"Facebook is a platform where your clients want to engage with you. The biggest no-brainer is offering creative content that your followers can share. For example, we make sure to post inspirational quotes and fun content mixed with industry related news. It’s simple: your followers will want to engage with you on things that interest them the most. "
"Offer a special discount or offer to your email list. Create a custom audience on Facebook that contains your email list members, and then run Facebook ads that align with the messages of your email offers. Reinforce the value of the offer by being in multiple places for your targeted list."
"Facebook groups exist for just about everything, including finding better services around local areas. I like to monitor Facebook groups that are active in my area for the kind of information that can mean leads. Our construction company, for example, can really take advantage of a home improvement group attracting people who want to remodel."
"Host a competition where your participants post photos of themselves with your product or utilizing your service. Not only will potential new customers learn more about your product, you'll show them that you genuinely care about your current clients and are willing to feature them — something all social enthusiasts enjoy."
"You can get your customers to write reviews on your Facebook page. These reviews work and potential customers want to read about your business before they try it out, especially from their peers or others they trust. Leverage these reviews by making positive ones into status updates and thanking the reviewer personally."
"I've run campaigns in previous businesses, giving away small prizes to people who engaged with our products in a quick and easy challenge. Create an easy contest that anyone can do and offer prizes like gift cards. Watch in shock at what it can do if you have a big enough network on your Facebook page. We saw traffic to our websites grow up to 10 times in a month from this strategy."
"Facebook Audience Insights can be used to segment out a hyper-targeted audience and then served ads for customer acquisition. You can utilize the tool's Affinity and Relevance scores to hone in on a sample set of Facebook users that are more likely to be acquired as customers based on user interest data. Your ads will have a lower cost per click (CPC) and a higher engagement rate."
"Last fall Facebook released lead ads, which allow mobile users to request more information from advertisers without taking the user off Facebook. It's a seamless and intuitive method of capturing leads, and one that caters to an increasingly mobile user base. Marketers may also test their ad in a variety of formats (video, carousel, etc.) to see which is most effective for their audience."
"Facebook is a retargeting gold mine. Add a retargeting pixel on your site and then boost your Facebook posts to folks who have visited your site in the last 90 days. We increased our engagement by over 332 percent by leveraging small boosts to our retargeted audience."
"Customers like to be acknowledged, and you can showcase a different customer each week on Facebook. Think about what motivates your customers most. Is it how your product makes them look or feel? Use that knowledge to devise a program that promotes your best customers in ways that will motivate others to give you a try."
Not long ago, I had a huge a-ha moment: one of those realizations that you know will impact your business for years to come.
One morning, the host of a business-focused talk radio show reached out to me and asked me for an interview. He’d received a newsletter I’d written, and it had sparked his interest. This wasn’t your typical sales newsletter: It was unconventional. Frankly, it was brutally honest. I’d written it because I was tired of boring newsletters; the ones that people delete before they even make it to the second sentence. I hopped on a call and did the interview. It was broadcast on the radio program and disseminated across its social media platforms.
I received an email from the host with links to all of their various social media posts and was also tagged in the posts themselves. I shared the interview with our clients and uploaded it to our website. It was something I was proud of: I wanted everyone we worked with to know about it. I even shared it with a group of 300 CEOs. And that’s when I realized something: This guy must have picked up a ton of listeners from my sharing.
I realized that if I could do the same thing for my brand, I could have the same sort of organic reach. And the people sharing my brand with their circles would be proud to spread the word about me. Of course, I don’t have a radio show, so it wasn’t as easy as asking someone for an interview and then sending them the content to share. But I do have an audience and a significant reach, so, I started there.
I began to brainstorm. I decided on a strategy that felt appropriate for our business and for our brand. I identified the top 30 problems that our target customers face. This didn’t take long, as we have an in-depth understanding of our customer personas (and if you don’t, you should). I turned those problems into questions and then asked our clients to answer these questions and share their knowledge.
Specifically, I chose a few clients and asked them all a subset of these questions. I hopped on the phone with them for a quick (seven minutes, tops) interview and told them their answers may be used in a blog or whitepaper. Once the interview was over, our team transcribed it and turn it into a blog post, subsequent social media posts, a SlideShare, a YouTube video and an infographic.
Alongside all of this content, we made sure to include the client’s name, photo and title, and credited them with helping us develop this expert content. Once our social share calendar was ready to go, we emailed this content to our clients and encouraged them to share it in their networks. We’ve found that 75% of our clients retweeted and shared this content with practically all of their colleagues. Why? Because we elevated them to the status of industry expert. We made them feel special — the same way I’d felt when I was asked to do a radio interview. I’d turned my customers into salespeople for my brand.
Suddenly, our clients were blasting their social media networks with our brand name. And when you see these posts, you can tell that they genuinely want to convey how proud they were to be associated with us to their networks. The upshot? Great content, genuine insight and massive brand exposure for us. Meanwhile, the client feels heard, appreciated and proud.
To summarize, here are the steps you can take to encourage your customers to do your brand marketing for you:
Paid advertising has its place, and growing your reach that way is important too. But when you can get your own customers to become your best salespeople — that’s when you know you’re on the right track.
"Don't say who you are or the name of your company at the beginning. You need to catch their attention with what you are currently working on, and then leave them with a name or nickname that they can search for online later."
"When delivering a pitch or any type of presentation, plant your feet firmly on the ground, about hip-width apart. Be mindful of swaying and moving your hands, which can make you come across as nervous and lacking confidence."
"Founders love to talk about their technology when they should instead focus on the pain that their technology solves and the value that it creates for their customers. If you hook the audience with a searing pain point, a compelling value proposition, an attractive market and a credible team that can execute, then you will get the follow up to discuss questions they have about the technology."
"Elevator pitches are supposed to be quick, but not because you rattle off as much information as you can in as little time as possible. A good elevator pitch is concise because of how well-thought-out it is. When you slow down to deliver your pitch, you'll sound much wiser and give your audience time to absorb what you're saying."
"Elevator pitches need to be short and convey your business to an audience. I've noticed when people pitch me ideas they ramble on and on and don't actually say anything relevant. The best practice I got was during TechCrunch Disrupt launching a product five years ago. TechCrunch put us through the ringer and they helped us define what we wanted to say and how to say it concisely without rambling."
"A lot of people start going into the features and benefits of the device when they should really be capturing the attention of the listener by explaining the problem. They call this strategy "turning the knife," where you get the listener to understand and relate to the problem emotionally, then you position your product or solution as the unique and correct way of solving that problem."
"It's easy to get lost in the passion you have for your project, and oftentimes that passion, coupled with the opportunity being presented to you, can lead to desperation. It's important to have enthusiasm, but don't allow desperation to bleed into your pitch. Investors and potential partners can respect a passionate owner, but desperation almost always has the opposite effect."
"It's human nature to triangulate relevance from things we're familiar with. Whether it be investors, prominent customers or press you've received, dropping these in tasteful ways will make the audience take you more seriously. These social cues make the listener draw on these associations and connect them with what you're doing, enhancing the overall pitch."
"Starting off on this note will usually generate a “so what” reaction, causing your audience to check out. Your elevator pitch should be engaging and compelling enough to leave the listener wanting to know even more about you. Try instead to start the speech off with an interesting hook, quote or question that initially locks in their attention."
"WIIFM is an old sales jargon term for "what's in it for me?". While silly sounding, it's fundamentally on point. If you don't engage your audience during an elevator pitch enough to figure out why they should care, that is typically the end of the conversation. I like to say I help ____ to _____, as an example. Make it digestible for your audience."
"The best elevator pitches use simple words and communicates the benefits of your organization. If your elevator pitch uses words like "facilitates," "synergies," "empowering," or other overused words, re-craft your pitch. What does your organization do for its users?"
Being a business owner for a few years, I’ve found that customers are becoming significantly less satisfied with generic solutions. We can no longer direct customers to the FAQ page they neglected to read, or spout a “tough luck” response without pushback. Customers will often request that we break our longstanding rules to accommodate their mistakes. We try to side with our fans 99% of the time, but not every situation is workable. In our business, because customers make transactions with each other, righting one side of the situation often means wronging the other. So when dealing with the type of customer who doesn’t agree with our company rules and requires more than meeting them halfway, it’s important to maintain integrity and establish customer service parameters for the long run.
If we’ve done something wrong on our end, we provide a full refund and a promo code for future use. When customers are at all unhappy with their experience, we’re willing to forfeit our 10% commission on the transaction. If at the venue, customers run into problems, we work up until the event time to right the situation. These few, yet strict parameters have gotten us through hundreds of seemingly unworkable situations. In most cases, our team can lean on these guidelines to provide consistent and attentive service.
Nonetheless, customers expect more tailored approaches to their problems, believing businesses can afford to make exceptions without realizing how many customers are desirous of the same “special treatment.” When customers feel they are being cared for, they advocate for businesses. But if they aren’t, they use the power of social media at their disposal.
Social media is both a blessing and a curse. For as much positive publicity your company elicits, the customer is in the real driver’s seat when it comes to public brand perception. When someone directs a comment to us on public social media platforms, we handle it like we do emails. Responding to customer concerns via social media has been an effective way to show how fast and attentive our customer support is. Since social media is an open channel for the whole world to see, we respond to all of the customer comments we receive.
Despite our efforts to amend all situations peacefully and tactfully, we’ve had customers threaten to blast us on Twitter, write scathing Google reviews, or simply “tell everyone they know” to steer clear of our business. Because we’re still paving a reputation in this industry, we don’t take these threats lightly. When customers try to wield this power, it’s in your best interest to maintain a level head and hope they won’t cross the line. Our customer service agents first tackle situations individually, but if they feel exhausted by a customer, will pass them onto another agent for further guidance and perspective, creating a checks-and-balances type of system. Support for each other helps us achieve an end, and provides customers the opportunity to take a breather between one agent and the next. With power spread out amongst a team, customers can be assured they’re being handled with rationale and care.
Most customers prefer one method of communication. If a customer contacts us on Twitter, they likely want communication contained to Twitter. If they engage in email correspondence, they may not warm up to the idea of a phone call. We’ve had customers completely shut down during phone calls because they didn’t expect to communicate with us verbally. If a customer service agent can’t reach a virtual understanding and wishes to switch methods of communication, they should first seek the customer’s permission. Most customers reach out in ways they are comfortable with; they should never feel caught off guard. After watching our customer service agents further complicate situations by surprising customers, it seems keeping customers in their comfort zones is the best thing to do, even if they’re in the wrong.
With an educated customer support team, we can more carefully walk the fine line between serving our customers’ needs and being trampled by those who try to take advantage of us. We strive to side with the fans who have given our small company a chance and believe in what we do. Above all, I believe companies have to treat customers as human beings. But at the same time, if your employees are being treated as extensions of the company rather than people, should you give a courtesy might not be returned?
Ninety-nine percent of the time, yes. But as a boss, you have the responsibility of making sure your employees are being spoken for and feel supported by the company they work so hard to represent. So when a customer in the wrong comes our way and crosses the line despite all efforts to defuse the situation, I feel it’s better to take care of our customer service agents who wrestle that fine line every day. Because when it comes down to it, human decency isn’t something you are entitled to. It’s something you give in order to deserve.
]]>"Most social networks allow you to tag other accounts. Create content that is valuable to a prospect and tag them. This is a great way to show them that you exist. This technique is most effective if you can show off your company's skills and what you can do for your prospect with the content you share."
"As a B2B, there are a variety of ways to communicate and appeal to current and potential customers. Unlike B2C, your social media may not be full of viral posts, but it is still important to “humanize your brand” and offer a personal, creative appeal. Create content such as e-books, videos and articles that are full of valuable information specific to the needs of your target audience."
"Word of mouth can be a powerful tool. Social media can help you create a strong network of influencers and top organizations to position yourself as an expert and influencer in your industry. You can also broadcast exciting company news, participate in industry/charity events, and write articles or blog posts that provide potential customers insight into why they should want to work with your company."
"B2B companies should create and share content that humanizes their brand on social media. It is most effective if the content tells a story that supports your brand and shares something about the company values/mission. Figure out a way to make breaking news relate to your brand and then create media that supports the message. The news grows quickly on social media and can spotlight your brand."
"Ever research a restaurant or business's Facebook page to see how active they are as a way to determine the quality of their product/service? This is a very common research step these days that many businesses fail to comprehend. Having social media pages isn't enough. They must be used as a platform for building trust and backing up your UVP -- or the potential customer will move on."
"Since social media is designed around sharing opinions, it's a good idea to leverage this intent through the use of surveys to reach out and communicate with new customers. Not only do you get the benefit of collecting intelligence on what potential customers really want, but you also have a list of names and contact information to share evidence that you can fuflill their desires."
Three months earlier, we had built a five-touchpoint system to engage current clients and drive referrals. This consisted of various lunches, gifts, and casual phone calls or sharing content. I’ve seen plans like this double existing client revenues in the past. While this salesman had experienced some great wins using a few of the tactics, not everyone had responded with a referral. While there was never an expectation of a 100 percent response rate, he was losing interest because he only had a few wins so far. The program wasn’t being executed to its full potential.
An outsider could easily look at this situation and say, “Clearly, if he’d just stick to his plan, he’d hit his numbers,” and in large part they would be right. But how many of us have not stuck to our plan, not completed our tasks, and then not been happy with the results? Willpower is about sticking to the process even when your mind tells you to quit. Sticking to a process is hard, but so is being great. Successful people execute day in and day out. They perform at a higher level because their willpower is stronger than others.
At our company, we build a marketing plan each year that includes the amount of content we are going to write, events we are going to host, influencers we are going to meet, customer touchpoints we will execute, and all other sorts of marketing initiatives. This year was the first year we hit virtually 95 percent of the activities we planned out, and it’s the first year our cash flow grew by 40 percent.
Sales and marketing isn’t a “put one out, get one back” game. Rather, it’s about performing needed actions consistently according to a system that generates predictable results over a long period of time. It takes willpower to stick to these actions every day. I’ve found that the secret to developing willpower is to build systems that remove mental blocks. This focus on execution allows me to get out of my own head and just do the tasks. Here are a few of the habits I’ve built that strengthen my willpower and generate the results I’m chasing:
Willpower is a muscle, and it has to be strengthened. Like working out, sporadic repetitions don’t build muscle. What builds muscle is creating a plan and executing on it.
]]>One way to offer more is to bundle your offerings. But what if bundling doesn’t always make sense for everyone in your audience? What if they don’t want more for less? What if they want less — and are willing to pay a small premium for the convenience of less?
Long gone are the days of being forced to purchase a whole music album: With iTunes, you’re free to build your music collection one song at a time. Media companies let you forego subscriptions in lieu of per-article pricing. And massive open online courses make it possible for students to take single lessons without the commitment of a degree program.
I’ve been observing these industry changes throughout the past decade, both as an employee in product management for a Fortune 500 company, and as a strategic consultant helping organizations rethink their products. Today, as the owner of a business strategy company focused on product management, I advise my clients to consider bundling (and unbundling) strategies.
Bundling can be a valuable part of product strategy, but it can limit your choices. By unbundling your products, you can give your audience what they want, while creating new revenue streams. Follow these five steps below to discover product unbundling opportunities for your business:
Before you can break your offerings into bite-sized pieces, you need to have a firm grasp on your inventory. You might already have a tidy list of all of your offerings, or you can pull one from your e-commerce site. If things are a bit more murky, you might need to sit down with your team and talk through everything you own and sell. During this step, don’t worry about decoupling: Just focus on documenting what you have.
Next, carefully consider your audience’s needs. Why do they buy from you? What pain points are you helping them solve? If you haven’t already done the research to confidently know the answers to these questions, conduct a customer survey that helps you better understand your audience and their needs.
When I worked with a micropayment processor, we wanted to better understand consumer habits related to charitable donations — specifically micro-donations. After conducting market research and reviewing surveys on the topic, we found that men were more likely than women to be impulsive with micro-donations. By honing in on our target audience’s behaviors and motivations, we could create an unbundling strategy directed at the microprocessor’s target clients, non-profits, by incorporating micro-donations into non-profit business models with larger followings of men.
Exploring avenues for new revenue requires an examination of each of your products. How can you make a decoupled product available in a way that’s profitable for your business (and useful for your audience)? If you sell a physical good or service, think about how to break your product into smaller pieces. For example, a flatware manufacturer might be accustomed to selling sets of forks, knives and spoons — but some consumers might be looking to replace a single spoon.
While working with an online education company, our primary product was degree programs, but we had to think smaller — even smaller than individual courses. We asked ourselves: How can we break down a course to the smallest level? We started looking at learning objectives and divvied up the course materials in a way that aligned with each individual learning objective. For a digital marketing course, we could break it down to “identify the top social media platforms,” “create a social media marketing plan,” and “create a social media calendar.”
Not only were we able to bundle and unbundle the course materials, but we could actually look at different types of learners, such as auditory versus visual. By breaking the course offerings down to such a finite level, we created a customized educational experience equipped with new products to sell.
Once you have determined individual components to sell, strategize the price points that make the most sense based on your current bundled pricing and your audience’s perceived value.
Make sure that the bundled offering still provides a price break, but doesn’t underestimate the value of the decoupled products. If the most valuable piece of content in your e-book is a template, for example, don’t be afraid to make that template worth half the cost of the entire ebook.
To start the pricing process, I typically evaluate the current pricing model, the production time required, and the product’s perceived value. I also advise A/B testing to see how the market responds, and then adjust pricing accordingly.
After you announce your new products and pricing, it’s important to continuously monitor your market. What are they buying? What bundles remain big sellers? Which ones are no longer selling?
As you introduce new offerings to your audience, continue to experiment with bundled versus unbundled products. The market and your audience’s needs are always changing. Your ability to provide what the market demands relies on the effectiveness of your ongoing research and product strategy. Remaining static is not an option.
When I launched a community for “parentpreneurs,” I saw a need for family-friendly business events and conferences. After holding one in July, I have continued to be aware of the market. If someone launches a similar event, I can tweak my offering to remain competitive.
Not ready to unbundle your current offerings? You can still plan for future products. When you’re creating a new offering, be sure to design a product infrastructure that will ultimately allow you to sell products in a variety of ways later. By unbundling your product offerings, you have an opportunity to better serve your audience and create a viable stream of revenue for your business. It doesn’t get much better than that.
]]>One of the things I frequently tell clients is that they don’t have to think of SMS as a replacement for their other marketing activities. In fact, some of the best results I’ve seen are from businesses that incorporate SMS into their overall marketing strategy. Text marketing can complement other strategies such as SEO, social media and email marketing.
Nowadays, smartphones and mobile devices have become an increasingly popular way to access the internet. People use them not only for phone calls, but also to access social media sites, check email and, of course, to send and receive text messages.
Because phones are now such a ubiquitous part of modern culture, they can be integrated with your other marketing efforts. SMS marketing offers many apps and services that make it easy to connect text marketing with other platforms, such as:
As I mentioned, SMS marketing has changed quite a bit in recent years. When I first entered the field, SMS was a new concept and involved lots of experimentation. Early text marketing suffered some of the same flaws as early email marketing, such as sending messages without permission, or creating lists that were not well targeted.
We are now entering what I see as the second wave of SMS marketing. Here are some of the characteristics of this new and more powerful wave.
While SMS marketing is no longer new, you still have plenty of time to benefit from this industry’s new wave. There are now more ways than ever to make text marketing a powerful component of your marketing mix.
]]>"Your conversions will increase if you break up your checkout process into bite-sized chunks, so that each step takes no more than 30 seconds to fill out. We're all impatient, and seeing a long form to fill out that we know will take several minutes to complete will lead to cart abandonment. Clearly show the user which step they are on at the top of the page and make each step short and sharp."
"You can easily find articles online to optimize your checkout flow, but abandonment is common for all e-commerce businesses. What's important is capturing the leads that have gotten this deep. Make sure you have retargeting cookies, exit intent pop-ups, and abandonment emails set up so you can at least remarket to these visitors."
"I've seen this happen with some of my own projects, and I know I do it myself when it comes to impulse-buying sometimes. One of the biggest things that gets in the way is forcing a login when it isn't necessary. A "guest checkout" that doesn't require creating an account is a great way to reduce abandoned carts."
"Unless there is a high need for a certain product or service, consumers are not likely to make a purchase right away from a brand that they don't know well and trust. However, if you offer an immediate coupon code or gift card with their first purchase, this immediately intrigues them and gives them a reason to check out right at the point of visiting your website."
"For key demographics, a mobile device is the preferred shopping platform. And yet, many e-commerce stores offer a checkout experience on mobile that would make a saint tear their hair out. Bad UX, complex checkouts, and non-responsive interfaces are sale-killers. I've abandoned many carts because I couldn't be bothered to spend twenty minutes dealing with the registration and checkout process. "
"A lot of customers are window-shopping and they should be allowed to do so. Don't try to trap them into a purchase, when they're just browsing around. If you point out the exits and provide frequent turnarounds, then customers will feel comfortable. That's what you want: customers who are happy they made a purchase, not customers who feel forced into one. "
"It is better to include the cost of shipping in the price than to add it on during the checkout process. People see value in the product they are paying for and reason that shipping is a sort of "tax." Amazon Prime and many other brands have set the new standard for free shipping and consumers expect it now. Offer free shipping even if it means you raise the price of the product by a few dollars."
"Most customers are rightly concerned about the common problem of credit card fraud. If you haven't done enough to make your website look professional and trustworthy, certain customers are going to hear the alarm bells getting louder and louder the closer they get to filling in their information."
"In the e-commerce world, buyer remorse often happens BEFORE the purchase. It often occurs when they reach the checkout and see just how many items they've added (and how much money they've accumulated). Have a simple and quick checkout process (think Amazon's 'one-click' checkout) that gets the customer from cart to the "Thank You" page in as few steps as possible."
"First, ask yourself if you are bringing the right people to your website. On the flipside, are you speaking to their pain or need? If you see people leaving your shopping cart, consider implementing live chat to answer any questions they may have and to offer help. If they go through your shopping cart and can’t find answers, they will likely go elsewhere."
"Many, many more people are willing to give reviews than will actually bother to leave them. Asking nicely for them, usually in a follow-up email after service has been completed, works surprisingly well for generating reviews. No one is going to fault you for asking, and every new one is worth its weight in gold."
"Ask your customer the ultimate question: "From a scale of 0 to 10, How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a colleague or friend?" Followed by: "Why did you rate us that way?" It does not waste your or your customers' time and it is measurable, actionable and allows you to compare how you do over time."
"Ask often and in the right places. Remind customers about the ability to leave reviews across multiple platforms and at a variety of times during their client experience. For example, we send convenient email reminders for feedback after each tutoring session. "
"This is an obvious option, but it's often overlooked in favor of more contemporary approaches such as social media. Since the customer is communicating one-on-one, they're less likely to put on a show (as they would on social media) and are more likely to give quality feedback."
"Every one of the 4,000-plus people who have travelled with us received a survey at the end of their trip. It's easy to fill out and explicitly asks them what was we did well, but also what we did not do well. Especially as a founder, it can be hard to ask people what they don't like about your company. But you absolutely must, because you'll learn the most from the tough love."
"We are an IT company and ask our clients to leave feedback on third party sites like Clutch.co, Greatagencies.com, Upwork.com, and Appfutura.com. These sites call or email clients and get a thorough feedback and publish it online. They ensure that feedback is authentic and high quality. Once published online, our prospective clients can read it. In addition, we get video testimonials."
"Conduct both focus groups and one-on-one executive briefings for your key customers. We host ours over lunch so we can build enough trust and dialogue to cut through superficial feedback and really understand how to serve them better."
"We tend to shy away from social media for user feedback. It doesn't give us the metrics we're desiring to improve our business operations, and it can be an easy outlet for customers whom are vocal, but not necessarily constructive or helpful. Using surveys to ask specific questions has greatly improved our feedback loop and allowed us to improve our customer experience with much greater accuracy."
"It's important to get honest and helpful feedback from customers, but you have to pose the right questions. It's important to know what you're doing right as well as what you could be doing better. You can ask pointed questions in emails, phone conversations and on social media. You may have to prompt customers. Ask what they do or don't like about specific products/services."
"We train our customer service team to have an open dialogue on incoming calls with customers. This allows us to get raw, unfiltered feedback that helps us improve our product."