The $100,000 Challenge: March Update

We finally finished the last month of the $100,000 challenge. March was an awesome month for Nutrition Secrets. Not only did the traffic grow to 218,811 visitors, but revenue did too-it went up to $121,492.65.

It wasn't hard to hit the revenue goals as we had enough fish oil in stock, plus we started to generate money from affiliate sales.

So let's dive right in…

Traffic

Compared to February, the traffic went up to 218,811 visitors and 269,814 pageviews. The increase was only 18,102, which isn't much.

But considering that the popularity of nutrition and fitness sites is cyclical (January and February are most popular) and that Mike didn't blog much on NutritionSecrets.com in March, it wasn't too bad.

Overall, Mike has slowed down on the blogging front. Over the next few months, he wants to try a few fun content formats such as infographics and wants to see what happens if we were to dump a few hundred grand into the blog. It won't be much of an experiment at that point, but we are just curious to see if we can get the blog to a million visitors a month.

Nonetheless, the traffic isn't performing too badly. Even in April, the traffic has been on an upward trend while little to no effort has been put into the blog since the challenge has been over.

Revenue

The revenue is a bit more complicated to breakdown as it is coming from two sources now: Amazon and affiliates.

In March, revenue from Amazon hit $112,573.30.

There are a few key elements to growing Amazon sales:

1. Reviews – the more people you can get to leave a review, the better off you are. Most people don't even read the reviews, but if they are high in ratings and you have tons in quantity, you are in good shape. If you have a blog that's driving sales, a great way to get more reviews is through marketing automation. You can promote the product to your email list, and then after a few weeks of promoting your product to those people, you would send an automated email asking them to leave a review. You won't really know who bought the product, but you would still put the review email-applicable to a portion of your list-in your sequence.


2. Keywords – with Amazon, you can add keywords. Most people add basic ones like “fish oil,” but as you know, it is all about the long tail. Amazon opened it up so you can stuff hundreds of keywords now, and with the use of Google Keyword Planner, you can come up with popular variations. You'll then start ranking for tons of keywords on Amazon.


3. Combating negative Amazon reviews – similarly to what happens when people employ negative SEO, competitors sabotage your Amazon listing by taking up your front page with terrible reviews. They do this to tank your sales so they can generate more income. You fight this by building up your email list on your blog and continually blasting out to your list when you have bad reviews, asking your readers to up-vote the positive ones.


4. Ads – Amazon allows ads on its platform. Whether it is profitable or not, ads help you generate more sales. And if you can increase your sales velocity, you'll find that your listing climbs up higher and starts to stick-it stays up there even after your ads stop showing. Sure, other people can do the same thing, but most don't.

As for affiliate income, we started to push stuff by the Truth About Abs guys. We started doing email blasts to our list in order to generate the sales, and it has been working out well. The copy isn't too bad, but there are two reasons it's working out well.

1. We collect a lot more emails – we are generating 300 to 400 email sign-ups a day. It's much larger than our previous numbers for one reason: we turned off double opt-in. Aweber usually requires double opt-in when you use third-party software to collect emails, but Mike called Aweber and got them to disable double opt-ins.


2. Good copy – our copy converts well. You can see an example email below. And we have many more emails like this in the sequence. So, we continually send you affiliate offers over time, which helps.

Here is the email copy we have been testing:

Email – This plant food HARMS your metabolism & heart

Hi {!firstname_fix}

Sometimes it's not the enemy you know that's the problem, but the friend you think you know.

In this case, I'm talking about nutrition in foods. It's common knowledge that stuff like sugary drinks are just plain bad for you. The best you can say is that your body can absorb the bad effects if you only have them occasionally.

But what about foods you thought weren't bad, and you heard were actually good for you?

I have some bad news, and some good news. The bad: some so-called “healthy” foods may be the cause of why you work so hard to eat healthy and haven't seen the results you expected. The good news: There's a solution I read about from best selling author Mike Geary.  Read on… (removed affiliate link)

Email – 2 Simple steps to REMOVE visceral belly fat (the DEADLIEST type)

Hi {!firstname_fix}

People often refer to past times as “the good old days” with a nostalgic tone. At least when it comes to many nutritional and health practices, I think of them more like the “bad old days.”

For example, people thought the wonders of science had delivered new, healthy products called “trans fats” that were featured in margarine, to replace that nasty butter. We now know that trans fats are about the worst thing you can coat your innards with.

People also thought they could do “spot reducing” of unattractive belly fat by using those jiggling-belt machines, or some other gimmick.

Well, belly fat certainly is still unattractive, and research says it's also a danger sign. But research has also identified more-effective ways of getting rid of that spare tire. Here's how. (removed affiliate link)

Email – 7 “fatty” foods for a flat stomach

Hi {!firstname_fix}

I spend full time on nutrition- and health-related activities. That's the business I'm in.

I'm also an improvement junkie, always looking for the latest, best information. So you can imagine that I've pretty much seen it all: Every product, every supplement, every type of exercise.

Most of them are underwhelming. Yawn.

I'm writing you today because I recently came across something that made me sit up and pay attention. It's a short-term blueprint for eating the right foods to burn substantial fat, and it's all explained here… (removed affiliate link)

You can find high converting offers on sites such as Clickbank. They even sort the offers by popularity. I need to get a screenshot of our Clickbank revenue and our other affiliate income sources from Mike as he created the accounts and has the logins. Once I do, I will update the post with a screenshot (we use three networks).

The total affiliate revenue was $8,919.35.

Profit

As for monthly profit, it was high…but for a different reason than you might think. When you sell tangible products, you buy tons of inventory and then sell it over the following few months. We didn't want to be out for our last month, so we spent a good chunk of money in the previous month, and, of course, we bought more in March.

Here is a breakdown of the expenses:

• Fish oil – $68,492.52 (including Amazon fees, shipping to Amazon for Prime, coupon-related expenses, and producing more inventory)


• Aweber – $149


• Designer – $375 (continually tweaking the site)


• Hosting – $249


• Mike – free (Mike doesn't get paid, but he owns a percentage of the blog)


• Accounting – $290 (we are now paying a bookkeeper to help out with the books)

Total expenses came out to $69,555.52.

That brings the total profit to $51,937.13.

Of course, to maintain the growth, we would have to keep buying fish oil, but after awhile, we would cap out on sales, and our margins should be a healthy 30% plus. As for March, I didn't spend much on buying tons more inventory as I wanted to show that selling supplements can be profitable.

Conclusion

Overall, the $100,000 challenge was fun, but I wouldn't do it again. It's just too much work with everything I have going on.

It was still a good learning experience. One thing I realized is how much harder it is to rank on Google today compared to 5 years ago. Almost all of my sites are old, so it is much easier for them to rank.

And although NutritionSecrets.com generated good traffic, if it were 5 years ago, the blog would have been at a million visitors a month with the same amount of effort.

So, what do you think of the $100,000 challenge?

Marketing Day: IAB's LEAN scoring, Echo/Alexa sales & LinkedIn's earnings report

Here's our recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web.



Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

Online Marketing News: Short Attention Spans, Google Feed Rules, Starbucks Emojis

The Shortening Human Attention Span (And What it Means for Marketers) [Infographic]
Down from 12 seconds in 2000, the average human attention span is now 8.25 seconds. That leaves marketers with very little time to make a meaningful impression. But, don't sweat it too much. This infographic has some solid tips on how to capture and hold the attention of your audience, like using clear and brief messaging and telling your audience a story. Social Media Today



Google adds Merchant Center Feed Rules to make formatting shopping feeds easier
For a long time, Google shopping feeds have been a bump in the road for digital advertisers. So much so that there's a whole industry dedicated to helping advertisers manage their shopping feeds. On Tuesday, Google announced a new feature in the Merchant Center -- Merchant Center Feed Rules, that will help advertisers fix errors themselves in a simple way. Search Engine Land

Starbucks launched its own keyboard app so you can text emojis of unicorns drinking coffee
Starbucks is now allowing users to send unicorn and coffee emojis to their contacts. That's it folks, the world is complete. The app was released under a partnership with Snaps Media, and is Starbucks' first consumer app that is focused on entertaining their audience. What could this mean for other brands? I'm willing to bet we'll see more custom emoji keyboards in the near future. TechCrunch

Facebook's mobile ad revenue grew by 76% to $4.26 billion in Q1 2016
Facebook reportedly grew revenue in Q1 of 2016, which is a contrast to reports issued by Twitter and Apple with revenue reportedly being less than expected. Not only is mobile ad revenue up, but Facebook's daily audience grew by 16%, with money made from each audience member increasing by 33%. This post is full of useful information from that report, and some highly entertaining gifs to boot. Marketing Land



Twitter Q1 2016 Revenue Falls Short of Analysts' Projections
Twitter reported that while revenue was up 36% YOY for Q1, the $595 million fell short of analysts predictions. According to SocialTimes, "Twitter reported a GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) net loss of $80 million, or 12 cents per share, less than one-half the company's net loss in the first quarter of 2015." SocialTimes

Marketers Choose Responsive Email Templates Over Fluid Hybrid Design
New research shows that marketing professionals worldwide are overwhelmingly choosing to use responsive email templates (56.9%) over fluid hybrid design (7.9%). Interestingly, 19.9% are using both types of templates, and 15.2% aren't using either. Designing for mobile first may sound like a trendy marketing idea, but smart marketers know that if your emails don't look great on mobile, they aren't nearly as effective. eMarketer

What were your top online marketing news stories this week?

I'll be back next week with more online marketing news! In the meantime, send your thoughts and ideas to me @Tiffani_Allen or @toprank!

The post Online Marketing News: Short Attention Spans, Google Feed Rules, Starbucks Emojis appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Is Your 'About' Page Ruining Your Chances of Getting a Referral?

Is Your 'About' Page Ruining Your Chances of Getting a Referral? written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing

photo credit: Canva

Every business has a website, right?

It is your shop window; the place where people learn about you, your brand and the products or services that you're selling.

And due to our heavy online usage habits, it's also the place that dictates the sustainability of a company.

You see, every business needs to be liked.

According to the New York Times, 65% of new business comes from referrals.

Meaning that almost two thirds of consumers make a purchase because someone they know has recommended a particular product or service.

On your website, there's one page that's more important to securing referrals than all the others.

It's your 'about' page.

In this post, I'll tell explain exactly why this page is so important.

I'll give you some simple pointers that'll help you create a killer piece of content to sit in this area of your site.

[Content that will win you business both now and in the future.]

And finally, I'll also reveal how to tell if your 'about' page is failing you.

The 'about' page – what's the big deal?

This is where your prospective customers get to know you – the place where they form those all-important first impressions.

And it's these very impressions that will make or break your chances of getting a referral.

It's a question of pure logic.

As consumers, we use the extra details that we learn about a brand on this page as backup in case we're undecided about whether to buy something.

A good 'about' page pushes a lead further down a sales funnel, either consciously or sub-consciously.

If we've subsequently given our prospect a great service, we build on those good early impressions (again, either consciously or sub-consciously).

Then, it's only now, at the end of the customer journey, that we potentially reap the ultimate reward: the referral.

As you surely know, this is the best and most powerful form of marketing there is.

And it's all thanks to the first step: the 'about' page.

However, creating a quality piece of content in this area clearly isn't straightforward, otherwise more businesses would do it.

Despite the importance of the 'about' page, this is the section of a website where a company traditionally drones on about how many years they've been operating.

Or how many offices they have scattered across the world.

A good 'about' page will empower your brand and make you memorable.

It's funny.

For many business owners who are tasked with creating content for their websites, the 'about' page is usually given low priority status.

Yet this is a huge mistake – it's ignoring one of the oldest clichés in the book: that people buy from people.

An 'about' page is critical to a website's success.

It's your chance to step away from the boardroom and reveal the people behind your brand.

But an 'about' page is about much more than just providing an opportunity for chitter-chatter.

This is about creating copy that will help establish some of the main pillars that people need to see and feel before they part with their hard-earned cash.

We're talking about factors such as trust, integrity, authenticity, personality and morality.

In summary, your 'about' page needs to 'wow' visitors and impel them to recommend you to the people in their lives.

After all, referrals are how you create a memorable brand; one that will enjoy a stable future.

So, what can you do about your page?

For starters, don't be self-obsessed.

You have to put yourself in a visitor's shoes.

Suppose that you've just landed on a website.

What do you need to hear in order to convince you to make a transaction?

Which brands do you admire?

Which businesses do you trust, admire and respect?

Chances are, they've convinced you through having a clear and consistent content strategy.

To that end, ironically, your 'about' page is more about 'them' than it is about you.

Take time to establish your core values.

Think about your customer pain points (why are they even considering buying from you in the first place?).

Then map out your content and make sure that everything you're saying is relevant to the customer.

With all due respect, all things being equal, they don't care whether you've been trading for 10 years or 10 minutes.

They don't care about industry awards they've never heard of.

All they care about is what they can get out of their time on your site.

Can they get what they want?

To that end, what you have to say about your business isn't really the point.

By contrast, you should actually focus on what your visitors need to get out of their time on this section of your website.

Are you leaving money on the table?

Here's a quick X-step process to find out whether you could do a better job with your 'about' page.

[Hint: you'll need Google Analytics set up with your website.]

Step 1:

After opening up your Google Analytics account, click on Behavior.

 

Step 2:

Now click on All Content.

Step 3:

You should automatically land on the first option: All Pages.

What you're looking at is a breakdown of what people are doing on each of the pages on your website.

Now find your 'about' page.

Most businesses will see this in one of the top 10 most-visited pages on their website, but if it's not there, then go through the other pages until you find it.

Step 4:

Once you've found the stats for your page, look at the column under bounce rate.

Step 5 [the analysis]:

As you may or may not know, your bounce rate reveals how many people are leaving a certain page without taking any other action.

In other words, they're either not finding what want or aren't liking what they see.

Clearly, the lower the bounce rate is for your 'about' page, the better the job it's doing.

If your bounce rate for your 'about' page was 100%, everyone's leaving after reading your copy and you're doing terrible.

If it's 0%, your 'about' page has definitely piqued their interest and you're doing great.

But those examples aren't that helpful.

They're too extreme.

So the big question is, what bounce rate should you be aiming for?

In truth, there's no clear right or wrong answer.

Having said that, research does tend to indicate that a bounce rate of 25-30% is very good (and probably as good as it'll get).

Most businesses will probably see a bounce rate in the region of 55-85%.

And it's those companies, the vast majority, who can improve their 'about' page.

All the top entrepreneurs always say that it's the little details that yield the big results.

So surely it's worth putting some effort into your 'about' page?

Matt Press is an experienced copywriter who has written for some of the UK's biggest brands, such as Sky, Three and Vodafone. He now runs his own content marketing agency, Splash Copywriters.

Why Your Sales and Marketing Stack Needs a Solid Foundation

Imagine the best pancakes you've ever had. What made them work? They likely started with a solid recipe of core ingredients, then added just the right blend of proprietary variations to make an unforgettable short stack. But it all started from a solid foundation – flour, eggs, whole milk, baking powder, salt, cooking fat, and sugar.

Your marketing and sales stack is no different. The foundation will make it or break it. Luckily, the ingredient list isn't nearly as long as the pancake mix.

What are the core ingredients that make up a solid sales and marketing foundation? It starts with a strategy focused on the customer and your content, and the right tool to whip it all together.

Constructing the Stack

The right recipe will help ensure you deliver the right message to the right person at the right point. An effective sales and marketing strategy starts with the customer and content at its core, and is further refined by understanding the journey that customer makes. Glossing over this part often results in half-baked strategies that fall flat.

It's critical to understand what the buyer's journey looks like – the stages of awareness, consideration and decision, and the transitions in between. Each phase or stage will be specific to your buyer, which means getting to know your buyer is imperative.

Enter: The buyer persona. These are detailed accounts of your target customer. They go well beyond basic demographics like age, gender, and occupation. A good buyer persona will detail what their motives and priorities are, how they determine success, what their perceived or actual barriers are, where they search for solutions, and who impacts their decisions.

While surveys and reviewing analytics from online behaviors can provide some level of insights, one-to-one interviews are the best way to gather in depth details. You can conduct phone interviews or in-person visits with existing customers, or use industry events and trade shows as opportunities to talk to prospects, current customers and even the customers of your competitors. You're looking for answers to questions such as:

• What priorities/problems prompted them to search for a solution?


• Why did they choose your brand over another? Or why didn't they?


• How do they determine success and what are their goals?


• What barriers (perceived or actual) might stand in the way of their decision?


• Where do they look for solutions?


• Who influences their decisions?

In depth buyer insights are the bedrock of customer success-focused content.

With this level of detail, you are better equipped to understand and interpret their actions, and the questions they might ask within each stage on their path to purchase. At this point, the recipe will start to come together as you determine how to align your sales and marketing strategies to harmonize with the buyer's journey and be there with the relevant content they need to answer their questions or solve their problems.

Understanding the framework – the customer, their journey and the desired outcome of the content you produce – you will be able to identify what parts of the recipe can be changed as goals change or you learn more about buyer preferences. These three ingredients – the customer, their journey, and the content – will be staples, but how that content is delivered or the type being created can be substituted.

In-depth buyer personas and a map of the customer journey is almost like cheating the system. Marketing and sales teams armed with these are better equipped to make a calculated, winning recipe – serving up the right stack (authentic content), at just the right time and in the right place.

Serving Up the Stack

Now that you've got a solid foundational recipe in place, there's one final element – a solid platform to serve it from. Today, there's a near endless supply of sales and marketing tools to support with everything from automation to customer relationship management and sales enablement, but even the best stack of tools can become unstable without the right foundational platform.

Just some of the tools that can be added to the marketing and sales tech stack. Without the right foundation, this stack can quickly become unstable.

How do you identify the right platform from which to build the recipe? First and foremost, it should support you in building a solid foundation. In other words, it should enable visibility into your customers, the purchase journey they go through, and the delivery of your content at the right place and time. Internal portals, analytics and collaboration amongst the various players on your team is also essential.

(Image Source) How much do you know about your customer? What they're reading, where they're reading it, what social channels they use, and what they do?

Try to avoid a cobbled together “Frankenstack” of sales and marketing tools. This creates silos within your team and makes for an unstable strategy that lacks cohesion. Instead look for a primary platform to serve as the hub. It should play nice with a variety of tools – everything should work in concert. Before you commit to a platform, consider the following:

• What is our desired outcome?


• Will this platform support our goals?


• Does this platform integrate with the apps we need for our team to work seamlessly?


• Does this platform help us fulfill the goals of our customer, and ultimately ensure they continue to move through the funnel?

If you are working with an indirect sales channel, that platform should also support them with the training, marketing and sales tools they need to do their job and nurture their customers.

Conclusion

Before you start throwing together sales and marketing recipes, be sure to understand the role of each of those core ingredients and how they can be used to direct all recipes that follow. This will enable you to create far more effective strategies rather than hoping something will work.

The customer and customer journey, and content that originates from those two ingredients, produces a winning recipe and helps ensure your efforts won't be lost in a sea of marketing messages.

About the Author: Jen Spencer is the Director of Sales and Marketing for Allbound, an innovative SaaS platform that helps companies empower their resellers and distributors to be more customer-focused through content and collaboration. Jen loves animals, technology, the arts, and really good Scotch. You can follow her on Twitter @jenspencer.

Thoughts, Ideas, Quotes, and Insights from MME16

We have come to the end of another successful Modern Marketing Experience. Brands, CMOs, Modern Marketers, and vendors gathered for three days in Las Vegas. Below are some of the things we heard, learned, and thought about.

It Really is All about Customer Experience

Sometimes it is easy to cynical about Las Vegas, especially if you are not into the whole party all night thing, but there is something they do very well. Customer Experience. Every major hotel has one simple goal. Let's provide everything you need on your vacation so that you never have to leave the property. Fine dining, shopping, extravagant shows, lounging by the pool, late night partying, and games of chance.

There is a simple lesson here for any business. Think about serving your customers in a new way. Imagine that you could provide everything they need, so they didn't need to go anywhere else and work with any other company. It may not be entirely realistic, but how does it work scaled down to your industry or product category? Can your offerings be so complete in their needs to serve your customers that it generates a level of loyalty that you just haven't seen before? Remember, in Vegas, the house always wins. They must be doing something right. - Jeffrey L. Cohen, Director, Content Strategy, Oracle Marketing Cloud

❤️ the iconic brands being featured in #MME16 keynote. The "you may think you know them" theme is very relatable for many established brands

- Alison Pruett (@alison_pruett) April 27, 2016

"We wondered, could we fundamentally re-imagine how we do this? We knew we needed to change the way we talk to consumers. And in walked technology." – Eric Reynolds, CMO, Clorox 

Via @CloroxCo #digitaltransformation is incredibly hard. But don't let fear get in the way. This is where the future is #MME16

- Shelly Kramer (@ShellyKramer) April 27, 2016

"If we don't disrupt ourselves, we're going to be disrupted." - Nick Cerise, CMO, Western Union

@Sears already asked for social sharing in the analog world decades ago...@OracleMktgCloud #MME16 pic.twitter.com/RFHJ4R2m8x

- Sander Arts (@Sander1Arts) April 27, 2016

"Personalization at scale is the biggest challenge at Sears." - Ryan Deutsch, DVP, Digital Marketing, Sears

Digital Transformation and the Modern Company

I'm in Vegas this week, as a guest of our friends at Oracle, for their Modern Marketing Experience event focused on the Oracle Marketing Cloud. The event is all about digital transformation and how companies of all kinds – B2B and B2C – are making the leap to digital transformation and a focus on customer experience. Read more - Shelly Kramer, Co-founder, V3*Broadsuite

Lessons for CMOs

There were two panels specifically for CMOs: The Age of Brand, Agency, & Customer Collaboration: How to Make It Work and The CMO Solution Guide for Building a Modern Marketing Organization. In the former we learned that the roles of key players in the brand/agency relationship have shifted greatly over the past 2 years, while data and how to disseminate it was identified as a key component in making the relationship work successfully. In the latter the panel spoke to the need to strike a balance between having the right people within a given organization with the right technologies. Two words at the heart of each of these discussions were people and technology.

Despite the rapid (and ongoing) proliferation of new technologies and the functionalities they deliver  - organizations must never lose sight of the fact that it is people, their employees and customers, who ultimately make the difference. - Steve Olenski, Senior Content Strategist, Oracle Marketing Cloud

"People have a responsibility with what they post on social media." - Zach King

My new go to for digital marketing innovation @FinalCutKing #MME16 #killingit pic.twitter.com/zlpaOj7H2i

- Kate Stannard (@KSStannard) April 27, 2016

It's lights, camera, #action at #MME16! The camera's rolling with @John_Bara & @OracleMktgCloud pic.twitter.com/vUxDnCbH1Z

- Mintigo (@mintigo) April 26, 2016

Basking in the Glow

Modern Marketers spend so much time heads down in their jobs and they don't often step back to acknowledge the great work they are doing. And the Markie finalists are doing some great work. It really is an honor to be a finalist with these other companies, but to win a Markie is something special. It's great for our work to be recognized by the Oracle Marketing Cloud. - Nikki Candito, Marketing Manager, Eaton

"You can't fall off the floor." -- Troy Carter's grandma advice. Taking a risk with @ladygaga @atomfactory #MME16

- Victorria Wytcherley (@VWytcherley) April 27, 2016

.@Oracle CEO @MarkVHurd "companies with happy customers get 5X the return in stock performance" #MME16

- Zari Venhaus (@zrtalebi) April 27, 2016

Millennials are resetting expectations,similar values to older generations, just easier to provide feedback & complain to biz now #MME16

- Meagen Eisenberg (@meisenberg) April 27, 2016

"This is the beginning of the end of advertising as we know it." - James Cooper, Editorial Director, Adweek

"When you're in digital you never hit the finish line." #MME16 #realtalk

- carrie hawkins (@owch) April 27, 2016

"Now the right message to the right person at the right time also has to come in the right place and in the right context." - Rebecca Lieb, strategic advisor, research analyst, keynote speaker, author, and columnist

Looks like @jaybaer is trying to make FOMOSO happen instead of only FOMO! (Fear Of Missing Out on Software Opportunities) #MME16

- Stephanie Carls (@stephelisecarls) April 27, 2016

"The next big trend is doing yesterday's big trend, better." @jaybaer via @cnmoody #MME16

- Lee Odden (@leeodden) April 27, 2016

"Focus less on what product you should be selling, and focus more on what customer need you're fulfilling." - Andy Kennemer, VP, Omnichannel Marketing, Abercrombie & Fitch

People Want to be Involved

They want to feel like they are part of something. Let them in. Include them. From conferences like this one, to written content, to video, involve your customers, fans, followers. Don't focus on product. Focus on creating experiences that people will remember. - Lauren Harper, Sr. Manager, Global Social Marketing, Oracle Marketing Cloud

@llcrowe being interviewed on how marketers are leveraging #videomarketing at #MME16 @Brightcove pic.twitter.com/7CyW2i8SOt

- Matt Childs (@MattyChilds) April 28, 2016

Put Content Where the Business Is

Competition for buyer time and attention couldn't be higher and as more companies jump on the content and social media bandwagon, companies are hard pressed to stand out.

 

We feel this at our agency as our blog attracts 2,000% more traffic than our company website. Yet, the website is far more effective at attracting attributable business inquiries. We know clients are educating themselves through our blog content but not taking the next steps to make inquiries there.

 

Creating a "best answer" destination that serves the interests of the entire customer lifecycle has become a major initiative. Combining our stand alone blog with the company website into an agency digital magazine will provide an engaging content experience that is integrated with agency services, case studies and end of funnel content. At the same time, this content hub will be optimized, socialized, publicized off site and influencer activated. - Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Marketing

 

"I am not who I say I am. I am who YOU say I am." - Tyra Banks

@tyrabanks speaking on marketing, branding and building a business #fierce #funny #engaging #badassery #MME16 pic.twitter.com/c4h6uyw6mR

- Swati Harish (@swati) April 28, 2016

Just found my new business role model here at #MME16 - @tyrabanks thanks for you authenticity & sass. Be my mentor?!

How to Stress Less About Referrals

How to Stress Less About Referrals written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing

photo credit: Pixabay

You already know the value of a referral in building retention, value and loyalty to your brand. And those referrals help you grow your customer base at a much lower cost than waiting for customers to discover you.

The numbers make the case: Cold calls result in a 3% or less appointment success rate, where having a referral boosts your success to 40% or more. Think of the time and shoe leather you save by working mainly from referrals.

But what's the best way to get them?

There are two ways: word-of-mouth referrals or marketing automation – having a program in place that can reach out to your customers automatically. Word-of-mouth is highly valuable but can take more time, commitment and effort. Marketing automation can be expensive, but it's more practical and takes some stress off your sales team. The good news is the two methods are strong co-workers.

How marketing automation fuels word-of-mouth referrals

The tried-and-true value of word-of-mouth referrals is undeniable: In 2014, a Small Business Trends survey showed that 85% of small businesses say their customers learned about them through someone they know. And about 62% of small businesses consider word of mouth the most effective marketing strategy, says a report by InfusionSoft.

And technology has changed the way it works: Social media is the new word-of-mouth marketing. It's today's virtual water cooler. Ambassador shares the example of the recent Netflix series Making a Murderer, which at one point drove 8.46 million Twitter impressions and 412 unique tweets per hour, ultimately making it one of the most popular series that the online streaming service has offered to date.

People are interested and influenced by what other people are talking about, with 46% of people turning to social media when planning to make a purchase. That's where marketing automation comes in.

It can help build the buzz, joining technology with the old-fashioned power of word-of-mouth referrals. And marketers and businesses are catching on: EmailMonday says about 11 times more B2B organizations are using marketing automation than they did in 2011. About 69% use marketing automation for customer acquisition and 50% for customer retention.

The value of marketing automation is undeniable, too. Capterra says 91% of those using marketing automation see the platform as “very important” to their marketing success, and businesses that use the tool see a 451% boost in qualified leads.

Ways to put marketing automation to work

So how does it work? Essentially, marketing automation is software that enhances your marketing plan by making it more target-rich and effective across various channels, such as email. It can generate leads by gleaning data about your prospects' activities and interests, helping you direct the right content into the right channels, R2Integrated says. That gets people talking about you, and keeps them connected with more meaningful content.

Socedo, which helps clients find leads through analyzing social media data, uses a number of marketing automation tools itself to analyze and improve its own content, optimize success on click-throughs, and improve email communications and social media reach.

Marketing automation software also can determine who your top advocates are. That helps you to stop wasting time with people who aren't interested in your product or service and instead stay focused on potential buyers and clients. A general email blast to your entire contact list won't be as effective as targeting the users who you know have an interest.

Additionally, software tools like those offered by Ambassador allow you to build a campaign with custom rewards to encourage referrals – a top way to get your message shared. Among the highly connected millennial generation, 95% say they'd like an incentive, such as discounts or cash rewards, to share a product through email or social media channels.

Don't forget the follow-up

You also should have a strong plan for following up with prospects. ActiveCampaign says to start with a sort of mission statement – a description of the kind of experience you want your contact to have. Then consider what result specifically you'd like the follow-up to provide, such as greater sales or increased referrals. These and other goals will help direct your automated follow-up plan.

Also, as R2Integrated notes, it's important to remember that marketing automation shouldn't run on autopilot. Authentic personal experience (not just “personalized” experience) and engagement will always be the core of making strong connections with your customers, so it requires some creative thinking and strategizing.

The good news is now you have many more tools to make that happen.

Aseem Badshah, Founder & CEO of Socedo. Socedo helps sales and marketing professionals leverage social media to discover leads and build relationships more effectively.

How a GREAT Marketer Befriends an Influencer

Have you ever watched a reality competition? You know, one of those Survivor-style shows that puts strangers in a stressful situation to battle for a last-person-standing prize?

Don't be ashamed if you have. I'm a pop culture snob, but still found myself transfixed by ten seasons of America's Next Top Model. On that show, amidst the freak-outs and tantrums, I noticed one recurring line of dialogue:

“I'm not here to make friends.”

You'll hear it on almost every reality competition. There's always one person who alienates everyone else with that specific phrase. Usually it's followed by, “I'm here to win.”

The funny thing is, in all the hours I wisely invested watching would-be models snipe at each other, no one who said that ever won. Not once. In fact, they tended to get kicked off earlier than anyone else.

It's easy for marketers to feel like we're not here to make friends. Even in influencer marketing, it's all about that ROI. Influencer, you get me what I need, we'll compensate you, and that's the end of it. We're here to win.

But just like the models and aspiring pop idols of the world, you'll find that putting effort into building friendships pays off in the end. If you want influencers who are excited about working with you, creating work they're excited to promote, it pays to cultivate a friendship. Not just from a, “it's nicer to work with people when you're nice” angle, either-it's better for the business side, too.

Here are three ways you can cultivate friendships with your influencers.

#1 – Consider People outside of their Interaction with Your Business

This is a piece of advice I've given to marketers thinking about their customers, but it applies to influencers as well. Yes, you're vetting the influencer for the size of their audience and if their audience aligns with your message. But while you're doing that, consider what they do when they're not answering your email.

What are they like? Do they have a good sense of humor? What are their hobbies? Do they talk about their family, their pets, their collection of vintage chainsaws? What kind of music are they into? What movies do they love? It's worth doing a little digging to find out. And I don't mean just social media stalking, either. These questions can start a conversation you might not have had otherwise. We all love talking about ourselves-give them a chance to share interests you might have in common.

#2 – Take – Don't Fake – A Personal Interest

Last December, I got a greeting card in the mail. It had my name and addresses hand-written on the envelope, but no return address. Intrigued, I opened it to read: “Best holiday wishes to you and yours from your friends at [Insurance Company].” I looked at the envelope again, and this time could tell their hand-written address was just a handwriting font. Just like that, any illusion of personal interest they were trying to create was gone.

With your influencers, it's worth taking time to express a genuine personal interest. Let your correspondence show that you have taken time to learn something about them. Send a meme that made you laugh, that you know they would love. Send them a vintage chainsaw to add to their collection. That thoughtfulness goes a long way.

Just make sure you do your homework under point #1, so you're not faking the funk. You wouldn't want to send chocolates to a diabetic, or a vintage chainsaw to someone who collects old Happy Meal toys. That's just a waste of a good chainsaw.

#3 – Strive for Genuine, Enthusiastic Co-Creation

At TopRank, we try to involve influencers in the creation process as actively as possible. We make sure influencers know exactly what project we're working on, why we would love their input, and which other influencers are already on board. We keep the enthusiasm up throughout the process with progress reports. We show them the finished project before we publish it so they can make final edits. And we always make sure to message them right before the project posts, to make it easy for them to promote it.

Compare that approach to simply saying, “Hey, can we get a quote about Happy Meal toys for a blog,” followed by…well, no follow-up at all. There's no comparison.

How a GREAT Marketer Befriends an Influencer

Let's face it: We are here to make friends. In marketing, as in life, friends make good things even better. So to help you cultivate lasting friendships with the influencers in your life, we created this cute-but-serious storybook with some key points to keep in mind. Read it to your kids before bed tonight…or to your significant other while you're binge-watching America's Next Top Model.

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