Struggling with Content Marketing Strategy? Nail it with these 5 Tips. Posted on November 5, 2015May 29, 2024 by Jessica Lunk You want to be seen. So, do something. Something big. If you want to catch people’s eye in your content marketing endeavors, you have to do three things: Be bold, be relevant, and be impressive. If you want to make an impact and get your business noticed you have to go the extra mile. To reach and engage your audience use these 5 tips to nail your content strategy: 1. Know Who You Are Knowing who you are takes a deep understanding of the product or services you offer, why you offer them, and a bit of the roadmap that lies ahead of you. Once you understand your business, you have to create a brand around it – and this is the tough part. You know who you are, but does your audience? Branding is how you communicate; it’s your face to the world and while it may change over the years, it should remain a version of itself. Think of Q-Tips, Kleenex, Xerox. These companies are so inextricably linked to their product that most time people don’t know whether you are talking about the company of the item. That’s what you want for your business. 2. Know Your Audience Knowing who you are also means knowing your audience. Successful businesses don’t try to be everything to everyone. Instead, they are super intentional about putting their stake in the ground and defining their audience. Herb Kelleher, co-founder and former CEO of Southwest Airlines, took this exact approach. He decided that his audience wasn’t everyone. It wasn’t even the business-class flyer. Instead, he set his sights on the family flyer. He appealed to them by offer low fares, painting his planes like whales, and implementing a hiring strategy that focused on hiring attitude before skills. And this targeted approach paid off. Today, Southwest Airlines is the nation’s largest carrier in terms of originating domestic passengers boarded. When your demographic is defined, you can get to know your audience intimately. What are they interested in? How are they finding information? What are their pain points? Knowing your audience allows you to tailor your message, taking a personal approach to your marketing to stay super relevant to your audience, and create raving fans of your business. 3. Be Where They Are After you’ve defined your niche, go find them. Does your ideal buyer hang out in specific geo locations? Do they participate in certain communities online? Are they urban or suburbanites? Are they looking for a specific resource that you can provide for free? Take a multi-level approach to meeting your ideal buyers where they are by: Driving top-of-mind awareness with ads. Delivering value through helpful resources. Nurturing with personal email marketing. Especially for smaller businesses that have to do more with less, being targeted with your audience means that you can allocate resources efficiently and effectively. 4. Use Technology Marketing technology used to be reserved for big businesses with big budgets and lots of technical know-how. But today, there are a ton of free or budget-friendly resources that are easy for small businesses to implement and use. Try these examples on for size: Create a blog on your company site. Share your expertise, show off your company culture and feature guest posts from others in your niche. Blogging displays your authority, builds up a reserve of content you can share, and helps your ideal buyer find your business online through search. Leverage Youtube to connect with your audience. Produce your own video, or better yet, leverage your customers’ video testimonials to share with your audience. In fact, Offerpop revealed in a recent report that brand engagement rises by 28% when consumers are exposed to professional content along with user-generated product videos. Create buzz on social media sites. With social media, you can take word-of-mouth marketing one step further and get your audience talking about your brand. Focus your efforts on the channels that your ideal buyer engages with the most. 5. Make Sure They Can Find You with SEO Creating useful, relevant content for your audience is the first step to getting found online. Then, reach out to your partners, influencers in your space, and your customers to share and exchange content, helping boost your reach. As you build content on your site, you may also want to hire a SEO consultant to help make sure your website is structured properly for ultimate optimization. For a few more ideas on how to get found online, check out our Small Business Guide to Online Marketing. You want to make a big splash, right? Try these ideas and watch as you reach grows exponentially.
Culture Counts! 13 Ways to Create the Best Workplace Posted on November 4, 2015January 10, 2018 by Jessica Lunk The thing that motivates us to work the hardest is being under-appreciated. Said no one ever. It goes without saying that everyone would prefer to work for a company that appreciates them and their efforts, but – because many people need jobs – we don’t always get to be overly picky. When you are the one running the business, it isn’t just about having employees. Your business will be more productive, more profitable, and more conducive to low turnover-high loyalty when your employees are there because they want to be – not just because they need to be. The bottom line is that workplace culture counts. Here are 13 ways to make a motivating, positive, productive workplace happen. 1. Care About Them This may sound like an easy one, but for an employer the ability to look at your employees as more than just your “minions” is very important. 2. Be a Little Personal If you know your employee has a family, then ask about them in a polite and considerate way. Making basic conversation with your employees is a sign that you know they have a life outside of work. 3. Motivation Is Important Being able to manage your team with positive reinforcements is going to help your business in the long run. Productivity will shoot through the roof with the right motivation. If your staff has goals it doesn’t hurt to run a contest or two with prizes as motivation. It doesn’t even have to be something extravagant. Even a $10 Starbucks giftcard is appreciated. 4. Create Diversity A diverse workplace is not only the way to support the community, but you’ll find that when people come from different backgrounds they can bring all kind of new ideas for a more interesting and productive workplace. 5. Encourage Creative Freedom Being able to allow your team to put forth their creative ideas can make them feel valued, and appreciated. Encouraging the right creative freedom, depending on your business, can allow you to see ideas that you might not have thought of in the first place. Plus, there is an immense self-pride for the employee in themselves and the company when they see their ideas come to life. 6. Care Some More If your employee is going through a rough patch such as the death of a parent or difficulties with an illness, it’s just the right thing to do to care about their situation. If your employee doesn’t have to worry about their job in a time of need, it makes the recovery time easier and shorter. 7. Give Raises On Time This one doesn’t even need an explanation. Give raises on time, and be fair about it. Do more than just a “cost of living” adjustment if your business can handle it. 8. Bonuses and Incentive Programs Performance based bonuses will encourage people to work harder. Adequate vacation, downtime, and personal days makes an employee not resentful of their employer. Incentive programs put the power in the employee’s court so they can do all they can to improve their salary situation. 9. Have Brainstorming Sessions That Are Fun If you have the room, and can put in some fun break type activities to get your employees out of their cubicles it’s a good idea. Being open in a creative area, such as around a ping pong table or mini basketball hoop, is good fun for everyone 10. Provide Health Benefits That Are Affordable Everyone deserves to have a good health plan that isn’t too expensive. If yours is too high or you hear a lot of complaints, look into finding a better one. 11. Be Polite Say “hello” daily to all your employees, because they show up everyday for you to work hard. Acknowledge their presence so they know you value their efforts even in just showing up on time for work everyday. 12. Make Sure Work Is Fairly Balanced Making sure that the work is fairly balanced between employees is fair and just. Burn out is a very real problem so try to make sure you are aware of larger work loads always getting done by the same employees. Spread it around between everyone if you notice someone is overworked. 13. Promote From Within This is very motivating for your employees because it shows that your company is a growth operation with the potential to move up. It gives them a future to look forward to and a ladder to climb with your small business operation. Above all else, remember this: When it comes to culture, it really is the thought that counts. If you are making an effort to make your employees happy, they will sense it – and they will try to make you happy in return.
Getting Started with Marketing Automation in 5 Easy Steps Posted on November 3, 2015June 18, 2018 by jmiller If you are moving from an email marketing strategy to a marketing automation strategy, it can be overwhelming the first time you see how it all works. Once someone sees the level of sophistication of a marketing automation tool, it can cause spontaneous paralysis and a quick retreat into the old way of doing things. Don’t give in! Be ready to make a change…and…EVOLVE. I speak with customers every day about how to get started with marketing automation and how to avoid getting lost in the details. Marketing is not an exact science. You have to test, try new things, learn what works and improve. A solid foundation is the best starting point. Here are 5 steps to get started: Make an Offer Capture Leads Engage your Audience Stay in Touch Keep customers up to date Make an Offer The best way to attract a new client? Offer something that you have that they don’t have and want to have. Identify what that offer is and give them a taste of it. Come up with an enticing incentive, or lead magnet, to offer people in exchange for their contact information: Your offer could be something like: White paper Case study Report Free sample Free 30 minute consultation Leveraging existing content/expertise is the most efficient way to go. If you have multiple offerings, use them all. Test out different offers to see what works best to attract the right audience. Protip: Don’t give more than two offers on a single webpage, or more than one offer on a landing page. Capture Leads Putting a white paper on a website for instant download can limit perceived value. Don’t give away valuable content for free; require information in exchange for the offer. Design and embed a lead capture form on your website or landing page. The more value you offer, the more information you can request. For example, require an email address to sign-up for your blog, but request more information if you are offering someone 30 minutes of your time for a consultation. Protip: Make sure the information you request matches the offer. Engage your Audience Now that your contact has requested information, send them a little more information. An engagement campaign is a short term campaign that ultimately leads to a specific call to action, like request a meeting, signing-up, or downloading information. This type of campaign can be 3-7 steps over a 2-3 week period (this can vary depending on content available). Emails within an engagement campaign can include, but are not limited to: An introduction to your company A case study A testimonial Educational material The goal of the engagement campaign is to drive the contact into your sales process. Protip: A simple engagement campaign can have 2 emails and 1 phone call to follow up. Stay in Touch Not everyone is ready to buy right away, but it doesn’t mean that they never will. Build out a long term nurturing campaign to stay in touch will all of your contacts on an ongoing basis. A nurture campaign may include an email every 30 – 60 days. The goal of a nurture campaign is to educate your audience, offer validation as to why they should do business with you (case studies, testimonials) and simply to stay top of mind. The nurture campaign may have calls to action or offers that can pull someone into an engagement campaign or directly into the sales process. And, with marketing automation, you can track engagement activity; if someone starts to engage, a good marketing automation tool will trigger actions that can pull contacts into your sales process over time. One tip to help build out nurture campaigns is to use a resource like www.alltop.com, where you can leverage 3rd party articles and recommend them to your audience. Protip: 1 email sent every 60 days means that you only have to build 6 emails to stay in touch with your contacts for a year! Keep Customers Up to Date Don’t forget to share your blog, a newsletter or a deal of the month. “Just in Time” communications offer you the freedom to communicate when the mood strikes you. The objective here is the same as a nurture campaign but includes timely information; a new product offer, PR updates, recent newspaper articles, upcoming events. “Just in Time” communications can also be influenced by the season or time of year. Protip: Returning customers spend 20% more than first time buyers, so staying in touch with your customers is just as important as staying in touch with prospects. Getting started with marketing automation can seem like an enormous task. But, by taking a step-by-step approach, you can easily tackle attracting new leads, nurturing prospects, and staying in touch with customers.
Is Halloween Tax Deductible for your Small Business? Posted on October 30, 2015October 25, 2016 by Jessica Lunk When it comes to Halloween goodies, how many costs are you eating? Halloween offers up spooky fun that can bring a unique and attractive atmosphere to your business, but it can be another expense on top of the normal, frustrating overhead you deal with every other day of the year. Good news! When done right, the holiday can actually give your business a tax deduction. Many small businesses pour loads of money into making their small business festive for the holiday. But you don’t need to count these expenses as a complete financial loss. Save all of your receipts for Halloween-related items in order to claim them as a deduction on your annual return. Halloween Candy The most surprising tax deduction for Halloween is candy. That big giant bowl of candy you keep at the front of your business for trick-or-treaters can actually be a write-off. Moreover, if you create custom candies branded with your company logo, the expense to make the product is another deduction. Even business cards and promotional flyers attached to Halloween candies are tax deductible. Got plenty of leftover candy? There are many charitable organizations that collect unused Halloween candy to send overseas to troops. Just make sure the charity you’re donating to has 501(3) status with the IRS. Keep in mind that chocolate is usually not accepted by many organizations since it will likely melt during transport. Plan on sending an expensive box of candy or chocolate to new or existing clients for Halloween? The IRS will accept the cost as a marketing deduction for your tax return. Halloween Costumes Providing your employees with Halloween costumes? Then, you can deduct the cost of the costumes worn during normal business hours. Another possible way to get a tax deduction and an excellent way to give back to your community is to donate used Halloween costumes to a local charity that accepts them. The IRS provides a listing of organizations with tax-exempt status that you can choose from. The organization will provide you with a receipt that you can save with your tax records. The tax deduction can be calculated by estimating the fair market value of the costume. Along with the receipts, you should keep photos of the costumes to prove that they were in good condition when donated. Parties and Decorations Although individuals can’t write off Halloween decorations on their taxes, businesses can. Since decorations are used to drive customers and clients into your business, they are eligible to be included in your itemizations. Decorations used for a company hosted Halloween party are accepted as well. If you have a Halloween party with the purpose of conducting business, the expenses associated with the event are deductible. Employee only parties will not count, so make sure you invite potential and existing clients to the event. Deductible expenses besides the decorations include branded Halloween goodies and advertising materials. Although employee parties aren’t eligible for deductions, you can write off the costs associated with any treats you provide on Halloween as a way to boost employee morale. This could include a catered lunch for your staff or individual goody bags. Advertising Around any holiday, many businesses end up increasing their advertising budget. You could be holding a special sale to drive more customers into your business around Halloween. Marketing costs may include promotional newspaper ads, social media advertisements, flyers, business cards, radio and TV ads, billboards, signs, and display racks. Don’t forget to include these special Halloween advertising costs to your list of tax deductions. Keep in mind that not all holiday marketing can be deducted. For instance, if you place a help wanted ad for extra Halloween staff, that’s considered a normal operating expense. With the knowledge of just how many Halloween expenses can be deducted, you can now elevate your Halloween celebrations to attract more new business and create a fun, inviting office atmosphere.
When it Comes to Sales and Marketing Software, We’re Drinking Our Own Champagne Posted on October 29, 2015July 8, 2016 by Don Breckenridge Call it putting your money where your mouth is. Eating your own dog food, or drinking your own champagne is what tech companies do when they use their own product for their business. At Hatchbuck, we’re doing just that, and we’ve found that using our own product gives us an edge in developing an innovative, user-friendly product. How The Hatchbuck Team Uses Hatchbuck to Grow Hatchbuck isn’t just a peripheral product we make an effort to incorporate in our business process. We aren’t something like talent acquisition software that we might use occasionally to make new hires. Instead, every function of our company runs on Hatchbuck, which is truly unique. Marketing We use Hatchbuck for sustainable lead generation. It starts with connecting to new small business owners, warming them up through lead nurturing, and sending hot prospects to our sales team. Small business owners find us through social media, SEO and referrals. We connect with them through Hatchbuck lead generation forms on our website. Hatchbuck lead gen forms capture newsletter subscribers, ebook downloads, and requests to demo Hatchbuck. Then, form actions segment new leads and start them on the appropriate campaign or send the appropriate autoresponder. As new small business owners are added to our database through lead forms, Hatchbuck tracks how they interact with our emails and pages on our website. With these insights, we use email nurturing campaigns to move prospects into the next stage in the buying journey. To measure success, we use deals to track our quarterly and monthly marketing goals. When a small business owner requests a demonstration of Hatchbuck through a demo request form on our website, Hatchbuck creates a deal and the sales process begins. Sales Hatchbuck automates our sales process so that our sales team can spend their time speaking to qualified leads – instead of prospecting or making cold calls. When our sales team walks in each morning, they simply login to Hatchbuck to see their hottest opportunities and must do tasks for the day. Hatchbuck automatically creates a deal, sends a notification to our business development team and generates a follow-up task when a small business owner requests a live demonstration. Our biz dev reps can work right through their task list in Hatchbuck to follow-up with new opportunities and qualify them before scheduling their live demonstration with a sales team member. In addition to demonstrating the product to potential customers, follow-up is key to closing sales. Hatchbuck campaigns make it simple for our sales consultants to follow up with everyone in the sales pipeline, and ensure that we never miss an opportunity to turn a small business owner into a Hatchbuck customer. Onboarding & Support Communication doesn’t end after the sale. We are passionate about delivering one-on-one support, and Hatchbuck is integral in managing customer relationships. Each new customer is assigned a Hatchbuck consultant in Hatchbuck’s CRM who walks them through the onboarding process. New customers are started on an onboarding campaign that include emails to the customer as well as tasks for their Hatchbuck consultant to complete. One of our consultants, Lindsay, describes how she uses automation daily in her article, Tackling the Whole “Automation” Thing. Leadership It’s always tempting to make gut-based decisions, but at Hatchbuck we’re conscientious about being data-driven. Hatchbuck not only helps us automate processes and manage relationships, it is the barometer of our business. Sales reports tell us how we’re performing on the marketing side to drive deals and helps us forecast how many customers the sales team is going to win for the month. Lead source reporting shows decision makers which channels we should be investing in and where we might want to pull back some of our resources. We can see the sales pipeline as a whole, keeping tabs on how much revenue can be mined from pending deals, and how well we are doing for the month, quarter or year. The Advantages and Challenges of Drinking our Own Champagne Strategy Smarts Marketing automation is new and it can be complex. It’s our job to make it super simple for small business owners to pick up and implement. Sales and marketing involves lots of moving parts that go beyond actual software. Content marketing, social media, SEO and digital advertising all play a part. So while we’ve mastered an understanding of the technology, it’s also imperative for us to understand inbound marketing, content and nurturing – the outer practices that fuel the marketing automation engine. Operating our business with Hatchbuck gives us the insights to help our small business customers be successful, not just in learning the software, but improving their overall sales and marketing strategies. The Ultimate Case Study Because we’ve built our own success story using Hatchbuck, we can provide the framework and show small business owners how it can work for their business. We know the process works because with Hatchbuck’s CRM, email marketing and marketing automation tools, we haven’t made a cold call since we started up in 2012 and we have grown revenue by 2300%. Organizational Knowledge Bank Because Hatchbuck is central to our business, everyone on the team knows the product well. So when a small business owner tweets a question to our social media manager, a customer reaches out to their consultant for help with marketing strategy or a technology vendor pings marketing about a potential partnership, we are all equipped to help. Another bonus is that, because the Hatchbuck team is Hatchbuck’s biggest power user, we are the first customer to work out usability issues and add new feature requests. However, with all of the advantages of using our own product to grow our business, there is a challenge. Just like drinking a bit too much bubbly, guzzling our own champagne can skew our vision if we let it. Ultimately, we’re building a product for our customers – not for us. But we’ll be the first to admit that taking our own company out of the equation can be tough. Being so close to the product means that we get ultra imaginative when it comes to feature requests and guessing what our customers might like. However, if we added every feature we dreamed up on the fly, we’d have a monstrous, complicated product. And that would take us away from our mission to provide small business owners with simple, easy-to-use sales and marketing tools. We have to be extremely intentional about what we add to the product. This means putting our own agenda aside, and giving ourselves room to let the fizzy buzz wear off before scope-creep sends our roadmap to the wrong destination. Surveying and interviewing our customers and our audience about what features they will truly use and need helps us stay true to our mission. At Hatchbuck, we’re drinking our own champagne without losing site of the bigger picture – building a product that helps small business owners manage relationships and grow sales. Cheers to that.
Sell Them with a Story: How to Use Storytelling to Grow your Small Business Posted on October 28, 2015June 27, 2016 by Jonathan Herrick One of the most effective marketing strategies for your small business has been around since the beginning of time. Storytelling. Even before the modern digital era storytelling was used by ancient leaders to move crowds to action, preserve history and change nations. Storytelling is a powerful tool that you can use to market your brand and connect in a more real and personal way with your audience. The Power of Storytelling “We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.” – Jonathan Gottschall (@jonathangottsch), The Storytelling As a small business, cutting through the noise and getting more of your audience talking about you can leave you feeling like David in a match against Goliath. Lots of companies create content, and it’s getting crowded out there. Getting attention is tough, unless you can connect with people on a human level and tap into their emotions. Crafting a compelling, memorable story that shows why your business is unique is a powerful way to stamp your brand on the hearts and minds of your audience. Create a story worth sharing, and your audience will reward you by passing it on to their family, friends and colleagues. But does storytelling really work? The answer: It sure does. The reason storytelling is so effective is because the buying process is not just a rational decision backed by data points for your customers; it’s also an emotional one. In Chip and Dan Heath’s Book, “Made to Stick” they describe why some ideas stick and others don’t. Overwhelmingly the stats show that people remember a powerful story over cited statistics. Stats like the often regurgitated: “We grew revenue by 200 percent.” In fact, in one example, students at Stanford were asked to share facts with their classmates: 63% remembered the stories and only 5% remembered the actual statistics that were cited. I know what you’re thinking…if you’re anything like those Stanford students, you probably won’t remember that stat. So to illustrate, here is a great example of a business using storytelling. Subaru, as you know, is in the car business and like everyone else they could have talked about safety, gas mileage, etc. Instead they connected with their potential buyers and customers with a powerful story, Making Memories: Now I have to tell you I don’t own a Subaru, but as a dad (their ideal buyer) this pulled on my heartstrings in a way that no other car company has. I have shared this video and nearly 340K people have as well. But you are probably asking, so what? Is it driving results? Subaru is outpacing their competitors in growth and recent sales have been up as much as 28% as a result of their focus on leveraging storytelling to connect in a more human way. That’s huge. The Art of Storytelling You’re probably thinking, I don’t have a Subaru-sized budget. So how do you craft your own compelling story that captivates the attention of your small business audience? Start with the 6 Elements of a great story: Understand Your Purpose: Whether you sell a product or a service, don’t make the story about what you do, make it about “WHY” you do it. It is often said if you are in the shovel business you don’t sell shovels, you “Give them a better hole”. People gravitate towards the “why” not the “how” or “what.” Create the Conflict: If everything is running smoothly for your ideal buyer, what do they need you for? It’s human nature to be slow to embrace change, but a pain-point or point of conflict for your ideal buyer can be the catalyst they need to make a buying decision. Show your readers what problem your product/solution solves and what tension it relieves. Create the Character: Develop a character that your reader or audience can relate to and cheer for. Someone that experiences the same challenges and struggles your ideal customer goes through every day. Focus on WIFT: Your prospects and customers want to know what’s in it for them. The fact is, no one cares about your business’s sales and marketing goals. Believe it or not, your audience doesn’t wake up every day waiting to be a lead in your sales pipeline. They do, however love hearing and sharing a remarkable story about themselves! Keep it simple: We all suffer from overstimulation produced by too much content. Attention spans are short, and everyone reads in 140 character, bit-sized chunks. So, keep your story short, easy to digest and impactful. A great example of simplicity is Apple. Deliver a great ending-With a great story, you’ve got readers in the palm of your hand. While you have them engaged, don’t forget to include a clear call to action to help them take the next steps to happily ever after. Describe how doing business with you will improve their lives and emphasize why it’s worth the tradeoff of changing their behavior. Bonus-6.1 Share your story: Now, more than ever, you have a platform to spread your story. Social tools like Facebook, Twitter, Slideshare, and Instagram make it easy to connect with your prospects in customers in real-time and share an engaging story. Social media is also a great place to find elements to craft a great story for case studies, your blog and your website. We are moving into an era where “Personal” Brands will separate themselves from the pack by delivering on authentic and real messages. By using storytelling in your marketing, you give your prospects and customers a reason to care about your business. And to quote the great Mark Cuban: “When you’ve got 10,000 people trying to do the same thing, why would you want to be number 10,001?”
Four Things You Didn’t Know About Marketing Automation Posted on October 27, 2015June 18, 2018 by Jessica Lunk Running a small business requires being ultra resourceful when it comes to managing your time and your budget. We know you’ve got limited bandwidth, but we also know that neglected leads result in a dry profit pool down the road. No worries – marketing automation is here to help. Here are four important things you might not realize about marketing automation and how it can boost productivity for your small business. 1. ROI May Take Time – But, Your Patience will be Rewarded! Focus Research found that 75% of companies using marketing automation see ROI within 12 months and see positive results even sooner. This is both a very quick and very slow period of time to wait to see your investment bring about profit. Too often, when a new tool is implemented, companies are impatient to see immediate results. It is important to realize that the ROI is measurable and real, but it may take time to create the kind of impact that moves your audience towards purchase decisions. In the long run, this is a short-term investment that will pay out in a great way for the company if implemented correctly. 2. Your Leads are Segmented While 61% of B2B marketers send all of their leads straight to sales, only 27% were found to be qualified, according to MarketingSherpa. This is why it is so important to analyze the position of leads and then nurture them accordingly. Yet, gathering the right data to sort and segment leads would require exorbitant amounts of time and energy from your marketing team that they just don’t have. Instead, marketing automation systems gather information and do all the sorting for you, putting your leads in the right buckets. And once you’re leads are segmented, you’re on your way to nurturing them with personalized content to achieve a 20% higher level of sales, according to a report by DemandGen. 3. Your Leads are Nurtured Marketing automation tracks your leads’ activity and determines their sales potential every step of the way. With leads properly segmented, you can meet each lead where they are in the sales funnel and take the right steps to direct them toward conversion. Marketing automation software automatically nurtures your leads by sending them personalized content they value, instead of slamming them with sales tactics and generic taglines. This lead nurturing approach is exactly why most companies see excellent results within several months of implementing their system. 4. Your Costs are Lowered When companies implement a nurturing strategy and automate mundane processes, they save money. Employees don’t have to do the mindless work of sorting through lead behavior, they can focus on answering questions and cultivating relationships. Allowing the work to be done automatically means a faster and more efficient process for everyone. Forrester Research found companies that excelled at marketing automation were able to generate 50% more leads ready for sales at a 33% lower cost. When a software system can do the busywork, your employees are freed up to work on tougher tasks that have a bigger impact on your business. Are you ready to move towards solid and sustainable growth? Marketing automation is an important next step. Get on board now and ride the wave of marketing automation’s newest trends for successful brands.
Donut Mondays and Free Lunch Friday: Do Workplace Incentives Make a Difference? Posted on October 26, 2015July 6, 2016 by Jessica Lunk The workplace environment has changed through the years.In many companies, even the terminology has changed. Employees are “associates” or “team members” and bosses are “team leaders” or “directors”. This change in the work environment, in most cases, is for the positive. Today’s “work” is more incentivized and even gamified. “Company culture” has become a term engrained in business spawning casual Fridays, in-company day care, and everything from bagel Tuesdays to free lunch Fridays. At Hatchbuck, we certainly have our own unique culture. The real question is do workplace incentives make a difference? We Went Right to The Top For the answer, we went right to the top, going to Hatchbuck’s Chief Sales/Marketing Officer Jonathan Herrick. Already knowing our culture it was no surprise to us that Jonathan felt company culture is critical, especially in the early start-up years of an organization. “I believe our culture has been a key catalyst for our growth here at Hatchbuck.” Jonathan explained. “I wanted to be purposeful about giving team members the power to own and drive the culture. I wanted to better align them to the purpose of the business.” Hatchbuck’s Core Values A good place to start is with a discussion of your company’s core values. While mission statements have their place, for modern companies, especially small companies, mission statements can sound corporate or disconnected. Core values, however, simply get down to it. They express what should be the focus of everyone involved, every day. At Hatchbuck our core values are broken down as follows. Be yourself. Do the right thing. Keep it simple. Work hard and have fun. Make a difference. If this sounds like something you may have learned in kindergarten you may not be far off. Core values are not complicated. They reach to the core of a company’s culture. The Effect on Our Culture We see the effect of these core values every day at Hatchbuck. We see it in the energy our people bring into the office. It manifests itself in how they seek solutions for our clients. It nurtures a culture where each person’s talents are respected and valued. It encourages everyone to find simple answers and have fun doing it. The fact is, in almost any situation, an environment that exudes positive energy is going to be more enjoyable and productive than one that is lethargic and negative. This isn’t rocket science. Creating an atmosphere where people feel valued and are encouraged is one that will likely attract and keep talented people. These people themselves add to the culture and it organically grows. But it first must be guided and nurtured. So, Do the Freebies Make a Difference? The answer is more obvious when the question is rephrased. “Can freebies help you nurture your company culture?” Of course the answer is yes. It can build camaraderie and help people be themselves. Freebies can be fun and help relieve pressure. Not every company has the ability to provide in-house day care or offer free steak dinners on Fridays. But even small companies can encourage activities and offer incentives that make the work environment more enjoyable and productive. The ROI on a couple dozen donuts can be pretty impressive.
An Inside Look: Successful Leadership Traits Posted on October 23, 2015 by Don Breckenridge When thinking about marketing strategies for small business, one of the hardest to define is leadership. Successful small businesses are driven by business leaders who inspire the people around them. These leaders attract like-minded people who are drawn to the message and the values they instill to create a dynamic team. Together, these teams build unmatched experiences, products, and businesses. At Hatchbuck, we believe that leaders aren’t born, they’re made. Here are a few successful leadership traits to start cultivating to grow your small business. Vision In order to create marketing strategies for small business or turn a small business into a large business, a business leader must have a vision. A vision is an overriding image or goal that they can see in their minds that spurs them forward. In other words, a leader sees the future of their company, and they can tell everyone what that future is. Their vision drives their company and all of their employees forward. Communication A business leader knows how to communicate their ideas to other people. They can discuss ideas with people of all levels of knowledge and excite them about their ideas. The business leader learns how to communicate effectively and inspire others to adopt the ideas as their own. A leader learns how to evoke emotions through communication to give followers a reason to invest in their beliefs. They communicate well with employees, customers and the general public. Confidence Business leaders exude confidence in the face of all odds. They are tough-minded, and don’t let petty grievances and non-believers belittle their vision. Visionaries are often bombarded with doubt and skepticism. They need to be confident enough that they can keep going forward in the face of negative comments, initial failure and doubt from their critics. Sometimes business leaders are the only ones who feel that their vision is possible, and they need a really thick skin to keep moving forward towards their vision. It is difficult to be a leader, but rewards are great for those that succeed. Customer Focus Customers instinctively know who has their interests in mind. A successful business leader keeps their focus on the customer’s needs and wants, and never forgets them even in tough times. A small business leader knows that customers are what drives their business, and they want to nurture relationships with their customers that are enduring and solid. The best leaders interact with customers directly as much as they can in order to stay in touch with what customers are thinking about their products or services. Employee Focus Business leaders that succeed pride themselves on excellence, and ask their employees to do the same. However, they also reward their employees for their successes, and inspire them by example. A business leader that expects their employees to adopt the company’s marketing strategies for small business offers their employees incentives to do so. The leader gets to know their employees, understands their success and struggles, and interacts with them as much as possible. Culture is something we talk about every day at Hatchbuck. Leading by example and bringing out the leadership qualities in all our employees is what drives our business forward.