperson’s craft has transitioned. Digital presence is increasingly necessary for businesses to thrive and interact with buyers and manage their outputs. The heightened competition arising from the new characteristics of sales increases the importance of effective marketing. Today’s tools are perpetuating that trend, as they allow sales and marketing teams to interact with their target audiences 24/7 across numerous channels. B2B services such as Salesfusion exist to deliver an effective marketing campaign using web analytics, website visitor tracking, lead capture, and a number of other tools through the sales funnel.
Companies are not only relying on brand loyalty, they are working with B2B partner companies that specialize in helping businesses gain more customers and manage online presences. This matchmaking process of sorts is done through meetings and discussions to determine if the companies are the best fit for each others needs, ultimately deciding if the specializing partner company is able to provide growth for its clients’ products.
The collaborative process involves more than just products. Firms work with companies to ensure that salespeople are equipped from within their place of work to complete the task at hand. With project planning, development, and delegation among departments, the needs of a business are determined, then technological, branding, and marketing solutions are made.
Although the traditional snake oil salesman is dead, generating sales remains very much a craft, which is gradually evolving into a science thanks to B2B relationships and services. Sales departments may be growing in size throughout the nation due to larger markets, but at the end of the day, businesses know what products hold the most value. Their collaboration with partnered firms depends on this value, trustworthiness, and helpfulness; these brand preferences can be the biggest factor in overall partner success.
One thing I have always liked best about Twitter is the conversations. Some people may think it’s nearly impossible to carry on a meaningful conversation when you’re limited to 140 characters per tweet, but that is really not the case. It’s less of a limitation and more of a creativity booster. Even better? The conversations can go on as long as the parties involved care to participate.
Brands of all sizes report a variety of benefits from having conversations on Twitter, such as: brand exposure, client acquisition, and everything in between. Twitter offers a more level playing field for small businesses – as well as larger corporations – to have meaningful conversations with other brands and individuals.
This article will show you some ways in which you can make Twitter work for your small business by engaging with your followers through conversations. And, just to state the obvious, the tweets and conversations from a small business will significantly differ from those of celebrities (either real or self-perceived), or even regular individuals.
1) One of the most important things a small business that is new to Twitter should do first is to learn the “rules” of the road…or the “stream.”
Observe how often others in your industry tweet, and what type of content they share. Learn to use relevant hashtags, but not too many. When you learn the basics about tweeting prior to starting conversations, you decrease the chances of making your small business look like it’s trying too hard to fit in.
2) When initiating conversations or replying to someone, always remember to “@mention” the other user or users to specifically include them in your tweets.
Back in my day, you had to dial a 7-digit number on your (rotary) phone to specifically reach another caller. Oh wait, you still have to do that…although the number of digits you have to dial…I mean press…varies.
Twitter works in a similar way as the telephone. If you want to get someone’s attention in the stream, you’re going to need to use the “@” symbol in order to connect. Otherwise, your well-intended comment(s) for a specific someone or someone’s is going to get lost in the stream.
3) Determine a strategy for having conversations on Twitter as a small business
Many people remain hesitant to have conversations with “logos,” so it means you may have to work a little harder to prove you’re really a human at first. Part of building a Twitter conversation strategy will involve deciding how you’re going to be “human” in your interactions. You’ll want to give people reasons to follow and engage with you.
Charlene Kingston says this about creating a Twitter conversation strategy in her article for Social Media Examiner:
People will follow you if you talk about things that interest them. Of course, you can talk about your business, offer discounts and exclusive specials, share practical tips and announce your business products and services. Be mindful that you need to talk about things that others find interesting if you want to build a community.
Choose your conversation topics carefully because it’s important that you really care about these topics. People can tell if you really have passion for a subject, or if you’re just showing up to sell them something.
4) Be polite and professional in your Twitter conversations
I like to think of Twitter as a virtual cocktail party. The conversations flow constantly, and the topics cover anything and everything. As a small business, you can also participate in virtual cocktail party conversations. However, just like in a real-life cocktail party, you should always be polite. For example, make sure you’re not interrupting a private conversation. As well, if you’re joining a conversation, make sure you’re being relevant and adding value to it. Remember that you’re representing your business, so being professional is always a good idea.
5) Avoid using Twitter conversations for showing off or promoting yourself or your small business’ agenda
It’s highly unlikely that someone is impatiently waiting for a business to sell them something while they’re hanging out on Twitter. If you’re thinking about doing so, just don’t.
I really like the way Toby Rosenbloom explains it in his article, “How to use Twitter to talk with followers and engage influencers”:
Twitter is the place that people go to let off steam and engage with each other – and certainly not to read your self-promotional content. The only way your followers will truly engage with you – and spread the word about your brand – is if you use your corporate Twitter account to strike up real conversation that offers genuine value; show love to your followers.
In other words, be authentic and genuine – and be yourself – when having conversations with your followers on Twitter. The sales will fall into place.
How does your small business use Twitter? Are you having meaningful conversations with your followers, or simply advertising your brand? I’d love to hear your thoughts…please feel free to leave comments below.
What makes an outstanding presentation? One that pushes you to think from a new perspectives? One without an endless string of snooze-worthy PowerPoint slides?
Perhaps gaining actionable items to implement and grow your business?
Nope, you guessed wrong.
According to the self-proclaimed poster boy of content marketing, Joe Pulizzi, a great presentation is one you go into with low expectations. For instance, if you expect to go home with one actionable item, but instead go home with two (i.e. it exceeds your expectations).
As marketers and business owners, you’ve probably attended your fair share of unfortunate presentations. As an avid public speaker, Pulizzi’s goal is the make sure this is not the case. Last week I found myself slurping down a lukewarm cup of coffee in the cozy wine cellar of the well-known Boston steak house, Mooo. Surrounded by an intimate group of Boston marketers, I listened to Pulizzi’s insight on creating and distributing outstanding content. Pulizzi is the founder of the Content Marketing Institute and author of Epic Content Marketing. With over 58,000 followers on Twitter, Joe is clearly doing something right. I pushed my coffee aside and attentively listened as he reviewed the five elements to consider in regards to epic content.
So let’s recap and unravel these content marketing tips that Pulizzi decided to share.
Sunshine, huh? Pulizzi said that sunshine stands for happy customers – now you’re speaking my language!
Pulizzi emphasized the importance of setting content goals, while not forgetting about the “why?” For example, why are we advertising on Facebook? Who on this channel are we looking to go after? What stage of the funnel are they in? How can we convince them to convert? Or how can we retain our current customers? Asking these critical questions, setting goals, and implementing a content strategy are essential steps in creating effective content in Pulizzi’s mind.
Pulizzi ran through a few real-world examples. My favorite was Copyblogger, a company which I hadn’t heard of prior but has apparently built their business on content, with 90% of their revenue coming from their blog subscribers. This is pretty impressive, and poking around their site, I can see why. Their blog is attractive, well-written with personality and straightforward language, and there are attractive call-to-actions to subscribe to the blog in some essential parts of their website. So how do they make money exactly? Copyblogger makes money by selling an online marketing platform, so they are essentially a B2B software company, not unlike us here at WordStream. But how is Copyblogger relevant to Pulizzi’s element?
Well, they set out with the goal of capturing blog subscribers, working them down the funnel, and converting them into leads, and clearly their content has been quite successful in doing so.
Thanks for the mind-blowing insight Joe…of course you need a mission statement. This content marketing tip stuck out as a bit obvious, but Pulizzi did hit on some crucial parts of what this statement needs to include.
The most important thing is your audience! Pulizzi told us about a humorous time when a customer told him she has 18 personas…really? 18? That is way too many! Your audience needs to be summed up by one or two short descriptions. Who are you targeting? Mothers? Entrepreneurs? Architects? Beer-bellied fraternity bros? Whoever it is, figure it out and incorporate them right into your mission statement so your audience knows that you are talking to them.
Your mission statement should also address what will be delivered to your audience, and what the outcome will be. Most important, your mission statement should serve as a guideline to direct all content.
Let’s dissect the following mission statements to see how they incorporate Pulizzi’s principles:
“Enabling women to have more quality time with their family.”
“Welcome to Inc.com, the place where entrepreneurs and business owners can find useful information, advice, insights, resources and inspiration for running and growing their businesses.”
Personally, I think Inc’s mission statement is strong, but could be simplified. What is important to note is that this statement does not highlight what Inc. or Home Made Simple are selling, but instead focuses on what each company stands for. Your company’s mission statement should be on every content creator’s mind when writing, but also shared and embraced throughout the entire company (we already know this though, right?).
This Pulizzi point is really focused on subscribers as the most important means of evaluating if your strategy is working or not.
Pulizzi has found this to be the most important metric to analyze, and is baffled by why people hone in on traffic to the site over these loyal content consumers. In reality, even if your traffic to the site is high, it does not mean those visitors are returning anytime soon. A large chunk of them likely took an accidental turn off the wrong exit (think about how many sites you visit and never return to), but subscribers are the people you can actually communicate directly with and influence.
Once you have your subscriber base do some analysis to find what is so different between those who subscribe and those who don’t. For example, subscribers to thinkMoney trade 5X more than their other customers. Getting the right content to the right people is key!
This was my favorite Pulizzi point, and something that WordStream founder Larry Kim has drilled into my head time and time again.
Think of your influencers as the people, blogs, and sites where you target consumers are hanging out. What you need to do is jump in and steal that audience from these influencers and competitors. This sounds a bit scary, right? Well, there are several ways to get your content in front of your target audience without looking like a jerk.
Follow these steps to expand your content reach:
Here’s an example below of an article WordStream’s Customer Success Manager, Erin Sagin, tweeted linking to an influencer who guest blogged for Unbounce where a lot of our current customers (and future customers, we hope) hang out.
solid advice, especially tip #4! Common #PPC Mistakes That Are Sending Crappy Leads to Your Landing Page http://t.co/YeRe3hGewD by @ebkendo
— Erin Sagin (@erinsagin) October 6, 2014
Bake influencers into your content: According to Kapost Content Marketing Manager, Liz O’Neill, for media publishers to succeed, “they need not only to produce great content, but cultivate a community of influencers.”
Do you see what I did there? I quoted someone who has the potential to share the love back. I can now tweet the article to Liz notifying her that she is quoted in my blog post. The likely output will be her retweeting the article to her followers (assuming many are marketers desperate for ideas to expand their reach – cough, cough, PPC → WordStream Advisor). The path might not be that direct, but it is an easy way to spread your content to a relevant audience.
Alright Pulizzi, not all of us are rolling in dough. But, being in the paid search industry, I have to agree that throwing down some greenbacks is important when it comes to reaching your audience. The world (especially the web) is cluttered with content and marketers can no longer rely on just well-written blog posts or SEO best practices.
Let’s use Facebook as an example. I can still remember the day when building a presence on Facebook just required creating a company page, posting on a regular basis, and promoting through your site or other channels to gain followers. Now, if you are not paying Facebook to advertise, the likelihood of someone stumbling upon your page is pretty much non-existent. Even if you are paying your reach can be fairly limited. Pulizzi highlighted the importance of distribution, which he stated should be 50% of your content marketing strategy.
So where should you spend your money? This of course depends on where your audience is hanging out, but here are a few place to start:
At the end of Pulizzi’s presentation, I felt like he did an above adequate job of sharing some helpful marketing wisdom in just an hour, but I hope expanding on his points and adding a touch of my opinion and recommendations will help you push your content marketing to the next level.
Have you tried any of these content marketing tips? What are your thoughts on Joe Pulizzi’s 5 Elements? What distribution (paid or unpaid) have you found most successful?
Remember when you were younger, and your teachers would reward your class’s good behavior with no homework over a long weekend? Suddenly, nothing else mattered except that precious extra time you’d have on your hands – and nothing beat that feeling of freedom once you had it.
As adults, we still like to be rewarded for our actions, especially when it’s a reward we can use. That’s why incentives are incredibly valuable marketing tools for any business looking to grow their email list.
Some people call it a sign up bonus, others consider it a free gift. Regardless of its name, the purpose is the same: you’re giving people a reason to sign up for your list, and you’re getting a chance to showcase your expertise.
Many people are protective over their personal information – email addresses are no exception. Incentives give people the nudge they need to share their email address with you. They’ll not only be rewarded for signing up for your list, they’ll also get a preview of the services you have to offer as well as the quality of your business. Incentives help you stand out from other businesses from the get-go, as well.
By now you might be wondering, ‘What could I give away that people would actually want?’ Let’s take a look at some of the common types of incentives to choose from:
With all the different the different types of incentives you can use, it’s important to choose the right one.
Digital items, such as ebooks and PDFs, are the easiest things to turn into incentives, because you’ll never run out of inventory.
If you’re already producing content, it won’t take much time at all to flip what you already have into a PDF file. They’re easily deliverable too – you can attach files up to 1MB to an email. (For larger files, we recommend using Dropbox or Google Drive.)
Digital incentives work exceptionally well for those who provide consulting, training, coaching or any kind of internet marketing services. Think step-by-step guides, industry tips/best practices, checklists and worksheets.
Want to promote a product or service? Offer a one-time coupon code for new subscribers. Make sure your offer is valuable, because new subscribers are more likely to spread the word if they like your deal!
Here’s a great example of a coupon incentive.
There’s a good chance that if you’re on this website, you’re already interested in attending the event. Why wouldn’t you want to sign up for email updates and get $3 off your admission? It’s a no-brainer.
Here are some more ideas to help you get started:
The idea is to create an incentive that is available nowhere else! Once you know which incentive is right for your business, where do you place your incentive offer? State your incentive clearly on your web sign up form. Click here to learn more about what to write on your sign up form.
The best thing about the incentives we’ve mentioned so far? They’re easily deliverable via email. That leads us to the most important part of incentivizing your new subscribers: following through. A follow up series serves as a great tool for delivering digital incentives. Your very first follow up message to those new subscribers after they’ve confirmed into your list should contain their freebie. Don’t make them wait!
Remember, your work isn’t done once you’ve delivered the goods. You need to continue showing your company’s value to new subscribers if you want to keep them engaged. Great content, ongoing sales and newsletter exclusives will make them feel like they’re part of your club. You might also consider expanding on the content you used as your incentive in your follow up emails.
And if your incentive isn’t as effective as you’d like it to be? Don’t be afraid of refreshing your incentive to attract people who may not have been interested in your first one. It may take a little experimentation to figure out what what works best for your business.
Have you ever used an incentive offer to encourage people to sign up for your list? Share your experience with us in the comments!