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Create Branded Small Business Videos on Your iPhone for Cheap

Posted on September 16, 2016October 25, 2021 by Jeanna Barrett

YouTube is the second largest search engine next to Google, and it is predicted that by 2017, video will account for 74 percent of all web traffic.

What these two statistics should tell you is that it is important to start thinking about a video strategy for your brand.

Videos are a great compliment to a content marketing strategy and make your brand voice come alive through voice and action. But, having a video strategy is easier said than done – especially when videographers often charge $5,000-$10,000 or more, per video. Not to mention that creating and editing professional videos yourself can be overwhelming.

So, to take the guesswork out of what to do and how to do it when it comes to building a great video content strategy, I’ve put together a quick guide to creating inexpensive, yet effective brand videos:

Learn to Love Capturing Video on Your iPhone

First, don’t think it’s important to buy expensive cameras and lighting to create a professional video for your brand. With the quality of iPhone cameras and editing apps, a lot of big brands and names are creating high quality videos on their phone.

Recently, Kate Hudson filmed 70 percent Fabletic’s (her workout clothing brand) new commercial on her iPhone. Apple also just launched eight “Shot on iPhone” commercials that are airing to show the capabilities of the iPhone camera.

In addition, big brands such as Bentley have shot their commercials on an iPhone and edited the video using software on an iPad.

The bottom line is, not having the right equipment is no longer an excuse to shy away from video marketing. It’s easier than ever to create amazing videos using equipment you probably already carry around with you every day – like your iPhone.

Strategically Plan Your Video

So you have a device for capturing video, but how do you turn video footage into effective content that tells a story to your audience?

Nailing down your video production plan helps ensure that your vision comes to life.

Make sure you lay out the following:

The Video’s Goal: Do you want your viewers to walk away with understanding a key point to your business or product? Are you creating a how-to video that highlights features of your brand? Do you want your viewers to walk away with a particular emotion?

Videos often focus on eliciting one really good response. This is sometimes happiness through extreme humor, outrage through controversy or disgust through a extremely gross video.

The goal of your video should include how you want your viewers to feel, and what action you want them to take.

The Story Outline: Perhaps you’re creating a 60-second video so people understand what your brand does. Or maybe you’re attempting to create a viral video such as Dollar Shave Club’s infamous video that made their company $1 billion.

To reach your video’s goal, you need to outline a clear story you want to tell your audience.

Script & Storyboard: After you outline your story, you can get more granular and break it down into specific script, scenes and frames you want to capture.

Do you need to change location? Do you need multiple actors in your video? What are the props or scenery you’re using?

Laying out the script and scenes before you start filming prevents wasting precious time and budget.

Get Professional Video Quality With a Few (Inexpensive) Extras

When filming with your iPhone, you want to make sure you’re not relying on the steadiness of your hand for a clear, stable shot. Purchase an inexpensive iPhone tripod from Amazon.com such as the KobraTech.

Proper lighting for your brand video also helps set the mood and often sets high quality videos apart from bad brand videos. You can shoot your video in natural lighting, or you can put together an inexpensive video lighting kit. Wistia shows you how to create a lighting kit for about $100 with items you can purchase at Home Depot.

In addition to a tripod and great lighting, it’s recommended that you get a microphone if you’re recording interviews or dialogue.

A few microphones recommended by iMost.com are:

Off-Device:

Photojojo’s Mighty Mic ($70)
Blue’s Mikey Digital ($100)
Zoom iQ6 ($100)

Wired Lavalier:

Movo PM10 ($22)
Rode smartLav+ ($78)

Understand the Capabilities — and Limitations — of iPhone Camera

There are a few guidelines you want to follow when using an iPhone to film your video.

Don’t film your video vertically. All of the videos viewed on phones, laptops, televisions, Facebook and Twitter are horizontal videos, so follow the lead.

Make sure you’re not zooming your iPhone. Your iPhone camera doesn’t optically zoom the video since it doesn’t have a zooming lense. Zooming on iPhone is actually just enlarging the picture digitally, which leads to pixilated and wobbly images.

Instead of zooming in, you’re going to want to get closer to your subject if you’d like a closer shot. Or, if you want to get a wider shot of your subject, use a clip-on lens adaptor such as the Olloclip.

Use the exposure lock on your iPhone. If you don’t, your iPhone camera will continually readjust and refocus your video over and over.

Be intentional when using video effects. The iPhone allows you to create slow motion video and hyperlapse video, but use them sparingly and make sure they fit seamlessly into your video script and storyline.

Take advantage of video apps that will improve production. The beauty of using an iPhone to shoot video is all of the great apps created for iOS. According to Entreprenuer.com, some of the best video apps for iPhone are VideoPro Camera, iMovie, Squareready for Video and the Video Filter app.

With the right app you can achieve the quality or mood you’re shooting for.

Bring Everything Together With Easy Video Editing Software

Editing is where the magic comes together for your video. It’s easy to use iMovie to edit your video, which is included on all Mac laptops and also has its own iPhone app. However, there are a few other options when it comes to editing your brand video.

Buffer created a great guide to some of the easiest and cheapest iPhone video production and editing software. The top choices out there are:

Video editing can be the most overwhelming part of creating your brand video. But a lot of people are self-taught, so you can be too. There are a lot of great guides online to editing videos. Once you choose your software, search online for blog posts or videos on YouTube that can teach you the quick and dirty to using the software to edit your video.

Choose the Right Background Music

Music helps set the mood for your video and can convey the emotion you want to get across to your audience. Unfortunately it’s not always easy to find the right music since there are a lot of copyright laws with music, and YouTube will take your video down if it features copyrighted music.

You can use popular songs in your video, but you will pay the price in royalty fees. Instead, tap into a lesser-known tune to add another layer of depth to your video – without adding a heafy price tag. Some of the best places to find royalty-free, Creative Commons music for your video background are:

Embed & Distribute Your Video

Now that you’ve created your video, don’t just let it sit on your hard drive. Get the word out! Embed it on the homepage of your site using a great tool like Wistia, which allows you to track important analytics with how viewers are using your video. Share it just like you’d share a blog post, in fact, embed it in a blog post and share that blog post. Consider paying for video ads on Facebook, YouTube or Twitter. Send your video to your email newsletter list.

Work hard to get your video out there, so you can get views and the time spent creating your video will be worth it.

Your small business doesn’t need a Blockbuster budget to create valuable video resources. Use these hacks to jump on the video bandwagon and better connect with your audience.

Why Your Online Marketing Needs An Offline Boost

Posted on September 15, 2016September 15, 2016 by Jonathan Herrick

Here’s an understatement for you: Online marketing has revolutionized the modern business world. With all the radical change that’s happened, an old tried and true marketing method has been seemingly swept under the rug and forgotten. So what am I referring to? Offline marketing.

Despite the “conventional wisdom” so prevalent in the modern business world and media, traditional offline marketing is not dead. Far from it. Not only is it not dead, it can be a valuable asset to your small business and online strategy. It can help you tap into an uncrowded marketing channel that your competitors are most likely ignoring.

But you can’t just jump into offline marketing — you need to execute at the same effectiveness as your online strategies. So today, let’s talk about how you can effectively use offline marketing to boost your marketing and sales results in a big way.

First, if you are skeptical that offline marketing can still work, consider this: Multiple studies have shown that traditional channels are still viable. Businesses are still getting great results from print, radio, TV and billboards. Chances are you can get superb results from one or more of these channels too.

“The medium doesn’t matter. The message and the market is what matters.” Dan Kennedy

If you are giving the right group of prospective buyers (the market) the right message, do you really think they are going to disregard it just because they aren’t reading or hearing it on their favorite online channel?

Do you really believe they are going to say “That message really resonates with me. It sounds like that company could really solve this frustrating problem I’m so tired of dealing with. But I’m reading about it in a letter instead of online, so I guess I just can’t buy it.” Ludicrous right? Of course it is!

Give the right market the right message and you will see great results regardless of the media you use.

But just like you would with your online marketing efforts, you need to work from a smart, well-thought-out offline marketing strategy that compliments your online strategy. Develop your strategy first and follow it. Set clear goals to drive results that are within your budget and plan. And remember that time-tested marketing principles apply to all of your marketing media. Have relevant, real graphics and photo images, not stock photos that have absolutely nothing to do with your message. Use meaningful, compelling, eye-catching captions to accompany your photos. Keep your graphics clean and simple. You want to focus on converting readers into buyers, not on winning design awards.

In all of your marketing materials, online and offline, harness the power of persuasive, engaging, reader-centered copywriting and content. And don’t look at offline, or any other marketing channel as an “island” or “silo.” Integrate your offline with your online marketing tactics. Your website needs to be your marketing hub, so use your offline tools to drive traffic to your website. Use them to drive traffic to your social media channels.

Don’t forget to use online marketing to boost your offline results as well. For example, if you are going to market your company at a trade show, send an email telling your subscribers about it. Naturally, at the show you want to give away marketing materials that drive people to your website, social media profiles, email signup, etc. Get the picture?

Specific Offline Marketing Tools To Consider

Keep in mind that offline marketing encompasses much more than just print ads in magazines and newspapers. It includes billboards, radio, TV, live events and direct mail. Chances are you won’t have the budget or time to use all of these. And some will probably be more effective for you than others.Software company Hipchat invested in a local billboard and drove a 300% increase in business:

How? Because the offline billboard investment created a boost in online channels such as social media driving brand awareness and sales. So I know what you’re thinking. I don’t have the budget to splurge on a billboard. Don’t worry, let’s focus for a moment on one tried and true option that many other small businesses have used with great success: direct mail.

Direct mail can be an extremely valuable addition to your offline and online marketing approach. But there’s a catch. Just like a crafty billboard, your direct mail piece has to get noticed. The good news – people check their mailboxes. The bad news – they sort through mail ruthlessly looking for “junk mail” and other types of mail to throw away.

So what can you do to increase the odds that your direct mail piece will stay out of the trash can and get opened and read?

Here’s what I recommend: Totally avoid making your letter’s envelope or direct mail look like another “corporate” piece of unwanted junk mail. Make it look personal. Use a “live” stamp, not postage from a meter. If possible, craft and address it by hand or even send it via FedEx directly to your recipient.

Bottom line? Make it look like a letter from a friend or family member, not a corporate sales pitch. Personalization is the key to strong marketing in both direct mail and email.

Simple, but often overlooked–be sure to include links to your website and social media pages in your direct mail so you can maximize the return of your offline marketing efforts.

In marketing your small business, you want to focus on what works, not on what “should work” or the “flavor of the month.” Offline marketing works. Online marketing (clearly) works. Combined, they can give you a powerful synergy that can propel you to even greater levels of success. So use both. Observe your results, and make changes to help you improve your results as you go along. When you are open-minded about offline marketing, and you combine it intelligently with a solid online strategy, great products and superb service, you just might leave your competitors in the dust!

So what will you do with all the leads your new approach to marketing brings in? Why not harness the power of a proven, simple sales and marketing software platform designed for small businesses like yours? Click here now to find out more.

3 Marketing Podcasts (+ Episodes) Every Small Business Owner Should Listen To

Posted on September 14, 2016August 25, 2022 by Jeanna Barrett

In 2014, the launch of the wildly popular podcast Serial marked a triumphant comeback for podcasting.

Since 2013, the amount of people listening to podcasts has increased by 75 percent. Twenty-one percent of Americans aged 12 and up have listened to a podcast in the last month. Compare that to 21 percent of Americans using Twitter and 13 percent listening to Spotify each month, and it’s a pretty significant number. Podcasting is back in full force.

Smart brands (both businesses and individuals) are getting in on the trend, and it’s become the perfect format for small business owners to absorb new ideas on ways to market their business, refine processes and grow.

We’ve compiled a list of three of our favorite marketing podcasts (and episodes). So next time you’re unpacking inventory, walking to the post office or making your evening commute, tap into Soundcloud, Stitcher or iTunes and tune in to one of these awesome podcasts for small business owners:

The Fizzle Show

The Fizzle Show is self-described as the “Indie Business Talk Show” and releases a new episode every Friday. The hosts of the show are gregarious and funny, so this podcast will add some humor (and knowledge) to your day. Topics cover everything from growth to content marketing and everything in between. Their website, Fizzle.co, also features a blog that is specifically designed to help small businesses grow (just like Hatchbuck)! If you’re eager to dive into marketing-related topics, we recommend the following five episodes:

Marketing Nerds Podcast

The Marketing Nerds podcast is brought to you by Search Engine Journal, one of the leading sources for online marketing and SEO tips. Their weekly podcast interviews “one of the world’s experts in SEO, Paid Media, Social, Entrepreneurship, and Content Marketing.” Because they’re bringing in some marketing whizz kids, you’re basically getting free marketing consultation every week (how can you say no?). By listening in on what these experts have to say, you’ll get inside tips on marketing strategies that they’ve tried and succeeded with and how you can apply them to your business.

Five of my favorite episodes are:

The #AskGaryVee Show

Gary Vaynerchuk has been wildly popular since he started video podcasting about wine in 2006. Wine Library TV often garnered 90,000 viewers per episode and at the time was a groundbreaking marketing format before a lot of brands were video blogging. Now, Vaynerchuk is a co-founder of VaynerMedia, a social media focused digital marketing agency that has boasted clients such as PepsiCo., General Electric and Anheuser-Busch. Vaynerchuk launched the #AskGaryVee show on YouTube in 2011 and has recently turned it into a podcast as well. So, pick your poison when gathering info from Gary because he’s providing all formats.

We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again: You need to follow Gary on Twitter for a daily dose of inspiration. The #AskGaryVee Podcast features Gary answering questions about marketing, social media, and entrepreneurship. He also answers questions from the Twitterverse sent under the hashtag #AskGaryVee. Yet another example of awesome, free consulting from one of the nation’s top marketing gurus.

Don’t miss the following five episodes:

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the best podcasts or episodes out there, but these three shows can act as a good starting point for your podcasting pleasure. You may even get the itch to start your own podcast after digesting some of these awesome episodes.

7 Ways to Use Social Proof in Your Email Campaigns

Posted on September 13, 2016September 13, 2016 by Jessica Lunk

“Social proof, also known as social influence, is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation.”

Social proof is one of the most powerful drivers of our everyday behavior. Psychologists estimate that over 90% of our decisions are subconscious.

When our brain makes decisions, it looks for cues. The strongest of those cues is to see what everyone else is doing. For example, according to a study done on airplanes, passengers were 70% more likely to order a meal if their neighbor ordered one.

These social cues are what makes platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter so powerful. You can see what products and services your friends like and advocate for. So, if a customer likes your business page on Facebook, their social media friends will be more likely to follow suit and give you their stamp of approval as well.

Our digital landscape has made social proof the ultimate form of peer pressure, and providing social proof is one of, if not THE, most efficient ways to market your product.

If you haven’t leveraged social proof in your email marketing campaigns yet, you should start doing it right now. Here are 7 ways to use social proof in your email marketing campaigns.

1. Let Your Customers Do The Talking

Potentially the easiest way to leverage social proof is to highlight ratings and testimonials from unbiased websites and vendors.

Research shows that over 70% of Americans say they look at product reviews before making a purchase – so make it simple for your audience to see what others are saying by including reviews right in your email.

According to Local Consumer Review, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations. At the same time, you can be certain that your audience can detect an inauthentic review. So make an effort to add credibility to your testimonials by including full names, pictures, job titles, badges, and the website the testimonial appeared on whenever possible.

2. Share Your Numbers

Crowd mentality is stronger than ever. No one wants to miss out on the next big thing – whether it’s funding a hot new gadget, or helping to crowdsource a new idea for their favorite brand.

People are much more likely to jump on the bandwagon than to blaze the trail. If you have numbers to show, show them. These numbers can be anything from customers to subscribers to social media followers.

Putting your numbers on display sends a powerful message and inadvertently builds trust. Be smart about it. If your customer numbers aren’t going to knock their socks off, show off the number of completed projects, transactions, or other creative achievements.

Source: marketinvoice.com

3. Highlight What Others Are Purchasing

Using the same psychology as in the previous two points, you can boost your revenues by showing off your “top sellers” or by upselling existing customers with more relevant products.

Amazon absolutely kills it in this department. While browsing or after a purchase, you’ll see suggestions on products “frequently bought together” or popular products purchased by people with the same interests as you.

Help guide your audience to their next purchase with you by showing what others have bought from your business.

4. Who Endorsed You

In sales, getting an endorsement from a celebrity or social media influencer is a fantastic way to build brand credibility and convert more prospects. Consumers trust celebrities and influencers. If someone they recognize is willing to put their neck out to endorse your product, they’re likely very confident it’s a worthwhile purchase.

A great example of this is Beats by Dr. Dre. The wildly popular headphone brand gained incredible traction by paying celebrities and popular athletes to wear them. Although their product isn’t superior to other brands in terms of quality, they dominated the marketing in just a few years using social proof alone.

Now, if you run a small business, chances are you don’t have the budget to pay for an endorsement from an athlete like Lebron James or a celebrity like Mark Cuban. But, you do have well-known influencers in your industry. They may not be celebrities on a global or national scale – but they hold celebrity among the people you’re trying to attract.

Build partnerships with these influencers to earn their stamp of approval. For instance, you can offer a free trial of your product in exchange for a an endorsement on social media – and then use that endorsement in your email campaigns to add instant credibility to your brand.

5. Name Dropping

Mentioning important people or institutions in the context of a conversation or a marketing copy is another highly efficient tactic. Studies show that giving a shout-out to a well-known customer in the subject line of your email can boost your open rates by as much as 468%!

There are other smart ways to use name dropping to boost your conversion rates. Here’s a great example from Product Hunt.

6. Got Awards?

Don’t be shy. If you’ve been lucky enough to win awards, you should be letting your customers know. Awards hold a lot of credibility when potential customers are comparing your product and doing their due diligence.

Trust and credibility are critical in the sales process. No wants to hand over money to a business that could disappear overnight.

Eventually you’ll be asking customers to invest in your product or service. They’ll be much more willing to take the leap with you if they feel like you are an established business with a solid reputation.

7. Press and Media

Media mentions are another credible form of endorsement. If your company has been mentioned in the media, a great way to keep that content alive is to feature links and logos to the publications in your marketing channels.

This works particularly well for small businesses. A giant like Uber is talked about in media all the time. They have no need to feature their mentions when they’re plastered across publications. However, when you’re a new and growing small business, traditional PR mentions are a big part of building the brand awareness and credibility. It’s another way you can show your audience that you’re an expert in your industry – making the decision to do business with you easy for potential customers.

Social proof is one of the easiest (and most under-utilized) strategies for building more successful email marketing campaigns. By incorporating social proof in your email campaigns, you’re making the decision to invest in your business easy for your prospects. Take the interest you’ve earned in your brand and convert it into paying customers.

How To Create and Nurture Leaders In Your Small Business

Posted on September 12, 2016September 12, 2016 by Don Breckenridge

When starting a small business, nurturing potential leaders on your team isn’t usually top of mind. For one thing, you may be the whole team. Out of the 28 million small businesses in the U.S., only about 4 million have employees other than the owners.

But as you grow your business, eventually you’ll reach the point where you can’t do everything alone and need to hire employees. That means you’ll need managers to lead them, so they can act quickly and effectively, even if you’re not there to make all of the decisions.

So where do you find people with the capability to excel as leaders? Often, they may be hiding in plain sight as part of your existing team. Employees who know your business inside and out are often the ideal people to guide their colleagues, as long as you nurture their talents so they can lead their team successfully. Here are some strategies to uncover the leadership talent on your team.

Keep your antenna up.

People generally do best in leading others when they are passionate about the work they are doing (and good at it). Stay on the lookout for team members who truly seem to love their job. Genuine enthusiasm and commitment are contagious—and magnetic—and will go a long way if you opt to tap them for a leadership position.

Look for “soft skills.”

Listen to almost any management guru today and you’ll hear a common refrain: Top-down leadership—where the boss barks orders—is fading out, and more collaborative styles are taking hold. Take note of team members who are great at motivating their colleagues through alternate approaches. Someone who motivated his or her colleagues to contribute generously to a charitable food drive may be equally adept at inspiring them to close more deals or improve your company’s customer satisfaction scores.

Open the door for education.

Many times, employees don’t think like leaders because they don’t have the same understanding of what makes a business grow as the management team has. By educating your entire team about how the business turns a profit to the extent you are comfortable and explaining how they can contribute to its growth, you’ll be surprised at how they start to think differently. Of course, your openness will go a lot further if you find ways for them to share in the growth of the business, perhaps through a profit sharing plan or bonuses if they meet specified goals.

Get them inspired.

Many entrepreneurs love to read books on successful entrepreneurs for a good reason: They’re energizing and remind you of why you stepped up to lead in the first place. When you spot team members who seem to have leadership talent, giving them the gift of an inspiring book can be an excellent investment.

Need some ideas on what titles to pick? Some popular choices include Uncontainable, by Kip Tindell, chairman of the Container Store, Grit by Angela Duckworth, and How Successful People Think, by John Maxwell.

Let them dip a toe in the water.

Many potential leaders may feel unprepared to lead a team if you ask them to step into a management role right away. Give them an opportunity to try leading a group on a smaller scale first (think: managing a project or planning an event). An employee who feels confident he or she can lead one shift a week may be much more enthusiastic and confident about taking on more responsibility than someone who has never done it before.

Make time to coach.

Even natural leaders won’t necessarily know how to lead in exactly the way you want them to. One of the best ways to nurture their talent is to set aside time each week for one-on-one coaching. Ask them to be candid with you about any roadblocks they are encountering, so you can help them find solutions and sharpen their leadership skills.

Put good systems in place.

If your company has decided on the best ways to tackle certain procedures—whether these are phone calls with clients or stocking inventory—commit them to writing. Discuss them at meetings and post them on an intranet or wiki where everyone on your team can refer to them. The clearer you are about how you want things done, the easier it will be for the leaders on your team to guide others in working that way.

You may be pleasantly surprised by how much leadership talent there is in your business once you start looking for ways to make it easier for team members to step up to the plate.

Four Ways to Make Sure Your Website Attracts the Talent You Need

Posted on September 9, 2016September 9, 2016 by Jessica Lunk

It can be challenging in any job market for small businesses to compete for talent with bigger companies. But when it’s as tight as it is today it can be especially daunting, so small businesses need to be where the talent is and differentiate themselves from competitors.

A recent survey of small business owners by LinkedIn Talent Solutions found that very few small businesses now rely on offline recruitment like print job advertisements and career fairs—only four percent still do. Online efforts lead the way in small business hiring, used by 64 percent of those surveyed, with nearly 50 percent saying they hired successfully using online sources.

The job search is also mobile now, with nearly 30 percent of Americans searching for a job on their smartphone, according to a study by Pew last year. More than half of 18-29 year olds use smartphones in one way or another as part of a job search. It’s crucial, in a tight job market or not, to make sure your website–and in fact your entire digital presence–is drawing talent to you and sending out the message that your company is a great place to work.

Here are four ways to make sure your digital footprint is attracting talent:

Mobilize.

In other words, be mobile-friendly. If your website has not yet been mobile optimized, it should be. That means your website is easy to see and navigate on smaller screens. About one in four searches (for everything from jobs to rain boots to the nearest Jiffy Lube) is done on a mobile device, so your site needs to be easily accessible to mobile users.

Mobile-friendly websites also rank higher in Google—in 2015 it announced that non-mobile web pages would be penalized during mobile searches (meaning they will not come up high in search results). The goal, ultimately, is to make sure your website visitors are able to achieve their objectives. If they want to read your blog, check your reviews, or apply for an open position, their experience should require the fewest interactions possible. Google recommends using something called responsive web design, or RWD, which allows your website to adjust to the size screen on which it is being viewed.

Build a website that showcases your company culture.

You already know your website is the digital door to your business, but once that door is open, you have about 30 seconds to convince a potential candidate they want to be part of your team. Your website should convey not just your business brand but your employment brand. That’s done by clearly communicating the fundamental values and mission of your business. Visitors should get a sense of what it’s like to work for your business.

What do the offices look like? The people? What is the corporate environment (or lack thereof) like?

Sure, your company’s website needs to have nuts-and-bolts information like location, number of employees, executive bios and company history, but that doesn’t necessary showcase your culture. In addition include links to the company’s blog and social media pages. You might want to add a short video, perhaps a virtual tour of the offices, interviews with a few employees about what it’s been like for them to work at the company, footage of last Friday happy hour or a recent community service event.

Don’t be afraid to inject your business’s personality into your website. It will help you stand out from the corporate giants and attract talent that is aligned to your mission and core values.

Create a careers page.

Believe it or not, many small business websites don’t have a career page or if they have one it’s buried, tacked on as an afterthought that essentially says: “Here are our open positions and here’s how you can apply for them.” That’s not a career page, that’s a job openings page. It doesn’t communicate why someone would want to work for you.

Make your career page very easy to find and make it stand out from other small business career pages. For instance, instead of using stock photos (where the actors are dressed in neutral tones, having a great time in their sparkling offices), show your actual employees working hard and having a good time. Talk about career trajectories at your company, how long your current employees have been with you, their level of autonomy or the amount of teamwork required. You want someone coming to your careers page to be able to see themselves (or not see themselves) working for your organization.

airbnb — *Airbnb makes it easy for candidates to see themselves working there.*

Make applying easy.

Job seekers, especially top candidates, are aware that the market is competitive and opportunities for their skills and experience are likely plentiful. If they like your company but the application process is complicated and has too many steps or you take too long to respond, they will simply put their energy elsewhere.

For instance, make sure your site provides an email autoresponder that an application has been received. You can use this thank-you moment as a chance to reinforce your employer brand. You might include a little more info about your company and links to things like examples of the firm’s work, photos, recent awards, customer reviews or press the company has received.

If you have an active company page on Linkedin, you can also post your openings there to attract talent. That way, interested candidates can apply with just a click or two to instantly submit the information on their LinkedIn profile – helping you catch candidates immediately before they’re distracted by another opportunity.

Make sure you identify strong candidates early and communicate with those applicants regularly to let them know more about your business and how they may—or may not—fit in.

3 Reasons Growing Businesses Need Marketing Automation

Posted on September 8, 2016December 8, 2022 by Jonathan Herrick

Growing small businesses can face a number of challenges. These range from their own growing pains to the consistent competition from larger businesses. The obvious solution seems to be a paradox: the growing business needs to be able to do more with less – more leads and conversions with fewer resources and personnel. However, it’s not a paradox at all. Marketing automation allows you to save time, engage with and convert more customers, and to go toe-to-toe with your larger competitors.

It Levels The Playing Field

One of the most powerful reasons to embrace automated marketing is that it effectively levels the playing field and allows your business to compete with larger competitors. Once your team develops a “content strategy“ and commits to a solid “process,” you can use marketing automation to start generating more leads, and it will continue to do so, which allows your business to continue growing.

Best of all, the initial time and planning you invest in an automated sales and marketing software pays off by automating some of your team’s tasks, allowing you to concentrate on getting even more done. This is crucial because, as Martech Advisor notes, 53 percent of small business owners say the most difficult part of their job is that they have to do multiple jobs … something that automated marketing can make a thing of the past!

marketing automation — *Just as you have evolved as a business professional, automated marketing helps your company adapt and evolve.*

It’s the Key to Becoming More Adaptable

Automated marketing allows your business to become more versatile and adaptable at almost every level. For instance, it helps you tailor your emails to unique client needs via targeted lists and to record in-depth email statistics to measure email effectiveness. Furthermore, it helps you track customer behavior regarding emails and to later send them content and communication relevant to what they were searching for, which increases customer engagement and conversion. Because marketing automation allows you to set your lead nurturing to specific times, you can have the best of both worlds by sending clients relevant emails often enough to maintain brand awareness but not so often that they get annoyed.

The adaptability extends to prospects and customers visiting your site, too. Keep track of what they click on then place them on targeted email lists that offer them relevant solutions and information based on what website pages they were checking out. Alternately, you can send follow-up emails about specific products they seemed interested in. You can even use marketing automation to create dynamic content for site visitors, offering them content tailored to their previous visits or based on the search terms they used to find you.

It’s Easy to Start

For all of the benefits marketing automation delivers your business, one of the most compelling reasons to embrace automating your marketing efforts is that it’s easy to start. Unlike complex, enterprise solutions, simple and intuitive sales and marketing platforms are available and enable you to run everything with your existing team instead of having to hire a separate team of IT experts to understand and use it. And, once you have set it to capture information on your contacts, it begins to run automatically, allowing your team instant access to important customer and prospect data.

Best of all, marketing automation is a”cost effective” solution to grow your business-with it’s benefits far outweighing the investment. As a small business, your time is money. With automated marketing software in place, your business can put valuable hours back in your day. In fact Martech Advisor reports that marketing automation can save small business owners nearly $300 a day.

This means that automated marketing can save you $1,500 every work week, and it does so while generating more quality leads and dramatically improving the experience you offer to customers.

At the end of the day, marketing automation is one of the best investments you can make for your growing business. It helps you to communicate better with your contacts and turn more visitors and leads into customers. With the new breed of marketing automation tools upon us, small businesses can now tap into that same power big business benefited from for a fraction of the cost-helping your small business to take down Goliath and win more business.

Crisis Control: How to Respond to Negativity on Social Media

Posted on September 7, 2016September 7, 2016 by Allie Wolff

It happens to the best of businesses. A disgruntled customer takes to Twitter to vent. A competitor, hiding behind the cloak of anonymity, posts a negative review on TripAdvisor or Yelp. A former employee gripes about the company on Glassdoor.

It’s hard to get attacked on social media without reacting emotionally. But before you fire off an angry response, take a deep breath and think about the possible repercussions of an impulsive reply. There are better ways to handle it. Here are a few suggestions.

Get snipers out of hiding.

It’s easy for detractors to indulge in bad behavior on the internet, where they don’t have to give their name and they don’t have to face the person they are firing on. Instead of getting sucked into a public fight, invite them to message you directly and arrange to speak to them one-on-one—by telephone—so you can resolve the problem. Not everyone will respond, but you will be able to send a message to other followers that you do pay attention to complaints and try to resolve them.

*Responding to feedback – both positive and negative – can be great for your social media presence and help build trust with your audience.*

You probably can’t get a social site to take down a negative review or post unless it’s violating your legal rights, but the author might be willing to do so if you have gone out of your way to resolve a problem. When you’re confident a gripe has been addressed to the complainer’s satisfaction, explain that reviews are very important to your business and ask if the author would be willing to take it down.

Analyze their gripes.

Even if someone’s tone is harsh, it doesn’t mean his or her complaint has no merit. Pay attention to what is being said to see if your detractor has identified an area where your business could be improved. Is the comment part of a pattern of complaints or is this the only one of its kind?

Even if a nasty comment is one-of-a-kind, is there a grain of truth in that you should respond to? Many businesses that are scaling up don’t have the customer service resources in place to keep a growing client base happy. Often, the internet is the first place that the owners are alerted by customers that there is a problem.

Also consider who is doing the posting. If the complainer is a customer, is it someone who is a regular or a one-time visitor cashing in on a discount deal? Complaints from regulars may be more important to your bottom line, but it’s important to pay close attention to any negative feedback to keep your online reputation intact (and your business successful).

Launch a counter-offensive.

If someone isn’t willing to take down a negative review, you’ll need to counterbalance it with positive ones. For instance, if an employee you fired posts a scathing attack on your working conditions on a job search site, ask all of your current employees to post their own reviews. If you have, say, 15 positive reviews and one negative one, the harshest review won’t carry much weight. The further down the page you can push a negative comment or review with new content, the less likely other people are to read it.

social media — *Make a it a point to keep positive reviews coming in the door to counter any harm a negative review might do to your business.*

Avoid an accusatory response.

Often when someone posts something negative about you online, you may have a strong suspicion about the culprit’s identity. Don’t give in to the temptation to speculate about that in your response. If, say, you point out that you believe the author is a former employee whom you just fired for substance abuse and people familiar with your company can identify that individual, you could open the door to legal problems (and ongoing reputation issues).

Create a varied social media presence.

If you maintain a page on only one social media site, whatever is said there will have a bigger impact than if people can find your business across multiple platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. It’s often difficult for a small business to operate multiple pages, time-wise, but even adding one or two social media sites to your repertoire will allow you to dilute the influence of any one hub.

Forgive and forget.

It’s only natural to stew about a negative social media posting about your business, but once you’ve resolved it to the best of your ability, move on. The more you use social media in a positive way to call attention to what is great about your business, the less of an impact the occasional nasty comment will have on your overall social media presence. Many of the people who come to your site will take negative comments with a grain of salt anyway. Once you’ve done your best to resolve any legitimate complaints, so should you. You’ve got better things to think about—like growing your business.

Effortless Office Updates for Working with Remote Employees

Posted on September 6, 2016October 26, 2022 by Jonathan Herrick

When you picture the typical office space, what do you see? If you instantly envision fluorescent lighting, cubicles, offices, and conference rooms, you’re not alone. After all that’s what almost every office looks like (think “The Office”). But with the rapid growth of remote employees, the traditional office has become a thing of the past.

Today we live in a world of flexibility and interconnectivity. In fact it is expected that by 2020, more than half of the full-time workforce will be working remotely. That’s a pretty staggering statistic, and it showcases the need to update your office environment and technology to be able to accommodate any remote workers you currently have or will have in the future.

So if you want to put your remote employees in the best position for success and boost productivity, try these simple office updates:

Provide the Right Gear

The reality is that for many employees, their home is their office space and their office space is their home. A comfortable, up-to-date work environment is a key to remote employees feeling engaged and a part of the team. So if you have teammates working from home, invest in them. Provide them with the necessities they need to achieve success.

Items such as an ergonomic office chair, laptop, dual monitors for multitasking, and a webcam are essential in this connected era for your virtual workers to perform their daily tasks. Ergonomic solutions range from large furniture items down to ergonomic mouse pads for preventing conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome. It’s best to leave no stone unturned when it comes to protecting your remote employees from work-related injury.

VPN technology is also a vital way to enable your remote team to be portable and still respond to internal and external needs. Phone solutions such as Grasshopper give your remote employees the ability to make calls from anywhere, turning their home office into a responsive workstation.

Software company Groove supports it’s virtual workforce through the use of standing desks to promote health and well-being:

While some remote team members may have their own hardware, software and equipment, the best solution for your business is to provide these staple items for them. It reduces security risks for your business and makes sure all employees have up to date tools and gear to do an stellar job.

Also, don’t forget about those softer items such as company swag, team photos, wall art, lamps etc. The more your employee can feel like a part of the office the better chance you have for success together. If you are unclear about what gear you should provide to your remote employees, think about the workforce in your office and all of the tools and resources they need day in and day out to excel at their jobs and feel connected to the team.

Collaborate with Video

The one main drawback to remote working is that virtual employees don’t see their coworkers often enough and can feel disconnected from the work culture. Fortunately, there are a number of videoconferencing systems, including Google Hangouts, Skype for Business (formerly Lync), and GoToMeeting that can help both remote and non-remote workers alike feel connected. These systems can be used for group meetings and even one-on-one meetings to ensure better collaboration in a face-to-face setting:

It’s important to make your virtual teammates feel like they are part of the community at work. Studies show that 9 out of 10 remote employees cite that video helps them feel more connected to their colleagues. Plus, it can provide a huge advantage when trying to gauge non-verbal reactions to important decisions and changes within the business.

Stay Connected

Thanks to messaging technology apps such as Slack, friendly chats that would happen by the water cooler or while running out to Starbucks can instead occur in real-time via chat messages:

This helps remote workers feel more like a part of the team and less like they’re off working entirely on their own without anyone to talk to. It can also give a personal touch when you need to give them a high five for a job well done, share important activities, and even discuss recent news or upcoming weekend plans.

The beautiful thing about technology is that it can keep teams connected, no matter where they are or what kind of device they’re using. There are a number of helpful tools and apps designed to ensure your remote employees are in sync with the rest of the team. Here is a great list from Buffer. With technology giving teams the ability to stay connected 24/7, make sure to respect your remote employees by valuing their private time and refraining from those 10 PM chats.

Fuel Communication with a CRM

One of the most important factors for remote employee success is keeping everyone on the same communication page. That can be a real challenge with outdated tools such as spreadsheets and sticky notes. To improve communication, leverage a CRM to keep all sales, marketing and customer data in sync. By using an online customer relationship management system everyone gains access to critical information whether in the office, at home, or on the go.

Another big advantage of having everyone in the same CRM is that it allows for your remote employees and your team in the office to work towards the same goals-keeping track of progress and performance.

Keep a Space Open

If you don’t already have a “visitor desk” available, create it. Even when employees exclusively work from their home, they may need to (or even want to!) visit the office on occasion to get face time with their fellow employees and/or to attend meetings in person. While they’re visiting, they’ll be thrilled to have a space to call their own for the day/week.

Another way to make your employees feel like welcomed is to move to an open-team plan that provides workstations and team offices. It is a great way to allow your remote staff to come and go while still feeling like a part of the office.

Want to go one step further? Connect your remote employees with local co-working offices such as TREX, that enables them to tap into the amenities of a larger office:

It’s a great way for your virtual workforce to connect with other remote employees and give them a sense of community and collaboration.

Employee mobility is here to stay. So whether you have employees working remote full time or part time, invest in their success. Simple updates to their office and yours will help your teams to stay connected and engaged at work or at home.