The True Cost of a Bad Hire (and How You Can Avoid Them) Posted on December 28, 2018December 28, 2018 by Erin Posey There comes a time in just about every hiring manager’s career when, despite their most valiant efforts, a bad hire manages to slip through the cracks. According to Brandon Hall Group, some 95 percent of employers make a hiring mistake each and every year. Making a poor hiring decision can cost a lot more in the long run than just the headache of dealing with a bad employee. In fact, with the US Department of Labor putting the price of a bad hire at around 30% of the employee’s first year’s earnings, the financial implications alone can run anywhere from several hundred to tens of thousands of dollars. To counteract this, some companies – like the popular shoe brand Zappos – even offer separation bonuses so that, in the event that a new hire doesn’t work out, they can cut their losses and mitigate financial impact on their bottom line. Hopefully, separation bonuses won’t have to be something your company has to implement, but it’s important to have a clear understanding of exactly what impact a poor hiring choice can have. Knowing this can help make the importance of hiring right the first time even more of a priority. Additionally, taking a few proactive measures, such as those listed below, can help improve your odds of hiring right. Mastering the Interview Process One of the easiest ways to reduce the risk associated with hiring the wrong candidates is to improve the interview processes. In fact, according to the Brandon Hall survey referenced above, 69 percent of organizations surveyed listed broken interview processes as having the greatest impact on the quality of their hires. To avoid these problems, try the following: Create and stick to a consistent interview strategy Make a checklist of questions for each phase of the interview process Implement a protocol for who will conduct each stage of the interview (i.e., recruiter, first-line supervisor, manager, etc.) Improving Candidate Experience Investing in the candidate experience can improve your quality of hires by up to 70 percent. There are a number of ways you can accomplish this, including the following: Leverage social media Participate in talent communities Go mobile to make the process easy and convenient Use video technology Ask new hires and recent job applicants to share their experience on review sites like Glassdoor Invest in Employer Branding Brandon Hall’s survey also revealed that organizations that invest in employer branding are 3x more likely to make better hires. The two main areas you should focus on when working to improve your branding are your company image and its reputation. Your image involves the language you use in your job postings and any other external recruitment tools you use. Your reputation encompasses everything that others say about your company online (hence the importance of positive comments on third-party review sites). Perhaps Steve Jobs stated it best when he said: “The secret of my success is that we have gone to exceptional lengths to hire the best people in the world.” By employing the tips listed above, you can improve your chances of getting it right the first time, every time, and save your company from the high cost of bad hires.
7 Best Email Marketing Tools for Agencies Posted on December 27, 2018September 8, 2022 by Allie Wolff Email marketing is still, after all of these years, one of the most successful digital marketing tactics you can offer as an agency. In one study, email was reported to have an average ROI of an incredible 3,800 percent. Whether your email marketing campaign process is sophisticated or burgeoning, you’ll likely need a series of tools (or one comprehensive solution) to help you. Choosing the right one is a bit tricky, however. You’ll have different requirements if your agency offers email marketing as part of its broader services, versus if you specialize in the discipline. You’ll also find different products with strengths and weaknesses in specific areas, like: Creating email templates Integrating your CRM and sales data Sending automated emails or drip campaigns Managing multiple clients’ email campaigns Syncing contact information with social media Beyond that, if you offer email marketing services to your clients, you may also be looking for a vendor that allows you to rebrand their tool as your own – and include the price of software in your packages so you can profit on each campaign. Here are our top picks for email marketing software for agencies in 2019, to help both you and your clients boost the bottom line. Image courtesy of Benchmark Benchmark Here’s one of the most elegant email marketing automation tools out there. If design, interactivity, and responsiveness are essential to your campaign, Benchmark is a great solution. Key features: Intuitive template-builder Live editor, so you can see changes to your design as you make them Integrates with third-party apps like Shopify, Paypal, and more. Free plan (unlimited contacts and up to 25 emails a month) Best for: Agencies that don’t want an overly complex tool and care deeply about design. Image courtesy of Campaigner Campaigner Campaigner is a deluxe email marketing solution, used by thousands of businesses and agencies. It’s known for its advanced targeting, automation, and integration capabilities, making it a popular solution for agencies that know exactly what they want out of an email marketing platform. Key features: High deliverability/security Award-winning support Workflow/team management White-labeling and markup options Best for: Agencies that want to offer a powerful and white-labeled email marketing tool for their clients. Image courtesy of Campaign Monitor Campaign Monitor Campaign Monitor is an established email marketing solution, designed for agencies. It’s scalable, so you can get started knowing that it’ll grow with you when your business grows. Key features: Pre-designed email templates Advanced segmentation and targeting options Drag and drop builder 24/7 global support 10% discount for agencies Best for: Agencies with complex or multiple client campaigns, as it allows for easy toggling between views. Image courtesy of Emfluence Emfluence Need a straightforward, affordable email marketing solution that includes other essential marketing tools? Because it was built by a marketing agency, you can trust they understand what agencies are looking for in an email tool. Features: Email automation Landing page builder Survey creation Social media automation Best for: Marketing and advertising agencies who need a host of marketing solutions (in addition to email) for a reasonable price. BenchmarkONE BenchmarkONE’s email marketing solutions combine sales and marketing in one simple, but powerful dashboard. Designed specifically with agencies in mind, the platform features all the must-haves (automation of repetitive tasks, lead scoring, advanced segmentation) and thousands of happy customers report that the software is easy to learn and even easier to use. Key features: Full suite of marketing tools (beyond email) including automation, CRM, webpage tracking and more Pre-built email templates and drip campaigns Award-winning customer service Landing pages & popups Agency partner program Free plan (up to 500 contacts and 1,000 emails a month) Best for: Small and medium agencies that want a lot of power and customization, without having to spend on an enterprise-level solution. Image courtesy of Mailchimp Mailchimp Mailchimp’s been around for nearly two decades, offering inexpensive list-building, email marketing, and automation tools since then. It’s known as the “world’s largest marketing automation platform,” and a great DIY option for agencies at different stages in the game. Key features: Advanced metrics and dashboard Extensive email templates and design options Ability to create social media ads within Mailchimp platform Best for: Agencies that serve e-Commerce brands, and who want a trusted partner with proven longevity. Moonmail If you’re super strapped for cash, or just getting started with email marketing, Moonmail offers all of the essentials with none of the fluff. The pricing is fair, and the platform is simple to navigate. Key features: Drag-and-drop email builder Integration with Zapier Secure (unlike some other budget options) Unlimited subscribers/campaigns Best for: New and small agencies, those with a limited budget, or those who are already using several other marketing tools and need to add an email tool to their tech stack.
8 Tips for Automating Your New Customer Onboarding Experience with BenchmarkONE Posted on December 26, 2018December 15, 2022 by Jessica Lunk When does your customer get the first impression of your business? We often think of our marketing at this moment, or maybe a customer’s first few engagements with a sales team. The truth is, the real impression begins after a client has decided to do business with you. This is the moment you either meet, exceed, or fail to live up to your new customer’s expectations. Customer onboarding is the first impression that really counts. If you get it right, you may reduce churn and cultivate raving fans who bring in future business. We want to help you get it right. One of the best ways to ensure that nothing slips between the cracks is to use BenchmarkONE to automate new client onboarding. Here are eight tips for automating the customer onboarding process so you can spend your valuable time on what you’re best at. Use Zapier to connect BenchmarkONE to your other tools. When your customers sign up, where does their contact information go? In order to onboard your customers (and nurture them continually), you’ll have to keep their contact information organized in BenchmarkONE. But instead of manually putting your customers’ contact info into your CRM, why not automate it? Zapier connects with thousands of other apps to move data from all over the web into BenchmarkONE, so you can have a complete picture of your customer base. Use a pre-built campaign template. Your client onboarding experience likely has some kind of welcome email or package. Use Hatchbuck’s pre-built template to get your client relationship off to a good start. Here’s how. Go to Tools > Campaigns, name your campaign, and select “New Client Campaign.” Download the campaign template and modify it to fit your business. Use advanced timers. If your clients are international, you probably don’t want your onboarding emails showing up at 2:00 AM. You may also want to limit your emails to weekdays only. Fortunately, when you edit an individual email within your automation, you can select “Advanced Timers” to control when your emails show up in your customer’s inbox. Automate the transactional stuff. Some aspects of onboarding are completely mundane and impersonal. If your customers need their own account to access your offerings, you can save yourself a ton of time by automating transactional emails that provide passwords and other account information. The same can be said for regular emails like invoicing (if your pricing structure is monthly, for example) or signing contracts. Create your custom email flow in Tools > Campaigns > Start from Scratch. Choose “Event-Based Campaign,” with the event being the day your customer signs up for your service. Click “New Automation,” and select from the many possible automations. For example, you could choose “remove tag from contact” if they were tagged as a prospect, and then select “tag a contact” to change their tag to “customer.” You could also trigger a notification, start a deal, add to an event, and much more. Segment your customers using tags for content marketing Your customers play different roles in their lives or jobs, and they’re naturally more interested in some content than others. If you segment your customer base using tags, you can set up several different email automations that send the kind of content that’s most likely to interest new customers. For example, if you’re a social media management company, you might serve two kinds of customers: individual influencers and small businesses. If you create two tags, “Influencers” and “SMB,” you can automatically send resources that are custom-made for each of those groups. Or, segment your customers based on their interest level in your onboarding content. Did you know BenchmarkONE can add (or subtract) points to each of your contacts to gauge how interested they are in different content? For instance, you could have: Opens email: 5 points Clicked on link to watch video: 10 points Clicked on link to download free resource: 20 points Unsubscribes: -10 points Under Email Templates > Edit Template, you can add automations for specific links. For assigning points to big-picture actions like opening an email or deleting one, go to Account Settings > Customizations > Contact Scoring. Since this technique will give you an overall idea of how interested a customer is in your content, you can opt to send helpful resources or additional content only to those who have a certain point value or higher. Send emails from different users. In some organizations, it might not make sense for the CEO’s name to be in the “From” section of an email about invoicing (even if the CEO actually is the one sending that email). That’s why the “Send From” field exists in BenchmarkONE. When you edit an email in the “Automation” section, you can select who the email should appear to be from. You can then select a specific user from your account. Here’s where you can find more information on adding more users in BenchmarkONE. Cross-sell with drip campaigns. Yes, cross-selling can be part of the onboarding process. If you have something else of value that your customer would love, it’s worthwhile to enter them in a drip campaign to see if you might do more business with them. Set up a drip campaign in the “Campaigns” section. BenchmarkONE even has a template for a “Resource Download” campaign that can serve as a jumping-off point for sending your content marketing materials.
The Pros and Cons of Attending Marketing Conferences Posted on December 24, 2018December 21, 2018 by Jonathan Herrick Professional conferences — especially marketing conferences — can be a great place to learn, connect with industry peers and get up to speed on the latest tech tools. But it can be all too easy to jump onboard, visit a bunch of seminars, share a cocktail (or two) with industry leaders, take stacks of notes…and return home-only to go back to business as usual. With most marketing departments stretched thin, how can you decide if marketing conferences are a good idea for your team to attend? One way to learn whether a marketing conference will benefit you or your group is to make a list of pros and cons of attending marketing conferences to assure that your money is being well spent. After all, even a high-energy conference may leave you with a sour feeling if it doesn’t result in any tangible ROI. A Few Drawbacks of Marketing Conferences Let’s start off with the bad news first. These drawbacks may not be immediately obvious, so here’s some food for thought: Productivity Loss Conferences typically last 2 to 4 days, so you’ll want to get your money’s worth, for sure. But you’ll have to think about how many total days you will be out of office. Add in travel distance and time, as well as exhaustion from travel, especially in different time zones. A 3-day conference can easily turn into a 5-day time loss. Consider whether the attendees will work while attending the conference as well. Are there clients or prospects in the area that you could meet with to lessen the productivity loss? Do you have enough coverage back at home base to fill in when you have a team member at the conference? With average marketing salaries from $40 – 100K, the costs from productivity loss could range $150 to $2,000, so plan accordingly. Hidden Costs Individual tickets to these events usually is not cheap. The average range for the tickets alone is between $800 and $2,100. If you’re lucky, the event will offer discounts, typically 20 – 40% off, for early registration or for sending multiple employees. However, those discounts won’t always offset the total costs. You’ll also need to add costs for the hotel and flight or rental car. The total cost depends, of course, on the length of the conference. Hotels near the conference, or the one hosting sometimes offer packages that accompany the tickets. Nevertheless, you’re still likely to be paying roughly $1– 3K per person and that doesn’t including meals. Networking/Recruitment Employee Loss Certainly it’s a difficult subject, but one to be considered. Some employers may be reluctant to send employees to conferences because they offer the possibility of introducing employees to opportunistic recruiters looking for top talent. Unfortunately this isn’t just a possibility. It’s a reality. This does happen and losing a key employee isn’t cheap. Stats show that hiring and training costs to replace an employee with a $40k salary can run you as high as 8k, 20% of the annual salary on average.That’s not to say every conference will see the loss of an employee, but it is something to consider before you send your team to the next event. Now for the Good Stuff There are, of course, tangible benefits to sending your team to marketing events. Here are the main ones. Focused Learning Though there are limitless educational resources your team can use online, internet distractions are limitless as well. One article will lead to another and then to a video that has nothing to do with your original search. It can be easy for team members to get off track and not come away with the actual training they need to boost performance. Attending a conference keeps topics in focus. Attendees will be able to speak and listen to knowledgeable people discussing one specific topic. They’ll also receive helpful content resources for later reference. Network Growth While it may seem obvious, a conference is one of the best places to grow your professional network. Meeting with people and vendors from all over who are experienced in digital marketing may give your team the insights they need to accelerate growth for your business. Even better is if you can connect with another marketer that could be a potential referral partner for you – helping you to get in front of more potential customers. Taking a Break Yes, while attending a conference is still work time, it is definitely a break from the daily routine. While there probably won’t be much time for vacation-style activities, it’s still an amazing way to reward your team for a job well done and give them a chance recharge their batteries. And the scenery is great perk too, with conferences often taking place in large popular cities like New York, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Austin, etc. Each conference may also give your employees the chance they need to step out of the trenches and think more strategically about their marketing initiatives.In fact according to Bizzabo,47% of leadership agree that in-person events are the most critical marketing channel to achieve key business objectives. Relevant Thought Leaders A conference is an excellent place to get insights into the latest innovations and trends. Most conferences have a robust speaker lineup that will bring multiple chances for your employees to grow their knowledge and skill set. To get the most out of the break out sessions and keynotes, have your team make a personal list of areas they would like to grow, both personally and professionally, before they head out to the conference. The end reward of attending conferences can easily offset the expense. Weigh the pros and cons to decide whether attending a marketing conference is the right choice for your organization, and go in with a plan on how to maximize the insights and connections you make.
Free UX Tools To Help You Design a Better Marketing Experience Posted on December 21, 2018August 4, 2022 by Jessica Lunk User experience (UX) design is complicated. So complicated, in fact, that there are entire job roles dedicated to it. But you don’t have to have a degree in UX design to know what it is – or understand its importance. If you’ve spent any time online, you have probably been on the receiving end of a bad user experience in your lifetime. Think back: it’s the website with the popup that doesn’t display properly on mobile. Or the opt-in that never sends a confirmation email as promised. Or the email marketing campaign that pummeled you with too much content until you had no choice but to unsubscribe. Understandably, you don’t want your customers to have experiences like these when they engage with your business. You want to be consistent and effective. This requires a lot of planning and coordination with internal team members, freelancers, and outside consultants. Here are several free tools that will help you and your team create a better marketing experience for your customers. Wireframing and Prototyping A quick and agile wireframing tool is a must-have for UI UX designers and savvy marketers. If you’ve ever had an idea for a website, landing page, or software interface and struggled to communicate it to a team member, a prototyping tool can help. Balsamiq is a leading wireframing tool with a drag-and-drop interface that offers a full 30 days free before you pick a subscription plan (which starts at $9/month). For teams that do a lot of wireframing and prototyping, this may be well-worth the small investment. However, if you only need the occasional wireframe, the open source option Pencil Project may be the better option. Mindmapping If you’ve never created a mindmap, it’s a powerful tactic most often used to help brainstorm ideas or create a visual representation of complicated processes. Here’s what they look like: They can (and often do) incorporate photos, graphics, and color-coded hierarchies to make it easy to digest a ton of information at once. They’re a lot prettier than a scuffed-up whiteboard, and for those of us who benefit from imagery in the learning process, they can seriously improve comprehension and retention of big ideas. In digital marketing, a mind map can help you: Establish a creative, editorial, or QA process Plan automations, like workflows in Zapier or email marketing drip campaigns Organize the steps in a marketing campaign Brainstorm campaign ideas Create customer or target audience personas There are specific mindmapping tools like Mindmup, and other programs like Draw.io that aren’t solely for mind-mapping (but have many of the same functions). Heatmapping A site heatmap shows you where users are lingering and where you’re losing their attention, by generating a visual “heatmap” of your users’ clicking behavior. The more clickable sections of your design will have a warmer appearance, while those that users tend to neglect will show cool colors. Clickheat is a free heat mapping tool, but it does include a bit of technical know-how to download and use. At Hatchbuck, we use CrazyEgg to keep tabs on our website activity. Site Speed Site speed is one of the easiest UX elements to control, but it’s not always easy to figure out exactly which improvements will pack the most punch. That’s where a free tool like GTMetrix comes in. GTMetrics analyzes your full website in minutes and generates a report showing exactly which elements to change in order to make your site load faster. It’ll point out which images need to be compressed and which sections of your code should be edited to boost page load speed. The Inspector Tool Want a real glimpse into what your customers see when they visit your site? The browser “Inspector” tool is the ticket. The inspector is built into your browser and lets you modify the code of any given webpage. It’s especially handy for UX design because it allows you to preview what a page looks like on a tablet, mobile phone, and desktop. Beyond that, you can play around with elements on any webpage: change fonts, colors, text, images, and other design elements to see which changes will pack the most punch. You can also diagnose and solve glitches by using the “search” function, which scours the code of an entire site for specific text. Alternately, you can navigate to a specific element, select it, and identify where that element lives within the code so you can fix it. A/B Testing and Optimization Much of digital marketing is trial, error, and trial again. Google understands this, which is probably why they include Google Optimize in their suite of free marketing tools. Optimize integrates with your site’s Google Analytics, so you can get a near real-time view of how changes to your site impact traffic and other stats. Image credit: Google Within Google Optimize, you can: Observe how users react to personalized page content Compare two versions of a specific page element (or multiple elements) on the same page Run redirect tests, or split URL tests, which compare user behavior on two very different pages. These are useful for seeing how users react to a full redesign or rebrand. With a few affordable or free tools, you can make vast improvements to your user experience, boosting conversion rates and pulling in more customers for your business.
6 December Tasks to Get Your Business Humming in January Posted on December 20, 2018December 20, 2018 by Jonathan Herrick The holidays: time for great food, cozy fireplace memories, and nerve-wracking last-minute existential business crises. Year-end planning is essential for small businesses, but as soon as the responsibilities of service delivery, administrative tasks, and marketing start to fall on you, December suddenly feels like it’s only a week long. How can you determine what’s essential to do now, and what needs to wait until later? Every business is a little different, but here are the six tasks we believe you should prioritize now so that your business runs smoothly after the champagne runs out and the new calendar goes up. #1: Get out of the office and give. Charitable contributions of time or money are not just a good idea for the tax benefits, they also boost the wellbeing of your business and your team. Giving requires you to slow down and shake off the frenzy of busy SMB life. It’s good for your employees and your bottom line, too. Doing work in your community and donating your time and money gives your organization publicity, which can lead to new opportunities in surprising places. Plus, getting away from the daily grind and into unfamiliar environments actually improves your brain functioning – so if your team needs a creative jolt, spend a workday volunteering. The Hatchbuck team loves the opportunity to give back to local St. Louis organizations every year. #2: Set your high-level goals for next year. It’s great if you want to grow business (most businesses do). But what does that mean, exactly? If you don’t have capacity for many more clients, it may be time to raise your rates or explore new product or service offerings. If you can handle many more customers, how will you determine how many more you need? Set a realistic revenue goal for 2019 and work backward from it. What will you need to do in three months, one month, one week, and right now to achieve it? Lay out a step-by-step growth plan so you can chip away at your goal a little bit every day. Remember: when goals go unmet, the cause isn’t usually lack of motivation but lack of a plan. #3: Put customer service at the heart of business. Marketing pro Seth Godin urges businesses to ask themselves one honest question: “would my customers miss me if I were gone?” Unfortunately, many businesses are replaceable in the minds of those they serve. Don’t let your business be one of those. Brainstorm ways for every department to put customer service at the heart of what they do. Although some tend to think of customer service as the process of managing customers’ problems when things go wrong, this is only one facet. Customer service is sending helpful resources to your new clients because you want them to succeed. It’s the follow-up email after a software download to check that things are going well. It’s finding inventive new ways to add value where none was expected. #4: Pick your marketing focus. Digital marketing has opened incredible doors for business in the last decade. It’s also created a lot of false expectations. Though big corporations have the budget to dominate every possible marketing channel, this isn’t a luxury SMBs can afford. If you try every possible marketing tactic, you’ll likely see fewer results than if you focus intently on one or two areas. Where should you focus your marketing? The answer is surprisingly simple: where your customers are. If you’re a B2B company whose customers spend most of their day in front of a computer, email marketing and content marketing may be your best bet. If you sell to teenagers and young millennials, Instagram ads may be your next focus. Take the time to research where your ideal customers spend their time, and allocate your marketing resources to connect with them there. #5: Don’t forget about taxes. December is an excellent time to have a sit-down with your accountant or financial advisor about your tax responsibilities. If you’re behind on estimated payments or you’ve overpaid, it’s better to get an idea now than to get smacked with a bill next year. Get a clear idea of what to expect in terms of tax deductions, local tax laws, and (if you’re a solo professional or a freelancer) whether you’ll be better off filing jointly or separately from your spouse. If you’ve seen a lot of revenue growth this year, you may be in a new tax bracket, which could result in some stressful surprises if you don’t catch them early. #6: Improve productivity with automation. Not everything can, or should, be automated. But if you haven’t explored the capabilities of automation (especially when it comes to transactional emails, evergreen marketing campaigns, and administrative tasks), now’s the time. Think of it: instead of sending the same sales email or invoice template to each customer manually, you can take your time back with automation. Instead of scouring through lists of potential clients, you can use automation to score the interest level of your leads based on their behavior on your website – and prioritize those most interested in you. You can automatically send valuable resources to different customers segments based on their unique interests without having to lift a finger, meaning you get all of that time back to do what you do.
6 Creative Ways to Use Your CRM for More Than Sales Posted on December 19, 2018December 19, 2018 by Tricia O'Donnell Most organizations invest in a CRM to help manage, monitor and optimize the sales process. In reality, a CRM can provide a host of additional benefits, many of which you may not even be aware. Whether you’re looking to track your competition, provide extra support to HR or even do something as basic as creating a content calendar, the right solution can deliver all of this and more. Here are six specific ways you can start leveraging your CRM to keep your business operating more smoothly. Email Marketing Any email task that is repetitive in nature can easily be automated with the right CRM. You can use your CRM to do everything from preparing communications and sending messages to tracking and measuring the effectiveness of your email campaigns. This will not only save your marketing team time, but it will also provide valuable insight into the sales funnel for more optimized outreach. Account Lifecycle Management Most people know that a CRM can be used to track initial sales, but what they often fail to realize is the additional opportunity such a platform represents – particularly in terms of relationship-building and upselling. The cost to acquire a new customer is far greater than retaining an existing one. With the right CRM, you can manage the entire customer journey to maximize lifetime value and increase revenue. Hiring and Onboarding Hiring and onboarding is another process that is wrought with time-consuming manual tasks and workflows. A CRM can be used to help facilitate and manage this process, similar to how a contact can be tracked through the sales pipeline. Bring new recruits up to speed quickly without wasting valuable man-hours in the process. Virtual Rolodex A CRM is a great tool for storing important contact information, like phone numbers, email addresses and additional details. Keep track of customers, colleagues, vendors, charitable donors and everyone else in your professional network. That way, when you need to get in touch, everything you need will be available right at your fingertips. Competitive Advantage Sales and marketing automation can do much more than simply save your company time. It can provide you with a leg up on the competition. Chances are there are at least a few of your competitors that haven’t yet climbed aboard the artificial intelligence bandwagon. By getting a jump on them, you can position your company leaps and bounds ahead. GDPR Compliance In May of 2018, the EU passed The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which restricts the way companies are allowed to manage and store a customer’s personal data. Failure to comply can result in hefty fines and sanctions. Thankfully, with the right CRM, you can ensure that all client data is stored in a secure place, helping your company to remain in compliance at all times. Whatever your business size or industry, the right CRM tool can help make the entire operation more efficient. If you aren’t yet leveraging the power of automation through your CRM, you are missing out on tremendous savings and other tangible benefits as a result.
9 Tips for Effective, Purposeful, Non-Cheesy Holiday Emails Posted on December 17, 2018December 17, 2018 by Allie Wolff If you’re anything like me, your inbox looks fa-la-la-la frightful from November through January. And if you’re a business or agency trying to reach customers or prospects, you better believe those cheesy holiday emails you might be sending are getting lost in the shuffle. So, let’s talk about doing away with ho-ho-horrible holiday email copy once and for all. Here are our 9 tips for crafting email copy this holiday season that gets results without getting too cheesy. Check your clichés. How can you avoid sounding like the cover of a 90s homemaking magazine? Check your clichés. If a holiday phrase comes to you too easily or plays off a popular holiday song or phrase, it might be a cliché. Here’s a good practice: when writing email copy, don’t go with your first idea. Think of one or two more options before deciding which one wins. This will encourage you to think creatively, rather than impulsively, about how to communicate. Make your message genuine and unique. Telling your customers that you wish them “peace, love, and joy this holiday season” may be fine – as long as you mean it. A shallow email with some general platitudes won’t do much to improve your customers’ opinions of you, but a personalized one, or an email paired with a gift or unique offer, will stand out. Don’t forget your CTA. A holiday email without purpose is better left unsent. Make it worth your customer’s while by including a call to action that inspires or benefits your customer in some way. A few ideas: Refer a friend. Reward your customers for referring friends to your business and leverage the social nature of the holiday season. In a similar vein, ask them to like share your content on social media in exchange for a discount. A holiday-themed promotion. Do you have products or services that can be spun in a new light to relate to the holidays? Digital Marketer’s Black Friday Bootcamp turned an infamous day of “getting” into a day-long digital course to cater to those who’d rather not brave the crowds. A limited time discount or offer. There’s a sense of urgency around the holidays, and plenty of businesses have seen success creating discounts that last a short while. Invitation to join a club or a list. Alert your subscribers to exclusive clubs or lists they may not know about. Channel the spirit of giving. We focus on giving during the holidays, meaning it’s the perfect time to think about what you might give your customers (rather than selling). Go beyond the traditional coupon or big sale: what can you actually give your subscribers, at no cost to them? Try storytelling. People everywhere love stories, and many of our best childhood memories revolve around the stories and traditions associated with the holidays. Incorporate storytelling into your email copy: can you highlight a customer or employee who’s exceptionally kind or giving? Use multimedia content. If you haven’t experimented with video or interactive content in your emails yet, now may be the time. Inboxes are cluttered with holiday offers around this time, so whatever you can do to help your content stand out will be in your favor. Plus, if you’re hoping to attract more attention from cold leads, video tends to be more attention-grabbing than other types of content for those in the top of your marketing funnel. Consider who they’re shopping for. Most people like to think of themselves as kind and considerate. Feed your customers’ self-esteem by angling your copy to speak about how your business can help their friends and family, rather than selling directly to them. If you’re a women’s retail store, who are the other women your current customers may be shopping for? If you’re a marketing agency, how can you center your offer on serving your clients’ clients? Celebrate your customers’ accomplishments. This may not work in every industry, but it’s worth considering. While many businesses like to send end-of-year emails announcing everything they achieved that year, why not turn this concept on its head and celebrate your customers’ successes instead? For example: a web design agency might send an attractive recap of everything you created together this year. A major retailer might send the total amount of money you saved by shopping with them instead of a competitor. The key is to highlight the benefit of doing business together, to keep those loyal customers loyal. Think beyond the holidays. Instead of focusing on holiday-themed promos and doing business right now, why not get your customers thinking about what next year will bring? Let them in on an upcoming product or something exciting in store for January. Give them a sense of exclusivity by inviting them to a new email list or club. Give them an insider peek into your plans for the next year, or ask for their advice to help them feel like their opinions are valued. If your emails have purpose and stay on brand, it is possible to spread some cheer without the cheese.
7 Quotes to Get You Inspired to Sell Posted on December 14, 2018September 22, 2022 by Jonathan Herrick Selling can be an emotional roller coaster—one that takes you from the high-adrenaline moments when you’re closing a big sales to the lows, when sales are slow. So how can you stay on even keel when things are not going your way? Reading inspirational quotes on sales can help you connect to the wisdom of sellers who’ve come before you. Here are 7 favorites that will help you regain your momentum. 1. “Our greatest weakness is giving up. The most certain way to succeed is to try one more time.” – Thomas Edison If anyone knew the power of persistence it was entrepreneur and inventor Thomas Edison, who brought us the light bulb, the phonograph and alkaline storage batteries, among many other innovations. Edison’s willingness to experiment and stick to his pursuits is a good template for the mindset sales people must emulate. It may take some time and iteration to figure out which pitch works best. And even if a prospect isn’t ready to buy now, the timing could be right at some point in the future. Trying again in situations where your competitors might give up—and keeping up consistent efforts—can go a long way. 2. “Approach each customer with the idea of helping him or her to solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service.” – Brian Tracy Sales guru Brian Tracy was on the money when he pointed out that salespeople should be a resource for their customers. The better you get to know your prospects and customers, the more likely you will be able to identify their needs and challenges and help them find products or services that help them address them. That will make them welcome your calls. 3. “The key is not to call the decision-maker. It’s to have the decision-maker call you.” –Jeffrey Gitomer As sales trainer Jeffrey Gitomer points out here, sales people who truly are a resource to their customers and prospects don’t have to chase them down. They’ll build such a strong reputation that customers will flock to them due to word-of-mouth publicity. Getting to this point takes a long-term perspective, one built on knowing your niche better than your competitors and genuine helpfulness to everyone you serve. 4. “Nobody likes to be sold to, but everyone likes to buy.” – Earl Taylor Most of us feel cornered when someone tries to talk us into something and start looking for the exits, as leadership, sales and communications skills trainer Earl Taylor pointed out. You don’t want to be the person who’s doing the cornering. Offering something that people genuinely want to buy is important—but having the right product or service at the right price is only part of the story. You also have to present it in an appealing way, one that is focused on benefits that really matter to the customer. How do you know what those benefits are? Talking with customers and doing deep listening to what they say is a good place to start. 5. “Either you run the day or the day runs you.” – Jim Rohn To serve your customers well, you need to stay focused, as entrepreneur and motivational speaker Jim Rohn knew well. Using a time management system such as the one described in the “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” by Steven Covey can help you keep your attention on getting the important things done, so the days don’t blow by while you’re “putting out fires.” 6. “The secret to man’s success resides in his insight to the moods of people, and his tact in dealing with them.” – J.G. Holland Novelist, poet and founder of Scribner’s Monthly J.G. Holland understood how important empathy for other human beings is in being a success. Buying is often an emotional decision, so the better your instincts into how prospects and customers are feeling, the more successful you’ll be. Many sellers miss sales because they focus too much sharing on a long list of benefits a product will bring and less on how buying it will make the purchaser feel–whether that’s more secure, more energetic, younger, or smarter. If you feel you need to strengthen your skills in understanding other people, consider reading Daniel Goleman’s classic Emotional Intelligence. 7. “If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will.” – Bob Hooey No matter how much your customer may like you personally, he or she won’t stick with you if you’re not delivering what you promised. Make sure you’re meeting expectations on every sale so you don’t have to worry that an upstart business in town or on the web will lure your most loyal customers away. Many businesses fall down on serving customers, so if you excel at this, you won’t need to read motivational quotes like this one from sales coach Bob Hooey. You’ll be too busy talking to customers and filling orders.