Monday, December 2, 2013

AT&T And T-Mobile CEO Duke it Out on Twitter

AT&T And T-Mobile CEO Duke it Out on Twitter

Link to Small Business Trends

AT&T And T-Mobile CEO Duke it Out on Twitter

Posted: 01 Dec 2013 03:30 PM PST

take off gloves - ATT and T-Mobile

Small business owners know every customer counts, and it looks like big companies might be starting to figure that out, too.

We saw something recently that we don’t often see:  the CEO of a large corporation jumping into a Twitter exchange involving a customer and a competitor.

As battles go, this one was not much of one.  It was actually quite tame.  But still, it was noteworthy because of how rare it is to see two competitors go head to head on Twitter.  And as The Next Web reported, it looks like T-Mobile came out ahead – at least on this round.

A Customer With a Problem

Jay Rooney a.k.a. @RamblingRooney had a problem. He didn’t like paying extra for data on his smartphone while…err, rambling abroad. And he had heard there was a better solution.

On his Twitter feed recently, he complained:

As any small business owner knows, every opportunity starts with a problem you can solve. But sometimes that’s where customer engagement comes in. A T-Mobile representative was there quickly with a gentle nudge:

What’s Most Important to the Customer

Of course, to their credit, AT&T was quick to respond with an issue about quality:

But in the end it’s knowing what’s most important to the customer that counts. Jay tells us soon enough:

T-Mobile is quick to respond … both to the competitor and to filling the customer’s need:

While Jay is obviously flattered by all the attention, the most important tweet is yet to come from T-Mobile CEO John Legere:

Eventually the customer comes back and reports that he did switch to T-Mobile.

Incentives and great products and services are important, but as the CEO you are often the most important representative of your brand. And taking the time to show you care can sometimes be the most important branding of all.

But It Could Have Backfired

However, there’s a potential downside.  Getting involved in a Twitter exchange can easily backfire.  Most company CEOs wouldn’t (a) man their own Twitter accounts, or (b) respond, possibly out of fear that it would become an all-out brawl or that it would not end well for their brand.  You have to be very confident of the way you handle yourself on social media as the CEO.  You have to be willing to take a risk that it could all turn around on you.

In this case it didn’t backfire. There seems to have been a happy ending for T-Mobile and the customer.  T-Mobile gained a customer — and the customer seems happy currently.  But we can see how it easily could have gone a different way.

What’s your view?  As the owner of your company, would you jump into the fray on Twitter to try to win a customer?

Gloves image: Shutterstock

The post AT&T And T-Mobile CEO Duke it Out on Twitter appeared first on Small Business Trends.

What is Retargeting? (Ads That Get Visitors to Come Back)

Posted: 01 Dec 2013 12:43 PM PST

What is retargeting

You may have had this happen. You visit a site, and then afterwards it seems like you see ads for that site everywhere you go.

Coincidence? Stalking?

No – it is called retargeting.

For businesses, retargeting has become a common practice in the world of advertising over the past few years.  Retargeting ads are designed to get visitors to come back to your site.

Consider this: according to Retargeter.com, only 2% of web visitors convert to a sale or other action on the first visit. That's abysmally low considering the average volume of traffic an average website pulls in.

So, what's a small business to do?

If you want to increase your conversions (e.g., sales) there are a number of things you can do. You could increase your traffic to get more visitors. You could make your offering more attractive. You could improve your website, such as making your calls to action more prominent.  You could do various activities to improve local conversion rates.

There's another option. If you have the money to advertise, you may decide to use retargeting ads. Retargeting ads help remind your prior visitors about your site, and increase the chances they will return and buy.

The idea behind retargeting is to get a higher percentage of visitors to convert to a sale, because they are reminded of your site even after they leave.

Retargeting focuses on the 98% of visitors who left your website for reasons unknown. The act of serving them with reminder ads is an attempt to keep your brand in their cognitive zone and to allow your brand to sink in. And it beckons them back.

Retargeted ads focus on lost traffic. These ads are your last hope before the customers go beyond the point of no return.

None of the above techniques are mutually exclusive. You could do any and all of the above to increase your conversions — increase your traffic, improve your offering, improve your website and/or retarget ads.

How Retargeting Works

The way retargeting works is simple from the advertiser's perspective. The advertiser's website includes a piece of javascript code. That code sets a cookie in the visitor's browser. When the visitor goes to other sites, the cookie ensures that the advertiser's ads are displayed only to those who have previously visited the advertiser's site.

Today, retargeted ads have become widespread.  You can deliver retargeted ads through Google AdWords (Google calls it remarketing). Even LinkedIn and Facebook now have retargeting as a part of their advertising platforms.

Retargeting is done anonymously. In other words, the fact that a site visitor is seeing an ad does not mean the advertiser is getting any personal data about the visitor. That advertiser simply wants the visitor who was there to see their ads and be reminded to come back and do something.

In fact, one of the best parts of retargeting is you don't need to know who the “prospect” is. Unlike email marketing that depends on a customer's email address to continue nurturing until they buy, retargeting is independent of any contact with your visitors.

Does Retargeting Really Work for Small Businesses?

The numbers are impressive.

Econsultancy.com reports that envelopes.com cut down its shopping cart abandonment rate by 40% thanks to retargeted emails.

ReTargeter.com has even more proof in numbers: Zen Desk – a web-based customer support software for businesses – used retargeting to achieve the following: a whopping 1317% ROI (return on investment) from all conversions combined, a 1160% ROI in view-through conversions, and a 57% ROI from click-through conversions.

The Numbers are Cool. So, is Retargeting Infallible?

Retargeting is complex. It works, but….

We used retargeting ads for two years to build up brand visibility for BizSugar.com, another site we purchased in 2009. We wanted to remind visitors to keep coming back and keep using the site. In our case we were trying to increase registrations and repeat visits. It worked well for those purposes.

But … retargeting may also be costly and perform poorly if not well executed. You could be flushing your advertising dollars down the drain.

Here are some best practices for retargeting:

(1) Start out with clear goals. Is your goal to raise brand awareness? Is it to increase sales? Is it to increase registrations or newsletter signup or some other call to action?  You goal(s) will dictate how you execute retargeting ad campaigns.

(2) Don't overdo it.  Smart advertisers don't overload that visitor with a gazillion ads for weeks on end, annoying the visitor. Instead, limit the number of ad impressions and number of days to display ads to previous visitors. Remember, you're trying to positively impress that prior visitor, not creep them out.

(3) Don't waste money with poor targeting. As a site visitor, has this ever happened to you? You visit a site, you buy something, and then you are bombarded with ads for the very thing you bought for the next four days. Does that site really expect you to go back four days later and buy MORE of the exact same thing? Not going to happen.

Dax Hamman on Search Engine Land suggests segmenting your site, so that you can retarget more intelligently depending on the stage in the buying process that the visitor reached before leaving your site. And instead of serving a one-size-fits-all banner ad, serve ads targeting actual shopper preferences or based on their last activity on your website (such as apparel ads to those who were browsing apparel, not hardware ads or generic brand ads).

How Can You Make Retargeting Work?

Retargeting is a good opportunity for small businesses but it doesn't override other digital marketing best practices. All the best practices for optimization of landing pages, ads, blog posts, product pages (for ecommerce sites), and shopping carts still apply. Analytics and using data also are critical components, as are understanding visitor behavior.

When done right, retargeting is an incredibly powerful opportunity for businesses and marketers to increase their exposure, boost their conversions, and pump up sales. When done wrong, it could be a disaster waiting to happen.

Is it a double-edged sword? It certainly is.

But done well, as part of an overall marketing strategy, retargeting can be powerful for small businesses.

Come back image via Shutterstock

The post What is Retargeting? (Ads That Get Visitors to Come Back) appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Don’t Be Content – With Bad Content

Posted: 01 Dec 2013 09:00 AM PST

create engaging content

Useful content should be the focus of any business's marketing strategy. Traditional marketing, such as television commercials and magazine advertisements, explicitly promote businesses and products. Yet they are often ignored by consumers. In contrast, content marketing uses unique and relevant content to engage consumers and earn their loyalty.

A recent study found that 92% of nonprofits use content marketing. It is also popular among for-profit businesses. Eloqua, a marketing automation company, developed Infographics and eBooks to interest its target consumer demographic. The strategy worked. The initiative earned $2.5 million in revenue. Similarly, Monetate, a technology marketing company, generated content about industry trends rather than their own products and their sales doubled.

According to the Roper Public Affairs report (PDF), 80% of consumers prefer to find out about a company through articles than through advertisements.  And 70% said they feel like they know a company better after reading their content.

Content marketing is what consumers want, and it works. So, how can your business get the most out of it?

Create Engaging Content

Successful content marketing depends on the business producing content that consumers actually want to see. This is not straight advertising. With all the interesting information available on the Internet, no one is going to want to read an article that just lists all the benefits of your product or business.

So, you should cultivate content that is both relevant to your business and engaging to your costumers and potential customers. For example:

Evergreen Content

Content that drives viewers to your website over and over – can be cultivated simply by a good “how-to” list.

Write About Your Industry

Another good way to generate content is to write about your industry. Write an article about your insights into industry trends, interview another industry leader about problems in the industry, or summarize the highlights from an industry conference you attended. You can also ask employees in different departments to contribute insight. For example, an employee in sales can offer a unique and specific perspective on how the industry works.

Survey Your Online Community

Another idea is to survey your online community. Use a platform like Survey Monkey to ask respondents about their buying habits, industry challenges and more. Then you can analyze the information and release an article or Infographic illustrating your conclusions. This list of 100 content marketing examples (PDF) provides more tips and ideas for generating original content.

Distribute, Repackage and Analyze Content

Social Media Distribution

One of the best ways to distribute content is through social media. Social media has the unique ability to get your brand name out to millions of viewers very quickly.

For example, two billion videos are watched daily on YouTube, and there are more than one billion active users on Facebook. Likewise, the peak rate for a social media post happens much faster as well. So the opportunity to generate more content means that quality, not quantity, is even more imperative a value to hold.

So don't limit your content to your website or business blog. Links to your written content can be posted to social media sites. Visual content, such as Infographics, can be uploaded directly.

Repackage Content

Another great way to get the most out of your content is to repackage it. Long articles and white papers can be repurposed as shorter blog posts or Infographics. By the same token, several blog posts on the same subject can be combined into a longer article. Once you have been in the content marketing business for a while you can collect your articles together and publish an ebook on Amazon.

Track Customer Engagement and Return on Investment

Throughout this process you’ll also be tracking costumer engagement and ROI. This way you can determine whether or not you are producing the right kind of content or if you should shift strategies. Search Engine Journal suggests that you track four measures:

  • Traffic (unique visitors).
  • Engagement (page views, time on site, bounce rate).
  • Social (shares and comments on social media sites).
  • Conversion (downloads, newsletter sign ups, product purchases).

Then analyze the results to see whether or not your strategy is on the right track.

Developing quality, informative content can be time-intensive. But the results are worth it. Content marketing often reaches a huge audience at little to no cost to the business.

It generates new leads and customers – so invest in content marketing and create engaging content and watch your business grow.

Astonished Photo via Shutterstock

The post Don’t Be Content – With Bad Content appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Read This and You Can “Talk Like TED”

Posted: 01 Dec 2013 06:00 AM PST

talk like tedI was giving a speech at my father's retirement banquet and I can tell you – I was a nervous wreck.  It's one thing to speak on marketing to an audience of small business owners and something entirely different to speak to 450 people about my father and the difference he has made in our community.

I didn't know where to begin or what to say.

You wouldn't believe what happened next.  My doorbell rings and it's the mailman holding a large envelope.  I already know it's a review copy of a book.  I thank him and carry the envelope back to my office to open it up and inside is…. are you ready for this?  A review copy of Talk Like Ted: The 9 Public Speaking Secrets of the World's Top Minds by Carmine Gallo (@CarmineGallo).

Thank you Universe! I dropped what I was doing and immediately settled into the book.

TED: The Platform to Change the World in 18 Minutes or Less

For those of you who aren't familiar with TED Talks, here is a short explanation:

“TED is a nonprofit devoted to ideas worth spreading. It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TED Conference and TEDGlobal — TED includes the award-winning TED Talks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.”

For many thought leaders, being a TED speaker is the pinnacle of their career.  TED Talks have redefined how we present our ideas.  If you've watched enough of these talks, you see that there is a formula for crafting a killer talk that you can use. Not just to speak at a TED conference – but to share your ideas with your company, organization or as in my case, a community.

The 9 Steps to Crafting a Killer Talk

The author, Carmine Gallo, has reviewed more than 500 different TED Talks (that's roughly 150 hours worth of talks) to uncover these nine secrets to giving a successful talk.  He breaks out these elements into three major sections:

Part 1: Emotional:  This section is first for a reason.  Emotion sells and while every TED Talk is truly unique and each speaker has their own style, they do share one common element – the ability to convey powerful emotion in their speaking.  The first three steps to success are:

  1. Unleash the master within.
  2. Master the art of storytelling.
  3. Have a conversation.

Each of these chapters contains examples of talks and detailed deconstructions that will help you apply what these speakers did to your presentation.

Part 2: Novel: The human brain is hard wired to pay attention to new and exciting things.  Gallo found that the most popular talks conveyed something the audience has never seen – or at least hasn't seen from the speaker's point of view.  Here are three steps to giving the audience something new:

  1. Teach me something new.
  2. Deliver jaw-dropping moments.
  3. Lighten up.

I call this "tickling the brain" and audiences love it.  Inside this section you'll find wonderful examples of people who have enchanted audiences with a new twist.

Ben Saunders is one example.  He's the youngest man to ski solo to the North Pole.  He's an adventurer and an arctic explorer.  He actually dragged 400 pounds of food, supplies and a computer for blogging across the North Pole.  There were times when he was the only human within five million square miles.  Why?  Saunders says:

“…there is something addictive about tasting life at the very edge of what's humanly possible.”

That's the essence of a great talk.  Something that makes you stop and say, “WHAT?!”

You don't have to do anything as dramatic as Saunders, but you do have to dig deep inside your life and your experiences to find that moment.

Part 3: Memorable: In this section they talk about the power of the 18 minute rule.  It's the ideal length of time for a presentation. The chapters in this section help you condense your ideas successfully:

  1. Stick to the 18 minute rule.
  2. Paint a mental picture with multi-sensory experiences.
  3. Stay in your lane.

Research has found that your brain really can't handle more information than what you can grab inside of 18 minutes.  It's called cognitive backlog.  The best way to comfortably feed your audience is to follow these rules – rigorously.

What You Will Love About Carmine Gallo

This is not Carmine Gallo's first book – by any stretch.  I've reviewed many of them here. The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs and The Apple Experience are just a few.

I have to admit that at first, I though Gallo was just a Steve Jobs junkie. But it turns out, he's actually a communications coach for some of the world's most admired brands: Intel, SanDisk, The Home Depot and many others.  He's a former CNN journalist as well and that's what I think makes this book so powerful. It's a book about communication from a communications expert.

It's also wonderful reading.  It's not just a lesson or a guide or even a workbook, it's actually entertaining.  Gallo describes each of the TED speakers so vividly that it actually feels like you're watching all the TED Talks right from the book.

The Proof is in the Presentation

You're probably wondering what I learned from the book and what I was able to apply to my speech.  Well, I will tell you, this was some of the hardest work that I have done.  I would say that digging deep to find my passion and emotion around the topic was rather challenging.

My next challenge was brainstorming a list of stories and events and then editing them down to just those vivid few that people would resonate with.

Finally, the delivery required a lot of practice.  That was challenging as well because the first few times I rehearsed my speech, I broke down in tears.  I don't think this was the kind of emotion Gallo was talking about.

In the end, I was able to get up there, share vivid stories, bring tears to the audiences eyes along with a few laughs as well.  I'm not sure I'm TED material just yet, but thanks to Talk Like TED I know what it takes to get there and I'm on my way.  You will be too.

The post Read This and You Can “Talk Like TED” appeared first on Small Business Trends.
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