4 Qualities of the Best Marketing Leaders

There are marketers, and then there are transformative marketing leaders.

Which category are you in? Even better, which category would you like to be in?

1. They've developed both right and left brains.

 What you need is a really unique blending of right brain and left brain. You need to be as comfortable in the bowels of a spreadsheet as you are in a Powerpoint. In one moment, you’re going to be digging in and understanding analytics. And in another moment, standing up in front of a group of a thousand people communicating a vision.”

A great marketing strategy has countless moving parts. Diving into every element, from data points to overarching vision, is crucial to reaching your leadership potential. Don't get discouraged if you're not a data pro just yet. Many of these skills can be learned and developed. The most important thing is to be thirsty for knowledge and seek out opportunities to practice.

2. They think like recruiters.

“The biggest differentiator I’ve seen [among leaders] is the ability to recruit"

No marketing leader succeeds on his or her own merits. Marketing is a team sport that requires collaboration both across the department and the company. To succeed in this fast-paced and constantly evolving profession, you need a world-class team. A true marketing leader inspires loyalty and creates a contagious environment that makes other marketers want to join.

The best marketing leaders recognize talent and applicable skills — even if a recruit's job experiences are unorthodox. Recruiting the best marketers is as important to your success as generating high-ROI campaigns, and transformative marketing leaders act like it.

3. They're committed to company culture.

Everybody throws around the word culture right now, but so few people are truly committed to that. Culture is not about painting your wall a particular color and offering free drinks. That might be a manifestation of good culture, but that's not good culture.Good culture has to flow," Tim shares.

Like it or not, company culture is part of your marketing. Potential customers and employees alike have access to your Glassdoor information to see what your culture is really like. The impact you make in your community can be a major indicator of your culture. A happier, more productive team will also create better work. Marketing leaders should be committed to fostering a culture that helps employees thrive. Culture encompasses much more than free gifts or happy hours.

4. They focus on the what before the how.

“It sounds really obvious, but it’s so hard for us to stay committed to this — focus on the what before the how.”

All the tools and channels in a marketer's arsenal today can sometimes distract us from our strategic foundation. Why are we using email marketing? What's the goal of this campaign?

How will all of this help our business grow? Are leads sales-ready? 

The best marketing leaders focus on strategic priorities for their business. Only then do they plan the best way to get there. In other words, Snapchat might be the hottest channel of the week, but if it’s not clearly tied to your marketing goals and if you have no way to measure your success, you should spend time on other projects.

   Source : http://sforce.co/2dzzREA

7 Tools to Help Your Internet Marketing Efforts

The difference between a beginner Internet marketer and a proficient one is, on the one hand, in experience, and on the other hand, in the tools they use. And while experience can only be obtained through continuous work and study of the market, tools are what you can get right now. Here are some with which you should start.

1. Google Alerts

Good old Google Alerts may look unassuming, but it is still one of the best tools for tracing the mentions of your or your competitor’s brand name. RSS may not be as popular as it has been several years ago, but it is nonetheless a simple, reliable and completely free way of keeping track of developments in your industry, and with careful choice of keywords you can gain a lot of insights from this simple tool.

2. DA Checker

Whether you want to check the results of your latest advertising campaign or decide if this or that website is worth cooperating with, knowing the resource’s authority is always extremely helpful. Domain Authority Checker is exactly what it says on the tin – it determines the strength of a website’s presence in the Internet and, unlike many of its analogues, can be used completely free of charge.

3. Website Grader

Do you want to get a fast and reliable review of how strong the SEO of your website is? Then go no further, as Website Grader is one of the most popular and straightforward instruments available in this area of marketing.

4. Hootsuite

Social media may be a major power in modern marketing, and their importance seems to be on the rise. Unfortunately, managing all your social media accounts, updating them, reviewing what others are saying and so on tends to eat up inordinate amounts of your time that you could use for more productive purposes.Hootsuite is a free tool that allows you to comfortably manage all your social media accounts, speeds up the process of posting and lets you review everything from a single interface.

5. Phrase Builder

Phrase Builder may look a bit ugly, but it is truly indispensable when you need a plenty of related keyword ideas and don’t have time to think them up ‘manually’. You simply define certain input criteria, and the tool will generate the list of keywords and phrases.

6. UberSuggest

UberSuggest is one of the most popular tools used by PPC marketers, and for a good reason. In many respects, it is similar to other suggestion tools, but there are a few differences, such as foreign language support and a lot of small details that add up to better and more flexible functionality.

7. Five Second Test

It is often said that what a user sees within five seconds after visiting your site defines whether he is going to stay or leave.  Five Second Test allows you to check how much your website is attuned to this idea: it shows you what the visitor sees, what he is likely to miss and what he is likely to remember.

Using these tools won’t turn you into a pro in a blink of an eye, but it will certainly increase your effectiveness as an online marketer – and quickly!

Souce:http://bit.ly/23oGX5B

Free Marketing tips.

6 Guaranteed Ways To Become A Social Media Influencer

Since the entry of social media into the Nigerian space, many people have explored it to their advantage in various ways. One interesting way is becoming social media influencers. Many of them with thousands of followers use their platforms to drive engagement, promote brands, market events and fight for a cause. With these concerted efforts, quite a number of them are smiling to the bank. 

If you want to become a social media influencer in the future, here are a few tips from Jovago.com Africa’s largest hotel booking portal.

Focus

This is the first thing a budding social media influencer should do. He should select a particular field he has comprehensive knowledge about. This will help you narrow your research work to the subject rather than skirting around different fields.

Set Alerts

Tools like Google Alerts or Social Mention can help you to keep tabs on different topics or keywords in your field. Use these to write and contribute current information and opinion.

Be Unique

Your field is saturated with knowledgeable experts like you. They do almost the same thing you do. But, if you want to become a serious social media influencer, strive to be unique. Take time to conceptualise your messages, posts and tweets. In addition, avoid posting first drafts but edit to clear it of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.

Engagement

Building an online community takes dedication and constant engagement with your commenters, followers and fans. If you make the engagements regular and focus on a particular field such as economics or fashion, you will have a steady rise in your social media profile.

Share your blog posts

Whenever you write a blog post, ensure that you share it on all the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. It keeps your account active.

Share other influencer’s content

If you admire the work of a senior colleague in your industry, share their articles, posts and tweets regularly. This will help you grow a relationship with them which can help enlarge your area of influence.

  Source : http://bit.ly/1VwyTYw

5 Marketing and Branding Tips to Scale Your Online Business

Scaling an online business isn’t rocket science -- it’s actually much easier than many people believe. When you combine a winning product or service and a solid foundation to build on, the sky’s the limit. 

Use these five simple marketing and branding tips to help you scale your online business and experience increased growth.

1. Make it ridiculously easy for your customers to buy your product or service.

It’s amazing how many businesses make prospects jump through multiple hoops in order to make a purchase -- my own marketing agency was guilty of this as well, until recently. While our main offering is custom-tailored online-marketing consulting, we also offer several à la carte services.

The problem was that, previously, a prospect had to contact us via phone or our website to order one of these stand-alone services. When we did a little digging, we found that the majority of these inquiries didn’t require any selling -- people simply wanted to make a purchase.

So, we made a switch, making it easy for prospects to purchase these à la carte services directly from our website. And the results have been great so far: Sales are up since we eliminated that previous hoop that a prospect once had to jump through. 

Experiment with eliminating steps and making changes that create a ridiculously easy path to purchase. 

2. Track every conversion metric humanly possible. 

You have to know your numbers -- if you don’t know, down to the penny, how much it costs you to generate leads and sales, you will crash and burn.

Cost-per-lead (CPL): You need to know how much it costs to generate every form of lead, from email submits to phone calls. A blended CPL won’t work -- you need to be as specific as possible. If you are able to generate email leads for $1 each and phone leads are costing you $8 each, but converting at the same rate, wouldn’t it be wise to push all of your effort into producing more email leads? 

Cost-per-sale (CPS): All of your data works together. For example, your conversion rates and cost-per-lead are going to help you determine what each sale is costing you. Business 101 tells us that if the CPS, plus cost of goods sold, is lower than the sales price, it's profitable. But you need to dive a bit deeper. Where are you pulling the lowest CPS from? Can you open up the faucet to generate more sales from that avenue? 

You need to also know what your different landing pages are converting at and where your top-performing lead sources are. You are never going to find a winning combination that you can “set and forget” -- constant monitoring and optimizing are required.

3. Seek out media exposure to highlight your expertise.

Getting yourself and your brand out there is crucial if you want to scale. There are plenty of opportunities to score free media exposure if you are willing to put in a little work. 

If you aren’t already registered with Help a Reporter Out, or HARO for short, do that now. With more than 35,000 journalists seeking insights from experts, there is a very good chance you will come across several exposure opportunities if you put in the effort. Consistency is key if you want to find success using this strategy.

HARO sends out three emails daily, full of opportunities. Many people read through them for a few days and then give up if an opportunity doesn’t fall into their lap. Don't let this be you.

Instead, stick it out and put some effort into your responses -- journalists receive hundreds of replies to each request, so you are going to need to stand out. Make sure you avoid making these stupid press outreach mistakes.

4. Set up email automation sequences to nurture, promote and convert 24/7.

Every type of business can use email automation. Restaurants can build a list that automatically sends out ecoupons for specials and discounts on notoriously slow days to drive foot traffic. Ecommerce stores can create segmented lists and send special offers to customers based on their previous purchase habits.

Information products can capture an email address and automatically market to that prospect, sending enticing information and discounts, until that prospect pulls out his or her credit card and converts.

Just like every other form of online marketing, email automation requires extensive split testing and constant optimization, but when you fine-tune your efforts, email automation creates a system that promotes, nurtures and converts sales 24/7 -- even while you sleep.

5. Maintain consistent social media branding and cross promote.

Social media is such a powerful branding tool, and it’s important that you think about the big picture when establishing social accounts for your business. Using the same handle on every platform makes it easy for your customers to connect with you across all of the channels they are active on.

It will benefit you greatly if you use a handle that’s easy to remember and available on all of the networks you will be actively promoting on. For example, I use the same handle for my personal brand on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn.

You should also be cross-promoting your social media accounts in an effort to get your audience connected on as many platforms as possible. Someone following your brand on Twitter might not be connected on Facebook, which could be his or her preferred social network. A simple “Make sure to connect with us on Facebook” tweet could get people to like your Facebook page and then engage with a future Facebook post, leading to that hoped-for conversion.

Source : http://entm.ag/1OKErKB

Why You Need to Develop a Vine Influencer Strategy Today

You’re going to start hearing a lot more about Vine in the coming months. As the most micro of the popular micro-video platforms, Vine is poised to become a vibrant space for brands, influencers, and consumers to connect in meaningful (albeit bite-sized) ways.

Earlier this week, Twitter announced the acquisition of Niche, a platform which provides analytics and a connection to brands for leading Vine content creators. The acquisition signals that Twitter is going to invest more of its attention to Vine, and continue to grow it as online video surges in popularity.

From the Niche blog, announcing the acquisition:

Today, Niche provides free, cross-platform analytics on desktop and mobile. In addition to the technology we offer, we’ve helped creators develop new revenue streams to support their budding careers, by facilitating partnerships with over 100 brands and agencies — themselves valuable members of the Niche community.

These 100 brands and agencies are about to experience a big boost in the support they receive when engaging with influencers on Vine – and you can bet that hundreds more are soon going to flock to the micro-video service.

By partnering with influential Vine users, advertisers have the opportunity to get their message to their audience through a source that their audience trusts. The goodwill and positivity that influencers build over time translates to the brands they endorse. This means that advertisers get to benefit from their influencers’ reputations, and their products and services will be received more warmly than if they were advertised through more traditional channels.

Influencer marketing is not necessarily new (think about the sports industry’s love-affair with superstar players), but Vine influencer marketing is relatively new – and there are a few important differences that advertisers should take note of.

First, influencers on Vine aren’t necessarily traditional “celebrities”. They’re everyday people who create interesting content that their audience is crazy for. For advertisers, this means that working with Vine influencers can be most cost-effective than working with big-name celebrities.

Second, the content that Vine influencers create – because it is visual in nature – lends itself well to brand integration. Showing a product unboxing or doing a six-second product review can be a quick, effective and budget-friendly way of reaching an engaged audience.

Third, like all social channels, Vine can offer advertisers great word of mouth opportunities. A single Vine, posted by an influential user, can travel to thousands of interested consumers in mere seconds. And if those consumers connect with the message, many will share it on Vine, Twitter, and other social channels. For many brands, this amplifies the message more than if they had posted the Vine to their own channel.

Twitter’s acquisition of Niche signals that the company will be focusing more on Vine moving forward. Businesses that develop relationships with Vine influencers now will reap the rewards down the line, as Vine continues to grow into a vital part of the digital video ecosystem.

Source :http://bit.ly/1S0XYNb

Small Business Power Tip

Dominate Your Niche Online Then Move to Offline

IN THE EARLY part of this decade , I managed a Restaurant that attracted foodies looking for exotic, Asian dishes.  We were generating  a decent monthly income but due to the ‘exotic’ part, foot traffic wildly fluctuated.  In any given Sunday we could have barely two tables full or a busload of tourist barging in the front door, at any given minute.  Being a ‘family business idea’, our restaurant didn’t have solid systems to handle such large influxes of people.  We hear it all the time, “you are the best exotic Asian food in the area!”Even the local foodie magazine, agreed with the chorus of what people were saying.

Two problems started to arise:  Bad financials — cost analysis was deeply flawed and I was getting bored out of my mind waiting for customers.   

I’ve never been a patient kind of guy, I guess; classified as a ‘go-getter’ I like going after opportunities rather than waiting.  I view minutes sitting down and waiting as hours misspent.  I also believe in the importance and power of focus.

I can already hear people say, “then just find something to do while waiting.”  I did.  I didn’t literally waited and stared at the ceiling.  I would go at the backroom at do inventory, call suppliers, stock supplies,etc.  The problem with that ‘set of things to do’ is it might be productive but it’s not an effective way of taking a business to a higher level.  For that, you need strategic planning, face-to-face time with interested people, building relationships with companies who might be interested in bulk orders.  You need to build a system and more importantly, the time and resources to see it through.

It’s hard to do that when you’re waiting for the next customer to barge through the door.  So I went on a different direction and started a website Reno Homes.  That was in 2007, I’m really glad I made the leap.

With the reach and limitless leverage of internet, small businesses can now dominate their niche online just as well, if not more efficiently, as in a brick and mortar store.  There has never been a better time in the history of the world! (If you think I’m exaggerating, think about this: we are the last generation to experience life on planet earth without the world wide web.)

Some facts about small businesses and online marketing:

• A large majority is unwilling to invest significant time and resource in building their online presence.  That’s why Google tried to buy an unprofitable, but local-centric business, for six billion dollars.

•  I was a small business owner three times over.  We just didn’t have time to deal with ‘internet stuff’.  The urgent bullied us to forgetting the important.

• In short, you have Google’s good graces.  Search engines, especially in the last two years, has tried to win small business owners  by giving them favor in their search results in the hopes of letting them see the benefit of search to their core business.

• It doesn’t cost a lot to build an online presence.  But it takes time, consistency and initiative.  Don’t forget the older your site is the better.

The best thing is you can do a combination of Groupon-Living Social-Whatever-New-Coupon-Company, Twitter, Facebook, SEO online marketing campaigns.  Meaning, if you try out these avenues and do a bit of testing to see where you get results, you can leverage it to shoo-in traffic to you brick and mortar business.

Now, there simple is no reason, just to wait.  I just wish I knew this back then.

Source : http://bit.ly/1OZUYtx

11 of the Best Infographic Designs of 2015

Infographics that really stand out are far more than just a smattering of pictures and charts. They might tell an engaging story -- one built around compelling data, graphics, or illustrations. Or perhaps they serve as a really helpful visual resource.

While great infographics come in a variety of forms, the common thread is that they're visually pleasing and designed in a way that makes complex topics easy to understand whether you're a novice in the subject or an expert.

Here are 11 brands from all different industries -- from education to insurance -- that totally nailed their infographics this year. Check 'em out and get inspired.

11 Great Infographic Examples of 2015 

1) Music Timeline, by Google

The best infographics communicate information in an intuitive and beautiful way. Google nailed it with their "Music Timeline" microsite, which visualizes music trends from 1950 to present, by popularity. The best part? The version on their site is interactive: When you click on one of the genres, you'll get a more detailed visualization of that genre's popularity along with a list of the most popular albums of the time in that genre.

2) The Daily Routines of Famous Creative People, by Podio

In this infographic, the folks at Podio took a simple concept and executed it fantastically. Using information from the book Daily Rituals by Mason Currey, it shows the daily schedules of famous creatives broken down by time and activity. Not only is this an example of engaging data, it's also a fantastic editorial piece for a brand.

3) Men's Dress Codes Made Simple, by Samuel Windsor

The visual elements of an infographic are the most important part -- that's why you made the content into an infographic in the first place, after all. When you have a topic that's inherently visual, an infographic is a great way to go. The graphic below decoding men's formalwear reads like a cheat sheet. The design is simple and intuitive -- and the paisley design behind the title is a fun nod to the menswear industry. We also love how there's no more copy on here than there needs to be -- just a few simple titles and a handful of bullet points. 

4) 10 Dinner Table Customs From Around the World, by Wimdu

Any time you're writing about the "do" vs. "don't do" dichotomy, you might consider making an infographic out of it. You can easily put each "do" and "don't" beside one another in two columns for a great visual -- just look at the example below of dinner table customers from around the world. Each section is a different country, inside of which is one important dinner table custom that readers may not know about if they've never been to that country. Capping the number of tips per country to one keeps the content from feeling overwhelming.

5) A Guide to Who's Fighting Whom in Syria, by Slate

Mapping out the relationships between two or even three entities can be pretty simple. But what about when you have a lot of things to compare to one another? That's where putting that information into infographic form can really help you educate your readers in a way they'll understand. In Slate's case, they wanted to show the relationships among groups of people in the Middle East who are involved in the Syrian Civil War. By using a table format and familiar visuals and colors, the folks at Slate did a great job simplifying this data into a digestible format -- and the version on their website is beautifully interactive.

6) How Music Affects Your Driving, by No Nonsense Insurance

Work in a "boring" industry? Believe it or not, you can still create interesting and exciting content -- even if you're not working with a "sexy" topic such as food, travel, or culture. Want proof? An insurance company created the infographic below on how music affects your driving. Not only are the graphics fun, but there's a lot of helpful content in there, including facts and statistics paired with great visuals. Read this blog post for more tips on creating interesting content in a "boring" industry.

7) Our Dwindling Food Variety, by National Geographic

Infographics don't have to be long to be great -- it's all about how well the data is conveyed visually. The infographic below from National Geographic is short but sweet: It shows how many varieties of different kinds of fruit and vegetable seeds we had a century ago in comparison to today. Instead of using a traditional bar chart, they chose to hit the point home by designing a chart that looks like a plant.

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8) #GivingTuesday By the Numbers, by Classy

The look and feel of each infographic has a lot to do with brand personality. Here's a great example of an infographic with a design that stays true to brand. It pairs fun fonts with cute, block-color graphics. For example, check out the first set of bar charts: They use tree graphics in place of classic bars to make it more visually interesting without sacrificing clarity.

9) Cost of Living Around the World, by MoveHub

Here's another example of an infographic on an interesting topic that isn't riddled with numbers -- but this one's even simpler. There are no bells and whistles here: no introduction, simple colors, and not a lot of copy. The only thing missing is a short explanation of where the data comes from. Although they include a link to the source at the end and also offer more details about the data in their own blog post's introduction, it would have been helpful for others hoping to share the image or embed it on their site to have that information somewhere on the graphic. Still, we love the simplicity and straightforwardness of both the topic and design.

10) The Anatomy of a Perfect Checkout Page, by VWO

Here at HubSpot, we find that infographics on the "anatomy" of something typically do quite well. Here's a great example of one from VWO. It takes the reader through an example of what the "perfect" version of a checkout page would look like. The graphic breaks the page down into manageable chunks that are easy to follow. At the same time, the design is fun and attractive, combining colorful graphics with screenshots of real checkout pages for reference.

11) How to Keep Fruits & Vegetables Fresh Longer, by Full Plate Living

Who knew that some fruits and vegetables "get along" better with others in storage? I certainly didn't, and I found this infographic to be a wonderfully simple, yet comprehensive visual guide. The timelines are clear and readable, and each of the visuals is easy to skim so readers don't even have to read the names under each piece of food (unless they aren't sure what a plum look like).

Source : http://bit.ly/1O7s00l

6 Ideas to Expand Your Lead Scoring Model Beyond the Basics

Lead scoring is the backbone of many B2B marketing organizations, as they focus on better quality leads instead of just generating more leads. But like many things in marketing, even lead scoring is not a set it and forget activity. Once your lead scoring model is established by combining prospect identity and prospect engagement, look at some of the ideas below to increase its efficiency at identifying better quality leads. The more you understand about your prospects and which ones are likely to become customers, the more efficient both marketing and sales become.

1. Expanding Awareness Of Prospect Influences

As prospects receive more and more messages, information, and education through social media during the buying process, these peer channels will continue to grow in relevance. In fact, awareness of how an individual discovered a message, along with where and from whom, can feature prominently in lead scoring and nurturing routines.

2. Content-Based Scoring

Companies that regularly refine their scoring models begin to notice patterns in lead quality that can be directly tied to the content accessed during the buying process. Advanced organizations creates scoring models that include content type—ilike white papers, product information, and customer testimonials— instead of just the download activity itself.

3. Account-Level Scoring

Because companies market to individuals but sell to companies, marketers must identify micro-trends within a larger set of interests. Consider these trends to pinpoint when a certain role is appearing in the buying cycle.

4. Customer Scoring

To increase customer lifetime value, you need to seize opportunities for up selling and cross-selling. That means you must understand when someone is in the cycle for a new product, and determine when a prospect or existing customer has switched mid-stream and is interested in a different product. Smart marketers can analyze all customer touch points to identify opportunities and risk throughout the lifecycle.

5. Opportunity Scoring

Top marketers analyze behavior of a lead all the way through the middle of the pipeline to predict the likelihood of an opportunity closing.

6. Predicting Changes

Your lead scoring model needs to remain closely aligned to your sales and marketing processes, even as they evolve. With predictive modeling tools, you’ll be able to constantly monitor prospect behavior to understand how your model may have to change.

Source : http://bit.ly/1NxNmlq