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5 Key Digital Trends That Matter to Your Business

March 6th, 2013 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

How will smartphones, tablets, social media and other digital trends affect the way you interact with your customers, market your business to consumers and sell your products and services in the coming year? comScore’s new 2013 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report took a closer look at what trends will influence business in 2013 and beyond. Here’s what the study found:

Social media matures: Social networking in the U.S. is still dominated by Facebook; consumers spent 5 out of every 6 minutes spent online on social media. In addition to Facebook, which is maturing by focusing on new ways to monetize, smaller social media players making waves in 2013 will include LinkedIn, Yelp, Zynga, Groupon, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram (which is now part of Facebook).
Search flattens out: Although Google is still the strong leader in search engines, Bing gained some ground in 2012. That was also the year when more and more searches began taking place on mobile platforms, signaling a possible flattening of the desktop search market.
Online video matures: comScore says the U.S. online video market is beginning to mature in terms of consumption, but still has a ways to go in terms of monetization. There is more demand for online video advertising space than there is inventory available, so comScore believes this advertising channel will continue to grow, and will become better at precisely targeting viewers.
Smartphone and tablets gain traction: In 2012, smartphones finally surpassed 50 percent market penetration, and Android phones surpassed 50 percent of the smartphone market. Tablet use also surged; as of December 2012, some 52.4 million Americans owned tablets.
Ecommerce and mcommerce grow: Despite continued economic uncertainty, retail ecommerce grew in 2012, outpacing the growth of brick-and-mortar retail by fourfold. Overall, U.S. retail and travel-related ecommerce rose 13 percent from 2011 to 2012, reaching $289 billion. In addition, mcommerce is starting to emerge, with comScore estimating that mcommerce transactions (both on smartphones and tablets) accounted for approximately 11 percent of ecommerce sales.

Is your business taking advantage of trends in social media, mobile device use, online video viewing and online commerce? If not, 2013 is the year to make your move. You can learn more about all of these trends by downloading a free copy of the 2013 U.S. Digital Future in Focusreport.

Image by Flickr user Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Marketing, small business, Technology
Posted in Innovation, Marketing, Small Business, small business, Technology, Thought Leadership, Web Design | 4 Comments »

Facebook Says: These Are the Brand Strategies That Increase Engagement

March 5th, 2013 :: Monika Jansen

When I saw the email from Hootsuite for their HootSuite University presentation, Facebook Brand Pages: Rules of Engagement with Jason Li, Lead Strategist with Global Creative Solutions at Facebook, I thought, “This could be all about how to spend your money advertising on Facebook, or how to really use Facebook from the company that makes it.”

Guess what? It was mostly the latter. Here’s what I learned:

1 – Focus on growing your fan base

The absolute biggest thing you should focus on with Facebook is growing your fan base. As Li said, “Without a fan base, you have nothing.”

Spend some time on Facebook Insights and look at the days and times when your audience engages with your posts. Schedule your posts for those times to reach as many fans as possible. When your fans interact with your posts, their friends will see it in their news feeds, thus allowing you to reach a bigger audience and grow your fan base.

2 – Understand social behavior

If you want to create quality engagement, you must understand – and then marry – two things:

Why do customers love your brand in the first place? Li said, “If you look at Starbucks’ wall, there are a lot of images – of their logo, packaging, storefronts, employees. People have an emotional connection to Starbucks and respond to those images.” To figure this out, you can ask your fans what they like, but you can also look to see what posts they have responded to the most.

Why do people share content on Facebook? Li explained that sharing content extends beyond sharing to liking, commenting on, and creating content about your brand. This is a trickier question to answer, so see below for Li’s 4 fundamental reasons that people share content on Facebook.

3 – Learn why people share content on Facebook

We share content on Facebook to:

Make our lives easier – Help your fans learn something new, discover something inspirational, or reward them with savings or tips.
Build relationships – Start a 2-way dialogue by prompting your fan base and asking for meaningful responses, recognize/celebrate your fans, make your fans smile. Li said to think about your significant other and how you grow and nurture that relationship; apply those same ideas to your Facebook fans.
Help others – Ask your fans for feedback and be open and transparent. Li basically said, “Take advantage of the fact that people like to share what they think.”
Craft our identity by sharing what we like – Enable your fans to express who they are, and think about how can you help them do that.

4 – Two final tips

Don’t create posts simply to fill space. Post at least 1-2 times/week but no more than 5 times/week. “My friends don’t post more than 5 times per week,” said Li, “and neither should your brand.”
Use Facebook Insights. Improve your use of Facebook by looking at how many people you reach, how many people engage with your posts, what time you should post, your demographic base, etc.

Li shared a lot of examples of how brands engage with their fans on Facebook, so the presentation is worth watching if you’d like to learn more.

I have to say, a lot is written about Facebook, but this is probably some of the best advice I’ve ever heard/gotten. Will this information change the way you use Facebook? How?

Image courtesy of funny-pictures.funmunch.com

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Tags: Facebook engagement, Jason Li, Marketing, social media, Thought Leadership
Posted in Marketing, Social Media, Thought Leadership | No Comments »

5 Reasons Content Curation Is Important to Your Marketing Strategy

February 25th, 2013 :: Monika Jansen

While content creation has gotten a lot of buzz and attention over the past year, content curation – gathering valuable and relevant news, trends, tips, and advice and then sharing it – is just as important.

Why? Here are 5 reasons content curation is important to your marketing strategy:

There’s a lot of good content getting lost online, including yours
Curation is a no-brainer way to supplement and complement your original content
Curating the best of what’s out there is a huge value-add for your audience
Curation positions you as a go-to expert on your chosen topic
You become a news hub, with people coming back for fresh content

You don’t have to be big company to curate content. Thanks to the folks at Curata, I discovered 4 examples of small business content curation from their 2013 Look Book Ebook:

Oregon Wine Newsroom

To keep in touch with and promote local wineries, the Oregon Wine Board started curating all Oregon wine-related info, including events. It’s a perfect way to keep winery information in front of local businesses, tourists, wine bloggers and the media.

Everything Tile and Stone

East Coast Tile’s site focuses on tools and trends in the tile and stone industry, which is a great example of how to curate an entire industry and turn into a source of research and ideas. The site is used by consumers, but also contractors, designers, and architects.

Change Velocity

Have you ever heard of change management? Well, you can find out everything about it on Morris Communication’s site, which is for organizations looking for information and expertise on the subject. The site curates trends, news, the latest ideas and tools, and advice.

Healio

I can’t imagine being a doctor who needs to keep up with the latest news and technology for my own specialty along with the general healthcare landscape. That’s where Healio comes in. They break down information by specialty into videos and blog posts, making it easier for medical professionals to keep up with the latest discussions and innovations.

Have you seen other small businesses using content curation?

Image courtesy of tumblr.com

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Tags: content creation, content curation, Marketing, though leadership
Posted in Marketing, Thought Leadership | No Comments »

Marketers Are From Mars, Consumers Are From Venus

February 21st, 2013 :: Maria Valdez Haubrich

By Maria Valdez Haubrich

Social media is growing by leaps and bounds, but email is still the best way to reach out to the most customers and gain their loyalty, reports a new study by ExactTarget. Called Marketers from Mars, the study found significant gaps between how marketers think customers want to be marketed to, and how customers actually want to interact with brands.

The clear winner? Email, which was named as the most valuable marketing tool for building loyalty by both customers and marketers. Ninety-three percent of consumers subscribe to at least one brand’s email, while about half (49 percent) have made a purchase as a direct result of email messages. One-third of consumers want marketers to invest more in email marketing.

However, while marketers were highly focused on mobile marketing, customers aren’t quite there yet. About one-fourth of marketers thought mobile apps were an effective marketing tool, but just 7 percent of consumers thought so. Instead, consumers were more likely to want brands to invest more in marketing on their traditional websites.

Consumers were more likely than marketers to want to interact with brands on Facebook. More than half (58 percent) of consumers have “Liked” a brand on Facebook, up 20 percent from the prior survey in 2010. About one-third of consumers with a smartphone and one-fourth of consumers who do not own a smartphone say they prefer to interact with brands on Facebook, making it the second most common place consumers go to connect with businesses online.

While just 21 percent of consumers have made a purchase as a direct result of a Facebook message, 22 percent of consumers say they want marketers to invest in creating a better Facebook experience. This suggests that there is great potential for Facebook to grow as a sales and marketing channel.

While marketers are highly engaged with Twitter, consumers are far less so. Some 61 percent of marketers follow at least once brand on Twitter, but only 12 percent of consumers do. That was an increase of just 7 percent from the prior survey in 2010.

What’s the takeaway? If you’re involved in small business marketing, you’re on the cutting edge of new trends and technologies—so don’t make the mistake of assuming your habits mirror those of the average consumer. Always do your research to understand exactly what your target customers are doing and how they want you to market to them—it may not be how you’d like to be marketed to yourself.

You can download the complimentary research from Exact Target or view an infographic of the survey.

Image by Flickr user (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Email marketing, Marketing, sales process, small business, social media
Posted in Branding, Business Development, Email Marketing, Marketing, Sales Process, sales process, Small Business, small business, Social Media, social media, Thought Leadership, Web Design | No Comments »

Web.com Small Business Toolkit: CreateSpace (Amazon’s Self-Publishing Tool)

January 14th, 2013 :: Maria Valdez Haubrich

CreateSpace

Have you got something to say, some wisdom to impart, or some knowledge of your industry you think others would want to read? No longer do you have to find a publisher and a book designer to get your words published. CreateSpace is an Amazon.com company that provides easy tools to self-publish your book so you can make your content available to millions of potential customers. Media formats supported through CreateSpace include books, DVDs, CDs, video downloads and Amazon MP3s. Products are made as customers order them, so you don’t have to pay upfront fees for inventory. Plus, CreateSpace takes care of the customer service and order fulfillment on your online retail orders.

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Tags: ebook, Marketing, Resources, small business, Technology, Thought Leadership
Posted in Marketing, Resources, Small Business, small business, Technology, Thought Leadership | No 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 »

3 Simple Tips for Improving LinkedIn Lead Generation From an Expert

November 26th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

Ever hear of Neal Schaffer? He was named by Forbes as a Top 30 Social Media Power Influencer. He is a prolific blogger at Windmill Networking, a popular social media conference speaker, and an award-winning author of two books: ”Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales and Social Media Marketing” and “Windmill Networking: Maximizing LinkedIn.”

Basically, if you want to know about LinkedIn, you turn to him! Marketo recently published an interview with Neal about using LinkedIn for lead generation. Here are my top 3 takeaways:

1. Stop ignoring your company page

According to Neal, you have to do 3 things to take full advantage of your company page – all of which, I have to say, are pretty darned easy to do:

Build a following with relevant status updates
Include keywords everywhere for SEO purposes
Get recommendations for each of your products or services (rather than your company as a whole)

2. Create content that answers questions

I really love this point Neal makes: People do not call you for an answer – they search the Internet for answers. If you create content that 1) answers questions, and 2) is full of keywords, then people will find you and begin to view you as a thought leader.

3. Use LinkedIn Groups

Share the above content you create in relevant groups. LinkedIn Groups, as Neal points out, are where the professionals are online – they’re not necessarily looking for answers on Facebook, but they are within LinkedIn Groups.

Do the above, and Neal says that people will start finding you. Your status updates will pop up in their network updates. You’ll be discovered through search results. You’ll drive brand awareness and lead generation in groups.

Do you use LinkedIn for lead generation? What tactics have been most successful for you?

Image courtesy of marsdd.com

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Tags: lead generation, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Company Pages, LinkedIn Groups, Marketing, Neal Schaffer
Posted in Marketing, Social Media, Thought Leadership | No Comments »

How Can Your Business Become a Breakout Brand?

November 23rd, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

Want to make your business a “breakout brand”? Then you’ve got to make consumers “fall in love” with you, according to a new survey commissioned by rbb Public Relations and conducted by IBOPE/Zogby International.

What exactly is a breakout brand? “Breakout Brands recognize the value of emotional attachment and have adopted strategies [for]…delivering better services and/or products, elevating a category with new ideas and focusing on the customer, not the competition” is how the study defines the concept.

Being well-known or admired isn’t the same as being a breakout brand, the study notes. While 23 percent of consumers immediately identified Apple as a breakout brand, some big names–including Nordstrom and BMW–did not make the cut despite being well-respected for their quality and service orientation. The top 10 breakout brands customers chose are Apple, Amazon, Chick-Fil-A,Wal-Mart, Costco, Starbucks, Google, Zappos, Toyota, Ford, Trader Joe’s and Southwest Airlines.

A  strong majority of  respondents (85 percent)  say it’s very or  somewhat important  to do business with  a company they have  strong emotions for. Breakout Brands  inspire these  connections, which leads to strong brand  ambassadors arising  organically.

In addition, nearly all respondents (92 percent) say it is very or somewhat important for a company they do business with to show interest in them personally. Those living in the South and Central regions were far more likely to say personal interest matters to them than those living in the Northeast and on the West Coast. Millennials (18- to 24-year-olds) are the age group most likely to say emotional connections matter.

Emotional connections pay off for brands: The study found some 83 percent of consumers are willing to pay more when they feel a personal connection to the company. In fact, almost 20 percent of consumers would pay up to 50 percent more for a product or service from a brand that puts them first.

Instead of trying to chase their competitors, the study’s authors advise, brands would do better to focus on putting the customer first. Rbb notes that certain industries have greater potential to benefit from breakout brand behaviors. Specifically, customers say personal, proactive customer communication is more important in healthcare, professional services and technology, while it’s less important in the beauty products and apparel industries.

Does your business have the potential to become a breakout brand? Rbb says the strategy can work for any size company, and has created a whitepaper that you can download for free to learn more.

Image by Flickr user Sean McEntee (Creative Commons)

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Tags: Branding, Marketing, small business, Thought Leadership
Posted in Branding, Marketing, Small Business, small business, Thought Leadership | No Comments »

Visual Content Today and Tomorrow: What the Experts Have to Say

November 5th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

Marketo recenty published a blog post that included a video with the insights of 8 thought leaders on visual content – along with where they think it’s going. Here’s what they had to say:

Tim Ash, CEO at SiteTuners

Visual content is like what synthesizer music was in the early 1970s – everyone does it. Don’t autoplay videos or put sliders on your page with rotating ads that distract from your calls-to-action. If you do, our reptilian brains will take over and we will flee from information overload.

Matt Heinz, President at Heinz Marketing

Right now, you’ve got memes and great infographics. We’ll continue to evolve and visuals will get richer in content. We are lazy – we want something short. Infographics work well for that reason – they’re short and easy to digest. I think infographics will get shorter and even become series.

Jason Keath, CEO at SocialFresh

Memes are based on images, Facebook timeline is based on images, Pinterest is huge, and so is Instagram. Words are less important, so search is harder and monitoring who is talking about you is harder.

Nichole Kelly, President at Social Media Explorer

It is engaging, people like it, they share it. But does visual content drive revenue? That is what we’re trying to figure out.

Marcus Nelson, CEO and Founder of Addvocate

Content is king; it always has been. You need to decide where it is going to live and then direct everyone to one place so you have a central depository of content. Good content creates thought leadership and positive first impressions, and you can control it.

Jeremiah Owyang, Partner and Industry Analyst at Altimeter Group

Visual content is a response to the amount of data out there. Visual is an easy way to share information, but it doesn’t tell the whole story – so don’t take everything at face value.

Craig Rosenberg, Funnelholic

Visual content is going to be huge. Right now, in B2B, it’s terrible. We are still just getting used to writing thought leadership content. Most videos are awful and boring right now. What is interesting is taking those same core content marketing ideas and putting them in a new medium. Using video for demos or product training has done great.

Jeff Widman, Cofounder at PageLever

Visual content tells a story better than static text. Facebook uses an algorithm that promotes photos, so photos perform much better in the news feed. MTV found that their photo posts reached 6x more fans than text and generated 13x more clicks.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to start adding as many photos as I can to my Facebook posts! What is your favorite takeaway from these thought leaders?

Image courtesy of fightitoutlblog.com

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Tags: content marketing, Craig Rosenberg, Jason Keath, Jeff Widman, Jeremiah Owyang, Marcus Nelson, Marketing, Matt Heinz, Nichole Kelly, Thought Leadership, Tim Ash, visual content
Posted in Marketing, Thought Leadership | No Comments »

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 »