Web/Tech

What does your welcome mat say?

April 19, 2017

What does your welcome mat say?  Several summers ago, I spent some time in Europe with my daughter celebrating her college graduation and even though I was on vacation, I couldn’t help but see things through a marketing lens.

One of the places we visited was Madrid, Spain and neither of us spoke very much Spanish. I was eavesdropping as we did our tourist thing and I would say about 50% of the people in Madrid are from the United States or Canada and spoke English. It was interesting to me to see how different businesses react to the challenge/opportunity of a non-Spanish speaking guest.

Just a note – we try very hard to show our respect for the countries we visit and always learn many of the more common phrases. We address everyone in Spanish in terms of greetings, directions, saying please and thank you, etc. We certainly don’t expect them to Americanize their country, but we are hardly fluent and are very self conscious of that fact.

My point isn’t about communicating in Europe but instead, how some of the business owners have recognized an opportunity to attract more foreign guests by making it clear that they’ll be welcomed and accommodated. And even more to the point – It got me thinking about how we can adopt that same attitude, even if we don’t face a language barrier with some of our potential customers.

Some establishments make it clear by displaying English versions of their menus, by having a large sign that says, ”we speak English” or by hoisting a British flag near their entrance. This was true in the more tourist crowded parts of the city as well as some of the very local pubs, where we were the only non-locals in the joint.

All of this got me wondering – how do we put out welcome mats (or not) for our potential customers?

Identify your outliers: First think about who, beyond your usual customer, might need your services/products. Is there a group of people who are “lingering” outside your door and just need to be invited in? Might they actually be even more grateful for your product or service, if they felt welcome? Imagine what that kind of word of mouth among their peers might be worth to you.

Move the barriers: Could it be there’s a communication barrier of some kind in the way? It may not be a language issue but are you using jargon that tells the novices they’re not welcome? And remember, sometimes it’s what you don’t say that gets in the way. What might make a potential customer pause and re-think “walking through your door?”

Add more welcome mats: Let’s assume you either have a literal front door to your business or your website is your virtual one. How welcoming are they? Do they reassure that fringe audience that you not only can help them but you really want to? Do you have a way for them to see themselves as your customer? That could be anything from a FAQ section that answers their specific questions, testimonials that come from folks just like them or a marketing tool that explains how you onboard new clients so they can visualize becoming one of your best customers.

You know that you want them as a customer. But they may not be as tuned in as you think. If they’re nervous about doing business with you or spending big money or switching from an old vendor – they may need a little positive reinforcement. Or it may be that they feel like an outsider or that they wouldn’t belong.

It’s your job to make sure they know just how much you’d like to help them and make it easy for them to walk in the door.

 

 

 

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Marketing automation done right

March 15, 2017

According to Wikipedia, marketing automation “refers to software platforms and technologies designed for marketing departments and organizations to more effectively market on multiple channels online (such as email, social media, websites, etc.) and automate repetitive tasks.

The most common channel where marketing automation is used is email. Whether you realize it or not, you’ve interacted with marketing automation software when you:

• Signed up for an email newsletter
• Subscribed to a blog by RSS feed or email
• Provided your email address so you could download a white paper or ebook
• Completed a “contact us” form on a website
• Purchased something online

There are lots of other ways to trigger an automated tool but those are among the most common. Marketing automation is often connected to the idea of creating a “drip campaign” where a person is identified as a prospect and is sent a series of marketing communications over an extended period of time so the company can stay top of mind with that prospect.

Some marketing automation is created for a finite number of contacts or period of time. For example, if you download an ebook and then receive three or four emails that are related to that ebook topic – that’s a relatively short run automation. On the other side of the spectrum, we have had some subscribers to Drew’s Marketing Minute e-newsletter for over a decade. Some of them have ended up being clients but many of them have never hired us and that’s just fine. We’re happy to stay in touch and share our marketing expertise with them.

Whether you are thinking you’re going to create a short or long run automation, there are some best practices you should keep in mind:

Remember, you’re the guest: You’ve been given permission to be in your prospect’s inbox, so you need to remember that you’re their guest. They can ask you to leave just as quickly as they invited you in. Like any good guest, you want to be interesting to them and not overstay your welcome. In email terms that means sharing helpful content versus sales pitches and not bombard them with emails.

Wear a white hat: No matter what kind of marketing automation software you use, from the simple ones like Mail Chimp or Constant Contact to the more complex InfusionSoft, Marketo or Hubspot – they will be scoring your email behavior. If you send too many emails to bad email addresses, or your recipients report your email as SPAM (this happens a lot if you buy an email list rather than growing one organically) then your provider will either restrict the emails you send or they can shut you down completely. Always practice white hat email practices to stay in their good graces and to actually have successful email campaigns.

Add a human touch: Automation is awesome and it helps you stay on track, on a schedule and under your prospect’s nose. But sooner or later, they may want to actually communicate with a human being. Be sure that someone is actually watching for responses and reacting to any questions, feedback or requests for more information. I know that should be obvious, but you’d be amazed at how many companies do not monitor the email address that they use with their automation.

Don’t treat everyone the same: Someone who completed a form requesting more information has a very different motivation than someone who gives you their email address in exchange for an ebook. One of the best features of marketing automation software is that you can create different paths for different people and you should take full advantage of that.

Marketing automation is only going to get more prevalent and more sophisticated. Learn and perfect these best practices now and reap the benefits.

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Help – my digital display ads aren’t working

February 22, 2017

I recently got an email from a reader who was struggling with their digital display ads. They were underperforming and the business owner was considering pulling the ads.

Here’s what I said back to her.

Thanks for your email and the stats on your digital ads. You’re right, based on industry standards, your click-through rate of less than .1% is not within the gold standard of an effective campaign.

Before I dig into some of the reasons why your ads may be underperforming, remember that click-through is just one metric used to measure the effectiveness of a digital ad campaign.

With any rich media that includes brand creative, engagement rates are just one aspect of the ad’s success or failure. Many companies view their digital display ads as being a tool to drive brand awareness as well as a direct response vehicle. Unfortunately, it’s tough to measure that sort of uptick in brand awareness, which is why most people default to their click-through rates.

You also need to recognize that there are lots of ways a person can find your business without clicking on your display ad at that given moment. Think about your own behavior. I’m sure there was a time you saw a banner ad that caught your interest but instead of clicking on the ad, you did a search for the company or product in your favorite search engine, or just typed the company’s URL directly into your web browser.  The ad you saw made an impression on you and got you to take an action. You might have seen that ad on the same day but probably not. When it was convenient for you or your need escalated and you were ready to buy, you found the company and became a customer.

The importance of seeing your ads becomes even greater when we start talking about retargeting. If someone has already been to your site and then they start seeing your ads, the likelihood of them returning to your site is greatly increased.

But I do want to address your question. Assuming the main reason you’re running digital display ads is to trigger an immediate action, here are some reasons why your campaign is underperforming.

Bad creative: Regardless of the medium, creative matters. If your ads are not visually arresting, if your message is not attention grabbing or if your visuals are boring – you’ve got trouble.

Too many words: Many people cram too much into a digital ad. You need to think of it like an outdoor board. Depending on the size — seven to ten words at the most is a good rule of thumb.

Wrong websites/audience: It’s easy to place digital ads. It’s not always easy to place them in the right spots. If you can afford it – let a professional help you.

Bad offer: Keep in mind, your ad needs to offer the viewer something so compelling that I am going to stop whatever I am on the web/mobile to do and click. So it can’t be subtle, boring or unimpressive. You are trying to literally stop me in my tracks and get me to change direction. That takes oomph.

No call to action: Give me a reason to click. Offer me a free ebook, free trial, 20% off or something. If your ad doesn’t tell me what my reward is for clicking on it, odds are I’m not going to unless I was already actively looking for whatever you sell.

Digital display ads are often a very cost effective tool in your marketing arsenal. But like most tactics – there are some best practices you need to follow if you want to enjoy a healthy ROI on your investment.

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Retargeting – Who Do You Have In Your Sights?

August 24, 2016

I remember the first time I noticed retargeting. I’d been online, checking the park hours before my next trip to Disney World. From that website, I did some work and then went to a CBS sports site to adjust my fantasy football team before the weekend.

As I was trying to decide which running back to play, I noticed a Disney World ad in the side bar. “How weird is that,” I thought, “I was just on the Disney site earlier today. What are the odds?”

Well today – you and I know that the odds are pretty darn high, thanks to retargeting. Only 2% of web visitors convert on their first visit. That means 98% didn’t do what you wanted them to do, be it sign up for a free online class, purchase something or download your free ebook. But thanks to retargeting, you’ll get another shot at them.

Retargeting is a cookie-based technology that uses a simple JavaScript code to anonymously follow your audience all over the Web. You just place an unobtrusive piece of code on your website (this code is sometimes referred to as a pixel). The code is unnoticeable to your site visitors and doesn’t impact your site’s performance.

Each time a new visitor comes to your site, the code drops an anonymous cookie onto their browser. Later, when your cookied visitors browse the Web, the cookie will let your retargeting provider know when to serve ads, ensuring that your ads are only shown to people who have previously visited your site.

Most people know about this kind of retargeting, called site retargeting. But there are other ways to use this technology.

Site retargeting: As I said above, this is when you place a cookie on visitors to your website. But not every visitor is of equal value to you. You can set it so they have to take a certain action or view a certain page before you place the cookie. That way, you know you’re only talking to your best prospects.

Search Retargeting: You are targeting individuals on search engines who have entered a search using key words or phrases that you’ve identified as being relevant to your business. This isn’t as precise as site retargeting so you’ll want to make sure your digital ads don’t assume more interest than there really is.

SEM/SEO retargeting: Think of this as a one-two punch. First, they have to use certain pre-determined search terms and then they have to also visit your site. This gives you a very narrow group of people, so you can be very specific in your creative that is aimed at them.

Email retargeting: This version of retargeting is based on actions that people take after they receive an email from you. Think of all the actions someone could take after they receive your e-newsletter, for example. You could create separate campaigns aimed at people who opened your email, who clicked on a certain link or who forwarded your email along to someone else.

Social retargeting: This type of retargeting gets your prospects earlier in the sales funnel. It is based on interest-based data points that allow you to create audience groups. Think of it as a “birds of a feather flock together” assumptive effort.

I’m hard pressed to think of a business that couldn’t use one or more forms of retargeting as part of their overall marketing strategy. We’re doing some variation of it for almost every one of our clients.

Not only does it allow you to talk to people who are more likely to become first-time buyers, but also it’s very cost effective when managed by professionals who know the ropes. If you haven’t experimented with this, you probably should.

 

 

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Sales Funnel – When are they going to buy?

August 4, 2016

For the last few weeks, we’ve been exploring how you can use your website to move prospects into and through your sales funnel. In this week’s post, we’ll examine what needs to happen once someone has been in your sales funnel for a while and is continuing to show interest.

Having the right timing matters. You don’t get to this part of the funnel after the first couple interactions. If I see one consistent mistake, it’s that people shift into these sorts of strategies way too early. It’s like meeting someone in a bar and proposing the same night. Odds are you aren’t going to get too many yeses.

I totally get it from a business’ point of view and have often felt that frustration myself. You’ve shared your expertise. You’ve answered their questions. Surely they should be ready to buy by now. They obviously like what you do enough to keep coming back. So why aren’t they buying?

In my thirty years of being in business, I’ve rarely met a buyer who is as anxious to make the sale as the seller. Sure, there are those customers who come to us in crisis, and we scramble to put out their fire but they’re not the norm. So what do we do? We hang in there, and we keep being helpful and we work to stay top of mind until they’re ready to move forward.

The other factor to remember is that while we are the ones who build the sales funnel, it’s the prospect that moves through it and they control the pace and direction. So while one prospect may linger in the getting to know you (remember our know • like • trust = sales model) or growing to like you section for years, another may whip through both of those and be willing to trust you enough for a trial purchase in a matter of a couple visits.

For your website to truly be an effective sales funnel, you need to offer different levels of engagement, so the prospects can move themselves through at their own speed. As we talked about in the last couple posts, that means free content (text and video if possible) and content that you’ll give them for an email trade. But what kinds of things should you have available for those who are ready to consider a purchase?

Believe it or not – one that many companies miss is having contact information on the site. Don’t make me look for your phone number or email address. If you have the capacity, live chat is great. But make sure I can contact you and give me more than one method. If you have a brick and mortar presence, be sure you list your street addresses as well, with a link to one of the mapping sites.

You can also offer the ability to schedule a call, demo or take an assessment that will require you contact them (usually by email) with the results.

Remember that most buyers want to be pretty sure they’re going to buy before they speak to a salesperson or company representative. When they do reach out, they may have some final questions but they’re very close to making a buying decision. Which means you need to be ready to respond quickly once they do trigger that next level of readiness. Test your site and all your internal systems to verify that nothing is going to get in the way of you finally connecting with this potential buyer.

Today’s consumers want to be able to shop us on the web. How well that works for you is completely in your control. Is your site ready?

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First stage of the funnel – Know

July 20, 2016

Last week we explored how your website should be thought of as a selling tool and with some planning and vision – you can use it to move a prospect through the know • like • trust = sales funnel and earn their business.

This week, I’d like to dig in a little deeper and look at the first stage of the funnel – know and what you can do to catch the interest of your web visitors and encourage them to get to know you a little.

At the top of the funnel we have people who’ve never heard of you and may have no idea they need or want what you sell. They might discover you by clicking on a link in a blog post or after reading about you in the newspaper. They might have a problem and be Googling to find a solution and your site is listed in their search results. They may see a Facebook ad or type in your URL off your business card that they picked up at a trade show. But at this point, you’re a stranger. They don’t know, like or trust you. And we know we have to earn their trust before we can earn their money.

At that moment, your website has to be helpful or relevant enough in some way that they spend a little time on it so they begin to get a sense of you and how you might matter to them.

This is a do or die moment. If the visitor pokes around the site and then leaves, they might never return and you’ll never know who they were or if you could have served them. That’s how it works on most websites. If I asked you to show me a list of people who were on your website in the last six months, could you do it?

One of the appealing aspects of using the web to pre-shop is the anonymity of it. To get someone to introduce themselves to you — you have to either give them a compelling reason to keep coming back or better yet, you have to create the opportunity for an information exchange. You have to offer them something that is valuable enough that they’ll give you their email address in return. While it sounds simple – think of how many websites you visit and how few capture your contact information.

What does that look like? You want to offer something that’s a low barrier to entry. It doesn’t feel too intrusive. It could be any of these:

• Sign up for our Enewsletter or regular tips
• Get a copy of a how-to report, whitepaper or cheat sheet
• Take an online course via email
• Get access to unique content behind a firewall
• Join a discussion group/closed forum
• Be notified when new content/information is available
• Download an eBook or watch a short video series
• Sign up for a webinar or phone conference

Once you’ve made that initial connection and you have a way to stay in touch – you can continue to be helpful which will keep the conversation going. At that point, one of two things is going to happen. As they get to know you/your company – they’re either going to decide they like you or they don’t. Both are great outcomes.

If they like you, they’ll stay in the conversation and get to know you even better. If they don’t like you, they’ll go away. Now you don’t have to waste any energy on someone who was going to be a bad fit.  That’s when you know the first stage of the funnel – know is working.

Next week, we’ll explore how to move an identified prospect into the like part of the equation.

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Is your website funnel-shaped?

July 13, 2016

For the next couple weeks, we’re going to focus our attention on your website. There’s always a lot of buzz about SEO (search engine optimization), SEM (search engine marketing) and of course, Google rankings. Rightly so – each of those plays a role in how effectively your website can serve you from a marketing and sales perspective.

But I think most companies approach the web a little like the fable about the five blind men who were asked to describe the elephant that stood before them. The man who was near the elephant’s leg reached out, touched the elephant and announced that an elephant was like a huge tree trunk. The man who was by the tail, after feeling it, described an elephant like a bullwhip and so on.

While none of them were wrong – none of them were right either. That’s exactly where many companies are when they think about how to leverage their website. They’re not wrong but they haven’t got it quite right either.

Lets step back and take a more holistic view of the website’s purpose for being. You might have a website because it:

• Gives you credibility – it proves that you’re real
• Tells the visitor what your company is all about and why you exist
• Lists/shows what you sell/do
• Educates your prospect on how you are different from your competitors and helps them make an more informed buying decision
• Helps your customers and prospects by making them smarter/better in some way
• Is an information repository so your customers can access things like user manuals, support forums, case studies, testimonials or other forms of thought leadership
• Provides ways to start a conversation, ask a question or give you feedback
• May serve as a shopping portal and people can buy right there

But if we step back even a little further and take a look from the 30,000 foot level, we can see through all those functionalities that your website is the entry point to your sales funnel. For most organizations today — your website is the initial point of entry that could lead to a sale today or five years from today.

That doesn’t happen by accident. Getting them to your site isn’t the end of the game; it’s just the beginning. Now your goal is to move them into and through your sales funnel. You have to build your site and everything that happens on it with that intention.

Whenever I think of a sales funnel, I picture one of those plastic funnels people use when they do an oil change. The top of it is really wide and the bottom is a very skinny hole. The funnel coincides with the know • like • trust equation.

The top of the funnel is for catching all those people who have no idea you exist or that you sell anything they might need or want. This is where you are hoping they’ll get to know you.

The middle of the funnel is filled with all the ways you either keep them on your site or get them to come back. With repeated exposure, you’re hoping they’ll come to like you.

The smallest section of the funnel is where you’re hoping they come to trust you through repeated interactions, you continuing to be helpful and demonstrating a consistency in how you talk, behave and perform.

Once they’ve willingly squeezed themselves through that tiny little section of the funnel, they’ll be ready to buy. But not before.

Next week, we’ll do a deeper dive into each section of the funnel and talk about how you can improve your website’s performance in each.

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Are you ready to podcast?

April 7, 2016

According to wikipedia a podcast is a collection of digital media files distributed over the internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and personal computers.

Here’s my definition. A podcast is an incredible marketing tool and a great way to generate new leads for your business. It can enhance your marketing in many ways. People consume podcasts in a big way.

Apple reports over a billion subscriptions to podcasts via iTunes and they’re hardly the only access point. It’s estimated that over 31 million Americans are regular podcast listeners.

Branding: An effective podcast series is an excellent way to reach our generation’s tech-savvy consumers. Podcasts can be used to position your company as an industry leader, assuming your content is relevant and timely for your target audience.

Lead Generation & Lead Nurturing: These seem to be buzzwords for the coming year. People are thinking more and more about their sales cycle and how to keep moving prospects closer to the sale. Podcasts are a smart way to keep prospects engaged with your brand while you earn their trust by demonstrating your expertise.

External Communications: No matter who you need to stay in touch with — investors, board members, the media, industry pundits, or your current customers, a podcast is a simple and interesting way to do that.

Website Content Improvements: Want your website to be seen as an important resource? Adding content like podcasts will not only add stickiness to your site, but Google and the other search engines will love that you’ve got a mix of media on your site.

If those benefits have you thinking that it might not be a bad plan to think about adding a podcast series to your marketing efforts, then stay with me. I want to give you some tips on attracting and keeping an audience. But even if you follow all of these suggestions, you’re going to have to be a little patient. This isn’t a marketing tactic that you try once or twice and then figure it didn’t work.

Don’t even start this if you aren’t going to give it a good year to take seed and grow. Here are a few ways to help make that happen.

Keep it Short: Most people will have an attention span of 15-30 minutes at the most for any given topic. Don’t be afraid to be brief. Even a 5-10 minute podcast can be very effective. One way to do that is to remember – one podcast, one key message.

Use MP3 for your file format: Most rich media players can play an MP3 formatted file. You can offer other options as well, as long as MP3 is there.

Let Them Subscribe: Don’t count on your audiences continually coming back to your site. Give them subscription options so every time you produce new content, they receive it automatically.

Teach, Don’t Sell: I know this is tough, but if your podcast is a sales speech, no one will stick with you. If you think about what you could teach your prospects and give them that education freely, they’ll gladly endure a little information about your product or service.

Putting together a podcast series does take some effort. But it can yield incredible results too. You can use the same podcast with many different audiences and you can even slice and dice some of the content into blog posts, sales material and other marketing tools. Why not give it a try?

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