Strictly Marketing Magazine marapr 2016 final

Strictl
MARKETING
MAGAZINE
$3.95 | MARCH/APRIL 2016
Hitting the MARK:
With Small Business
Marketing
How to become a
Marketing SUPERSTAR:
Join forces with Sales
Marketing Your
Business
There’s an APP for that!
Jeffrey Hayzlett
Think Big, ACT BIGGER
Credits
Letter from the Publisher
Spring is almost here and this is a time of change for
every business, small and large. As our publication
grows, we are embracing the changes and looking
forward to offering additional value to our readers.
Our Talk show, Strictly Marketing has moved over to
Talkzone and we are so happy to be settled in our new
platform. We look forward to working with them
during our syndication process. Be sure to check out
our Fan page on Facebook for updates about new
stations broadcasting our show.
We are participating in a new event called Publicity
Mastermind, it may be coming to a city near you!
Strictly Marketing Magazine will be part of the
publicity panel and we look forward to sharing
feedback on how people approach the media.
This issue our feature interview was conducted with
Author and Entrepreneur, Jeffrey Hayzlett. What an
honor it was to talk about his new book, Think Big Act
Bigger and Jeffrey shared so many wonderful
marketing tips, we know you will love reading his
interview.
Thank you again for reading our publication, we hope
you find extreme value in our content!
Columnists:
Debbie Qaqish
Cynthia De Lorenzi
David Giannetto
Rob Basso
Contributing Writers:
Chris Fernandez
George Athan
Geraldine Convento
Strictly Marketing Magazine
www.strictlymarketingmagazine.com
[email protected]
Toll Free: 844-222-9740
In this Issue…..
3
5 Website Design Tips for 2016
4
Marketing Your Business; There’s an App
for that!
6
Feature Interview: Jeffrey Hayzlett
9
Media Spotlight - The Game Changer
Podcast
Wishing you continued success,
10
Publisher, Strictly Marketing Magazine a division
of Kerry’s Network, Inc.
2
Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
12
Revenue Marketing: How to Become a
Marketing Superstar: Join forces with Sales
Generating More Sales with SEO
15
Future Marketing: Become Big Social
Mobile: Keystone of Data-Driven
Marketing
18
Hit the Mark with Small Business
Marketing
21
The Ultimate Content Marketing Strategy
5 Website Design Tips for 2016
For the effort of maintaining the banner, gathering
the assets and the file size of those assets –which
hurts your mobile load time– carousels simply
aren’t worth it. Simple, clear messaging will
continue its rise to prominence as a result.
Card design continues its rise in popularity
Card design is just what it sounds like, rectangular
blocks or ‘cards’ that contain content and images
arranged in a grid.
N
ow that 2016 is in full-swing as we see with
each New Year, web design trends are
cycling and evolving from years past. The
following five tips are tools for making the most
of the new wave of design trends.
Don’t just hide all your content in a hamburger
menu
The problem boils down to the fact that, as
designers, we have assumed the burger menu
design and purpose are universally understood.
It is a simple, elegant solution to menu
overcrowding on mobile applications and
websites. This has been combated in a number of
ways. Some major sites have struggled with its
application – NBC News rather infamously
applied the burger menu to their desktop site as
well with poor results, eventually switching back.
Much depends on the audience that will use the
site or application. Ultimately, it reinforces the
importance of user testing and factoring in
multiple rounds to any new digital project.
Image carousels can be bad for your SEO
Google’s search engine has stopped crawling meta
keywords which was traditionally how frames of
an image carousel were logged into the search
ranking. This has been the case for years now, but
the click-through rate for any frame of a carousel
beyond the first drops dramatically.
This has existed for some time, but has risen to
prominence in step with the shift in focus to
responsive design. Because these cards follow
predictable grids, they very naturally allow for
flexible widths from desktop to mobile.
Material design steps onto the main stage
The last big design shift and one you’ve likely
noticed, was the introduction of flat design – being
flat graphics, shapes and elements in pursuit of
clean, fast-loading sites. Material design was
touted as the evolution of flat design by Google
back in 2014, though mostly focused on Android
apps and interface.
Subtle animations everywhere
Animations have always been a part of web
designs. In contrast to dancing babies or the era of
Flash websites that saw everything move, 2016 will
see the continuation of subtle animations.
Take something as simple as filling out a form or
completing an e-commerce checkout. Progressing
through the process involves a lot of formulaic
interactions and in the instance of e-commerce,
combating cart abandonment is an ongoing effort.
Simple user cues along the way, though not gamechanging, are an easy way to engage the user and
indicate they are completing everything correctly.
Chris Fernandez, Assoc Creative Director Brownstein
Group www.brownsteingroup.com
Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
3
Marketing Your Business; There’s An App For That!
Just think, all of those people in one place! So yes,
you need an app!
As an early adopter and explorer of emerging
technologies and trends I have long been
fascinated by the potential of mobile apps for
business, marketing and outreach to better connect
with our community and the potential to reach
new markets. As mobile technology grew I
searched out mobile app development
opportunities for our business and found the cost
too expensive and the technology too complicated.
E
verywhere we go, there they are, people with
their heads down, engrossed in a small device
they are holding in their hands. The world around
them is buzzing by and they are intently texting,
tweeting, reading, listening and watching on their
mobile devices! Do you know what else they are
doing? They are shopping and buying!
Apps have become a seamless and almost mindless
part of our daily routine. I bet first thing in the
morning you started your day with an app before
your first cup of coffee. What Apps you ask, how
about your Google or Apple Calendar to see when
you need to be out the door for a meeting or that
handy fitness app that helps make you a kick butt
entrepreneur or the app that brings you calm and
serenity. It’s all right there on your Smartphone.
If you are selling products, services, events or more
this may be the perfect time to combine your
business with a mobile app built just for you!
Not sure yet? Gallup Poll recently reported that 52
percent of the population checks its Smartphone’s
several times per hour, and of the remaining 48 per
cent, 20 percent of the people claim to check their
phones once per hour. That sounds like pretty
good odds for anybody interesting in marketing!
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Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
With patience, I knew that we would see the world
of mobile technology become ubiquitous. This year
mobile commerce reported its highest success rate
yet with news that this holiday season enjoyed 29%
of e-commerce orders in the US coming from either
a Smartphone or tablet.
Having a mobile friendly website is not the same
thing has having your own mobile app designed
just for your business. Here are some reasons you
should consider a mobile app for your business:
Your mobile app will have you out front and
center to your customers
With so much time spent on Smartphone’s,
searching, escaping from reality and discovering
all there is to find in the app world your clients
will have another opportunity to take mental note
and remember you and your brand. Also, having
an app just means you really are too cool for school
and know how to be relevant as a business.
A powerful direct marketing channel
Knock, knock, who’s there? It’s me and I have
something awesome to share that is just for you.
Apps make it possible, through push notifications,
to directly reach your customers and share big
news, sales and promotions.
Enhance your relationship and the value you
bring to your customer
You can’t be on 24/7 and after all a girls got to have
her beauty sleep. We all know that without sleep
you are cranky, and who wants to work with
someone who is cranky? Just think, while you are
sleeping your app keeps your doors to your
business open 24/7 so your customers suffering
from insomnia can shop and mosey through your
business as much as they want? Best yet, when
they even just think of you all they have to do is
tap the app! An app makes it possible to close sales
in seconds.
Boom, there it is, brand recognition
Brand recognition is gold and your app, with the
right icon makes your business and brand all the
more memorable and recognizable. The more
places and ways that people see your brand the
greater opportunities you have for being noticed
and remembered!
Feel the love with customer loyalty
Let’s be honest! We live in a world of information
overload and unless you want to start wearing a
clown nose and jump up and down screaming pick
me (if your business is being a clown never mind)
it is even more difficult to stand out in the crowd.
Your customers will find it easy to find and
remember you by having your own app.
Cynthia de Lorenzi is an
International Motivational
and
TEDx
Women
Speaker, Google+ and
Social Media Consultant,
Futurist,
Artist,
Photographer, CEO and
Chief Instigator Success in
the City TV. Visit her site
www.successinthecity.org
You and me babe, better customer engagement
What about customer relations? Again, with a
simple tap, you are literally at your customer’s
fingertips. They can engage with you and your
business in a matter of seconds. Be it tech support,
sales support, or customer support, an app says
you have your customers’ backs. Adding messaging feature to your app makes you all the more
accessible to the people you love, your customers.
Stand out in the crowd
Timing is everything and mobile apps at the small
business level are just starting to catch on so
jumping in now can put you miles ahead of the
competition. Your customers will be so impressed
by how smart and savvy you are!
Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
5
Jeffrey Hayzlett
Think Big, Act Bigger
Marketing Magazine had the opportunity to talk with Jeffrey Hayzlett, Author of the Book Think
SBigtrictly
Act Bigger. He shared some great advice and lessons for Marketers and Entrepreneurs about his Book
and lessons learned over the years.
SMM: Our readers would love to know how you got started in business.
JH: I’ve always been very active in business since I was a kid. I started my first business, a lawn mowing
service and I used to deliver flyers in a local community where I lived. I’d always make money getting on
my bike delivering flyers for the local property management group. I remember getting my first big check
for $7 that put me over the moon. I’ve always had a yearning to start new things, then I get them to a
certain level and I either sell them off or turn them over to somebody else to run and it’s just always been
a thing for me to do that. I have three conditions of satisfaction for my life. One is to build wealth because
that’s how we keep score. I want to leave a legacy for my children. The second one is I like to do things
that I think are truly interesting, that I can learn from. Lastly, I want to have fun. Those are the three things
that I try to do every single day.
SMM: Adopting to change, especially with marketing efforts, is a challenge for many Entrepreneurs.
How do you avoid getting stuck in a rut?
JH: Here’s the rule for business today – adapt,
change or die. That’s it. If you keep doing things
the same way you’ve always been doing them,
someone’s going to beat you because they will
come up with something better, faster, cheaper,
or of greater value. If you don’t adapt to change,
if that isn’t part of your mantra, if you’re not
looking at continuous improvement of quality, of
market share, of margins, of price or clause, and
all the things that go into the delivering of a
product or service or into the satisfaction of your
customer, because that’s really what we’re trying
to do, is satisfy our customer. Everything in the
world around us changes every single day. The
seasons, the weather, trees, grass. There’s a time
for improvement in all things, Darwin taught us
that a long time ago, but we seem to have
forgotten along the way. If species can evolve,
why can’t businesses?
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Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
SMM: What is your take on Ted Talks as it relates
to marketing efforts?
JH: I will never do a Ted Talk, it’s not my audience.
If you want to feel good, feel better about yourself,
by all means, go do a Ted Talk. If you want to move
a product, if you want to move services, go to where
the people are and go to where your customers are.
For most businesses, doing a Ted Talk isn’t where
your customers are and isn’t where you’re going to
make the greatest impact. Focus more on the impact
inside your business and where you want to make
changes. It’s a wonderful place for people hanging
out and feeling better about themselves and I wish
them luck, but that’s not where most business issues
are going to be solved.
SMM: I’ve heard you say, “Be yourself in
everything you do”. Should this apply to
marketing efforts as well?
JH: When you look at the essence of a brand, a
brand is two things. It’s something we put on a cow
and occasionally, a horse. That’s where the word
brand came from, from cowboys who turn their
cattle lose along with other cattle from around the
area across the range and then you rounded them
up and you basically put a brand on the side of a
bovine, it was identification of ownership on the
side of the cow. We eventually transferred it over
time to that being representative of a company.
When you look at the essence of what a brand is,
it’s not the logo, it’s not the colors, it is a promise
delivered and you can only deliver what you are.
So you should concentrate on being yourself, on
being who you are. Be the biggest, baddest version
of that, in order to have the biggest impact. If you
say that you’re something else other than what you
are, you will eventually be found out and be a fraud.
SMM: As a former CMO, what are the top three
marketing tips that every Entrepreneur needs to
follow?
JH: Number one is to focus. To find out the key
things in your business that drives the things that
are most important to the value of your business and
the value of your customers.
Number two is kill squirrels. In the movie Up, they
go on an adventure to Paradise Falls. During this
adventure, they run into this dog names Doug, and
Doug is a talking dog. Doug runs up in the movie
and says, “Hi, I’m Doug the talking dog. My owner
and my master has outfitted me with this collar that
allows you to hear my thoughts, so I’m speaking to
you and you can hear me. You seem like a very nice
person. I like you very much.” All of a sudden, he
looks away and he yells, “Squirrel!” because he’s a
dog, right? He’s distracted by squirrels and
throughout the movie, all the dogs who can talk are
always in the middle of something and then they’re
distracted by squirrels. You have to kill squirrels in
your business. They come up to you all the time.
They twitter here and there and they distract you,
so you must kill squirrels. The third thing I would
say is to listen. Take time every day to listen to what
your customers and employees are saying about
your products and service. Listening is one of the
greatest leadership skills there is and Leaders need
to spend more time listening.
SMM: Why have you dared marketers to think big
and act bigger?
JH: Because I’m sick and tired of us losing. We’ve
gotten really good at cutting things and that’s what
most Marketers have been having to do for a number
of years as well as most business people, to cut back
on their businesses. We’ve become the experts of the
world at being lean and trim, so now it’s time for us
to start to grow and that’s what it’s about. Even in
my most recent book, I put pages of crowd sourced
excuses that people had heard in meetings. Whether
it’s not in the budget, or we tried that once before and
it didn’t work, or we should wait, rather than just
doing it. That’s what the book’s about, we have to
overcome the self-imposed limitations and find ways
to go around them, through them or eliminate them.
7
5 Strictly Marketing Magazine September/October 2014
SMM: If you could go back to the beginning and
give marketing advice to yourself, what would it
be and why?
JH: To trust my gut more often. You make these
mistakes at the highest levels of your career. When
I was the CMO of a Fortune 100 company, there
were times I let those little voices hold me back from
what I thought was the right thing to do. When you
think it’s the right thing to do, that’s when you
should be doubling down. What I learned from that
experience is I should have been bigger, I should
have been badder, I should have been bolder. When
I started a little fire, I should have thrown gasoline
on it and made a bigger fire. I thought that was the
conventions of the role and the conventions of being
in that C-suite so I let myself be a smaller version of
what I should have been.
SMM: Are there a few social media tips that you
would like to share?
JH:
Engage, so if content is king, activation is
queen, engagement is the kingdom. It’s fantastic to
have great content. The key for winning in the long
run is around engagement. If you are engaging with
your fans and they are engaging with you, you’ll
learn together and you create great brand
ambassadors as a result of that engagement.
Because organically, you’re developing these devout
followers who become fantastic cheerleaders for you
and your company.
SMM: What happens when you have a raving fan
turn into a raving hater?
JH:
If you’re going to be a leader, you’re going to
have haters, it comes with the territory. You can’t
push the envelope without tearing it a little bit, you
need to get comfortable with that. You need to be
direct with distractors, deal with them, but not
necessarily placate them, and good companies
understand that. Typically, people want to throw
them free things to shut them up in order to placate
them and I think that’s the worst thing you could do
because you’re setting a bad example for rewarding
bad behavior.
5 Strictly Marketing Magazine September/October 2014
8
SMM: Can you share some marketing lessons that
you learned the hard way?
JH:
Moving with greater speed and taking more
risk. We are constantly pulling ourselves back
because we’re afraid of the worst thing that might
happen which is always great to keep in mind, but
when it comes to marketing, you need to ask
yourself this one key question: is anyone going to
die? The answer is, probably not. In fact, for
Marketers, the biggest thing that we can probably
get is a paper cut. If that’s our biggest risk, quite
frankly, why aren’t we taking more risks and why
aren’t we doing it with greater speed? Will we make
mistakes? Absolutely! We’re doing more marketing
digitally with tools that allow us to make
adjustments as we go.
We spend too much time listening to the little voices
in our heads rather than the voices in our hearts or
in our gut. We should follow our intuition. When
we started entering into social media, into the
broadcast mentality, we focus more on eyeballs and
ears. We focused more on clicks than we did on the
bottom line and I think we’re in a new era for
marketing, we should be more focused around
customer satisfaction, our environment and
relationship with our customers. So I think if we
move from eyeballs and ears to hearts and minds,
the numbers might not be as high, but the rewards
will be much greater.
Jeffrey Hayzlett is a primetime television host of C-Suite
with Jeffrey Hayzlett and Executive Perspectives on
C-Suite TV, and business radio host of All Business with
Jeffrey Hayzlett on CBS on-demand radio network Play.It.
He is a global business celebrity, speaker, best-selling
author, and Chairman of C-Suite Network, home of the
world’s most powerful network of C-Suite leaders.
Hayzlett is a well-traveled public speaker, the author of
two bestselling business books, The Mirror Test and
Running the Gauntlet. His third book, Think Big, Act
Bigger, was released in September 2015. Visit his website
at www.hayzlett.com
MEDIA
SPOTLIGHT
The Game Changer Podcast
Podcast: The Game Changer Podcast
Website: http://www.thegamechangerpodcast.com
Description: The Game Changer Podcast interviews a variety of guests, a Game Changer is
someone who is willing to look different, act different, and swim in their own direction. This
show will inspire you to be a Game Changer today!
How often is your show released?
Once per week, with a mid-week review.
What would you like a potential guest to submit to you? Bio, Headshot, Contact
Information, Website Link, and short pitch for the show about what makes you a game
changer.
Where should someone submit this information for guest consideration?
[email protected]
Ever w onder w hat is in our media direct ory? Here is a great example of one of many Podcasts we
have listed. If you are looking for more media opportunities, for just $249 our Premium Membership gives
you access to various media outlets.
Sign up today at Strictly Women in Marketing,
www.strictlywomeninmarketing.wildapricot.org
Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
9
Revenue Marketing Lesson #1: How to Become a
Marketing Superstar: Join Forces with Sales
M
arketing and sales alignment is one the
most contentious and difficult issues to
address on the Revenue Marketing Journey. As
marketers use technology to gain a better
understanding of the customer and to directly and
positively affect revenue, the traditional
marketing and sales relationship is often turned
upside down. The result can be an environment
characterized by miscommunications, loss of
marketing credibility, lack of lead follow through
and eventually no reportable ROI from
marketing’s heroic efforts.
Part of the issue arises from change happening so
quickly; the other issue arises from a lack of
understanding and education, on the part of both
marketing and sales, as to what is happening and
how to handle it.
The next two columns will address what each
group needs to know using the marketing and
sales synergy model. We’ll start with educating
marketing on what they need to know about sales
in order to build a more effective revenue-focused
relationship.
Alignment versus Synergy
“Sales and marketing alignment” is the term most
often used to describe the pivotal sales and
marketing relationship, but if you closely examine
alignment in the context of successful Revenue
Marketing, a more appropriate term is “synergy.”
Let’s look at the definition of each term and then
more fully examine this critical relationship for all
Revenue Marketers.
· Alignment: 1. Linear or orderly arrangement,
2. Positioning of something for proper
performance 3. Support or alliance.
10
Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
·
Synergy: Synergy comes from the Greek word
synergia, meaning joint work and cooperative
action. 1. Synergy is when the result is greater
than the sum of the parts. Synergy is created
when things work in concert together to create
an outcome that is in some way of more value
than the total of what the individual inputs is.
Which definition sounds more like a model for
relationship success and for Revenue Marketing
success? Of course, it’s synergy! Synergy is the
end-state description of your relationship with
sales. Let’s further explore what this relationship
looks like.
Synergistic Marketing Behaviors
More specifically, what are the behaviors we can
observe that characterize a synergistic marketing
and sales relationship? Here are five characteristics
we often see in successful Revenue Marketing
organizations.
1. Marketing and sales use a common revenue
language.
2. Marketing and sales have mirrored
organizational structures.
3. Marketing and sales are proactive in their
relationship.
4. Marketing and sales work together as one
revenue team towards achieving shared
revenue-oriented goals.
5. Marketing and sales have goals and
compensation tied to shared revenue metrics.
The Marketing and Sales Synergy Model
Now that we know what a synergistic relationship
looks like, let’s use a model to understand how to
achieve it and to further define the behaviors
required of a Revenue Marketer.
Education
The first step in creating any relationship with sales
is to educate the marketing team on all things related
to sales. Trying to create a relationship with sales
without understanding their world simply does not
work and that understanding does not occur
through osmosis. More specifically, marketing
needs to understand the sales goals, be a part of
sales initiatives, understand the sales process, know
the sales team and be educated on the pipeline.
Synergistic Marketing Behaviors:
·
·
·
·
·
Participate in weekly sales pipeline calls
Participate in monthly and quarterly sales
calls
Listen to sales calls
Go on calls with sales
Participate in sales training
Revenue Language
A few years ago I met a VP at an event where we
were both speaking. As I listened to his talk, I was
trying to figure out if this guy is the VP of Sales or
the VP of Marketing. He sounded like a VP of Sales
as he mentioned things like pipeline and forecast.
He talked about joint sales meetings and
understanding the current level of quota
achievement across the sales team. He talked about
accelerating time to close and improving average
deal size. I was honestly confused as I was pretty
sure they had not invited a VP of Sales to be a part
of this particular event.
As it turned out, he was a VP of Revenue Marketing
(that was his real title) and that’s when it became
clear to me, like sales, Revenue Marketers must
begin embracing the language of revenue in order
to build credibility and drive revenue success.
Revenue Marketers don’t talk to sales about pretty
fonts or newsletters; they talk to sales about
opportunity pipeline, quota and revenue. They ask sales
questions like, What number do you need to hit for your
new acquisition target? What does your current
opportunity pipeline look like and how can we help? What
is your average deal size and how can we help grow that?
Why are opportunities not closing and how can we help?
Synergistic Marketing Behaviors:
·
·
·
Listen to the words used by marketing during an interaction with a salesperson – are
they sales focused or marketing focused?
Listen to the words used by marketing as
they participate in a sales meeting – are they
sales focused or marketing focused?
Listen to the presentations marketing makes
to sales – are they sales focused or marketing
focused?
Continued on Page 19
9 Strictly Marketing Magazine September/October 2014
Strictly Marketing Magazine
March/April 2016
11
Generating More Sales with SEO
S
earch Engine Optimization (SEO) has been a hot
topic within the marketing community for years
now, with many “experts” aiming for a quick fix,
while not taking their users’ experience into
consideration. Long gone are the days of link
building through online directories and link farms
– SEO “juice” these now provide little to no value.
Blanketing your URL across as many websites as
possible, with no regard to each site’s topic of
interest and audience, can range from attracting the
wrong audience to getting blacklisted by Google.
So what is SEO Nowadays?
The major search engines have changed their focus
from simply crawling the web for links, to heavily
considering the quality of content provided by each
link, in efforts to optimize experience and value to
their users. Plus, they’re much more savvy – they’ll
see if you’re attempting to optimize via repeating the
same keywords throughout your site, or being
sneaky by placing keywords at the bottom of pages
in a white/same page color font, and will penalize
you for it. These days, you need them – they don’t
need you.
How do I get the Right Leads Online?
When you’re ready to commit to implementing an
SEO strategy, but aren’t sure what it should entail,
or how to construct it to ensure you’re bringing in
qualified leads vs. an inflow of untargeted traffic, a
good process to follow is:
Identify your target audience. Be as specific as
possible – this will help you identify that audience’s
needs, wants, preferences, and more. The most important part of SEO is business strategy. Having a
clear understanding about your overall business
goals and who you want to reach is critical.
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Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
Develop a list of your top keywords/phrases. You’ll
want to do this for each section and page of your site.
It’s easier to optimize an individual page for fewer
keywords, based on that page’s main topic(s), with
an overarching optimization strategy including
general categories/keywords for your general pages.
For example, if you’re running an organic pet food
website, your categories/main keywords may
include: organic pet food, organic dog food, organic
cat food; whereas you may have subcategories/pages
within these categories that you’ll want to optimize
for: organic dog treats, organic dog snacks, specific
brands, food for pets with allergens, etc.
It’s recommended that you use long-tail search
phrases vs. short keywords, to ensure the eyes you
get on your search result are those of who you’re
aiming to reach, thus increasing your chance of them
clicking through, and the search engine noting your
site’s relevancy to that search query. Additionally,
short keywords tend to be much more competitive
than longer phrases, making it difficult to appear on
the first one or two pages of search results. An
example of a short keyword vs. a long-tail search
phrase would be: “pet food” vs. “affordable organic
dog food.”
Utilizing tools during this step is recommended, to
get an idea of how competitive a keyword or phrase
is, and the potential traffic you can reach.
There are many free and paid/premium solutions
available – do a little digging to see what fits you
best. Some solutions include:
Ÿ SEOmoz (free trial available)
Ÿ Google Trends
Ÿ Google and Bing search engines and
Webmaster Tools
Ÿ SEMrush
Ÿ Keywordtool.io (provides variations of
keywords and traffic)
Ÿ Web browser rank tools
Referencing more that one tool helps provide a
more complete picture of optimization across
various search engines.
Website framework
Title Tags: Similar to the title of a report or
article, these should include the main
keyword/phrase for each page, as well as your
business name at the end. Note: this is not a
place to simply list your keywords. Title tags are
the text you see on a browser tab, and tell search
engines what the main topic for each page is. Be
consistent with your naming strategy, to ensure
that any future web developers and content
editors follow the same framework.
Meta Descriptions: These aren’t as important as
they used to be, but still carry some weight with
some search engines. Use this space for a 1-2
sentence description of the content on each page
– you can include your keywords in the
sentences, but this is not a place to list your
keywords.
Naming Conventions for Photos: This is an area
many people forget about – you’ll want to make
sure to create a naming convention for the photos
you include on your site, utilizing your goal
keywords, instead of uploading them using the
default file names previously assigned to them.
Other considerations:
Don’t use redundant content on your site. Search
engines find identical/duplicate (or very close to
being identical) content, and won’t know which
page to index, rank and serve, thus bringing you
lower rankings and site traffic.
Avoid link farms/directories: these carry very
little to no SEO value, as well as little to no value
to people looking for what your site has to offer.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t include your URL
in an industry-specific directory; just don’t focus
your energy in this area.
You’ll want to develop a content marketing
strategy that utilizes your goal keywords, in a
way that provides useful information to visitors
that will lead to repeat visitors and brand loyalty,
as well as other sites to share your content and
link back to your site. Focus on page content, as
well as shareable content such as blog posts,
white papers, case studies, infographics, and
more – and don’t forget to utilize social media.
Aim to be a valuable, expert resource (for both
SEO and to convert those site visitors into actual
sales). “If you build it, they will come” – SEO will
bring those leads in, while your content strategy
will help convert them to paying customers.
Geraldine Convento. MeetGeraldine is a business
strategy, marketing and design firm located in
Oakland, CA. Offering a full-range of services include
brand development, business strategy, SEO, marketing
and design, as well as workshops, classes, and speaking
engagements to provide insight in these areas. Visit
their website at www.meetgeraldine.com.
Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
13
Future Marketing: Become Big Social Mobile
The Keystone of Data-Driven Marketing
H
as social fundamentally changed business? It’s
a question still central to how companies
effectively compete in this new social economy.
While I firmly believe “no it has not,” social has
fundamentally changed marketing itself, the
corporate-consumer relationship, and the method
by which companies are valued.
So if business hasn’t changed—it is still about
creating profit—but marketing has, what is the new
intersection between the two? This is the keystone
which must be in place if you are to become truly
big social mobile, connecting with today’s social
consumers and dominating your market. It seems
a good place to start this column.
The Big Change
The change to marketing is actually more profound
than most marketers understand—certainly few
outside of marketing understand it at all. Traditional
marketing is almost exclusively focused on creating
the most concise message, combined with the most
memorable images, video or sounds, delivered to
the most people. Its effectiveness was measured in
impressions. Think of Super Bowl commercials
created by Sterling Cooper. The hope is that at their
moment of need, consumers would remember the
message. A memorable message is critical because
consumers are choosing among competitors—the
more memorable the message the greater its
potential to influence them.
This is the process of traditional marketing, and
despite what some experts say, it is actually more
effective now than ever—videos going viral shows
how the digital equivalent to advertisements (digital
content) can now reach an even larger audience for
significantly less cost.
But this effective process is no longer generating as
many customers because at the moment of choice
the consumer now has access to information; they
can now make an informed decision.
This is what social consumers do: they use
information not provided by the company to make
a buying decision about that company’s products or
services, such as third-party reviews, social
recommendations, competitive information, or just
educational information.
The result is that companies are putting resources
into an effective process—they are applying this
traditional marketing approach to digital
mediums—to reach more people than ever before
but they aren’t generating tangible results—new
customers, higher conversion rates, more revenue,
higher CLV. The measure of effectiveness has
become antiquated.
Remember, this is capitalism. Perceived value first
influences consumer choice more than true value.
As we move from a capital driven market to one that
is socially-powered (where buyers are informed)
perception has less influence—the true value your
company provides to buyers will influence what
happens more than your message. This is a
behavioral change for consumers. Most companies
haven’t adapted to it because executives still define
effective marketing as marketing that is memorable,
certainly more value-driven than before, but being
memorable still gets their blood pumping.
Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
15
And they still believe that the more people you
expose this memorable message to the better chance
you have of winning over customers. It sounds
reasonable; it sounds logical; but it no longer works.
A New Process for Marketing
Future-marketing relies on a process that is perhaps
its exact opposite. It says forget broad appeal; forget
measuring the impact of an advertisement on the
average person, even an average person in your
target market. It says build your entire business
around only one single customer. Adapt all of your
processes, train all of your people and develop all
of your technology to satisfy only one customer—
and forget the rest.
This is a challenging mindset to adopt. Most of
modern business analytics are built on statistical
analysis. But, statistical analysis holds no value
using this approach. Forget sampling campaign
response because the opinion of the masses is
unimportant. Consider all of the customers you’ve
recently sold to. None of them matter—only one of
them.
Who is this magical customer? It is your one most
profitable customer. The one customer that has
generated the most profit for your organization
during recent periods, or the one customer that has
the highest CLV. This one customer is the
cornerstone upon which all of your marketing, sales
and operational processes should be built. And this
is meant literally. No other customer matters, only
this one. You must adopt this mindset literally,
because without complete commitment you will
always have the tendency to shift back to an
“averages” mindset, and with it will come average
performance.
From this starting point—your one most profitable
customer—all of your processes can be reexamined.
You can chart every interaction this one person had
16
Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
with your organization from the moment you first
touched them, when you determined they had a
need or became a prospect, until they were
converted to a customer, and then when they were
cross-sold or up-sold (the seven critical touch
points).
What this analysis will reveal is the perfect pattern
of interactions that produced that perfect customer.
Your task is then simple: go get more exactly like
him or her. Or, more accurately you should do two
things: 1) go find more exactly like this perfect
customer and put them through the same perfect
process, and 2) mold all of the consumers that you
encounter to this perfect pattern because this pattern
will produce the best, most tangible results.
But in truth, it isn’t just one customer. It is the
perfect customer within each target market, or the
one that purchased the fastest, or the one that has
the highest CLV. And therefore it follows that it
isn’t just one pattern.
It is one pattern for each meaningful, tangible
outcome you are trying to achieve. Identifying the
outcome you are seeking for each product, service,
division, sales unit or other meaningful
segmentation of the business will allow you to
identify the perfect customer and therefore the
profitable pattern that you should seek to mold
customers to. This sounds reasonable; this sounds
logical; the difference it actually works with today’s
social consumers.
The Take Away, or what do I do now?
Adopting this mindset and approach isn’t hard, but
it’s impossible without a process—a process that
takes you deep into how you identify that perfect
customer, the perfect pattern and then how you
mold other consumers to it. I’ll cover that in the next
installment of this column. In the meantime there
are a few things you can do.
First, understand that this isn’t personalization. It
almost flies in the face of personalization because
future marketing is about telling them what they
need to hear (so that they make the decision that you
want them to make) versus what they want to hear
(which is the mentality behind personalization in
most companies). Most people wrap their head
around future marketing more quickly when they
think of it as a sales technique instead of what we
typically think of as marketing. So look at your
approach through an honest lens and ask yourself
if you are controlling consumer impression and
response or just doing more “me too” content
marketing.
Second, there is a blend of the old and new that does
work. American car companies have done a good
job at this. They include hashtags and other triggers
within their traditional marketing that allows
consumers to immediately interact with them. What
makes this work is that these companies understand
and have created a process that allows them to
uniquely identify every consumer that they touch
through this medium.
They then put them through the process I’ll explain
in the next edition of this column (see Big Social
Mobile for a deeper case study on the automobile
industry).
Lastly, many companies can’t even identify their
most profitable customer. Individual customer
profitability is the top of the data food chain and
most executives aren’t eating healthy. But don’t let
this stop you for now. Identify your highest revenue
customer, the one that converted the quickest, had
the highest market basket or bought the best
combination of products and services which you
believe to be most profitable. The important thing
to do is adopt the new mindset and reexamine your
marketing efforts.
I’ll be with you again in two months. If you could
identify the perfect customer for each meaningful
segment of your business and get a good sense of
each individual interaction you had with them from
first touch to last, between now and then, you’ll be
in a good position to pick it up where we are now
leaving off.
David F. Giannetto helps organizations leverage technology—
providing both the technical and business insight necessary to
create, understand and utilize it to improve performance. He
is SVP of Services at Astea
International, the leader in
service management and
mobile workforce technology.
He is author of Big Social
Mobile: How Digital Initiatives
can Reshape the Enterprise
and Create Business Value
(Palgrave Macmillan 2014),
the first enterprise-level
methodology
that
helps
organizations integrate social
media, mobile technology and
big data into their core people,
processes,
technology,
information and strategy to
create tangible improvements in revenue and profit. Visit his
site at www.giannetto.com
Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
17
Hit the Mark with
Small Business Marketing
I
woke up one morning to the sound of my alarm
clock blaring, a combination of static and a GEICO
advertisement. I turned on the TV to catch the
weather before I got dressed and there was that cave
man commercial playing again. I jumped in the car
and tuned to my favorite channel only to hear that
smarty pants little lizard with his cute accent selling
insurance. I drove my normal route to the office and
saw a sign across the railroad bridge exalting that
15 minutes or less could save me 15% on my car
insurance. I finally arrived at my office and pulled
into my parking spot and as I stepped out I heard
the buzz of a small airplane overhead, so I look up
to see that it is pulling; yes you guessed it, a GEICO
banner. This is advertising muscle at its mightiest.
What can your small firm do to match this kind of
power? The answer is, maybe nothing.
Smaller local businesses have always been frustrated
with the marketing and advertising power of large
multi-national firms and it has been even more so
in today’s tougher economic climate. We certainly
can’t concede the marketing war and give up hope
that anyone will buy our product or service, but the
task seems so daunting when you just can’t get away
from a competitor’s advertisements and you even
find yourself whistling the catchy tune on their
commercial or chuckling at their online video that
just went viral.
However, the little guy does have options. Here are
a few things you can do to help you stand out
without breaking the bank.
Be laser focused. The big shops can afford to spam
the world. You can’t. Make sure you know your
target audience and focus on them very carefully.
Even if it has limited scope, a well-designed,
thoughtful campaign can yield great results if it
really speaks to your potential client.
18
Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
Be original but recognizable. If you directly compete with a big industry player as most small businesses do, take a distinctly different demeanor or
air in regards to your product or service. It could
be that you are exclusively for those potential customers whose service is overpriced or maybe you
offer educational seminars in an industry that does
not currently have these.
Temper your expectations. Your latest mailing
campaign went out and you are sitting by the
phone, just waiting for it to start ringing off the
hook. Really? Adopting an unrealistic view of the
results of a single ad or campaign will give you
acid reflux and not help your bottom line. Take the
long view and tailor your marketing campaigns to
work together for the best results.
Ask for help. The big guys have huge ad agencies
and fancy consultants. You might only have your
Uncle Buddy that did a mailing campaign once
back in the 80’s. Don’t talk to him. Ask your
colleagues for their opinions, or for a bigger campaign, find a local pro that can help you even if it
is a modest fee. It’s worth the investment.
Do Press Releases. Use a service like PRweb.com
that gets your releases to potentially hundreds or
thousands of online outlets. You will be pleasantly
surprised with the results and web awareness it
brings.
Continued on Page 20
How to Become a Marketing Superstar: …..Continued
Communication
Shared Goals
In order for marketing to be ready for Revenue
Marketing and to engage in a new kind of
relationship with sales, an effective vision and a
game plan must be established. It’s up to marketing
to set the vision, create and communicate the game
plan, collaborate on the game plan and get buy-in
on this game plan.
I can’t emphasize strongly enough the importance
of sales and marketing having shared goals, aligned
compensation and complimentary organizational
structures. In the world of sales, no revenue
accountability for marketing means zero respect
from sales. When we take a look at the most
successful Revenue Marketing machines, we see
that marketing has the same kinds of goals as sales.
If sales has a number tied to new account
acquisition, so does marketing. If sales has a
number for enterprise accounts, so does marketing.
If sales has a number for a new product, so does
marketing.
Creating and gaining commitment to a jointly
developed game plan takes time and repetition.
Marketing can’t just walk into a meeting and expect
sales to “get it” in a 30-minute presentation. After
all, marketing has probably spent months attending
conferences, reading white papers and educating
themselves about the benefits of Revenue
Marketing. Marketing will need to plan for
multiple communication methods, meetings, and
events to share the sales vision and craft the
ultimate game plan.
Synergistic Marketing Behaviors
·
·
·
·
·
Develop a communication plan like a marketing campaign
Deploy using your marketing automation
platform and track and engage with digital
body language
Develop personas and messages
Work in multiple channels
Incorporate the 11 elements of an effective
Revenue Marketing Communication Plan:
Communication Type (updates, milestones,
best practices), Intent of Communication
(inform, educate, influence), Cadence (how
often), Source (corporate, field, other), Target, Flow (broadcast, bi-directional, networked), Milestone, Channel, Action (call
to action), Measurement, Resources (team
to drive the communication)
The Challenge
Marketing and sales alignment, excuse me,
synergy, is a key success factor of Revenue
Marketing success. Do not assume marketing
understands the world of sales. Unless they have
a background in sales or have worked in a Revenue
Marketing model with sales before, how are they
supposed to know all of this? Take the time to
assess where marketing is in their understanding
of sales and then follow the guidelines in this article
to improve that level of understanding and to begin
exhibiting fruitful Revenue Marketing behaviors.
As Principal Partner & Chief Strategy Officer of The
Pedowitz
Group,
Debbie
develops and manages global
client relationships and leads the
firm’s
thought
leadership
initiatives. She coined the term
“Revenue Marketer” in 2011
and she has been helping B2B
companies grow revenue by
applying strategy, technology
and process for over 30 years.
www.pedowitzgroup.com
Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
19
Hit the Mark ….Continued
I left social media out of the short list above because
it is now a given that you must participate in the
online conversation. LinkedIn seems to be the best
choice for having a directed, business-related
conversation whereas Facebook is great for letting
your personality shine through. All these sites are
arranged around relationships and commonality, not
the traditional search model like Google. This is
where smaller organization like yours can really
shine because you don’t need sophisticated tactics
or a $50,000 budget; you just need to be you. Well,
a focused and targeted you.
I did not literally mean do nothing when competing
against a larger competitor. What I meant is, don’t
try to do exactly as they do. The biggest reason is
that you may not be able to afford to do it and you
will not get the same results if you mimic their efforts
on a fraction of their budgets. The power you have
is your originality, your reputation in the
marketplace and the small business expertise you
bring to the table. Don’t be just like GEICO - be just
like you.
Small business/Entrepreneur Advocate, Expert and Author
Robert Basso is founder and president of the New York
region’s largest independent payroll processing firm,
Advantage Payroll Services and a regularly sought out
small business guest speaker, mentor and media expert.
With over 2,500 clients, Rob has his finger on the pulse of
small business and has gained a wealth of knowledge
which he actively shares.
His mission is to assist
struggling small business
owners with growing
their companies, creating
jobs and rebuilding the
American economy. For
more information about
Rob and Advantage
Payroll Services, visit
www.RobBasso.com
20
Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
The Ultimate Content Marketing
Strategy
T
hroughout the years we start to hear certain
buzzwords and phrases often enough until it
sounds like “the next big thing.” By now most
people understand the importance of email
marketing, social media, search engine optimization,
etc. Over the last few years people have spent a lot
of time buzzing about content marketing. My goal
is to show you a powerful content marketing
strategy today but first let’s talk about a challenge
that gets in the way of many marketers. The truth
is that many business owners wear many different
hats- especially small business owners. They’re
always juggling, trying to figure out what they
should spend their limited time and energy ondropping one thing to pick up another. So when
they hear that they should be using email marketing
but they want to get more social, they don’t know
what to do with their time because they know that
it’s all important. Instead of treating these different
marketing activities as the new shiny object to play
with, dropping the old one, this article will teach you
how to put all of these marketing efforts together so
that you are strategically maximizing the
effectiveness and benefiting from the compounded
effects.
First let’s start with content marketing to understand
what it is, what it’s not, and how it will serve you
the most. Content marketing is not the practice of
just writing blogs or creating content to spam the
internet with as many pieces as possible. Because
most marketers do not really understand content
marketing, they end up spending time, energy, and
money on creating things that no one cares about,
no one shares and these content pieces do not serve
them in any way.
Imagine that you had the best kept secret in the
world.
You had a piece of knowledge that would impact
the world and you wanted to share it. That piece of
information would spread like wild fire and if you
were the originator of thought then you (or your
business) would get credit for shedding light on this
topic. The more important the information or the
bigger the impact that the information has, the faster
and wider this message spreads. This is the
foundation to content marketing. Great information
is shared and spoken about. Your goal is to use your
expertise to create content based on that topic giving
your perspective to solve real problems that people
have. The more original the thought, combined with
how useful the information is, the more people will
engage.
To understand how this turns into more business,
just think about the first thing that you do when you
need a solution to a problem- you go to the Internet.
The odds are you probably go to Google but we’ll
discuss that in a minute. The Internet has given us
the ability to get answers to just about anything! So
whether you need specific answers to a question or
just some ideas of solutions to a problem, you’re
looking on the Internet.
For example, let’s say that your sales team wasn’t
closing enough deals. When you analyzed it you
noticed that they weren’t as polished as they should
be so you were looking for tips that you can give
your sales team in meetings.
Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
21
A
s you were reading different content pieces
from different sales trainers, you found that a
specific sales training company had original ideas
that really worked for your team. The more content
they created, the more you had your team use the
strategies. Eventually you realize that it would be
much more effective to have these people come in
and train your team directly. It all starts with content!
Your journey might start with sales tips and you end
up with lead generation tools or somewhere
completely different. That’s what’s beautiful about
the buyer’s journey. There is a lot of information to
consume and eventually you end up solving the
problem with a purchase. Most purchases are not
immediate. Research is involved. This is why you
must educate your prospects to help them make a
purchasing decision. Just trying to sell your product
without educating the buyer will not lead to a sale.
With all this information they have to completely
understand the full benefits of your solution, why
they should choose your product over your
competitors, and why they should trust your
company over someone else. Content marketing
does all of the above. It gives you the ability to
demonstrate your expertise, otherwise how can they
listen to your recommendation to buy your product?
First you must prove yourself, your company and
your product.
22
Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
Google and Bing understand that the first stage of
the buyer’s journey is to get information. Searching
for possible solutions to problems they have, these
people use their search engines to filter out millions
of websites to deliver you the ones who give you
the information that you need. The issue is that most
websites are not too educational and are focused on
selling a product or service, that’s not giving you
the information that you need to solve a problem.
So Google is bypassing your website and going to
blog posts, articles, or presentations that speak to
educate someone on the keywords typed in. Google
and Bing are constantly adjusting their algorithms
to put information first and sales presentations
(websites) last.
Your content strategy going forward should speak
to problems that your products or services solve.
Give solutions to these problems and other
problems that your potential buyer might run into.
It’s not about selling your product/service, it’s about
becoming a thought leader in your industry and
helping as many of your potential customers as
possible. You become their advisor. You build trust.
You build a brand. You do all the things that selling
will not do for you. Put your customer first and the
sales will follow.
Once you have a list of topics to speak on, next
create multiple formats of this information. You may
write a 400 word blog piece, a 1,200 word magazine
article, a 25 page e-book, a 5 minute video, a 15
second Instagram video summary post, an
infographic on statistics, a podcast, a Power Point
presentation and the list is endless. The same topic
could create hundreds of pieces of content. As long
as there is a demand for that information, people
will consume it.
The way this ties in with your SEO strategy is
simple- use the keywords that you are going after
in your SEO strategy and put them in your content.
Google now puts some social media posts in their search results which means that if you are constantly
creating great content, using relevant keywords in your content pieces, and distributing these pieces through
social media- you are positioning yourself to meet head on with your prospects in their buying journey.
Think of each social media account as its own marketing channel. The more potential prospects that you
are connected with in your channel, the more people will be able to see the great content that you put out
and possibly distribute it and share it.
One final way that you can amplify this is to use email to promote your content. Right now you have (or
should have) a whole database of people who are either current prospects, old customers, or active clients.
Old customers can become active customers by regularly staying in touch with them. Eventually when
they have a need for your product or service, you become an easy choice. Regularly contacting them without
adding value can get annoying. You can’t call or email someone every two weeks to say “hey if you need
me, I’m here!” But you can send them valuable information that you may think can benefit them- content!
Using email to send content to prospects helps nurture the buyer until they’re ready to buy. Good content
can actually shorten sales cycles and increase conversion rates of your current prospects.
As you can see, using content as the centerpiece to your social media, SEO, and email marketing campaigns
will put you in the best possible position to become a leader in your industry. Become the best by putting
out the best content!
George Athan, CEO, Mindstorm Strategic Consulting. Visit online at www.mind-storm.com
Strictly
Marketing Magazine
Talk Radio Show
Thursdays
at 11 AM EST
www.strictlymarketingmagazine.com
Strictly Marketing Magazine March/April 2016
23
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