We are super-pleased to be announcing a new site for our wonderful friends down south – the Bannockburn Christian Academy.
The Bannockburn Christian Academy is a private Christian school in the Austin area that helps Pre-K through 8th grade students to become Biblically-minded, academically-versed, socially-balanced and fully equipped to make a positive impact in their community.
All of the experts tell you to monitor your brand, and to be responsive to the needs of your online audience, but rarely do they tell you what to do when you have no audience.
What do you do if no one is talking about your brand?
Here are a few quick tips that should help rouse up some conversation.
Continue reading…
Social media is kind-of a big deal. Everyone needs it, everyone wants it, but not everyone gets it. There are thousands of Facebook pages out there that have never made it past the first few posts. So, what happened?
In some cases, it could be a technical problem, or a lack of understanding. After all, there are plenty of us that don’t know what we should be saying on social networks. My guess, however, is that the problem is something completely different. I think it’s lack of results that has turned them away.
Building trust, and making connections - that's what it's all about!
We live in a world that has gotten use to instant wins. In the beginning, advertising worked. All you really needed was air time to get your message across. That isn’t the case anymore, but many of us still like to think that way. We like calls to action, daily projections, and tracking codes. We want instant results.
Facebook, though, doesn’t usually come with those.
So, what then, are the real benefits of social media? If we aren’t going to get instant results, why should you care? Well, there are three parts to the social media cycle.
You don’t need to be in business very long to see that trust is a vital component of any sale. The customer needs to trust that you with treat them fairly, give them an honest price, and a result they can be proud of. Businesses that have earned their customers trust enjoy repeat business. Those that don’t earn trust struggle to find new customers over and over again.
Social media is essentially a tool made for building trust. Rather than focusing on a one-off viewing of a 30 second ad or newspaper insert, Twitter and Facebook allow you to develop a relationship with your customer. In marketing, this can be a very new concept because we usually we leave the relationships to the customer service department.
Trust can be a beautiful thing. When your customers know, like, and trust you, they constantly reward you with their time, attention, and usually, their business. Sometimes they hire you directly, and other times, it is as simple as a referral or a recommendation to a friend.
The idea is actually quite simple. The more people that trust you, the more likely they will become paying customers. If you focus you social media goals on making sales, you will be disappointed. However, if you focus your time on building trust, the sales will take care of themselves.
Social media is definitely a long-term plan, and that is where we can loose our way. When we view social media through the lens of advertising and direct sales, it looks slow and bleak. When we take the right approach – that of customer relationships – we quickly see how it can pay off for the long term.
And the long term is really what it’s all about.
Sure, everyone wants a quick sale, but even more important than that is a steady stream of sales that come inthrough a network of customers who rely on you for more than just a product or service. When it comes time to buy what you sell, having a trust-based relationship already in place will ensure that your company is the one that your followers choose.
The age of advertising is over. The mindset of the customer has changed, and they need a different type of attention from you. The benefit of social media is that it will allow you to create relationships, and build the trust that will take you directly into, and through, your next 10 years of business.
[This post is part of the ongoing series The Complete How To Guide for Twitter Marketing]
The book How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie was one of the first self-help books ever published. It is also one of the bestselling, have you read it?
For many salesmen and marketers, this book has been required reading for generations. But, the principals outlined don’t only work in the board-room. They also work online.
Tweeters everywhere would weep after seeing Dale Carnegie's Klout score!
If fact, Socialnomics author Erik Qualman has said that todays successful companies need to act more like Dale Carnegie and less like Mad Man, which means we all need to be in the business of winning friends and influencing people.
Now, influence, is nothing new in the world of social media. Klout.com, for example, has been trying to measure influence for years. But, the question always remains. How can we become more influential online?
One great answer to that question comes directly from Dale Carnegie’s list of Six Ways to Make People Like You. Here they are with a social media spin.
All too often, people and businesses go to social media to talk about themselves. They talk about their products, their interests, and their business. But, as Carnegie points out, a true salesmen is excellent at turning the conversation around. People love talking about what they know best. Be interested in what they have to say, and ask them questions about the things that interest them. The key word here is genuine, though. If it isn’t genuine, it isn’t working.
In person, a hearty smile can go a long way. A happy customer in a coffee line gets better service than the crabby one. When it comes to social, the key is to keep things on a positive level. We need to be brightening the Twitter stream, not brining it down. It is easy to complain online, but try tweeting with a smile on your face. You might be surprised with how far it gets you.
Every one of your hundreds of followers is an individual, not just an avatar or just another random customer. You need to treat them that way. Talk to them directly, treat them with respect, and become their biggest fan. When they have something to say, give them a retweet, or congratulate them publicly. Everyone loves to see their own name in lights.
It’s not only polite to be a good listener, but it is a skill that can reward you in the board room. Twitter is a conversation just like the meeting room. We need to be listening just as much as we are talking. If we don’t listen, we will constantly dominate the conversation and ruin the benefits that we can provide. Listen in, and respond!
You may sell insurance, but it is unlikely that its what your customers want to talk about all day. Football, on the other hand, might be a subject that they love to discuss. When you converse about something that they love, they learn to like you more. When it comes time to buy insurance, there is a pretty good chance that they will buy from someone they like. Play your cards right, and that just might be you.
When you tweet, tell your followers how important and valuable they are. Don’t puff them full of fluff, but be genuine and enthusiastic. Excitement and smiley faces may seem dorky, but there is almost never a compliment that is poorly received. Let your followers know that they are important. Make them feel important and appreciated.
Dale Carnegie’s advice has been transforming mediocre, self-centered, salesmen into marketing machines for over 70 years. This stuff works, because it is centered on human emotions. We love to think that business is business and Twitter is Twitter, but we all know better than that. Our emotions are tied to each and every tweet we send. Learn it and embrace it, and your tweets will take you far.
Each month, or so, we like to choose a book to read together as a team. Often the titles surround things like social media, internet technology, and/or business. This month, we’ve decide to snuggle up to the Todaymade fire with Dave Ramsey’s latest book Entre Leadership.
From the Amazon.com description:
EntreLeadership provides the practical, step-by-step guidance to grow your business where you want it to go.
Seems pretty straight forward (and awesome!) doesn’t it?
We have both been admirers of Dave’s work in personal finances for several years, and we are excited to see what he has to say about running a success business.
As a team, continually reading and learning from the worlds greatest minds has been an extremely rewarding experience. We have already covered books like UnMarketing, The Thank You Economy, Delivering Happiness, or some of the older classics like Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Not only do these books read well, but the time spend discussing and building off the ideas they outline has been extremely valuable to the Todaymade brand.
Books like these are really the catalyst for much of the thinking and writing that happens on this blog every day. There is something about reading, and continually learning, that seriously aids the development of new ideas and creative thinking. Sometimes you just need something to get the wheels turning.
One of the things that I am continually interested in is the leaders of great companies. What has made them great, and what is it that they do that inspires their customers, and their employees? Many of us are thinking this, especially after the passing of Steve Jobs. What really makes customers line up for hours outside of the Apple store after a new product is released?
I think that Dave Ramsey is another one of those amazing leaders and business minds that we can all learn from. His customers and employees rave about his products, his advice, and his company. There is certainly something to be said for that.
We both excited to see what we can learn from Entre Leadership. Have you read it? What are you reading to keep your thinking sharp?
[This post is part of the ongoing Better Websites Series.]
Here’s the honest truth – most websites fail to impress because their owners don’t set reasonable expectations on what they want users to do once we get there. Most of the time, website owners have grandiose expectations for traffic, participation, and sales without really taking the steps necessary to make it happen.
Now, some may attribute this to a lack of planning, but I call it a common case of not understanding the real needs of the customer.
Here are some of the most common expectations that we set, and why they doom us to failure.
In other words, this is what you should avoid.
So, it is no secret that the Internet is a great tool for connecting unique groups of people together in one place.That said, unless you are building a social network, you should never really look at our own site as a hub. The problem with this outlook is that your customers don’t need it. The Internet is their hub. They need something more than that from you.
So many businesses approach their website like a portal, amassing a large amount of data about their company, and even industry, hoping to make their site a one-stop shop for all things relating to their businesses. Umm… isn’t that Google’s job? Believe me, no one will be making your site their homepage any time soon. Don’t be fooled.
Sometimes, we simply build our website emulating the success of another. Sure, we all have websites that we love and visit on a daily basis. The problem arises when we try to apply the things that we see on those sites to our own. Sure, these sites might be great for a reason, but that reason probably isn’t what you’d think.
Many of us understand the benefits of user-generated content. As visitors come to the site, they add things to it which saves you time and energy. The problem is that was usually underestimate the amount of traffic that is required to make this work. Most web users are still have a voyeur mentality. Convincing them to participate can be tricky business.
This is the classic, if you build it they will come lie. Website owners always have lofty goals when it comes to the amount of traffic that will be coming to their site, but rarely do they take the effort to make it happen. You must develop a launch marketing plan before to travel into the wilderness.
Google is fast, but not always that fast. With a new site it can take Google several months to find, and really understand your site. SEO delivery is really an ongoing process, rather than an immediate result.
Yahoo and Google are both in the business of connecting users to content. Yahoo does it by giving you all of the information at once (messy homepage, tons of links), and Google does it by giving you amazing search technology. Yahoo thinks it’s a ‘portal’, and Google knows that it is a search company.
You see, Google understands something that Yahoo never has. They understand their users. They realize that visitors to their site want good, fast, results – nothing more and nothing less. This is why Google’s homepage has nothing more and nothing less than a search bar. They are a company that has built themselves around the experience that their visitors want, and it has made the very successful.
And, this is really the lesson that we need to learn for ourselves. Most of the expectations that we set fail because they are OUR expectations. Rather than relying on the characteristics and needs that our customers have we plan from our own perspective – attempting to satisfy our own goals and needs.
It can be hard to think like someone else – there is no doubt about that. When planning and setting goals, though, we must learn to keep a customer-centric mindset.
Why do people really come to your website?
What do they really want to be doing once they get there?
When it comes to your website, they are the boss – you’d best let them drive.
Every year, we see continual growth in the online shopping world. Customers are continually looking to the web more and more for product research before making buying decisions.
Data from “The 2011 Social Shopping Study” (a recent study by the e-tailing group and PowerReviews) indicates that 50% of consumers spend 75% or more of their total shopping time conducting online product research, with 15% spending 90% or more of their shopping time in this manner.
In 2010, only 21% of consumers spent 75% or more of their shopping time conducting online product research, meaning this percentage has more than doubled in one year.
I think the real challenge for businesses going forward will be learning how to provide the right answers to their customers questions. Brands that can adapt early, and become a trusted source of value-based content for their customers, will take the lead in the online research wars.
Social media has become the perfect tool for connecting customers to the content that they are looking for. Companies that don’t blog, or provide visitors with free white-papers or ebooks, will continually become less and less relevant in their respective markets.
This study only provides more proof that when it comes to customers – content is king.
Need proof? Take a look at Amazon. Why are they the biggest and best online retailer? Well, for one thing, look at their product pages. Not only do they have abundant amounts of product information, but they offer more product reviews than any other site. Customers come back because Amazon.com makes it easy to do the research that they desire.
Connecting your brand to your customers means connecting them to the things that they want. They want content. They want research. The big question is, are you providing it?
One year ago today, Todaymade officially opened it’s door for business!
For us, it was a magical moment. Todaymade was something that both Justin and I had been planning for some time. It was the company that we both had been waiting to work at, and create.
At one year, there are still many, many, things that we have yet to accomplish, but we are certainly proud of our first 365 days.
In the first year, we have published over 200 blog posts that help our customers do better marketing, we have taught companies how to write their own social media marketing plan, we have launched dozens of new websites, and we have unveiled our flagship products – TodayCMS and Todaypulse.
Oh, we’ve even remodeled and moved into our first office in downtown Bismarck.
Most importantly, though, we have meet and work with some of the greatest businesses in the country and North Dakota. They keep us in business, and on our toes. We are sincerely grateful to all of them and wish them nothing but the WOW customer experience that Todaymade strives to provide.
So, what does a young Internet marketing startup do to celebrate a day like this? Well, we just keep helping you be better at marketing, of course. It seems like the prudent thing to do :).
Today we continue onward – thanks for a great first year!
After finishing up a presentation the other day about push marketing, a customer asked me what they were suppose to do with their traditional marketing budget.
“75% of our marketing is traditional marketing,” she said. “Are you saying that I need to cancel it?”
I think my answer surprised her when I said “nope, don’t cancel a thing.”
Push marketing is so over... let the pieces fall.
A lot of times, marketers like to make the discussion about traditional vs. social media when it really doesn’t have to be that way. There is no doubt that social is stealing some of the traditional thunder, but the world isn’t black and white. You don’t have to choose between one or the other.
Social media is at the leading edge of one of the most fundamental shifts in marketing since the age of advertising began back in the middle of the century. The change, however, isn’t about traditional mediums vs. online mediums, it is about the very way companies and customers interact. It’s a little thing called communication.
Here’s the deal – your customers have been barraged with push marketing tactics for years. TV ads and newspaper buys that shove your product’s features and benefits down their throat. They are sick of them! So sick of them, in fact, that they now fast-forward through your ads and wait to buy television shows after they come out on DVD.
But they don’t hate you, they just hate being interrupted with something that isn’t valuable to them.
The better way is a value-based approach to marketing. This approach directly answers the question of “what’s in it for my customer.” Rather than providing marketing lingo and sales speak, we encourage marketing that looks to solve customer problems and make their lives better.
Think of it this way, what might happen if you used your product as your marketing?
When you do this, you immediately start building a trust-based relationship with your customers, rather than one that is merely based on a catchy headline or good media placement.
When it is comes to raw exposure, traditional mediums can still work. They are expensive and they are nearly impossible to track, but done right, and for a long enough period of time, they can work. Most businesses though, can’t afford this type of marketing. They need better, more tactical, results.
Social media isn’t a tool or a website, it is a mindset. It is a way of thinking and classifying your relationship with your customer. Did you catch the keyword there? RELATIONSHIP!
For hundreds and hundreds of years, business has run on relationships. The problem is that somewhere along the way we forgot that business was built on handshakes. Rather than really understanding and knowing our customers, we’ve been taking the easy route. We’ve thrown money (in the form of advertising) at our problems and hoped that customers will come.
For years, they came. But… they are on to us!
Social media has ushered in a new era of marketing. The age of advertising is over. Welcome to the age of the customers. Does this mean that TV ads and magazine full-pagers are going away? Of course not! We just need to use them differently.
Marketing is now conversational. It is bi-directional. You talk to your customers, and they talk back. You listen to your customers, and then give them the things that they need. It is a give and take that is changing everything.
Your customers expect you to be listening. They are expecting something new. They don’t mind marketing, they just want it to be useful. You don’t need to scream in their ear anymore! They are willing to listen, if you are willing to talk to them in the right way.
No matter the term you use. Advertising, traditional, print, new age, or social media. The fundamental shift in consumer thinking is the same. Sure, customers are moving online at alarming rates – if you’re not there you are missing a huge opportunity, but the real change isn’t only the medium, it is the message.
I shall repeat: social media is a mindset, not an opportunity.
Don’t worry, we’ll get there!
[This post is part of the ongoing Better Websites Series.]
By now, we all know that first lesson in marketing is to define your core audience, and the second is to understand what you do best. But, when it comes to creating online content for a social network or blog, things get fuzzy. The question that starts popping around in our head is “will anyone care?”
Before anyone will listen, we need to learn to expand our core.
The safest assumption that you can make is to assume that they won’t care. I know, it can be hard to hear, but it is the real truth. If you think about it, there really isn’t a good reason for anyone to care about what you have to say, or what your business does. In business, we usually need the customer a lot more than they need us.
So, how do we get them to pay attention to what we have to say?
This is a huge dilemma , and it usually happens because we try to answer that question in the wrong way. The real answer won’t show itself until we take a step back to see the full picture.
Most of the time businesses like to talk about themselves. They get that new Facebook page or blog and start talking about what is going on inside of their own four walls. Staff changes, new products and services, or even worse blatant pleas for business. This kind of stuff is easy to produce, but provides no value to the customer.
You see, when we sit down to start brainstorming topics for our blog or social media program, we usually start with the things that are very close to home. For example, a graphic designer might talk about graphic design, a baker about baking, or a photographer about photography. After all, these are the things that they know best.
But, the challenge that we all have in marketing is moving past those sphere’s of immediate influence to some of the more expanded topics that our customers really care about. Consider this simple graphic from Crackerjack Marketing:
In the center of this diagram, we place your core business. These are the things that you do each and every day. They are what you do and know best.
But, they aren’t what you should be talking about. You, quite literally, need to learn to talk around your business rather than about it, and that’s what the outer circle is for.
The outer circle answers:
And that is really the idea of expanding your core. It’s all about going beyond what you do every day to touch on the things that really resonate with your customers. But, how does it get put to work in the real world?
Joe is the friendly owner of a local shoe and athletic shop. Joe is also an avid runner and has competed in several marathons. He regularly reads magazines on running, fitness, and sporting activity. Joe regularly references this information with his customers and they appreciate the information and his sound advice.
Unfortunately, though, Joe’s website is all business. He lists all of the products that he provides in the store as well as photos of all his employees. His customers can use his website for shopping purposes, but really rarely do. Honestly, he would shut it down all-together except everyone keeps telling him that he HAS to be online.
Joe does have a Facebook page, and posts there almost once a week. His last post mentioned a recent sale on all Nike shoes. He received three likes, but no shares or comments. He didn’t notice any additional business from this online “advertisement.”
Does this sound familiar yet?
Now, from what we’ve learned about Joe, we can see that his core business is shoes, athletic equipment, and a positive in-store experience.
But, what would happen if Joe started expand his core?
You see, Joe’s customers all share a common need. They need shoes. Most of them are athletes, and most of them spend time running regularly, or at least consider themselves and occasional jogger.
So, what if Joe’s online presence took advantage of that need? What if his website included a blog that discussed current running and training techniques. He could cover things like great local running spots or different options for monitoring heart-rate and jogging distance. Rather than talking exclusively about shoes, athletic apparel, and in-store news, Joe could simple talk about the activities that make use of those things. The more joggers he inspires in his city, the more they will jog, and the more shoes they will buy.
On the social media side of things, Joe could turn his entire Facebook presence into an events center. He could help organize and map out jogging paths throughout the city, plan group jogs at various locations, and help promote other athletic activities that are happening within the city, such as volleyball leagues and co-ed softball teams.
By promoting the activities that his customers love, Joe is securing new business and customer trust for years to come.
You see, rather than focusing on his business, Joe’s approach could start to focus on the things that allow his shop to exist. It’s simple really, softball players need running spikes and volleyball players need running shoes. By helping these activities thrive, Joe would be building trust and making customers.
If Joe can become the one to provide these athletes with valuable information and content, he can easily become someone that they trust even before walking through the door.
I want to you to try this exercise for yourself. Take a sheet of paper and draw two concentric circles on the page. In the center circle write down the core things that your business does. In the outer circle, start writing some of the things that those needs enable.
If you sell plants, you enable great gardening. You should be talking about growing better tomatoes.
If you sell homes, you enable beautiful homes. You should be talking about home decor, home renovations, and remodeling techniques that won’t hurt the resale value..
After you have expanding your core a bit, draw a big X through the inner circle. Now, start creating content that fits those outer topics. The bottom line is, you need to start talking about the things your customers actually care about, because it isn’t you.
However, if you start providing valuable content that your customers actually need they will learn to trust you, and when the time comes for them to buy….
They WILL come to you.
