Digital Marketing

Lessons on digital marketing from real world experience - all from the Gamma Notes Small Business and Startup Marketing Blog.

5 Content Marketing Tips for Just About Anybody

May 18, 2016 By Matthew White

“But blog about what?”

Content marketing tips to help get you somewhere - like the hub and spokes of a bike. — These content marketing tips will help you make sure your content strategy takes you somewhere.

This question has come up on several projects lately. And, really, it isn’t just about blogging. It’s about content marketing.

Even the phrase content marketing can be intimidating, but at it’s core, it’s really quite simple. Content marketing is about delivering useful content that your customer base and prospects are seeking out.

As you’ll see in the content marketing tips below, there are some tricks to it. But, you’ve likely already got a good start on what you need to get a content marketing strategy together. Regardless of who you are or what you offer, your audience can use something from you besides just your specific product or service.

On To The 5 Content Marketing Tips . . .

Definitely in a particular order:

1. Know Your Audience.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You’ve got to know your audience. Who they are. What they need. What they’re looking for.

2. Don’t Blog Just To Blog.

Content marketing doesn’t just mean having a blog. Much of the time a blog can be enough. But, going back to #1, maybe a blog isn’t the best way to deliver useful content to your audience and prospects. Podcasting, webinars, and video tutorials are other vehicles for content marketing. And, with the right team, these alternatives are not as daunting as they seem.

All of these methods – including blogging – take time to do well. Don’t waste your time or effort just to feel productive.

3. Use Existing Inquiries To Generate Source Material.

It blows my mind when I see it, but then again, I’ve been guilty of it too. You rack your brain trying to generate ideas for useful content. All the while, you’re answering the phone or responding to customer email. The very thing your customers are looking for is in that correspondence. If you don’t have access to that goldmine of information, find out who does. Much of the time, the content generates itself.

4. How Will You Get The Word Out About That Content?

As much as some would have you believe, just putting the content out there – even search optimized content – isn’t enough anymore. On some level, you have to market the marketing. How will you do that?

You may already have more channels than you think. If you have a sizeable existing customer base, you’ve got a great place to start – share it via email newsletters or social media. Also, consider what a search engine marketing plan for that content would look like.

5. Engage.

Don’t just put that content out there and expect it to work for you. I’ve had surprising results with inquiries via blog comments instead of contact forms. Actively monitor incoming correspondence via your content marketing. That quality and level of engagement is priceless.

. . . which reminds me, I want to hear from you. Is this helpful? Has it sparked more questions?

I Ran A Social Media Strategy Experiment & Here’s What Happened

March 1, 2016 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

Let’s say you call a florist, and you have to leave a voicemail. Or, maybe you send an email. You wait for a reply. Nothing.

Earplugs should not be a part of any social media strategy — If your social media strategy was a person, would she be wearing earplugs?

Frustrating, isn’t it? You’ve probably been there before. It’s difficult to imagine someone being in business and letting inquiries go unanswered or ignoring opportunities to engage.

It’s also hard to imagine why you would have a phone or an email account if you didn’t bother to check the incoming communication.

But, that is exactly what happened in a recent informal experiment I ran using Twitter. True, it wasn’t exactly scientific. But, the process yielded some pretty useful insights for businesses and nonprofits alike.

So What Did I Do With Twitter?

I sent a variety of direct questions and shoutouts to businesses and other organizations. In most cases, these tweets were in direct response to being followed by the account.

A sample tweet might look like this:

[email protected] thanks for the follow! I haven’t visited #Springfield in a while. What’s a good time to visit?

Conversational. Engaging. Easy to include others in the conversation. This is exactly what marketers might kill for.

And What Were The Results?

Users – even pedestrian users – were generous with likes. 54% of the tweets generated likes from some source. This seems promising.

The surprising part? Only 8% generated either a mention or a private message in response. Crickets.

Don’t Forget The Social In Your Social Media Strategy

As a customer or interested prospect, imagine getting a “like” for your question, but no answer. It’s the equivalent of getting an automated message for your phone call that goes something like this . . . “We’re glad you called!” Click.

A recent experiment: Would certain businesses and #nonprofits respond to questions and shoutouts? 8% did. #SoMe #Twitter

— Gamelan LLC (@GamelanLLC) March 1, 2016

Business people – and even content marketers – can get so focused on using social media for pushing content that the social in social media gets lost. With so much noise out there, incoming communication – what’s supposed to be the heart and soul of social media – can be forgotten. It should not be. Incoming communication is one of the most effective ways to gain new eyeballs and prospects.

Is Your Social Media Strategy A One-Way or Two-Way Street?

In a later post, I’ll explore some of the potential causes for this neglect of engagement opportunities, but there are some big question to ask yourself right now before moving on:

Is your social media strategy one-way or two-way? Whether you’re a business or nonprofit, are you actively monitoring and managing your social media accounts? Or, are you just logging in to push out a message or a link occasionally?

If you think your strategy is more passive or it’s a one-way street, you’re very likely missing opportunities to engage on a meaningful level.

5 Inbound Marketing DO’s and DON’Ts Inspired By Car Shopping

October 20, 2015 By Matthew White 1 Comment

Had the pleasure of buying a new car lately? It’s not much more fun that it was twenty years ago. The cars have a lot more bells and whistles. The dealerships have some new toys at their disposal, including 84-month financing.

In short, the process is still very painful. However, there are lots of marketing lessons – based on what not to do – for small businesses and organizations everywhere.

The 1960 Corvair - Is your inboud marketing stuck in 1960? — The 1960 Corvair. For many car dealerships, it might as well still be 1960. Don’t make these same mistakes with your inbound marketing.

Inbound Marketing

The advent of inbound marketing changed the way organizations attract, convert, and nurture customers. Past marketing efforts relied on a “spray and pray” approach – advertise or send direct mail and hope for leads to come in.

Attract and Convert

Inbound marketing’s focus is on generating useful content that attracts customers and then utilize tools as simple as calls-to-action, forms, or chat to convert those customers. This approach wouldn’t have been as effective before the Internet or social media eras, and the outbound approach was really the only marketing approach available in one-way communication environments like snail mail, radio, and the newspaper.

Close and Cultivate

After the attract and convert stages, you have two final stages we’ll call close and cultivate. Once you convert a prospect to a lead that you close, you want to continue to cultivate that relationship. Why is cultivate the last stage? In most businesses, and especially the car business, the goal is to cultivate a long-term relationship where customers trust you and actually want to return to you for ongoing needs in your area of specialty.

Needless to say, beating up the customer “in the box” over a $1000 “Fabric Protection Package” doesn’t bode well for future business.

The Human Part: Going Beyond Inbound Marketing

Text from an inbound marketing email confirmation — Here’s a sample follow up email I received from one sales manager. The grammar teachers among this dealership’s prospects won’t be thrilled.

The problem with car dealerships is that for the most part, they have some of the tools of the Internet and social media eras but still do business like they’re selling the Corvair.

In our four stage process of effective inbound marketing (attract > convert > close > cultivate) dealerships have some of the tools necessary for attracting and converting, but they’re generally lousy at closing and cultivating.

That’s where the human part comes in.

Based on my recent experience with car dealerships, the follow-through via conversion tools like chat or web forms is problematic in two ways: Follow up isn’t a) timely or b) tailored to my needs as the customer.

Timely Follow Up

What does this mean exactly? On several occasions, submitting a web form did not result in follow up from a human being that knew what to do with my needs. On at least one occasion, I received no follow up whatsoever beyond the automated response email (at the time of writing, it’s over 63 hours and counting).

Tailored Follow Up

To add insult to injury, any resulting email thread so far has resulted in a scripted path, despite my questions. It’s as if my questions are secondary and putting me on the path is the most important objective. This is also true with any web chat thus far: The goal it would appear has usually been to follow a script or convert to an appointment on-site instead of sell me a car.

5 DO’s and DON’Ts

So, what can be learned from car dealerships on how not to use inbound marketing effectively? It’s almost difficult to know where to begin. But, here are five do’s and don’ts to take away:

Don’t Forget the Human Element
Just because you have decent tools for converting, don’t forget the human element. Try being a secret shopper and see how effective your tools really are.
Don’t Let Following Scripts Become The Goal
Scripts can be effective when working in conjunction with conversion tools . . . but only when they serve as roadmaps for converting and closing a customer. Scripts work better in some business models than others, and all business models require various levels of “scriptedness.” Don’t let following the script be the end goal.
Do Follow Up in a Timely Manner
A confirmation email is good for exactly that: confirmation. It doesn’t count as follow-up or response. Anything over 24 business hours for real human response to a direct inquiry is absolutely ridiculous.
Don’t Think That You’re Done When You Close
It’s many times easier to sell to an existing customer than convert and close a new prospect. Once you attract and convert, treat your customer with honesty and respect through the close and you might just have a customer for life.
Do Continue to Cultivate Your New Customer
It’s easy to focus on attracting and converting prospects, but what are you doing to enrich the ongoing experience for your existing and future customers? Cultivate new customers to become customers for life by being useful, helpful, and available.

And no, I still do not have the new car I want.

Got an experience with inbound marketing that drove you nuts? Need help with your organization’s inbound marketing? We want to hear from you.

This Email Marketer (Spammer) Has Really Bad Timing

July 30, 2015 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

We can all agree that the killing of Cecil the Lion has been a disastrous event. Because of the foolish actions of a few, this unnecessary chain of events will have tremendous ripple effects on the lives and livelihoods of many.

But, apparently, not everyone got the memo. In my spam today, I received this gem:

Sample spam from “Your African Safari.” I hoped it was a phishing scam.

And the email goes something like this:

Email marketing spam for African safaris — Sample from our spammer’s poorly timed “email marketing” campaign on African safaris.

I actually would like this to be a phishing scam, because I don’t want to think that someone would send this message out with this kind of timing. I fear they did though. I checked the links for malware and phishing threats, and it actually checked out.

So, assuming it is for real, let’s use this as a teachable moment in messaging and email marketing (besides, obviously, don’t spam).

Relevance and Timeliness in Social Media and Email Marketing

On the topic of “don’t spam,” keeping your message relevant for your audience is the key takeaway. Our sample email here was purely spam to a mass, unqualified list.

Don't have your head in the sand when email marketing — Yes, the required, cliche, yet safe-for-work clip art illustrating the state of being out of touch.

From a broader perspective, this email reminds me of a presentation by a social media marketing thought leader who warned against scheduling content release. Her reasoning was that a friendly – or at least an appropriate – environment and context can’t always be guaranteed.

At the very least, it requires that you know:

Generally what is going on in the world.
What messages are being communicated.
When those messages are being communicated.

Otherwise, you run the risk of making the wrong statement at the wrong time.

The Right Message at the Right Time

You can however communicate the right message at the right time.

Not all safari trips are hunting trips of course. On the surface, our example here does not seem to be advertising trips for hunting. But, the first thought I had while scanning the subject line was “Cecil the Lion,” because that’s in the news right now. Not good. If this business was working with the right marketer, they would leverage the opportunity and duty to differentiate their work plus highlight the enjoyment of African wildlife’s beauty. At the appropriate time.

Even if this is a hunting safari business, they could use this opportunity to gain visibility on responsible practices in hunting. They could even help make the case for the positive impacts responsible hunting practices can have in a habitat or ecosystem. They would then begin to differentiate their business from others in the hunting tourism industry. Again, at the appropriate time.

Messages in support of big game hunting won’t be popular with everyone. But, you aren’t always trying to convince everyone – you want to speak with those who are interested in engaging with you in a specific way. In other words, by engagement, I don’t mean hate mail or death threats.

Even during what might seem the worst possible moments, you can – and perhaps even should – play a part in a healthy dialogue that often needs to happen.

And yes, there is a difference between email marketing and spamming.

What current events impact your business’ blogging or social media – for good or bad? Need help sorting it all out? I want to hear from you. Please reach out.

How To Not Only Expose, But Engage

July 27, 2015 By Matthew White Leave a Comment

Feel like your marketing efforts just aren’t getting the desired results? Think you could engage prospects and customers more effectively?

As discussed in a previous blog post, part of the reason is so much marketing gets exposure but doesn’t accomplish much with regard to engagement. And, as mentioned in that post, there is so much more noise now than ever before.

Focusing on email, and MailChimp campaigns specifically, here is a look at real world illustrations of what exposure versus engagement looks like . . . and some tips on how to move that needle from “expose” to “engage.”

A Compelling Message

So your customer gets the mailing. Do they preview, open, actually read, and/or click? At what point do they engage?

Think about the way you scan through the subject lines of email. You probably do this differently than you did a few years ago. And, you are probably looking for something different now.

One thing we know for sure is that how people read their email has changed dramatically and quickly. For example, according to Experian’s “Quarterly Email Benchmark Report” for Q3 of 2014, for the first time, over half of email was being opened on a phone or tablet. It stands to reason that this shift alone impacts what information is being consumed and how it is acted upon.

Now think about how quickly you delete email on your phone or tablet as you scan through those subject lines. We all know subject line construction is important, but I continue to be surprised by the number of campaigns that arrive in this fashion:

<Widget, Inc Newsletter> Weekly Update from Widget Inc! 7/27/15

As a customer, I don’t need to know that this is from Widget twice (you only get one point for brand name exposure before the email gets deleted) or that I get it weekly. And, I can figure out on my own that this is a “newsletter.”

A concise call to action in the subject line would be just as easy to use, more effective, and would likely move this effort from exposure to engagement.

The Difference Between an Open and a Click

MailChimp, a great (and usually free for most) email campaign management tool, provides two key metrics in measuring campaign success: Opens and clicks.

Recently, I grew skeptical on what constitutes an “open.” After all, does the use of a preview pane – whether on a phone, tablet or desktop – constitute a true “open?” Is that really an action that the user took in response to your marketing effort?

I decided to look into it. And, after some study of both MailChimp’s documentation and some real-world results, I’m satisfied with how MailChimp handles and tracks opens. It turns out that the “open” metric is fairly reliable in fact.

However, the major takeaway is understanding the nature of an open versus a click. The difference has applicability in other areas of marketing and advertising efforts. “Open” should not be considered engagement. It should be considered, at best, exposure. It can often be a simple preview of the mail message. And, after all, few companies generate revenue or succeed at their mission based on people opening their emails. A “click” is a more solid measure of engagement and more likely to get customers and prospects closer to that action you want them to take.

A click is farther into the funnel. (I’ll definitely use that again later)

Real World Results

Getting back to those real world MailChimp email campaigns: Across two different organizations, I made some interesting discoveries that can impact not only email campaigns directly but can inform wider marketing efforts:

The number of opens can easily double when the list goes through some level of qualification.
Button-style links in emails are indeed effective and can help focus your audience’s attention.
However, it doesn’t just have to be an email with a button. Providing the audience enough hyperlinks in text is surprisingly important too – many actually are reading that content and looking to click (engage).
Links placed earlier in the email consistently perform better than those placed later in email. Get to the higher value calls to action early.
Segmenting your lists based on interests, motivations, or demographics and better tailoring content to those groups can easily double your results.

Yes, it seems obvious. But, sending the same message to one large group of people and hoping the right people find the right content is actually how most organizations manage their campaigns.

They also tend to approach exposure versus engagement in the same way. In reality, it all takes time, effort, and some experimentation.

Need help implementing any of the above? Need ideas on moving your email campaign from exposure-only to engagement? Reach out.