When you browse the Internet, have you ever noticed that certain companies seem to be following you around? You visit one website, and then all the sudden, you start seeing ads for them on Facebook, and start seeing suggestions to like their page in your feed? As creepy as it may be, it’s intentional, and that’s just part of marketing these days.
Also known as retargeting, remarketing refers to that very process I just described. If you visit one site, and then go on to the next one, you may start seeing ads for that first website on the second one. What goes on behind the scenes to make it work is a bit complex, but you can start making it work for your business, too.
How Remarketing Works
Before you can start remarketing on your website, you have to install a piece of code on your website. It’s small, and won’t affect the way your website runs – and users won’t have a clue it’s there.
After that code is there, every time you get a new visitor, a cookie will be dropped on their computer. At that point, each cookied visitor will continue to see ads for your site via your retargeting service provider, whenever they go on about their day browsing other websites.
How Remarketing is Different from Standard Banner Ads
The main difference between traditional banner ads and remarketing is that remarketing is personalized based on your previous browsing history. Standard banner ads are served as a guess based on your profile – including your age, gender, and interests.
(Want a peek at who Google thinks you are? Check out Ad Preferences in your Google account. When you turn on ad personalization, you can add the topics you’re most interested in and see the profile Google has for you. If you’ve gotta look at ads on the Internet, you may as well make them better suited to you, right?)
So if I visit a website, I’ll see some kind of generic ad because I fit the profile, but I’m not necessarily interested in whatever it is the ad is promoting. With retargeting, I only see ads after I’ve visited a website, and thus shown some kind of interest in what they have to offer.
Why You Need Remarketing
Like any other investment you make in marketing and advertising, the main purpose is to make money. While there’s a small percentage of people who find the principles of remarketing creepy, the rest of them actually respond to them.
Why Remarketing Works
Remarketing works for a number of reasons:
Constant exposure to brand ads helps increase brand awareness and recognition
Ads drive repeat traffic to your website; sales are generally made on the first visit to a website. ⅔ of website visitors who visit a site again and don’t make a purchase on the first visit end up making a purchase.
Improves ROI since there are more user touchpoints
In today’s world, it pays to be persistent. As humans, our attention spans are getting shorter, and it seems there’s always something new, different, or better, to draw our attention away from what we’re focused on. That’s why it’s important to send your prospects and customers little reminders that you’re still there – and remarketing accomplishes just that.
Types of Remarketing
Site remarketing: This is likely the most popular form of remarketing because it is so easy. Site remarketing displays and add after a visitor leaves your site.
Search remarketing: Search remarketing targets users who are searching certain keywords and phrases. These people are showing interests in your industry and are likely looking for more information or a solution to a problem.
Social media remarketing: Social media remarketing displays remarketing ads on your social network. If you visit a website and then immediately see their ads on Facebook, the company is using social media remarketing.
Email remarketing: If you use Gmail, you’ll notice contextual ads typically based on what’s in your email content. But you can also remarket on that platform.
Segmentations of Remarketing
Within each type of remarketing, there a segmentation options you can use to increase customization and improve conversion rate.
General visitors: That’s anyone who visits your website.
Specific product visitors: These are visitors who’ve dug a bit deeper in your website and visited a specific product page.
Abandoned shopping cart visitors: These are people who’ve visited your site and gone “shopping”. They’ve added at least one item to their shopping cart, but for some reason or another never finished the checkout process. When someone takes the time to put things in their cart, that’s a strong indicator of interest, so using this technique can generally get someone to convert on a later visit.
Previous customers: These are people who’ve made a purchase on your site at some point. It’s easier to sell to someone who’s already made a purchase than it is to sell to a new customer, so it’s essential to target them.
Measuring Remarketing Success
It’s important to measure your results with retargeting, just like you’d measure it with any other kind of digital ad spend. Key metrics to look for and track include:
Click-through rate (CTR): The number of times an ad was clicked, divided by the number of impressions served.
Cost per click (CPC): The total budget for the campaign divided by the total number of clicks. For example, if you spent $100 and got 2,000 clicks, then have a CPC of 5 cents.
Effective cost per thousand impressions (eCPM): Take a look at how much the campaign earned you, and then divide it by the total number of impressions. Multiply that number by 1,000.
Effective cost per acquisition (eCPA): Take a look at how much you spent on the campaign. Divide it by the impressions served. Then multiply it by the click through rate, and then the conversion rate. Though complex, this number should give you an idea of what you paid for ads on a cost per action basis.
Return on investment (ROI): This is the most important metric you need to watch. How much money did you make from your investment? Subtract the cost of your investment from that number, and then divide it by the cost of your investment. If you made $1,000, and invested $100, your formula would be ($1000-$100)/$100 or 9. That means you’re making 9x what you invest, making it one heck of a ROI.
Where You Can Use Remarketing
There are a lot of remarketing companies on the net today, but here are a few options to get you started.
Google: Of course you can create remarketing campaigns with the largest online advertiser. Create and manage your remarketing campaign through your Google AdWords account.
Facebook: Once you install a conversion pixel on your website (that’s another small piece of code like the one you need for remarketing in general), you can create ads based on audiences of people who’ve already visited your website in the past.
AdRoll: This is a great option because it allows you to work with multiple advertising platforms at once, including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo. With it, you can reach almost everyone on the Internet.
Perfect Audience: This is a great option for small businesses because it’s incredibly simple. You don’t need a large budget to get started, and the platform works with a number of popular eCommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, and WordPress.
Remarketing Tips and Tricks
If you’ve decided it’s time to work remarketing into your strategy, I’ll leave you with some tips and tricks to improve your results. First, always include a strong call to action. Keep your ads consistent with your brand standards and identity – use the same colors and logo you would elsewhere. Use an ad that works well across multiple ad sizes, to maintain a consistent message while maximizing your placement options. It’s important to consider that not all sites will support all ad formats. Plus, use multiple ad formats. If you decide to make your main ad animated, you should also include an image and text version in the ad group, so you still get visibility on sites that don’t show animated or image ads. And, of course, split test your ads, and adjust according to the results.
Color plays an important role in marketing. Discover the power of effective color theory and web design for your digital marketing.
Color is an important aspect of web design, because it can make or break even the most well laid out websites. Color has the power to evoke emotion, which has a tremendous influence on how people view brands, and how they feel while using a website. Plus, you can use color to dictate where you want someone’s attention to go, which helps with conversions.
What is Color Theory?
Color theory is the study of color. Before I get too deep into theory and how to choose the right schemes for your website and other branded materials, let’s get some vocabulary out the way, shall we?
Primary Colors
We learned what primary colors were in elementary school, but in case you need a refresher; primary colors are the three colors that form the basis for all other colors and shades. They are: red, blue, and yellow, but you may also hear them referred to as magenta, cyan, and yellow.
RGB and hex
Online, we use an RGB (red, green, blue) color scale and hex values to represent colors. It’s based on three different values: a shade of red, a shade of green, and a shade of blue.
rgb(0, 0, 0) equals black
rgb(255, 255, 255) equals white
With the hex system, each value is converted to a hexadecimal representation, so it becomes:
#000000 equals black
#FFFFFF equals white
Each color has two characters.
Complementation
This refers to how we see colors in terms of their relationship with other colors. Relationships between colors play a large role in how visually appealing a design is. I’ll talk more about complementation in the types of color schemes you can use a little later.
Contrast
This refers to how we use colors to reduce eye strain, and draw focus to certain elements on a page. Contrast is the part of color theory that has the largest impact on website usability. It describes the level of clarity between two objects on page, generally speaking the color of the text against the color of the background. Low contrast can easily look beautiful, but it’s harder to read, especially for those who have vision issues, or are using a mobile device on a bright sunny, day.
No matter how pretty it may look, never use a color scheme that sacrifices usability. The safest options are to use a dark color on a light background, or a light color on a dark background. When considering contrast, remember that 4.5% of the world suffers from some kind of color blindness, meaning choosing the wrong colors could make your website virtually unreadable for them.
Vibrancy
This refers to how we use color to influence user’s emotions, or to attract a specific target market. I’ll go more in depth about the psychology of colors in the next section of this post.
Temperature
Colors are often classified as hot or cold, warm, or cool. Warm colors are those with more reds and yellows. Cool colors are those with higher amounts of blue. If you increase the temperature of a color, you’re increasing its levels of orange – typically making the color look happier and warmer. If you reduce the temperature, you’re reducing the amount of orange in a color.
Tints and Shades
Tints come from adding white to a color, and shades come from adding black to a color. Using tints and shades allows you to create a monochrome color scheme by adding various levels of white and black to a single base color.
Hue
Hue is used to describe the degree to which a color can be described as similar to or different from any of the colors in the rainbow. So if you describe a color as bluish green, you’re defining it as it relates to two hues.
Saturation
Saturation is a term used to describe the intensity of a color. Increasing the saturation makes the color darker and richer, where decreasing the saturation makes it fade and get lighter.
Lightness
Lightness is also referred to as tone or value. It defines the perceived brightness of a color compared to white.
The Psychology of Colors
Warm Colors
Red: This is a hot color, known for it’s ability to stimulate appetite. It is associated with love, power, and passion, but also associated with danger and anger. Beyond the Western world, it represents prosperity and happiness. It is the color for brides in many eastern cultures, and is associated with communism.
Orange: This color is less overwhelming than red, and is associated with joy, happiness, and friendliness. Because you see it during the changing of seasons, it can be used to signify movement.
Yellow: This color is the brightest, and often the most energizing. It is a positive color, associated with joy, sunshine, intelligence, and happiness. But, for Egyptians, it’s the color of mourning.
Cool Colors
Green: This color bridges the gap between the warm and cool colors. It’s strongly associated with nature and healing, so it’s a highly positive color. It’s also associated with money, growth, prosperity, harmony, and the environment.
Blue: This color is associated with dependability, stability, trust, and expertise. It’s a calming color, though the hue creates variations within its meaning. Darker tones are often used for corporate websites, where lighter tones are used for friendly and open sites like social media – think Twitter.
Purple: This color is considered the color of royalty. Darker shades are associated with wealth, luxury, and sophistication, while lighter shades are associated with romance and spring. It has different meanings depending on where you are in the world, and is often associated with creativity, imagination, and spirituality. In Thailand, for instance, it is the color of mourning for widows.
Neutral Colors
Neutral colors are generally used for backgrounds and are accented with brighter colors to provide impact on the page. But, it’s worth noting they do have their own associations.
Black: This color is associated with wealth, power, elegance, sophistication, and death.
White: This color is associated with innocence, purity, freshness, and cleanliness.
Grey: This color is associated with calmness, somberness, tradition, and conservatism.
Brown: This color is associated with earthiness, reliability, and dependability.
Choosing Your Starting Colors
When you consider that the human eyes are capable of seeing 10 million colors, the idea of choosing just one or two becomes incredibly overwhelming, doesn’t it? But thankfully, there are a few things that can make the job a bit easier.
Is there an existing logo? If so, that’s going to give you all the color information you need. This is, unless of course, the logo needs to be made too, as part of a rebrand.
What colors is your competition using? Regardless of what they are, you want to eliminate them if at all possible.
What colors do you think would resonate with your target audience? The colors for a gardening club will no doubt be much different from the colors of a funeral home. Think of who’s using the website, and the emotions you want to evoke.
Avoiding stereotypes: If you’re designing a website for young boys, it’s easy to think of going with an all blue scheme. Nothing says that’s off limits, of course, but remember you don’t have to. Avoiding clichés can help improve your credibility.
Use word associations: If you’re still struggling to come up with colors, write down words that you associate with the business. Then, use that lis of words to come up with colors. You’ll probably have an idea of what you could start with from there – based on what you know colors mean.
Creating a Harmonious Color Scheme
Monochrome
A monochrome color scheme uses a variety of tints, shades, and saturations of a single base color. It creates cohesiveness, but risks becoming monotonous.
Complementary
Complementary color schemes are based on two colors located on opposite sides of the color wheel. The two hues are wildly different, creating noticeable schemes with impact. No matter what your main color is, it’s a good idea to choose a complementary color for your call to action buttons, to ensure they stand out. For instance, if your main color is blue, use orange for CTAs.
Analogous
Analogous color schemes feature three colors that are next to each other on the color wheel. These will always have similarities in tone to create a cohesive scheme without risking the monotony of a monochrome scheme.
Triadic
Triadic color schemes are basic and balanced. Using the 12-step color wheel, you can select any three colors located 120 degrees from the others. Use one color for the background, and the other two for content and navigation. Triadic color schemes are diverse, but because all the colors are equidistant from each other, you have a balanced scheme.
Compound (Split Complementary)
This one is a bit tricky, but can wow your audience if it’s done well. With this approach, you choose two pairs of contrasting colors, and two pairs of complementary colors.
Tools and Resources to Help You
ColourCode Color Palette Generator: This tool features preset modes for a variety of color schemes. You can export them in a variety of formats to share with clients or import into graphic design programs, or permalink to them.
Adobe Color CC: This tool is similar to ColourCode, but has additional features. There’s a social layer so you can see color schemes others have generated. And, there’s the ability to exact a color scheme from an image.
ColourLovers: If you need inspiration for color schemes, this is the community to participate in.
Color Theory Matters
Think about why restaurants use red. It’s a stimulating color and has been shown to increase your appetite. Getting your colors right is imperative to connecting with your audience and getting them to act the way you want them to. The good news for you though is, you can use split testing to help you choose between color schemes – and stick with the one you know your audience responds better to.
Do you have any other tips and tricks to add on color in web design?
The sales funnel is a necessary part of any business venture – online or off. You have to know the path you’re going to take customers on from start to finish, so you can build the steps and process to get them there; and so you can know where any customer or lead is at any given point. What makes the process difficult for many is that even though the stages are typically the same, the funnel that works for one business, doesn’t necessarily work for another – even in the same niche.
So, if the idea of designing your sales funnel is overwhelming you, or if you feel like your current funnel just isn’t working the way it should, try this simple approach: build from the bottom up. Of course you’re not going to have customers at the bottom of the funnel before you even have a funnel to put them in, but you at least know what the end goal is, and you can work backward until you get to the top where you’re bringing them in.
Step One: What’s Your End Goal?
What are you hoping to achieve with your marketing? The obvious answer is to sell things or to make money, but to build your funnel effectively, you must get specific. If your target is too broad, it becomes harder to hit – no matter what conventional wisdom and physics may tell you.
Your funnel goal will look different from mine, because it depends on how you operate your business.
You may run a service-based business that depends on drawing in long term clients who will use your most profitable services more often – such as a cleaning business. You want those return weekly contracts, because they make more money in the end compared to a one-off deep-clean or move-out clean.
Or you may run an ecommerce establishment where you sell a variety of products, so it’s harder to find the focus for your first funnel – especially when your business covers a lot of territory. But, if you’ve ever caught yourself thinking about how if you could sell more of these you’d be set, then you know which product(s) you need to market more effectively – and that can be the start of your funnel.
You’re never limited to a single funnel – it’s ideal to have one for each campaign, instead of one “general” funnel you use for everything. It’s also possible to have a separate funnel for social media, even though you’ll use it across various parts of your sales funnel, but that’s another blog post for another. When I get around to writing that one, I’ll come back here and link it up so you can give it a read.
All right, so at this point, let’s say you have your funnel’s goal decided. Now to make it something you can measure. How many new clients do you need to land? How many big-ticket items must you sell every month to either make a profit, or achieve your desired growth rate?
Write it down. Hold onto it, because it’ll help you make decisions as you build the rest of your funnel, and help you keep track of your success.
Step Two: What’s the Last Thing Leads See Before Converting?
Take a step back and think about what it is leads see before they become a customer? Clearly, in the case of the ecommerce business, the last stage is the checkout page. But, what if you’re running that cleaning service? Isn’t the sale made after the consultation where you give the quote? In this case, that consultation is the final step.
In any funnel, the answer is: leads see something that makes them want to buy. Here’s where your funnel can either remain fairly simple, or it can get complex, so spend time thinking about what they see, and what they need to see to motivate them to become a customer. In the case of booking that consultation – you’ll need to give them a lot of stuff that convinces them you’re the one to do business with… and that’s where we back up to the middle of the funnel.
Step Three: The Middle
Let’s continue with the cleaning business example. Your goal is to book more regular clients, right? So what do prospects need to see?
Testimonials from previous customers – to show you do your job well, and to instill confidence in your leads you can do the same for them.
Proof of professional association memberships – to show credibility and experience… to ultimately build trust. Your business isn’t just a one-person show with cleaning supplies and a car.
Information about the services you offer – don’t make them waste time calling you to find out more if you can’t do what they’re looking for.
Any press coverage/awards your business has received –to provide more credibility
Information on any cleaning products you use – A lot of people are looking for “green” cleaning solutions that won’t harm children, pets, or those with allergies or asthma.
Before and After Photos – always get these with consent of the client, of course, but they can be a great accompaniment to testimonials.
And for good measure, let’s say your goal is to sell your eBook. If you already have a big following, that could be as simple as sending the link to your webpage about your book to the people on your email list. They’ll click the link, check out the webpage, and buy the book.
But if you’re still working on building that following, you’re going to need to give them a bit more to show them what you’re offering, why you’re offering it, and most importantly, why they need it.
One of the best ways to do this is to offer them a chapter of your eBook for free – showing them exactly what you have to offer, and giving them a taste of what they can expect to get from your book. If they like what they read, they’ll be more inclined to buy the full book from you.
So, instead of focusing solely on the product page for your eBook, create a landing page that lets people join your email list in exchange for a free chapter. But, you can go further back, to give them a bit more engagement, and write a blog post about your book (or several, if you’d like.) Write a post about the book release, and write another about the process that went into writing the book, or the reasons that motivated you to write it. Then link the posts to your landing page where people can get the free chapter.
Now of course these aren’t your only options for engaging people. You’ll want to have an email, or a series of emails you can send to someone after they opt in to let them know how to buy the full book. The number and frequency of emails will vary depending on the amount of engagement your audience will need.
As you step back further and further from that end goal, your audience gets broader, because we all know nothing you do will have a 100% success rate. Even though that audience gets bigger, it’s that focus on the action you want them to take that keeps everything narrow and targeted.
Step Four: The Top of the Funnel
That brings us to the top of the funnel – attracting prospects to your business in the first place, so you’ll have people to bring into the funnel and move through it. Here’s where you’ll answer the big questions:
Who are the people reading your blog posts?
Who are the people looking at your landing pages and requesting consultations or free quotes for your home cleaning services?
Who are the people who are going all the way through the process and actually buying your eBook or the tangible products you sell?
These are the people coming from your traffic sources:
You pick and choose which traffic sources you want to master, because there’s always room to learn more and fine-tune your approach. The most important thing isn’t where the traffic comes from, but where the traffic ends up, which why we start at the bottom and build up, rather than top-down.
Finishing Up: Filling in the Details
Once you’ve nailed your end goal and all other major parts of your funnel, comes the task of filling in the details. Factor in all your traffic sources, email drip campaigns, and any other elements that are necessary to get people from one stage of the funnel to the next, from start to finish, logically and efficiently.
Does your sales funnel seem as complex when you look at it from the bottom up? Give me your answer in the comments below.
Breaking news happens all the time – just not always in your industry. But, when it happens in your industry, you don’t have to be the first to break it to get benefit from it. Anything that happens in an industry remotely related to your business can be used to your advantage – either through a blog post, crafting a lead generation offer, or launching a social media campaign. That’s newsjacking in a nutshell. And though it sounds like a negative term – it’s completely legal, and lots of inbound marketers do it. You can, too. I’ll show you how.
Newsjacking 101
Newsjacking capitalizes on the popularity of a news story to allow you to amplify your marketing. Of course, not every breaking story will be appropriate, and not every breaking story will remain popular for the same amount of time. Sometimes, a story is only popular for a few hours, but others could remain popular for weeks. The earlier you can start riding that wave, the better for your business.
Timing is Everything
Think back to the 2013 Superbowl, where the power went out right in the middle of Beyonce’s Halftime performance. Oreo jumped on it right away and sent out this tweet.
That’s a classic example of newsjacking done right. Sure, the hype didn’t last long, but Oreo wasn’t the only brand to make use of it.
It’s not something they could have possibly planned for it, but these brands acted quickly enough to at least inject some humor into the brand.
The key is to get in early enough in the cycle to where you can have news out as the excitement is still building, so you’re getting a lot of traffic when the story peaks.
Step-By-Step Newsjacking Process
Setup Google Alerts: Setup Google Alerts “as they happen” for anything that’s relevant to your industry. You can set them to monitor major news sources for anything related to your keywords is newsworthy. You can also: use Google Trends to keep an eye on current trending stories, follow bloggers and journalists who are covering stories in your industry, and watch trending hashtags on Twitter.
Check Keyword Search Volume: At this point, you’ve found a story you want to newsjack, but you’ll have to make sure it is worth the time and effort to create new content around it. Research the search volume for variations of the keyword phrase you’re trying to target. Yes of course Google will reward you for being the first one to write about something, but if you can get an extra boost from using a keyword with a higher search volume, while not go for that, too? The keyword volume can help you tremendously when you’re optimizing your content, and it takes only a few seconds to get.
Read What’s Already Out There: Take time to locate the original source of the story, and look into what others have written. You want to make sure you’ve got as much of the story as accurate as possible before you start putting out your own story. You need to make sure your content is well-informed, since spreading false information could backfire on your brand’s image.
Write Fast: You want to do what you can to beat others – namely your competition – to the punch. This means writing quickly. If you can’t do it yourself, reach out to someone else in the company, or consider looking for freelancers who can take assignments on a super-fast turnaround time.
Add Your Own Spin to It: Don’t just regurgitate the same thing all the other sources are reporting. Take the time to add your own spin to it. Use the super bowl power outage example above to see how three different brands were able to use the same event to create something specific to their brand.
Spread the Word: Writing the content alone isn’t going to be enough to get you the kind of traction you want and need from newsjacking, so once you publish your content, start promoting the heck out of it. Promote it on social media, reach out to colleagues and ask them to share it, and if and when appropriate, share it to other websites like Growth Hackers, Biz Sugar, and Inbound. Contact journalists and bloggers who may be interested. Hold a virtual press conference on Facebook or Periscope.
Benefits of Newsjacking
If you can move past the analysis paralysis that plagues most businesses from not taking any action at all, newsjacking has a number of benefits.
SEO Benefits: When you’re one of the first to write about something, you’ll get a boost from Google, but you’ll also be getting a lot of traffic since you’re one of the only sources out there on a topic. This is why going after those high volume keywords can help you. If you’re optimized for something that doesn’t get searched, when you could have optimized for something that gets thousands of searches, you’ve definitely lost your opportunity.
Improve Brand Reputation: This only applies if you’ve exercised good judgment, which I’ll get to in a minute. But, let’s assume you have, like with the examples I showed you from the super bowl above. All of those no doubt made customers laugh, which helps them see a more human side of your brand. Humanizing your brand helps build those connections and strengthen relationships, which is an essential factor of building customer loyalty.
Drives Highly Targeted Traffic: Newsjacking something relevant to your industry means it’s also relevant to your customers. They’re going to be looking for more information on the topic, and if you’ve jumped in at the right time and optimized your content correctly, you’ll rank in no time – where you’ll likely stay at or toward the top until the wave is over. As such, you should see a burst of targeted traffic, which can turn prospects into leads, and those leads into paying customers.
Low Cost: Because you have to act so quickly, there’s not a lot of time to invest massive resources into newsjacking. You’ll have to pay for content creation if you’re not willing to do it yourself, of course, or for the hours an employee is working on getting the content ready and promoted – and you may decide to pay for some social promotion, but overall, especially when compared to other options, it’s definitely a low cost solution.
It’s worth noting that you can kind of get ahead of the game on some things – such as Oreo’s approach to when Princess Kate gave birth. You don’t know exactly when it’s going to happen, but you can get the graphics and text ready to go, so it’s ready to launch as soon as you get the news it does.
This also works for elections and sporting events, since you know there is only one winner – you can create content as though each team/candidate one, and release only the one that is accurate as soon as the news hits.
Exercising Good Judgment
Think about the implications of newsjacking the story ebfore you do it. Consider how people who see it will think of the content. If you believe most of them will find it funny, then you should go for it. If it is offensive, or may not make sense, then maybe it’s better to wait for another story.
If you have trouble being critical of your own work – that’s okay, a lot of us do. Just ask someone else for an opinion before anything goes out.
When determining whether or not you should newsjack a story, break it down into one of two categories: educational intent, and publicity and entertainment. But, jumping on bandwagon too quickly without doing it the right way can backfire.
Sears comes off as somewhat callous in this tweet, advertising themselves as a place to get supplies when Hurricane Sandy came through. It’s not too bad though, since it’s actually serving as a way to educate people who were affected by the disaster.
On the other side of the spectrum, we see Urban Outfitters trying, yet failing, to be funny. The storm has no relevance to their brand, so trying to piggyback on it just makes little to no sense. This is the kind of thing that backfires on brand, though obviously, they were able to recover.
And though it should go without saying, don’t use tragedies where people died to promote your company, even if you are spreading a positive message. It’s just in poor taste, and will no doubt upset some people… regardless of what you were trying to do.
Newsjacking Isn’t for the Faint of Heart
Getting results from newsjacking requires being in the right place at the right time, with the right message. Since you can’t newsjack every story, it may take a few tries before you can get it right. And that’s okay. It’s certainly not a long term tactic as each news story will have a limited amount of time in the limelight before it goes away… but as long as you’ve got the story, your angle, and your timing down – and you’ve used good judgment, then you’re okay.
What do you think when brands newsjack? Is this something you’ll be willing to try with your audience the next time something relevant happens? I think Oreo is brilliant for capitalizing on things the way they have, but know you can’t ride those waves forever.
When it comes to pay per click (PPC) advertising, the first thing most marketers think of is Google AdWords. And that’s okay, because it works. And it works well, if you know how to optimize the campaign to get the best possible result. (See my post about keyword tiering if you’re looking for a new strategy.) It works because Google holds the largest portion of the search engine market, but it’s important to remember it’s not the only option.
Start Working with Bing
Using AdWords is a wonderful way to drive traffic (and hopefully sales) to your ecommerce business, but if you’re not dedicating a portion of your budget to Bing, you’re missing out. That’s where most of the search volume that doesn’t go to Google goes –so if you can’t catch your audience on Google, go to Bing to find them. This is especially helpful if you find your AdWords ROI diminishing.
If you’re already running campaigns on AdWords, Bing has an import option, so you don’t have to spend a lot of time recreating campaigns. And, as an added bonus, many keywords have lower bids on the Bing/Yahoo network than they do in AdWords.
Look Into Other Ad Networks
Yahoo Gemini: This lesser used option allows a range of ad types to target users across devices and platforms. It’s based on user intent, which makes it great to generate revenue, increase brand awareness, and promote your apps.
AdRoll: This is a popular retargeted programs. It supports Google’s display network, in adition to its own ad network. Though AdRoll’s prices are a bit high, the conversion rates typically are, too. Beyond retargeting, AdRoll now offers programmatic display, email retargeting, and “AdRoll Onsite” to provide personalized popups, which help push people through your funnel.
Advertising.com/AdSonar: If you want to run ads on premium websites like AOL.com’s network (think Huffington Post and the like), CNN Money, Slate, and CNN Money, this is where you need to be running campaigns.
AdBlade: This is another premium network to help you reach over 300 million users. One major draw back is that it uses a cost per thousand viewable impression (CPM) bidding model, rather than a cost per click (CPC) model. With this approach, you’re paying each time the ad is served, regardless of whether someone actually sees it or clicks it. That means you may or may not have a chance to earn your investment back – and it can yield a much lower ROI than CPC campaigns where you only pay for the ad when someone clicks it. Though it claims to be premium advertiser, the site doesn’t publicly list where your ads are served. You do not have the option to choose which sites your ads are displayed on – the system will do it for you based on where it believes your ads will perform the best.
Amazon: Ideal for ecommerce merchants who use Amazon, advertising here gives you the chance to feature your product in sponsored shopping ads, which send users directly to your products on Amazon. There’s also premium services to help you drive traffic off Amazon, but I always recommend people start with the Amazon Seller platform to create keyword campaigns to drive people to your products on Amazon.com. Once you have some traction there, you can upgrade to the premium services.
Infolinks: This is another user intent and real-time engagement ad platform. Since they are focused on that real-time engagement factor now, users are shown relevant ads based on what and where they are searching. Advertisers can choose from six types of ads:
inarticle – “User-initiated expanding ad”
infold – “Search and display, above the fold”
inscreen – User intent focused using interstitial ads
inframe – “Display ads with an edge”
intext – Native ads presented in a page’s text
intag – Display valuable keywords based on the page content
Go Social
Social advertising is done on a PPC basis, and expands your reach beyond showing up in search engines, while still ensuring your ads show on highly trafficked websites. In many cases, you can use actual content from your social channels, such as status updates, as part of your advertising, which allows you to blue the lights between advertising and social media content. Think about how many suggested posts you’ve seen on Facebook that look just like they are a status update from one of your friends. How many of those have you clicked?
Facebook: Advertising here isn’t just about getting more likes on your page. Yes, you can use it for that, but you can also use it to drive traffic to your website, or to remarket to people who’ve been to your website, but haven’t made a purchase. There are a variety of ad types, including video, mobile, and shopping ads.
Twitter: Like with Facebook, advertising on Twitter can be used for more than getting new followers. You can use it to drive traffic to your website, increase brand awareness, get people talking about your business, and amplify your reach with quick promote. You can target based on a number of demographics, including: location, language, gender, interest, device, behavior, keywords, and even followers of certain accounts.
LinkedIn: Advertising here is ideal for those in the B2B sector. There are plenty of targeting options, including job titles, and business type or job type. You can choose to display ads in the feed so you’re more focused on content, or you can choose to display text-based ads in the upper right hand side of the screen.
Pinterest Buyable Pins: This is another good option for ecommerce businesses. Pinterest says 87% of pinners have made a purchase because of something they’ve seen on the platform. It’s easy to think that people wouldn’t use the network to actually shop, but the opposite seems to be the case. Using the buyable pin format makes the pin blue, and includes the price tag. You’re still in control of the shipping and such, but shoppers can buy on the web and from their mobile devices with ease. And if you want to advertise those products, you then promote those pins. The ads are naturally included in the platform so they look and feel like the rest of the content experience. All you have to do to get started is pin the content to your own profile, and then you can promote it in a few clicks.
Instagram: Like you can run ads on YouTube with the Google AdWords platform, you can run ads on Instagram from within the Facebook power editor. You can run photo or video ads, or carousel ads where users can swipe to see additional photos or videos within a single ad. It’s also possible to run ads within Instagram Stories. You can use these ads to drive awareness of your products, services, apps, or business. You can also use them to drive traffic to your website where they can learn more about you, or use them increase sales, visits to your ecommerce store, or app downloads.
Worth it? Yes!
It is definitely worth experimenting with PPC campaigns outside of Google AdWords. If you don’t have much of a budget and can’t afford to run things on more than one network at a time, create a plan that allows you to adequately test each network. Run several variations of ads on each network so you can use the analytics data to determine if it was the ad content or the network itself that made a difference in your overall results.
It’s important to remember that while it’s worth it to deviate from Google AdWords, not all ad networks are created equally. If you find the ROI is consistently low, stop spending money with that network, and pour that portion of your ad budget into a network that is bringing you great results.
What networks besides Google AdWords do you use? Tell me in the comments below.
Every piece of content you write is aimed at getting readers… but having people read your content isn’t enough to sustain your business. To get that content earning revenue means your content must entice readers to take action. You no doubt know how important the call to action (CTA) is, but not all CTAs are created equally.
You could have the same content on your website with two different CTAs, and one could easily outperform the other. That’s where split testing comes in handy to help you see what your audience is responding to better.
So what is the difference between a mediocre CTA and a stellar one? It all comes down to psychology. If you’re struggling with conversions, this is for you.
First – A Definition
What exactly is a CTA? Simply put, it’s something designed to inspire or motivate your readers to take action. You can use a variety of formats – text (like what you see at the bottom of each of my blog posts where I ask you to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments), images, or buttons.
You can use a CTA to illicit nearly any action from your audience you want – from getting blog post comments to subscribing to a newsletter, to downloading software or a content extra, or making a purchase. Depending on the nature of your business, you’ll likely have several types of CTAs, applicable to each stage of the funnel.
Your CTA to action placement could vary as well –at the the top of the page, in the middle of content, or at the bottom of the page. The best place will depend on what you’re trying to get the user to do, and the medium you’re using for the CTA.
At its most basic – a CTA is anything that makes your visitors do something.
We Expect CTAs
The perceptual set theory is why the mind expects the CTA as part of the logical progression of a landing page. This theory serves as the explanation as to how we perceive things. We use a combination of selection, inference, and interpretation to shape our expectations and motivations.
Selection is the process of paying attention only to what matters to us in the moment. In other words, when we’re looking at a landing page, we’re not focusing on the music that we’re listening to, or the temperature of the room. Though we can still hear our music in the background, and we can tell how hot/cold it is, we’re more focused on the visual stimuli on the screen.
Inference is using our collection of past stored experiences that get triggered when we go through something similar. So as we look at a landing page, we think of others we’ve seen in the past, and how we’ve acted on those page.
Interpretation is the way the mind combines that selective information with our memories of past experiences. Typically, we fit the present experience into a previous schema.
Those three things are basically how we expect things. Our expectations affect our behavior, and that’s why we know how to act on a CTA.
Natural Curiosity
Humans are naturally curious – it’s how we learn and grow. We want to know more about what’s going to happen after the CTA. We’re also wired to want instant gratification… and after we get that CTA, we’re promised satisfaction. We’re curious, of course, but what we’re really after is the satisfactionafter the fact.
It’s not just that satisfaction, however – it’s the arousal, too. We are curious when we can almost see, hear, or interpret something, but can’t. We are driven to do whatever we have to do to get to what we want to know. It’s the same reason why toddlers will stack toys to climb up to reach the door – they want to know what’s on the other side so badly!
You can use curiosity to get people to join your email list or download something. Simply give a teaser of the bonus they’ll get for joining, or content they’ll find inside the download. For example:
“In these pages, find out how you can…”
Use phrases like “secrets” “ultimate guide” and “tips and tricks.”
People want to know what these things are and will take steps to find out. All you have to do is explain a portion of what the user will get after the CTA and use copy that promises (and delivers, of course) some kind of discovery.
Anticipation
As humans, we’re constantly anticipating things – our alarms going off in the morning, the toast popping out of the toaster in the morning, getting stuck in traffic during rush hour and so on. Anticipation occurs deep within the brain – in one of the most primitive areas – the cerebellum. We are wired to anticipate positive experiences, as they are involuntary stored in our brain over the negative ones.
To create anticipation in your marketing, tell a story that’s relevant to what the user wants or needs to know about your product or service. Tell the story of how you came to develop it, or why you think they need it. The CTA is basically the climax of the story – where the landing page builds the anticipation and the CTA gives us the climax we’re anticipating.
In your story, you want to describe what’s going to happen after the user follows through with the action as positively and favorably as you can. We prefer to anticipate positively, so make every effort to put them in a positive state of mind first.
Sense of Reward
We choose many of our actions based on what we believe the reward will be. CTAs reinforce this kind of behavior. If we sign up for this email list, we’ll get this thing we really want or need for free. Each time we get a reward like that, the idea is reinforced… almost to the point where it becomes habit.
If you want to capitalize on this, promise a reward It helps strengthen the desire to receive the reward, which in turn, creates higher click through rates.
Balance
No matter what you’re selling and no matter how ready your audience is to buy it, there’s got to be a balance in your sales approach. If you’re too pushy, you’ll turn people away. If you’re too soft, your CTA may not be powerful enough to promote action.
Create FOMO
Fear of Missing Out will always be a powerful motivator to act. It relies on the fact that people are afraid of missing out on what others are getting. If you want people to act immediately, this can make all the difference.
Use words and phrases such as:
Limited quantity available – buy now!
Limited time offer (use a countdown clock)
Order today!
Download now
Risk Aversion
Humans are naturally wired to avoid risk. As such, when something seems too good to be true, we tend to exercise caution. And even if the offer seems completely reasonable, we may still be hesitant to take action.
Remove the perceived risk for your customers by eliminating as many potential objections as possible. Options include:
Offering a free trial – bonus points if you can do it without requiring credit card information
Offering a free-forever limited version of your product
Offering a money-back guarantee.
Ultimately, you want your visitors to think, “There’s no harm in giving this a try!”
Color Psychology
Color plays more of a role than most people realize when it comes to getting people to click your button. It can determine who clicks, how much they click, and how fast they click. Women tend to prefer colors like green, blue, and purple, while men tend to prefer green, black, and blue. Blue can be used to build trust, but yellow signifies warning.
These, along with other details about color should be considered when you’re designing your CTA buttons, to ensure the right audience is drawn to click. It’s of course important to choose the right color, but to also make sure the entire page or interface is also aesthetically pleasing. Make sure you balance the color so it doesn’t clash with the background, and isn’t lost within it. If you want to learn more about color psychology and how it affects your customer experience, I’ll be writing a post on that within the next month or so. When it goes live, I’ll come back and edit this post with a link.
Split Test Until You Get It Right
The beauty of the CTA is that you can use split-testing over and over again until you get it right. You can test two (or more) versions of the text, the button color, size, shape, placement, and more. Just be sure to test one change at a time so you can really know which one made the impact with your audience.
Here’s a CTA for ya – what’s your experience with them? Have you ever given any real thought to the psychology behind them when you’re creating content for your venture? Share your experiences below in the comments!
YouTube is no doubt one of the largest search engines – just right behind Google, which makes sense because Google owns it. With more than a billion users on the platform, there’s a wealth of marketing opportunity out there. And, since it blends seamlessly with Google AdWords, it’s easy to manage from within the platform. You’ll have one less thing to login and out of, saving you time.
But, I’ll be the first to tell you, just because it’s integrated with AdWords doesn’t mean you should run your YouTube ads the same way…. Which is why I’ve written this guide to help you.
Why YouTube?
Not sure you should be advertising on YouTube? Were you considering advertising on TV? If you planned to include TV in your plan, YouTube could offer a better ROI because it reaches more people between the ages of 18-49 than all cable networks, combined. Reach more people for less money? It’s really a no-brainer.
That said, the competition is a bit stiff. There’s more than a million advertisers on YouTube – with the majority of them being small businesses. That means you really have to maximize your efforts to stay ahead of your competition.
When you consider the average human attention span is a mere eight seconds – even goldfish can pay attention longer than we can now – you’ve definitely got your work cut out for you. That’s why video is so powerful. You can catch attention within the first few seconds and keep them engaged. Sure, you can do it with text too, but it’s a bit harder. I’m taking a chance on the fact that you’ve even read this far – most of you won’t make it past the first paragraph!
Since your ad will run in those five crucial seconds before the viewer has the chance to click the “Skip ad” before getting to the video they intended to watch in the first place, it’s critical you make the most of these micro-moments.
YouTube Ad Formats
Knowing the ins and outs of each ad type ensures you’re using the right ad for the right purpose. There are five ad types you can choose from.
In-stream: These ads display on desktop, mobile devices, game consoles, and on TV. They can be made either non-skippable, or skippable after five seconds. Your ad plays before the video, and on desktops, come with a 300×60 pixel display ad. Skippable ads are free until they play for 30 seconds, played in full, or engaged. They are used to generate impressions, or launch a specific landing page. You can target by age, gender, and parental status demographics, by interest, keywords, or remarketing. Non-skippable ads must be watched before the viewer can continue, and are either 15 or 30 seconds in length. They only work on desktop and mobile devices, and aren’t available on all accounts. You must pay for every impression, and you run the risk of irritating the user.
In-display: These ads are available on desktop and mobile devices. They are displayed on the right above the suggested videos, and are available in 300×250 pixels or 300×60 pixels sizes, but a companion banner isn’t guaranteed. These are native ads and keep viewers on YouTube, so you can’t direct to a landing page making your call to action even more important. As such, you can use this format to build subscribers and increase views. You must direct ads to a channel or a specific video. Targeting is the same as other ads.
In-search: These ads are only displayed on desktop, and appear above organic search results. This native advertisement keeps viewers on YouTube, so they cannot be used to drive traffic to a landing page. Like the in-display ads, you must have a good call to action, and use this format to increase views and subscriber counts. Targeting options are the same.
Overlay: These are semi-transparent ads on the lower 20% of the video that only display on desktops. They can be either text or flash based, and are 480×70 pixels. They display over the video for 10 seconds or less. Though part of the Google Display Network (GDN), they can be set to only run on YouTube. You can target the same way you do with other ads.
Re-marketing ads: These are only displayed to eligible audience members. This means the ads will be shown to people who have interacted with or viewed your video, subscribed or unsubscribed from your channel, watched your in-stream ads, or visited your channel. You can only create a list from a single channel or videos from a single channels. The maximum membership duration is 540 days. You have the option to include users from the last 30 days, and you are eligible to run the ads when your list has at least 100 users. You can use your re-marketing list across AdWords for additional re-marketing purposes.
Making Sure Your Ads Don’t Suck
You’ve no doubt heard that it’s easier to break into video marketing than most would think. While it’s true you don’t need a professional videographer or a massive budget to do well with video, you do need more than money and a video camera to create a video that converts. To have a video that drives people to take action, you have to have a goal and an idea as to how you’re going to accomplish it.
Think about what you can do to capture your brands personality and tone. If you haven’t defined that yet, here’s a chance to make your mark. Think of what you value as a company and what you’re looking to accomplish. You can create a funny or inspirational video that helps build awareness of your brand. But more importantly, you need to create something your audience will find useful. Do something that’s more than just an ad. Tell a story. Do something that provides value. Create how-tos, product demo videos, or something that will keep the audience engaged more than a blatant ad.
Think about your video’s title. That’s how viewers will get their first impression, so you want to keep it clear, concise, relevant, and informative. It should be to the point, yet still explain what the video is about, while maintaining relevance to your brand. Don’t use clickbaity titles in hopes that people will click… and don’t stuff with keywords. Yes, you want those clicks, of course, but what matters more than the clicks is the engagement – that people are sticking around to watch, and clicking through to your website – or subscribing to your channel.
Pay attention to the ad specifications. When you create video, make sure it’s a good quality. Test it across multiple devices to make sure it appears consistently across devices. I’ve given you a bit of guidance on where each type of ad will display and the sizes you should be aiming for, but there’s more in Google’s guide to YouTube ad specs.
Getting Started
If you’ve already got an AdWords account and a YouTube account, you’re almost there. Once the video you’d like to use in your ad is either set to public or unlisted on you channel, you can go into AdWords and start the process to create the campaign. From the dashboard, click the “+Campaign” button, and then choose video from the dropdown.
Name your campaign. Choose the ad type you want, and then choose where you want your campaign to show. Depending on the type of ad you choose, you’ll be able to have it show anywhere within the GDN, so you’re not limited to just YouTube. Then, you’ll choose your campaign language, location, and device targeting, so you can reach people that best match your customer.
Then, you can set the start and end date of your campaign, or set up an ad schedule for when your ad will show under Ad delivery. When you’re finished, click “save and continue.”
From there, you’ll create your YouTube video ad group. If you’re only doing pre-roll ads for a single video, or only doing search ads for a single video, then you only need one ad group. If you’re doing anything else, you’ll need more than one ad group. If that’s the case, just repeat the steps for each ad group.
Name the ad group. It’s a good idea to use the placement in the Ad Group name, so you can keep track of what’s being shown where for analysis and ROI purposes.
Paste the ad’s URL from YouTube – the URL of the video you want to use as your ad.
Next, choose either in-display or in-stream.
Set your maximum cost per view (CPV) strategy. What’s the highest prices you’re willing to pay for someone to view your video? How much is a conversion on your ad’s landing page worth? If you multiply that dollar value by your conversion rate, that’s the maximum cost per click. So, to get your cost per view, take the cost per click and multiply it by your projected click through rate. Of course you may not know the variables, but these are important data points to look at when your ads start running.
To finish, finalize your demographics. Choose the age range, gender, and parental status. Choose the interests, markets, employment status, education status, and other variables. If you want to segment further, click “Narrow your targeting (optional)” in the dropdown. Here is where you’ll be able to segment based on keywords, topics, and remarketing.
Click “Save ad and ad group.”
Putting it All Together
Video marketing isn’t really something your business can afford to ignore in 2017. Yes, video can be intimidating, but it doesn’t have to be. Once you understand the types of video ads that are available and the various places you can display them, you can then develop the concept or big idea behind your ad campaign, create and upload the video, set your budget, and watch what happens. If you see things aren’t turning out the way you’d hoped, you can make adjustments to your strategy and try again with another video.
Have you ever advertised on YouTube before? What has your experience been? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Do you know how many websites your company is advertising on every month? Do you know how much you’re spending on those display ads? What if I told you that you could dramatically decrease the number of websites displaying your ads, without seeing a decrease in results?
That’s exactly what JP Morgan Chase has recently learned. Before March 2017, the banking giant had ads appearing on about 400,000 websites every month. Though the number may seem a little large to the average small business owner, it’s really the new normal for enterprise level companies because there’s a lot of focus on automation to reach customers.
But, as more brands are finding their ads displaying next to things they don’t want to be associated with – fake news websites, or offensive video content – they’re starting to limit the number of sites their display ads can run on. Chase removed their ads from all but around 5,000 of those websites. And though that may lead you to believe they’d see a change in the cost of impressions and ad visibility, the company’s chief marketing officer says that hasn’t really been the case so far. Granted, it’s a bit early in the process for them to really know the outcome, but they expect it to stay about the same.
Display Advertising and Your Online Reputation
Though a lot of consumers use ad blockers to completely remove ads from their online experience, you can’t count on that ad blindness meaning you’ve got nothing to worry about. There’s still the chance your company’s products or services will be advertised on a website that could negatively affect consumer perception.
In March, the British government, and several other organizations learned their advertising was placed next to extremist material. Digital advertising remains a cost effective way to engage millions of people in a variety of campaigns, from what products to buy to donating blood. They reached out to Google, because they believe the company is responsible for adhering to high standards – to make sure government advertising content isn’t placed alongside offensive or extremist content.
In fact, major brands AT&T and Johnson & Johnson, among other companies, pulled advertisements from YouTube recently, because of concern Google hasn’t done enough to prevent their ads from appearing next to offensive material.
Chase is now running ads only on a list of sites it has pre-approved, in an effort to eliminate the likelihood of their ads being displayed on websites that promote anything other than what aligns with their brand values. They will continue to run ads on YouTube, by restricting their advertising to run only on a list of 1,000 “human checked” channels.
Display ads can run on any number of sites using the advertising network. Your ad may or may not ever end up next to offensive content. Or, it could repeatedly end up next to it. One of the important things to consider is whether or not your audience is likely to even notice that sort of thing. And if they do, are they likely to be offended by it?
Google responded by saying they will be making changes to their policies for advertisers. They’ve decided they will give brands more control over where their ads appear, and taking a tougher approach toward any offensive, hateful, and derogatory content. They will be removing ads all together from any content that attacks or harasses people based on gender, race, religion, or similar categories. That change alone, ensures Google will be able to take appropriate action on larger sites and ad sets.
What Does This Mean for Publishers?
Every day, thousands of publishers join advertising networks as a way to earn revenue for their content. Publishers must be more careful about what they are willing to allow to be published on their website, or possibly risk losing the ads.
Does this mean publishers will need to censor themselves? No. It just means that Google’s ad network may no longer be the best choice. And it may mean that other display ad networks may follow along. If your website consistently produces the kind of content that advertisers are shying away from because of its nature, then it may be time to look into other revenue models and monetization methods.
Popular YouTube star PewDiePie lost a Disney sponsorship because of anti Semitic messaging in his videos. Disney didn’t want their brand to be associated with anti Semitism. Does this mean PewDiePie has to stop displaying anti Semitic imagery? Of course not – he is free to continue saying and doing what he wants – but he is not free of the consequences as a result of those words and actions. He is either forced to find new sponsors (advertisers) for revenue, or to change the type of content he creates.
Whether you’re a publisher of words or videos – the content you post online matters. If you want to earn revenue by working with brands in any capacity, that means you’ll have to find a brand who is interested in what you have to offer. If you’re known for being vulgar and offensive, that doesn’t mean you can’t get deals – it just means they’ll be a little different from the options you’d have if you weren’t known for that sort of thing.
What Does This Mean for Programmatic Advertising?
There are numerous ad exchanges online, and traditional media companies account for only a small percentage of the available daily ad impressions. Google’s display network includes more than two million websites. When you add in the fact that it also owns more than three million ad-supported YouTube channels, that’s a lot of advertising space.
Programmatic ad buying relies on software to buy digital advertising – meaning it’s a completely automated, hands-off process. This approach is thought to make the entire ad system more efficient and by removing the human touch, more affordable. Machines are doing the work, and because they don’t get sick or need sleep like us humans do, they can do more of it faster, and longer. The automated programmatic buying process isn’t the only way to purchase digital advertising, but t’s likely a big part of why we’re seeing so many mismatched ad placements at this point in time.
If more advertisers start to follow in Chase’s footsteps, creating their own list of approved properties, then it could create problems for many of the smaller advertising technology companies. It could mean we see a change in the way the technology works – adding back the human element where advertisers are allowed to pick and choose from a number of publishers where they are okay with their content displaying.
Worried About Display Advertising?
If you’re worried about display advertising and what it means for your online reputation, you could take an approach similar to what Chase is doing – which will be easier since you’re likely running on a much smaller scale. Basically what they did was look at the web addresses where their ads showed up over the last 30 days.
From there, the looked at the percentage of ads that lead to any activity beyond impressions. They had an intern manually click on each one of those websites to see the kind of content that was displayed, to make sure the content was something they were okay with advertising on. Chase found that out of the 12,000 websites that lead to activity beyond impressions only 5,000 of those were ones they wanted to advertise on.
Before you decide to take the axe to your display advertising, consider doing an audit similar to Chase’s. You may find you’re spending more money than necessary, advertising on way too many publishers for little action beyond impressions. Take a look at the ROI and determine if there’s a portion of your budget you could turn away from this type of advertising and shift it into another type, such as native advertising.
What’s the craziest juxtaposition of content and ad you’ve ever seen? Tell me about it in the comments below.
9 SEO Mistakes That Will Ruin Your Content Marketing Strategy: Common SEO mistakes detrimental to content marketing include neglecting keyword research, ignoring mobile optimization, and overlooking meta tags and descriptions. Duplicate content, slow website speed, and not optimizing for user experience harm rankings. Neglecting local SEO, backlink quality, and disregarding analytics insights can also significantly undermine content marketing efforts.
SEO is a necessary part of online marketing, since it’s what helps your customers find you when they search on Google or another search engine. It gets eyeballs on your content long after you’ve stopped promoting it – if that content ranks well, anyway. If you can’t get the content ranking well, it won’t work alongside your content marketing efforts to connect you to your readers. You’re only going to promote a piece of content for so long before you move onto other pieces as part of your overall strategy, so you need SEO to help keep the traffic rolling in after promotion stops.
As you write your content, make sure you’re not making any of these mistakes – and if you are – it’s okay – you can always go back and edit the content for improved optimization.
Mistake #1: Your Content is Too Short
Search engines want to provide a great experience for their users – because first and foremost, they are a business and any successful business aims to keep their customers happy. Part of this great experience lies in making sure people can easily find what they’re looking for. When search engines return search results, they’re keeping track of which results people click on and how long they stay on the page. If the content isn’t long enough to sufficiently answer the question or otherwise address the issue the user is looking for, then eventually, the search engine will change the ranking. Search engines assume that if a person clicks a result and then quickly goes back to the search results page that they did not find what they are looking for. If that happens too often for a result, the result will move, because it doesn’t appropriately match the query for some reason or another.
So, how long should your content be? Unfortunately, there’s no solid answer, but we know longer form content tends to do much better – because it does a better job of providing users with information they need; longer content can address issues more in-depth. But, there are of course times when short content is sufficient, so rather than focusing solely on a word count – focus on user intent and giving them the answer they need. If you’re trying to educate a reader, have you said all there is to say? Do whatever it takes to give your user a quality experience, whether you can do it in 1,000 words or 3,000.
Though it’s a bit dated (from 2012) SerpIQ did a study looking at the average content length of the top 10 results on a number of queries in Google. In positions one through three, the average content came in at around 2,400 words – putting longer content at the top of the results pages.
Here’s a trick that may help you in deciding how long your content should be:
Search the keyword phrase you’re planning on targeting with your content and see what comes up in the results. That’s your competition, so it makes sense to try to make your content better than theirs, right? Take a look at the top three results to see how long theirs are. But, beyond the word count itself, determine how well the content meets user intent. Then start writing your content.
Mistake #2: Lack of Outbound Links
Your readers want credible content. Sure, there are a few people out there that believe anything they hear or see on the internet – but your content should use outbound links to support your points. You can write anything you want, but that doesn’t make it true. If I were to tell you the sky is red, and you’ve known it to be blue all your life, wouldn’t you want to know where I got that information from?
Since the sky isn’t red, I’ll prove my point about sourcing with outbound links from credible websites with a link to show the sky is in fact blue. (Ha!) Search engines count on you linking to other credible sources in your content toward considering your source as a credible one… and when other sites link to you, it’s also a vote toward credibility.
Plus, if someone knows you’ve linked to their content in yours, they’re that much likely to share the content with their audience because of the mention – so there is more than one reason to share the link love. Just don’t go too crazy – only add links when they offer real value to the audience.
Mistake #3: Skipping Imagery (and Optimization)
It’s a good idea to include at least one image in your articles and blog posts because research shows articles with images once every 75 to 100 words receive twice the number of social media shares compared to articles with fewer images. Including just one image in your content can increase views by up to 94%. Images help break up the text and add visual interest, which is important for avoiding mistake #4. But before I move on…
Images can also be optimized for search engines with the ALT text attribute for usability. If your image shows up in image search results, users can go back to the source (your article!) so it pays to optimize them, too.
Mistake #4: Ignoring Formatting
As much as I’d like to believe you’re glued to this article, reading it word for word, I know for a fact you’re not. Even if you’re one of my best friends and have vowed to read everything I post on my blog, you’re still not reading… you’re scanning. (About 16% of people do read word-for-word, though.) That’s what most people on the internet do – and to get the best possible result, your content needs to be formatted accordingly.
That means using shorter paragraphs, lots of line breaks, and headings to break up the content when needed. You can also use more than one image if you want; and some articles will call for the use of multiple images.
Mistake #5: Firing Your Proofreader
Having issues with spelling and grammar won’t directly affect your SEO, but they will directly affect your ability to maintain credibility. Your readers won’t take you as seriously if your copy is riddled with errors, and other sites won’t link to you as often, if at all. Poor spelling and grammar could take an otherwise stellar piece of content and send the traffic straight to your competition.
When readers see a well-written piece on the other hand, it increases the chance they’d link to your content or share it on social media. Since building backlinksdoes play a role in SEO, that’s why I mention the importance of using spell and grammar checks (outside of Microsoft Word) or having an editor take a look before anything goes live.
Mistake #6: No Optimized Meta Description and CTA
The meta description for your content will always be the title and the first two sentences of the article by default, unless you take the time to craft one yourself. You should think of the meta description as free advertising space, since it’s what the user will see in the search engine under the result. You want to give the user reason to click it, but it should also feature your keyword with a CTA. Grabbing the user’s attention right on the SERP makes them that much more likely to click your link rather than another result.
Mistake #7: Skipping Content Promotion
Content creation is only the first step. Even if you’ve done everything correctly in terms of SEO, there’s still go no guarantee the content will ever make it to the number one result for your keyword – and if it does, it surely won’t do so instantly. Part of what makes content rank high in the first place is the volume of traffic it gets. So – if you want people to find your content in the search engines, you’ve first got to make it easy for them to find and share from other places.
That’s why it’s important to share your content on social media channels, and encourage your and followers to do the same. When this happens, you’ll build positive signals to the search engines, and get eyes on the content before it even starts to rank. Waiting for those ranking signals to come naturally could take days, weeks, months, or even years. Promoting your content helps those signals come faster.
Mistake #8: Inconsistent Content Creation
Search engines look at how often you’re updating your website with new content when they determine where to rank you. And your audience needs a steady flow of content (even if it’s just one new post a week) for your brand to stay at the front of their minds. If you create content whenever you want – both your SEO and content marketing efforts will suffer. Have a plan for consistent content production.
Mistake #9: Thinking Only About Google
Yes, Google may be the most popular search engine online, but it is certainly not the only one. Even if the bulk of your traffic comes from Google searches, it’s important to consider the fact that many personal assistants, such as Siri (Apple), Cortana (Microsoft), and Alexa (Amazon) use Bing. If you neglect to optimize for Bing as well as Google, you could be missing out on a large portion of traffic based on voice searches. Research shows half of searches will be voice by 2020.
SEO and Content Marketing Go Hand in Hand
The truth is that to be successful in your online marketing efforts, you must consider SEO and content marketing. If you’re making mistakes with SEO or your content marketing, it will have a negative affect on your digital marketing efforts.
The key is to think about SEO while you’re creating content for use as part of your content marketing strategy, rather than making SEO an afterthought. This ensures your content is the quality your audience and the search engines are looking for.
Can you think of any other potential SEO mistakes I’ve left off this list? Share ’em with me below.
Digital marketing statistics guide your strategy, offering insights into consumer behavior and market trends. They help tailor your efforts for maximum engagement, ensuring resources are efficiently allocated. By understanding these metrics, businesses can create targeted campaigns, optimize their online presence, and stay ahead of the competition. Essentially, they empower decision-making with data-driven clarity, enhancing the effectiveness of digital marketing initiatives.
Navigating the world of digital marketing without data is like sailing without a compass.
Without insights from digital marketing statistics, businesses risk missing out on key trends, consumer behaviors, and opportunities for growth.
Leverage the power of data to steer your strategy in the right direction.
Check out this list of digital marketing statistics to get started.
General Digital Marketing Statistics
By 2019, video will account for 80% of global internet traffic, and 85% in the US (Cisco).
The average Google first page result contains 1,890 words. (Backlinko, 2016)
50% of search queries are four words or longer. (WordStream, 2016)
66% of marketers say improving SEO and growing their organic presence is their top inbound marketing priority. (HubSpot, 2016)
71% of B2B researchers start their research with a generic search. (Google, 2015)
B2B researchers do 12 searches on average prior to engaging on a specific brand’s site. (Google, 2015)
72% of marketers say relevant content creation was the most effective SEO tactic. (Ascend2, 2016)
40% of marketers say the most challenging obstacle to search engine optimization success is changing search algorithms. (Ascend2, 2015)
Mobile
84 percent of mobile advertisers believe they’re providing a positive experience. Less than half of consumers report their experience was positive. (Unlockd)
We have reached the mobile tipping point: All new data consumption is coming from mobile (TechCrunch).
Over a third of email subscribers read their newsletters exclusively on mobile devices (Informz).
61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site after a negative experience. 40% will go to a competitor’s site (MicKinsey& Company).
More Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the U.S. and Japan. (Google, 2015)
49% of B2B researchers who use their mobile devices for product research do so while at work. (Google, 2015)
65% of smartphone users agree that when conducting a search on their smartphones, they look for the most relevant information regardless of the company providing the information. (Google, 2015)
51% of smartphone users have discovered a new company or product when conducting a search on their smartphone. (Google, 2015)
48% of consumers start mobile research with a search engine. (Smart Insights, 2017)
26% of consumers start mobile research with a branded app. (Smart Insights, 2017)
Voice Search
19% of people use Siri at least daily. (HubSpot, 2015)
37% use Siri, 23% use Microsoft’s Cortana AI, and 19% use Amazon’s Alexa AI at least monthly. (HubSpot, 2015)
20% of search queries on Google’s mobile app and on Android devices are voice searches. (Search Engine Land, 2016)
60% of smartphone users who use voice search have begun using it within the past year, with 41% of survey respondents having only begun to use voice search in the past six months. (Search Engine Land, 2016)
43% of mobile voice search users do so because they say it is quicker than going on a website or using an app. (Statista, 2015)
21% of mobile voice search users do so because they say they don’t like typing on their mobile. (Statista, 2015)
Ecommerce
81% of shoppers conduct online research before making big purchases. (Adweek, 2014)
44% of people go directly to Amazon to start their product searches, compared to 34% who use search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo to search for products. (Marketing Land, 2015)
Mobile commerce makes up 30% of all U.S. ecommerce. (Internet Retailer, 2015)
Content Marketing
73% of surveyed consumers found that content with a strong personality helps in forming loyal relationships (Econsultancy).
Marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to realize a positive ROI (Socialemedia).
61% of the most successful content marketers have a documented strategy, while only 2% of the least successful have one (CMI).
85% of the most successful deliver content consistently (CMI).
87% of the most successful say they are able to quickly adjust their content marketing strategy (CMI).
Blogging
Marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to realize a positive ROI (Socialemedia).
60% of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority. (HubSpot, 2016)
1 in 10 blog posts are compounding, meaning organic search increases their traffic over time. (HubSpot, 2016)
Compounding blog posts make up 10% of all blog posts and generate 38% of overall traffic. (HubSpot, 2016)
Over its lifetime, one compounding blog post creates as much traffic as six decaying posts. (HubSpot, 2016)
Companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got almost 3.5X more traffic than companies that published 0-4 monthly posts. (HubSpot, 2015)
B2B companies that blogged 11+ times per month had almost 3X more traffic than those blogging 0-1 times per month. (HubSpot, 2015)
B2C companies that blogged 11+ times per month got more than 4X as many leads than those that blog only 4-5 times per month. (HubSpot, 2015)
Companies that published 16+ blog posts per month got about 4.5X more leads than companies that published 0-4 monthly posts. (HubSpot, 2015)
75% of HubSpot’s blog views and 90% of blog leads come from old posts. (HubSpot, 2014)
Some 15% of internet users read or comment on discussion forums such as reddit, Digg, or Slashdot, while 10% use the blogging website Tumblr. (Pew Research Center, 2015)
43% of people admit to skimming blog posts. (HubSpot, 2016)
Titles with 6-13 words attract the highest and most consistent amount of traffic. (HubSpot, 2016)
Content Strategy
61% of the most successful content marketers have a documented strategy, while only 2% of the least successful have one (CMI).
87% of the most successful say they are able to quickly adjust their content marketing strategy (CMI).
8% of marketers plan to add Medium to their marketing efforts in the next 12 months. (HubSpot, 2016)
On average, B2B marketers allocate 28% of their total marketing budget to content marketing. (CMI, 2016)
Only 30% of B2B marketers say their organizations are effective at content marketing, down from 38% last year. (CMI, 2016)
55% of B2B marketers say they are unclear on what content marketing success or effectiveness looks like. (CMI, 2016)
32% of B2B marketers say they have a documented content marketing strategy. (CMI, 2016)
28% of B2B marketers say they have a documented editorial mission statement. (CMI, 2015)
47% of buyers viewed 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep. (Demand Gen Report, 2016)
96% of B2B buyers want content with more input from industry thought leaders. (Demand Gen Report, 2016)
Social Media
When social media is part of their buyer’s journey, customers tend to convert at a 129% higher rate. They are also four times as likely to spend significantly more than those without a social component (Deloitte).
Reading or writing social media reviews and comments will influence the shopping behavior of 67% of consumers (PwC).
The average internet user spends nearly two hours browsing social media networks daily (Telegraph UK).
On average, brands only respond to only one out of eight social messages in 72 hours or fewer (Sprout Social).
64% of marketers have Snapchat accounts, but only 67% of those are active (AdWeek).
64% of marketers are using social media for six hours or more and 41% for 11 or more hours weekly. (Social Media Examiner, 2015)
Nearly 19% of marketers spend more than 20 hours each week on social media. (Social Media Examiner, 2015)
83% of all marketers actively pursue social media marketing initiatives. (Aberdeen, 2016)
As of 2015, 35% of all those 65 and older report using social media, compared with just 2% in 2005. (Pew Research Center, 2015)
As of 2015, 90% of young adults use social media, compared with 12% in 2005. (Pew Research Center, 2015)
Nearly one-third of the world uses social networks regularly. (eMarketer, 2016)
88% of marketers want to know how to measure their return on investment for social media activities. (Social Media Examiner, 2015)
Only 42% of marketers say they are able to measure their social activities. (Social Media Examiner, 2015)
92% of marketers say that social media is important to their business. (Social Media Examiner, 2015)
More than half of marketers who’ve been using social media for at least two years report it helped them improve sales. (Social Media Examiner, 2015)
90% of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses. (Social Media Examiner, 2015)
By spending as little as six hours per week, 66% of marketers see lead generation benefits with social media. (Social Media Examiner, 2015)
At least 61% of those investing a minimum of six hours per week in social media marketing saw improvements in search engine rankings. (Social Media Examiner, 2015)
6 in 10 small business owners are not able to track ROI from their social media activities. (eMarketer, 2015)
Email Marketing
Email marketing was the top channel for increase in digital marketing spend over the last year, with 61% of marketers increasing their investment (Relevate).
Personalized email messages improve click-through rates and conversions by over 10% (Aberdeen).
The average CTR for email marketing across industries is 3.2% (IBM).
Last year, the average ROI for email campaigns was 4,300% (Copyblogger).
55% of all emails are opened on mobile devices (emailmonday).
Video Marketing
4X as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. (Animoto, 2015)
Almost 50% of internet users look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store. (Google, 2016)
53% of smartphone users feel more favorable towards companies whose mobile sites or apps provide instructional video content. (Google, 2015)
4 in 5 consumers believe that demo videos are helpful. Shoppers who view video are 1.81X more likely to purchase than non-viewers. (Animoto, 2015)
39% of marketers plan to add Facebook video to their content strategy in the next year. (Adobe, 2015)
45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week. (HubSpot, 2016)
100 million hours of video are watched every day on Facebook. (TechCrunch, 2016)
82% of Twitter users watch video content on Twitter. (Twitter, 2015)
90% of Twitter video views are on mobile. (Twitter, 2015)
55% of people consume video content thoroughly. (HubSpot, 2016)
43% of people want to see more video content from marketers. (HubSpot, 2016)
Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users. (Aberdeen, 2015)
Nearly two-thirds of consumers prefer video under 60 seconds. (Animoto, 2015)
9% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI. (Adobe, 2015)
YouTube 48% of marketers plan to add YouTube to their content strategy in the next year. (HubSpot, 2016)
On mobile alone in an average week, YouTube reaches more 18+ year-olds during prime time TV hours than any cable TV network. (Google, 2016)
Two-thirds of YouTube users watch YouTube on a second screen while watching TV at home. (Google, 2016)
YouTube is more commonly used by larger businesses. For example, 71% of businesses with 100+ employees use YouTube, compared to 38% of the self-employed. (Social Media Examiner, 2015)
YouTube has over a billion users, almost one-third of all people on the Internet. (YouTube, 2016)
In an average month, 8 out of 10 18- to 49-year-olds watch YouTube. (Google, 2016)
Among millennials, YouTube accounts for two-thirds of the premium online video watched across devices. (Google, 2016)
The time people spend watching YouTube on their TV has more than doubled year over year. (Google, 2016)
Influencer Marketing
Marketers receive an average of $6.85 in earned media value for every $1 spent on influencer marketing (AdWeek).
Over 80% of marketing and communication professionals expect to begin an influencer marketing campaign within the year. (eMarketer).
Influencer campaigns have proven effective for over 80% of marketers who have tried them (eMarketer).
Customers acquired through word-of-mouth (such as influencer marketing) are retained at a 37% higher rate than those acquired through other means (Deloitte).
Lead Generation
80% of marketers report their lead generation efforts are only slightly or somewhat effective. (BrightTALK, 2015)
Lack of resources, such as staff, funding, and time, remains the biggest obstacle to successful lead generation for 61% of B2B marketers. (BrightTALK, 2015)
For B2B marketers, the ideal number of fields on web registration and download forms is between three and five for 79% of respondents, while only 16% said it was six or more. (BrightTALK, 2015)
53% of marketers say half or more of their budget is allocated to lead generation, while 34% say less than half of their budget is allocated to lead generation. (BrightTALK, 2015)
Only 17% of marketers say outbound practices provide the highest quality leads for sales. (HubSpot, 2016)
65% of marketers say generating traffic and leads is their top challenge. (HubSpot, 2016)
58% of marketers say their lead generation budget will increase in the coming year. (BrightTALK, 2015)
Nearly 80% of companies not meeting their revenue goals attract 10,000 monthly website visitors or less. For those exceeding their revenue goals, 70% report attracting more than 10,000 visitors per month. (HubSpot, 2015)
The less companies know about their KPIs, the less likely they are to meet their revenue goals. 74% of companies that weren’t exceeding revenue goals did not know their visitor, lead, MQL, or sales opportunities. (HubSpot, 2015)
Advertising
87% of people say there are more ads than two years ago. (HubSpot, 2016)
Adblocking has cost publishers nearly $22 billion in 2015 alone. (PageFair, 2015)
Adblocker Plus, the most popular ad blocking app, has reached 300 million downloads worldwide. (HubSpot, 2016)
77% of consumers agree that they would prefer to ad filter than completely ad block. (HubSpot, 2016)
41% of ad blocker users found out about ad blockers by word of mouth. (HubSpot, 2016)
64% of ad blocker users do so because they believe ads are annoying or intrusive. (HubSpot, 2016)
419 million people worldwide have installed an ad blocker on their smartphone. (PageFair, 2015)
51% of people have a lower opinion of brands that use autoplaying video ads. (HubSpot, 2016)
70% of U.S. marketers plan to use social video ads in the coming 12 months. (eMarketer, 2016)
82% of consumers have closed a browser or exited a webpage because of an autoplaying online video ad. (HubSpot, 2016)
YouTube’s net U.S. video ad revenues account for 18.9% of the U.S. digital video ad market. (eMarketer, 2014)
Video ads have an average clickthrough rate of 1.84%, the highest clickthrough rate of all digital ad formats. (Business Insider, 2014)
56% of viewers are likely to skip online video ads. (Marketing Land, 2014)
15% of viewers believe a video ad should be no more than 15 seconds in length. (Marketing Land, 2014)
Sales
22% of salespeople don’t know what a CRM is. (HubSpot, 2016)
17% of salespeople cite manual data entry as the biggest challenge using their existing CRM. (HubSpot, 2016)
Only 21% of salespeople consider their CRM software’s integration capabilities with marketing software or other tools to be high quality. (HubSpot, 2016)
40% of salespeople still use informal means such as Microsoft Excel or Outlook to store its lead and customer data. (HubSpot, 2016)
29% of salespeople are spending an hour or more on data entry each and every day. (HubSpot, 2016)
Nearly half (45%) of companies are using some form of CRM to store lead data, and 84% of those companies have a standard in place for scoring lead quality. (DMN News, 2014)
70% of companies say closing more deals is their top sales priority. (HubSpot, 2016)
Prospecting is the most difficult part of the sales process for salespeople. (HubSpot, 2016)
58% of buyers want to talk about pricing in the first sales call, while 65% of salespeople want to keep the conversation on goals. (HubSpot, 2016)
57% of salespeople believe buyers are less dependent on salespeople during the buying process. (HubSpot, 2016)
Only 29% of people want to talk to a salesperson to learn more about a product, while 62% will consult a search engine. (HubSpot, 2016)
40% of salespeople say getting a response from prospects is getting harder. (HubSpot, 2016)
28% of companies are prioritizing social selling. (HubSpot, 2016)
Buyers who use social media have larger budgets — typically 84% larger than the budgets of buyers who do not use social. (IDC, 2014)
61% of organizations engaged in social selling report a positive impact on revenue growth. (Feedback Systems, 2015)
72% of sales professionals feel that they are not proficient with social selling. (Feedback Systems, 2015)
46% of social sellers hit quota compared to 38% of sales reps who don’t. (Aberdeen, 2014)
YouTube, the Google-owned video network, is about more than funny videos and attempting to improve SEO signals. The network is a great way to connect to and engage with people in your audience, since it has more than a billion users. That’s more than 33% of everyone on the entire internet. Every day, people are watching millions of hours of content. Considering that on mobile alone, YouTube reaches more people between the ages of 18 and 49 than any cable network in the US, it’s a great place for small businesses to be. Except, less than 10% of American small businesses are actively using it. Why? Because it’s more difficult to produce video content than it is to create imagery and blog posts… or at least that’s how most people feel.
If you’re considering starting a YouTube channel to support your digital marketing efforts, it’s not just as simple as picking up the camera and pressing record. Just like with any other social platform, you want to think about goals and develop a strategy, so you can make sure your YouTube channel supports your overall goals.
Questions to Ask Before You Get Started
Why do you want to start a channel? Go beyond the obvious answers like “to get more leads” and “to make more money”. Get specific with the reasons why you want to create this kind of content, and it will help you shape the content you’ll create for the channel. Success on YouTube for most people, anyway, isn’t about uploading a single viral video and making millions of dollars. It’s about time, effort, and a plan.
What will your videos be about? Based on the reasons why you want to start a channel, think about what your core audience wants to know about your niche or industry. Then, start coming up with a list of ideas to cover in videos. You can go back to blog posts and other types of content you’ve already created for your business and create videos to accompany them, too; repurposing content is a great way to reach a broader audience with the same basic material.
Does your target audience use YouTube? If your customers, or potential customers aren’t on YouTube, then you may have a problem. But, considering how many people are using YouTube, chances are you’ll find someone who’s not only interested in what you have to say on your channel, but what you have to offer outside out of it. Use whatever you know about your audience – age, interests, income level, and other demographics to make sure you’re creating content that appeals to them on some level.
What other channels are serving the same audience? A competitive analysis helps you see what other channels are doing, so you know what you can do better. Look closely at the types of videos the other channels are putting out there, and how their audience is responding. Are there questions in the comments that you could weave into your video on the same topic? Look for ways your channel can improve upon existing content, so you can become the number one resource.
How much time do you have to dedicate to video creation? How often will you upload new content? It’s important to post content regularly if you expect to build an audience on YouTube. This means you’ll need to spend time thinking about how often you want to post new content, and make sure you have some videos lined up and ready to go before you officially launch. This way, if something happens and you’re not able to create new content right away, you’ll still produce a steady stream of videos to keep you audience happy. You must be realistic with this, because you don’t want to stress yourself out or be forced to pull an all-nighter to produce a new video. On the other hand, you want to make sure you’re uploading new videos often enough to keep your channel fresh in your audience’s mind.
How will you make your videos? What format will your videos be in? Are they going to be shot with a web cam? Your smartphone? A video camera? Will you be using screencasting software to avoid live action? Creating animations? What tools do you have at your disposal? What is your budget to get started? How will you be editing your videos?
How will you measure success? Think about the goals you want to accomplish to help you determine whether or not your YouTube efforts are successful. You can choose any number of metrics, such as the number of views, the amount of traffic driven back to your website, the number of channel subscribers…and so on.
Creating Your YouTube Channel
I’m going to assume you already have a Google account. If you don’t, create one of those first.
Start at YouTube.com. Click “Sign in” at the top of the right hand side. Login using whatever Google account you’d like your channel to be associated with. It’s a good idea to use an account multiple people have access to since the channel is for business purposes.
Next, you’ll setup your YouTube settings. Click your profile icon in the top right corner, then look for the settings wheel, and click it.
Under those settings, you’ll see the option to create a channel. Click the link to get started. Skip the personal settings, and click “Use a business or other name.”
At this point, you’ll name your channel and choose its category. Your options include:
Product or Brand
Company Institution or Organization
Arts, Entertainment, or Sports
Other
Now you’ve created your YouTube channel. A new Google+ page will be created for it, too.
Now it’s time to fill out all the information and get to work on your channel art so your page looks inviting to visitors.
Creating Your Channel Art
YouTube recommends using a single image that’s 2560 x 1440 pixels to ensure the image works well across devices. It should be at least 2048 x 1152 pixels, since this is the safe area where any logos and text can display without potentially being cut off on different devices. The file size should be 4 MB or smaller, and if your image exceeds this size, you can use a tool like TinyJPG (it works with PNG files, too) to compress the image without sacrificing too much quality.
If you’re struggling, or just want a little help getting started, you can use the Channel Art Template, available in both Photoshop and PNG formats, so you can figure out the layout for your channel, and get an idea of how it will work across platforms.
Now, let’s talk about your channel icon. It’s your profile icon – or where you’d put a picture of yourself on a personal Facebook page. It shows over your cover art, and will be what displays next to your videos on your channel and watch pages. You need something that looks good at small resolutions, which is why many brands choose to use their logo. Your channel icon should be 800 x 800 pixels, and in JPG, GIF, BMP, or PNG format. You cannot use animated GIFs.
Optimizing Your Channel for Success
Give your channel a great description. This is a 1,000-character space to describe your channel, brand, and the content you share on the platform. What you put here will not only show on your channel page, but will also be indexed by search engines. It may also be featured across YouTube in suggested channel categories. It’s a good idea to include keywords and calls to action in the first part of your description.
Add a channel trailer. When visitors come to your channel, you want them to be able to see the types of videos they will be able to find on your channel. The trailer is a great way to provide an overview of the kind of content they’ll find along with reasons to subscribe. It should grab attention as soon as it starts. Remember, the channel trailer will only appear for people who aren’t subscribed to your channel yet. Pay close attention to the description you add to this video, because it is featured prominently on your channel page.
Include contact details. YouTube has a section to allow you to include your contact details for anyone who is interested. From your channel homepage, navigate to “About” and scroll to “Details.” At this point, you’ll be able to choose whether to share your email address.
Optimize each video for SEO. Beyond the channel description, each video needs a clear description of what it is, complete with keywords and calls to action. Then, for good measure, add transcripts to your videos. These ensure people can understand your video when they’re not able to watch with the volume up, and can even help you create a blog post for your video later.
Work your videos into your social media editorial calendar. Promote your videos on your blog, Facebook, and Twitter. People won’t be able to subscribe to your channel if they don’t know it exists. You can also invest in paid advertising on YouTube to help drive traffic to your channel.
YouTube Is an Ongoing Effort
You can’t slap up one or two videos and expect YouTube to become a viable source of traffic and leads. You’ll need to promote your channel and videos with your other social media platforms. You’ll need to interact with your viewers consistently. If things don’t work out as you’d hoped at first, it’s not time to give up just yet. Instead, run some experiments and then adjust your strategy based on the results.
If you’ve thought about starting a YouTube channel but haven’t yet, what’s holding you back? Tell me in the comments below.
Google’s acquisition timeline since 2001 features key purchases like Android in 2005, pivotal in mobile OS; YouTube in 2006, expanding into video sharing; and DoubleClick in 2007, enhancing online advertising. The acquisitions demonstrate Google’s strategy to expand its services, invest in new technologies, and strengthen its position as a tech giant.
Google got its start in 1995 when founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page met. The following year, they started working on a search engine called BackRub, but once it clogged Stanford University servers after a year, they registered Google.com on September 15th, 1997. Let’s take a look at how the most used search engine on the internet has grown into something much more. Since launch, the tech giant has acquired more than 200 companies.
Google’s acquisition timeline is a fascinating journey that highlights the tech giant’s strategic growth and diversification. Here’s an expanded view of some of their most significant acquisitions:
2001 – Deja: Google’s acquisition of Deja, a Usenet discussion service, marked its first major purchase. This acquisition was instrumental in developing Google Groups, enhancing Google’s data collection and community-based services.
2003 – Pyra Labs (Blogger): The purchase of Pyra Labs, the company behind Blogger, signified Google’s entry into the world of content creation and management, paving the way for a surge in user-generated content on the web.
2004 – Keyhole, Inc: Keyhole, a geospatial data visualization company, was acquired and became the foundation for Google Earth. This acquisition showcased Google’s interest in mapping and 3D visualization technology.
2005 – Android Inc.: Perhaps one of Google’s most impactful acquisitions, Android Inc. laid the groundwork for the development of the Android operating system, which would go on to become the most widely used mobile OS in the world.
2006 – YouTube: Acquiring YouTube, the popular video-sharing platform, for $1.65 billion was a major step for Google in dominating online video content, significantly enhancing its multimedia offerings.
2007 – DoubleClick: The purchase of DoubleClick for $3.1 billion expanded Google’s advertising capabilities, particularly in display and video advertising, and bolstered its data collection for targeted advertising.
2008 – Tonic Systems and Marratech: These acquisitions were crucial for developing Google Docs and Google Meet, respectively, expanding Google’s suite of productivity tools and collaboration software.
2009 – reCAPTCHA: Acquiring reCAPTCHA not only improved Google’s security measures but also contributed to its machine learning and book digitization efforts.
2010 – AdMob: This purchase allowed Google to extend its advertising empire into the mobile domain, capitalizing on the growing smartphone usage.
2011 – Motorola Mobility: Although Google later sold Motorola, this acquisition was significant for its portfolio of patents and for providing insights into the mobile hardware industry.
2014 – Nest Labs: The acquisition of Nest Labs marked Google’s foray into the smart home industry, showcasing its interest in expanding its reach beyond digital services into physical products.
2015 – Alphabet Inc.: While not an acquisition, the creation of Alphabet Inc. as a parent company to Google and several former Google subsidiaries marked a major restructuring and diversification of the company’s business interests.
2019 – Looker: Google acquired Looker, a big data analytics company, enhancing its cloud computing services and data analytics capabilities.
2020 – Fitbit: The acquisition of Fitbit represented Google’s significant move into the wearable technology market, focusing on health and wellness.
These acquisitions, among many others, illustrate Google’s strategy to continuously evolve, enter new markets, and integrate innovative technologies into its ecosystem. They reflect a combination of enhancing existing services (like advertising and content platforms) and venturing into new territories (like mobile OS, hardware, and cloud services), making Google a multifaceted corporation with a vast influence across the technology landscape.
Podcasting is a type of online audio broadcasting. You record an audio file, usually MP3, then upload it online for people to stream and listen to. Alternatively, people can download the file and listen at their own convenience. The term “podcast” is a hybrid of iPod and broadcasting, since most people listened to the files on their iPods (or other MP3 players.)
Research shows podcast listening grew 23% between 2015 and 2016. Nearly a quarter of Americans age 12 and and up have listened to at least one podcast in the last month, representing a 17% increase from 2015. That may not sound like much, but 21% of America also uses Twitter. And when you consider that monthly listenership has increased 75% since 2013, now could be the best time to add audio to your content marketing strategy.
Let’s take a closer look at how to get started with podcasting.
What’s Your Subject?
Obviously, your podcast needs to be related to your core business somehow, but, sometimes going too broad can be just as dangerous as going too niche. What kinds of material are you covering on your blog? That’s the kind of thing you should aim for with your podcast. Should you just read your blog posts out loud and call that your podcast? Nope. Just like you don’t want to post the exact same thing across all your social media platforms, you should offer a little something different that’s better for the format.
Strategically, podcasting is a less crowded space than blogging. There are way more bloggers out there than podcasters, and the format itself tends to lead to more engagement. When people listen to your podcast, they’re likely to stay tuned in longer than they would if they were just reading your blog. Many people listen to podcasts during the commute or workout.
Developing Your Podcast Calendar and Schedule
Once you get an idea of what your show will be about, brainstorm some topics, and think about how often you’ll do a show. Many podcasts are posted once a week, but how often you do it is up to you. Whatever you determine, make sure you can follow through with the expectation that you set for the audience. If you say you’re going to podcast once a week, posting new episodes every Wednesday – stick to it. If you don’t, you’ll have a hard time retaining an audience.
When you develop your editorial calendar, it’s a good idea to outline what you want to talk about on the episode. There’s no need to script everything out, because you don’t want to sound like you’re reading. Keep a conversational tone throughout the entire recording – especially if you’re actually conversing with someone as part of the show. This way you can rehearse a little bit before you actually start recording the show.
How the show actually goes is completely in your control, but this is a good starting guideline to follow.
Introduction (30-60 seconds): Who are you? What are you taking about in this episode?
Intro music(30-60 seconds): Think of this as your jingle. It should be used in every show, to make it easier for listeners to recognize the show.
Topic 1: 3 minutes – that’s a bit longer than most people realize, so make sure you have plenty of material. You don’t want to speak too fast or too slow, but you don’t necessarily want to run out of stuff to say, either. Time yourself a bit to see if you need to add or cut material before you actually start recording.
Topic 2: Same as above.
Interlude: 30 second break or music.
Topic 3: Same as topics 1 and 2.
Topic 4: Same as above.
Closing Remarks(2 minutes): Thank your audience for listening. Thank your guests for participating. Talk about what you will cover in the next show.
Closing Music (2 minutes): Repeat intro music.
Options for Your Show Format
Podcast formats aren’t set in stone, and can change as your show grows and evolves to meet the needs and desires of your audience. You can have a one-man show, which is what many people choose when starting out. Or, you can include one or more co-hosts, line up guests to feature on each episode, or simply have guests call in to participate.
Here’s the problem with sticking to a one-man show format: no matter how interesting you are, and how popular your subject, you may find yourself struggling to get subscribers, simply because the one-man approach isn’t as interesting as banter between two or three people.
If you’re going to have multiple co-hosts, or interview guests, it’s safe to say you’re not all going to be able to meet face-to-face every week, so that’s where Skype comes in to save the day.
If you’re a PC user:
Record calls with Pamela – it’s free, but there are premium versions with additional features starting at $16.67.
Edit with Audacity – it’s also free, but there’s a bit of a learning curve. Check out these tutorials to help you get the hang of it.
If you’re a Mac user:
Record calls using Call Recorder for Skype. It’ll set you back $29.95 after a free trial. There’s lifetime free updates, so once you make the investment, there’s no additional cost. If you want to record FaceTime calls – for use in video marketing– there’s an app for that, too. Buying them both together saves you $15, and you’re spending less than $45.
Pro Tip: Have each co-host record their audio via Skype and splice everything together in editing after everything’s recorded. You’ll end up with higher quality podcasts that way.
If you want to have guests call into your show – check out these options.
Choosing Your Microphone
Sure, you can totally start a podcast with nothing more that your smartphone – if you want the finished product to sound like exactly what it is – a recorded phone call. You don’t have to start with an absolute top-of-the-line microphone to test the concept, but you’ll definitely want something more than your speakerphone.
Start with a fairly barebones version – something cheap, but decent quality. If you find that your audience responds well to the podcast and it is taking off more than you expected, then you can easily justify the expense of an upgrade to better equipment. What you invest in at first needs to be enough to produce a quality end product, but doesn’t have to break the bank.
A good USB microphone will start around $60. You’ll want one that is dynamic, has good rejection, and is front-firing. It’s just a really fancy way of saying that it will pick up your voice clearly, but won’t pick up the background stuff in your recording environment.
Another option is to get a headset, so you have both headphones and a microphone. This will cost you about $30, and is a good option if you’re going to be working with guests or cohosts on your show. If you’d rather have the standalone mic, you can always buy a set of headphones, but it’s a good idea to purchase (or make) a mic stand so you’re not stuck in some weird position for the duration of recording.
Your Recording Space
You don’t have to have a fancy recording studio, but you want a quiet environment. Your audio editing software can get rid of a lot of background noise, and the right kind of microphone can help reduce the amount of background noise that’s picked up in the first place, but you don’t want to rely on the editing and production process to handle all of that for you.
Keep your mouth about four inches from your microphone, and if possible, at angle, so as you breath to make certain sounds, the air won’t go directly into the microphone, but past it. If you can’t adjust the angle of the microphone, you can use a pop filter to act as a barrier between your breath and the microphone. Try to keep the microphone away from the computer itself, too, because they can make a considerable amount of noise, too.
Since you probably can’t afford to sound proof the room you’ll be recording in, opt for a room that has carpeted floors, and soft walls. If you want to beef up the sound proofing, you can add carpet to the walls, or heavy curtains to hang around the walls.
Podcast Hosting and Distribution
When you’re done with the audio, you’ve got a number of options for hosting. You can host it yourself – but that’s an entirely separate blog post – or rely on one of the big hosting sites.
Soundcloud: Primarily targeted at musicians looking to share their music, this allows you to upload audio to share with anyone – making it an excellent option for podcasts, too. There are free and paid plans. The paid plans are worth it you want to know who has listened to your podcast, where they’re form, and other important analytics information you can use to make improvements.
Libsyn: This is one of the oldest podcasts hosts online. Though it’s not free, plans start at $5 a month and include 50 GB of bandwidth, so you’ve got plenty of room for growth before you have to start paying for a higher tier plan.
Plus, there’s always the option of getting your podcast listed on iTunes.
Create an RSS feed for your podcasts. LibSyn does this form you.
In the iTunes store, click on Podcasts. Then, look for Quick Links, and you’ll see the option to “Submit a Podcast.”
Enter your feed URL and submit.
You’ll have to wait for a review process, which is usually completed within 24 to 48 hours. If you’re approved, you’ll get an email to let you know. Generally, three to five days after approval, people can start searching for and finding your podcast in the iTunes store.
Promoting Your Podcast
Platforms like Soundcloud have their own promotional tools built in, allowing you to share to Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks. Share your update when an episode goes live Pin that update with the iTunes URL. Remember, Soundcloud lets people play everything directly from Twitter, so create sound bites ands share them there. Tease the next episode on social 24 hours before it drops. Build an Instagram story about behind the scenes stuff.
It’s also possible to embed the audio directly into your blog posts – which brings me to another quick point. Transcribe your podcasts so that if you do embed them in your blog for promotional purposes, people have the option to read as they listen, or read instead of listening. You can find people to transcribe your podcasts on freelance marketplaces like Fiverr. Complete transcripts are helpful in terms of accessibility and SEO.
When you feature a guest, ask them to promote their appearance on your show to their audience.
Record several episodes in advance so you’re never at risk of falling behind. Release a few episodes on your launch day, so people aren’t upset there’s only one. Work on building your audience before your launch day. If you’ve already got access to an email list – send out a message to let them know when it’s coming and what they can expect.
Convert your audio to you a YouTube video. Include a transcript and closed captioning for accessibility and SEO. Promote that video on social media, too.
Once you’re on iTunes, you have eight weeks to get it featured on the New and Noteworthy section, which will do wonders for your audience numbers. Those first two weeks are crucial. During this time – run a contestand giveaway whatever you can (requiring an iTunes review as an entry, host a party (real or virtual) on launch day, email your friends, get people you know to tweet about it, and post podcast themed content on your blog.
Podcasts Give You a New Way to Reach Your Audience
For the people who get burnt out reading blog posts and watching videos, podcasts are a great alternative. Plus, each podcast gives you additional content to repurpose, and the potential for more SEO juice.
What are some of your favorite podcasts? If you have one already, drop it in the comments below. I’d love to check it out.
User generated content, or UGC, refers to any kind of content created by users of a product or service. Most people think of reviews when it comes to UGC, but it encompasses everything from photos, blogs, videos, audio, tweets, forum posts, and more. You can use this content on your social media channels to promote your business.
What’s the first thing you do when you’re considering an online purchase? If you’re anything like me, and I bet you are, you search for reviews. You want to know what other people think of the product or service – regardless of whether it’s from a really big brand like Nike or Fitbit, or a small brand you’ve never heard before. I tend to do a bit more digging around if it’s a brand that’s not well known, just because I need to know more about the quality of the product and the validity of the service. If I see a lot of negative UGC, I trust it, and go looking for alternatives.
So if you’re doing that when you’re out shopping – you can bet that’s what your customers are doing. Because of that, UGC can help you, and set you apart from the competition if you use it the right way.
UGC is much like a free source of advertising for your business. Users provide this type of content for free because they want to share their experiences with others. When you ask them to use it, they appreciate the fact they were noticed by a brand they love. Because it’s not possible to share all the UGC out there from all your customers, let’s take a look at some of the other benefits.
Benefits of User Generated Content
Increased Engagement: Customers trust each other more than they do brands, so UGC gets more engagement. One study showed brand engagement increases by 28% when UGC is part of product videos. Plus, customers are twice as likely to share UGC with friends and family, compared to a piece of brand content.
Build Consumer Trust: UGC humanizes your brand, and more than half of customers trust UGC over the content you create for your brand website. As such, implementing UGC in your strategy helps to build better relationships with your customers and prospects.
SEO Boost: A study of 20 of the world’s largest brands revealed that a quarter of their search results are UGC. This means you’ll get more organic traffic, and more backlinks from content that’s linked to your site.
May Increase Conversion Rate: One report shows when customers see UGC while they’re shopping, the conversation rate increases by nearly 5%. And UGC interactions while shopping increases the conversion rate by nearly 10%.
Building Your UGC Strategy
Though a lot of businesses have tried UGC, only 27% of them have a strategy in place for its use. The content can get people talking about your business, and increase engagement while building trust, but it can only do this if its used correctly. If not, it can actually send your customers and followers in the other direction.
Know what you want from the UGC. What are your goals? Get specific. That can help you determine more about the social media platforms you should use, and the types of content you should aim to get. Do you want to increase followers? Do you want to increase engagement? Do you want to increase brand awareness?
Where will you be? There are a lot of social media platforms, and the reason there’s room for them in the market is because they all offer something a bit different. What works on Facebook can work on LinkedIn, if it’s adjusted accordingly. But posting the same thing verbatim across all your platforms is one of the quickest ways to fall flat. It’s important to consider the difference in demographics from platform to platform – and know that it’s okay to skip one or more of them. Focus on the ones where you know your audience is.
It’s okay to ask for UGC. This is particularly useful if you’re running a contest – asking people to submit photos and/or videos of your product in use in exchange for a prize of some sort. But, when you’re asking for it, make sure you know your goal and can be clear about what you’re asking for. Otherwise, you’re going to confuse the audience, which will decrease participation, and may even send people away from your website. Get specific about the rules of UGC. A lot of people will send you content, but if it’s useless because it includes profanity, for instance, you’re wasting time. Choose hashtags carefully to avoid falling victim to trolls.
Choose a type of UGC. When you’re working on a campaign, choose one type of content, and add a hashtag to make it easy to track across Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. For instance, you can ask people to submit images with a hashtag, much like Starbucks did with their white cup contest. Close to 4,000 entries were submitted within three weeks.
Focus on community. Because UGC sparks engagement, you’ll be building your community. Make sure anyone who speaks for your brand in the community follows along with the brand image you’ve created. This allows for consistency, and helps the community manager to better handle the customer and advocate connections.
Choose the best to promote across your channels. Not everything that’s submitted will be worthy of sharing because it won’t necessarily reflect your brand. You’re not looking for average – you’re looking for fabulous. What caught your eye? If it catches yours, will it catch others’ attention, too?
Recognize the users you promote. That awesome content came from someone, and that someone deserves recognition for their time, effort, and dedication to your brand. It’s up to you to choose the best way to do it – many brands do a social shout out, but for more labor intensive UGC, and especially the contest format, a prize should be awarded.
Give your customers the tools to share your content. If you want your audience to share your content, or create reviews to promote your content, then you need to give them tools to make it easier. According to consumers, only 16% of brands give people the resources they need.
Share stories. Sharing your customers’ stories, with permission, of course, is an important part of brand awareness. It’s more than a case-study. Storytelling can separate you from the competition, but it doesn’t have to be your story to make a difference in the eyes of your audience.
Successful UGC Case Studies
Snickers
The “You’re not you when you’re hungry” campaign. What began as a campaign using famous celebrities like Joe Pesci and Don Rickles, turned into something even more amazing when ownership shifted from the brand to the users. Customers took it upon themselves t create parodies and references all across the web, which helped the campaign earn a solid place in pop culture.
Jamberry
Direct sales company Jamberry uses UGC to highlight each of their nail wrap products. Each has their own hashtag which users are encouraged to use when they post photos on Instagram. When customers look at the product pages, they can see a feed of Instagram photos from people who are wearing that wrap. It helps them see what looks like on real people, which can help them determine which wraps and nail polishes they want to purchase.
Coca-Cola
The Share a Coke campaign has been a hit. What began as a campaign featuring hundreds of the most common names has morphed into something much larger. The cans and bottles went on to feature generic type labels, such as “friend”, “grill master”, and “bro.” And in 2016, they took the campaign even further – Share a Coke and a Song. These bottles and cans features 70 famous song lyrics on the labels. They took this approach because music is a universal language and they wanted to bring unity to their diversified customer base.
They partnered with Shazam to bring music directly to the displays in the store. Customers can scan the lyrics on the product or signage through Shazam and record a lip synced video to share across social media using the #ShareaCoke hashtag.
Plus, customers can customize and order their own bottles at the Coca-Cola website.
UGC is Becoming Essential to ecommerce Success
When users create content for your brand, you’re ahead of the game. You get access to content that cost you little to nothing to create. You increase brand awareness, build customer trust, and customer engagement. But, not all UGC is going to be singing your praises – and that’s part of the territory. The best thing you can do is have a plan of action to address the negative. Domino’s is a prime example of using the negative comments to launch one heck of a comeback.
How is your business using UGC? How have you found UGC influences your own purchasing habits?
Growth hacking is a different approach to marketing. It focuses on scalability. As your marketing efforts are designed to bring in more customers to grow your business, you can continue to put more into marketing while serving the growing customer base. Instead of traditional marketing, it focuses on using a series of shortcuts to drive growth. It’s about creativity and finding underserved ways to market your business.
Take for instance the way Airbnb engineers developed a way to post their listings to Craigslist (a site that at the time had way more traffic, thus getting them exposure) even though there was no API. Though Craiglist now doesn’t allow this sort of thing, it helped Airbnb get 11 times more listings in three years. Or, how Reddit first used fake users to populate the site, to make it look socially active. I mean after all, it’s a social site, and if there’s no content there, there’s no reason to stick around, right?
1. Break Goals into Smaller Attainable Goals
It’s super easy to focus all your attention on getting in with a new audience or releasing a life-changing product. But, to achieve growth hacking, either as a team or an individual, you’re better off focusing your attention on a series of short term, actionable, and achievable smaller goals, working on them one at a time.
For example:
Drive 10,000 people to product pages on your website.
Generate X leads from an email marketing blast, social media marketing, advertising, and influencer marketing before the end of the month/quarter.
Increase blog traffic by X% by X date.
Increase conversions of X site visitors using remarketing by the end of the month.
All of these goals contribute to business growth, but don’t get so overwhelming you shut down, or lose track of where you’re supposed to be going and what you’re supposed to be doing.
2. Measure Everything
If you expect to know when you’ve reached those goals, you’ll need to measure and know your numbers.
Once you know what domain name you’re going to use, setup Google Analytics as soon as possible. Learn your way around it with Google’s tutorials. Go beyond looking at the basics, and look at everything from demographics to time spent on the page, and events. Setup goals so you can see how well you’re meeting them. If you notice halfway through your time period you’re not on track, it can help you change strategies instead of falling short at the end of the month.
3. Use Facebook Lookalike Audiences
Take your email list and use it to create a Facebook lookalike audience. This allows you to target people who are similar to those who are already on your list. You can target them across both Facebook and Instagram, and ensure the people who respond to your ads are interested in what you have to offer.
4. Exit-Intent Popups Are Your Friend
Exit popups determine when someone is trying to leave your website and display a last minute offer. This strategy works particularly well for e-commerce companies. It directs your visitors back to whatever you’re asking for – a newsletter signup, an eBook download, or something else, before they leave on the off chance they’re never to return again.
5. Automation, Automation, Automation
CRM automation makes it easier to nurture your leads. Create a drip campaign to respond to users after they sign up – with whatever bonus you promised. Encourage them to take the first action necessary to move down the funnel. Then, add other email triggers to encourage other behaviors.
If they’ve abandoned their cart – send an email to remind them they left something in the cart. Or check and make sure nothing went wrong on your end that stopped them from completing the checkout process.
If they’ve been dormant a while – poke them and say hello. Offer them something to encourage activity or action.
If they’ve made a purchase, follow up with them and thank them. Then, give them time to use the product and ask them to submit their feedback. You’ll want those reviews and testimonials.
Social media automation helps save time because you can take an hour or so once a week and schedule out some tweets and Facebook posts. While it’s not a good idea to completely automate your social presence, you can use a tool like Buffer to make sure your social doesn’t go quiet. The optimized posting scheduler determines the best times to post throughout the day to get the best engagement. I do recommend you check in throughout the day for a few minutes here and there to respond to any tweets, and to show your audience a real person is behind the keyboard.
Bonus tip: Use Buffer to find out which tweets were the most popular, and schedule those again. It helps keep that old content alive and a steady flow of traffic coming it. But, don’t over do it. I wish I could give you a magic number, but it really depends on how much you’re tweeting, and how many followers you have. If you’re only tweeting three times a day, then clearly you don’t want to clog your feed with old stuff too much.
If you’ve been around as a startup long enough to have a relatively decent sized content archive full of evergreen content, you can capitalize on that mailing list by sending out newsletters on the weekends. You won’t have any extra work to do since you’re using older relevant content – and you can still drive a lot of traffic to your blog.
7. Enable One-Click Webinar Registration from Email
This little trick will pass the information along via URL once they click on the CTA link in your email. You’ll have to make sure your landing page is setup to receive the parameters. When this happens, the person will automatically be signed up for the webinar, so they don’t have to enter their information again. It’s all about making it as effortless as possible for users. Check this out for more details about how to set it up yourself.
8. Work Human Error into Your Email Sequences
When you’re building your automated follow up emails, you may want to think about adding human error into the sequence. You can send one email with a missing link or file – and then send another email within the next five minutes that includes the information that’s missing from the first email, as well as apology for the mistake. This really only works if you’ve already got links to other content in place throughout the email.
It makes it feel less automated, helps humanize your brand – we all make mistakes, after all. Open rates may not change much, but conversions tend to go up on the second email. You can’t use this trick too much, so consider saving it for an email you’re really hoping converts well.
9. Test, Test, and Test Some More
Run split tests on everything. You can test everything from a blog title to email subject lines, CTAs, site colors, site layout, text placement, copy…and more. If there’s an element of online marketing, it can be tested. Avoid running multiple split tests on the website at the same time, so you can tell which element triggered the higher response. You can however, run a website element test at the same time you run an email subject line split test. There are many platforms out there to help you with this, such as: Optimizely, Omniconvert, and Visual Website Optimizer.
As you figure out what works, test it again to see if you’ve found something better. When you see the winner, use it in your site full time, and move onto another test.
Test your headlines with a headline analyzer tool like CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer. This way you can see improvements to make to the headline before you even publish your content.
10. Wait to Fill Positions You Think You Need To
Employee salary and hourly wage is a big drain on your startup budget. If you and your co-founder can’t get the work done, hire freelancers or other contracted workers before you hire someone else to work full-time.
11. Turn Your 404 Page Into a Landing Page
Sometimes people get lost on your site – clicking a mistyped link, getting linked to something you’ve sense removed, or typing the wrong thing the in address bar. Whatever causes them to get lost doesn’t matter, as long as you’re capitalizing on it. You can offer something of value and include a CTA so that even though they’re not where they need to be, you can still connect with them. Give away an eBook, a cheat sheet or checklist, or encourage signups for a course you’re offering.
12. Engage in Online Communities
Spending time on Reddit, LinkedIn, and Quora, as well as in other online communities where your audience can be found is highly useful. When you’re answering questions and providing useful material to the community, it’s a great way to get more website traffic.
13. Use Google Customer Match
You can target your best leads across the entire Google network (YouTube, Gmail, and Google Search) through Google Customer Match. All you have to do is upload your list of contacts, and you can target those users specifically across the various platforms.
14. Highlight Top Customer Testimonials on Your Landing Pages
Credibility is everything in sales, and if your visitors don’t trust you, they’re not going to buy from you. In some cases, it could be the only thing that separates you from the competition. Featuring some of your best customer testimonials on your landing pages will help increase trust, and as a result, conversions.
15. Keep Your Social Media Ratio in Check
Your ratio of following to followers is important. If you want to see what’s going on with your Twitter and Instagram audiences, you can use StatusBrew or Crowdfire to see who’s following you, and who’s not following you back. It makes it easy to unfollow accounts that aren’t active anymore, and keeps your list clean and organized so you can get the most out of your social media experience. Statusbrew also works for Facebook.
16. Growth Hacking Gets You to Your Destination Faster
It’s often said you should focus on the journey rather than the destination. And while it’s true that there are valuable lessons to learn along the journey from startup to enterprise, we all know when money’s involved, we want to make more of it as fast as we possibly can. And when traditional marketing methods are played out – or you’re in a completely saturated market where you have to do something different to make it, growth hacking is the answer.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the growth hacking techniques that are out there – just a few of my favorites. I’d love to hear some about what’s worked for you. What are your favorite growth hacking tips?
Native advertising is paid content that’s made to match the look and feel of the website it’s presented on, so it looks more like organic content. It encompasses many content formats, ranging from articles to infographics and videos. This type of content appears to provide value to the audience, but the end goal to sell a product or service remains the same. Native ad spend is expected to reach $21 billion by 2018, up from $4.7 billion in 2013.
Native advertising is part of content marketing, and the strategy helps increase your content distribution and reach.
How Native Advertising Works
Native advertising, named this way because the ads look native to their environment, works to circumvent banner blindness. It also remains in place despite the fact that 46% of millennials, and 26% of people in general, are now using some form of ad blocker on their desktop devices. Though the numbers are slightly different for mobile devices, people are tired of seeing ads. By providing advertisements in a non-obtrusive way, the user experience isn’t affected, but users are still exposed to the ads. Consumers interact with native ads anywhere from 20% to 60% more than they do with standard banner ads, allowing for a greater ROI.
It’s a win-win situation for marketers, advertisers, and publishers. Publishers are becoming increasingly more selective about the advertising they’ll allow on the websites, for fear of turning off readers. They need the advertising dollars to keep the platform up and running for their readership. Marketers need publishers to consent to advertisements so they can get their message out to the right audience.
Native advertising generally leads to higher click-through rates, and when done correctly, can even increase engagement rates.
Take for instance the Tic Tac Vote for the Next Flavour Campaign. Tic Tac Canada partnered with BuzzFeed to develop a series of sponsored posts and an embedded Tic Tac game app. BuzzFeed articles remained true to their listicle style, featuring titles such as “Can You Make It Through This Post Without Smiling?” and “11 Reasons Why The Year 2000 Was The Best“. The posts ended with an interactive voting game, where readers were able to vote for the next Tic Tac flavor.
This approach gave BuzzFeed highly sharable humor, but it also helped Tic Tac because BuzzFeed has such a large following. As a result of the partnership, the contest got more than 40,000 unique entries.
Investing in Native Advertising
Native advertising is a pay-for-play game, just like PPC and social media advertising. I wish I could tell you how much you should spend and where. But the reality is that only you can decide what kind of budget you have available for marketing and advertising – and what portion of your budge you want to allocate to native advertising.
I will suggest that you start small. Watch how the first ads go, and then when you see the response you’re looking for, scale up. Try allocating a small budget to a few publishers, with some unique approaches to each.
The more popular your publisher, the more you can expect to spend. Some will include the cost of content creation, while others will add to it if you expect them to do the work. According to this article from Digiday, you should expect to spent $10,000 on a campaign with the Daily Mail, and $30,000 on a campaign with the Huffington Post. Both of those publishers operate on a cost-per-view model, guaranteeing 40,000 views and 3 million impressions, respectively. For that price tag – your single article of content is included.
If you’re suffering from sticker shock, realize there are much smaller publishers that can deliver value with less of an initial investment. And remember, research shows native ads have an 18% higher lift in purchase intent and 9% lit in brand affinity responses compared to traditional banner ads. Plus, 32% of consumers will share native ads with friends or family compared to only 19% for banner ads.
Step-by-Step Guide to Native Advertising
Begin by selecting the type of content you’re going to use for native advertising, so you can then choose a publisher for content placement. The most common form of native advertising is the sponsored blog post, or sponsored article, which according to Hexagram’s State of Native Advertising Report come in at 65% and 63% respectively. The goal of your sponsored content is to provide entertaining or helpful information, relevant to the publisher audience. The piece should be so well done that readers engage, and share it with others in their networks.
A friend of mine mentioned the other day that she saw an article pop up in her Facebook feed from Good Housekeeping. The content was actually a video about what to look for when picking a good smartphone, but it was also working to plug the Samsung Galaxy S7 for Walmart. A closer inspect of the Good Housekeeping website reveals partnerships where they’ve created content for Walmart, Splenda, and L’Oreal cosmetics.
After you choose the type of content you’re going to create – come up with a list of publishers where the content could be a fit. Obviously, you don’t want to pitch a sponsored blog post to a site that focuses on video content only, or a sponsored infographic to a site that doesn’t match a place where your audience would most likely to be spending their time online.
Pitch your content angle to the publishers you’re most interested in working with. This way, you’re only working to produce content you know will be accepted. If more than one publisher accepts the same angle, you can always go back and adjust it to create a new piece of native advertising content.
Get to work on the content, submit, and wait for it to be published. Take your time. If you’re not confident in your content creation abilities, reach out to to some quality freelancers. Search LinkedIn, or look to agencies who provide content through their own network of writers.
Alternatively, you can always produce the content first, and find a publisher to fit it later. If there isn’t a publisher who will agree to run it, it can be adjusted and run on the company blog, or used in another part of the marketing strategy later. All content assets can be made to have value – it’s just a matter of where and when to use them.
Remember, native content goes beyond blog posts, articles, graphics, and videos. According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau, there are six core types of native ad formats, which are outlined in the Native Advertising Playbook.
In-feed units: Appear on news outlets and social media, labeled as “sponsor content”
Paid search units: Advertisers pay to be listed at the top of search engine results for certain keywords
Recommendation widgets: These pull related content from “around the web” based on keywords or topics, and then list them at the bottom of an article. You’ll see these on various media outlet websites, especially Huffington Post and the like.
In-ad with native element units: These are placed next to editorial content based on contextual relevance and keywords, but link to another website.
Custom units: These are unique and platform specific, such as customized playlists on Pandora and Spotify
Promoted listings: Similar to the paid search units, but appear only on ecommerce sites like Etsy, eBay, and Amazon. You may also see them referred to as “featured listings.”
Avoiding Mistakes in Your Native Advertising Strategy
No matter what your native advertising strategy entails, you must take steps to remain in compliance with the FTC guidelines. The FTC Act of 1983 prohibits “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.” This means you must be completely transparent, making sure to distinguish the native ad content from other forms of content on your website. If there’s a possibility your ad could mislead consumers, there must be a disclosure. Said disclosure must be clear and prominently displayed. If you’re not sure how to handle this, the official FTC guidelines provide a number of examples to assist you.
When developing your disclosure, make sure it uses clear language, in a font and color that’s easy to read. The disclosure should be placed as close as possible to the related ads, and must stand out from the background on the page. If the disclosure is placed on a video ad, it must remain on the screen long enough for viewers to notice, read, and understand it. If the disclosure is included as part of an audio ad, it must be read at a speed that’s easy for people to follow and using words customers will understand.
Native Advertising Is the Wave of the Future
The fact is, people are constantly inundated with advertising, everywhere they look – online and off – in the home and outside of it, too. Because we see so many ads all the time, it’s hard to really remember any of them – and to really pay attention. The native advertising approach builds them into what we’re already looking at, and keeps it relevant to what we’re willing to pay attention to. After all, if we’re reading an article, we’re obviously interested, right?
As a web user, do you mind sponsored content and native advertising? Do you like knowing that you’re being sold to while you’re being informed and entertained? As a marketer, what experience do you have with native advertising? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Creating a cohesive brand identity is deceptively complex. On the surface, it may appear to be as simple as hiring someone to create an eye-catching logo and engaging content that can then be distributed to consumers. In reality, the process of creating effective branding begins with deep introspection about the core values the brand represents and an examination of the ideal client they are trying to reach. From there, it is possible to identify the colors, fonts, stylistic elements, and types of imagery that will best represent the brand and resonate with the customer.
Core Values
One of the most important things a company can do when developing their branding procedures is to identify their core values. For businesses with only one or two founders, these values will closely reflect their personal core values. Businesses that have decided to rebrand typically benefit from bringing their upper-level management into the discussion.
The core values of Build-A-Bear are “reach, learn, di-bear-sity, colla-bear-ate, give, and cele-bear-ate”. These values are clearly demonstrated in every store, advertisement, social media interaction, and new design the company creates.The workshops are built to facilitate learning, collaboration, and celebration and the bears reflect diversity. The workers give customers any assistance they need and the company encourages others to reach for the stars.
The core values of Whole Foods Market are more complex but equally compelling. They include:
We Satisfy, Delight, and Nourish our Customers
We Serve and Support our Local and Global Communities
We Promote the Health of Our Stakeholders Through Healthy Eating Education
Anyone walking into a Whole Foods Store would immediately be able to see evidence of these core values. They offer extraordinary customer service as well as gorgeous store environments with a wealth of educational opportunities for guests.
They support local communities with donations to food banks and hold community-giving days several times a year where 5 percent the net sales from that store are donated to a local organization. Globally, they have created several organizations to give assistance in targeted ways.
The company actively promotes healthy lifestyles through education efforts within their stores, informative advertisements and displays, offering healthy recipes and articles on their website and social media channels.
The important thing to remember when choosing the core values of a company is, these values will not appeal to everyone. They are not meant to be relatable to all potential customers. They are meant to resonate with those who build the company and their ideal customers.
Ideal Customer
The next step in creating cohesive branding is to know exactly who your brand wishes to attract. Once the core values have been firmly established, it is far easier to discern who the target market should be. With that information, it is possible to attract the right customers by creating more effectively targeted copy, designs, and content.
The ideal customer is not a set of demographic facts or statistics. The more detailed a brand is able to get about exactly who they want to reach, the greater their success. Anthropologie is an excellent case study. They do not make an effort to reach every female in the market; they know exactly the type of women who will resonate with their branding and they cultivate a shopping experience specifically designed to speak to her.
To do this effectively, it is important to ask very specific questions about the potential client and to carefully think about the answers. You can take it one step further and create a fully fleshed out character to represent your target market and then speak directly to him or her in every single piece of content created going forward.
Why does this person resonate with the core values the company has developed? Where do they live and vacation? How old are they? Are they married, single, or divorced? What is their household income, educational background, and ethnicity? How do they spend their time? What books, movies, magazines, and television shows are they drawn to? What experiences helped to make them who they are?
Yes, this does take a significant amount of effort to fully develop. However, the benefits of doing so are immeasurable. Imagine creating a brand that felt so on point that customers felt it was created specifically for them. This can create rabid fans who will loyally proclaim the virtues of doing business with a particular brand to the rest of their network, which are likely to share many of the same traits and to feel the same connection.
It will also repel those customers who are not a natural fit for the products or services the company provides. This may feel initially intimidating to those who are afraid of losing a sales opportunity. But if they aren’t the type of person to resonate with what you are offering, it is a waste of time and resources to create any type of content that will appeal to them. Growth can only be achieved when a company can effectively and efficiently reach out to those who are willing to engage with them on a consistent basis.
Consistent Colors
Traditional branding advice focuses on the design elements of the brand. These include creating a color palette that will be utilized in all visual elements. The types of colors one chooses should be based on the emotions one wants to evoke in the predetermined ideal customer. For example, a company that had core values centered around environmentalism and an outdoor lifestyle would likely stay away from neon colors. Similarly, one with an ideal customer who was a single male in his 40s living in the city with an income in excess of $100k a year probably wouldn’t feel a connection with branding in a pastel palette.
Two ways to narrow down color options are to examine the competition and to consider the psychological associations linked to specific colors. Once a niche has been determined, it is easy to find competitors catering to the same ideal client. You can use their existing color schemes as both inspiration and an indicator of what to avoid to prevent confusion. Newer companies may want to evoke a similar feeling as a lateral brand and could choose different tones within the same color family. If there are no existing brands that offer adequate inspiration, consider the core values again and look for colors that resonate on a psychological level with those values. Blue creates a feeling of trust and stability, purple indicates innovation or wisdom, green tends to represent growth or health.
In order to create branding that uses the same colors consistently it is best to limit the selection to three; a dominant color, secondary color, and accent color. They should then be used according to the 60-30-10 rule. Approximately 60 percent of branding efforts should feature the dominant color, 30 percent the secondary color, and 10 percent the accent color.
Ultimately, the key to creating a remarkable brand is intentionality in every step of the process. This is true for the creation process involved in selecting the core values as the foundation of the company and the colors which will represent those values going forward. It is not enough to simply choose colors that are trendy, as trends are mercurial. Nor is it sufficient to make the selection simply based on personal preference. It is important to research options and ensure they clearly resonate with the desired image of the brand.
Limited Fonts
Fonts are the newest candy in the design confectionery store. This is somewhat surprising considering the history of digital fonts. For decades it was painstaking work to create a new font and the ability to put it in front of people who may be interested in applying it was difficult. As with everything else in the digital age, the process has become much more streamlined. There are now tutorials to teach people to create their own fonts. This is where fonts turn into candy.
It is tempting to spend days browsing through the catalogs of fonts available. Each one looks more stunning, artistic, creative, and compelling than the last. Eventually, one may even decide the only solution is to hire someone to take the best features of several fonts and create something of an amalgamation that will be as unique to the brand one is creating as the golden arches of McDonald’s or the flourish used in Coke’s marketing.
While that may be an excellent idea when creating a logo, it is less than ideal for creating branded material. The problem is, not all fonts are easily read by all systems. For the past several decades, it was necessary to choose a web safe font if one wanted to ensure everyone would be able to read any content which was posted online.
Google Fonts has compiled a list of more than 800 fonts that are visible in all of the most popular browsers and across operating systems. They continue to update the list and add to it as more fonts are created. Using a combination of these fonts in all printed and digital marketing helps to solidify the brand’s image over time.
Even though there are more viable options than ever before, it is best to choose no more than two. A primary font for the majority of content with a secondary accent or impact font for calls to action or greater emphasis.
Stylistic Elements
Stylistic elements are the icing atop the branding cake. These are the little details which will be largely unnoticed on a conscious level by those that see them. The use of a specific shape throughout the website and other branded materials can be embedded intentionally to create a cohesive design style that does not rely heavily on obvious branding techniques.
The logo is an obvious stylistic element. When creating the logo keep in mind the core values, ideal customer, and brand fonts. Successful logos can be as simple as the name of the company or a design that effectively represents it. Whatever is chosen, it is important to ensure the impact of the design remains the same when it is scaled up for larger signs or scaled down for business cards. An intricate logo may be more difficult to scale either way even if the imagery is particularly powerful in the original size.
Choosing the Perfect Images
All brands benefit from social media engagement and one of the most powerful tools to facilitate growth in this area are images that have been carefully selected and edited to speak to your ideal customer. The images one chooses to post need to utilize all of the branding elements the company has selected.
They should contain similar colors, editing, and photography styles. The images should speak to the desires of the ideal client and should reflect the brand’s core values. They fonts used in the editing process should be those used throughout other promotional materials. There is room for creative flare, but only within the confines of the branding rules which have been carefully chosen.
An easy way to ensure the colors are similar is to apply the same filter or set of filters to any images which are chosen. Over time, this helps make the images recognizable as part of the brand identity. There are many tools for creating stellar social media images, once you find one you like add it to your style guide and use it consistently.
Cultivation of a Brand Identity
Once these elements have been fully fleshed out, it is possible to create a cohesive brand identity that can be systematically leveraged in all areas. To do so most effectively, create templates in as many areas as possible to ensure consistency is maintained even as new team members are added. A comprehensive brand guide should also be created, the components of which should be implemented in all internal and external content creation.
CRM refers to customer relationship management. It’s a type of software that allows you to develop a database of all your customers or clients, and keep track of information about how and when they interact with your company. While many companies operate without a CRM in place, actively avoiding using one can be harmful in a number of ways.
You Can’t Remember Everything
Running a business means lots of details to keep up with. And even if you write everything down or otherwise document it somehow, there’s a lot of potential for information to slip through the cracks – especially if it must go through multiple hands, or several people have to contribute to the document. It’s easy to keep up with things when you only have a handful of clients to keep track of, but as you expand, that won’t be the case anymore.
A CRM lets you keep track of what’s going on with each customer, giving them statuses so your sales team can see at a glance who’s ready for follow up, and who needs a bit more nurturing. This makes the entire process more efficient for sales and marketing.
Some CRMs even include project management and task management features, so you can keep track of nearly everything to run your business. What’s even better is you can attach tasks and events to the customers, leads, companies, or deals that they are associated with. This way you can track the history of your relationships with everyone your business has ever come into contact with.
Email Threads Can Get Ridiculously Long
If it’s been emailed, there’s a record of it, right? So there’s no need to worry about documenting it anywhere else…That line of thought works to a certain degree. But when you’ve exchanged 57 emails in single thread to keep up with everything, or worse yet, changed subjects as required and now have 6 threads with nearly 10 email exchanges in them – not to mention the number of people that must be CC’d or BCC’d on each message – or have the messages forwarded to them – it gets too hectic. And like point number one – you can’t possibly remember everything.
CRM makes it easy to keep track of history with each customer/client, and even interdepartmental conversions – because when each person makes notes in the file about the conversations that have taken place, or the actions taken on the account, the next person who needs the information can easily see it and add to it. And with integrations, it’s possible to attach emails to records, so you have verifiable proof of what happened – without having to keep up with each email, cluttering your inbox.
Customer Service Will Suffer
Having a high quality standard for customer service is an essential component of customer retention. Considering customer retention is more cost effective than customer acquisition, and that 44% of customers will leave a business as a result of a negative customer service experience, you want to do everything you can to keep them happy.
Using a CRM helps your customer service team see when the last time someone called or emailed about an issue was – and what was done to resolve the issue before. This way, they can give a more personalized experience to the customer, and save time since the customer doesn’t have to explain the entire scenario over again.
You can use the information in the file to provide a personalized greeting to each customer, based on information you have on file about them. For instance, if Debbie calls you, you can greet her with, “Hi Debbie, thank you for being a valued customer since XXX. I see the last purchase you made was a X. Is this what you’re calling in regards to today?”
Data-Driven Decisions Matter
Your CRM is a great source of data about what your customers are doing, and can even give you insight into what they need. If you notice there are a lot of calls regarding a particular product, maybe that means you need to add more information about it on your website. Maybe you need a clearer product manual. If you notice that there seem to be a lot of people buying one product, but not many buying another – it may be time to either adjust your marketing strategy, or to cut that product from your offerings. If you notice there are a lot of customer service complaints that all tie back to a single agent, then it could signal it is time to replace that agent.
Think about it. Can you easily determine how many successful projects you’ve had over the past month? The past quarter? Do you know your conversion rate, with certainty? Do you know the best way to reach your customers? Yeah, you could probably figure it out with some complex Excel spreadsheet with formulas and calculations, but who has time for that? Ditch the spreadsheet and let the CRM do the heavy lifting for you.
Looking at the data from your CRM and other sources can help you make decisions that will help your business grow. This way, you’re not playing a guessing game, trying random approaches to see what works for your business. That data can also help you predict your future, so you know when you need to scale up your operations to keep up with demand, among other things.
Organization Can Make or Break You
Keeping everything in your business organized is paramount to your success. A CRM can play a major role in ensuring everything remains organized. I’m sure you think that email, calendars, and other task management systems are keeping you organized enough, but those systems will only work in the short term. The reality is those workflows are not scalable as you grow – and you want something that can easily grow with you. The more organized you are from the start, the better off you’ll be. You’ll never see a business fail because it was highly organized.
You Could Be Losing Money
Because a CRM helps make your workflow more efficient, you’re saving time – which we all know is money. Your team can spend less time on paperwork, save paper (and the environment) by printing fewer pages, which makes them more productive because they can spend more time on closing deals. Plus, every time you lose track of a contact from the old way of doing things, you could be losing out on a huge deal.
Choosing the Right CRM for Your Business
There are an overwhelming number of CRM options available on the market today. When the wrong system is selected, or the program isn’t implemented correctly with your other systems, it can spell disaster. That’s why you should take plenty of time to research the choices out there before committing to one for your business.
Some questions to ask when evaluating a CRM for use in your business:
Is it easy to use? You’ll have to train everyone on how to use it, so if it takes too long to get everyone used to using it, it can defeat the purpose. Look for something that’s simple, yet still has all the features you need.
How quickly can we get it up and running? You want something that’s easy to deploy, so that you don’t have to invest in a lot of equipment, or hire an IT team to install and manage it for you. Cloud-based solutions are a good option because not only are they easy to get up and running, but it keeps the data accessible from anywhere there’s an internet connection. Many of them also include a mobile app, making it possible to access the data from your smartphone or tablet.
Does it integrate with other applications the business is already using? Since part of the point of a CRM is to centralize as much data as possible – and streamline data entry – you don’t want to have to enter the same information in 15 places. As such, you should opt for a solution that integrates with other applications you’re already using such as Gmail, Mailchimp, and more. You don’t want have to change your entire workflow to accommodate the CRM – or you will be setting yourself and your team up for chaos.
An Overview of Popular CRMs
Insightly: This cloud-based CRM offers a mobile app, social CRM, business reports, and integrations with many of the apps you’re already using, such as Dropbox, Google Apps, and more. There’s a free trial, as well as a free version for up to two users. Pricing starts at $12/month/user when billed annually.
Freshsales: This is another cloud-based CRM that offers contact management, lead management, and interaction tracking. It lacks email marketing and marketing automation features you’ll find in Insightly, and doesn’t have a mobile app. However, their free plan accommodates up to 10 users. Their paid plans start at $12/month/user when billed annually.
Marketing 360: Marketing 360 offers a basic CRM solution with both a free version, and a free trial of paid versions. You can track leads and customers, adding as many team members and custom fields as you need. It offers a cloud-based and mobile app version, so you can use it whenever you need. Pricing information is not released until you contact the company for more information.
Zoho CRM: Zoho CRM offers a cloud-based solution that can be accessed from the web or via their mobile apps. There’s a free version, and a 15-day free trial of paid versions. Pricing starts at $12/month/user. It integrates with email, social media, and telephone to make it easy to track what your customers are doing and see sales signals.
HubSpot: HubSpot is known for their marketing software, and the CRM is a relatively new feature. Pricing starts at $55/month/user, so it is one of the more expensive solutions out there. But, it can automate everything from end-to-end, and includes the ability to create custom workflows so you can set it up in the way that works best for your business.
Infusionsoft: Infusionsoft is well known for their email marketing platform. Their CRM offers four editions at varying pricing, with pricing starting at $299/month. You can run it from the cloud and on the web. At this time, there are no mobile apps. It is an all-in-one sales and marketing automation solution.
When’s the Right Time to Implement a CRM?
Waiting too long to find and implement a CRM solution means you’ll waste time and lose productivity. Each day you’re not using one is another day where you risk not properly serving a customer, or spending hours tracking down critical information for someone on your team. It’s best to implement a CRM before you start to experience a lot of growing pains. This way, you have workflows in place for collaboration and communication so you can more effectively scale your growth.
Does your company use CRM? Why or why not? If so, how well does your company leverage it? How has it helped you? Share your thoughts in the comments.
This guide assumes you’ve done all your homework in terms of market research. You’ve developed and tested the idea, built the prototype, gone through beta testing, and now you’re ready to launch your new baby into the world. Your strategy can make or break your success, so it’s critical to go into everything with a plan.
You’ll need to first define your sales objectives – and the more research you do in this stage, the more successful you can be. You’ll also want to schedule a launch date, so you can develop the appropriate timeline for everything in your product launch checklist. With it, you can also start to allocate the launch responsibilities to others on your team, to avoid overloading a single person with too many tasks. Whatever the deadline is, it’s critical to your success to stick to it. Once you announce it to the public, if you have to delay it, you’re doing damage to your reputation. If you can’t come through on the first promise you make, why should your potential customers believe you’d come through on anything else? Once you commit to that fixed date, you must launch, no matter what.
Design and Optimize Your Landing Page
Whenever you’re launching a new product, you need to make it as easy as possible for people to learn more about, and then purchase, whatever it is you’re selling. Creating a landing page is the way to do it. Your landing page should include everything about the product or service you’re selling, and the link to buy it in one place.
Then, through all your marketing efforts – social medial, email marketing, TV advertising, and so on, you lead everyone to that page – and nowhere else. It may seem like it makes sense to send everyone to your homepage, but the truth is, that leaves people having to dig around the website for the information they’re looking for. And the truth is, most people aren’t going to take the time to do that. Some will, but you’re doing yourself a disservice if you’re making people work for it.
Develop Your Email Marketing Strategy
The money is in your list – so if you’re not focusing on building it up, it’s time to re-evaluate your approach. Your email list deserves the best possible content – whether it’s news roundups, informative and entertaining blog posts, or videos. You should deliver this content consistently, about once a week or so, in advance of your product’s launch date. This way, when you’re ready to launch, you have an entire community of people who are familiar with your emails, and invested in your brand.
Once you’ve built that list, it’s imperative that you not abuse the power during the prelaunch phase. I get it, you’re excited about it, and you want to sell, sell, sell. But your subscribers don’t want to be sold to – so sending too many salesy emails will turn them off, and get you kicked out of their inbox. It’ll pay you a lot more in the end to keep the emails helpful and subtlety related to making sales than to blast them and piss them off.
It’s okay to mention the launch in your series of emails and keep your content related to it, so long as it remains of the same high quality you were sending out before the launch. Tease what you’re launching in the email – keeping it limited to just a few sentences at the end of the email. Include a link to your landing page, so they can find out more information if they want to.
Build Up the Hype with Your Blog
Blogs allow you to appeal to your audience on a human level – where your audience expects (and is okay with) getting a bit personal. You can connect with them on a deeper level – while also encouraging them to sign up for your email list.
For instance, let’s say you’re launching a service with streaming workout videos to make it easy for people to workout at home – with a limited budget and equipment. Then, your website, email, and social media channels would take about getting healthy, and how much happier this will make you… while also discussing the advantages of using your system compared to the hundreds of alternatives out there.
On your blog, you could could about why you’re launching the service. Whether it’s because you struggled with being overweight your whole life, or because you just couldn’t stand the idea of fitting going to the gym into your regular routine of other errands… all that matters is you link to your landing page somewhere in the blog post, so that those who want to find out more, can do so with ease.
Build Community with Social Media
Before you can isolate the social media strategy you can use around your launch, you should take a look at all the content you’re creating for your blog, your email marketing campaign, and your landing page. Is there anything from there you can pull to promote across all your social channels?
When you use what you already have, it makes it easier to think about the kinds and the volume of unique content you’ll create just for your social platforms. You can create polls, memes, quote cards, and more, specifically for use across social media.
To keep yourself organized, create an editorial calendar. This will let you see what kind of content you need to create, and where you intend to distribute it. Some content will be shared on all of your platforms, while others will only be for email, only for social, and only for the blog.
At first, it’ll seem chaotic, but once it starts coming together – you’ll be able to make it work and rock it out.
Think About Your Advertising Plan
You’ve got countless advertising options – from television, radio, newspaper, magazines, trade publications, and outdoor billboards – to online marketing and outreach. Depending on the nature of your product or service and your budget, more traditional forms of advertising like TV and radio may not be necessary, or could be out of reach entirely.
Know where you want to advertise, and why. Allocate a portion of your advertising budget to each channel. Be ready to make adjustments to the budget and allocations after the campaign starts, if you see something that’s under performing.
Design and Print Promotional Literature
If you don’t have the right promotional literature in place to support your product launch, you’ll struggle to capitalize on interest people are showing in it. If you don’t have anything to give them when you talk to them in person, they’re less likely to remember you. Or worse, they’ll remember they were interested, but didn’t have the chance to get more information, and can’t remember your company name.
At the least, have a brochure or a business card ready to give to anyone you connect with in person – especially if you’ll be at any kind of networking event or trade show where you’re connecting with people face-to-face.
Research Trade Shows and Conferences
There are a lot of trade Shows and conferences hosted all over the world, in every industry and niche. No matter who you’re trying to reach, there’s a tradeshow you can get a booth for, or a conference you can sponsor. If your budget doesn’t allow you to do anything more than attend, make sure you’re not in violation of the rules by promoting your own products or services without being an official sponsor.
A tradeshow can be a great place to launch a product, but because most companies know this, you should be prepared to face a lot of competition. CES, for instance, is a tradeshow where a lot of new products are announced and demonstrated… but there’s hefty competition.
If you want to find events where you can expect to find your target market, simply google terms like “[niche tradeshows]” or “[niche conferences]”. It can give you a good place to start. But, for extra research, check out the Events in America trade show directory and All Conferences directory.
If you choose to sponsor an event, you’ll want to look into promotional items you can give to the attendees, in additional to the promotional literature you’ll want to include to support your product launch. It’s a good way to connect with potential influencers, so you may also want to consider giving away free product or service credit, or maybe even some advanced copies of the product, so they generate some buzz about your product or service ahead of the official launch date.
Public Relations
You should use PR alongside your advertising and marketing efforts for your launch. Work to establish a PR campaign before the launch, so you can build trust in your prospects’ minds. Use a press kit to connect with bloggers and journalists who may be interested in picking up your story. They’re more likely to cover you if you include more than just information about the new product or service itself – but also product images, videos, company information including bios, and more.
Your Product Launch Schedule
Pre-Launch: During this stage, you should make sure all ads and press releases are written, approved, and ready to go. If you’re doing any kind of direct mailing, or sending samples to influencers, those also need to be approved and ready to go. At this point, you’re gauging interest in the buying public, so you can make sure you’re ready to meet demand when the product or service launches.
Product Launch: At this point, you’re introducing your new product to the world. The point of your event is to go beyond exposure and getting your message to as many people as possible. You want to share the news with those who are most likely to be interested in buying your product. You can tell a room of toddlers all about a new toy that’s coming out, and sure, they may go home and tell their parents, but they aren’t the ones with the buying power – so they’re not the ones you’re selling to. Connect with and get the word out to the parents. You want to hold a product launch event, which you can do at your own office, a local meeting space/restaurant, or a trade show, conference, or other networking event/seminar.
Post-Launch: The launch is just the beginning. You didn’t reach all your potential customers at the launch, and new customers will be coming a long for a while – for years to come, we hope. Share news and testimonials about your product to keep the momentum going. Keep getting the word out in industry publications and at trade shows, through bloggers and journalists, whatever it takes. Plan several releases of more information over the course of the next year, so people get reminded of your product or service.
Stick to the Plan
Things happen, and plans change, but for a successful product launch, you should stick as closely as possible to the original plan. This helps save you money and keeps your time use efficient. Changes can compromise the timeline and thus delay the launch, with a slew of ramifications. Pay close attention to any modifications, and act in anticipation of things that could hinder progress.
By 2020, 85% of the customer relationship will be managed without ever speaking to a person. Why is that? Well, it’s at least in part due to the fact that businesses are recognizing how much their customers hate dealing with customer service. In fact, 1/3 of people would rather scrub a toilet than talk on the phone to an agent. While that means agents need to be available on other channels, like live chat, email, and social media, it also suggests customers are interested in self-help options that allow them to solve their problems without dealing without customer service at all.
And why should your company embrace it? Customers who can help themselves 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year will reduce the load on your customer support team, which helps bring down your overall costs. While a service phone call costs about $33, an email dealing with the same issue costs you about $10. Great savings, right? But when a customer helps themselves? The cost to you is about $1.
But, customers can’t help themselves unless you give them everything they need to do it, and make it easy for them to find and understand. You do this by creating a series of self-help options, in a variety of formats.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Adding a FAQ page can save you time and money, when it’s properly written and organized. When your site visitors can read it and get the answers to their questions, they’re not bugging you about getting a solution, which frees up more of your time to focus on other aspects of your business.
If you’re dealing with a brand new product or service, start with the questions you think will be most common among your customers. It does not have to be an extensive effort at first, because you can adjust – adding, removing, and changing questions and answers as you see patterns from your customers, and make improvements to your offerings.
If you’ve been in business a while, you no doubt have a fairly decent idea of the most common issues that customers are asking about. Use that information to develop your initial round of FAQs and answers, or if you already have a dedicated page on your website, review the content for accuracy. Add more questions if necessary. Edit questions and answers for clarity when possible.
Watch and see how customer service requests are changing. If people stop asking those questions, then your FAQ page is doing a good job. But just because they’ve stopped asking those questions doesn’t mean they won’t have more. Keep track of all the questions they’re asking. And if you’ve got the answer somewhere else on your website – in a video, in technical documentation, in the manual, and so on – use the FAQ space to point them to the resource where they will find the most comprehensive solution.
Include a disclaimer in your FAQ, to show that as far as you know, the information presented in the FAQ is accurate, or was at the time of the posting, but that you won’t be held liable for any inconvenience as as result of following the instructions or using the information. Consult with an an attorney for more information, because surprise – here’s my disclaimer – I’m not a lawyer and can’t give you official legal advice.
Community Forums
While this isn’t necessarily an option for all niches, if you’ve considered including a community forum on your website, dedicate a section of it to help and support. This way, other users can help each other out, and you can keep a close eye on the common issues. This allows you to make improvements to your documentation, knowledgebase, and FAQs.
Community forums are a common occurrence in the tech, and web design and development niches, especially. Look at WordPress.org, Theme.co, and Dell for examples of robust and active community support forums.
To boost activity in the forum, you’ll want to spend time there yourself – especially in the beginning. Your users need to feel like they get something valuable for spending their time in your community. Until you get top contributors, and gain enough traction to bring on moderators, you must be present to answer questions, or you’ll lose the community before you even build it. You can’t scale this approach effectively, but it’s a necessary part of boostrapping.
Leave part of the community dedicated to chit-chat – so users can get to know one another without clogging the support threads.
When you find highly dedicated users in your community, promote them to special positions, like moderators, so you can reward their behavior and loyalty with community recognition.
Knowledgebase
A knowledgebase, or collection of support and help articles, needs to contain a lot of information. But, before you start writing content for it, you must first understand what your customers need from you. Think about the questions they’re most frequently asking, and where there are issues your customers can take care of themselves without needing help from one of your customer support agents. Then, place a priority on these topics over others.
Instead of writing a bunch of articles aimed at solving customer issues and manually attempting to organize them in the most logical manner, it’s best for you to use some kind of knowledgebase software solution on your website to handle that for you. Many platforms will allow you to create articles right from your help desk’s support ticket, with the help of other assets you’ve created, like technical guides and documentation, instruction manuals, and demonstration videos.
Some common knowledgebase/help center solutions include:
You’ll need to decide what to document, and then work to create that documentation. It’s going to take a tremendous amount of time and effort to get the documentation perfected, but this one-time major effort will build a solid foundation for efficiency with customers and staff over the overall course of business operations.
Videos
Videos can help demonstrate exactly how to do something, which is highly helpful when people are looking to solve a problem. If you can’t afford to hire a professional to film it for you, at least make sure you’re using professional quality recording and sound equipment. You can get away with using a DSLR on a tripod, if you have proper lighting, and can ensure the video looks professional. You may be able to pull off a smartphone video for your friends, but your brand image is at stake here.
Keep the message clear and simple. If you’re explaining a complex or lengthy process, break it down into multiple videos. You can create a playlist or otherwise link the videos together to keep everyone on the right track. It’s much easier to keep a person’s attention through multiple short videos than it is through one long one.
Start your support video with a script. Writing out your script ahead of time will ensure you explain the process clearly and concisely, without skipping over anything that you need to cover.
If you’re recording a screencast, rather than a physical demonstration, then it’s a good idea to record your voice over before you shoot the screencast. It will make it easier to follow your audio cues.
When you record the voiceover, split the script into manageable chunks to make it easier to move through the recording session and keep track of your time along the way. Before recording the screencast, listen to it a few times, so you can learn the timing of the steps.
Don’t neglect your SEO. Adding keywords in the title and description, along with uploading a transcript can help users find you from your videos.
And, don’t forget branding. Though you’ll embed these videos on your website, a little branding never hurts.
Manuals
Manuals can be fairly complex, so it’s important to invest the appropriate amount of time into getting them right. First, you’ll need to create the appropriate user documentation, which means going back to make sure you’ve decided everything you need to document, and made a plan for how and when to get it done.
Before you can write a user manual, you need a clear picture of who the user is, and where users will be when they are using the guide. This helps determine the content and the style of the manual. You’ll also need to consider how much experience they have with the product and others like it.
Write the content in a manner your users will understand. If they’re not a highly technical audience, then it’s obvious you should skip the highly technical industry jargon.
Make sure you have a place to reference any related documents… such as a “How to Use This Guide” in the preface. If your manual is longer than 10 pages, include a table of contents so it’s easier for people to find the information they are looking for. Use appropriate graphics to support your points and instructions as needed throughout the manual.
You can do tutorials in several formats – blog posts, videos, and even an eBook with a series of tutorials. When you write tutorials, include screenshots where appropriate so your readers can make sure they are in the right place.
Just like with your videos, you want to define the topic and scope so you don’t try to do too much at once. You can always create additional tutorials and link them together.
Tutorials can be used for everything from how to install your product or service, to how to use certain features. Think about Adobe’s Creative Suite. There are countless things you can do with these programs, and the learning curve is quite steep. Not only are there countless books published on each of the programs, there are a number of independent websites dedicated to tutorials. And of course, Adobe does their own right. You can search their tutorial library to find what you’re looking for, and you can sort them by beginner or experienced. Learn how to do everything from finding and buying stock photos with Adobe Stock, to retouch photos and more.
Self-Help Should Never Be the Only Option
No matter how comprehensive your self-service options are, customers should always have the choice to escalate their issue to a customer service agent. If they can’t find the answer to their problems, but they still can’t get the help they need from your website, they should have the option to go elsewhere. Whether they want to start with an email, go to social media, or make a telephone call is up to them, but the option has to be there. If it’s not, you’ll just frustrate your customers and potentially send them running to the competition. It’s never safe to assume that you’ve covered every possible question or issue that a customer could run into while using your product or service – so always leave another door open for them.
What kinds of self-service options do you have in place for your customers?
If you’ve got an idea you think would make you rich – you could be right. Or, you could be wrong. It’s important to test the validity of your idea before pouring tons of time, energy, and money into something. Yeah, you can be excited about it, but just because you are doesn’t mean the rest of the world will be. Why waste those resources if you’re not going to be able to turn a profit?
Check out these eight ways to find out if there’s a market for what you’re thinking about introducing.
Generating Workable Ideas
If you know you need to come up with something new, but you’re not sure where you should start, begin with the problem itself, rather than a certain solution. This problem should be something either you, or someone else experiences regularly, and something that can be simplified into a single statement.
Next, work through that list of ideas, and determine if is it a main problem – one of the top three problems your potential customers are trying to solve. If it’s not, you’re moving into “maybe will purchase” territory, because it’s a problem they’d like to solve, but not necessarily one they consider a priority. It doesn’t matter that you could have the best product on the market for the problem, with the best pricing, and the best support. The reality is they’ll be so focused on their top three issues they won’t have the time or the budget to look at your solution.
How do you find out if it’s a main problem your audience is looking to solve? Start with a general profile of who would typically buy your product. Then, research and find a list of 20 to 50 prospects who meet your criteria.
Send them a message that looks a little something like this.
Hi [name],
I’m/We’re looking to spend 15 minutes on a call with [who they are/CEOs/Moms] who are experiencing [problem]. We’re doing research, and don’t have anything to sell. Would you be available for a quick call [date and time]?
Keep the email concise – don’t waste time.
Including a specific date and time for each call will reduce the amount of back and forth email between the two of you.
Send emails to about three times the number of people you actually want to speak to. This way, you have a certain number of “nos” built into your plan, and won’t be scrambling to find additional people to fill in the gaps.
Before the first call, come up with a list of questions to ask them – keep it limited. Remember, you only asked for 15 minutes. You want to make sure they experience the problem, and see how much of a problem it is. You also want to find out how they’re solving the problem now, and whether or not they’d be willing to pay for a solution.
Keep all the answers in a document of your choice. Once all the calls are done, look for patterns. You’ll start to see whether or not this really a big problem, or a nice to have issue.
Next, you’ll look at all the existing solutions customers say they use to solve the problem. They may outsource it. They may create their own workflow with a combination of several tools. You’ll want to go into a market where someone else is already seeking to solve the problem – competition isn’t a bad thing. If you’re not finding anyone who’s trying to solve the same problem, then you’re likely best suited to switch courses.
Now, look at the pains in existing solutions. You want your product or service to be better, so think about how you can make yours better. What do people not like about it? What features is it missing? What could be added to get the job done faster or easier?
Finally, verify your potential customers have a budget for your solution. You don’t need to ask them specifics of pricing, but follow up with some of your prospects about pricing. Ask their thoughts about pricing if you were to build something to solve the problem. Some will tell you they won’t pay for it, some will not commit to paying, but won’t directly oppose the idea, and some will say they’d refuse to pay for it.
If you can, dig to find out why they wouldn’t pay for it. You need at least half of the prospects you speak to to commit to pricing – not a price itself, but the idea of paying for your product or service when you’re ready to launch.
This process validates your idea and creates the bare-bones map for the creation process.
Market Research
What you did in the gathering ideas stage is a form of market research. It works backwards, with a problem to find the solution. You can do market research with a solution in mind – and there are a number of ways to do it.
Ask friends and family: Get a group of people together, and ask their thoughts. The closer they match your ideal customer, the better. Your mom and dad are likely going to tell you your idea is awesome, just because it’s yours. Go to people you know you can trust to be honest with you – brutally honest.
Run a survey: Use something like Google Forms to run your own survey for nothing. This relies on making sure you have the people to take it, though, so if you’ve got a bit of a budget, switch to Google Surveys or SurveyMonkey, where they’ll find people that match your demographics to send the survey to.
Hire a focus group: This is an expensive way to do market research, but you’ll get valuable insights from a group of people who are exposed to your product/service or concept. The best way to do this to enlist the help of an outside service. I recommend contacting three to five companies that specialize in focus groups, so you can make sure you’re getting the best possible deal for your money.
Look into secondary sources: The majority of your research will fall into this category. This is research that’s already been done, industry association reports that include market statistics, census reports, local chamber of commerce data, and more. Don’t reinvent the wheel here – make use of the data that’s already widely available for free or cheap on the Internet. Only purchase market research reports when it makes sense to do so.
Find the Competition
Take a look at what the companies that already out there are doing. If you can find a product like yours before you spend the resources to create it, that means someone else spent their resources validating the idea for you.
Coming in later may seem like a disadvantage, but it means you know there’s a market for your idea, and you can see where improvements need to be made – and then make sure your product or service has those improvements.
You should always give people want they want, but to convince people to leave the competition for your offering, you need to give them something better than what they’re already getting. When do you do that, and combine it with stellar customer service, you’re well on your way to building customer loyalty.
Beta Testing
This approach works best with software and app based products. Create a basic version of the product you’re selling, and give away free copies to those who are interested, in exchange for their feedback. During the beta testing, you can get insights on everything from bugs and glitches, to layout and feel, colors, features, and function. You can make the adjustments you feel are most necessary based on feedback before launching a full product. As a bonus for your beta testers – you can give them a free version of the full product. It should help generate buzz for the product when you’re hitting the market.
Give Away Prototypes
Make a few of your product – and ask for feedback in exchange. You can also do this if you’re planning on selling digital products. Send review copies to trusted colleagues, or people who’ve expressed interest in your product. Then, pay close attention to their feedback and make adjustments as necessary before the final official launch.
Launch Small Scale Sales with a Third-Party Platform
If you’re selling a physical product, one way to test the idea is to manufacture a limited number of the product, and then rely on third party platforms like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy (if it’s a handmade product, of course) to sell for you. You’re going to lose some money to commissions, but the advantage of using platforms like this is, you’ll be able to get wider exposure than if you were running everything from your own store.
Nobody will know who you are if you start from scratch with your own right away – and you won’t have to invest time in building (or hiring someone to build) your own website and store right away. With the right kind of pay-per-click ads and digital marketing, you can drive traffic to your third party stores. Pay attention to how well the products are selling there – if demand is so high you can’t keep up, it’s time to scale and go for broke.
If demand is low, even with the right marketing behind it – it may be time to scrap the idea and move onto something else.
Launch a Mini-Version of Your Product First
Thinking about starting a restaurant? Open a food truck first. It’s less financial risk, and gives you a way to make money while you’re testing your concept with your audience. Of course, you’ll have to do a considerable amount of market research to make sure your area is receptive to the idea of a food truck like yours before you begin – but if you get a killer response from the truck? It may be time to go full-on restaurant. Gypsy Queen, an Eastern Mediterranean restaurant in Asheville, North Carolina, began as a food truck. The truck still runs on occasion, and is usual for off-site catering events. Want to test a new menu? Run a special each night of the week – and see which ones sell the most. When your customers ask for it again, or you sell out fast, it’s a good indication it would do well on your regular menu.
Thinking about launching an online course? Start with an eBook. It won’t take you as long as a full course, and it can help you gauge interest in a more in-depth solution. Plus, you can sell the eBook later, at a lower cost, for people who would be interested in your course, but don’t have the time or the money to take it.
Rinse and Repeat
Go through this process with each new product or service idea you have. Once you get established with your first one, your customers will become a valuable source of information for additional expansion products and services.
How do you test and validate your ideas? Tell me in a comment below.
Gene: The Challenge Assumption’s podcast is brought to you by Dolphin Consulting – your source for the latest sales and marketing techniques and training in any industry. Visit DolphinConsulting.org today.
Eric Sachs: I just happened to run into a guy who was complaining that he was losing his business. I asked him why and he said, “Well, no one can find my website.” When I realized that maybe there was a business here, maybe I can do this for a living instead the jobs I was applying for that I really didn’t want, the biggest rewards in life are often realized by people willing to take the biggest risks. To me it was a risk.
Gene: I think it’s the number one cause of divorce, actually, is what they say.
Greg Davis: The Lexus helped, probably…oh, that was me.
Announcer: Coming to you live from the Americana Studio [indiscernible] [00:00:43].
Gene: We’re not live. This is a podcast. They’ll listen to this weeks later. Can you try it again?
Announcer: All right.Coming to you from Americana Studio is Austin, Texas. This is Challenge Assumptions, helping you build your committed tribe and grow your company, with your host, bestselling author, Greg Davis.
Greg: Wow, Gene’s joined in. Welcome to Challenge Assumptions Radio. He’s challenging the assumption of who’s the host and who’s not.
Gene: How you doin’, Greg?
Greg: Good. Entertaining sales. This is radio where we take your ideas and content seriously, but not ourselves. You bastard, you’ve never done that. What’s up with you today? Did you have your coffee again?
Gene: I had some coffee today.
Greg: That’s excellent. That always makes for more fun…lots of “coffee” as a stimulant apparently. I’m not sure what it is.
Gene: Hey, now.
Greg: Hey now, yes. We’ve got a great guest on today who’ll be joining us in a moment.You mean I chime in? I may chime in early. We’ll see. Eric Sachs, with Sachs Marketing Group, or SMG. Very cool. Very cool.
Gene: Very cool. Very cool.
Greg: [overlapping] [00:01:47] These guys claim number one in SEO, I think. It’s the NCO company. What I find interesting for a major company like them – [indiscernible] [00:01:55] 5000 company – is they actively promote searching out business for any range of business, any size of business, which you find that’s unique among your larger companies.
They’ve advertised in Time’s Square, again, [indiscernible] [00:02:09] 5000, and have some really interesting promotional efforts. I’m going to play you one. This is going to be very romantic. I think you’ll like this.
Gene: All right. Let’s see.
Greg: Here we go.
Woman: Help. Help. I’ve spent so much money for SEO and digital marketing services and my product still can’t be found online.
Announcer: Well, this sounds like a job for SMG guy.
Greg: SMG guy.
Gene [chuckles] [00:02:36] Welcome to the show, Eric. How you doing today?
Eric Sachs: I’m doing great, thanks. How are you?
Greg: Good. Are you the SMG guy super hero?
EricSach: I guess, yeah. We call him our avatar.
Greg: Okay. Have you worn spandex before?
Eric: I have not, but one of my employees dressed up as the SMG guy one year for Halloween.
Greg: Excellent. Did you actually make that a sort of promotional effort, where…?
Eric: Oh yeah, it was on Instagram and Social. It’s actually a girl, she had kind of a sexy SMG thing going on.
Gene: Usually the mascot…the gender never matches, it doesn’t matter, right?
Eric: Yeah, I don’t…[overlapping] [00:03:03].
Gene: [overlapping] [00:03:08] college mascots, or whatever.
Greg: [overlapping] [00:03:08]
Gene: You’re out of California, Southern California?
Eric: We are, yeah. Southern California, specifically West Lake Village, kind of a suburb of Southern California, north of the main downtown Los Angeles area.
Gene: So I think…what…our eighth person from Southern California in the room?
Greg: I guess so. I don’t know. [laughs] [00:03:30]
Greg: Apparently all the business is happening in Southern California.
Gene: Is business good in Southern California? How the hell could it be with the very high taxes?
Eric: It’s definitely an expensive place to run a business.
Greg: Basically you grew up there so that’s why you’re there, right?
Eric: I did, yeah. I was born and raised in Hollywood and then I moved out to the suburbs when I got married and my first child, and been here ever since.
Greg: What first interested you in marketing? How did that evolve in you?
Eric: I was in the mortgage space for about 12 years, and then late 2006, or early 2007, the mortgage space was in turmoil and the writing was really on the wall that I probably wasn’t going to be able to make the income that I was used to for very much longer. So I started, sort of in a panic, reaching out for something to supplement my income.
I was still employed in the wholesale lending space, but I really needed something to supplement my income and I needed something that I thought would be passive, because I was still working. So I sort of self-taught myself SEO, and Lite WebDesign, and I became what’s called a publisher and affiliate marketer.
I signed up with Amazon and a couple different affiliate networks. The approach was build a couple websites, do some SEO, get them to the first page of Google, and when people found my sites and clicked through they’d be redirected to Amazon, and if they bought the product, I’d get a check for $.25 or something. That’s really how I got my start.
Greg: Doing your own websites, then?
Eric: Yeah. That was right around the time we were switching to Blu-ray from disc – from CD to Blu-ray. Blu-ray was all the rage and there was a lot of different Blu-ray players that were being purchased. I just bought up a bunch of domains for Panasonic Blu-ray players and built various small little WordPress sites.
Then, when people searched for that specific Blu-ray player, they’d find my site on the first page of Google because of the SEO work I was doing – anywhere they clicked on my site, they’d go to Amazon. If they bought the player, I’d get a percentage of the sale.
That’s sort of Affiliate Marketing 101 and that’s, really, how I got my start and started building my skill set in the space.
Greg: How did you hear about that potential, that opportunity – you were in mortgages, so that doesn’t seem like the SEO world.
Eric: Just searching around for ways to make money on the Web. It was clear to me at the time that no one really went to the phonebook anymore for services or products, so I knew that the Web was where it was at. I bought a $99 teach-yourself-SEO program, at the time, and studied, and listened to the tapes, and watched the videos, and taught myself how to do some WordPress. That’s what started it off.
I think at the pinnacle I was maybe making $1000 a month off my sites, but it was passive, and I was able to still continue to work in the mortgage space until the bottom finally fell out.
Greg: That’s an interesting lesson to meet anyone out there…that you were able to find something new, not that many years ago, really. What do you think, about 10 years, roughly?
Eric: About ’07.
Greg: If you were to be in that similar position now, what do you think there is out there that’s similar for an opportunity?
Eric: Again, it’s going to be something web-based. There’s a lot of people that learn some web-based skill, whether that’s web design, or conversion optimization, or maybe graphics design, or copywriting. Whatever floats your boat, you can usually make some money at it on the Web.
Greg: I was going to say big data, possibly. I don’t know. Does that work, Gene? Does that make sense to you?
Gene: Well, big data implies big, so unless you’re going to buy up a whole bunch of computing power and process data through databases, it’s probably not going to be a sideline passive business to get an extra $1000 [overlapping] [00:07:37]
Greg: So small data would be a better approach?
Gene: Yes, Greg, small versus big.
[overlapping] [00:07:45]
Greg: Probably selling like a product manufactured in China via, like, Facebook ads would probably work.
Gene: That’s actually a much better idea than big data.
Greg: Okay. [overlapping] [00:07:53]
Eric: [overlapping] [00:07:543] Sure, finding a product and maybe drop-shipping, that would work.
Greg: For you that evolved, though, into something much bigger. How did that take place?
Eric: It’s an interesting story. As I mentioned, the most I was making was maybe $1000 a month. Then the mortgage industry continued to decline, and ultimately I found myself, through really no fault of my own, unemployed and unemployable in the mortgage space because all of the big lenders were filing for bankruptcy.
With a resume that said mortgage lender for 12 years, I really had nowhere to go. I was at an all-time low in life. We were hiding our car from the repo man. I was writing bad checks at the market for diapers and formula for the baby, and negotiating with my landlord to not evict my family and I, and on Government aid. It was really bad.
I just happened to run into a guy who was complaining that he was losing his business and I asked him why. He said, “Well, no one can find my website.” I said, “I can do that, I know how to do that.” He said, “Could you do it for me?” I said, “Sure. Would you pay me?” He said, “Yeah, sure. Why don’t you do a proposal?”
So I went home a had no idea what to put down on a proposal, I just sort of winged it. I had no idea what to charge. I didn’t want to charge too much and take the chance of them saying, “No.” I didn’t want to undervalue the service, so I thought $1000 sounded reasonable.
Did a proposal, created a PDF, sent it to him in an email. He called and said, “Come get a check.” He became my first client. Again, I was not building a business, I was surviving. My wife and I went to the market and we bought some groceries and I was continuing to work on my resume and interviewed for jobs during the day that I really didn’t want, but I needed something.
I had my wife in my ear saying, “You need a job. You need stability. You need insurance,” and at night I’d work on his SEO.
Gene: I think we’ve all had those wives.
Eric: Yeah. [chuckles][00:10:02] I actually still have her, so it worked out.
Gene: We don’t.
Greg: Yeah, we don’t.
[laughter] [00:10:07]
Eric: Long story short, he got great results and he was really happy and he salvaged his business. He ended up not having to file for bankruptcy. He referred me to someone else, and that person referred me to someone else.
Greg: And his name was Jeff Bezos with Amazon. No?
Eric: No. Not quite that a success story, but he is still in business, and, interestingly, he’s still our client seven years later.
Greg: Very good.
Eric: It was at some point, I think around three or four clients that I realized that maybe there was a business here. Maybe I can do this for a living instead of the jobs that I was applying for that I really didn’t want. Again, the wife chimed up and said, “No, no, you need stable employment. You need insurance.” But, I wanted to take a chance.
There’s a quote that’s helped me in the past in similar situations, that goes something like, “The biggest rewards in life are often realized by people willing to take the biggest risks.” To me it was a risk to invest 100% of my time in this, but I was willing to take the risk.
Slowly, but surely, got my first office. Got too busy, got my first employee…
Greg: You talked about taking that risk and there was some difference of opinion between you and your wife. Did you ever contemplate that it might lead to the end of your marriage? Did you sense that the risk might be that involved?
Eric: Yeah, absolutely. At that time my marriage was rocky anyway because financial instability tends to wreak havoc on relationships – or at least it did mine.
Gene: I think it’s the number one cause of divorce, actually.
Greg: Yeah.
Eric: Yeah. So she wasn’t real thrilled with what was going on to begin with, and then to try to get her buy-in on, “Well, I’m just going to work on my computer for a living,” was really a hard sell. What helped me was by pointing out that the stability that she was seeking in a “job” was not very stable, as evidenced by me losing my job in the mortgage space.
I had that stability and the rug got pulled out from under me, so maybe this was an opportunity for me to create my own stability. With that, ultimately… I don’t know if she ever, officially, bought into it, but she’s, in hindsight, sure happy now that she did.
Greg: The Lexus helped, probably. Oh, that was me. Gene’s fired a lot of people over his career…
Gene: Yeah.
Greg: …from industries in a similar fashion, where they’re sort of forced out of an environment that they’re in. A lot of times they often come out the other end much stronger and more committed to something else that’s a better fit.
Gene: I think that’s true for a lot, certainly not all people. Some people were in jobs that they got lucky to get into and so when they lose that job they are not going to replace that with anything better.
I think for most people who are talented and who have ambition in life, they, quite often, end up in a job – and this does not sound like this is the case when the whole industry turns down – quite often people end up in jobs that are not an ideal match for them.
In those scenarios they may not want to take on the risk of quitting and trying to find something else, but if they’re working in a job they’re not very well suited for, there’s certainly a much higher chance they’re going to be let go.
But, when they are let go, it is an opportunity for them to find a job that’s a lot more suitable to where their talents and their interests lies. When they do, it quite often ends up being much better for them. I think the story I’ve told…a couple years back I was visiting Dallas and I had lunch with one guy that I fired from one company, and then dinner with a different guy I fired from a different company.And they were both happy to meet up with me and chit-chat with no ill feelings, because they were both in better situations a year later than they were in the time when I had to fire them.
Greg: What I found interesting in your earlier answer, Eric, is that your perspective now is really fully committed to opportunities on the Web, so there must be something that’s a great fit about that for you because you’ve not gone back to mortgages and said, “Let’s figure out how to make the mortgage industry change by changing it to fit the Internet,” or whatever may be.
You’re really focused on this area in your life. Why do you think it’s a good fit for you?
Eric: I heard early on that the average number of careers in a person’s lifetime is three. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but in my case it absolutely has been true. Mortgage was my second career, this is my third.
What I really enjoy about what I do now is how intricate it is, and how fluid it is, and how ever-changing it is, because we’re at the very cusp of evolution as things change, as Google refines their algorithms, and so forth, and what worked a month ago, six weeks ago, and what were considered best practices in digital marketing then have evolved and are different today.
My job is, really, to keep my finger on the pulse of what’s going on now and to make adjustments accordingly on behalf of our many clients that put their faith into us. I really get a kick out of doing something with my computer and having it benefit my client.
So, that when someone searches for a service or a product in Google and my client is on the first page, at the very top of the page, and they’re growing their business as a direct results of our efforts, that’s really rewarding.
Gene: I find that interesting that you said you actually like the changes in your particular industry because it’s engaging. Have you considered that those changes, the Google constantly updating their algorithms, do you think that makes your industry more successful? Because things are constantly changing, so people need to update and adapt to those changes.
Eric: I become more necessary, right? Ours is a recession-proof industry because the Web is where it’s at, no one’s going to phone books anymore to find their local barber, or a plumber, or a restaurant, it’s all web-based. As a business, you either have an online presence or you have a failing business, so we’ve become extremely necessary.
As evidence, it’s an interesting side note, one of our clients recently had a bit of a fall-out internally and they lost 90%…the way that they were generating their revenue was lost. I actually they were going to cancel our service. Instead, they doubled down, which I thought was really brave and forward-thinking of them.
They actually increased their campaign in light of the financial downturn that they had and so I think that’s representative of what a lot of businesses think – is that we have to invest in the Web. What’s the alternative?
Certainly, you could buy a billboard, but I think the Web is really where it’s at.
Gene: I have a…I guess it’s a must-ask question, because you’re the guy for that topic. Bing versus Google – why is Bing still around – and are they worth advertising on?
Eric: I would say, to answer the last question first, there’s certainly some value in advertising on Bing. Google obviously has market share by a long shot. When we optimize for our clients, we optimize for Google exclusively, and whatever happens with Bing and Yahoo is just sort of icing on the cake.
There’s still an audience for Bing and Yahoo, but it tends to be – I hope I don’t get myself in trouble here – but it tends to somewhat generational.
Gene: I was going to ask about that. Maybe it’s actually a benefit because you can say that ads targeting people in their 60s all go to Bing, predominantly because it’s where [overlapping] [00:18:35]
Eric: I wouldn’t say all of them, but yeah, a larger portion of them. If you were targeting Millenials you’d be on Google and, moreover, Snapchat, as opposed to Facebook. So there is a generational component to this stuff.
Greg: I found it interesting that you said that things are changing every six weeks, because we probably, about six weeks ago, had an SEO company on, as well. It’s been awhile. There are, definitely, some things you’re doing differently.
We’re going to go to break now, but when we come back we’re going to find out what makes Sachs Marketing Group one of the leading SEO companies in America.
Announcer: This segment is brought to you by the Sales Builder System, the innovative 12-part system for improving your company’s sales process. Check out SalesBuilderSystem.com for more information.
Greg: We’re back with Sachs Marketing Group, with Eric Sachs. We were talking earlier about being on the Internet and the fact that no one’s using the phone. I got the phonebook delivered yesterday, by the way. Do you still get that?
Eric: I probably take it from wherever it’s in – the little bag – and put it directly in the recycled bin.
Greg: That’s what I did, too.
Eric: I’m not sure that’s a worthwhile investment for anybody.
Greg: Unbelievable.
Gene: Do they have to keep making them? I mean, shouldn’t there be an opt-out of the thing, or something?
Greg: I don’t know.
Gene: I’ve thrown away for the last, at least 10 years without looking at it.
Greg: We could save the environment if we would stop…
Gene: Whatever. Somebody’s obviously making money on this so they’re still doing it, but…
Eric: That’s the thing. People are buying ads, so as long as people buy ads, they’ll keep printing them? Who looks at the phonebook?
Greg: Of all the audience out there, we’re definitely not on the leading edge to say, “Bad idea – yellow page’s ads.”
Gene: I think it’s been a bad idea for at least 10, maybe 15 years.
Eric: Unless you’re advertising for your retirement community. People who are in that age demographic might still [overlapping] [00:20:31].
Gene: I suppose if…
Greg: Does your mom?
Gene: Yeah, I can’t imagine.
Eric: No, I…
Gene: His mom’s like our age, dude.
Greg: His mom is not our age.
Gene: Well, close. At least 10 years.
[laughter] [00:20:43]
Gene: You’re not that young, Greg.
Greg: [laughs] [00:20:44] Maybe I should ask my parents if they use the phonebook. What is the newest thing in SEO, though, Eric? What are you guys doing now that’s unique?
Eric: WiFi enabled vehicles, with ads, in cars. You’re going to be driving along and you’re going to pass a Subway sandwich shop and something’s going to pop up on your screen for $4 off for a foot-long sub.
Gene: I’ve had that happen. That is so annoying. But, I have totally had that happen.
Greg: They’re also going to advertise free yoga mats because that’s what they make their bread out of, so you get them both at the same time. Not a sponsor at this point.
Gene: We’re going to sued for that.
Greg: At one point there was a yoga mat chemical, but I’m sure it’s changed.
Gene: A yoga mat chemical.
Greg: In the bread in the Subway buns.
Gene: What?
Greg: The yoga mat chemical was in the…
Gene: What is the yoga chemical? How do they make a chemical out of yoga mats?
Greg: No, the chemical used to make yoga mats…
Gene: There are a lot of chemicals used to make yoga mats.
Greg: …should I be needed to clarify…
Gene: I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Eric: I think we’re getting off subject, guys.
Greg: Yeah. So you’re driving along in your car, Eric, and you get an advertisement for a yoga mat…I mean a Subway sandwich.
Gene: Oh my God. [overlapping] [00:21:58]
Eric: We’re becoming more mobile. Everyone’s got a Smartphone, everyone’s got a tablet, and now cars… So, that’s kind of where we’re headed. There’ll always be desktop computers, certainly, but Google, not long ago implemented a mobile-friendly algorithm, and now if you’re website is not optimized for every screen size, you’re not going to be found very much. That’s kind of where we’re headed.
You asked two questions, one was what are we doing different, or I think it was, maybe, how are we differentiating ourselves, but certainly where we’re headed is very much mobile-based.
Gene: That makes a lot of sense. Does that affect your overall strategy, or does that affect the specific segment of the market that you’re strategizing for? Is mobile something…I guess my question is is there anything the people aren’t using for mobile for forsearching?
Eric: We could have another conversation about generation because there is certainly a generation that’s not using mobile, but if you’re under, gosh, I don’t know, 50ish, you’re probably using some mobile device, whether it’s your phone or you bought a new car that’s WiFi-enabled. You may not intentionally use it, but it just sort of happens.
Like someone said that an ad kept popping up and it was annoying. You didn’t intend to do that. It’s just the wave of the future.
There’s new technology now for…have you seen the VR goggles, virtual reality goggles?
Gene: Yes.
Eric: Not just as a gaming system, but you can now shop at Nordstrom from home using your VR goggles and, figuratively, walk around the store and pick up items and decide to purchase them from your house. It’s getting kind of crazy.
Greg: That’s an interesting step, because I’ve always seen the online space as lacking that, so if you add in the virtual reality component…I guess you could add in music. Smell may be the last thing to come across.
Gene: Taste.
Greg: Well, smell and taste [overlapping] [00:24:16]
Eric: I wouldn’t be surprised[overlapping] [00:24:18], you know?
Gene: Very attractive sales assistants.
Greg: They could be in the VR, right?
Eric: It’s [overlapping] [00:24:22].
Greg: That’s what I mean.
Gene: Oh, so they would all be very attractive.
Greg: Yeah. Yeah. That’s what I mean, because you only use one set of people for the whole country [overlapping] [00:24:30] Nordstrom.
Gene: One attractive set of people.
Greg: It might be the same person.
Gene: That’s what I mean. I set of…
Greg: Cameron Dias would be serving you all the…I’m a very old to be saying Cameron Dias.
Gene: Yeah, you are an old man if you…
Greg: Like, Brittany…no, not Brittany Spears. Nothing against Cameron Dias. Let’s not insult anybody now.
[overlapping] [00:24:45]
Greg: I still like her, still a lot.It used to be Madonna. I had the Madonna poster in college.
Eric: Ahh.
Gene: Yeah, I don’t know who that is.
Greg: She’s the Mother of Jesus.
Gene: Brittany’s grandmother? That’s awesome.
Greg: Madonna’s the Mother of Jesus, don’t insult her, please.
The VR experience is pretty neat that it allows that… I guess we’re off topic there.
Gene: Let me talk about something other than SEO. Your company is a marketing agency. Do you do phone marketing, do you just do SEO, and how big are you guys?
Eric: We do. We handle anything under the digital umbrella, whether that’s search engine optimization, SEO, SEM – which is search engine marketing, which refers to Google AdWords, and paid ads, social media development, as well as web design.
If you come to us as a business just starting out and you need a website, and you need full social media, and branding, and SEO, we can handle anything that’s digital.
In terms of how large we are – we’ve been around just under seven years. Large by employee size, by revenue…? I’m not sure how to answer that.
Gene: Whatever you would consider size [overlapping] [00:26:04].
Greg: Gene does a lot of company audits, so he would love for you to just reveal everything in your books now.We’ll go over operating capital, and…
Eric: We’re growing exponentially year after year. The Inc5000 thing was last year and they measure growth rate. We’re a few million dollar a year company, from one employee working in my house at night to now…I think we’re at 19 or 20 employees – and about $3 million annually in gross revenue.
Greg: You make a big case for the fact that you do not outsource offshore at all…all your employees…You even have the American flag on the – Gene might appreciate this – the American flag on one of your cartoony ads on the web site.
Eric: The digital marketing space is largely outsourced to other countries. Not to knock outsourcing…
Gene: Oh, feel free.
Eric: I’ll try to tell you a little anecdotal story. I hope I don’t take too much time. About two-and-a-half years into the business… Keep in mind I didn’t have a business plan, a marketing plan, I had no idea. I was just doing it to survive and then it sort of evolved. I didn’t plan it out very well. I just made decisions that I thought made the most sense.
To me it made sense if someone was going to pay me to do some work, it made sense for me to do that work. I didn’t even think to send it somewhere else to be done. I just thought I need to do it. If I’m too busy to do it, I need to hire someone to help me do it. That was my mindset going in.
About two-and-a-half years into the business we were contacted by our merchant provider who runs all of our American Express, and Visa, and so forth. He said, “Eric, aren’t you a SEO firm?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “But you’ve never had a charge back,” meaning none of my clients had ever disputed a charge.
Gene: Wow. Very unusual
Greg: That’s incredible.
Eric: I didn’t think it’s that big a deal. I thought it just made…yeah, isn’t that how it’s supposed to be? He said, “Yeah, that’s great, but we have a ton of other SEO firms on our books and all of them, without exception, regularly charge back month-after-month, so what are you doing different?” Honestly, I didn’t know. I had no idea.
But, I wanted to find out so I started doing research. I did a lot of competitive analysis and I met a lot of people, and I found that there’s a kind of standard… Certainly not all of my competitors, I don’t mean to disparage all SEO firms, but there is a real common approach in the digital marketing space that’s based largely on client acquisition.
There’s usually a call center, and you bring clients in, the pitch is “Hey, we’ll get you to the first page of Google in 90 days.” Then you outsource the work to another country like Pakistan, India, or Philippines, where the economy’s so different – it’s pennies on the dollar – so it’s a very profitable model. Then, if they leave after 90 days, that’s fine. You’re just going to replace them with new people that you promised 90 days to. So, it’s about a 90 day retention based on client acquisition kind of a model, and it’s really profitable because of the outsourcing.
Ours is completely different, not because I wanted to be different, but because I had no idea that model existed. It’s probably a good thing, because that’s probably what I would have done had I known.
So instead, I did the work myself. I hired people to help me; I was really transparent and honest, and set very realistic expectations. I would never tell a client 90 days because I don’t have a crystal ball, I don’t know what’s going to happen in 90 days.
We, to this day, don’t have a call center or a sales guy. All of our clients come through me, the CEO, and we just do really good work. We don’t require contracts with our clients, so they can leave at any time.
Gene: That’s interesting and one that I’ve never heard of, that I can think of, at least companies I work with or talk to. Do you mean even on month one…like someone could just say, “Give me a month, and I’ll see what I think of the work you do.”
Eric: Yeah. It’s never happened. But, yeah, technically they could leave at any time.
Gene: You’ve never heard of this Greg?
Greg: No one I’ve talk to that offered SEO, or that I’ve used SEO…
Eric: Our first client ever, that guy seven years ago [overlapping] [00:30:19].
Gene: Oh, SEO. I was going to say… I’m chiming in because that’s essentially what I do for my consulting.
Greg: I’m not talking about all business in the world. I’m not to saving I go to 7-Eleven and buy milk and they’re, like, “Thanks for signing the contract. You going to buy milk here every day for the next six months?” I just mean in terms of SEO companies, it’s definitely very common.
I get it. There’s some amount of time it takes, maybe it’s 30 days, maybe it’s 90, but what protection does a… The first company to do the website– I say company loosely – dude… Dude I met that did the website for Dolphin, I didn’t have the option a month in to say, “Well, your work sucks,” but that was, maybe, my conclusion.
It’s not that you should expect results in 30 days, by any means, but at least that’s giving someone an opportunity to say, “Okay, I’ve seen the work you’ve done in the first 30 days and here’s what I think of it. I’m continuing, or not.”
Eric: I think it’s really important. I don’t want to lock somebody in contractually to pay us month-after-month if they’re not happy and if they’re not experiencing return. I’m confident enough in what we offer because we’re not outsourcing, because we’re doing the work in-house, under our roof, we have complete control of the quality of work that’s being done.
I know that we’re good at what we do and that our clients grow their business as a result of our efforts, so it makes sense that they’ve stayed with us as long as they have.
Here we are at year seven. Still, we’ve not had a single charge back. We don’t have a single negative review on any online [indiscernible] [00:31:58]. You can’t find anything bad about us and it’s because we really bend over backwards to service our clients and make sure that they’re growing their business. It’s a formula that’s working.
Gene; So, you’re not doing reputation management to delete all the bad publicity.
Eric: No, you know…
Greg: They offer that service, apparently, but they may have done their own.
Eric: It’s a really good point because our online reputation is almost suspect, I would offer, because there is not anything negative. It looks a little good to be true. I almost want somebody to go on Yelp and say that I took two hours to return their call, or something negative, because I get it. I know that it looks like we’re developing online reputation fictitiously, but that’s absolutely not the case.
What we’ve done is we’ve partnered with, for example…Trustpilotis sort of industry standard for online reputation because it’s really, really difficult to do a fake review on Trustpilot. If you get a negative review on Trustpilot, there’s no way to remove it. We’ve decided to use Trustpilot as our main review aggregate or source, to show that we really do have…
To prospective new clients we’ll give phone numbers. You’re welcome to call our existing past clients and so it’s actually true. It’s not smoke and mirrors.
Greg: I want to get into some of the mechanics of what it is that you do. I found it interesting on your site – on the very first page…I guess what I would assume is the call-to-action button… Of course it says award-winning SEO company for any size business, but I guess the call-to-action is “Be Happy.”
Eric: Yeah. It’s a little experiment that we’re running. If you read the “Be Happy” section, it’s really just an overview of how we got started.
Greg: I’m clicking now. I’ve decided I want to be happy…actually just decided. Go ahead.
Eric: In a nutshell, it just tells a story. One day I met a guy who was complaining that no one could find his website and he wasn’t happy. I told him I could help him and I did, and he was happy. Then he referred me to people, and then they were happy. If you want to be happy, give us your name and your number and we’ll call you.
It’s a really simple message, and I think it’s kind of cute artwork, somewhat reminiscent to TheGiving Tree, if you guys are familiar with that book. We sort of patterned the artwork after that.
Gene: Absolutely. That’s terrific.
Greg: No idea. Gene, of course…
Gene: Yeah, of course. Greg doesn’t really read.
Greg: Oh my God, I do read. I do read some things.
Gene: Sports Illustrated, baby.
Greg: No, I don’t read that. There’s nothing to read. It’s called “Illustrated,” Sports Illustrated. What’s there to read?
Eric: Aaaand, we’re off the rails again.
Gene: I only read things that are online, because I’m a new-ageMillineal-era person.
Greg: That’s right.
Gene: I read the phonebook, myself. But that’s just me.
Greg: That’s kind of a test, but certainly the use of an emotional word, that must be consistent with some strategies that you guys use in other campaigns or with other companies.
Eric: Yeah, down to the colors. Nothing is a guess. There’s color theory that goes into web design. That burnt orange color that you see is the best converting color on the web. If you look at PayPal, or Amazon, or any other major e-commerce site you’ll see that same color.
There’s a method to the madness, if you will. Because we don’t have a sales staff, we don’t do any outbound, we, literally, wait for our phone to ring, and it does. It rings off the hook. It rings because we get a lot of referral business and because our website generates a lot of business for us.
Greg: So that’s a good sign if an SEO company uses SEO to get business. How do you find the clients that aren’t in Los Angeles?
Eric: They don’t visit us, first of all, so that’s one of our differentiators. Because we have an office, and because we have people here doing the work, we love hosting meetings with our clients to come in and see us, and meet us, and see what we’re doing. Generally, the clients that we have on the East coast, or Virginia – we have several clients there – we have some clients, really, all across the Nation, but they typically don’t show up in our office. That’s really the difference.
Greg: You also have an area on your website entitled Social Media Development. I guess that’s doing social media work. I’m [indiscernible] [00:36:21] about the word “development.” What are you doing in social media work? This is the age-ending question we’re always asking. Where does social media work and where does it not?
Eric: What we do is a bunch of different stuff. We do very traditional social media development which involves us managing our clients social channels – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, in some cases, LinkedIn – really, whatever is applicable for their particular market, or their product, or their service.
We’re building their brand on social channels. We’re building their fan base. Getting people to like their page or follow them on Twitter, or on Instagram, or link up with them on LinkedIn. Then we’re putting content in front of their audience that would resonate with their audience in an effort to drive revenue for our clients.
That’s really traditional social media development. Build the brand, build the fan base, engage with your audience via social channels. Then we do some outside-the-box social media development, as well.
We work with what we call influencers. Influencers are people that have an existing audience that’s attentive to the content that they share on their social channels. If we have a restaurant, for example, that sells, let’s say, Vegan food, here locally, and we can connect with, and collaborate with an online influencer in the food space who has an existing audience that’s attentive, we can leverage that to drive his or her audience into our client’s restaurant.
Greg: How do you convince the influencer to work with you?
Eric: A bunch of different ways. Certainly we’re not above “paying to play,” so money does change hands. In some instances the influencer is smitten by the product or the service and they’re willing to do it gratis.
In some cases we make our own influencers from [indiscernible] [00-38:24]. Ninety-ish percent of what you see on the Web is maybe not exactly what it seems. So that person that you’re communicating with is saying you should try out this particular product or service, may not be a real person, may be managed by a team.
Greg: I think you’re being generous with 90%.
Gene: Because your cynical.Let me ask you a question that is a little more challenging assumptions, I guess. What do you guys…
Greg: That was a pretty good one, by the way. He just unveiled…took the covers off.
Gene: That was, actually, pretty good.
Greg: Now you want the panties off, too?
Gene: That’s right. What do you guys not do? If somebody comes to you and they want to do a lot of marketing, what do you either outsource or what do you recommend somebody else for them to go use?
Eric: We wouldn’t outsource anything. If it’s not in our wheelhouse, we would suggest they find somebody else. It’s anything offline. We’re not a PR firm, we’re not arranging trunk shows for people, we’re not arranging speaking events, we don’t do any type of offline public relations related work.
Greg: Some businesses are a better fit for that?
Eric: I would say yes.
Greg: What would that be?
Eric: Clothing lines, they need to get Carrie Underwood to wear their blouse and walk around at a party and take pictures of her. We’re not going to call Carrie’s people. That would be an offline effort.
Gene: Okay. Presumably, the same thing with traditional media – TV ads, radio ads, that kind of thing?
Eric: That’s not in our wheelhouse. You’re absolutely…radio, TV, billboards, bus stop advertising. If it’s on the Web, we’re the resource for it, and if it’s not on the Web, we would try to fit you with somebody else that would be better suited to help.
Gene: Do you have partners that you typically work with on that, or do you just not get to ask those questions very often?
Eric: Yeah, on a case-by-case, but the vast majority of the people that come to us really come to us for digital. It’s clear that’s what we do. Sometimes there’s some crossover. A client maybe designed a new product and there’s first to market, so they’ve got the burden of education to let people know this product exists.
So we’re doing our best in terms of the website and the social media, building the audience, building brand awareness on the Web.But maybe they need some additional, like an infomercial, or maybe a billboard. It’s really not our area of expertise.
Gene: Right. The video aspect opens up another question, which is if it is online, so you’re going to want videos for…whether it’s YouTube, for the SEO in YouTube, or their website in general, do you guys do video production, or do you also recommend somebody else for them to do that?
Eric: I have two partnerships in place. I guess you could call that outsourcing, but not really because they’re local. I have one partnership in place for what we call “explainer videos,” which are oftentimes either cartoons or a whiteboard-type of video where someone’s drawing as there’s a voice-over. We do those.
We also do actual video where a film crew shows up and you’ve got a script, you’ve got sound, you’ve got lighting, and so forth. There are both types of videos on our website. We have resources for that, but we don’t actually do them ourselves.
Greg: For people out there that are looking for what marketing works well, if you could give an avatar, if you want to call it that, give me a couple examples of a type of company – even a specific example – of a company that’s good for SEO versus good for social media versus video marketing, or something like that.
Eric: I would say if it’s good for SEO, then it’s going to be good for social media and video marketing, because it’s all sort of the Web. If the company is a good match for web-based marketing, then that’s going to encompass both SEO and social media.
There’s a crossover that exists today between what happens on social media and what happens in search results that didn’t always exist. It’s relatively new. There’s a concept that if your friends like something, there’s a good chance you might like it, too.
If you’re connected to people on social channels and your activity may actually influence what they see when they search for stuff in Google, believe it or not.
Greg: How does that connection, then? Are you saying…which influences the other?
Eric: Let’s say you and I are friends on Facebook and Twitter, and we follow each other on Instagram, and we’re in each other’s Google Plus Circles, and I’m shopping for, let’s say, a classic car and I find a website that I really like and I share it on my social channel, like people typically do.
Six months from now you decide to look for a car and you do a search, there’s a good chance, assuming you’re logged in and we’re connected, that the website I shared today will be on your search results a few months from now when you do a search.
It’s a function of how social media has really bled into the SEO space.
Greg: That’s not a bleed from an organic result, that’s a bleed of some sort of data connection, right?
Eric: Yeah, it’s the fact that you’re logged in – and keep in mind, you have to be logged into your Google account. A lot of people are when they do searches. If you use Chrome as a browser, for example, most people will be logged into their Gmail account, and if we’re connected through Google Plus, then that’s how that connection occurs. I guess you’d call it somewhat organic.
We’ve sort of strayed from the question. My point is that if someone is a good fit for us, they are a good fit for social media development, as well, and video, as well. In terms of what types of companies, gosh, I would say almost every type of company that either sells a product or offers a service.
We will work with pretty much any company. There’s a couple markets that we won’t work in – gambling and the adult entertainment industry – is not somewhere where we’ll go as a firm. Other than that…
We have some niches that we’ve developed, sort of organically. We didn’t necessarily intend to specialize in a particular market, but we have a ton of clients in the drug/alcohol treatment space, maybe because of our proximity to Malibu and a lot of them are in Malibu. I’m not really sure how that happened.
Greg: [laughs] [00:45:14] Well, okay.
Eric: And some others – some home improvement, we have some attorneys, doctors. Our book of business is pretty representative of a ton of different types of industries…shipping companies. The list goes on.
Greg: Again, one thing I’d say that I thought was unique at the top is that you guys at least advertise that you…any sort of size company…you guys are interested in and work with those types of companies. How low does that price get? If someone’s like a solopreneur – one person company – or a very small company, is there a price range for them, too, or is there a limit to that?
Eric: Yes there’s a price range, and yes there’s a limit. That’s evolved. When we started out it was “Gosh, we need business. We’ll take anybody.” As we become more successful, we become a little bit more selective about the clients that we’ll work with.
At the same time, I try not to turn anyone away. At the point I’m turning someone away, it’s because their budget is such that I know that I’m going to need more resources to be able to be successful for them. They’re offering $200 a month, let’s say, and I know that it’s just going to cost more than that.
So rather than take their $200 a month, knowing they’re going to cancel in 90 days because they’re upset with me, I’d rather just have them a little irritated that I’m turning them away now, than angry with me 90 days from now when they’ve spent $600, now, and they haven’t gotten anything for that money.
Greg: What do you think the biggest mistake people make when they look at doing SEO for their company is? Or doing social media for their company, for that matter.
Eric: There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors. We sort of alluded to that when I was talking about the standard approach to help marketing companies market their services. There’s a lot of deception and lies and misrepresentations. I would say the mistake that people make is not fully vetting, or fully making sure that the company that they’re going to be partnering with is really able to do what they say they can do. It’s just really unfortunate.
It’s been my goal, and if you follow me on any of my social channels, or follow our blog, there’s a common thread, and that’s to try to bring some integrity to this space that’s so lacking that. I can’t do it all on my own. I do the best I can.
Gene: I think your growth is a testament to your doing it. [chuckle] [00:47:49]
Greg: That’s a problem we see. It’s bold and brave of you to say, “I’m in an industry that lacks integrity and doing the best I can in that space,” and passionate for it.
Eric, it’s been great having you on and learning about, really, how companies can better evaluate what they’re doing in Internet and digital marketing, and thanks again for being on the show.
Eric: Thanks for having me, guys. It was a great time and thanks for listening to the story. I really appreciate it.
Greg: Thanks so much. That was Challenge Assumptions.
Announcer: As always, the Challenge Assumptions podcast has been brought to you by Dolphin Consulting. Whether you need to improve your operation’s efficiency, or grow your revenue, visit DolphinConsulting.org today.
Please don’t forget to subscribe to the show via iTunes and like us on Facebook. Until next time, remember to challenge assumptions.
Across different industries, email marketing has proven to be an effective strategy in online marketing. Smart marketers have embraced it already: A survey report by an online technology reviews firm revealed that out of 200 marketers surveyed 97% of them are using email marketing software.
If you’re already using email marketing, you need to take it a step further to begin to see dramatic results.
Email marketing segmentation is the art of splitting your list into different groups. These groups – or segments – consist of people with similar characteristics. Segments can then be emailed reflecting the content and timing appropriate to them. So far, so good; emailing to groups.
You need to segment your list, because your leads are at different stages in the funnel or sales cycle. Typical results from an email segmentation include 39% higher open rate, 28% lower unsubscribe rates, and 24% better deliverability and increased sales leads.
Despite these benefits of email marketing, it’s still not a bed of roses. You’ve succeeded in getting a visitor to subscribe to your email list, Bravo! But, it doesn’t end there.
Here’s why: Sending general messages that are not personalized to your new subscriber’s inbox, will not only make them angry but also cause them to lose interest your emails, and unsubscribe.
Since your contacts are of different behaviors, they probably have different needs – which you should address when building relationships with them at the conversion funnel.
Do you want to cut through the noise and get your customer’s attention with relevant messages delivered at the right time? Let’s explore the seven ideas that you can use to segment your email list so that you can maximize your email profits in record time.
1. Leverage on first time customers
Don’t treat everyone on your list the same. Therefore, applying simple email segmentation trick will make a great impact.
There are some customers that recently made a purchase from you – these are your first time customers. It’s your responsibility to nurture these customers, because they’re likely to come back, or give up on your brand.
The popular saying that “first impression matters” is not a fancy phrase, but a fact. We all feel accepted when we move into a new arena, where everybody is friendly and kind. Same applies when your customer is shown love and treated well.
In case you don’t know, 82% of customers have left a company as a result of poor support.
And not only that, even a case study report published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, revealed how waiters increased tips they received by 23% with the influence of personalization.
When it comes to email marketing, reports have shown that emails with personalized product recommendation is likely to generate up to 20% increase in revenue.
This means that if you leverage on your first time customers, you can personalize their experiences, by crafting email content that appeals to them as individuals (and not as a group).
Use this idea of your first time customers to segment your email list. You’ll begin to see a lot of email improvements at every level.
2. Replenishable Customers
This idea of email segmentation is best for companies that deal with consumable products (i.e., products that need to be replaced/refilled).
For instance, a company that deals on perfume, knowing that the content your customer bought, will be exhausted in approximately one month, you can strategize on how to send compelling email to be delivered at the right time to such a customer, thereby motivating them to place an order.
Customers who use these replaceable products need to be handled and treated like Kings (because they truly are). You want to sustain the relationship that you’ve already established, and persuade them to buy from you again and again.
Following these people up with your emails to keep them abreast of new stocks is important. These types of emails are proven to increase customer’s intent to click.
As you can see, segmenting these customers according to what their consumption period for a particular product, will help you to ignite their desire to buy, especially when you create a campaign at the end of their consumption period.
3. Low Value Customers
This is another group of customers that are segmented based on their order value which are most often, less than $25. Every company has low value customers.
This group of customers are very complicated to handle, because they often tend to abandon shopping cart. Reluctantly, they can buy the cheapest products which might not be commensurate with the time, and resources spent on them.
But despite that, they’re still important for your business’ growth. This doesn’t call for discrimination, because it can contribute to 68% loss of customers by your company.
And coupled with the fact that 5% increase in customer retention leads to 75% in profit making for any company.
You should create and deliver emails that will nurture and engage these group of customers. Trust me, this is a great way to increase your chances of getting more sales.
4. High Value Customers
This group of customers is very important for the growth and survival of every business, thus, this makes them the optimum concern of any marketer/brand.
They require extra care and attention, because losing them is more like a company losing its competitive edge.
Since the rate of acquiring new customers is higher than retaining existing ones, you need to provide more value for high-value customers (as a segment of your email list).
Instead of sending the same broadcast email to all your subscribers, why not use email segmentation to keep this high-value customers appreciated and engaged? This way, you’ll be able to communicate with them directly, personalize your emails, and nudge them into buying your high-ticket products.
Even if you don’t do anything other than personalizing their (high-value customers) experiences, you’ll improve your email performances by a great margin.
5. Very Important People (VIPs)
At a glance, you can tell that these group of customers are the lifeblood of your business. They’re elite, and should be respected. They’re loyal customers — and this has defined your relationship with them already, isn’t it?
VIP customers that are on your email list have been with your brand for a long period of time, and still buys from you. Aside from buying products, they have also supported your cause at some point.
As a rule of thumb, you need to have a segment for these people.
Note: Don’t make the mistake of sending the same product they have purchased in the past. It could send a wrong signal and a huge percentage of them will likely unsubscribe.
6. Defecting Customers
You need this group of customers on your email segment. This group of customers are usually placed at the top of the conversion funnel, because they’re more likely to abandon your brand at any moment. For this reason, you need to take extra measure in order to win their loyalty.
Majority of these customers have been inactive for over a period of time, on your email list. You’ll notice that most of them have switched over to another brand. But all hope is not lost. You can use retargeting campaigns to win them back.
A report by Androit Digital found that 30% of customers will respond positively to retargeting ads.
If you segment your email list well, you’ll be able to detect different types of customers — and you’ll gain insights on how to win them back.
7. Purchase Cycle
It’s very important to know what and how you communicate with a customer, via email, in the sales funnel. Why? Because, whatever you say or recommend could either excite or discourage them. It all depends on the stage they’re at in the sales cycle.
To get better email results, it’s important to segment this group of customers based on the extent they got on the purchase journey. When this is being taken care of, you can then start the necessary email campaign suitable for such group of customers.
For example, a visitor gets to your product page from a link you place on another blog, click on one of your product, spend some time there, but leaves without adding the product to cart.
More than likely, an average marketer could conclude that such a customer won’t return. But how true is that? Studies have shown that 75% of them are more likely to return.
There are a lot of reasons why a customer will abandon a product page or shopping cart. One of such is when they don’t have enough information about your product that will help them make informed decisions.
If you’ve succeeded in capture their email address (it’s important you do that), then sending series of emails to enlighten the customer on the great value of your product can inspire them to come back.
Better yet, you can throw in a great deal, a trial package, discount, or bonus to sweeten the experience.
Conclusion
Make no mistakes about it, email segmentation is vital if you want to record significant improvements in both marketing and sales.
All in all, get to know and understand your contacts/customers. Because when you segment your email list based on the knowledge you have about your customers, you’ll have built a solid email marketing strategy that will grow your business.
Through email segmentation, you have the opportunity to detect active and inactive customers, and follow them up with the necessary emails – to build a stronger relationship.
If you’re constantly feeling overwhelmed and like there aren’t enough hours in the day to get through everything you possibly need to do, it’s time to evaluate your time management skills. It’s time to take a look at what’s really taking up your time during the day, and become more aware of the things that are killing your work productivity.
Whether you work in a standard office like me, or work from home like many of the people I know, I am willing to bet there’s at least one, if not more of the things on the list below that are zapping your work productivity. One study shows 89% of employees admit to wasting at least some amount of time every day at work – 31% say they waste 30 minutes a day, while another 31% claim they waste about an hour a day. Those labor expenses add up.
Facebook and Other Social Media Platforms
This one is really hard if you’re a social media professional of any kind – whether you’re managing your social accounts for your business, or working to manage social media for clients. It’s super easy to log on to Facebook to check an ad campaign, and then find yourself scrolling through your friends’ updates, countless kitten photos, and recipe videos. I’ve fallen victim to this a time or two – I’m sure we all have.
And it’s not just Facebook. How many times have you hopped on Twitter for a chat, only to find yourself chatting with friends, in the name of networking, when you’re supposed to be working on something else?
So, what can you do to keep it from being such a time suck, when you need to use it for work? Here are a few ideas:
Create and stick to your business social media plan. Once you have it mapped out, you’ll have a much better idea of what you need to do when you spend time on social media – making it easier to get in, get it done, and get out.
Use scheduling tools like Hootsuite, Buffer, and Oktopost, to schedule your posts once a week. Then, set a time limit every day to check in and post live to each network. Set a timer and stick to it. If you find that it’s not enough time to respond to everything, increase it in five minute increments. Start with no more than 10 to 15 minutes. Use the timer on your phone if nothing else.
Eliminate distractions – cough, Facebook chat, cough. Turn it off when you’re using it during business hours, and encourage co-workers to communicate with you via another channel. Turn off any other non-vital notifications. Do you really need to know every single time someone tweets you?
If you’re feeling brave, go one step further and remove social media apps from your phone. It’s a good option if you find yourself constantly checking your phone, and can help you break free of the habit.
Your Phone
Let’s face it – whether it’s your smartphone dinging with those social media notifications, or the office phone that won’t stop ringing, the phone can be a problem. Resolve to limit all phone conversations to a certain time limit unless you’ve scheduled a meeting for a longer phone call. Avoid looking at your phone except during lunch breaks, and turn off those social media notifications.
Set a certain amount of time every day, say 30 minutes to an hour at the end of your work day, to return phone calls you received while working on something else. If something can be accomplished via a face-to-face meeting easier than it can be on the phone, do what you can to schedule a meeting in place of that phone call. If distance is an issue, turn to a Skype or Google Hangout video chat to demonstrate what you would in person.
Meetings
Sometimes meetings are necessary, but the reality is, most businesses are scheduling way too many of them. While meetings may seem like a good idea because they get everyone together at once to discuss whatever issues – the act of getting to and participating in the meeting pulls everyone’s brain power from other tasks.
Accomplish what you can without having a formal meeting – chat in your Slack channel, or spend time with each employee – five minutes or less, to catch up. If you absolutely must hold a meeting, schedule it to end about 10 minutes before the hour. This can help keep everyone on track, and help avoid the inevitable domino effect if the meeting runs behind. Meetings are a big distraction, and if that meeting calls for five people, and lasts an hour, you’ve just cost the business five hours of work productivity. Use that as a metric when you decide if a meeting is truly needed. There’s no such thing as a one-hour meeting… unless you’re the only one there for an hour, and then it’s not a meeting, is it?
Email
Email is a huge time-suck, mostly because we feel compelled to respond almost immediately after receiving a message. And all that time adds up, with the average white collar worker spending 4.1 hours each day, r 20.5 hours a week (more than half their time on the clock) answering emails.
If you want to get an idea of how much time you’re spending over the course of your career answering emails, take a look at this calculator. Start with how old you were when you started working and the age you are expected to retire. Then put in the number of times you interrupt t what you’re doing to check your email every day.
If you start working at age 21, retire at age 67, and only interrupt your day twice, you’ll spend 47,150 hours over the course of your career on email – and 8,816.7 hours distracted by email interruptions. To put things in perspective for you, that’s more than five years of your career focused on email alone. Scary, huh?
Transition Rituals
There’s nothing wrong with taking breaks throughout your workday. In fact, taking breaks is more conducive to productive than it sounds like it would be. But, it’s those transition rituals – taking the 10 minutes after you’ve finished a task, but before a meeting starts, to get engrossed in something other than work that can derail your progress.
Yes, decompression is important, but the simple fact is, we build a lot of it into our days, to help ease us into and out of the next work related tasks. Instead of using these bumpers, take breaks throughout the day… and build a larger chunk of decompression time into your day toward the end, so you can relax and get some good rest. Working too much won’t increase your output – but getting enough sleep can.
Chatting with Co-Workers
Even if you’re not physically near your co-workers, technology makes it easy to talk to them. Whether through GChat, Facebook Messenger, or another instant messaging platform, it’s easy to get caught up in conversation with friends and coworkers over the course of your workday.
You think it’s no big deal because you’re already at the computer working anyway, and it’s different than if you were to get up and walk away to talk on the phone or chat in person. But, switching back and forth from chat window to chat window and to your work tasks can be distracting. This makes it harder to focus on the task at hand, and even though it may get done, it will definitely take you longer than it would if you were not chatting the entire time you were working on it.
Multi-Tasking
It sounds good in theory, right? Look at me getting so much done. I started the laundry, the dishwasher, and put dinner in the slow cooker in 20 minutes. Now, I’m free to work on the really important stuff. it’s easy to get a lot done at once – if it’s passive. But, when you’re answering the phone and emails at the same time – it’s suddenly not as easy, is it? You’ll either find yourself typing the words you’re saying out loud, not the ones you need to, or completely zoning out on the phone conversation as you focus on the email.
If you’re trying to do too much at once, then it slows down the progress on all the tasks, and possibly even the quality of work, too. Multitasking makes you feel more productive, but studies show only 2% of the population can actually multitask successfully.
If you find yourself only able to work in 15 minute spurts on each task – then do that, as long as you’re devoting the full 15 minutes to the task before switching to something else. It doesn’t have to be 15 minutes – it can be any size chunk of time, as long as you’re focusing solely on that task and nothing else. One study shows the most productive people work for a period of 52 minutes, and then take a break for 17. Sure it’s random, but give it a try and see how it works for you – without multi-tasking.
How Many of These Do You Commit Regularly?
If you’re being 100% honest with yourself, how many of these time sucks are you dealing with on a daily basis? How much time do you think they’re costing you?
I challenge you to install something like RescueTime on your computer. It runs on both your computer and mobile devices, in the background, so you can track the time you spend in various applications and websites, allowing to you see how you really spend the time. You’ll even get detailed reports and data based on your activity.
Before you start using it, estimate how much time you’re spending on all the common places you visit over the day – for work and for play. Run the program for a day or two, maybe even a week, so you can get an accurate picture of how much time you’re spending (wasting) everywhere throughout your day. At the end of the experimental period, look at the data and see how correct you were.
Once you’ve identified how much time you’ve wasted, create a plan to reclaim it. Reclaim it at work and home. Did you really need to spend five minutes every hour replying to email, or could you do it in 30 minutes at the end of the day? Do you really need that 30 minute Facebook game binge to wind down after work? Or, could that 30 minutes be better spent reading a book before bed? Or out to dinner with a friend?
Now, once you have your plan to reclaim it in place, run RescueTime for another week and see how you did – not only in terms of sticking to your plan, but how much more productive you’ve been. You didn’t get anymore hours in the day – but you got more done, didn’t you? (If you didn’t, that’s okay, too. Try again next week.)
How do you deal with these inevitable time sucks? Tell me in the comments below.
Did you know, YouTube on mobile alone reaches more 18 to 49 year olds than any cable network in the United States? That’s pretty impressive, and incredibly telling about our media consumption habits. If you’re marketing to anyone in that age group and you’re not engaging in YouTube marketing, you’re missing out.
Just as with anything else in online marketing, you shouldn’t start without a plan. Randomly grabbing your cell phone and recording a video from your living room could work, but it won’t necessarily. Save that kind of thing for Facebook Live or Periscope.
Ready to dig in your heels and get started? Great.
Do Your Research
When you started your blog, you did research. When you started your content marketing strategy, you did research. Now, you’ve got to do more so you know how to fit your YouTube channel into the rest of your content marketing.
Is your competition already marketing on YouTube? If so, what are they doing in terms of content? How is the audience responding? What could you do differently? What could you do better?
If they’re not – you’re moving into uncharted territory. Is it because there’s not really a market for your audience there? Is it because they just haven’t thought to make it part of their strategy yet? Being a step or two ahead of the competition isn’t always a bad thing, you know.
Bonus points for taking notes throughout your research.
Decide on Your Angle
What approach will you take with your videos? Base your decision on what you see the competition doing. You don’t want to copy them exactly, because you need to put your own spin on the content – so you stand out from them. But you don’t want to deviate too far from what they’re doing, because you may not be able to pull the audience from them over to you.
For example, take a look at the Tampax YouTube channel, and the Bodyform YouTube Channel. I chose these because feminine hygiene products are a necessary part of life, but they’re not exactly glamorous to market.
Both channels focus on living an active and healthy life even during a cycle, and education about the cycle and proper use of products. But, a few years ago, Bodyform had a video go viral, in response to a Facebook comment from a man. Called, “Bodyform Responds: The Truth,” it injected a bit of humor into how and why the products are presented the way they are. This humor sets them apart from the competition.
As you work on this aspect of your strategy, you’ll also want to consider whether or not you’ll appear in front of the camera. If you’re camera shy, or don’t like public speaking, it may be a better idea to have someone else appear for you. The person in the Bodyform video above, isn’t actually the CEO, but you have to decide if you’re okay with having someone else be the “face” of your company, so it’s not a decision you should take lightly. In Bodyform’s case, it was a one-off video – so it made sense to keep the real CEO off camera. In yours, it may not.
But, there is one way around that – if your niche allows for this sort of thing. Screencasts and slideshow presentations. Instead of showing your face and surrounding environment, you simply record your computer screen, and narrate it along the way.
Take a look at WPBeginner channel. It’s full of nothing but screencasts because it’s a WordPress tutorial channel. It works well for the niche. You wouldn’t expect to see someone sitting in front of you talking about how to do something on WordPress, without actually showing you, would you?
Make a List of Video Topics
Now that you’ve got an idea of what you’re going to cover and how you’re going to do it, it’s time to start planning things with a bit more detail. Start with a list of broad topics you’ll cover on the channel.
These can be similar to your blog categories. If I were creating a channel to begin YouTube marketing – I’d start with the topics I’m covering on my blog: Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, SEO, Social Media, and Outreach. I’d let these core topics be the basis for all the content that comes from my channel, just like they are the basis for everything posted on the blog.
When you approach things this way, you’ll find it easier to come up with the quality content you need to complement the rest of your strategy.
Build Your Content Calendar and Decide Posting Frequency
At this point, you know roughly what you’ll be creating, but you’re reaching the point where you’ve got to answer the tough question that stops many people from being successful with YouTube.
What resources do you have available to make this work? Not just in terms of budget and equipment, but in terms of time. Two of the pillars of YouTube success are volume and consistency.
Use a spreadsheet or editorial calendar planning tool to help you figure out what videos you are going to post and when. It’s okay if you start slow and post only once a week, but the more often you post, the faster you’ll be able to build momentum. However, if you commit to more than that, stick to it. If you can’t consistently deliver the content, you’ll have a harder time building audience loyalty.
Set the tone and audience expectations from the beginning. Your first video should be an introduction to your channel. Let your viewers know what kind of content you’re planning on publishing, and how often they can expect to see it. Whatever you set for yourself, stick to it. Don’t promise your audience you’ll post a new video every day, and then fall back to posting once a month.
Invest in the Right Video Equipment
You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on studio quality equipment, but at the least, you may want to invest in a tripod. This way you can put your cell phone or other camera on it and keep the video steady during recording.
Other than a cell phone, you can use a handheld video camera, a web cam, or a DSLR camera. While a DSLR camera will require a more expensive investment, the resulting video will be near professional quality.
If this is the minimum equipment you’ll be using, you should pay extra attention to the recording environment, to make sure the lighting is appropriate and your voice is audible.
It’s possible to invest in a number of cheap microphones, and the right one for you will depend on whether or not you’ll be recording with others in person, or over the phone.
If you’ll be interviewing other people in the same room with you, you’ll want to invest in an omnidirectional mic so it can pick up the sound from you and the guest with relative ease.
You’ll also need to make sure you have something to edit your videos with – like Movie Maker for Windows or iMovie for Mac – both free. These are necessary if you want to add intros, transitions, and outros, or music to your videos.
Market Your Channel on Your Website and Social Media Platforms
Once you’ve got your introduction video up, start promoting your channel on Facebook, Twitter, and any other network you’re already established on. Let your followers there know they can find you on YouTube, according to whatever schedule you’ve set up for yourself. Link back to your videos on your website – embedding them in your blog posts when possible.
Optimize Titles and Descriptions
Your video titles should be written to get people to click on your videos, to tell the YouTube algorithm that your videos are related to one another, and to attempt to get higher ranks for a keyword.
You should always use descriptions and tags on your videos, too. The description should be at least three sentences, and placed before anything else. The description and tags should focus on one keyword. Use no more than 10 to 12 tags that are related to the keyword, but also include four to six generic tags that are related to your show and channel.
Add Subtitles to All Your Videos
Though it hasn’t always been possible, YouTube (and Facebook, too!) now make it easy for you to include subtitles to all your videos. I know you’re thinking, “Big deal. I hate subtitles.” But really, think about how many times you’ve been sitting around, in public, bored – waiting on the doctor to come in for your appointment, waiting on your friend to get to the restaurant so you can eat lunch, and so on… A lot of people turn to video to keep themselves occupied, without the sound on, so they don’t disrupt the people near them. If you can’t hear what someone’s saying in the video, why bother watching, right?
Adding subtitles to your videos allows people to watch without the sound on, which bypasses that barrier to entry, allowing people to enjoy your videos with or without sound. Plus, it’s an awesome feature you should be including for the deaf and hard of hearing, anyway.
And, subtitles can help bring traffic, because they make it easier for people to search for your videos. If you’re targeting a wider audience that speaks more than one language, subtitle it in more than just English. You should also use subtitles if you have an accent that makes it hard to clearly understand what you’re saying.
Use YouTube’s auto-captioning feature at your own risk because of inaccuracies. Try training a program like Dragon Naturally Speaking to transcribe your content, or hire someone to transcribe videos for you. And to show you just how awesome adding your content to YouTube can be – I found this video of a demo of video transcription with Dragon, when I was searching for a source to include in this paragraph. Why tell when you can show? Granted the video is from 2012, but the basics should be the same.
Create Custom Thumbnails
Custom thumbnails can help encourage people to click on your videos. You must keep the thumbnail and title match the video closely. Because if they’re misleading or irrelevant, people will click away from the video, which harms your average view duration and the chances of showing up in the suggested videos. You can use Canva to create high quality images even if you’re not a graphic design pro.
Collaborate with Other YouTubers
If you’re just starting out on social media and don’t have a fan base you can bring over to YouTube, one of the best things you can do to build your audience is through collaboration with other YouTubers.
Not only is this a good alternative to buying ads, the organic nature of collaborations can help you build your own credibility. Don’t be afraid to reach out to the bigger and more well-known channels, because many of them are open to working with other channels. Just reach out to them with an idea and let them know what you would need from then to make it happen – then make it happen, together.
Rinse and Repeat
Though it may take some time to gain traction, keep at it. Each video you create adds a content asset to your library – a new pathway to connect and engage with potential customers. GoPro – which you may want to invest in if you need to have videos with a lot of action – is one of the brands that rose to fame thanks to YouTube. Once customers got the camera in their hands, they began uploading content to YouTube, featuring GoPro in the title – which lead to the creation of the GoPro Network. With persistence, your brand could be the next one to rise to fame courtesy of the video sharing platform.
Are you on YouTube? Drop your channel below – I’d love to check it out!
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