If you’re telling people what you do or how you do it, you’re wasting your time. What you want to tell people is WHY you’re doing it and WHAT the benefits are. You want your audience to understand what VALUE it is that you or your organization provides.
For many businesses, this is a tough concept to convey. Organizations are so busy dealing with what goes in to their businesses, they neglect to research — or feature — the fruits of their labor.
I’m currently part of a team working on a Taproot pro bono project. The scope is to create Branding and Key Messaging so that the non-profit’s staff can reach out to their audiences of potential donors and volunteers.
This is a two-part project; the first part is Branding Positioning: profiling the audiences that will write a check or volunteer to support this non-profit and clarifying what it is the organization offers. There could be a variety of audiences: corporations, foundations, individuals who will volunteer or those who may donate. What do the different audiences need to hear about the organization that will make them pay attention? What will resonate with them — enough to write a check or volunteer time to further the efforts of the non-profit?
The second part of this project is Brand Messaging. Like any organization marketing their products or services (either non-profit or for-profit), this particular organization needs to engage the listener with facts and figures reflecting the challenges the organization faces and the facts and figures showing their productivity or success. Add to that the brand’s stories: real-life examples of what challenges the organization and its constituents have met…and solved. What are the organizations successes? These “stories” or examples of an organization’s achievements can be told in-person and through interviews, testimonials, case studies, social media, customer survey results and on their website.
Find out more here:
Bottom line, this particular organization wants their prospects to write a check or volunteer their time. Their audiences, like any potential client, will make a time or monetary commitment if they can see the value in working with the organization. They want to know what they, and the organization’s constituents, “get” when a donor gives their money or their time. What will the benefits be?
The fallback brand messaging for so many businesses is telling potential clients what they do: make widgets, provide services, be cheaper, faster, bigger, newer, shinier.
For the most part, those things don’t matter. This is where the wrong messaging fails. What matters are the results; the benefits. For someone who wants to hire you, write you a check or volunteer their time, what’s in it for them? Bottom line: What will be the Return on Their Investment? If you can tell that story well, you’ll have an appreciative, responsive audience. An audience that volunteers their time, writes a check, or hires you.
Martha Spelman is a Los Angeles-based branding, marketing, content marketing and social media consultant who creates and implements innovative marketing strategies for entrepreneurs and small- to medium-sized businesses in both the B2B and B2C arenas. Martha's unique combination of business and marketing expertise helps clients focus on their target markets,... View full profile ›
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When you picture a paid search marketer you likely envision a mathematical, keyword-researching data genius who creates campaigns with the flick of her wrist and pulls Google Analytics reports in her sleep. On the other hand you might envision a content marketer as an artistically blessed writer whose eloquent way with words can talk her out of any dilemma.
These stereotypes may or may not be true, but being one who wears both hats, I’ve found that paid search marketers could truly benefit from putting on a content marketing hat from time to time. Check out the 3 game-changing ways PPC marketers can benefit from thinking like content marketers.
#1: Headline Creation Requires Research & a Spark of Creativity
What headlines received the highest clicks and engagement rates across all channels? This might sound like a common question for content marketers to ask when evaluating their monthly performance, but it’s also one that PPC marketers should be asking before drafting their ad text headlines. The headline of an ad often the only thing a searcher reads, making it your one and only chance of gaining a website visitor and potential conversion. When you’re sitting on a page next to your competitors who have a carefully crafted ad, yours needs to stand out. So what can be done?
Use your most engaging headlines on your website and social channels within your ads
Keep an eye on metrics like social shares, traffic, clicks, and conversion rates on your business’s blog and social networks. While the audiences may vary on each platform, the chances of seeing success with a headline that stood out against the pack are typically high. Steal from your other channels to create PPC ad headlines that are likely to see results.
If you haven’t wasted a good hour+ on Buzzfeed, whether it be taking a quiz to find out which Friends character you are or reading about 33 Insanely Clever Things Your Small Apartment Needs, then you’re either really important or unfamiliar with the internet. The internet media company has become one of the most successful and well-known sources of daily distraction for employees struggling through their 9-5 workdays. Even though a lot of Buzzfeed’s content might seem like a mindless distraction, they’re doing something right with over 200 million monthly unique visitors. PPC marketers should steal ideas from Buzzfeed’s trending blog titles and make them relevant to their industry to craft more clickable headlines.
Use Buzzsumo to Find Engaging Headlines
Buzzsumo is the best side-kick for marketers searching for their next content idea. Whether it be a topic, keyword or website, you can type anything into the Buzzsumo search box and then filter by date to see which pieces of content received the highest amount of social shares over a given period of time. How is this helpful? Stealing the ideas from pieces of content that people were not only willing to click on, but willing to share across their social networks, proves that the headline is a true winner in the resonating category. PPC marketers can adapt these ideas for their ad headlines.
Combine BuzzFeed and Buzzsumo to 3X Your Ad CTR’s
The ultimate hack is to combine the two. In the example below I typed “buzzfeed.com” into my Buzzsumo search bar to land me with this insanely sharable article. I stole the idea of the article, but adapted it to my client’s nutrition business to create this unicorn ad with a click-worthy headline.
#2: Compelling Storytelling Is Critical
PPC marketers need to craft the entire search journey, from first query to last click, as a cohesive experience. If you’re searching for a new pair of winter boots and you’re directed to a landing page selling jackets, then you’re probably going to bounce back to Google, right? Relating keywords to ad text to landing page might seem like one of those 101 best practices that we all first learn when diving into the PPC space, but how many of you are actually ensuring your experience comes full-circle?
All great content marketers have one thing in common: they’re incredible storytellers. Stories have the power to shake us, make us move, and act, because our brains are drawn to them. As humans we love stories so much that we have to be trained to not fall for anecdotal evidence.
What does this have to do with PPC? Everything. Your keywords, ads, and landing pages should tell a cohesive and engaging story. From the search query you can gain an understanding into what the searcher is looking for, then the ad can tell the story of how you will solve their problem, and finally the landing page gives you full range to engage your searcher with a moving conclusion that will (hopefully) drive them to act (i.e. convert).
Check out the example below where I typed in the search “learn how to code in Boston,” I was then directed to the ad below reflecting the search query within the ad and providing me with some additional information of what I’d find if I decided to click on the ad.
I was then directed to this extensive landing page, which was clearly designed from a content marketing mind-set. Some elements PPC marketers should take note of include the storytelling components of a student’s experiences and also hiring manager’s perspective on the program.
There’s even a section outlining the typical day in the life of a student.
TAKEAWAY: Create a cohesive experience when crafting your keywords, ads, and landing pages, and visualize each stage of the search experience as a story where an engaging ending occurs on the landing page, which inspires the searcher to act (as in fill out your lead form or make a purchase).
#3: Brainstorming Should be a Continuous Process
We often gain inspiration from the most spontaneous places at the most unpredictable times.
Another thing successful content marketers do regularly is brainstorm, whether it be in the shower before work, while running on the treadmill or during a fascinating conversation with a stranger at your neighborhood bar. When a good idea pops up they jot it down, create it, and bring it to life through a blog post, infographic, or e-book.
PPC marketers should be doing the same. Whether it be an advanced remarketing tactic that a retail company used successfully on you or a set of keywords you just realized may be worth bidding on. These realizations and opportunities to expand what you’re currently doing with your paid search campaigns shouldn’t be overlooked. You should always be thinking of how to innovate further, do more, and be better with PPC because you don’t want to compete with your competitors, you want to make it so there’s no longer competition.
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3 Game-Changing Ways to Think Like a Content Marketer in PPC
Traffic is to digital marketing like gasoline is to an engine. It’s what makes it go. So it’s not too surprising that web traffic usually comes in at the top of the list for content marketing goals.
Trouble is, traffic can be hard to get. It’s not uncommon to invest months of work in content marketing before you see any significant traffic. If you want to shorten that time frame, take a look at these traffic-building tactics. You’ll probably find at least a couple you could implement without too much extra work.
Get the search engine optimization right
1) Optimize for long tail keywords.
Long tail keywords are search terms of three words or more. These specialized keywords are easier to rank for because they have less competition. But they often still have good search volumes, and they tend to convert better.
2) Get your technical SEO right.
Does your site have the basic nuts and bolts of search engine optimization in place? For instance, is your website fast and mobile-friendly? Are you using meta title and description tags correctly? These and other SEO basics can make a difference, and they aren’t that hard to fix. See our ebook, How to Make Any Content SEO-Friendly for more details.
Rework your content
3) Reformat your content into videos, infographics, SlideShares and more.
You work hard to finish every piece of content. So why not make the most of your efforts? Reformat that content into multiple sources of traffic.
Videos are often the best choice for reformatting. I know video production can seem intimidating, but once you’re used to the process of making short videos, they often take less time than blog posts. And remember: YouTube is the second largest search engine…
SlideShares are also a fantastic way to rework content. In a few hours you can remake a blog post or an ebook into a SlideShare. And SlideShares get traffic: Every time I reformat a post into a SlideShare I get about 20 new visitors to my site every day for a month, just from that one new piece of content.
Heidi Cohen has reformatted some of her blog posts into SlideShares
4) Republish your content.
You may want to do a light rewrite of your articles before you republish on these sites, but it’s worth the effort. LinkedIn, Medium, and Business 2 Community all get enormous amounts of traffic. So why not get your posts seen by more people?
I regularly hear from consultants and smaller companies that they get far more viewers for their posts on LinkedIn than they do when they publish on their own website.
Guerrilla idea: What if you republished some content as a Kindle book and included links to other content on your site in the Kindle book? All it would take is a light edit of an eBook, or you could reorganize a series of blog posts.
Promote your content
5) Announce your new content to your email list.
This is one of the easiest and most obvious ways to boost traffic. But it works every time, and it’s a legitimate traffic source.
This takes very little time, and every once in a while it creates a significant traffic spike. There are many other sites to submit content to, but I’d stick with only top-tier choices. You don’t want to be adding links to a site Google might come to view as a bad neighborhood.
Adding a link to StumbleUpon takes barely a minute, and can sometimes generate quite a lot of traffic.
7) Find high quality, industry-related sharing sites.
Every industry has at least one or two sites like this. They are reputable, widely-known sites that let you mention new content. These are a little bit like a LinkedIn group that allows content promotion, except they’re not attached to LinkedIn.
If you’re in the content marketing biz, Inbound.org and Growth Hackers are good choices.
Of course, promote only content that’s worth promoting. Everything you publish should be top-notch and super-useful. Otherwise no amount of promotion may be enough to get people to read it and share it.
8) Try MyBlogU, Viral Content Buzz, and other private content sharing networks.
Tread carefully with these, but you can get additional traffic from them. If you come across a private sharing site you’re not sure of, stay on the safe side and don’t use it. There are plenty of content sharing and promotion tactics – there’s no need to dip into risky sharing sites.
9) Join or assemble “a wolf pack”.
I got this term from Natalie Lussier, who partnered with a very small group of marketers and consultants to create her own wolf pack. Everyone in the pack knew everyone else well. They trusted each other’s content, and how they ran their business, so they could recommend and promote each other’s work at will.
If you can find a few other marketers in complementary but not competitive businesses, and you can trust their work completely, a wolf pack can be a powerful traffic generator.
10) Reach out to influencers.
I’m sure you’ve heard of influencer marketing. Influencers are people who have a large online following. You reach out to them and ask them to share your content because it would be of interest to them. Or you mention their work in your content and hope they’ll be pleased enough to tell their followers about it.
This works best if you try “micro influencers” before you try to hook up with the giants of your industry. Check out Ninja Outreach if you’re interested in this technique. It’s an influencer finding tool that’s supposed to work very well.
Social media experts like Rebekah Radice are powerful online influencers. Just one tweet from them can drive enormous traffic to your site
11) Advertise… frugally.
There’s a secret in content marketing. It’s that some people pay for it. “It” being traffic, of course. And while you could dive into Google AdWords or even LinkedIn ads to promote your content, services like Taboola and Outbrain may end up being more effective.
12) Don’t gate your content.
I know this seems questionable – for many B2B marketers, the whole point of content is to get leads. Getting leads means asking for at least an email address before someone can see your premium content. But gating content drastically reduces how much exposure it gets. According to David Meerman Scott, “between 20 times and 50 times more people download free content.”
But, of course, you’ll lose the leads if you skip the gating. So compromise: Gate most of your content, but leave a few pieces free as traffic and link magnets. Want a good example of this? A page of on-demand webinars available without having to fill out any forms.
I’m pretty sure you all knew about this. But it is a way to get traffic to your site. One tip: Share each piece of content more than once! And not just within the first week that you published it. There’s no reason you can’t retweet or repost the same article once a month until it’s out of date.
14) Add Sniply or another overlay widget to your social media posts.
This is a new technology more people should use. Sniply (or Openr or similar tools) adds an overlay in the footer of the screen whenever someone clicks on a link you’ve shared in social media.
So if someone clicked one of the links you had shared on social media, it might look like this:
The overlays let you promote content, build an email list, or just send people to your website. It’s a slick way to get far more mileage out of what you’re sharing.
Do some careful link building
15) Guest blog.
Guest blogging can definitely drive traffic. And while the days of guest blogging solely as a link-building tactic are over, if you write high-quality posts for high-quality sites, you can still attract high-quality traffic. To make it worth your time, aim for the highest-traffic, highest-quality sites that will accept your posts.
16) Leave comments on major blogs and websites.
Blog commenting is an underrated way to get traffic, but it works. As with any link-building technique, don’t abuse it and don’t use it on second-rate sites.
Blog commenting won’t ever get you a tidal wave of traffic, but it can generate a steady trickle. Blog comments are also a great way to demonstrate your expertise and to build relationships with bloggers and site editors. It’s a great way to get your foot in the door for guest posting.
17) Build a presence on a major platform.
Most of us would probably groan at the idea of starting another blog, but that’s what this tip suggests. The good news is you don’t necessarily have to be a writer for this to work.
If you’ve got a good voice and some skill as an interviewer, start a podcast. Love being in front of a camera? Launch a YouTube channel. Or get yourself a spot as a guest contributor on the likes of Forbes, Inc, Entrepreneur or similar sites. Many CEOs are using those types of guest columns to get major exposure for their companies.
Back to you
There are almost endless ways to boost traffic to your site. The seventeen I’ve mentioned here are a start, but definitely not every technique. Do you have a favorite trick for attracting traffic? Tell us about it in the comments.
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As human beings, air is what keeps us alive. The air we need to stay alive is a specific combination of different gasses that are proven to help us continue our lives. Without the right air, we can’t live.
Your eCommerce business also needs air to stay alive. Without traffic, there are no sales. Without sales, you can’t keep running the business. Like air, your traffic also needs to be comprised of shoppers from the right sources in order to help your business survive and thrive. A bunch of traffic, without considering where it is coming from, can be useless and even harmful.
In this post, you are going to learn how to start driving targeted traffic to your web store today.
Drive Targeted Traffic to Your Webstore
1. Be a Guest Blogger
It does not matter what you sell, there is a blog about everything, and I mean everything!
With guest blogging, you have the opportunity to get in front of the right audience to display your knowledge on a topic that they too care about. Let’s say you sell organic dog food. You could reach out to site like Organic-Pet-Digest, The Bark, or Dog Food Advisor. When reaching out, come ready with topics and brief outlines, but also be ready to take on a topic that might be of better use for them (and still helps you).
Getting Traffic:
Write something engaging. If you excite or educate the reader, you’ve got a real chance to sell.
Find the right publications. The more it is related to your niche the better
Get on a blog that has proven to engage its readers (likes, comments, shares, etc).
2. Add a Blog
As we’ll discuss shortly, one of the best ways to get more targeted traffic on your web store is by utilizing great SEO. Blogging has proven to improve a web store’s SEO (getting more traffic directly from search engines).
In addition to SEO benefits, blogging enables you drive traffic to your site from a plethora of different sources, such as groups, social media sites, email, and more.
Let’s say you sell kitchen appliances, such as cutlery, dishes, and glasses. What can you blog about? Time spent in the kitchen – whether preparing meals or cleaning after them – can be time consuming. Hence, you could launch a blog on how to get more done in the kitchen in less time. The options are endless.
Getting Traffic:
Use the right keywords so that Google indeed directs traffic back to you (longtail vs. short tail)
To get posts ranked on the first page of Google, consider writing more than 1000 words.
Share posts on your social media profiles/pages
Comment and leave links for your posts on high-quality websites
3. Join Relevant Social Groups and Forums
Although in today’s age some of us may think that forums are a thing of the past, online forums and different social media groups are fantastic spots to get the right traffic for your web store. Depending on your target audience (millennials vs older folks) you can find more success on Facebook or on an online forum. From a quick Google search for “home cleaning forum” I found myself staring at a dozen different forums!
To exemplify the effects that this can have on your site, consider a web store that sells vacuum cleaners and other objects to help with cleaning the house or office. Posting your products in a general eCommerce group won’t get you the right traffic.
On the other hand, you could post insightful information with links to your store when necessary to show how much knowledge you have on the topic and the solutions you offer. This in essence can turn you into an influencer in your niche, something that can do wonders for sales and traffic!
If you want to take this up a notch, you could open your own Facebook group so that you can have more control over the way the group works (and have a nice cover image for the group that shows off your store).
Getting traffic:
Make time to interact on a constant basis, much like social media. Save an hour every other day to check what is going on in the relevant groups and forums.
Start using Reddit and Quora to drive instant traffic to your store.
Comment and assist other more often than when you open a new thread.
4. Influencer Marketing: Blogger/Social Media Outreach
Every niche has influencers, and with the rise of eCommerce and social media, finding those influencers has become much less of hassle and now a more efficient process.
According to a study by Convince & Convert, on average, businesses generate $6.50 in revenue for each $1 invested in influencer marketing, with 70% making over $2 (on the $1 investment). The conclusion is simple: you have to try influencer marketing (and here’s some help: 5 Amazing Outreach Templates That Get Results From Influencers)
Getting Traffic:
Create a plan: either start with the heavy influencers or start from the bottom (and make your way to the top).
Do you need influencers that blog or is an Instagram or YouTube start going to give you a better ROI (return on investment)?
5. SEO
Google and search engines are still one of the leading sources of traffic for all websites. Although email and social media get a lot of love across the net, SEO is still alive and kicking – although it has changed over the years.
By utilizing the best practices (which we’ll sum up below), SEO results that bring you to the first page of Google search results will help you get more traffic (much more!), while helping you save money on ads (not as crucial when you appear in the first few results) and get results for your work over a long period of time, and not just for a few days.
Getting Traffic:
Use the relevant keywords for your web store.
Get high-quality backlinks from popular sites (this takes us back to influencer marketing and makes the tactic even more important).
Avoid duplicate content (don’t have the same identical piece of content or text various times on your site).
Have a responsive website (Google does not like sites that are not optimized for mobile use).
This might seem a bit off, but it is certainly a valuable, and very effective way to drive targeted traffic to your web store. Do any of your competitors have domain names with more than one spelling? If so, then odds are that at least a few people are ending up on the wrong site.
Think about it this way. If the domain is getting misspelled 200 times a month (6-7 misspellings/day which is not a lot), and you owned that domain, you could either list a few products on this domain or link it to your store and now you are looking at 200 more targeted visitors on your site. That’s what we call easy money (and taking a bite out of the competition).
Getting Traffic:
Before making a purchase, track whether or not the competitor has increasing sales.
Buy domains that have a history of being misspelled. There is no point in buying a similar spelling that does not get searched.
Buy a domain that has as many similar products to yours as possible, as this will increase your conversion rates because your store will be seen by the right people.
Only buy the domain if the price tag is low enough. Are your products priced high enough for you to start profiting off the investment in a month or two?
7. Social Media Profiles & Pages
Social media can be a great resource of targeted traffic to your web store, if you play your cards right. First and foremost, getting the right social traffic can only work if you have got the right people following your profile/pages.
Buying likes or targeting a certain audience because it costs less to get those likes, might be a short-term solution to being more popular on social media, but it is far from a viable way to get the right traffic (or more traffic) to your eCommerce store.
Getting Traffic:
Share the same thing more than once, but differently. With the quick updates in Twitter and algorithm of Facebook, most of your community won’t see the post the first time around.
Optimize the post for each network, meaning that images,hashtags, and the text should be appropriate for the target audience and norms of each platform.
Call to actions matter and can influence clicks. Although you might think it’s obvious that the person should click, you shouldn’t assume that to be true.
Share product reviews in a fun way and link back to the product.
Constantly look for news to engage your followers.
8. Create Awesome Videos
If you are debating on whether or not creating videos is a good use of your time, then here is what you need to know: 73% of online shoppers are more likely than not to go and make a purchase after they’ve seen a branded product explanation video. In addition to that convincing statistic, 96% of consumers say that videos have an influence on them when it comes to deciding whether or not to make an eCommerce purchase (source).
What videos should you be making? There is no need to rush to make 100 tomorrow, but start off with a few tutorial videos, which is a tactic that works extremely well for brands using Vine and YouTube.
Getting Traffic:
Share videos on Vine, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
Add YouTube cards to the videos you share on YouTube.
Embed videos on relevant product pages to increase conversion rates.
Share the videos with relevant bloggers to improve your SEO and get more traffic at the exact same time.
Speaking of awesome videos, check this one out! Imagine what a video like this could do for your business.
9. Facebook Advertisements
Advertising on Facebook can be one of the best tactics for increasing the amount of traffic on your site. However, whether or not that traffic converts into purchases is another question. To ensure that you are getting the right traffic (targeted visitors) to your site, be sure to get the targeting done correctly.
To make sure your ads are targeting the right people, use your page audience insights. Also take into consideration using either a custom audience, lookalike audience, or advanced connection targeting.
Getting Traffic:
Use the right call to action. Don’t expect clicks without telling people what to do.
Match your text and image so that they portray the same message. There is nothing more unattractive than a confusing advertisement.
Make sure you are driving the traffic to the right landing pages. At the end of the day, you want the traffic to convert into sales.
10. Google AdWords
Besides Facebook ads, this is another great option for getting more of the right traffic on your web store.
For those not familiar, Adwords works based on a keyword scheme, in which a businesses bid on industry related keywords in order to have their ad displayed in a high performing spot when that keyword is searched: at the top of search-engine results.
For example, an eCommerce store that sells running shoes from various brands could make a bid on the keyword “running shoes” so that their store appears first in the search results (as an ad, not part of search results).
Getting Traffic:
Bid on the right keywords. If you don’t want to track multiple keywords, consider bidding on one related to your most popular product.
Focus on the quality score (and not just the bid amount), which is a grade that Google gives your advertisement based on its relevancy: keywords, landing page, text in the ad, and your ad’s click-through-rate.
11. User Generated Content (UGC)
One of the most successful types of marketing is classic word of mouth marketing. We covered the effectiveness of word of mouth marketing in an older post on how to use word of mouth marketing to get people talking about your business.
User generated content is the 21st century’s form of word of mouth marketing. Nothing says to people that your products rock than seeing a friend post images of the products on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and/or Pinterest.
This type of marketing helps you drive large amounts of traffic to your site, without you having to do any extra work, which makes it one heck of a tactic to use. Notice how Eggo used UGC to not only drive more traffic, but also got someone else to design their new cover image!
Getting Traffic:
Ask people to post and use either a unique hashtag or tag your brand.
Add an incentive to posting, such as a contest or prizes for all the shared content.
Respond to the person’s post/status with a compliment.
Share the UGC on your own profiles/pages to engage your fans with new content.
12. Social Listening
Sometimes the best things happen as a result from listening. When it comes to social listening and generating large numbers of targeted shoppers for your website, using tools to see what is being said about your competitors and your market/products is one very smart way to go about driving large amounts of traffic to your site. Just ask Arby’s!
Social listening can be implemented into your business’ strategy to do all of the following, and not necessarily only on social media, rather also across the web: attract new customers (lead generation), customer service, identifying influencers, understanding the market, understanding trends, tracking the competition, and getting more user generated content.
In a sense it’s a mean to generate more traffic without creating anything new – just interacting/responding – as well as nurturing other means of traffic generation that have already been mentioned.
Getting Traffic:
Decide what shoppers you want to drive to your web store: people talking about your competitors, people talking about your market or market trends.
Track the relevant keyword for the type of traffic you want to drive (from what source).
Listen to what is being said and answer the questions or issues that people are talking about.
13. Traffic Booster App
This is our best kept secret, and now we’re letting the cat out of the bag. Get anywhere from 220 to 5000 targeted shoppers on your web store every month.
Getting Traffic:
Just create an account, select a category type, tell us who you want to target and where you want them (what pages), and we’ll handle all the rest.
Start Getting Converting Visitors Today
Now you have 13 viable sources and tactics to use to get the right traffic on your web store. The days of excuses for a lack of traffic – whether the excuses were good or not – are gone. Pick two-three of these tactics and start implementing them into your daily schedule.
My question for you, is what are you going to be focusing on? Will you start with blogging, or go with social listening? Maybe the Traffic Booster and social media are your choice, whatever it is please share in the comment section below.
Ty is a digital marketing enthusiast that can't get enough social media marketing and content marketing. He is the inbound marketing manager at StoreYa where he spends his days searching for the newest social marketing scoop and creating amazingly awesome content. If you’d like to chat with him, feel free... View full profile ›
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The Frankenstein monster isn’t fiction. It’s living in your sales department.
Every day, sales managers struggle to find tools that help personalize the customer’s buying experience—cobbling together 5 or 6 tools like a mad scientist. But the monster turns on you, because now you have to manage multiple logins to systems that don’t talk to each other, and you’re losing precious time entering data in several tools. Instead of a better sales system, you end up with inefficiency and chaos.
We’ve been there. But we’ve found a simple and highly effective way to boost sales team efficiency and create amazing customer experiences: HubSpot CRM and Sidekick.
The HubSpot CRM
Most sales teams battle with their CRM system to keep up with data entry—it either consumes most of their time, or they ignore it completely and then struggle to recall information and context for their sales communication.
The HubSpot CRM is an intuitive system that frees up valuable selling time by automatically logging emails, recording calls, and managing sales data.
“Traditional sales technology is necessary but not sufficient,” said HubSpot’s Brian Halligan. “HubSpot’s Sales Platform is designed to arm sales teams with the context they need to improve how they engage with companies, prospects, and leads to drive sales instead of driving people crazy.”
The HubSpot CRM equips you to conquer these challenges with these supercharged features:
Automated intelligence gathering and data entry
HubSpot’s CRM automatically creates company records, associates contacts, de-duplicates leads, and takes care of all the little details you shouldn’t be distracted by.
You can instantly see new, useful information about any contact or company, including background information, details on key employees, social data, related companies, and more.
Every email sent from Google Apps, Outlook, Apple Mail, and HubSpot is logged automatically with the contact’s record in the HubSpot CRM.
The HubSpot CRM organizes every email, call, note, meeting, and website visit into one simple, intuitive Timeline view.
Phone integration and call recording
It’s hard to help a customer in distress when you’re trying to listen and take notes, while also searching around on different screens for context. You need to be fully engaged in calls with customers, and the HubSpot CRM lets you easily make calls with one click from your browser, then automatically log notes and recordings of calls for future reference.
Sidekick
To complement the HubSpot CRM, there’s Sidekick—a powerful tool that provides you with intelligence to improve sales communication.
Supercharged online research
With Sidekick’s Insights, you can quickly gain valuable insight about a prospect you’re researching online, and you can access additional lead intelligence from HubSpot and your CRM. Using this information, you can personalize your approach to opportunities based on data and context, and quickly add information into HubSpot with just a few clicks.
When communicating via email, you can go to Sidekick Insights and get relevant information about the contact’s history, social and marketing engagement, and sales opportunities. Armed with this information, you can supercharge your email to personalize the customer’s experience and send real-time data updates back to Sales HQ.
Mega-powerful email communication
Sidekick’s email integration also equips you with the ability to…
Strategically plan emails. With just a few clicks, sales superheroes can easily schedule email to be delivered in the future, when it is more likely to be opened by prospects and customers.
Track an email’s activity. With real-time mobile and desktop Sidekick Notifications, you’ll instantly know when a prospect is reading their email, looking at a proposal, or doing research on the company’s website. You can also tell if your email hasn’t been opened yet.
Know your contacts better. Sidekick shows you powerful information about your contacts right in your inbox. You can see their professional history, mutual connections, and email history.
Optimize your email templates. Access to your HubSpot CRM or Salesforce templates means your entire sales team can use the same templates and see which emails are being used and which ones work best.
We’re using the HubSpot CRM and Sidekick, and we’re thrilled with the results. Our sales team spends a lot less time on data entry and a lot more time strategically connecting with prospects in ways that delight. And because they’re HubSpot tools, everything is integrated with our marketing team. So no silos to burn down.
Credentials From her early days of playing office in her parents’ basement, Marisa has been gifted with a talent for automating processes to improve efficiency. While working at the University of Michigan in academic advising, Marisa became frustrated by the lack of good electronic tools for managing student records and... View full profile ›
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The 2 Tools You Need for a Streamlined Sales Process
In social media acronyms are both common and useful. They enable the delivery of complex messages with just a few keystrokes.
The real challenge is being able to recognize the litany of mismatched consonants, vowels, and numerals that comprise these acronyms.
Understanding social media acronyms plays an important role in your texting life. You will also find them being widely used in business meetings, sales and marketing reports, and—most notably—by anyone who works in IT. Before you get too frustrated by all the ICYMIs and IDKs, take a look at this list. Chances are in this list you will find the one that has been baffling you for the longest time.
Social Media Networks
For starters, it’s a good idea to become familiar with the acronyms that identify specific social media networks. When viewed in context, they are very intuitive.
FB stands for Facebook.
IG stands for Instagram.
G+ stands for Google+.
YT stands for YouTube.
LI stands for LinkedIn.
Twitter-Specific Acronyms
There are a number of acronyms used regularly on Twitter that are helpful to know. Among them are:
RT = “Retweet,” which is when you publish another user’s Tweet to your own Twitter feed.
DM = “Direct Message,” or a message that is only visible to the individuals involved in the conversation.
MT = “Modified Tweet,” and is used as a courtesy to inform of changes made when retweeting. For example, the tweet could have been shortened to meet the character limit or to remove the poster’s handle.
Business Social Media Acronyms
Businesses have always implemented its unique language, heavily built upon acronyms. Most of these aren’t specifically “social media acronyms.” Since they show up frequently on social media, you should know and understand them.
B2B = “Business to Business,” referring to companies that market to other companies.
B2C = “Business to Consumer,” describing a company that markets to individuals.
CTA = “Call to Action”—a statement that encourages the reader to take action. It usually denotes a specific action that relates to maximizing a company’s social media presence, or facilitating a buying decision.
CMS = “Content Management System”—a tool used to edit, schedule, and publish any kind of online written material.
CPC = “Cost per Click,” defining the amount of money advertisers pay for each person who clicks to view an ad, or another piece of online content.
PPC stands for “Pay per Click” and means the same thing as CPC.
CPM = “Cost per Thousand,” which is tricky because the “M” is for the Latin “mil,” which means thousand.
CTR = “Click-Through Rate,” and it is a certain type of conversion rate where the specific action is to click a link.
UGC = “User Generated Content,” encompassing any and all visual or written content individuals create on a specific platform. This includes comments, blog posts, photos, video clips, and more.
PV = “Page Views,” which is self-explanatory.
ROI = “Return on Investment,” measuring the money made as a result of what was spent to make it.
Technical Acronyms
While some of these do not frequently appear on social media, it is a good idea for anyone who works in social media to understand the relevant ones. These acronyms cover a broad range of business terms that could easily come up in a meeting or chat, particularly with your company’s IT team, or on a support ticket. In any event, you need to understand them, so here they are:
RSS = “Really Simple Syndication,” describing a feed of all content posted from a specific source, primarily a blog.
HTML = “Hypertext Markup Language.” This is the foundational coding language used in the development of webpages.
ISP = “Internet Service Provider,” the company powering your Internet service and that of your employer’s.
SEO = “Search Engine Optimization,” a type of Search Engine Marketing (SEM). It governs written content that is strategically developed to help a page rank higher in a search for specific criteria.
UI = “User Interface,” the visual display a person uses to manipulate data in a program. The buttons on your cell phone screen are common examples of UI.
TOS = “Terms of Service.” Nearly every website and online entity has one. It designates a set of rules that individuals must agree to, if they want to use the site or service.
UX = “User Experience,” referring to someone’s reaction and response to utilizing online tools.
Fun Conversational Acronyms
Easily the largest and most diverse set of online acronyms, this a list that continually grows. The ones on this list are found most frequently in public posts or in comments on social content posts. We’re sure there are more, but these are the most common ones. Some have also become popular hashtags used by both brands and individuals to create a buzz.
BFF = “Best Friends Forever.”
BTW = “By the Way.”
AFAIK = “As Far as I Know.”
BAE = “Before Anyone Else.” This one is more recent, and refers either to someone’s significant other or a close friend.
IDC = “I Don’t Care.”
BRB = “Be Right Back.” This is often used to signify that someone has temporarily left a real-time chat or conversation.
FTW = “For the Win,” and is a throwback to game shows like “Tic-Tac-Dough” where the phrase was commonly used by a contestant who had achieved a competitive advantage over his or her opponents.
FYI = “For Your Information,” and predates the Internet.
ILY = “I Love You.” Awww…
ICYMI = “In Case You Missed It,” used most frequently when sharing a piece of content that is currently creating a buzz on social media.
IMO = “In My Opinion.”
IMHO = “In My Humble Opinion,” which cushions the IMO blow in certain conversations.
NM = “Not Much.”
NSFW = “Not Safe for Work” is used as a warning that the material behind a link contains language or content not suitable for the workplace.
IDK = “I Don’t Know.”
JK or J/K = “Just Kidding.” This one is particularly helpful in conveying the kind of light-hearted tone that can escape the grasp of communication via text.
LOL = “Laughing Out Loud,” and is one of the oldest on the Internet. It has variations like LMAO (“Laughing My A** Off ”), ROFL (“Rolling on the Floor Laughing”), and even a merger of all three: ROFLMAO (Rolling on Floor Laughing My A** Off).
IRL = “In Real Life” is used to distinguish between things that happen in the physical, as opposed to the virtual world.
NBD = “No Big Deal.”
NVM = “Never Mind.”
OMG = “Oh My God” or “Oh My Gosh.”
SMH = “Shaking My Head.” It is used most frequently to express emotions like frustration or dismay.
TBT = “Throwback Thursday,” and is now very popular at the time of this writing. It precedes posts of old pictures, products, etc. mostly from the person’s own past.
WTF = “What the F***.” Not terribly appropriate for work or business…
YOLO = “You Only Live Once,” and has been popularized online by the Hip-Hop artist Drake in the last couple years.
Bear in mind that there are scores of other acronyms out there. Some are more intuitive than others. This list, however, is a great place to start becoming acquainted with the lingo, and developing an intuitive sense when you see acronyms that are unfamiliar.
Co-founder and CEO at Buzzlogix. Scott is responsible for leading Buzzlogix’s worldwide operations, and for steering the overall direction and strategy of the company. He is on the board of Social Media Dallas and enjoys talking about social media strategies and tips. He regularly posts on industry leading social media outlets and the Buzzlogix Social...View full profile ›
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Old enemies sometimes make the best new friends. For an older generation it might come as a surprise just how far once bitter enemies have come to depend on one another in a part of the world that’s experiencing dramatic realignment. In Asian markets circumstances are pushing the United States and Japan into a more cooperative economic liaison. It would even be accurate to say that the economic and military situation are pushing the U.S. and Japan into a closer friendship based on mutual need.
To understand the imperative for the U.S. and Japan to forge closer economic ties it’s necessary to examine the broader economic dynamics of the Pacific Rim. The towering shadow that falls over the Asian economy today is China. Once content to remain a relatively passive player, China today is becoming much more willing to flex both military and economic muscle on the world stage.
In recent months China has signed trade and currency agreements with a host of countries including Chile, Peru, Colombia, Belarus, India and Russia. The United States and Japan needed to match those efforts to keep China from locking up entire segments of emerging markets. China has made it clear it is actively seeking trade agreements with other partners, including African nations.
Japan is a key counterweight to China’s growing influence in the region and Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, was the right person to make it happen. Elected in 2012, Abe implemented a program based on fiscal stimulus, monetary easing and structural reforms, that he calls the “three arrows” of economic recovery. Even though launching into a program of fiscal stimulus during a time of high government debt seems counterintuitive, the program worked to get Japan’s economy moving again.
With Abe at the helm Japan is becoming a more effective partner for the U.S. both economically and militarily.
For Japan it’s China’s aggressive stance toward the South China Sea that is a particular concern as most of Japan’s ship-borne trade must travel through those waters. Added to that is the tension between Japan and China over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea where fighter jets and patrol ships from the two countries routinely shadow one another. In April the U.S. and Japan announced updated guidance for defensive cooperation that allows Japan to take steps beyond the WWII era self-defense limits imposed on Japan’s military, including actively assisting U.S. military assets that come under threat in the region.
China rocked Japan in early June by announcing a free trade agreement with South Korea that removes most tariffs between Asia’s largest and fourth-largest economies, a deal worth more than $253 billion dollars. The China-Korea FTA will give Chinese consumers greater access to luxury goods like cosmetics, fashion, appliance and luxury food products. The agreement is somewhat more alarming in Japan because the Japanese and Korean people just don’t like one another, a point confirmed by recent opinion polls.
The Korean free trade deal comes at a delicate time for relations between Japan and Korea. Even though the Japanese and Korean people don’t particularly like one another, there are still good reasons for them to try and get along. In February a $10 billion dollar currency swap agreement between the two nations expired and diplomatic relationships have stalled. It doesn’t help that the two countries have their own beef about disputed islands. Korean unhappiness with Japan has increased ever since Abe came to power. The Japanese prime minister scores just below Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, in South Korean opinion polls. The latest sticking point stretches back to WWII and South Korea wants an apology from Japan for war crimes. So far Abe has hesitated as the move is politically unpopular at home. Unfortunately, the U.S., Japan and South Korea don’t have the luxury of animosity as long they are mutually threatened by the nuclear and military ambitions of North Korea.
Preventing economic isolation is important for the security of both the United States and Japan. That mutual need is likely the motivation behind President Obama’s support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP. The massive trade agreement, which encompasses 12 countries in the region, is important enough to U.S. interests in the Asian-Pacific theater that the president is willing to buck his own party in full-throated support of the deal.
Efforts to sell the TPP to average Americans are being handicapped by the secrecy surrounding the negotiations and details of the trade agreement. Even members of Congress can’t take notes, a cell phone or recording device with them to review details of the negotiations. The secrecy of the negotiations and history of mega-trade agreements not being particularly beneficial to the middle class have left many in America suspicious of the deal.
The best reason for Americans to temper their suspicions of the TPP may be the fact that China is not one of the parties to the agreement. Tariffs and import quotas among the nations involved in discussions are already quite low and, unlike NAFTA, the changes are unlikely to be particularly substantial. Trade agreements can open up markets and make passage between borders easier, but there are still shipping and transportation costs that will remain fixed. For the TPP it’s not quite the same as opening up the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
The nations not included in the TPP may constitute a better reason to support the agreement than those signing on. Indeed, South Korea may have been motivated to ink the side deal with China because it is also not part of the initial TPP agreement. The deal would immediately turn Japan into a hub of commerce for smaller nations across the Pacific Rim and provide an alternative to those countries being locked into having China as their main trading partner. The South Koreans have recently expressed interest in being included in the TPP and are planning a trip to Washington to make that point known.
In the end the president’s support for the TPP may be out of loyalty to Abe, who the president considers a personal friend. What’s certain is that the U.S. and Japan will be forced into a closer military relationship and benefit from closer economic ties. Perhaps the friends that you need are the best friends indeed.
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The United States And Japan Are Seeking Stronger Economic Ties
Traffic is to digital marketing like gasoline is to an engine. It’s what makes it go. So it’s not too surprising that web traffic usually comes in at the top of the list for content marketing goals.
Heidi Cohen has reformatted some of her blog posts into SlideShares
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