Terrell Orr: July 2015

Friday, 31 July 2015

Online Marketing News: Twitter Gets Eventful, Facebook Gets Secretive, Google+ Gets Going

Why Are B2B Content Strategies Important

Why Are B2B Content Strategies Important – The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council launched a new study centered on how marketing can more effectively generate qualified sales leads through compelling thought leadership content – a task that has proven to be a struggle for marketers today. Find out more from this great infographic. Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council

Survey: 42 Percent of Business Leaders Say Consumers Shame Them on Social – Lithium Technologies, a social customer experience management platform, announced the results of a recent survey performed on its behalf by Harris Poll, finding that brands are increasingly under pressure by consumers to innovate. SocialTimes

Google: Lower CPCs Are Because Of YouTube, Not Mobile Search – For several quarters of declining Google CPCs, financial analysts have speculated and assumed that the migration of usage to mobile and lower bids for mobile clicks were responsible. However on Google’s earnings call today CFO Patrick Pichette sought to dispel that belief. Search Engine Land

Survey: 99 Percent Of Consumers Will Share Personal Info For Rewards, But Want Brands To Ask Permission – Consumers repeatedly say in surveys that they want more personalization — but also more privacy. This is an apparent contradiction. But maybe it’s not. Marketing Land

Study: Men and Women Use Hashtags Differently – In a column for The Atlantic this month, “Why Men Are Retweeted More Than Women,” the journalist Jessica Bennett argues that men and women use hashtags differently. Social Media Today

Study: Forget About Average Organic CTRs, They Mean Nothing – Many marketers try to benchmark their organic search performance against industry average click-through rates (CTRs). This turns out to be a mistake. Search Engine Land

Less Than 1/3 Of The World’s Top CMOs Are Active On Twitter – Of Interbrand’s top 100 global brands, only 31 have CMOs or top-level marketing executives actively participating on the social network. Marketing Land

New Report Highlights Significant Benefits and Challenges of Real-Time Marketing – Real-time marketing is one of the most important trends of the connected era, with various reports underlining it’s growing relevance, particularly in regard to meeting rising consumer expectation. Social Media Today

Google+ Isn’t Dead, Will Continue As “Connection” Platform, Says Google – Google VP Bradley Horowitz says ending the requirement to use Google+ to engage with other Google products will allow the company to make a “slew of improvements” to the core social network. Marketing Land

Twitter Launches Event Targeting – When major events like the World Cup take place, millions of people flock to Twitter to check out the buzz and voice their opinions. Twitter

Facebook Announces Secret Videos For Publishers – Facebook is excited to introduce enhancements to our video upload system and a new Video Library. The enhanced video upload flow gives Page owners customized distribution options for videos on Facebook, while the new Video Library is a simple, centralized place to manage videos. Facebook

Report: 89% Of Marketers Have Problems With Cross-Channel Marketing, Data Linkage Is The Biggest Culprit – A new study shows that data linkage is again the biggest challenge to marketers and their cross-channel marketing efforts. Marketing Land

From our Online Marketing Community:

In response to Why Collecting Customer Information & Listening to Feedback Can Make You a Better Marketer, 40deuce said, “Great advice in here Ashley! I completely agree that your current customers are a great insight into how you can help to gain new customers. Keeping your current customers happy by listening to what they have to say and working with them to be better will not only help you to keep them as a customer, but likely also make you more attractive to new customers. As well, I’m always a firm believer that if you can keep current customers happy that they will be the ones who really help you to bring in new ones.”

Gini Dietrich said, “Amen!”, to Why Content Marketing is Imperative for the Future of Public Relations.

And on What You Need to Know About Playing High Stakes Content Marketing, paulnetke shared, “Hey Ashley, thanks for sharing these great content writing ideas with us. These ideas will really help to boost any content on the web. I live in Sweden and so I always take help of a good content marketing agency in when it comes to content marketing strategy. This blog has helped me a lot and is very interesting. Looking for similar stuff from your side in future as well….”

What were the top online and digital marketing news stories for you this week?

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!

Infographic: Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council

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The post Online Marketing News: Twitter Gets Eventful, Facebook Gets Secretive, Google+ Gets Going appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

#SocialSkim: Amazon Launchpad for Startups, Plus 13 More Stories in This Weeks Roundup

Learn about Amazon's support for startups launching products. Also: Yahoo Livetext, managing relationships with short-form content creators, and the socnet growing the fastest. And is Twitter really cracking down on stolen jokes? Skim to stay in step. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

How to Succeed at The Most Critical Point in SaaS Sales

If you’re like any other SaaS marketing maven, you want to drive more sales in the best way possible.

And if you’ve given it any thought, you realize the epochal importance of the free trial.

Everything about the free trial is important. I would argue that the free trial is the most critical phase in SaaS sales. Most SaaS sales models place an enormous amount of emphasis on the trial, because, taken broadly, it’s the only marketing method that makes sense.

But that’s where a certain amount of distraction sets in. We obsess over all things free trial, completely missing the whole point of the trial — to get users to use the product!

My goal in this article is to clear the table on the free trial period, and get our heads screwed on right so we can understand how to capitalize on the most important point in SaaS sales.

Let’s Describe What’s Going on Here

Most SaaS sales processes go like this, generally:

Customer is aware of a need.
Customer considers alternatives.
Customer zeroes in on your product.
Customer starts a free trial.
Customer converts into a customer.

At point four in the list above, the customer is already deep in the funnel. The funnel diagram included below expands it a bit. You can see that the customer is there — starting the trial. They have just a couple microsteps to go until they are a full customer.

Source

Let’s look at another diagram of this point. This time, I want you to see just how critical it is based on what comes after the purchase point.

At the nexus of those two triangles is the transition from free trial to paying customer. You can’t experience the benefits without moving them on from the active use/free trial phase.

And that’s where we need to focus on — getting the customer over the hump of free trial and into the utopia of a closed deal.

Understand What Motivated the Customer to Begin With

One of the best ways to figure out how to get the customer to buy for good is to figure out why they started the trial to begin with.

Let me explain.

Why is a customer going to buy your product? Think through the answer, because this is kind of the whole point of your SaaS, right? What does the customer want to achieve, do, or experience?

That’s the reason why your customer started a free trial. The motivation should be no different.

If you are able to satisfy the customer’s need during the temporary trial, then you can compel them to remain a customer by continuing to satisfy them in the future. SaaS isn’t a one-and-done deal. It’s an ongoing process of serving the customer.

The cause for conversion into free trial and the motivation for conversion into a full customer are one and the same. Problem: solved.

Use the customer’s free trial motivation as the tool to drive engagement beyond the trial.

Map Your Customer Journey

To drive further into the reasons and motivations for attracting and retaining customers, do yourself the service of mapping the customer journey.

Source

Why? Because you’re going to experience an epiphany of sorts. Every customer is going to follow a path that takes them from awareness to completion.

One of the most valuable insights from a customer journey map is that you will find out what customers do and see when they sign up for a free trial. You’ll discover whether it’s encouraging or demotivating. You’ll learn what obstacles they may experience when they move through the process.

Look at it From a Long-Term Perspective

Pictures or diagrams are so much better at explaining things than I am. So, here’s what I want you to do. Look at this diagram for at least ten seconds.

Source

What do you see? I see that you’re going to gain 5-30% of a customer’s revenue at the initial sale point. I see that a whopping 70-95% of the revenue is going to come a week, a month, or a year down the road.

What does this tell you?

To me that says that I need to take a long term view. Customers don’t prove their maximum value until some time has passed.
It also tells me that customer retention is killer.
Finally, it tells me that none of that revenue will materialize unless I close the sale. Forget 95%. I just need 5% right now!

Even a longview of sales informs me that this is a critical point. So let’s get into some of the tactics.

Get a Perspective On Your Goal: Engagement

If you’re honest for a second, you’ll realize that you can’t make the customer do anything. You can, however, coax them to do something.

That most important “thing” is called engagement.

Engagement can be a slippery term, so let me explain what I mean by it. I agree with Lincoln Murphy from Sixteen Ventures who explained that “Engagement is when your customer is realizing value from your SaaS.”

You see, the customer will only want to buy the SaaS when she actually experiences the value that it can provide. Engagement happens many times in multiple scenarios, but it all boils down to the same experience — value for the customer.

In the critical pre-purchase stage, you must drive engagement. The entire free trial period should be designed around engagement — getting the customer to smell, taste, and feel the value of the product.

Without engagement, there will be no purchase.

Know What You Want the Customer To Do

Engagement is meaningless unless you actually understand what action causes engagement.

A customer can’t realize value from the SaaS unless he is doing something with the SaaS.

Doing what? What do you want the customer to do? That depends on your product and your customer.

For Mention.com, as an example, that could be compelling their customer to create an online alert. So, what does Mention.com do with their free trial? They force customers to engage.

The word force sounds all cruel and violent, but it’s actually quite kind and compassionate. Why? Because they want their customer to actually experience the value of the product right from the get-go. There’s no better way to do so than to engage and launch the trial simultaneously.

Here’s how they do it:

Now, let’s talk about that little engagement action.

Make Your Customer Do the Engagement Action

Once you’ve decided what you want the customer to do, it’s time to make them do it. I used the word force in the preceding point. To divest the term of its negative connotations, let me provide a more cohesive set of suggestions around this concept.

Emphasize This Action in Your Email Marketing

Email message play a critical role in this critical point in sales. How you say it matters. So how should you say it? Beg, wheedle, whine?

No. Command them. Get them to do the action you’ve selected. Here’s an example of such an email. This email sample comes from Autosend.io, which provides an upsell schedule dashboard for SaaS. They want their trial lead to first log in. Makes sense.

Source

Put Dependencies on That Action

What do I mean by this? Show the customer that they will only experience the usefulness of the software if they do the specific action.

Mint.com compels users to add a bill or an account. These two actions are presumably Mint’s engagement action, which will draw the user in to experience the value of the software.

It’s kind of like a game. The user has to unlock the next level, so she needs to do a certain action.

Reward the Action

When the user does that action, give them a pat on the back. They’ve earned it. By applauding their action, you can drive them deeper into the experience and engagement of the SaaS.

Remember, it’s all about action. The user needs to do.

Trial users who stay active are more likely to convert. Notice how Totango sketches out the condition. Trial users are 4x more likely to convert when they are using the SaaS for three days. The opposite holds true, too. A user who cancels is a user who’s not using the SaaS.

Source

By encouraging activity through a variety of methods, you will improve your success at engagement and sales.

Be Sure to Send a Welcome Email Right Away

According to MIT and InsideSales, the odds of calling to contact a lead decrease by over 10 times in the first hour. You need to be calling them within an hour of them becoming a lead. If you don’t, the chances that you’ll connect with them drastically decrease.

And you should automatically email the free trial user immediately.

The customer doesn’t know what to do after they start the trial. You have to tell them. The way you do that is by sending them an email.

What you say in that email is just as important. There’s a misconception that you need to send them an elaborate letter, complete with details, metrics, motivations, instructions, and all the other things that make for a warm-and-fuzzy welcome experience.

Not quite. The shorter your email, the better.

Here’s an example of a free trial expiration email that I received.

Am I going to read that? No. It’s way too long.

Will I read a short message like this?

Yes.

Short messages are important. You have several days and multiple emails to communicate with the customer – introduction, action, motivation, etc. The free trial is a process and a sequence, but you don’t need to give them every bit of information all at once.

Shorten that email. No, shorter. Shorter…There.

Send Them More Emails

Email is the communication method of choice for the vast majority of SaaS providers. Use email frequently in order to give the user all the information that they need to…

Start using the SaaS.
Complete the engagement action.
Sign up for the product.
Your emails should follow a logical series of actions and activities that push the customer to full conversion.

Conclusion

The better you get at converting customers past the free trial, the better you’ll get at SaaS marketing as a whole.

Once you bring customers past the free trial, you can enjoy the massive revenue opportunities, upsells, retention, and awesomeness that follows.

But first, concentrate on getting past that initial hump.

What have you discovered as the best method for converting trial users into full customers?

About the Author: Neil Patel is a lifelong evangelist of Kissmetrics and blogs at Quick Sprout.

Email Marketing: Tips for tech support selection and contract negotiation

In the world of marketing, there’s always a push to stay ahead of the curve and, more importantly, ahead of competitors.

However, it’s hard to dedicate the time, money, manpower and technical know-how to launching truly eye-catching (and revenue-generating) campaigns. This is especially true for smaller companies with marketing teams consisting of only one or two employees.

Enter the potential best friend to most campaigns: the vendor.

At the MarketingSherpa Email Summit 2015 Media Center, Erin Hogg, Reporter, MarketingSherpa, sat down with John A. Caldwell, President and Founder, Red Pill Email, to discuss the finer points of vendor negotiation. Specifically, John explained what to look out for when considering tech support vendors and what you should — and shouldn’t — negotiate when it comes time to draw up a contract.

Watch the below interview to learn tips on how to handle vendor negotiation:

What to look for when it comes to tech support

John emphasized the importance of interviewing the companies you’re considering for tech support. It makes sense. Your company is going to end up spending several hours with the employees of the tech support vendor you choose.

It’s in your and your company’s best interest to make sure you’re not just looking for the best price but also the best support.

“Make [interviewing tech support people] part of the purchasing process, part of your due diligence,” John said.

When interviewing vendors, remember to keep your company’s needs at the forefront of your questioning. Specifically, John recommended asking interviewees about concerns your company has, what kind of questions they typically receive and what the vendor’s turnaround time and process is.

“There’s ticket time and there’s resolution time,” John said. “Some vendors will put a ticket in, and they have X number of hours to act on that ticket. Their ticket time may be 24 hours, but the actual resolution time is, say, an hour. That might not work with your company.”

“You don’t want to wait until you’re at the point of contract or after contract to find that out,” he added.

He also recommended asking your representative to give you the tech support line and to call it. This will give you an idea of how quickly they answer the phone.

“It’s good to interview them too. I find that helps a lot — no surprises,” he said.

Navigating the contract

John’s advice was framed primarily through his emailing background, but it’s also applicable as general advice when it comes to drawing up the vendor contract. His main piece of advice? Don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Specifically for email, John emphasized focusing on the break points.

“Little things like [penalties] can have big consequences a little further down the road. Other things you can negotiate,” John said. “There are hard costs, there are soft costs.”

For example, for an emailing vendor, a hard cost may be a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate. The cost of this certificate most likely won’t be something the vendor will negotiate because it will be paid for out of pocket. This is a hard cost.

However, if that vendor is already paying an employee to set up the systems, the vendor may be able to lower the set-up fee. This would be a soft cost.

“Don’t be afraid to go ahead and ask, ‘What can I get away with?’” he advised. “But don’t be firm on something that is a hard cost. Accept those, and hammer them on the soft costs.”

John joked, “And vendors that are watching this, they’re not going to be too happy with me right now.”

You can follow Kayla Cobb, Reporter, MECLABS Institute, on Twitter at @itskaylacobb.

You might also like

Watch Full Sessions from Email Summit 2015

MECLABS Email Messaging Online Course [Register now]

Vendor Selection: A 5-step process for choosing a marketing automation solution or agency [More from the blogs]

Marketing Automation Vendor Selection: B2B marketer reduces unqualified leads 341% [MarketingSherpa case studies]

Vendor Selection: Test leads to $500,000 in revenue and 20% lead gen connect rate [MarketingSherpa case studies]

How Email Works, Part Three: Anatomy of an Email

In the latest edition of the "How Email Works" series Derek Harding looks at headers, which can help marketers identify issues such as authentication failures and incorrect DNS.

Yahoo Buys Social Commerce Site Polyvore

Yahoo announced this afternoon that it was buying social shopping destination Polyvore. Yahoo said in its release that the acquisition would “strengthen Yahoo’s digital magazines and verticals through the incorporation of community and commerce, and together Yahoo and Polyvore will power...

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

How to Use Follow-Up Emails to Get More Opens [VIDEO]

Our recent blog post on how to be an email marketing superhero reveals how to get a 30% lift in email open rate. The power resides in the practice of sending follow-up emails. You can expect an average open rate of 20-40 percent with your initial email, depending on your industry and the type of email you send. That’s a pretty good open rate, but what about the other 60-80 percent? Do you just chalk it up to bad luck or inopportune timing? There are many things that contribute to your email not being opened, but follow-up emails provide a second chance.

In this episode of Tips in 2, we jump into what follow-up emails are, how VerticalResponse has automated the process for you, and how easy it is to touch your non-responders a second time. Take a look at the video below to see how to increase your opens by 30 percent.

For more information on our follow-up email feature, click here.

© 2015, VerticalResponse Blog. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

The post How to Use Follow-Up Emails to Get More Opens [VIDEO] appeared first on VerticalResponse Blog.

Thursday, 30 July 2015

4 Time Management Tips for Social Media Managers

social media time management tips

It seems that a social media manager’s job is never done. It doesn’t matter what time of day or day of week you’re in, there’s always more to do. Social media moves at an astronomical pace, and it can be hard to keep up.

In fact, research has found that the top two barriers impeding adoption of social business within organizations are lack of overall strategy and competing priorities.

Raise your hand if the scenario below sounds familiar:

A Day in the Life of a Social Media Manager

6am – 12pm

Check company social media notifications before you even roll out of bed.
Quickly respond to any messages or tweets
Sneakily check for brand mentions as you’re stuck in traffic
Schedule all brand messages for the day across all social networks
Eat lunch at your desk while checking your personal Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn messages

1pm – 5pm

Research articles that are relevant to share with your brand’s online community
Check your company email and social media sites for new notifications
Respond to any brand mentions or comments
Identify influencers to connect with
Get caught up in not one but two trending topics on Twitter
How is it 5pm already?

6pm – Midnight

Review daily social media performance
Schedule morning social messages
Register for an interesting social media marketing webinar about visual content
Cannot function…need sleep

Making the time to execute on a comprehensive social media strategy that garners results can rattle even the most experienced marketers. Social media marketing is flush with its own set of challenges and distractions. Below are 4 helpful ways to help you focus and manage your social media marketing activities.

#1 – Determine Which Tactics Have the Biggest Impact

Reuters estimates that the average worker loses 2.1 hours of productivity every day to interruptions and distractions. To avoid wasting time begin by prioritizing your week. While it’s true that unexpected issues can come up plan for the best and the worst. If you have 3 hours per day on average to complete tasks related to social media strategy what will you get accomplished in those 3 hours? If you were only to have 1.5 hours per day what would you want to get accomplished? Proper planning will lead to improved productivity and efficiency. Also, take some time to determine what your top distractions are and eliminate them.

#2 – Optimize for Productivity

Focus on what will have the largest impact on your productivity. Determining what time of day you are most productive, and which activities are most significant will help you to stay on track. Are you an early riser, night owl, or somewhere in between? Creating a daily schedule and routine can significantly improve your productivity. You will also want to keep in mind statistical data which points to the best times of day and days of the week for engaging in social media activity.

Neil Patel of Quick Sprout recently published an infographic that details some of the best times to publish on various social media platforms.

QuickSprout Best Time To Post

#3 – Tips For Better Time Management

I have often thought that I was invincible and could simultaneously focus on every task at once. A balancing act acquired from years of having too much to do, and not enough time. I considered multi-tasking an art form and a higher form of organization than my counterparts who only focused on one thing at a time. I could not have been more wrong.

In recent years I’ve had to buckle down and force myself to devote all of my attention to one task at a time. I’ve found that the quality of my work has improved and the level of my stress has decreased significantly. Some tactics that have worked for me include:

Closing my email when I’m working on social media tasks
Exiting from all browser windows and tabs except for the one I need to work on
Disabling chat or closing chat windows to avoid distraction
Picking 15 minutes a day to indulge in activities such as checking personal social media profiles, responding to texts, or chatting with friends.
Spending 30 minutes to an hour each morning reviewing emails and responding, do the same thing before leaving at the end of the day.

It is significantly easier to stick to your schedule if you are working ONLY on the tasks you have scheduled in the time allotted.

#4 – Use Social Media Tools for Better Time Management

Depending on your available time and social media content strategy, there are many tools that can help you accomplish more with less time. Below are three different types of tools that social media marketers can use to get the most out of their time:

Content Curation Tools

Social Aggregators & Management Tools

Want more? Here’s an awesome list of 22 social media management tools

Still Feeling Overwhelmed?

In order to help you better focus on the tasks at hand ask yourself the following questions:

What are your top 3 social media goals and do you have a plan for reaching them?
How much time can you dedicate each day to using tactics to reach these goals?
What steps can you take to improve your focus while completing social media activities?
Which type of tool: curation, aggregator, or social bookmarking can you use to help save time?

Sometimes, there are just too many moving pieces for your internal team to execute on. Know when it’s time to call in reinforcements and work with the social media marketing experts to help manage your workload.

What have you found are your biggest daily distractions when trying to manage a social media marketing program?

Image via Shutterstock

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The post 4 Time Management Tips for Social Media Managers appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

5 Subject Line Tips You Haven’t Heard

Trying to pique readers’ curiosity to entice them to open an email is so 2009. The world of email subject lines is growing more sophisticated as emailers grow more spam and sales savvy. It’s safe to say your subject line is more important than ever. Coming up with them can be fun, though, if you use some of these tips.

Statistics show that 64 percent of people will open an email because of the subject line, and nearly half of them list that as their only deciding factor. Email is powerful, and your subject line is key to unlocking that power.

To help you create successful subject lines, we’ve put together a list of unique tips. These tips aren’t your ordinary, everyday tips like “Be creative.” These five tips are meant to get your creative juices flowing.

1. Try a pop culture reference

There is nothing – we mean nothing – like a clever or punny pop culture reference. You might quote a line from a movie, reference a bit of celebrity gossip or use a song title. Now is a perfect time for this type of title because there’s a wealth of pop culture. Plus, Netflix-type services are also helping people connect with classic movies, music and TV shows. Brainstorm ideas and keep a notebook handy for particularly memorable puns you think of or come across.

2. Hashtag it up

Talk of trending topics and other references to social media can also attract readers. Consider drawing inspiration from weekly hashtags or recent trends. Do you use Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest? Move those principles over to your email regimen.

This email with a hashtag in its subject line shows great social media savvy. The line could appear as a Facebook or Twitter post.

3. Give and ye shall receive

Modern marketing relies on the idea of giving to your customers before you ask them to buy from you. To get people to click your emails, tell them what you’re offering – but be sure not to oversell it. Try offering a gift with purchase, discounted shipping or a free consultation. By giving something of value to your customers, they are more likely to come back for additional products or services.

4. Tell a joke

You might make them laugh with a pithy observation, some sort of joke or even just a funny anecdote. If you visit any humor sites, watch sitcoms or follow any humor feeds on social media, think about something that made you laugh and how you might translate that principle to an email subject title.

Try looking through these tips for increasing your subject line humor, too.

5. Be descriptive

If it feels forced, you’re overwhelmed, or you just can’t come up with anything, it’s not the end of the world. Just give a descriptive subject with your most important words near the front of the line. Describe a new product or give specific details about an upcoming sale.

Subject lines can be as fun to create as they are to read. With a little practice and help from the tips above, you can create some memorable subject lines that get customers to react.

To continue to find subject line inspiration, look through our list of great subject lines and see what moves you.

Sarah Tanksalvala is a freelance business, technology and lifestyle writer based in Evergreen, Colorado.

The post 5 Subject Line Tips You Haven’t Heard appeared first on VerticalResponse Blog.