The Marketing Message Blog

Customer Onboarding: Building customer relationships

Customer onboarding is a fancy way of saying that you need to make your customers feel like part of your tribe. This article explores the idea and suggests how to do it better.

Making the Case for Customer Onboarding

June 4, 2013 · marketeer.kapost.com · June 4, 2013 By Chris Williams 2 Comments  When marketers start thinking about using content to optimize their sales funnel, typically, they think about optimization before the sale is made. A prospect turns into a lead, and a lead turns into a sale, and the job is done. But the most successful marketers begin by optimizing the bottom of the funnel first, not the other way around. These marketers focus first on turning leads into sales, then...

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References:

1. “Making the Case for Customer Onboarding” · Chris Williams · June 4, 2013 · Marketeer.kapost.com

Check out an excerpt of the new edition of "The Zen of Social Media Marketing" by Shama Kabani

Shama Kabani the very popular social media thought leader is out with a new edition of her best selling book, "The Zen of Social Media Marketing." 

She has provided us with an excerpt that I recommend you read if you want to boost your marketing power.

As anyone who follows Shama on her many social media accounts knows she makes things easy to understand and apply. 

Specifically, don't miss Chapter 13 Tools for Attracting Even More business and Burning Questions and Answers.

Check out her book excerpt Download The_Zen_of_Social_Media,_3rd_Edition_Excerpt.

What you can learn from some of our greatest entrepreneurs

Do you think you know how some of our greatest entrepreneurs think? Maybe not. I just finished reading "The 12 Greatest Entrepreneurs And What You Can Learn From Them" written by John A. Byrne for the April 9th issue of Fortune. I was surprised at how diverse their "best advice" was.

To get you thinking about what each would say, I created the list below. See if you can match their name to their advice. Bet you can't. That should give you food for thought.

Here are the entrepreneurs:

1. Steve Jobs

2. Bill Gates

3. Fred Smith

4. Jeff Bezos

5. Larry Page and Sergey Brin

6. Howard Schultz

7. Mark Zuckerberg

8. John Mackey

9. Herb Kelleher

10. Narayana Murthy

11. Sam Walton

12. Muhammad Yunus

Here is their advice:

a. "Embrace paranoia". 

b. "Take regular mini-retreats"

c. "Find very smart people and create small teams"

d. "Make your customers No. 1"

e. "Rely on 'first-level' managers"

f. "Small gifts can equal big impacts"

g. "Say no to focus groups and market research"

h. "Sacrifice today, cash in tomorrow"

i. "Purpose inspires people"

j. "Spare no expense on innovation"

k. "Always challenge the old ways"

l. “Give the people what they want”

 

When you've finished guessing, here's the key:1g, 2c, 3e, 4b, 5j, 6k, 7a, 8i, 9d, 10h, 11l, 12 f.

Let me know how many you got right!

Productivity: How online marketers can analyze their time

productivity (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

Everyone worries about wasting time because we can't make more of it. We all get the same amount and its never enough. Productivity is on almost everyone's list of things to improve.

Wasting marketing time is especially worrisome. To completely butcher John Wanamaker's (famous clothing retailer at the turn of the century,) budget quote, "We know that half of our marketing time is wasted, we just don't know which half."

That's why when clients tell me they don't have time to do Social Media Marketing or some other key activity, I want to look at how they currently spend their time. If you own an online business, its likely that you should be spending some of your time on social media.

So here's what I usually find out. My client is envisioning adding social media activities to their already impossible schedule. That can't be right! Something has to be eliminated so that something of a higher priority can be added. Productivity doesn't mean just doing more things, it means doing the right things.

Don't continually think about adding tasks without removing some others. That's just common sense.

Ok, so I've stated the problem--you want to increase your productivity. So, what can you do? If you want a quick way to analyze your productivity, I find the following activity to be helpful.

Begin by categorizing all your marketing activities into one of these four buckets:

1. Planning or analyzing: This includes creating campaigns, analyzing personas, diving deeper into your niche(s)

2. Creating content: Writing, finding visuals, doing SEO, etc.

3. Presenting your content to your customer in some format: Putting it on a social platform, showing a video, selling an ebook.

4. Listening to feedback and revising your content.

If your marketing activity doesn't fall into one of these four categories you should strongly think about dropping if from your repertoire.

 

Does social media really make you more social?

If you've been online for any length of time, you've struggled with the question of how much time to spend on social platforms.  You weigh the pros and cons and perhaps miss the central point-- sharing information of any kind potentially adds to the value of the Web as a whole.

If your expertise is freely shared by posting something interesting you have made a contribution.  If you think of it that way, perhaps you'll waste less time on trivia.  Or you won't.  Either way consider it as your effort to teach something to others.

Strategy Questions Every Business Executive Should Ask

If you’re a leader whose business has an online component, you’d probably like to find some guidelines that make it easier to develop and sustain an online marketing strategy. There are lots of conflicting ideas swirling out there about what to do online to maintain a competitive advantage and increase value. If you followed many of them, you’d be spinning your wheels with no revenue in sight. 

As someone whose has worked online since 1994, I’ve watched the marketing “shiny object” change from Web site to newsletter to blog to social media network. And on it goes. I know that getting locked into a tactic with no clear strategy in sight is a common mistake.  It does nothing to increase your value.

If you’re uneasy around the topic of social media strategies, you’re not alone. Because you’re not down in the trenches tweeting and posting, you probably don’t have the “hands-on” feel you have for other areas of marketing. A competitive advantage seems unatainable.

If you attempt to delegate, employees suggest all manner of tactics to engage customers. You’ve heard that you need to engage with Twitter and Facebook, study ongoing analytics, present sparkling content, and co-develop with customers. Great advice. But without the strategy behind it, your campaigns are destined to fail. Like every other area of business, you need to create the strategy first and make sure it flows down to everyone in your organization. 

In formulating an online strategy, here are three questions to consider: 

Value.   Do your employees know the real value consumers place on your products and services?   If you don’t develop and constantly hone that message, your employees can’t communicate it in their social media efforts. In turn, all the ratings and comments that show up about your company will not engender the “word of mouth” referral power they could. If your customers aren’t selling for you, you’re missing out on one of the most powerful weapons you have today.

Intellectual property (IP).   Are you encouraging your employees to mine the intellectual property hidden inside your business to create information products and services?   I’m not referring to the patents or formulas your company owns. The Intellectual property in companies today can be found in their vast stores of information. The key is to evaluate that information based on enhancement of the customer’s life. Think broadly. Consumers today are hungry for quality information that solves problems. Can your staff take that information and create videos, e-books, and other downloadable properties with that in mind? 

Competitive advantage.   Do your employees understand who your real competitors are?   I’m often surprised when I work on a competitive advantage with my clients that they overlook several real online competitors. It’s a mistake to focus on only those who sell your exact product/service in exactly the way you do. The Web provides the opportunity for your customers to pick and choose from a variety of options. For example, if you sell sales training courses, your competitors are online video portals, coaches (both in-person and online), downloadable audio courses, etc. Make sure your staff has looked at all the possibilities.

One more note—there are many visual thinking tools (like mind mapping) that your team can use right now to gather ideas from all internal disciplines to enhance your competitive advantage. Consider using these techniques to get ideas from programmers and marketers alike. In today’s marketplace, you can’t afford to overlook a great idea. Your value depends on it.

 

Introducing the Savvy Executive Institute for Digital Strategy

I'm excited to announce that we are launching the "Savvy Executive Institute for Digital Strategy.  Its designed to help online business owners find the online training and guidance they need to grow a profitable business.  No fluff, no hype.

If you are looking for a powerful combination of learning and doing, then Institute membership is right for you. We offer a 12 month membership program that is structured to give you maximum value. 

Each month you receive a new module on your personal dashboard. The multimedia training is sequenced so that each module builds on the next.  You won’t suffer overwhelm because you can’t get ahead of yourself or get stuck.  New material is there when you need it.

We put our program together using the following 7 core principles:

1. Curriculum: Our multimedia curriculum is based on the Hidden Profit System developed by our founder Stephanie Diamond who has had a long and successful career helping online business owners succeed.Ten modules are delivered over a 12 month membership period. The modules contain all the action oriented materials you need to get your business growing.

2. Success Journaling: At the Institute we believe that keeping a business journal is a strong success indicator. The journal content will be collected by you over the membership year as we go through the curriculum and will then be published for you as a 6×9 perfect bound journal by our publishing partner Vervante. It can include up to 200 pages of your notes, maps, templates, details of campaigns and anything else you want to document. You’ll be able to look back over the year and see conclusively what progress you’ve made and where you can improve. If you can learn to write your own prescription for success, you’ll be a true leader.

3. Visual thinking: In the 21st century, visual thinking is key to working online. We use mind maps, charts, templates, images and anything that will help make the material easier to understand and implement. Stephanie Diamond has written the recently published “Prezi for Dummies” book from Wiley. It deals with the presentation software Prezi that is used as a digital story-telling tool. All of these techniques will be part of the learning platform.

4. Asking the right questions: Asking the right questions is critical to helping your business grow fast. As part of your membership you will be able to ask questions at our live monthly Q&A calls. You are encouraged to attend the calls live and perhaps volunteer for a ‘hot seat’ where we discuss and suggest solutions to your most pressing problems.

5. Tools to make it easier: We don’t hesitate to use every tool we can find to make your work easier. We would rather you start with a template then have to create anything from scratch. We believe this makes for a more rounded experience.

6. Expert advisors: Our hand-picked group of advisors will share what they know about growing a business online. Their experience brings an added depth to the curriculum in the form of interviews and articles.

7. Content: In addition to the articles, free tips and other materials we also have a Special Reports Library open only to members. Here you’ll find tactical information on all the most important subjects like social media, blogging, etc.

If all of this sounds right for you, jump over to our Membership page and see what we're offering. Hope we’ll see you on the inside.

A quick mind map look at Gap brand plan

By now I'm sure you've heard about the Gap Branding issue. In thinking about how to describe this to my clients I offered the following quick mind map which I want to share with you.  When you see it visually, it all becomes clear. It you are planning something, you may want to map it out first and take a hard look. (Click on map to enlarge.)

 

 

Does every online business owner need to write a book?

I know the common wisdom dictates that all online business owners should write a book to build their platform. But what if this really isn't right for you and your business?  Could you create something else that would accomplish the same purpose?  

The goal in writing a book is to share your ideas and help other people find you  and your company.  If you are a thought leader, this is tailor made for you.  If you are an owner of a manufacturing company that sells online this makes less sense. What could you do instead?  

One idea is to create something that you and staff can hand to people that they would find interesting and valuable. It's better than a business card. People are loathe to throw away a 'book' before at least taking a look--even in this online culture.

Consider these:

1. A self published pamphlet that talks about improvements in your industry and how your company supports them

2. Tips about how your products can enhance their lives taking a bigger picture look.

3. Quotes and ideas for CEOS or owners in your field.

These are just a few ideas.  If you publish something inexpensively, you will stand out and help your company grow. 

 

How simplicity can change you and the world

I've spent many years working online with people who have good ideas.  Some of their ideas come to fruition.  Some stagnate.  Stagnation is caused by:

• Fear of success: they aren't sure they can handle what comes next when an idea takes off
• Lack of vision: they don't see a way to reach a lot of people with their solution
• They don't feel they are a worthy leader

Notice those fears are all about them! Their fears, their imagined shortcomings, etc.

My solution to tackling all of these is SIMPLICITY. Can you break down your idea into it's parts and help one person succeed?  Can you take your idea to one street, one town, one city?  Can you see the simplest form of it?  Shake out all the complex ways you are thinking about attacking your goal. Pick one.  

My favorite quote on taking action?  "A year from now, you'll wish you started today."