Mom, Here is what we think of you…. Posted on May 8, 2015June 27, 2016 by Jonathan Herrick Here at Hatchbuck, family is important to who we are as a company. It starts with having awesome people (Aka Hatchbuckers) but great people aren’t just born, they are made. Like you, often times we get busy in our daily lives of growing our small business and we forget to thank the very person that has helped to nurture us into the leaders and passionate people that we are today, MOM. I think this video by Kid President, Says it best: So this Mothers’ Day the Hatchbuck team would like to let our Mom’s know just how we feel about them and how much of an impact they have made in our lives. We join a national movement of #iwishmymotherknew in celebrating MOM’S everywhere: Erin: I wish my mom knew how my dad looks at her when she’s not looking. Winky face icon Jonathan: I wish my mom knew how much I miss her hugs and smile. That her legacy of love and servant leadership has made a huge impact on our family for generations to come. Jessica: I wish my Mom knew that when I didn’t want to join the swim team in 6th grade and she asked me to try it “for just two weeks” (and I stuck with it) that I use that trick all the time to survive and thrive through anything that seems hard to do. Katie: That she is the strongest woman I have met. I wish she knew that no matter her perceived shortcomings, she has been one of the best sources of wisdom, love, and encouragement I have ever had. That she has formed so much of who I am today and when people say, “You are just like your mom” I say “Thank You” with total conviction. Sam: I wish my mom knew how to fix her own computer. Jim: I wish my Mom knew how well her grandkids turned out to be! Tricia: I wish my mom knew that I’m grateful for the love and support she has given me, it’s made me a stronger person and better mother. Ben: I wish my mom knew how long I try to make her food shipments last to always have a taste of home. Don: I wish my mom knew that I always to try to be as great of a parent to my kids as she and dad were to me. Lindsey: I wish my mom knew how much her strength has resonated with her children, How every sacrifice she made went into shaping our character and independence, And how every joke and life lesson she ever taught us, we will pass down to our own children with great pride (and a few laughs). Eric: I wish she knew how influential she can be to friends of mine who aren’t her children. Jamie: I wish my mom knew: How much she is appreciated for all of her time, effort and love over the years. Tegan: I wish mom knew that I hope to be half of the beautiful person that she is. Mothers day is a time to tell your mom thanks. Thanks for all the car rides to your practices. Late nights nursing you back to health. Thanks for picking you up when you fell down and skinned your knees. Thanks for making us all better people. What do you wish your mom knew? Share it with her this Mother’s Day.
Celebrating the Customer this Small Business Week Posted on May 6, 2015June 1, 2016 by Jessica Lunk It’s National Small Business Week, and we wanted to focus on small business’s most powerful asset – their customer base. There are so many reasons to love small business, including the fact that more than half of Americans either own or work for a small business, and small businesses create about two out of every three new jobs in the U.S. each year. Doing business with small business makes you feel like part of a friendly community – whether it’s the neighborhood small engine repair shop you visit each spring for your lawn mower tune up, or that online retailer in another state that creates the one-of-a-kind handmade collars Fido always gets for his birthday. You love that the repair shop owner knows you by name and that you always get a handwritten thank you note from the online retailer. It’s those personal relationships that drive repeat customers and small business success. According to a report by Manta and Dell, 37% of small business owners rank getting repeat customers as their most important business milestone. So, if you’re a small business owner, you may not have celebrated that first sale or the first profitable year as much as you celebrated that first repeat customer. Why Loyal Customers Rock Your World Loyal, repeat customers drive small businesses and help entrepreneurs to turn their small business dreams into reality. Here’s how: Customer Lifetime Value: The more repeat purchases customers make with your company, the more customer lifetime value will increase across your entire customer base. Built-In Referral System: Repeat customers have obviously had a good experience with your business, and you can bet that they’re sending new business your way. Predictable Revenue: Instead of starting from scratch each month to attract new customers, repeat buyers can help you maintain a more dependable revenue stream. Creating Loyal Customers and Repeat Buyers Leveraging marketing technology, like an integrated CRM and marketing automation system can help you create even more of those revenue-driving raving fans for your business. Send personalized content: Personalized email isn’t just for prospects in your sales funnel. You want to stay top of mind with your current customers as well. Use their purchase history, webpage tracking, and CRM activity to send super-relevant emails their way. Upsell: Returning customers spend on average 20% more than first time customers. With purchase history at hand in your CRM, you can connect with your current customers to offer an upgrade on their current product or service. Cross-sell: Do they love the red mittens? Then they’ll probably love the red hat. Make sure your customers know about products and services related to their past purchases. Use your customers’ purchase history to send email campaigns related to other products they may love. Offer perks: According to SumAll, a customer who has only purchased from you once has a 27% chance of returning, while a customer who has purchased from you three times has a 54% chance of returning. Want to keep good customers coming back? Offer a discount, perk or reward. Giving away a little can go a long way in earning customer loyalty. Ask for referrals: While your customers are likely sending referrals your way, it never hurts to ask. Offering an incentive, like swag, a gift card or a discount can further entice your happy customers to send you more business. Affiliate software, like LeadDyno, can help manage your referral program. Ask for reviews: It’s become second nature to do research online before making a purchase, whether you’re buying a new home, investing in business software, or just going out to eat. Positive reviews from your customers are the third-party validation your prospects need to take the next steps with your business. Give thanks: Your customers are the reason you get to come to work each day and build something amazing. Let them know that you love them back with a simple thank you every now and then. Are you dedicating enough marketing dollars to get repeat customers through the door? Research indicates that 25% of your marketing budget should go toward attracting returning customers. While small businesses get the spotlight this week, it’s the perfect time to look at how you’re marketing to your customers, because you can’t celebrate small businesses without celebrating the customers that grow small business dreams.
Why Are 98% of Buyers Seeking Marketing Automation? Posted on April 29, 2015June 18, 2018 by Jessica Lunk Even though small businesses have less capital to invest in marketing technology, marketing automation is a resource that can move the needle in a big way. Why small business can’t ignore marketing automation any longer… According to a recent Software Advice survey of small business owners looking for marketing technology products, 98% of buyers are looking for dedicated marketing automation software for the first time. Half of these buyers are still using manual methods to manage and email contacts. If you are still using these manual methods (pen and paper, spreadsheets, and one off emails), it’s time to learn how marketing technology can help you grow your business without growing your business footprint. Marketing Automation optimizes your sales and marketing process. Lead management is the number one reason small business owners are looking for marketing automation according to the Software Advice research. Marketing automation allows you to automatically and dynamically organize contacts and score sales leads. That’s a huge time saver for small businesses who have relied on manual methods to update their database in the past. Marketing automation places contacts in the right bucket automatically so that you can send more meaningful content to different segments of your audience. This tailored approach builds brand awareness and trust to move contacts down the sales funnel from prospect to customer. Core functionality is at the top of the marketing automation buyer’s list. 74% of buyers say that contact management is an important marketing automation feature. On the contrary, only 4% mentioned social media marketing features as important. When it comes to marketing automation, buyers are really looking for that core functionality that is central to their business. While social media marketing gets a lot of airtime, more traditional marketing methods like email marketing really drive results for small businesses. In fact, every $1 invested in email marketing yields a $44.25 return, according to Exact Target. Marketing automation makes running your business simpler and easier. Small businesses have shied away from marketing automation in the past – partly because the solutions were too robust, and partly because they were reluctant to automate and give up control of the very personal interactions they have with their audience. But as marketing automation adoption increases among small businesses, they’re realizing the benefit of maintaining their personal touch, while leveraging the ability to scale.
Do You Need to Update Your Website? Posted on April 14, 2015 by Jessica Lunk Your #1 sales rep may not be who you think. In fact, 9 out of 10 people will do online research long before coming into a sales conversation with you, making your website a key tool in your sales and marketing process. Is your website as effective as it can be in helping you to capture the attention of new business? Is it mobile responsive? Can you make quick content updates? Can you capture new leads from your site? If your online presence is just a digital version of your printed marketing material, you’re missing the boat. Static websites with content that never changes are offending to search engines as well as visitors to your site. Just because you’re a small business doesn’t mean that your website has to look amateur. An updated site with clean design is a reassuring sign to your prospects and customers that there’s great energy and activity behind your online calling card. Outsource Web Design When you’re ready to make the move to a new website, you can outsource the work to an agency or web developer. While this route is more of an investment, there are major benefits to your business: You’ll benefit from professional design that is inline with the latest trends. Your site will adhere to the more technical aspects of web design, like site structure, cross-browser compatibility, mobile responsiveness and search engine visibility. When you outsource development, you can also outsource ongoing technical support. So, when a new Google update comes out, or when WordPress releases a new version, or if you were to get hacked, you have a tech team on call who can take the issue off of your plate. Outsourcing web design is the least pain-free way to go. But it’s not the only way… DIY We know that you’re super ambitious because you struck out on your own to start your own business. So maybe you also want complete control over building your website…more power to you! If you’re the do-it-yourself type, you can tackle a new website on your own. Here are two paths you can take: Take a Templated Approach with a Website Builder You can create a website for your business without any coding experience or web design knowledge. Tools like Squarespace, Wix and Weebly let you customize pre-built templates to build your own website design. The benefit of taking a templated, drag & drop approach to your web design is a shorter learning curve. However, you may lose some of the design flexibility you’d get if you outsourced web design or built your site using an open source platform… Build on an Open Source Platform If you’re technically inclined, an open source content management platform like WordPress is a more powerful option for customizing your website design. The drawback to a DIY website through WordPress, however, is that there’s a fairly steep learning curve compared to a tool like Squarespace. WordPress is free to install on your web domain, and has an infinite library of help articles and forums you can address for support. There are a ton of WordPress templates available, both free and paid, so you don’t have to build a site from scratch, but can customize a template to suit your needs. A DIY site is definitely not the way to go for everyone, but it’s a great option if you love a challenge, enjoy piecing together a puzzle, and are an ace at problem solving. Doubts? Maybe you’re hesitant to invest in a new website because your business is built on highly personal relationships. But you can bet that no matter how solid your relationship is with a prospect or customer, they’ll be checking out your website before they decide to do business with you or refer you to a friend. There’s nothing worse than clicking on one of the top sites in the search results only to be directed to a site that looks like it hasn’t been touched in years, or even still has dummy text where there should be relevant copy. The beauty of a clean website design that you can update it with new information on the fly, making you look professional and at the top of your game no matter how small your business. Don’t repel potential business with an outdated site. Take time to revisit and invest in your website and create a better online experience for your prospects and customers.
How to Make your Small Biz Look Big (Without Growing Your Footprint) Posted on April 7, 2015July 25, 2016 by Jessica Lunk You’ve worked for corporate America, and know what big business feels like. You didn’t like it. But that doesn’t mean you don’t want to grow revenue while staying true to your small business roots. While putting more boots on the ground can help your small business win more customers, hiring a bigger sales force increases payroll and requires more management on your part. Today, though, there are innovative ways your small business can live large, attracting the bigger fish with less work – and without growing your small biz footprint. Your Website If your online presence is still a static website that is more like an online brochure, it’s time to update. Building a CMS-based (content management system) website on a platform like WordPress can give you the power to update your website whenever you please. With frequent updates to your website – like a new blog post or timely homepage announcement – you’ll actually look like you’re in business. It’s reassuring to your prospects and customers knowing that there’s activity going on behind the scenes of your online calling card. Even if your business relies on highly personal relationships, you can bet that visiting your website online is one of the main steps prospects will take before they decide to do business with you. A modern, up-to-date website that clearly communicates who you are, what you do, and how you benefit your customers can make you look a lot larger – without adding a single person to your team. Social Media Social Media has been an excellent vehicle to help small businesses get their story across without making huge investments in traditional advertising like print, television and radio. But is your social media presence making you look smaller than you are, or larger than life? Keeping social media manageable and updating your small business profiles every day or two can make you look larger, while neglected profiles can sink your status. The golden rule of social media is to do a few channels very well instead of spreading yourself too thin. If most of your customers are on LinkedIn, but not active on Facebook, cut out your Facebook channel and focus your efforts on sharpening your LinkedIn presence. Do one or two social channels well to project a professional, polished image and to boost engagement with your social fans. CRM If an excel spreadsheet and business card collection are your main contact organization tools, it’s time to upgrade. A simple CRM can make your business look a lot bigger. For starters, you won’t be scrambling to find information. A small business CRM can track and organize your customer and prospects’ activity in real time. You’ll have the information you need at your fingertips to pick up hundreds of conversations right where you left off. You won’t lose your friendly small business vibe, but you will be able to handle more interactions with prospects and customers more effectively. That’s huge. When you’re driving business development and sales for your business, your time is much better spent building on relationships with customers who are ready to buy now than wasting time cold calling prospects. A small business CRM can track notes on a contact record, record email conversations, keep tabs on your contact’s interests, and let you know which prospects you should be in conversation with. A spreadsheet just can’t do that. Email Marketing As a small business owner, you’ve got your hands in sales and marketing, and your business is built on the personal relationships you’ve developed with your customers. With the right email marketing tools, you can continue to communicate in a personal, but scalable way. Instead of blasting the same message to everyone on your list, small business marketing automation tools allow you to reach many prospects and customers at a time with an individual message just for them. We like to think of it as personalized mail. Sending the right content to the right person at the right time makes them feel like you know them. It also lets you write emails that say exactly what you would say to a prospect or customer over lunch. But instead of sending hundreds of individual emails, small business marketing automation takes the administrative stuff off your plate,e giving you the freedom to get away from your machine. You don’t need lots of employees to help your business run smoothly. Invest in a few smart small business tools to build up your brand and pump up your profits.
Harness the Power of Your Customers to Build Brand Awareness for Your Small Business Posted on April 2, 2015May 10, 2022 by Jessica Lunk In basketball, you need defense and offense working together to set picks and set the pace of the game. You might have one all-star scoring points but you still need your other players on the court. You have to coordinate and bring everyone together to create the magic of a winning team. Likewise, driving success to your business requires a bird’s eye view of all your moving parts. Cross-channel marketing to your customers will help you develop game-winning plays that will conserve budget and make your audience work for you to build brand awareness. Here’s how to create a cross channel marketing campaign for your business: 1. Find Your Best Customers Start by listening to what your best customers are saying about you: Do you know who your promoters are? What do your best customers say about your company? What do you do that your customers love the most? A simple question to ask your customers is how likely they are to refer your company on a scale from 1 – 10. This is called a Net Promoter Score (NPS): Detractors: 1-6 Neutral: 7-8 Promoters: 9-10 2. Discover What Makes Them Tick Your promoters are those who believe in your mission. They get why you are in business and are attracted to your company culture and values. Using their feedback will help you develop messaging and campaign ideas to get similar folks’ attention and strengthen your brand. After you have determined who your promoters are, interview them to get further feedback. Take that feedback from your best customers and start playing around with developing a hashtag or campaign messaging from what they’ve said. 3. Incorporate Your Company Values Bring in your values and culture – the glue to an integrated marketing campaign. Who you are attracts a certain kind of customer. Monitor what your competitors are doing, but don’t replicate their marketing and messaging. Be yourself, & you’ll attract the right folks. Transparency builds trust among current customers and future customers. Staying true to your core values allows you to maintain a consistent voice across all of your marketing channels. If you’re a straight-laced guy, trying to build an edgy brand won’t feel authentic to you or your audience. If your marketing does not match your core values, you won’t attract your best or even the right customers. 4. Integrate Your Channels After identifying your best customers and reviewing your core values, main themes will begin to crop up that you can translate to your marketing channels. Your messaging should always speak to your ideal buyer and your company. Email Use email to get your customers talking about your brand. Ask for exactly what you want and explain what they will get out of it when they complete the action. For example, offer a $5 Starbucks gift card in exchange for an online review of your product. Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp, and industry specific review sites are great places to capture online reviews. Focus on one review site per campaign to get the most participation from your customers. Content Content marketing is a great tool to use to showcase your expertise. Release content that can strengthen your brand awareness message during your campaign. For example, during our Marketing Madness campaign, we asked customers to vote on their favorite marketing tactics. At the same time, we published March-Madness-related blog posts and resources on our blog to maintain a consistent theme across all of our marketing channels, making a powerful statement. Direct Mail This is the fun piece! Surprise those who have participated in your campaign with a little something extra. What’s great about an unexpected gift is that there are no expectations! Even something as simple as a little box of chocolates will delight your customers. Who doesn’t love surprise candy? Social Media With your direct mail gift, ask your customers to post a pic of their surprise. Most will, but including a unique branded hashtag will help strengthen your brand awareness and broaden your social reach. Word of mouth marketing is such a powerful tool! When others see the great, genuine things you do for your customers, they will want to work with you, too. When you integrate all of these tactics, you’re putting your money where your mouth is. Your email, content, direct mail and social presence all tie in together, making it simple for your customers to pick up the torch and say the right things about you. The most powerful marketing translates digital marketing into word-of-mouth brand awareness. As your customers spread the word, they’ll paint an accurate picture of the type of company you are and what it is like working with you. 5. Timing It’s so easy to get caught up in the excitement of a great idea, and then immediately try to execute it. However, if you let your campaigns breathe at right time when you have the right budget, more pieces will fall into place. Like writing, it takes more time to edit than to execute. For instance, if you have a press release coming out with potential of media coverage, a timed campaign with lots of customer engagement will look awesome! Remember, simplicity is key! The more elements you add, the harder it will be to connect all the pieces. If it’s complicated, it’s not fun, and you won’t want to do. Do something that is fun for you, too! Your best customers work with you because they support what you’re doing. Use the right combination of marketing channels to the right audience, at the right time will strengthen your brand and customer relationships.
Small Business Leadership: 5 Lessons from the Basketball Court Posted on March 18, 2015June 27, 2016 by Jonathan Herrick Growing up, I always had a basketball in my hand. I remember shooting hoops in the driveway of my parents’ house late at night with the driveway flood light on. After the 10th time of my mom asking me to come in and go to bed on a school night, she would turn the light out. I continued to shoot. My drive, determination, and passions lead me to where I am today. A basketball coach, dad and business leader who loves to grow people and companies. So I thought with the NCAA tourney kicking off it was a great time to reflect on the lessons I have learned in my years of playing, coaching as well as studying some of the best coaches in the game. Here are my 5 leadership lessons for small business owners: Cast the Vision To go from where you are to where you want to be: you have to have a dream… – Jim Valvano Jimmy Valvano, the legendary coach for NC State, is known for his heroic battle with cancer and the legacy he has left behind: He was also an amazing leader. As a coach at NC State he took time out once a year to have a vision celebration with his team. They would celebrate what it would feel like to win the national championship. In 1983 his vision became reality and the Wolfpack pulled off one the biggest upsets and best finishes in NCAA tournament history.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8l5N2eKdvL4 Jim knew a key leadership principal: Vision leaks. I speak to so many small business owners who get busy with the day to day operations of the business and forget to slow down and recast the vision. You and your team need to be reminded every 30 days why you get up out of bed every day and what great goal(s) you are pursuing. Build a Winning Culture More important than the scoreboard at the end of the game, great coaches build lasting cultures that drive the right behaviors, attitudes and values. When you look at a great basketball team, chances are that they’ve been great for a while. Why is that? Look at Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina, Michigan State, UCLA and Butler just to name a few. At the center of their success is a culture engrained so deep it permeates to the coaches, players, and fans of the schools. Butler University is a prime example. Like most small businesses competing against the corporate behemoth, Butler is a David among Goliath’s in the NCAA. However, year after year they continue to have success. Why? They have been intentional about creating a culture of success shaped by the following core values: Humility – Those who humble themselves will be exalted Passion – Do not be lukewarm, commit to excellence Unity – Do not divide our house, team first Servanthood – Make teammates better, lead by giving Thankfulness – Learn from every circumstance In your small business, what do you value? Do you live your values or are they just a few words in the “About Us” section of your website? If you want to lead a winning business, invest in building a culture dedicated to success. Infuse your core values into every aspect of your business from the messaging on your site to your customer experience. Recruit the RIGHT Teammates I haven’t always recruited for the best talent. I’ve taken a few guys who would fit for different reasons. Leadership. Toughness” – Tom Izzo There’s an old adage that talent wins championships. Not true – teammates do. The best teams I have been a part of and coached have had the best team chemistry. In basketball, just like in your small business, everyone needs to know their role. Success only happens when you’re laser focused on what you do well as a team and you understand the strengths of each and every player on the roster. A great tool to help you better discover where you and your team mates strengths lie is StrengthFinder 2.0. It is an interactive resource developed to hone in on your personal strengths while eliminating time wasted on trying to improve your weaknesses. StrengthFinder is also super helpful when it’s time to hire that new employee, assess their strengths and determine where they can fit in on your team. If you need help, you can always leverage a Gallup Certified Strengthfinder coach to help you implement Strengthfinder for your small business. Train to WIN So imagine you’re the head coach of a college team and entered into the NCAA tournament having never practiced a single day. How would your team fair in the tourney? Would you make it to the final four? Of course not. Not when you’re facing other teams that have practiced and prepared all year long. The greatest coaches in NCAA history put an emphasis on “Training” for success vs “Trying” for success. It’s not enough to just to show up and play. “Champion” small business owners commit to learning and educating themselves everyday. They are passionate about doing what it takes to develop into better leaders and grow healthier, more successful companies. If you’re looking for helpful resources you can check out SmallBusiness.com and National Federation of Independent Business. Be True to Your Game As you check out the games in the NCAA tourney this year, each team has a different style. Some will be run and gun fast paced, some will slow it down and get the ball in to their big man. One team, Gonzaga, has made their living and success in past tournaments from behind the 3 point line. This season they are a best 40% from 3 point range. The great thing about Gonzaga is they know what they are and what they are not. What if in this year’s tourney they decided to change up their style and get away from their 3 point shooting game? Well, it would be a disaster and their team would be watching the rest of the tournament from their homes on the big screen! Your small business not only has a style and identity, but it’s your secret weapon. You know who you are and who your best customers are – so take a stand. When you are true to your game it gives you the best shot to attract the right fans and team mates, supercharging your business. When it comes to running a small business making sure you have the right vision and a winning culture are catalysts to your success. Then when you bring in the right people, running the right plays, and stay true to your game that’s when the magic happens….. What are some of your best lessons from the basketball court or the small business arena?
The Small Business Playmakers You Need on Your Team Posted on March 10, 2015June 1, 2016 by Jessica Lunk Like a college basketball recruiter courting the best players to get their team to the NCAA championship, small business owners can use personas to attract their best customers – winning more deals with less effort. With personas, you can uncover the motivations and challenges of the very best customers within your customer base. Then, you can develop targeted messaging to recruit more customers who are just like them. Identify and create personas for these small business playmakers to attract the right type of customer (and repel the wrong type of customer) for your business: The MVP There is no “I” in team, but there’s always that one key player – Most Valuable Player – that coaches wish they could clone. The same goes for your customers. You have customers of all kinds, but you can probably name your “Most Valuable Customers.” Your MVCs are the customers you wish you had more of. This ideal buyer spends more money with your company, sticks with you longer, and has less gripes. The Playmaker There’s no great team without a great point guard. A great floor general in basketball knows when to the pass the ball. The same is true for your playmaking ideal buyers. Not only is your solution a great fit for them, but they are raving fans of your business. They know when to pass the word to others who could benefit from your solution set. A big part of boosting your bottom line without adding a lot of manpower is through word-of-mouth referrals. Attracting the right type of customer means that they’ll be more satisfied with your business. They’ll talk about you in all of the right places – from online forums and review sites to networking events with their peers. The Sharpshooter Like the playmaker, your sharpshooter customer knows how to use your business product like a champ. Unlike the playmaker, you don’t hear from this player all that much. However, when you call on this customer to help you score, they don’t disappoint. The sharpshooter steps up when you make the call, whether it’s to take a customer feedback survey, be a customer reference or to provide a testimonial. Low maintenance with high return, the sharpshooter is one of your most efficient customer personas. The Shot Blocker On your team, the shot blocker is great. They reject your competition and swat away challengers, setting up fast break business conversions. On the flip side, trying to recruit a die-hard shot blocker from another team is your most difficult business play. Full of objections and rejections, their loyalty to a competitor can’t be penetrated. You can spend a lot of time trying to score a shot blocker, when often times, there’s better players to work with. The Ball Hog When you’re playing to win, a rotten player can sour the whole team. Most coaches would rather have a team of less talented, but scrappy, players who work together to win, than a gifted ball hog who, in his quest to attain glory, puts the whole team in peril. Think about those customers who suck time away from your other customers – and suck the life out of you. These are the types of customers that you can never seem to make happy. They are quickly dissatisfied and quick to leave your business in their dust. Just as important as attracting all-star customers to your business, persona marketing helps you throw down the gauntlet and make it clear who you are NOT for. A great example of persona marketing is Planet Fitness. Their “No Lunks Allowed” campaign clearly hammers their stake in the ground. Through their marketing, they create a welcoming environment for the average, everyman gym-goer, while at the same time creating a hostile environment for what “they” consider grunting gym rats. Persona marketing is working for the gym. In 2014, they landed on the Forbes best franchise list with a growth rate of 26%. They also received an “A” for franchisor support. Focusing on the right customer – and excluding the wrong customer – is a play for growth. Persona-based marketing can help you attract the right type of customer, turning your customers into playmakers for your small business. For the busy small business owner, recruiting the right customers can feel like marketing madness. That’s why we’ve put together a simple guide for the small business owner that wants to up their marketing game. From building personas to creating the right content, we’ll help you attract and convert more of the right prospects into ideal customers. Download the Content Marketing Playbook to start drawing up better plays for your business.
In a World of Marketing Madness, Simplicity Rules Posted on March 2, 2015 by Jessica Lunk Marketers and advertisers used to control the message sent to consumers. But a lot has changed. For instance, we can opt out of watching TV commercials and skip the radio for our favorite podcast. Today there are lots of different channels from which your audience consumes information. This also means that many forces are at work to influence customers to make decisions. Word of mouth, peer recommendations on social media, online advertising, thought leadership, online searches > all of these channels work together to turn prospects into customers. Today’s multi-channel approach to marketing can feel overwhelming, but there is relief. In a complex world of marketing madness, simplicity is key. Here are 5 ways to simplify marketing: Simplify Your Messaging > Do you know who your best customer is? If your messaging is generic, and you’re trying to speak to everyone, you’ll find it difficult to capture anyone’s attention. Instead, boil down your company’s mission, purpose, vision and unique value proposition to attract only your best customer. Your messaging will resonate much better with your audience, cutting through the noise to pull in more (and better!) customers. Simplify Your Design > Website design is trending toward big images, flat icons, and shorter, succinct copy. Sites and design are getting simpler in order to adapt more easily to a fluid landscape of devices, social media channels, email, video and online ads. Design is a communication tool. It should get to the point and aid in conveying your message. Design shouldn’t hinder your ability to connect with your audience. Simple, responsive design can help your brand resonate with your audience across all channels. Along those lines, simple design elements can help you quickly execute multi-channel campaigns, easily adapting creative to social media, print, ads, video and others. Simplify Your Tools > Have you ever invested in technology, only to find that you needed a specialized consultant just to get it to work for you? Not only are complex tools frustrating, but they are time consuming and costly. As a small business, you can’t spare extra time and resources just to make a system work like it should. Cut out the middle man and use simple, but powerful tools like Hatchbuck customers Deanna Fenton and Kim Doyal have done. When you invest in tools that fit your business size, budget and resources, you can dive right in and start seeing results now, rather than waiting 6 months to roll out new technology. Simplify Your Campaigns > Today, marketing is 6 months in, not 6 months out. Agility and flexibility are crucial in executing cross channel campaigns. The market, your target audience, technology – a lot can change before you wrap up a year long campaign. Shorter iterations give you a chance to test a campaign, measure results, learn from what worked (or what didn’t) and repeat. Simplify Your Tests > Little changes can add up to make a big impact. Test one little change at a time to improve customer conversions across channels. Elements like the color of a button, a homepage image, a line of copy, or an email subject line can all be optimized to generate better results. Moving the needle doesn’t need to be complex. Gaining incremental advantages can make a big difference in your business, improving metrics like conversion rates, deal size and customer lifetime value. It’s always easier to get complex. But complexity doesn’t help you to get organized, connect with your audience, or have those meaningful conversations with prospects and customers. Keep it simple to calm the marketing madness.