Archives for June 2015
Segmentation: One of the Primary Benefits of Mobile Marketing Automation
Effective marketing is targeted marketingāthereās no getting around it. You have to be able to understand which members of your audience are motivated by which types of messages your company sends out.
This is one of the biggest powers of mobile marketing automation. By developing a quality MMA campaign, you are more easily able to divide your users into different groups based on a variety of factors in a process called segmentation.
Through segmentation, you are able to target messages for your audiences take into account factors such as:
ā¢ Demographics. Naturally, demographics like age, gender, location and more are the basis of most marketing campaigns. Segmenting users by demographic is therefore one of the first
Mobile marketing is marketing on or with a mobile device, such as a smart phone. Mobile marketing can provide customers with time and location sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services and ideas.
steps of mobile marketing automation.
ā¢ Device and operating system. While this information isnāt particularly useful if itās the only information you have, itās of great use when put into context with everything else. You need this information to deliver campaigns that are exactly right for your target audience.
ā¢ Events. For the purposes of mobile marketing automation, an event is any kind of user behavior that you wish to track in your campaign. This could include purchases, emails opened, page clicks, button clicks and basically anything else you can possibly measure. You can also filter your events based on such factors as frequency and recency. This is absolutely huge for your campaign.
ā¢ User status. A userās status changes over time based on his or her interactions with your app. Status helps you to identify users who spend at least 30 minutes on the app, or only a few. You will also be able to identify users who spend a certain amount of money through your app.
ā¢ Previous interactions. It helps to know what types of interactions users take through your app so you know what sorts of interactions they are more likely to perform in the future. When they open messages or click on certain items, it gives you more information about their habits.
For more information about how segmentation works and how important it is in mobile marketing automation, contact Viral Solutions today.
Copyright 2015 Viral Solutions LLC
by Thomas von Ahn | Chief Elephant Slayer
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100ās of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner and an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant.
We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.
The ABCs of Landing Pages that Work
We all use Landing Pages
We know they work – but there are some rules to follow.
The goal of landing pages is to convince the visitor to provide you with his or her information in exchange for a high-value offer. They are the best way to convert a person into a lead.
![The ABCs of Landing Pages That Work [Infographic]](http://copyblogger.com/cdn-origin/images/650/copyblogger-infographic-abcs-of-landing-pages.png "The ABCs of Landing Pages That Work [Infographic]")
Like this infographic? Get landing page advice that works from Copyblogger.
by Christine Kelly
CEO and Queen Bee | Viral Solutions LLC
Copyright 2015 Viral Solutions LLC
Prior to joining Viral Solutions, Christine held executive leadership roles at some of the largest small business consulting firms in the USA. Her experience includes leading direct reports of over 130 remote sales agents who generated $38mm in annual revenue. She obtained her Marketing degree from British Columbia Institute of Technology. Bring her C-Suite experience to your small business. Although our company is virtual, and we can work with you wherever you are located, she is located in Denver, Colorado and owns a second home in Vancouver, BC Canada.
Become a Better Leader by Developing These Qualities
The best leaders are those who are not only extremely organized and passionate, but also deeply in tune with certain qualities of emotional intelligence. Basically, the idea of āemotional intelligenceā is the ability to gauge what other people need or expect while controlling and filtering your own emotions and preventing them from being the primary basis for your decision making.
Here are a few such qualities you should develop to become a better leader:
- Discipline. If you are able to control or redirect your emotions that would otherwise be disruptive, you will find you are able to think more clearly and communicate better with your team. A leader who regularly loses his
We get real and we stay that way. We know that no amount of great marketing, sales techniques, software as a service (Saas) or operational consulting will fix a bad entrepreneur (been there!). We are prepared to deliver our best, to enable you to raise your anchor through the one set of activities that sets the best apart from the rest.
or her cool will have a hard time making good decisions and earning respect.
- Self-assessment. Itās extremely important to be able to recognize your strengths, weaknesses, emotions and values, as well as how all of these impact the rest of your team. Itās not enough for you to understand what you want ā you also need to understand why you want it. By developing a strong awareness of who you are as a leader and as a person, you will be better able to improve yourself on a regular basis.
- Empathy. When you are able to put yourself into the shoes of your employees or partners, itās much easier to be a compassionate leader. People are much more likely to want to follow an empathetic, compassionate leader than one who comes off as cold or uncaring. Through your empathy and compassion, you are better able to resolve issues in your company and give your employees a better place to work.
- Communication. Good communication skills are essential to strong leadership, and that doesnāt just mean being smart about what you say ā your body language and tone are perhaps even more important than what comes out of your mouth.
- Building relationships. You need to be willing to take an active interest in the other people in your company if you want to actually create a worthwhile relationship with them. Through building relationships, itās much easier to gauge the needs and expectations of your team members.
For more tips about how to become a better leader, contact us today at Viral Solutions.
Copyright 2015 Viral Solutions LLC
by Thomas von Ahn | Chief Elephant Slayer
Watch out elephants! This slayer of business challenges comes with 30 years of record breaking sales, marketing, operations, training and leadership experience . He has worked face-to-face with 100ās of small business owners as well as large firms. His love of creating, communicating, developing and executing results for clients shines with each project, publication and training event. His entrepreneurial spirit, passion, industry experience, education, problem-solving prowess, charismatic personality and been-there-done that attitude leads his client focused approach.
Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner and an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant.
We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.
How to Keep Employees Motivated During the Summer
Summer is finally here! For those of us who live in cooler climates, we look forward to this time all year. However, the season can pose some extra challenges for small business owners, who may notice their employees tend to tune out during warmer weather with thoughts of vacations and being outside.
So how can you keep employees motivated to continue producing a consistent quality of work during the summer? Here are a few tips:
ā¢ Know what keeps your employees engaged. You should do what you can to get to know your employees and figure out what keeps them motivated. Ask them what will help them to
At Viral Solutions, we understand the trials and tribulations that many new owners of small businesses face in the early going. The commitment of time and resources that is necessary at the outset can leave many business owners frustrated or exhausted. Weāve experienced this ourselves in our own business operations, so we know just how unpleasant it is and how it can come close to crushing the motivation you had that led you to start the business in the first place.
stay on task as the weather gets nicer.
ā¢ Offer some flexibility. Give your employees more opportunity to work remotely with flexible hours. If you need them to be available at certain times of day, you could communicate with instant messengers or programs like Skype to have conversations with your employees.
ā¢ Give extra time off. Your employees are longing for a chance to get outside and enjoy the weather, so why not give it to them every now and then? For example, you could give half or full days off on some Fridays. If you need to, you could make these days off conditional based on the amount of work you accomplish during the first four days of the week. You might also consider letting employees come in a little late or leave a little early once a week on a day of their choice.
ā¢ Get out of the office. The summer is a great time of year to get involved in charitable events within your community. Take a day away from the office to participate in a local volunteer event. This helps to get your name out within your community and gives your employees a nice change of pace for a day.
Do you have any other ideas for ways you can keep your employees engaged during the summer? For more information and tips for employee engagement, contact us today at Viral Solutions.
by Christine Kelly
CEO and Queen Bee | Viral Solutions LLC
Copyright 2015 Viral Solutions LLC
Prior to joining Viral Solutions, Christine held executive leadership roles at some of the largest small business consulting firms in the USA. Her experience includes leading direct reports of over 130 remote sales agents who generated $38mm in annual revenue. She obtained her Marketing degree from British Columbia Institute of Technology. Bring her C-Suite experience to your small business. Although our company is virtual, and we can work with you wherever you are located, she is located in Denver, Colorado and owns a second home in Vancouver, BC Canada.
How the BOSI Evaluation can Help You to Identify Your Entrepreneurial DNA.
What is Your Entrepreneurial DNA?Ā You've heard the saying before, “every business is different. Therefore, strategies and practices should also be different.” However, this is often not the case when it comes to shaping strategy or processes within an organization. It is also not the case for entrepreneurship preparation and entrepreneurs, yet, we see course after course, seminars after seminars, and books after books that have some “success formula” for entrepreneurs. The assumption is that all entrepreneurs are the same and the process of becoming, sustaining, and growing as an entrepreneur is the same. The assumption couldn't be farther from the truth. The purpose of this post is to introduce and reflect uponĀ a thought-provoking perspective based on the Joe Abraham's Entrepreneurial DNA Model and BOSI Evaluation.
Yep. Entrepreneurs are different. Does this screw up your entire plan? If you have an extra 18 minutes, check out Joe Abraham's Entrepreneurial DNA TED Talk. Abraham hits home on the fact that entrepreneurship failure rates are still significantly high, even in an information-saturated the world to help with entrepreneurship. He proposes that the “bottleneck” that contributes to the same failure rates of entrepreneurship is that entrepreneurs are prepared as if all entrepreneurs are the same. Our society categorizes all entrepreneurship as the “same” based on the what works for one, will work for all. Here is the problem. Entrepreneurs are different, and, therefore, the “one-size fits all entrepreneurs” doesn't work for all. It may work for some to get a head start, but it most certainly doesn't work for all.
The BOSI Framework. Joe Abraham went on to investigate the problem deeper and created a BOSI evaluation to identify the type of entrepreneurial DNAs. B stands for “Builder”. This profile is the serial entrepreneurial that builds companies. These people tend to have the ability to get what they need to build the type of businesses that they do. They are also very driven by the infrastructure of the organizations that they have created and continue to excel and develop a strategy around that drive. O stands for “Opportunist”. This profile sees “opportunities” to get rich quick mentalities. This type of behavior looks at business as a vehicle to get where and what they want from the business. Opportunists are driven to income, residual income, and diversification to get to their objective of making money faster and over the long-haul. They also have peaks and valleys of making and losing a lot of money and rebounding to get back at making it again. S stands for “Specialist”. Specialists are people that went to school or studied a specific type of specialty to become the expert in that field and stay with that subject throughout their career. The goal for Specialists is income driven. The common method of getting sales from this type of entrepreneurs is through referrals because they dislike selling or lead generation. I stands for “Innovators”. Innovators become entrepreneurs typically as a result of doing something that they loved and creating something. Most of the time they don't want to be a business owner, they are are focused on the “mission, not the money”.
Why Entrepreneurial DNA Matters. The “aha” moment with the BOSI evaluation is that the path to entrepreneurship is DIFFERENT. The behaviors, attitudes and perspectives associated with entrepreneurs is a pivotal piece to entrepreneurship. The key is to understand oneself as an entrepreneur and with that understanding build a business that fits you, not using a cookie cutter method and hope it fits. As such, the ability to know yourself, partners, employees, or whoever else is with your organization EntrepreneurialDNA. Then take that knowledge and learn what it means specifically to you. You can take the assessment for free via bosiDNA.com. After you complete the evaluation, you'll receive a breakdown of your EntrepreneurialDNA. Identifying key characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses that can be helpful to understand and implement a specific strategy that works for you and your organization. It can be a thought provoking game changer to the world of entrepreneurship.
In conclusion, information is all around us, yet we still have high failure rates within entrepreneurship. The issue with entrepreneurship is that it is treated as if we are all the same. We are not. The resources, advice, and strategies employed may contribute to the high failure rates because the focus is starting the business, instead of starting, sustaining, and growing a business that works with the entrepreneur. One way that worked well for someone isn't necessarily going to work for the next person. Likewise, just understanding your Entrepreneurial DNA doesn't mean that it will automatically make you a successful entrepreneur. Identifying your Entrepreneurial DNA will provide you with a starting point to learn, apply, and grow. What you do with that knowledge is totally contingent upon your action. Identification is the first step, check out bosiDNA.com to complete your EntrepreneurialDNA evaluation. For more information about the Entrepreneurial DNA, Abraham's book Entrepreneurial DNA: The Breakthrough Discovery that Aligns Your Business to Your Unique Strengths is a great weekend read.
Have a wonderful day.
by Katie Doseck, PhD MBA
Chief Visionary and Strategic Ace Up Your Sleeve | Viral Solutions LLC
Copyright 2015 by Viral Solutions LLC
Katie Doseck, PhD MBA | Chief Visionary & Strategic Ace Up Your Sleeve. I catapulted my experience with extensive education, trainings, and personal coaching; earning a PhD in Organizational Management with a specialization in Human Resource Management, MBA in Organizational Leadership, and BA in Law & Liberal Arts. Subject Matter Expert (SME) areas: Human Resource Management, Employment Law, Organizational Change, Change Management, Resource Planning, Strategic Planning, Talent Management, Selling & Sales Management, Training & Development, Decision Making Models, Project Management, Customer Relationship Management, and Motivation. Dr. Doseck is based out of Logan, Utah.
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Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, Infusionsoft Certified Consultant and a Mobit Certified Partner. We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.
