How to Advertise Your Small Business on Facebook Posted on February 23, 2022February 23, 2022 by Jess Lunk For small businesses, expanding your audience means stability and consistent growth. However, getting traffic and attention to your company’s website can be a challenge. Tapping into platforms where your audience is already engaging, like Facebook, is a great way to find new customers. Social media, review sites, and online publications are always great hubs for tapping into an engaged target market. Most have tools you can utilize to ensure you’re reaching the right kind of people, but few can get you the kind of awareness and exposure that Facebook can. Why Should Small Businesses Advertise on Facebook? Facebook advertisements can boost your small business growth and performance in many ways, including: Build brand awareness and trust: Your customers and prospects hang out on Facebook every day. Facebook uses an algorithm that makes your ads show up as people explore the groups, people, brands, and products they’re interested in. This is the reason new products gain 80% greater discoverability on Facebook than on retailer or brand websites. Generate high-quality leads: Facebook offers rich sets of data to help you narrow down your audience. There are many ways to segment your audiences, such as job title, age, gender, location, spoken language, and much more, to target people most likely to click. Get a high return on ad spend: Facebook allows you to set your own budget based on the ads you want to run. According to statistics, Facebook Feed offers the best return on ad spend (ROAS) compared to other pay-per-click platforms. To suffice, in 2019, 41% of small businesses in the U.S. achieved the best RAOS on Facebook. Before we walk you through how to put together your Facebook ad, let’s explore the various kinds of Facebook ads you could run and the benefits of each. Types of Facebook Ads The good thing with a Facebook ad network is that you’re not tied to a single ad type. The platform puts multiple ad types at your disposal, letting you pick one that suits your placement and marketing goals. Some of the popular ads on Facebook include: Image Ads: This is the most basic Facebook ad format. As the name suggests, these simple ads contain only a single image showcasing your product or services. Video ads: Videos add movement to your ads, springing them to life to grab the customers’ attention and pique their interest. They run in Stories and News Feeds and are great for showing your product in action. Carousel Ads: Carousels are similar to images ads, but they showcase more than one image, each with an embedded link. They are great for highlighting multiple products or showing the different benefits of a single product. Instant Experience (previously known as Canvas ads): These ads are unique in that when a user taps the ad on mobile, it instantly opens in full-screen to give the customer a completely immersive experience. Collection Ads: Collection ads are offered only for mobile. The ads allow you to showcase multiple products in a single ad that opens like Instance Experience when the customer clicks. These ads allow your customers to make a purchase without ever leaving Facebook. Slideshow Ads: These ads allow you to use multiple images to tell your brand story in a slideshow. Facebook has a built-in slideshow tool that features branded music, text, formats, overlays, and more to help you create eye-catching slideshow ads. Facebook Ads Specs Regardless of the ad type you want to create, Facebook recommends following the ad specs guidelines to create high-converting ads. When it comes to ad specs, Facebook prefers to keep digital marketers on their toes. The platform constantly updates the specs to make sure each type of ad is delivering the optimal results. To keep up with the changes, be sure to bookmark the Facebook Ad specs page and visit it regularly. Tips For Facebook Ads Success To give your campaigns more power, you should adhere to these best practices: Assemble With Care Ads with spot-on messages and eye-popping visuals catch people’s attention and make them take action. As you create your ads, pay special attention to these four areas: Text: Make sure the text is clear and concise. Facebook recommends keeping the copy to two to three short sentences. Image or video: Use high-resolution images, and most importantly, ensure the images complement the message in your copy. Headline: As you’ll notice in the Facebook ad specs guideline, the ad headline should be short (40 characters or less). It should be catchy and clear so users can quickly and easily understand what the ad is about. CTA: What do you want people to do when they see the ad? Buy your product, book air tickets, or sign up for your email newsletters? Spell it out in the CTA to prompt people to take action. Some of the best converting CTA texts include “Book Now,” “Shop Now,” or “Sign Up Today.” Leverage Campaign Budget Optimization Let’s say you’ve created a set of five ads on Facebook. Normally, you’d set the campaign budget for each ad, but that comes with one pitfall: you can’t prioritize the budget. Facebook’s campaign budget optimization is the perfect workaround to that problem. With the tool, you set a budget for the entire ad set. Doing so enables Facebook to prioritize your campaign budget to channel the biggest chunk to the best-performing ads. Use Placement Optimization Facebook can serve up your ads on News Feeds, Audience Network, Instagram feed and stories, and Messenger. Instead of messing around trying to figure out the placement that will deliver the best ROAS, use Facebook automatic placement. In this case, you activate all placements. At first, Facebook will run ads on all platforms but will gather more data from each placement to learn about it. This way, the algorithm will gain insights to pick the least expensive placement with regard to the average cost per optimization. This ensures you make the most of your campaign budget. How to Set Up Your Facebook Ad Facebook boasts over 2.9 billion users, so to say the site offers a huge advertising opportunity is an understatement. But before you dive into creating cool graphics and choosing between video ads and slideshow ads, it’s important to know what you want to accomplish. Our quick guide will give you the perfect overview of how to execute an effective Facebook ad campaign. 1. State Your Advertising Objective Mindlessly shooting an ad into the social media space won’t reap the rewards. Taking the time to define a precise advertising objective will. What is an advertising objective? It’s what you want your ad to accomplish. Do you want an ad that builds brand awareness, directs traffic to your site or generates sales? If you’re uncertain, identify where your intended audience is in the buyer’s journey. Are they in the awareness, consideration, or conversion stage? A clear objective is vital because it serves as a touchpoint throughout the process. It determines the ad copy you’ll use and how “pushy” your ad should be. For instance, if your audience is still in the awareness stage, they’re not ready for an ad that says, “Buy Now.” They are unfamiliar with your product, so their mental filter will file your ad away as spam as they scroll through their newsfeed. Instead, an awareness stage ad should focus on providing value over pushing conversions. This also allows Facebook to present you with appropriate ad formats. For instance, if you’re trying to encourage sales by advertising a specific product, you can create a Facebook ad with a CTA that directs people to “Shop Now.” 2. Identify Your Audience A poor understanding of your intended target audience can hurt even a brilliant advertising campaign. If your company sells life insurance, marketing to 18-to-24-year-olds won’t win many leads. But it’s not just about basic demographics, like age. Interests also play an important role. A travel company that specializes in Spring Break tours promising a good time won’t have much luck running commercials during a cable news program. Facebook lets you filter your intended audience by: Location: Do you want your ad to go out to people who live close to a college campus? In the downtown core? In the suburbs? Age: Are you targeting seniors? Young adults? Teenagers? Gender Language Interests Facebook allows you to target (and even exclude) people who hold specific interests. So that Spring Break tour company we mentioned earlier would be wise to target 18-to-24-year-olds on a college campus who like pages related to travel. You can also create a customized audience based on existing followers, website visitors, or app users. Once you’ve carefully considered those first two strategic steps (objectives and audience), creating your ad is as simple as gathering your marketing assets. 3. Select Where Your Ad Will Run We previously mentioned this, but you can choose between automatic placements and specified placements. Facebook recommends automatic placements because they’ll be able to put your ads where your audience is most likely to see them. This saves you time and is likely much more efficient. 4. Determine Your Budget Outlining your marketing budget is an important step in your Facebook ad creation process. Provide an estimated daily budget and choose whether you want your ad to run continuously or over a fixed time period. Luckily, your company doesn’t need to be rolling in dough to advertise on Facebook. You can run a lean or robust campaign, depending on your budget. 5. Choose Your Format We have already covered the various Facebook ad formats above. Choose wisely and upload the appropriate graphics, and add your text. Facebook will review and approve your ad after you place your order. Do You Need A Company Facebook Page To Advertise? No, but it’s in your best interests to get one. Without a Facebook page, you can only run sidebar advertisements known as Right Column ads. With a Facebook page, your company’s advertisements can appear in the Newsfeed as Sponsored Posts. Image: Sponsored Post Image: Right Column Ad Monitor, Monitor, Monitor Meta’s Ads Manager dashboard allows advertisers to monitor their campaign performance. The dashboard provides insights on engagement, performance, clicks, conversions, and more. You can also customize your metrics and compare performance across different campaigns and time periods. Start reaching new customers and converting existing ones with Facebook ads. By embracing best practices, you can use the social media giant to advance your company’s advertising goals.
The Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing Posted on February 17, 2022February 10, 2022 by Natalie Slyman Competition in the content marketing arena is heating up. Statistics show that the number of brands that are actively using content marketing has grown by 12% between 2020 and 2021. To succeed, you have to master content marketing and use creative ways to set yourself apart from competitors. But first, let’s make sure we cover the content marketing basics, from what content marketing is to the types of content you should be creating. What’s Content Marketing? Content means information in written, visual or audible format. It could be anything from blogs; guest contributed articles, white papers, press releases, infographics, social posts, podcasts, webinars, or videos. Marketing, on the other hand, is the action of promoting your brand, products, or services. Therefore, content marketing is the act of using content to market your products or services. Sounds easy-peasy, right? While the definition makes content marketing look deceptively simple, there’s a lot to the process. You have to plan, create, distribute, and publish relevant content through meticulously picked channels. You have to get each of these steps right to reach the target audience and increase product awareness, engagement, and sales. Why Content Marketing Is Essential for a Well-Rounded Marketing Plan Content marketing is a vital component of your overarching marketing plan. As the digital world evolves, customers are discovering and buying products online. Content marketing helps you spread the word about your products or services on channels like social media, websites, and email. It creates demand for your products, nurtures leads into customers, and converts frequent customers into brand loyalists. How to Use the Content You Create That said, not all content advances your marketing campaigns— you can’t just throw a bunch of words and pictures out there and expect results. In other words, you must create content that’s relevant, optimized for search, accurate, and resonates with your target audience. Moreover, have a predefined list of goals you want to achieve with content marketing. Some core objectives include: Educate prospects about your product and services Generate demand for your product by attracting the right leads Increase conversion to boost sales Build a community of engaged advocates around your brand Build better brand relationships that result in increased loyalty Types of Content You Should Be Creating If you’re getting started with content marketing, here are some types of content to focus on: Blogs and Articles: Blogging is the most basic yet critical part of your content marketing strategy. It’s through blogs and articles that you drive organic traffic to your website and start to build brand audiences. With a blog, you frequently create and publish posts to keep the target audience informed and engaged. Also, blog posts make great fuel for your email marketing efforts. Social Media Content: 72% of Americans use social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Snapchat, and LinkedIn. Social media content marketing means finding where your archetypal customers hang out online and creating content fit for that platform. The content can be in the form of photos, stories, live videos, and pre-recorded videos. To keep these efforts consistent, we recommend having a monthly social media calendar. Podcasts: Podcast listenership has grown by a whopping 29% from 2010 to 2020. Your customers love listening to podcasts, which is why you should be creating them. You can use podcasts to educate customers, advertise your products, promote brand awareness, and more. Video content: 86% of your competitors are using video as a marketing tool. Video is an incredibly powerful marketing tool with vast benefits. It improves page dwell time, increases lead generation and reduces the number of support calls. Some types of videos to create include explainers, product demos, sales videos, and testimonials. Tips for Distributing Content Effectively One huge mistake brands make is publishing content, forgetting about it, and hoping it will bring the desired results. Don’t fall into that trap. For your content to flourish, you need a solid distribution plan. As Ross Simmonds, founder of Foundation Marketing Inc, often says, “Publish once, distribute forever.” Here are some tips to help you promote your content: 1. Repurpose Content Find new ways to recycle your existing content for different mediums. Take your one-year-old blog post, put a new spin on it and update it to give it a fresh perspective. This could mean converting the blog into a Twitter thread or LinkedIn post. This allows the content to reach new audiences on social media. Even if you’d shared the post on social media before, it pays off to reshare. Remember: people who followed you on Twitter a year ago are not the same group following you today. 2. Partner with Brands From Your Niche Look around your niche and pinpoint brands that are excelling in content marketing. Reach out to the brand owners with a proposal to partner up on content creation and cross-promotion. The chances are that some will reject your proposal, but others will be on board with the idea. When you contribute content for a higher-authority website, you add a link back to your site. Doing so will increase traffic to your website, meaning more people will get to see your content. 3. Collaborate with Micro-Influencers Influencer marketing can do wonders for any strategy, big or small. However, if you don’t have a huge budget, check out micro-influencers for an interesting content promotion path. They have a commendable following on social media, email newsletters, or even websites. They engage with their followers on a human level and thus have built authentic connections. Look for micro-influencers from your niche: this could be anyone whose followers are your target audience. Hint: your content writers can be micro-influencers, too. For example, if you have a writer who runs an email newsletter with over 2,000 subscribers, ask them to share your content with their followers. 4. Use Email Marketing Lastly, leverage the power of email marketing to promote your content. 81% of marketers use newsletters to promote their content. Besides adding that to your content distribution checklist, you should try other ways. Take Gareth O’Sullivan, Founder at Revealing Britain, for example. Gareth links trend-worthy content in his email signature to complement the email content. This is a viable way to promote your content, and it works if you send and reply to a bunch of emails every day. It brings extra organic traffic to your blog for free. How Content Can Feed Your Email Marketing When you create quality content and promote it, you reap the rewards. One of the biggest signs your content marketing efforts are paying off is an increase in organic traffic. When you grow traffic, sales on your eCommerce store will increase. However, some of your web visitors won’t buy on their first visit to your online store. It will take you multiple engagements to convert them into buying customers. This is where email marketing comes in. By sharing the content you’re creating with your email list, you’re able to spread your valuable resources, proving that you’re an authority in your industry and that you’re a trusted resource your leads can depend on. Over time your relationship will grow, and you’ll be able to move those leads through your inbound funnel till they’re ready to make a purchase. In order to launch these targeted email campaigns, you need to have access to prospect data and the ability to segment your email list based on qualifying factors. Luckily, BenchmarkONE offers a CRM and marketing automation software that makes this possible. Through its tagging feature, you can segment your leads, placing them into lists based on where they are in the buyer’s journey, their industry, business size, etc. This allows you to send them content that is personalized to their needs so you can begin to build that trust and work towards more conversions. Creating a content marketing strategy is a crucial component of any successful marketing strategy. It takes time and resources, but it’s extremely worth it in the long run. We hope this guide helps you get started.
Small Business Guide to Target Markets Posted on February 16, 2022October 28, 2022 by Jessica Lunk When you initially set out on your journey to market your brand, product, or service, you may be tempted to jump right in. However, going after everyone who is willing to listen or could even be remotely interested in what your business has to offer isn’t something we’d recommend. While getting your brand out there is essential to driving business, going too broad can water down your message. The result can be a lot of wasted time and resources on leads that will never benefit from what you have to offer. Your marketing strategy should be one that is focused on your target audience and market. This ensures you use your time and budget wisely and see the most return possible. In this guide, we’ll discuss everything small businesses need to know about target markets so they can get keep their strategy focused and successful. What is a Target Market? A target market is the core customer base you plan to sell your product or services. It’s different from a target audience in that it covers a broad or whole group of people most likely to buy your product or service. A target market can be broken into smaller yet specific segments, which constitute the target audience. In other words, a target audience is a segment within your target market. For example, if you are an email marketing software provider, you could say your target market is the digital marketing industry. However, within this industry lies your target audience of email marketers or people who send email newsletters. How Does Knowing Your Target Market Improve Marketing Efforts? Think of a forest as the digital world, the hunter as the marketer, and the arrows as the marketing message. A skillful hunter doesn’t go hurling arrows through the forest, hoping to make a kill. Rather, they identify a specific target, say a deer, and go to areas in the forest where they’re most likely to find them. Once they’re in position, they zero in on the target and shoot the arrow. Marketing your products works the same way. To hit your sales targets, you have to identify your target market. Defining your target markets is the first step towards knowing your target audience. Knowing your target audience is critical for a personalized marketing approach, which is essential for conversions. 60% of customers who get personalized experiences are more likely to become repeat buyers. Simply put, defining your target markets helps nail personalization, which in turn drives increased revenue and profitability. How to Identify Your Target Market Identifying your target market shouldn’t be difficult. If you’re wondering where to start, follow these steps: 1. Analyze Your Product or Service Let’s say you work for a marketing agency. You can identify your target market with a bit of reverse engineering. List your core digital marketing service offerings. Let’s say they are: Social media management Content creation Design and branding SEO strategy Dive in deep into the parameters of your core offerings. By defining the problems that each of your offerings solve, you’ll be able to get a clearer idea of who can benefit from them. You may find that your product or service can be tailored to fit many segments. However, it pays to put your stake in the ground and commit to one ideal buyer. 2. Define Your Target Customers Although you could potentially serve anyone in any industry, marketing to every industry would make your message quite generic: “Results-driven marketing for any entity.” Instead, your agency decides to get specific. You decide to commit your focus to higher education, narrowing your target marketing and focusing on one ideal buyer – John, the CMO of a university. You get even more specific and focus on what your agency does best – digital marketing. Now your message becomes: “Driving enrollment and increasing student ROI by helping universities get found online.” It hits home for your target audience – John the CMO – positioning your agency as the go-to when it comes to optimizing .edu websites for search. Save money and time by narrowing down the focus of your target audience enough to make your message resonate with a smaller group. Although your market is smaller, you have a better chance of attracting the right buyer. It also doesn’t hurt to take a look at your existing customers. Pinpoint some of your best customers, and figure out what makes them stand out from the crowd. Some of the details to uncover include: Age Gender Marital status Location Education level Income Occupation Don’t stop at that; research further to reveal the personal characteristics, buying habits, and interests. Are they decision-makers in their respective organizations? What made them buy your products? What other products do they purchase? How often do they purchase? How do they consume information online? With the demographic and psychographic details, it should be easy to build a specific customer profile and identify the market segment they perfectly fit into. 3. Research Competitors Competitor analysis is another great way to identify your target market, and it works for both new and existing businesses. Look around your niche and identify brands offering comparable products or services. Who are these brands targeting? Who are the top customers for these brands? Answering these questions may help you identify their target markets. You can go for the same target market your competitors zero in if your product has an irresistible, unique selling proposition. However, if it’s a small market dominated by well-established brands, it might be wise to target a segment of the market. 4. Refine Your Marketing Plan Now that you’ve chosen your path, it’s time to follow it to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. You’ve committed to your ideal buyer; now, you need to reinforce that commitment to your business and the marketplace. Put your ideal buyer at the center of everything you do: Refine your marketing message to speak to your ideal buyer. Think about how your content strategy can tap into the pain points of your ideal buyer and help them to solve a problem. Address the needs of your audience in your product/service. Build for your ideal buyer – and no one else – to create raving fans and loyal customers of your business. Create a customer experience that best fits your ideal buyer. For instance, if your ideal buyer is in the older demographic, they may prefer phone support to live chat or social media. John, the CMO, has a tough time managing his university’s social media presence because so many participants (students, faculty, departments) are involved. So you create a free social media brand guide for higher education. The guide helps generate leads within your target market. On the product and service side, you decide to create a custom social listening tool that your clients can leverage to stay connected to everything faculty, staff, students, and alumni are saying about their university brand. And, when it comes to client service, you know that your ideal buyer has to consistently prove the ROI of marketing programs to university stakeholders. So as part of your ongoing support, you email your clients a report on their top benchmarks every week. Putting John the CMO at the center of everything you do narrows your target market but also allows your agency to be infinitely more successful at driving leads, winning new clients, and making sure they stick with your agency for a long time. Once you’ve committed to your ideal buyer, follow through by integrating them into your business from product development to marketing to customer success. You’ll be rewarded with better leads, more customers, and increased customer lifetime value. 5. Encourage Your Evangelizers Now that you’ve committed to your ideal buyer and have aligned your business to them, you’re going to find yourself with some raving fans. Leverage your most enthusiastic customers to attract even more customers who are just like them. Run a referral campaign to ask your supporters to send new business your way. Reward them with incentives like discounts, perks, and even cash money. Ask for reviews. If your business is on Yelp, if you have a Google listing, or if your industry has specific review sites, it can really pay off to have your customer’s voices heard there, sharing their positive experience. Give thanks where thanks are due. When you go above and beyond for your biggest fans, they are sure to go the extra mile for you – whether it’s providing a testimonial, participating in a case study, or being a reference. Validate Your Decision and Start Marketing Before you can start launching your marketing campaigns, it’s prudent to validate your decision. Find answers to these questions: Are there enough people in the market to support steady growth? Will people find the need to use your product or services? Will people afford the product or service? How easy is it to reach out to them? If the target market ticks the right boxes, go ahead and create targeted campaigns to generate demand for your product or service. Market segmentation can feel like a big undertaking and can seem like a big risk since you limit your audience. However, narrowing your target market can actually give you a better chance to reach more people with a specific message. Put your stake in the ground and commit to an ideal buyer, align your business to their needs, and mobilize your evangelizers to penetrate and conquer your niche.
Should Your Small Business Be on TikTok? Posted on February 10, 2022February 4, 2022 by Natalie Slyman TikTok is shaping up to be the next big platform in brand marketing. But just because it’s popular doesn’t mean that it’s a great fit for all businesses. If you’re running a small business, you know how important it is to allocate your marketing dollars as wisely as possible. Sometimes that means focusing your budget on a new trend or platform that’s ideal for reaching your core audience — other times; it means opting out of things that aren’t a good fit for your brand. So, where does that leave TikTok? Here’s what to know about marketing on the platform, including how to tell if it’s somewhere you need to be (or somewhere to skip altogether). What is TikTok? TikTok is a video-sharing app that allows users to post content ranging from 15 seconds to three minutes. Videos are shown at random on a user’s “For You Page” (FYP), with views, likes, comments, and shares all working to fine-tune the algorithm and show users more of the content they’re interested in. For brands, TikTok offers both paid and organic opportunities to get in front of the right audience. And because the algorithm is so good at picking up on an individual user’s interests, it’s less difficult than it might be on other platforms to end up on the right feed. Pros and Cons of TikTok for Business There’s no denying that TikTok is fun to use, but is it a beneficial marketing channel for your small business? These pros and cons of using the app might help clear some things up. Pros TikTok has more than one billion active users, plus a global user base that has increased by more than 1000% since 2018. Social commerce is high on TikTok, with only Tinder raking in more consumer spending. In 2020, TikTok generated $1.9 billion in ad revenue. How’s this for engagement? The average user spends 89 minutes per day on the app. Cons The app is all video all the time. If your marketing strategy isn’t at least somewhat video-focused, you’ll have no other way to engage. TikTok’s user base skews young, which may not be a great fit for all brands. 35% of its users are aged 19 to 29, and another 28% are under 18. An ad on TikTok will cost you $10 per thousand views, with a minimum ad spend of $500. Is TikTok’s User Base Your User Base? If GenZ and young Millennials are your target audience, then you’ll be glad to know that you can find them in droves on TikTok. In 2021, almost half (48%) of all U.S. 18 to 29-year-olds reported using the app, including 55% of 18 to 24-year-olds. These are excellent numbers for brands that target that age group, but the numbers for older Americans aren’t quite so impressive — you’ll find only 20% of 30 to 49-year-olds on TikTok and just 14% of 50 to 64-year-olds. As for gender, TikTok’s users are split pretty evenly: 51% of users identify as male, and 49% identify as female. There are other demographic considerations to keep in mind, too, including what types of content tend to do best (entertainment, followed by dances, lifehacks, and educational/informational videos) and whether that aligns with what you’re selling or can be applicable to your industry in some way. Quick Tips for Being Successful on TikTok If you’ve decided that adding TikTok to your marketing strategy is a good way to go, then your next step should be optimizing your plan to help ensure success. Here are some places to start. Master your TikTok hashtag game. Hashtags are huge on TikTok. Use hashtags that are relevant to your content, and regularly search what’s trending to see if there are any top-performing hashtags that you can get in on. Connect with influencers. You can hire influencers to promote your products or services just as you would on Instagram. Do plenty of research to determine which influencers have sway with your audience, and, if it’s in the budget, check out influencer platforms like Post for Rent or Izea to simplify your search. Mix up your content. Not every video you post needs to be created with the intent to sell — nor should it. Creating general interest content that’s relevant to your brand and industry will help you get more followers and engagement than overt marketing content alone. Stay consistent. If you’re going to make TikTok part of your small business marketing strategy, then you need to go all in. This means keeping up with a frequent posting schedule and engaging with your followers in a timely manner. Notice that none of these tips include buying TikTok ad space. Organic success is absolutely possible for brands on the app (we’ve seen it happen again and again), but it takes effort and creativity. If you’ve got both to spare, you should see good results in return.
7 Selling Styles That Sales Reps Can Use to Close More Deals and Exceed The Quota Posted on February 9, 2022September 8, 2022 by Guest Author Being a salesperson requires a lot of skill. Having the ability to bring even the most hesitant prospective customers on board with a winning sales pitch is something that a lot of organizations would crumble without. While there’s no denying some of it comes down to natural talent, sales skills are something that can be taught and improved upon. Throughout this article, we’ll explore seven selling styles – a lot easier to type than say – which sales reps can use to up their closure rate. 1. Solution Selling The first technique that we’re going to discuss today is solution selling. Your standard sales pattern is likely more product or service-focused. Solution selling, on the other hand, shifts the focus from what you have to offer to what the customer wants. Here, we’re selling the idea of a resolved issue as opposed to a physical product. It’s less about listing the features of an item and more about finding a customer’s pain point. This won’t be for everyone, as solution selling tends to require some out-of-the-box thinking. For example, if they’ve moved away from in-person marketing to marketing automation, how can your software help? Do they still operate with traditional landlines, and can your IP telephony system provide a more effective way of working? It’s less about selling what it does in general and more about what it can do for them. 2. Social Media Selling Technology has brought both new innovations (like being able to have a video conference with prospective customers) and new challenges (like high rates of online shopping cart abandonment!) to companies. But there’s nothing that’s made quite the same level of impact as social media. The phenomenon of social media has come with some well-advertised downsides, but in the selling world, it’s an opportunity-only development. It can be used to support purchase decisions at a rapid rate, so having it as part of an arsenal of selling styles is vital. Image source Social selling centers around building established relationships with customers, using the ethos of solution selling at the forefront. Presenting something on social media as a problem-solving item or service is a great way to increase your deal count. For instance, if you’re selling an interactive voice response (IVR) system, you could start by posting funny content about the difficulties of a traditional phone system. This can help build engagement, encourage shares, and, when you do throw in the pitch to your solution, give you a pre-prepped audience. 3. Collaborative Selling Now, this is an interesting one. While the last two points have focused on a traditional relationship between buyer and seller, collaborative selling takes a different approach. This is a more passive selling approach. It operates on the principle that the buyer has more of an impact on how the sales process goes. Instead of being pitched to and then deciding on whether that works for them, collaborative selling involves building a relationship with the buyer and responding to what they want. Image Source This, as you can imagine, requires a lot of data on the end of the sales rep. It helps if the other customer-facing functions of the business are aligned in the data they’re using too. Customer experience KPIs can be of great help here, as they can help you figure out what you’re good at – and what areas might need more work. Ultimately, the goal of collaborative selling is more about the long game. It lays the groundwork for partnerships or continued alignments, as opposed to one-off transactions. 4. Consultative Selling Consultative selling mirrors collaborative selling in many ways. Where it breaks free from its more comprehensive twin is that it still requires the sales rep to drive the conversation forward. You’re positioning yourself as the expert, so rather than working together on a problem, you’re very much taking charge. This technique also has similarities to solution selling – you’ll notice as we go on that a lot of these styles overlap. However, it differentiates due to the level of detail involved in consultative selling. Here, we’re relying on customers to identify the pain points themselves and incorporating data – such as market trends and user data – as selling points. This allows a sales rep to build a narrative around the pitch. Most salespeople are gifted storytellers, and this style gives them the opportunity to really shine. However, in order to really excel in this style, they need easy access to a lot of data. That way, when a lead brings up a problem, they can tell them exactly how it helps with numbers, not just anecdotes. 5. Unconsidered Needs At this stage, we’ve focused a lot on how these sales styles shift between a single relationship. Is it the customer or the rep driving the conversation? Now, we need to look a little more broadly at how your sales pitch matches up with your competitors. If you’re delivering the same pitch as those companies that also occupy your space, you’re neglecting an opportunity to differentiate yourself. While you might have high customer retention rates, you’re missing the chance to steal the customers of your rivals. Say, for example, you supply restaurants with POS software. You’re a company that exists in the mid-range – you’re better than a basic model but have some bells and whistles missing. Attracting customers who already have the top model may be difficult. Yet speaking to them in terms of the advantages of a lesser system – lower cost, more streamlined, represents what they actually need to operate – can be a good “in.” This is where unconsidered needs come in. It requires a rep to think outside the box and construct needs that the buyer may not have considered to this point. By viewing a customer’s needs as a fraction of the solution that your product offers and then introducing other ways in which it could help, you elevate its value to them. They may not have encountered this specific issue yet. But if they come across it, they know that your item or service can help. 6. Insight Selling Insight selling is a style that’s really come into its own in recent years. Revolving around a deeper understanding of what your customer needs, the end game here is achieving unshakeable trust and absolute understanding. It requires a bit of background research – for instance, building a consumer profile, performing trend analysis, and undertaking marketing research. This allows you to bring together benefit and value for the customer, as well as differentiate yourself from other competitors’ offers. Rather than approaching potential buyers with open-ended questions, you approach them with data. No more “do you struggle with…?”. Instead, it becomes ‘Over 50% of companies struggle with…”. It, as should be obvious, is not something you can just learn on day one. It takes time to build up. However, once you achieve it, very few techniques prove as effective in garnering long-term, lucrative sales. 7. High-Pressure Selling Finally, High-Pressure Selling. We know that almost all selling involves pressure of some kind, but here we’re talking about a style of selling that can more commonly be known as hard selling. As far as “techniques which aren’t for everyone” goes, this is the grandaddy. As a sales rep or a customer, the hard sell can be either difficult to achieve or difficult to tolerate. It’s very much not a one-size-fits-all approach, but it still has its place. This technique taps into the basest instincts of a buyer. If you feel you’re talking to someone susceptible to greed, fear, or even pride, the hard sell can be a great style to plump for. These tend to be people in equally competitive industries or places of work built around competition. With this technique, it’s vital your sales team know how and when to apply it. Pick the wrong person, and you might scare them off. Pick the right one, however? You might just make the biggest deal of the year. Throughout this article, we’ve taken a look at some selling styles. No matter what you sell, you’ll be able to use these to close more deals out and exceed your quota. Make sure to experiment and find the ones that suit your team best. Give your sales reps the space to find one that works for them, rather than giving them all the same script. You might just unlock potential you didn’t even know you had. Author Bio John Allen is the Director of SEO for 8×8, a leading communication platform with an integrated contact center, predictive dialer, voice, video, and chat functionality. John is a marketing professional with over 14 years experience in the field and an extensive background in building and optimizing digital marketing programs across SEM, SEO, and a myriad of services. This is his LinkedIn.
How to Distribute Your Content Effectively Posted on February 3, 2022August 9, 2022 by Natalie Slyman Oftentimes, content creation is such a complex process that marketers breathe a sigh of relief when they press publish, thinking the job is done. In reality, that’s when the real work just begins. For the content to take off, deliver results, and contribute to more brand awareness, you have to promote and amplify it. In this article, we’ll show you how to distribute your content so that it gets in front of as many people as possible. Why Distributing Your Content is Essential for Success Ross Simmonds, founder at Foundation Marketing, believes “Content distribution differentiates a piece of content that thrives and one that falls flat.” If your SEO-optimized blog post is generating 1,000 visitors to your website, you could double (or even quadruple) that traffic with a proper distribution strategy. More traffic means more leads, which in turn translates to more customers and increased revenue. 11 Ways to Effectively Distribute Your Content 1. Use Newsletters There are two approaches to publicizing your content using email newsletters. The first is to launch your own and build a community of devoted readers around it. Then, publish valuable content to keep those readers engaged, aligning the newsletter issues with your overall content strategy. For example, use pop-ups on your website to notify visitors that they can sign up for your company’s email newsletter list. Whether you send your newsletters out weekly or monthly, choose your most recently published blog content, guides, and guest content to include within your newsletters, so your readers are notified of what you’re writing and why. This will keep them informed and educated, but make sure you keep growing your subscriber list over time. And, don’t forget to periodically weed out inactive subscribers so you can maintain strong deliverability. Another tactic is to build relationships with people and brands behind popular newsletters in your industry. Share their content in your newsletter to give them a reason to reciprocate the favor, which will get your content out there to a wider audience. 2. Submit a Guest Blog Look for high-authority websites in your industry that accept guest contributors. Reach out to content managers in these blogs and pitch your blog ideas, and be as unique and non-promotional as possible. Chances are that some will decline your proposal, while some will jump at the opportunity to work with you. When you contribute a guest article, you can link back to your website or your social profiles in your bio. But, if you’re creating high-quality, non-promotional content on your company’s blog, you can also link to those pillar posts within the body of your article. And by using key terms as anchor text, you’ll improve your SEO in the process. Getting these links placed on outside sites not only assists with your SEO strategy but also increases the chances that people who frequent those sites will click those links, come back to your website, and enter into your inbound funnel. 3. Share on Twitter Twitter has over 460 million active users, and there are many ways to put your content in front of these users. The most obvious method is to share a link and headline of the content in a tweet. Beyond that, cull the most interesting parts of a blog post into a Twitter thread and add a link to the blog. You can also find ongoing chats where your audience is involved regularly. Find relevant questions and plug in links to your content that answer these questions. Another underused method is retweeting. For example, if you stumble upon a tweet of a customer venting or ranting about a poor product or service, use that moment. Retweet their comments and add a link to a piece of content that offers a remedy to the problem. 4. Share on LinkedIn LinkedIn offers many opportunities to share your content. What sets it apart from other social channels is that it has a publishing functionality. Use LinkedIn’s article publishing feature to republish a blog post in its entirety as a LinkedIn article. LinkedIn then puts these articles in the feeds of those who are most likely to find it useful, helping you tap into a network you may not even be connected to. Statistics have shown that posts on LinkedIn with images garner a 98% better comment rate than those that are text-only, so be sure to add images to your posts. In addition, posts that link back to the original asset have a 200% higher engagement rate. 5. Show Up in Reddit As of December 2021, Reddit had more than three million subreddits. Each subreddit comprises a targeted community interested in a specific topic from marketing, health, entertainment, and more. Find subreddits where your audience hangs out and look for opportunities to submit links to your content. Keep in mind that each subreddit has its rules, so make sure you abide by them. Build authority first by answering questions and commenting on posts without adding links and market later. Otherwise, the moderators could potentially mark you as spam. 6. Engage Quora Users Quora users are distributed across over 400,000 topics. Regardless of how unique your business is, there are users on Quora looking to learn something about it. Create a list of Quora questions that are relevant to the content you’re publishing. Narrow down to highly followed questions (those with more than 500 followers). Answer the questions, and, where possible, embed a link to your content. 7. Leverage Influencers The success of this distribution strategy comes down to finding the right influencers. Don’t pursue mega and macro-influencers unless you have the deep pockets to get them to ink a deal with you. Rather, build relationships with micro-influencers (between 1,000 – 10,000 followers). These are people who are more inclined to work with you and have a highly engaged audience, which will work in your favor. Plus, they probably won’t ask for monetary exchange, and instead, you could work on some sort of mutually beneficial collaboration. 8. Use Online Communities Find online communities where your target audience spends time and get involved with them. This can be via LinkedIn groups and communities or Facebook groups, for example. Keep in mind people in these communities are either asking for or offering help, so make sure you’re focus is aligned with that. When capitalizing on these groups, the most important thing is to tailor your content to match the intent and preferences of the community members. If they love breakdowns, personal stories, or analysis, give them just that. Again, contribute first and only share links to your content that is applicable and will genuinely help them. 9. Leverage Slack Communities There are tons of Slack communities out there, especially for link swapping and guest post exchanges. Tap into these channels to expand your partnerships, offering to place high-quality links that will add a little something to your content. Once your content goes live, those that added their links will help you out by sharing it on their channels. You can also distribute your content on these channels, as long as it makes sense and, again, isn’t too frequent. As always, follow the community guidelines and make sure to share your content on the right channels. Keep in mind some Slack communities have set aside days for members to share their content. 10. Add Links to Live Assets If you have a YouTube channel, list your top-performing videos. Then, add a link to a content asset that is relevant to each video in the video description. This is something so simple that it can have a big impact on how far your content goes. 11. Include in Your Email Drip Campaigns Your sales funnel presents a ton of opportunities for you to share the content you’re creating with purpose. When your leads enter your funnel, they’re looking for resources, educational material, and content that can help address their questions, and better familiarize themselves with what it is you do. As long as you’re creating content with your audience in mind, then you’re in a prime position to use that content by adding it to your email drip campaigns and getting it to the right people at the right time. Remember, your content lifecycle isn’t complete once you hit publish. You need to ensure your content is seen by the right people (and at the right times). Make sure you not only distribute your content by incorporating it into your social media calendar but also tackle the methods mentioned above for ultimate success.
8 Common Social Media Marketing Mistakes to Steer Clear of This 2022 Posted on February 2, 2022September 16, 2022 by Guest Author As we glide haphazardly, stomp hungrily, or walk kinda dopey-like into 2022 (your entrance depending largely on what you did the night before), you’ll want to start afresh, turning over a new leaf and leaving 2021 behind. “Twenty-twenty-who?” You’ll ask casually. You’ll want to dig out a pen – nay, a quill – and paper – nay! A parchment – and begin with that centuries-old tradition of a New Year’s Resolutions list. And what pledges shall we make to both ourselves and to our comrades in business? We shall endeavor, of course, to leave the ghost of Christmas past behind (the ghost consisting largely of all of our old social media marketing mistakes). No longer shall these mistakes tarnish our sparkling reputation as pioneers of the digital realm! Instead, we shall sally forth with some of the best applications for business out there – social media apps! So, without further ado, here is our list of the eight most common social media marketing mistakes that we should steer our proverbial ship clear of this year. In 2022, we will not: 1. Spread Ourselves Too Thin While it might indeed feel very tempting to cast our nets over all the waters of the digital realm, it is a false hope that we shall catch more fish, or followers, with that method. Nay, instead, it is a much smarter endeavor to conserve what little energy and motivation we have and focus on a couple of areas, such as profitable b2b marketing strategies and just a couple of platforms. We might see the likes of TikTok soaring high and think of following suit, but we don’t want to end up like that poor besotted fellow Icarus and fly too close to the sun. In other words, instead of trying to whack every mole and fail at successfully hitting any, we should focus on a couple of social media platforms and techniques. By finding out where our target audience spends most of their time, we can put our efforts into those platforms. It’s also useful to assess how people interact with every platform. 2. Ignore Great Contributions User-generated content is pure gold. There’s no need to search the seven seas or mythical lands when you have followers tagging your products in their posts and offering great stories and videos featuring your brand. A big mistake many companies make is to simply “like” such content and leave it at that (or ignore it altogether)—what a waste. Apart from the fact that folks tagging you in their posts are more likely to be super-fans and deserve more acknowledgment than a mere “like” (you want repeat customers after all), by tagging you in their stories on Instagram, you then have the power to repost their stories in your stories. This shows other followers the great feedback and appreciation you’re receiving. It also shows that you care about your customer, which is important to consumers when deciding who to buy from. After all, answering comments is one of the best ways to stand out in customer service. 3. Look the Other Way When Asked a Question Your social media platforms are not just a space to bellow out enticing facts about your incredible commodities. They’re a bridge between your brand and your customers. They’re a space of connection and kinship. You wouldn’t go up to someone on the street and shout at them to buy your product and ignore any questions they asked, right? Your platforms are a space to practice and hone your customer service techniques. Many people choose to ask questions on social media over the “old telephone” method. So it’s vital that you address their concerns and answer their questions as well as possible, even if it’s an activity you set time aside for once a week. As it’s such a public setting, it also looks good to existing and potential customers. If they can see that you engage with your audience and offer solid customer service, they’ll likely have a more favorable impression of you and your brand. 4. Lack of Dynamic Media Pictures are nice and all, but sometimes you need to shake things up with something a little more dynamic. The benefits of images are many, including the fact that they’re easy to screenshot and share. However, video content can add an extra layer of fun and interest to your brand. They bring it to life and offer you a chance to further hone your brand story. You can make all sorts of videos: How to get the best use from your product FAQ videos “Meet the team” or behind the scenes videos Tutorial videos for different ways to use your product or services A collage of user-generated content Videos are a great way to take your brand to the next level on social media and show off your talents, as well as show off the fact that you have a great vision and “get” your audience. 5. Put Pennies into the Wrong Purses Spending money on the wrong things, or without a plan, rarely works out well. If you do gain something from it, it’s haphazard and tricky to measure. It’s good to have SMART objectives for your social media marketing plan, especially when it comes to spending substantial amounts of time or any amount of money on some aspect of it. SMART stands for: Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timely Keep your marketing budget in order. So anything you want to spend money on should be monitored in order to measure the success of the technique used. More generally, your marketing should follow a carefully curated plan based on previous years’ plans. 6. Showboat In other words, don’t over market yourself. Make sure to include a diversity of post types, not just promotional. Some examples of types of posts to include are: FAQ posts: Where you answer the most common questions you receive. Real people posts: Posts showing genuine customers using whatever it is that you sell, which gives your brand a more down-to-earth, approachable feel. Competitions: Occasionally, it’s nice to do a little giveaway or competition. They make people excited and generate engagement. Competitions are also a great way to get plenty of user-generated content that you can use in the future, as well as new followers and potential new customers. Review posts: It’s hard to find a better advertisement than the words of a happy customer. While everything you post on social media will likely be geared towards driving sales in the long run, it’s important not to appear overly promotional. Folks want to be enticed, not pushed! 7. Bombard People with Lackluster Content A common rookie error is to be in such a rush to post regularly that you end up blocking up people’s feeds with irrelevant posts. This can end up feeling like spam and quickly result in folks hitting the “unfollow” or “unlike” buttons, which is the opposite of what we want. While it’s important to post regularly so that people get chances to engage with content, you don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot by posting about subjects that aren’t relevant to your brand or spammy. You can think of your social media presence as an email list, portfolio, and interaction station combined. When you go to your page on, say, Instagram, you’ll want your page to look aesthetically pleasing while also being on-brand. 8. Forget the Interests of our Devoted Audience Finally, and this one links with the point above, you don’t want to forget about who your audience is. If you don’t know who your audience is, it’s time to figure that out. You can get to work to find out the general age groups, geographical locations, interests of your audience and tailor your content towards them. You wouldn’t ramble on at length to your relative with no interest in history about the socioeconomic implications of World War One (or maybe you would, no judgment here). You want to produce content that your audience is genuinely interested in. You might think, “Well, if they liked our page, then maybe they’re already interested in everything we would post?” Mmm… not necessarily. You want to keep your finger to the pulse, so to speak, of what your audience finds interesting or special about you and play to your strengths. So let’s kick the ghost of Christmas past (politely) to the curb and embrace a great new year with new approaches. 2022 will be the year of targeted, interesting, varied content. It’ll also be the year of good social engagement and focused organized efforts. Author Bio Jessica Day is the Senior Director for Marketing Strategy at Dialpad, a modern business communications platform that takes every kind of conversation to the next level—turning conversations into opportunities with powerful features such as Dialpad video calling software. Jessica is an expert in collaborating with multifunctional teams to execute and optimize marketing efforts for both company and client campaigns. Here is her LinkedIn.
Internal Linking Tree: What is it, Why You Need One, and How to Create It Posted on January 27, 2022January 21, 2022 by Natalie Slyman You may already be thinking of your content strategy as a tree: the trunk is your main topic, the branches are the subtopics, and the leaves are individual, related content pieces or blog posts. Your internal linking tree needs to be just as organized, logical, and strong as your content strategy. The more effective the internal linking is, the better the SEO results of your website. In this article, we’ll show you how to build an effective internal linking tree so your internal linking strategy is bulletproof. What’s an Internal Linking Tree? An internal link is a hyperlink on your web page that points web visitors to a different page within your website. An internal linking tree is a structure that defines how you link closely-related pages on your website to improve search engine optimization (SEO) results. The tree is made up of three crucial elements: Pillar topic Cluster topics Hyperlink We’ll define each of these elements and show you how to bring them together to build an effective internal linking tree. Why Is an Internal Linking Tree Helpful? There’s a reason a tree is stronger than a shrub. The shrub has many stems arising near the ground, whereas a tree is made up of a single deeply-rooted stem (trunk) with multiple branches. When your content pieces aren’t internally linked, they are like shrubs and won’t stand firm during the windy days of SEO competition. However, if you build cluster topics around the pillar topic, the chances are that your content strategy will be strong enough to get results in the SERPs. Building an internal linking tree is a standard SEO practice these days. Content marketers use the strategy to reap benefits such as: Build Authority Websites that demonstrate expertise, authority, and trust (E-A-T) often rank better on Google SERPs. Creating subtopics around the pillar topic and linking them properly notifies Google and other search engines your website is trustworthy and authoritative because you have a ton of resources on a specific area or areas. Establishes a Hierarchy Robots love a hierarchy, and search engine crawlers are no exception. Content clusters with effective internal linking help establish a hierarchy between web pages on your website. This gives search engines a clear pathway to follow as they crawl your website and can improve ranking. Improves User Experience In addition, proper internal linking makes it easier for web visitors to navigate your website and find what they are looking for. For example, if a user lands on a pillar page, it will be easier for them to find other content they might be interested in since that content will be linked within that page. The hyperlinks make informational content easily accessible. How to Create an Internal Linking Tree To reap the benefits mentioned above (and many others), follow these steps to build a proper internal linking tree. 1. Conduct Keyword Research Keyword research can make or break your content marketing strategy. A successful keyword strategy begins with audience research or understanding your target audience. Who are you targeting with the content? Look for keywords and key phrases the target audience is searching for. Think about what they’re most interested in or what they are already talking about. The best keywords should have high search volume and a low degree of difficulty. In other words, look for keywords many users are searching for, but most blogs aren’t shooting to rank for. 2. Identify the Pillar Topic The pillar topic should be a comprehensive topic that can be broken off into many subtopics. Moreover, the topic should be related to the products or services you offer and bear a term or keyword you want to rank for. For example, if you’re a content marketing agency, a good overarching topic to focus on would be “content marketing.” That topic is easy to produce long-form content that provides a broad yet complete explanation of what you do as an agency. However, do note that that topic may be popular and that there are most likely tons of other content out there ranking for that term. If that’s the case, make sure your pillar post: Covers every angle Uses keywords and phrases related to that term Uses questions as subheadings Links to other high-quality content 3. Determine the Topic Clusters or Subtopics Topic clusters are content pieces that go in-depth on a different angle related to the pillar page. In our previous example, some of the best subtopics would be: Email marketing Video marketing Social media content SEO Make sure the topic clusters ladder up to the pillar topic. There’s no limit to the number of subtopics you can include in your content cluster, as long as they’re closely related to the pillar topic. 4. Create the Content Now, you have the keywords, pillar topic, and topic clusters. Next, create the content using the keywords as the guardrails to guide you towards the SEO results you want. Keep in mind, larger topics like the pillar topic often merit longer content than more granular topics. While today’s experts recommend a 2,000-word blog post, the numbers aren’t written in stone. The content can be longer or shorter: just go with what is long enough to explain each topic in detail. Most importantly, create content that’s unique and high-quality. Doing so will boost your SEO value and reader engagement. 5. Build the Internal Linking Tree Lastly, use hyperlinks to link your main topic to the subtopic. The rule of thumb is to have all the topic clusters link back to the pillar page. For example, when you create a blog about social media marketing, add the anchor text “content marketing” to the blog. Copy a URL of the pillar topic – content marketing – and embed it into this anchor text. Repeat the process for all the topic clusters and wherever possible, cross-link your content clusters. It may be helpful to create a spreadsheet of these terms and their links, so you can easily refer to something while building these pages out. See below for an example of one of our internal linking trees: An internal linking tree isn’t just great for your SEO strategy, but it’s great for organization and ensuring you’re being consistent. We hope this guide will help you create an internal linking tree strategy so your content can start ranking higher over time.
How to Put Together a Webinar Deck Posted on January 26, 2022July 10, 2024 by Natalie Slyman So, you’re hosting a webinar. Good for you! Webinars are a great way to generate some leads, expand your partnerships, and reach your audience in real-time with some great tips they can use and benefit from. There’s nothing like the feeling of ending a webinar that goes off without a hitch. There’s a lot that goes into webinars, but one of the most important things is the webinar deck. Webinar deck slides are kind of like trail markers in the forest: they illustrate the main points to help you maintain a logical flow as you drive your message home. The visual appeal enhances audience engagement and keeps everyone fired up to the last minute. Slide decks also: Provide real-time tips for your audience Put a face and name to your brand Tie a visual idea with the points being addressed Serve as a resource for your audience after the broadcast Of course, to reap these benefits, your slide deck has to be engaging and high-quality. Here are some tips for nailing your webinar deck. How Do You Put Together a Webinar Deck? Preparing a great webinar deck entails two major components: Planning the flow of materials Designing and optimizing the slides for online viewing Let’s take a deep dive into the first component: 1. Create an Outline Like a classic high school essay, all good webinars have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion — and we’ll show you how to create webinar slides for each section. But, before you flesh out each of these elements, you should create a draft webinar deck or an outline. For your outline, don’t forget the title slide and intro slide where you’ll introduce the webinar speakers. Then, list the main points which will serve as your agenda. From there, break down each main point into the areas you’ll be diving into. This will help you ensure the flow makes sense and that you don’t miss any key points you want to address. It’s also great for helping you identify possible design ideas and color palettes to suggest to your designer. Once you’re done covering the main points, you’ll want to consider a question slide, so you can address questions your viewers may have, as well as any resources or promos you’ll want to share with them that relate to the discussion. 2. Design Captivating Introduction Slides The introduction can make or break your presentation. It sets the scene for the rest of the presentation and plays a crucial role in capturing the audience’s attention. Some of the slides to form your intros include: Title slide — Includes the webinar title and possibly a hook to draw the audience in. This slide will be up while your team gets ready behind the scenes. Logistics — You can create a slide that addresses some of the technical aspects of the webinar, which can help make the audience feel prepared. Explain how the webinar works and how they can ask questions, whether or not you’ll be sending out the slides and recording, etc. Intro slide — This is where you include the names and images of the hosts and presenters, contact information, and bios. Agenda — This is an overview slide that shows the audience how your webinar content is arranged. They see the “big picture,” which prepares them psychologically for what’s coming and reassures them of all the areas you’ll be covering. 3. Break Down Each Main Content Section into Slides This is the gist of your webinar. The number of slides depends on the number of points you want to discuss. Remember, the slides complement your message, so don’t dump everything into one slide. Doing so will also overwhelm your audience and may not allow you to get your points across clearly. The rule of thumb is to have one point per slide, with quick takeaways and visuals that appeal to the audience. Add statistics, facts, figures, quotes, tactical advice, and impactful examples, and communicate additional information verbally. After all, your audience signed up to listen to you and other presenters — the slides are frosting, but the audio is the cake. 4. Include Ways for Audience to Interact Your audience should be part of the discussion, not just spectators. So don’t wait till the tail-end of your webinar for audience interaction. Instead, insert Q&A and poll slides in your presentation to keep everyone engaged. It’s also helpful to have someone monitoring the question box in case there are any questions placed there that can be answered immediately. Lastly, include a question slide where you can bring some questions front and center in case the answers may be helpful for other listeners. 5. Add a Closing Section Your audience stayed with you throughout the presentation, which could mean they care about your brand. Now, this is the time to turn them into customers. First, create a summary slide to reinforce the main message. Then, display the call to action, which could be any of the following: Product promo Special discount Demo a new feature Sign up for your newsletter You can also include related resources and whitepapers to help audience members take what they learned to the next step. Tools to Make a Great Webinar Deck You don’t have to be a professional designer to bring the above action plan to life. With the following tools, the whole process is a cinch: Canva – to create images and a slide deck Google Slides – to create a slide deck that is collaborative and shareable with your co-presenters Prezi – a presentation app to help you broadcast your webinar to your audience LibreOffice – a suite of office tools that help you write, draw and create graphs that can enhance your presentation As you design your webinar deck be sure to maintain a consistent color palette across slides. You should also: Keep one point per slide Use visually engaging bullet points Shrink images on slides, so they can be viewed effectively over the internet. With these tips, you should be able to create an engaging, effective webinar deck in minimal time!