How Do I Find My Ideal Virtual Assistant

Are you thinking about working with a virtual assistant (VA)? Many entrepreneurs swear by virtual assistants and will tell you how much they appreciate theirs and how much smoother their business is running with the help of their VA. You may find yourself saying, “I need to work with a virtual assistant.” One member of a Facebook group I am in, is taking it a step further with her question, “How do you go about recruiting the best VA that will meet your needs?” If you want to save time and get the VA that is a “fit” for you, follow this process.

You need to know what your needs are.

You might think this sounds funny. But many entrepreneurs start the process of finding assistance with only a vague idea of what they actually need. Spend some time to actually think through what you want a VA to handle for you.

Make a list of specific tasks you can, and will, delegate. Be detailed. For example, don’t just put down “administrative tasks.” Your list may look like this:

1. Tame my inbox: Review email and answer messages that don’t need my direct attention. Move email that needs a reply from me to the ‘read now’ folder. Put all newsletter and solicitations in my ‘read later’ folder.

2. Review appointments on my calendar and send reminders where needed.

3. Send call recordings to all clients who had sessions the day before. Remind them of the next scheduled call.

4. Set up a sales funnel for my next webinar. Verify all links are working correctly and the process will be smooth for incoming participants.

Tailor this list to your needs. If you know you need help but can’t seem to come up with a specific list, track everything you do in a 24 – 48 hour period. Review this list and highlight everything you don’t like doing or that aren’t in your expertise. The highlighted list is your ‘delegate’ list.

What is your budget for paying a Virtual Assistant?

This is an important consideration that many entrepreneurs miss. You might say, “I want the best one for my needs.” This is awesome if you don’t worry about an extra expense item. However, if your fiscally responsible, you need to consider how much of your budget can be tagged for this new position.

You will see ads for VA’s ranging widely. They can be anywhere from $5 an hour to $70 or more per hour. What you should plan to pay will depend on your needs. For an in-depth discussion of this, read this blog post.

What is your management style?

For the success of your partnership with a virtual assistant, you need to know if your management style is compatible with that of your virtual assistant’s.

Do you need someone who you can give “broad strokes” information to and they’ll know what’s needed to complete the project? If this is the case, you will need an experienced virtual assistant with a high-level skill set in your specific business.

Or do you need a virtual assistant to do detailed, specific tasks? This will be someone who works best if you gave them each step of the task you need them to complete.

Here is a comparison for a common request to send your weekly newsletter.

Broad strokes: My newsletter copy is ready to go. Please send it out on Friday at the regular time.

Specific tasks: My newsletter copy is attached. Please proof and set up in my newsletter template. Send me a copy for approval when it is ready. After you receive my okay, schedule it to broadcast this Friday at 8 am (est).

This example is oversimplified but you get the idea of the difference between the two management styles.

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Are you ready to delegate?

“If you want to do a few small things right, do them yourself. If you want to do great things and make a big impact, learn to delegate.”
– John C. Maxwell, American author

Don’t answer this question too quickly! Some entrepreneurs think they are ready to delegate but they second guess every task they attempt to assign. This is actually counter-productive because you will take longer to delegate a task and use more of your valuable time than if you just did it yourself!

Write a job description

Now that you have a good idea of what you need. Write out a job description for “Your Ideal VA”. Take the time as if you were writing a job description for an employee. If you need some guidance on writing this, Recruit Loop has a simple, five-step process. Keep in mind you are writing this for an outsourced contractor, not an in-house employee.

So now you have done some self-evaluation and have a good idea of what you really need in “Your Ideal VA.” Now it’s time to put your homework to use.

Where do you look for a Virtual Assistant?

Since this is a virtual, outsourced position, you can’t exactly place an ad in your local newspaper. (Besides, does anyone actually read them anymore?) Obviously, you are going to find your VA on-line.

Start by asking colleagues and friends. Many of the people you are connected with on social media may work with a virtual assistant. Start by asking for recommendations there. Let your needs be known in a straightforward manner and remember that because VA #1 is perfect for your colleague doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be a good match for you.

Do you belong to a mastermind group or forum? It’s possible that some of the members are virtual assistants. The Bonus here is you’re already familiar with their personalities.

Check appropriate online directories. I recommend IVAA.org or VaNetworking.com. These are both valuable resources in finding professional virtual assistants.

Do a good old fashioned google search. When you find someone who looks interesting, actually explore their website. Does it appeal to you? Is it professional? Does their public face look like your initial impression of them? And, of course, do they have the skills you need? You should be able to answer all these questions by visiting their website.

Look for information on rates and don’t be put off if you see messages like “contact me for a quote.” All this tells you is that this contractor has found projects highly variable; in which case flat rates don’t work.

Make sure this VA fits your Ideal VA profile.

Pick your top 3 candidates and contact them.

Inquire if they are currently accepting new clients. If they have openings, send them your ‘job description’ that you completed earlier. Ask them if they meet these qualifications and where there is a gap if any. If you are having them do any correspondence tasks for you, this is a great way to evaluate their writing and grammar skills.

A few important criteria you should consider:

• What is her communication style, does it compliment yours?
• Does she have a backup plan in place if she can’t work for a period of time?
• Is this a solo VA or a multi-VA company? If multi-VA, will you have one point of contact? Having multiple people to communicate with can actually be quite frustrating, to say the least.

Now it’s time, finally, to interview your top choices.

With your details in hand and all the checkboxes marked, this call is basically a get to know you call. Look for things like –

Is she personable and did you quickly establish a comfortable conversation? This is especially important if your VA will have direct contact with your customers. It’s also important for your relationship with her. Most virtual assistants become an integral part of your business and you will work very closely with them.

Does she sound like she knows her ‘stuff?’ It’s unfortunate but some virtual assistants who look and sound great on their website, fall short when it’s actually time to work. Ask her some questions specific to the tasks you will be delegating. Pay attention to how knowledgeable she sounds in her replies.

What are her terms of service? Remember virtual assistants are entrepreneurs too and will have specific terms of service. This can include items such as length of the contract, payment policies, and cancellation policy.

What are her common business hours? This can vary widely with virtual assistants. Most of them work from home and may actually do work at unusual hours. Consider if her hours will conflict with the tasks she needs to complete. For example, if you need her to contact your clients on weekdays between 8 am and 12 pm, make sure she can accommodate this in her work schedule.

When you make your choice, all that’s left is to sign the paperwork. Ahhh! That feels good, doesn’t it? Your “Ideal VA” should send you a complete contract and invoice for your first payment. When the paperwork is complete, you are ready to go. If you want to impress your virtual assistant as an “ideal client,” send her the work you did at the beginning of this journey regarding your needs and management style. This will help her know how best to work with you.

Author: Karen Repoli

Karen Repoli, is a successful entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience in office management, internet marketing, and business systems. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of NC, Greensboro and is VACertified. 
Karen launched her company, HIT Virtual Assistants in 2007. As a professional team including... View full profile ›

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Giving Presentations Without Fear

I remember the first time I spoke to 700 people. I was standing backstage, waiting for my turn to go out and pitch some classes I was teaching. As I tried to look calm and collected, I was visualizing myself slipping out one of the side doors. Somehow I managed to walk out on stage to gave my spiel without passing out.

If you’re new to public speaking, I wouldn’t start with 700 people and certainly recommend visualizing something more positive then slipping out the side exit! Here are some tips to put you on the right track.

Start small and invite feedback

Start with a small group. This may mean inviting a couple friends over for coffee and giving your full presentation to them. Ask them to take notes and give you honest feedback.

Over-prepare/ Have extra material

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If you are afraid you’ll run out of time or end up talking too fast, it’s a good idea to have more material than you need. Although it can be frustrating to spend so much time putting together a presentation and not having the time to go over it, it’s much worse to be done with your talk and see 30 minutes left on the clock!

Having lots of examples is one way you can over-prepare. It’s a good idea to give examples to explain your points anyway, but having multiple ones will give you additional material if it looks like you will be ending too early.

Note time markers

One fear is getting through the presentation too quickly, but what if the opposite happens and it seems you’re running out of time? To prevent this from happening, have time markers in your notes. For example, let’s say you are talking for an hour. Mark off three 20 minute sections so you can monitor how you’re doing on time. After each section, you know whether you need to speed up a bit or slow down.

Stop for questions

I generally stop at different points in my presentations to ask for questions. This is especially important if your points build on each other. This gives you a chance to see if the audience is following you and clears up any confusion before you move on.

If you find questions are taking too long or are getting off-topic, it’s perfectly okay to hold questions or re-direct people. And if there’s a very specific question, ask the person to contact you on the after the talk. If you spend a lot of time on a topic that doesn’t interest the audience in general, you could lose them.

Assume the technology won’t work

This sounds like I’m being pessimistic. From experience, I can tell you it’s a great idea to assume the technology on the day of the event will be “broken”. I had to give a presentation once where the projector didn’t work and I had some great graphics that I wasn’t able to show. I panicked slightly, but did my best to explain what was in the images. If you are doing a PowerPoint, make sure you have a printed copy of your slides in case this happens to you.

Even with practice, you won’t necessarily be perfect – you’re still human after all! But following these steps will have you on the right track for giving a good presentation.

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Everything You Need To Know About Marketing Attribution

More and more, CMOs and other marketing leaders are valuing marketers who are able to prove their impact. Whether that’s proving the ROI of the new marketing technology that the team invested in or proving that the search ads are generating revenue, businesses want to know that their investments are paying off.

They also know that from a technology standpoint, the data to prove it exists. Marketing attribution offers the ability to connect marketing efforts to revenue, enabling marketers to demonstrate their effectiveness with data.

In this article, we’ll walk through everything you need to know about marketing attribution — how it works, from touchpoints and tracking through to modeling and reporting. We’ll also walk through tons of examples to demonstrate exactly what kind of data attribution is able to produce and see what it looks like. By the end, you’ll know how marketing attribution works, as well as the models and reports that you need to prove your value.

Touchpoints and Tracking

A touchpoint is an engagement — online or offline — that you have with a prospect. This could be an organic search that results in a click on one of your articles, a click on a LinkedIn ad, or an interaction at a trade show conference.

Touchpoints are the basis of marketing attribution.

A simple marketing attribution solution may just track a single touchpoint. At the other end of the spectrum, an advanced marketing attribution solution tracks every touchpoint and then applies a model to determine the amount of credit each touchpoint receives. We’ll get into this on the section on modeling.

Each touchpoint should also have several pieces of information: a marketing channel, a landing page URL, a touchpoint position, and potentially more.

Here is a simple customer journey that we will use as an example throughout the entire article.

I was searching for new marketing tools, when I was served an AdWords ad for marketing boats. (What’s a marketing boat, you ask? Good question.) The ad took me to a blog post that explained some of the benefits of marketing boats. Loving the idea, I shared the idea with the marketing team at our next meeting. After the meeting, Alexis and Andrew both searched for the marketing boat company by typing in the URL of the company. Lauren didn’t visit the site directly, but instead searched for it on Google, which linked her to the product page. She browsed the site and then downloaded an ebook on the benefits of marketing boats. At the next meeting, the team decided to pursue the idea. Clicking on another AdWords ad, Jordan decided to move forward and request a demo. Over the next two weeks, Alexis went to a boat show that was in town and Andrew read another blog article that he found on LinkedIn. Deciding that a marketing boat would significantly help the team, they brought in Dave, the department leader, to close the deal.

Here’s what that journey looks like in table format:

Let’s discuss some of the elements here. The marketing channel is the channel that drove the touchpoint. If a person searches on Google and then clicks on one of your articles, the marketing channel for that touchpoint would be Organic Search.

The landing page is the first webpage that the visitor views on that particular session. In the example, the landing page would be whatever article they clicked on from the Google SERP (e.g. http://ift.tt/2cbArap).

The touchpoint position describes where in the customer journey the touchpoint took place. This could be the very first touch, the touch that led to the lead conversion, the opportunity conversion touch, or the closed won or lost touch. Alternatively, it could also just be a simple web visit, where no lead stage transition occurred.

The attribution model that you choose will have an impact on which touchpoint positions are a possibility. For example, if you’re using a U-shaped attribution model (which we will get to later), the only possible touchpoint positions are first touch, lead creation touch, and just a simple web visit. That’s because the U-shaped model doesn’t take into account any action after lead creation.

Additionally, if there was a form fill during the session, the touchpoint should also have that information. In addition to the landing page URL, it should have the URL of where the form was filled. We call this the Form URL. This can be the same page, but it doesn’t have to be. Here’s what that would look like:

Touchpoints and the descriptive data around it are the building blocks of marketing attribution. Tracking touchpoints is what helps marketers measure their audience’s response to their efforts and the descriptive data enables granular analysis. We’ll get to this analysis later, but first we must understand how marketing attribution gets its data.

Technology Integrations

When it comes to producing the best data, marketing attribution is only as useful as the data that goes into it. A good marketing attribution solution will handle a significant amount of data collection, likely through on-site JavaScript code. But it also must play well with the rest of the marketing stack.

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Marketing channels — how your brand and content gets distributed — contain a lot of critical information. More than just what channel is driving traffic to your website, your marketing attribution should be able to determine which campaign, ad, or keyword drove the traffic, so that it can follow the visitors actions and attribute credit back to the specific marketing effort. While this typically requires careful and thorough use of UTM parameters, it is made much more convenient and easy by integrating with major ad networks.

Integrations can also add levels of data that are unobtainable through UTM parameters. An example of this is tracking view-through conversions. When using display ads, it’s possible that a prospect sees your display ad on a blog, continues reading the blog article, and then visits your website directly (types in your URL). View-through tracking is able to determine that you viewed the display ad and then, within a specific time frame, visited your website; therefore, the display ad should receive credit for that visit.

Additionally, a marketing attribution solution should complement your marketing automation software. Both lead nurturing and landing page actions are critical components of the customer journey, so it is also critical that the data be accurately included in attribution. Integrations ensure that accurate and complete data is transferred.

Finally, and most critically, marketing attribution must integrate with your CRM. The CRM holds all sales and customer data. Therefore, to accurately connect marketing to revenue (attribution, by definition), marketing attribution needs to integrate with the CRM.

Attribution Data Modeling

With a complete data set of the customer journey — tracking all of the touchpoints and accurate data from marketing channels, marketing automation, and the CRM — the next step is to represent the journey with numbers through modeling.

There is a wide spectrum of possible ways to model attribution data — from simple single-touch models to complex custom models that require advanced knowledge in data science.

Some marketing attribution products don’t capture every touchpoint. They may just track the first touchpoint or the touchpoint right before a key conversion, like the lead conversion or the opportunity conversion. In this case, the attribution modeling is simple. They give 100% of the credit to that single touch. While it’s a good start and better than nothing, single-touch attribution models clearly misrepresents the customer journey that is far more complex than one touchpoint.

Using the customer journey example from earlier, this is what the data would look like using the various single-touch attribution models.

Multi-touch attribution modeling is the next step. Now there are also tons of different ways to use multiple touchpoints to model your attribution data. The simplest is the linear model, where every touchpoint receives the exact same percentage of credit. There’s also the time decay model, where touchpoints closest to the conversion get more credit.

And then there are models that give different weights based on the prospect’s stage. In the U-shaped model, more credit is given to the very first touchpoint and the touchpoint that transitions the anonymous visitor into a lead (40% to the two key touchpoints, 20% split between the rest). Because this model stops at lead creation, it’s best used for creating lead reports, and not opportunity and revenue reports.

In the W-shaped model, more credit is given to the two touchpoints included in the U-shaped model plus the touchpoint that transitions the lead into an opportunity (30% to each of the three key touchpoints, 10% split between the rest). In both models, all the other touchpoints that don’t involve a stage transition receive less credit. Because the W-shaped model tracks opportunity conversion, it’s a great model for marketers who care about down-funnel metrics, like opportunities and revenue.

Here’s what the data from our example customer journey looks like using these various multi-touch models.

You can read more about every attribution model here.

Additionally, if you have a unique customer journey or just want to get more granular with how you distribute credit, it may be worthwhile to look into custom modeling. This requires deep analysis of your existing customers’ journeys and creating an algorithm to precisely weight the impact of each touchpoint. This could mean giving more weight to certain channels no matter where in the journey the touchpoint occurred, or giving extra credit to the MQL stage transition and the SQL stage transition rather than the lead stage transition.

Attribution Reporting

With an attribution model that you trust to accurately represent your customer journey, you can now start to build powerful marketing reports. These can be for the marketing department as a whole or for specific marketing functions.

At the department level, you can run reports that answer the questions like, “What’s the number of opportunities driven by each channel this month?” And if you’re using your multi-touch attribution model, you’re able to answer questions like these with fractional data that’s a far better representation of reality. For example, Paid Search may have influenced some part of 100 opportunities this month. Because you’re using a W-shaped model, you would know all the partial credits for those 100 opportunities. Summing up all of the partial credits, you would then be able to say that it was directly responsible for 22.4 opportunities.

The same type of report can be made for pipeline revenue and actual revenue.

Specific marketing functions will also want to use attribution data to report on their performance. Let’s use the content marketing team as an example. Here at Bizible, we use attribution data to determine the success of our blog posts and content downloads, like ebooks and reports.

As you remember from earlier, each touchpoint should have a landing page URL associated with it. Because we have that data, we are able to see how many leads, opportunities, pipeline, and revenue was generated based on the individual blog landing page and where in the customer journey our prospects viewed the blog.

Here’s what a lead report could look like with touchpoints that had a blog landing page:

Because this is a lead report, we’re using a U-shaped model that gives 40% credit to the first touch, 40% credit to the lead creation touch and splits 20% credit among the rest of the channels. So if a person viewed a blog post as their first touch and then later, maybe three or four touchpoints down the road, converted into a lead, the blog post would receive credit for creating 0.4 leads.

When analyzing this report, you could see which blog posts are driving the most leads, and how they are performing over time. For example, you would want to dig into what type of blog article “/blog/article6” was because it was effective at driving leads overall. How can you replicate what made that blog article so successful? You might also be interested in “/blog/article5” because it is driving consistent leads over time. Could this be good evergreen content that is succeeding on organic search?

This leads us to the ability to filter reports based on the touchpoint data. An insightful report is one that filters this data by marketing channel. This would help you understand what type of content is working via social media, organic search, or email.

Similar reports can be made for email marketers (which emails influenced or directly generated the most business) or paid media marketers (which campaigns, ads, etc. influenced or directly generated the most business), or any other function.

Marketing Attribution for ABM

In the example that we’ve been using throughout this article, all of the analysis that we’ve been able to demonstrate is made possible with marketing attribution that has ABM reporting capabilities.

That’s because, in case you didn’t notice, there were multiple people involved in the customer journey. Let’s take a look at the customer journey again.

With a marketing attribution solution that doesn’t take into account the account-based nature of this sale, the data would have looked a lot different. Rather than being account-based, it would be lead-based and that means treating people as individuals up until the opportunity stage. That means, until I (Jordan) requested a demo, the four of us would have had separate and individual journeys. Paid Search would be credited for a first touch (Jordan), Direct would be credited for two first touches (Alexis and Andrew), and Organic Search would get credit for a first touch and lead creation (Lauren).

With lead-based attribution, it’s not Bizible’s first touch; instead, it’s Jordan’s first touch and Alexis’ first touch and Andrew’s first touch, and Lauren’s first touch.

Account-based attribution is able to determine that we are all from the same company and belong to a single account. That way, the attribution data can tell a more accurate story of what is really going on here. For example, there’s only one true first touch, not four.

From the perspective of the sales team, this understanding helps, too. When they call into our company, they can see the whole picture and have more relevant conversations.

Conclusion

Marketing attribution is a powerful piece of the marketing stack. It brings the data together into a single source of truth and helps marketers accurately understand which of their efforts are contributing to down-funnel metrics, like revenue.

When marketers are able to measure their performance in terms of opportunities, pipeline, revenue, and ROI, businesses succeed. That’s because marketing is more aligned with the sales team (speaking in terms of revenue), they’re able to optimize their efforts for revenue, and ultimately, they’re able to drive more growth.

Author: Jordan Con

Content marketing at Bizible (B2B marketing attribution) based in Seattle, WA. Helping marketers get credit by connecting their efforts to downstream revenue.... View full profile ›

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How to Design a Great Ebook with Zero Design Skills

How to Design a Great Ebook with Zero Design Skills

By this time you probably understand the value of creating a free ebook offer to build your email list. If you don’t, you should read this article and get on it!

You know that you need to design an ebook… but there isn’t a lick of design skills in your body! Okay, I hear ya. It’s hard to design when you don’t know what the f*#% to do. I’ve been doing graphic design and branding for well over 8 years. With a little guidance, I think you’ll find that you don’t need to know how to design to make a beautiful ebook for your online biz!

With a little help of course from this article!

#1 Make an Outline & Write the Ebook

Okay, the part that you can do without any design skills: outlining your ebook. Create an outline for the content that you’re going to cover. Then, write the damn book! Just sit down and get it all out on paper. To be honest, the design part is probably easier after you’ve written the actual material.

#2 Use Software that Will Make Designing Easy

I recommend using Pages (if you’re a Mac user) or Canva.com.

CANVA

Canva has loads of presentation templates that are incredibly helpful to use if you have zero design skills. Plainly, select a template from the menu (first select “Presentation”). You’ll be given a series of well-designed templates to choose from. Yes, they are meant more for presentation designs, but you can totally use the templates for your ebook designs too. It’s easy to add more pages right in the document, paste in your text and more. Canva even has an entire library of images (many are free and some just cost $1 each) as well as icons, and more.

PAGES

Pages (the program for Mac users) is really easy to use too—though doesn’t give as many templates and easy-peasy options as Canva. However, if you can add a few different elements onto the page, designing an ebook can be easy in Pages too.

Let’s cover the basics…

#3 Layout the Cover

Designing covers for ebooks are easy. I like to place a big photo over the cover, and some simple white text on top with the title. If you’re wondering where to get amazing photos to use, I’ll cover that too.

Recommended for You Webcast, September 1st: Discovering Content Marketing Trends Using Big Data

Here are a couple photo resources that I like to use:

Death to the Stock Photo:

Death to the Stock Photo has free monthly packs emailed to your inbox. I choose the premium plan because they offer more photos, more often. At $15/month I feel like it’s a no brainer.

Unsplash:

Unsplash has free photos from the public domain. They’re easy to search and easy to download.

If you’re looking for even more photo resources, check out this article on 12 killer stock photo resources. Most of them are even free!

#4 Layout the Template for the Ebook

I like to use a single-page template. I’ll use the same page for the entire ebook. It’s simple, easy and fast.

I’m going to give you an example of a really easy design so you can get started. There are lots of ways to effectively and beautifully design ebooks. I’m just going to cover a simple template so you can get something out there and started in a beautiful way. Feel free to experiment, and search more design trends to play with design.

I like to take the same photo that we used on the cover and place it as the background on the page.

From there, I will add a white box on top of the image, leaving the image as the border.

This is the basis of your page design.

Then, place your logo in the corner, and contact information in the footer. This way people can find you and get in touch!

Choose a header font for your titles. This can be something simple or decorative depending on your brand. Then choose the type that you’ll use for the rest of your ebook for the generic text. This should be something simple, and easy to read. Some great fonts I can recommend are Gotham, Helvetica Neue, Bookman Style, Avenir Next, Bodoni 72.

Layout the Cover

Take a big beautiful photo and plant it right on your cover. Afterward, create a black box and lay it on top. Then take the black box and drop the opacity of the box to 10-20%.

This is the base for your cover. Then you’re just going to place some larger text on top, centered with the title of your ebook. It’s pretty simple! Remember to place your logo on the cover too!

Things to keep in mind while designing your cover:

You won’t want the text to compete too much with the top image. There are a couple ways you can handle this.

• Create a black box on top of the image (that covers the full image). Set the opacity of the box to 10-20%. This will create a black overlay that will allow your white text to pop more.

• You can use an image that is slightly blurry too. This helps remove the competition between the text and the photograph. Simply, either add a 5 point blur to the photo you have currently, or use a photo that has been blurred.

Add Your Content

Once you’ve got the entire layout ready to you, simply add your content! Add the text from your ebook, and wrap it up! Remember to add a call to action at the close of your ebook with further contact information or what people can do or take for next steps.

Export your ebook to a PDF file. And if it’s a workbook, take it into adobe acrobat and convert the pdf into a workable interactive document. It’s pretty easy.

I hope this helps you create your first ebook from scratch without design knowledge!

Have any other tips to add? Let us know in the comments!

Author: Emelina Spinelli

Emelina Spinelli is an entrepreneur, influencer, branding strategist, blogger, designer and instagram aficionado.
Inspiring people to create beauty and freedom with entrepreneurship. Wrote the Branding Blueprint to be published in 2016. Loving all of life's experiences, adventure, travel, friendships and especially caffeinated beverages. Based in Brooklyn, NY.
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The Dynamic Duo: Two E-Commerce Promotions Every Retailer Should Use

Conversion rate optimization in itself embodies a large spectrum of techniques all aimed at keeping visitors engaged throughout their website experience. But when you’re given access to so many options and tools, it can be quite overwhelming. Here are the top two must-have campaigns/promotions every ecommerce site should have.

Email Capture Form

This one’s a given. Jump over to your favorite retail website right now and I guarantee you they’re using some sort of email capture form. Email list growth is essential to long term ecommerce success. Whether it’s asking to subscribe to an email newsletter for X% off your first purchase or a contest to win a free item, email leads are incredibly valuable.

Not only do email leads convert 4x higher than any other lead, but they’re very important for future re-targeting purposes. Unable to convert the sale while they’re on your website? Don’t fret! If you obtained their email, you can hit them in the future through holiday promotions and other email workflows. Maximize the number of impressions of your email capture form by having it visible to all new visitors when they land on your website.

Recommended for You Webcast, September 1st: Discovering Content Marketing Trends Using Big Data

Exit Intent – Cart Abandonment Offer

This next one is centered around sales conversions, namely when a visitor attempts to leave the cart page. If a website visitor has made it all the way to your cart page, you’ve already won half the battle. But there are still factors preventing them from pulling the trigger.

The modern day shopper is very savvy, and they’ll likely attempt to shop another competitor or look through third party coupon sites in search of a better deal. A lot can also happen in that time frame. Maybe they found a better deal, or became distracted by an email. Any one of these scenarios can kill the sale and lead to cart abandonment.

A great way to prevent this is by triggering an exit intent offer on your cart page (Cart Abandonment Offer). Flashing your visitor a coupon code when they attempt to leave will not only incentivize visitors to stay on your site, but to move forward with the purchase. This one tactic increased KUTOA’s sales conversion rate by 187%! This offer is meant as a last resort – so if they use the coupon, that’s awesome! If not, they were on their way out anyways.

First and Last Impressions Matter

The first landing page and last exiting page are two of the most defining areas on your website. They’re also the most common pitfall areas where an incentive would serve to be highly effective. With our email capture forms and exit offers, you’ll be fully equipped to handle that.

Want to implement the dynamic duo of e-commerce promotions? Justuno has you covered. Start converting your visitors for free today!

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The Dynamic Duo: Two E-Commerce Promotions Every Retailer Should Use

Corporate Digital Responsibility

In the digital age, consumers are increasingly aware that in pursuing business objectives, corporations have a wider responsibility to society and the environment. Companies, too, have long understood that the degree of their commitment to social responsibility has a tangible effect on consumer behaviour. By embracing CSR, corporations can align the business’s purpose and values with its environmental and social activities.

But in ensuring the company’s wider social and economic impact, the impact of unfettered technology use on the very staff that make up the core of the company is frequently overlooked. Corporate Digital Responsibility (CDR) should also be integrated into or adopted separately alongside CSR programmes as the business, social and economic environments we occupy become increasingly digitised. The business case for CSR should be expanded along this fundamental trajectory.

The Importance of Corporate Social Responsibility

“CSR is a business approach that contributes to sustainable development by delivering economic, social and environmental benefits for all stakeholders” – Financial Times

In the late 80s, globalisation, 24 hour news and the Web brought the activities of global corporations to public attention for the first time. Media organisations, and human rights campaigners provided evidence of the use of sweatshops, toxic materials, and other questionable corporate practices. News of environmental disasters half a world away, caused by corporate malpractice, were suddenly broadcast directly into our homes. Consumers found they could protest with their feet and their wallets. The behaviour and values of corporations are as important as the quality of their product and services to consumers.

It is no longer a platitude to declare corporate support for society and the environment, but a strategic imperative that affects reputation, profits and talent retention.

Introducing Corporate Digital Responsibility

Companies around the world have readily created their own versions of CSR with varying degrees of success. However, it is worth considering expanding the remit of CSR to address the impact of the digital tools and environments that businesses operate in.

We already know the various effects of constant connectivity on business revenue, productivity, health, wellbeing and creativity. Business leaders are increasingly comfortable with the idea that creating high-quality, impactful digital content is essential for long-term success.

A Digitally Responsible company understands that employees can not be constantly connected and respond to communications at any hour, it designs its digitised environment in a way that does not hijack workers’ attention. A digitally responsible company designs the workplace to limit information overload and other negative effects that come from overexposure to digital information.

A business has digital responsibility both internally and externally.

Recommended for You Webcast, September 1st: Discovering Content Marketing Trends Using Big Data

CDR and the Workplace

Perhaps the most under-examined area, Corporate Digital Responsibility has the potential to improve the lives of information workers around the world. We have written about the growing evidence of the impact of unfettered technology use, and how technologies are designed in ways that modify behaviours that are not conducive to a good work life. All these can negatively impact key business metrics such as productivity, employee development, health and profits. A digitally responsible company recognises the various effects of technology on its staff and have developed a responsive and robust digital and technological strategy that supports information workers in getting the most from their days.

Environment

Information on the effect of technology on the physical environment is more forthcoming, and is linked to numerous environmental indices that dovetail with CSR reports. For example, data centres are the engines around which information moves and are stored. Much has been written about the environmental impact of data centres, and their development are monitored by NGOS such as Greenpeace, and some of the biggest companies in the world are making serious moves to lessen the environmental impact of data centres.

The Corporate Digital Responsibility Professional

Companies are becoming increasingly aware that they have to be aware of the quality of their digital footprint. In the same way that CSR has a real impact on the bottom line and wellbeing of the employees, so too will CDR meaningfully impact the reputation of the company, the quality of its relationships with customers and the quality of life of its employees. It is not impossible to imagine that new positions within companies of Chief Corporate Digital Responsibility, for example, will exist sooner rather than later.

An excellent CDR executive would possess a skillset that few people, at the moment, have such as strategic business awareness, Cyberpsychology, Human Computer Interaction, and Cyberanthropology, and more will be essential.

Integrating digital responsibility into the DNA of companies will, in the future ensure the continued success of businesses and workers navigating the changing digital landscape. It will take the input of experts and business leaders to visualise what the successful digitally responsible company of the future will look like.

Author: Lawrence Ampofo

Dr. Lawrence Ampofo is the founder and director of Semantica Research Limited and Digital Mindfulness,  Analytics and Strategic Communications firms based in London (UK). He tweets at @lampofo.... View full profile ›

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Corporate Digital Responsibility

3 Things Every Pharma Marketer Can Learn from the EpiPen Price Rise

The EpiPen, produced by pharmaceutical company Mylan, is an emergency treatment for life-threatening allergic reactions. For the 3.6 million prescribed, the injection device is a need-to-have, not a nice-to-have. And according to ABC News, “there appears to be one other company making an epinephrine auto injector available in the U.S.” Add to that a price tag of $608.61 for the doctor-recommended pack of two, and it’s easy to see why consumers, lawmakers and lobbyists are outraged.

Their first attempt at softening the blow was to offer more financial assistance with co-payments for patients with commercial insurance and expand the number of uninsured patients eligible for free EpiPens. But the list price didn’t budge, and most of the critics didn’t, either.

So in their next move to alleviate the outrage, Mylan said on Monday that it would introduce a generic version of the product, with a price about half of the existing EpiPen’s. The company said the generic would be available in several weeks and be identical to the existing product.

As demonstrated over the last two weeks, this story is ever-changing—but based on what we know so far, there are a few solid lessons that pharma marketers can learn from Mylan’s missteps.

Anticipate and Have a Plan

Whether or not their decision is defensible, Mylan chose to significantly raise the price of the EpiPen over the course of eight years. 548%, to be exact. So, how could a company announce another >$100 price increase on a life-saving product without a) an explanation or b) an alternative option?

It took a week of negative press, plummeting shares and vocal politicians to send Mylan scrambling for a solution—and what they came up with still didn’t satisfy critics. Wells Fargo’s David Maris said in a note that Mylan’s moves lack “three important components:” lower prices, relief for families who’ve already bought the EpiPens and “responsibility and contrition.”

The shifting healthcare environment has led to plenty of changes and challenges for life sciences companies. It’s important for pharma marketers to realize that big decisions like the EpiPen price rise can put your brand in a vulnerable position. Marketers need to know their consumers well enough to anticipate reactions to these decisions, and have a proactive plan to ease any sudden shock.

Don’t Circumvent Fault

In a press release issued by Mylan, CEO Heather Bresch made the following statement:

“We recognize the significant burden on patients from continued, rising insurance premiums and being forced increasingly to pay the full list price for medicines at the pharmacy counter. Patients deserve increased price transparency and affordable care, particularly as the system shifts significant costs to them. However, price is only one part of the problem that we are addressing with today’s actions…”

While Bresch’s comments are not untrue, she completely sidesteps the public’s key questions of motivation and intent of Mylan’s price increase strategy. Not only does she exercise avoidance, but she takes the opportunity to shift blame elsewhere. She maintains this position during a sit-down interview with CNBC.

Accountability and transparency demonstrate responsibility. Marketers in the pharmaceutical space are tasked with establishing that responsibility in order to build trust with consumers. Now, this responsibility may not always take form in a national firestorm like Mylan’s EpiPen price increase, but it’s an important reminder to pharma marketers that in scenarios big or small, maintaining transparency and accepting fault will almost always benefit your brand.

Social Listening is Crucial to a Company’s Response

Social media continues to be an amplifier for critics during situations like Mylan’s EpiPen price hike. Celebrities, politicians and parents have been vocal on Twitter and Facebook as a means to voice their frustrations towards Mylan.

Sarah Jessica Parker, a former celebrity advocate for the EpiPen and mother of a child with a life-threatening allergy, announced on Instagram that she will cut all ties with the company. Both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton took to Twitter to weigh in on EpiPen pricing. Author and parent activist Robyn O’Brien referred to the matter as #epigate on her Facebook page. Combined, these statements have received over 65k likes… and counting.

These posts, along with thousands of others, explicitly state what the public is disappointed by, how they intend to react based on that disappointment and what it will take for the company to resolve their disappointment. And while no company wants to face this kind of crisis, easy access to the public’s unfiltered opinion never leaves them guessing where they went wrong or how they can make it right.

While maybe not as substantial as Mylan’s, all companies inevitably make tough decisions that lead to even tougher criticism. Mylan’s decision to continuously increase the price of the EpiPen was not well-received—and the knee-jerk nature of their response wasn’t either. By anticipating the public’s reaction, proactively demonstrating accountability and monitoring feedback, pharma marketers can better maintain the integrity of their company’s brand, even in a moment of crisis.

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3 Things Every Pharma Marketer Can Learn from the EpiPen Price Rise