Rnordman

They've visited 56 countries living on $236 per day, navigated through pirate-infested waters and survived 23 days at sea without fresh water.

Is Your Blog Attractive to Readers?

Are you producing content for your business’s blog that simply isn’t generating very much steam in terms of viewers, shares and general interest? Putting in the often long hours and painstaking effort to produce good content can seem fruitless when only a handful of people ever see what you’ve published.

A continual cycle of low viewership and shares can make blogging seem pointless; you give up on the pursuit of that grand audience available to you via content production and, erroneously, place that time and energy into other things. Well, we’re here to tell you: content is perhaps the most important part of your company’s inbound marketing strategy, and blogs are the first step in that process. Don’t abandon blogging because you aren’t getting the viewers you need; change your blogging strategy and get the exposure you need to attract those viewers.

To help enlighten you a little on the tenets of getting more viewers onto your blog, we’ve compiled a few helpful pointers below.

1. Know Your Audience

This little diatribe will likely pop up several times in this article. Why? Because it is monumentally important to virtually every step of creating content for your business’s website. Before you sit down to write a blog, you should have a firm knowledge of the audience you are writing to. Things like…

• What do they want to know?
• What information is useful to them?
• What are they looking for when they visit your website?
• Which social media platforms are they likely to be using?
• What level of humor is likely to appeal to them?
• What tone in your writing is most likely to resonate with them?

We cannot stress enough the important of knowing your audience. When you know who you’re writing to, you can put your writings talents to use where they will be most effective, and you’ll have a far greater chance of getting the views, shares and engagement that are so important to your brand.

2. Create a Solid Headline

Headlines carry more weight than you think. So important, in fact, 80% of blog viewers scarcely make it past the last word of the headline before clicking off the page. Why is this, you ask?

It’s because too many blog writers don’t put enough thought into creating a catchy headline that draws the viewer in and encourages them to keep reading. Here are a few easy tips for creating a catchier headline:

• Incorporate Numbers
• Appeal to Emotions
• Make a Promise
• Make an Announcement
• Use Provocative Language

Unfortunately, you’ll need to do more than pen a great title to your blog to get people to hang around, realize the value of your content, enjoy your writing style, and possibly give you a “share.”

3. Write Well

This should go without saying, but it’s highly important, so we’re giving it a paragraph. Too many writers don’t understand the importance of correct grammar and spelling in their blogs and other content. Not only does sloppy grammar and spelling scare customers away from your website (59% of people who see bad grammar on a website will click off the page), it gives your blog and your brand a bad name.

Because you want to build towards a reputation as an industry expert, and you want your viewers to be able to trust the content you produce, you must make every effort to present yourself as an educated authority, someone who can communicate efficiently and properly. Some things to look out for when editing your content?

• Spelling, especially in headlines. If you aren’t sure about spell check’s version of a word, look it up. Better to be safe than embarrassed by a bad misspelling.
• Grammar and Punctuation. You should be aware of some of the basic principles of grammar and should strive to incorporate them into every aspect of your blog. Handy tools like this can help you stay on top of any grammar pitfalls.
• Run-On Sentences. When a sentence takes a viewer two breaths to complete out loud, it’s time to trim the fat. Short, succinct writing is generally always preferable to long-winded rambling, especially on a blog. Chop your sentences up, and then edit them for clarity.
• Know Your Audience. Again, we must emphasize: this might be the most important factor to keep in mind. If you don’t know who you’re writing to, you can’t incorporate the tone and level of humor or seriousness that will appeal to them.

4. Make Your Blog Shareable

In addition to the things we’ve listed above, making your blog shareable is as simple as including “share” buttons inside the content itself. Making sure that your viewer has the ability to share your blog to their social media networks, especially Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, is an important part of maximizing exposure and getting the viewers you want.

5. Include a “Subscribe” CTA

After you make a stellar impression on your reader by providing them with top-notch content, razor-sharp wit, the right amount of humor, and impeccable spelling and grammar, encourage them to subscribe to your blog by inserting a handy CTA. Creating an attractive Call-to-Action might take some work, but when you’re producing great content, you deserve to gain as many followers as possible, and a CTA is an easy, user-friendly way to make that happen.

When you make a commitment to producing quality content that your audience will find useful, the benefits to your brand are innumerable. How do you ensure that your brand’s content is reaching its audience?

photo credit: cogdogblog via photopin cc

To keep your email list growing like crazy all year long, you need to make it easy for people to sign up. A healthy email list is one of the best ways to boost sales, says our Community Education and Training Manager, Jill Bastian.

“An email list is vital to a business.” She adds, “It has the potential to dramatically increase sales. So, giving potential subscribers/clients/customers lots of options to sign up is important.”

The good news is collecting email addresses isn’t hard. There are a dozens of places where you can set up an email sign up form. From your business website to a sign-up sheet near your cash register, we’ve created a list of six places to put your email sign-up form:

1. Your homepage
The most obvious place to put an email sign up form is on your homepage. This suggestion might not take you by surprise, but it’s worth mentioning because a lot of businesses don’t have a form on the main page.

Having a sign up option on your blog or contact page is great, but customers might not make it past your main page, so you should capitalize on the opportunity. We’ve got a quick and easy email sign up form on our homepage. Check it out.

2. Sidebar content offering
People are more willing to sign up for your email list if they get something in return. You’ll notice that our sign up form above is for the VR Buzz, our newsletter. Our subscribers get some great marketing tips and advice delivered right to their inbox. You can also offer other high quality content. Take a look at the example below. Subscribers get access to a content offering. It’s set off to the side of the website, so it’s not distracting, yet it has a prominent place on the site.

3. Consider a pop-up form
We know what you’re thinking; pop-up ads are annoying, right? Not if they’re done right. For example, Bastian spotted a humorous pop-up ad while she was surfing online. It made her chuckle, so she signed up for their list.

“Even a jaded email marketer can be converted with some clever text,” she jokes. If you add a dose of humor to your pop ups, they’ll serve a purpose. You’ll grab attention and maybe some contacts, Bastian says.

4. A sign-up form on Twitter
Did you know that you could use Twitter to beef up your email list? By purchasing a lead generation card, you’ll attract a whole host of new customers. Think of it as a promotional tweet. You offer customers a deal of some sort in exchange for their email address. It’s an affordable way to add new names to your list. Here’s an example:

We’ve written a how-to article on this very topic. For more information, check out “Grow Your Email List Using Twitter Lead Generation Cards.”

5. At the register
A lot of retailers are asking for email addresses right at the register. When you’re ringing up a customer, you have their full attention, so why not ask if they’re interested in signing up? If you don’t want to enter it into your computer, you can always put a clipboard near the register and ask people to sign up. Remind customers the value they get for signing up.

6. A sign-up form for a drawing
A creative VerticalResponse client, Cinquain Cellars, has a unique sign up system. The winery hosts a drawing. Customers can participate by entering their name and email address into an iPad that’s stationed right at the counter. And entrants are informed they are signing up for Cinquain’s email list when they enter.l

“This has proven to be very successful,” says owner Beth Nagengast. “It’s a win-win. We can build our list of prospective customers, and someone always wins a great prize.”

How do you collect email addresses? Tell us the most creative spot that you have an email sign up/opt-in form in the comment section below.

I received an email the other day asking me if I, or one of our team members, was interested in creating a blog post highlighting the results of some other company’s research study. I love collaboration, and I truly believe that it is one of the most critical components of successful content marketing, but this email just didn’t resonate with me.

It got me to thinking, and I want to offer my advice to content marketers to help you be more successful in forming collaborative relationships to help get your content shared, reach new audiences and create new alliances. If this article can prevent at least one person from being the victim of insincere collaboration efforts, then I have done my job. Here are a few things to watch out for.

Develop a History

Think of it this way. You’re walking down the street, on your way to your favorite coffee shop. Along the way you pass by a moving van. Some person you’ve never met jumps out of the van and shouts, “Hey, I’ve got two couches and a bed I still gotta move down from the second floor. You mind helping me? I’ll give you an insincere thank you in return and ignore your phone calls if you ever need my help. You in?” Do you jump at the chance, or do you roll your eyes and keep walking?

Now, second scenario. Your best friend from college calls you up and explains that he and his wife are moving into a new home. He says he’s got most of the moving under control, but he could really use your help moving a couple couches and a bed. He’ll buy you dinner and asks if you and your wife want to hang around for a while afterward and catch up. You recall the time in college when he skipped a chance to go to a party to help you study for an exam you had the next morning in your statistics class. Are you more likely to say “yes” to the first or second scenario?

As human beings, it’s in our nature to want to help out those who genuinely know us and have our best interests in mind. Conversely, we are naturally skeptical of those that ask for our help, but barely know us and offer nothing in return. This rule applies to content marketing as well. If you want to develop a collaborative relationship that benefits both sides, you need to develop a history with the other person or company first.

Don’t Always Expect Something in Return

It’s important for you to avoid looking at collaborative content marketing relationships as being 1-to-1 even exchanges. If you share another company’s Facebook post, don’t send them an angry email the next day letting them know that you noticed they hadn’t shared one of your posts in return. If you’ve nurtured the relationship properly, they’ll reciprocate on their own time.

No one wants to be hassled. Chances are that the recipient of your share is very thankful that you made the effort. They likely have planned to do the same in return, but keep in mind that they are working from their own editorial calendar and probably have a specific schedule in place. They’ll need time to figure out how to best return the favor. And even if they never return that particular favor, keep in mind that there will be plenty of other opportunities in the future. As your relationship strengthens, helping you with your objectives will even become a small part of their strategy.

Be Real in Your Communications

Perhaps the most annoying thing you can do, something that is sure to kill a relationship almost as quickly as it started, is to be fake in your communications. I can’t express how much it bothers me when I receive a direct message on Twitter or a ridiculously scripted email that clearly wasn’t crafted for just me. Have you ever received something that looked like this on Twitter, “Hey! You’re super cool. I love your tweets! Read my new ebook for free cause you’re so awesome! Please share now! Bit.ly/ANNOYING”? Halfway through that message I’m scrambling to unfollow the person (read: robot) as quickly as I can, maybe even report the message if it’s too over the top or gets too repetitive.

Newsflash: I’m not sharing your new ebook. I’ve never met you, and the only communication I’ve ever had with you came across as though written by a machine. You clearly copied and pasted that message or set up an auto-reply situation, and chances are that you sent that same message out to about a thousand other people before it reached me. If you really want to develop relationships and get your content shared, this isn’t the way to do it.

Instead, start following likeminded users on social media. Engage with their posts. Share them. Comment on them and start conversations. Let the person or company know that you truly appreciate what they are saying. And, most importantly, let them know you are real. It may not seem like it, but they will notice you in time. The more your name or face pops up, the more likely they are to check into you and learn more about you. Once the relationship gets to this point, that’s when you reach out and bring up potential collaboration.

When to Walk Away

Of course, not all relationships last, and not all of them even start really either. Sometimes you can use all of the above tactics, and a number of others, and still not ever develop the mutually beneficial relationship that you are seeking. In that case, it’s time to cut your losses. But don’t give up on the process. It really does work.

You need patience, and you need to find likeminded individuals who truly understand the value of relationship building for content marketers. There are plenty out there, and the relationships that you form with them will be well worth the time you waste weeding through the insincere tweeters and complete strangers seeking one-sided assistance.

I’d love to read and respond to any questions, comments, or suggestions you have. Please drop me a note in the comments below. 

Ten Mandatory Sales Disciplines is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

Closing: The discipline of closing is the gaining of commitments. This is the first discipline because commitments are what allow you to create opportunities, create value, and win deals. This is the first discipline.

Prospecting: The discipline of prospecting requires that you speak to your dream clients to ask them for their time and for an opportunity to explore working together. This is the second discipline because no deal is ever created or closed before it is opened.

Nurturing: The discipline of nurturing requires that you communicate value to your dream clients over a long period of time, making yourself known, and making yourself known as a value creator.

Planning: The discipline of sales call planning allows you to use both your time and your dream client’s time effectively. It allows you to plan to create value and establish yourself as a true professional.

Value Creation: The discipline of value creation requires that you ensure that your dream client benefits from every engagement with you, including every sales interaction, and every deal.

Caring: The discipline of caring is what ensures that you aren’t self-oriented and that you establish trust. It makes you other-oriented.

Integrity: The discipline of integrity is also necessary for trust. It is the discipline of being honest and walking your talk.

Listening: This discipline, combined with caring, is the heart of understanding. Your dream clients want to be heard, want to be significant, and want to collaborate. The discipline of listening is how you meet those needs.

Follow Up: The discipline of follow up is your keeping the commitments you make to your dream clients, no matter how large or small. It is one of the ways trust is established and maintained.

Profit: The discipline of profit ensures that you make enough money to successfully deliver for your clients and that you have enough left over to develop greater levels of value in the future.

Most infographics achieve the same result: failure. Why? Because most marketers think of them as a magical form of content that will produce results no matter what. Infographics are ineffective the way they are currently being used, and I am sure 90% (I don’t have data to back this claim, but to be honest, I think the number could be higher) of marketers who are using it aren’t seeing the positive ROI they would like to see from infographics.

Either commit all the way or don’t get started

Anyone who is serious about content marketing knows it takes a while to see returns from their investments. Whether you are an established brand or an upcoming one, you need to have a long term strategy if you ever expect to see past the short term struggles.

If you are going to use infograhics, commit to it. It’s been extremely frustrating over the years seeing people wanting a single infographic, it not meeting their “unrealistic” expectations, and quitting infographics altogether, never to use them again because the concept doesn’t work.

Quitting cold turkey isn’t going to drive results. If you want to see results and have long term impact, you need to make infographics a part of your overall content marketing strategy just like you would with articles, videos, slides, whitepaper and othe forms of content.

KissMetrics has mastered the art of content marketing. They regularly produce content that caters to their audience. And guess what they do really well – they mix it up. They are committed to all forms of content, and because they have committed to sustaining that variety over a long period of time, they are able to reap the rewards now.

Make me come to you and not rely on Google

Brands aren’t built overnight. It takes time. Again, if infographics are going to be a part of your marketing plan, it needs to be a long term plan. Make it a habit. Hire an in-house team, use a DIY service, hire an agency—whatever you do, if you are going to dive into it, dive in all the way and give it a chance. Don’t quit with one or two infographics, becauseno one will ever remember that one infographic you produced. If you want to imprint your name into your target market’s mind, you’ve got to stick with the plan and make more than one impression.

I am going to use KissMetrics as an example here again. Most of the time when I see an infographic performing really well and it has to do something with online marketing, I know it’s something KissMetrics has produced. When it comes to their infographics, I remember who did it. I knowwhere to find it . Instead of running to google to look for that infographic, I know exactly where to go—their site.

At the end of the day, if you are creating infographics because you want brand recognition on the web, you have got to stick with it. You have to continually produce infographics that cater to your audience. If I as a consumer see you repeatedly deliver content I value, thenext time I have a need for that type of information, I will simply go to your site rather than search on google for that particular topic. If you are going to make infographics, do it regularly and meaningfully. Do it enough, and your audience will come to you directly without even having to rely on Google. You are making that infographic stick and you are making me come back to your site when I need that info. Your brand is imprinted in my mind. You make me come back, and the ability to draw return traffic is powerful.

Lose the “embed mentality”

Links are great. Everyone who does infographics does it for links. That’s not completely a wrong way to go about it;after all, that’s how search works. However, when your sole approach is to game the search engines, things will rarely play out as you plan. The key thing here is to create something with the mentality to “educate” and not just toss out a bunch of “linkbait.”

Infographics are a great shareable medium. They are easy to share, but the linkbait mentality where success is measured by backlinks alone is a flawed one. We need to think of infographics as part of a much larger goal than just grabbing quick backlinks.

When you produce article after article, you are not doing it for the backlinks alone. You are writing it to create value for your readers. Follow the same model when it comes to infographics and lose the “embed mentality.” You will most likely get better results because you will be focusing on creating better content.

Don’t make infographics your secret weapon

Because that will only disappoint you. The infographic is truly one of the best forms of content out there. If done right and consistently, it will bring you results that will far outweigh the risk of not giving it a shot. But you have to stop thinking of infographics as this magical thing in your content marketing arsenal that will fix all your woes. That’s a recipe for disaster.

Every form of content is equally important in its own regard. Some things are better suited as an article, some as videos and others as infographics. Integrate infographics as part of a much bigger plan rather than making it that secret weapon that will win the content marketing battle for you on its own. If you want results through infographics, you have to be able to see what they can do for you a year or more down the road and not next week.

Ultimately, here is my take on infographics: the key to seeing results from infographics is to invest in them with full commitment—a long term commitment that doesn’t end with one infographic. It can be a great form of communication, but it can also be the worst if you expect too much from too little investment. It all depends on how you utilize this amazing medium.

What do you think?

Kim Kardashian – an unlikely inspiration for a marketing strategy, or is she?

Do you know who Kim Kardashian is? Of course you do, everybody does. Do you know what her talent is? As the famous interviewer Barbara Walters once said, Kim doesn’t sing, she doesn’t dance, she doesn’t act, she has no talent. So how is it that this person who until few years ago was no more special than me and you shot to fame? Here is the secret…

While she may often be referred to as a mere TV personality or socialite, Kim is nothing short of a global brand. Whether it is her show, her clothes and cosmetics range or simply an appearance, the name Kardashian brings a certain something to any event or product. Somehow she has managed to build a media empire around her persona, somehow she has achieved what every business owner dreams of for their company.

Let me say at this point that I sincerely apologise to anybody who is not a fan of hers (personally I am with guys and gals) for yet another Kardashian mention, however I am fascinated (and you should be too) by is the fact that Kim Kardashian is a media machine that has created a powerful brand for herself. Every business can learn a lot from her marketing strategies and techniques and here are the 4 ways to market your small business like Kim Kardashian.

#1 Don’t be Afraid to Promote Yourself

Exposure is critical. Don’t be shy to get your business out there. A day hasn’t passed without at least 1 article about Kim to appear in a paper, magazine and online. Similarly, make sure that your business get its fair share of media exposure, be it social media, networking events, advertising, weekly newsletters etc. be visible. How do you expect for people to buy from you if they don’t even know that you exist?

#2 Be Creative

When it comes to marketing Kim has never really been one to go the conventional way. She didn’t shoot to fame because of her talents but rather because of her (and her momager’s) ingenuity.

So what other marketing techniques can you bring to the business table? In what way can you promote your business that is both unconventional and quirky yet professional and memorable?

Maybe a new seasonal campaign, sponsoring a local team or event? Examine your goals and seek new ways to achieve them. You want to create a strong brand? Think about how to get more visibility. You want more loyal clients? What can you do to entice people to get back for more? Explore new marketing and advertising opportunities and pursue them- start a business blog, send out newsletters and SMS messages. Don’t be afraid to take a plunge every now and then.

#3 Branch Out

Kim has grabbed opportunities left and right on her way to fame. You name it, she’s done it. From some conventional opportunities such as a clothes range, perfume and makeup, to some more unorthodox ventures such as selling images of her first wedding, she’s even bringing out a book compiling all her selfies! Ingenious? Yes!

Is there a new service or product you can bring out? A new venture or an investment opportunity? If you are happy with the product and service you offer now, maybe repackaging and rebranding them would give your business a new and refreshed look and more opportunities to cease? Either way, always keep your eyes open for new ways to create value.

#4 Be Trendy

For Kim’s brand keeping up to date and being on trend is crucial. And I don’t mean fashion-trendy. I mean business-trendy. Simply note how her business has moved from the physical world to the digital one. Along with her army of followers on social media, she has avid readers of her blog and she has recently brought out a mobile app. In the short time that it has been up, this app has managed to become the fourth most downloaded app on iTunes and is rumoured to be on pace to bring her $85 million in the first year!

In this regard, make sure that you, your brand and your business are always on the right track. Are you on social media, is your website responsive, do you use email and SMS marketing? Keeping up to date with these technological innovations is not just about being trendy, but moving forward into the future along with your customers.

As you see, Kim Kardashian is much more than a girl who’s famous for her pouty selfies and tight clothes. She has built a media empire that is bringing her unbelievable revenue all the while she has never really had to do a day’s work. Being creative, grabbing opportunities whenever they arise and keeping an eye on trends is what has managed to make Kim what she is today – a mega-brand that is work for her even when she sleeps. Would you like your business to enjoy the same riches? Maybe you should start getting your marketing inspiration from the Kardashians instead of marketing books.

The stats we've got this week range from the sublime to the ridiculous.

From Twitter mentions of abbreviated phrases (FML, LMAO etc.) to declining retail spend in food. In there, too, is some interesting data about mobile spend in China and the state of SEO.

As usual, for many more stats, download our Internet Statistics Compendium...

LMAO, these stats are useful

Social media continues to change the way we communicate. New research from We Are Social, studying global English language use on Twitter over a three month period, identified 50 of the most common abbreviations. 

• LOL topped the list with 263m mentions in the time period.
• LMAO came in second with 68m mentions and OMG followed with 67m mentions.
• IDK picked up fourth place with 29m and lastly, the notorious WTF took fifth position with 28m.
• The top 50 abbreviations amounted to 609m mentions on Twitter in total in the three month period.  

The full table, which is a little fruity, is available at the end of this post.

WordPress and business

1,000 small business owners were surveyed by 34SP.com. The survey revealed that WordPress is now a trusted business content management system.

More than half of the respondents surveyed in the research (52%) stated that they use WordPress for their business website.

Small businesses in particular were using WordPress for their website software. 94% of those who said they use WordPress for business have between 1–50 employees and span a range of industries including web design, marketing, advertising, technology, IT and healthcare industries.

China ahead on mobile

The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) has surveyed 21 key Chinese advertisers spending $5.7bn annually on communication. 

• 20% claimed that mobile has been a key priority for some time and is well integrated.
• 35% claimed to have a strategic vision for mobile.
• 11% of interactive budgets in China are spent on mobile, with some respondents spending up to 40%. 

These results contrast with a global WFA survey involving 23 companies spending an estimated $39bn annually. 

• Here just 4% of respondents had successfully integrated mobile into their marketing.
• 57% said a strategic vision for the channel had been developed.
• Global advertisers spent 6% of digital budgets on mobile.
• No global advertiser was spending more than 20% of digital spend on mobile. 

This gap might widen, with all respondents in China reporting that they planned to increase their mobile spend in the next 12 months.

• 72% said they planned to make a large increase.
• 54% of global advertisers who had similar plans.

Banners account for just 4% of entertainment mobile ads

Banner ads now account for just 4% of mobile ads run by entertainment brands as they turn to video and rich media according to a new report from Vdopia.

Over a year, mobile ad campaigns viewed by 23m people in the UK were analysed.

• The share of banner ads dropped from 14% to 4% in just six months.
• Video and rich media formats now account for 96%.
• The report also reveals that 10 second ads are the strongest performing formats, despite only accounting for 3% of advertiser spend. 

The Video Performance Index (VPI) – a measure of the effectiveness of video ads by completion and clickthrough rates – shows that 10 second ads are 65% more effective than the average video ad. 

Between them, 20 second and 30 second versions account for nearly three-quarters of entertainment brands’ mobile video ad spend but they’re 27% and 13% less effective, respectively, than the average.

(Click to enlarge)

10m Brits shopping on company time

Businesses lose around 96 hours per employee per year to online shopping at work according to Give as you Live.

• A third of employees have admitted to shopping online when they should be working.
• Of those that shop, an average of 24 minutes is lost every working day to browsing online shopping sites.
• 11am on a Monday morning is the most popular period for a work time purchase.

Tesco was the most popular retailer to shop through at work, with M&S and thetrainline.com coming second and third.

There has been a 14% increase in the number of transactions between 9am and 5pm, from January to July 2014, compared to the same period in 2013.

UK retail sales

The BRC-KPMG retail sales monitor for July 2014 showed the following: 

• UK retail sales were down 0.3% on a like-for-like basis from July 2013, when they had increased 2.2% on the preceding year.
• On a total basis, sales were up 1.3%, against a 3.9% rise in July 2013.
• Furniture was the best performing category, reporting its highest growth since January.
• Food was the worst performing category and experienced its deepest three-month average decline since records began in December 2008.
• Over the last three months, food showed a decline of 1.4%, in contrast with the growth of 0.4% experienced over the last twelve months.
• Non-food reported growth of 3.4% over the three months to July 2014, in line with its twelve-month average of 3.8%.
• Online sales of non-food products in the UK grew 14.9% in July versus a year earlier. The non-food online penetration rate was 16.7% in July, 1.4% higher than in July 2013. 

David McCorquodale, head of retail at KPMG, said:

The tale of two sectors continues with polarisation between food and non-food. While non-food retailers had a stellar month, surpassing even last year’s record sales performance, the grocers saw sales tumble in value as their competitive pricing continued.

CRM satisfaction

Softwareadvice.com surveyed 300 CRM software users to understand their challenges and benefits, and found that: 

• 42% of respondents plan to increase investment in marketing technology.
• 37% of respondents plan to invest more in social media monitoring technology.
• System customization (80%) and integration (75%) were the most commonly cited challenges. 

 

State of SEO

OneHydra surveyed a total of 200 senior ecommerce and marketing directors and senior managers in June and July 2014.

Results found:  

• Despite 82% admitting search marketing is an integral part of their business model, less than 20% of SEO requirements were met in the last 12 months.
• A quarter of retailers are wasting more than £100,000 a year on SEO.
• 67% noted that it can take over three months for SEO changes to be implemented.
• 70% stated that they don’t have technical resources in which to implement the required SEO changes.
• A third find it challenging to align SEO processes with their business goals.
• 36% cant keep up with the keyword content creation necessary. 

Customer satisfaction by country

Zendesk annual study of customer satisfaction by country showed New Zealand still has the most satisfied customers. 

• For the first time, Italy and Columbia made the list, coming in at no. 4 and no. 30, respectively.
• New Zealand is steady in the no. 1 spot for the third consecutive quarter, with 93% customer satisfaction.
• Canada and Norway are tied at no. 2 for the second quarter in a row with 92% satisfaction.
• The UK is no. 16, with an increase of 2% to 85%. 

The Zendesk Benchmark is based on actual customer service and support interactions between 25,000 participating organizations and their customers across 140 countries. 

For a country to be included in the quarterly report, it must have a minimum of 10,000 responses during the quarter.

And here are those acronym Twitter mentions in full:

Acronym:	Meaning:	Twitter mentions:
1	LOL	Laugh out loud	263,379,101
2	LMAO	Laughing my ass off	67,986,604
3	OMG	Oh my god	67,654,349
4	IDK	I don't know?	29,190,201
5	WTF	What the fuck?	28,656,242
6	SMH	Shaking my head	26,111,688
7	ILY	I love you	23,306,179
8	TBH	To be honest	18,204,425
9	IDC	I don't care	7,818,492
10	BTW	By the way	7,357,724
11	TBT	Throwback Thursday	6,767,821
12	JK	Just kidding	6,436,609
13	STFU	Shut the fuck up	5,363,589
14	WCW	Womancrush Wednesday	5,185,195
15	NSFW	Not safe for work	5,106,853
16	HMU	Hit me up	3,774,454
17	MCM	Mancrush Monday	3,562,908
18	FFS	For fucks sake	3,272,090
19	FML	Fuck my life	3,118,005
20	BFF	Best friends forever	2,682,466
21	YOLO	You only live once	2,183,157
22	ROFL	Rolling on the floor laughing	2,158,142
23	NVM	Nevermind	2,124,511
24	ICYMI	In case you missed it	1,922,576
25	BRB	Be right back	1,810,367
26	IKR	I know right?	1,716,766
27	FYI	For your information	1,398,425
28	IMO	In my opinion	1,388,270
29	SMFH	Shaking my fucking head	1,291,014
30	GTFO	Get the fuck out	1,167,111
31	HBD	Happy birthday	1,145,306

The Future of Mobile Search Marketing written by Guest Post read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

It’s guest post day here at Duct Tape Marketing and today’s guest post is from Justin Emig – Enjoy!

Just a few short years ago, smartphones were reserved for those bleeding edge consumers willing to spend half of their paycheck on a device double the size of their existing ‘feature’ phone that allowed you to replicate an experience historically reserved for desktops or laptops. The adoption quickly exploded and in 2012, global smartphone adoption reached 1 billion users. Emarketer predicts that in 2014, that number will balloon to 4.55 billion. 1 in 4 worldwide mobile phone users will have a smartphone this year, and each of them are using this device to find products and services, many of them locally.

Search on Mobile Devices

Armed with connectivity, consumers quickly realized that they could find the information they needed with just a few clicks and keystrokes. Since Google is obviously in the search business, they tried to make mobile search easier through their cross device native apps and streamlined browser experiences.

In just a few short years, mobile search is quickly on its way to becoming the primary search vehicle; dethroning the once almost untouchable desktop search experience. Even Google’s famed SPAM fighter, Matt Cutts, commented he wouldn’t be surprised if mobile search surpassed desktop this year! With such volatile adoption, marketers and small business owners need to be aware of what this paradigm shift will mean for their business.

The Future of Mobile Search

One of the biggest challenges with mobile search is the fact many consumers start a search on mobile and finish on another device. Tracking consumers throughout the shopping experience will provide a stronger idea of what drove the purchase and how to market to them more effectively. The other big challenge is the scarcity of consumer attention. With mobile search consumers extremely unlikely to venture past the first search results page, showcasing the correct information, as fast as possible, is paramount for winning the mobile search click.

Smartphone manufacturers, Google, Microsoft and Facebook are scrambling to find out ways to predict what you will search for, before you search for it. This data will help streamline the process, speed up your mobile search experience and ultimately win the lion share of your attention. Amazon has already figured out a way to predict what you are going to purchase before you purchase it, so it is just a matter of time before this weaves its way into search.

Many people continue to scratch their head about Amazon releasing the Fire smartphone, with such dominant forces like Samsung and Apple occupying a stranglehold over the industry. While it appears to be ‘just another phone,’ Amazon introduces some features that could potentially change the mobile search experience forever.

Firefly Technology

With Firefly, your phone is able to view printed text, recognize things around you, and most of all, listen to what is happening around you. Imagine having a conversation about making French Toast and being unable to remember what spice to use, and in a matter of seconds, a French Toast recipe appears on your phone, without any direct user interaction.

The Future of Mobile Search Marketing

There is no doubt that mobile search will surpass desktop search this year and be the primary vertical marketers and small business owners must focus their time. The major question is what will mobile search look like.

Google Now has the fundamentals necessary to be that predictive search engine. They have our cross device personalized history, manually curated search cards, and real time information. Add in a component of ‘selective’ listening to what is happening around us, and predictive search could be born. Apple is already ramping up their Siri efforts to compete with Google Now and so is Microsoft, with Cortana.

As if online marketing wasn’t hard enough for business owners and marketers to reach their target audience, the instantaneous needs of mobile search add yet another avenue they need to focus their efforts. However, moving quickly and optimizing your site for the mobile consumer could mean the difference between winning the mobile search battle and being relinquished to the catacombs of page 2.

Justin Emig is the Search Marketing Manager for Web Talent Marketing, the #1 Digital Marketing Agency in the United States, according to TopSEOs.com. Here, Justin uses SEO, Paid Search, Content Marketing, and Social Media to increase conversions and leads. Justin has spent his career building brands of all sizes and effectively mixes the traditional advertising world with online marketing to effectively tell a brand’s story. You can connect with Justin on Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter, or see more of his content on the Web Talent Blog.

The cool calculation of your competitors weaknesses is easier than ever on a social web.

Had Zuckerberg ignored areas that he felt MySpace guys were doing wrong, or had Twitter founders relinquished the idea of creating ‘the SMS of the internet’, the World Wide Web as we know it might have been very different.

So many successful players in the internet marketing fold reflect the growing importance of competitive marketing analysis. What this information reveals to win on the web has become more crucial than ever.

Healthy competition and rivalry is fast growing into an essential fabric for success in the quickly-changing technology and marketing led businesses. The success mantra has evolved significantly over the last few years, especially when we look at the emergence of many game changers, such as Google, Facebook and Twitter.

This is how the contemporary internet marketing practices changed, and competitive analysis strategies employed traditionally aren’t necessarily as effective today as they were before.

Competition analysis – vital for professional excellence?

Competition stresses better emphasis on perfection in your niche service fold. Success and professional excellence thrive on a hale and hearty competition, which is why knowing and understanding your rivals remains crucial to modern marketing tactics. Further, without a thorough comparison model and perceptive analysis, it is hard to determine whether your marketing strategy is earning great dividends or driving your hard earned marketing budget down the drain.

A vigorous competition watch kills two birds with a single stone – helps with better understanding of rival tactics and opens a window through which you can see your own problem areas. Further, I’m sure you’d agree that knowing where you stand at the moment is highly important.

Still looking for reasons to use competitive analysis in your internet marketing campaigns? Read through the following reasons and find out yourself.

1. Identify opportunities to serve newly acquired and prospective customers.
2. Determine size of the market – identify service gaps and areas for self improvement where competition is exploiting at the moment.
3. Find the tried and tested ways to cater the target market.
4. Identify and promote your unique value proposition.
5. Conclude if your marketing and promotions strategies are effective or not.
6. Knowing where you stand at the moment is very important. Competitive analysis on it.

Discover your rival’s secret success recipe

1. How are they filling the gaps in their service portfolio?

Extrapolate customer engagement signs for success/loss, understanding their campaign tone – peppiness implies confidence, seriousness implies pragmatism and orthodox approach suggests they are afraid to try new things.Look for behavioral patterns – campaign restructuring and changes (too frequently implies campaign failure, while occasional changes imply a campaign is working well.)

2. Investigate their customer acquisition approach

Look for rivals’ social media engagement – how frequently they respond to their clients, are their social media reps doing a decent job or not and subtle indicators of customer acquisition via self promotion. For example – “XYZ celebrates 500+ customers with free $100 worth of consultation/service free of charge.

3. How actively they are using social media and for what purpose?

Social media drives are different as we go from Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ to Instagram or Pinterest. Hence, try to find the purpose behind each one of them along with the common objective.

4. Their unique value proposition

Learn how your rivals are playing the game, so you can beat them at it fairly. The unique value proposition sheds light on the fraction of clients that your rival is fixated on.

5. What to find about your competitor and where?

This is a point where you really need to understand that a local store is not your competitor online if they don’t offer their service via internet. Your competitors based online could be entirely different. Examine new and emerging players in the market. Use tracking tools such as Google Alerts, Talkwalker, Mention, etc.

Evaluate the premise of your rivals – if you share similar ground, look for areas where a certain edge can be established and nurtured.

Competition analysis – How to do it effectively

Taking a sneak peek at competitors requires a little undercover work from the safety of your desk, and we are not talking about corporate espionage or anything. As fellow digital natives, I feel it’d be great idea to share my favorite competitive marketing analysis tools. We love marketing tool compilations, don’t we?

1. Dig their keyword prioritization – Dissect what your rivals are targeting and why. Look for those hidden keyword prioritization patterns and compare with yours. Dig deep and improvise to beat the rival opposition at their game. Keywords can be identified and worked using SEMRush, SuggestMtrx, Ubersuggest or SEOchat, amongst others.

2. Breakdown competition’s rankings – Something very important for in-depth comparison and easy to monitor. My favorite tools for the purpose are Authority labs, SERPs, Positionly, for their comprehensive filters and direct comparison.

3. Monitor their online reputation and visibility on search engines – It gets difficult if the competition works globally and you don’t. Other than that, reputation can be monitored with some brilliant tools like MOZ ToolbarSERP overlay view, OpenSiteExplorer, CognitiveSEO and MajesticSEO, for simple link data analysis and customizable reports.

The 6 step competitive analysis checklist

Avinash Kaushik has a fantastic piece dedicated at web data analysis, which I personally have extrapolated to execute a full-blown competitive analysis mix. Avinash has effortlessly broken down the web data analysis into ten simple steps. I use 6 of them. Here are the steps for analyzing your competition.

Step #1: Visit the website.

Make notes and focus on both good and bad items.

Step #2: How good is the acquisition strategy?

Breakdown and analyze direct, organic, referral and other traffic sources to find what’s working for them and what’s not.

Step #3: What is broken and fixable?

Look for problem areas – low performing landing pages, bounce rates, etc. Here’s another 25 point website usability checklist by Avinash for you.

Step #4: Are they doing content marketing, is it producing results?

Identify and drill down their content strategy. Check what’s attracting social shares and what’s lying unutilized in the bottom fold.

Step #5: What of the marketing budget?

Ideas for marketing budgets can be guessed from your rivals’ paid campaigns, be it Google Adwords or Facebook pay-per-click. Further, a simple comparison with your marketing campaigns would shed light on the campaign budget of your rivals.

Step #6: Unknown variables working in tandem or against business goals?

Search and discover areas that your competitors are exploiting well. It could be a service gap, untapped audience section or anything that is bolstering your rival’s industry footing. Make a note of it and start working at your end.

Importance of monitoring yourself

Gauging performance of your peers is almost as crucial as analyzing your own campaigns. It is important to take the attitude that your competition is analyzing your business and taking ideas from your hard work and that the tables need to be balanced.

Wrapping it up

Without an analytical market analysis, it has become hard to survive the heavy competition, even if your rivals are targeting different locations or niches to you – there is a lot to be learned. Figure out who can pose either stiff opposition to your brand, or teach your brand something, and pay especially close attention to them.

When it comes to your content marketing, what is more important, quality or quantity?

It doesn’t take a genius to tell you that your content should be of a high quality. You want people to read it, share it and talk about you. So yeah, you need to produce decent content to be able to do that.

But with that said, Google has kind of made it impossible for you not to churn out content all the time. Otherwise, how else are you going to reach the top of the search pages? So sometimes the content does suffer – in the hope you’ll keep staying relevant.

So what do you do?

Well In an ideal world, you’d create high quality content all the time! But unfortunately there often isn’t the time, resource or even creativity to do this.

What you can do, is try your best to regularly produce awesome content.

If you need help with this then I’ve put together a 5-step plan, to help you create high quality content – more frequently.

1. Map out a plan

Whether you’ve got a team of people behind you, or you’re riding solo – you should always start with a plan. Think about looking at your marketing strategy every three months and creating a plan that you can follow each week. On your plan you should aim to map out your blog posts, social feeds and big pieces of content – like infographics, videos or e-books.

Although social is quite spontaneous, you can still research valuable content from around the web beforehand, and schedule it to be posted each day. That way even if you forget to look at your social feed, you’ll still have at least one post going out each day. Use a social media management tool to help you do this – some good tools even have feeds direct to relevant content that you could post.

You should make sure you have your blog post topics set out, before you write them. Struggling to come up with anything more to write about? Check out HubSpot’s blog topic generator to help you come up with ideas.

For your big pieces, you should aim to publish at least one a month. Big pieces of content take more time to think about and produce, so that’s why planning them out is vital to their success. It may seem like a lot of hard work but you’ll see a better return, as people love to share quality content such as infographics or videos.

2.Understand your audience

You can’t create quality content if you don’t know who you are creating it for. Your audience could be hiding anywhere, so you need to lure them out with some awesome content that has been made just for them. If you’re in the early stages of business, think about creating a customer persona as it will help you relate back to it whenever you create your content.

Do some market research to find out your customers age, demographic, family, income, education, occupation, favourite social sites, personal opinions – pretty much everything there is to know about them. Good quality content needs to be tailored towards the right people. Make sure you speak in their language. And don’t litter your content full of jargon as this will only alienate people and make them switch off.

Once you truly understand who your audience is, can you then start to effectively capture their attention

3.Think outside the box

So now you’re at the point where you need to create your content. This is where it starts to get tricky. There’s a lot of competition out there, and since 9 out of 10 organisations are generating content regularly, you need to make sure yours is so good, that it stands apart from the rest.

How do I do this?

Above all, your content needs to engage with your audience. You should give them a reason to give you feedback and share it on their social feeds. Let’s go back to the topics of your content. You don’t have to post about your products all the time in order to attract readers. In fact, it will probably help you if you broaden your horizons and blog about bigger topics that will cover your product in a small way.

People will come to you if you are an expert in your field – and that’s what you need to achieve with your content. Say for example you sell sofas. You don’t always have to write about the specific features of your sofas. You could write about the world’s wackiest homes, or get an interview with a top home furnishings decorator. By widening your writing topics, you’ll become the expert in what you do.

Similar rules apply to your social content. Social media is all about having a personality, yet many businesses are concerned that they need a professional tone dominate their feeds. Take a look at brands like Charmin, Tesco Mobile or Innocent. They all have fun with their social, and this has helped them not only gain thousands of followers, but get plenty of recognition for creating a real buzz on social.

4.Tell the story

One of the most effective ways to create valuable content is by telling a story. It turns out, people no longer want to be sold products, they want to be sold stories. To capture the attention of the audience – and to tell a great story – you need to start with the pain points. Think about the reasons why your customers need your product and use that as a way to begin your story. This is a great way to strike an emotional chord with your audience.

For example, ‘how to’ blog posts are the most popular – because they offer advice on how to solve a problem they have.

Once you’ve captured their attention, you can then begin to show them how you solve their problems, with your product. You can tell great stories in many different ways – via blog posts, e-books or infographics. But what is one of the best ways to effectively tell your story? It’s by creating a video. There truly is no quicker way to get your message across, than in a 60 second explainer video.

Finally one last point to mention is that your story needs to be simple and to the point. Don’t let yourself get bogged down by outlining every single thing that your company does. The main goal is to get your customer to respond to the call to action. Whether it’s sign up for your emails, buy your stuff, enter your competition – you need to to tell your story fast and get them to act on your CTA.

5.Hire an expert

So if you’ve looked at the above points and you still don’t have the time, resource or brain power to create quality content then you really need to get help from an expert. The quality of your content is important, but then so is the amount that you’re doing. Once you start creating quality content, you’ll attract an audience who will come back for more. And if you’ve got nothing more to show them – you’ll only lose them.

As a Content Marketing Agency we can help you create content that your audience wants to receive. Whether it’s videos, blog posts, social, infographics or e-books, we make sure that all of our content is well planned, well researched, extremely creative and above all – highly shareable. So give us a call today and let us help!

Psssst…… one more thing….

We are giving away £15k ($25k) worth of content marketing but you only have TWO days left to enter! If you want free blog posts, infographics, videos and e-books then enter here. Good luck!

Source

After forming your company, your first instinct is probably to begin spreading the word as quickly as possible. Time passes, and before you know it, you’re focused entirely on marketing and sales. After all, how can you have a company if you don’t have any consumers? Reaching your target audience is extremely important—so important that many focus on their marketing strategies before they even consider their company image. Branding takes time, dedication, and a lot of work. Can you honestly put the cart before the horse if it means bringing in necessary revenue for your company to continue operating?

In short: No.

The Chicken or the Egg

You’ve heard the old debate: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? You’ll face the same conundrum when choosing between branding or marketing. In all matters, the branding comes first. Without considering your brand strategy before marketing, you run the risk of mixed messages and a confused company image. You can’t build a sustainable marketing plan without first implementing your brand image across all channels.

Now, choosing to focus on branding first is an important step, but that doesn’t mean you should abandon your marketing tactics. In fact, you should work to tie the two together as early as possible for the smoothest and most cohesive branding messages. Consider branding expert Gerry Foster, who said, “Branding is differentiating yourself. Marketing is getting people to see the difference.”

Choosing Your Marketing Channels

Part of branding is determining your buyer personas. Without understanding your buyers, you can’t be certain where you’ll find them and how to reach them. Are your buyers more likely to discover your company through traditional marketing avenues such as television, radio, and print? If you haven’t done a thorough development of your brand standards, you may never know.

With brand standards firmly in place, you can approach any marketing channels, both traditional and digital, with the perfect message for the customers impacted by those outlets.

From the Beginning

Any and all content your company releases for marketing purposes should match your brand standards. Many make the mistake of assuming content marketing refers only to the blogs and ebooks you release for informational purposes. In reality, you begin your content marketing the moment you put any information out there for potential customers to find.

Your content includes press releases, images and text on your website, social media posts, and even listings with local and national directories. Wherever your company name appears, your brand should also be evident.

Integrating New Marketing Resources

Maintaining your brand voice and image through traditional marketing channels is often easier than when sharing content through new marketing resources. Careful planning is necessary for commercials and print ads, but social media platforms and blogs are instantaneous.

If you take to your new social media platforms for marketing before you’ve fully developed your brand, voice, and standards, you could make an instant faux pas from which you can’t recover. Almost as dangerous to your company is the mixed message, which occurs when a brand hasn’t yet found its voice. Maybe you won’t outrage potential buyers, but you’ll certainly confuse them.

We don’t suggest you put your marketing on hold while developing your brand. No, these two should be tightly entwined and work together at all times. Just be sure you know exactly who you are before you put together your marketing strategies. Branding will always come first.

Have you focused on your branding before pursuing your marketing strategies? If you need some help rediscovering your brand identity, it’s not too late. We can start back at square one without disrupting the progress you’ve already made.

When a sales page is not performing to your expectations, what’s the worst thing you can possibly do? Nothing.

By making changes, any changes, you can strengthen your copy and improve your sales — provided you track those changes. In most cases, there are relatively simple steps you can take to improve your results immediately.

The key is always be closing testing.

Sadly, the vast majority of marketers don’t even test at all. They put up their sales copy or website, and then they do nothing hoping for the best.

But for those who do, the first thing they think of is to test by adding or changing something in their copy. Or they’re confused as to what to test first.

Is it the headline? The image? The close? The price? The color? Actually, none of these. The first thing to test is actually not adding or changing anything at all. It’s to first remove something instead…

… Bottlenecks.

In my experience, I’ve found that the best and most efficient element to test is to actually first remove the things that are stopping people from ordering.

Sales copy is a greased slide that should take the reader seamlessly and painlessly through your copy, from the moment they read the first few words to the completion of their order.

The easier it is to read and take action, the more sales you will make. Anything that blocks or slows down this greased-slide process should be eliminated.

Therefore, removing anything that causes friction should be your first objective. And do you know what the biggest bottleneck is?

Before I tell you, first let’s cover a few things.

First, you want to ensure you’re accurate as possible by tracking conversions coming from specific traffic sources. Reason is, changes in your sales may not be caused by changes in your copy but rather in the quality of your audience.

Next, test only one element at a time. If you make too many changes to your copy, you won’t know which change created the change in result. Granted, this can be a slow process. So if you want to test multiple variables at the same time, you need to take advantage of multivariate testing tools and services.

Multivariate testing allows you to test multiple aspects of your copy, simultaneously, while determining which variables as well as the best combinations get the highest response.

Now, your first step in improving conversion may be to review the sales page and eliminate any visual embellishments, flourishes, or distractions, including any impeding graphics, that can distract the reader.

Design elements should aid the sale, not hinder it.

Eliminating any distractions from the reading and decision-making processes will increase conversions. Once you’ve trimmed the excess bloat that may be hurting your results, then and only then can you begin to focus on the copy.

There are three major bottlenecks common in sales letters that you will want to experiment with and focus your efforts on. They are, in order:

1. The headline
2. The process
3. The offer

How Can a Headline Be a Bottleneck?

As one of the vital factors in your copy, much has been written about the creation of a strong headline. It must be powerful enough to be compelling to the reader.

Some of my marketing clients have improved their sales from 20% to as much as 700% by simply testing headlines. (In some cases, it was as simple as adding or removing a few words, too.) This brings me to an important discussion.

The logic is simple: the headline is the “on-ramp” to your salesletter. If people don’t read past it, they won’t be on your “slide,” if you will, and take action — no matter how good your copy is.

That’s why the headline is often the biggest bottleneck in copy.

Here’s an interesting case in point. A coaching client once asked me for my opinion on an article that made what seemed to be a shocking revelation: that the lack of a headline actually increased his sales.

In other words, “no headline” won in split-tests against other headlines.

At first glance, it would be easy to misinterpret this and conclude that all headlines are unimportant. That would be a serious mistake.

First, to understand the premise let’s put it in its proper context:

1. The author in question was testing a number of different headlines at the same time — not just headline “A” versus “B”, but multiple headlines in a single test.
2. One of the headline variables was “no headline at all” (i.e., it was left completely blank), which was the winner as it had the highest increase in response.

(The author admitted that this was a fluke as he simply forgot to add another headline and left it blank by accident. The result surprised him.)

Fundamental marketing teaches us that, based on the famous AIDA formula (an acronym which means “Attention,” “Interest,” “Desire,” and “Action”), the first part of the formula is the most critical element.

You first need to grab people’s attention. If you don’t, then the rest of the formula fails. That’s why a headline has but one purpose: to help capture people’s attention and get them to start reading. That’s it.

Its objective is to get people to start read the next paragraph. (And the next paragraph’s job is to get people to read the second one. And so on and so forth.)

Simply because removing the headline wins in some cases doesn’t mean that all headlines don’t work at all, or that it’s safe to conclude headlines are unimportant. Coming to that conclusion is premature, misleading, even costly.

It’s a correlation but not necessarily the cause.

Without knowing the specifics of this test, there are many other variables here that are not taken into account that may have played an important role:

• For one, the first paragraph — in a headlineless salesletter — can act as a headline. Or graphics (with copy on them), pop-ups, even the title (like the text that appears in the browser tab) can work as headlines. Who knows?
• Remember, I said you need to track the traffic source and its quality. The reader’s mindset may be “presold” before hitting the copy — such as coming from an affiliate promotion or another site with existing copy on it, even if it’s as little as the anchor text (i.e., words linked from the other site). They’ve probably captured the readers’ attention already and don’t need a headline.
• If the traffic came from a pay-per-click campaign, the ad (i.e., keywords and ad copy) acts like the headline. People read it and want more information. So if they hit a salesletter without a headline, they’re tempted to read it anyway.
• Headlines often scream “salesletter”, and may push readers to scan the copy or leave the moment they arrive. This is true particularly when the headline has the tell-tale signs: blatant pitch, hype, unbelievable claim, or unnecessary wording.
• Finally but most importantly, they may not be targeted at all. Untargeted traffic is often the biggest reason for copy to fail. But if they are targeted, a headline may push them away. (Better said, a poor headline will.)

The Causation-Correlation Conundrum

While the headline is the most important part of the salescopy, it may also be its biggest stumbling block.

If people are targeted and the headline is right for them, they will read the rest. But if it’s wrong, then the headline will actually push people away. The headline thus becomes redundant or even a deterrent.

So if the headline is poor (and all other headlines tested are poor, too), then “nothingness” can certainly win in this case because you are in essence removing the bottleneck — but you’re not necessarily removing the cause.

Chances are, if the author of the article kept on testing and a really good headline was eventually found, it might have won over “nothingness.” And I admit that, in some cases, finding the perfect headline might be a challenge.

Therefore, “nothing” may have been an immediate solution.

(My friend, Brian Keith Voiles, often talks about brainstorming up to a large number of headlines — sometimes as many as 100 — before settling on the one he likes. You should write down as many as you can to figure out not only the best headline to use but also which headlines to test, too.)

There’s a difference between “causality” and “correlation.” It’s the difference between an action directly causing a result, and when a result is wrongfully attributed to a previous action because of coincidence.

In copy, it means that the winner in a split-test may be relative. The winning variable may not have directly caused the boost in response. It may have won because other variables tested weren’t good enough to produce a better result.

If “nothing” won, it may have been be because the element tested was redundant and unnecessary. But it is also possible, and more than likely, that all other variables tested were bottlenecks.

In this particular case, I believe that removing the headline was not what caused a salesletter to outperform. It was simply the lack of a bottleneck.

All the other headlines it was pitted against in that split-test were either not the right ones for that market or they were poor headlines to begin with.

But coming to the conclusion that removing the headline — any headline, for that matter — is the cause of your sales copy’s boost in response is an assumptive leap. There may be a correlation there, but it’s likely not the cause.

You need to conduct more tests, dig deeper, and add more variables into the mix to pinpoint and validate the cause.

What About Other Bottlenecks?

Other than headlines, the process of reading the sales copy and ordering from it is usually the next biggest bottleneck. This is called “friction” in split-tests. You want to reduce as much friction as possible.

Usability is definitely a key area. But copy and copy elements may also create friction. They may appear contradictory, cause confusion, lower buyer confidence, and invite resistance and procrastination.

Sadly, the most common bottleneck is making it difficult to order — from hiding or downplaying the call to action, to making the order form too confusing, difficult to understand, or cumbersome to fill out.

A more obvious and forward call to action, and a simpler and faster ordering process, may be just what your copy needs to overcome buyer hesitation and push your audience along the buying process.

The easier you make it for your prospects to order from you, the greater the response will be. Often, the bump in response is significantly greater, too.

Once you’ve removed any friction, next up is the offer.

There are three components you will want to experiment with. They are:

• Prices
• Premiums
• Proof Elements

Testing different prices may seem to be the easiest, but don’t forget that the bottleneck may not be that it’s too high but that it’s too low.

People often equate greater quality and value with a higher price. If it’s too low, it may create an unconscious stumbling block. Oftentimes, raising prices also raise conversion rates. You might be pleasantly surprised.

When most people test premiums with their offers, they tend to do so by adding more. While testing alternative premiums may be more appealing, offering too many may be a deterrent. Try less and see.

Last but certainly not the least, the greatest bottleneck when it comes to your offer is its lack of credibility. Better said, people’s inherent fear, insecurity, and distrust in you is a major bottleneck.

So increase the strength of your claims.

It all boils down to establishing trust. Anything you can add to establish credibility, boost believability, and reduce their fear in buying from you will both strengthen your claims and increase your conversions.

You can increase trust with the help of internal and external elements of proof. Testimonials, case studies, screenshots, tours, guarantees, samples, trials, and photos (including sample covers, product shots, and even packaging) are examples of internal elements you can test.

External ones may include statistics, clinical trials, consumer ratings, authoritative endorsements, seals of approval, credit card logos, third-party indicia, and so on.

Also, you’ll want to experiment with adding more reasons to buy, which increase the perceived value of the product — from the reasons the product is perfect for them, to the reasons they should buy and buy now.

Because lacking good, solid “reasons why” is another huge bottleneck.

Telling the story behind the product or the offer can give your copy more legs. If your product seems at first undervalued or overpriced, then a compelling reason why can help make your offer more believable and trustworthy.

Let’s sum up.

By addressing these three areas — i.e., the headline, the reading and ordering process, and the offer — you will eliminate many bottlenecks in your copy that needlessly impede your sales.

By first removing them before testing anything else, you can then ensure that each change you make has a positive effect on sales, producing immediate, measurable responses that can result in a stronger campaign.

The post Are Bottlenecks Clogging Your Sales? appeared first on Michel Fortin.

Even the most experienced salespeople can find themselves in the middle of a challenging sales opportunity that they’re struggling to either move ahead or close.

Today, The Command Center breaks down three common sales scenarios and provides some easy steps you can take to correct your course, or avoid the same challenges the next time around.

1. You’re Late to an Opportunity

Perhaps you received an RFP late or your customer is merely price shopping because he/she has done a plethora of research online. Coming in late to an opportunity is a common sales scenario that every seller at one point or another is going to have to encounter.

Your Options

• Change the required capabilities by mapping them to the positive business outcomes your customer is trying to achieve.
• Influence the current decision criteria by using trap-setting questions.
• If you aren’t situated to win the entire opportunity, go for a smaller piece of the pie.
• Know when to walk away.

How to Avoid in the Future

• Improve your discovery.
• Improve your territory and account planning process.
• Leverage your sales management team.

2. You Can’t Gain Access to the Economic Buyer

If you aren’t able to elevate your conversation to the economic buyer, you aren’t speaking the same language as this key decision-maker. Remember, you get delegated to whom you sound like. If you’re talking features and functions, you’re going to find yourself in meetings with technical buyers. If you’re talking large-scale business issues, you’re more likely to engage the economic buyer with access to discretionary income. If you’re having trouble getting to the EB in your current opportunity, here’s what you can do:

Your Options

• Change your message. Speak in terms of large-scale business outcomes, not features and functions. This case study is a great example from Welch Allyn that demonstrates how one of their sales teams was able to elevate their business conversation.
• Focus on the positive business outcomes that will be achieved by implementing your solution. Make sure those PBOs are related to the economic buyer needs.
• Reconfirm the value proposition with key stakeholders to ensure you are articulating the benefits of your solution appropriately.
• Reengage with key stakeholders and negotiate access to the economic buyer.

How to Avoid in the Future

• Make sure you are audible-ready with the economic buyer.
• Create wider and deeper relationships in your customer account.
• Establish contact with the economic buyer early in the sales cycle.
• Leverage your internal management to help drive access.

Read more on gaining access to the upper levels of a customer organization

3. Your Negotiations are Focused on Price rather than Value

You are in the late stages of your deal and you find the discussions with your customer focused on price rather than the value and differentiation you thought you established earlier in the sales cycle. Unfortunately, if this is your scenario, you didn’t position your value as strongly as you could have. Sometimes it’s too late to make a difference, but here are some things you can try:

Your Options

• Engage your champion to help you articulate the value of your solution
• Focus on your differentiators, especially if they’re strong against the competition. Sell on the differentiation you are bringing to the table
• Reconfirm the decision criteria and the minimum required capabilities.

How to Avoid in the Future

• Quantify the pain with hard numbers. Having data associated with the current negative consequences can more than help you justify the price in the late stages of an opportunity.
• Remember that negotiation is a process that you leverage the moment you start engaging a prospect. It’s a process, not an event. Position the value early in the sales cycle.

The question that I typically get asked the most often is, “What are the main reasons that my email gets blocked?” More often than not, the question cannot be answered easily and takes some investigation to uncover the reason or reasons why emails get blocked. Unfortunately, the marketing automation provider or email service provider may not be able to pinpoint the reason either, but reviewing bounce logs will typically help. I have come up with a list of the top five reasons why an email would typically get blocked or blacklisted below:

Content:

First off, make sure that the email content you are sending is relevant to your buyer. I often find that the content is more promotion and less informative, which confuses many recipients as to why they signed up for these emails. Make it a priority to test your creative for rendering, HTML errors, link errors, do not use URL shorteners, and mobile design functionality. Don’t forget to do A/B testing on different segments of your list – it matters as it speaks to relevance.

Reputation:

Reputation is a very important factor and includes both IP and domain reputation for the sender. Your sender reputation is built from day one and stays with you for a significant duration (longer than you may like it to). Sending to a large amount of hard bounces, receiving a lot of complaints, hitting spam traps, and getting on a blacklist can all affect your reputation in a negative way. Not to mention getting blocked from particular networks. It’s very hard to turn around a tarnished reputation – do everything you can to keep it in excellent condition from the start.

Frequency:

I often find that marketers will send emails at a high frequency to their recipients. Sending too frequently can often result in recipients blocking messages in their email client, network administrators blocking the sender at the network level, or worse, having your details submitted to a blacklist for sending too frequently. Send wisely and avoid over-communication…at least until you better know your audience and have their permission for frequent communications.

Volume:

Sending high volumes to a particular network or domain can often appear like an attack on the mail server. This is especially true for B2B senders who send to smaller business domains. Most often I find that these mail servers will add the sender to their block list because as a result of sending too high of a volume during a particular window of time. For best results, slow down the volumes to these smaller domains to get emails delivered. You don’t have to stop sending, just keep a measured volume and cadence.

Lists – Old & Purchased​:

Both old and purchased lists have a high probability of getting your emails blocked or blacklisted due to the poor quality of the emails that may be on the list. These lists could contain bad email addresses, bad domains, and even spam traps. Many of these people never signed up for the email or weren’t expecting it. This often triggers an email blocked at the local or network level. Always keep data fresh –test it regularly to ensure the people on your list want to be on there. Don’t forget the recent Canadian Anti- Spam Legislation (CASL), basic email privacy and CAN-SPAM regulations as they impact all of us. Keep in mind that regular list hygiene is critical and keeping your database current and fully opted-in, or even better, double opt-in is best practice.

The reasons above are just a start to investigating why an email was blocked or blacklisted. The process does take some time to figure out, but uncovering the truth can often get your email delivered and to your intended Buyer. Deliverability is the first step to Engaging a Buyer and driving revenue.

More questions about Email Deliverability? Download our eBook today on Email Deliverability and Marketing Automation.

Maybe you misread. The hot trend is Big Data, not Big Content.

70% to 90% of sales content produced by marketing is not used by salespeople (SiriusDecisions/CSO Insights).

Why is that?

The Content Marketer’s Dilemma

Is it that your salespeople are too engrossed playing Worlds of Warcraft or reading food blogs to alt-tab over to your sales portal? Is it that they’re not sophisticated enough to appreciate Clio award-winning content when they see it? Is it that you don’t have enough Nuclear Physics PhDs in your sales org that might better appreciate your footnotes?

Or could it be that the content you’re producing just doesn’t cut it when it comes to helping advance the sale? Could it be because you’ve produced an Amazon fulfillment center’s worth of content, your CMS is so bloated that the salesperson stares at your CMS landing page, scratches their head trying to figure out where to start, says “___ it” and goes back to making calls?

Could it be that your sales folks have tried serving your trend-laden, 22-page, eight-point font whitepaper replete with eye-popping pie charts and hand-drawn stick figures to their prospects, but the reaction has been something along the lines of “Neither I nor my colleagues know the Google algorithm to decipher if your content relates to how your solution applies to my situation”?

Content Management is Not the Answer

So, what is? If you’re in Sales Enablement, walk down the hall and ask your head of marketing to stop creating content. Since 70 to 90% of it isn’t being used, you and your marketing cohort need to figure out the 10-30% that is working and do more of that.

Use this filter: Does it help your salespeople have better conversations with their prospects AND does it make it easy for your prospect to have better conversations with his or her peers/management? Your goal is to supply both parties with content they can use to sit across the table or screen from someone and make a compelling case for change and your solution.

Conversation Enablement is the Answer

Sales Enablement is fundamentally about equipping salespeople and by extension their prospects to have better conversations to initiate and facilitate the buying process. Ultimately, Sales Enablement is about conversation enablement. It’s about helping your salespeople escort their prospects through the “buyer journey” (who came up with this term?). The same person who wrote that 22-page whitepaper would be my guess.

Stop creating content and start enabling conversations.

 

Digital buyer penetration among Latin America's population and internet users may be low, but recent research finds that smartphone users in the region aren't strangers to mobile purchases. More than half of Latin America's smartphone owners have bought via mobile.

Most marketers understand this basic concept: the content you create should be personalized for the visitors to your website.  But the question lies in where to start, especially if your product/service targets multiple buyers.  Delivering the right content, to the right person, at the right time may seem like a daunting task at first glance, but the truth of the matter is in doing this your leads will turn out more qualified and you’ll have a better understanding of what someone needs.

One of the best things about inbound marketing is that you can offer content to potential buyers before they even raise their hand.  How is this done?  It starts with buyer personas.

How Buyer Personas Affect Personalized Content

This is where it all begins.  Buyer personas are different representations of your ideal customer(s).  You may be selling lawn mowers – you could then have multiple personas: a lawn care company owner or a homeowner living in a suburb.  So when developing content for your website, you’ll want to make sure you are speaking to both buyers.  If you only speak to one or the other, the other buyer could assume you’re company doesn’t have a solution for them.

Speaking to your different personas is the exact thing that will make your leads more qualified.  Instead of having a list of leads and not knowing what they are struggling with, challenge yourself to segment your leads into different lists, with different problems, and different needs.  Once you have that nailed down, it gets exciting – you can now begin developing content for your personas based on their lifecycle stage.

Personalizing Content to a Lead’s Lifecycle Stage

You can read further about why lifecycle stages matter for inbound marketing.  Lifecycle stages matter for multiple reasons and one major reason is being able to deliver content to the right people at the right time.  In a nutshell, lifecycle stages are different points of a buyer’s journey.  Whether someone is searching the web for a solution to a problem or ready to cut a check – we can offer different content based on their stage.

The first stage is awareness – a buyer is in need of a solution and searching for where to find it.  When creating content for these visitors remember they are looking to educate themselves more than anything.  Speak to them as if you are an expert in the field.  Rather than telling them you are the best of the best, show them.  Don’t talk about your solution at all.  Speak to their problem.  You should utilize blogging for this stage.  In addition to blogging you can offer them white papers or eBooks.

The next stage is consideration – you’ve now built trust and a small relationship with you’re the potential buyer.  This is when you can start speaking about your solution a bit.  They realize you are an expert in the field, now show them why they should buy from you.  Develop content that speaks to why your solution is better than your competitors.  Once they consume this content they instantly become more qualified.  Case studies are the best example of consideration content.  You could also build an offer that shows what you solution solution solves compared to that of your competitors – this shows your expertise on the subject and will paint you in a better light.

Finally we have intent – a buyer is more or less ready to buy from you.  You’ve done your due diligence in offering content to help them get to this stage.  At this point all you really need to ask them is if they’re ready to buy.  You create a page or form on your website that asks if they’d like to see a demo or request for consultation.

New Ways to Personalize Content

HubSpot continues to find ways to better personalize content for an audience.  One feature that I love is the Smart CTA tool.  The Smart CTA tool allows you to show a different CTA to a lead if they already consumed a piece of content.  Here’s an example:  Offer A is an awareness white paper.  There are a couple CTAs placed throughout your site pointing to a landing page for Offer A.  Victor the Visitor clicks on the CTA and downloads the offer.  Here’s where it gets fun – once Victor goes back to the page where he clicked on the CTA, he doesn’t see Offer A anymore but rather Offer B which is a consideration offer.

Presenting the right content to your different buyer personas will give you more qualified leads.  You’ll have a better understanding of what they are looking for and you’ll be able to move them through the funnel with more ease.

How many different buyer personas does your company have?  Are you developing content to speak to them all?

Companies that are new or inexperienced at lead generation often suppose that generating more sales leads is always a good thing. But that’s only half true: Quality of leads (particularly B2B sales leads) is more important than quantity.

In fact, unqualified sales leads are worse than having no leads at all. Why? Because unqualified sales leads cost your business in the following five ways:

1. Unqualified Sales Leads Cost You Time

Nothing is more valuable than your sales team’s time. Without qualified sales leads, your salespeople have to wade through more cold calls, follow-ups and lead qualification questions – all in the hopes of finding a qualified lead that might turn into a finalized sale.

Your sales team’s time would be better spent following up on only marketing qualified leads that are certain to convert into closed deals at a higher rate.

2. Unqualified Sales Leads Cost You Money

Lead generation is one of the most expensive parts of your sales process. Between in-depth analytics, marketing automation software, lead databases and the cost of hiring sales personnel, your lead generation has a lot of costs to justify in terms of ROI. If you aren’t receiving high quality leads while simultaneously absorbing all of these fixed costs, your lead generation is bleeding money.

If your cost of generating sales leads isn’t paying off, consider outsourcing your lead generation to a firm that specializes in that stage of the sales cycle.

3. Unqualified Sales Leads Cost You Cleanup

When one of your salespeople gets off the phone with a dead-end sales lead, his or her work on that lead isn’t done – the salesperson still has to go into your lead database and clean out the contact’s information. Now, imagine that small expense of time and opportunity cost multiplied by hundreds or thousands of unqualified sales leads.

You can’t afford that scale of cleanup year over year. Rather, you need a B2B sales lead database that’s clean and qualified at all times so your sales team is able to focus more on closing significant sales.

4. Unqualified Sales Leads Cost You Customers

Not only are unqualified sales leads less likely to close into finalized deals, but they’re also more likely to perceive your cold calls as interruptive or irritating. As a result, prospects’ negative association with your brand is likely to hurt your overall reputation as a company once word spreads about your aggravating cold calls or misplaced sales calls.

When you decide to pursue only qualified sales leads, prospects (even ones that don’t eventually close) don’t perceive you as being interruptive or annoying – and your reputation remains intact.

5. Unqualified Sales Leads Cost You Morale

The experienced salesperson lives for the close – not the initial cold call. By feeding your sales reps a bunch of unqualified sales leads, you’re costing your company a substantial morale drain. In fact, if your sales team didn’t have to do any outbound prospecting at all, not only would your close rate increase, but your team’s morale would experience a significant boost.

Instead, leave lead generation to the experts and let your team get back to what they love most: closing the deal.

Unqualified sales leads are costing you, and in at least five ways, they’re actually costing you more than having no leads at all. So next time you’re reviewing your lead generation efforts, remember to look first at quality before quantity.

Need help with B2B sales lead qualification? Contact Invenio Solutions and discover how a closed-loop sales cycle gives your sales team the insight it needs to drive revenue more effectively for your business.

Real-time marketing works.

Let me make an addition to that rather bold affirmation. Real-time marketing works for B2C companies. Really well.

But what of B2B companies? Is real-time just a pipe-dream? A strategy only successful if left to the trendier agile brands that have an ever-growing and content hungry audience of Twitter followers?

In our brand new B2B Real-Time Marketing Report, in association with Monetate, we reveal the current state of play for B2B real-time marketing, uncovering insights that perhaps challenge our preconceptions of the importance of real-time for B2B. 

For instance, the fact that 65% of B2B companies are carrying out some form of real-time marketing, and that 87% agree that ‘real-time marketing is essential as behaviour, device, place and time come together’.

In our full report you will find research highlighting how business buyers define their needs in an always-on world. As well as the benefits to real-time marketing and the challenges. 

How B2B companies define real-time and why it matters. What companies are doing today and budgeting for tomorrow, and priorities in real-time and the capabilities necessary to achieve them.

The report follows on from our previous survey, 2014’s Real Time Marketing Survey Report, where Econsultancy and Monetate surveyed nearly 900 B2C marketers. This time the focus has been narrowed to B2B marketers. 

Here we’ll be taking a brief look at what a real-time marketing strategy means for B2B companies.

What is real-time?

As our lifestyles become increasingly ‘always-on’ through the multiple devices we use and the ease of connectivity continues to improve, the more we demand rapid and personalised responses from companies we engage with.

This has led to the rise of agile marketing. Marketing has had to become less planned and more reactive.

What real-time means for B2B

As opposed to the B2C market, the customer journey undertaken via B2B contains multiple decision makers with varying agendas, remits, and goals.

This leads to the common notion that any amount of agility or speed is immediately stymied by the sheer amount of processes it faces. Of course even B2C real-time marketing requires a certain amount of pre-planning.  

Thankfully the view that B2B marketing is a slow-paced, multi-headed beast is gradually becoming redundant. As our report suggests ‘real-time reactivity may offer just as much value in the considered sale as in the short cycles of consumer marketing’.

Real-time marketing means offering the right content at the right time. B2B and B2C companies that have the right marketing processes in place will be able to offer up content and engagement at time that a customer considers ‘now’.

Another important consideration to remember is the fact that any B2B customer will already have experience with B2C vendors, and that their expectations may well be the same. It’s imperative that you match those expectations as best as you can.

The benefits of real-time

Our respondents were asked “what do you perceive as the main benefits of real-time marketing?” 

Better customer experience is the clear winner here. Replying to customers as quickly as possible with relevant information also has the knock-on effects of improved customer retention, improved conversion and better brand perception. 

Real time capabilities are not just limited to customer experience and engagement, other sales related aspects will benefit too.

Conversion is often much further along the timeline when it comes to B2B, therefore secondary metrics like downloads or registrations are often measured. When asked about the impact of real-time on conversion rates, 26% of B2B respondents reported an uplift, a percentage exactly the same as B2C companies.

For more insight download the full B2B Real-time Marketing Report.

Virtually every B2B company has a content marketing strategy these days, but even the most sophisticated companies have a tough time tying it back to revenue. Before Infer, I spent 11 years at Salesforce, where I oversaw the company’s content marketing and social strategy. We were lucky to have the support of a visionary CEO, who encouraged us to embrace social, transform our traditional playbooks, and create success stories that would inspire our customers. While we had the optimal environment to make content marketing work, it was still a struggle to quantify the impact we were making.

How to Tie Content Marketing to Revenue Impact

But demonstrating content marketing success is getting easier every day. Here are five outcomes you can easily measure:

#1 Fans and Followers

In the early days, content marketers should focus on growing their subscribers—a vanity metric that is easy to rally around. At Salesforce, our goal was to reach 1 million subscribers on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Once we did that, we knew we’d have a channel that would begin to rival email marketing. And when you’re starting from scratch, the faster you can build your distribution, the easier it is to invest in content. Of course, there are lots of ways to grow your fans. You can promote social channels on your website, through email marketing, and at events. But the most surefire way to get followers quickly is by investing in social advertising.

#2 Clicks, Likes, Shares

Once you’ve jump-started your subscriber push, the next step is to think about engagement. Is the content you’re sharing delighting customers or is it falling flat? This is one of the more difficult transformations to drive, because it’s a different mindset from what traditional marketers are used to. Instead of pushing messages and positioning your product, it’s about drawing people in and taking on topics that are bigger than your brand. As Joe Chernov once said, “Content marketing is the art of making the logo smaller.” It’s an important shift, but it takes lots of training to get people thinking about which messages work for each particular medium.

#3 Form Completes

At some point, your content marketing team will and should get pushed to move beyond vanity metrics and tie your work to the sales pipeline. The most common approach is to tease content on social channels and drive people to a gated offer, i.e. for an ebook or webinar. This tactic can generate lots of leads.

For example, one of the last campaigns I worked on at Salesforce was a joint webinar with Facebook, which brought in 10,000 leads. The challenge was, our inside sales team had nowhere near the capacity needed to work through the list. We had a marketing automation system in place, but there wasn’t much trust in the accuracy of its lead scoring. In the end, all those leads were sent to Nurture, and we all know how often nurture is really just code for neglect.

#4 True Marketing Qualified Leads

As a content marketer, you’re caught in a tricky situation. Intuitively you know there is value in the form completes you’re generating, but it often feels nearly impossible to quantify. If your reps make their number on core leads such as contact me requests, free trials, or demos, it can be nearly impossible to get them to work top-of-funnel content marketing leads. They bet branded as low quality and they require a different sales script.

In order to earn the trust of your sales team, and convince them there is real value in content marketing leads, you need an automated way to research them and determine fit. Predictive lead scoring is game changing for content marketers because it lets you quantify how many good leads you’re creating and makes it easy to pass only the very hottest leads over to sales.

#5 Content That Actually Works

Predictive lead scoring also changes how you evaluate content. Instead of relying on page views or form completes, you can measure the number of good leads generated. Even if they’re not ready to buy this quarter, you’ll be able to determine if your content attracts people who are good fits for your product. This is great insight to help you guide your investments and justify more resources.

Of course, even with these metrics to demonstrate the business impact of your content marketing initiatives, it may take time to get your sales team on board. But once you “show them the money” with prospects who actually do buy, you can start to change behavior and get more bang for your content marketing buck. And if you can get dedicated sales reps assigned to focus on high-scoring content marketing leads with a custom script, you’ll boost results even further.

It’s one of the most important tools in your marketing kit, but most likely not your most exciting one: your marketing database. The data contained in it propels all of your marketing programs forward, and represents numerous opportunities to grow your organization’s revenue. However, research shows that more than 50 percent of companies do not have a process in place to manage this precious resource. Managing a marketing database includes good segmentation, a well implemented unsubscribe and spam processes, regular data cleansing, appending, and a few other processes. A strong data management strategy can help you guide your sales and marketing organizations to success – but you have to put the time and effort into implementing one. Not sure it’s worth it? Here are 3 reasons why it is:

1. Database Growth:

A well-managed database grows at a faster rate than one that is not managed. In fact, data from Aberdeen’s 2014 Lead Management Study shows that companies with data management strategies see year-over-year growth of data contacts of 25% versus 11% growth without database management practices.

2. Higher Conversions :

By meticulously managing your database, you will produce higher quality leads and reduce inaccurate and incomplete data, setting your sales team up for success because they will be spending their time on good, not bad, contact information. Successful lead management might be one of the most important ways marketing can assist a sales team. Remember, marketing qualified leads (MQLs) aren’t leads unless they are accurate and complete and this falls firmly in the hands of marketing

3. Higher Growth in Marketing Contribution to Revenue:

A better database will lead to higher conversions and more revenue directly generated from your department. And, with demonstrated marketing success comes perks. It only makes sense that marketing departments demonstrating higher ROI can make a better case for an increase in marketing budget.

This one will probably get me into trouble.

I’ve worked as a marketing consultant for over four years and I’m not supposed to say this stuff. After all, it’s my job to generate more leads and close more sales. To wave my magic marketing wand and take your marketing to a whole new level.

The truth is the path to marketing success is deep in the jungle with decoys and traps camouflaged as time-honored clichés, old adages, commonly accepted clichés or words-of-wisdom. But if you’re reading this post, you’re about to obtain the ability to distinguish the facts from the fables.

There are all sorts of marketing myths that should be buried with the bones of dinosaurs. They may be enjoyable to read, but they are poisonous to any marketing plan and process. Heaven help us, there are hundreds of these poisonous marketing myths spreading like the flu, but on this post today we’ll deal only with the top five because incorporating all of them would probably crash your server and leave you laughing in disbelief.

Marketing Myth #1: Marketing is most successful if it’s memorable.

Truth: Marketing is only successful if it moves your product or service at a profit. Memorability has nothing to do with it. Whether people remember it or not has nothing to do with successful marketing. Studies continue to confirm that there is no relationship between remembering your marketing and buying your offering. All that matters is if prospects are motivated to take action. So don’t aim for memorability as much as desirability because that leads to profitability.

Marketing Myth #2: Bad publicity is better than no publicity at all.

Truth: This old adage is false. Bad publicity is bad for your business. No publicity is a lot healthier for you. As human-being we just love to communicate—gossip, especially about businesses that have done something so disgusting, gruesome, horrendous,  or distasteful that the media exposes it. Do love publicity but avoid bad publicity because it spreads faster than the flu.

Marketing Myth #3: Marketing should entertain and charm.

Truth: Entertainers should entertain and charm. But marketing should sell your product or service. This widespread marketing myth is based upon studies that show people like marketing that entertains. They may like it but they sure don’t respond to it. Alas, the marketing community nurtures this myth by presenting awards based upon glitz and glamour, humor and originality, special effects and killer jingles. Those awards should be given for profit increases and nothing else. The only thing that should shine should be your bottom line.

Marketing Myth #4: The best and almost great marketing works instantly.

Truth: First-rate sales work instantly. Great limited-time offers work instantly. But great marketing is not made up of sales and limited-time offers alone. These will attract customers, but they won’t be loyal and they’ll be won by whoever offers the lowest price. Great marketing is made up of creating a desire for your offering in the minds of qualified prospects, then peppering your offers with sales and limited-time offers. But a program of fast-buck marketing usually leads to oblivion. The best marketing in America took a long time to establish itself. Just ask the Mr.Clean man. Or the Snuggle bear. Or that lonely Mac Tools associate. None of that marketing worked instantly, but it has worked for decades and still does.

Marketing Myth #5: Sell the sizzle, not the steak.

Truth: Sell the solution. The easiest way to sell anything is to position it as the solution to a problem. If you look for the sizzle and not the problem, you’re looking in the wrong direction. Your prospects might appreciate the sizzle, but they’ll write a check for the solution. Your job is to spot the problem then offer your product or service as the solution. If you think solutions, you’ll market solutions. If you think sizzle, you’ll sell sizzle. You’ll find that the path of least resistance to the sale leads right through the problem to the solution.

Lead generation is all about capturing new business for your company, but you should always double-check that your lead generation efforts aren’t just generating leads without also generating closed sales. Otherwise, your sales pipeline empties out and your lead generation efforts produce a poor return on investment.

In order to ensure you’re getting the best ROI possible from your lead generation efforts, you need to take a closer look at each of these four ways to improve and enhance your return from sales leads.

1. Improve Your Lead Database

Whether you’re working with an outsourced lead generation firm or you’re handling B2B sales leads yourself, your first step is to understand the source of your data and improve your lead database accordingly. Your lead database should be populated only with the most up-to-date and valid contact data – but even the cleanest lists need to be reviewed and improved.

If your main source of new contacts is through purchasing lists, you need to import that contact data into your database and dial through the list, cleaning out poor data as your sales team encounters it. Even with leads that come in from marketing related demand generation programs, you need to make sure that they are legitimate leads before you hand them to your top sales closers.

Validating your lead database can also be outsourced to third-party vendors who pre-scrub your contact lists to ensure the correct company contact information is provided and that all data is up to date. The ideal partner should not only remove incorrect data, but also provide additional details – such as company size or number of employees – as needed for your sales team.

2. Work Together With Marketing

Your sales team likely doesn’t handle all of your company’s lead generation alone, so it’s important that you collaborate with your marketing team to ensure maximum ROI on your sales leads. Meet with your marketing team on a consistent basis to stay abreast with how they’re working and reaching out to prospects.

Be sure to regularly sync with them on all of the channels they use, such as the company website, social media platforms, search engine marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Also ask if they’ve purchased any contact lists for their own department or if they have a lead database of emails that they’d be willing to share with you. This way, your efforts aren’t duplicated and your company’s overall lead generation reaps better returns.

3. Find The Right People For Follow-Up

Generating B2B sales leads isn’t enough if you don’t follow up with those leads in a proper and timely manner. However, you shouldn’t be putting your most experienced salespeople on the phone just for follow-up – these sales veterans are better deployed for finalizing deals and closing sales.

Instead, you need a team of sales staff that specializes in lead generation and appointment setting. Recruiting these lead generation experts should start with a hiring process that analyzes the sales DNA of each applicant. Then, each of these sales team members should receive specific lead generation training sessions – and not just general sales training – in order to maximize your lead generation ROI.

4. Analyze Your Data

The final way you improve the ROI from your lead generation efforts is by constantly assessing and analyzing your specific sales program data. By reassessing your results, you understand what makes a successful and competitive contact list, allowing you to constantly improve the list to ensure the right people are being called and prospected.

You should also analyze any overall data from your industry, such as the role of key decision makers, which people are interested in being called and any common objections to your product or service. Examining these segments, objections and target markets ensures that your lead generation efforts never deviate from your best possible ROI.

In order to keep your sales pipeline full of promising prospects, your lead generation must stay on track when it comes to maximum return on investment. When you implement these four methods to boost your lead generation ROI, more closed sales and increased revenue are sure to follow.

Looking to reap a better return from your lead generation efforts? Download for this webinar hosted by Invenio Solutions and discover how Inveniology™ – or the Science of Sales™ – gives your sales team the insight it needs to drive more revenue for your business.

Today, when everything goes mobile, it is crucial that apart from correct strategies, every marketer needs a clean, fast-loading, and simple mobile landing page. But, as always things are not that simple. So, there is always something you need to pay attention to.

A mobile landing page is simply a landing page that is optimized to fit and work smoothly on a mobile device. In other words it is a mobile optimized web page your potential customer arrives at once any form of advertising got him interested e.g. search engine result, link in an email, banner ad, print advertising with QR codes etc.

The general goal of a mobile landing page is to convert site visitors into sales or leads. How the landing page achieves the leads or sales depends on the goals of your campaign and the type of landing page used. Before I provide you with some useful design hints  and tips I would like to share with you 3 examples of different types of landing page:

1. Click-through landing page – mostly designed to warm your potential customers before directing them further the buying funnel. May includes a video element for showing an engaging product overview.  Take a look at our friend’s mobile landing page from Vertabelo:
2. Lead Capture landing page – the goal is to collect personal data from the user e.g .  your ebook download page.  Often such landing pages focus users to submit their details, there are no external links or navigation.
3. Product or Service detail landing page  – designed to promote your new product or service. It may be a part of a complete mobile website with navigation and links to other content. When you are about to launch a new product or service you may include a short form to  capture leads.

Hints and Tips

With ActiveMobi mobile website creator you can create a free mobile landing page for your campaign within minutes. All you have to do is to choose a template and adjust it to the needs of your mobile landing page. Below, you will find some advice about landing page creation:

1. It should be usable and intuitive

After the user lands on your mobile webpage, he or she needs to immediately find all the information they need: what is the purpose of the page, what should be their next step, how to perform this step, and how the page will become a benefit for them. Without such indicators the website is useless and the user will most likely leave the page before taking any action. Users of mobile devices are very action-oriented. If they cannot find what they need, they withdraw from the page to never come back.

“A mobile website should not just be a skinny reformatted version of your desktop site. The point is not just to make it fit – it is to fundamentally rethink what subset of your functionality might be relevant to someone on the go.”

Tim Ash, CEO of SiteTuners.com

2. Ask for minimum information

A very important aspect of creating your mobile landing site is the amount of information you ask on the signup form. If the only thing that is required is the email address, then limit yourself to this piece of information. When you demand a phone number, let the visitors know why it is so. Be aware that the more fields the visitor has to fill the higher the chance that he or she will leave the page without completing the form at all. You should not create too many barriers by asking for countless pieces of information. In our ActiveMobi contact form widget, you can ask for the name, email, phone number and message. Once you capture your leads through a mobile landing page, you are ready to market those people in the future.

3. Large and short headlines

Catch mobile users’ attention with witty subject lines and interesting first paragraphs. Headlines should consist of maximum three or four words and be written in a clear font. Try using some keywords. And maybe you should also bullet point the rest of the text, so that it can be readable on a mobile device when held at arm length’s distance.

4. Make call-to-action buttons visible and accessible

Your call-to-action buttons should draw attention, so try achieving that with the buttons’ size, location, negative space surrounding them, or simply contrasting them with the rest of the page. You must provide large and vivid call-to-action buttons. And if you are creating a multi-landing webpage, consider putting the call-to-action button of the most important action on more than one subpage.

5. Make the content easy to navigate through

Make sure that the users will find on your landing page the most important information. Generally, the lower the number of distractions, the higher is the effect. Try using the elements that limit the amount of displayed text e.g. tabbed content which allows browsing the whole content without the need of scrolling the site, content carousel swipes, drop-down list boxes. You should implement everything that will make the mobile site easier to browse and read.

I hope that the above-mentioned tips will help you create an efficient mobile landing design. To trust that our hints are reliable and really useful, check out the mobile landing designs of our customers:

Customer mobile sites created with ActiveMobi:  mibebeyyo.activemobi.com ; peugeot308.activemobi.com

Mobile Emails Are the Future

By having a mobile email landing page you do not only increase conversions, but also gain a better page indexing in search engines. You may have additional optimization benefits from social signals as well. The fact is that by the end of 2014 the number of people reading their emails on mobile devices will increase even more. Whether it is just communication with customers or marketing actions, mobile-friendly emails with proper landing pages are the good way of keeping up with the growing mobile user customer segment.  Have a mobile landing page design you like ? Share with us.

Sending out a regularly scheduled e-newsletter is a great way to stay in front of your audience and prospects. However, just like anything with marketing, you don’t want to simply send out your e-newsletter and then hope everything ends up ok. You want to be able track at some level how it is performing. How can you do that? Here are five tips!

1. Be sure to include clickable links

Most email programs will show you how many people clicked each of your links. This is a very easy way to track who interacted with your content, what portions of your content seemed the most interesting to your audience, and it could even clue you in to what is weighing heaviest on your customers’ minds. If you see that the same person clicked on similar links over a month’s period of time, you could follow up with them and offer more information on that specific topic.

2. Ask questions

This is a tip for blog posts and social media platforms as well, but a great way to measure how interested someone is in your content and/or your company is to ask questions and see if they are engaged enough to answer. Again, like the clicks on links, this is a very easy way to measure interaction with your content.

3. Special discount codes

If you are using an e-newsletter to drive traffic to an e-commerce store, consider sending out a very specific discount code tied to your e-newsletter campaign. Tracking how many people use that code at your store will not only help you track e-newsletter leads but it will also help you connect the dots with greater ease between sales and your e-newsletter campaign.

4. Promote a different specific product in each e-newsletter and see if sales of that product increase (or if traffic to that product page increases)

Another great way to try to tie your e-newsletter campaign to sales is to focus on a particular product in your e-newsletter and see if there is any noticeable impact in sales of that product over the next few days. Just remember to benchmark your sales and traffic before you send out the e-newsletter so you can easily track any spikes.

5. Drive traffic to special landing pages

Finally, you can include a link in your e-newsletter that drives traffic to a special landing page on your side only reachable via the e-newsletter link. In this case you will not need to set a traffic benchmark because you will know any incoming traffic is coming from your e-newsletter. The landing page can easily be updated before sending out each e-newsletter so that the page is a supplement to that specific e-newsletter rather than simply a generic, uninteresting landing page. It is a good idea to include links on the landing page that lead to deeper portions of your site, and including an easily accessible RFQ form on a page like this also is a great way to build connections between sales and your e-newsletter campaign.

There are many other ways to track how your e-newsletter is performing as well. Beware of tracking “opens” because that simply means the e-mail may have appeared in the email window. It does not ensure someone read or interacted with your content.

What have you tried in the past to measure the success of your e-newsletters? We’d love to hear from you!

Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/5167671844 via Creative Commons

Everyone agrees – social is no longer optional – it’s an imperative. The question is, should you be investing in your company’s brand, or you as the CEO?

Firstly, let’s compare some of the worlds most engaging social media users to their organizations. @BarackObama has 45M Twitter followers. The White House, enormously successful in organizational terms, only has around 10% of that. Obama has 1.2M followers on LinkedIn whilst the entire US Federal Govt has 7K. @DavidCameron has 750K Twitter followers, and @HillaryClinton, with no official current role, still has an impressive 1.7M.

OK, so government is boring and politicians a lot less so – we get it. What about the business sphere? @TonyHseih of Zappos fame has 2.8M Twitter followers, but the very company which made him famous has only 29K followers. @GuyKawasaki the ‘evangelist’ has 1.4M followers on Twitter and the company he evangelizes for, Canva, has 17K. (We’d compare his following to that of his better known former employer, Apple, but Apple doesn’t even have a twitter account. Its CEO does – @TimCook has well over half a million followers).

We’re not being selective here by focusing on the most celebrated social media users. Rather, a deeper look paints an even starker picture. Consider a company you may have heard of, lead by a person you’ve almost definitely not heard of. BuildDirect.com is a DIY materials distributor with a respectable Twitter following of 11K. Their CEO is @JeffBooth – he has 152K followers: 14 times greater than his company. @ToddSacerdoti has 193K followers on Twitter and 16K on Linkedin. His company Brightroll has 4K followers on Twitter and 5K on LinkedIn.

What do these statistics tell us? Given at best the same resources (and often a huge disparity in favour of the organization), a social media campaign will be more successful in terms of engagement and exposure if undertaken by the individual rather than the brand. The reason goes to the heart of ‘social’.  Definitions of ‘social’ coalesce around the concepts of friendliness, companionship, and humanity. In Latin, ‘socius’ means ‘companion’ and ‘socialis’ means ‘living with others’. Humans are inherently social beings, so when technology and companionship collided in the 2000s, the social media ‘big bang’ occurred.

Social validation is important; a Facebook ‘like’ is a social signal. It affirms our existence the same way that someone nodding at you on the sidewalk does.” - Dr Pamela Rutledge, media psychologist and expert on the relationship between behaviour and technology.

We can never interact with an inanimate object, much less an intangible thing like a brand, in the same way as we interact with another person. The most successful brands- and we’re talking about the very top echelon like Apple, Coke or Nike, may achieve an emotional response fro their customer, but still this emotion only flows in one direction. In rare circumstances we can ‘love’ a brand but the brand can never love us back. But a person, that’s different.

The top 30 celebrities on Facebook had a combined fan base of almost 2B. The top 30 brands had a combined fan base of 960M. Google Plus showed similar disparities. Of the top 100 Twitter accounts, 85 were individuals. 14 were social/media outlets leaving 1 single non-media corporation: the NBA (hardly your typical company). Now consider the resources behind these corporate social media accounts: the largest organisational fan base belongs to Coca Cola. Of their $2.9B annual advertising budget, 20% is devoted to social. Thus, they spend a whopping $600M on driving social media engagement, yet Shakira has 25% more fans. (When it comes to Facebook, Coca Cola is more in the Vin Diesel league).

There are obvious key person risks in investing in the profile of individual vs. the brand. What if the CEO leaves? What if you choose a more charismatic person to be the social face of the brand, and that person leaves, taking their followers with them? (Note the lawsuit between Phone Dog who sued former employee Noah Kravitz for allegedly stealing Twitter followers. Nevertheless, and even given these risks, it is clear that a campaign will be more social, engagement will be more real and the value for money will be far greater if companies embark on the social media journey through individuals promoting the brand rather than a faceless corporate account.

The last word goes to Richard Rosenblatt from Demand Media. When asked by Bloomberg Businessweek why he used Twitter, he said (emphasis added):

“Twitter allows me to tap into a broad audience of people to get new ideas in a succinct and effective manner. Twitter also allows our team, users, board, investors, and colleagues to feel the energy and momentum in our business without sending cold periodic (and always dated) e-mail updates. I can express in real time exactly how I am feeling about our business or my life. Being able to share that energy is exciting and in some instances cathartic.”

Note the possessive pronouns. He helped drive Demand’s social media because it was about him!

 

“Know your audience” has stood as a fundamental marketing principle since long before the web. When advertising online, you need to take into account one of the most basic factors of the audience you are reaching: what devices they are using.

The most popular online advertising platform, in use by marketers of all sizes, is Google AdWords. Up until early 2013, AdWords allowed advertisers to set up separate campaigns to target mobile devices. Best practice generally entailed targeting mobile, desktop and sometimes tablet users in unique campaigns.

Then, in a bold move to push the importance of mobile usability (some would say to drive up its own revenue), Google announced it would no longer allow campaigns to target by device, as part of what it called “enhanced” campaigns. Pay-per-click (PPC) managers made outcries about Google’s forced decision¹ to remove control from advertisers, even cautioning people against upgrading immediately² as the option became available to do so.

A year later, the dust has settled somewhat as advertisers have adapted to the new campaign format. With the ability create device-specific campaigns gone, they’ve modified tactics with their campaign structure and bidding strategy to best reach people across multiple devices.

Why should you care about who’s using a mobile device and who’s not? First of all, people often behave differently when browsing on a phone versus a desktop. In reviewing data from a site that received just over three million sessions over the past year, users spent an average of 2:42 when coming from desktop and 1:16 from mobile. That shows mobile sessions dropping off after about half as long as desktop sessions. A smartphone user might not care to spend time sifting through an extensive product inventory, instead just wanting a number to call or immediate directions to a location.

Secondly, costs can vary widely by device. A study by Marin Software³ shows that the average cost per click on mobile was 26% lower than the desktop average in 2013. Also, the average cost per lead or sale might be more or less on mobile. Advertisers who take this information into account will see the need to control bids by device in order to maintain their target costs for leads.

Thirdly, visits from mobile might provide more or less value to a particular advertiser. For example, the owner of an e-commerce website might find that desktop users put more items in their carts and spend more on average.

Fourthly, you might want to drive mobile users to different pages than desktop users. Especially if your website is not responsive, you might have separate URLs for mobile. While a responsive website is ideal, your agency might be forced to work with a client’s existing website when running an ad campaign.

So, how do you build a campaign that targets only mobile devices via AdWords? The short answer is you can’t. However, a number of workarounds are available.

First, let’s look at a couple of AdWords features that focus spending on mobile: bid modifiers and mobile-preferred ads.

AdWords Features To Target Mobile

Use Bid Modifiers

Enhanced campaigns introduced a feature called bid modifiers, which allow you to increase or decrease bids by a percentage for ads appearing on mobile devices. A number of PPC professionals have suggested using bid modifiers to focus a campaign’s spend on mobile placement. You could set a low general bid and increase the mobile bid modifier to 300%, the maximum percentage allowed.

To set a bid modifier, go to the “Settings” tab in your desired campaign and select “Devices.” You’ll then see statistics broken down by device and the option to change the percentage for mobile.

⁴

However, this technique will not completely exclude desktop searches. In a test across multiple accounts, Brad Geddes found⁶ that about 19% of searches still end up occurring on desktop.

Create Mobile-Preferred Ads

Another option is to create mobile-preferred ads. When you build an ad in AdWords’ interface, selecting a check box enables you to mark the ad as mobile-preferred. Such ads are an opportunity to customize messaging specifically to people on mobile devices. We’ve improved both clickthrough rates and conversion rates by using phrases like “Call now” in mobile-specific ads, because searchers can click-to-call from a phone.

To create a mobile-preferred ad, just click the check box for “Mobile” under “Device preference” when making an ad via the web interface.

⁷

However, even these ads are not guaranteed to appear only on mobile or to prevent standard ads in the same ad groups from showing up on mobile. PPC Hero put this to the test⁹ and found that a number of desktop impressions still occurred with mobile-preferred ads.

Use Smartphone-Specific Ad Sizes

When running display campaigns, the 320 × 50-pixel mobile leaderboard ad size will appear specifically in a smartphone browser or app. You can even create animated ads in this format to get more attention. If you want to run them on mobile devices that don’t support Flash, AdWords offers an option to convert the Flash files to HTML5 when uploading them.

This ad size is great for driving branding, because it takes up an extremely visible portion of a mobile screen, often on top. Clickthrough rate tends to be high. In one campaign, I saw an average of a 0.5% higher clickthrough rate on these mobile ads than the standard desktop sizes (a pretty significant difference for display ads). Be aware, however, that people often unintentionally tap these ads on a touch device, especially while playing games. If you are encountering a high bounce rate from these ads, then consider excluding mobile apps. Bryant Garvin has written about a quick and easy way to do this¹⁰.

We’ve looked at some options available in AdWords to focus on mobile. Next, let’s consider another platform that allows for more granular targeting at the device level than AdWords.

Direct People To Proper Pages

While a responsive website is the ideal option, if you do have a separate mobile website, make sure that users who are coming from mobile devices will see the proper page. One of the worst mistakes you could make is to forward all mobile visitors to a generic home page. I’ve audited campaigns whose ads were set up to very carefully link to very specific inventory items, only to completely lose all of that value because no equivalent pages existed on mobile. Make sure that individual product and service pages forward to their respective mobile versions.

AdWords also lets you use ValueTrack parameters¹¹ in ad-destination URLs to specify mobile and desktop versions. People who click on ads will be directed to the proper page based on the device being used.

Try Bing Ads

While Google might have removed the capability to target separate campaigns at mobile devices or tablets, Bing still allows you to segment by device; you can still create a mobile-only campaign to reach searchers on Bing and Yahoo. While Bing-powered search accounts for a much smaller volume than Google, I’ve found that allotting a portion of spend to Bing Ads to be valuable for many clients, with less competition, as well as a generally lower cost for leads. For one particular client with a limited budget, we found that the cost per lead averaged about $20 less in Bing Ads than AdWords; so, we shifted money over, resulting in a stronger return on investment from their ad spend.

To set a Bing Ads campaign to serve only on mobile, go to the “Campaign Settings” tab. Under “Advanced Targeting Options,” select “Device” to choose the devices on which to run your campaign. You can also set bid modifiers here, as in AdWords.

¹²

Don’t Forget The Experience After The Ad!

Getting the right people to click on your ad is only the first step. Their experience on your website after the click is crucial to whether they actually contact you or make a purchase. Also, realize that landing-page quality contributes to AdWords’ quality score, a factor that affects how high you have to bid for clicks and where your ads show up in search results.

¹⁴

A responsive design will adapt your website’s size to mobile devices and is, in fact, Google’s stated preference. Make sure that your website’s design takes into account which devices users are on, how they arrived on a particular page and what paths they need to take to convert.

Start Reaching Your Audience On Mobile

By using the techniques mentioned, I’ve succeeded in keeping costs per lead down, as well as focusing spend on areas where a campaign is seeing the best results. While we do live in a cross-device world, paying attention to the results from different devices leads to smarter PPC campaign management. For example, in the same AdWords account, I’ve seen campaigns in which mobile costs per lead average higher than on desktop, along with other campaigns in which mobile costs per lead average lower. Taking this information into account, we can customize the bid modifiers for mobile by campaign, instead of keeping them at a generic number across the board, to help control spend.

Working with businesses that provide local services, I’ve also seen immense success both in including a click-to-call extension as well as using mobile-preferred ads to focus messaging on calls. Some clients I’ve worked with see just as many leads come from phone calls directly from ads as through website form submissions. Again, the fact that a user on a phone is likely to take advantage of a simple click-to-call option gives us the option to customize an ad campaign targeted at mobile searchers.

Ultimately, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to targeting your audience by device. But whether you’re just starting to advertise online or are a veteran AdWords user, you can likely do more to reach the ever-growing pool of mobile users. Take the time to segment messaging, and target with the knowledge that people behave differently on different devices. Keep track of the value of leads received based on device to determine how much spend to allot to mobile and how much to desktop. Of course, test these tactics to see what works best for you and your brand, and tailor advertising to your users when they visit from mobile devices.

Additional Resources

• “Google’s Mobile Movement: Enhanced Campaigns and the Rising Cost of Mobile¹⁶,” Marin Software
• “5 Google AdWords Enhanced Campaign Tips for Efficiency and Better Performance¹⁷,” Crystal Santos, Search Engine Watch
• “How to Determine Your Mobile and Geo Bid Multipliers for Enhanced Campaigns¹⁸,” Benjamin Vigneron, Search Engine Land
• “Optimizing Bid Adjustments for Mobile Ads¹⁹,” Scott Yacko, Levers blog
• “Why You Can’t Manage AdWords Without a Multi-Device Strategy in 2013²⁰,” Andrew Lolk, PPC Hero

(al, ml)

Footnotes

1. 1 http://www.ppchero.com/google-to-force-you-to-go-mobile-with-enhanced-campaigns/
2. 2 http://searchengineland.com/should-you-upgrade-to-adwords-enhanced-campaigns-148240
3. 3 http://www.marinsoftware.com/resources/whitepapers/impact
4. 4 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/mobilemodifier800.jpg
5. 5 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/mobilemodifier800.jpg
6. 6 http://searchengineland.com/highlights-of-the-smx-advanced-session-on-ppc-enhanced-campaigns-best-practices-163472
7. 7 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/mobilead800.jpg
8. 8 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/mobilead800.jpg
9. 9 http://www.ppchero.com/do-mobile-preferred-ads-actually-prefer-mobile/
10. 10 http://www.getfoundfirst.com/blog/how-to-exclude-mobile-apps-google-display-network-gdn/
11. 11 http://adwords.blogspot.com/2013/03/new-valuetrack-parameters-for-enhanced.html
12. 12 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/bingads800.jpg
13. 13 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/bingads800.jpg
14. 14 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/responsive800px.jpg
15. 15 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/responsive800px.jpg
16. 16 http://www.marinsoftware.com/resources/whitepapers/impact
17. 17 http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2302961/5-Google-AdWords-Enhanced-Campaign-Tips-for-Efficiency-Better-Performance
18. 18 http://searchengineland.com/how-to-determine-your-mobile-geo-bid-multipliers-for-enhanced-campaigns-152291
19. 19 http://leve.rs/blog/optimizing-bid-adjustments-for-mobile-ads/
20. 20 http://www.ppchero.com/why-you-cant-manage-adwords-without-a-multi-device-strategy-in-2013/

The post Targeting Mobile Users Through Google AdWords appeared first on Smashing Magazine.

Exercise, get enough sleep, don't eat too many fatty foods, don't drink too much, take time off from work. Those are all components of a healthy lifestyle. Each is needed, but in a balanced way. Too much of one, and you move into the unhealthy end of the spectrum.

The same balanced approach applies to your sales process. You need to prospect, close deals, and service clients, but focus too much on one of those, and you create a boom/bust cycle, says Colleen Francis, author of Nonstop Sales Boom in her podcast interview 3 Reasons Why Firms Experience Boom/Bust Sales Cycles.

You have to understand "that your sales pipeline is a multi-dimensional thing—that you have to take leads from all different places, and you have to be nurturing your existing clients as well as your new clients," she says. "We have to be asking for referrals and leveraging our existing client base, as well as going out and meeting brand-new people in order to really create this healthy buoyant sales environment where you're consistently hitting your targets."

Luck isn't a mysterious gift of the universe; it's a way of thinking and behaving you can learn, says one psychologist who created a 'luck school.'