Archives for January 2017
Does Your Customer Trust You? Here's what's important to them
Most businesses would answer that question, “Yes, of course – they are my customer.” However, a recent survey reveals that the customer trusts the businesses employees more than the leadership, ownership or C-Level executives. In fact, just 37% of general population respondents around the world find company leadership to be credible, an all-time low.
“With the fall of trust, the majority of respondents now lack full belief that the overall system is working for them. To rebuild trust and restore faith in the system, institutions must step outside of their traditional roles and work toward a new, more integrated operating model that puts people â and the addressing of their fears â at the center of everything they do.” ~ Edelman Trust Barometer Global Results
How can businesses build trust? Has the shift to e-commerce platforms changed the way the consumer views the company they do business with? If the consumer does not trust the business leadership, who do they trust?
The massive shift over the past decade, that being consumers shopping online versus in a brick-and-mortar store as been nothing short of astounding. This shift has caused the consumer in their mass to regain authority over the established business, the established business now scrambles based upon data that confirms the decisions the consumer makes. The consumer now has influence and authority.
In a recent survey, consumers were asked to identify which attributes (pick three of thirty-one) is most important to building trust in the company they choose to do business with. Here are some of the results.
- 62% – treat employees well.
- 59% – offer high quality products and services
- 58% – listen to the customer
- 56% – has ethical business practices
- 55% – has transparent business practices
Your customer values integrity, engagement and ethical business practices. Quality and reliable products have always been at the cornerstone of trust for the consumer. Â However, transparency is also globally recognized as a core value that brands should bring forth. Honesty and transparency was given as a response, more than two-to-one over generosity, simplicity, social activity, passion and warmth.
Who does your customer trust?
Trust is about a person. Trust is the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. Social media has become the local gossip and chat resource for today's consumer. Since the consumer does not trust the company's leadership to convey an honest assessment of the products and services offered, over 60% of consumers turn to other fellow consumers to form their opinion of brands. The person they feel is credible is the person they know, someone like themselves. This is why the customer turns to the employee, as a more trusted spokesperson when communicating and answering queries.
The consumer now has influence and authority.
How to build trust in ecommerce.
Most marketing tactics focus on the quick grab and the one-time close. Not enough attention goes to building long lasting trust. The evidence above supports the need to reverse this mindset. Companies with ecommerce websites, where the customer is often deprived from the face-to-face contact, can reap rewards by building trust online. This is proven by numerous survey, where customers have repeatedly stated the same answers above apply to online versus -brick-and-mortar, with the exception being shipping charges and price sensitivity ranking higher for the online shopper, but still not out ranking integrity points.
- Be transparent. Trust is discouraged by anonymity and being secretive. Write descriptions of your products that convey accurately what is being offered, support those with high quality images and video demonstrations.
- Do not hide your failures. When the complaints become public, do not attempt to remove them, we all make mistakes. The key to expanding trust is dealing with problems in the open and treating the situation with fairness. The consumer wants to see what happens when it happens to them. Silence is a terrible strategy. Not responding immediately can be even worse. When you have a problem with a product, post it on your website as a status update.
- Match your values to your customer. As the customer relationship matures, the business communication becomes more frequent. Expressing your business values can amplify being liked. A report in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the authors report that the act of liking has a role that is richer and qualitatively different from that of the more cognitive antecedents of trust. They argue that as the buyer relationship matures, liking plays an even more important role in influencing trust. To be likeable online, use direct contact channels like Facebook, Twitter and website live chat.
- Outsider opinions matter. External social proof can be powerful online. Testimonials by celebrities, centers of influence in your industry and admired fellow business leaders have a unique position in the eye of the consumer. “When someone has a higher status than you, or even just thinks he does, his mind tells him that you need him more than he needs you. Consequently, heâs more likely to satisfy short-term desires and worry less about the long-term consequences of being untrustworthy”. ~ David DeSteno at Harvard Business Review. Look for endorsements, testimonials, media reports and badges that can be used as an outsider opinion.
- Humanize your brand. “Your customers are human. Your partners are human. Your employees are human. Even your social media fans and followers are human. Humanizing your brand is a requirement, not an option if you want to survive in business today. Yes, you can put brand humanization on hold. However, every day you lose is a day you could be building relationships, nurturing friendships, establishing and earning the respect of powerful brand evangelists who will shout from a mountain top how wonderful you and your brand are”. ~ Pam Moore at Marketing Nutz Your customer, with that first transaction, releases their hard-earned money despite their sense of the future unknown. Your ecommerce website does not help this situation. Your logo, your URL, your autoresponder and your delivered package represents your company. Make your company more human will gain more trust. But how do you become more human in this digital world? Avoid industry jargon, avoid the need to use words the average human does not understand, the right message needs to match the right social channel, etc. Answer the phone! Use live chat! Have a human being man the comments on social media. Randomly hand write an email to your new customers.
- Avoid multi-system chaos. The more hoops your customer has to go through just to voice a concern or order something special the worse they feel about trusting your ecommerce website. This holds true for the employees that process such order for shipment or tracking in your CRM. Work hard to reduce complexity without damaging your internal controls. Your employees must sound confident on the phone and believe in your ethics, transparency and documentation.
- Consider what makes you unique. The longer your sales cycle, the more complex your offer is, the more important this becomes. You must test the balance between stuffing your product's description with keywords and over wrought details, while conversely presenting a clear path to customer service for every question that crosses the mind of the consumer. Disclosure has an effect on trust.
Trust can be broken faster than it can be built. This is true in our face-to-face personal relationships and this is true with our ecommerce websites. In closing consider a few interesting facts from the study referenced above as the basis of this article. 62% of general population respondents would be more likely to believe a companyâs social media posts than its advertising (38%). 54% deem blunt and outspoken styles more believable than diplomatic and polite ones (46%). Finally, the consumer wants you to give them product suggestions that are relevant to their interests, but most consumers donât want their data used.
At Viral Solutions, we teach our clients to systematize the ecommerce transaction, front and back, so that the business growth is sustainable. At the same time we teach our clients to never forget their is a real person buying your goods and processing transactions. If you trust your employees, train and empower them to remember every order is for a real person, then support that flow of information with secure and stable processes – you'll have an excellent foundation to build upon.
Copyright Viral solutions 2017
Marisa Fritzemeier
Angel of Innovative Artistry and Design for Viral Solutions LLC
Does Your Customer Trust You? Here’s what’s important to them
Most businesses would answer that question, “Yes, of course – they are my customer.” However, a recent survey reveals that the customer trusts the businesses employees more than the leadership, ownership or C-Level executives. In fact, just 37% of general population respondents around the world find company leadership to be credible, an all-time low.
“With the fall of trust, the majority of respondents now lack full belief that the overall system is working for them. To rebuild trust and restore faith in the system, institutions must step outside of their traditional roles and work toward a new, more integrated operating model that puts people â and the addressing of their fears â at the center of everything they do.” ~ Edelman Trust Barometer Global Results
How can businesses build trust? Has the shift to e-commerce platforms changed the way the consumer views the company they do business with? If the consumer does not trust the business leadership, who do they trust?
The massive shift over the past decade, that being consumers shopping online versus in a brick-and-mortar store as been nothing short of astounding. This shift has caused the consumer in their mass to regain authority over the established business, the established business now scrambles based upon data that confirms the decisions the consumer makes. The consumer now has influence and authority.
In a recent survey, consumers were asked to identify which attributes (pick three of thirty-one) is most important to building trust in the company they choose to do business with. Here are some of the results.
- 62% – treat employees well.
- 59% – offer high quality products and services
- 58% – listen to the customer
- 56% – has ethical business practices
- 55% – has transparent business practices
Your customer values integrity, engagement and ethical business practices. Quality and reliable products have always been at the cornerstone of trust for the consumer. Â However, transparency is also globally recognized as a core value that brands should bring forth. Honesty and transparency was given as a response, more than two-to-one over generosity, simplicity, social activity, passion and warmth.
Who does your customer trust?
Trust is about a person. Trust is the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. Social media has become the local gossip and chat resource for today's consumer. Since the consumer does not trust the company's leadership to convey an honest assessment of the products and services offered, over 60% of consumers turn to other fellow consumers to form their opinion of brands. The person they feel is credible is the person they know, someone like themselves. This is why the customer turns to the employee, as a more trusted spokesperson when communicating and answering queries.
The consumer now has influence and authority.
How to build trust in ecommerce.
Most marketing tactics focus on the quick grab and the one-time close. Not enough attention goes to building long lasting trust. The evidence above supports the need to reverse this mindset. Companies with ecommerce websites, where the customer is often deprived from the face-to-face contact, can reap rewards by building trust online. This is proven by numerous survey, where customers have repeatedly stated the same answers above apply to online versus -brick-and-mortar, with the exception being shipping charges and price sensitivity ranking higher for the online shopper, but still not out ranking integrity points.
- Be transparent. Trust is discouraged by anonymity and being secretive. Write descriptions of your products that convey accurately what is being offered, support those with high quality images and video demonstrations.
- Do not hide your failures. When the complaints become public, do not attempt to remove them, we all make mistakes. The key to expanding trust is dealing with problems in the open and treating the situation with fairness. The consumer wants to see what happens when it happens to them. Silence is a terrible strategy. Not responding immediately can be even worse. When you have a problem with a product, post it on your website as a status update.
- Match your values to your customer. As the customer relationship matures, the business communication becomes more frequent. Expressing your business values can amplify being liked. A report in the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the authors report that the act of liking has a role that is richer and qualitatively different from that of the more cognitive antecedents of trust. They argue that as the buyer relationship matures, liking plays an even more important role in influencing trust. To be likeable online, use direct contact channels like Facebook, Twitter and website live chat.
- Outsider opinions matter. External social proof can be powerful online. Testimonials by celebrities, centers of influence in your industry and admired fellow business leaders have a unique position in the eye of the consumer. “When someone has a higher status than you, or even just thinks he does, his mind tells him that you need him more than he needs you. Consequently, heâs more likely to satisfy short-term desires and worry less about the long-term consequences of being untrustworthy”. ~ David DeSteno at Harvard Business Review. Look for endorsements, testimonials, media reports and badges that can be used as an outsider opinion.
- Humanize your brand. “Your customers are human. Your partners are human. Your employees are human. Even your social media fans and followers are human. Humanizing your brand is a requirement, not an option if you want to survive in business today. Yes, you can put brand humanization on hold. However, every day you lose is a day you could be building relationships, nurturing friendships, establishing and earning the respect of powerful brand evangelists who will shout from a mountain top how wonderful you and your brand are”. ~ Pam Moore at Marketing Nutz Your customer, with that first transaction, releases their hard-earned money despite their sense of the future unknown. Your ecommerce website does not help this situation. Your logo, your URL, your autoresponder and your delivered package represents your company. Make your company more human will gain more trust. But how do you become more human in this digital world? Avoid industry jargon, avoid the need to use words the average human does not understand, the right message needs to match the right social channel, etc. Answer the phone! Use live chat! Have a human being man the comments on social media. Randomly hand write an email to your new customers.
- Avoid multi-system chaos. The more hoops your customer has to go through just to voice a concern or order something special the worse they feel about trusting your ecommerce website. This holds true for the employees that process such order for shipment or tracking in your CRM. Work hard to reduce complexity without damaging your internal controls. Your employees must sound confident on the phone and believe in your ethics, transparency and documentation.
- Consider what makes you unique. The longer your sales cycle, the more complex your offer is, the more important this becomes. You must test the balance between stuffing your product's description with keywords and over wrought details, while conversely presenting a clear path to customer service for every question that crosses the mind of the consumer. Disclosure has an effect on trust.
Trust can be broken faster than it can be built. This is true in our face-to-face personal relationships and this is true with our ecommerce websites. In closing consider a few interesting facts from the study referenced above as the basis of this article. 62% of general population respondents would be more likely to believe a companyâs social media posts than its advertising (38%). 54% deem blunt and outspoken styles more believable than diplomatic and polite ones (46%). Finally, the consumer wants you to give them product suggestions that are relevant to their interests, but most consumers donât want their data used.
At Viral Solutions, we teach our clients to systematize the ecommerce transaction, front and back, so that the business growth is sustainable. At the same time we teach our clients to never forget their is a real person buying your goods and processing transactions. If you trust your employees, train and empower them to remember every order is for a real person, then support that flow of information with secure and stable processes – you'll have an excellent foundation to build upon.
Copyright Viral solutions 2017
Marisa Fritzemeier
Angel of Innovative Artistry and Design for Viral Solutions LLC
Common eCommerce Mistakes | Content Planning – Part #3
It has been well reported, here and on numerous digital marketing blogs, that content is one of the many keys to drawing an audience into your brand. The internet as a whole is loaded with content, opinions and educational resources. Content marketing is a great tool for communicating with your audience.
Every great ecommerce web site contains excellent content and that rarely happens by accident.
For many of us, it is easy to expound on beliefs with our words and talk about ourselves and our wares. Producing and publishing content is more than education and news reporting. Understanding this fact is the difference between a fun blog, an opinion laiden editorial versus content marketing that feeds SEO, Social Media Marketing, Lead Generation and eMail Nurture Campaigns.
Common eCommerce Mistake: Lack of Content Planning
As content marketing continues to grow as a method to fill your web site with your thoughts, opinions and beliefs it is still an area most ecommerce sites fail to plan for. Meaning, just as we mentioned in the article about a Strategic Marketing Plan, Content Planning is a must. However, most ecommerce web sites fail to plan and we at Viral Solutions see this quite often.
We too often see content produced as a space and time filler rather than as a key component to an overall marketing strategy. As Viral Solutions we have produced over 650 such articles, which is a major expense for the agency, but over the years we have seen our organic reach and social sharing (that's free ya' know) grow exponentially.Â
You must plan your content in advance. This plan will help your writers do research rather than whip out an article because you need one. A quality content marketing plan takes into account upcoming major events, holidays that impact sales and new product announcements to name a few. Your content marketing plan should build brand awareness, site traffic and fuel your customers to make purchases because your article fed their why.
A lack of long-term content planning, that is coordinated with an overall marketing strategy, used to fuel your e-commerce transactions is a major mistake we see in our digital marketing agency. Most ecommerce businesses slap product on a site, maybe write a blog article when they have time, and hope people come to buy. Planning your content well in advance turns this accidental marketing tactic into one that is strategic.
A great content marketing planner is not a short-term venture. You are looking at many years of content production. This is why we believe in quarterly manageable plans and a variety of writers, who by the way, are some of the most critical people you can employ in your ecommerce business.
How to build a content marketing planner
First, connect with  your marketing team or agency on at least a quarterly basis for a half-day session during which you will brainstorm about your upcoming content needs. Most content falls into one or more of several categories.
You should be using each and every content style and delivery mechanism listed below.
- Entertainment. This is content that has an emotional connection and builds awareness. The content should come in many forms, including but not limited to quizzes, competitions, games, branded videos and content that may inspire viral sharing. Coca-Cola sells a commoditized product and they are experts at using the emotional play with their content to build brand loyalty. “Advertising is getting less effective as technology gives consumers more ways to avoid it. And, media savvy people are comfortable getting information and entertainment from brands. What Coke really understands is the need to embrace their role as a lifestyle brand and create lasting emotional connections with consumers. They are using content, entertainment, video and storytelling to engage customers.” ~ KingFish Media This is where video plays a major role in content distribution as the human viewer connects with the visual cues of the presenter.
- Inspiration. “Simply slapping a call-to-action at the end isnât enough. Chances are your past content successes contained many, if not all, of the same attributes.” ~ MOZ. Be inspirational! A great singing voice can be found on stage in any local restaurant or tavern. They can also command an audience of thousands. What's the difference? The difference is the person who can inspire an audience, move them to action and entice them to follow their performance. Anyone who says âyou can lead a horse to water, but you canât make it drinkâ is probably not a marketer. Here is where your content needs a social community of supporters, product reviews and endorsements by authority figures in an industry. People love it when they are inspired by other people who have enjoyed doing business with you. Include such inspirational content loaded with legitimate reviews and ratings in your content marketing planner.
- Convince to Convert. While it is said that 80% of prospects become customers based upon emotion the remaining audience buys based upon fact. Your marketing content planner needs to account for this audience. People who buy on fact tend to be professionals that are analytical by nature (Accountants, Engineers, Doctors, Lawyers, etc). To convince this audience to convert your ecommerce platform will need content that details a product or services features, provides case studies, grants free demos in video format, supplies checklists, schedules webinars, creates calculators and price guides. These pieces will contain such information that fuels the rational thinker over the emotional thinker.
- Educate. Building awareness through education is the most common form of content that appeals to the rational thought process. Educating your audience helps fuel your authority over time. The tools and tactics of content that educates includes such formats as quick guides, press releases, trend reports, infographics e-books and basic blog articles. Your content marketing planner needs to account for the audience that is not entirely sure what it is you do, offer or believe. Educational content will help you with that audience.
Your content marketing options should also contain facts and figures about your customer journey, purchase habits and decision styles. This information is best obtained from those who are in regular contact with your customer as well as Google Analytics.
What are your goals for the content you produce? Traffic? Awareness? Attention? Opt-in conversions? Authority? Each of the content styles above, especially when methodically produced using all facets, styles and deliver mechanisms can and will achieve all of those goals over time. Your job is to be committed, consistent and persistent.
What do I do with all this content?
At Viral Solutions we use content derived from a solid marketing strategy and customer engagement plan to fuel our email marketing, SMS (text message) marketing, video marketing and social media presence.
When you have a solid content marketing strategy with a team of talented writers your social media postings will now be purposeful rather than whimsical. Any social media channel needs a purpose and a set of goals. This cannot be managed without a strategy. Yes – you could get lucky by just doing whatever comes to you. However, that method is not sustainable or trainable. Your social strategy goals should accomplish the following.
- A community following. When you use a sophisticated and well-crafted target audience approach your audience will love your content and gossip about you online in social channels. People do business with people. Engaged people tell others they love your products and services. Social media today is simply an electronic version of timeless gossip and community gatherings. Build your community with content they love.
- Service guides. Your sales team, your customer service team, your managers and your public needs a resource of information that they can rely on to speak for you and provide answers to questions that match your belief. Your service desk and those support people will become empowered with your content and embrace your social media channels. Gold will flow out of their mouths as they provide consistent responses that align with your overall business plan.
- Event and product awareness. Your content speaks to your audience so you can separate yourselves from the noise. This is how you become a difference maker. Being different is how you polarize an audience to attend local events and learn how your products are different. How many public motivational speakers are there? How about kinds of bottled water? Millions! Target a niche' and be different with content that speaks to your audience's needs.
If you don't plan it or measure it – you aren't managing it. What do you do now?
Your customers have a known lifecycle and take a known path on their journey with your products and services that you offer oneline. Make sure you have that mapped. Make sure your automated marketing campaigns follow, direct and influence that flow too. Make sure someone is responsible, accountable and has the authority to make changes.
Depending on the size of your business, establish a voice of your content. Is that one individual? Is that a different person depending on topic or delivery mechanism? Is content production a shared process?
Document and plan your content on a calendar, make sure you account for all the various delivery mechanisms mentioned above. Â Now evaluate article performance by the number of hits, time on page, conversion rate and return-on-investment.
Align your various social channels with matching content. Meaning, that Facebook tends to be dominated by women over 45 and Pinterest is loved by a much younger audience and LinkedIn is a hangout for professionals and recruiters. You must know what buyer persona uses what social channel. The same goes for email marketing versus SMS (text message) verus on-site live events. Choose your words to match the channel which in turn matches your buyer persona.
Fittingly, next week we will discuss the overuse and thew wrong use of a buyer persona.Â
Copyright 2017 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.
Common eCommerce Mistakes | Content Planning – Part #3
It has been well reported, here and on numerous digital marketing blogs, that content is one of the many keys to drawing an audience into your brand. The internet as a whole is loaded with content, opinions and educational resources. Content marketing is a great tool for communicating with your audience.
Every great ecommerce web site contains excellent content and that rarely happens by accident.
For many of us, it is easy to expound on beliefs with our words and talk about ourselves and our wares. Producing and publishing content is more than education and news reporting. Understanding this fact is the difference between a fun blog, an opinion laiden editorial versus content marketing that feeds SEO, Social Media Marketing, Lead Generation and eMail Nurture Campaigns.
Common eCommerce Mistake: Lack of Content Planning
As content marketing continues to grow as a method to fill your web site with your thoughts, opinions and beliefs it is still an area most ecommerce sites fail to plan for. Meaning, just as we mentioned in the article about a Strategic Marketing Plan, Content Planning is a must. However, most ecommerce web sites fail to plan and we at Viral Solutions see this quite often.
We too often see content produced as a space and time filler rather than as a key component to an overall marketing strategy. As Viral Solutions we have produced over 650 such articles, which is a major expense for the agency, but over the years we have seen our organic reach and social sharing (that's free ya' know) grow exponentially.Â
You must plan your content in advance. This plan will help your writers do research rather than whip out an article because you need one. A quality content marketing plan takes into account upcoming major events, holidays that impact sales and new product announcements to name a few. Your content marketing plan should build brand awareness, site traffic and fuel your customers to make purchases because your article fed their why.
A lack of long-term content planning, that is coordinated with an overall marketing strategy, used to fuel your e-commerce transactions is a major mistake we see in our digital marketing agency. Most ecommerce businesses slap product on a site, maybe write a blog article when they have time, and hope people come to buy. Planning your content well in advance turns this accidental marketing tactic into one that is strategic.
A great content marketing planner is not a short-term venture. You are looking at many years of content production. This is why we believe in quarterly manageable plans and a variety of writers, who by the way, are some of the most critical people you can employ in your ecommerce business.
How to build a content marketing planner
First, connect with  your marketing team or agency on at least a quarterly basis for a half-day session during which you will brainstorm about your upcoming content needs. Most content falls into one or more of several categories.
You should be using each and every content style and delivery mechanism listed below.
- Entertainment. This is content that has an emotional connection and builds awareness. The content should come in many forms, including but not limited to quizzes, competitions, games, branded videos and content that may inspire viral sharing. Coca-Cola sells a commoditized product and they are experts at using the emotional play with their content to build brand loyalty. “Advertising is getting less effective as technology gives consumers more ways to avoid it. And, media savvy people are comfortable getting information and entertainment from brands. What Coke really understands is the need to embrace their role as a lifestyle brand and create lasting emotional connections with consumers. They are using content, entertainment, video and storytelling to engage customers.” ~ KingFish Media This is where video plays a major role in content distribution as the human viewer connects with the visual cues of the presenter.
- Inspiration. “Simply slapping a call-to-action at the end isnât enough. Chances are your past content successes contained many, if not all, of the same attributes.” ~ MOZ. Be inspirational! A great singing voice can be found on stage in any local restaurant or tavern. They can also command an audience of thousands. What's the difference? The difference is the person who can inspire an audience, move them to action and entice them to follow their performance. Anyone who says âyou can lead a horse to water, but you canât make it drinkâ is probably not a marketer. Here is where your content needs a social community of supporters, product reviews and endorsements by authority figures in an industry. People love it when they are inspired by other people who have enjoyed doing business with you. Include such inspirational content loaded with legitimate reviews and ratings in your content marketing planner.
- Convince to Convert. While it is said that 80% of prospects become customers based upon emotion the remaining audience buys based upon fact. Your marketing content planner needs to account for this audience. People who buy on fact tend to be professionals that are analytical by nature (Accountants, Engineers, Doctors, Lawyers, etc). To convince this audience to convert your ecommerce platform will need content that details a product or services features, provides case studies, grants free demos in video format, supplies checklists, schedules webinars, creates calculators and price guides. These pieces will contain such information that fuels the rational thinker over the emotional thinker.
- Educate. Building awareness through education is the most common form of content that appeals to the rational thought process. Educating your audience helps fuel your authority over time. The tools and tactics of content that educates includes such formats as quick guides, press releases, trend reports, infographics e-books and basic blog articles. Your content marketing planner needs to account for the audience that is not entirely sure what it is you do, offer or believe. Educational content will help you with that audience.
Your content marketing options should also contain facts and figures about your customer journey, purchase habits and decision styles. This information is best obtained from those who are in regular contact with your customer as well as Google Analytics.
What are your goals for the content you produce? Traffic? Awareness? Attention? Opt-in conversions? Authority? Each of the content styles above, especially when methodically produced using all facets, styles and deliver mechanisms can and will achieve all of those goals over time. Your job is to be committed, consistent and persistent.
What do I do with all this content?
At Viral Solutions we use content derived from a solid marketing strategy and customer engagement plan to fuel our email marketing, SMS (text message) marketing, video marketing and social media presence.
When you have a solid content marketing strategy with a team of talented writers your social media postings will now be purposeful rather than whimsical. Any social media channel needs a purpose and a set of goals. This cannot be managed without a strategy. Yes – you could get lucky by just doing whatever comes to you. However, that method is not sustainable or trainable. Your social strategy goals should accomplish the following.
- A community following. When you use a sophisticated and well-crafted target audience approach your audience will love your content and gossip about you online in social channels. People do business with people. Engaged people tell others they love your products and services. Social media today is simply an electronic version of timeless gossip and community gatherings. Build your community with content they love.
- Service guides. Your sales team, your customer service team, your managers and your public needs a resource of information that they can rely on to speak for you and provide answers to questions that match your belief. Your service desk and those support people will become empowered with your content and embrace your social media channels. Gold will flow out of their mouths as they provide consistent responses that align with your overall business plan.
- Event and product awareness. Your content speaks to your audience so you can separate yourselves from the noise. This is how you become a difference maker. Being different is how you polarize an audience to attend local events and learn how your products are different. How many public motivational speakers are there? How about kinds of bottled water? Millions! Target a niche' and be different with content that speaks to your audience's needs.
If you don't plan it or measure it – you aren't managing it. What do you do now?
Your customers have a known lifecycle and take a known path on their journey with your products and services that you offer oneline. Make sure you have that mapped. Make sure your automated marketing campaigns follow, direct and influence that flow too. Make sure someone is responsible, accountable and has the authority to make changes.
Depending on the size of your business, establish a voice of your content. Is that one individual? Is that a different person depending on topic or delivery mechanism? Is content production a shared process?
Document and plan your content on a calendar, make sure you account for all the various delivery mechanisms mentioned above. Â Now evaluate article performance by the number of hits, time on page, conversion rate and return-on-investment.
Align your various social channels with matching content. Meaning, that Facebook tends to be dominated by women over 45 and Pinterest is loved by a much younger audience and LinkedIn is a hangout for professionals and recruiters. You must know what buyer persona uses what social channel. The same goes for email marketing versus SMS (text message) verus on-site live events. Choose your words to match the channel which in turn matches your buyer persona.
Fittingly, next week we will discuss the overuse and thew wrong use of a buyer persona.Â
Copyright 2017 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.
Authority Content Series: Building a Reputation via Content Curation
Welcome back to our Viral Solutions series on creating authority content. Last week we discussed how to develop high-quality original content as a way to establish yourself as an authority in your field. However, not all of the content you share has to be original. You can position yourself as an expert through strategic sharing of pre-existing content created by other respected businesses and entrepreneurs in your field in a process known as content curation.
Even if you make content marketing a priority at your company, youâre going find it difficult to create enough content quickly enough to meet all of your marketing needs. In fact, of the biggest challenges facing B2B marketers, the ones at the top of the list are typically a lack of time, an inability to produce enough content, having a hard time producing content that engages an audience and a lack of budget for creating that content.
Content curation solves all of those issues, making it extremely beneficial for your company.
Here are just a few of the reasons why you should make content curation a part of your authority content marketing campaign, and how it can help you to continue to position yourself as a thought leader in your field:
- It gives you additional perspectives: By offering more diverse points of view, you are able to enhance your credibility. Even if youâre regularly producing high-quality content, it can come off as selfish and overly self-promotional to only share your own content via social media platforms. A willingness to share outside voices indicates to your audience that you are finding the best content available to share, which builds greater trust.
- It allows you to expand the content you offer: You need a whole lot of time and resources at your disposal to produce a huge volume of content yourself. Spare yourself some of the time and expense by sharing high-quality content already created by others. This content can fill in the gaps that exist in your current content offerings, providing additional depth of information or expertise that might otherwise be lacking in your current content library.
- It helps you create more engagement: Not only does content curation simply give you more you can share on your social media pages outside of promotions and your own content, but it also helps to increase engagement overall. For example, you can look at great content produced by other people in your field and see which blog posts have been most liked, shared and commented on social media channels. Chances are, if a post has done really well at creating engagement on one social media channel, it will do the same on yours.
- It can connect you with other experts in your industry: By not only creating but also sharing great content related to your field, you will instantly be seen as someone with whom other people in your industry want to associate. You will be able to get access to other authorities in your industry, making you seen as more of an authority by association.
- It can help you tap into new audiences: By sharing content created by others, you are more likely to bring those audiences into your fold, increasing your readership and the amount of people who have eyes on your brand and your products or services.
- It can help you spread your content to other audiences: If you share content created by others, they will likely be amenable to returning the favor. This also gives you another opportunity to reach out to new audiences in that people who might not otherwise have been exposed to your content will see it posted by authorities or brands they are already following, which will lead them back to you.
- It helps gives you time to create high-quality content: Because you are saving time and resources by focusing at least a chunk of your authority content campaign on content curation, you can take the time you need to create high-quality content of which you are proud, and that you are sure will resonate with your audience.
What tactics ensure your efforts get noticed?
Leverage âundergroundâ content. “Effective content curation highlights amazing content that readers have never seen in a way that adds value and impresses the original source. Share valuable content that people havenât seen so you become the go-to place to find the best content. To build brand awareness and grow a following, you want to be a trend finder, a trend analyst. My curated content with the most engagement is not content found in the most obvious places for my industry. Anybody can take articles from popular sites and share them. It doesnât stand out. True value comes from frequenting locations that are abstractly relevant â the places that publish content strongly relevant to your audience 10 to 20% of the time. When the content is relevant, it resonates because itâs fresh, new, and otherwise unseen by those in your space. They arenât willing to dig to find that content, thatâs why they need you.” ~ Ross Hudgens at Content Marketing Institute
Content Curation Should Offset Promotional Content. “Customers grow tired of brands ceaselessly promoting their own wares. Which is why todayâs progressive brands think beyond products or features. Successful brands understand that the relationship customers have with brands today transcends the product itself. A product may initially attract you to a specific brand, but itâs what the brand offers after the purchase that will keep you around (and make you a fan).” ~ Patrick Armitage at HubSpot
Share curated content on your social networks. “Social media is one of the channels where content curation is key to staying relevant to your followers and growing your following. Follow the Social Media Rule of Thirds, put your pride aside and share other peopleâs content. Why is it important to share outsider content by other businesses or thought leaders? It shows your audience that you know the industry well, that youâre collegial and are aware of competition. It shows that youâre collaborative and confident enough in your own brand to share anotherâs content. It also doubles your exposure by potentially connecting you to another brandâs audience or online community.” ~ Kristina Cisnero at Hootsuite
The Three Sâs of Content Curation:  Seek, Sense, Share. “Content curation is a three-part process:  Seek, Sense, and Share.   Finding the information or âseekingâ  is only one third of the task as Mari Smith points out in this video about why curation is important and some tools for doing it. Making sense of the information is just as important.  Sense making can be a simple as how you annotate the links your share,  the presentation,  or what youâve left out.   Sensemaking can be writing a blog post using the links (like this post) or summarizing the key points in a presentation.  However you create meaning, but it has to support your organizationâs communications objectives or your professional learning goals.” ~ Beth Kanter
While content curation might not take as much planning and effort as creating your own original high-quality content, you should keep in mind that it still requires a strong editorial commitment. You must carefully consider what forms of content you are willing to share, and what sources you do and do not want to support.
Stay tuned next week for the next strategy you can use to help establish yourself as an authority figure in your field through content marketing.
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
