Leads are important for any organization; they are what will eventually (hopefully) turn into a sale. Having a lead definition leads to the SLA (Service Level Agreement) on how soon Sales will follow up on MQL’s (Marketing Qualified Leads) provided to them by Marketing. If Sales doesn’t follow up on the lead soon enough, it grows stale. Subsequently, Sales will declare that the MQL that Marketing provided was NOT a lead, whereas Marketing will say it was. Having an SLA resolves this issue. Both sides need to speak the same language and have the same understanding of the criteria that define a lead.

When everyone agrees upon a similar goal it is easier to keep that goal aligned and increases overall success.

Get ready for some more acronyms.

Most sales and marketing professionals are familiar with using the BANT methodology to define and qualify a lead.

Here’s a quick breakdown of BANT

Budget: Does your prospect have the budget to buy?

The first thing you need to find out about your prospect is if they have the budget to buy your product. It doesn’t matter how much your customer might need or like what you’ve got, if they don’t have the budget for it, they’re not going to be able to buy your product. 

Authority: Does your prospect have the authority to make decisions?

Your prospect might be an assistant or department manager, in this case, it’s important to determine if they have the authority to make decisions. If not, have them direct you to someone who typically has the authority to make decisions for the company or department.

Protip: Use account based marketing to target key decision makers in the company.

Need: Does your prospect need it?

If your prospect doesn’t really need your product, why bother chasing them down? The higher the need, the more motivated your prospect will be to buy. It’s up to you to find out how much they need a product like yours. Asking questions like: “What is your current solution?” And “Why is it not currently working for you?” will help you get a better understanding of their pain points and give you an opportunity to address them.

Timeline: How long will the cycle take?

Lastly, find out how long this sales cycle is going to take. This is important information to gather as they may not truly be in the market to make a purchase until next year. By learning this information early, you can see what you can do to move their timeline up or take note of when they are actually interested in moving forward and contact them at a later date.

The BANT method, which is still used by many organizations to gauge lead qualification, has a few flaws and is quickly becoming out-dated. The problem with BANT is that the steps are not in the right order. Typically, you would start by identifying the customer’s needs and then finding out who the decision makers are and so on.

Some other methods and acronyms of determining if a lead is worth perusing include:

ChAMP- Challenges, Authority, Money, and Prioritization.

Champ is often referred to as “the new BANT” since it is basically an updated version of BANT. While ChAMP is in the correct order, it’s still not quite going to cut it.

ANNUM – Authority, Need, Urgency, Money

ANNUM goes right to the source by identifying key decision makers first. They all work for different strategies but in reality, they’re all the same, just in a different order.

Here’s a list of the many popular acronyms that are often used to qualify a lead.

Finding qualified leads has become more complex over time and as a result, requires a more in-depth process. Acronyms just aren’t going to cut it for much longer.

Enter the Demand Unit Waterfall

The method that we use and encourage our clients to follow comes from Sirius Decisions. They have created a process, which has become the gold standard in defining key stages in the lead management process.

Target: The first stage in the waterfall is about determining the size of your target market and identifying your ideal customer or, creating a Persona. Find out what types of customers will find the most value in your solution.

Active Demand: The number of prospects that have an identifiable need for your product.

Engaged demand: Prospects that have responded to your marketing efforts.

Prioritized demand: The level of engagement has reached a level that justifies additional interactions from tele or sales resources.

Qualified Demand: Based on interactions with the prospect, the fit, and urgency of prospects needs are determined and either considered a qualified lead or as a non-qualified lead.

Pipeline: For prospects who have shown significant interest, it’s time to convert them. Prospects will be entered into the pipeline.

Close: This stage signifies that the sales team has successfully closed the opportunity.

The demand waterfall is a great process to qualify leads, but who should you target in the first place? Someone who signed up for an e-book? Or Someone who emailed to ask for a demo? It could be either one.

Create a custom Definition.

As you can gather from the two methods above, whichever one you choose, you need to start somewhere. It’s a good idea for marketing and sales to come together and create a shared definition of exactly who the marketing team should throw into the waterfall. After all, some people might not be interested in getting wet.

Start with a buyer persona

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on research and real data such as demographics/psychographics.

Expand on demographics

The data that most marketers already have is demographics; detail such as a lead’s location, name, job title, etc. Information on the company they work for should include the companies’ current tech stack and annual revenue. In order to choose the most important factors, take a look at some of your best customers. What demographics do they fall under? Psychographic data such as their interests, pain points, and organizational goals will help to identify the needs of the company.

Conclusion

It’s important to recognize that the definition of a lead is different for each company. It is vital that your organization agree upon a custom definition of what qualifies someone as a lead. This will ensure all departments stay in sync and are working efficiently and toward the same goal.

If you haven’t had enough, here’s a great list of some commonly used marketing and business acronyms. TLDR.

The post How Do You Define a Lead? appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

We thought we would provide our own take on Paul’s 13 Sentences on Start-ups.

Pick good co-founders

There are so many challenges that come along with starting a business. Many entrepreneurs find that they don’t have everything that is required to build their start-up by themselves. Having someone to help you along the way can be quite helpful. Some of the greatest companies we know today started with two. Jobs and Woznick, Hewlett and Packard, Ben and Jerry, and Batman and Robin. It’s important to find a co-founder who can complement your skills and fill the gaps. This will ultimately help you focus on what you’re really good at and offload some of the work onto someone else. Additionally, having someone else around will make it easier when it comes time to make decisions for the company and will allow you to take a break every now and then.

Launch Fast

One of the biggest mistakes inexperienced entrepreneurs make is moving too slowly. By launching early and launching fast you are getting your business into motion. This will help you gain momentum and get things moving. You must be quick, efficient, decisive, and ready to learn and adapt.

Let Your Idea Evolve and embrace mistakes

As you grow and gain more traction, more ideas will flow in. Let your idea evolve and change. In fact, Flickr actually began as a feature in an online role-playing game from gaming startup Ludicorp. Photo sharing was the last component of the game. The game itself was never successful however photo sharing was on the rise and what we now know as Flickr became a huge hit. You will make many mistakes, and regret a few decisions, along the way. Many people believe that a mistake means failure. Making mistakes will provide great opportunities to learn from so embrace them and use them to your advantage.

Understand your Users and Make at least a few of them really love you

By taking the time to get to know and understand your users, you have a better idea of what it is they are looking for. Find out what their pain points are and try to address them. Create buyer or user personas so you have a better idea of who it is you want to target. You may find that your product doesn’t suit the particular group of people you initially had in mind. If this happens, you will be able to modify your product to better suit the needs of your customers or change up your strategy to target those who will be interested.

You will have to choose between partially satisfying everyone or making a few people really happy. Choose the latter. These people will act as brand ambassadors. Get them to really like you and they will spread the word. These people can act as guinea pigs; have them try your product and ask them to provide feedback. It’s easier to gain more customers over time than it is to try and increase satisfaction among everybody.

Give surprisingly good customer service

Customer service is a major part of being successful in business. Customers aren’t always easy to please and now, more than ever, they look for instant gratification. When customers are happy with the service you provide, there is a higher likelihood that they will stick to your business instead of shifting to competitors. Customers like to share stories about their experiences with their friends, family, and colleagues and social media make this easier than ever. When you provide customers with a memorable experience, they will be more likely to tell others about the great service they received. Receiving good feedback and knowing you did a good job can result in increased morale and a boost in confidence within the company and among employees. Having happy customers makes for happy employees, making it a better place to work overall. This also results in less turnover, increased profit and on and on. The benefits are endless.

You make what you measure

When you measure something, you get a good idea on how to improve it. Spend some time learning what people like, and what people dislike, about your product. Do some investigating and even put some free or inexpensive analytic tools to use to get a grasp on what is going great and what’s doing poorly. This way you will have tangible evidence of how things are doing. When it comes time to approach investors, you’ll have plenty of data to make your case.

If you don’t measure your success, how will you ever know if you’re doing well?

Spend little

Contrary to belief, you don’t need a fancy office or a beer keg in the lunchroom to become successful. After all, Apple started off in a garage as did HP. You’ll get there. The most common reason businesses fail is because they run out of money.

Check out this list of freebies to use while you’re getting started.

Get ramen profitable

While keeping expenses low, make just enough money to survive off of as opposed to trying to make millions from the get-go. This will make you more attractive to possible investors.

If you’re already making a profit, this proves to investors that you have peaked interest in the market and can get someone to pay for your product, that you are interested in taking the time to building a quality product, and that you maintain discipline by keeping expenses low. If you don’t need to raise more money for the next best thing (which you probably don’t really need), you won’t have to take time away from building your product to do it. When investors see that you aren’t going to blow their money on random stuff they will be more inclined to cut you a deal as they will see that their investment is going to be put to good use.

Avoid distractions

As if starting a business isn’t difficult enough, there will always be distractions on the sidelines ready to pull you away from whatever you’re focusing on. Often times start-ups get distracted and bogged down by things that are almost completely irrelevant to the success of their business; things like your day job, side projects and even little things like having your phone beside you in your workspace.

Dr. Gloria Mark has studied the effects of being interrupted and found that we typically become distracted and switch tasks every three minutes. Two other tasks usually intervene before we eventually get back to our initial task and it takes about 23 minutes to get back into your groove.

That means there’s a good chance you even stopped reading this post for a while in order to work on something else before coming back to it. Rude… (Full disclosure, I actually became distracted many times while writing this).

These distractions are coupled with physical changes to our environment such as new windows and applications open on your desktop, new files downloaded, and some new items in your workspace. These physical changes actually add to the time it takes to get back to what you were originally doing, thus, wasting even more time.

You can read more on Dr. Gloria Mark’s study HERE

Try to eliminate these distractions by planning distraction-free time in a distraction-free space. If even for just a few hours, go to a quiet place, play some music if you need to, turn off any notifications and keep your phone away from you and plan to work on one single task for a set amount of time.

Don’t get demoralized and Don’t give up

These were originally two separate points, they really go hand in hand.

Times are going to get hard. It happens with every company eventually. Starting a business is a huge burden since you probably have a lot riding on the successful outcome of the product and the business. It is incredibly stressful so it’s important to prioritize mental wellness and to not give up when times get tough.

While there is a lot of work to be done, it’s critical that you don’t work yourself into burnout. There will be times that you will have work very long hours. It is important to remember to maintain a social life and spend time with friends and family. These positive interactions will help your mind take a break from the stress at work.

Don’t die

Pretty self-explanatory.

Conclusion

Building a start-up Is like raising a child. Parents: need I say more? Start-ups can be very fun and become quite successful and eventually go on to change the world. There are many, many more topics we could add into this post however It would simply go on forever.

If you have a great idea, don’t be afraid to peruse it. It might just become the next big thing.

The post How to Succeed in a Startup in 11 Steps appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

What is a high-quality Lead?

A good, high-quality lead is one that aligns well with your buyer persona and one that has a clear intent to make a purchase. This is where your marketing and sales team should come together and create a shared definition of what a high-quality lead looks like. This way, the marketing team can feed the sales team leads that align well with both departments to get the highest conversion of leads to sales opportunities.

How can you attract high-quality leads?

Are you putting out the right traps? Consult and revise your buyer persona and ensure you are attracting those who not only align well with it, but are in your target market, and most importantly, those who are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer.

Finally, once you start getting good leads, nurture them like a newborn baby! After all, Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads (The Annuitas Group).

Here are some tips on getting higher quality leads:

Try Account Based Marketing (ABM)

Account based marketing takes a bit more effort but works well because you essentially go out and find those leads yourself. Let’s say someone from a company shows an interest in your product. You would use the valuable information from that lead to find and target decision makers in the company. By using this method, you can tailor specific messaging to those in that ‘account’ and increase the chances of turning over a sale. While it takes more time and effort it has a bigger payoff as you essentially get to choose who is a lead, and who isn’t.

Check out this post we wrote on the benefits of account-based marketing, and how it can help you earn better leads.

Gated Content

Offer free content for some information in return. By giving away something like a free e-book, whitepaper, or a webinar you can ask for information such as their title, email, company size, industry, etc. You can use this information to build up a profile and qualify them. Once you have their email address you are free to contact/harass them or even send them promotional materials in order to peak their interest and provide solutions.

Tap into Q&A and review websites and social media

This won’t provide any quick wins, but will help you achieve your overall goal of sending high quality leads to your website. Participate in Q&A’s and forums such as Quora, and social media discussions such as LinkedIn Groups. You will not only be providing people with valuable information and building your credibility, but you will be able to approach those who need help and offer your services. These people qualify as a high-quality lead because they have expressed interest, at this point its time to take this lead to the next step and nurture it.

Additionally, consider listing your product on a website such as Capterra. If people are actively seeking guidance on which products are best, and what customers say about those products, then they are clearly seeking a solution to a pain and that makes them a very qualified lead.

Optimize your pages for lead generation

Offer visitors something that might be useful to them. The average person will spend 30 seconds on your webpage before deciding to stay or leave. If, after 30 seconds they decide they are interested and choose to stay, seize the opportunity to convert them into a lead. Make use of an automated service such as Instapage, Unbounce, LeadPages, Thrive Leads, etc. to offer them something free such as an e-book or whitepaper. With some services, you can also set this to pop up after a set amount of time so you can target only those who stick around. This will help filter the not-so-great-but-still-good leads from the high-quality leads. You can also do the opposite, target users when they decide to leave, maybe you can change their minds and convince them to stay.

Generate leads from existing customers

Chances are, existing customers have like-minded colleagues, peers, and friends who might be interested in what you have to offer. Consider setting up a referral program to encourage your existing customers to go out and get you more customers.

By providing some sort of incentive, customers will refer friends, family, and colleagues who are interested in order to get rewards. While this may involve a small investment, it pays off. Consider Dropbox. For each person you refer, you receive an extra 500MB of storage for free. While this is costing Dropbox 500MB of storage for each new person, the payoff is that they are getting new customers for a fraction of the price they would have spent on advertising. Mr. Referral is happy because he now has 16GB of cloud storage for free and Dropbox now has 32 new customers, some of which may have purchased a premium plan. Mr. Referral does all of the hard work for the price of 16GB, which costs Dropbox next to nothing. This will result in higher quality leads, as each new customer who signs up is essentially pre-qualified. Those who pass on the opportunity are obviously not the lead you are looking for.

Ask your customers what they want

Sometimes the best thing to do is to just ask your customers what they want from you. Ask existing customers to complete a quick survey and offer an e-book as an incentive to gain some insight on what it is your next potential leads might come looking for. You can use the data collected to better target your efforts and identify leads that have a higher chance of conversion.

Contact info and live chat

By providing a quick and easy way for potential leads to contact you, you can easily filter out the people who are genuinely interested from those who are “just browsing”. Provide very clear options on how to contact your company for more information. Include a contact form, a phone number for those who prefer to speak to a live person, and even an instant message box on your website for a quick response. Those who take the time to contact you and ask specific questions are likely very interested and most likely qualify as a high-quality lead.

Check out these 10 myths about lead quality.

Conclusion

While this may take some time, it is a worthwhile investment. By Revising your goals and changing up your strategy a little bit at a time, you can start to analyze each method and which ones work best for your company and attract the most high-quality leads. Once learning which methods work best, you can then focus your efforts on those strategies and perfect them to get the best possible results.

The post 7 Tips to Earn Higher Quality Leads. appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

Introducing you to CASL

Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) came into effect on July 14, 2014, to protect Canadian’s while ensuring that businesses can continue to compete in the marketplace. This means that if you are a business in Canada, or send information to Canadian residents, you are required to comply with CASL. The law covers a range of activities that are considered spam but for the purposes of this post, we’ll focus on the email kind.

That’s a great law but what counts a spam?

There are two types of spam, the first one is the use of electronic messaging to send unsolicited, undesired or illegal messages to others without their consent and may be used to send other electronic threats such as spyware and viruses.

According to the Government of Canada’s website Fightspam.gc.ca (which contains no spam), electronic spam includes:

• Electronic messages you did not ask for, including email, social media, text messages;
• Messages from anonymous senders or senders you don’t know;
• The installation of apps or program without the express consent of the owner of the system;
• Promoting fake or misleading products or services;
• And the collection and or use of personal information without permission.

The other kind of SPAM is processed pork meat, which electronic spam is actually named after. We’ll focus on the electronic kind for now.

What is not considered spam?

• Newsletters and updates you did sign up for (but may find annoying) and provided implied consent;
• Email messages from a person you know (who you may also find annoying), or someone who is trying to contact you personally.
• A terrible chain email from the early 2000’s sent by a friend you know telling you to forward to 10 people or else you’ll have bad luck forever. (sadly, not spam either)
• Generic Luncheon Meat. It’s essentially the same product, but it’s not authentic SPAM.

How can I remain compliant with CASL?

The goal is to be the king, or queen, of CASL and remain compliant with these regulations set out to protect citizens. If you choose to not take part you may be faced with a serious fine of up to $10 million for businesses. Don’t believe me? See here how just last year, Kellogg’s was fined $60,000, just for sending messages to recipients without their consent. They’re not kidding around with this.

FunFact: In Italy, you can actually be imprisoned for sending spam. It is important It be informed of these rules as some services such as Mailchimp have rules that are actually more stringent than some local laws.

To be compliant with these laws the government of Canada has set out some tips to keep you in the clear. These include:

• Ensure you have implied or express consent to contact someone. Never collect email addresses that were not provided to you by their owner. This is where CASL differs from the US CAN-SPAM law. In the US, you can send someone an unsolicited email but you must provide an opt-out. In Canada, you must first obtain permission to contact a person, or they must ”opt-In” before you can send them commercial electronic messages.
• Always provide a way out. Include an obvious opt-out or unsubscribe option in your email messages.
• Make sure you and the viewer can easily identify your organization. Otherwise, your credibility is questioned and you might be considered spam.
• Be truthful. Lay everything out on the table. No surprises, no nonsense.
• Don’t harass people. If someone isn’t interested in what you have to offer and they ask you to stop, stop. There’s a good chance they’re not interested in what you’re trying to sell.

Here’s the full text of the law, if you’re into that or here’s 4 Tips for Contacting Clients Electronically and 3 Things to Think About When Sending Messages. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.

Conclusion

It’s important to note that I am not a lawyer and this article should not be taken as legal advice. This article is intended to be a helpful tool to inform and to begin your own research on the law or to refresh your knowledge for those who are already familiar with it so you can remain in the clear and be the King of CASL.

The post How to Be the King of CASL appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

Based on our experience, here is a list of practices that are important to become a better salesperson.

Know your goals

You can’t achieve goals if you don’t set any. They provide long term vision and short term motivation.

By setting out Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) goals you can motivate and challenge yourself to reach and even surpass those goals. Not only will this help you be a better salesperson but you can take pride in the achievement of your goals. Even if they are small, they’ll help you see the forward progress you’ve made.

Keep organized

Staying organized will help you be more productive and save time. Use a CRM tool to keep track of leads as well as customer data and interactions so it’s on hand for when you need it (Check out this post on why you need one). Make use of a scheduling assistant such as Plann3r when scheduling meetings and calls to find the perfect time-slot for everyone.

Believe in what you are selling

It’s important to be well informed about the company you work for, but most importantly, really believing in the product or service you are offering can make a world of difference. If you are passionate about what you are selling, it becomes that much easier to convince others that it’s something they need, especially if it’s something that’s going to make their job easier. If you want your customers to engage with you, it’s important that they feel your passion for the product. You’ll find that your excitement is contagious and that’s a great way to have them champion the investment.

Listen more than you speak / Start a conversation, not a pitch

Reading off a script or running a sales pitch certainly saves a lot of time and is much easier than carrying on a conversation. By starting a conversation, you are taking the pressure off the customer and lowering the likelihood of them feeling annoyed, intimidated, or overloaded with information. By listening more than you speak you will get a better idea of what it is the customer is looking for, as a result, you will be able to find a solution that better fits their needs rather than offering them something they might not want. This will help to provide a more positive experience for the customer and increase the likelihood of making a sale. Remember, you were given two ears and one mouth, so be sure to listen twice as much as you talk.

Constantly build and maintain relationships

Customers are a company’s greatest asset. Without them, there is nobody to buy your product. The relationships you build with current and potential customers is priceless. Remain honest, authentic and show genuine concern for their needs. Once the customer is engaged with you and you’re moving through the sales process, you should work on maintaining that relationship. If they are satisfied with the service you provided they will look forward to continuing to do business with you or returning to do business in the future.

View the customer’s success as your own

Happy customer = happy manager = happy salesperson. When you sell a product or service, you should see this success not only as the customer’s, but also as your own too. This is a chance to see what you did right, or did wrong, in your sales journey. This is also a great opportunity to seek feedback from the customer for your benefit, and for the benefit of the company.

Conclusion

These tips might not be for everyone, and following them won’t necessarily make you a better sales person but adding some of these to your routine and changing things up a little may prove to be beneficial to your overall strategy.

What are some of your tips to up your game and become a more effective salesperson?

The post 6 Tips to Become a More Effective Salesperson appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

Chances are you don’t consider Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to be such a big deal. The reality is, along with 75% of other companies, you’re a fool to think so and you’re missing out.

*Here’s the actual title of this article:

Why you most certainly DO need a CRM

What is it exactly?

If you don’t know already, a CRM is software designed to help keep track of all of your prospects, customers, and accounts. It allows you to manage your sales process and track your sales activity across the entire sales funnel. You can manage all of your tasks, sales opportunities, forecasts and reports so that you have complete visibility into your revenue generation activities. It allows you to monitor and track all activity, thereby ensuring all staff are working efficiently and effectively towards milestone-based and recurring goals and metrics. It gives management a dashboard into the organization’s well-being and long-term viability of the company.

Here’s why you need one:

Customer relationship Management is crucial when running a business and especially when you are a salesperson. While not every company needs one, CRM software has been proven to increase sales by 29% in small businesses, and 75% of sales managers say that using a CRM helps to drive and increase sales. If you don’t have one already, it might be worth it to consider a free trial. – I recommend Salesforce or Hubspot or Pipedrive.

Basically, if you sell stuff and you’re not using a CRM, you’re missing out.

The Canadian Professional Sales Association says that Long-term relationship building and a dedication to customer service are among the top 5 skills to succeed in sales.

CRM tools make it much easier to manage relationships and keep track of crucial information about your clients and customers. And as a bonus, nobody has to carry around a Rolodex of business cards with notes on the back.

Sometimes I wonder to myself how many CRM’s my name shows up in. Probably many.

Here are some benefits of how a CRM can help replace that Rolodex, and some of the benefits you’re missing out on:

1. Greater staff satisfaction and efficiency 

When information is shared and easy to find, everyone works more efficiently. According to a McKinsey report, employees spend 1.8 hours every day—9.3 hours per week, on average—searching and gathering information. A CRM makes it easy to find information without having to data mine through emails and call history for information on a client. Happy employees mean happy customers.

2. Better client relationships

The more you know about your clients the more your clients know you care about them. This helps nurture a much stronger relationship with clients and helps build a foundation of trust. According to an Edelman study, trust in business is declining rapidly. It’s important to maintain customers trust in order to earn their business.

3. Better Internal Communication

Having an up-to-date CRM helps everybody. Sharing customer data between departments will help everybody to work as a team. This will increase profitability and will help to provide high quality service to customers

Some programs are free and some are more expensive depending on which features you are interested in and how many people will be using it. Check out this article by Hubspot on how to choose the right CRM for your businesses individual needs.

Conclusion

Having a CRM on its own isn’t going to do much. A Customer database is only good if everyone works together to populate it and keep it updated. One MIT student completed a study using Hubspot’s CRM software and found that 79% of customers saw an increase in sales revenue within one year. While you shouldn’t expect to see quick results right away, it won’t be long before you have a really great, effective database solution to help reach your sales and management goals.

The post Why You Don’t Need a CRM* appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

That all sounds really great for Snapchat, but it doesn’t really help you at all.  So, instead of continuing to bore you with financial data and investment information, I’m going to share with you some ways to get the most out of Snapchat by incorporating it into your marketing strategy. If you haven’t already, that is.

With a 72% adoption rate, Snapchat is the most-used social media platform among 18 to 24-years-olds. This group makes up 37% of users, which is the most sought-after Snapchat demographic for many marketers. In just three years it has grown from 5 million to 158 million users and keeps growing. Chances are, some of your target market is in that crowd waiting for you.

So is Snapchat right for B2B?

Some might say that B2B marketing generally targets an older generation in which case Snapchat might not be the best option. While this can be true for some, the 2016 BNP Paribas Global Entrepreneur Report found that 20-35 year-old’s are starting more companies, managing bigger staffs, and targeting higher profits than their baby boomer predecessors (which B2B marketers typically target). This means that 14% of US companies where created by entrepreneurs who are under the age of 35. With 26% of Snapchat users between the ages of 25-35, it’s a market you might want to consider tapping into.

That was a lot of numbers.

Here’s a funfact to relax your brain: When Snapchat was first launched in July 2011 it was called Pictaboo, which is where the ghost logo comes from.

Here are some ways to up your Snapchat game or how Snapchat could be good for your marketing strategy. But first, check out this video:

1. Provide an inside look / behind the scenes

More and more people are looking beyond the logos and ads and looking to the authenticity of a brand. They want to trust a brand before interacting with it and supporting it. A Mintel study found that half of American shoppers say they trust small businesses but only 36% say they trust large businesses. If you’re a small business then this is great, but if you are part of a large business then this means you might have to work a little harder to earn the trust of viewers. By providing a high degree of transparency and staying honest you can earn or continue to maintain that trust.

A great way to do this with Snapchat is to go behind the scenes and provide an inside look at what customers don’t usually get to see, such as; the annual holiday party and team meetings or events. This will help customers develop a connection with the brand and help you build a solid foundation of trust by reminding them that there are real people behind all of those blog posts, advertisements, and sales calls.

2. Partner with influencers

Sometimes it can be tricky to build a following right out of the gate or if you’re trying to reach a demographic that’s hard to reach through traditional media. By partnering with an influencer who already has a following, you can let them spread your message to their own followers who might be interested in your product/service.

Another fun tactic that gets a lot of attention is to let your influencer do a Snapchat “Takeover”. By allowing your influencer to takeover your feed for a period of time (usually while using your product), the influencer’s followers are encouraged to head over to your Snapchat to see what’s going on, resulting in increased awareness and potentially more followers for your own account.

Takeovers offer an authentic, raw, unfiltered account of the influencer’s experience. By seeing one of our own on behalf of another brand, it provides the notion that they are more than just a boring corporation and end up feeling closer to the brand.

3. Offer Exclusive Content

A great way to increase your Snapchat following, especially when you have already established a following on other social media channels, is to offer exclusive content that can be viewed only on Snapchat. You can accomplish this by inviting your followers from other social media accounts to follow you on Snapchat to see exclusive content they otherwise wouldn’t get to see.

Examples of this are product launches, exclusive deals, company announcements etc. The most popular example of this is when fast-food giant Taco Bell announced the reintroduction of an item to it’s menu to their Snapchat followers. This will spark intrigue in your followers and they will follow your account to stay tuned to what you have to Snap next.

4. Provide entertainment value

76% of users say they would share a branded video with their friends if it was entertaining, and 57% in the U.S. believe social networking sites are a form of entertainment. By providing content on Snapchat that is entertaining to your viewers you maintain their engagement and encourage them to tell others about it.

Here’s a great list from SalesForce of some great examples of how companies used Snapchat to provide great entertainment value to their customers.

Conclusion

Social media has become a must-have for any marketing strategy and it looks like Snapchat is here to stay. What was once known for sending inappropriate photos, has now proven to be a fun and useful tool for marketers. It is possible for B2B marketers to join in on the Snapchat revolution; it just requires a little creativity and courage to venture into something new and unfamiliar. When used strategically, it can be effective in interacting with followers and help support your social media and marketing campaigns.

Join the Conversation

Did this post help you at all? Do you think it might help others? If so, help the collective cause and Share, Like or Comment on this article.

The post Do You Even Snap? appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

You’re in good hands because I am a pro… Not really but they tell me I’m pretty good.

There has probably been a time where you had wished you knew how to whip up a quick graphic for your marketing campaign. Whether it’s an advertisement, a graphic to complement a tweet or Facebook post, a more engaging featured image for your blog post, or maybe you just need something quick and simple and you don’t feel like hiring a graphic designer.

Buzzsumo found that Facebook posts with images have 2.3X more engagement, and Tweets that included images receive 150% more retweets than without images. Furthermore, Studies by Neilson Norman Group show that Internet readers spend more time looking at information-carrying images than they do reading the text on the page.

So here are some tips on how to create a minimalist design that will look like it was designed by a pro:

Find the right tools and resources

Editing software

There are many great tools and resources available to everyone whether you’re a pro or an amateur. Software like The Adobe Creative Suite and CorelDRAW Graphics Suite contain some incredibly powerful tools but come at a premium. Adobe Creative Cloud is $599.88USD per year and CorelDRAW will cost you a one-time fee of $494.23USD. While these are reserved for more experienced users, I encourage you to download the free trials, get your feet wet and play around with them to see all that they have to offer. That’s how I started. Don’t be afraid, YouTube is your friend. Watching tutorials online and taking some online classes will help you better understand how the software works and what’s in store. But for now, we will stick to something a little more simple that will still get the job done.

Canva is a free graphic design website used by amateurs and even professionals. It uses a drag and drop interface to increase ease and usability, as well as mobile compatibility. It features many pre-made graphic templates such as social media posts, ads, events, as well as email banners which you can change up to match your branding or design preference, or you can choose to leave them how they are and simply change out the text. Canva also has guides on how to use the software and tutorials on the use of color, images, and fonts. You can take it a step further and purchase one of their premium plans at $119.40USD/year to get even more features, elements, and assets.

Pablo by Buffer offers a simple way to create engaging social media images with just image and text. These graphics can be created in seconds and shared directly to social media all from one website, or scheduled for later. It doesn’t get much easier than that.

Vectr offers free software for creating vector-based graphics, such as logos, that can be downloaded or used online in order to make graphic design accessible to everyone. With simplified control panels, Vectr makes designing graphics from scratch simple, without a confusing jumble of tools you’ll likely never use. The website has many tutorials and resources available to help you understand how to use and make the most of the software. One of my favorite features is that projects can easily be shared with others via a custom link generated by the software.

Images

Having images in your graphics helps provide some context and visual interest for the reader. According to Jeff Bullas, posts with images get 94% more total views than posts without images. That’s a big return on such a small investment. Throw some text on that photo with a tool like Canva and how could anyone resist your post? It’s like a click magnet for readers. If you are unable to take your own high-quality photos, there are many great websites that offer stock photos but choose wisely, some stock photos can be very posed and downright awful. I’m sure you’ve seen them; they’re hard to miss. But fear not! I would never steer you wrong. Behold my list of favorite not-so-cheesy stock photo websites.

1. Pexels – This is my go-to stock photo website and they have never let me down. The best part of Pexels is that all of their content is completely free for personal and commercial use. They have over 25,000 free photos with at least 3,000 new ones added every month. For all of the great work they do, they do accept submissions of your own photos as well as donations, so I do encourage you to contribute or drop a donation every few photos. We all like to get paid for the hard work we do

2. Death To The Stock Photo – They have stunning images that are not your typical stock photos; hence the name. You can sign up for free and receive 10 free photos per month or pay for a premium subscription for $180USD/year to have unlimited access to their library of carefully curated, high-quality image galleries and videos.

3. Shutterstock – Shutterstock is more of a premium option for a larger operation with multiple team members. Their basic package is about $229USD for 25 images. They maintain around 90 million royalty free images.

With all stock images, or images you did not take or create yourself, be sure to take a look at the licensing agreement to avoid any legal issues. Most stock photo companies will let you use images for personal and commercial use as long as you don’t claim them as your own, sell them, or use them for anything inappropriate such as hate speech or violence. These licenses are to help you, not to trick you. Furthermore, using tools like Tineye or Google image search, you can reverse search images and graphics to see who else may be using them.

Less is more

There once was a time when marketing space was precious and often came at a premium. As a result, marketers would try and cram as much information as they possibly could into marketing materials before passing it onto the customer. How things have changed. In a world where there is so much content, keeping your graphics simple brings the most important content to the forefront and reduces distractions for the user.

• Limit fonts – Too many fonts in a graphic can be very distracting and can hurt the piece. Stick to two fonts that complement each other using one for headers and one for the body. TypeGenuis can help you pair up some fonts that will look great together. Plus, it’s super easy to use.
• Use Simple Backgrounds – When choosing backgrounds, keep them subtle by using simple pictures, a simple colour or consider adding a colour overlay or blur to images that are distracting. Noisy or distracting backgrounds will ultimately take away from your design and distract the reader.
• Negative Space – Negative space refers to any spaces that remain unused, such as the space between columns, images, and text. Let elements breathe and try to keep negative space around elements even and proportional.

Here are some more great tips on the most common mistakes made by non-designers.

Inspiration

Everybody needs a little inspiration to get their juices flowing every now and then, even the most creative people. There are many ways to get in the mood but everybody has their own methods, here are a few of mine.

See what everyone else is doing – We call them trends for a reason; because everyone likes them. By following and taking some inspiration from the current trends you will get a good idea of what’s popular and what people want to consume. However, on the flip side, you could even do the opposite of everyone else by creating something unique and stand out among the crowds.

Pinterest – Users can create boards with pins, which you can then use to get a little inspiration when needed.

Behance – A hub for creative individuals to share and showcase their creative works as well as discover some new ideas.

Dribbble – A social network for creative minds and a platform for users to share their ideas and design work.

Google Images – Sometimes a simple Google image search will provide some great inspiration.

Ask a friend – Show your work to a couple of people who haven’t seen it yet to get some feedback. This will help give you some direction on how to change things up.

Take a walk – Creative block happens to even the most seasoned professionals. Sometimes you just need to get away from your screen for a while to refresh your mind and stimulate your creativity. Take a walk to clear your mind and come back with some fresh eyes and a new perspective.

Get someone else to do it.

If you are unable to create your own graphics or simply don’t have the time, there are many great outsourcing options. Websites like Fiverr, Upwork and Freelancer have freelance graphic designers at your disposal to create graphics for you at a very reasonable price.

Conclusion

Visual content is an important part of marketing your online content. You won’t become a professional graphic designer overnight like I did, but with a little inspiration and the right tools, you can create great pieces to complement your content and help you achieve your marketing goals.

The post Graphic Design Tips For The Everyday Marketer appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

Last year we saw the importance of visual content, such as video, emphasized by the changes that took place across almost every major social network such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. Most notable were the launch of Facebook and Instagram’s live feature, Facebook’s pre-roll video ads, and Instagram stories. We have all experienced it by now. It’s obvious that videos have become powerful tools for brands looking to communicate efficiently with their target audience. With more than 60% of marketers and small business owners saying that they plan to increase investment in video marketing in 2017, you’re going to have to keep up. If you’re not including video marketing as part of your overall marketing strategy, you’re likely missing out on some serious leads.

Here are some key reasons to include video in your marketing strategies:

Higher Retention Rates

By creating quality videos you can increase overall viewer retention. According to Animoto, 1 in 4 consumers actually loses interest in a company if it doesn’t have video content. That means a quarter of all possible leads will be lost, simply because you don’t have a video. Furthermore,  BrainShark suggests that the information retained in one minute of online video is equal to about 1.8 million written words. That’s a lot of information relayed in a small amount of time considering the average human can only read about 300 words per minute, It’s important to take advantage of that opportunity.

Higher Engagement

Animoto says that four times as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. And according to Syndacast 74% of all internet traffic in 2017 will be video. We must give them what they want. We must give them video.

Google Loves Video

SEO is an important factor when trying to stand out among your competitors. Adding a video to your website can increase the chance of a front page Google result by 53 times. Of course, that’s when you do it right. Check out these tips from Moz CEO Rand Fishkin to learn more about how to properly optimize your videos for search. You’ll notice that he has a video at the top of the page.

Increased conversions

Video converts more customers than traditional methods. Four times as many consumers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it, and 85% of customers are more likely to make a purchase after watching a product video.

Hopefully, you have been convinced to use more video to increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Here are some tips on how to get the best possible quality with what you’ve got:

1. Use a good quality camera

With displays becoming higher and higher in resolution It’s important to shoot at the highest possible quality so your video looks crisp and clear on any screen. A video camera works best but high-quality smartphone cameras will do the trick it used properly.

2. Shoot in landscape

In order to get the best shot and help maintain your viewer’s attention, make sure you shoot your videos in landscape orientation. By shooting in portrait orientation (or upright) you are not only missing out on the background of the subject which can help provide context but you are losing out on valuable real estate which can be used to display supporting content such as text, pictures, and other information. Shooting in portrait orientation will also make video appear small on wide screens such as computers and TV’s, and leave the viewer looking at large, distracting black bars on the sides of the video and contribute to a very amateur feel.

3. Good lighting

There are a lot of cameras that do well in low light, and there’s some that don’t do so well. Try to locate a light source to light up your subject and make sure your subject isn’t backlit or lit so much that they are forced to squint. Wistia has an excellent guide on how to create a great, low-cost lighting kit.

4. Keep them short

According to Hyperfine Media, 5% of viewers will stop watching after 1 minute and 60% will stop watching after 2 minutes. Keep you videos short and to the point to ensure you are getting any important information across before your viewer loses interest.

5. Include text or subtitles

When 85% of videos on Facebook are watched without sound (Digiday), you’re going to want to ensure viewers are taking in information while watching your video. By including the option for subtitles or adding engaging text, you not only are lending a hand to those who are hard of hearing but you are getting your information to those who either, choose not to listen to your video, or are in the middle of class scrolling through their Facebook feed with the sound off. It’s not your responsibility to know if someone is on Facebook in class, however, it is your responsibility to make sure they are receiving that information.

Conclusion

You can’t escape the year of the video, so embrace it. There’s still plenty of time left in the year to get in on the video marketing game. But remember, poor production quality may have the reverse effect on a consumer and actually drive away prospective business. However, with these tips, you should be you on your way to creating great videos, whether it’s an interview, or a how-to video to share with your readers. You just have to get started.

The post Video Will Dominate The Marketing Landscape This Year appeared first on Virtual Causeway.

Achieve Marketing stardom.

The biggest killer for any marketing department, marketing campaign, or marketing professional can best be described using one word — complacency.

I’m guilty of it. If you’re honest with yourself, so are you. There is just so much going on in our day-to-day lives, not to mention the non-stop meetings, social posts, networking events, coffee talk, and general gossiping, that we don’t have time to learn something new. After all, if we’re honest with ourselves, that’s why we become complacent. I mean, nobody intentionally wants to be complacent. We all want to be trend-setters and ninjas of the marketing world. We want to see our Klout score rise dramatically, not to mention our LinkedIn influence. We want the corner office with the mega salary. And we all know that the only way to achieve all of our professional hopes and dreams are to be recognized as the great marketers we are by the success our strategies and tactics will surely generate. Right?!

So, why do we all stink at being innovative? Why do we only offer feeble excuses for not doing what we know needs to be done? It’s simple. We don’t make time to try new and bold tactics. We’re scared. New technology, and new approaches, are intimidating. We don’t re-prioritize our time to develop the necessary skills to enable ourselves to execute our vision and our plan. We resign ourselves to our own ineptitude by denying the issue even exists.

We become complacent.

Welcome to the club.

Alright, today we’re going to change this. You and I are going to discuss what you need to learn, and do, to take your skill set, your career, and your success to the next level. Are you with me?

Here we go.

Be the internal change agent

Change starts with you. It’s a mindset. You need to influence the culture within your team, your department, or your company to embrace change. Educate those around you that you’re going to experiment. Some of what you do will be amazing. Other aspects of your efforts…well…not so much. In fact, you might fail. You might spend stupid crazy sums of money and outright bomb. But, you’re doing it for the right reasons. You’re going to learn what works and what doesn’t. You’ll eventually have a competitive advantage over your industry peers. Your prospects and customers will recognize you as the leader you are and will reward you with more business. However, before the Hollywood ending, you’re going to endure hardship and frustration as you devote yourself to learning your craft and refining your campaigns. Like a Hollywood blockbuster, it will take time for the story to play itself out. And you will need the support of those in power. You need to be transparent. You need to get people excited and supporting you. If you do not set expectations now, you will fail at the first sign of a challenge. You need the organization to buy-in to your initiative. So, before you do anything to overcome your complacency, ensure you’ve got the support necessary to succeed.

Video is where it’s at

Are you doing video? Please tell me you’re doing video. I mean, like, really, really, really doing video? No? Why not? Oh right…complacency. Okay, let’s talk about why the heck you need to do video.

• 65 % of executives have visited a vendor’s site after watching a video
• 59% of senior executives prefer to watch video over reading
• 52% of marketers name video as the content with the best ROI
• Using the word “video” in an email subject line boosts open rates 19%, CTRs by 65% and reduces unsubscribes by 26%
• Including video in introductory emails reduces subscriber opt-outs by 75%
• 70% of marketing professionals report that video converts better than any other medium
• Video increases people’s understanding of your product or service by 74%

So…that’s why you should be doing video. Let me ask this: why haven’t you been doing video more (beyond complacency)? Is it because you’re scared and don’t know how to do video well? Do you think it has to be expensive and you assume you can’t afford it? Don’t worry. You’re not alone. What would you say if I told you that you could use your own smartphone to make world-class video content? I’m serious. You can. The tools, apps, and online tutorials available are crazy good and easily accessible.

Do you mind if I make a confession? Don’t tell anyone, but almost everything I know about video I learned from Wistia. And they’re just one amazing resource. Check out YouTube, the original video innovator. There are hundreds (actually, probably thousands) of video experts who’ve already posted how-to videos about video. And, best of all, get this…it’s free! Crazy, eh?!

So, the next question you should be asking yourself is how can you use video to your advantage. That’s a great question. There are so many ways. I’ve used video for all of the following reasons:

• Customer testimonials
• Live event capture and playback
• Product demonstration
• Case studies
• Explainers for difficult concepts
• Webinar capture and playback
• Website greetings
• Character profiles for VIPs or key advocates
• How-to guides
• Third-party expert endorsements

Assuming you have a content strategy (we will talk more about that later in this article), part of that strategy should be the medium your content will utilize. You need to ensure video is a huge part of your content medium mix moving forward. By doing so, you’ll engage your audience so much more you’ll be amazed. And, best of all, we haven’t even talked about the uptick you’ll get in your SEO rankings as a result.

One final thought around video. While YouTube is a great place to find as many cat videos as you can consume, it shouldn’t be the only host of your corporate videos. Use a video hosting service such as Wistia or VidYard or Vimeo. The ability to professionally embed your player, match your branding, and analyze the video plays, not to mention the ability to incorporate gates or calls-to-action, more than justify the investment these services require. If your’e going to do video, then all I can say is “do it right”.

Make your content consumable

This one is easy. All I’m saying here is that you need to package your content the same way you like to consume it. If you’re like me, and supposedly I’m like the masses, I like to skim. I don’t have time to read lengthy white papers or watch videos that are longer then films like Logistics. So, before you lose me and I start checking out your competition, make sure your content is quickly and easily consumable.

There are a handful of ways to do this. One, of course, is a short video. That works well. Other ways that are also effective include infographics and listicles.

Like video, infographics can be overwhelming. Again, the objection about having the skills, budget, or resources to create them will come up. However, if you recall, this article is about squashing those lame excuses that keep us complacent and instead kick some serious marketing butt by accomplishing the very things that scare us. So, for infographics, if you do not have the in-house abilities then I simply say outsource it. A good example of an affordable option would be Fiverr. They’re just one option of thousands of vendors that will do it for you. If you prefer to use somebody local then simply get on LinkedIn and ask your network of fellow marketers who they use and you’ll be inundated with incredible graphic designers who will turn your napkin concepts into works of art that even Banksy would be proud of.

Alternatively, if you are feeling adventurous, you can use a variety of services to create your next infographic. Some examples include:

• Venngage
• Piktochart
• Infogr.am
• Canva

What I would suggest you do is determine where, in the Buyer’s Journey, are some areas that need help in moving the conversation along. Maybe you’ve difficulties engaging the prospects at the start of the dialog. When you determine those challenges, rest assured that is a great opportunity to use an infographic.

Similar to infographics, as mentioned above, are the delightful listicle. Keeping it simple, a listicle is simply the process of taking a complex or beefy topic and breaking it down into a series of bullets, or lists, to convey the key talking points you’re trying to convey. Have you noticed how many bullets I’m using in this rather lengthy blog post? It’s not an accident. I’m trying really hard to keep you here, reading, skimming, perusing, and engaging with me. If I’m successful, you’ll get the information you require and you might even reach out to me to help you along the way.

Engage your audience in a dialog

This is an easy one but it will have a huge impact. Are you ready? Hold on because it’s going to rock your marketing world.

Stop posting every press release, company news, and boring factoid about your product, service or firm on social media. Nobody cares. You’re a vendor. You’re biased. You have an agenda. And, frankly, you’re annoying and cluttering up my social media feed.

Instead, be the expert you are. Nobody knows what you know better than you. Others are desperately wanting to learn from you. They’ve followed you for that very reason. They’ve sought you out for your expertise. They really want to leverage your expertise because they have pain themselves and they’re hoping you can help them out.

You know what’s interesting about that last statement? It tells you that your followers have pain. It tells you that you can help them out. I’m pretty sure that’s the start of a purchase decision. It may even result in a sale. Whoa! That’s crazy!

Okay, I know I’m being cheeky but the fact of the matter is that you need to engage in conversation with your audience.

• Be humorous. Share the moments that make you smile.
• Be transparent. Share your own challenges and personal anecdotes.
• Be encouraging. Help them overcome their issues by giving advice and pep talks.
• Be an expert. Your followers are going to find the answers they seek from somebody. It might as well be you. Hence, don’t horde your answers like a prepper hordes meals that are ready-to-eat. Instead, share your knowledge without hesitation. All it does is build up your credibility and causes your followers to trust you, eventually leading to followers becoming customers.
• Be real. The key word in social media is “social”. It’s all about relationships. Talk to them the same way you open up with your favourite pet, except maybe without all of the cutesy pet names and baby talk.

This tactic really isn’t new, or innovative, nor does it cost a lot of money. What it does take is time. Make the investment. The traction you will get will blow your socks off.

Brag, educate, inform and spread the word

You’ve heard about how content is king. While it is a bit of a cliche, it truly is the best tactic out there to drive new leads. However, with such an explosion of content now available to the masses, you need to make good content, consistently.

If you stumbled a bit on my usage of the phrase “good content” I’ll tell you that you should have instead stumbled on the term “consistently”. Content quality will vary from piece to piece, and author to author. However, it truly is the consistency of your publishing that will make the biggest difference. Search engines will reward a consistent publication schedule. Opt-ins will grow dramatically on a predictable rhythm of new content. Sales cycles will continually have something new to engage the prospect and move them through the sales funnel with an ongoing supply of new content.

Creating content is a challenge. Nobody seems able to craft content. Everybody is too busy. Nobody prioritizes it within your firm even though you’ve tried to tell them how critical it is. Let me tell you how to overcome these challenges.

• Identify your personas. Who will be the people reading your content? Once you know that, you can create content, and source subject matter experts, that can appeal to that audience.
• Plan your publishing schedule. If you have two key personas you’re appealing to, then schedule one blog post, per persona, per month. Some will say that publishing frequency is not enough. I say you gotta crawl before you can run. We can always increase the frequency in the future once we hit our publishing schedule consistently. The bottom line is that you need to create a schedule and hit your dates without exception.
• Make it easy. If your subject matter experts don’t have time to write the content, then simply grab your handy-dandy voice recorder and sit in from of them with it turned on. Ask them all of the questions your readers will have on a particular issue. Encourage them to provide examples and to be specific. Steer the conversation to match how you envision the content piece will be written. For example, if I need a case study I’ll ask my subject matter expert questions like: what issue were they having, what options did they consider, why did they select us, how did the implementation go, what challenges did they need to overcome, what successes did they experience, what was the reaction of the stakeholders after the process was complete, and what would you do differently next time. Like a good lawyer, these leading questions will ensure your jury hears what you want them to hear and they’ll decide in your favour when it comes to a buying decision.
• Segment your lists. If you decide you want to promote your new content to your audience by using a massive email blast once per month, take my advice and don’t do it. Instead, segment your audience by job title, or industry, or product, or service and create multiple emails — one for each segment. I typically advise people to identify four industries to start. Send your email out once per week, with each week targeting one of your four industry segments. That means we have four emails going out per month utilizing the same piece of content, but with language and calls-to-action in each email that resonate with that focused audience. It also means you have a continual feed of new leads instead of those monthly spikes that sales hates.
• Mix the mediums. Don’t rely on email only, or just blog posts. Instead, have a mix of video, and infographics, and listicles, and webinars, and live events, and blog posts, and case studies, and so on. Keep it interesting. Not everybody likes the written word. The variety ensures your content will appeal to somebody, and that there is a collection of content that will appeal to everybody.
• Design for re-use. In other words, be smart about what you produce. When I produce a webinar, I identify a key topic, and then break that topic into five talking points. During the webinar, we tackle each talking point one at a time. The entire webinar is recorded. I now can publish the webinar, or I can break the webinar recording into five segment-specific videos, thus giving me six pieces of content. I can then take each of those five segments and write a blog post using what was discussed during each talking point. Now I have eleven content pieces. I can then create listicles or infographics from the content discussed. That may give me one to three more pieces of content. I then post them on Buffer and suddenly that one webinar has given me a whole lot of fresh content that will be published over the next year and it all started with one original piece of content — the webinar. With this approach, you quickly learn that you do not need to have 365 new topics per year but can instead leverage your effort across mediums and topics and segments while still retaining your sanity and your production schedule.

Finally, and this is the biggest aspect of content marketing, you need to syndicate your content. Get it out there in the hands of the influencers. In fact, get them involved in its creation; this way they’re invested in it and ultimately your success. Submit it to a variety of content sites. Submit it for publication by any associations you may belong to. Use it in your search engine marketing campaigns. Issue a press release about it. Cross reference your content in your blogs and your social posts. Talk about your content, and include links to it, in the various forums and discussion you participate and comment in. While Google can be a great friend when it comes to getting your content found, it can’t be your only source of distribution. If you’ve gone to this much trouble to make it, then be sure to cross the finish line in your content race and get it out there with the other winners.

Build up your groupies

You probably thought I was going to talk about building up your social media followers with that headline but you would be wrong. Instead, I’m talking about building up your opt-in lists. Every chance you get, you need to be asking people to opt-in to hear from you. You need to ensure you are Can-Spam, or CASL, compliant. You want them wanting to get your content. The only way you can syndicate like Rupert Murdoch is to ensure you have the subscriber base to receive your publications.

This needs to be a relentless, non-stop pursuit. You need legal opt-ins and you need clean data. You need to gate your content so that they will share their contact information. You need to ensure your forms link back to your master lists, whether you use email services like MailChimp or Constant Contact, or you use marketing automation solutions like Marketo, Pardot, or HubSpot to manage those lists and trigger follow-on nurture campaigns.

When I say you need clean data, I mean it. At the submission of each form, you need to immediately clean the data and ensure compliance with standard nomenclature and formats. There are several tools out there that can help you with this including Data.com from Salesforce.com. Make that investment. If you don’t, you’ll spend more than double what you’d spend cleaning it at the time of form submission to clean it after the fact.

Closing Thoughts

Complacency is a killer. It sneaks up on you despite your objections that you suffer from it. If affects your success and your job satisfaction. Fixing it can be hard. But, like that diet you started on New Years Day, the payoff will be there just like the first time you wear that new swim suit on your summer vacation and realize you did it! When you get frustrated, simply reach out to your friends. They’ll encourage you. They want you to succeed. After all, if you do ultimately get that professional athlete’s salary because you’re now the world’s greatest marketer, your friends will gladly let you express your gratitude by showering them with gifts. That’s what friends do. Now…go forth and slay the complacency dragon.

The post How complacency is killing the Marketer appeared first on Virtual Causeway.