Online Marketing Archives - Page 7 of 8

30 April 2015

5 Things You Need To Know When Writing Ad Copy

With 25 years in the marketing business I’ve had the privilege to work with some very talented individuals and savvy clients. Working with truly brilliant minds can be thrilling, gratifying and humbling all at the same time. One thing that has always impressed me is a well written ad. Good ad copy, be it for print, radio, television or online, captivates and informs the audience, positions the brand, and compels the audience to react in a favourable manner. That’s asking a lot of some text — even if it is dressed up with some nice photos, videos or sound.

Here are five considerations that will help you to be a better ad writer.

1) Your audience doesn’t give a damn

It’s easy to fool yourself into thinking that your targeted demographic is just waiting for your pearls of wisdom. The reality is that you have to earn their attention. Your first task is to get their attention. If you are relying solely on text then you’ll need a captivating or perhaps controversial headline. Depending on the medium you can use photo, video or sound to get their initial attention.

2) Your audience still doesn’t give a damn

OK, so you got their attention, but why should they give you any more time? People’s interest is fleeting, so you have to move your audience along quickly from attention to interest. With interest they will read a little further, listen a little more attentively, watch with more focus or perhaps click for more information. The great David Ogilvy (no, I’m not that old, I never worked with David Ogilvy) would argue that you should provide long narratives of information and facts, building a strong case for the product. There is probably still a time and place for that kind of ad, but today’s audience typically demands quick answers in little bite size chunks (thank you Twitter!). So, once you have their attention, move quickly into the meat of your message and give your audience a reason to care.

3) Interest isn’t enough

In order for your ad to have impact, your audience needs to identify with it. This may be relatively easy if they already have a need your particular product/service. In most cases, you’ll need to help them personalize your message. To do this, rather than present a list of facts or features, involve both left and right sides of the brain by invoking a whimsical, reflective mindset. Stories or nostalgia are often used to dramatize the product features and illustrate just how good life can be. Well-crafted ad copy takes the audience on quick mind trip (no, not that kind of mind trip) that enables them to virtually experience and appreciate the benefits of owning your product.

4) They haven’t bought it yet

Let’s assume that you got their attention, then their interest and now they’re fantasizing about having your product in their hands (or something like that). How do you turn their interest into actual action? Now you need a “hook” or “call-to-action” that will compel your audience to behave accordingly. Online this may be entering a draw, or a providing a free download. Other examples are a trial offer, gift-with-purchase, or a limited quantity/special edition.

5) Most people will not buy your product

Even the best ad is not going to persuade everyone to buy. In fact, if you get a small fraction of the audience to buy you’ve done an exceptional job. However, good ad copy will get people’s attention and some interest so it should be strategically position the product as the desired solution. That’s right, branding should be an integral part of your messaging. If you brand effectively your ad will continue to sell for you long after its broadcast. Like a well planted seed it germinates in the mind, ready to sprout when the need arises.

What would you add to this list? What considerations help write a better ad.

29 April 2015

Don’t Ignore Those Smaller Conversion Steps

Conversion is an often-used sales and marketing term that can cover a lot of ground in today’s internet powered world of small and medium sized enterprises. Sales conversions are straight forward enough but marketing conversions are less direct and more subtle. Marketing conversions are the smaller conversion steps necessary to reach those bigger sales conversions.

The Classic Conversion Definition

The classic definition, the CRM definition, involves generating accounts, contacts and opportunities from those that you primarily seek and find. This is a black and white effort to generate contacts into prospects and ultimately clients. It is based on the outbound sales model of searching for those that are in the market or mood for buying what you sell. You are hunter and they are game.

The inbound model differs in that the hunting is reversed. People go online in search of something, hunting for information, – and that their effort will vary in detail and urgency. All online research begins with a mouse click. The leap from that first click to a buying customer may take require extra steps so the conversion process requires more detail to be defined. This is the need for the smaller marketing steps of a number of marketing messages.

Those Smaller Conversion Steps

If we define conversion as when the recipient of a marketing message performs a desired action, we see marketing conversions as a number of steps towards a sale. These steps follow a linear order in hopes that our online visitor follow suit. The reality is that visitors will get on and off the conversion line at various points. To have a true overview on which conversions are working (and which are not) we need to track these smaller steps.

Think of these early marketing messages more as requests for online engagement. That engagement can be subtle, especially early in the online relationship. Having someone click to your website from an email or a social media message for example. Click throughs are a positive start to online engagement with your business are products and should be considered sucessful marketing conversions.

The premise is that if enough of these small steps are taken there is a high likelihood the visitor will engage and proceed with you as a supplier (when they are ready).

Conversely, if these smaller steps are not working; visitors are not staying on your website, opening your newsletter emails, or clicking through from your blog posts the momentum never gets going and your marketing efforts stall. The marketing tactics that point to these conversion opportunities should be reassesed.

The More Leads the Better

If you are concerned only with the classical “big” CRM style conversions of contacts, opportunities, and accounts you may find less leads from your online efforts than from your face-to-face sales process. You may find yourself wondering about the effectiveness of your inbound methods. But smaller online conversion steps are numerous and an opportunity to track and tweak every component of your online offerings. The more of smaller marketing conversions the more opportunity to move visitors along your online pipeline to a point where the larger conversions to contacts and opportunities can occur.

In the online marketing world small wins lead to the larger wins of new customers and increased sales. Don’t ignore those smaller conversion steps.

10 April 2015

5 Components for a Successful Strategic Marketing Plan

A little while back, I had lunch with a couple of communication executives, each working for a different national association. One was a client. The reason for the lunch was to introduce me to the non-client and provide some insight into a PR issue they were having. Their issue concerned a lobby group that was spreading some mis-truths. The association wanted to come out heavy and refute the erroneous claims, which is an understandable reaction, but one that could well fan the flames and create a much bigger fire.

Over lunch we designed a content strategy that would not directly address the lobby group or its claims, but would produce matter-of-fact and positive messaging that presented the correct story in a substantiated and substantive fashion. We used blogs, FAQ, email campaigns, videos, social media content and paid advertising (print and online). Within six months it was a non-issue and the awareness and potency of the association had risen significantly.

My take-away from this (other than a paid contract and a happy client) was bewilderment. I was surprised that an association wouldn’t have some contingency, or risk-management as part of its strategic marketing plan. As it turns out, this association didn’t really have a structured plan at all, and as a result it lacked the guidance it deserved. Such oversight may be more evident during an urgent situation, but any organization requires a roadmap to realize its goals. And especially associations, which typically have more stakeholders to take into consideration.

We’ve done work with many associations over the past 25 years, and in the current digitally social age, the need for a comprehensive marketing plan has never been greater. So it’s surprising to realize that many organizations are trying to navigate without one. Some of the critical components incorporated into a successful strategic marketing plan are:

1. Goals, mission and vision of the organization

Not simply listing them. Your plan should outline how it will help the organization realize its goals, mission and vision.

2. Interests of all stakeholders

First of all, acknowledge all of your stakeholders: clients/members (which may be further segmented), Boards, industry, targeted audience, public-at-large, government, etc. Then list their needs and how your plan addresses them.

3. Branding considerations

Realize that branding goes well beyond your visual identity and official communications. Branding should be considered for every touchpoint with your stakeholders and supported in a cohesive manner.

4. Incorporation of all media

You’re well aware of the influence of social media and that broadcast media alone are no longer sufficient to effectively communicate with your stakeholders. Are specific social media highlighted and incorporated in a meaningful way in your strategic plan?

5. Realistic risks

Sh!* happens, the best plans are not going to totally insulate your organization from potential harm. However, a good plan will greatly reduce the chance of problems and a great plan will include measures to quickly and efficiently deal with the situation. Obviously you can’t anticipate every and any mishap that may present itself, but a step-by-step plan on what to do when a staff or member gets into hot water with a social media post will allow your team to react immediately and decisively; mitigating the potential harm.

A strategic marketing plan should never be a dry organization document that is done out of obligation and then ignored. It is a crucial guide to help your organization grow with structure and sustain its potency. They are a lot of work to create, and require ongoing reference and review, but they pay off in building strong organizations.

What else do you feel a strategic marketing plan should incorporate?

26 March 2015

3 Ways to Spring Clean Your Blog

Content management systems such as WordPress are an asset for managing your blog. From one interface, you can do everything possible to make sure your blog is running smoothly.

Unfortunately, even a well working system has posts slip through the cracks, either from an unfocused strategy, still trying to establish what works best, or simply due to a lack of maintenance. Any well-populated blog will eventually collect issues, and if left unchecked your blog could become an impossible to navigate behemoth that leaves readers frustrated instead of seeing you as a thought leader.

With spring officially starting (even if it might not look that way outside), what better time to get your blog in tip-top shape? Here are some key areas to focus on, to get the most polish for your elbow grease.

#1- Purge Your Topics

Topics are like rabbits: they multiply. You start off small and concise, making sure all your core keywords are covered. But as you write, you realize people might not use the same terminology as your topics, so you start adding a few more topics to cover that part of your audience. And a few posts later, you’re focusing on a specific issue and you really should have a unique topic for each specialized issue you blog about, to make sure everybody can find that specific issue separately…

Next thing you know, you have an unfocused and repetitive mess.

Keeping your topics list small is important for ease of navigation and search; the fewer topics you have, the more likely readers are to find relevant posts in your archives. Create a focused list that ties directly into your content marketing strategy and put all blogs somewhere in that list. Try to stay between 25 and 50 topics to prevent readers from getting overwhelmed.

#2- Get CTAs Up-to-Date

Including Calls to Action in your blogs is a great way to encourage prospects along your pipeline, but they only work if the links do. Remember that your blogs are publicly accessible until you unpublish them; all CTAs have to be usable no matter how old the posts are.

Go through your blogs and make sure all CTAs are up-to-date and relevant both to the post and your marketing initiatives. This ensures any reader can keep interacting with your company no matter what post they come across, even if it’s deep in your archives.

#3- Link Internally

If you’ve written any best practices guides, such as whitepapers, on your website, use your blog to drive readers towards them. It helps your guides get better SEO rankings because they’re linked in multiple places, and shows your competency to those who click through. The same goes for any particularly stellar blogs: linking them in relevant areas of your website helps establish your thought leadership and boosts their SEO. The more places your pages are linked, the higher ranked you are in searches, making you easier to find in the first place.

Now, while this can be a tedious task (if you’ve employed a spring intern, assign this to them), it has a strong long term payoff: internal links drive readers to spend more time with your site — getting more information from you rather than your competitors. And more time spent with you means they’re more likely to buy from you. You’re using your content to drive traffic; make sure it supports your sales objectives by driving potential customers down your pipeline.

4 March 2015

Inbound Marketing: Not All Leads Are Equal

As your inbound marketing program fires on all cylinders an increased number of leads are coming through your website. It is exciting to receive inbound-generated leads over and above those generated from your existing outbound sales efforts. This excitement must be tempered somewhat because all leads are not necessarily equal.

Outbound Leads

Outbound leads are different than inbound leads in the way they originate. Outbound selling, aka traditional selling, is based on targeting companies. You have X to promote and you look for companies that fit the profile as those most likely to need or want X.

A list of companies and individuals is then “targeted” for traditional outbound sales activities such as phone calls, emails, or advertising. Although the return on all the effort is low percentage, there is a reasonably good chance you can sell to them once you find those with immediate needs and wants. Qualify the companies first then find some buyers.

Inbound Leads

Inbound leads have a different nature than outbound leads. The needs (pain) or wants come first before the business qualifying. You put yourself out there on the web for anyone to find your product or service. That “anyone” can be your ideal prospect or it can be a high school student from Timbuktu. You won’t know this until you analyze your inbound leads. The point is that through inbound the wants and needs are a given (which is why and how they found you online) and then the companies are qualified.

Inbound Lead Analysis

Inbound leads can be analyzed by a little research. Google is your friend here. Start by searching for the company name provided and the name of the contact submitted with the lead. If the company name is Acme Fireworks and the contact name is Wile E. Coyote, this should tell you that the lead (for now) is not very hot.

If you have done your homework on your ideal buyer’s personas you should be able to sort out the good inbound leads from the others. Ideally, this sort should happen before handing any leads over to your sales team – their time should not be wasted on low quality inbound leads. This will prevent much frustration and keep them enthused about the company’s marketing efforts.

Quantity Means Success

A low number of qualified leads can mean inbound success! The more inbound leads coming in, the better things are (probably) working. It then becomes a matter of managing them effectively. A number of the inbound leads will be good ones; the ideal buyers from the right companies. Some lead filtering and you have the increased prospects, expanded reach, and increased sales you are looking for.

25 February 2015

Communicating with and Marketing to Millennials and Gen Z in 2015

It is important to be aware that every generation thinks differently. They have different shared experiences that often lead to different beliefs and different values. Accordingly, different generations communicate and want to be communicated to differently. Gen Y and Gen Z are no exception to this rule. Though, they are both different in many ways, they share many important similarities that should not be ignored by companies who want their attention.

So, if you’re marketing to one of these younger audiences you should keep a few things in mind.

First, You Must Understand What They Mean.

Communicating clearly, succinctly, and in the style that best works with your audience has never been more important than it is now. Whether communicating in blog form, on social media, or through writing on your website – the wording you use matters. Younger audiences interpret words and phrases online quite differently than you might.

Certain words have evolved or mean something completely opposite of what they used to mean! “That’s sick!” can mean that’s disgusting and terrible in one context, but it can also mean, “that’s amazing!” in another, to a younger audience.

Additionally, the word “literally” means something completely opposite to its original meaning. Gen Z will say they, “literally can’t stand spinach.” The word means that you are not exaggerating at all, but the younger generation commonly uses it to mean extreme exaggeration.

This phenomenon has been taking place for a long time. To illustrate, generations preceding the baby boomers took the word “awful” to mean “generally good, impressive things”. “Awful things” were in fact, “worthy of awe”. This is where expressions such as, “the awful majesty of God” come from. The difference is that today, with the speed of the internet, words, phrases and cultural memes are morphing new meaning at a far accelerated pace, and it requires a lot more work to keep up.

They Will Only be Interested in Your Content if it is Great.

You’re in a competition with the rest of the content online. Because of the endless options of content to consume, your advertising content has to be as good as or better than the content (paid and unpaid) they find and are exposed to around the rest of the internet. Otherwise, they’ll easily and instantly tune out, clicking the “X” button.

They Want Information Quickly.

They have no patience for longer, time-consuming content. To be clear, when I say “time-consuming content”, I’m not talking about an hour or two, I’m talking about often a video that lasts more than 20 seconds, or a couple of paragraphs of text. They prefer to socialize, inform themselves, and entertain themselves in short bursts, in part because they have so many other great pieces of content competing for their attention.

They Like Images and Short Videos.

Consuming, sharing, and even creating content is easier than ever before and the younger generations are doing it more than ever before. Vine, Snapchat, and now Instagram are places where short video and/or images can be shared.

Instagram has recently launched the ability to advertise short 15-second videos to respond to this audience’s need for short video content. Many of the brands who have tried it have experienced great success on Instagram.

In Summary

Even if these younger generations aren’t your target audiences, understanding them can lead to major insights about the future of all older target markets.

The actions of younger generation cause a spill-over effect to older generations. Inevitably, the younger generations begin to shape everyone else’s consumption of media by affecting technologies and trends that are (and will be) formed. Older generations will play catch-up much like as was the case with Facebook: popular with college student by 2007-2008 but only widely adopted by older generations in 2010 and later. (Most recently, my 87 year old grandmother created a Facebook account and is on it everyday: responding to comments and sharing posts, pictures, articles, and even memes!)

21 January 2015

Marketing and Sales Strategy: The Need For Focus

“You can’t be everything to everyone.”

This maxim has never been more relevant than today. Those that specialize and focus in on what they do best usually outperform the generalists. Focus breaks down a big, fuzzy target into smaller, sharper targets that are easier to aim and excel at. Focus is the stuff of a sound marketing and sales strategy.

The Lists

Focus is all about segmentation. Products and services are segmented by their description and whom they are intended for. Customers and prospects should be similarly segmented and placed into lists. Further segmentation by location, industry, or whatever will help support marketing and sales campaigns and blitzes. Campaigns and sales blitzes are the mini – projects for marketing and sales.

The Campaign

A cornerstone of marketing strategy is the use of campaigns. Campaigns are focused efforts (tactics) in promoting a defined product or service to a specific target market. Campaigns for medium size business enterprises are an effective way to promote new products, e-commerce, or branding. Campaigns, by nature of their simplicity and cohesiveness, are easier to track and measure for success than more complex initiatives.

The Sales Blitz

Campaign’s sales person sibling is the sales blitz. Blitzes are similar to campaigns but shift the efforts from marketing to outbound sales. The sales staff concentrates on a defined product or service to a specific type of customer or prospect for a defined period of time. Marketing campaigns and sales blitzes can run independently or in tandem. The distinction from general marketing and sales is the focus. Sales blitzes can be a morale booster. Sales people appreciate the focus and the momentum attained with a targeted effort. It creates excitement and a reason to reach out to potential buyers.

Trying to be everything to everyone in marketing and sales is a recipe for frustration. Don’t worry about diluting your overall brand by concentrating on just this or that over a defined period. Buyers expect that your brand will encompass a comprehensive group of products and services. In the interest of engaging with your customers effectively and efficiently, it makes good sense to segment your products and your customers/prospects and market and sell to them specifically. Your customers will appreciate it.

19 November 2014

National Associations: 3 Ways to Engage Your Members

As the staff of any national association knows, it is important to keep members informed, motivated and remind them of the importance/relevance of the association they belong to. Engaged members are members who care. Importantly, this engagement can also support your organization’s continued relevance and value to its members.

Though many members of associations automatically become members by default, meaning they don’t need to be persuaded to join or to remain members, associations should nevertheless strive to continuously prove their value to members. All members should feel like the association they are a part of is invested in them and that they matter. Further, it is important to provide members, new and old, with easy ways to relate to your association and find their place within it. Read on for three ways to engage members with their association.

1) Use Social Media to Create an Engaged Community

The power of simple, instant communication afforded by social media to bring people together is incredibly impressive. A key strength of social media is that it enables the creation of communities united by a commonality, in this case, a shared membership to an association. Your national association should see social media as an opportunity to create a community of engaged members.

Maintaining your social media accounts, with the help of a sound strategy, of course, will also aid your federation in appearing (and being) more relevant and approachable.

Once you’ve (a) made your social media accounts easy to find and (b) maintained activity on these accounts, you open the door for members to engage with you directly in an easy and convenient manner. Make sure to respond in a timely manner to show members that their national association values their input and cares about their needs.

2) Produce Visual Content to Engage

Large associations can seem complex to outsiders — even to their own members!

Infographics are able to both clarify and disseminate sometimes complex information while engaging the reader. They do this by delivering valuable information such as statistics and facts in an organized, efficient, and visually engaging way. Breaking down the association’s key functions or highlighting achievements (for example), into simple, well-branded visuals can effectively present how the organization works and benefits its membership. Done properly, infographics have the remarkable ability to make potentially confusing or bland information nearly painless and even enjoyable to consume!

The advantages of infographics for national associations are clear: from highlighting membership benefits to sharing important news or history.

Unlike a blog article (which has its own list of virtues), infographics are more immediately immersive. A well-designed visual arrangement of information will immediately create an appealing environment for the reader and requires less of a mental investment than multiple paragraphs of words on a page.

There is a reason infographics have been trending for a long time: they are easy to share on social media. People like them because they are seen as low-effort/high-pay-off pieces to both consume and share. For that reason they are also a great way to extend your message to places it hasn’t been before. Strong brand awareness for any national association is an on-going concern.

3) De-clutter Your Website for More Engagement

Try visiting (nearly) any national association’s homepage — choose one you have never visited before. How do you feel? A little overwhelmed?

If you don’t know exactly where to look and what you want, you’ll find that navigating many association websites can be overwhelming. There is often so much depth and breadth of information in such a compact space, that it can be difficult to figure out where to begin. Imagine how someone must feel who knows little about your organization. Pairing things down and organizing information in a clean and logical fashion makes good sense.(Not everything needs to be immediately accessible from your homepage.).

Conclusion

By using social media to nurture a stronger sense of community, infographics to communicate important information clearly and appealingly, and an easy to use and informative website, you will be more successful at engaging your members than ever before.

11 November 2014

Content in Action: Growing Your Business

Content generation can show the world that your company is an authority in your niche. While this is an important step in establishing your online brand, sooner or later you are going to want to see a return on investment. Growth from new business is what it’s all about.

Strategy will drive the process of putting your content in action to grow your business. Your business is unique, as are your customers, so some degree of customization is needed. That being said there are resources that can be used to put it all together.

Inbound Methodology

Inbound marketing is the buzz phrase everyone has heard of but may not fully understand. Simplified, it is a method to attract online visitors and help turn them into happy customers.

HubSpot breaks the method down into 4 basic phases; Attract, Convert, Close, and Delight.

Your compelling content fits into the Attract phase. Blog posts, ebooks, and videos provide useful information and answer questions that your prospects are asking. Tools such as SEO and social media help to amplify your message.

Developing a relationship by engaging with your prospects, along with more targeted content, make up the Convertphase. This phase will help your prospects to a consideration point where they become qualified leads.

The Close phase goes without saying and arguably it’s the most important part. The most fun part, for sure.

Delight ensures your customer buys again, and recommends your business to others.

Consistency is King

The key is to consider the above as a method. As a method, every phase, and the tactics to deliver every phase, should be followed religiously. For every online visitor. If you miss anything your valuable prospects, leads, and customers will likely disappear. There is no second chance with most online visitors. They came to you, after-all.

With the number of visitors that arrive at your website and with the need to run the rest of your business, you can appreciate what a challenge it is to follow a necessary structured method of running an online business. Fortunately there is an app for that!

Marketing Automation

The implementation of marketing automation software, such as SharpSpring, will ensure that all visitors to your website have the same consistent experience. Every phase of the inbound method is managed automatically. The software provides you tools for attracting visitors and turning them into customers.

For example, marketing automation helps to identify visitors to your website. It tells you what pages they visited and how long they spent there. The software manages the content they consume and collects contact details.

Following up, based on a visitor’s actions at your site, result in a likelihood of converting the contact to a lead. Timing is everything.

Personal emails are automatically dispatched at key times, allowing the crucial engagement necessary to form a relationship with prospects. Emails can contain access to more of your great content; providing your prospects with relevant information about your product or service at the right time in their buyer’s journey. Are they at a decision stage? How about a well-timed testimonial or purchasing incentive?

Marketing automation notifies you of key events such as when a lead reaches a certain status in their online activities. Your sales staff can then facilitate a sale with a truly qualified lead.

Conclusion

Inbound is the methodology you use to put your content into action to grow your business. Marketing automation tools are what we use to deliver the necessary tactics to gain new customers.

Together they provide an efficient and effective combination to achieve the most from your online marketing.

10 October 2014

Truths and Myths About Going Viral

Every company dreams of “going viral.”

The ability to create a single piece of content (e.g. a YouTube video) and to simply wait until millions of people begin watching it and talking about it, saving thousands in paid media while gaining unprecedented publicity and interest for your company, seems almost too good to be true. Well, read on to learn some of the truths and myths about “going viral.”

Truth: No one can promise you viral content.

The fact is, nobody can promise you viral content. If your marketing company is being honest, they won’t claim that they can make you “go viral.”

Why is that?

Myth: The common belief that “If you build it, they will come.”

It might be tempting to believe that with the right amount of effort, time, knowledge and creativity (and, maybe even money), you will produce the latest meme. Going viral requires serendipity. It’s less of a formula and more of an ever-changing, imperfect recipe. It’s a recipe with far too many variables to control.

There is a lot of amazing content out there that most people never hear or talk about. Even if you’ve made the perfect piece of content for your audience and made it completely accessible and visible, luck still has a very important role to play.

Truth: It’s crucial to make great content that is not about you.

Before you can even entertain the possibility of creating viral content, make sure whatever you create is about more than your company. People have more media choices now than even before, so don’t abuse and toss away the privilege of their attention once you’ve got it.

Your target audience simply wants to experience things that interest them, and not feel bombarded by a clumsy brand message. Find out what their interests are, and deliver them in a way that will engage them.

Truth: Viral content takes insight.

Lots of deep insight. When you learn about what your audience is interested in, don’t just stop there. Viral content takes both great insight and a great idea; so, continue digging until you find something you can truly use to anchor a great idea that will cause people to take notice.

Truth: Becoming a go-to resource for great content will increase your odds.

Develop great content frequently so that you become known for it. It should be content that your target audience is not only interested in but will seek out. Nurturing an online brand for qualitative and relevant material will generate a larger audience, increasing the potential for one of your pieces to go viral.

In conclusion, “going viral” is a gamble, there are many things you can do to increase your odds, but you cannot predict whether you will succeed or not.

However, irrespective of your desire to go viral, never stop striving to make and share great content.