3 Reasons Your AdWords Performance Sucks

OK, so now I’ve got your attention I will make the bold but rather obvious assumption that you currently have a Google AdWords campaign live & you do not believe it’s performing to the best of its abilities.

Well, you are probably right.

So get your pen and paper ready, because the next 8 minutes of your life are going to help you save hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in advertising spend, whilst improving ROI and driving more conversions to your business.

We all know how to set up a Google AdWords account, how to build a campaign, add keywords and go live. However, what a lot of people don’t realize is that there is much more to Google AdWords, there is a science behind it.

Over the next couple of minutes I am going to discuss 3 of the biggest money-draining issues that appear in Google AdWords accounts, and I can guarantee that you suffer from at least 1 of these.

1. Broad match keywords are sucking up all of your budgets

Google AdWords has 3 match types, right? Wrong – they have 4 match types these are – broad, broad match modified, phrase & exact.

To be honest, there are 7 but we are not going to include negative match types, as they are not relevant in this section.

Back to the matter in hand, one of the biggest mistakes most people make when using Google AdWords is utilizing the wrong match type.

One of the biggest mistakes most people make when using Google AdWords is utilizing the wrong match type.

Why?

Generally, because they are not fully aware of the options available and secondly, they don’t completely understand how the match types work.

So, let me just put it bluntly – do not use broad match type.

There, I said it and I am very happy to get that out. The reason I am telling you not to use broad match is simply because it’s well, too broad. It’s practically uncontrollable, unless you want to spend hours and hours of your day negative matching irrelevant keywords. Also, it’s just silly since you have a much more effective and efficient match type available called “broad match modified”.

What’s the difference between broad match & broad match modified?

There is a big difference between these two match types, broad match works like this:

Let’s say you are targeting the keyword “Apple iPad” on broad match. This technically means that you could appear for anything including the query “Apple” or “iPad” or both, such as:

• Red Apple

• iPad Help

• iPad Tips

• Applebottoms

• Apple iPad 3

If however, you chose to have “Apple iPad” on broad match modified, and you added the necessary “+” in front of each individual keyword within the query, you would limit yourself to queries such as:

• Apple iPad 3

• Apple iPad Sale

• Apple iPad Case

Therefore, restricting you from appearing for any irrelevant queries within the SERP.

Broad Match Modified allows for significantly more control whilst ensuring you get relevant exposure.

To summarize using broad match type is not recommended in almost any circumstance, broad match modified allows for significantly more control whilst ensuring you are getting the most relevant exposure. I recommend that you go and check your account right now for any broad keywords and change them immediately.

2. You don’t separate your match types into different ad groups or campaigns

Another big issue is when people don’t segment keywords by match type, this is absolutely crucial for those looking to grow their accounts and to reduce waste.

Whether you have a brand new account or a 5-year-old account, you should have separate campaigns or ad groups for each match type you are using. Allow me to explain this properly through the following example:

You are running a campaign for the promotion of the new Apple iPad 3 and you want to ensure you are getting maximum exposure, whilst targeting the most relevant keywords and having a tight control on the best performing keywords.

In this case you will want the following campaign structure:

Campaign 1: Apple iPad – Broad

Ad Groups: Broad

Keywords: +Apple +iPad

Campaign 2: Apple iPad – Exact

Ad Groups: Exact

Keywords: [Apple iPad]

OK the above is a really, really small example of how to structure campaigns and separate your match types, but I hope you get the picture.

Notice I didn’t use phrase match? Well, if you use broad match modified and exact match there is very little point for using phrase match. The whole idea of the broad match modified campaign is to fish for new queries. You then run a search query report that will highlight any winning keywords (those which convert at a target CPA or can be optimized to do so) and any poor keywords (those which spend, but never convert). With the winning keywords you add these to your exact match campaign and then cross-negative match them in your broad match campaign. The poor keywords are automatically negative matched in the broad match campaign.

Over time what you would expect to see is impressions and clicks decreasing in the broad match campaign, whilst in the exact match campaign, impressions and clicks would increase at a slower rate.

I realize the above was a lot to take in, but I urge you to go and check your accounts right now and check whether your keywords have been put in to separate campaigns based on their match type.

3. You do not take advantage of all the relevant ad extensions

Another big one, and even bigger since Google changed the algorithm to make it more compelling for AdWords users to actually implement as many relevant ad extensions as possible.

There are a variety of ad extensions, and the list continues to grow but the most obvious and probably most important for you to use are the enhanced sitelinks.

But first, before we get on to the different ad extensions available, let me tell you why it’s more important than ever to use them.

On the 22nd October 2013, Google quietly released an update to their AdWords Ad Rank algorithm that basically meant that ad extensions now factored in to the ad rank algorithm.

To put it simply, if you were trying to outrank a competitor and you didn’t use ad extensions but they did, then they would win. This is why it is now more important than ever to use ad extensions, although you should be using them anyway.

With that being said, take a look in to your account and see which ad extensions you are using, if you are not using the following ad extensions then add them.

Enhanced Sitelinks

These are an absolute essential for any Google AdWords account, I recommend adding 6-8 sitelinks per campaign, and ensuring that you add two lines of text to the description boxes for each sitelink.

Callout Extensions

This is one of the most recent ad extensions to be introduced, which allows you to add additional text about your business. It’s basically an area to highlight your company’s unique selling points or main areas of expertise.

Call Extensions

If you have a company phone number and you take enquiries over the phone then this is a must-have, especially if you are a lead generation business, or a phone call is required.

Location Extensions

If you have a physical location, a shop, a restaurant, a café or an office then consider adding location extensions so potential customers can easily locate you.

Review Extensions

Do you have a product that has been reviewed by a third party company? Then be sure to add review extensions to highlight any glowing reviews of your products or services.

App Extensions

If you have an app, then begin promoting it today through App Extensions.

If you were trying to outrank a competitor and didn’t use ad extensions but they did – they would win.

The point is, if any of the above ad extensions are relevant to you then add them; it will help improve your overall ad rank which will help to improve the positioning of your ad, the click through rate and therefore help to decrease your cost per click. Not only this, but each ad extension will help in its own unique way, whilst also bolstering your advertisement space, therefore creating a more overpowering and engaging advertisement with the SERPs.

Final Thoughts

If you have read this far then I hope you have made the relevant changes to your AdWords account. Now take a note of the date you made those changes and check your performance data over the next couple of days and weeks to see what difference it has made.

I just covered 3 of the biggest issues I find in Google AdWords accounts, but there are plenty more. If you want to optimize your AdWords account, improve the efficiency and generate a more effective advertising campaign then be sure to follow Google’s best practices, use their support website & follow the official AdWords blogspot.

3 Reasons Your AdWords Performance Sucks

Outbound vs. Inbound Marketing: Can You Have One Without the Other?

Can you run a successful inbound marketing strategy without any direct mail, offline events, or other forms of outbound marketing? Can you grow your company on outbound marketing alone without any inbound marketing efforts?

It may come as a serious disappointment to you, but the answer is both “not really” and “it really depends.”

As always, there are always edge cases where a business can thrive using exclusively old-fashioned or new-fangled marketing efforts. However, for the vast majority of us, a sense of balance is absolutely crucial. And here’s why:

What is the Difference Between Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing?

Outbound marketing? You may know it better as interruption marketing, disruption marketing, or even non-permissive marketing. We’re talking about the types of disruptive marketing that may ruin your day. Television advertisements, radio ads, trade show booths, or other forms of highly disruptive marketing. Is it necessary? Well, that’s complicated.

According to John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing, over half of marketers identify outbound marketing as their primary lead source. This means half of your marketing peers are relying on factors like phone calls and magazine ad responses – as opposed to web form conversions – to bring new business in for their organizations. Is this effective, or does it simply feel like the path of least resistance?

HubSpot reports that over 12 million searches per web are performed in the US alone each month. Even more staggeringly, 54% more leads are generated through inbound marketing methods, like blogs, social media, and whitepapers, than outbound marketing methods alone. Inbound marketing produces more leads at a lower cost per lead than traditional advertising methodologies. So what gives? Why are so many of your peers focusing their efforts and budget on outbound marketing methodologies? Is it because outbound marketing is more effective, and even cheaper? Unlikely!

The Truth About Outbound Marketing

What is the absolute truth about outbound marketing? Are television commercials, radio advertisements, and magazine advertorials a completely worthless way to market your organization? Not quite. The short answer is “not quite,” and the long answer is “it depends on the sophistication of your ideal customer.”

In essence, outbound marketing can be an extreme compliment to your inbound marketing strategy. Content Marketing Institute, citing VentureBeat’s commentary on the “rise of the content economy” reports that offline events remain a highly effective way for sophisticated marketers to generate leads,win new customers, and maintain high satisfaction among existing client bases. Could this marketing methodology see extreme success without inbound marketing? Unlikely.

Between Eventbrite and Meetup, the web remains a highly popular way for modern professionals to connect with event opportunities and networking events. Without social media, it would be far more challenging for news to travel far among professionals within any given industry. The truth is, even given well-established industry events that are primarily focused on outbound marketing such as trade shows, you simply can’t deny the role of inbound marketing.

Outbound marketing isn’t useless. There’s no question that it’s still got a role; especially in conservative niches, industries, and regions. However, there are very, very few specialties where inbound marketing, from email marketing to white papers to social media, hasn’t played some role. The point? Inbound marketing is absolutely the future. However, anyone who plays the role of a purist and tells you that all outbound marketing methodologies are dead is almost certainly mistaken. In an ideal world (and marketing strategy, if we’re being honest), inbound marketing and outbound marketing would peacefully coexist. Does that sound challenging or even impossible? Well, I promise you that it simply isn’t.

How Can Inbound and Outbound Marketing Coexist?

At the end of the day, here is the absolute truth about marketing as a science, methodology, and practice.

“A happy customer is an informed customer,” as marketing expert Chris Goward puts it.

Anyone who’s spent much of their career in either marketing or sales can attest to the significant risk that surround customers who’ve been either oversold or undersold. Customers who haven’t been educated on the true value of the product or service they’re about to receive could run the risk of being underappreciative. Customers who are oversold are a major risk for disappointment; which can lead to short-term disappointment and low customer satisfaction; and long term risks for customer retention, and even worse, some serious damage to word-of-mouth referrals. What gives?

Inbound Marketing = Informed Customers

Inbound marketing is an education tool. Pure and simple. It’s the most effective marketing methodology available to today’s business development professionals, but it’s also a major education tool. Today’s consumers have every bit of information they could ever want or need just a few clicks away, via their laptop, tablet or smartphone. If your organization has the savvy to position themselves as an industry resource via best-of-class content marketing; they’ll position themselves as a resource for curious researchers who are Googling related search terms to their industry. If you’re being honest and approaching your content marketing strategy correctly, the stars will align perfectly and you’ll generate extraordinarily well-qualified leads for your organization.

Is Modern Marketing Really as Simple as High Quality Content Creation?

Sorry to say it, but not quite. The speed and velocity at which your organization will generate high-quality, ready-to-purchase leads depends on quite a few factors. Your product or service, the sophistication and authority of your buyer personas, and factors like price point and competition can all have a major effect on your Marketing (sales and marketing) funnel that channel leads into customers for your brand. There are no simple answers, but effective research on your customer base can reveal the answers for you.

In essence, the right combination of inbound and outbound marketing methodologies are most likely the perfect answer for your organization. Using inbound marketing methodologies, including educational content resources and well-optimized landing pages, can prepare your business to make the most of limited use of outbound marketing methodologies, such as print advertisement and offline events. If your ideal customers tend towards the young and highly tech-savvy, minimal outbound marketing is probably correct for you. If your typical buyers have been attending trade shows and reading industry publications for the duration of their careers, a marketing strategy which relies more heavily on outbound methodologies will more likely yield optimal results.

While there is simply no easy or correct answer to the whole outbound vs. inbound marketing methodology debate, it’s crucial for you to realize the following: marketing is the science of compelling and convincing humans. No individual would ever attempt to argue the truism that humans are a remarkably complex species. While we can’t answer the debacle of inbound vs. outbound for your organization without additional customer insights or data, the most likely answer is “mostly inbound, but don’t ignore outbound!” Purism is rarely the answer, and the world’s most intelligent marketers realize the value of nuance.

Are you marketing your business using purely inbound or outbound marketing methodologies? Why or why not?

header image credit: afireinwinter/flickr

Outbound vs. Inbound Marketing: Can You Have One Without the Other?

6 Key Steps to Global (Marketing) Domination

Seven billion. According to most estimates, our global population currently stands at a little more than seven billion people. English is the third most widely spoken language, but it’s only the native language for about 5% of the world’s population. In fact, only about 30% of the world’s population speaks English with some degree of competency.

This reality may make the idea of extending into global markets seem daunting for marketers, but it’s worth the effort. Localizing your company’s marketing, product, and sales content can have a hugely positive impact on demand generation, company growth, brand recognition, and revenue creation. Indeed, according to a Forbes Insights survey, 33% of senior executives at companies with annual worldwide sales of +$500 million consider “expanding into global and new markets” as their top strategic priority.

How are these proclamations of global priorities transformed into actual results? Through the actions of marketers, like you, who serve on the front lines of global expansion!

By tapping into multilingual markets and engaging new groups of consumers, you’re on the cutting edge of demand generation. You’re spearheading a better, faster, approach to world domination (the nicest kind, of course), and will help grow global revenues. Regardless of where you are on the multilingual marketing learning curve, here are six steps to help you get started and capitalize on global marketing opportunities:

Step 1: Think Big and Plan Globally

You probably saw this one coming a mile away, but global marketing requires a global mindset! This may seem like an obvious a point, but you’d be surprised how often I see that deer-in-the-headlight expression when I ask global marketers for details about how they execute against their global strategy.

Implementing global delivery of marketing campaigns, programs, and messaging does come with its fair share of challenges, but it also offers the potential for huge gains that no global marketer can afford to ignore. And yet, developing a marketing strategy that is inherently global is less common than you might think.

Go-to-market activities must be justified by the revenue potential of each market, the degree to which competition exists in those countries, and the market demand data. To that end, it’s critical to conduct extensive market research to evaluate and prioritize which global markets to enter.

Having a global approach from day one will help your company capture more revenue using the least amount of resources by ensuring that:

• People and budgets are utilized most effectively and efficiently


• The right corporate and local stakeholders are involved from the start, and all in-country expertise is leveraged


• Pre-sales content is delivered in the required languages and formats to best position your products in each target market


• Your brand is communicated consistently across the globe


• Your culturally and linguistically diverse audience enjoys a uniform customer experience.

Some companies treat localization as an afterthought, tacking it at the end of the marketing content delivery process. Others who do think globally up front often don’t execute fully on a global strategy because they’re convinced they don’t have enough time or resources to do so. Either way, the failure to execute a marketing plan from a global perspective jeopardizes valuable opportunities to gain market share in international markets and often has business leaders throwing good money after bad.

Step 2: Allocate Resources for the Best Localization and Biggest Global Impact

Now that you’ve identified your target markets and formulated a strategy to conquer them, it’s time to determine the localization plan to best support your strategy. The goal is to localize all marketing materials into the languages that matter to your business. Not surprisingly, data shows that translating materials to reach multilingual audiences contributes significantly to the attainment of business goals. According to industry research firm Common Sense Advisory (CSA), Fortune 500 companies that translated communications to engage customers in their own language were nearly three times more likely to experience revenue increases. Moreover, another CSA study found that consumers are six times more likely to buy when they see localized marketing.

Localization goes well beyond word-for-word translation: it takes into account the nuances of regional audiences and customs to get the tone, phrases, and even images correct so that materials read naturally in each target audience’s own language, and do not convey unintended messages. Research and knowledge of your target market may reveal cultural differences and beliefs that can have a big impact on how marketing messages are perceived. Use professional translators that not only speak the language in the market, but also understand the subtleties of the region and culture, so that your messages truly resonate as intended with your entire global audience. Getting it right is vital—giving the wrong impression will jeopardize your entire global investment.

Step 3: It Takes a (Marketing) Village

When you’re implementing marketing campaigns and programs that reach beyond your company’s headquarters, it doesn’t always work to simply translate the exact same content used by your corporate teams. Instead, work with your teams cross-functionally and globally to ensure that you not only understand and incorporate the language nuances into your global campaigns, but that you also provide the right content. To do this, leverage your global teams’ unique skills and perspectives and find the right balance of centralization for your organization.

Also, make sure that your global marketing plan allows for regional teams to make adjustments to campaign materials to increase their effectiveness in the local market. At the same time, the localization process should allow teams to test, implement, and retest marketing materials so that they meet regional teams’ and customer needs.

Step 4: Use Your Secret Weapon: Translation Memory

There’s an extremely valuable secret weapon in your localization arsenal that’s so secret even you might not know about it. What is it? Your translation memory. It’s a database of a company’s previously translated words and phrases.

Our survey of 500 global marketers found that 80% were completely unaware of this valuable tool. By using a translation memory software solution, once you’ve translated a word or phrase, you will never have to pay or wait to have those words translated again.

You’re probably asking—how is it possible to know nothing about this tool? Chances are, unless you’re using a marketing globalization solution with a unified translation memory capability, your language service providers and translation vendors control it—and there are likely multiple versions of it if you’re using several vendors.

If you’re not in control of your own translation memory, you’re spending more time and money on translation projects than you need to, and aren’t ensuring global consistency of messaging across your global campaigns.

Step 5: Automate your Global Demand Creation #FTW

It’s time to start thinking about marketing globalization the same way you think about marketing automation—as a business process that can be optimized. Take a critical look at your organization to understand how marketing assets, pre-sales materials, and campaigns are created and delivered across your tools and technologies. Now is the time to optimize your global content operation just like you would any other business process.

For example, your marketing content moves through your content management system, web content management, and marketing automation technologies. To quickly and easily deliver all the localized materials your markets demand—and benefit from an efficient, cost-effective way to go after global opportunities—you don’t want to be stuck in copy-and-paste purgatory. Rather, you need a solution that integrates these critical technologies and lets them work together to help you execute against your goals. Use technology to your advantage and avoid old school manual processes and project management tools.

By eliminating inefficiencies in your local campaign creation process, you can create more local marketing campaigns. That means more MQLs, which means more opportunities, which means more revenue for your company.

Step 6. Capture More Global Revenue Faster

In an increasingly competitive global economy, companies are continually improving their marketing campaigns to stay ahead of the competition and engage consumers through multiple channels to generate leads and grow revenue. However, many companies fail to engage successfully in international markets because their global marketing strategy and localization processes haven’t been optimized to reflect new advances in technology to deliver those campaigns on a global scale.

Whether your objectives are to increase brand awareness, expand into new markets, or grow your existing ones, it all boils down to being able to deliver compelling, effective messages to the marketplace that engage global audiences. By integrating the localization process with your marketing automation and taking a new approach to the way global marketing is done, you can engage and sell to your target audiences better and faster than ever before.

Companies with global-minded marketers who leverage the best tools available to them and collaborate well with their global peers will be the ones who dominate their markets in the end. The world is waiting for you. Go for it!

6 Key Steps to Global (Marketing) Domination

Content Warfare: The Content Marketing Book I Wish I Wrote

This is the content marketing book that I want to write.

This isn’t normally a place for book reviews and I’ve never written a book review before in my life (outside of a quick Amazon review or something). But this book has actually energized me to the point of words coming out of my fingertips onto the keyboard and feeling the need to spread the word that this book is a must-read for marketing professionals (or those responsible for marketing at their company).

Though in Ryan Hanley’s voice, tone, and vernacular, supported by his experiences and stories (which are extremely similar to my own), it is the content marketing book that I have in my head.

Content Warfare: How to find your audience, tell your story and win the battle for attention online

“Life changes when we make ourselves available to creativity.”

Content Warfare starts off with a rather poetic introduction, which honestly caught me as a pleasant surprise, then builds a foundation of necessary understanding, followed by more in-depth information on leveraging content marketing to grow your audience and your business.

The book shifts through gears at the perfect RPM, just like his spot-on analogy for scaling your content marketing efforts.

If you are a business owner or marketer who wants to learn more about shifting to content marketing for your business or even someone who has been involved in (online) content marketing you’ll find tremendous value in this as a read-through and to keep on the shelf for referencing.

For those not yet involved in digital content marketing efforts, this will serve as an excellent introduction and foundation of information as well as provide guidance on how to start and what to do.

More veteran “Content Warriors” will find themselves re-focused, re-energized, and armed with more ammo to get buy-in when necessary.

It took me a week (about 4 real “sittings”) to get through this, and the reason I had such a hard time was because I had to keep stopping to take notes or was actually so inspired that I had to get up and take action on something.

A Few Key Takeaways From The Book

There are far too many gems to really give justice here, but here are a few key takeaways on content marketing and life in general that can give you a glimpse into what to expect from Content Warfare:

The Connected Generation Is Not About What Year You Were Born

Today, there is the connected generation or the unconnected generation, regardless of what year a person was born. The connected generation is open to communicating and building relationships and make buying decisions based on digital content and interactions. The unconnected generation is not.

Know Your Audience: What information do they want? Talk About It In their Language.

“Valuable content educates, entertains, inspires (preferably all three), and does so in the language of the consumer.”

Creating content that actually makes sense to the people you are writing for is a necessity in them actually receiving value from what you are offering. It also helps you when showing up in Google search results because customers don’t know to search for worn out calipers, but they know their wheel squeaks when they make a sharp right turn.

Just Start

The Pick Crew’s take on Derek Sivers’ multiply philosophy. (Not from the book, just relevant to it.)

“You get as many opportunities as you make for yourself.”

Yes, you want to be wise with your efforts, but putting off execution until you can be perfect means you’ll never do it.

Start. Fail. Learn. Adjust.

You’ll get far greater impact with that sequence then not doing anything.

Create Quality

“Frequency of publishing is not a variable in the equation of content value.”

My philosophy has always been that high quality content is the cost of entry, and that frequency is the force multiplier. People often get confused for some reason when asking “should I post a lot or should I post quality” when the two options here are not mutually exclusive. You should first be creating something that your audience wants and will love, then the more frequently you can do that, the more impact you will see.

You can’t publish a bunch of garbage every day and think you’ll see results, particularly if you’re comparing it to publishing something awesome but less frequently.

Set Goals

“The goal dictates mechanics.”

They say a goal without a plan is just a wish. Creating that plan to turn your wish into a goal means knowing where you want to be. Once you have a defined goal, you can create a road map for getting there. Trying to execute tactics without a goal will just have you wasting time and effort.

Your goal dictates your tactics, don’t let the urge to try different tactics dictate your goal.

Have You Read Content Warfare Yet?

Join the conversation around the Content Warfare book with #contentwarfare on Twitter, Google Plus, or Instagram.

Content Warfare: The Content Marketing Book I Wish I Wrote

Translate Your Killer Plan into Day-to-Day Marketing Tactics

In a previous blog post Creating a Marketing Plan That Won’t Die a Slow, Miserable Death, we looked into how to go about planning for an upcoming year or quarter. In this post, we will focus on how to bring all these planning efforts into reality through day-to-day activities. Many companies miss this crucial step. Their good plans sit on the shelf (or the server) untouched, becoming the major reason why most planning exercises go to waste.

To recap from the previous blog:

• Step one: Your executive team has identified business objectives for the upcoming year or quarter.


• Step two: Marketing leadership has come up with marketing initiatives that drive towards each business objective.

Now we have to finalize the third component of the planning and operationalizing process – the actual tactics. Here’s how we differentiate the three components:

Business objectives: What do you want to get done?

Marketing initiatives: How are you going to do it?

Marketing tactics: What exactly are you going to do?

Thus, tactics are the marketing programs that will bring the broadly defined marketing initiatives to life. Examples of tactics include:

• Advertising campaigns


• Email campaigns


• Promotions


• Product improvements


• Public relations

Connecting tactics with marketing initiatives and business objectives is important. That’s usually accomplished using a “tactics table.”

Tactics Tables

In preparation for the marketing planning meeting (typically scheduled at the beginning of every quarter), the head of marketing planning should distribute templates to each team lead participating in the planning meeting. As a required exercise prior to the meeting, each team has to fill in the marketing tactics that they plan to perform in the upcoming quarter towards the determined marketing initiatives. Here’s an example:

Make a Tactics Table

Prior to the planning meeting, you should compile all these inputs into one master table. In the planning meeting, the group should discuss one marketing initiative at a time, focusing on the tactics filled in by teams for that quarter. Refine the tactics in the master table based on the following considerations:

• Combine tactics that are similar but created by different teams. Assign one team overall responsibility of the combined tactics.


• If a tactic from one team is merely a supporting activity for a tactic from another team, remove it with the understanding that teams will support each other in accomplishing the primary tactic.


• Remove any tactics that cannot be worked on in the quarter, and put them as placeholders for future quarters. (Note: tactics that span multiple quarters are totally acceptable.)

After these refinements, you should have a crisp list of tactics corresponding to each initiative, with each tactic assigned to a team that is primarily responsible for accomplishing it.

After the marketing meeting, distribute the refined tactics master table to the entire marketing group. Each marketing team member should use this tactics table to create his or her own quarterly personal objectives. This way, each team member’s personal goals are tied to those business objectives that we ultimately want to accomplish.

Agile Task Lists

The final step of translating marketing plan to day-to-day business activities is creating an agile task list. This list is the centerpiece of regular (we recommend weekly) operational meetings that help marketing executives gauge teams’ progress.

The agile task list is created and maintained by referencing the master tactics table explained earlier. Each tactic would translate to one or more of the tasks in the agile task list. Each task in the list should have the following elements at a minimum: a marketing initiative, a target date, and an owner. Here’s an example of an agile task list

The operational meetings should have representatives from all marketing teams. In the meeting, review the agile task list with emphasis on the progression of ongoing tasks and an overview of planned tasks. If a planned task has no relationship to any of the planned marketing initiatives, the meeting facilitator and participants should call it out and review its priority. This helps to make sure that everybody is rowing in the same direction, and that projects are evaluated according to whether (and how much) they will contribute to achieving the overarching business objectives.

Don’t forget to measure results

In the previous blog post, we discussed the need to identify key metrics to track progression on different marketing initiatives. These metrics should be tracked throughout the quarter so that tactics can be adjusted if the needle is not moving as expected. The “before” and “after” metric is the most powerful evidence that marketing can show, to prove the difference the team has made on specific marketing initiatives. Without this metric, all the hard work your team did can too easily be forgotten (or ignored) by the rest of the organization.

For more information on determining which metrics you should be measuring, take a look at our eBook, “The New Marketing Metrics for B2B.” This will give you an in-depth look at the new metrics you should be focused on today, including how to track the right data at the right time.

Closing Thoughts

We hope we’ve laid out a framework you can follow on planning and executing on objectives that matter to your business. We look forward to your feedback on the methodology. Do you have a different framework that works in your organization? Do you have tips or hints that can make the framework outlined here even more potent? Please share it in the comments section below!

Translate Your Killer Plan into Day-to-Day Marketing Tactics

Should You Be Reshaping Your Social Media Strategy?

There are so many do’s and don’ts in the social media marketing handbook these days, it’s hard to know how to get the most out of your channels. Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about brands that treat their social platforms as extended sales funnels, with a closer eye on their ROI than their brand marketing. That’s a shame and a waste, since social media is the ideal platform for humanizing your brand and sharing your awesome branding with new people. It’s really not the ideal platform for selling, although it can absolutely serve that purpose as well.

There will always be other channels for very salesy content (and email marketing is almost always going to be a better bet for ROI), but social media specifically has a huge capacity for friendly branding that many are ignoring for the most part. One social media expert who is not ignoring this, however, is Jason Falls – which is why he caught my eye online.

Social Media for Business: Are You Missing the Point?

Jason is a digital strategist who has co-authored two books on marketing; the most recent focuses on taking the BS (my euphemism) out of social media marketing. Below you’ll find my questions for Jason and his thoughts on what makes for great social media that doesn’t feel forced or over the top – social media that focuses on and takes advantage of direct communication with fans, as opposed to direct marketing to potential buyers.

What is the worst mistake that small businesses make using social media?

Assuming that it’s free and easy. This is a marketing channel. It may or may not be one that works well for every business, but it’s a path to your customer. If you don’t invest the time, money and energy into it, then you’re failing your customers there. They are valuable – don’t shrug them off to some intern or refuse to invest any money because you don’t see a direct response return. If anything, use it as a place for customer service and feedback so you can see intrinsic value.

How can brands strike a balance between brand marketing and direct marketing when using social media?

Just genuinely participating, sharing content, engaging in conversations and showing your human side is brand marketing in and of itself. That’s what makes me want to engage with you, trust you and perhaps even predisposes me to purchase from you. I buy Charmin because their social content cracks me up: it’s not about selling toilet paper, it’s about offering a humorous aside for people during the day. That’s great brand marketing. If they dropped a coupon every now and then, I wouldn’t mind. But that’s not why I follow them.

What are your thoughts on sharing the same content across different social channels?

Each audience and platform is slightly different, so the logic is that you should prepare content specifically for that audience. Obviously Twitter is shorter, and not as image or video friendly (yet). So if you post the same thing on Facebook, you’re missing an opportunity to add images, video, longer text and so on. That doesn’t mean you have to invest a great deal of time in creating separate content, but massaging it a bit for the type of responses and user you have on each platform makes sense. In the case of LinkedIn, for instance, you might have a B2B focus there, while focusing on a consumer audience on Facebook – so the messages should be different.

What do you think about the 80/20 rule (80% other content, 20% self promotional content) for social media marketing?

That’s a good rule of thumb, but it’s not such a hard number for everyone. Every audience is different, and some will tolerate more direct calls to action than others. You certainly want to engage and keep people’s attention – and spamming isn’t a great way to do that. But many B2B followers are actually looking for product information and company expertise, and don’t really care about some trade article that doesn’t have anything to do with you. You have to test the ratio with your own audience to find the right mix.

Related Class: B2B Social Media Strategy

What is the biggest missed opportunity that most businesses aren’t taking advantage of on social media?

Most business simply aren’t seeing this as a human communications channel. They’re too busy trying to monetize it and spam audiences with ads and offers. There are channels for that. Social media can be one, but it’s inherently more useful if you just have someone there to answer questions, serve the customers and show you have a human side to what you do.

Jason Falls is a digital strategist, author and public speaker. His work has touched a number of large brands including Maker’s Mark, AT&T, Cafepress and Humana. To find out more about Jason visit his website.

To learn more about boosting your brand through smart social media use and well-tailored content, check out this class: How To Manage a Brand in a Social Media World.

Should You Be Reshaping Your Social Media Strategy?

Don’t Wait for Legislative Internet Sales Tax to Pass; State-Level Compliance Requirements Already Exist

Is the third time a charm? It’s hard to say if that will be the case for online sales tax legislation. After nearly two years on the Congressional bench, the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA) is once again up to bat, but it’s still too early to tell if will cross home plate this time.

First introduced in 2011 and again in 2013, the MFA is an attempt by federal lawmakers to level the playing field for brick-and-mortar stores going up against ecommerce businesses. If the bill passes, states that meet tax code simplification requirements can opt-in to require out-of-state sellers to collect sales tax on purchases made online.

The MFA had teeth for a while, making the industry news rounds as opponents and proponents hashed it out over whether the internet should remain a tax-free zone. After initially passing the Senate in May 2013, the bill stalled in the House, where it’s remained for the last 22 months.

So, what’s new in 2015? Not much. MFA 3.0 is virtually identical to versions 2.0 and 1.0. As are the arguments for and against. At this point, a federal ruling may be moot anyway. Tired of waiting on MFA’s fate, several states took matters into their own hands, broadening the rules around nexus (criteria for creating a sales tax obligation) to extend beyond a physical presence to include marketplace selling, click-through and affiliate marketing and Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA). More than 20 states now have laws requiring out-of-state sellers to collect and remit sales and use taxes if they have created sales relationships through these channels. And Amazon, the U.S.’s largest online retailer, now collects sales tax in 23 states.

The States Aren’t Waiting; Neither Should You

Given the states’ actions, merchants shouldn’t wait for a formal invitation from Congress to address the impact of internet sales tax on their business. With 12,000 taxing jurisdictions in the U.S. and more than 14,000 changes to tax rates, rules and boundaries in 2014 alone, sales tax is already complicated and burdensome to manage. With ecommerce sales added to the mix, that complexity will only increase and companies will need to quickly become experts in the sales tax laws of 46 states — no small feat! Faced with an onslaught of new and disparate tax compliance regulations, the odds of overlooking nexus obligations or miscalculating rates are exponentially greater.

Furthermore, in an effort to enforce these new rules, some states are increasing their audit activity; California announced it would add 100 new auditors to its payroll in 2013 in an effort to collect on unpaid internet taxes. This move is not surprising, given what’s at stake: by last count, states are losing out on $23 billion in uncollected sales tax on ecommerce purchases according to the National Conference of State Legislators. There’s no knowing when or even if you’ll be subjected to a state sales tax audit, but a “wait and see” approach may not be the best strategy.

Automate Now or Lose Later

What should you do? Consider automation. Whether or not you need to charge sales tax isn’t something you want to manually decide every time a customer makes a purchase. It’s also not wise to hedge your bets by making a blanket choice to charge or not charge sales tax or to charge a flat rate. Rather, employ tax automation software integrated into your shopping cart or ecommerce system to make those complicated and nuanced decisions for you.

Ecommerce systems and shopping carts are designed to make online sales easier to manage and ensure the business processes specific to your web store are centralized with other areas of your business. When you have better insight and control over inventory, purchases, delivery and shipping it’s easier to make informed decisions about your business. Sales tax automation should be part of this process. When you’re confident the right rates and rules are being applied to every transaction and can easily pull data to support that, it’s much easier to prove compliance and a lot less work for your financial team.

It’s also likely that your customers aren’t following MFA as closely as you are and may still believe they can buy online without paying sales tax. While you can’t magnanimously decide to not charge sales tax to customers, you can ensure that sales tax isn’t a surprise to them. Unexpected costs are the number one reason customers abandon a shopping cart — this includes not knowing the costs of shipping and sales tax at checkout. With sales tax automation integrated into your ecommerce system, shopping cart or point-of-sale system, the correct rate is instantly calculated and applied to taxable purchases.

In the end, the passage or failure of MFA shouldn’t be the catalyst for changing how you handle tax compliance in your business. Enough is happening already at the state level that industry experts and analysts advocate automation as a best practice to protect your business and stay on top of sales tax.

Photo: Flickr, Jason Dirks

Don’t Wait for Legislative Internet Sales Tax to Pass; State-Level Compliance Requirements Already Exist