How to Align Sales and Marketing Teams for Content Creation Posted on February 13, 2020February 6, 2020 by Natalie Slyman One of the most critical aspects of a successful business is the alignment of sales and marketing. The less they communicate, the harder it becomes for both departments to reach their goals. How is your marketing team expected to deliver quality leads to the sales team if they don’t know leads’ pain points? And how are they supposed to know leads’ pain points without insight from the sales team? A lack of cohesion among these two teams can lead to missed revenue and a complete disconnect between your company and your ideal customer. And your business just can’t afford that. To produce top-quality content, and for that content to be useful, your sales and marketing teams must collaborate. Here are some ideas to get the two teams together in the name of content marketing. 1. Hold Monthly Meetings No department should ever be an island, yet sales and marketing teams tend to silo themselves. While marketing dedicates a lot of their time to content creation and implementing tactics that generate leads, it’s the sales team that has a good read on the strategy that should fuel those efforts. The two groups need to be working together to enable sales and nurture prospects. This starts with holding monthly meetings where everyone is involved. During these meetings, it’s important to discuss the needs and issues of each group. It’s a critical process that allows both teams to gather deeper insight that will inform the next steps. It’s also important, during monthly meetings, to discuss any upcoming issues or objections the sales team faces. This can help marketing further develop content that is relevant and valuable to your audience. It’s a great way to put more sales enablement content on the discussion list. Some questions to address in these meetings: What are some common objects the sales team is getting from leads? What about our product and services is confusing to our prospects? What kinds of content is the marketing team looking to create? How does the marketing team track success from content? How is the sales team currently using content in their conversations and outreach? What content is currently being used the most? What would the ideal piece of content cover? 2. Use Smart Tools If your groups are large or physically far apart, it might be a good idea to integrate some task management and communication software. These tools are meant to increase collaboration and transparency, breaking down any barriers that get in the way of productive work. There are a variety of project management and sales enablement tools to consider, including: Slack Trello Asana Basecamp Monday Using a system with automated notifications can help both teams keep an ear to the rails. It can allow for people to quickly touch base on a content idea without disrupting the whole team or another task’s momentum, for continuous workflow. A shared Google Doc is another great way to keep everyone organized on content ideas. A shared document with access to everyone means people can add to it as they go. Keeping a log like this enables the sales team to easily go in and contribute ideas or borrow those that make sense for the funnel, and allows the marketing team a go-to for their brainstorming sessions. 3. Schedule Call Shadowing When making an effort to understand the customer truly, a marketing team can never be too involved in the sales process. For greater insight on what kinds of sales content to create, have your marketing team sit in on a few calls, and do so regularly. This will show them first-hand any content needs and what customers are asking. It’s also helpful to learn how the sales team responds to these questions. What sort of language and terms are they using to describe your product? What are the go-to resources, if any, that they offer up? What does their follow-up look like? Taking note of these steps can help any marketing team better prepare the next time they sit down to write content. 4. Customer Communications In addition to sitting in on a call, a marketing team can also request sales to send them any emails prospects send them with questions or concerns. As a simple rule of thumb, if it starts with “How do I?” then it should be sent to the marketing team. This is an excellent source of ideas, and it doesn’t take a lot of legwork from sales. A marketer can take this messaging and produce content for each stage of the sales funnel, like How-to blog posts for your product, service, or industry White paper guides that go in-depth on a process Interactive social media posts that inspire followers to respond with their tips Slow reveal email campaigns with each email explaining one step in the process eBooks if the answer is very involved and has a lot of moving parts Some of this content can then be used in sales proposals, presentations, and on-sheeters. Also, it might not hurt to ask a few salespeople about their best and worst calls. This can help set a standard for the type of content created. Tips For Creating Sales Enablement Content The goal of using these tactics is to have marketing and sales communicate to the point where effective sales enablement is happening regularly. Creating content that helps sales do their job more efficiently is a lot easier with frequent communication and collaboration. Some key questions to ask when creating sales content include: Does this overcome common objectives? Does this prime prospects to become better customers? Does this educate consumers about our product, processes, and how they can see ROI? Does this provide valuable information prospects can pass on to their team’s decisionmakers? The type of content produced is not as important as the message. After all, there isn’t one type of sales content. It all depends on the audience and their needs, along with your teams’ needs and capabilities. Some may respond better to live webinars while other people prefer an informative article. It never hurts to analyze performance and reset priorities. The more sales and marketing work together, the easier it will be to produce content that can be used to solve customer pain points and move them toward a sale.
A Knowledge Base: The Sales Enablement Tool Your Business Needs Posted on February 6, 2020December 15, 2022 by Tricia O'Donnell A strong knowledge base tells your customers, your industry, and the search engines that you’re an authority in your field. It’s also especially useful in regards to sales enablement. While it might be time-intensive, putting together a knowledge base article on a topic related to the product or service you offer allows your sales team to do their jobs more efficiently. And when your sales team is enabled, you get more deals past the finish line — which in turn benefits your entire organization. Not convinced yet that it’s worth the effort? Keep reading to learn more about what constitutes an effective knowledge base, how it can help your prospects, and your sales team. 4 Factors of A Strong Knowledge Base The reason for building a conversion-driven knowledge base is time-intensive is because it has to be comprehensive if it’s going to be impactful. It also has to be easy for prospects to find. As a way to inform your knowledge base strategy, think of it as a place on your site where prospects can go to get answers to the questions that they would normally reach out to your sales team for. Similar to an FAQ page but broader, and with a bit more depth. The base should include enough information to guide prospects to the next stage of the funnel. It’s not a replacement for other marketing and sales materials, but a supplement. To ensure your knowledge base hits the right marks, make sure it: Is informative Covers a lot of ground Touches on various areas within your service or product offering Can be easily found on your site, ideally within its own designated area It’s obviously very important to build your knowledge base right. Below, we’ll get into the specifics. How a Knowledge Base Helps Prospects To be useful as a sales enablement tool, your knowledge base has to benefit your prospects in some way directly. And from the outset, it does, serving as a reliable place where prospects can go when they need to pull information related to specific topics quickly. Having this resource means that your audience doesn’t have to wait for direct communication when they have a question. Instead of waiting around for customer support or an account manager, prospects can just read one of the many resources available to them and decide how they want to proceed from there. The result is better educated, better-qualified prospects, and a tool that benefits sales as much as it does marketing. How a Knowledge Base Helps Your Sales Team Sales professionals are busy, and they’re often juggling a lot of prospects and a lot of prospect needs at once. And just as your knowledge base serves as a one-stop-shop for prospects to get answers to their questions, it’s also a resource that your sales team can use to do the same. Referencing a comprehensive knowledge base and/or sending it to the prospect is often much more valuable than just sending singular pieces of content. Making it simple for your sales team to use the content you’re creating is crucial since otherwise, they’ll just be messaging you all day, asking if you know where the content is that they’re looking for. A knowledge base takes the guesswork out of curating content for specific prospect needs, allowing your sales team to grab what they need when they need it quickly. And since a knowledge base is sectioned off based on category, a rep doesn’t have to look hard to grab personalized content that targets unique objectives. A knowledge base also helps your sales team re-engage when necessary by providing plenty of options for a quick touch-base with a dormant lead. If a rep hasn’t heard from a particular lead in a while, they can simply pull a piece of content from the knowledge base and use it to pick the conversation back up where it left off. Is Your Knowledge Base Hitting the Mark? As with most things in marketing, it never hurts to take a step back and re-evaluate your existing knowledge base. Here’s a quick overview that you can use to drive your strategy and ensure your knowledge base makes an impact: Make sure all articles tie back to one pillar topic Keep titles simple and straightforward Keep the content itself short and concise; if you need to elaborate, create a blog article on the topic and link to it Add visuals and videos, and don’t forget to include all relevant tags and alt text Run articles by others from your marketing and sales team to get another set of eyes on the page and ensure there are no obvious informational gaps Put in the time now with your knowledge base, and you should see a lot of benefits later on. And as always, check back regularly to ensure that it’s still performing how you want it to.
How to Achieve A Happy Balance Between Content Creation and Curation Posted on February 5, 2020February 5, 2020 by Natalie Slyman There’s a lot of valuable content out there, and it doesn’t necessarily all come from your own team. Content curation is the process of culling media from other brands to amplify the authority and reach of your own. It’s different than content creation, which is when you craft original content for the same purposes. Distributing content from your brand on social media and in email messaging is imperative. But it also doesn’t hurt to share relevant pieces of content from other brands that are interesting and informative. Here’s why incorporating other content into your distribution strategy is smart (as well as some ideas on how to do it). 1. It Shows You’re Doing Your Research Content serves a lot of purposes, but one of the most important is that it helps you build authority with your audience. When you curate content from other sources, it’s like saying to your network that you have your finger on the pulse of other noteworthy topics and articles in your industry. It’s also proof that you’re doing your homework by being invested in engaging with your field — even if it doesn’t necessarily get you a link back to your website. Building authority is one of the most significant benefits of content curation. If you show that you’re an active learner in addition to being an active teacher, your network will take notice and appreciate it. 2. It Increases the Knowledge You’re Able to Spread If you think a piece of content is valuable, then chances are the people who follow you and are interested in the same topics are going to find it useful as well. If you’re an expert in your field, then you’re already doing your homework to sharpen your skills. You’re subscribed to the right blogs and publications within your industry, and you’re reading content daily and deciphering what it means, and how it will affect what you do. Share that knowledge! All it takes is a few clicks, and that article that showed you something compelling is immediately accessible to others. It’s a win-win and a great way to show how invested you are in helping your network get all of the information that they need. 3. It Creates Brand Advocacy What do guest posts, webinars, and co-branded marketing materials all have in common? They’re a way to partner with other brands and boost each other’s visibility. But, they aren’t the only way to achieve that. When you curate content from other sites (and especially when you tag and/or otherwise link to them when you share it), it’s a great way to get on their radar and potentially open the door to a mutually beneficial relationship. Maybe as a thank you, they share a piece of your content as well. Either way, you’re forming a key connection — one that could provide you with a lot of advantages later on. 4. It Can Inspire Your Content Strategy Some of the best content ideas are those that are inspired by other pieces of content. While it’s certainly important to create content around original ideas, there’s nothing wrong with writing a piece that shares your perspective on a relevant topic, whether or not another brand out there has done something similar. There is content being created constantly, and honestly, we’ve all probably created at least a few pieces of content that have already been covered (whether we know it or not). So while you’re looking for other content to share, keep track of the fascinating topic ideas that you can use later on to inspire your own. How to Achieve That Happy Balance So how do you put both content creation and content curation to work for your business? Instead of just relying on one or the other, strike a balance between the two. Here are some ways to do it. Aggregate content on your site. Designate a location on your website that’s dedicated to content curation on relevant topics and industry news. Include a blurb about the piece and then a link to the original content page. Share it on social. Social media is an excellent place to share curated content with your network. Preface links with a quick sentence about the piece or a quote from it, and be sure to tag the source to increase your chances of building brand advocacy. Create an original take. Remember, curated content is a great way to inspire your own ideas. If you have something to add to the conversation, do so by building off of existing content with an original take. Not only will your content be timely, but it will also be able to piggyback off of dialogue that’s already taking place. As a general word of wisdom, be selective about whose content you share. Any site that you curate content from should have authority and reputability, and the content itself should be relevant in some way to your industry and/or the product or service that you provide. Make a point of following sites that fit the bill so that when they post something new, you’ll know about it right away. That way, your contribution to the discourse will be warranted.
Interactive Survey Videos: The Key to Consumer Insights Posted on February 4, 2020September 22, 2022 by Guest Author Did you know that video content is among the most engaging content on social media? We are clicking on video over 5 billion times a day on YouTube alone, and Facebook counts 100 million hours of video a day. We love the charge our brain gets with the flurry of images. Your customers love video, but what about customer surveys? As marketers, we love them because they get into the minds of our customers, providing us with data we can use to better appeal to them and their needs. But is there a middle ground? Is there an easy and engaging solution that gets marketers and customers what they want? The answer is interactive video surveys. What are interactive video surveys? How do they both gather what you need from your audience and delight them? Well, keep reading, and we’ll tell you. What Are Interactive Survey Videos? Interactive video serves up the ability to ask questions, track responses, caption text, including captioning in dozens of other languages, search options, and certification (a.k.a. award/reward). All of this is under your branding so, you are staying top-of-mind. Making videos is simple with today’s devices, and there are also several stock video services as well. If you are originating your own video, storyboard your scenes and keep it three minutes or less. Ask five or fewer questions. Being respectful of the survey takers’ time will net you better results. Let’s say you are a hospital and are looking to increase your brand with a nutritional wellness program. You are about to launch a new marketing campaign and want to gauge your customer’s interest in nutrition. Your interactive video will have only your branding and colorful images to get their attention. If you have a terrific spokesperson, have them immediately thank the viewer for watching and then ask for help in the form of taking the survey. Make your customers feel special and needed, and that will increase your response rate. Take advantage of social reciprocity and offer something upfront in addition to your gratitude. Perhaps a free health analysis or a nutritional infographic will be well received. The point is to generate a response from your client. But Will My Consumers Respond? When customers are motivated appropriately, you’ll see a higher response, and therefore a more significant contribution. Learning Management Systems, or “LMS,” which tracks and delivers learning and development opportunities in the corporate sector, has been running towards interactive video because studies repeatedly show that engagement increases with interactivity. What’s more, the most popular type of video to watch is product review videos. This fares well for you as it shows customers are interested in your business if you give them a good reason. Your customers want to tell you what they like and don’t like so you might as well make it easy for them. 6 Steps to Interactive Video Surveys You can do this in 6 simple steps. It’s a creative process as well as a profitable strategy for your business, so enjoy the ride and have fun. 1. Create or Download Stock Video. Keep it 3 minutes or less. Aretha Franklin’s Respect is well under three minutes, so magic can be had in 180 seconds. 2. Write Your Survey. Content is your love letter to your customers and is instrumental in getting them to click. What is your goal for the survey? Use resources to write the best questions. 3. Put Together the Survey. Use a platform such as Jolokia’s Inferno to make your customer satisfaction survey interactive and engaging by adding captions, quizzing, and reporting. 4. Use Colorful Imagery. Use imagery that pertains to your survey questions. A colorful image is visually appealing and will get the attention of survey takers, not only with color but with movement. Our eyes find this hard to resist. 5. Launch Your Interactive Video Survey. So far, so good! You have your interactive video and survey questions, so now it’s time to share. It’s easy to launch to either your existing customer database or on social media. This would be a good place to “reward” your survey takers with a little something from you. Maybe they get a one-page infographic on the benefits of nutrition that includes your contact information. Working from social media with your interactive video survey could net you a few rewards as well as increasing market exposure, continued branding, educating new customers as to your offerings, and general goodwill for your hospital. 6. Relax. Eat a cookie. Wait for responses to pile in and keep track of how many. 7. Track Responses. Tracking responses is easy since you will have a single-sign-on by sending the interactive video survey directly to your customer base. If launching on social media, you can have them give you an email to take the survey. You’ll be able to track responses and use the data to make your business better. Using this data, you can focus your marketing efforts on targeted messages. Knowing what your patients and clients will respond to increases your chance of achievement of a positive message. 8. Repeat. Send more video surveys to build your base and grow customer satisfaction. Use the results of your previous surveys to tweak and improve your future ones for more success. Here’s to getting your clients to tell you what they like. Author Bio Donna Smith Fee is Director of Sales for Jolokia, an enterprise video solutions company. She lives in Athens, GA, where there is always music and interesting people with whom to have a good conversation.
BenchmarkONE’s Latest Feature: Gmail Integration Posted on January 29, 2020July 15, 2020 by Allie Wolff Say hello to BenchmarkONE’s latest integration: Gmail! Now you can boost your team’s sales productivity without ever having to leave the comfort of your inbox. The integration allows you to bring the power of BenchmarkONE’s CRM directly into your Gmail inbox to save time and prevent workflow disruptions when bouncing between applications. Seamlessly Create and Track Contacts With a few simple clicks, you can easily create new BenchmarkONE contacts from right inside your Gmail inbox to make sure you’re keeping tabs on all of your valuable prospects and customers. The new integration puts your entire CRM database at your fingertips. Quickly search for specific BenchmarkONE contacts inside of Gmail – no switching browser windows. Access valuable information, like contact details, recent activity, notes and tasks to give you all the context you need for your next outreach. Even better, see if a contact opened your latest email and whether you should be following up on the spot. Easily leave additional notes, create follow-up tasks and add new tags on the fly for a more streamlined sales process that ensures important information isn’t getting left behind in your Gmail inbox. With BenchmarkONE’s new Gmail integration, you can eliminate the back and forth between valuable applications and streamline your sales process to ensure that the contact information you need is accessible anywhere at any time.
Avoid Employee Turnover with These 8 Tactics Posted on January 29, 2020November 11, 2022 by Jonathan Herrick Qualified talent is one of the greatest commodities in business today. The more talented, hardworking, and sharp your employees are, the better your company operates and delivers to its clients. But, finding the right people isn’t always easy, especially when there’s more and more competition out there. When you do finally find those great people to fill your company, what if you lose them? When employees quit, it’s not only discouraging and disappointing, but it’s costly. The average employee exit costs 33 percent of their annual salary. So, it’s not only hard to get quality people, but it’s also very expensive if they leave. Avoiding employee turnover helps your business thrive, and there’s no peace of mind like that of knowing your employees are satisfied and enjoy coming to work every day. But how do you ensure you’re building a company that can keep its talent? Here I’ll share eight ways you can avoid employee turnover and retain your top people. 1. Streamline Your Hiring Process Retaining employees starts with how you hire them. If your retention rate is low, it’s best to start with your hiring process and ensure how you hire people is the same across the board. Put a lot of time into how you put together your job descriptions. Are you clearly defining the role and thoroughly explaining the position? The better you are at describing what the position demands, the more relevant candidates apply. You should also do everything you can to ensure the prospect is a good fit for your company culture. Sometimes an employee can be perfectly skilled but a bad match for the environment. And while you can teach someone the skills needed for the job, you can’t teach culture. 2. Keep Compensation Updated Employees know their worth so, a company must know it too. If you are not paying employees the typical salary range for their position and region, they will not stay. There’s a lot of opportunities out there, and one promises more money, they will be absorbed by the competition. Don’t just ask yourself what your employees are worth to you. Look at the national average salary for their positions and take into consideration location and the cost of living. Be reasonable, but also be mindful of your business’s means. 3. Be Socially Conscious It can be working in a soup kitchen or holding a fundraiser, but whatever kinds of initiatives your company does to give back will show your employees just how much you care about your community. Also, giving your employees a chance to participate in giving back is great for morale and adds to the greater good. Bring them further into the process by asking them to suggest organizations to get involved with or other ideas for giving back. Showing prospects and employees that these kinds of initiatives matter to your company will make them confident that they’re part of an organization aimed at doing good and investing in others. 4. Train Management Effectively A recent survey found that lousy boss performance makes employees four times more likely to quit. You could have a robust and healthy company culture, but if your management team doesn’t know what they’re doing, people will get fed up and leave, especially if they do not feel they are being treated fairly. Make sure your management team finds a way to effectively support people and help them grow without breathing down their necks. Modern employees despise micromanagement and are likely to look for another position if they feel there’s a lack of autonomy. Instead, a routine check-in with positive reinforcement is your best bet. Also, don’t be afraid to offer ongoing training and professional development for your management team. Just because they’re at that professional level, doesn’t mean they’re perfect. In actuality, it means they have to work harder to maintain that position and thrive in it. 5. Be Flexible Thirty-four percent of U.S. workers would take a pay cut of up to five percent to work remotely. It’s a huge benefit all around, both to your pocket and their freedom. If your employees work more efficiently from a remote location, be open to it. It shows that you have trust in them, which leads to a higher performance and more willingness to please. Building a culture around a work remote policy doesn’t have to be scary or hard. Just make sure you enforce clear guidelines around doing so and establish any do’s and don’ts upfront, so everyone is on the same page. 6. Ask and Listen It’s never a bad time to survey employees. Asking people for input makes them feel heard. If you think it will yield a better, more truthful response, make your surveys anonymous and ask candid questions about satisfaction, job security, needed improvements, what they enjoy about the company, and what they wish they could change. Once you receive the results and have time to review them, take action on suggestions. When you show your staff that you take their input seriously and care about their feedback, you show them that you genuinely value them and that they can make a difference. Added bonus, surveying employees can also help to refine product development. After all, who knows better about what customers want than members of your sales or customer service departments? 7. Demonstrate a Path to Growth Nobody wants to feel stuck in a position that no longer pushes them, challenges them, or that they’ve grown unhappy with. Management often lives by the “see no evil, hear no evil” motto. And while if no one is voicing their unhappiness, then things are probably fine, don’t underestimate your employees’ engagement. If it’s tough to speak to each person daily, a monthly one-on-one meeting can help uncover any dejection with growth opportunities. Make sure employees understand what type of promotional plan is available to them. Whether it is a higher role, more responsibilities, or a pay increase, there must always be clear goals set for advancement that they know about. 8. Toss Out Performance Reviews Does this idea scare you a bit? While performance reviews have been the go-to tactic for employee growth for years, they’re quickly becoming a thing of the past. Their effectiveness is dwindling, and they typically cause a great amount of anxiety in employees. In fact, studies show that only 44 percent of HR leaders find reviews to be inaccurate, and 80 percent of Gen Y prefer on-the-spot recognition. It’s more successful to practice an ongoing dialogue with people about performance. Not only does this make it less stifling and awkward, but it allows any issues to be addressed quicker and more effectively. People are less on guard and more open to positive change. Make sure you practice this idea for positive feedback, too. Recognize and reward employees when you recognize them doing something well. Consider creating incentive programs or small prizes to show people you are paying attention to them. The more specific the reward, the more it will mean to the particular employee. Some employee turnover is inevitable, but if you find the rate rising, it’s imperative to address internal processes. Review how you are hiring and bringing in new talent. You may need to define the role further. Once you have a good team, listen to them, respect them, and help them grow.
The State of K12 School District Newsletters Posted on January 28, 2020February 1, 2021 by Jess Lunk Curious about how school districts leverage newsletters and the most common communication struggles they face? We’ve gone straight to the source. We surveyed K12 school communicators about the ins-and-outs of their school district newsletters and their biggest challenges for 2020. In this post, we’re bringing our findings to you, highlighting some of the most compelling things that we learned about the state of K12 school district newsletters. Is your school district getting the most out of its newsletter? Here’s what you need to know. Who Are the Audiences for School District Newsletters? Every marketer knows that you need to have a keen idea of who your audience is before you can effectively communicate with them. We asked respondents to tell us which stakeholders they are communicating with in their school newsletters. For the respondents we surveyed: At least 82 percent said internal/staff are part of their audience 80 percent said they communicate with parents The school board – 70 percent Local media – 25 percent Whoever is interested and has signed up to receive it – 12.5 percent If you’re like most K12 school districts sending your newsletter to multiple audiences, it’s important to segment your contacts and adjust your newsletter content as needed depending on what each group needs to know. Internal staff, for example, are going to have very different viewpoints on what’s interesting and relevant versus parents. Smart school newsletter tools (like our own K12 Edition) include dynamic content, which allows school communicators to swap out blocks of content based on the list to which their newsletter is sent. How are School Districts Sending Their Newsletters, and In What Format? We consume a ton of digital content, and school districts are keeping up by making their school district newsletters accessible in multiple digital formats – in pdfs, HTML email and on their websites. Over 80 percent said their newsletters are digital and are sent using an email newsletter platform 34 percent said their newsletters are printed out and mailed Over 19 percent said their email newsletters are digital and in HTML format At least 14 percent said their newsletters are digital and sent using a PDF through a tool Seven percent said their newsletters are digital and simply posted to their websites Almost five percent said their newsletters are printed and sent home with students The large majority of K12 school district newsletters are digital, and in most cases, they’re being sent out via an email marketing automation platform. Printed newsletters do still have some popularity too, though it doesn’t seem like most districts aren’t typically using students as a vehicle to deliver information. By using more than just one tool or method to share K12 school district newsletters, school communicators are upping the bar for getting as much engagement as possible. How are Elementary and High Schools Handling Newsletters? We asked school communicators if their schools sent out their own newsletter in addition to the district school newsletter. Of the districts we surveyed, we were surprised that 17.5 percent said that their schools are not taking the opportunity to send out a newsletter. Among the schools who do send their own newsletter communication, digital and printed newsletters are being produced to reach stakeholders wherever they engage most: 27.5 percent are printing and sending a newsletter home with students, while 7.5% are mailing out printed newsletters 32.5 percent are sending newsletters as a pdf document via their school’s notification system 20 percent are using their notification system to send HTML newsletters 45 percent use an HTML newsletter platform, like BenchmarkONE K12 edition 12.5 percent are keeping their website up to date with their latest school newsletter What Are the Most Common Methods for Adding New Email Recipients? Unlike traditional brands, school districts don’t necessarily have a team of people who are committed to keeping the contact list updated. To add new email recipients: 69.2 percent sync up with their Student Information System (SIS) 30.7 percent use a website sign-up form 25.6 percent manually add new contact from their SIS Once again, diversity in methods is probably best. If you’re just syncing your contacts up or manually adding them from your SIS, also add on a website form that automatically connects to your email platform (or wherever you’re storing your contacts) so that you can get as many new sign-ups as possible. What Are School Communicators’ Biggest Frustrations with School District Newsletters? We asked school communicators about their biggest challenges, and they didn’t hold back. Some of what we heard in response: “Our buildings don’t understand that less can be more and a higher frequency doesn’t mean you are doing twice the work.” Hint: Learn about how to create the optimal school newsletter schedule. “Getting all of the info to fit into the size of an email. And manually having to go through SIS to update new families that have withdrawn is a pain.” Hint: BenchmarkONE K12 Edition allows FTP upload, making it easier to keep your contacts synced with SIS. “People not reading it. There is important information included but we’re struggling with how to present it in a way stakeholders will want to read, or learn more.” Hint: Get tips for increasing parent digital engagement. What About Their Overall School District Newsletter Goals? Frustrations aside, there’s a reason that K12 school districts put so much effort into their newsletters. Here’s what school communicators had to say about their goals: “To keep internal and external audiences informed with timely, relevant information that builds and maintains relationships with our school community members and fosters pride and support.” “We want to reach 100 percent of our parents and employees, [and] we also want our news and info made available to any media outlets or community supporters who are interested in receiving it.” So what else? Other goals mentioned included keeping the community informed, sharing information among buildings, and making it easy for the superintendent to communicate with staff. Whether you share these goals (and challenges) or not, we hope you’ve learned some interesting things from our school district newsletter survey — we know that we did!
6 Ways to Distribute Your Content (That You Haven’t Already Tried) Posted on January 28, 2020January 23, 2020 by Natalie Slyman “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” You’ve probably heard this philosophical question before. But when it comes to your content marketing, the saying goes, “If a piece of published content isn’t distributed, was it even created at all?” There’s no greater sorrow than that of a piece of unshared content. I use “sorrow” because when you think about the amount of time it took to brainstorm, pull research and information, write the article, edit, optimize for search, and then publish it, it is quite sorrowful if no one ends up knowing about it. Your contents’ lifespan doesn’t come to an end once it’s published. In fact, life begins at publication. What you do with your content and how you distribute it matters greatly to its success, so making sure you’re trying various methods will make all the difference. Here are some ways to distribute your content that you haven’t already tried. 1. Blog Teaser If you just completed a whitepaper or other gated resource, put together a blog post that teases it and excites readers to download it. This helps you capitalize on your blog traffic by getting this new piece of content in front of your blog readers. And, if you’re anything like us, you’re sharing your blog content with your prospects via email marketing. Do the same with your teasers by including them in drip campaigns and your newsletters. 2. Guest-Contributed Articles Did you know that guest-contributed content can be a form of distribution? Guest-contributed content is any piece of content you write for another online publication or another brand’s blog. When doing so, find a seamless way to link to the specific piece of content you’re trying to distribute. This will hopefully get some more eyes on it that wouldn’t otherwise know about it or see it. 3. LinkedIn Groups LinkedIn Groups are great because they’re driven by specific industries and typically consist of professionals within that industry. All you have to do is find and join the groups targeted to your audience (so if you’re a marketing company, find any that focus on marketing, digital marketing, social media, etc.) and share your content in the group thread. Most groups will flag promotion, so make sure you explain how the piece of content you’re sharing benefits the group. 4. LinkedIn Pulse Once one of your blog posts or articles is published, head over to LinkedIn and take advantage of LinkedIn Pulse. LinkedIn Pulse is LinkedIn’s news feed that aggregates certain content and shares it in the feeds of those who may be interested. I frequently use the platform to republish my content. All you have to do is click the “Write an article” option and copy and paste your article. Make sure to add a header image and to source where it was initially published. 5. Medium Medium is another republishing platform. Use it similarly to LinkedIn Pulse by reposting any published content so it can be shared with Medium’s audience. It’s a simple way to repurpose a valuable piece of content. 6. Create A Webinar Around It Not seeing enough people download a particular whitepaper? Then try creating an entire webinar inspired by it. Use the whitepaper as a guide, pulling some important tips from it to touch on in the broadcast. But, make sure not to give everything away. At the end of your webinar, you can promote your whitepaper, letting registrants know that there’s more information for them to check out which can motivate more downloads. Just make sure you track how many people are downloading it so you can see how well this method worked. You probably noticed that social media wasn’t one of the items listed, and that’s because you’re perhaps already sharing your content on your social platforms. That’s great! But you aren’t pushing the envelope and getting creative unless you’re also trying the five methods listed above. Are there any other creative ways to distribute content that we forgot about? Let us know!
Lead Nurture for Beginners: Everything You Need to Know Posted on January 23, 2020January 22, 2020 by Jessica Lunk One of our biggest goals of inbound marketers is converting leads to customers. We want to not only attract people to our website but once they’re there, it’s crucial to funnel them into our sales process via email nurture campaigns. Why? Well, there’s a lot to be gained from effective lead nurturing. Well-nurtured leads are more likely to become brand loyalists, and in turn, advocate your brand to others, serving as stronger partners in the long run. Also, an educated lead makes smarter decisions and becomes a strong, lasting customer when they do decide to partner with you. But before you hop on the nurture train, you have to really understand who your leads are and where they are in their journey. So, we’re offering up some tips for you to follow to ensure your bases are covered, and you’re going about it the right way. Qualifying Your Leads Qualifying is the act of classifying your lead based on how well they align with your buyer personas and how close they are to making a purchasing decision. Knowing where your leads stand in these two areas helps you get to know them better so you can identify the best way to nurture them. The two practices that help you qualify your leads is lead scoring and identifying where a lead falls within the buyer’s journey. Lead Scoring Lead scoring helps you better understand your leads and segment them into the right lists so you can send them personalized emails. To score appropriately, learn as much as you can – their demographics, actions taken on your site, how they engage with your content, job title, industry, company, etc. Compare this information against your audience personas to determine where a lead fits and, therefore, how you should score and segment them for different nurture campaigns. Leads and the Buyer’s Journey Each stage of the buyer’s journey represents a certain level of understanding of what your company does and how ready your lead is to make a decision. You’ll need to know where your prospects are and how to use the right content to engage and convert them. Awareness: Leads in this stage have just discovered your company, what it is you do, and how you can possibly help them. They need content that explains your services and shows you as an industry leader. Consideration: Now that they know what you do, they’re starting to compare you against competitors and consider working with you. They’ll need more content that positions you as an industry leader, as well as shows how you help your current customers meet their goals. Decision: They’re ready to make a decision, so you’ll want to make sure they can easily sign up for a demo of your product. Continue to send them case studies, testimonials, and pricing information to help seal the deal. To help connect the dots, look at your leads’ behaviors — from what kinds of content they’re engaging with to what online forms they’re filling out to how they got to your site in the first place. Keep in mind that leads come into the buyer’s journey at various stages of the funnel, and just because a prospect is new doesn’t mean they’re not in the consideration or decision stage. Lead Nurturing With Email There are different types of email nurture out there, and each serves a specific purpose. Here are a few email examples and how they can continuously provide nurture to your leads. Drip Campaigns Email drip campaigns are a series of emails sent to your leads aimed at helping you stay top of mind with them and move them through the funnel over time. They allow you to send lots of content and resources, but at a designated frequency that doesn’t inundate a lead’s inbox. Always make sure your drip campaigns are personalized by creating a campaign for each stage of the funnel. Newsletters These types of emails are sent every week or month, and they typically include a roundup of your recently published blog content. A great newsletter tip is to personalize them by creating separate campaigns for each of your audience members. For example, if one of your target audiences is small businesses, send your list of small business leads a newsletter each month that only includes blog content specifically created to address the needs and pain points of small businesses. Email Courses Oftentimes leads get stuck within a particular stage of the funnel because they lack information. Create an email series that includes tutorials or guides on a specific area and send them to these stagnant leads. You’ll be providing them with precisely what they need, when they need it, and get them moving on to the next stage. Other Nurture Tactics Lead nurturing can take place through a lot of different channels, including your website and social media platforms. On your blog, make sure you are regularly posting high-quality and original content, and make it easy for leads to find the resources they need. A helpful way to do this is to create categories and designate each blog post to its appropriate category. On your social media pages, share your content but also be active and engaged. Make sure to listen, too, paying attention not just to your role but to what others are saying about you so you can respond when and if it’s needed. When you do lead nurturing right, you create a foundation of trust and engagement that can turn site visitors into leads and leads into long-time customers. So what are you waiting for? Work lead nurturing into your existing marketing strategy and get all of the benefits that come along with it.