Is Inbound Marketing Right For Your Small Business? Posted on April 7, 2017September 8, 2022 by Guest Author If you are a small business owner or a marketing agency that isn’t seeing the quality or quantity of leads needed to achieve your business goals, inbound marketing may be the solution. What is inbound marketing, and how does it differ from the traditional marketing efforts you may already be using? While your focus may be on reaching out to your potential customer base, inbound marketing is different because it will make your customers reach out to you to learn more about the products and services you offer. Inbound Marketing May Fit Because… This kind of marketing is more important today than it has been in the past, especially when you consider the improved technologies in ad blockers and the increased awareness of do-not-call lists. Today 87% of people in the US are online, and the majority of social media users will log-in daily. With 320 million people in this country active online and many more internationally, today’s consumers are likely to turn to this avenue when they have a need they wish to fulfill. It Doesn’t Cost a Lot of Money Think of your online presence as a top-earning salesperson who never goes off the clock. Starting a blog is much cheaper than investing in the creation of commercials and billboards, and the money you spend getting this just right will mean you will potentially be able to close many deals from a single effort. While traditional marketing efforts like cold calls, print ads, and mailers also traditionally have a high rate of failure, inbound marketing can allow you to save 62 percent over the methods you are most likely already using, and with more successful results. You Will Have Evergreen Content Evergreen trees always look fresh because they have leaves throughout the year, and there’s no reason your content can’t also be perpetually fresh and sustainable. Unlike other marketing and promotions, there is no shelf life for this kind of content when it comes to driving traffic to your site. Most blogs and social media posts will still be visible long after they are posted, but well-crafted evergreen content will stay relevant long after it’s hit the internet. This will allow your traffic to bloom and grow over time. The People You Encounter Are Most Likely Interested One problem with traditional outbound marketing is when you do connect with your customers, they may not be ready to buy. With inbound marketing, you won’t have to hope the stars have aligned just right because your customers will seek you out when they need your products and services. You will be able to use search engine optimization, social media, and other avenues to make it easy for them to find you when the time is right, which will eliminate much of the guesswork. Inbound Marketing May Not Fit Because… While inbound marketing has made a stark difference for many companies, it is not right for every situation. Consider the following reasons it might not work for you before you take the next step. You Will Need Web Experts The web can be a more productive new channel for many business types, but you may need to hire new people or invest in effective tools to help fill any capacity gaps and to fulfill your marketing capabilities. If you are ready to get serious about improving your online marketing performance, it literally pays to work with professionals in SEO, in digital media, and in web design, web development, strategists, and social media pros, because their expertise and experience will save you from potentially costly marketing mistakes. It Can Be Time Consuming Unfortunately, there is no magic wand you can wave if you want to get your inbound marketing campaign just right, but the time you invest will be well worth the effort. To get the best results from your inbound marketing efforts, you will need to spend time creating unique and innovative campaigns, generating quality and effective content, and waiting for customers to come to you. You can expect to devote many hours each week to this process on an ongoing basis. Businesses That Reap The Benefits Of Inbound Marketing You must have the right kind of business for inbound marketing to work. Companies most successful in inbound are those that tend to have long, complex buyer’s journeys and a customer lifetime value (CLV) over $500. Now, you may be surprised by just how versatile inbound is because everyone from online retailers to lawyers, health care professionals, bookkeepers, insurance agents, real estate agents, stylists, and many other professionals are all using inbound marketing with fantastic results. Most small and medium businesses do not have huge advertising budgets, so they are looking for ways to cut marketing costs. If you are looking for ways to increase traffic, conversions, and sales while building your customer base by getting the most bang for your marketing buck, then inbound marketing makes sense for you. About the Author ShaDrena Simon is a digital strategist, inbound marketing expert, and resident graphic designer for Yokel Local Internet Marketing, an inbound marketing agency that helps business scale online through a customized system. Find Yokel Local Facebook and Twitter.
Here’s Why Employee Trust Is So Important In A Small Business Posted on April 6, 2017April 8, 2017 by Jonathan Herrick “It’s the company’s responsibility to look after your employees first. Happy employees ensures happy customers. Happy customers ensures happy shareholders – in that order.” Herb Kelleher – Founder and former CEO of Southwest Airlines In one of his many articles, Simon Sinek wrote: “A team is not a group of people that work together. A team is a group of people that trust each other.” This is a wildly important lesson in leadership. To become a true leader takes more than just ability to lead by example and inspire people. Although those are both incredibly difficult tasks. However, there’s another important element, and that’s the ability to build a sense of trust within your organization. You can’t have a team without trust, and you clearly can’t be a leader without a team. Trust needs to be at the foundation of any business. Why Trust Should Be A Priority First, trust empowers your employees. This sense of empowerment leads to at least 26% higher employee satisfaction, according to a study by Yona Kifer of Tel Aviv University. That sense of empowerment translates into more authenticity and feelings of well-being, the researchers found. Ultimately, these feelings lead to much higher engagement in the workplace. And that’s where the real treasure lies. According to Gallup, over 70% of employees feel disengaged. This apathy costs US companies between $450 billion to $550 billion in lost productivity per year. If you can help your employees be more engaged, that alone sets you apart from the rest of the crowd. So How Can You Actually Build Trust? In another study, Gallup found that recognition, constant communication, and trust create a thriving environment where front-line employees feel they have the autonomy to make a real difference in the organization. So how do you go about creating that kind of environment? The serial entrepreneur and founder of gaming company Zynga, Mark Pincus, has made everyone in his company a CEO of their job. In an interview for NY Times, he said: “I’d turn people into CEOs. One thing I did at my second company was to put white sticky sheets on the wall, and I put everyone’s name on one of the sheets, and I said, “By the end of the week, everybody needs to write what you’re CEO of, and it needs to be something really meaningful.” And that way, everyone knows who’s CEO of what and they know whom to ask instead of me. And it was really effective. People liked it. And there was nowhere to hide.” He then offers an example of an employee taking the responsibility and flourishing into a company-wide leader with it. By giving his employees the autonomy to do their jobs without being micro-managed, Pincus created a strong sense of trust and a more engaged team at Zynga. Delegation is hugely important in building trust within an organization. If you don’t feel that you can successfully delegate tasks among the employees you hired in the first place, you have a bigger problem on your hands. In his renowned book, ‘Together is Better,’ Simon Sinek talks about making the transition to becoming a leader. The moment you’re ready to empower people and delegate tasks with trust, that’s when you transition to a true leader. Leadership, Simon explains, “is a hard work of training people, coaching people, believing in people and trusting people.” Trust is a foundational piece of any successful business. In order to keep employees engaged, make sure you’re all on the same page with expectations, company values and measures of success. A level of autonomy and a sense of empowerment will create a stronger workplace and a more successful business in the long run.
Rethinking The Sales Funnel With CRM Posted on April 5, 2017June 20, 2018 by Tegan Arnold If you’re in the B2B space, particularly if you’re running a smaller operation, you’re in luck. Today you have tools available to you that were previously reserved for large B2C enterprises. Specifically, you have access to amazing amounts of buyer data (if you decide to use it). Unfortunately many small businesses don’t capitalize on that data in their sales and marketing strategies. If you’ve considered customer relationship management (CRM) as something with little to add (or out of reach for your micro-to-small business), think again. Not only are massive quantities of customer data being created at all times, but predictive analytics are maturing rapidly. This means that your marketing and sales efforts can become significantly more productive and efficient with the right tools. The use of a CRM will empower you to do things like provide the most relevant content to a particular lead, better gauge which prospects are likely to become high-value customers and know what the next step should be in bringing leads deeper into the sales funnel. Most of the people on your website are not in buying mode, so it’s essential that you serve them the right messages at the right moments, encouraging them on that next step of their buyer’s journey. Those “right messages” might include expert lead magnets, product information or demo offers, depending on their buying stage. Why Understanding CRM Is Crucial for Smaller Businesses Smaller businesses can benefit disproportionately from CRM marketing. By eliminating much of the guesswork of managing leads and customers, small business CRM software can ensure warm leads are qualified and nurtured to where they’re most likely to become loyal customers. It will also allow you to track the customer journey, identify risks and patterns along the way, and learn which steps are most likely to encourage them down the funnel. Better still, many of today’s CRM tie in a sales and marketing automation piece. This allows your team members to trigger and automate processes they used to have to handle in a hands-on manner. For instance, if a potential customer downloads a premium piece of content, the appropriate sales development team member can be automatically notified to send a follow-up email or start the lead on a series of follow-up calls. Don’t Just Generate Leads, Manage Them No one is disputing that lead generation is important, but focusing too intently on lead generation at the expense of lead management is a mistake. Continually dumping leads into the top of the funnel can have an effect similar to when you overload an actual funnel: it can clog things up further down. CRM marketing helps you focus on lead management activities as well as lead generation activities. These management activities often include qualifying leads, scoring them, cultivating them, and following up on them. The right software helps ensure none of them slips through the cracks, and that you’re keeping your sales pipeline full. Measure Twice, Cut Once You have probably heard to carpenter’s mantra of “Measure twice, cut once,” and it applies well beyond the boundaries of construction. By measuring and monitoring what goes on at each stage of your sales funnel, and not just at the final closing stage, you learn to recognize patterns, bottlenecks, and opportunities. Learning, for example, how many out of 100 sales leads progress to an in-person appointment helps you gauge whether you’re attracting the right buyer at the top of the funnel. Measuring results helps you recognize where your challenges lie, and likewise, where great opportunities may exist. Ultimately, It’s About the Sales Process CRM software isn’t about itself, but about the sales process. There’s little point in investing in a pricey CRM without first defining your goals and knowing what you want to use it for. Likewise, you need to know how to use your CRM tools competently, which means it’s essential that you thoroughly research to find the right vendor for you and ensure their reputation for service after the sale. You want your CRM to serve your business, not the other way around. Your provider should know this and should know what features your smaller business needs, rather than just try to sell you the most elaborate (and expensive) solution they can. Ultimately, CRM is about making your sales process better, and not about the CRM tools themselves. Next Steps Smaller B2B companies have access to the kind of data and analytics that used to only belong to giant B2C entities. Choose your CRM software with care, and you can take action on data that’s already at your fingertips, saving considerable time and money while making it easier to accompany leads through the sales funnel.
5 Tips To Improve Your Email Open Rates Right Away Posted on April 4, 2017July 12, 2018 by Jessica Lunk Even in the industries most partial toward email marketing, open rates only reach an average of roughly 26 percent. Most fall below 20. That means four-fifths of people who willingly give you their email address might never actually open the emails you’re sending them. But why? It isn’t always that they’re not interested—after all, they signed up voluntarily. The reason they’re not opening your emails could be something you’re overlooking. Open rates are generally determined by subject lines alone, so knowing how to craft the right one is an important first step. But there are other techniques that can help ensure your eager audience is seeing the content they asked for. Make Sure Your Emails Aren’t Ending Up as Spam When someone subscribes to your email list, one way to ensure subsequent emails get properly delivered is to send a friendly automated “Welcome” email. This shows people how to whitelist emails from you to prevent them from ending up in the spam folder. It’s a human approach, which is a good first impression, and the results can’t be bad: even if 80 percent of people ignore you, that extra 20 percent won’t, and that’s 20 percent of people who would otherwise have missed emails they signed up to receive. Send Your Emails at the Right Time Time of day is one of the factors we recommend split testing, and for good reason—you may find emails sent at 8 p.m. do twice as well as those sent at 4 p.m. There are so many differing opinions on this matter, it’s honestly best to test it out for yourself and see what works. Some swear by emails sent between 8 and 10 p.m. when people are at home and relaxing on their phones; others claim that 10 a.m. emails see the highest open rates, when people are definitely at their desks. Other sources claim emails sent just after lunchtime are most successful because recipients are refreshed (and fed). The only way to be sure is to try some A/B tests and see what works for you—your email open rate will grow once you figure out when your audience is most enthusiastic to hear from you. Make Your Email Subject Lines Short and Friendly Subject lines are best kept brief—not so brief that they’re vague and spammy (“Have you seen this?”), but short enough that you can intrigue your fans within the constraints of the character limit set by most phones and email apps (“Have you seen this cute video of a panda eating cake?”). A good rule of thumb is to limit yourself to around 50 characters, since longer subject lines will invariably get cut off, and nothing ruins a good semantic flow like ellipses. While you’re at it, in general, you should dive into your spam inbox and see what types of emails wind up there from time to time—it’s a good reminder of how not to craft an email subject line. Stay away from excessive exclamation points, all caps, and Capitalizing Every Word In Your Subject. Focus instead on presenting a clear, friendly, readable subject line. Write a Teaser that Informs The “teaser” is the introductory part of the email after the subject line that people can read before opening the email. The teaser won’t always be visible, so it should complement the subject line rather than contain any critical information. Artifact Uprising has a pretty good hook: Their teaser augments the offer in the subject line. Why would you want a free 5.5”x 5.5” photobook? To get those pictures off of your device and into your life as a physical object. Writing a catchy teaser is just as important as writing a good subject line, but you should be even more aware of space constraints and the fact that it will be cut off. Teasers tend to devolve into alt-text from images or code—they might even start out that way—which is why if you can at least get in a few helpful words, you’re going to rise above the rest. Reflect on Your Data and Change Things Up What’s the easiest place to find engaged readers? Here’s one: the depths of your currently unengaged readers. Re-engagement strategies are paramount to cultivating your existing email list, which makes it a good idea to trim your list of old emails periodically and re-engage subscribers who’ve fallen out of touch with your brand. Long-term data can reveal lots about open rates, too. Reflect back on a few months or years of data and look for what worked and what didn’t—direction for effective times of day, strong subject lines and proper segmentation will reveal themselves in what you’ve already been doing. All you need to do is combine this with the other key trends for modern email marketing—personalization, thinking mobile-first and social integration—and you’ll be on the cutting edge of email marketing, hands down.
4 Tricks For Creating More Shareable Content Posted on April 3, 2017July 12, 2018 by Allie Wolff Long past the allure of “reach” numbers in the hundreds of thousands, marketers and agencies are increasingly focusing on what matters most: engagement. And there’s no better marker of engagement than shares. Even just liking something—or clicking favorite, heart, thumbs up, whatever—is a simple action that only indicates someone took the time to click something and, perhaps, din’t even read it. Few people click through to an article, read it start to finish, then toggle back just to click “like” and move on. Your most engaged audiences are more likely to share it. And that’s why it’s the shares that count. To share something is to say, essentially, “This represents me,” or “This made me think.” You’re endorsing a piece of content by placing it on your own feed. It’s such a personal commitment that political Twitter users and influencers, particularly journalists, feel compelled to clarify that “retweets are not endorsements.” We assume that sharing content means you agree with it. It’s a very personal act. Here are a few tips to make your content more shareable. Just ask. For many content marketers, asking others to share content is an odd point of pride. But why? It depends on the content, of course, but if you’ve published something you’re proud of, there’s no shame in asking people to share it. You shouldn’t take the ask for granted, of course. Asking repeatedly for readers to share everything you publish will nullify the importance of anything. But if you’re looking to make an impact with something—say, the most important post you’ve created in a while, or an informative resources that’s particularly relevant to your audience—then do it. Canadian journalist Desmond Cole frequently tweets about racial and social justice issues. But when his face was on the cover of a major magazine, the story was big enough across North America that he asked people to read and share it. You might assume it’s easy for well-known people within political circles or with celebrity status on Twitter to get more than 1,200 retweets but then look at everyone who isn’t. Look at Cole’s own Twitter feed on a normal day. The engagement is nowhere near the post above. When something has impact, you want to stretch that impact by asking. Elicit an emotional response. Want to get more shares? Get more people to care. Social media is emotional media, and people tend to share pieces that strike them at gut level—things that make them angry, shocked or inspired. Shareable content is emotional content. Take a look at Target’s Facebook page. Any time they promote a new product or link to their site, it gets a few dozen shares. When they posted a funny pun on Pi Day, they got more than 700. People like to feel clever and tuned in, or at least passionate about subjects that make them angry, sad or overwhelmed. Knowing that you probably don’t want to make people angry—unless you do, as some marketing ploy to harness their rage against some problem you can solve—comedy and wit are solid tactics. And when it comes to this kind of content, headlines reign supreme. Make your headline elicit the emotion on its own because even many of the people sharing it won’t have read the actual article. Test different sharing widgets. You may have sharing widgets enabled on your site. There are dozens on WordPress and third-party apps across the web—but how many have you tested to see how easy they are to use (for you and for your readers)? Did you just use a default plugin that came with your site, or did you do the research? There are too many options for you to settle quickly on this. It’s a good rule of thumb to not choose a sharing widget based solely on one specific criteria—attractiveness, for example. Some will slow down your site considerably; others will set cookies across every page to capture visitors’ information and monetize it; more still suffer from faulty share-counting algorithms. And those are just the aesthetically pleasing options — there are plenty of others that look terrible. Take some time to research various widgets, not only for yourself but also for your customers. You may find a few that achieve better results than others. Write content worth sharing. If your goal is purely to create shareable content, you’re starting off on the wrong foot. The first step is to create educational, valuable content—only then can you propel your momentum into getting huge numbers. It’s easy to get lost in the web of social media, wondering what little tweaks will increase your visibility. And those tweaks certainly do exist—see the previous three sections of this blog post. But if you’re in the beginning stages of content marketing, the most fundamental rule is to create content that informs and attracts the right audience. Review your company goals and remember why your customers enjoy your product in the first place. Tap into that and use it to fuel your subject matter. Then keep going, and give it time. The shares will come.
5 Ways To Guarantee Your Readers Trust Your Content Posted on March 31, 2017July 12, 2018 by Allie Wolff With talk of “fake news” in the headlines constantly, it’s easy to get the jitters about publishing anything. Fortunately, if you publish credible, research-backed, trustworthy content, you have little to worry about. It’s hard for even the most mischievous internet troll to cast doubts on blogs, white papers or other material that is accurate, free from factual mistakes and supported by data that can be easily verified. As you might imagine, creating credible content takes some work. It requires you to slow down long enough to double check what you’re publishing and proofread it carefully. But this is an insurance policy for your brand, similar to the quality control you perform for your product or service. When readers trust your content, it helps build faith in your company. If your content is carefully crafted, it suggests that the work you do at your business will reflect a similar attention to detail. For a quick guide to trustworthy content, download our checklist below. Or read on for a deeper dive into why each checklist item is so important to master. Write about what you know. Readers can tell when you’re discussing something in which you have expertise or experience and they can especially tell when the topic is out of your element. This is why people often raise an eyebrow when they see Hollywood stars pontificating on complex political issues—unless these celebrities are actually well-versed in the subject through charitable work or direct personal experience. Whether you’re writing a blog, a white paper or a marketing brochure, stick with what you truly know. Sharing genuine expertise in your writing will reinforce it in readers’ minds and allow them to treat your brand as an industry expert. Cite information properly. If you’re writing about news that’s being widely reported, such as the introduction of a major law that affects your clients, it’s not necessary to attribute it to a specific publication, TV station or radio show. But if you’re discussing a quote from a specific media interview or a unique detail a reporter uncovered, attribute it to the specific source. Doing so permits readers to make their own decision about whether that source is credible. They may have a different take on news that comes from, say, an unpaid blogging platform such as The Wall Street Journal or research published in the Harvard Business Review. Only use sources you can verify. Many statistics you’ve read in blogs are cribbed from other publications but never verified. One red flag is if you type a specific statistic mentioned into a search engine, you’ll find 15 blogs mentioning that fact—but none has a link to the original study. Another clue is that you can’t find the study in a quick search. This casts doubt on the research methods of all of the sites that have mentioned the statistic. To avoid this problem in your own content, only include statistics you can personally verify—either because they came from unique data you gathered at your company or because there is a published study where you have actually seen the statistics with your own eyes. It shouldn’t take more than five or 10 minutes to uncover the original source and peruse the text to find the fact you plan to quote. If you can’t find it, don’t publish it. And if you do find it and have any doubts about the credibility or objectivity of the original source, don’t include it. Fact check like a pro. Publishing incorrect information can ruin your credibility with readers. Imagine how you would feel if your neighbor was profiled in the newspaper as Geoff Smyth—and he spells it Jeff Smith. The good news is most factual mistakes are completely avoidable if you set aside time for fact checking. So how do you fact check? Double check any information that can be verified with outside sources, instead of relying on your memory. Use well-known online encyclopedias, such as Encyclopedia Britannica, and respected news publications to make sure you are mentioning the correct date an event occurred, for instance. If you mention a famous quote from a speech by Steve Jobs or another famous business leader, look up news accounts or the transcript online to make sure he really said it. And when you interview key customers to feature them in your blog or a case study, make sure you send them a quick list of facts to makes sure everything is accurate before you publish it. Weed out typos. Even if you don’t have someone who is a skillful copy editor on staff, it’s possible to root out most spelling and grammar errors from your copy if you use a three-pronged approach. First, run the copy through Grammarly, a free grammar checker. Then run it through your spell check. Finally, print it out and ask someone else on your team to read it, to spot any typos. If no one is available to help you, do this yourself. You’ll be surprised at how many typos you can catch by simply viewing the same text off screen. Fix mistakes quickly. No matter how careful you are, you may not catch every error. Correct any mistakes as quickly as you can. If a factual appears in a blog or other online publication, add a note explaining what has been corrected at the end, so readers who may have seen an older version are aware the article has been changed. No one likes to admit mistakes but doing so inspires trust—and will make sure readers trust your content in the long run.
Foods To Make You More Productive and Keep You Energized All Day Posted on March 30, 2017July 12, 2018 by Ben Xue We’re all trying to squeeze more productivity out of the work day, a trend toward working “smarter,” rather than just harder. But you can’t work efficiently or at a high performance level without considering how you fuel that productivity. If you’re running a business, your mind is focused on clearing your inbox, making payroll, and monitoring the results of your latest marketing campaign. For most, the food you eat while you’re in the office is not a primary concern—but just a few simple changes to your workplace diet could have huge effects on your cognition and productivity. What you put in your mouth is critical to your day-to-day performance. The right foods provide the energy your body needs to function, and the more thinking we do, the more intellectually complex our tasks, the more energy we use. Most of what we eat is converted into glucose—a sugar—that provides the energy our brains need to stay alert. When we’re low on glucose we have a tough time staying focused (or awake for that matter). Depending on the food, you’ll either get a burst of glucose very quickly, by drinking a soda or eating a lot of French bread, or more slowly, with foods that have more protein and fat. High-fat foods like fried chicken or a cheeseburger, however, require more work to digest. This overexertion reduces the levels of oxygen in the brain which makes us sleepy. When you start to feel low in energy and irritable, you’re probably not feeling strong in the self-control department. Most people go for the fries or candy bar in that moment, but those foods will only perpetuate a low energy, groggy feeling. As Ron Friedman, author of “The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace” wrote in the Harvard Business Review, we often choose unhealthy foods because they tend to be cheaper and faster than healthy alternatives, and as a result, they feel efficient even if they aren’t. “We save 10 minutes now and pay for it with weaker performance the rest of the day,” writes Friedman. You can avoid that by thinking through what you’re going to eat throughout the day—leaving as much of the salt, fat and sugar out of it. Every person requires a unique diet for sustainability, but here are a few of the best foods for enhancing focus and decision-making: Start your day with slow-burning foods like those high in fiber and with a little fat and a little protein. A smoothie, perhaps, made with soy or almond milk, fresh or frozen fruit. An omelet with whole grain toast or low-fat yogurt with fresh fruit. Nuts, fruit and veggies like carrots are good choices for snacks because they provide a steady stream of energy for your brain, rather than sugary peaks and valleys. In fact, fresh fruit eaten throughout the day has been shown to make people happier, more engaged and more creative. Fruits and vegetables contain nutrients that foster the production of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that plays a critical role in motivation and engagement. Blueberries, blackberries, pomegranates, and other dark-colored fruits are what neuroscientist James Joseph at the Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University calls “brain berries.” These fruits, he says, contain deeply pigmented flavonoid phytochemicals known as anthocyanidins. They turn important genes on or off in brain cells, making those cells very responsive to incoming messages from other cells, and promoting the growth of new nerve cells. Dark berries protect against memory lossand act as anti-inflammatory agents to protect your heart and brain. Walnuts are another terrific brain food and may actually amplify the effects of darkly hued berries, according to Joseph. The nuts contain a significant amount of protein, as well as omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin E and vitamin B6. Some research shows they also work to balance serotonin levels in the brain, which controls both mood and appetite. Leafy green vegetables are good at protecting your brain against memory loss and eroding of higher functions. Eggs contain a B-vitamin that enhance memory and reaction time. Green tea improves memory and focus, and it helps the brain stay relaxed at the same time. Green tea is also known to contain a wealth of antioxidants that can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of signaling within the brain. Salmon is a great choice for a meal because it’s packed with the optimal kind of fatty acid–and more than half of your brain is fatty acids. Salmon is also full of omega-3s, B-vitamins, iron and protein, all of which help with memory retention, build focus and buttress reasoning. Sunflower seeds are a brain-support snack, boosting your mental processing and lifting your mood. The seeds contain lots of thiamine, a B vitamin that increases cognitive function and memory. Researchers have also found that sunflower seeds release a protein that inhibits the production of an enzyme linked to high blood pressure. High blood pressure, or hypertension, wears away the inner lining of blood vessels over time and can cause small strokes in the brain. And those with hypertension score lower on memory and concentration tests than those without hypertension. There are countless diets, fads and “resources” out there instructing you on the next great way to lose weight. But here at Hatchbuck, we stick to the basics. Our snack closet is full of healthy trail mix, granola bars and oatmeal to keep team Hatchbuck fueled and ready to take on the day. Use food to power your brain and body by planning ahead of time what and when you will eat during the day. Limit sugar and saturated fats and choose more natural options instead. Instead of reaching for a handful of M&Ms, grab some nuts and sunflower seeds and chase it with a glass of pomegranate juice. Your brain and body will reward you with a more productive and energetic day.
Small Business Guide to Marketing Automation Posted on March 29, 2017November 18, 2022 by Jessica Lunk This blog post was updated on February 14, 2020. As a small business, you’re probably in direct contact with many of your existing customers. But as your business scales, it’s impossible to maintain personal relationships with everyone. Eventually, your sales, marketing, and customer service efforts will be sizable enough that you’ll no longer be able to manage it all using Gmail and spreadsheets. That’s where marketing automation comes in. What is Marketing Automation? Digital marketer and entrepreneur Neil Patel offers this simplified definition of marketing automation: “Marketing automation is the use of software to automate marketing processes such as customer segmentation, customer data integration, and campaign management, that would have otherwise been performed manually.” It’s true that not every business is ready for marketing automation software. But how do you know if your business is ready or not? Is Marketing Automation Right for My Small Business? Here are some situations that might indicate you could benefit from marketing automation software. You don’t have a CRM, or you have a CRM that doesn’t allow you to track people through the sales process. A marketing automation software is not only going to house your contacts in an organized fashion but will also let you move them through the sales pipeline, from lead to customer. The process can be automated, meaning the contact can be moving from stage to stage based on their clicking and opening behavior. You only need to be alerted when they have become a “hot” lead or opportunity so that you can follow up with them. You have trouble following up with leads and staying in touch with your customers. A marketing automation software can send an automated email campaign that you have designed to all of your leads, prospects, and customers. While you don’t have time to manually follow up with everyone, putting your customers on a quarterly stay-in-touch campaign will accomplish the same thing, without you having to remember to do it yourself. Putting your leads and prospects on a nurturing campaign can send them educational material on your services and products and trigger tasks for you to call them. You have no way of tracking actionable behavior that may indicate a prospect is interested. Tracking clicks and opens is a key component of marketing automation. Sending a campaign is one thing, but being able to trigger a task to call a prospect because they clicked on a link within your e-mail is VITAL. This indicates to you that they have some level of interest and if you don’t touch base, they may buy from someone else. You aren’t utilizing your website to the fullest and capturing visitor information. Your website should have a contact capture form on it somewhere. Ideally, this form offers something of value, such as a whitepaper or discount for the contact to fill it out. The more enticing the offer, the better your turnout will be. Having a form setup through your marketing automation software has some benefits. First, you can set specific follow-up actions after someone fills out the form. Beyond that, they will go straight into the stage (lead, prospect, etc.) that you designate into your system and therefore are entered into your sales funnel without you having to do any work yourself. The Perks That Come With Marketing Automation Still not totally convinced? Well then, let’s take a look at the obvious perks that come along with automating your marketing. 1. Guesswork Is Removed Do you know which of your blog posts has been viewed more than the rest? How do you know which landing page on your website has the most successful conversion rate? Knowing for certain instead of shooting in the dark is a lot more fun, and beneficial, for your growing business. Your marketing automation takes the guesswork out of which content gets the most traction, which is most relevant to different leads, and how long to wait before sending a second email to a prospect. 2. Errors Are Reduced Everyone makes mistakes, and that’s the reason why data entered into a CRM system manually almost always has erroneous information. Marketing automation software automatically populates web forms, which greatly reduces errors and eliminates a lot of tedious data entry. 3. Communication Is Improved One of the most important things marketing automation does is improve your communication with customers and prospects by offering you tools that reduce the time it takes you to respond to their queries. 4. Communication Is Personalized Messages that are tailored to the recipient will have a much bigger impact than generic, batch and blast ones. They are more likely to be read and create loyalty with your brand. Without an automated system to keep track of every customer and contact’s history and activity, this would be a herculean task. But with marketing automation, it’s efficient and effective. 5. Pressure Is Eliminated You can automate sending personalized emails to prospects, educating them about your product and familiarizing them with your company over time. You can track email conversations and segment and organize contacts in ways that make sense—by status, demographics or specific need. 6. Data Is Leveraged Marketing automation collects and harnesses an enormous amount of valuable data, tracking every interaction with customers and prospects. It analyzes that data, allowing you to decipher the effectiveness of marketing campaigns so you can improve engagement and sales. 7. Playing Field is Leveled It used to be only large companies had the resources for marketing automation software, but products specifically designed for small businesses—like Hatchbuck—make it affordable and easy to implement, allowing the smallest businesses to market like the Fortune 500. Getting Up to Speed: Concepts of Marketing Automation A chart below shows the most popular marketing automation features marketers use to create and automate their sales and marketing process, according to Regalix. Now let’s have a look at the most important concepts you’ll need to understand. Conversion Funnel There are two overarching marketing techniques: inbound and outbound. Outbound marketing is basically placing ads, buying email lists, and cold outreach. Inbound marketing, however, is about attracting users through quality content that pulls them toward your product organically. How does marketing automation come into play? Well, it plays a huge role in facilitating the transition of your users. By using this software, your users are managed, and able to go from a site visitor to a lead, and then to a paying customer. You manage that transition through the conversion funnel, featured in the image below. It’s a process of attracting prospects to your site, providing ongoing lead nurture, then converting them to actual paying customers. Customer Journey The customer journey is the path a user takes towards conversion. In order to maximize your conversions, you have to build a journey that aligns with the needs of your users. There are two goals for every successful customer journey: To keep prospects moving through the conversion funnel To minimize churn at each stage of the funnel Automation plays a key role in both of those goals. In reality, it can look something like this: A prospect lands on your website and signs up for something of value. They receive a sequence of personalized emails that engage them, offer them education, and provide them with valuable content, making you a trusted resource. They continue to be nurtured until they move further down the funnel. They eventually sign up for a demo of your services, and a sales rep is notified that they’re ready for a discussion. They convert and become a paying customer. Users don’t just flow into your sales and marketing funnel, they flow out of it, too. When a customer stops purchasing from you or unsubscribes from your messaging, it’s referred to as customer churn. When it comes to killing churn, marketing automation analytics can determine the leaks in your funnel. For instance, you may find that many customers sign up for an entry-level product, but never upgrade. You can use marketing automation upsell and cross-sell these customers, increasing their customer lifetime value and reducing churn. Surveys and customer feedback are also great tools for helping to identify and fix leaks in your funnel. Database and Lead Generation The success of your marketing automation strategy depends on the strength of your user database. If you’re starting at ground zero, you might be tempted to consider buying an email list. Don’t do it. Buying lists one of the biggest email marketing mistakes and could get you in serious trouble (i.e. getting blacklisted and damaging your sender reputation). The best lists are opt-ins, where users already recognize and trust your brand. For that, you need to build a lead generation engine fueled by content creation and valuable assets, such as eBooks, webinars, guides, and other resources in return for their contact information. The use of a CRM and marketing automation allows you to set up landing pages for these lead magnets and to trigger onboarding workflows, capture analytics, score leads, and so on. Audience Segmentation As your database grows and you start to deploy marketing campaigns, you’ll have a wealth of data at your disposal. In order to properly make use of that data, you’ll need a system to segment your audience and group your prospects together based on common characteristics, demographics, needs, and attributes. By grouping users into defined categories, you will be able to more effectively target them with precise marketing messages that address their pain points and product needs. Email Workflows So, once you understand your funnel, start collecting leads, and define your prospect segments, it’s time to create your first email workflows. These are specific campaigns designed to take your leads through the different stages of the funnel. There are: Action-triggered workflows: Campaigns based on a specific action “trigger point” that triggers the campaign. For example, a welcome email after someone subscribes and then a follow-up email a week later. Event workflows: An example would be an email a week before Black Friday and another one on Black Friday. Email workflows can be set up quite easily using your marketing automation platform. You can set up email workflows based on any information you have about your contacts in your marketing database, such as page views, clicks, or downloads. Good luck with your marketing automation endeavors! Make sure you bookmark this blog post so you can refer back to it as-needed.
Photo Series Part 3: How to Crop Your Photos Into Eye-Catching Images Posted on March 28, 2017 by Jeanna Barrett Editing your iPhone photography can turn boring, dull photos into awesome, eye-catching visuals for your small business. However, if you don’t have expert photo composition to begin with, photo editing will only get you so far. Even if your original snapped photo isn’t exceptional, you can often crop the photo to create a composition that is interesting to your viewer. In the third and final installment of our photo series, I’ll teach you some basic cropping skills to create compelling images for your brand. If you missed the first two parts of this series, you can reread them here: How to Take Professional Looking Photos with Your iPhone Photo Editing Tips/Tools for Non-Creatives Creating Unique Composition with Cropping Crop Your Subject: Don’t feel like you have to include your entire subject in the frame. Sometimes cropping off someone’s head or legs will help focus on something in the middle of the subject that the photo is meant to highlight. You can also position your subject in the corner of a photo and crop the top and bottom to create an interesting, visual effect for your audience. Remove Additional Subjects with a Crop: If your photo is overly complicated or includes unwanted background noise such as a sign in the middle of your scenery photo, a crop is a great way to get rid of unwanted photo details and hone in on what your photo is supposed to portray. Crop Faces with Breathing Room: If you want to get closer to a subject, it’s okay to crop closer to a face but it’s more visually appealing to crop a photo to include an interesting background and white space around the subject. Avoid Cropping Off Limbs: If you’re cropping a human subject to create a more creative visual effect, avoid cropping off hands or feet (unless it’s a close-up crop). This creates an awkward visual effect that is unappealing and distracting. Use a Crop Instead of Zooming: Zoom often changes the pixelation of your photo, reducing the image size and quality and turning your subjects into a blurry mess. If you want to get closer to a subject in your photo, try a crop instead of zooming. Keep Cropping Consistent in a Series: When you’re creating a series of photos, make sure you crop all of the photos in a similar fashion. For example, don’t crop one photo up close and the next far away. Keep the subject at a level horizon each time. Play Around with the Camera Crop Tool: The iPhone has a crop tool with different aspect ratio options that can change the composition of your photo. One of the most used crop ratios is Square, which allows you to automatically create an Instagram-friendly square size. You can also utilize common ratios such as 2:3, 3:5, 5:7 or 9:16. Crop to Print: If you’re printing your photo, the common ratios mentioned above will help you get the right size photo for your print. For instance, if you know you need a 4×6 photo, you can use the 4:6 ratio crop to ensure your photo prints properly. Use Crop to Change Your Composition to Adhere the Rule of Thirds: As mentioned in the first part of our series, How to Take Professional Looking Photos with Your iPhone, the Rule of Thirds is one of the first rules taught in photography composition. One of the techniques to the Rule of Thirds is to feature your subject off-center. If the original photo you shot doesn’t include your subject off-center, you can use a crop to change the composition of your photo to adhere to the Rule of Thirds. Crop to Geometry: If your photo has interesting visual lines or geometry such as a circle focus, use your crop tool to highlight this visual geometry and align to the shapes in your photo. Crop to Texture or Pattern: If you’re taking a photo of a subject with an interesting texture, consider cropping the entire image to focus on this texture or pattern. This will change the focus on a subject to a cool, visual effect. You can change something as simple as a photo of a pineapple to a focus on how visually interesting and eye-popping the pineapple’s skin is. Or windows on a building can turn into a repeating pattern like the photo below rather than a full building shot. Don’t Crop Out the Horizon: When taking scenery photos, make sure you still keep the Rule of Thirds in mind (vertically and horizontally). Don’t crop out the horizon because your photo will likely lack the depth you’re looking for. Don’t Be Afraid to Experiment with Cropping: Sometimes photography is all about the creativity and visual eye of the photographer — some of the best photographers have become famous because their style is their own. If you want to crop your subject in half or try an extreme crop, do it and see how your audience responds. With a few or many of these cropping techniques, you can take your photos from drab to dramatic right away.