Archives for September 2016
How to Create Return Customers with Opt-in Forms
Attracting a customer to your website and then closing the sale is tough. Without person-to-person contact, you donât have the opportunity to build any relationship with the customer. Because youâve invested in making that first sale, you need the customer to come back for more.
But it turns out that after you first sale is when the truly difficult work comes inâonly 35 percent of customers return to sites theyâve bought products or services from, according to one report. The good news is that if they make that second purchase, theyâre much more likely to make even more.
Opt-in forms allow businesses to remind customers about their business and alert them to new products and services. Essentially every successful commerce website uses themâand your small business should, too.
Types of Opt-in Forms
How you approach the visitor of the opt-in form may differ, but the goal is always the same: Get their email address.
Thatâs why many companies use multiple opt-in forms to cover all their bases. A common one is the opt-in at the top of the homepage. One that customers claim they donât like (but is very effective) is a pop-up ad.
You may also put the opt-in at the end of the transaction. This is an end-of-funnel opt-in, which is simply an already-checked box that signs customers up for future communications like newsletters and sales notices.
How to Present an Opt-in Form
Remember that this is your time to build a relationship with your customer. Getting that email address is a must.
Online shoppers have become accustomed to the end-of-funnel opt-in. They donât see it as intrusive. They may simply forget to uncheck it and that gets you in the door.
The top of homepage opt-in is popular, too. However, you donât want to clutter the top of your website. This may be your one chance to land that customerâdonât blow it with a tacky design.
Go for simple, eye-catching, and direct. The opt-in should be part of your website, not an out-of-place extra. Use photos or video of the people who make your business great to add a human touch. Including testimonials can grow your companyâs credibility as well.
If your small business needs to grow its online presence, consider working with the professionals at Viral Solutions. Weâre the experts in automated relationship marketing. Contact us today to learn more about how weâre helping small business owners realize their dreams.
Queen of the Machine for Viral Solutions LLC
“If a brand genuinely wants to make a social contribution, it should start with who they are, not what they do. For only when a brand has defined itself and its core values can it identify causes or social responsibility initiatives that are in alignment with its authentic brand story.” ~ Simon Mainwaring
Facebookâs New Trending Algorithm a Sign of Bigger Problems
For its more than 1.7 billion users worldwide, Facebook is a major source of news and information. A primary way users get that information is through the trending sidebar on their home page.
Previously, these trending topics were selected by contract editors. These were professional journalists who would determine the accuracy of the stories and write summaries of them.
Facebook has publicly said that it wants to people rather than machines to manage the site. This is part of an effort to get back to its roots. After all, a social network is about people. But in this case that hasnât happened. Now an algorithm determines what articles pop up in your trending sidebar.
Rage against the Machine
The problem is that the algorithm lacks the discretion of a human. This has resulted in ânewsâ popping up in the trending section thatâs little more than a rumor. The algorithm also shows a bias toward news about Justin Bieber over, say, the civil war in Syria. Critics are saying that the new trending feature has âlobotomizedâ Facebook news.
Instead of providing insight into current events, Facebook now simply tells users how many people are âtalking aboutâ a given subject. But does the number of people talking about Elon Musk or Microsoft make any difference? Why should anyone care?
What Does this Mean for Business?
Facebook appears solely focused on telling people about popular topics, leading to a feedback loop in which already popular topics become even more popular. Similarly, Facebook already favors businesses with plenty of resources. These days, if you want your posts to be noticed by potential customers, you better be ready to shell out hard cash to boost your posts.
Itâs not enough to set up a Facebook page and hope people will like it. Businesses need to diversify their social media strategy to succeed. Sites like Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and Instagram are all great resources for businesses of every size. Especially for businesses seeking to reach younger customers, itâs essential to have a presence on these sites.
Your business needs to have an organized social media strategy to succeed in todayâs climate. The experts at Viral Solutions can help your company develop ways to connect with customers. Weâre the professionals in automated relationship marketing. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your business grow.
Copyright 2016 Viral Solutions LLC
We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again
Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant and a Google Partner – Certified in AdWords.
Readers Choosing Printed Magazines over Digital
We are living in an increasingly digital world. Where news, entertainment and general information can be downloaded or streamed through the internet. When books went digital with the invention of the Kindle we started to see bookstores decline in numbers. Surprisingly so, printed magazines are still more popular than their online versions. What is it about those shiny colorful pages that keep us subscribing year after year?
In this blog post, we will discuss why so many of us prefer the old fashioned printed magazines and how it can benefit your marketing campaign.
According to a study by Maquoa, 70% of American's that are connected online have read a printed magazine in the past month. This statistic is about the same as last year's survey. A similar study done by MarketCharts found the same results, they also found that magazine ads are being relatively productive.
Many people still enjoy the feel of the smooth pages of a magazine. And this is good news for the business owner. Lots of leads can be generated through magazine ads. Especially regional magazines. If you are a local restaurant owner, advertising in a regional magazine is a great way to promote your establishment. Tourists and locals alike read these magazines to stay informed on events happening in their city. A recent survey shows that just one copy of a regional magazine gets 4.3 readers. That could turn into a lot of customers. A lot of these types of magazines are found in waiting rooms and hotels, so they see a lot of traffic. It would be wise to take advantage of this.
Magazines span a large audience, they especially reach many households with an income over 150,000 a year. Many magazine readers are investors, doctors, and lawyers. These are people with disposable income. Thus magazines are a great venue for advertising the latest gadgets and sports cars or passenger airliners.
Don't rule out printed magazines in your next ad campaign, you would be missing out on a lot of potential leads. Remember that most American's still read them, and they are placed in very strategic locations.
Copyright 2016 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.
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.
Why Create Your Own MarTech Stack?
Are you looking to up your marketing campaign with some awesome new technology? Do you want the freedom to only pay for tools that best suit your company's needs or do you want to just go with a single provider? There are a few good reasons why you might want to build your own marketing technology arsenal.
Before we discuss the reasons why you should build your own MarTech Stack let us provide a definition of marketing technology stack. âA marketing technology stack is a grouping of technologies that marketers leverage to conduct and improve their marketing activities. Often, the focus of marketing technologies is to make difficult processes easier, and to measure the impact of marketing activities and drive more efficient spending.â ~ Optimizely. Author David Booth further defines marketing technology stack and its importance as âA marketing technology stack is the set of tools that your marketing team uses to plan, execute, and measure all aspects of your marketing objectives. With the explosion of new capabilities, vendors, and technologies in this space, it's more important than ever to carefully choose your components and build the stack that's right for your organization.â
In this article, we will discuss the reasons why you might want to build your own marketing technology stack (MarTech Stack) arsenal.
Strategic planning is an organizationâs process of defining its direction and making decisions on allocating its various resources to pursue this strategy to achieve the companyâs stated mission and vision. This service digs deep into your processes, systems and strategy. During your session, we make sure you have defined, rigidly and systematically, your perfect prospective customer. This definition must include the obvious demographics as well as the psycho-graphics. We then test your willpower to prove that your approach, tactics, messages and core offerings match what that perfect prospective customer is looking for. It is absolutely imperative that you understand and can articulate your plan, vision and position statement effectively and with fire in your gut. We help you accomplish this.
Single vendor solutions provide a large selection of technologies that offer answers to your marketing needs. However, more often than not their selection is too vast, and you end up eating the cost for tools that don't fit into your scheme. In fact, a new study released by Campaign Monitor in which they surveyed 500 marketers, found that 95 percent of them prefer using a stack of technologies rather than going with a single provider. They chose to create their own stack for that same reason, they don't want to pay for technology they won't use.
The obvious advantage of going with a single provider is the convenience of the one-stop shopping experience. This saves you a lot of time and effort and you only have one agency to deal with instead of several. But having a Do It Yourself attitude can save your company some cash and make your marketing campaign run smoother. Building your own marketing tech stack gives you the freedom to choose only the tools that you need. There is also the ability to purchase the best tools available instead of something mediocre. The build your own option can fit any budget, so if your company is just starting out this would be a great way to go. Invest in one thing at a time and as you grow you can add on.
There is one thing to look out for and you might have thought about this while reading the last paragraph. If you get too carried away with all this technology your tool box might overflow and become unorganized. Dealing with multiple solution providers can become a mess, so make sure you select only the tools that you will be using the most. This strategy will optimize the bang for your buck and decrease your stress level.
So when you are planning your marketing campaign remember the old adage: If you want something done right, just do it yourself. Your own custom stack will save your company money because you will only pay for what you need. You can build it to fit your budget and get the best tech out there. Then again, if you are not certain what is best for you, give us a call or write us here at Viral Solutions.
Copyright 2016 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.
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.
Top 3 Online Lead Generators
There are many ways to generate leads online today. But the best of the best are what businesses want to focus on. In this article, we will discuss the top 3 online lead generators.
It may come as a surprise that email can generate the most leads but it's true. It's not only highly effective, it is also the easiest method of online lead generation. Most marketer's use email as their go to lead generation tactic (89 %). When you think about it, it isn't hard to understand why email can generate leads so nonchalantly. Pretty much everyone has an email account, and multiple devices to check it with. iPhones account for 33 % of opened emails in 2016, Gmail is sitting at 15 %, iPad 12 %, Google Android 10 %, Apple Mail 8%, and Yahoo at 3 %. People also check there email multiple times a day, even before going to sleep. Studies show that 70 percent of millennials check their accounts in bed. So there are amazing opportunities to be had with email marketing.
Coming in close second to email is content marketing. This is mainly because it is a bit more difficult to generate online leads this way. To generate leads with content you have to have a good strategy. Great content creation takes time and resources, both of which are limited especially to small businesses. Staying within the budget is another hill to climb when developing content.
The third best lead generating method is social media marketing. It is just about as effective as the first two and a little less difficult than content marketing. Social media is a great marketing tool. Many people across the world use at least one form of social media. So far in 2016, Facebook is the most use platform worldwide, and in the United States. Some of the biggest speed bumps are being able to analyze the effectiveness of the campaign and designing a social media strategy.
When your company has no time to come up with an intricate marketing game plan, going with just email seems to be the best route. It is fast and easy, and you can reach the most people at multiple times in a day.
Queen of the Machine for Viral Solutions LLC
“If a brand genuinely wants to make a social contribution, it should start with who they are, not what they do. For only when a brand has defined itself and its core values can it identify causes or social responsibility initiatives that are in alignment with its authentic brand story.” ~ Simon Mainwaring