What is everyone talking about? Being involved in social media marketing, doesn’t mean you should be talking about what you ate for lunch. After all, this is an important marketing tool for your business. Leave the personal stuff for your personal pages or accounts.

1. Things that are compelling or interesting enough to make people want to check back and see what you post next.
2. Important information that attracts people to your store, blog, or website.
3. Call-to-action items that gets people to vote, buy or tell their friends.

Some examples:

Photos: Try pictures of new products in your business, new items on your menu or even a new customer giving your business a thumbs-up.

Video: Think short videos. People aren’t looking for long instructional videos on social media, so save those for your website. Instead, post a cool announcement from the owner or a short testimonial from a satisfied customer.

Contests: Everyone loves a contest! Announce a contest you’re holding and don’t forget to keep the contestants updated with the results.

Surveys & Polls: Asking a simple question can engage your followers and fans. You can even ask about a specific service or product in your business to get their feedback. Make sure you post the results!

Announcements: Let your followers know about any new products or services, menu items, partnerships, events, sales or even milestones you’re proud of!

Shaping Your Product/Service

Customer feedback is probably one of the best ways to make your business successful. Think of it like this; through negative feedback, you can shape your product/service into something you know the market will love.

Most people think that bad feedback comes from people they have never even done business with, or with some of their ‘bad’ clients, so they decide to ignore it. This is, in fact, a complete myth; most of the negative feedback you will get will be from some of your most loyal customers. Not because they want to put you down; because they want to remain your best customers.

Think of it like this; ‘bad’ customers, if they encounter a problem of flaw with your product/service, they will simply move on to the next company who will solve this problem for them. Whereas for a loyal customer, they want to tell you about the problem, hoping that you will fix it and they can remain customers of yours.

Think of it like this; customer feedback is a free way to conduct market research. Your clients will tell you how they want their product/service. They will tell you about any problems they have; although you may have to prompt them to do so; perhaps through a quiz of survey.

Free Marketing

Well, who would say no to some free marketing? Quite a few businesses actually, so it seems! Customer feedback, when it is good, can be used in a multitude of ways, the obvious one being testimonials.

Every time you get some good feedback, you should ask the client if you can use it as a testimonial on your website, leaflets, sales letters; anything which you send to a prospective client. Likewise, when you get bad feedback, you should act upon it immediately, because it really will result in not only your product/service getting better, but perhaps some more business!

Think about it; if you had a problem with a company that you bought from, and you complained about the problem then it was solved, how much more likely would you be to talk about that than just receiving a product and there being absolutely no flaws to it?

We regularily publish white papers, tip books, interviews with small business experts and research on industry-relevant topics and issues you may find useful for your business.

Be sure to visit our Small Business resource document library and download the various documents you’re interested in.

We have all heard the old adage that half of all advertising dollars are wasted; the problem lies in figuring out which half. The numbers become even more interesting (or alarming) when one examines the typical response rates for conventional (and unconventional) media.

Most direct marketers are happy to achieve a response rate of 1 percent to 2 percent — or 2 percent to 4 percent if they include a telemarketing component. That means the recipients discard 98 percent to 99 percent of their materials without a second thought. The results for brand marketing or advertising bring even more frustration to marketers and business owners alike, mainly because consumers’ perceptions about brands are so difficult to quantify. Yet, every business, especially a startup, needs marketing to survive and thrive. So what can an entrepreneur do?

- Focus on generating leads over building a brand. Leads bring customers to your door. Then their experience of your product or service, as well as the reputation you develop for customer service and delivery, will build your brand.

- Create materials that properly sell your product or service and allow you to track responses. The difference between response-driven marketing and branding-oriented marketing is that you can track, test and measure the first type and adjust it until it is right for your business.

Why is it so important to track, test, and measure? You need to establish baseline performance numbers for your business in your particular category of business and then to try to improve upon them. This is very difficult to do. Even professional marketers find it hard to “move the needle” when it comes to measuring customer response. If you focus, though, on two metrics that most others do not, you can work your marketing and advertising in new and more profitable ways.

- Figure out a lifetime value for every new customer. That is, how much the average customer will spend at your company over the course of the business relationship.

- Calculate the customer acquisition cost: the amount you spend to acquire a new client for your company. You never want to pay more for a new customer than you absolutely must; and you are striving for this person to eventually spend more than the initial acquisition cost so that your marketing is profitable.

For lifetime value, simply come up with a guesstimate for the value of a typical sale to a customer (say, $200). Multiply it by the number of times annually he or she will buy products (say, three times) and multiply that by the number of years the typical customer does business with you (say, three years).
The result (in the above example, $200 X 3 X 3 = $1,800) gives you an indication of the importance of setting up a repeat-business program that not only raises the amount that a person buys and the number of shopping occasions, but also extends the length of time he or she remains a customer.

For the acquisition cost, if you spend $1,000 on an ad and pull 100 people in the door, you are paying $10 for each lead. But if only 10 people make purchases, you are shelling out $100 for each sale (10 X $10=$100).

The above example demonstrates the value of boosting the rate of converting leads into actual sales, as well as targeting a level of return (at least $100) so that your campaign breaks even — or brings in more so that your efforts truly profit.

What’s key is to use actual numbers from your own company’s experience and business category to help you make better decisions about spending your precious marketing resources.
Here are five additional tips to help you focus your thinking to generate a better response from your marketing and more return on your investment:

1. Define marketing differently. One of the simplest interpretations is to consider it communication and education. You are communicating to customers or prospects on a regular basis with actionable, sales-oriented information about your business, product, or service.

2. Adopt the mindset that you’re not advertising; you’re buying customers. Consider your efforts a way to purchase for your business the best customers possible – just like Billy Beane did in Moneyball. That means you always market and advertise with the expectation of realizing a return in the form of new leads. If this is not your result, end your campaign and move on. But if the new leads materialize and customers purchase your products, then you have the basis for a winning campaign.

3. Realize nothing has really happened until a sale occurs. You might have a great logo, a slick business card, exceptional letterhead, a killer website, and all the other props of a company, but you don’t have a real business until you net customers and sales. So orient everything you do to realizing leads, sales, and repeat business — especially the latter, which is where your profits and growth will lie over time.

4. Rely on the formula: “Target, Offer, and Copy.” Define your ideal, perfect customer. Then target that customer again and again with benefits-oriented offers (“what’s in it for them”) and marketing work that supports your sales message. Then measure the results. Profiling your ideal customer (through demographics and psychographics) and discovering the media to best target that client will keep your focus laser-like. This process alone will help you eliminate most media or at least limit your choices. Or if you plan to purchase radio or TV ads, you will be able to weed out the stations or programs inappropriate for your target.

5. Test any new marketing medium first. I have seen some startups set aside $50,000 or $100,000 for an ad budget and then fork it all out for a single media campaign. It’s better to take $5,000 or $10,000 and experiment first. That way, you will have enough resources left in a contingency fund to try something else if the first effort does not work. Plus, your company will be able to survive an ineffective campaign.

You’re ready to launch your next big direct marketing campaign.  The offer is set, the creative piece is ready, now you need to determine who to send it to.  You’ve put in a tremendous effort to create an attractive direct marketing piece with a great offer.  Effective marketing is all about getting the right message, to the right prospect, at the right time.  When it comes to getting your message to the right prospect, the quality of the data in your list has a direct influence on the success of your campaign.

The Importance of Coverage

Depth of coverage is a critical measuring stick for evaluating the overall penetration and effectiveness of a direct-marketing campaign. The greater the coverage, the more likely a campaign will be successful in reaching an optimal number of prospective customers. With larger contact quantities, more sales conversions are possible. While you may not be interested in a national campaign, greater coverage also means that more individuals and households are available within your local market, ensuring that you reach as many people in your marketable area as possible.

Modeled vs. Actual Data

A common question we receive from businesses purchasing lists is, “How do we know the specific demographics of the prospect?”  List providers compile data from a variety of sources.  In some cases, customers provide actual data. It is also common practice for data suppliers to develop predictive models to fill in data elements where the information is unavailable or unknown.  Modeled data is not necessarily bad and enables you to reach a larger audience.  However, many suppliers do not indicate if the data provided is based on known information or if it is an estimate from a model. Having the ability to differentiate between known versus inferred data is often important to the success of your campaign. For example, if your marketing campaign is specifically tied to prospects of a certain age, then it’s important that you select prospects with known age data rather than modeled.  If however, your campaign targets a broader age range, then you may have greater coverage by including known and modeled data.  What’s important is knowing the kind of data that is available in order to make the best match to your campaign.

Don’t Be Fooled by Higher Counts

It is often said that direct marketing follows the law of large numbers. You need to get your message to as many people as possible.  While there is some truth to this approach, with limited budgets, small business marketers need to use each dollar wisely. Spending limited funds on bad data can seriously impact the effectiveness of your campaigns. Some list providers will include records in their data files that may not be the most accurate, such as unoccupied, deceased, commercial, or households that have moved, resulting in significantly inflated counts.   You may think that you are getting a much larger list of prospects, but often it is more important to have a smaller, but highly clean, prospect list, rather than one that may be full of irrelevant or bad data.

The Bottom Line

In the world of direct marketing, not all marketing lists are created equal.  Selecting the right list will enable you to accurately target and segment your prospects which will help to improve both your customer experience and your bottom line.

How often do you, as a business owner look at your company’s website?  No, seriously – do you recall the last time you looked at every page, clicked every link and read every word on it?

If it’s been a while, it’s probably time to refresh both your site’s content and its look. Here 7 easy things you can do to give your site a tune-up.

Get Back To Basics And Simplify.  Look at each page of your site and ask yourself what one action you’d like visitors to take — sign up on your email list? Pick up the phone and call you? Whatever it is, make that the only action to take on that page. Too many choices cause confusion and make prospects leave.
 

Check Each Page. If you’ve updated your website from time to time, you may start to notice that elements in the site design tend to get a bit “wonky.” One page uses a different color or font. Another has different margins or a different template. Links get broken. Your customers and prospects are sure to notice that the whole site looks chaotic or sloppy. Take the time to check each page, smooth out the bumps and make sure information is accurate and links are working.
 

Consider A Redesign. If your site hasn’t gotten a new look in several years, it’s probably starting to look dated. Customers may become bored and feel nothing new is happening at your company. Consider a redesign that reflects your company’s current direction and attitude.
 

Press Releases Are Your Friend. Want some free media coverage? Start putting out press releases and posting them on your site. When reporters visit, they’ll scan those and get the sense that your business has a lot going on. Each of those releases might spark media interest on their own, too. 

Don’t Neglect Your “About” Page. Your About page is usually the second-most visited page of any site, which means it’s an important page that needs to put a friendly ‘face’ on the company. Rewrite it to include fresh company news — awards won, new products introduced, offices opened or new team members who’ve joined.
Blog Or Don’t – Just Decide.  Blogs can drive new prospects to your site, but a dusty, dated blog doesn’t send a good message. Make a decision to either kick that blog back into gear — posting at least once a week — or get rid of it.
 

Pay Attention To The Small Stuff. Check your site to see if your vital info can be easily found – the phone number, address, contact names, product prices and hours of operation, etc. Get those contacts in bigger fonts, up higher, and visible on every page of your site, not hidden under a ‘contact’ tab.

If you’d like a professional review of your site along with tips to make it perform better, click here.

If you run a business, then you most likely use tools to automate your marketing efforts…whether it’s email autoresponders to nurture leads or analytics to measure your success.  Having automation systems in place like this allows you to increase your customer size without having to grow your employee base. But are really you getting the most out of it? Or are you leaving money on the table?

If you want to increase your ROI, then implement the following 4 marketing automation ideas:

Tactic #1: Identify and target high profile leads

When you get leads from your website, how do you get them? Usually you’ll get them by email and you’ll probably add them to a list with all of the other leads you get.  Although it might seem obvious that you should target your best leads, you’ll be shocked on how often marketers not only ignore them but ignore segmentation altogether.  For starters segment your list to avoid sending the same message to your entire database. If you want really good engagement from your list, then segmentation is your key.  Once you’ve flushed out those high-profile leads continue to nurture them with questions, betas and recommendations so that they are helping you craft your product to fit their needs perfectly.

Tactic #2: Improve conversion late in the funnel

One of the best ways to increase conversion is to create a very focused sales funnel. In other words, you limit your prospects choices by giving them the exact information they are looking for… and guide them to the action you want them to take.  Your sales funnel does not exist in a vacuum, so it’s easy for your prospect to get distracted and leave the sales funnel. Let’s say your prospect ended up on your landing page, subscribed to your email newsletter, responded to an appeal in one of the emails and is on the order page.

At this point your prospect is primed… so you have to give them exactly what they want. But in order to sweeten the deal you need to heighten the value in order to get them to convert this late in the game. That could be a free trial or percentage off.  Your prospect doesn’t need a bunch of options, so your funnel at this point should be restricted to one and only one choice so you can close the deal.

But why do some prospects opt out? They opt out typically for three reasons:

• They get distracted by outside influences, like seeing something else online.
• Don’t feel your product is the best value exchange.
• Don’t understand what they need to do next. In other words, they don’t know how to proceed forward.

Because of this your sales funnel should be simple. In the end, the key is to simplify the process, not make it more complex by cluttering it up with unnecessary information.

Tactic #3: Get rid of poor leads fast

On the other hand, you need to monitor your leads to identify those that are dead or worthless. Sure you probably love seeing a large list, but digging into your analytics will tell you another story. And it won’t be good.  Lots of people probably subscribed to your email list, but don’t engage in any meaningful way. They are probably too lazy to unsubscribe, but they are still on your list. You need to get them out of there because when you purge your list you actually increase the value of the entire list. You boost your deliverability rate and email reputation.

Tactic #4: Reduce losing leads

Leakage is what occurs when good leads leave your sales funnel. With marketing automation you can easily plug the hole in the funnel that causes those leads to leave. But you have to find out where the leaks are occurring.

Your first step is to map out the life of a lead. Take it from cold to close, trying to identifying those points in the funnel that the lead is falling out. Do you see a point where leads are pouring out? Or just trickling?  Constant communication between marketing and sales and a highly optimized and automated marketing system should help you plug any holes you have in your sales funnel.

Conclusion

If you’ve ever fought with sales or management about certain advertising campaigns, then you know the pain it can be to argue your point without correct data. Just implementing a marketing automation program can change the course of your business. But when you get it working in tip-top shape, then delivering clear results is your best proof for making business decisions. It’s hard to argue with good results!

What ways have you used to improve your ROI with marketing automation?

 According to Seth Godin, the secret of marketing is: the first ten. So who are the ten? These are your early customers, the ten people who will listen, read or buy whatever you are selling. If they don’t love it, you need a new product. Which means you will have to start over. But if they love it, your idea will spread. Your business will grow… probably not as fast as you want, but faster than you could ever imagine. So now that you understand the concept of “10″, here is how you can apply it to blogging:

Step #1: Find the 10 Getting your blog off the ground is hard. You might spend weeks, maybe even months before you get your first comment. If you watch the analytics, you may even notice people showing up on your page. But you haven’t quite got that following yet.

Here’s what you need to do to help encouraged the growth of that ten: Publish content frequently – you can’t expect to build up a following if you don’t have anything to give them. So you need to write every day and learn how to write popular posts. Write for other bloggers – right now guest posting is the best way to gain attention for your blog and to develop your audience of ten. Read this quick and dirty guide on your first guest post to get tips on how to do it. Engage the social web – it’s important that you find where your readers are hanging out. Is it Facebook? Twitter? Google+? All three? Go there and spend time replying to posts, liking posts, sharing posts and contributing your own content. Comment frequently – if you want to encourage that ten to start following you, then you need to spend time on their blogs. While leaving lots of comments consistently is a great way to encourage people to follow you to your blog, I’ve found that simply emailing the blog owner is one of the best ways to create a conversation. Make sure you have an email signature with your blog URL in it so they can check you out. I’ve picked up readers this way and even created business through an email exchange like this. Really, this first step is all about getting online traffic.

Step #2: Nurture the 10 As your blog grows, you’ll start to notice a few people who consistently comment or share your articles on the social web. Here’s what you need to do to keep these folks happy: Create a comment competition – I use a widget that shows who comments the most on my blog. The top five are displayed, encouraging this behavior as other people look at the commenters and then follow them to their websites. It’s all about rewarding loyalty. Thank the 10 – anybody who comments or shares your content on the social web, you need to thank them. And the sooner you do it, the better. You can do it in the comments or even email them. Return the favor – if you really want to encourage the ten then start by follow their blogs. Comment on their posts and share them on the social web, always giving them credit so your audience sees you recommending them. Keep the focus on the blog consistent – too much off-topic posting is one of the reasons that readers unsubscribe from blogs. Don’t do that. Leave your ego at the door – remain humble with your ten and treat them like they are the most important thing to your blog. This means leave the excessive self-promotion at the door, too.

Step #3: Unleash the ten Eventually your ten will be primed to help take you to the next level. Here’s how to encourage them to become super-advocates or your blog. Run a contest – even if you only have ten readers, that doesn’t mean you can’t run a contest with them. For example, you could offer to give away ten books you’ve recently read for the person who tweets your content the most. Or perhaps helps you drive more traffic to one particular topic. Competition is a great motivator. Limit the restrictions – don’t slow down your readers from sharing your content. Allow them to reprint and repost without your permission… as long as you get a link with credit back to your name. You may want to protect your work from piracy, but really a lack of money isn’t most bloggers problems… it’s a lack of popularity. Take a hint from Leo Babauta: the more freedom you can give readers to share your content, the better. Open up your archives – encourage your readers to dig into your archives to get more page views and more content they can share.

But how do you do that? Your first step is to make sure you have a search box on your blog. Next, use a plugin that highlights the most popular posts and a plugin that includes related posts at the bottom of each of your new posts. Always link to other articles in your blog, reaching back as far as you can. Finally, write compilation posts that highlight posts in the past. This works as a top 20 of the year or for series when you wrap up the subject, kind of like a table of contents. You can also resend old content. I’ve seen this trick work where I’ll re-send an old article via email and it will drive more traffic to that post. It makes it look like you updating frequently.

Step #4: Ride the ten As you work to grow your blog by leveraging the ten who love you, you’ll eventually get a bump in traffic and readership. It might be from a post you wrote that went viral or that guest post gig at Mashable. Here’s how to take advantage of that sudden flood. Don’t get used to the traffic – first off… you might have a really busy day or two, but things will slow down and get back to normal. Relax, enjoy the traffic and make an effort at capturing that traffic as best as you can. Make your blog sticky – the design of your blog is important. You should have a clear place where new readers can subscribe. Also, provide pathway pages that help new readers know what to do next. For example, do you have a “Start Here If You Are New” link? This will give new readers your cornerstone content. Make your post sticky – each individual post should be scannable and there should also be clear places that new readers can subscribe. Also include related post links so new readers can start crawling around your blog. And if you have an email newsletter, don’t forget to provide a link to subscribe to that, too. Post a follow up quickly – when you get a boost in traffic from an unexpected source, like a big blogger or media site, the best thing you can do is follow up with another post as soon as possible. This way you give new readers something new to read, which helps keep the momentum going. For example, if a post on “How to Publish an eBook” that got a surge in traffic, follow up the next day with a post on how “How to Promote your eBook.” Don’t let the criticism get to you – a rise in traffic will naturally attract people who want to criticize what you do. Feel free to ignore them, because they come with the territory. Don’t forget your ten – if that sudden surge in traffic brings you fifty new readers, don’t forget about the original ten. They are your core and will probably prove more loyal than the fifty. Don’t forget to take care of them. Conclusion Building a blog by focusing on your ten core readers is a sound model that’s been proven by bloggers like Darren, Pete Cashmere at Mashable and Leo Babauta.

So what are you waiting for? Go out there and leverage your first 10. What other ways do you know that can help you leverage the rule of ten?

This blog post was originally written by Neil Patel on January 3rd, 2012.

About Neil Patel

Neil Patel is the co-founder of 2 Internet companies: Crazy Egg and KISSmetrics. Through his entrepreneurial career Neil has helped large corporations such as Amazon, AOL, GM, HP and Viacom make more money from the web. By the age of 21 not only was Neil named a top 100 blogger by Technorati, but he was also one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal.

Getting Your Biz Ready for 2012

It is that time of year again, a time to look at what you have accomplished this year and what you need to set in place to grow your business next year. I call this the year end check system- Failure check, success check, change check. Where can I learn from my failures, successes and where can I change?

I have made it a tradition with my business for the past five years at this time to set up all of my marketing and new products so that they can launch for 2012. I spend 1-2 weeks and focus on it every single day until done. I also stay up for 20-24 hours straight on December 31st to get rid of the old and make room for the new. This means- close out client relationships or projects that just aren’t working, or set up better organizational systems and get rid of programs that are not benefiting my company etc… Basically, I clear my space and make necessary changes to my company/brand for the benefit of my clients as well as moi and my family. I love the quote- “the business that doesn’t change…dies”. I believe this to my core and I am constantly looking to change my brand, services, products, business and marketing…as well as my mind set.  I have come up with a few tips below as to how you can prepare your business for 2012 and embrace change. Comments welcome.

1) Do a Client/Customer Check- If you are stressed, spending more time on a client or with a customer than you are getting paid for OR the client/customer does not respect your time and or fees then it is time to say goodbye. Trust that you are closing out the good (or not so good) to make room for the great. This is often one of the most difficult things to do, however this can be the most profitable in the long run. I have fired/closed out hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue simply because the client is not a good fit, does not respect my time or is too difficult to deal with. Quality of life is important to me and my family and that always comes first. Do this check now and take action.

2) Incorporate New Technologies- take 1-2 days right now to check out new technologies, software, programs etc… to see where you can simplify systems as well as gain more brand exposure. Check sites such as www.mashable.com, www.techcrunch.com or www.marketingsherpa.com to read about the latest and greatest tech stuff and marketing studies. Of course, don’t forget about StarrHall.com too

3) Create New Products & Services- If you have the same products and offerings that you started with in 2011, then you need to add a new offering, bonus, service/product. People get bored with the same offerings and you can saturate your current reach and list in a matter of weeks. What can you offer that is new, different and can help ease a client or prospect’s pain points? What pain are they in? Ex: need more revenue, an easier way to do something, need to save money etc… If you can cure a pain point with your services/offerings then you are way ahead of the business growth game.

4) Create New Opportunity- The best way to do this is to get exposure for your brand. How? PR!!!!!!!! Create a new media list, new media pitch, reach out to new blogs and connections. Commit to reaching out to at least 50 new people before 2012 starts, make at least 40 of them media contacts. Do this, do it today!

So there you have it- a few tips for you to hit the ground running in 2012. Your success is my commitment and true passion. Please feel free to leave comments, feedback or ask questions. I am here to help and I can only help if you chat/post/talk with me.

To 2012, let’s kick some ass! (yes, I cursed, it had to be done!)

Starr Hall

This is an original post from Starr Hall on December 20th, 2011.

Entrepreneurs have to wear many hats when a business is just starting. Many things need to be delegated to others in order for the business to run smoothly and there are a few things that you must do yourself. If you can create a habit of performing these 5 things every day, some for just a few minutes, then you will see your business grow right alongside your dreams:

1. Plan for the future a few minutes each day. Assume that your product has stopped selling all of a sudden. What direction will you take your company next? What new income stream can you add? This is a time for day dreaming and recording notes in preparation for the future. You don’t necessarily have to take action on these items, but you need to think about them daily in order to bring out the golden ideas.

2.  Develop or strengthen your business network. You need to join or create a business network where you can help others and they can help you back. This is a great place to get free customers through referrals and an excellent mentoring opportunity using the mastermind principle.

3. Work on closing a sale every single day. Whether you are doing this on-line, on the phone, through the mail, or face-to-face you need to be selling every day. Without the close of a sale there is no business. This is not something that you can delegate all the way. Even if you have a sales force you need to be out there looking for deals.

4. Work on your marketing in some aspect every day to get new customers. If your prospective customers don’t know about you they won’t buy from you. Work on getting your message out every day even if it is just for a few minutes.

5. Contact your current customers. Don’t ever forget about the people that have already purchased from you. These are your best customers. They already like what you have to sell and they don’t cost anything to acquire. Contact your current customers frequently, even if you are just saying hello. They need to know what you have to offer and they need to know you are still breathing. They won’t seek you out. You must go to them.