The Social Media Algorithm and Your Business
“Every day we’d be having meetings saying, ‘What was Facebook’s algorithm change today, and what can we do?’ It was always an issue,” said Jessica Rotkiewicz, who worked as a news and branded content producer at LittleThings until she was laid off last April. “At the end of the day, the company was relying on another party they couldn’t control.” Digiday highlighted a small ecommerce company, LittleThings. As the company grew from their modest beginnings in the pet supplies industry to a social media favorite sharing inspiring content, they realized they had an unhealthy dependency on Facebook. On a whim, Facebook could adjust their algorithm and decimate the viewership of…
How to Build an Online Business With Little to No Experience
[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ background_color=”#fbfcfd” admin_label=”Medium-styled Post Title and Meta” _builder_version=”3.0.89″][et_pb_row admin_label=”Post Title and Meta” _builder_version=”3.0.89″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_post_title date=”off” categories=”off” comments=”off” featured_image=”off” admin_label=”Post Title and Author Information” _builder_version=”3.0.89″ title_font=”|700|||||||” title_text_align=”center” title_font_size=”28px” title_text_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.8)” title_line_height=”1.3em” meta_font=”||||||||” meta_text_align=”center” meta_font_size=”18px” meta_text_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.8)” meta_line_height=”1.8em”][/et_pb_post_title][et_pb_post_title title=”off” meta=”off” admin_label=”Featured Image” _builder_version=”3.0.89″ title_font=”|700|||||||” title_text_align=”center” title_font_size=”28px” title_text_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.8)” title_line_height=”1.3em” meta_font=”||||||||” meta_text_align=”center” meta_font_size=”18px” meta_text_color=”rgba(0,0,0,0.8)” meta_line_height=”1.8em”][/et_pb_post_title][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section][et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.0.89″][et_pb_row _builder_version=”3.0.89″][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.0.47″ parallax=”off” parallax_method=”on”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Blog Post Body” _builder_version=”3.0.89″ max_width=”800px” custom_margin=”|||10%”] First, congratulations on your entrepreneurial spirit and desire to get started with business online. Yes! It is entirely possible to build an online business with little to no experience. Getting started with a business online can be daunting. In fact, starting a business of…
How Important is a Mobile Friendly Website to your Business?
If you’ve been spending the last two years of your life with your eyes glued to your smartphone, then you probably haven’t noticed that everyone else is doing the same thing. While this new lifestyle isn’t exactly helpful for our social life, it has huge upsides for businesses, giving you a powerful way to directly connect with consumers.
23 MORE Industries That Can Benefit From Content Marketing
A few weeks ago, I wrote a list of 23 industries that can benefit from having a strong inbound or content marketing strategy. Since then, I’ve thought of 23 more that should have been included in the first list. If you think you cannot benefit from a plan that attracts the right people, at the right time, with the right information, you’re sorely mistaken. Without further ado, here are 23 more industries that can grow and attract new customers through content marketing: Tradeshow Hosts / Promoters Freelancers Educational Institutions Accommodation & Hospitality SaaS Long-term Health Care / Retirement Home Debt & Credit Repair Personal Assistant Organization DIY Services Warehouse, Storage, and Distribution Employee…
Understanding Customer Personas
Understanding customer personas, sometimes called ‘buyer personas‘ or ‘buyer personalities‘, is an important first step in the inbound marketing process. Knowing the overall personality of your customer, where they live, their age, their interests / hobbies / likes / dislikes, makes marketing to them much easier and relevant. It allows you to add contextual relevance to their needs. Customers Come First Connecting with your customers is the single most important thing to your business. And without it, your products don’t sell, and you lose your customers to your competitors, more often than you care to admit. Now that we’ve gotten that out in black and white, it’s time to talk about how…
The Best Social Media Platform For Promotion is….
Which social media platform is best for promotion? …all of them. Or none of them. Frankly, this popular question is only one-half of the right question. A better question is Which social media platform is my audience on? [Tweet “Don’t just seek out the best social media platform to promote on. Seek out the platform where your audience wants to form a relationship with you.”] Marketing to teens on LinkedIn is likely to result in failure. Teens aren’t flocking to LinkedIn. Similarly, marketing to the VP of Sales of Ginormous Corp on SnapChat will result in a goose egg. Asking only half of the question is like asking, “which car is…
How Top Producing Real Estate Agents Use Blogging [Quick Tip]
The key to using a blog to attract new customers is to identify the burning questions your customers are asking — and answer them. “But what about giving away all of my trade secrets?” “What if my competitors read what I’m writing?” You will never cannibalize your business by providing valuable information to your prospective client; in fact, just the opposite. The more you share, the more trustworthy and credible you are in the eyes of your visitors. Hint: if you can give away all your knowledge, you are 1) not continually learning, 2) not an expert. [Tweet “Hint: if you can give away all your knowledge, you are 1)…
The Perfect Pitch: How to Excite Customers and Close Deals
As Don Draper of Mad Men once said, “You are the product. You feeling something. That’s what sells.” When you pitch potential clients, you embody your agency and the services provided. Your confidence, manner of speaking, body language, and personality can build long-lasting relationships or come off as a sleazy sales pitch. [Tweet “When you pitch potential clients, you embody your agency and the services provided.”] Not all of us can be as smooth as Don Draper, with his immaculate suits and Old Fashioneds. But, we can learn how to excite potential customers and close the deal: How to Excite Potential Clients Case studies Customer success stories and case studies…
Write First For Humans
When thinking of SEO (search engine optimization) on your website, speak to the human readers about topics and ideas. Don’t get bogged down with specific keywords. Conceptual websites will always outlast and out-perform sites dedicated to a specific keyword. — About the Daily Marketing Minute The Daily Marketing Minute is my project for the last quarter of 2014. Each day, I will deliver bite-sized, fat-free nuggets of sales and marketing insights. In an increasingly noisy sales and marketing world, it is easy to lose track of why you do what you do. Ultimately, I believe that relationships will transcend the daily grind we face in sales and marketing. Every day,…
Are You Marketing to a Prospect or a Person
When we design any marketing campaign, it is easy to de-humanize the prospect. Consider the person to whom you are marketing. Better yet, consider the person you are marketing for. Don’t fall into the trap of marketing to prospects; intentionally personalize your marketing. Would you respond to the marketing you are creating? Would your mother? — About the Daily Marketing Minute The Daily Marketing Minute is my project for the last quarter of 2014. Each day, I will deliver bite-sized, fat-free nuggets of sales and marketing insights. In an increasingly noisy sales and marketing world, it is easy to lose track of why you do what you do. Ultimately, I believe…
Why Blogging Generates Quality Sales Leads
A buyer has made almost 70% of their buying decision before they talk to you. Seventy percent! Todays buyers are self-educating; they are coming to the table armed with more product knowledge than ever before. For sales teams, this means that the prospect is almost ready to buy, you just have to answer any last minute questions and close the deal. But what about the process that leads to that 70%? A large part of that comes from the consumer self-educating and researching the product or service they intend to buy. Brands who embrace sharing content can control the narrative. Blogs work to generate sales leads because buyers are already…
Don’t Build Your Castle In Another Man’s Kingdom
Online, it is easy to chase the latest platform. For brands, it is especially easy to drop everything to explore uncharted territory to be the first to market. This exploration, however, often causes brands to abandon their previous outposts in search of a new promised land. [Tweet “Social media platforms are outposts. Use them to reach new lands, new markets, and new followers.”] Worse still, is building your entire castle where an outpost ought to be. An outpost is a listening station; used to observe and report back to the main castle. Outposts can be won and lost in the changing tides of war. Castles are controlled and owned for…
Tell Your Story: How to talk about yourself in a way that makes people care
There is a fine-line between too self-promotional and delivering a powerful, well-deserved description of yourself. For professionals, self-promotion is critical to success, but doing it wrong can drive away partners, customers, and prospects. To maintain promotional balance, consider the following exercise: Step 1: Set the Stage Before you start, know what you want you to communicate. Specifically, who do you want to target? Who is your ideal audience? What do you want them to learn? What do you want them to do? How do you want them to feel? I recommend taking the time to answer each of these. The writing process will help unlock what you really want to…
The Single Biggest Mistake Brands Make On Their Blogs
“I wanna talk about me.” More than just a song by Toby Keith, “I wanna talk about me”-mentality is the number one mistake brands make on their blog. Take a step back, read your last 5 blog entires. Are they brand-focused or buyer-focused? When you write for your audience, you transform the relationship from buyer-seller to buyer-advisor. — About the Daily Marketing Minute The Daily Marketing Minute is my project for the last quarter of 2014. Each day, I will deliver bite-sized, fat-free nuggets of sales and marketing insights. In an increasingly noisy sales and marketing world, it is easy to lose track of why you do what you do. Ultimately,…
5 Quick Wins for Brand Leaders on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the social hub for B2B networking. In fact, it is the number one source for referral traffic to the Never Mind Marketing site. So how can you use your LinkedIn profile to attract new visitors, close more sales, and build deeper professional relationships? Look at these five LinkedIn tips that you can tackle before lunch: 1. Profile Picture Members with a profile picture get 14x the number of views. Have a crisp, clean headshot that shows the real you — not some posed, awkward, fake smile. People want the real you and, as humans, we are able to detect deceptive smiles in an instant. 2. Accurate Headline Use…
The Invisible Link Between Social Media and Sales Conversions
For modern marketers, simply being on social media is not enough. There are too many gimmicks; too much noise; too much drama. Instead, ask yourself, “What are we going to do with social?” The answer is to introduce call to action to drive intentional outcomes. Using social media with measurable purpose is the invisible link between social and sales. Without a purpose, and a way to analyze your efforts, you are adding to the noise and drama. — About the Daily Marketing Minute The Daily Marketing Minute is my project for the last quarter of 2014. Each day, I will deliver bite-sized, fat-free nuggets of sales and marketing insights. In an increasingly noisy…
9 Quick Ways To Segment Your Customer List
One size does not fit all. Customer segmentation is an incredibly powerful way to nurture your existing list. Segmenting your customer base is like classifying each customer in a bucket with other similar customers as a way to tailor your marketing message to each group. I’ve spoken before about how my friend and I match many of the same basic demographic criteria, but are worlds apart in our marketing triggers. Here are 9 quick ways to segment your customer list 1. Demographics The gender, age, and geographical location are important to segment. Marketing snow shovels in January in Hawaii doesn’t make sense. Nor does promoting women’s fashion accessories to me.…
We Hate Interruptive Marketing
It is hard not to hate someone who constantly interrupts you with irrelevant messages; one who assumes they deserve your undivided attention at all times. It is easy, however, to love someone who always says the right thing, the right way, at the right time, in the right place. Which are you? — About the Daily Marketing Minute The Daily Marketing Minute is my project for the last quarter of 2014. Each day, I will deliver bite-sized, fat-free nuggets of sales and marketing insights. In an increasingly noisy sales and marketing world, it is easy to lose track of why you do what you do. Ultimately, I believe that relationships…
S is for Social Listening – Part 2
Just the other day, I encouraged brand leaders to look at social media as a listening platform. This is an area that many small businesses think larger, more established brands can outperform them. Quite the contrary. As if on cue, I witnessed the following transpire in real time, and was disappointed at the (lack of) response by a national brand. Exhibit A: [email protected] lost a lot of respect 2day. Took today off, scheduled service repair never showed up. Called 800 # & no one can help either #fail — Bryan Kramer – Keynote Speaker (@bryankramer) October 22, 2014 https://twitter.com/adamf2014/status/524743162347008000 @bryankramer @SEARS they also seem to pay a lot of attention to their…
The First Step of Your Marketing Strategy
Your primary marketing mission should be to add value to your customers. Everything else will fall into place. When the focus of your marketing strategy is to add value, you naturally align with the needs of your customers. No longer is your sales department the ‘enemy’, but a team of trusted industry advisors. When a customer or prospect feels valued, they seek you out. What a powerful position to be in. — About the Daily Marketing Minute The Daily Marketing Minute is my project for the last quarter of 2014. Each day, I will deliver bite-sized, fat-free nuggets of sales and marketing insights. In an increasingly noisy sales and marketing world,…
S is for Social Listening
Interruptive sales strategies suck. No one wants to get your generic, unsolicited email or phone call. You don’t need to wish for a way to gauge interest in your product or service. Social media was made for listening. It offers a gold mine for sales people to listen for folks who need their services. Prospective buyers are taking to social media to talk about their interests, pain points, frustrations, wants, and needs. Start listening for leads. — About the Daily Marketing Minute The Daily Marketing Minute is my project for the last quarter of 2014. Each day, I will deliver bite-sized, fat-free nuggets of sales and marketing insights. In an…
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How To Reach Twitter Users Who Need You
Twitter is a great prospecting tool, but how do you use it to connect with new customers without coming off as spammy? According to a late-2013 study, 67% of customers were more likely to purchase from a brand they followed on Twitter. But what about connecting with those customers who are not following you? In a sea of noise, sometimes it is hard to stand out and not turn off prospective customers. Still, business owners seeking to build relationships can take advantage of the 271 million monthly active users on Twitter. This week, I’ll share some keys to reaching new, qualified prospects using Twitter. Service Over Sales The first key to reaching prospective…
How Buyer Personas Help You Connect with More Customers and Close More Sales
Wouldn’t it be better if you knew what your buyer wanted even before they did? To be successful with inbound or content marketing, your brand – whether it is the sales team, marketing team, or social media team – your brand needs to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time. This requires an understanding of the specific process they will go through to make a purchasing decision. Such understanding will help you attract leads that are already in a purchasing process, increasing the number of leads that convert to paying customers. What is a Buyer Persona A buyer persona is a fictional representation of the real…
How to Convert Your Sales-Oriented Pipeline to a Customer-Oriented Pipeline
Today’s consumers are entering the buying process much more educated and from a number of entry points. Some will come to your brand based on the recommendation of a friend, others will see a sponsored social media post, others will come in “cold” from a generalized search engine query. Your sales process must be able to accommodate these various entry points and anticipate the needs of these folks. The hardened sales process of yesterday will not work for today’s buyers, and certainly not for tomorrow’s. With some simple steps, such as defining your customer’s buying process, behavior monitoring, and measuring; you can begin to create a sales pipeline that is more…
How to Generate Business Leads from Pinterest
Pinterest is one of the more popular social media platforms today. In fact, if you are not careful, you can find many hours of a lazy Saturday afternoon consumed by it…. not that I am speaking from experience. Pinterest is popular because it gives users the ability to quickly and visually categorize things they like. The psychological cues are powerful and will help keep the social network pinned to the top of our minds for quite some time. Who Should Be Using Pinterest Both B2B (Business-to-Business) and B2C (Business-to-Consumer) brands have struggled with how to use Pinterest in their social media and online marketing strategies. Rather than trying to shoehorn…
Time Management Tips for Social Media Brand Managers
One of the top concerns with any brand owner or manager is the time suck that is social media. It seems that any “quick update” on Facebook results in the loss of a week’s worth of productivity as you mindlessly check out pictures of cats, food, and your friend’s children. That said, social media is critical for the overall success and expansion of your brand, so we cannot ignore it completely. For that reason, I have made a list of time management tips that we use internally to keep social media from taking over our lives on a daily basis. Time Management Tips for Social Media Managers Be Intentional From…
6 Critical Steps To Master Before Using Social Media for Your Business
Social media remains a hot topic in the world of business – and rightly so. No other marketing platform gives brands such direct access to consumers and vice versa. Consumers love following their favorite brands, seeing what their friends are interested in, and finding new brands or products. There are some basic stepping stones brands should keep in mind when starting their social media strategy. Here, I’ll outline 6 key steps every company should make a priority before using social media to reach their customers. 1. Know Your Audience It may sound simple, at first, but do you really “know” your audience? Do you know if they are primarily male…
How To Use a Buyer’s Journey to Increase Sales
It pains me to see sales professionals doing the right thing, yet missing the mark when it comes to their monthly or quarterly sales goals. I’ve watched as brands dump money into their sales and marketing budgets to expand their brand awareness, increase sales, and decrease the workload of these departments only to be met with disappointing results. The problem is not the level of their effort, it is the efficiency of their effort. This is often evident by the sales team wasting their time (and your business dollars) continually following up with leads that are unqualified or otherwise not ready to make a purchase. How do you know? Answer…
