Dear Santa (aka Retailers) - What I Really Want For Christmas

Have you been to the mall lately? Is your inbox getting overloaded with holiday specials? Are you overwhelmed by it all? If your response is yes-yes-yes, then you may be interested in my letter to Santa about what I really want for Christmas.

1.     Less email

Retailers, is it really necessary to send me 3-to-4 emails with the same offer, all on the same day? No. Please stop. You are filling my already overflowing email inbox with unnecessary and unwanted offers. My shopping list is already complete. In fact, it would be okay not to send me any more emails between now and Christmas. Save that delivery option until the day after Christmas when I have either received something I already have, or received a gift card to your store. Give me the rest of the month off. It’s not you, it’s me.

2.     Responsible packaging

On an occasion, I will receive an extremely oversized box for a small product ordered online. I always wonder what your thought process was choosing such large packaging for such a small piece. Seems wasteful and expensive. Something I would prefer not to pay for. I understand your concern to protect your product from the crazy delivery journey; however, sometimes your packaging is excessive. Oftentimes, the purchase does not warrant a big box with bubble wrap. Put it in a strong padded envelope – something that could fit it into my mailbox. It will be cheaper and easier, and we’ll both be happy.

3.     Free shipping

It’s crazy out there. The real-life game of driving around a parking lot for an hour trying to get a space is not appealing to me, hence my attraction to shopping online. Surprisingly, I am not drawn to the special in-store deals, nor the opportunity to see and touch the actual items, it’s the convenience of not having to park that drives me to purchase online. Offering free shipping makes the incentive of mall avoidance simply too good to pass up.

4.     Good tracking systems

I do appreciate the email that notifies me that my product has shipped. Particularly those emails that include a tracking number. And special kudos to you, you know who you are, the ones who allow me to click on the tracking number, directly take me to the shipper’s website to learn the status of delivery. You guys rock!

5.     Less personalized ads

Please, please, please, stop the Facebook ads that pop up in my news stream of items I have recently viewed on your website. I am trying to surprise a few special people with thoughtful gifts. Those personalized ads are invasive and a bit creepy. I really don’t need my web surfing for gift giving to be so public to whoever is looking over my shoulder. It is data you are obtaining and will likely never review, so let’s pretend data collection about my window-shopping journey doesn’t exist.

Yes, I could simply unsubscribe to your email list and only visit a website when I’m certain about what I intend to buy. However, that would require me to drive to a brick-and-mortar store and park in order to shop. And as you know by now, that doesn’t really work for me (see #3 above). So let’s take a little break, we’ll get together again soon after the holidays. I hope we can still be friends.

Turn That Meager Social Media Presence Into One That Is Remarkable

Tweet? Occasionally. Post on Facebook? Every now and then. Have a presence on Instagram? No.

While you may have taken a step forward and created a presence on a couple of social media networks that are most familiar to you, your occasional efforts are not helping you establish a dedicated presence – one that customers and look for and rely upon. And that every now and then effort is probably not producing the results you had in mind. If that sounds familiar then its time to put more effort into how and where you communicate.

Yes you have a Twitter account and tweet on an occasion. However upon review, the content of your tweets are always promotional. Yes you have a Facebook account and post when you have time, promoting a press release about the launch of your new product or new features. But here’s the thing. Aside from the infrequent timing of communications, and the lack of direction about what to communicate, is not focusing your efforts on the where – which social networks are the best for reaching your audience. For instance, if your target customers are spending their time on Instagram, isn’t that where you should be?

This social media marketing effort may make seem like time sink, with little value, as it takes time and effort. However, you can’t expect buyers to magically appear once you have a major announcement. Nor is it realistic to envision your ability to handle customer inquiries or resolutions will be managed smoothly if you haven’t already generated the interest and built a relationship online.

Unfortunately, social media isn’t the field of dreams – build it and they will come. Yes you have to build it, but you also have to give them a reason to come.

How do you turn that meager social media presence into one that is remarkable – one that will entice and engage?

Research

Start by researching your target customer. Document who they are – their demographics, behavior patterns, motivations, and goals. Learn their pain points, the key issues and problems your target customers are dealing with on a day-to-day basis. Knowing the details of your buyers will help you to narrow your focus, determine where you need to have a presence, how you need to structure your communications, as well as the figure out the type of information you need to create – 140 characters, images, or videos.

“To be successful and grow your business and revenues, you must match the way you market your products with the way your prospects learn about and shop for your products.” – Brian Halligan

Editorial Calendar

There are so many benefits to planning content. It takes the guesswork out of what to write and promote and ensures you are providing quality content to your target customer on a regular basis. An editorial calendar aligns your communication efforts. Use an editorial calendar to set goals, specify content themes and actions, plan campaigns, determine distribution channels, assign tasks, and set measurement criteria.

Content

Now that you know who your target customers are and their pains points, use that information to develop themes in writing, creating and curating content. Start a blog that educates buyers about the industry and provides benefit-oriented solutions to resolving their problems. Create fact sheets, such as a product comparison chart to help buyers determine what solution will work best for them. Work with industry influencers to leverage bias-free content. Become a trusted source of information by providing content that is educational and helpful (80% of your posts), with the rest – 20%, promoting your products or services. This will entice and encourage interaction between you and your buyers.

“Remarkable social media content and great sales copy are pretty much the same – plain spoken words designed to focus on the needs of the reader, listener, or viewer.” – Brian Clark

Automation Tools

Due to a lack of time and too often having a million other priorities, you will find incorporating a few market automation tools extremely helpful and useful when implementing your communications throughout social media. There is a wealth of mainstream and inexpensive tools that can make the process of scheduling and posting a breeze. Plus you will gain the benefit of analytics. You will quickly know what is working and what is not.

I come across many small companies who are moving at lightning speed building their company and selling their products. Putting effort into communicating and establishing a relationship with target customers takes time, commitment and persistence. Turn that meager social media presence into one that is remarkable. Create interesting content and interact where they are, will help drive customers to buy – from you. 

What To Do When The Content Well Of Ideas Has Dried Up

As you begin to look towards the New Year, with a renewed focus on providing relevant content to your audience, you suddenly discover the content well of ideas has dried up. No new ideas or even a headline to fill up your editorial calendar. Nothing. Zero. Zilch

What do you do when you run out of topic ideas for content?

Here are a few places to check out for new ideas to help you get started creating new and interesting content:

Look inside your company

1.     New product launches – Does your company have a new product launch in the works? Trends that are driving new features sets, or direction can provide a wealth of content ideas prior to announcing new products or services.

2.     Case Studies – Take a look at the decision-making process current customers used that led them to buy, and how happy they are about your product now that it is in place.

3.     Customer Support – Review the list of issues that current customers are having, resulting in a call or message seeking support. Is there an opportunity to educate them prior to purchase about particular functionality or uses that give you a competitive advantage ahead of the purchase?

4.     FAQs – See what topics are noted in your company FAQ. For more general type of questions, consider expanding on the topics provided.

5.     Sales – Talk to your sales team. Find out what key factors are important to them when communicating and interacting with potential new customers.

6.     Blog Comments – Read the comments from past blog posts. Is there a topic that is repeated that can be expanded upon or clarified?

Industry trends

1.     Social Media – Take a look at what topics are being promoted or shared on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc., the social media portal of your prospective audience’s preference. Look for industry relevant hashtags, or keywords that can lead to new topics of interest.

2.     Newsletters – Read industry newsletters. See what subjects others are writing about. While you can’t copy them, you can put your own spin on any given topic.

3.     Competition – Follow your competition. Peruse their newsletter or blog and look for gaps or areas of weakness. This could be an area to address that gives you and your company an extra boost of credibility.

4.     Industry Influencers – Find out what is important to industry influencers through their blogs, newsletters and posts. See if you can expand or provide greater detail on a piece as it relates to your specific area in the marketplace.

5.     Flipboard/Medium – Each provide an easy way to skim through blog titles to get ideas for new topics that are of interest for a particular field.

"It's not where you take things from -- it's where you take them to." - Jean-Luc Godard

Fun tools (all are free!)

1.     Buzzsumo – Allows you to search topics to see what content is getting the most attention for your business space.

2.     HubSpot’s Topic Generator – Enter 3 nouns and HubSpot will automatically generate 5 blog titles. From there you not only get a great title, but also ideas for new blogs.

3.     Keyword Tool – Fill in a topic and then long-tail keywords associated with the topic will be auto-generated.

4.     Ubersuggest – Enter keywords in the search box. This results in Ubersuggest suggestions based on the keywords.

Writers block can wreak havoc with your time and productivity. By taking a few minutes to scout other places for topic ideas you can focus on getting to the task at hand, writing educational and helpful content for your prospective customers.

“Above all, you want to create something you’re proud of.” Richard Branson

The Essentials of Effective Email Marketing – The Who, What, and When

Why use email as a marketing tactic to obtain customers?

Because it is cheap. It is easy to target who you want to receive your emails. Personalization allows you to make the email appear as if it the content was written especially for them. And with market automation you can send emails whenever you want to whomever you want.

Email is nearly 40 times better than Facebook and Twitter at acquiring customers. (McKinsey & Company)

With Twitter, you are limited to 140 characters to communicate your message, and with Facebook, you have to hope your buyers see your post in their Facebook stream. Whereas email provides you with the great opportunity to get in front of new buyers with tips, new product announcements or promotions that isn’t limited to characters or good timing.

As your contact list begins to grow, consider adding email as one way to reach new buyers. Successful email marketing focuses on the who (segmentation), the what (primary pain point for this segment) and when (frequency).

With any new marketing campaign, you will always want to begin by setting a goal. What are you trying to achieve by sending this email to your list? Further segment your list? Drive prospects into the next buying stage? Your goal will determine the type of content and CTA to be created for this audience.

Here are the essentials for email marketing:

Who = Segmentation

Segment your list so that the content you create will provide help with your audiences’ primary pain point. Examples of segmentation can include location, business type, etc. Segmenting your list allows you to reach primarily those who will be most interested in what you have to say.

Companies that use email list segmentation saw 39% higher open rates and 28% lower unsubscribe rates. (Lyris Annual Email Optimizer Report)

“There are countless ways to build lists, but trust is what builds relationships.” – Hunter Boyle

What = Content

Providing something of value is the key to the content of your email – information that helps address their primary pain point. Email content can consist of a newsletter providing tips, a link to your newest blog post, or even an offer designed to move this segment along the buyer stages. Use your email as a touch-point with your potential customer.

95% of those who opt into email messages from brands find these messages somewhat or very useful. (Salesforce)

“Where there is friction there is opportunity. Either you solve it for your customers today or a competitor will do it tomorrow.” – Bryan Eisenberg

When = Frequency

Although I know we are quickly approaching the holidays, it is important to remember your contacts receive emails from many other companies and individuals. Rather than inundate your contacts with many emails per week, or even per day, consider giving them the option of receiving your emails whenever you have an update to share (could be more than one email a day), only once per day, or rather once per week - a weekly digest. Sending less frequent emails and keeping the leads you have will lead to a good impression (on the part of the buyer) and it saves you time and money.

Small business owners estimate that getting an extra hour in their day back from doing their own email marketing (and other activities) is worth $273/hour. (Constant Contact)

“A small list that wants exactly what you’re offering is better than a bigger list that isn’t committed.” – Ramsay Leimenstoll

With all the new ways to reach buyers via social media, email marketing still ranks #1 as generating the highest ROI.

Email marketing yields an average 4,300% return on investment for businesses in the United States. (Direct Marketing Association)

And,

Companies using email to nurture leads generate 50% more sales-ready leads and at 33% lower cost. And nurtured leads, on average, produce a 20% increase in sales opportunities compared to non-nurtured leads. (HubSpot)

So take advantage of the hard work you have done to build your contact list and start using email to reach, engage and sell.

7 Steps To Planning An Offer That Drives New Visitors To Your Website

Are you looking for a way, any way, to drive new customers to your website? Organic search and paid advertising work to a degree, but they don’t provide the same motivation that an offer does. Offers are a proven method to getting targeted buyers to visit your website. They do this by providing something of value - solutions to help them solve a problem.

Offers can take the form of:

• Whitepapers
•  eBooks
• Coupons
• Webinars
• Free trials
• and more…

What you choose to offer will depend upon whom you are targeting, what their problem is, and where they are in the purchasing process. Your offer has to help them – be something they want – something they really need. This need will be the reason they act now, rather than procrastinate and forget about it. Providing something of value is key to establishing credibility and keeping them coming back for more.

“Our jobs as marketers are to understand how the customer wants to buy and help them do so.” – Bryan Eisenberg

Here are the 7 Steps to Planning An Offer:

1.     Set your business goals

What is the main purpose of creating your offer? To attract more visitors to your website? Convert more contacts into leads? Set your goals to help you measure the effectiveness of your efforts.

2.     Identify your customer and their needs

“Everyone is not your customer.” – Seth Godin

Creating an offer for the world at large is like cooking spaghetti and throwing it against the wall hoping it sticks. Rather than capture the contact information from a few people that may or may not become long-term customers, consider focusing your efforts only to those whom are your most desirable customers. List the details about these customers (demographics, job details, pain points). Use this information to develop your messaging.

3.     Create your offer

Now that you know who your customer is, where they are in the purchasing process, and have identified their biggest challenge, create an offer that is designed to help them resolve their problem. For top of the funnel offers – goal is to generate awareness, create an offer that is educational, such as a webinar or ebook. Offers that are targeted towards the consideration stage, provide offers that compare products or even offer a free trial.

4.     Build your landing pages

Build a landing page (website page) that includes a lead-capture form. The purpose of the form is to collect information about your interested visitors to help you qualify them as a lead, and build your email contact list for future marketing campaigns. Once your new lead fills out the form (submit), they will then land on what is known as the Thank you page. The purpose of this page is to provide the offer download, and thank your new lead for their interest.

5.     Write a blog

Leverage the content in your offer to write a blog. You already have created the content for the offer, now with a little re-work, you can turn it into a blog. Use your blog as one of your promotional avenues to engage new customers.

6.     Distribute your offer

Knowing your customer will help you understand what social media channels they spend their time on, which will help you to know where to reach them to promote your new offer.

7.     Measure your results against your goals.

Doing this for every offer will help you to see the types of offers and which promotional channels are the most successful in reaching your goals.

Building offers is just one of the many ways to attract new visitors to your website. You get one shot, so make sure to provide something of real value, help them to solve their problems. Once you do that, they will come back for more.