How a Small Business Can Make Every Day “Small Business Saturday” Posted on November 16, 2012 by Lindsey Stroud If you haven’t yet heard, Saturday November 24 is “Small Business Saturday,” a day American Express started a few years back with the hope that consumers would “shop small” the Saturday of the busiest shopping weekend of the year. The day has since then taken off – attracting positive publicity and adding eager participants each year. In an effort to help small businesses better market themselves, American Express even provides the essential marketing material needed to be successful for the day. From store-front signage to social media templates, small businesses can quickly gain access to marketing resources that they otherwise might not have had access to. How does this apply to your small business? Well, we want to share 3 marketing strategies you can adopt from “Small Business Saturday” so that every day you are converting consumers to long-term customers. 1) Use Social Media to your Advantage: Social Media is easily one of the most cost efficient and effective marketing tools of our time. Click here to check out this really informative info graphic regarding the 2012 Social Media Statistics from Digital Buzz. http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/social-media-statistics-stats-2012-infographic/. As a small business, you’re in a great position to build relationships through interaction, educate your followers with useful information, and provide great customer service responses. 2) Create a Cohesive Brand Identity: If you take a closer look into the marketing material American Express provides small businesses, you will notice a consistence image throughout. You can apply this same concept to your business. Nothing is more confusing than a business without a clear focus. From your distinct business personality to the colors in your logo, everything should be cohesive and make sense. If you want your brand to convey the story you want to tell and make sense to those you are telling it to, you need to develop (and stick) to a clear identity. 3) Educate through Email: Email is not only a great way to follow-up with your leads and customers, but it is also a great avenue for educational marketing. When you are communicating through email, have a clear objective in mind and also make sure to provide some form of value to the person on the receiving end. If you are corresponding through email on a regular basis, make sure to throw in some return for your subscribers– rather it be a piece of useful information they didn’t previously have or some form of coupon/reward/special offer. Go forth Small Business Saturday, every Saturday, and essentially every day with the objective to better your marketing strategy and drive more long-term customer loyalty!
Use Twitter to Nurture Cold Leads Posted on November 14, 2012May 3, 2023 by Nicci Troiani We all know that Twitter is a great networking tool. It’s great to follow news, celebrities, your friends and get your thoughts and opinions out to your followers. If you’re using Twitter for you business you need to be doing much more than that. Social media outlets should play a big part in your marketing strategy. Here’s a few ways to use your business Twitter account to nurture prospects who are not ready to buy your product or service yet: 1. Always reply to questions and interact: remember that all of your Twitter followers are leads. If they mention you or re-tweet your content, thank them or reply! These small interactions can yield big results. 2. Post all of your content on Twitter: If you write a blog, post your content daily on Twitter– preferably multiple times daily. Most people just look at their running timeline and don’t go to personal Twitter profiles so posting multiple times daily optimizes the chances that your content is seen.Don’t worry- you don’t need to remember to post throughout the day– use a Tweet scheduler like Gremln or Hootsuite and schedule them all at once. Most scheduling programs like this will also let you run a report on the link clicks, which is a great tool. 3. Post special offers: If you are going to offer a free month of service, discounted products, host a webinar or have a white paper or case study to give out post a link to a sign up form on Twitter. Requiring a prospect to sign up means that you will get their name and e-mail. If you are using a form from a marketing automation tool to do this, you can easily start them on a sales or nurturing e-mail campaign as well. 4. Use Twitter’s search feature and lists: find the right people to follow and potential customers using these tools. Lists are one of the most underrated social media tools. One use is to develop a whole list of competitor businesses and have a running feed of what all of your competitors are posting. Another is to put all potential leads or all of customers into their own list. Then you can look through the list and easily reply or re-tweet things that you like. Use the search feature to filter for potential leads (example “small business”, “insurance”, etc). Remember that Twitter can be the best customer service tool if you are using it to reply back and have conversations with your followers. Happy Tweeting!
Top 3 Reasons Educating Prospects Works! Posted on November 7, 2012 by Lindsey Stroud 1) Most People Aren’t Ready To Buy (For Now) In an ideal world, people would be ready to buy at the exact time we are trying to sell to them. In reality, the majority of people you run into at the beginning of your sales cycle are not at the stage of needing what you offer. Whether they do not have a genuine need, aren’t aware they need what you offer, or just don’t plain understand what you do– you can help them across the sales pipeline by educating them. 2) Positions You As The Expert When you are able to provide educational content that adds value to the lives of those on the receiving end, they will look to you. For example, if I am a wine shop that provides you with food and wine pairing recommendations, or instructions on how to properly taste wine – you will likely look to me when you are ready to make a purchase of wine, considering I provided you with a piece of knowledge you didn’t previously have. The same technique of becoming the expert can apply to any service or product a business offers. 3) Keeps You Top of Mind Calling excessively is not the way to stay top of mind (at least not in a positive way). You can stay top of mind by utilizing not only email, but also through other cost-efficient avenues like social media – which is more welcomed on a day-to-day basis. A weekly or monthly email publication with educational tips and tricks alongside updated social media content can really keep you on the minds of those you are looking to sell to.
5 (Easy) Tips for Writing Email Subject Lines With Higher Open Rates Posted on November 5, 2012 by Lindsey Stroud The average corporate user receives 100 emails a day. If you are not providing valuable information within the readable email subject line, your emails are not getting read. After all, we are busy and constantly sifting through our emails with the intent of disregarding as many as possible. If you have a good subject line, your click through rate will increase – if not double, and you will have more effective communication. With that being said, your sole purpose of the email subject line is to gain attention, and entice your contact to further want to read in to what you have to say. Here are the criteria for better email subject lines: Avoid “Spammy” Words We are continually on high alert for red flags in our inbox that read as spam. It’s important that you avoid trigger words that will be quickly disregarded as junk. Common SPAM words are: Free, Earn, Save, Insurance, Affordable. If you use these types of words, you can almost guarantee you will end up in the delete folder, if not marked as SPAM. Use Power Words Adding words to your subject lines that pack punch can mean the difference between your email getting read or disregarded. Power words are proven to get more email opens, and ignite drive within contacts to further read in to what you have to say. Common Power words are: Learn, Discover, Profit, You, and How-To. To further develop words that ignite interest, use tools like the Google Keyword Tool search. Be Concise Depending on where a person is viewing your email, you may have as little as 25 characters to express your point effectively. Don’t make the mistake of drawing out your subject line so far that your main point gets cut off, and then disregarded. Packing punch within the least amount of characters is likely to result in higher open rates. Provide Accuracy We all have experienced the email subject line that makes us believe one thing, to further find out in the message body another (very different) thing. Don’t lose your credibility by providing inaccurate details or promises. If you provide relevancy and accuracy within your subject lines, you will gain trust of those who are receiving your communications. Send Tests The only way to truly gauge subject line success rate is to run tests on sample groups. Once you have dwindled down a couple suggestions, split a sample of your contacts up and launch it to both groups. With a system like Systematic Revenue, you will then be able to gather statistics from open rates to then send the remainder to the rest of your contacts with the more successful subject line. A good email message can be quickly overlooked by a bad email subject line. Don’t let your emails go directly to the spam folder or delete box because you didn’t educate yourself with the proper email subject line etiquette. Be clear, concise, and honest while providing key powerful wording and you are sure to see a higher open rate in your outbox.
A Newsletter That Can Learn Posted on October 10, 2012 by Jim First, The Problem With Newsletters Too Much Stuff That Doesn’t Matter To Me Companies try to create content that appeals to the broadest possible audience – everyone. They pack it with all kinds of different topics that cover every aspect of everything about their business – their products, services, company news, industry trends, and about anything else. Then they blast it out to their entire mailing list. The problem? They Don’t Get Read OMG! is often my first thought when I open one. Newsletters tend to be packed with so many different things that you don’t know where to start. Too much stuff, too poorly organized. Graphics, fonts, headers, links. If there was something useful for me in there, I would never know it. So I don’t start at all. Close it up for later or just delete it. Soon it becomes a conditioned response. They aren’t opening it. They just delete it. Finally, they unsubscribe. They Don’t Get Done Someone has to research it, assemble all of the content, get it designed and laid out. Surprise, surprise – it just doesn’t happen. Small companies are understaffed and overworked. They tell themselves they’ll do it, but they never do. So they wind up sending nothing at all. Make Your Newsletter Useful Use Your Newsletter To Identify Interests! Newsletters can be good for when you don’t know anything about your audience. Sometimes serving up a bunch of choices can help you identify what they really do care about. Make it easy to scan. Give them clear choices. Headers that grab attention and short, clear content. Don’t try to cover everything in the email. Give them a link to go learn more. Learn What They Care About With the right technology, you can monitor every click they make and get a clearer indication of what they are really interested in. You can start to learn about each subscriber individually, but also about your entire list as a whole. You’ll start to get some clear indications about the topics that your time would be best spent writing about. Speak To Each Person Individually We don’t really like to send stuff to lists. We prefer to send stuff to people. The more you can learn about each individual, the more you can send them information that matters most to them. They won’t be getting newsletters, they’ll be getting personalized communications with content that you know they care about. Send A Personal Email As you learn more and more about each of your contacts, start shifting your contacts away from newsletters and more toward simple black and white text emails. Why? They work. They look personal. They get opened. They get read. They don’t unsubscribe. They’re short and to the point. Entice them and then give them links to the things you know they care about. They’re Easy Unlike newsletters, emails are simple. That means they actually get created and sent. No big research project. No organizing, editing. No stressing out. An Example I run a wine store. Someone just signed up for my newsletter. So, I’ll use a well organized newsletter with a wide choice of my products – reds, whites, etc., glasses, accessories. Everything for everyone. However, my goal is to find out what they like. Now, Track What They Click Each and every communication you send is a chance to learn even more about your audience. As I learn that a customer almost always clicks on Cabernet, my system will tag him and automatically add him to another more specific red wine or Cabernet list. Now Personalize With Email Subject: Now THIS is a wine! Hi Joe, I know you love a great cabs. Check this one out. (link) Hard to beat find anything like it, especially at this price. We only have 3 cases. Would you like me to hold a bottle for you for the weekend. Jim p.s. If you do want cool and refreshing white instead, here’s my ‘plan B’. (link) Ok, so maybe that’s a bit simple, but you get the idea. You don’t have to offer them a lot of choices. The important point is to start learning what they do care about and keep learning more every time . As you identify interests, it’s easy to follow up with broader choices to help identify what each of your subscribers really cares about most. Not sure what they’re interested in. Here’s an idea – ASK! It’s always best to ask each of your contacts individually, but you could also do some general polls to get an overall idea of the interests of your list. [polldaddy poll=6598543] To Sum It All Up Use newsletters the most when you don’t know your audience. Create even more targeted newsletters as you learn more. Use technology to identify the specific interests of each and every contact. Write personalized individual emails that speak to those interests. If you don’t know what people want to get – ask! With marketing automation, it’s easy to let the technology do the work. Keep it simple. Keep it focused. Learn. Focus again. You’ll increase your opens, your click through, and your referrals. You’ll stand out in the crowd.