8 Reasons Every Entrepreneur Should Follow The One-Minute Rule Posted on July 10, 2018July 10, 2018 by Jonathan Herrick If it takes less than a minute to do, why not do it now? That’s the basic premise of the one-minute rule created by the author of The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin. Rubin says there are many worthwhile benefits to the one-minute rule including a boost in happiness and peace of mind. Here are a few reasons you may want to switch up your mindset. It Puts You On The Fast Track To Success. When you’re tidier, you’re more organized. When you’re more organized, there’s no doubt you tend to be more successful in life and business. If success is your ultimate goal (which we assume it is), there’s no need to worry about the little things, because they will already be accounted for once you implement the one-minute rule. It leaves you with extra time to focus on those important tasks that will boost your business and give you the results you deserve. It Minimizes Opportunity For Procrastination. Doing it, not only today, but right now, will stop you from procrastinating. It might not be the cure-all you’re seeking, but it can certainly change the way you view your workload and get through your workday. Excuses are easy to find, so why not challenge yourself to get up out of your chair and do a few small tasks? Five minutes – five or more tasks. 10 minutes – 10 or more tasks. And so on. The reality is you have nothing to lose. It Gives You A Sense of Satisfaction Every Day. When you think of the things that can take you less than a minute to accomplish every day, it can add up extremely quickly. That’s a lot of little tasks that are well-worth a nod of accomplishment despite their seeming insignificance in the grand scheme of things. Over a span of a week, or even a month, those mini-moments of satisfaction can leave you feeling pretty accomplished every day. Even when you’re having a bad day, you owe it to yourself to acknowledge your efforts, no matter how small. It Takes Less Time In the Long Run. What happens if you don’t instantly respond to that important email that lands in your inbox? Or the next one? Or even the next one? Before you know it, you have a mountain of emails filling you with dread. You then keep deciding to put it off because it’ll move your focus away from more time-critical tasks. However, it can take a great deal of mental energy to continuously think about avoiding something. Then, of course, you have to add emails to your to-do list and find a specific stretch of time to get through them Responding to those emails upon receipt would have been much more straightforward. It Means You’re Less Overwhelmed During Busy Periods. If you’re anything like me, you hardly have enough time to think on busy days. But if you can feel confident that all the little things are already done and out of the way, you can reduce your stress and minimize your workload. It also makes it simpler to tackle your tasks with a cool head so you can avoid making mistakes or missing essential facts. It Reduces The Number Of Things You Need To Prioritize. Prioritizing can be difficult, especially when the list is long. So it makes sense that when your to-do list is shorter, prioritizing becomes a much simpler task. Your list should contain things that are going to propel your efforts forward, not just be a spot to add mindless tasks. When you come into the office first thing in the morning, you can begin the day with tasks that will make a difference for you and your company. Being Organized Is Contagious. Do a task which takes less than a minute and watch to see how that one small act can propel you on to the next small task. The physical act of motion will naturally give you the incentive and motivation to follow it with another small task. And then another. And then another. Soon those invoices will be paid, the coffee cups washed, and you’ll be ready to embrace the larger challenges that come your way. You’re Making Executive Decisions On The Fly. One of the best things that can occur from this whole practice is the fact that you are seemingly making executive decisions without even realizing it. You’re getting on with things and minimizing the need to second guess everything. There’s no unnecessary thoughtful contemplation or deliberation. The only thing you’re focused on is getting it done because you have the sixty seconds to spare. It’s incredible to see that just by introducing one tiny habit into your life, you can make immense changes. I challenge you to try the one-minute rule for yourself. This simple strategy can really change the way you handle productivity and procrastination.
The Top 10 Most Affordable Video Marketing Tools of 2018 Posted on July 9, 2018 by Allie Wolff If you’re going to listen to anyone’s thoughts on the future of social media, listen to Mark Zuckerberg. In 2016, the Facebook CEO made the following prediction: “Ten years ago, most of what we shared and consumed online was text. Now it’s photos – and soon most of it will be video.” Even if you prefer to heed the words of more modest players, many projections in the digital marketing sphere are calling for increased budgets, firmer expectations for ROI, more total hours watched and higher conversion rates surrounding video marketing. If the last few years were any indication, 2018 isn’t going to be any different. So how can you stay in the video game without breaking the bank on video marketing tools and apps? In fact, there’s a huge market for cost-saving measures that can help business owners and marketers on a budget create strong video efforts while spending relatively little. Here are a few of those tools. The Straight-Talker: Facebook Live Okay, yes, this one’s nothing groundbreaking. But Facebook Live is actually a great way to promote your brand’s authenticity directly to your fans. We live in an era of fake news, photoshopped images and biased media. What better way to cut through the noise than to showcase your authentic self to the world? Facebook Live is free and easy to set up – just click the bright red “Go Live” button and spread your message to the world. If you want to advance beyond webcams and smartphone mics, you can spring for a subscription to a tool like BeLive or Crowdcast to broadcast using a better camera rig. Pro-tip: How often is too often? You should definitely not be going live daily – save it for when you have an important announcement or message. Your followers get a little red notification in their feed every time you go live, and if you’re doing this more than once a week, it can be majorly off-putting. The Simplifiers: Vidyard, Wistia Vidyard was made with marketers in mind. With a single dashboard, it makes video creation manageable for non-video types. A large majority of Vidyard’s capabilities are available in their free version. Their Chrome extension makes things easy and streamlined. Wistia is a comparable software with a different set of tools and hosting options. They offer tons of customization options. Their free package offers three videos per month, and their Pro Package is $99 per month for ten videos. The bottom line for both is their emphasis on metrics that people in business can understand. If you’re looking for a quick video to slot into a landing page or blog post, or even personalized emails or social media pages, then these tools will offer among the most robust set of options available. The Outsource Options: Fiverr, UpWork, Valoso Don’t want to deal with the stress of creating a video yourself? Outsourcing can be tricky on a shoestring budget, because you’re opening yourself to the possibility of working with people who are either out of your price range or, frankly, not great at their jobs. Thankfully, for transparent options in video production, you’ve got solid platform options for finding freelancers. Fiverr and UpWork are classics for finding quality freelancers on a small budget. (For short videos, double digits is a good modest start; be wary of anyone offering to produce even a five-second video for under $10.) You can see freelancers’ portfolios and work history before hiring them on these platforms, too. For a more specific project, you can turn to a tool like Valoso, which hires local videographers to cover corporate events anywhere in the world. You don’t even need to worry about vetting them since the company takes care of all that – the camera operator will just show up and shoot. The Authentic Clout: Vimeo Less a tool than a hosting platform, Vimeo is an excellent social network that can extend the reach of your video to an engaged, authentic audience. If YouTube is all celebrities and virality, Vimeo is all documentaries and artistic music videos. It’s an excellent place for genuinely well-done sponsored content, too. Don’t bother uploading corporate explainers or anything that feels inauthentic, but if you’re especially proud of your latest video, and you think a broader audience will enjoy it, consider Vimeo as part of your distribution platform strategy. The On-the-Go: FilmoraGo If you’re looking for the quickest app to edit video, FilmoraGo is a solid option. With it, you can cut pre-existing video clips, add subtitles and overlay text, speed up or slow down the pace of your video, and add filters to change the mood. There are other smartphone app options, of course, but FilmoraGo is often touted as the strongest. If you need more than the free version can accommodate, they offer in-app upgrades. The Social Tailor: Flipagram If you want to tailor your video to a specific social platform like Instagram, and you’ve only got limited phone video footage and a few photos at hand, consider a social-specific tool such as Flipagram. Flipagram’s main gambit is converting photos into videos and combining them with stills, stitching them together into a neat little Insta-ready video. It works for Facebook, too, and makes creating simple, quick videos an absolute cinch. It’s a perfect option for anyone looking to up their social video game. The Small Investment: Shakr For $50 a month, Shakr offers significant desktop editing capabilities, including preset templates and designs created with particular industries in mind. You can also create videos using drag-and-drop templates for different social platforms, meaning if you want to create a “travel”-style video for both Instagram and Facebook, this is the best app to make it happen. There are loads of other video tools out there. For the more skilled video editors, there are great tools such as Camtasia, After Effects and Final Cut Pro that are a whole different ball game. But if you’re a marketer or business owner with little video expertise and even less budget, these ten tools are a great place to start.
5 Tips for Livening Up Your Company Culture Posted on July 6, 2018July 6, 2018 by Jonathan Herrick With many businesses in expansion mode, it’s not easy for smaller companies to compete successfully for the best employees. They usually can’t match the salary and benefits budgets of their biggest rivals. Fortunately, monetary compensation, while important, isn’t the only thing that matters to job seekers. Many want to be part of a great culture where they can really make a difference, both within the company and outside of it. In a recent survey, Deloitte found that among millennials, for instance, 52% rated culture as very important in considering a potential employer, second only to pay, named by 63%. Fortunately, it’s not hard to liven up your company culture. Here are five ways to do that. Pay attention to what matters to employees. Great company cultures double down on what their teams already enjoy doing, rather than assuming they’ll enjoy stereotypical “fun” activities. Instead of assuming that adding a ping-pong table or video game terminals to the break room will enhance your culture, pay attention the activities team members naturally gravitate to outside of work. If, for instance, you notice that a lot of your employees like to go to CrossFit or yoga, what they might truly appreciate is having an hour and a half lunch break once or twice a week so they have time to get to the gym and shower. Look for small excuses to celebrate. Many of us spend more time at work than at home and view our colleagues almost as an extended family. Finding reasons to honor your team and their key milestones, such as birthdays, can help bring everyone together. This takes some organization, so, to make sure you don’t forget about anyone, give someone on your team a fun honorary title, such as the SVP of Celebrations, and put them in charge of coming up with a date to celebrate for each employee. Ask this individual to come with entertaining and inexpensive ways to celebrate and set aside a small budget for this. Gestures like bringing in funny gag gifts for team members’ birthdays or cupcakes decorated according to a theme like superheroes can go a long way. Don’t be afraid to get creative. If birthdays seem too routine, have your celebrations guru monitor office chit-chat carefully for news of things like a 5k race a team member is running or an employee’s art opening at a local gallery. Make it photo ready. Consider investing in a small red carpet that you can roll out for special occasions, helping employees great Instagram-ready photos As a nice side benefit, those photos will help raise awareness of the great culture you’re building among your employees’ social media contacts, making it that much easier to attract great hires the next time you need to recruit. Alleviate digital distraction. While sharing on social media can be fun, there’s no doubt that tech can be distracting, too, and keep us from interacting with the people around us. There’s nothing more boring or alienating than sitting in a room full of people whose eyes are glued to their phones. To inspire your team to actually have a conversation with their colleagues, try setting aside certain hours of the week when no one is expected to respond to emails or texts. Even a few hours of freedom a week will make a difference in everyone’s quality of life, enabling them to not only get serious work done but make an occasional trip to the water cooler for some chit-chat. Make room for employees’ families. For those trying to balance busy careers with raising children, even the most exciting culture-building activities can create a lot of stress by cutting into family time. If evenings or weekends are the only time you can fit in an extracurricular celebration, invite employees to bring their mates and children. It may cost you a bit more but it’ll underline that you truly have a family-friendly culture. And whatever you spend will likely be far less than what it costs to replace a great employee who feels they have to leave your company because, after having a child, they no longer fit into the culture. Besides that, it’s hard for anyone to be deadly serious or uptight when there are kids in the room. They could be just the people you need to bring everyone together.
6 Tips for Using Video in Your Email Marketing Posted on July 5, 2018July 5, 2018 by Jessica Lunk Even those who are new to the digital marketing game know that video marketing is on the rise. With today’s technology, it’s easier than ever for marketers to create and distribute branded videos. In addition, internet users are viewing and sharing videos at breakneck speed. As of June 2017, views of branded video content have increased 258% on Facebook and 99% on YouTube, according to a Tubular Insights report. Pair that with the fact that email marketing is strong as ever, and it seems obvious that brands and marketers have a huge opportunity with video in email marketing. Here are our top six tips for integrating video smartly and seamlessly with your email campaigns. Video Email Marketing Tip #1: Choose the Right Video Content The video content you share in your email should be appropriate for that person’s position in your sales funnel. Top-funnel viewers are mostly concerned about what’s in it for them — so make it clear early in your video how your offering is going to help them in some way. You have a bit more leeway with middle- and bottom-funnel viewers, but you should still strive to make your video more about them than about you. Great examples of bottom-funnel marketing videos include customer testimonials, case studies, and product demos. And while we’re on the topic of content, duration is another important consideration. For top-funnel prospects, the shorter your video is, the better. According to Wistia, 59% of viewers will watch a video through the end if it’s less than one minute, but keep it under 30 seconds if you can. Image credit: Wistia If you’re targeting prospects who are farther down the funnel, you can afford to do a video that’s one minute or longer. If your subject matter merits a longer video, ask yourself if you can break it up into a series and only promote the first video of the series in your email. Video Email Marketing Tip #2: Don’t Embed the Video Though your email marketing platform may allow you to embed video in your marketing emails, many of the major email clients (Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo included) don’t support video playback within emails. In addition, even a short video tends to come with a massive file size, which can slow the load speed when a prospect opens your email. Until major email clients fully support video, it may be best to avoid embedding video directly within your marketing emails. But there’s a good workaround for this that helps with both click-through rate and conversions: Use a thumbnail image to prompt your prospects to view your video. You can do this by either grabbing a screenshot of your video player. Use the image as a link to the actual video, whether it’s on your website, Vimeo, or YouTube. Video Email Marketing Tip #3: Write Text to Supplement Your Video According to Kissmetrics, spam filters may actually see your email as spam if it only contains an image or a video. To avoid landing in your recipients’ spam folders, write some stellar copy to accompany your video. Sometimes, including the word “video” in your subject line can give your open rate a boost. For your body text, get right to the point in describing the purpose of the video you included. Use active, conversational language, and nix the all-caps or multiple exclamation points (two surefire signs your copywriting needs improvement). Video Email Marketing Tip #4: Place Your CTA Prominently It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of including videos in your email marketing — but don’t forget to place your call to action in a prominent place. Ideally, your CTA should live in both your video content and the text portion of your email, in case a reader doesn’t open the video (or doesn’t read the text). Your CTA could be a contact form, social media links, a free download, or something else entirely — but like your video, it should be both concise and customized for your target audience. Video Email Marketing Tip #5: Test Out Gifs You don’t need video files to harness the power of video marketing; animated GIFs can work just as well as full-on videos. If you’re including any essential information in your GIF, it should appear in the first frame, as some email clients won’t automatically play animated GIFs (but will show the first frame as a still image). Image Credit: Giphy Video Email Marketing Tip #6: Use Autoplay Wisely Autoplay is becoming ubiquitous, both in social newsfeeds and across media platforms like CNN and Netflix. However, users still express annoyance over autoplayed videos that interrupt the content they want to consume, meaning you should be careful when you’re using autoplay. Now, if you’re not embedding video directly in your emails, when would this advice about autoplay apply? It applies if you’re driving traffic from your email to a landing page. But here’s the key: if a user clicks your video image (meaning they’re interested in watching your video), it’s a smart move to send them to a landing page where autoplay is turned on. This saves them the requirement of having to click a second time, and you’re not at risk of turning them off because they willingly selected to view the video anyways. As video continues to rise to the top of the list of popular digital marketing tactics, we’ll undoubtedly start seeing more of it in email marketing. Create great video and email content, employ these six tips, and you’re sure to stay ahead of your competitors.
Get Personal Content with These 12 Target Market KPIs Posted on July 4, 2018July 3, 2018 by Guest Author It’s no secret that in today’s ever-changing market, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are more important than ever. KPIs are essential to every business and help keep a company focused and progressing in the right direction. However, your organization needs to ensure you are focusing on measuring the right indicators in order to guarantee you are effectively reaching your audience. These five target market KPIs will help any business focus their attention on the right areas in order to grow an audience. Know Your Target Audience It seems obvious but knowing your target audience is essential to growing any business. So what exactly is a target audience? Quite simply, it’s the demographic of people who are most likely to be interested in the product or service you’re offering. Sure, you want your business to reach as many people as possible, but it’s more important that you’re reaching the right people—because they’re the ones who are going to invest in your business and keep returning. You can stuff your marketing automation software with as much content as possible and blast the entire internet with ads and social posts, but without pinpointing who you want to see this content, you’re just screaming into the void. How do you find your target audience? Well, it’s not as easy as it sounds—it takes time and plenty of work—but with patience (and a little homework), you can build your brand and its followers. According to Forbes, when you clearly identify your target audience, you are putting their needs and goals first. The most important thing a business can do to really know their audience is to ask broad questions about the people they believe can benefit from their product or service. To sort out the questions you need to ask, use the data you’re given to ask questions based on that data. Who are the initial buyers of the product? How does the product fit their needs? If it works for this audience, how it can work for others? To answer these questions, you must first be able to realize what gap your product or service is filling. Additionally, what are the demographics of the people who probably need this service? What is their yearly salary? Are they single? Married? Do they live in rural areas or are they closer to a major city? After answering some of these broader questions, it will be easier to hone in on the people who will benefit the most from what your business is offering. These questions are easier to answer when your business is part of a competitive market where your product or service is already offered; however, that doesn’t mean you have less work to do—it means you have to work even harder to make sure what you’re offering is the best that is available to the consumer. Know How Your Target Audience Spends Their Time After using the funnel approach to determine the demographics of your audience, consider how they spend their time. An older audience may turn to Facebook, which means concentrating on creating a Facebook group that focuses on your company’s goals may be one of the ways to grow your audience. For example, if you’re a company that sells textbooks to colleges and universities, you may want to create a Facebook group that encourages professors and instructors to share tips on the best ways their students learn. As they are leaving their comments, your social media team can comment to prove why your textbook best suits their needs. If, however, your audience seems to be much younger, perhaps your social media presence should focus more on Instagram and Snapchat, where audiences tend to be younger and more focused on the visual aspects of a product. Important KPIs to Watch on Social Media Go beyond just the number of followers or connections on your account, and use these metrics to understand who is actually interacting with your social content. Comments on existing threads Number of new threads started Shares of your content Percentage of engaged users: divide the number of users who comment/share/interact with your comment by your total number of users It’s also important to make sure your content fits the platform on which you are promoting your services. If you are a business that’s selling products to your audience, perhaps Instagram is the platform on which to focus since it’s photo-heavy. However, if your service does better through testimonials, highlighting your current consumers’ stories may lend itself better to Facebook. While it’s important to be on a variety of social media platforms, it’s just as important to consider what works best for each platform. What is Your Target Audience Searching For? Google Analytics is a quick and easy way to know what your audience is searching for before landing on your website. If you know what your audience is searching or asking questions about, you can ensure you are tailoring your website and products to those questions. Use the Google Analytics site search function to see what keywords users look for when they search on your site. It’s also important to discover how your audience is landing on your page—is it organic or is it through paid content? What are the search terms they are typing in before they land on your page—in other words, what are the keywords they are using? Is your website fulfilling their questions? Use these tools to drive the keywords you are using in the emails and newsletters you’re pushing out to the public. Important KPIs to watch for site search Number of completed searches Page depth Paid content conversion rate Google Search Console click through rate (CTR) for specific high-value keywords What Areas of Your Site is Your Audience Engaging With? If your website is experiencing high bounce rates, it’s probably time to reconsider how you’re presenting information to your audience. Knowing how your audience is engaging with your content is one of the most valuable tools in terms of knowing the demographic you’re serving. If the video section of your website is gaining more traffic than, say, the comments section, it’s probably a good indication that more focus should be put on the multimedia components of your site. Actively engaging your readers and involving them in the evolution of your business can bring about surprising rewards. Important KPIs to watch for on-site engagement Page depth Time on page for articles and landing page content Video view times On-site conversions Keep Researching and Planning The more a business knows its target audience, the easier it will be to tailor their content to their audience. Taking your time to do your homework when it comes to researching your audience’s demographics can be the difference your company needs, and analyzing how your audience is reaching your site—and how they’re interacting once they’ve found you—can help you not only maintain your audience but help it grow for years to come. Make sure to keep meticulous records of your target audience in both your marketing automation software and within your project management tools to ensure that you can iterate as your audience changes. And if you need some good collaboration tools for project management, check out TechnologyAdvice.com for unbiased recommendations and reviews Author Bio Jamie Jenson is a writer for TechnologyAdvice.com. She is a freelance journalist who lives and works in Syracuse, New York. Jamie taught middle and high school English for over ten years before attending the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and earning her Master of Arts degree in magazine, newspaper and online journalism. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in English literature from Rosemont College and her Master of Science in education from Binghamton University. When she’s not writing or teaching, Jamie enjoys reading, hiking, and traveling. Find her on Twitter @jamieljenson or at her website http://www.jamieljenson.com.
How to Create a Referral Program for Your B2B Business Posted on July 3, 2018July 3, 2018 by Katie Culp A referral marketing program, or brand advocate program, can be a powerful tool in your marketing arsenal when you do it right. It’s a feel-good situation for everyone around: 69% of companies with referral programs close deals faster, while customers trust a whopping 92% of brand recommendations made by people they know. Unfortunately, lots of businesses don’t get the ROI they could be getting from referrals because they lack a systematic referral program. Another key challenge is the confusion between affiliate marketing and referral marketing — so let’s dive into that, first. Affiliate and Referral Programs: What’s the Difference? Though the terms are often used interchangeably, affiliate and referral marketing are actually two separate beasts. They both drive revenue to the business using a third-party (the affiliate, or the referrer). However, they have a few key differences: Affiliate Marketing Referral Marketing Motivated by money. Motivated by passion for your brand, product, or service. The referrer is a stranger. The referrer is a current or former client. The referrer sells your brand, product, or service to strangers. The referrer sells your brand, product, or service to colleagues, friends, and family. The referrer receives a commission. The referrer doesn’t usually receive a commission. More of an agreement. More of a partnership. Tends to be more structured and regulated; may come with legal risks. Tends to be more casual and deregulated. As you can see, while affiliate marketing is another effective way to grow your B2B sales, it requires a bit more forethought and formality than referral marketing. Because referral marketing can help you achieve more ROI faster than a full-fledged affiliate program, we’re focusing on referral marketing in this piece. Now, let’s get to the essential steps to a killer referral program. #1: Ask at the right time. Oftentimes, businesses are inclined to ask a client for referrals after a project has ended, or when that client relationship is drawing to a close. Though this can work, you’ll have a ton more success if you ask for a referral at the moment a client is happiest with your work. This could be early in the client relationship — maybe they just called you to share a success they had after using your product. This could be years into an enduring client relationship, when you’re meeting for coffee to catch up. The point is, don’t wait until things have fizzled to ask for referrals. Most people are more than happy to rave to their loved ones about a product or service that rocks. #2: Know your target market. Imagine your longtime landscaper asks you for a referral. You’re extremely happy with the flower garden they just planted, so you’re more than enthusiastic to recommend them to everyone you know. So you ask the landscaper what kind of customers they’re looking for, and they tell you: “anyone with a yard.” Obviously, not everyone with a yard needs or wants a landscaper. And now, you’re thinking about everyone you know who lives in a house — how can you narrow that down to a few friends or family members? But if your landscaper said something along the lines of “high-income homeowners who love flower gardens,” you’re likely to call several specific people to mind immediately. If you don’t know your target market, there’s no way you can expect your client to get it right — and one hundred unqualified leads are as good as none. #3: Give your clients a referral template they can modify. Your clients are doing you a favor when they’re referring others to your business. And while most people are more than willing to put in a good word for you, it’s not always easy for them to know exactly what to say. One way to overcome this is to provide a referral email template for your clients. Here’s a couple templates you can steal and modify to fit your business. (Imagine that you’re Earl, founder of Earl’s Crossfit. You’re asking two different customers, Jamie and Erin, for a referral): Referral template to send to an old client (Jamie), for their use: Dear [Joe], Hey there, I hope you’re doing well! [Jane], meet [Earl]. I’ve been working with [Earl’s Crossfit] for [3] years, and I’ve had a really great experience. I thought you might want to learn more, so I’ve attached this [brochure] here for you and CC’d [Earl] so you two can talk. Sincerely, Jamie Referral template to send to a new client (Erin), for their use: Dear [Joe], I just finished talking to [Earl] from [Earl’s Crossfit], who I recently hired to help me with [training for a triathlon]. I’ve already seen some results and I thought you might like to talk to [him], too, so I’ve CC’d him here. Sincerely, Erin #4: Offer marketing materials that your referrer can share with their network. Don’t make your client do all the legwork in explaining why you’re so awesome: let your best brochures, whitepapers, one-pagers, or even your website do the talking for you. Not only does this ensure your future prospects are getting the right messages about your business, but it also makes it way easier on the referrer. Now that you have the four key steps to launching a B2B referral program, don’t wait: start asking your best customers for referrals right away. There’s an incredible domino effect to this marketing tactic, and all it takes is a bit of honesty and directness from you to stoke the fire of word-of-mouth networking.
Is Your Marketing Stack Helping or Hurting You? Posted on July 2, 2018September 22, 2022 by Allie Wolff Marketers love buzzwords: creating them, following them, hashtagging them. A “marketing stack” is no exception. This is defined, essentially, as the combination of all your marketing tech (or “martech”, some call it – another buzzword). Your marketing stack refers to every piece of software you use, either for a subscription or for free, to organize your teams, from internal communication to customer-facing advertising to analytics and display-ad platforms. Hootsuite, Hatchbuck, Unbounce, Slack, Google Analytics; it’s all part of your marketing stack. Well-oiled marketing teams will organize their stacks deliberately, rather than slap-dashing them together when a new need arises. Key concerns include software integration, update frequency, cost and customer service. Each element requires a fair bit of research and should gel with the rest of your choices. That said, most marketing stacks don’t do this. Small businesses and self-made marketers in particular will find they start their companies with whatever free tools they have available, then realize the limitations after a year or longer. Scalability – whether your software has the capacity to grow with your company and meet your evolving needs – is a particular challenge in these situations. That’s when marketing stacks get messy. You might find your chosen tools are hurting you more than they’re helping you – either because you’re paying for more than you need, or they aren’t scalable in the right way. How should I organize my marketing stack? The key to any marketing stack is thoughtful coordination, and to that end, we’d argue that integration is the biggest concern. You need software that gets along with all of the tools you love. If your brand has 10,000 Pinterest followers, for example, and you were looking for a convenient social media management software, you might have avoided Hootsuite because it didn’t offer built-in Pinterest management for years. (They just changed this recently, realizing the missed opportunity.) If your only social platform is Twitter, you might prefer TweetDeck, since Facebook isn’t a concern for you. These are the decisions you’d make when choosing a software to promote your business. But the question is one of organization. Where do you start? Start with your business’s most fundamental needs. If you don’t have any emails collected yet, don’t worry about finding the right email-marketing platform. Start with basic elements of web presence building: a content management system (CMS), internal communication apps (email, chats, video conferencing), database management, and analytics software. Build your house before you show it off to the world. Consider where you want to be in five years, and choose core components that will support you in that journey. Once you’ve found your basic building blocks, grow outward. You’ll need marketing tools – which advertising platforms are you going to focus on? Which social networks are right for you? (Hint: the answer should never be “all of them.”) Where are you going to look for customers? How are you going to nurture them? Many of the answers to these questions will depend on your product, target audience and business model. No two companies’ marketing stacks will look identical, and even if they are, it’s highly improbable that they would use the same software for the same purposes. Is a marketing cloud a better option? You might think to yourself, “Gee, there’s so much to worry about with these stacks – it’d be so much easier to have all this stuff in one place!” That’s why some folks created what’s called a “marketing cloud” – basically an all-in-one service that offers multiple elements of a marketing stack in one place. But they’re not necessarily better. The convenience factor is significant, true, and you may find it a relief (especially if you’re less technologically savvy) to have your customer support and billing all taken care of in one fell swoop. But there are a few problems with this model. First, many B2B marketing software companies are developing innovative tech at a far greater pace than the marketing cloud folks. Hootsuite isn’t a marketing cloud per se, but the analogy from above holds true: they didn’t offer Pinterest integration for years, and literally in 2018 finally added it. If only Instagram and Pinterest were part of your social marketing strategy, instead of finding a third-party Hootsuite addition to add Pinterest functionality (many of which were a bit flukey anyway), you’d have been better off using two separate specialized social media analytics and management softwares: one for Instagram and one for Pinterest. The all-in-one solution took years to catch up. The second problem with marketing clouds is that scalability issue. It’s hard to grow with them, because while your needs may be simple at first, businesses often grow out in different directions, finding different priorities along the way. You may learn that email marketing is a far greater demand for your business a few years down the road, but your marketing cloud offers limited email-marketing design options. On top of that, most require long-term commitments from the get-go. You’ll be stuck. Finding the best of both worlds There are some softwares that combine elements of a marketing cloud into one, without overstepping their specialties. Yes, BenchmarkONE is one. Not to get too salesy, but we offer an all-in-one solution for just a select few aspects of a traditional marketing stack: email marketing, CRM and marketing automation. We chose those three elements because there’s no reason to separate them. We believe engaging with your customers, from automated marketing efforts to email nurturing and customer service, makes sense when it’s consolidated. But we’re not bold enough to launch into CMS hosting, full-suite social media management, payment processing or platform-specific lead capturing. We rely on integration for that. There are limits to what makes sense. How can you tell if your marketing stack is hurting or helping? It’s easy: what parts of your marketing job annoy the hell out of you? Create a master list of all your products, then go through them and ask yourself what isn’t working. Pinpoint what elements of each is causing trouble, and what you need instead. Then start shopping around for solutions, looking specifically at what alternatives integrate with your core components. By the end, you can reorganize your marketing stack – maybe even combine certain elements – to create a smoother, more efficient stack that makes your life and work easier.
6 Signs You Have a Great PPC Manager (And How to Gauge Their Results) Posted on June 29, 2018June 29, 2018 by Jonathan Herrick Finding a pay-per-click ad manager can be a major commitment. The PPC sphere can be both incredibly costly and intensely competitive, and your guiding light will be a great PPC manager – an outsourced independent freelancer or agency. There is a huge benefit to using an external resource to run your PPC campaigns. They get the chance to work with several different companies, which means they get to see what works and what doesn’t across multiple A/B experiments. And you don’t have to have a large budget for it to make sense, even if you’re working with a smaller budget; a great PPC manager can be worth their weight in gold. If they’re a great PPC manager, you’ll notice in the way they respond, interact and manage your account; and produce results. In the end, your PPC manager should be an extension of your marketing team, passionate about helping your team to achieve its business goals. So how do you know if you have a PPC rockstar? Here are a few ways to tell whether you’ve got yourself a PPC manager worth bragging about: They’re genuinely interested in the industry. Do they read about the industry regularly? Do they keep up with changes in the big platforms, particularly Google and Facebook? One way to test this is to keep abreast of such developments yourself and ask them what they think of the developments every so often. Gauge their answer to see if they’re informed and curious, or if they merely view running PPC for your business as just another day job. The truth is work sucks when you don’t like the industry your in, and it is magnified tenfold when you’re an outsourced firm and need to drive results for someone else. When your PPC manager is excited and happy with the work they are doing, they do a better job; when they do a better job, you’re happy; when you’re happy, they’re happy. They handle your account in a proactive way. Changes in the paid advertising space happen at a rapid pace. A smart PPC manager will have their finger on the pulse of any updates made by Google, in their targeted keywords, changes in their client’s’ business, and shake up necessary keywords preemptively. If you have a PPC manager that is purely reactionary, that’s a big red flag and a tell-tale sign that you will be playing catch-up to your competitors. Being a proactive PPC manager doesn’t just stop with being on top of changes to Adwords or Facebook, frequent tests of your ad copy and landing pages will ensure keeping ahead of the curve. BTW: If you notice your click-through rates are a little low when testing new campaigns or keywords don’t freak out, a rockstar PPC manager knows precisely what needles to move in your campaigns in order to optimize conversions. They’re always asking questions. A curious PPC manager is an invested PPC manager. They should continually be asking questions about the data they’re working with. They should be analyzing spends, reflecting on top-spending campaigns, checking ad positions and investigating new keywords. And their questions shouldn’t stop at the technical aspects of your business. Their curiosity should extend to your business, too. A curious PPC manager is an engaged PPC manager. While they’re guiding you through the weeds, you’re guiding them on a broader scale, and they should recognize that. The results here? You’ll be in regular communication, weekly at least, with a flexible direction that shows their interest in helping you and keeping you in the loop. You’ll be well-informed about where your money is going and new channels to test to help boost results. They stay calm under pressure. A good PPC manager will not react hastily to a crisis. Given the speed at which some digital marketing departments move, you may be tempted to value speed in high-pressure situations. In reality, there is always time for reflection. Campaigns can be paused for a day if need be. If a problem comes up, they should be willing to take the time to solve it for good. Similar to a stockbroker, you’ll see fewer wild fluctuations in day-to-day operations with a cool-headed PPC manager. You want someone who’s able to respond quickly, but who will also consider alternatives and make a wise decision. The long-game wins are more important in PPC advertising. They’re organized. Most PPC managers and digital marketing agencies are juggling multiple accounts at a time. While you want someone who’s cool under pressure and responsive, you also want someone who can communicate quickly and clearly and who is on top of their clients. If you’re hiring a PPC manager, you’re likely a business owner yourself. Think about the traits you’d want to boast to your own clients, then look for those qualities in your own PPC partner. They are results-driven. A great PPC manager will check your campaigns multiple times per week if not daily. You should establish clear ROI goals from the outset. There are various ways to measure PPC ROI, and you’ll find the best results if you and your PPC manager hash out and agree on specific numerical targets per ROI category. The results will speak for themselves. Even if your PPC campaigns don’t match your targets every time, when your manager is communicative and transparent, you’ll better understand where your dollars are going, and how your campaigns can be optimized into the future.
The Value of Work-From-Home Days For Your Employees Posted on June 28, 2018June 28, 2018 by Tricia O'Donnell Having optional work-from-home days for your employees can be very beneficial for them and you. While they may not appeal to everyone on your team, those who thrive on independence and want to avoid the daily commute every now and again will jump at the chance. Once you implement a “work from home” structure and ensure that it’s a good fit for your company, the value will quickly become obvious. Here are just a few of the many benefits. Employee Benefits Less commute time Reducing commute time to zero miles can be a massive win for your team. For your team members who commute hours a day, it can be a huge time-saver and a great company perk. Not having to deal with public transportation delays or traffic on even just one day a month can be a huge stress reliever. Having the opportunity to sleep in every now and again won’t hurt either. Better work-life balance No one is immune to today’s issues with work-life balance. Having the chance to work from home base can help your employees gain back some of their time and assist with the constant struggle to balance work and family. Happy employees are productive employees, and issues such as burnout and anxiety can be reduced dramatically through the simple work-from-home option. More time with the family If finding quality time is an issue for your staff, then reducing their commute on a regular or semi-regular basis will be a huge bonus. When they shut their computer off at five o’clock, they are already at home and can connect immediately with their loved ones. Employee happiness at home translates into workplace happiness. Fewer distractions When your team members work in the office, there’s always something to distract them. It could be a knock on their office door, a phone call or something else that takes them away from their all-important work. Working from home will reduce those distractions and enable them to give 100% of their attention to the task at hand. Benefits for your organization Productive workers With no office gossip to ruminate over or morning conversations to distract, you will find that your employees will be more productive. The water cooler banter is reduced to a minimum, and your team will be able to sit down and get straight to work. Once they switch their laptops on in the morning, they’re ready to start the day. Improvement in staff retention Having a flexible work environment will help you keep employees for longer and reduce the need for sick days and holiday leave. Any benefit that you can offer to your team will make you a more attractive employer in their eyes. A good working environment, balanced with the extra flexibility of work from home days, will help improve staff retention. A hiring perk When word gets out about your company’s flexibility (and trust me, it will), you’ll have candidates banging down your door to work for you. More and more people are seeking benefits such as work from home options and flex-time over higher pay opportunities. It won’t take long for the word to spread, particularly as your current team will be singing your praises. An uninterrupted workday Working from home need not affect the regular schedule if your company is set up for it. If you have a scheduled meeting on a work-at-home day, your employees can simply connect via Skype, Zoom or another meeting tool. With phone, email and online tools such as Slack or Google Hangout, there’s no reason for deadlines to be affected. Many organizations around the world are starting to see the benefits of offering flex days on a regular basis. Once you have the right systems in place, it can become a compelling option for your organization on many levels.