5 Quotes That Will Make You Question Your Marketing Strategy

Marketing fuels spectacular business growth, and great marketing matters today more than ever. The world of marketing has been disrupted by the transition to digital, empowering marketers with new tools, opportunities, and innovation.

Who better to discuss this topic than the author of 18 books, a keynote speaker, and marketing disruptor himself, Seth Godin. I had the pleasure of seeing Seth speak at Sales Machine back in June, and was magnetized by his words of tribes and purple cows juxtaposed with floor to ceiling visuals. The conversation went from the big, bold stage to the small and intimate studio setting in a recent Series Pass, where Tiffani Bova sat down with Seth for a live webcast.

Inspiration continued into this webcast, which addressed the topics and conversations that impact today’s marketers. Here’s a quick look at five Seth Godin quotes, explained.

1. “You can't buy mass anymore. It's not for sale, and if it is, you can't afford it.”

Back in the Mad Men days, TV ads were dramatically underpriced. If you bought a lot of TV ads, you were going to make a profit. As Seth Godin states, “All of the famous brands in our lives are not famous because they're better. They're famous because they bought a lot of TV.”

In the 90s through today, we’ve witnessed a giant splintering effect, where the number of options and offerings is endless. “The number of movies that Netflix offers, or the number of songs that iTunes offers, is more than all of the products sold in the old days by the Blockbusters and the Tower Records of the world,” says Seth.

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2. “Attention: Once it's gone, it's used up forever.” 

Now that companies are able to reach their audience in different ways, marketers have to be much more respectful of people’s time, and thoughtful about what’s truly the right thing to do. “When we sell a product that hurts someone, that's our responsibility. When we spam people, that’s our responsibility. When we promise one thing and give another, that’s our responsibility,” states Seth. “These are all our responsibility, our option, our choice.”

Great marketing can get attention, but just because you can, doesn’t always mean you should. There is a race for attention, but the most touchpoints don't always equal attention. It must be coupled with trust. “When you have attention and trust, then you can make connection and transaction,” shares Seth. “But if you're blowing the trust just to get attention, you're polluting the river we all drink from.” 

3. “It's not about finding people for your products. It's about finding products for your people.”

It’s human nature to organize. We find a tribe. We connect with a tribe. We listen to the tribe. We tell stories that spread, and then we repeat the cycle. As Seth states, marketing's job is a simple seven-word sentence:

People like us, do things like this.

“If you understand that people like you buy certain products, it’s easier to say yes. If you understand that teenagers like us, buy shoes like this, then it's much easier to go buy it there. The idea of getting the tribe to clap in unison is what marketers do,” says Seth.

4. “Do one thing: Overcome fear.” 

Fear comes from the unknown. If you know everything you need to know to buy, then there is no fear. If you’re wary, salespeople seek to address your fears. “Why are some things easier to sell than others? Because some customers are less afraid than other customers. Why are they less afraid? Because marketing has done its job,” says Seth.

Salespeople need to be there to teach, to inform, to a console, and to encourage people to do that thing that makes them nervous. That thing? According to Seth, “It’s to say yes. People are afraid to say yes. Yes feels riskier than no. Salespeople are in the yes business.”

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5. “Almost everything that happens, happens in our head. Get those big ideas out of your head and into action.”

The story we tell ourselves is the perception we have of how we want to be perceived in the world. If we stick to the status quo, if we’re the cog in the wheel, big change won’t happen. If you focus on what the company wants, then you’re not focusing on what your audience wants. Your audience wants their problem solved. “Solve my problem in a new way, a better way, an interesting way. Give me joy, give me meaning, give me the connection. That's what consumers are paying for now,” states Seth. “That's why in a survey of teenagers they found the typical American teenager would rather have a smartphone than a car.”

According to Seth, the place to start taking action is with your boss. This is the person who is going to support you. Find a boss who will let you share your ideas and try new things.

 Source : http://sforce.co/2asp1Dr

Six mobile marketing tips for businesses and brands

From chatbots to personalisation, here advertising and mobile experts share their tips on how to master mobile marketing.

We type tap and swipe our phones, on average, 2,617 times a day, according to new research by data company dscout. For heavy users that can rise to more than 5,000 “touches”. The figures are stark: mobile is where you find people’s eyes and hands. It means that brands can’t afford to ignore mobile as a marketing platform; it’s now an essential way to attract new customers and build brand awareness.

Telegraph Media & Tech Connect asked some of the top ad agencies and mobile experts to share their tips for marketing on the powerful, pocket-based platform. Here’s what they said:

1. Know your chatbots

“Chatbots provide a great opportunity for brands to engage in a personal and smart way with their audiences. We’re seeing a big shift in traffic from traditional social media platforms to messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp.

“With six out of the top 10 most used apps globally being messenger apps, it seems like a really interesting way for brands to exploit having a direct conversation with their customers. This worked well for KLM Royal Dutch airlines, when it launched a chatbot via Facebook Messenger to deliver flight information, itineraries, boarding passes and even delay information. That’s both useful and relevant.”

2. Think about how people travel across devices

“How you advertise across these devices depends on your product. Marketers need to understand how devices fit into the customer journey. There’s often a very complex path when people discover a new product or service: they jump between devices during the research and consideration process (this can be very varied across industries and product types).

“The size of the purchase makes a massive impact; a car purchase will involve a very different path across devices than buying replacement ink for a printer. It’s so easy to buy ink from Amazon on a handheld mobile device, you almost don’t even think about it. But if you are buying an insurance policy, it’s a lengthier process. Understanding how devices fit into your specific customer journey is important.”

3. Stop obsessing over tech and focus on users

“Businesses focus on what application or technology is coming next, but the people using it don’t care about technology – they care about what technology enables. The best technology is seamless, useful and invisible. Rather than focusing on technology or trend, shift your thinking to the user first: to their behaviours (the way the mobile user consumes content in a more snackable way); location (tailoring content depending on whether the user is at home in front of the TV or in a shop); and their need, which tends to be more immediate compared to a desktop user.”

4. Personalisation breeds quality

“Personalisation is the big trend in mobile. As datasets become richer, artificial intelligence becomes more powerful and shapes expectations, brands will be expected to offer more personalized content and better-curated experiences through mobile. Eventually ‘Recommended for you’ will reflect where you are, what you're doing and what your needs are, with no questions asked.

“In particular, it means that good content will find its way to the right people, creating a strong incentive for marketers to place an emphasis on quality rather than quantity when it comes to content.”

5. Sites need to work for mobile; being responsive isn’t enough

“Consumer behavior is different on mobile, which means that site builds must exploit the functionality mobile offers, with click-to-call buttons or GPS store locators to ensure the needs of consumers are met.

“If you have an app, it’s also really important to think about how it works with your site. 

“Having a single user journey – with actions performed on one touchpoint showing up in another – is critical to ensuring that the customer journey is seamless. The key here is they can continue whatever it is they started on the device or touchpoint, they choose.”

6. Ask yourself: where is the right place to advertise?

“Two important areas of mobile content consumption are the social ‘feed’ (Facebook, Twitter and so on) and editorial ‘read’ environments (for example, an article on the MailOnline mobile site). But consumers in the ‘feed’ are in a very different mindset than those in a ‘read’ environment.

“We asked a group of mobile users to spend 15 seconds interacting with a social feed and 15 seconds reading an editorial story. We found that users in the feed scrolled past about three ads, translating to a dwell time of only about 1.5 seconds per ad. In the editorial environment, users scrolled past an average of one ad, with five seconds dwell time – a much better exposure for a brand.

“But it’s not just about speed. Consumers in a feed are searching for something to engage with, but in read mode, they’ve already opted into an article they want to pay attention to – much better exposure for contextually relevant brand messaging.

“There’s one more thing to remember: grabbing an engaged consumer’s attention isn’t enough; if you don’t serve an ad that’s more creative and interactive than a standard static banner, for example, you can’t blame the audience for failing to interact with it.”

 Source : 

10 Clever Marketing Tricks Using CRM, Link Building and More

Want to master online marketing? There’s so much that goes into creating an effective strategy. But members of our small business community have plenty of marketing knowledge to share. Read on for some of their top tips for taking your online marketing to the next level.

Solve These CRM Problems

Customer Relationship Management is a key part of communicating with customers online. But every CRM system presents its own challenges too. In this SBA post, Anita Campbell explains some of the biggest problems businesses might run into when implementing a CRM system and how to solve them.

Change Your Social Media Mindset

There are some common myths about social media that could be hurting your online marketing efforts. In this post on Strella Social Media, Rachel Strella details what some of these myths are and how to avoid them to make your social media strategies more effective. BizSugar members also share thoughts on the post on the community.

Use These Link Building Techniques to Push Traffic and Revenue

Link building isn’t just a cheap way to bring in customers via search anymore. It involves actually building relationships with other bloggers, businesses and site holders and then nurturing those relationships with visitors once they get to your site. Moosa Hemani of SETalks shares some link building tips here.

Generate Sales Through Social Media

Making sales doesn’t mean you have to have individual salespeople push your offerings onto different consumers. You can actually use social media to generate sales. Neil Patel outlines some tips for doing so in this post.

Pay Attention to Bounce Rate

Your website’s bounce rate is a stat that measures how quickly people leave your website after clicking on one  of your pages. To improve your website and this rate, you need to first understand what it is and why it’s important, as Mike Allton of the Social Media Hat details here. You can see further discussion about the post over on BizSugar.

Boost Your Ecommerce Sales With Email Marketing

Email marketing can let you communicate and form relationships with lots of different customers. Even if you have an eCommerce business, you can use email marketing to boost sales. This post by Vanhishikha Bhargava of Exit Bee includes tips for doing just that.

Create Interactive Content Your Audience Will Love

If you look at content marketing as just a way for you to share a specific message, you might not be getting as much out of it as you could. Instead, creating content that lets your audience interact with you can be more helpful for both your business and your audience, as James Pointon explains in this Right Mix Marketing post.

Master the Time Zones for International Marketing

Marketing a business online means having the potential to reach consumers all over the world. But if you want to actually reach those consumers when they are likely to act on your messages, you need to master the time zones. Bettina Specht provides some tips in this Litmus post. And the BizSugar community shares input too.

Learn From Abandoned Shopping Carts

Running an eCommerce business means providing a very specific type of customer service. You have to create a positive experience for customers on your site. So when they do things like abandoning their carts before completing a purchase, there’s usually something to be learned from that. This post by Leslie Simpson on Carts Guru includes some lessons you can learn from abandoned shopping carts.

Send the Most Relevant Emails to Recipients

Perspective customers on your email list don’t want to receive canned emails that look like they could have been sent to anyone. If you want to provide the best online experience for all of your customers, you need to know how to send only the most relevant emails to each of your customers. Scott Heimes explains more in this Marketing Land post.

 Source : http://bit.ly/2aK2HRt

Amplify Your Content-Marketing Results by Using These 4 Simple Tips

Content marketing is an important component of every digital-marketing strategy. It serves several purposes, such as:

• Building brand awareness
• Assisting in lead generation
• Providing answers to common questions, giving the prospect the information he or she needs to make a purchase decision
• Pushing “on the fence” prospects to convert
• Attracting inbound links for search-engine optimization purposes
• Expanding your reach via social sharing

While most businesses know they need to do content marketing, many don't gain much traction. In an effort to help you improve your content-marketing efforts, here are some tips that will greatly improve your results.

1. Map out your entire strategy. Be as detailed as possible.

You need a very detailed plan if you want to experience success with your content marketing. Many businesses just throw up blog posts without a plan. There is no research behind them and there aren’t any benchmarks or goals established. The purpose of content marketing is to generate revenue. Yes, there are short-term goals in between, but when it comes down to it your content needs to produce a return.

You need to brainstorm topics based on campaign goals: do you want to generate leads, push prospects directly to a purchase offer or accomplish another conversion goal such as a phone call or location visit? You then need to optimize your content properly, plan a promotion push and set conversion goals. Map out your content-marketing strategy so you can easily answer this question: “Is this working?” 

2. Determine what content assets are currently producing results.

If you have been posting fresh content to your blog for some time, use Google Analytics to see what content your visitors have engaged with the most. What posts have received the most visits? What blog posts kept your visitors on your website the longest? What content did your visitors engage with before they converted? Also take a look at the social shares and comments each post has received.

This gives you a good idea of the topics and content styles that your audience responds the best to. Use this information to plan future topics and continue to monitor your results. Don’t be afraid to test different topics and styles -- just analyze your data and you will take your content marketing in the right direction. 

3. Focus on quality over quantity.

Content assets that truly deliver results aren’t cheap to produce. Not every business can afford a full-time in-house content writer or a freelancer. This isn’t an excuse to sacrifice quality. If you can only afford to publish one high-quality blog post per month in the beginning, do that. 

Some of the most popular forms of content include ebooks, webinars, videos, blog posts, case studies and infographics -- these all cost money to produce. Don’t opt for several lower quality pieces. If your content assets are limited, focus your energy on promotion and increase your publishing schedule as your revenue increases.

4. Use paid outlets to expand your content reach.

You could create the most amazing piece of content, but it’s not going to be effective unless your target audience engages with it. If your website doesn’t receive a lot of organic traffic, then you are going to need to seek additional traffic sources to get eyes on your content. Sending your new blog posts to your email list and sharing them on your social-media profiles are great ways to attract some traffic for free, but if you really want to get the most out of your content you need to utilize some paid channels.

• Paid social-media promotion: Organic social reach is limited, especially on Facebook, so if you want to attract traffic, boost your Facebook posts, promote your tweets on Twitter and run sponsored updates on LinkedIn. Start small, even just $10 a day, and scale up your social promotion as your revenue increases. 
• Content distribution networks: There are two main players, Outbrain and Taboola, that help place your content on major websites in front of an audience that their algorithms determine might be interested in reading your content. You only pay when someone clicks and is brought to your website. Both companies operate on a cost-per-click bidding model. To see an example, scroll to the bottom of this ESPN article and look at the “Sponsored Headlines” -- those are from the Outbrain network

  Source : http://entm.ag/29WRpfk

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3 Tips for Using Pinterest to Drive Sales

Pinterest has become a powerful marketing platform. While social has long considered an awareness raising activity, marketers are more committed this year to making a clearer connection from those endeavors to increased sales. This is one area in which Pinterest shines, driving both traffic and commerce online.

The biggest challenge for businesses on Pinterest is making sure their Pins are seen, and seen by the right audience. The solution to this challenge, says Lux, is understanding the Pinterest audience and whether or not your product is a good fit.

With 100 million active users, Pinterest is not nearly as big as some of the other big networks. However, the biggest demographic on Pinterest are women aged 25 to 34; most likely Millennial moms interested in fashion, DIY, cooking, home decor and shopping. Pinterest users also differ from those on other networks in one very specific way: They prefer to follow brands than notable celebrities and influencers.

Lux had these recommendations for how to drive traffic, and ultimately sales, from your Pinterest marketing efforts:

• Choose your target wisely. Pinterest has robust analytics that can be used even before you spend any money on promoted Pins, said Lux. Experiment with Pins, then use Pinterest analytics to find out what’s working, then choose keywords based on what your audience is most interested in.
  

• Use optimized, high-quality images. In this age of visual media, image quality is extremely important. In addition to professional quality photos and graphics, Lux said there are tools like Canva that make editing easy. Include descriptive text and keywords to improve the likelihood of your Pins bubbling to the top of the search.
  

• Use Rich Pins. Lux noted that most have seen Rich Pins, where a complete recipe or article appears within the Pin. Product Pins, which are a type of Rich Pin, includes important product details like the name, price and availability lead to higher conversion.

For small-business owners on the fence, Lux noted that converting a personal account to a business account is very simple:

With just a little bit of code on your website, it can’t hurt to try and use the analytics at least, even if you’re not going to pay for Promoted Pins.

Readers: Are you using Pinterest for your business?

Source : http://bit.ly/1Kub3ff

How to Use Snapchat to Its Full Potential

With over 100 million active daily users, Snapchat is an extremely valuable tool that brands can use to market themselves. However, if your brand does not know how to properly promote, engage or talk to those users, then the popularity the social app has does not matter. By effectively promoting and posting the right content, brands and influencers can utilize Snapchat’s large amount of users.

Send snaps to your Snapchat friends

This may sound like a silly no brainer, but sending snaps to your friends on Snapchat is the most basic, yet effective way to engage consumers. In 2013, Taco Bell caused users to ‘fan-girl’ over the snap of a new burrito and its release date. It was a secret announcement made only to Taco Bell’s Snapchat friends.

Promote on other social media

A simple way to promote your brand on other social sites is to post your Snapcode or make it the accounts’ avatar. QR code-like images that are scanned by the app encourages consumers to follow your Snapchat account. The Huffington Post, Cinnabon and Toys “R” Us are just some of the brands who have changed their profile pictures to their Snapcodes.

Upload posts to other platforms.

Keeping on the idea to use other social media sites as a promotional tool, put Snapchat posts on other platforms. If your brand has a larger following on Instagram, save the clip from Snapchat and upload it onto Insta. "For now, the most efficient way to grow your Snapchat audience is to post your Snapcode on your other social channels,” said Victor Pineiro, vp of social media at Big Spaceship, “Or else tease some of your brand's best Snaps to other channels with a strong call to action and your username."

Utilize Stories

Send snaps to your friends, but don’t forget to post to your story. Stories push your brand through the “one-to-one” limitation sending snaps can create. That “one-to-many broadcast is familiar and your brand can market to thousands of followers at one time.

Post behind the scenes

When you post Stories, give consumers a look behind the scenes. Everyone loves to feel special, and getting a peek behind the scenes gives a sense of exclusivity. Free People uses their Story to give showroom tours and show models during photoshoots. They also personally snap users and ask questions like how their weekend went. All of those elements combine to gives Free People’s Snapchat followers a valued relationship.

Promote your social channel outside of the social space

Last year to try and get more followers on Snapchat, Sprite Brazil printed Snapcodes from 15 social media influencers on its cans. Snapcodes are functional, and allow users to find your account with ease.

Host Giveaways

Free stuff always draws attention. When Groupon first created their Snapchat account, the company gave away stuff for an entire week. Groupon caters to an older audience than Snapchat normally draws in and the contest help get their consumers onto the social site.

Keep ads fresh, short and fun

Consumer do not like to watch ads, therefore when they do see one, especially on Snapchat were it can easily be skipped, it should be fast and fun.

For a recent Dunkin' Donuts and ESPN campaign, with internet celebrity Brandon Armstrong after shooting the duo, “picked the clips that would work best on Snapchat,” reported Ad Age, “which meant the ones that focused "less on specific Dunkin' Donuts products, and more on engaging the audience through fun, playful shorts," said Scott Hudler, VP-global consumer engagement at Dunkin' Brands, in an email.”

 

Source : http://bit.ly/20knoqe

Branding Mistakes You Absolutely Need To Avoid

Businesses of all sizes need to think about branding as being a critical success component. The problem is that business owners often make mistakes, usually because of low knowledge on branding. Because of this, we should always look at branding mistakes that all organizations need to avoid.

Thinking That Branding Means Taglines And Logos

One of the first signs that you have to refresh your branding is when the logo is outdated. However, this does not mean that branding is just about logos or taglines. Too many business owners will only think about these two elements when the truth is that branding is all about communicating a proper message to the desired audience. Any branding campaign that does not consider all necessary elements will be a failure.

Having a Diluted Message

Since we talked about message, you want to be sure that brand messages are never diluted. Something like this normally happens when new services or products are added to existing lines. Remember that when brand messages are diluted, consumers will not really know what they receive.

Branding Without Internal Input

This practically means that when you create a brand, you want to receive input from people that work for the company. This is the only way to have effective results. Companies need to involve the staff and consider opinions. Brand workshops are needed and the entire staff needs to be on the same page. However, this does not mean that you need to involve all people. You mainly want to be focused on visualizers, marketing executives, copywriters and designers. Consider branding trends but do not rely just on them.

Not Understanding Brand Strength

All branding experts highlight the fact that most companies will think about appealing to the customers with the use of limited resources. That would normally backfire and campaigns would fail. The company has to always understand what strengths exist and they have to always be used in the promotional campaign. Professional brand managers will always evaluate business strength before any campaign is undertaken.

Not Delivering What Brands Promise

That would automatically mean that the branding campaign fails. Specialists recommend organizations to always deliver what is promised, even if this is difficult. Much effort has to be put into living up to expectations. Any organization has to focus on marketing and be sure that customer service will match brand messages.

Not Monitoring Brands And Competition

It is not at all difficult to infringe on other brands. Because of this, you want to always monitor your brand and the competition. Web analytics count, together with all the tools that companies can use for brand monitoring. That helps you to be highly competitive in any market. Make sure that your company will be seen in a positive light and that you respond to anything negative.

Remember that the market is really competitive. Because of this, you want to keep your eyes on the competition. Any company can learn from the competition, the approach used, the communication channels utilized and the language that is used to communicate to the customers.

Source : http://bit.ly/1RusPBj

3 Marketing Tips for Growing Your Startup Quickly

Startups are emerging in the business sphere at a tremendous rate. Every day, entrepreneurs launch new business concepts, and try to carve a niche for themselves in a world where competition holds sway.

For many startups, the most challenging aspect of business is acquiring customers, and getting them to become loyal. But that won’t be much of a challenge if they can get their marketing right.

Marketing is the fuel which runs the business engine. If the marketing is done correctly, startups will start reaping the gains of business within a short period of time. Although PR is very important in business, you don’t need to break a bank to spread information about your business organization to the public.

Here are smart ways to market your new business on a shoestring.

1. Do Things Differently

The best form of marketing is to offer impeccable services. Look at what your competitors aren’t doing correctly and focus on doing better. Avoid repeating their mistakes and go the extra length to satisfy your customers. It’s that simple.

By tailoring your services to the needs of your clients, you’re gradually building trust and very soon, word will spread out about your company through unpaid referrals. And this works well for even startups in the so-called boring niches.

2. Create an Online Brand

Building an online brand appears to be the smartest move for many successful businesses today. It’s what the most successful companies leverage to emerge as household names across the world.

Nowadays, many entrepreneurs have realized that a personal brand is what creates awareness about what their businesses stand for. It also creates an avenue to grow a fan base, improve credibility, build trust, land more customers and ultimately, make more profit.

You can achieve this by simply creating an outstanding blog, a unique logo and tagline, and stuffing it with valuable web content that excites and educates your readers. Then, get on social media – Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter – and speak to your ideal clients on each platform in a language they want.

You should also create a subscriber base, and constantly send them valuable stuff, not just sales letters that make them think you’re only interested in their money. These will help you create a lovable brand

.

3. Leverage Customer Relationships

Those who say the customer is king aren’t wrong in the least. Because let’s face it: a business which can’t attract new customers has no chance in hell of survival. Of what value is the product or service you’re offering when there are no customers to patronize you?

But then, don’t focus too much on getting new customers that you ignore the existing ones. It’s probably 10 times easier to get a customer to buy again, than to convert a lead into a customer. Your services must be customer-focused. You must always create different channels to get feedback from your customers, and carry them along when there’s a change in your offerings.

That’s why businesses now make use of customized mobile apps – the new effective way to provide better customer support, collect feedback and data about customer behaviour, and improve lead generation.

Realistically, customers can be your best marketing tools once you satisfy their needs. All you need do is keep them happy with your service and they’ll happily promote you on social media and in other ways – telling the company story on your behalf.

Other marketing avenues you can explore later when you’ve gained some financial strength include using PPC ads, gaining coverage in local papers, trade magazines and authority websites. But for now, you don’t have to break the bank to break even. You can start off with these simple DIY marketing strategies. They produce amazing results too.

Source : http://bit.ly/1OXhCad