Millennials, also known as Generation Y, are not your parents’ generation; they do things differently and in a big way.  Millennials also happen to be the largest generation; some 80 million individuals born after 1980 and before the early 2000s make up this young but influential demographic. Nowhere is this influence being felt more than in the retail industry: recent research reveals that Millennials are changing the rules of brand marketing, redefining purchase habits, and revolutionizing the shopping experience as we know it. Along with changing ideologies in technology, privacy, and social interaction, Milliennials are forcing retailers to reevaluate how they attract and communicate with consumers.

Brand Marketing: Not Your Traditional Approach

Millennials are anything but traditional when it comes to retail shopping. It should come as no surprise that Millennials prefer being able to interact with brands through digital channels versus historical marketing tactics such as circulars or in-store advertisements. Retailers also cannot rely on the traditional “quality products at a good deal” approach, an effective marketing component of baby boomers.  Instead, Millennials are forcing brand marketing strategies to become much more participative in ways such as casually engaging them on Facebook or Twitter. In fact, the entire marketing equation for Millennials has evolved to include this participative aspect:

One way for brands to become more participative is to offer loyalty and reward programs; 77 percent of Millennials reported participating in such programs and 78 percent reported being more likely to purchase from a brand with a loyalty/rewards program than a brand without one. Brands that succeed in attracting Millennials are often then rewarded for their efforts: Millennials are leaders in “word-of-mouth” recommendations. In this age of social media, “valuable brand advocates” who share opinions on- and off-line with peers are arguably the most effective marketing tool.

The Shopping Experience: A Two-Way Street

The participative and engaging approach goes beyond just selling; the entire retail shopping experience needs to be more engaging. Retailers need to make Millennials feel as if they are a part of something fashionable and trendy; something that their friends belong to – Millennials associated themselves with the statement “It’s ok if others know I am associated with it” twice as often as Baby Boomers.

The all-in-one shopping experience of major in-store retailers is becoming a thing of the past, as the ease and convenience of online shopping is putting more pressure on in-store retailers than ever. It can be far less preferable to go to a brick-and-mortar store when online purchases arrive within a few days and shipping is (often) free. Additionally, the sheer quantity of online vendors has afforded Millennials (and consumers in general) more retail options than ever before, thereby allowing Millennials to be more selective with their purchases. Millennials actually prefer to browse for products over purchasing them, and only pull the trigger after a smile of satisfaction – a retailer’s ability to “make me smile” is 33 percent more important to Millennials than Baby Boomers.

Online retailers interested in appealing to Millennial consumers need to provide them with a more shareable and social shopping experience. As the pioneers of social media, it is especially important for online retailers to offer products and advice to Millennials on social networks. Millennials want to share these things with 100, 1,000, or even 10,000 friends and followers (i.e. your potential customers). This dialog can be enhanced by a well-developed mobile strategy that engages the 50 percent of Millennials that are browsing and reviewing products via their mobile devices.

Purchasing Habits: Here and Now

Millennials live and shop in the moment, often making purchases and dealing with the repercussions later. In one survey, 52 percent of Millennials were more likely to make impulse purchases than any other generation. This is an alarming difference from the nearly 8 out of 10 baby Boomers whose purchases are driven by practical decisions. Millennials don’t stop spending in a recession either; only 20 percent of Millennials reported spending less on apparel during the most recent economic downturn.

Despite the rapid spending habits of Millennials, they put a lot of thought into the products and services they adopt. Millennials are more cosmopolitan in nature, and view their purchases through a global lens, which for example, leads to a higher preference for “green” products. These reasons are why Millennials are more likely to shop at smaller retailers with authentic cultural items than large chain operations.

Millennials do more than just purchase environmentally or socially responsible products; they donate their time and money to charitable causes. In 2011, 75 percent of Millennials donated to charity and 60 percent volunteered for a good cause. In the near future, the brands that Millennials support the most are likely to have a positive impact on the world.

The New Dialogue

Millennials are using the advancements in technology and mobile communication to change how they interact with brands. The brands that nurture these interactions and turn them into strong relationships will be rewarded in new ways. For instance, Millennials are willing to share private information in exchange for benefits – 56 percent would share their location for a discount.Ultimately, Millennials are now calling the shots, and retailers will just have to listen.

To learn more about Millennials and their shopping habits, click here.

The affiliates that brought over the most business were labeled as Super Affiliates. They were the cream of the crop and where targets of every online brand.

Social Media came along and suddenly a new breed of referrers came into the mix, influencers. These are people who have very big followings and can reach out to large audiences.

You don’t have to be celebrity to become an influencer; you could be an authority on a certain topic or just someone with a voice that wants to be heard. If you generate quality content, people will begin to follow you.

Most of us if not all of us are addicted to social media; it is usually the first thing we check when we open our eyes in the morning and the last thing we see before we go to bed. The time we spend on it outweighs almost every other media channel.

The mighty search engines have noticed how attached we are to our social networks, so they decided to collaborate with them and integrate social into their search results. Now the user can get up to the second results from user generated content. Influencers have even been favored by search engines and have even begun to display their content above the rest.

Users never really had authorities to follow online when they searched, but now their search quarry will be directly answered by a post by an authority on the subject. It gives the search process more of a trust factor and a human element, as opposed to dealing with a computer algorithm.

With the ease of sharing content on social media and the viral effect, much of today’s internet traffic goes through social channels. Affiliates rationally did their PPC campaigns or SEO efforts to try to rank highly on the results page. Affiliates were never an authority on a subject just another storefront for a product or service.

Influencers also now have the opportunity to reach out to mobile users, since mobile is the most popular device to access social media. More websites are accessed through social media then traditional internet browsing on mobile devices.  This is because social is more comfortable to use on mobile and many affiliate websites are not compatible with mobile devices.

With the substantial audience that influencers have at their fingertips, lead generation is simple. They can market a product to hundreds of thousands of potential customers with a post less than 140 characters.

Customers today now have the opportunity to engage with brands via social media, something that was very difficult to achieve prior. The more customer interaction the better, now it is more of a necessity than a luxury.

Influencers are already one of the most sought after entities by big brand names. They not only provide more genuine content but offer better results for the end users. They are the human curators that search engines have been looking for. Expect them to have even more sway in the website referral space, in the coming months and years.

As a sales manager, you are tasked with contacting prospects on a daily basis in an attempt to educate them on the value proposition that your hotel has to offer but did you know that studies reveal that only two percent of sales occur when two parties meet in person or over the phone for the first time?

The two percent that are in a position to book your hotel have already conducted some prior research and already know what they are looking for.  One would assume that research included your hotel’s location, your brand, amenities and other identifiers that were made available through your hotel’s website.

That means that 98 percent of the prospects you meet or contact for the first time are not in a position to say “Yes” and will only book once a certain level of trust has been established by you.

“Anyone who believes they can go into a sales situation armed with “101 sure fire sales closes” and make sales is seriously misinformed … and about 20 years behind the times. Professional sales people get to know their prospects; understand their issues; solve their prospect’s problems; and provide irrefutable proof. They build relationships and trust by engaging in on-going dialogue (otherwise known as follow-up). They don’t just peddle their products and services with an armoury of closing tricks.”

There are a variety of reasons why a prospect isn’t in a position to pull the trigger at your hotel and that’s OK because there are just psychological and transactional realities you must become aware of and recognize.  For these reasons, your follow up is key to your success in eventually winning over the prospect.

According to Clay, “Research shows, amazingly, that only 20 percent of sales leads are ever followed up … in other words 80% of potential opportunities are lost without trace simply due to lack of follow up.”

If you want to change that, read on.

Here are some stats that should open your eyes as to the importance of follow up.

• 44 percent of sales people give up after one “No”
• 22 percent give up after two “No’s”
• 14 percent give up after three “No’s”
• 12 percent give up after four “No’s”

Simply put, 92 percent of sales people throw in the towel after being rejected four times and only eight percent of sales people put themselves in a position to ask for the order a fifth time.

That means that eight percent of the sales people are getting 80 percent of the sales.

Consider developing a “No” strategy

Think of it this way.  If you contact a prospect on five different occasions, he will most likely say “No” four out of five times so if you design a strategy that includes a fifth contact at some point in time you will have a better chance in either solidifying your relationship and/or potentially booking business in the future.

Where are your “No’s” and how can you begin to transition them into a “Yes”?

How many leads come to your hotel direct, via an eRFP channel or through another source?  When you can’t place the business in your hotel for whatever reason, what happens with that lead?

The first place you need to look is in your hotel’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.

Once you have identified those who said “No”, you will need to develop what Clay calls a ‘Five No’s’ strategy that will help to put you in a better position to convert that prospect over a period between nine and twelve months.

If you struck out once, the idea is that you will have to contact that prospect over the suggested timeframe four more times.

Your contact strategy should include a compilation of telephone, email, handwritten note, and an invitation to visit your hotel for breakfast/lunch/dinner/site inspection/FAM trip (whatever the budget will allow).

First, send a compelling email that contains a personal message from you and a call to action that is designed to produce a response.  Before you construct your email, read about these 4 Email Fails That Hotel Sales Managers Must Avoid.

Example:

Hi Bill,

This is Mary Jones from the ABC Hotel.  

We were unsuccessful in placing your annual business meeting at our hotel and would welcome the opportunity to work with you again in the future.

The ABC Hotel has (insert your value proposition here).

I will follow up with you again in the near future but in the meantime, please feel free to contact me at your convenience.

Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

PS (insert a call to action here)

Mary Jones

Follow up the email with a personal call and make sure that you have something of value to discuss with the prospect other than just calling to check in.  If you follow the prospect, on say LinkedIn, you can glean something from his profile or his company’s page that can spark an intelligent conversation.

Feel free to leave a voicemail message that refers back to your previous email along with a call to action at the end of your message.

Follow up your call within 30 days with a handwritten note and another call to action.

Follow up your call with an email or other form of communication and invite the prospect to personally visit your hotel using any of the suggestions referred to above.

Your turn.  What other strategies would you include in this campaign?

1. How serious a commitment is being made to the affiliate program? Is it a top priority or one of many? Many marketing departments rely on staff to manage more than one marketing program, or multiple aspects of different programs. If a marketing team is structured this way, managers need to be very thoughtful about the priority of the affiliate program in relation to other responsibilities. Managers spending at least half their time on the affiliate program will inevitability be pulled in other directions. This often results in making the affiliate program a lower priority as an indirect channel, and the program will lack the basic oversight needed.

2. How will the success of the affiliate program and program manager be measured? Ultimately, marketing programs are all measured on revenue generation but, as many know, it’s more complicated. When evaluating the success of the program, companies need to look for growth over time, percentage of high-producing affiliates, and brand integrity. Don’t let meaningless metrics, like total number of affiliates in the program, stand as a success metric.

It’s also important to have a good sense of how the person hired to manage the affiliate program will be measured. This will help ensure that company goals are appropriately aligned with the candidates. Set expectations from the start. For example, strong affiliate relationships consistently produce results, so consider how to evaluate this on an ongoing basis. Are top affiliates getting a high quality of interaction from the program manager? Affiliates are sales people and brand ambassadors. They need to be cultivated and nurtured on an ongoing basis. Any program manager needs to show that he/she has the hands-on experience finding and cultivating relationships with affiliates that produce.

Also consider looking for candidates with excellent analytic skills. The easy numbers initially generated by affiliate data rarely tell the whole story. Look for candidates who can go “under the surface” to identify trends and opportunities.

3. Do you know what questions to ask potential program managers? It’s not uncommon for a hiring manager to have limited hands-on experience with affiliate marketing programs, which are extremely complicated. When a candidate describes the success of prior programs under management in topline revenue terms, it’s very important to explicitly understand where the revenue came from (i.e. from what types of affiliates). Were sales from affiliates generating new customers or mostly from existing customers using coupon sites to score a bargain? When the answer is the latter, the affiliate program likely had a lot of overlap with other channels and the sales were inflated.

Other topics to explore with candidates include experience with affiliate recruiting, developing terms and conditions, affiliate fraud, designing incentive programs, brand management and creating compelling content.

Finding solid skills and experience in all of the areas outlined above may be difficult, as successful affiliate program managers are both left- and right-brained. The strong relationship and creative skills expected from a good marketer must be balanced with solid analytic, organizational and tactical prowess. Good candidates should have broad demonstrable skills in addition to prior experience. The considerations outlined above will go a long way towards helping companies find the right person for the job.

Way back in 2009, Google introduced their way of showing you when you need to adjust your budget to better fit their needs … I mean your needs and help you get more impressions and clicks. They call this tactic “your campaign is ‘limited by budget.’”

Is “Limited by Budget” Just an AdWords Scam?

We all have a secret, or for some, not so secret skepticism toward anything Google suggests to us regarding our money and budgets. This is the go-to cautionary move, considering we all know how much money Google makes and we all know how much we spend in AdWords. In all fairness to Google, I don’t think this is too much of a “make money” tactic and more of a “hey maybe you should take a look at your account” tactic. Obviously we know they want to make more money but I think they sometimes have a point when they tell you that your campaign(s) are “limited by budget.” For me there is one main reason for this and it can be easy to see once you diagnose the problem.

Here’s the problem: you can’t put all your eggs in one basket and expect everything to be evenly spread. What I mean by this is, you can’t put all your keywords or ad groups in one campaign and expect Google to evenly spread your budget throughout the day. There are always going to be certain keywords that are budget suckers and those are the ones Google seems to always show. Google will base a lot of what they show on trends and if they find a couple of keywords that seem to work, they will show those over some of your other similar keywords, even if those keywords are a better fit. If your campaign(s) seem to always be limited by budget, I can almost guarantee that if you look at the data on your ad groups, you will most likely see that one ad group is miles above the cost of the other ad groups. With this, you will notice that there are also ad groups that are getting no traffic whatsoever. So what do you do?

What to Do When Your Campaigns Are Limited by Budget

What you need to do is (in any order):

Find those ad groups or keywords that are taking up most of your daily budget on a monthly basis.

This is easy to diagnosis because, like I said before, there are always ad groups or keywords that have a 30-70% higher cost than the others.

NEVER move your high-traffic/high-volume keywords out, ALWAYS move your low hanging fruit.

Take those ad groups and keywords that are seeing little to no traffic and create a new campaign for these with their own budgets. It is important to make sure your low-volume keywords can see some of that daily budget and ensure traffic starts coming in. Also, make sure that the budget isn’t over what you can afford. Remember, not all budgets are created equal, and it is important to make sure to never go over your comfort zone with your budgets. Think about it, if your high-traffic ad groups have their own budgets, those will continue to show and now your low-volume ones will see more traffic with their own budget. You never want to lose that historical data on keywords that are performing, so it makes more sense to take out those that aren’t doing as well; those that have little to no traffic will not be affected as much!

Look at the metrics on the keyword level and you will probably notice a trend.

You will see that there are usually 1-5 keywords that are sucking up most of the budgets and costs and leaving little to no budget for the rest of the keywords. My rule of thumb when looking at these keywords is: if those top three keywords that are sucking up most of your budget are not your biggest converters or money makers for your business, then they should be paused or optimized better.

I know what you are thinking: “Those are my high-traffic keywords, why would I want to pause them?” You want to pause them because these really aren’t doing anything for your business other than costing you money. There are probably more suitable keywords in your ad group that will convert better for you if it wasn’t for those costly keywords. Trust me, Google will find a way to spend your money, so do not be afraid to try pausing those costly keywords. Check the data and metrics on those keywords and you will find they are usually costing more and not converting at the rate they should be. They are usually those broad, more generic keywords that will drive traffic but not that qualified traffic you are looking for.  Like I said, those longer tailed keywords or more suitable keywords will start to show up more often and probably convert a whole lot better than the costly ones.

Think outside of the box.

Don’t just look at the obvious metrics, dig a bit deeper. Just because you moved those low hanging keywords and ad groups into their own campaigns with their own budget, does not always guarantee better performance. Everyone always resorts to raising the budget because Google says to do so, but there are other metrics to look at that may help. Typically those keywords are not being shown due to budget issues, and raising your daily budget and adjusting to make new campaigns will help, but you may also want to take a look at the Max CPC’s and the average position when doing this. Giving something its own budget will not guarantee top of page or the number one spot, so make adjustments when you look at the metrics and this will really help you optimize that low hanging fruit. This isn’t always necessary, but PPC is never a guarantee, so the more experimenting you can do, the better your account will perform.

There are definitely countless ways to curtail this problem but this is what I have found successful from helping others with their accounts. If you really think about it, it all makes perfect sense. Of course, you may have the best structure and never have to worry about this but for those of us who never get it right the first time, this is something you are always going to be dealing with (unless you are one of the few that always says “Google never seems to spend all the daily budget” and for those few, that’s a whole other topic and easier to solve!).

Paid search is definitely not a set it and forget it type of industry and there is always going to be some experimentation happening. So make sure to try new things, think outside of the box and you will be golden! If you have any questions or would like to weigh in on this discussion, feel free to leave a comment below!

• The customer is always right
• Smile when you talk to the customer
• Don’t argue with a customer
  the list goes on and on . . .

Customer service would be easy if absolutes such as these were indeed true. In today’s highly interactive world of customized customer service, nothing could be LESS needed than training in such fallable absolutes.

Customers are in fact individuals who now demand that we meet them in their time and space and stand ready to assist their highly specialized wants and needs. If we fail to do so, our relationship will certainly not be long lived or loved.

The customer isn’t always right. All one has to do is look at the Dunkin’ Donuts video gone viral where a customer went on a ten minute rant with a cashier about an interaction with a previous employee. While the cashier was courteous beyond belief in response, should customer service employees be trained to just stand and take whatever is thrown at them by a crazed consumer no matter what? Common Sense would say certainly not. It is not only offensive to the employee receiving the insults, but to other customers as well to have to listen to such vulgarity (just look at the face of the other customer in the viral video previously mentioned). I salute Dunkin’ Donuts for standing behind and even rewarding the employee took this abuse. I just hope that they and other companies train employees on what they do and don’t have to put up with from customers.

According to a recent Gallup Study on the State of the American Workplace, employees must be engaged and appreciated by their employers to give great service. Telling employees to put up with anything and everything will only make an employee hate their job and their customers.

And what about that smile rule? Have you ever wanted to slap a customer service representative who has had a little too much smile training ?! If a customer’s eyebrows are furrowed and their body language tells the service provider that they are about to explode with anger, smiling will not do anything to lower their angst. Reflecting the customer concern (yet not their anger) is the response to be trained, NOT a smile.

When you train front-line customer service staff, make sure that you are not giving them some generic book or CD course that teaches absolutes. Drill down to very specific scenarios your customer service staff are likely to encounter in YOUR business and discuss the appropriate words, body language, and tone of response. It is only then that you will bring Common Sense Service to your Close Encounters on the Front Lines. After all, most absolutes can be ABSOLUTELY ridiculous in any given situation!

Image by Recuerdos de Pandora

There are numerous benefits to be gained from taking your business to an exhibition – but only if you do all your research beforehand, plan thoroughly, and recognise that the work doesn’t stop once the exhibition is over. Of course, it’s not always possible to foresee and account for every little thing that could go wrong. But when it comes to avoiding silly errors, take note of these tips for steering clear of the common foibles of exhibiting your business.

Not Negotiating With the Right People Beforehand

If you get in touch and establish a good relationship with the event organiser, it can be a huge advantage to your time spent exhibiting. By ensuring that the relevant people in charge of the event understand the nature and requirements of your business, you can negotiate for the best possible location – and price – for your stand. Plus, never assume that the event staff are just going to take care of things either before or during the show. If you neglect to contact the right people, you may not attain the benefits that either come free with the cost of exhibiting your business or the ones that can be obtained for an extra price.

Going Over Budget

More than anything else, going over budget is indicative of a serious lack of research. If you know your market, your competition, and your event, you should be able to budget according to the impression you want your company or product to give off. Even if you incur unforeseen extra costs, a good budget will be ready to accommodate that. Stick to your budget and don’t let anyone scare you into overspending for the sake of attracting customers.

Embracing Technology at the Cost of Personal Service

With the wealth of technological features available for exhibition stands, it can become easy to fixate on kitting out your stand at the expense of actual employees. Have enough staff on hand to guide people through interactive exhibits or to answer questions from people who want a different kind of insight into your company or product. Sometimes a real person is a better source of information than an iPad.

Forgetting To Reward and Motivate Staff

Of course you’ll only take the best employees to a trade show – skilled negotiators, possessing excellent people skills, able to pick out interested parties from a crowd of onlookers. But when they’ve worked tirelessly for days on end to promote their company, don’t forget to provide thanks – whether that’s in the form of tickets to exclusive events or a great meal out.

Ignoring Other Exhibitors

Scoping out your competition allows you to fill any gaps that they may not cater for. Besides which, exhibitions aren’t just for attracting prospective customers, they’re also a good way of checking out potential business partners. Focusing solely on your own business will simply undermine the context of your work.

Having Unimpressive Giveaways

If you want to get people talking about your company, don’t do so by giving them unimportant items that don’t connect with your company’s brand or image – these are more likely to get thrown away or forgotten, not to mention they’d be a waste of your budget.

Neglecting To Promote Beforehand Or Follow Up Afterward

It’s essential to promote your presence at a trade fair beforehand, and to follow up all connections you make afterward. That’s the whole point of exhibiting your business. If you don’t put in the effort before and afterwards, you may as well not attend at all.

If you’re looking for an example of an exhibition getting everything right, by contrast, check out this case study

What are other mistakes people should avoid when exhibiting their business? Share them in the comments!

Variations on the Model
Different companies are implementing the subscription model in different ways. Following in the steps of Hulu and Netflix, YouTube recently announced that it will offer subscriptions for premium channels. In the hardware realm, Apple is planning to apply the subscription model to its AppleCare services. Rather than buying an extended warranty on each Apple product, consumers will pay a subscription fee to repair and service all Apple products they own. With Adobe’s move to the subscription-based Creative Cloud, customers no longer own a license but instead rent the software. There will be no more boxed software, licenses and upgrades, but there will be access to continuous new features.

Advantages of the Subscription Model
Beyond new forms of revenue (YouTube) and reduced expenses (Apple), software vendors stand to gain the most from a subscription-based delivery model. These benefits include: steady, predictable revenue; easy, less-costly delivery; the ability to continuously update outside the confines of a standard update cycle; and the ability to stay ahead of the competition. For the business customer, the subscription model of software delivery offers many cost-saving benefits. Perhaps the most important of these are that the upfront cost of purchasing software is reduced, as well as the expense of installing, maintaining and upgrading it.

While benefits to business are clear, how does the subscription model serve individual consumers? Individuals who subscribe to YouTube, Apple and Adobe will find different benefits in each implementation. With revenue from subscriptions, YouTube can offer better quality content. With a subscription-based warranty, Apple customers will no longer have to juggle a number of different warranties but can just walk into the Apple Store and get any device fixed. And, with Adobe, if an individual only uses one component of the Creative Cloud, he is free to subscribe to only that component. However, the price for the entire Creative Cloud package is quite affordable and opens up access to a completely new world of software most individuals could not previously afford.

Disadvantages of the Subscription Model
Moving to a subscription model can take control away from the purchaser. For example, if a business likes to choose when to upgrade software as a way of controlling costs, the subscription model effectively removes this option. An issue that has arisen with the Adobe’s Creative Cloud is the inclusion of online components such as a public community and cloud storage that cannot be used by certain customers such as government agencies and schools. Adobe has addressed this by offering a special license and version that still uses the online distribution mechanism, but does not include features that these customers will object to. Adobe has explicitly addressed the issues of data security, the need to be connected to the Internet to use the software, and file access in the cloud and upon cancellation. However, these are definitely questions that a customer needs to ask any vendor using the subscription model.

Does the Subscription Model Work?
As long as the purchaser pays careful attention to how the subscription model differs from the current model, evaluates the pros and cons of each, and finds ways to diminish the impact of any cons, this model has some appealing features that can benefit both businesses and individuals.

It’s no secret that mobile device usage is skyrocketing. Just check out these stats.

And it’s not just consumers using their mobile devices. A recent Constant Contact survey shows that 66 percent of small business owners are also using mobile technology for their businesses.

But what does all this mobile usage mean when it comes to marketing for small businesses and nonprofits? In this edition of Ask An Expert, we chat with Jim Garretson, Product Manager of Mobile Products, to find out.

Watch the video:

Can’t see this video? Click here to watch.

Here’s a text version if you’d rather read…

Why can small businesses and nonprofits no longer ignore mobile?

Mobile devices — smartphones and tablets — are incredibly powerful tools for connecting people. Sure, they make phone calls, at least some of them do, but they’re also incredibly personal always-on, always-connected computers. For many small businesses and nonprofits, the power of community and personal connections are central to what they do, and that makes mobile devices in particular a great way to make a more personal, contextual connection with present and future customers.

What does all this mobile usage mean for email marketing?

50 percent of adults in the U.S. use email on their cell phone. This means email can reach a lot of people, wherever they are, no matter what they’re doing. That’s an amazing ability for marketers to have and it means email is more relevant than ever. But, it also means that crafting emails to work well and look great on mobile devices is ALSO more important than ever before. Every organization that reaches people via email should be providing a great mobile experience.

What are some simple things small businesses and nonprofits can do today to become more mobile-friendly?

There are a few important things to do — the first is to make sure your emails look great on mobile devices. Use a short, to-the-point subject line, make sure to have large fonts and buttons, use just one column to maximize readability, and most importantly, be concise with your content. If you follow these tips, your contacts will have a great experience reading your emails on their mobile devices.

Aside from email, you can maximize your reach on mobile devices through social networks like Facebook — which are really popular on smartphones — and by making sure you have an up-to-date listing on popular mobile search directories like Yelp, Google Places, and Foursquare.

What would you say to reassure small businesses and nonprofits that they haven’t “missed the boat” on mobile?

Mobile has become important very quickly, but it doesn’t replace the hard work you’ve already done on your websites, Facebook Pages, and emails! Mobile is just another channel for your present and future customers to find you and engage with you, so consider it as another avenue to deliver your messages. If you’re not thinking about mobile, now’s definitely the time to start. Don’t think of it as another technology to worry about, but as a new and REALLY exciting way to make more timely, more local, and more personal connections with people.

Want to learn more about mobile? We’re hosting a free live webinar on July 23rd at 1pm ET called “Making the Case for Mobile.” Reserve your spot today!

Building the right marketing team and gathering the right marketing resources for your professional services firm is not as simple as it may seem. Whether hiring an in-house professional or retaining an external marketing consultant, a firm must evaluate a number of factors and ask themselves many questions before they make a decision. Items to consider include budget, marketing goals and needs, expectations, existing collateral and resources, and so on. If you’re interested in learning more about the marketing process and frequently asked questions in the process of buying marketing services / hiring a marketing professional, be sure to take a look at our three part series that covers all these common questions, from the early stage of the buying process to purchase (Early-stage questions, Mid-stage questions, and Late-stage questions).

Once you’ve evaluated these questions and made the decision to enhance your marketing team, there are a number of traits you should look for in your professional services marketer. In addition to tangible qualifications, like industry and sector experience, a solid marketing degree, and experience managing marketing tactics and strategies, it’s also important to look for these key traits in your next marketing hire. These are the five qualities we have learned to be essential for effective marketing management at any level, from coordinator to CMO.

1. Responsive: Being responsive should not be underrated! This trait is more important for your professional services marketer than you might think. While both in-house and external marketing consultants should possess this trait, I think it is incredibly important for those outside your firm to be responsive since they may not be physically present in your office to track down. Partners are busy people with a mile long list of things to accomplish. By responding to them in a timely and solution-oriented manner, the professional services marketer makes their job easier, which ultimately benefits the firm. Responsiveness and strong communication skills, in general, are a must to succeed in marketing.
2. Multi-tasker: Professional services marketers absolutely must be able to handle many projects at once and possess the ability to prioritize these projects as needed. Whether in-house or outsourced, marketers typically receive a number of requests throughout the day on top of the usual work load. Someone needs a proposal for tomorrow morning, a last minute ad request pops up, a partner needs a logo file, and so on. A successful marketer must be able to juggle these requests and to ask for help with prioritization when needed. Organization is also key here! There are a lot of documents and projects for a professional services marketer to maintain: logos, brochures, proposals, oh my! An organized marketer will have a well-documented process and place for everything.
3. Positive Attitude: Positivity is crucial for professional services marketers. As mentioned above, the marketer will likely receive a bevy of requests from various professionals and departments in the firm. Some of these will be pleasant and some will not be so pleasant. Handling these requests with a positive attitude makes the experience better for the marketing professional and the firm as a whole. Make sure your marketer looks on the bright side! It’s also important to have a positive attitude and to maintain professionalism when managing relationships with external vendors and clients. Remember your marketer could be the face of your firm!
4. Detail Oriented: Marketing is all about communication. Consider your firm’s website, printed collateral, proposals, positioning statement, and so on – these items allow your firm to tell the outside world what you are all about and what you have to offer. This is why it is crucial that all materials are error free, clean, and, most of all, consistent. A detail-oriented marketer is the cornerstone to seeing this through. The right marketer will make sure all documents are proofed and will always be looking for consistency amongst the firm’s materials.
5. Proactive: Professional services marketers should always be looking to move things forward, not waiting for work to come to them or for project requests to come in. Once a marketing plan has been determined, your marketing professional should be proactively pushing that plan forward. Being proactive with regard to marketing also comes into play in the area of education and research. Your marketing professional (or team) should be proactively researching the latest marketing tools, methods and topics to help your firm stay aware of the latest trends and implement those tactics and tools that best fit the firm’s strategy and goals.

What qualities would you add to this list? I’d love to hear what qualities you think are essential for a professional services marketer. Be sure to let me know in the comments section below.

Personalize the Customer Experience

There is one thing that you can do that almost guarantees that your customer will want to come back and do business with you. It’s more than just delivering amazing customer service. It’s delivering amazing personalized customer service.

The goal is to create the personal touch. This is engagement at a higher level. In its simplest form it may be just using the customer’s name. However, some companies – and industries – have seen such value in personalizing customer service that they’ve taken this concept to higher levels.

What prompted me to write about this topic was an article I read in the May 28, 2013 issue of USA Today, which was about how some hotels are personalizing their guests’ wake-up calls. Most hotels have a wake-up call system that once set, will automatically phone the guest’s room at the appointed time. When the guest answers they typically hear a recorded message. I’ve always appreciated the extra effort a hotel goes to when, instead of a recorded message, there is a live person who calls you and starts your day off with something pleasant like, “Good Morning Mr. Hyken. Thanks for staying at our hotel, and we wish you a great day.”

Some hotels are taking this to a higher level. For example, I’ve answered the phone for an early wake-up call and the employee not only wishes me a great day, but also offers to send up a complementary cup of coffee to get my day started.

While traveling for business to New York City, I stayed at the Kimpton Muse hotel, who has taken the personal touch to an even higher level. Upon check in, the front desk team built some rapport with me. I say “team” because there were three people behind the front desk, and since I was the only guest checking in, they all three interacted with me. They engaged me with simple questions about any dinner reservations I might want to make, my favorite foods and more. They also noticed that while the meeting I was attending was only three days long, I was staying for five days. I told them my wife was joining me.

Was I ever surprised on Friday night, after my wife arrived, that the hotel sent up a bottle of wine, some fruit and chocolate. How nice was that! The staff paid attention and picked up on a piece of knowledge that allowed them to personalize my experience. But that is not all they did. There was something else on the tray, and it absolutely blew my mind. There was a small picture frame, and the picture was of my wife and me!

I was… Amazed! They had obviously gone on a website or my Facebook page and somehow found a picture of us, printed it out and put it in a frame.

The Kimpton Muse delivered personalized service. The staff engaged in conversation, paid attention to what was said, and then took action. Regardless of the type of business you are in, there is always an opportunity to personalize the customer experience.

Public speaking is a hot skill

Honestly, I think this is the most awesome thing ever. Forty-thousand people around the world taking an online public speaking course. They are really going to understand the what behind speaking, and that’s all kinds of amazing. It also means that presentations are a hot topic. People need to master the art of speaking for their business. It’s a must to be successful, and 40,000 people know that to be true.

This validates my mission that communication changes the world and that your ability to speak up and get your story out to the world is a huge part of the change.

Doesn’t this undercut my profession though? No, not really. A good speech coach focuses on the how and not the what of speaking. I focus on co-creating with you a great experience for your audience.

Focus on the what of speaking

When I taught public speaking for 3 different universities, we limited the size to 25 students. Why? Public speaking is about getting experience in presenting. It was about my students and I, crafting great speeches, experimenting with content and growing their skills. When you have 40,000 people in one class, they are not going to get the hands on “how” of speaking in front of a group. They get the what – they get the theory. Not the experience. Although the UW prof believes some students will submit video’d speeches for peer review, it does not replace the value of getting up in front of a live audience.

The relationship between the speaker and audience is where the magic happens.

Implementing theory is the tricky part

Have you ever taken a course online? Understanding the content is easy, but applying the content is the tricky part. I read a book with templates on how to write a compelling bio. I struggled, so I hired Nancy Juetten (the bio queen) to coach me through the process. The bio I created with her was a GAZILLION times better than the one I created by myself.

When I’m working with a client on crafting a speech, we typically spend one session working out their big idea statement. I’ve detailed the process of writing your big idea in the blog post, and the process I use with clients is identical. It should be easy-peasy, right? Except it’s not. Putting theory into practice is tough stuff especially when it will make or break your presentation. You need an expert to help guide and create with you.

Coaching supports you through the how-process

After you give the big speech and it’s a roaring success, there is a speaker’s high. It’s the “Nailed it!” or “YES!” or “woo-hoo!” emotion. Think scoring the touch down at the big game, spiking the ball and break dancing in the inzone feeling. Yes, successful presentations give you that type of exhiliaration.

You’ll never get that speaker’s high from just knowing the “what” of speaking, you’ve got to be able to implement that what like a master. My goal is to get you to that “What a feeling” stage of presentation success. Working with me, your presentation will be 1o times better than what you can great on your own.

Have a big speech coming up? Check out how you and I can work together here and drop me a line!

photo by: Monica’s Dad

The more often you postpone a decision, the easier it becomes to postpone the next decision, and the next decision. Over time, non-action becomes an insidious habit. So why don’t people take action, even when it is in their best interest to do so? Here are a few common reasons:

1. Fear of making a bad decision. This is a common reason for inaction. No one wants to make a poor decision but this fear can be mitigated by testing your campaigns with smaller budgets before making larger spending commitments. Plus, every new initiative teaches you something so you either get great results or great feedback—a win either way. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it, “Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.”
2. Lack of expertise. The marketing world changes rapidly and even those of us who do this for a living can’t keep up with every new technique. It doesn’t hurt to hire experts, who will usually save you more than they cost. For more on this subject, view the blog post titled B2B Marketing Options – When to DIY and When to Outsource.
3. Lack of data. Marketers often wait until they have all the data they deem necessary to launch into a new market or with a new media. The problem is that more data doesn’t always mean greater results. I’ve seen companies who study something to death strike out and those with relatively small amounts of data hit home runs.
4. Lack of budget. In past decades, lack of dollars to spend on marketing was a huge inhibitor. However, the growth of pull marketing and social media have provided even the smallest companies with ways to get the message out. Doing even a few small things on a consistent basis will have positive impact.
5. Lack of time. The late (and great) Peter Drucker made the observation “Any business enterprise has two—and only two—basic functions: marketing and innovation. All the rest are costs.” It is essential that you not ignore Mr. Drucker’s advice by neglecting one of the two essential functions of business.

I know a lot of marketers, and the only ones I would recommend to my clients or as members of our own team are those that are prone to take action. Not that they get everything right, but at least they participate in the game while their less-aggressive colleagues are sitting on the sideline. Which type of marketer would you rather have on your side?

From different clients and others I’ve seen on the web, there are many who understand how landing pages work, but don’t always do it right. Now I’ve been a part of many a project where I’ve built and even improved failing pages. Every time I have a set of questions, a checklist if you will, to go through to ensure the page is optimized correctly.

Let’s take a look at 5 of those points and see why each is important to conversion optimization for landing pages.

1. Are you focusing on one thing? When it comes to conversion optimization for landing pages, it’s best to focus on one thing. That means removing distractions like navigation, links, etc and only focus your efforts on one thing: converting that person into a lead.
2. Does your headline include benefits? Now one of the marks of a good headline sometimes includes benefits. Don’t try too hard, but remember why someone will look at your landing page – your headline.
3. Do you use bullets to spell out the benefits? When it comes to readability, you need to use bullets to highlight the benefits of your offering. Try to get 3 -4 of them on the page and really bring out the benefits in each one.
4. Is your landing page message clear? Think of it this way, if you had only a few seconds to convince someone to convert, would your message do it? If not, it’s time to check your messaging.
5. Does your CTA stand out? When it comes to the closer or the punch that’s going to convert your reader, you better make sure it stands out. That means you need to emphasis it with different coloring, bolding, background…basically anything to make it stand out and bring home that conversion.

Again, these are only 5 of the questions I go through when it comes to building out landing pages. It’s a good idea to put together your own checklist to go through when you build out landing pages to improve your conversions.

What would you add to your own landing page checklist?

Photo credit: pnash

Depends on whom you ask – some retailers are terrified of the shopper who pulls out their mobile phone in order to comparison-shop online. The customer’s logic is simple, why buy from the local store if you can get it cheaper online?

Other retailers feel less threatened by showrooming – they know their customers have always been comparison shoppers, it’s just that now the process is much more efficient. Instead of spending an entire day driving from store to store comparing prices, consumers can explore their buying choices much faster online.

How Are Retailers Responding To Showrooming?

According to a benchmark survey on mobile in retail conducted by RSR Research, responses vary widely:

• 37% of respondents say that they respond to showrooming by trying to be competitive on price
• 32% say they haven’t seen a problem with showrooming
• 13% stick their heads in the sand and ignore it
• 13% try to match the online price
• 5% actually try to beat the online price

Why Such A Wide Array Of Responses?

Some of it may be attributable to what type of products a retailer is selling. Classic impulse purchases, like a tempting array of chocolates, are less vulnerable to showrooming because a hungry consumer does not want to order online and wait several days for the product to be delivered.

Big-ticket purchases are more likely to be researched online, particularly if it is a mass-market product that is available from a variety of retail outlets. TVs, home appliances, and consumer electronics are particularly vulnerable to showrooming.

But don’t forget that while some consumers are doing their comparison shopping in-store before purchasing online, there are others for whom the path to purchase runs in the opposite direction.

Some consumers do their comparison shopping online before heading to a store where they can purchase the item from a retailer they trust to be there tomorrow if they need service or support.

It Comes Down To A Matter Of Trust

Now that the proliferation of mobile devices has made it so easy to comparison shop across channels, retailers must focus on building a relationship of trust if they want to win the sale.

If the consumer can’t count on you to offer them a fair deal, it is all too easy for them to find someone else who will.

Nikki Baird, Managing Partner at RSR Research suggests these three basic tactics for laying a foundation of trust:

1. Maintain consistent pricing across all channels

For years retailers have averaged their margin across categories, so don’t fall prey to the argument that brick-and-mortar stores have a different cost structure than online. Consistency is vital to building a relationship of trust with the consumer, yet only 15% of respondents said they maintained the same price online and in-store.

2. Make it easy for consumers at the shelf to shop your online offerings

If the consumer finds a limited selection on the shelf she is going to pull out her mobile device to see what others have to offer. Few retailers make any effort to direct the consumer to their online store, yet a simple sign with a QR code can easily direct her to your site rather than a competitor.

3. Make it easy to compare products in your online store by providing reviews and side-by-side comparisons

The number one reason that consumers pull out their phones is to get ratings and reviews. In addition to consistent pricing, make it easy for consumers to compare product features and shopper reviews. Consumers are savvy about weighing conflicting opinions – they know that a negative feature for one shopper can be a reason to purchase for another.

Look For Opportunities To Improve The Customer Experience

While there will always be shoppers who “cherry pick” products based on price alone, the vast majority of shoppers consider showrooming a matter of trust. They expect retailers to offer a good deal along with the information they need to choose the product that best suits their needs.

By leveraging the consumer’s mobile device to provide product information at the right time along with a fair price, they can reduce the threat of showrooming and improve the customer experience.

To learn more about the impact of mobile on retail and how to use the right mix of technology components to engage customers and build loyalty, be sure to check out the Mobile Commerce Guide from SAP (registration required).

But what exactly is Big Data and what can it offer a small business? A recent article on the Forbes.com website defines Big Data in terms of difficulty, rather than size, calling it “any data that can’t easily be structured and queried using standard relational database techniques.” One goal is to tap this complex information to create better predictions of customer behavior and then use these customer insights to create products and services your clients want, generating additional revenue. A small business could use their sales data to determine that a particular style and color of product – say a white short-sleeved dress shirt – spikes in sales when parents buy them as school uniforms in late summer. They know to stock up on this product to prepare for the sales spike.

For small businesses, the key is to integrate their disparate data streams within a single analytics dashboard with website traffic and social media, payment processing, and customer contact management. Automatically gathering and combining this data allows a business to better analyze its entire customer engagement process.

Asking these three questions can help your small business develop a sound data strategy.

1. What data do you already have and how are you using it? A lot of what businesses have is “operational data,” data that’s created for a specific need,  such as customer order information found in a CRM system, what pages they’ve clicked on a website or emails that they’ve opened. SMBs need to have an employee who can understand what each data set is and how it’s being used. With a CRM system, for example, you’d want to know what data it captures, and more importantly, what that data means about a customer so you can use it to make better decisions for your business.
2. What question, problem or hypothesis do you want to answer? People often interpret data the way they want to see it, which is dangerous. Taking a step back to look at the quality of your questions can help prevent misleading results.
3. What cross-functionality can you use to gain useful answers? Even the most basic business website can report how many people visit, how many click a certain link and how many ultimately buy. If you can combine those numbers with data from an email marketing tool, such as Constant Contact, you’ll gain more valuable insights. Then you’ll be able to analyze the behaviors of much more specific customer segments to see what marketing campaigns resonate with them and what offers they responded to. This will help you focus your time and resources on the most effective campaigns.

In the end, most small businesses already “have” plenty of data. The challenge is knowing how to use that information to improve their business and continue growing their profits.

We appreciate your feedback! What advice would you offer to a small business that wants to start using all the data they collected to increase revenue? Let us know by posting in the comments section.

Source: Forbes.com, April 2013

Uprising fist (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The CMO’s of today are facing the challenge of surviving in a new world. This new digital age has marketing in the throes of a buyer revolution. Like any revolution, organizations, and institutions are going to topple.

I was recently asked what I believed was the next “hot thing” in marketing. I have been thinking about this for a while now. Typically, when you hear a phrase like the “hot thing”, it is easy to think some form of technology (marketing automation for example), renaming of long standing practices to adapt to new dynamics (content marketing as an example), or some catchy phrase originating from a best selling book. I rule these out this time.

This time, it is something bigger in my mind. It is unglamorous, it is messy, and it comes with new sets of challenges.

In recent uprisings around the world, we have seen old governments topple and the introduction of new forms of governments in several countries. By way of analogy, I believe marketing will need to reinvent itself along the lines of organization, structure, and purpose. Old ways will need to topple. Why? Because there is a buyer uprising and they demand it. They have the power of voting with their budgets.

Purpose

To survive the buyer revolution, new marketing must become purpose-driven. And purpose must be external not internal. What do I mean? Purpose needs to move outward towards customers and buyers. For example, a recent answer to this form of question was answered – “the purpose of marketing is to get more leads” – really, that is it? I believe marketing needs to aspire to a much higher purpose.

I believe a higher purpose expands beyond customer-centricity. It is a purpose of helping customers and buyers to help themselves. To help them achieve their goals and own aspirations. David Newberry, CMO for Pitney Bowes Software in an interview with Bryan Kramer, articulates this:

“the true essence of marketing is a combination of clarity of purpose combined with credibility.”

This prism of purpose becomes important to make 3 important steps towards evolving the marketing organization to survive the buyer revolution.

3 Steps

To achieve a higher clarity of purpose requires a new perspective on how marketing operates and functions to achieve this higher purpose. I suggest these three steps be taken:

Step One: Create A Core Buyer Insights Function

I alluded in my recent article, 5 Obstacles to B2B Market Research and Actionable Customer Insights, overcoming obstacles to buyer insights means seeing insights as not helping to run the business, but be seen as the essential means to inform how the business should be run. Answering questions on what a business needs to do to achieve the higher purpose of helping customers and buyers to achieve their goals.

To accomplish this, I suggest the creation of a core buyer insights function. This function is adept at facilitating the use of third party expertise as well as use of internal expertise. As with most organizational change, this will mean a look at what skill sets are needed. At present, there is a big gap in this area. An example of an organization filling this gap is Intel. They created a core insights function, which meant the addition of capabilities in ethnography, business anthropology, and behavior research.

Step 2: Align to the Critical Path to Purchase and Repurchase

One of the major outputs of buyer insights should be the critical path to purchase and repurchase. This will help B2B marketing to rethink traditional views of buying processes or what is called the buyer’s journey recently. What it takes is to get deep below the traditional metaphor of the funnel or the new metaphors we see as circular. ( You can learn more about this view in this article, where I introduce how to find your buyer’s critical path using the Buyer Decision Model™: How to Find the Critical Buying Path of Your B2B Buyers)

B2B Marketing can align along the critical paths, which are evident for their markets. Aligning expertise and capabilities best designed to help buyers and customers reach milestones in their critical path. For example, one B2B organization aligned new roles and functions to audience creation and demand. It found, as David Newberry mentions above, credibility was an important factor early on in a buyer’s critical path to purchase. Yet, they did not have skills or resources allocated to audience credibility. It made a difference.

Step 3: Organize for the Digital Age

Traditional marketing is being toppled by the buyer revolution. The revolution is being fueled by digital technologies and interactions. Likewise, CMO’s today can use digital expertise to be the transformation engine, which pulls their organization into the new digital age. They will need to go beyond acquiring a tool mentality. A new level of expertise capability means viewing digital as a source of innovation. Creating new ways to engage, interact, and help buyers and customers.

Where Is?

It may have dawned on you by now. I have not mentioned content marketing. I do not discount its’ importance. My belief is the three steps above are important to informing overall marketing strategy, inclusive of content strategy. In my recent article, Latest Report: Why B2B Marketing is Failing B2B Buyers, I reviewed content marketing ineffectiveness. Organizations lacking in the three steps outlined are struggling with content marketing effectiveness.

For CMO’s today, awareness of being in the midst of a buyer revolution is an imperative. It calls for rethinking organization and structure to meet a higher purpose. The three steps above are important elements for organizing for the new digital age.

To me, this is the next “hot thing” in B2B marketing.

(If you are a leader in Marketing, I welcome further conversations to help explore these three steps. Please share widely – your peers and colleagues are trying to survive the buyer revolution.)

Question by: Ashley

Network for Opportunities

“It’s easy to overlook the relationships that lead to collaborations, funding or new opportunities. Teach your child how to meet and network with lots of people, and encourage relationship building. By developing a long-term view of business building, you’ll cultivate a characteristic many entrepreneurs struggle with — patience.”

- Kelly Azevedo | Founder, She’s Got Systems

Equip With a Computer

“If you’re child is ready to start a business, he or she is most likely capable of navigating the web to find relevant sources of funding. There’s plenty of guidance available online to those that seek it. And this publication is the perfect starting point!”

- Michael Tolkin | CEO, Merchant Exchange

Coding Always Counts

“Your child can learn the basics and even advanced coding through Codecademy. I wish I could have done this as a kid growing up. Your child doesn’t need to become a developer, but if they’re looking to raise funding in Silicon Valley, it’s important to understand how to code and how to communicate with developers.”

- Jun Loayza | President, Ecommerce Rules

Study the Art of the Pitch

“Like most facets in the business world, there are norms that, if understood, can increase the attractiveness of the business for investors. This is not the “art of the spin” but rather learning how to share important elements of the business so the founder and business is perceived as credible. I recommend starting this education with the book The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki.”

- Kent Healy | Founder and CEO, The Uncommon Life

Start Your Own Business

“I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, making starting my own business the logical thing for me to do. It was important for me to do each step myself (including figuring out the money), but being able to ask experienced entrepreneurs, like my parents and grandparents, for their advice was invaluable. But if they hadn’t had their own businesses, they wouldn’t have been able to give information.”

- Thursday Bram | Consultant, Hyper Modern Consulting

Talk Isn’t Cheap

“Your child’s business is best coming from their mouths, and that’s what will get people excited to invest in it. So even if you’re managing the deals, don’t push them to the side. Let them talk to friends, investors, or anyone else who may be giving them money. It might take them a few tries to get the pitch down, but this will put them way ahead of the game in the long run.”

- Sean Ogle | Founder, Location 180, LLC

Chaperone the Conferences

“Bring them to conferences like TechCrunch Disrupt, DEMO, BlogWorld, etc. Let them meet other entrepreneurs and VCs so they can learn what they need to do in order to raise funding.”

- Ben Lang | Founder, Mapped In Israel

Look Beyond the Dollar Bills

“The best skills your child can learn are how to bootstrap, and creatively solve any issues that arise in their business — without letting an excuse like money stop them. “

- Yanik Silver | Chaos Catalyst, Maverick1000.com

Assist, but Don’t Do the Work

“The trick is to assist, but don’t do all the work. Parents can supply the helpful experience that young entrepreneurs lack. However, parents should just point their children in the right direction. For example, use some of their resources to find out what banks or investors to get in front of. My parents were always supportive, but never handed me money or made it easy.”

- John Hall | CEO, Influence & Co.

Is Funding Actually the Answer?

“Is funding what he or she wants for the business, or is it what you want? Make sure to ask that question to your kid directly, so that he or she isn’t pressured to take a path and later regret it because it wasn’t his/her choice. Money is everywhere, but give your child a new point of view: many of the greatest businesses are built and bootstrapped without outside funding.”

- Matthew Ackerson | Founder, Saber Blast

When it comes to driving sales through social media channels the going can get tough, and lines may seem blurry. A lot of marketers are reluctant to ask for the sale for fear that they will turn off their fans. But, great deals are exactly what customers are looking for when they connect with a brand page. By failing to provide this incentive to fans on their page, brands miss out on a huge opportunity for customer satisfaction, viral reach, and increased sales.

As it happens, digital coupon users make 22% more shopping trips per year and spend 23% more on those trips than the average shopper. So, why not use your brand page as a way to deliver value to your customers, so they will spend more with you? Here are a few quick tips for using social coupons to increase your bottom line.

1. Set Limits – A common complaint of digital coupons is the assumption that they cannot be controlled. If you are using the right technology, this is absolutely not the case. Your service provider should allow for print limits to be set, so that you only distribute as many as you can afford. Plus, limiting the number available, along with a set time frame in which to claim the offer can make the call-to-action even greater. But, when doing the math remember the redemption rate for digital coupons is much higher than a traditional coupon due to it being more targeted, shareable, and searchable.

2. Experiment – Finding the right kind of offer that causes fans to click, share, and print may take some work. So, try out a few different deals over a period of time and measure the response. At the same time, experiment with ads and promoted posts to get the word out. Fans can’t print your coupon if they don’t know it exists! Also, make sure these coupon offers are unique to your brand page. If fans can get the same deal from their Sunday paper it is unlikely that they will be motivated to go to your page to get it, much less share it with their friends.

3. Dig Down Deep – After running a successful campaign, you may be wondering what comes next. Well, that depends on the kinds of tool you are using to deliver the coupon in the first place. A good social app employs technology that not only delivers the coupon to fans, but can track the use of that coupon – shares, prints, redemptions – and learn enough about the fans themselves to follow up, building long-term value. It’s not just about driving one purchase. It’s about a greater ability to turn fans into repeat customers over time.

Your fans are often your most loyal and active customers. Offering them an incentive will help to strengthen that relationship, and encourage them to become social advocates for your brand. This all adds up to a strong social media leg to your marketing strategy that adds revenue you can see.

Image courtesy of CoupSmart. Not a valid coupon. 

And bullies don’t always bully down the organization, sometimes they have so much power that they can bully you too. Perhaps you think they hold some kind of “key” to your business and if they were gone your company wouldn’t survive. That may be partially true depending on your business, but more often than not you’d be surprised how other people step in and step up to fill shoes you thought were irreplaceable.

What Type of Bully Do You Have?

The Actor

This person isn’t always a bully, perhaps they’re only a bully behind the boss’s back, and when you’re in the room they’re sweet as pie. How do you combat this bully if they’re fake to your face? You need to have relationships with your team at every level so no one is afraid to tell you the cold hard truth. Then you need to confront your bully and tell them you’re very aware of their misbehavior. If it doesn’t get corrected they need to go, as it’s not worth losing great employees.

The Martyr

This bully makes it a point to tell their team to hurry up and do their jobs or else the bully’s job is on the line. These are the same people who will use your name to get what they want instead of having a relationship with colleagues and working together for a common goal. If you see this behavior nip it in the bud, it’s making you look like you’re the tyrant (not them) and more often than not it’s probably not true.

The Wincer

This bully walks the halls with a mean-face, doesn’t smile and says more without words than if they opened their mouths. You need to call this bully out in front of people, cheerfully ask them how their weekend was, and ask them what the issue is that’s making them seem stressed. The more you call them out, maybe the more they’ll turn that frown upside down!

Sybil

When Sybil is happy and not stressed there’s not a bully in sight! Say something they don’t want to hear or deal with? The bully comes out and comes out big time. Stress is part of any job and dealing with it and the people you work with is just a part of it. At VerticalResponse we had a Sybil, we loved Sybil but only when Sybil was happy. We wanted to ask only the bully part of Sybil to leave the company but unfortunately we had to ask the entire person. It was the best choice for all of us and both Sybils!

So make sure your company is as bully-free as possible, you’ll have a happier place to work.

This article by VerticalResponse CEO and founder Janine Popick originally appeared on Inc.com.

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Selling Words… With More Words

Bruce Barton got his start in copywriting with Robert Collier. Collier was in the business of selling books, and one of his clients was the Harvard Classics’ “Dr. Elliot’s Five-Foot Shelf of Books.” In a panicky moment of confusion, Barton was asked to fill a quarter page of the advertisement’s double page spread. Not having time to fill that space with good copy, Barton took a page out of one of the classics and wrote, “This is Marie Antoinette riding to her death. Have you ever read her tragic story?” (source)

This basic marketing idea went on to sell 400,000 sets of the Harvard Classics.

The Tip? Sometimes the best advertisement is a teaser of the product itself!

Making Corporate Human

Bruce Barton also had quite a knack for making big corporations appear human. I think he would fit right in with IBM’s vision were he around today. His clients included:

• General Electric
• Gillette
• Sears
• DuPont
• Polaroid
• Liberty Mutual
• Corning
• Goodrich
• Standard Oil
• U.S. Steel

(source: Berea College Magazine)

Take this General Electric ad, for example, in which Barton writes to “free” women by selling them a product that really isn’t all that personal:

The Tip? All copywriting – even “SEO copywriting” – is about connecting with a consumer on a level that’s below the actual product or service being sold. Good copy doesn’t preach; it understands.

Barton Turned 1,376 Words Into $24,000 – In the 1920s!

In 1925, Bruce Barton penned his famous five-page letter to 24 executives at some of the country’s biggest corporations. His appeal was simple: give $1,000 to help educate the hard-working students of Berea College.

The response was amazing. Barton’s powerful and persuasive copy had a 100% response rate, bringing in at least $1,000 from every single recipient of the letter. In today’s dollars, that $24,000 is equal to about $318,000. Read the full letter here.

The Tip? Know your audience! Sure, you can argue that Barton was appealing to men of means. However, he certainly knew exactly what strings to pull and what buttons to push with these men of means.

The Man Nobody Knows by Bruce Barton

By the 1920s, Bruce Barton was an advertising machine. In the same year that he sent out his famous five-page letter, he published The Man Nobody Knows, a book that attempts to make the Christian religion accessible to the modern businessman by portraying Christ as “the world’s greatest business executive.”

No doubt, a little odd. And, as you might imagine, there was a great deal of backlash against the idea of Jesus as “salesman.” Nevertheless, the book sold remarkably well, promoted Barton’s name, and didn’t hold him back from serving as a Congressman from 1937-1941.

The Tip? Be creative with your copy. SEO copywriting shouldn’t be dull, rote words, churned out for search engines. Focus on – and respect – your audience by writing something that hasn’t been said before, by doing something that hasn’t been done before.

Three years after publishing his best-seller, in 1928, Bruce Barton’s ad agency would merge to form BBDO (Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborne), which is one of the most powerful, well-known advertising agencies around today, with innumerable awards and more than 15,000 employees.

Have any quotes or lessons you’ve learned from Bruce Barton? Share them in the comments section below.

Arthur Yann held one of the toughest jobs in the business. For the past five years, Arthur was the Vice President of Public Relations for PRSA. What made the position such a challenge is that many of the 20,000 members of PRSA enjoy playing Monday morning quarterback.

Every campaign or new piece of content put forth by Arthur and his team was scrutinized far more closely than if he was doing PR for just about any other organization.

The attention didn’t seem to faze Arthur. Whether it was a dues increase or crowd sourcing the definition of PR, Arthur handled even the toughest issues with integrity and a wonderful sense of humor.

More than a thousand tweets and a number of warm tributes to Arthur have been written and shared this week. One from PRSA’s COO Bill Murray is on the front page of the PRSA.org site and it contains information on Arthur’s funeral arrangements and a college fund that has been created for his three-year-old daughter, Sophia.

Arthur Yann was 48.

1. Managers don’t trust their employees to do their jobs.

Some managers just don’t trust their employees so they end up trying to do the work that their employees should be doing. This doesn’t work because we only have so much time in one day to accomplish everything and if you’re doing your employees work, you become distracted and can’t get your own work done. If you micromanage, your employees won’t learn, develop and improve so they can take on more work and be more independent.

2. Giving too little direction.

You need to set expectations with your employees and explain exactly what’s required of them. By doing this, they will come back with fewer questions and have more confidence in you as their manager. The more direction you give them up front, the more time it will save you later. Employees need to know the overall direction of the project, the goals and how they are supposed to measure the outcome.

3. Taking your frustrations out on employees.

I hear from so many of my peers that their managers take everything out on them. If they’re having a bad day and are frustrated, they have a bad attitude and the employee loses out. Managers need to remain calm, cool and collected because it’s a reflection on both them and the company. Not everything is going to go right all of the time and you have to understand that when managing people.

4. Making promises you can’t keep.

If you tell an employee that they are getting a raise, promotion or bonus and then never come through, you look bad and they will lose trust in you. A lot of managers make these promises out of fear. When they sense that an employee is looking to move to another company or position, they immediately try to bait them using these incentives that might not even exist. If you promise someone something, make sure you deliver.

5. Be unwilling to support an employee who wants to make a move.

In today’s economy, people don’t want to stay in one job for life – they want to move around and gain new experiences. A lot of managers aren’t supportive of employees who want to make a move and will do everything in their power to “block” those opportunities, even if it’s within the same company. Managers need to understand that what’s in their best interest isn’t always in their employees best interest and since you’re likely going to end up losing them anyways, you should maintain those relationships.

6. Being selfish and taking all the credit.

Managers tend to take more credit than they deserve. They will plaster their name on presentations that their employees worked on. Instead of being selfish, you actually look better when you share credit and spotlight the people that completed projects for you. By sharing credit, executives will be more impressed with you and your employees will work harder for you.

Port, the author of the bestselling book “Book Yourself Solid,” was recently interviewed for an article on the OPEN Forum small business website. While networking is essential to building your small business, suffering is optional. Here are five tips for painless networking.

1. Make a daily habit of checking in with five people that you’d like to develop a better business relationship with: “Share something interesting, make an introduction, display compassion,” Port suggests. This kind of natural, authentic networking is “entirely within the reach of every business owner I’ve ever met.”
2. Use common interests to start conversations: The key is finding a topic you can talk to someone about that you’re both interested in. You might want to stick to business topics, but talking about golf or baseball can help break the ice. From there, you can broaden the conversation and build the relationship.
3. Choose communication strategies that you’ll enjoy: Build awareness for your business by playing to your strengths and natural preferences. “If you’re not a great user of social media, or if you don’t like speaking, writing or buying ads, then there’s little point in trying to be proactive in those areas,” Port says.
4. Try getting involved with small business groups in your community: Getting to know your peers can pave the way for new business and provide support. As a group, SMBs tend to advocate for each other.
5. Target your networking efforts: Networking can be strategic without being inauthentic; just remember that you don’t have to please everyone.

Not every small business owner is a “people person.” Fortunately, networking is a social skill that can be learned, developed and — if you follow these five tips — even enjoyable.

We’d love to hear from you, especially any readers who are reluctant networkers. What advice would you give for building authentic business relationships through networking?

Source: OPEN Forum, May 2013