Category: Learn What Works

Does that athlete or supermodel REALLY use the product they’re promoting?
Probably not.
Most celeb-endorsements are done because of Influencer Marketing. 

Everyone understands the power of connectivity social media provides.  It’s a fantastic revolution in human communication that allows us to stay connected with people across the world, in real time. 

And, those of us who are entrepreneurial-minded, also know something about social media that most users do not: in every communication platform there is an opportunity for profit.  The source of profit comes from interpreting and leveraging this inter-connectivity to a brand’s advantage, and one of the best ways to do this is via influencer marketing.    

What is Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is basically collaborating with individuals and business leaders who are active and interested in what you offer, and daily interactions can make your brand stand out with sought-after trusted sources in your niche.

It’s basically the practice of finding key industry players that have influence in your niche and approaching them with a proposal to try your product, guest blog on your site, or cultivate some other form of professional relationship that can be seen online. 

Cross-promotions can create win-wins in the right environment.

Though it might sound simple, there is actually a very specific process involved in generating an influencer relationship… 

Step 1: Engagement

You should never approach an influencer out of the blue with a proposal to review your new product.  Without a personal bond of any sort, the influencer is almost certainly going to ignore you. 

The solution?  Engage with their social profiles.  Read their posts, comment on them in an informed way, and generally make it clear that you respect their opinion. 

Step 2: Discussion

After a bit of engagement, which can take weeks or even months, you may begin to discuss the potential of a guest blog post or a featured article.  You will want to keep it informal to gather information about how the influencer prefers to work – because they may do it for free if they find value in the relationship you’ve created – or, when they know, like, and trust you.

Step 3: Proposal

Make a proposal to the influencer once you have a strong working relationship.  The proposal can be as simple as mentioning a new product and asking what they think of it, or it could be more direct such as offering a paid placement campaign of your brand on their channels. 

Will Influencer Marketing Help My Business?

There is no question that influencer marketing will help your business.  To go back to the question of leveraging: you want to get as much positive press as possible, always, while spending as little money as possible.  You can leverage your industry connections and expand your market simply through a recommendation from an influential voice. 

Here are a few interesting stats, taken from digital media studies, to highlight the effectiveness of influencer marketing on your bottom line:

• 74% of people believe that social media is a trusted source in guiding them to buy a product
• 49% of people rely on influencers to make buying decisions
• 47% of people use ad-blocking technology (and I wager this is actually higher across the board)

What Does the Rise of Influencer Marketing Illustrate About Digital Marketing?

It shows that in addition to conventional ad channels, consumers will always place higher value on recommendations from those that they know, like, and trust.

It shows that small business owners can save tons of money in marketing spend by forming strategic relationships with key industry voices. 

It shows that consumers see through major advertising initiatives to the core of the product on offer.  If the product does not appear to have “social proof”, then it’s a much harder sell.

Converting cold leads into sales takes more than a killer social media presence and an all-encompassing digital marketing ad campaign.  While these are influential tools for gathering interest, the hard work of actually converting users/views into customers has not been accomplished yet. 

All too often, business owners think that traffic and engagement should organically translate into sales.  Unfortunately, it’s simply not that easy. 

Enter email marketing, the next phase in your sales channel that provides users with valuable and actionable content about your brand. 

Email Marketing is a Key Business Strategy

Email marketing is successful because it cuts through a lot of the barriers between your business and your audience.  It’s not just a little Facebook ‘like’ here and a click to the homepage there – it’s a personalized email that keeps users up to speed with your brand. 

And it works wonders.  Consider these stats:

• Research from VentureBeat found that every $1 spent on email campaigns generates $38 in ROI
• According to McKinsey data, email marketing is still approximately 40% more effective than Facebook or Twitter in gaining new customers

The email marketing platform we recommend to our clients is Infusionsoft – it is an intuitive and scalable email marketing tool that provides the tools you need to make impactful email campaigns. 

However, there are some tips to consider that will help you create better newsletters and drive page open rates. 

• Make the Most of Segmentation 

Segmentation allows you to curate email newsletters only to those people that have expressed interest in the content itself.  Not just the newsletter – the content of the newsletter itself.

So take advantage of Infusionsoft’s segmentation tool and make lists based on specific interests, otherwise your audience will ignore it. 

• Produce More Dynamic Content

Once you have made lists of customers based on interests, it’s time to develop templates optimized for each list.   

• A/B Testing

Infusionsoft offers exceptional A/B testing research. It’s a great way to see what is working in your approach.  Is it the image? The text? The time it is sent?  These are all important intangibles that you should be testing. 

Rounding It Up

As your business grows it will collect more data.  It can be a daunting task trying to organize it all and make use of it in your marketing endeavors.  The process is made much easier by analytical tools like Infusionsoft, as long as you know how to harness its full potential. 

Contact us at Support@EZMetrics.com to get the latest deals / discounts on Infusionsoft and other programs to make your business run even smoother so that you can generate more leads and close more sales.

Lead Generation: Going Back to Basics

Lead generation is one of those areas of business that you will always need to think about.  You’re probably asking yourself every week if the inbound strategies you are using bring in high enough conversion rates.  What’s going to happen to your business if conversion rates drop below 3%? 

While I can’t say what will change, I can say that nothing should change about your lead strategy just because of a two-month dip. 

Don’t Overthink Your Lead Strategy

Stressing about your lead strategy can be a healthy obsession.  Part of your overall inbound marketing strategy, lead generation is the crucial second step in the chain that begins with organic traffic and ends in a sale.  Figuring out the best way to turn visitors into interested customers is part of the magic of business, and definitely requires a lot of strategizing and execution. 

Recent data shows that average ecommerce conversion rates hover around 4%.  Or consider that the average lead generation conversion rate in the travel industry is 5%, while in business services it’s 3.4%.  So, it’s likely that your work fits right into your industry’s average.  Point being: it’s hard to generate leads. 

Go Back to Basics

The only way to put your mind at ease about your lead generation strategy is to bring it all back to basics. 

It might be that you are over-extended in your lead generation attempts.  Or perhaps the actual content of your outreach efforts is not resonating with enough people.  In both of these examples, making small changes to your approach will not make the difference you are looking for.  To greatly improve your sales numbers, you may need to change the entirety of your lead generation strategy. 

Where is Your Call-to-Action Button?

It might be time to change the location and design of your CTAs.  Is it being ignored on your blog no matter how many views the blog gets?  Then try putting together a direct messenger campaign on Facebook that targets people who have reacted to your posts recently.  Or simplify your web design to make your CTA stand out more. 

Landing Page Optimization Shift

This might be a concern for the web design team, but without your input it will undoubtedly suffer.  A landing page needs to have a few components to be successful: a catchy headline, a short batch of text that is easy to read, and a call to action button that stands out from the rest of the content.  Without these basic features shining through it’s very possible your landing page is the weakest link. 

The Offer Needs to Have Impact

Here is where you can be creative and unique.  The whole point of a lead is to collect the personal information from potential customers.  In order to receive this information, you need to make an appealing offer, and perhaps your offer just is not appealing enough.  Get brainstorming and figure out what incentive you can provide your customers.  Offering a spreadsheet or free consultation in exchange for signing up to a mailing list might be the change you were looking for to keep things rolling!

Conclusion

So, don’t get discouraged by your lead generation conversion rate.  It’s a hard bargain to generate interested customers no matter what business you operate in.  When things get overwhelming, the key to success is returning to the basics, because it will remind you what it is that makes your company unique. 

Question: What is the most valuable intangible in business?

Answer: Time.

No matter what area of business you apply the microscope, time management is the most valuable intangible.  It can either make you the most efficient person you could ever be, or lead you down a path of confusion and misunderstanding as you put tons of work into your business but keep on seeing diminishing returns.

Working on your business is all about making the most of your time in every single task you take on.  So what’s a good example of poor time management in business?  Operating on old principles that have become irrelevant in the fast-paced world of innovation and adaptation. 

A great example of operating on outdated principles can be found in search engine optimization.  Search engine optimization (or SEO) is an area of digital marketing that changes rapidly in relation to consumer behavior and Google measurement metrics. 

In the interest of saving time, many small business owners might think they can do their own basic SEO and get away with it.  They can, but only if they stay up-to-date with best practices.  Much like any area of business, managing your own SEO strategy it’s very easy to fall by the wayside and use methods that you think are effective, but in Google’s eyes are meaningless (or even harmful).

Here are 3 things I’ve noticed about SEO measurement that you should avoid if you want to make the most out of your time and effort:

1. Conversions

The thing about conversion rates is that they are very alluring.  Of course it would be great to take a quick look at your Analytics, notice that conversion rates are going up across the board, and then pat yourself on the back for a job well done.  That would be a mistake.  Why? Because unless you are purely an e-commerce site, conversion rates tell only part of the story.  The common conversion metrics people look at are things like landing on your homepage, signing up for a newsletter, or the percentage of returning visitors.  That might look like a good percentage on your Analytics report, but if it does not have a meaningful impact on your bottom line then you need to change things up. 

2) Traffic

Overall traffic is another appealing stat that can misinform you.  Let’s say you incorporate some generic keywords into your site and see a 15% increase in site traffic over 6 months.  Generating increased traffic really only matters if it leads to increased sales – otherwise the value of the effort is worthless.  Focus purely on generating traffic that actually leads to sales, and to do that means cutting down your impressive overall traffic numbers and getting more specific.   

3) Poor Keyword Descriptions

The best way to target meaningful searchers is to isolate long tail keywords in your niche.  The big hitting keywords draw far too many site managers in because of the high volume of traffic they draw – until six months later they realize that all their work has led to no increase in sales. 

Stick To Value-Added Issues Only

Remember that comment about time the beginning of this blog post?  It applies to even the most acute levels of search engine optimization.  To avoid aimless hours trying to improve your overall traffic, stick to value-added issues that bring in the money.  At the end of the day, nothing else matters as much closing the sale. 

It’s the digital version of “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back.”  Backlinking sounds like such a small thing, but can be extremely advantageous for those who do it strategically.  Implementing backlinks into your site is something you need to be thinking about if your business relies on digital exposure. In fact, many businesses should be putting as much time into a back linking campaign as they put into public relations and social media updates.  It really is that important.

According to Google, back linking is one of the most important metrics to measure site authority and relevance.  As you can probably guess, ‘site authority’ and ‘relevance’ are SEO terms that mean higher ranking – and thus more revenue!  That’s why the ROI is so strong for back linking strategies as compared to PPC campaigns. 

The principle behind Google’s approach is this: the more sites of high-quality content linked to pages on your site, the more relevant your site becomes.  So, basically, that means you want to publish high-quality content that references (and is shared by) influential authority sites in your niche. 

Five years ago their approach was not so specific.  It used to be that the volume of links meant more than the quality of the links, which induced site managers to take part in back link stuffing.  Google penalizes this type of practice these days, so it’s important to stay on top of best-practices in your digital marketing strategy. 

Not Complicated, Just Specific

It might seem like back linking is a complicated part of high-level search engine optimization, involving HTML code and dense analytical work.  In reality, building a strong back linking strategy is something any business owner can do in collaboration with a digital marketing agency.  All it requires is some basic knowledge of HTML, a thorough understanding of important players in your niche, and a commitment to hard work.

Let’s say you run an e-commerce site selling barbeques in Indianapolis.  What are some back linking strategies you could use?

1. Keyword Research – The best way to start is by typing in the short and long tail keywords you want to get backlinks for.

An example might be: “best BBQ Indianapolis”. 

Once you generate a list of 5-10 phrases, do a bit of research into what sites rank for each phrase.  Take note of these sites – because they are your competitors – and build and Excel sheet with all the relevant backlinks on their site.  You want to have 7-10 relevant sites from each competitor that you should link to as well.  This research will become the basis of your back linking strategy because it clarifies what terms and what sites you want to backlink too. 

1. Broken Link Strategy – Based on your keyword research, go through high authority sites that link to competitors and look for broken links.  There are some great back linking tools to help you with this step.  Simply write to the site manager informing them of a broken link, offer your site as an alternative link, and start watching your SEO ranking improve. 

1. Rely on Bloggers – Back linking is still dependant on volume of links, and the best way to boost your volume is to rely on social shares and blog shares.  Chances are your business has a pretty strong social media presence, likely being followed by influential writers in your industry.  Getting them to write a feature on your business is a great way to build authoritative backlinks because it’s essentially an endorsement. 

It’s A Multi-Pronged Approach

As with a lot of entrepreneurial work, a proper backlink strategy requires a multi-pronged approach.  It’s one piece of the puzzle that will deliver stronger results when used in conjunction with the right social media strategy, funnels, email campaigns, and website design.  Considering that these technologies (and Google rankings) are always changing, rather than take everything onto your shoulders, it’s best to work with a digital marketing strategist who will have the tools and expertise you require to stay ahead of the curve. 

There is one fundamental aspect of business that simply cannot be ignored: you need to attract customers.  Attracting customers can be done many different ways depending on your budget. 

You can invest in social media marketing techniques, Google Adwords campaigns, thorough SEO work on your homepage, and several outreach efforts on influential blogs or news sites. 

Here’s the catch: these are effective techniques to drive traffic to your website, but not necessarily to create leads and cultivate conversions. 

Much of the time, social media marketers get caught up looking at volume of traffic rather than conversion rates.  While the two numbers are intimately related (higher volume usually equates to higher conversion rate), focusing on driving traffic can obscure an important part of your everyday business operations. 

So, what is that intangible aspect of your business operations that gets overlooked in all the data analysis? Customer service.  No matter what your business operation looks like, some fundamental principles of customer service will ring true.  Here is a quick list of dos’ and don’ts when it comes to dealing with the most important intangible in your operational frame: the customer.

DO

Integrate Chatbots – Chatbots have been on the rise in the past few years.  Many of the bigger companies like Facebook and Netflix make use of them to great effect, and you should, too.  A chatbot can be prompted on a landing page within seconds.  A simple introductory message is all it takes to familiarize the visitor with the bot.  If they have a specific question they can ask the bot directly, which saves them time scrolling through the site.

A NOTE OF CAUTION: Always have a real person working customer service and monitoring the chatbot conversation with new visitors.  If the chatbot is unable to answer a question, a member of your team can step in and take it from there. 

Keep It Simple – Your customer service team needs to know that keeping it simple is the best strategy, always.  A visitor who is curious about options is on the verge of buying.  All it takes is a subtle bit of guidance from a customer service rep and they find what they are looking for.  On the flipside, if a customer service rep is overwhelming in their approach, it’s quite possible the visitor will lose interest. 

Be Honest – Customers can tell when a sales rep is exaggerating the truth to make a sale.  The only way to stop this from occurring is to be as honest as possible, at all times, even if it means advising a customer not to buy a product. 

DON’T

Think of Customers As Transactions – Your team cannot forget that every customer is deserving of the same treatment.  It is vital that each new visitor feels as though they are being listened to, respected, and given solid advice.  Thinking of every customer as a transaction makes it far too easy to forget the intangible aspects of customer service – like giving time for reflection and thought, discussing the pros and cons of each product, etc.

Ignore Feedback and Criticism – No company is going to have a perfect customer service rating, and every customer service agent will face critique at some point.  The question is: how can you learn from the criticisms?  How well do you respond to customer feedback?  Make sure your team is full of confident and self-aware people that can adapt to the demands of your customers. It’s never a failure if there’s a lesson attached.

It’s All About Consistency

Following these principles of customer service will help your team become better at serving your customer’s needs.  However, without consistency, your whole approach is bound for failure.  What’s the ticket for consistency? Hire a team that believes in your business.

Want to learn how to implement online strategies like chatbots and the possibility of having a team to help you get more leads and close more sales? Get free resources at https://ezmetrics.com/free-resources/.

While some people say Adwords is not worth the time and money, from an SEO perspective it is an extremely valuable resource.  It informs the most important component of an SEO approach – the keyword list. 

There are many intangibles to keyword searches that can only be teased out from high quality data.  High quality data means the information gathered from running a short PPC campaign with a variety of relevant keywords and phrases. 

Paying a little bit for this high quality data makes sense in the short-term because it helps isolate the keywords that actually convert for your client.  Simply using the most popular keywords in your niche does not guarantee high conversion rate (or even high traffic) for your site. 

Don’t forget that the painstaking work of SEO means always analyzing and changing your keyword set to match search term queries. 

Here are 3 ways that Google Adwords can inform your SEO approach:

1. Use Filters On Data

Filters is a great tool because they allow you to get particular insight about one large set of data.  You can literally get thirty different perspectives on the same data set by using filters. 

Maybe you want to see which keywords are not converting.  This is a great way to challenge the common assumption that popular keywords are the most valuable to keep.  Use a filter to see which keywords actually convert best in the keyword set for your client, and use this information to target only the most relevant keywords going forward. 

1. Add Segments To Learn More About Keyword Searches

Segments are a great way to figure out what kinds of phrases work best for each keyword. 

Often times a keyword with a high conversion rate will not be as effective in a long tail form. 

For example, let’s say “shoe store” is your base keyword that does pretty well.  But let’s presume you have added “best shoe store Chicago” and “Chicago shoe store best prices” to your keyword list.  Adding segments to test Search Term Match Type will tell you if short tail or long tail keywords convert better. 

1. The URL Conversion Rate Is Key

Another option with Google Adwords is to asses which URL has the best conversion rate.  Referred to as ‘Destination URLs’, Adwords is able to inform the user which pages on the site have had the most conversion success. 

That should lead you to analyze the keywords used on the page and apply a similar style to your other pages.

If, for example, the URL with a high conversation rate has less text on it, that is certainly something to apply across the site. 

SEO Is All About the Intangibles

These are only a few of the ways to make use of Google Adwords in your approach to SEO. 

The specificity of each method highlights the fact that SEO is all about the intangibles.  Every component of a website is connected, and it must always remain relevant according to the most important variable at play: the keyword list. 

Google Adwords can help with that, mainly by providing some insightful data about the nuances of search terms. 

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Schedule a free consultation with our team to learn how to implement these tips in your business specifically or other ideas to grow your brand online. Reach out to us at www.ezmetrics.com.