The group seemed to really enjoy the lesson and learn quite a bit. I wanted all of those unable to attend today’s lunch & learn in person the ability to join in.

Building Influence with Email Presentation Video

Download the Workshop Worksheet

The post Building Influence with Email – Lunch & Learn Presentation appeared first on Espire Marketing.

I’m going to be giving some inside information about the tactics that I and experts use to build influence through email marketing.

This isn’t going to be some lecture session about why you should get into email marketing – I’m going to be teaching the Ninja tactics we marketeers use.

The Event Details:

Wednesday February 5, 2014
11:30 am – 12:30 pm
Mozart’s Bakery & Piano Cafe
4784 N High St Columbus, OH 43214

Admission to the event is free – but you must pay for your meal.

Please Click Here to Register and RSVP for this event. Registration ends today.

You must RSVP by 4:00 PM TODAY in order to be guaranteed a spot.

If you have any questions please contact Jenny Smith of the Clintonville Area Chamber of Commerce at (614) 262-2790

The post Lunch & Learn: Building Influence with Email in 30 Mins or Less appeared first on Espire Marketing.

While much of the world would love to tell you that Brick & Mortar stores are doomed – I call BS. The fact remains that you have strategic advantages over Internet companies because you have a physical location and a community presence.

If you take these ideas and bring them to your Internet presence you’ll be able to share the spunk that built your company with the rest of the world.

The fact remains that there is still a strong (and growing) desire for people to shop local and shop small. With the political factors surrounding big box chains and the lack of service – shoppers are heading back to small businesses to get the respect & quality that they want and deserve.

One major issue for all small retailers is finding a way to drive revenue to keep the lights on. Many people worry about bringing in customers to simply shop with their store.

I’m here to tell you that there are likely other ways that you can drive revenue for your business that add value to the community, help you build a stronger brand, and drive sales through building a stronger relationship with your community.

Unique Ways to Build Revenue for Brick & Mortar Stores

1) Offer educational workshops. There are probably a lot of interesting things that you can teach the community right from your store. Think about classes that you can offer to the public in order to help educate and drive additional revenue. Look around your building to utilize the assets you already posses in a new way. If you’re savvy enough you can actually film these courses and turn them into online educational workshops as well. It’s a value added service that will drive new traffic in that may not have ever heard of you before.

2) Get involved in Children’s education. This can be especially great for helping parents who homeschool their kids or who are looking for after school activities. Think of ways to help educate kids and bring more people to your store. Bring in special speakers to help kids learn new things – their parents will love it and who knows you may just inspire the next great mind through your work.

3) Give tours of your business. A lot of my clients don’t really think of this because they’re not sure they have much to offer in the way of tours. My family’s business offers tours and gets them hosts them quite often. It’s a great way to show what they do and the community loves to be a part of it.

4) Rent your space after hours. Even if you don’t want to utilize your space during the after hours you’re still paying for it. Rent your space to other businesses or educational services to use when you’re not at the office. It’s a great way to supplement income and get people to your location.

5) Host community events. Most brick & mortar store owners have causes that they believe in and often they’re in line with their business as well. Host a fun party or a charity event for the community. It’s a great way to give back to the community, raise awareness for your business, and you can also keep the shop open during the event.

The real moral of the story here is that you need to find ways to get involved with your local community. The more ways that you can do that by bringing people to your location the better. Traditional advertising can be expensive and the ROI is often difficult to measure.

By getting involved in your community and bringing people to your business location you’ll be able to build a much stronger relationship with the community around you and it will pay dividends for years to come. Building a strong relationship with your community and customers is the key to building a strong and lasting business.

The post 5 Ideas to Increase Revenue for Brick & Mortar Stores appeared first on Espire Marketing.

The idea is cool, the marketing behind it is solid, and they absolutely CRUSHED their crowdfunding goals.

Coin had a crazy amount of momentum building up to the Christmas shopping season and what was their “deadline to pre-order.”

Coin had all the makings of a SUPER successful launch: Anticipation, scarcity, social proof, and a dynamite offer…

Here is where they went wrong:

A) They built people up to this giant crescendo of excitement and when D-day (deliver day) came…they had nothing to deliver…

B) The scarcity that helped them build the buzz around their initial launch was steamrolled when they opened up for more pre-orders and the EXACT same deal that they were offering before – there were seemingly no consequences (except a later ship date) for not pre-ordering in the original window.

C) They still haven’t delivered on their original promise.

In product launches and delivery – timing is truly everything. They executed everything so perfectly at the outset but it all snowballed into a kind of BLAH experience for everyone involved.

Here’s How The Could’ve Done it Right:

A) Had a limited quantity of pre-made pre-order cards ready to deploy for the first batch of customers. Delivering the product right after the end of the first pre-order window.

B) For the next batch of customers offer a different deal. One that isn’t as sweet as the first one but still offers a great value to people who are interested. Your early adopters and customers are extremely important to keep happy. You want to strive to make ALL customers happy but your early adopters are like your baby – they believed in your before anyone else did and they will likely be your most loyal fans over the long haul.

C) Gather more social proof from the early adopters on their experience and provide them with additional value for helping you test your product.

I was super excited like many people were for the launch of Coin. The idea was phenomenal, the execution at the outset was flawless, and really it was just fun.

I’ve got the benefit of hindsight on my side to critique this product launch. The reason I can write this article with such confidence is because I, like coin is learning now, had to learn it the hard way.

The real thing that Coin did that is unfortunate is that they tarnished the early relationship with their customers. That doesn’t mean it can’t be re-built to get back to their highest point – but they’ve effectively given their customers and future customers a little bit of doubt about them and that is going to hurt them until they can find a way to reconcile.

My advice to Coin is to re-group and re-launch when you’ve got some product ready to actually deliver.

This advice seems a bit drastic and I don’t mean to be hard on the guys at coin – at all actually – I’m a huge fan of them for their idea and boy was that first pre-launch a lot of fun to witness. They are clearly a talented bunch and I wish them nothing but the best.

This article was meant to help be a reference to those who are looking at launching their own products or businesses. Relationship is everything. Jeff Walker of Product Launch Formula says something pretty insightful and it’s this: “With each communication you’re either building position or losing position with your [customer]. You always want to be building your position and your relationship.”

He’s right about that – far too often people focus on things outside of how to offer insanely great value to your customers. If you’re able to do that and put some great customer support behind it – you’re going to build a great & long relationship.

The post Where Coin Went Wrong With Its Launch appeared first on Espire Marketing.

Three eCommerce Market Positions

Within each niche there are three main market positions that your business model can follow.

They are:

• Position X – Cheapest Price, Cheapest Products, Bread & Butter Items: Aims to gain a high volume of sales in order to reach large profits
• Position Y – Diverse Product Selection, Competitive Pricing: Aims to bring customers in for the obscure niche items. Those items that may have less competition, but also offer the main items at a competitive but not cheapest price.
• Position Z – High Quality, High Pricing, (Usually) Limited Selection: Aims to go after the upper echelon of the niche. They offer only the best to customers who want only the best and are willing to pay for it. Price point is only marginally important to their buyers

Pricing Factors By Market Position

Each of these market positions have different thought processes when it comes to pricing.

Position X from above is interested in one thing and one thing only – to offer the bread and butter items for the lowest price possible while still making money. Consumers who shop at places in position x are very price conscious and therefore if you want to position yourself here you’ll need to invest in some price monitoring software. I’ve personally used Mozenda before and their software is quite good for a multitude of reasons.

Position Y offers obscure niche items that probably don’t have much competition for them. The hope is to bring in consumers for these products and offer the bread and butter items at competitive prices as well in a cross-selling manner. For the obscure items with little competition, you won’t have to worry about pricing as much. However, for the cross-sell items you will need to be at least competitive with the rest of the market. That doesn’t mean the cheapest price but certainly within range of those prices. Another unique way to package these and cross sell is through unique bundling options.

Position Z is interested in only carrying the highest quality items and offering them at higher prices. When you position yourself in this market you’ll want to identify the others in your niche who are targeting these same shoppers and find some way to offer more value than they are. That doesn’t always mean price. You can play around with shipping promotions or even add in some additional informational resources about the product that your competition doesn’t offer. Pricing isn’t as much of an issue with this market but perceived value is.

Summary

Each market position holds a unique type of value. There really is no “right answer” as to which position you choose to go with. It really all depends on your personal long term business goals. Each has their advantages and disadvantages as well. If you haven’t started your company yet I’d challenge you to think about these factors before you get started.

Optional Helpful Homework

1. Determine which market position your company is currently in or where you’d like to be if you haven’t started
2. Write down a list of your top 5-7 competitors in that space
3. For each competitor, write a list of the 3 key value points that they offer to their shoppers
4. Cross check these value points with your businesses own value points
5. Come up with 5-7 ways that you can improve upon your competitions value points or differentiate yourself from them

Get More eCommerce Help

If you found this article to be useful and you’d like to get more help download The Targeted SEO Traffic Blueprint PDF and Training Video

The post Pricing Your Products for Your Market Position in eCommerce appeared first on Espire Marketing.

The key to answering questions and being of real value to the people you’re most trying to reach doesn’t come from reading someone else’s story and it doesn’t come from reading the tweets of the masses. It comes from talking to your clients, putting yourself in their shoes, and by all means try having an actual conversation with them (I promise…it’s possible).

First My Rant About Annoying and Crappy Content

The buzz word is content. Sure content is great – but why not try offering real value in your content?

You don’t see me posting every day or even every week. In the Internet marketing space there are a plethora of people who will re-tell you last week’s ideas. And while everyone in the world will tell you that posting something every day is great – I’m going to call BS.

There is an old saying that goes, “If you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all.” I’m going to adapt this for our purposes and say this: “If you don’t have anything useful and unique to say…go back to the drawing board and say something when you do.”

Finding Great Topics to Write About

Your best source for what you should write about are your existing clients and prospects. These are people who are already invested in you, or are interested in investing in you – providing value for them should be your first place to search.

My family has a business that says this, “If we don’t have it we’ll find it, if we can’t find it, we’ll make it.” I encourage you to do the same with regards to your content. If someone else has already answered your client’s question for them then share that resource with them. You can put your own flavor on top of it as you are sending it to them but don’t try to re-invent the wheel.

I promise you’ll get plenty of questions from them that haven’t been covered in great detail (I get at least 5 a day). When you get these, write them down, ask your other clients or prospects if this is a topic they’d like to see covered, or simply cover the topic.

But if you’re going to do it…please do it well and in full detail. Don’t cut corners with it and create a half-baked attempt to answer half of the question. Take the time to do some research and write a resource – not a piece of content.

How to Write Great Content

The key to any great article or resource is doing great research. Yes, I know it takes a lot of work to do this – but if you want to really be valuable take the time to do it. Otherwise you’ll never stick out from the crowd and you’re wasting your time anyway.

Understanding Pain Points

In order to effectively cover a topic you’re going to have to be able to sympathize with those who are feeling that pain. Effective copy and advice should come from a place of understanding. Take the time to really think about how the audience you’re writing for is effected by the subject matter.

Write a list of 5-10 pain points on the subject and make sure to address each of these.

Giving the Solution

No great piece of advice comes without actually attempting to give the solution to the problem. If you’re going to take the time to find the problem and pain points on your subject matter – you had better be sure to give them the solutions.

Offer Your Honest Opinion

The most important thing you need to make sure to do is to be honest. I know a lot of times we can be persuaded to give the “popular solution.” Do you actually believe in that solution or are you just reading what someone else wrote?

At the end of the day you’re working to build a stronger relationship with your reader. So you had better make sure you’re more than satisfied with the solution you’re giving to your readers.

List Outside Resources

You’ve gone to school and written reports before. That means you know how to cite relevant sources. Again, if someone has covered a particular sub-topic in your subject matter more in depth and better than you can – make sure you give your readers access to it by linking to it.

Learn How to Write

Structure is very important.

If you’re interested in topics about structuring your great content for your blog I suggest you check out some earlier editions of CopyBlogger. Darren has put together some great resources over the years and he can help you tremendously with your actual copy and making it easily readable.

Over the years I’ve learned a great deal from his works.

The Big Summary

Everyone wants to talk about this new marketing tactic or that new fad. At the end of the day it comes down to one thing: a strong relationship. Offer strong advice and be of great value to those who are trusting in you and I promise your hard work will pay you back ten fold.

The post How To Offer Advice People Actually Care About appeared first on Espire Marketing.

Linda Bustos from Get Elastic created the below infographic originally so props to her for putting this together. I think it’s fantastic to show numbers but also wanted to explain the significance after the fold. Look for our comments after the infographic.

Mobile Optimization Explained

The numbers that are most important to focus on here are the following: the number of smartphone users who have made at least one purchase online in the last six months (49%), the percentage of sales lost because of a lack of mobile optimized site (97%), the speed of the decision from initial search to purchase (55% under 1 hour), and also the number of people who say they prefer to shop on their tablet over their PC (52%).

These numbers are significant for a few reasons. First off smartphones are growing exponentially in popularity. As companies increasingly adopt mobile optimization that number will increase.

97% of sales are lost on mobile devices because of distraction during the mobile shopping experience. If you’re not optimizing for mobile you’re losing out on potentially a lot of sales. As I stated our eCommerce solution utilizes mobile responsive design for this very reason.

The time to purchase is short. 55% of shoppers who search on mobile for products buy (through their mobile) within an hour of that search. That’s a staggeringly quick and perhaps even impulsive shopping behavior. You’ll want to capitalize on this trend.

52% of tablet owners prefer to shop on their tablet over their PC. This is important because you need to have a solution that not only adapts for smartphones but also the increasing segment of shoppers shopping in what Steve Jobs coined the “post-PC world.”

The post The Importance of Mobile Optimization [Infographic Explained] appeared first on Espire Marketing.

If you don’t have a plan out together yet not to fret, you’ll just have to out in some weekend hours.

I’ve been involved in a lot of Cyber Monday sales and I wanted to give you the keys to a successful Cyber Monday Sale.

Get The Word Out

For late bloomers it’s too late to send out any traditional advertisers but you can certainly notify people via your social networks and email newsletters. 

Make sure the sale is widely advertised on your site all day as well. The key is to capture as many conversions as possible so make sure every visitor that lands on your site has a chance to see what the sale is.

Variety in Your Sale

You should offer a wide variety if ways for people to save during your sale. Some people choose to discount different items differently or even offer some “door buster” deals on some bigger items but only to a few.

One thing that I’ve seen work quite well is having a different sale for a certain block of time.

When I was at eRetailing one of the cooler ideas we tried was a different discounted item each hour. Not only did this offer a great variety but it kept bringing traffic back to our site each hour to see what the next sale item would be.

If you take this method though make sure not to make it “top heavy” with all of your most popular items being discounted at one time. Sprinkle in some smaller things to keep it interesting and keep the momentum going.

Free Shipping

Almost every Cyber Monday sale offers free shipping in one form or another. Especially if you’re an online only business it’ll be important to follow this trend.

Obviously it has to make money sense for you though. If you’re a drop shipper you’re going to get creative with your sales so that you don’t kill your margin. Everyone likes to sell products. But don’t kill your bottom line.

Offer Extended Holiday Returns

This is pretty standard as well. But you’d be surprised at how badly your conversion rates will be if you don’t specify for your holiday traffic.

Give them at least a week after Christmas to make the return.

Plan for more support staff

Especially of you have a more complex product that you sell. Make sure you’ve got enough customer service reps to handle the higher volume.

Summary

Make it fun and easy to buy from you on Cyber Monday. And do actually do something for it. You’ll miss out on sales if you choose not to.

These are ideas that I’ve seen work in the past but there is always the “keep it simple stupid” mentality as well.

Whichever you decide just make sure you’re servers are ready to handle the additional traffic and sales volume.

Happy Holidays and have some fun!

The post Keys to a Successful Cyber Monday Sale appeared first on Espire Marketing.

So if you have a question – please just ask us. We’ll connect you to the right resource if we don’t have any available or create the resource to answer your question. No strings attached – just let us help you out please? It’s kind of what we love to do!

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Google Hummingbird Effecting Search Traffic

Where to Focus as a Result of Google Hummingbird

Long tail keywords in the past have been a great way to grab some extremely targeted traffic and buyers to your website. Occasionally it actually made a lot of sense to target middle to long range keyword phrases because the traffic was so profitable. With the release of Google Hummingbird, that tactic may become a much less effective strategy for sales and traffic.

My advice is to focus your energy on creating quality content that has the ability to become a resource on a particular topic of discussion. If your content becomes the authoritative go-to content, is very well put together, and provides great context for the topic – you’ll likely gain a lot of additional traffic from the content from multiple keyword sources.

What has really changed as a Result of Google Hummingbird

The big change here is the focus towards the quality of content (in context) to an idea. Previously you could product a lot of relatively low quality content and target keywords specifically to reach those queries. If Google’s engineers are as good as they are – that will probably go away shortly. Your content strategies need to be centered around adding extreme value to the market.

Rand’s example in the video is a good one and makes a lot of perfect sense. The keys to quality content haven’t changed – but your thought process around what type of content you should be creating should change as a result of Hummingbird’s implementation. Think about serving the client (the searchers) needs. Put yourself in their shoes, thing of all the possible questions they may have for that given topic, and organize that into an excellent resource that can attract a lot of traffic, links, and be a true valuable asset to the market.

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