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How Can You Motivate Last-Minute Holiday Shoppers to Buy?

December 12th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

The holiday retail season is heading into the home stretch, but there are still plenty of Americans who haven’t checked off every item on their gift lists yet. How can you attract them and what motivates them to buy? The PeriscopeIQ Second Annual Holiday Shopping Survey has some useful insights about what works and what doesn’t.

QR Codes: So far, QR codes on ads, point-of-sale items and price tags haven’t lived up to their potential, reports the PeriscopeIQ study, because nearly three-fifths (59 percent) of shoppers don’t know what the codes are or what they do. Fewer than one in five (18 percent) have ever used a QR code in a retail environment, even though 60 percent own smartphones with built-in scanners or apps. “We believe QR codes will continue to evolve but the actual 2D code will be transformed by a newer, more efficient technology in the near future,” said Mohamed Latib, COO of PeriscopeIQ.

Working Shoppers:  Up to 40 percent of survey respondents admit to shopping online at work during the holidays and year-round, and more than a quarter of those polled shop more than 15 minutes daily on the job.

Gassing Up: Some 40 percent say their willingness to drive long distances for a bargain will be impacted by gas prices. And for shoppers in areas affected by Hurricane Sandy, gas availability itself may still be an issue. Consumers’ awareness of gas prices is good news for ecommerce sites that let them shop from home.

Free Shipping:  If you do have an ecommerce site, know that 95 percent of respondents say free shipping is a major factor in whether they buy from a particular site or not.

Smartphones Mean Smarter Shoppers:  Over two-fifths (41 percent) of customers say they are pre-shopping online before going into stores, up from 27 percent last year. A smaller number (33 percent) check prices at other stores or at websites while in-store, and about 36 percent take pictures of items with their phones in-store, whether to get feedback from friends or family, or to do comparison shopping.

Waiting on Mobile Wallets: While mobile wallet options such as Google Wallet or Passbook have captured headlines, these technologies are still in limited use. Fewer than 5 percent of respondents say they use mobile wallet technologies.

Black, White and Read All Over:  When looking for product information, sales and other information about shopping, almost three-fifths (58 percent) of consumers say they still rely primarily on print magazines and newspapers. In comparison, only 24 percent said they look at online reviews of products for information before shopping.

“With more than half of our respondents equipped with smartphones, the multi-channel world is a boon to holiday shoppers,” said Dr. Pawan Singh, CEO and Chief Scientist at PeriscopeIQ. “But it can also be an advantage to retailers who address physical, mobile and online customer experiences with equal diligence.”

Image by Flickr user RetailByRyan95 (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Marketing, mobile marketing, sales process, Search Marketing, small business, social media
Posted in Business Development, Customer Service, Marketing, Sales Process, sales process, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, social media, Technology | No Comments »

5 Steps to Keep Your Sales Funnel Full

December 10th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

No matter how long they’ve been in business, a lot of small business owners are not very good at keeping the sales funnel full. You’ll do a marketing blitz, get super busy and focus on work. Because you’re so slammed, you will then ignore marketing and sales. Then your projects wrap up, and you’re back to square one – you need to do another marketing blitz.

The better, less frantic approach is to always be marketing – it’s the best way to keep your sales funnel full, especially if you tend to have a long sales cycle. Here’s a 5-step process to ensure those marketing blitzes become a thing of the past:

Step One: Create valuable information

Your goal is to first get people onto your website. Devote time each week to creating valuable content, like blog posts, white papers, eBooks, infographics and videos, that are full of keywords. Potential customers will find your site when they go searching for information on a specific topic.

Step Two: Pump up the SEO

Your goal remains the same: get people onto your website. Make sure your website is fully optimized for all the keywords you want to be found for, including location if that’s relevant. Even though it’s not technically SEO, use hashtags on Twitter to make it easy for people to find you.

Step Three: Convert Web visitors

Now that they’re on your site, your goal is to convert visitors into leads. There are two ways to do this: 1) If you’re offering an eBook or free demo, direct them to a landing page and ask for basic information before they can access the item. 2) Use compelling calls-to-action that direct visitors to do something – contact you, sign up for your e-newsletter, like you on Facebook, etc.

Step Four: Nurture and qualify leads

At this stage, your goals is to stay n touch with potential customers and build the relationship through social media and email marketing. Because you’ll stay top-of-mind, when they’re ready to buy, they’ll think of you first. You can also offer specials or coupons, to speed up the decision-making (on a personal level, this always works for me).

Step Five: Analyze your efforts

Your final goal is to simply look at your process and see if people are getting caught up somewhere in the process. Is a piece of content not attracting website visitors? Are people leaving your site when they reach a certain page? What offers are converting more leads into customers? Adjust, and continue.

What do you do to keep your sales funnel full?

Image courtesy of outsideinview.com

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Tags: content marketing, lead nurturing, lead qualification, Marketing, sales funnel, Search Marketing, seo
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing | 2 Comments »

The Online Marketing Habits of Highly Successful Small Businesses

December 10th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

How can your small business reach the elite group of high-achieving small companies? Online marketing is the key, suggests a new Forrester research study commissioned by Act-On Software. In the face of continuing economic uncertainty, the study, “Driving Revenue in a Volatile Economy, found that the top-performing small businesses are those that truly embrace online marketing.

The study identified these lessons small businesses can take from top performers and large companies:

Don’t automatically cut your marketing budget in a down economy. Top performers were less likely than bottom performers to cut their marketing budgets (33 percent vs. 56 percent). On the contrary, top performers prove that maintaining or increasing marketing spending does pay off in terms of revenues.
Take lead generation seriously. The top-performing small businesses carefully manage sales leads, vetting, qualifying and nurturing them before handing them off to sales to close. They were also willing to spend more to get new leads, while bottom performers spent their time and money trying to squeeze new sales from existing customers.
Adopt digital marketing techniques. All small businesses in the study focused primarily on traditional marketing techniques, such as print advertising, tradeshows, events and seminars. However, top performing businesses were more likely to have adopted digital marketing tactics and technology tools to help scale their marketing efforts.
Get serious about social marketing. While larger businesses are realizing that “social media” is not just an abstract tool for generating buzz, small businesses are lagging behind in developing a social media strategy and making social media part of the sales pipeline.
Increase collaboration between sales and marketing. By working together, these teams can drive leads more effectively and close more sales.
Invest in marketing automation. Companies that automated marketing functions had better results. For example, 61 percent of top performers used CRM vs. just 46 percent of bottom performers. And only 5 percent of bottom performers used marketing automation, compared to 28 percent of top performers.
Measure results. Nearly half of the bottom performing businesses did not measure any aspect of their marketing. In contrast, top performers measured everything.

Visit Act-On’s website for a free ebook, 7 Marketing Habits of Today’s Highly Successful SMBs.

Image by Flickr user ganesha.isis (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Marketing, online marketing, Search Marketing, small business, social media, Web Design
Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, social media, Technology, Thought Leadership, Web Design | 3 Comments »

What Influences Customers to Click, Read and Buy? The Answers Might Surprise You

December 5th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

Do you use content marketing for your small business? Do you rely on the content on your business website to promote your expertise, attract customers who are searching for your type of product or service, or inform your audience? If so, you’ll be interested in Behavior Shift: Getting Content in Front of Consumers, a new nRelate study by Harris Interactive that explores how consumers find and use content online. The results might surprise you—and change how you design your website.

First, consumers are actively engaged in a search for content, spending an average of seven-plus hours per week looking for content. (Younger consumers spent more time.) A whopping 92 percent of adults read online content.

As you might expect, search is the number-one way consumers look for content—but what you might not expect is that “related links” at the bottom of articles were the second-most popular way consumers find content. Used by three-fourths (76 percent) of online content consumers, these related links were more important than social media or recommendations from friends in finding content.

While we’re hearing a lot about the importance of images in online content and social media today, some 62 percent of respondents say they’re more likely to click on a related link to a traditional article, as opposed to images or videos. However, 39 percent say they’re more likely to click on an article if it has an associated image.

The biggest determinant in what consumers click on after reading one article is quality. How do users define quality content?

60 percent say it’s from a source already known in the offline world
24 percent say it includes images
23 percent say it Includes author image and byline
11 percent say it includes embedded video

Purchasing decisions are most influenced by trust, and despite the prevalence of social media, nearly half (44 percent) of consumers say the information they trust most is content from a brand or company’s website. Content found via search engine was trusted by 31 percent, expert content by 28 percent, mainstream news sites by 20 percent and social media content from friends by just 10 percent.

While these results shouldn’t cause you to abandon or decrease your social media efforts, they do show that consumers are still influenced by traditional sources of expertise—articles, experts, and brands—far more than by social media.

Image by Flickr user Iwan Gabovitch (Creative Commons)

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Tags: content marketing, Marketing, small business, social media
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, social media | No Comments »

Black Friday’s Mobile Madness

December 3rd, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

Just how mobile are U.S. shoppers getting? Extremely, according to a PCMag roundup on the results of the Black Friday weekend. On Thanksgiving Day alone, PayPal statistics showed that mobile payments via its service were up by 173 percent compared to last year. Black Friday itself saw an even bigger increase in the number of mobile payments, up by 193 percent at PayPal. Overall, PayPal’s total number of mobile shoppers was up 164 percent compared to 2011.

Etailer eBay also noted a similar increase in the number of mobile payments, up by 133 percent compared to last year, and eBay subsidiary GSI Commerce saw mobile sales increase by 170 percent.

IBM statistics over the holiday shopping weekend show similar growth. This year, IBM reports that some 24 percent of consumers used a mobile device to visit a retailer’s site, up from 14.3 percent in 2011. Mobile sales surpassed 16 percent, up from 9.8 percent in 2011.

Overall, IBM says 58 percent of consumers used smartphones and 41 percent used tablets to search for bargains over the Black Friday weekend. As you might expect, the iPad powered most of actual mobile sales. iPads accounted for almost 10 percent of online purchases, and for a whopping 88.3 percent of tablet traffic. iPhones made up 8.7 percent of online sales, and Android devices 5.5 percent.

Clearly, prognosticators’ predictions that this would be the year of the mobile shopper are coming true. And while mobile purchasing is still far from universal among consumers, what’s clear is that mobile devices are becoming essential tools in the research, bargain-hunting and product-finding process. Even customers who are leery of paying for products on a mobile device are happy to whip out those devices to help them find deals, stores and all the products on their gift lists.

How is your company adapting to the mobile mind-set of today’s consumer?

Image by Flickr user IntelFreePress (Creative Commons)

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Tags: holiday retail, mobile marketing, small business, Technology, Web Design
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Technology, Web Design | No Comments »

Why Online Marketing Matters to Small Business Owners

November 19th, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

How is the economy affecting small business owners’ thoughts and plans about their companies’ finances? In a recent Small Business Sentiment Survey conducted for Local Corporation, 92 percent of small business owners said the economy influences their financial decisions. Here are some of the changes small business owners have considered making as a result of the up-and-down economy of the past three years:

51 percent have considered reducing operating costs
46 percent have considered raising prices on their products or services
40 percent have considered reducing marketing spending
24 percent have thought about laying off employees
19 percent have contemplated cutting back their operating hours
16 percent have considered cutting either employee benefits or salaries

Most drastically of all, 16 percent have thought about closing their businesses either permanently (16 percent) or temporarily (11 percent). This, despite the fact that entrepreneurs are so dedicated, 61 percent have thought about taking a pay cut in order to keep their companies running.

Despite their financial uncertainties, small business owners firmly believe in the importance of investing in their businesses, with more than half (56 percent) saying they are prepared to make long-term investment in their company right now. The biggest areas where they plan to invest capital are business development (46 percent) and online advertising (37 percent).

As part of watching their finances carefully, small business owners are also seeking to get more from their advertising and marketing expenditures. As a result, more of them are turning to online advertising, which is projected to grow by $18 billion between 2010 and 2015, and fewer are using traditional media, which is projected to shrink by $5 billion from 2010 to 2015.

More than half (63 percent) of the small business owners surveyed report they are currently marketing their companies online, and 30 percent are planning to spend more on digital marketing next year. In addition, more than half (53 percent) of respondents think that launching a business website or improving their existing business website is the number-one way they could reach customers.

Have you made any of the financial changes the business owners in the survey are thinking about? How are you investing in the future of your business?

Image by Flickr user Terry Johnston (Creative Commons)

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Tags: digital marketing, internet marketing, Marketing, small business, Web Design
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5 Marketing Lessons From Inc. 500 Companies

November 12th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

The companies that land on the Inc. 500/5000 list (including one of my clients) never fail to impress me. From their growth trajectories to what it is they actually do, I find it all fascinating.

HubSpot analyzed the winners using their Marketing Grader tool. Below, I share their findings about 5 of those companies’ marketing strategies, along with my takeaways:

#5: Gold & Silver Buyers

They have a great rank, but their online marketing efforts fall a bit short. They have a blog, but only post every few weeks, and what little they do post cannot be shared because there are no social share buttons on their site.

Takeaway: Blog consistently (at least once a week) and add those social share buttons to your website! If you don’t know how, your website developer can do it for you.

#11: Nasty Gal

The peeps at Nasty Gal are doing a lot right, but one thing they are not doing at all is analyzing their website. This is one of the easiest and most important things a small business can and should do to improve marketing.

Takeaway: Just set up a Google Analytics account (it’s free!), and you’ll learn so much valuable information about your website, like number of visitors you’re getting each month, which pages they’re visiting, keywords you’re being found for and so on.

You can then tweak your website as needed – maybe remove pages no one is visiting and develop more content around the products and services that are drawing the most online eyeballs.

#9: Red Frog Events

This company a has a lot of SEO issues that are affecting their website. A technical one is the lack of 301 redirects (so if someone doesn’t type in the www before your company name and domain extension, that person will still be pointed to your website). Nontechnical ones include a boatload of images with no tags and pages missing unique page descriptions.

Takeaway: Go into your content management system (CMS), and open up the media gallery. Check that each image, photo and graphic has an alt tag so search engines know what the image is.

Next, open up each page in edit mode and add keywords to each page title, to make it easier for search engines to find you based on what you do or sell.

#47: Vitals

This company does a lot right, and with one small tweak, they can do a lot more: add an email subscription option to their blog.

Takeaway: No matter how much your customers like you, they are not going to check your blog regularly for updates. An email subscription option ensures that all subscribers receive a ping whenever you post a new blog post – and thus gets more eyeballs reading the content you create.

#37: Webimax

This company is doing pretty much everything right: they blog every day and share their content on social media. They have a mobile version of their site that is optimized for a good user experience. They have landing pages that they link to from their blog posts, making it easier to convert visitors into leads. They use marketing automation software to nurture leads. They use analytics to track their marketing efforts.

Takeaway: Putting together an integrated marketing strategy can certainly pay off – Webimax grew from revenue of $123,000 in 2008 to revenue of $7.1 million in 2011.

Now you know what these successful companies do – and don’t do – what small fixes will you make to improve your own website and marketing strategy?

Image courtesy of HubSpot

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Tags: analytics, blogging, email subscriptions, Inc. 500, Marketing, marketing strategy, Search Marketing, seo, social media, social sharing
Posted in Branding, Marketing, Search Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

How to Grab Price-Conscious Holiday Shoppers

October 31st, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

Consumers are feeling good about the upcoming holiday season. In a new study by PriceGrabber, more than half of consumers say they plan to spend the same amount of money or more this holiday shopping season than they did last year.

But even increased spending doesn’t mean Americans are ending their price-conscious ways. On the contrary, shoppers are looking for bargains with more vigor than ever, and feeling confident in their ability to search out the deals. Two-thirds of consumers surveyed say they expect retailers to offer better prices and discounts this year than last. What will persuade them to buy? Free shipping was cited by 77 percent of respondents, price cuts by 74 percent and coupons by 55 percent.

In fact, customers are already looking for holiday bargains. “Our survey data found that … 59 percent of consumers plan to start shopping even earlier this year to spread out the impact of purchases, compared to 53 percent in 2011,” said Rojeh Avanesian, vice president of marketing and analytics of PriceGrabber. Some 17 percent of consumers started their holiday shopping in September, and 31 percent said they would begin in October this year.

Worried that means it’s already too late to get the business? Don’t be. A follow-up study by PriceGrabber found that while there are those early-birds, more than half of consumers still believe the best holiday deals are found between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Got an ecommerce site? Then you’ve got an edge: When asked where they planned to shop this year, 75 percent of respondents said “online retailers.” By comparison, just 49 percent mentioned department stores, and 41 percent said they’ll shop with local independent retailers.

Even if you don’t have an ecommerce site, you can use local search to give your retail store an edge. A whopping 88 percent of shoppers say they’ll stick to their budgets this year by going online to research products and pricing before they buy their holiday gifts.

Make sure your store is listed on local search directories, on ratings and review sites, and that you use relevant keywords on your website so it comes up in the results when potential customers search for products you sell. You might even want to consider taking out online ads such as pay-per-click or Facebook ads to direct local customers to your store.

Image by Flickr user Steven Depolo (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Email marketing, Marketing, sales process, Search Marketing, small business, social media, Web Design
Posted in Email Marketing, Marketing, sales process, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, Web Design | 1 Comment »

How to Turn a Boring Topic Into a Viral One

October 24th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

“There is a market for humor and weird and interesting things. An infographic can turn a boring, geeky topic into a highly creative, viral one.”

-Brian Wallace, NowSourcing.com

How does more traffic to your website, more links to your blog, more social sharing of your content, better awareness of your company, and greatly improved search results sound? Pretty great, especially if your company is operating in a highly competitive space.

The infographic experts at NowSourcing do just that. “Infographics are a lot more engaging than a blog post, but of course, they are a lot more work. Good infographics bring together words, ideas, a story, a lot of research, and good design.”

Here are 5 examples of how Wallace’s team turned a boring topic into a viral one:

1. Financial Services

You can’t get more boring than financial services. When a payday loan company in England asked NowSourcing to do an infographic on bartering, it just so happened that Oscar Mayer had just launched a crazy campaign in the U.S. featuring one guy traveling from New York City to Los Angeles with nothing but bacon to barter. Yes, this was serendipitous, but the Art of Bacon Barter infographic still accomplished its goal: turn a boring topic into a viral one.

Did you know? PayDayLoan actually has an entire section called Fun Stuff on their site devoted to visual content. Talk about creativity!

2. Concrete Polishing

Again, a truly boring topic. Concrete Reflections wanted to increase their search position for a few concrete-specific keywords. When asked if they had a sense of humor, the company replied yes, and the Concrete Mafia infographic was born. The infographic focuses on why the mafia uses concrete to bury dead bodies.

Did you know? New York’s concrete industry was once a mafia-owned monopoly. For real!

3. Poker

OK, poker isn’t that boring of a topic, but PokerSites is not a very exciting online destination – it’s a guide to poker sites, just as its name implies. The company wanted to get more visibility from audiences other than gamers, so NowSourcing created an infographic on infamous casino cheaters.

Did you know? There are an average of 5,000 HD cameras per casino.

4. Home Security

Home security is one of those snooze-worthy topics that you don’t think about til it’s too late. HomeSecuritySystem.com’s infographic looks at the world’s biggest art, diamond and bank heists of all time.

Did you know? In February 2003, $100 million worth of diamonds were stolen in Antwerp, Belgium. Police still don’t know exactly how it happened.

5. Online College Guide

Like PokerSites, Degree Jungle is also an online guide – to online college programs. Their infographic, The Cost to Educate a President, is not only fun and interesting, but very timely!

Did you know? Both Obama and Romney earned their law degrees at Harvard.

One more thing:

Once you spend time and money on an engaging infographic, put it to even more work by adding a call-to-action. You could link to a downloadable white paper that your infographic summarizes, a QR code linked to your free, downloadable iPhone app, a link to a free trial or even just a link back to your website.

Do you have a favorite infographic? Why do you love it?

Image courtesy of internet-marketing-blog101.com

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Tags: Brian Wallace, infographics, Marketing, NowSourcing, Search Marketing, Thought Leadership, viral marketing
Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, Thought Leadership | 5 Comments »

There’s Still Time to Register! Online Marketing Small Business Forum From Web.com

October 23rd, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

Do you want to learn more about marketing your small business online? If you’re in or near the Dallas area, it’s not too late to sign up for this Thursday’s Web.com Small Business Forum on online marketing. Register now!

Held from 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, October 25, in Dallas, this interactive forum will be hosted by Web.com’s Jason Teichman. At the event, small businesses will learn everything they need to know about successfully marketing their companies online. Topics that will be covered include:

What are the elements of a great website?
How do I increase traffic to my website and to my business?
Is my website “working” for my business?
How do I market my business on Google, Facebook and Twitter?

Along with the informative presentation, the event also includes a Q&A session so you can ask the experts your questions. And, of course, you’ll have plenty of time to network with and learn from other small business owners.

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Posted in Email Marketing, Events, Marketing, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Social Media, social media, Web Design | No Comments »