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6 Easy Ways to Boost Your Revenue This Year

February 20th, 2013 :: Monika Jansen

If you are a typical small business owner – like me – one of your business goals this year is to boost your revenue. Below are 6 ways you can grow your business in 2013 – or any year.

1 – Use a suggestion box

Because you never really know where the next big idea is going to come from, set up a physical or digital suggestion box for employees and customers, and encourage them to use it. Sift through it regularly, and if you find a suggestion you like, set up a meeting with the person whose idea it was to brainstorm some more.

2 – Create new revenue streams

Whether you sell products or services, think about complementary items you can offer, and whether or not it makes sense to bundle offerings or add service packages. If, like me, you are a service provider, think about products you could sell – or products you could create, like a detailed, hands-on guidebook.

3- Differentiate based on value

Your products and services add value to your customers’ lives, so differentiate yourself by stressing those values – location, customer service, innovation, quality cost-savings, responsiveness, etc. If you’re not sure what customers really love about doing business with you, just ask.

4 – Hire a salesperson

While this may not be feasible for you, hiring an ace salesperson who can bring in new business and take good care of customers is one of the best investments you can make. You’ll have more time to focus on what you do best – which is good, because you’ll need to spend that time servicing your new customers.

5 – Set big, hairy, audacious goals

Try setting a goal that scares and challenges you, and then figure out how to meet it. Look at your marketing campaigns first – what has worked best, and how did you land your best customers? Then revisit your sales cycle – are there improvements you can make to turn leads into customers faster?

6 – Embrace analytics

The sooner you get comfortable analyzing your marketing efforts – especially online – the better. Sit down every week and look at your social media activity – what was shared and commented on the most? What days and times of day got you the best results? Look at your website analytics, too. What search terms are you being found for? Where are they coming from (search engines, social media, etc.)? What pages are your visitors spending the most and least time on? What are they downloading?

The better you understand your online marketing successes, the better your online presence will be.

What have you done in the past to grow your business? Share your tips below!

Image courtesy of kice.com

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Tags: analytics, Marketing, sales
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

7 Marketing Trends That Benefit Small Businesses

February 19th, 2013 :: Monika Jansen

Now that we’ve gotten comfortable writing 2013 rather than 2012, I revisited all the “top trends for 2013” blog posts and articles I saved over the past two months to see what stood out the most and could potentially have the biggest impact on small businesses. Here’s what I found:

1 – Loyalty

Loyalty programs are shifting. Traditionally, you reward your customers for spending, but now consumers expect rewards for taking certain actions and sharing their activities with others. Additionally, consumers are responding to more variety in redemption options, so think about the “near-cash” rewards you can offer.

2 – SEO

SEO, social media, and content used to be completely separate areas in marketing. Now, they’re overlapping thanks to changes in search engines, which reward social sharing and linking, and content-focused marketing strategies (an active blog and fresh content). Continue to focus on engaging your customers through social media and valuable content to see benefits around SEO.

3 – Local

Local will continue to grow, especially since local businesses know their local customers and are as good at – or better than – engaging with them online as big companies. If you don’t already, use location in your online advertising, and continue to focus on customer service.

4 – Partnerships

Big companies (airlines and hotels, for example) continue to create partnerships to reach more customers. I have seen a lot of small businesses partnering together, based on neighborhood or industry, to increase their reach as well. Who can you partner with?

5 – Ecommerce

Online consumer spending is soaring. According to comScore $304 billion was spent via ecommerce in the U.S. during 2012. It almost goes without saying, but if you sell products, now is the time to consider putting together an ecommerce site.

6 – Mobile Devices

Smartphones and tablet usage soared in 2012 – more than 120 million people in the U.S. own a smartphone and more than 48 million people own a tablet (again, those stats are courtesy of comScore). Aside from having mobile-friendly sites, take advantage of geo-targeted marketing by “pushing” relevant information to your audience if they are in your area.

7 – Real-Time Analytics

By using a social media dashboard (like Hootsuite) and Google Analytics for your website, it is dead-simple to get real-time insights on what is going on online – from conversations about your brand to a blog post that is getting shared like crazy. With this information readily available, you can make quick changes to improve your marketing and customer service.

What trend do you think will impact you the most? Why?

Image courtesy of allspammedup.com

Editor’s Note: Network Solutions offers an easy way to build a website for mobile devices in mere minutes: goMobi™, powered by dotMobi.

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Tags: analytics, e-commerce, local marketing, loyalty, Marketing, marketing trends, seo, social media
Posted in Marketing | No Comments »

The Do’s and Don’ts of a Social Media Strategy

December 11th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

To make sure you’re avoiding common mistakes when using social media for marketing, follow these simple rules:

Do: Have goals

Before you get started, decide how social media marketing fits into your overall marketing strategy. Do you want to find better quality leads, engage with and retain current customers, generate word of mouth? How do your goals complement the other pieces of your marketing strategy, like your blog, SEO, content creation and online advertising?

Don’t: Dive in without a plan

An editorial calendar will keep you organized. Decide what you are going to post when and on what network. Take timing into consideration, as well: What times are your fans and followers more likely to see your activity?

Do: Use social media consistently

Randomly using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+ and any other social network is a waste of time. Inconsistent use of social media sends a signal that you don’t care about and are probably not that interested in your customers.

Don’t: Ignore SEO

Search engine optimization is important for any online activity, whether it’s your blog or a how-to guide on your website. Sharing content on social media is great, but to snag a wider audience, make sure all that content on your website is optimized with keywords so search engines redirect people to you.

Do: Use visual content wisely

People engage with images, so when you use them, think about how to make your brand fun and accessible. You can showcase products and services, fans and customers, user-generated photos, your logo, employees, events – get creative!

Don’t: Make it all about you

Social media is not a one-way bullhorn. People love to talk about themselves, so be sure to focus your social media activity on your fans and followers. What do they like? What do they care about? How can you help them?

Do: Engage

This is a corollary to the above: social media is a conversation. Respond to direct messages and mentions on Twitter, comments on Facebook, messages on LinkedIn, etc. Ignoring people is no way to build a community.

Don’t: Assume anything

Don’t assume you know what social networks your customers and potential customers use or what sort of information they find most valuable. You have to do your research first, or you will be wasting your time (hint: ask them).

Do: Measure the right metrics

Likes and retweets are not marketing metrics – they’re popularity metrics – and the two are not the same thing. Instead, measure how much traffic Twitter and Facebook are sending to your website, how many downloads your content and shares your blog posts are getting, and how many leads from social media are converting into customers.

Did I miss any do’s or don’ts?

Image courtesy of wellhappypeaceful.com

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Tags: analytics, do's and don'ts, editorial calendar, Marketing, marketing strategy, metrics, seo, social media, visual content
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

3 Ways to Improve Your Retail Marketing Efforts

November 15th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

In my last post, I wrote about the top 5 ways smartphone shopping and social media sharing are changing the face of retail marketing (based on a fantastic infographic called The Meaning of Like).

Here are the 3 trends you can use to improve your retail marketing efforts and thus keep up with the changing retail landscape:

1. Mobile point of sale (POS)

You know how Apple stores do not have traditional check-out lines and cash registers? That’s the future. Long lines translate into lost sales (which has affected me as a consumer – I will absolutely not stand in a long line at H&M). If you can set up mobile point of sale transactions in your retail outlets, I bet you will increase sales.

Three mobile POS options are: Revel Systems, NCR Counterpoint Mobile and POSGuys (I am not affiliated with any of these companies).

2. Social-local-mobile marketing

Social, local and mobile all collide in Facebook Places, Foursquare and Yelp, all of which I know you have heard of. These social marketing tools let you do so much more than just set up shop online. Customers can share reviews, you can engage with customers, and you can offer geo-targeted deals (to passers-by or all residents within a mile radius, for example).

3. Big data analytics

Want to increase your operating margins? Get comfortable with data. Your point of sale system analyzes sales and consumer data. Your Web analytics software analyzes website behavior. Your loyalty program analyzes individual behavior and trends. Pull in social media analytics, and you will have a robust view of customer spending patterns, allowing you to improve sales campaign targeting and marketing efforts.

Unfortunately, there is no single analytics tool that will do all of this for you. It’s up to you to connect the dots.

If you are a retailer, what will you be doing differently this holiday season and beyond to improve your marketing efforts?

Image courtesy of nature.org

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Tags: analytics, Facebook Places, Foursqaure, Marketing, mobile point of sale, online shopping, retail marketing, social-local-mobile marketing, The Meaning of Like, Yelp
Posted in Marketing | 4 Comments »

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 »

6 New and Improved Ways to Measure the ROI of Your Facebook Ads

August 16th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

Did you know Facebook changed their ad tracking and analytics feature? No? Me neither, until I ran across an article by Dave Williams that appeared on AdAge Digital.

Facebook ads are big business for the company, providing a boatload of revenue for them – but until now, marketers only got murky metrics. With Facebook’s old analytics feature, you couldn’t track online or offline conversions, because Facebook could not provide view-through tracking. This basically means you had to guess whether or not Facebook ads were actually driving people to your Facebook page – and if they spent any time on your page once they arrived.

With Facebook’s newly updated analytics feature, measuring ad effectiveness by counting Likes and clicks should be a thing of the past. Now, you can really drill down and track how users interact with and click on your Facebook ads and content. Here’s what you can do:

1. Specify a single action or multiple actions to be measured for any ad group

2. Track internal page Likes, page post Likes, comments, @ mentions, check-ins, photo tags and page post shares (including how many times an offer is shared)

3. Track an assortment of specific actions, including “claimed your offer,” “answered your question,” “clicked on the Page post link,” “viewed the page post photo,” “viewed the Page post video,” and “viewed a tab on your Page”

4. Track Facebook app statistics, including installs, users and the number of times Facebook credits were spent in the app

5. Keep up-to-date with “yes” and “maybe” RSVPs in Facebook Events

6. View metrics in 4 different ways: 1-day view-throughs and 1-, 7-, and 28-day click-throughs

Williams also speculated that Facebook will integrate the check-in function with RSVPs and coupons, making it possible to measure the impact of your Facebook ad on in-store traffic and sales. If they did this, online and offline would finally bridge that yawning gap between your social graph and word-of-mouth – something that social has yet to master.

If you advertise on Facebook, have you started tweaking your ads based on these new measurement features? Leave a comment below!

Image courtesy of trendsupdates.com

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Tags: AdAge Digital, analytics, click-throughs, conversion rates, Dave Williams, Facebook, Facebook ads, Likes, Marketing, measurement, social media
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | 1 Comment »

Social Media 101: Put Together a Strategy in 6 Easy Steps

July 26th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

If you are just getting started with social media for your small business, putting together a strategy can be overwhelming. Here are the steps you’ll need to take to put together a basic social media strategy:

1. Decide what your goals are.

The best way to stay motivated and not get discouraged is by deciding what your goals are. Are you going to use social media to increase sales, generate leads, build brand awareness, become a thought leader in your industry, or a combination of all four? Your answer doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you know why you want to use social media in the first place.

2. Determine keywords.

If you want to get found online – including on social media – you need to use the words and phrases your potential customers use when conducting a search. You can easily find that information with keyword discovery tool WordTracker. Once you choose the best terms for you, incorporate them in all content, headlines, status updates and tweets.

3. Find your audience.

While you may think you have to use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest, you won’t know what social media platforms you need to use until you find out where your audience is spending time. To find them – and find out what they’re talking about – you’ll want to use social listening tools like Flowtown, SocialMention or ViralHeat.

4. Choose a social conversation tool.

Save time and make your life easier by setting up an account with a social media conversation tool like Hootsuite, Jugnoo, Postling or Sprout Social. You’ll be able to respond to comments and questions, actively engage with people in real-time, and even assign conversations to other people at your business.

5. Put together a list of topics.

Since you already know what your audience is talking about online, putting together a list of topics to post will be easier. Here’s what you’ll want to share:

Curated relevant industry news
Company news that will affect your customers
Links to your blog posts, white papers, ebooks and other marketing collateral on the topics you already know your audience is interested in
Photos and videos from everyday work life and events
Answers to FAQs

Remember to mix up the content to keep things interesting, let your personality shine through, and always be positive, even if you are dealing with an irate customer who is lambasting you with angry tweets.

6. Analyze and tweak.

If you owned a restaurant and there were two dishes customers never ordered off your menu, you would remove them, right? Same with your social media strategy. If something is not working, tweak what you’re doing. Use social media analytics tools like Crowd Booster, Google Analytics or Swix to make sure you’re using the right social media platforms and sharing the information your audience cares about.

***

Did I leave anything out of this post that you are curious about how to do? Leave a comment below so I can address your questions in future posts.

Image courtesy of socialmarcom.com

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Tags: analytics, Crowd Booster, Flowtown, Google Analytics, Hootsuite, Jugnoo, keywords, Marketing, Postling, social media, social media strategy, SocialMention, Sprout Social, Swix, ViralHeat, Wordtracker
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | 4 Comments »

How to Measure Your YouTube Video Marketing Efforts

July 10th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

Did you know YouTube has a built-in analytics tool called YouTube Insights? If you’re using YouTube at all as part of your online marketing strategy, you should definitely be tracking how your videos are doing.

Following is a rundown on the most useful features of YouTube Insights:

Number of views

Of course, the best way to know whether or not people like your video is by the number of them who are watching it. This info is clearly displayed under each video, so use this basic metric to better understand what content is resonating most with your audience.

Ratings

Again, under your video you’ll be able to see the number of likes and dislikes your video has gotten. Click on it, and you’ll also see comments and favorites. This is another great way to measure the effectiveness of your videos.

Discovery

Click on the bar graph on your Ratings page to see where your traffic is coming from; sources are listed in chronological order. Use this information to determine where to promote your upcoming videos.

Demographics

Click on the view more statistics button on the graph to get demographics of your audience. Again, this information can be used to tailor videos and make them relevant to your audience based on their age, gender, and geographical location.

Drop-off rates

It is really useful to understand where in your video you lose viewers. If everyone stops watching your video in the same place, why? Was it too long, boring, confusing?

Sharing

Videos go viral when people share them en masse. Take a look at the sharing statistic to see which videos are shared most and use that insight to tailor the subject of future videos.

***

What is your favorite or most successful B2B or B2C video on YouTube? Share a link in the comments below!

Image courtesy of hmtweb.com

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Tags: analytics, Marketing, video marketing, YouTube, YouTube Insights
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3 Steps to Results-Oriented Content Marketing Programs

April 27th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

Those of us who call ourselves “wordsmiths” may be tempted to ignore or shy away from numbers. We believe in the power of the word and see the potential of well-written copy to get results in our marketing and communications efforts.

But, according to Chris Sietsema, even content marketing has a numeric formula for writing copy that is sure to get powerful results. In this article, I will share his formula for producing winning content marketing programs, based on lessons learned from the movie Moneyball.

Just as Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane used statistical analysis to put together a winning team on a limited budget, marketers can put together a winning editorial schedule based on three primary numbers:

1. Revenue

When brainstorming content ideas for your editorial schedule, the first step is to determine the concepts that relate to your company’s money makers – the products and services that actually bring in the bucks. Which topics offer the most potential for generating revenue? Focus on the questions customers and clients ask you about your products and services, as well as on how you provide them with value and enhance their lives. Create a robust list to refine in the next steps.

2. Search

Once you have created a list of revenue-generating content ideas, determine their search potential. Using a tool like Google’s Keyword Tool, validate which content elements will be searched for by your target customers or clients. As you use the tool, watch for additional content ideas you may not have thought of initially. What you are evaluating are the search volume numbers, broken down into daily, weekly and monthly metrics.

3. Social

Finally, you’ll want to hone in on the social potential of your content ideas because great content encourages interaction on your blog and social networking communities. Using social monitoring tools, such as Sysomos and SM2, will help you discover what content elements are generating conversations online. Metrics like tweets, blog post hits, and Likes, will help you track these conversations around your keywords. To get an overview of your social potential, add up the metrics from each media channel you are tracking.

Now let’s put these numbers to work. To help analyze your data, create a scale of varying degrees of revenue, search and social volume. A simple scale, such as 1=low and 5=high, will work just fine. This scale system will help you find the content that has the best chance of performing according to the three variables above. For example, a content idea may have a revenue rating of 5, but a search rating of 2. How might you tweak this idea so that it is search-worthy? Or, do you have other ideas that yield high ratings across the board?

After assigning ratings to all of your content ideas, it’s time to determine which ones made the cut and which ones to toss. The goal is to find content that is 1) relatable to a revenue-generating product or service you offer, 2) highly searched for by your target audience, and 3) discussed and commented on in the blogosphere and on social networks. The content gems will have all three elements, and some of your other content ideas may just need some tweaking to live up to their marketing potential. Fill your editorial schedule with only the best content ideas that are proven to give you a winning content marketing program.

How about you? Do you have a numeric system for finding the best ideas for your content marketing strategy?

Image courtesy of watch-moneyball-movie.blogpost.com

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Tags: analytics, content marketing, editorial schedule, Google Keyword Tool, keywords, Marketing, search, social media
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Does Your Google Page Rank No Longer Matter?

April 13th, 2012 :: Monika Jansen

When it comes to Internet marketing, the rules can change quickly – sometimes overnight. As marketers, most of us have been meticulously developing our SEO strategies to achieve the best possible Google Page Rank for a while now. According to SEO pros, your Google Page Rank may not even matter anymore. But before you completely wipe this metric off your marketing to-do list, let’s take a closer look at why Page Rank has become irrelevant.

Page Rank cannot be tracked

Metrics are only useful if they can be tracked, and Page Rank is not one of those metrics. Even if you still check your Page Rank, Google delays that information for up to nine months. So, tracking the metric in real-time is impossible, making it useless for assessing your current performance.

Page Rank does not affect SEO

The link between Page Rank and SEO is fragile at best. Plenty of websites have a Page Rank of zero, and yet they still manage to get organic rankings and traffic for competitive search terms. Why bother with a number that does not affect your Web traffic’s “bottom line?”

Page Rank is not relevant for social media or real-time results

Social media content and real-time news are becoming increasingly relevant for search results. Page Rank really has nothing to do with either of these. A tweet may have a Page Rank of zero, but it still makes its way into search results. And, breaking news stories – which are only a few minutes old – also come out on top in search results, and yet they haven’t had time to build a Page Rank either.

Page Rank is not a results-driven metric

Marketing metrics are all about results. Businesses want to keep track of things that get real results, such as revenue and customers, or things that lead to those results, such as leads. Page Rank can’t tell you if your marketing efforts are yielding any of those results, so why should businesses worry about it?

When you examine the facts, it really doesn’t make sense to worry about your Google Page Rank anymore. So, what should you do to improve your SEO performance? Your best bet for getting found online is to create useful and interesting content, optimizing it for search and promoting it through social media. In other words, although the rules may change, you can always count on the importance of great content for getting the online marketing results you want.

Image courtesy of creative design agency Arrae

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Tags: analytics, Google, Marketing, marketing metrics, Page Rank, real-time analytics, search results, seo, social media
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »