5 Lessons Small Businesses Can Learn From Amazon Posted on December 21, 2016January 31, 2019 by Don Breckenridge To say that Amazon is a titan of industry would be an understatement. In its 20+ years, it has become not only a success story but a model for all growing businesses. It started in the 1990’s during the dot-com boom, made it through the dot-com crash period, and emerged as the most dominant company in the online retail world. That is no small feat. Today, Amazon nets upwards of $100 billion a year in revenues and its product range has seemingly no limits. From Amazon Web Service (AWS) to hardware like Kindle or Echo to Jeff Bezos’ personal venture, a rocket company Blue Origin, Amazon’s online success is what made it all possible. Amazon does online selling right. The lessons small businesses can learn from Amazon could fill an entire textbook and then some. But here are five of the most important lessons to take away. 1. Know Your Customers Amazon is phenomenal at understanding its customers’ preferences and using that information to increase sales. If you’ve ever shopped on Amazon, you may have noticed sections like ‘recommended items’ or ‘customers who bought X also bought Y’ or ‘frequently bought together.’ Based on your past purchases (and other customers’), Amazon recommends other products you’re most likely to buy, which is part of its flawless online experience. They make the purchasing (and upsell) process effortless for the customer. Beyond their on-site post-purchase recommendations, most emails received from Amazon recommend products based on past choices. Or when you make a purchase, you’re sent suggestions for complementary products. This recommendation engine generates 35% of Amazon’s revenues and after implementing it, the company recorded a 29% sales increase. Its conversions for recommended items can be as high as 60%. By effectively leveraging their customer data, they’re able to understand customer needs and improve customer experience moving forward. 2. Continue Experimenting and Measuring Your Results “If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness.” – Jeff Bezos Today it’s incredibly easy to run various online experiments, from split testing to surveys to simply trying out different strategies and marketing channels. Even as a small business, you have all of these tools at your disposal. With a little planning, you can innovate just like any other big company to stay ahead of the curve. This mindset has proved to be highly profitable for Amazon. It’s how the company came up with free shipping on purchases of more than $25, monthly subscription plans, their recommendation engine, and more. 3. Think Recurring Revenue Amazon has mastered the subscription model. Rather than throwing a bunch of money into ads and traffic each month hoping to convert at least as many customers as last month, why not lock in your current customers for the long term? This way, once you acquire a customer, you can guarantee that ongoing revenue and grow your base further. That’s why Amazon offers subscriptions for certain items that we’re more likely to buy again, such as food and home goods. Then there’s Amazon Prime, Kindle Unlimited, and more. You too as a small business can place more emphasis on recurring revenue. From loyalty cards to subscription plans, the options are plentiful. This business model is superior in the long run. It’s cost efficient and designed for high revenue growth and long-term success. 4. Make It About the Customer “If we can keep our competitors focused on us while we stay focused on the customer, ultimately we’ll turn out alright.” -Jeff Bezos Many businesses focus on what their competitors are doing. They forget that if they shift all of their focus on giving customers the most amazing experience and do it effectively, their competitors will merely turn into followers. One thing Amazon realized early on was that all the customer cares about are fast shipping times and great support. Drop an email to Amazon and you’ll get an answer within 24 hours. Likewise, their shipping service is so good, it is now a serious threat to FedEx. 5. Don’t Be Afraid of Failed Experiments As a new or growing business owner, most of your experiments will fail. That’s how you innovate. Without failure, you have no room for improvement. Amazon had so many failed products and experiments that you could argue the company was built on failure. There was A9 Search and Amazon Auctions, to name a few, as well as a plethora of unsuccessful marketing campaigns. Don’t be afraid to take risks and try different marketing tactics. Some will prove to be a gold mine, but many will fail. At the same time, only take calculated risks. For example, if you redesign your newsletter, don’t blast it to your entire list; pick a segment and test it there. While your small business might not turn into a giant like Amazon overnight (or at all), Bezos’ empire is one that should serve as a model for businesses large and small.
Why Team Lunches Need To Be A Part of Your Work Culture Posted on December 20, 2016July 12, 2018 by Jonathan Herrick There are all sorts of ways to build bonds among team members. Some businesses go to extremes to do it—luxurious weekend retreats, city-wide scavenger hunts, even treks to exotic locales like Machu Picchu, Mount Kilimanjaro and Bhutan. To keep your employees connected and engaged, you don’t need to spend gobs of money and time on complicated trips or scenarios. In fact, those efforts often backfire and employees don’t find them valuable, instead resenting the time and energy consumed by the event. Or worse, team members not included resent those who do For a small business especially, team building doesn’t have to be a complicated endeavor. A small company generally has a small team, so building intimacy and bonds between employees and management can be as simple as lunch. That’s because the act of eating together is often “extraordinarily meaningful,” says Kevin Kniffin, who was a visiting assistant professor of applied economics and management at Cornell University when he and several colleagues conducted a study to learn if eating together in the office resulted in higher-performing, more cohesive teams. Kniffin and his colleagues studied firefighters who prepared and ate meals together during their shifts. The researchers wanted to know if firefighters who ate together performed better on the job than those who didn’t. The answer? They did. Platoons that ate meals together had better group job performance than firefighting teams that dined alone. Kniffin says, “Eating together is a more intimate act than looking over an Excel spreadsheet together. That intimacy spills back over into work.” Having company-wide (if your business is very small) or team lunches at least once a week is a great way for employees to stay connected to each other on a deeper level. At Hatchbuck, we are intentional about eating lunch together. And it has done wonders for our culture and the ability to build deeper relationships with team members. It is also a good way to help new hires get dug in and feel like they are part of the team. Although physical team building activities might seem like fun—zip-lining, for example, or a dance class—some of that is also based on fitness level and coordination, so the playing field isn’t level. Cooking, on the other hand, or ordering a meal, is generally something everyone can do, and sitting together to eat it makes it easy for everyone to participate equally. Here are a few ways to get the most out of weekly team lunches: Send an invitation. Send a weekly invitation to lunch to your team — or all employees, if your company is very small — and ask invitees to put it on their calendar. Try to keep the lunch on the same day and at the same time each week, so people come to expect it and work it into their schedules. Buy, bring or both. Depending on how much you want to invest in these lunches, you can have them catered or ask each person to either bring their own lunch or buy it—whatever they normally do. You can also do a combination of both. Once a month, for example, you could hire a food truck to come to the office and treat employees to lunch. They can carry it back into the office where everyone then eats together. Organize periodic potluck lunches. Once a month make the group lunch “potluck” style and ask each person to bring a dish, whether that’s something homemade or bought. Potluck-style lunches are usually the most social kind of group lunch. Make sure to survey all attendees prior to putting potlucks into your lunch rotation to find out any food allergies or preferences, and then circulate that information to the whole team. Feature a team member. Many tech companies put a priority on eating together and use that time to foster productivity and learning. Use one team lunch each month for a ‘Lunch and Learn’ session. Have one team member give a presentation about a topic of interest to the group, your company or himself. Nothing like walking away from lunch with newfound knowledge. Invite a speaker. At the well-known Silicon Valley accelerator Y Combinator, group lunches also feature a talk by an outside expert. Think about alternating team member presentations with monthly talks from an expert — offering insights and information that will enhance the professional and personal lives of employees. This could be a discussion about mentoring and networking, or about time management and the importance of meditation, exercise, and other forms of stress release — anything that will be useful to your employees inside or outside of the office. Be creative. Have a themed lunch—if not every week then maybe once a month. It could be coincide with an upcoming holiday, employees anniversaries/birthdays, or just something fun (like Taco Tuesday or Fried Chicken Friday). It’s silly, but it also acts as an ice-breaker. If you want to take it to the next level, encourage employees to wear themed clothing (like, say, a sombrero) or to bring meaningful dishes that they can discuss with the group. So the next time you are looking for easy, effective ways to bolster team bonding…just do lunch. When you spend time together around the lunch table, it gives you the chance to better connect with your team and find commonalities needed to build strong, long-term relationships.
Your Simple Cheat Sheet for Better Email Subject Lines Posted on December 19, 2016December 23, 2020 by Jessica Lunk Email subject lines are the most important part of your email copy. They’re a first impression and determine whether your email gets opened or not. No opens = no sales. But writing a successful subject line is no easy task. An average office worker receives over 100 emails a day. We all get hundreds of newsletters and promotional emails a week. Most never get opened. A great subject line makes your emails stand out in those overpopulated inboxes. Writing one is an art that’s importance shouldn’t be overlooked. Here are some basics to follow. #1: Tell Them What to Expect When They Open the Email Sometimes marketers are tempted to use attention-grabbing subject lines just to get those opens. If you’re only measuring opens, that may seem like an attractive option. But you should never make false promises to boost your open rate. Clickbait is the worst, and you will 100% lose customer trust. Clearly let the recipient know what to expect inside. If they just subscribed to download an ebook, say something straightforward like, “Your new ebook awaits.” No need to get fancy – save yourself and your customer time and get to the point. #2: Be Urgent or Imply Time Sensitivity Another classic tactic in marketing is urgency. If you’ve carefully planned your communications (with the help of CRM and marketing automation), there’s a very specific time you’d like the recipient to open that email. When someone glances at your subject line, you want them to take action. But we all like to procrastinate. That’s where urgency and implied time sensitivity comes in. It makes people take said action. An example would be, “24 Hours Only!” or “Get This Deal Before It’s Gone.” There’s no time like the present so make sure your audience knows that. If you don’t mind your audience pushing off your email for later…well, that’s a whole separate issue. #3: Imply Exclusivity Similar to urgency, exclusivity helps with open rates. We all like to feel special; it’s an inherently human trait. In addition to “exclusive,” words such as “private” and “personal” work well too. #4: Keep It Short Over 50% of emails are now opened on mobile devices. With that in mind, you want to make your subject lines fit onto mobile screens so that those 50% get to read them. Brevity is a must for any email though. With our attention spans getting shorter and shorter, no one is going to take time to read a manifesto in hopes that something good is waiting at the end. #5: Align It With the Headline and Call-to-Action Your email should read like a story, with everything aligned. From subject lines to headlines, images, content, and CTAs. In fact, if recipients completely skip the email body and go right to the CTA, they should still be able to understand what they’re getting based on the subject line and header. #6: Personalize It Using personalized subject lines creates a sense of rapport. Using the customer’s name, location, or other personalization tokens can significantly boost your open rates, as well as CTR. But personalize tactfully. A generic subject line that is auto-filled with a recipient’s first and last name will come across as cheesy and inauthentic. #7: Use Action-Oriented Verbs Subject lines are your initial call to action. The language you use should inspire the receiver to take action and open the email. Something like, “Get Your Free Voucher” sounds much better than generic phrasing like “Free Voucher Inside.” #8: Use a Familiar Sender Name People want to do business with people. It’s the same in email marketing. If your email address is “noreply@company.com,” your communications will come across as impersonal. On the other hand, if the recipient sees an email coming from Tom@company.com and the subject line is personalized too, you’ll build familiarity over time and improve open (and read) rates. #9: Segment Your Lists We’ve said it many times before: segmentation leads to much better email marketing results. Based on your customer segments, you can create highly relevant subject lines. The more relevant your subject line, the higher your open rates. So, make sure you create your buyer personas and send out relevant campaigns. #10: Time It Right A well-timed email with a well-executed subject line can seriously boost your results. A great example Warby Parker’s customer email that says, “”Uh-oh, Your Prescription is Expiring,” in the subject line. They send it two weeks before the expiration date. Pre-event outreach is another easy time to increase the likelihood that your recipients won’t trash your emails. #11: Pose a Relevant Question A relevant question will draw your audience in. Especially if it’s relevant to their buyer persona. For example, if you’re a fitness coaching company, something like, “how can you lose weight this summer?” will work for someone losing weight but not for someone who is looking to gain muscle. #12: A/B Test Don’t forget to test a variety of subject lines. In fact, A/B testing is one of (if not the) most important rule on this list. Never stop testing and optimizing. The market (and your customer needs) are sure to change, and you need to adapt to stay relevant.
‘Tis The Season…To Spend Wisely Posted on December 16, 2016 by Erin Posey Spending strategically means you can operate more efficiently, get your business in front of more people, build a strong brand reputation and grow sales. It’s also important that you invest your company’s money wisely and look for strategic ways to both increase and cut spending. Let’s look at specific ways you can spend wisely and boost your bottom line during this holiday season and beyond. Evaluate your Employee Needs Before Year End As you gear up for the holiday rush and prepare for the new year, it’s important to take a step back to evaluate your team. Which team members do you need to invest in to grow leadership within your business? Are you offering compensation and benefits that will attract and keep top talent on your team? Would it make sense to hire temporary employees or use the services of a temp staffing firm as opposed to hiring full-time employees for short term projects? Are you overstaffed or understaffed in certain departments? Can talent be reallocated among internal teams? Do you have employees who can take on more responsibility in the coming year to avoid outsourcing projects? Review Successes (and Failures) The holidays are a logical time for reflection on the year gone by. It’s a wise end-of-year practice to review what’s working and not working in your business to prep for a successful year ahead. If you have a way to measure sales and marketing results, you can easily evaluate which activities were worth the spending and which activities you can cut. For instance, did you take out an ad in a trade magazine or publication this year? Did you invest in a trade show or sponsor an event? Cut spending in the areas that didn’t perform last year and allocate that budget to programs that brought returns. So if your ad in the trade magazine didn’t drive extra business, maybe you can invest more in the tradeshow you attend every year and really own the event to increase ROI. Make Sure Your Holiday Marketing Has a Purpose To grab the attention of your potential buyers during this chaotic holiday season, you need to market. End of story. But you do not want to mindlessly throw money away. You want to spend on high-impact marketing activities while simultaneously finding ways to trim the fat in your marketing budget. Are you mass emailing your list a holiday greeting without segmenting? Have you done anything to personalize your holiday communications? Do your holiday ads still appeal to the customer personas you’ve defined in your year-round marketing strategy? In any marketing, but especially around the holidays, it’s important to engage your previous buyers and former customers. Winning a new customer is hard work. It’s much easier to make a repeat sale to a happy customer who knows, likes and trusts you. And sending a not to re-engage them Give Gratitude and Receive Loyalty In Return Speaking of happy customers, why not recruit them to be your small army of brand ambassadors this holiday season? Offer them an incentive to tell their friends and family about you. Evaluating your customer lifetime value and knowing your cost to acquire a new customer can help you assess the right amount to invest in a referral campaign. For instance, offering your current customers $500 for any customer they refer to you might seem like a big investment – and it is. But, if it costs 2K to bring in a new customer and your average deal brings your business $10K, it’s well worth the spend. Big Bucks Doesn’t Always Mean Big Results Understand that just because you spend a lot of money on a particular marketing channel or activity doesn’t mean it is going to bring you the results you want. You can spend a fortune on a flashy, holiday-themed marketing campaign and still get zero results. On the other hand, you can use inexpensive, or even free, proven, time-tested marketing tools as part of a smart, comprehensive strategy and have some very happy outcomes. Regardless of the channel, and regardless of the time of year, your message needs to relevant to your audience members. It needs to be focused on them, not you, and help them solve a problem or reach a goal.
Free and Low-Cost Client Gifts To Show Your Appreciation This Holiday Season Posted on December 15, 2016 by Katie Culp You love your clients. And while you might intend to show your gratitude for their business year round, if time has gotten away from you, the holiday season is an essential time to let them know. There are plenty of creative ways to show your customer appreciation (even if you’re on a tight budget). The ideas below cost little to nothing for your small business but are guaranteed to having a lasting impact with your customers in 2017. Spending a few extra hours planning your holiday outreach is sure to benefit your bottom line in the new year. Offer a Free Consultation. Send your favorite customers an offer for a free holiday consultation to thank them for their loyalty. This value-add could lead to longer, paid consultations or upgrades – a win-win for you and your clients. Give Them the Scoop Early. Let your loyal customers in on new and improved products and services your small business has in the pipeline. Faithful customers like to stay in the know about upgrades and new releases, and nothing makes them feel more valued than being given early access or asked their opinions before a new product hits the market. Showcase Your Customers. Write a blog post, include a shoutout in your email newsletter or highlight customer achievements on social media. You’ll expose more of your own customers to their services, make your customer feel valued AND potentially get in front of new audiences who could turn into potential customers. Provide Private Access. Set up a unique landing page (tools like Splash or Unbounce can make this super easy if your don’t know how) and send out the information to a select few clients. Invite your most frequent customers to visit the page during a limited window to receive holiday promos or a sneak peak of those new product offerings. Break Out Your Fountain Pen. Sending cards really stands out in a world of email and text messages. Send out holiday cards with a sincere, handwritten note to your best customers, thanking them for supporting your business. Consider sending a coupon with it, offering a holiday promo to show your appreciation (because who doesn’t like free stuff?). Teach Them Something New. It’s exciting to learn a new skill. Give your best clients an opportunity to learn something they didn’t know before. Hosting a free webinar or creating a new ebook or resource is a thoughtful and useful holiday gift. Not confident teaching? Hire an outside pro for an hour, if your budget permits. Send Over a Referral. One of the best ways you can help B2B clients is to help them grow. Call your favorite customers, let them know how much they mean to you, and ask them if you can thank them for their support by making an introduction to other businesses you know who might need their services. A new business opportunity might be the best gift of all. Give Them an Insider’s Tour. Welcoming local customers into your digs is the easiest way to showcase your culture. Around the holidays when the office is more festive, invite loyal customers to a holiday open house or give them a virtual tour so they have the opportunity to meet the people behind the products they’re using. Celebrate Them. Make your customers feel special. Choose a customer of the week and highlight each of them during the holiday season. Ask your team members to reach out via email, phone or social to let them know just how much their loyalty means to your business. If you have the budget, sending them a gift certificate for lunch or coffee on you doesn’t hurt either. Put On Your Apron. Spend a few hours baking your favorite holiday treats and deliver them to local clients. If your holiday budget allows, use a cookie or cake delivery service (like Insomnia Cookies or SweetStreet) to send out of town clients holiday confections. Nothing says happy holidays like a sugar overload.
8 Design Tips for More Effective Emails Posted on December 14, 2016July 12, 2018 by Jessica Lunk Design can make or break your emails. Done effectively, it can increase trust, among other things, and trust is necessary to generate conversions. Great design also follows usability best practices and makes it easier for prospective customers to convert. But there’s a big difference between beautiful and effective design. That’s good news. You don’t have to be an artist or a graphic designer to create newsletter layouts and designs that convert. Instead, just follow these simple tips to building more successful emails. Tip #1: Be Mobile Friendly Mobile accounts for 60-70% more email opens than desktop, according to countless studies. That’s a huge number and one that shouldn’t be ignored. At the same time, when it comes to mobile emails, the top annoyances of mobile users are: Too small to read and interact with (32%) Website and landing pages not mobile optimized (26%) and Not well formatted for mobile phones (21%), according to a recent study by The Relevancy Group. In short, before you send anything out, make sure it’s mobile optimized. That might sound complex, but optimizing for mobile is all about keeping your reader in mind: Design a one-column email to prevent text and images from being squished on a mobile device. Stick with simple layouts and be intentional about your use of images. A simple email is likely to translate more smoothly across all devices – from a desktop to a smartphone. Use readable fonts and font-sizes. Provide a good contrast between the text and the background of your email to improve readability. Use CTAs strategically. Don’t try to put all of your content in a single newsletter. Instead, give a brief summary and use a call to action, like, “Read More” to direct readers to the articles they’re most interested in. Send yourself a test email and pull it up on your mobile device to see how it renders. It’s not just about responsive design. Mobile devices are now the top email client, so you better be sure your emails are performing as intended on your customers’ mobile devices. Tip #2: Don’t Forget the Apple Watch Apple ships around three million Apple Watch devices per quarter and accounts for 70% of the smartwatch market. Gartner forecasts that worldwide smartwatch shipments will surpass 145 million by the end of 2017. If your customer base includes early technology adopters, this will have some major implications for your marketing efforts. An Apple Watch displays plain text when linked images are detected, so you want to optimize the plain text version of your emails. Also, keep in mind that some other elements, such as special characters, will display poorly on a small screen like that of the Apple Watch. Tip #3: Keep it Simple In design, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. The same applies to marketing and conversion optimization. The purpose of your emails is to deliver the message and get your audience to take action. Source: Buffer Your design should reflect this. This means have a simple hierarchy: show your key message in a simple and concise way, cut out all of the clutter and irrelevant elements, and make your CTA stand out. Tip #4: Don’t Rely on Images Most email clients block images by default. This means that most of your emails won’t show images unless users opt to see them. What you want to rely on are copy and headlines powerful enough to convert a user without even seeing the images or luring them to display images. This means that if you’re relying on an image to show your header text, you aren’t going to reach You’ll also want to make sure that you include the alt text in your images. This is text that will show when an image doesn’t render. It can be used to describe the image to the reader, conveying your message when your images can’t. Now, you may think that a good solution is to use header text over a background image. Like inline images, background image support varies across email clients. For instance, if you need a background image to render in Microsoft Outlook, you might need to brush up on your Microsoft VML. As with inline images, your message should be enhanced by background images – not rely on them. Tip #5: Limit the Number of Fonts Limiting the number of fonts is a best practice across any medium – from print, to web to email. As a best practice, stick to 1 or 2 fonts in your email design to avoid getting too cluttered. To be safe, stick with standard system fonts that render across all email clients. However, if you’re feeling a little more creative, Google Webfonts gives email designers plenty of font options and is supported across an increasing number of email clients – just make sure to designate a standard system fallback font. Tip #6: Use Clear, Large CTAs Your CTAs must be prominently placed. This means make sure that they stand out, clearly state the action you want the user to take and look clickable. Source: Airbnb From the link or button design to the call-to-action copy you choose, make your CTAs easy and irresistible to click. Plus now, with mobile opens surpassing desktop opens, large CTAs make even more sense, as you want to make sure they’re big enough for touchscreen use. Also, don’t force your subscribers to scroll all the way to the end of the email to take action. Place one CTA early on, above the fold of your email, and repeat it at the end. Tip #7: Don’t Hide Your Unsubscribe Link Last year, Google rolled out a new “block” functionality for Gmail, allowing users to block senders and never see an email from them. This aims to reduce spam and that’s a good thing. On the other hand, for marketers, it means that someone who might have previously clicked on unsubscribe at the bottom of your email may now opt to block you more easily. Spam complaints are no joke if you want to maintain a good reputation with the email service providers that send and receive email. So, what should you do? Simply make it easy to unsubscribe. Make that option visible and don’t hide it. Another bonus: with a visible unsubscribe link, you’re more likely to pass spam filters. Tip #8: Get Specific Finally, the most effective emails contain messaging the directly relates to your reader. Segmenting your contacts based on their actions and interests can help you send hyper-relevant emails that get opened and read.
4 Ways to Capitalize on Social Media This Holiday Season Posted on December 13, 2016July 12, 2018 by Jeanna Barrett ‘Tis the season to be merry — holiday parties, gift shopping, cookie baking – and closing out as many deals as you can before the year comes to a close. You might assume that social media only works for retail around the holidays, but B2Bs can definitely benefit from going all-in on social during the busy winter months. Social media is a great way to connect with customers, showcase your company’s culture, and offer exclusive specials to encourage customers to spend dollars on your services before their budgets reset in the New Year. Here are four ways to capitalize on social media this holiday season: 1. Showcase Your Business’ Holiday Cheer & Personality If your business is primarily online, or your customers typically only interact with a single account manager, chances are your customers don’t know much more about you other than what can be read about you on the About page of your website. The holidays are the best time of year to show your company’s personality and introduce the great people who make up your business. To showcase your holiday cheer, consider one of the following: Create a virtual company holiday card using a service like JibJab to post on your social sites (and to send to your email list). Create a custom holiday Snapchat filter for customers — it’ll cost a little bit of money, but it could be the perfect way to connect with your millennial customers. Post team pictures on your social sites from internal company holidays parties, gift exchanges and more. Consider using Facebook Live to show team events or have your sales team discuss holiday promos going on. 2. Connect with Customers Outside of a Sales Opportunity No one likes to feel like they’re just a number or transaction to a business — think about the coffee shop or restaurant you like in your neighborhood. Are you compelled to visit because the coffee shop knows your name, and you talk to the baristas every morning? Are you more willing to eat at the restaurant because the waitstaff remembers you, and you’ve sat down with the owner for a drink at the bar? People frequent the businesses they have a personal connection with, so utilize the holidays to create that connection with your customers. Consider doing one of the following to foster a more personal relationship with your customers this holiday season: Host a virtual or in-person holiday party for your customers: send invites on social media if your event is in-person. Then after the event, make sure to post the pictures online and encourage your customers to tag each other. Encourage customers to post their holidays pictures and cards to your Facebook page. You could even host a contest for the “most creative” or “funniest” holiday card. 3. Offer an Exclusive Discount & Use Social Media Advertising to Reach New Customers Reward your social media followers with a discount on signing up for your services this holiday season. If you post it on social media, you can use a custom promo code for each platform to be able to track how effective the special was on each social channel. To reach your customer trapped behind the social algorithm or new customers who don’t know about your business yet, consider using social media advertising on Facebook or Twitter. These advertising platforms can be a powerhouse for small businesses because they allow very specific targeting to reach your ideal customers. 4. Go Omnichannel — Not Just Social Media — This Holiday Season The value of omnichannel continues to be a hot topic in the marketing world. It’s important to provide consistent messaging and user experience across all of your marketing channels — from email and social media to customer service phone calls and in-store experiences. As you build a holiday experience for your customers, think about how this comes across on all channels, and create integrated, holistic holiday campaigns. For example, send a holiday greeting eCard via email to your customers, highlighting a holiday promo you’ll be having. Post a discount about the holiday sale on social media. Have each of your customer service agents talk about the holiday sale in closing and encourage customers to take part. During the hustle and bustle of the holidays, standing out on social media reinforces your brand, showcases your culture and highlights irresistible offers, help push the needle and close the year out right.
You’ve Invested in Marketing Automation, But Can Your Small Business Stay Authentic? Posted on December 12, 2016June 18, 2018 by Jonathan Herrick Marketing automation. Unless you live under a rock, you hear about it a lot. And there’s a valid reason why. It has radically altered the small business marketing landscape of the 21st century. It presents owners and marketers like you and I with many golden opportunities. It can help you market, sell to, and serve your customers much more effectively and efficiently. It can save you two of your most precious resources – time and money. The list of potential marketing automation benefits goes on and on. But, the news isn’t all rosy. Misuse of marketing automation can cause you problems. One of the biggest? It can make you come across as insincere and inauthentic to your prospects and customers. So What’s The Big Deal About Authenticity? Understand this – and I’ll mention it at the risk of sounding cliché, because it’s important: people buy from people they know, like, and trust. You can have the most smoothly automated marketing approach around, but if your audience doesn’t get the feeling they know, like, and trust you, your results and your sales will plummet. Read that first sentence again, and think about this part of it – “…people buy from people…” Hootsuite CEO and founder Ryan Holmes is the face of their brand. Although it is clearly an automated, bulk email, their weekly newsletter comes directly from him and makes the organization seem more human and more relatable. People don’t do business with “brands,” or “organizations.” They do business with people. And people, like it or not, are emotional beings. We make decisions, including buying decisions, largely based on our emotions. And we want an emotional connection with the people we buy from. And what if your audience thinks your marketing is inauthentic or robotic? Well, you can kiss that all-important emotional connection goodbye. Is Automation The Latest Marketing “Shiny Object?” In the modern world of marketing, it seems like a lot of us are caught up in shiny object syndrome. That is, we hear, and believe, the hype about the “latest and greatest” marketing tool and dive in head first. We think this one tool can be the solution to all of our marketing woes. Not so. It’s not true with social media. It’s not true with video. And it’s not true of marketing automation. So don’t treat marketing automation as a shiny object. Don’t let it make you sloppy in your approach to the crucial parts of your marketing success, including and especially, your approach to content and copywriting. A question for you – what good will it do you to harness the power of automation to the hilt to send out your content and copy such as emails, blog posts and social media updates if the messages you send out leave your audience feeling flat and uninspired? Producing and sending great content and copy is one way you can remain authentic while using automation for your benefit. So what kind of copy comes across to your audience as authentic? What kind of copy builds that emotional connection that helps your customers to know, like, and trust you? Copy that focuses on them, not on you. Copy that helps solve a problem they are sick and tired of dealing with and desperately want a solution for. Copy that is conversational and directed to an “audience of one” – it feels to your readers like they are having a one-on-one conversation with you. Here’s a hint – write in an informal tone, and use the word “you” a lot more than you use the words “us”, “we”, or “our.” In your quest to use automation while remaining authentic, here’s one thing to consider – you should never use an automated feature just because it’s available to you. A Big Authenticity Fail! Tell me if this has ever happened to you: you follow someone on Twitter. They immediately follow you back and, even more immediately, send you a generic “thank you” message with a link to their eBook that promises you the world. Were you convinced and persuaded to download it and build a relationship with them? Probably not. You didn’t think of their canned response as being authentic. You thought it was even less authentic if it said, “Hi, Bob. Thanks for following me.” and then shoved one of their promotional resources in your face. That’s a pretty egregious example of using automation while being inauthentic. It’s also important to take a step back and evaluate which outreach opportunities could benefit from the human touch. Let’s say that when a customer buys from you online, your marketing automation software automatically sends them a standard thank you email which ensures that nothing falls through the cracks. Great start, but wouldn’t it be even more impactful if you were able to deliver a personalized email, specifically based on their needs and wants.? Pair that with an offline strategies such as handwritten note, and you will gain instant gratification with your customers and come across as a business that truly cares. It’s not likely that marketing automation will ever be able to fully replace the value of the human touch. And it certainly won’t make up for a lack of authenticity (without your finessing). But that doesn’t mean it’s not important — because it is! Your small business needs it. Automation can and will help you market to your audience more smoothly and sell your product more successfully when done authentically.
How to Increase Customer Lifetime Value With Onboarding Emails Posted on December 9, 2016July 12, 2018 by Lindsey Stroud Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is the ultimate business metric. No matter how killer you are at acquiring customers, it won’t matter if you can’t make a return on your investment. A focus on boosting your CLV is even more important than ever before. That’s because customer acquisitions costs are soaring, making it extremely hard for many online businesses to survive. Then, there’s competition. More and more businesses are popping up daily which in turn means competing for the same customers. In fact, studies show that customers are exposed to over 5000 advertisements a day. Put simply, if you can’t retain your customers and maximize your ROI, the fate of your business may not be so bright. Customer onboarding is the most important part of boosting your retention rates. It’s the first experience as a customer instead of a prospect and if done correctly, it leads to the next purchase and builds customer loyalty. Onboarding emails are a critical part of that first experience. In fact, your emails are your onboarding strategy. Here are a few tips for doing it right. The Opt-In Email For many small businesses, opt-in emails are a necessity. In many marketing campaigns, they begin your customer’s onboarding journey. Make sure they’re simple, clear, and to-the-point, with a clear CTA. Such as this example from Dropbox. You can get creative here, but the main purpose of opt-in emails is to be sure a subscriber is ready to be added to the list and to confirm that your customer submitted the correct email address. On top of that, you’re also legally required to get everyone to opt-in. Technically becoming a customer can classify as a “soft opt-in” if you’re hoping to eliminate this step from your onboarding campaigns, but the opt-in email is a great way to ensure that you have the right customer information and prepare them for the emails to follow. The Welcome Email Welcome emails are the real first impression email that (once all of the legalities are out of the way) you can send out to your subscribers or customers. According to a study by Experian, welcome emails have four times higher open rates and five times higher clickthrough rates than any other bulk email you’ll send out. So you better make it count. Make your welcome email personal and to the point. Start by reminding them what your product can do for them and what the next steps are. If successful, the welcome email can be the beginning of a beautiful relationship. The Aid + Advice Email Another onboarding email you should send out is one that offers customers help with using your product. The ultimate goal is to make sure users get the most value possible out of your product (and to remind them why they signed up in the first place). To maximize that value, they need to use it first. It can take a while for new customers to get to that AHA moment, when they fully realize the value of what your product can deliver – especially if your product is a web-based product or SaaS. Likewise, you want to make it easy for customers to reach out for help by including a clear link to access your customer support offerings. Research shows that nine out of ten customers are willing to spend more with companies that provide excellent customer service. The Action + Incentive Emails Similar to offering a helping hand, you want customers to start using your product. The idea here is to determine what the first minimum action is that leads to the AHA moment. For example, Dropbox found out that new subscribers are most likely to start using the service after they save the first file. So their onboarding strategy is built around incentivizing users to take these steps. Source: RocketReach That, by the way, is a great way to motivate your customers to take their first actions. Offer incentives and points for taking the first few steps required to take them from signing up to getting to the AHA moment. The Re-Engagement Email Some users lapse. They try your product or website and don’t show up again. The purpose of re-engagement emails is to get them back on the horse as painlessly as possible. There are several ways to re-engage users. You can offer them an incentive, show a new exciting feature or product, or provide them with a helping hand if they abandoned the product too early. These emails can be challenging. Be helpful and personal. Be clear, avoid a generic tone, and, if it makes sense, try to create a dialogue, as your users may be confused about your product or service. And did we mention that you can automate all of this with the help of marketing automation and CRM software?