Think of it this way. When a company builds an intelligent online interface, or even something as simple as an inquiry form on their website that invites customer engagement, only to drop the ball after that critical first contact, they are losing out on enormous market potential. With today’s robust customer service management tools, companies can and should create sophisticated funnels that effectively guide clients through multiple contact points. As a marketing agency that specializes in attracting, capturing, and optimizing the customer experience, we are full partners in creating an effective service/marketing funnel, touchpoint by touchpoint.

For us, it starts with a deep dive with our client into their process, learning how they engage with their potential customers. We are not just looking for initial inquiries, but how to create a meaningful customer experience. This means creating multiple touchpoints, reducing friction, avoiding “black holes” and moving the contact along the path to becoming a satisfied and engaged customer, and then a returning customer, and a source of future referrals, and so on. To do that, it’s critical to look at the process from the potential customer’s perspective. Are our interactions meaningful, clear, and relational? Do we recognize and address potential questions, concerns, or hurdles they may encounter, focusing on consistent engagement? Are we optimizing automation opportunities while recognizing when it’s time to bring in additional human engagement from sales or service?

Clearly, this is not a “one size fits all” proposition. It takes deep understanding, asking the right questions, and creating customized customer journey maps. Automated customer engagement should not be impersonal. With today’s sophisticated customer communication platforms, we can personalize and tailor content to interject an intelligent and caring human voice into every contact, so potential customers feel seen and heard. When done well, automation can be leveraged to optimize initial engagement and communication while freeing up sales and marketing professionals to focus on higher-level relationship building and sales conversions.

We recently helped one client reimagine how they engaged with service inquiries on their site. Interested customers were using a simple ‘do you offer what I’m looking for’ form on their site to sort them into “yes” and “no” buckets. Potential customers who did fall into established service areas are now flagged for an immediate automated response with everything they need to get started, including answers to frequently asked questions, next steps, information needed, etc. Those who move forward with the process are then moved to communications with the internal team. Those who don’t receive additional automated emails to help them move into the ordering process. 

But, as we pointed out, even “no” responses provide valuable data for the company. Previously, they were simply informed there was no service, and the contact and their information fell into a black hole. Our recommendation was to sort those responses to determine levels of service demand by region. Having that information could be a gold mine for management when considering future strategies. Not only does it pinpoint where opportunities are, they’ll have a list of warm prospects to reach out to. 

Good marketing can’t exist without strong customer service. After all, it is customer service that will determine how much customers trust you, ultimately making or breaking your brand. A strong marketing campaign must be integrated with personalized, responsive customer service.  Are you ready to optimize your customer experience and grow your business? Let us show you how.

The post The Impact of Customer Service on the Marketing Funnel appeared first on Grapevine Marketing.

But, before we get swept away in the torrent of constant digital messaging, let’s not forget our marketing roots – traditional, tried and true marketing methods that stand out against the sea of virtual content to meet us in the physical world. Analog marketing still matters in our digital-first world, and that’s why our marketing agency (sometimes) embraces proven analog marketing strategies to build brand awareness and engagement.

Gen Z gets it. They’re reading books they can hold,^[1] buying vinyl, and printing their photographs.^[2] It’s all being attributed to a desire to return to a pre-digital age where they feel more grounded in the physical and social world.

When you think about it, physical presence is powerful. Think of a creative billboard campaign that caught your attention while sitting in traffic or a subway advertisement that drew you in before you were even aware that it was there. Even the act of holding a colorful postcard with your name on it reinforces the message and the connection.

In addition to static media like billboards or signs, consider so-called “rolling” billboards on wheels – creative bus or truck wraps that draw us in. There’s something about a 12-foot-high hyper-realistic chimichanga that will make us realize that’s all we want right now.

Remember radio? Local radio ads are an often forgotten device to reach customers and build community connection. There’s a reason Gen Z is tuning in, generating the best listening numbers in decades.^[3]

Bottom line: Analog marketing strategies, including mediums such as billboards, radio, direct mail, and transportation signage, have distinct advantages over digital marketing outreach:

• Connection. We are likely to feel a stronger emotional connection to a physical interaction. Holding something in our hands, looking up to see a message that seems to speak directly to us, even observing the physical characteristics of a billboard or sign can draw us into a more authentic communication experience.
• Trust. Call it nostalgia or simply a desire to escape the onslaught of digital noise. Traditional analog communication is often seen as more credible. While we might be more inclined to delete or scroll through digital content, we’ll take the time to read a billboard or mailer.
• Reach. Especially for local campaigns, the power of physical media to connect with community and niche audiences is impressive.
• Integration. Think of analog marketing as a support leg of your overall messaging strategy. The idea is to use analog outreach to build your brand awareness, sending customers to your online marketing platform via search or social media (or using a dedicated URL or QR code).

We like to think of analog marketing as a critical tool in our overall marketing kit. Is it for everyone? Not necessarily. However, for some advertisers, it just makes sense to break out of the digital stream and meet people where they are. Nothing will ever replace the warmth and connection that physical outreach brings. When analog marketing is incorporated as a component of your overall marketing strategy and digital presence, it can generate powerful results.

(And, in case you were wondering, this blog was written the old-fashioned way, by a real person.)

^[1] https://www.booksnreview.com/articles/19106/20240210/gen-z-ignites-book-renaissance-embracing-physical-books-revitalizing-libraries.htm

^[2] https://nypost.com/2025/02/17/lifestyle/gen-z-embracing-physical-photographs-printing-twice-as-many-snaps-as-other-generations/

^[3] https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/gen-z-radio-listening-habits-b1219043.html

The post Why Our Digital Marketing Agency (Sometimes) Loves Analog Methods appeared first on Grapevine Marketing.

Mention “AI” and you’ll get (very) mixed reactions. Some have fully embraced its application in just about every aspect of their lives, and others are much more skeptical of just how far to trust this emerging and rapidly growing technology. Count me in the second camp. I will admit, I’ve had a lot of misgivings about just how far to trust what has only recently even become a hot topic of discussion.

After all, we’ve already seen how AI can go spectacularly wrong. Take students who simply pull up an AI search engine and punch in their subject to generate and turn in work they have no comprehension of and may not even cite legitimate sources for what it asserts. Or it may be a professional content writer churning out blog posts with content they don’t understand, despite their professed expertise. Even organic search results are being upended by AI, including incorrect information being given to unsuspecting users. In short, no one should blindly trust AI. It is, in many ways, in its infancy, highly error-prone and often misused.

But that is only part of the story. We’re just at the beginning stages of understanding how truly effective AI can be at a structural business level, how it can liberate us from the monotony of soul-crushing and time-consuming work. Think about all the time you spend now on tasks such as coordinating meetings, task follow up, team check ins, email, research, reports, and data analysis. Did I mention the black hole of reading and responding to email? Now, imagine having those tasks managed and being given the gift of hours a day to focus your time and energy on high-value work that really makes a difference. Yes, AI can do that.

This light bulb moment was partly inspired from a recent experience. I needed to devise a strategy to precisely target a digital marketing campaign so that it would reach my client’s ideal audience. That required compiling location-based data in a meaningful way which wasn’t easy. While we could go to an existing campaign and pull up a long list of zip codes where ads were being delivered, that didn’t give us the visual picture we needed to see where we were landing geographically and where the gaps, overreach, and opportunities might be. Doing the work to manually look up the towns and cities represented by each zip code and marking them on a map would have taken more hours than I had. I figured this was a great time to find out whether AI could do what has been promised of it.

After uploading the list of zip codes into ChatGPT and asking it to display them visually on a map, I had my answer – the exact visual representation I needed to see what areas we were missing and what went beyond our intended targeting. I admit I was surprised. Instead of hours this had taken just a few minutes, and it was exactly what I needed, probably even better than I could have produced on my own after hours of effort. As a result, I had freed my time to actually do the highest value work for the client, analyzing the results and making informed decisions to improve their campaign to maximize results in the most cost-effective way.

This was a true “aha” moment for me. How many other instances like this could AI be used for to perform the grunt work while I could concentrate my energies on higher value work? After all, among other functions, AI can analyze and display content, compose emails, organize calendars, and take notes during meetings. Don’t get me wrong. I’m still very concerned about the potential for misuse and over-reliance on AI, but I believe we can intelligently harness its capabilities. In short, it’s a tool – not one that should substitute for our higher-level work, but one that can play a nice supporting role to help us work smarter. Think of it in the way power tools helped carpenters to work more efficiently, or how email enabled us to communicate in real time rather than waiting for snail mail or even a fax.

So, with a dose of healthy skepticism, I submit that AI has an important support role for us by taking on the mind-numbing routine tasks to free our brains for more complex and rewarding work. It can take us to a level of efficiency and decision-making we could previously only imagine between reading emails.

The post Yes, AI Can Be Your Friend appeared first on Grapevine Marketing.

Many organizations building their first search engine marketing campaigns mistakenly assume that if they select a list of their targeted keywords, their paid search ads will display for those – and only those – keyword searches. A major – and often quite costly – mistake is made when advertisers don’t know enough about “search intent” – and how it plays a key role in connecting the right message with the right audience, ultimately impacting both the effectiveness of their campaigns and their return on investment. Beyond the development of target keyword lists for paid search advertising campaigns, there is an intricate and often complex underlying system of optimizing for ‘search intent’, the actual reason behind a user’s search and their goals.

This is better explained with specific examples of how search intent can impact actual performance, specifically the results and costs associated with a brand’s paid search campaigns.

Let’s look at an example of a tuition-based private high school in Massachusetts that may choose keywords like “private school” or “Massachusetts high schools” in their intended keyword lists. If they allow ‘broad match’ targeting, which is the default when setting up a new campaign, their school could appear in the results for “public MA high schools”, “private schools in Connecticut”, and “private equestrian schools”, among potentially thousands of other variations. Since their ads would then appear in the results for those searches, the users seeking information in those areas would be clicking on their results, thinking they were the answer to their query. This would incur a potentially costly expense for the advertiser, who would be paying for “results” and prospects that are the wrong fit, as they are seeking schools that are clearly outside the definition of a private school in Massachusetts. In this example, the school could think it’s targeting a specific geographic area in Massachusetts, only to find they are generating results from users in Connecticut who had recently traveled to Massachusetts, or users living or working in Massachusetts who were seeking information about schools in Connecticut. Worse still, many advertisers aren’t aware of how to find the actual searches leading users to them, so they have no idea that their budget is being wasted by inaccurate and irrelevant searches. Hint: your keyword list shows you how the keywords you’re targeting are performing, NOT the searches users are actually seeking to reach your site. Those are a bit hidden but available if you know where to look.

Another example is from one of our past clients: a healthcare clinic providing inpatient health treatment for those with complex and often misdiagnosed disorders. While they included the keywords related to the primary disorders they provided treatment services for, they also included underlying symptoms such as extreme anxiety, understanding that people coming to them may also be experiencing such symptoms. It is important to note that this provider did not specifically treat anxiety as a primary symptom, but that it was one of the symptoms which could be underlying a more complex disorder. The clinic found they were struggling to generate qualified leads from their search campaigns while incurring thousands of dollars in monthly costs. They came to us to evaluate their account and provide any direction or recommendations we could to improve their performance.

Almost immediately, it became clear that the underlying symptom of “anxiety” was the common thread in nearly all of their monthly searches – thus consuming approximately 90% of the paid search budget. Targeting based on this keyword meant that they were pitting themselves against huge anxiety treatment providers and pharmaceutical brands – those with multi-million dollar advertising budgets and teams of analysts managing their campaigns. Not only were they targeting the wrong user searches, they were also competing with substantially larger brands for those (inaccurate) results. Once we identified the true search intent, we built an entirely new strategy around the searches their actual prospects would be seeking, and continued to drill down closer to their ideal searches, reducing the budget substantially even after our fee was included. Beyond that, we delivered consistent reporting of the actual search results so that they could see how prospects were finding them.

If you don’t have a solid grasp of the search intent of your visitors, you’re going to run into substantial issues reaching your intended target audience. While they are likely searching for your services or products, or the answer you can provide, your budget will unfortunately be tied up competing for the wrong searches. We have seen this time and again, where well-thought-out campaigns were unintentionally built or managed in a way that churned through their budgets targeting the wrong searches. Often in these situations, the cost of hiring a search engine marketing firm to manage and optimize campaigns would be far less than the cost of wasted search results incurred by missing the mark on search intent. In other words, working with someone who knows how to reach your true target audience can save you wasted time and money.

If you’re reading this and wondering if your organization is facing a similar problem, we’re happy to take a look at your campaigns and let you know if you’re on or off target and how we can help improve your results. Let’s talk.

The post The Costly Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Mistake Many Brands Make: Search Intent appeared first on Grapevine Marketing.

As with every cloud, there is a silver lining. Chances are, the necessities of working in a virtual world drove the creation of workflows and technology that enabled your business functions to continue in the chaos. Here at Grapevine, we have been working virtually (partial or fully remote) for over a decade. There are definite pros and cons, depending on your business model. Even now, many companies are struggling with the question of “what now?” Do you continue with a largely remote workforce, or do you come back to your brick and mortar roots? Here are some insights from our own experience and work with a variety of clients from across industries.

Think of the current period as a clean slate, an opportunity to weigh pros and cons of remote vs. on-site business operations. Examine your business efficiencies and bottom line, allowing for any ramp up time to convert workers and operations to a remote configuration. What works better for your company? What suffers? What is essentially a neutral? Dig down to the specific positions and their role within the company. Some may lend themselves easily to remote work. Others, especially more customer-facing or collaborative, may be more challenged.

It’s also important to look at what’s changed in your business set up. Do you still maintain office space? If not, what will it take for you to re-establish a physical presence? Generally speaking, virtual operations don’t carry the costs or overhead, so it will be important to weigh these carefully.

Then consider your employees. You may think you have a clear picture, but the perspective from their vantage point will likely provide insight you may find extremely helpful.  A great beginning point here is to ask for their thoughts and perspective on what they think is working, what isn’t working, and why. 

Also, bear in mind that not all employees come with the same skill sets or motivations. While remote work may actually increase efficiency and productivity for some, others may find it more challenging and demotivating. How do you want to address this? One possibility is to have a range of options for employees from fully remote to spending some days onsite to fully onsite. This can be by position, or seniority, or could be offered as an option subject to certain performance provisions.

There are no “right” or “wrong” answers here, but given our remote capabilities, this is an opportunity to affirmatively weigh company and worker needs to arrive at operational solutions that make sense given all the variables. And of course, nothing is set in stone. It is perfectly understandable to try something and subsequently decide it doesn’t work as you anticipated. The keys are internal communication, transparency, and accountability.

If you are using a full or partial remote workforce solution, here are some tips that will help it be as successful as possible:

• Set guidelines and expectations around the workday in writing. This should include expected availability during the day and being present for specified meeting times.
• Help your employees assess their own at-home capabilities. What tools should they have? What should their workspace look like?
• If you have a highly collaborative work environment, build in time for interaction. At some companies, teams set up a virtual “coffee time” – a dedicated time for people to video chat and catch up on their day.
• Give some helpful tips on separating work from home. Too many of us fall into the trap of multi-tasking across work and home tasks. Urge your people to refrain from folding laundry on their work time, and, conversely, not to stay glued to their email after work hours are over. Having dedicated work hours away from the many distractions of home helps when it’s time to leave work at the end of the day. You’ll all get more done with much less stress.
• Don’t consider commuting time as part of your expected work hours. Your employees will appreciate the flexibility to attend to home or personal needs during this time.

Above all, stress to your people that your business is a joint venture, and the only constant will be working together to reassess and change as needed. If the past few years taught us nothing else, they reinforced our ability to adapt and pivot to meet an unexpected reality. If we can survive and thrive through such a demanding time, we can be confident when it comes to employing all we’ve learned to take on future challenges. 

The post Navigating The Work-From-Home Culture appeared first on Grapevine Marketing.

Application program interfaces (APIs) allow for the streamlined sharing of data between systems. A common example is Facebook login information embedded into third-party websites or mobile applications. This allows people to log into their favorite applications, but with the added benefit of a simple Facebook login. Because of this, both companies can benefit thanks to the power of APIs.

Because of this usability advantage to visitors and customers, organizations should consider and put in place methods for maintaining and increasing customer engagement using APIs. They should be used as tools that, though based on technology, are able to maximize engagement.

The flexibility of APIs, combined with their ability to scale easily with many iterations, means that firms can focus less on the nitty-gritty of technology and the technical aspects of providing goods and services. Instead, they can focus more on connecting with clients and meeting their evolving needs. APIs should ideally free up our time to focus more on the most important aspect of business — the customer.

Customer Service

APIs can add online chat communication interfaces. This lets employees communicate directly with customers who may prefer online chat more than a phone call. Online chats can also improve the customer experience, increasing the chance of customer retention.

By implementing APIs, they can be leveraged to add humanity back into processes like customer service. Recent progress in automated customer service has led to frustration. For instance, a recent study shows that 42% of consumers say that they prefer live chat functions because they don’t have to wait on hold. According to a report by Zendesk, 92% of customers feel satisfied after using live chat, compared with voice (88%), email (85%), and even social media direct messaging (Facebook 84%, Twitter 77%). This is where APIs can come into play. Companies like Zendesk provide APIs for customer service that include live chat interfaces. Live chat is just one example of how APIs can revolutionize customer service and, in turn, customer engagement.

Log In Options

Companies have the options of using APIs to access customer profiles. For instance, by using Facebook or Twitter API integration, companies can access more information about consumers. This can include insights on age, gender, and other demographics to better appeal to consumers and fit their needs. Additionally, by implementing login options, your customers can easily create an account on your site without another username and password to remember.

Payment Options

Instead of creating and implementing a custom checkout interface from scratch, some firms may use an API for checkouts. Collaborating with APIs from Paypal or Venmo can make the checkout process easier for customers, who have existing accounts and secure payment information. This means customers do not have to re-enter credit card information, saving time and frustration, and providing a trustworthy checkout experience.

Shipment Tracking

You can also provide a better shipping and delivery experience by leveraging implementation of shipping APIs. On the firm’s end, you can use multi-carrier shipping APIs to create shipment labels, validate addresses, and easily fulfill your orders. On the customer’s end, shipping APIs can provide shipping rates so the consumer can understand costs for each carrier provided as well as live-tracking of their order to make sure it arrives when and where it is supposed to.

Having regularly updated and accurate location tracking, plus quick shipping in general, can be a beneficial and a competitive edge. This can increase customer engagement and improve customer satisfaction.

Mobile Apps, AI, and More

APIs have a lot of room for expansion. Mobile devices conduct 71% of the world’s digital traffic. By using APIs to develop mobile applications, your firm will be able to tap into and access an essential (and huge!) market. APIs can maximize the offerings of your mobile app, streamlining the steps it takes for a consumer to go from interested in your product to ready to buy.

Furthermore, with the future of the development of artificial intelligence looming in the next few decades, the use of application program interfaces in this market could be revolutionizing as well. For instance, the combination of APIs, AI, and customer service could be a powerful, effective, and efficient mixture.

Ultimately, application program interfaces offer many competitive advantages for firms increasing efficiency and productivity through their flexible and scalable benefits. APIs can be used for consumers as well, using technology to influence the primary motivation of businesses — engaging with customers.

The post How to Increase Customer Engagement with APIs appeared first on Grapevine Marketing.

A Paradigm Shift to Accommodate Users

As you probably know already, Google (and other search engines) rank websites according to specific criteria. They do this by crawling each page and assessing its relevance to different keywords a user might search. They also factor in the way the page is designed: how fast it loads, how content is formatted, and how informative or accessible the content is.

It’s all done with the user’s experience in mind. Put simply: Google’s the best search engine out there because it puts the most work into showing users results that will provide them with value whenever they search for something. However, if you work in SEO that means you have a responsibility to make sure your site is always valuable to your potential visitors.

Here’s where the mobile-first part comes in: Google is pretty sensitive to the behavior of its users—so when users change their behavior, Google adapts. For instance: a decade or so ago, most people accessed the internet through a desktop instead of a mobile device. This year, mobile usage accounts for 52% of worldwide internet access, and the number is growing. In response, Google has reduced the priority of ranking sites designed for desktops and refocused its efforts on pages optimized for mobile users.

Think of it like a college professor who has suddenly decided to give extra weight to the multiple choice section of your upcoming midterm instead of the written component.

Breaking Down the Difference: Desktop-First vs. Mobile-First

Google’s old approach (let’s call it “desktop-first”) worked like this:

• Google crawled the desktop version of your site first
• Google used the desktop version to determine your site’s ranking
• Google used any mobile version of your site that existed to give your rankings a “boost”

The new approach—mobile-first indexing—works more like this:

• Google crawls the mobile version of your site
• Google uses the mobile version to determine rankings for both your desktop and mobile sites
• Google only factors in your desktop site at all if there is no version of your mobile site (but not having a mobile version of your site is a really good way to significantly decrease in your search rankings, so we  recommend always optimizing your site for mobile)

How to Buff Up Your Mobile Site

Now that you understand the importance of your mobile site, you’re probably wondering how to improve it. Start with the following:

1. Make sure all images and videos are in mobile-friendly formats, so that they will load (and load quickly) for users.
2. Make sure your mobile site has all the information your desktop site has—but consider rewriting the copy to make it more concise. Mobile users have very limited attention spans.
3. Condense lengthy passages or lists into tabs and drop-down menus. Google didn’t crawl these areas under desktop-first, but mobile-first indexing factors in the limited amount of screen space on mobile devices.
4. Make sure your mobile app is as up to date as your mobile website! Installing Google Analytics on your app can give you valuable stats about where it’s working and where it needs to be improved. You can save yourself a lot of time writing the necessary code by using a third-party implementation service for the requisite software development kit.
5. Include the same structured data and metadata you’re using for your desktop site—Google crawls more than just the text that users see when they visit your page.
6. Use geotags! Mobile users are usually on the go from one place to another, so putting location data in your mobile site can give your rankings a boost for people who are close to you.
7. Increase your server capacity to handle the higher crawl rate.

Have No Fear—Persevere!

Mobile-first indexing can seem like a real game-changer, but it shouldn’t be too hard to adapt your existing SEO strategy. Use this article as a jumping-off point and stay up to date as further changes come down the pike.

The post What is Mobile-First Indexing & How Does it Affect SEO? appeared first on Grapevine Marketing.

The reason it’s so difficult for me to write this post is that when I turned the tables on the process our own agency employed internally for sales and marketing, I had to acknowledge that we weren’t putting forth the same efforts for ourselves that we were implementing for our clients. My response to this when it had come up in conversations with trusted friends and colleagues was that we had to prioritize the work we were doing for paying clients. Our own website, blog content, public relations efforts, social media, email marketing, etc. would always be on the back burner behind the work that was paying the bills. But here’s the huge, red-flag problem with that: how were we going to get in front of those clients if we weren’t focusing on our own inbound marketing and sales efforts? I had to acknowledge that we relied far too heavily on referrals, word of mouth, and our network to deliver new opportunities. That we were missing the boat altogether on generating the leads that were a perfect fit for our agency, and in turn, growing to our full potential.

Round 1 – Project LION

Around the time that I finally acknowledged we would have to take action on this, I opened up to our Hubspot channel account manager who invited us to participate in a new sales program, Project LION with Hubspot’s legendary Dan Tyre (@DanTyre). Project LION was an opportunity for me to run headfirst into dealing with my own fears about selling, prospecting, and generating truly new business for our agency. Each week, our group of digital marketing agency CEO’s, Hubspot Partner Agencies from all different regions, would get together with Dan for an in-depth discussion of inbound sales strategies and tactics. We’d roleplay scenarios with ‘clients’, get uncomfortably real in situations to figure out how to work through the most difficult conversations, share examples of how we overcame challenges, share little victories and big wins, and commiserate over missed opportunities. As we faced similar situations in different markets, we had a unique opportunity as LIONs to ‘hunt as a pack’ without worrying about competing with each other.

Participating in the Project LION group forced me to develop my own sales process. Since launching Grapevine Marketing in 2009, my strategy had been a combination of ‘networking when I had time’, developing relationships with complementary businesses and pursuing referrals, and implementing an on-again/off-again approach to content development and promotion, speaking, event participation, and PR. Basically, working myself into a roller coaster of moderate sales outreach when business was slow or steady, and little to none when we were too busy with existing client projects. Now, I had to show up to a live meeting each week armed with new opportunities, prospects I had (gasp!) reached out to before they called or were referred to us directly, and a plan for finding and connecting with the companies I had listed as my ideal best-fit clients.

The result of Project LION?

We engaged with new clients I would never have connected with if I hadn’t reached out to them first. We drank our own Kool-aid, so to speak. It forced me to look at the content, or lack of it, we were putting out into the world and focus my efforts on what would get us in front of the right-fit clients, not just those who happened to be referred to us. We had to finally put our own marketing efforts, our website, content distribution, networking, email marketing, social media, and engagement strategies, on the front burner. We’re not all the way there yet, I’ll admit, but we’ve built some great momentum and there’s a lot behind the scenes that will be visible soon.

Round 2 – Sales Skills Bootcamp

After completing Project LION, I proceeded in patting myself on the back, got busy working on campaigns for those new clients, and, you guessed it, fell back into old patterns of avoiding our own sales and marketing efforts in favor of staying busy with the projects that paid the bills. You didn’t think this story was going to be all rainbows and unicorns, did you?

For months, I had been putting off the next stage of this incredible LION / bootcamp programming – advanced sales skills with Hubspot’s illustrious David Weinhaus (@davidweinhaus). This was the big-time, where I’d have to test my ability to get from initial outreach to meeting to closing deals in front of a group of fellow inbound marketing agency owners. I’d have to be open to being uncomfortable, again, and to picking up where I left off in the initial prospecting phase. Basically, I’d have to stop thinking about how I was going to build a sales system and actually start taking action on it.

Walking the Walk

One of my key takeaways from Sales Skills Bootcamp was to shift the mindset of sales from ABC (Always Be Closing, the idea of which has always made me cringe) to ABH (Always Be Helping).

• Did I believe in our product (inbound marketing services)? Without a doubt.
• Did I know that inbound marketing would help other businesses to grow in ways that they could not with other methodologies? Absolutely.
• Did I have a good understanding of the types of people and organizations, right down to their personalities, locations, and their own customers, that inbound marketing, and specifically our agency, was a good fit for? Yep.
• And did I have a pretty good sense of the types of people and organizations that inbound marketing and/or our agency, was not a good fit for? Yes, although this was a much harder decision to come to.

So now we had to just get out there and do it. Connect with the prospects that we knew were reading our blog posts and visiting our website over and over again. Make sure that the right information was getting out to the people we wanted to reach. Build a list of prospective clients and work the list with questions and resources that made sense for them. Basically, start doing the activities for our own agency that we had always done for clients.

The result of Sales Skills Bootcamp?

While we’re still on the uphill climb of this process, we’ve begun implementing the strategy and rolling out elements to drive inbound sales. These include, at the time of publishing this blog post:

1. The development of a well-researched and targeted prospect list.
2. Rewriting our buyer personas to focus on 3 very specific niche areas and the types of clients that would best fit the process we can help them implement.
3. Refocusing on sales efforts including prospecting and listening via social media and ‘triggers’, engaging in networking organizations, and (gasp, again!) reaching out directly to the prospects who had been visiting our website and blog but who had refrained from providing their contact info (we can show you how to do this, it’s pretty cool – contact me to ask).
4. Scheduling time in our calendars for prospecting, outreach, and follow-up with organizations that meet our criteria.
5. TRACKING our sales activities in our CRM, establishing automated engagement processes, and monitoring results.
6. Relaunching our – check it out, the first session is free.
7. Honing in on the types of people and organizations we feel we would work best with, developing content and resources that are helpful to them, and finding ways to get it in front of them.

Does any of this feel familiar to you?

Have you been riding the rollercoaster for too long or depending on referrals that you have little control over? Let’s connect to see how we can help develop a system of marketing and sales to achieve that growth that your organization is capable of.

The post Turning The Table On Our Own Marketing And Sales Process appeared first on Grapevine Marketing.

In fact, influencer marketing has a $7.65 ROI for every dollar invested. Not a bad value for your marketing budget. This digital marketing avenue has become less of a trend, and more of a must.

Why is influencer marketing important? Most brands and businesses are dialing in their content creation, but this is only half the battle. Even the most spectacular piece of content can be lost in the ocean of online content.

Influencer marketing can make your content stand out. One of the most important questions you can ask before a single keystroke is, “WHO will amplify this content?” This makes influencers an asset for your content. With a faithful follower base hanging on every recommendation they make, influencers can amplify your content, products, services, brand, or business.

When it comes to influencer marketing, 28 percent of marketing managers agreed that it is fastest growing customer acquisition method. The highest among all other customer acquisition methods marketers found important.

How can you make influencer marketing part of your digital marketing mix? Here are a few essentials to make your New Year a successful one.

Start with Influencer Outreach

There are plenty of influencers to choose from, and having your ear to the ground in your niche will help you find the right one for your brand or business. Who’s getting good engagement on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube? Those are the influencers you could start reaching out to.

Doing your own influencer outreach is always beneficial. Influencers like making connections in their niche, and they also like gaining another stream of income. Outreach also opens direct lines of communication that will become important for balancing your goals with the influencer’s ability.

Here are a few influencer outreach tips:

• Do your due diligence. What topics does he or she talk about online? Does the influencer do sponsored posts? Are they getting good engagement?
• Think about your target audience. Has the influencer worked with brands or businesses similar to yours in the past? Will your products or services be a good fit for their audience?
• Make outreach personal. Will you use your influencer’s first name in your outreach email? Will you use a recent post of the influencer’s to make the outreach more personal? Will you give an authentic compliment?
• Build confidence during outreach. How will you share your brand’s story, success, and goals? Can you mention other influencers you have worked with?

Communication is key when it comes to influencer campaigns. Online content marketing is ever-shifting, and changes to search engine algorithms can cause a shift in your influencer’s medium. For instance, if a new Google algorithm comes out, it could make your influencer’s blog a more powerful channel than his or her Instagram.

Get Influencers to Come to You

Having influencers come to you has a lot of benefits and setting up blogger programs is a great first step. They provide insight into your products or services, and how you cultivate relationships with influencers. For instance, many major brands, like Nike, have an influencer recruitment program.

These blogger programs can create prestige around your brand or businesses since you are recruiting, rather than doing general outreach. This allows you to control the quality of your influencers.

Influencer candidates can be vetted, and once approved, given a detailed guide covering your brand’s mission, message, audience, influencer incentives, social media channels, and more.

Take Influencer Platforms for a Spin

On the opposite of the spectrum, you can employ influencer platforms. If waiting for influencers to find your company, you can easily find them. Influencer platforms serve up a variety of influencers and micro-influencers in a wide range of industries.

These platforms have extensive databases you can access for free, or for a monthly payment. They also show influencer social media channels, followers, pricing, and a way to contact the influencer through the platform’s system.

One of the benefits of using these types of platforms is that you can choose different influencers for different campaigns. Influencer platforms worth checking out include FameBit, Revfluence, BrandBacker, Content BLVD, and TapInfluence. These platforms can save you time and money, especially if you want to get your influencer marketing campaign up and running fast.

Make Your Influencer’s Audience Yours

Once you have a successful influencer campaign in your digital marketing mix, it is time to capitalize on that new audience. You can easily make your influencer traffic into loyal long-term customers.

Email marketing is great for this and having your influencer backlink to your email subscriber landing page is the first step. They can post, “Sign up for new offers and special discounts” to move that traffic in the right direction.

Did you know that email marketing has higher click-through rates (CTR) than many social media networks? For instance, you are six times more likely to earn a click via email than Twitter. Build from your influencer marketing efforts and make their audience yours with an email marketing campaign.

Making influencers part of your digital marketing mix is going to be essential to your success in 2018. The above tips will help you find a relevant influencer in your industry, build meaningful relationships with them, and turn their followers and fans into your customers. How will you use influencer marketing?

The post How to Add Influencers to Your Digital Marketing Campaigns appeared first on Grapevine Marketing.

Think about some of your favorite commercials. What attracts you to them probably isn’t how much money they spent or how far-reaching their campaign was – it was something special that stood out from all the other commercials you saw that today. You don’t have to spend money to be creative.

Here are some examples:

Use your surroundings

Are there a lot of sidewalks in your neighborhood? Try some chalk art, maybe talking about a special deal or telling viewers where you’re located. Depending on the area, a wall mural could be a beautiful and unique way to get the eye of passersby. Obviously, do your research and get permission before attempting any of these- but it could be a great way to connect with people on a local level.

Partner with Local Businesses

If you want to get a foothold in a community, it’s great to partner with those who are already there. There’s a lot of opportunity to get creative here. You could have presence at a local holiday event, setting up a stand and offering some kind of giveaway. Or you could work on a special promotion with a business that might help you reach the right demographic – in form of unique coupons, deals, etc.

Scholarships

Scholarships are a great way to give back as well as get visibility. To create a strong sense of branding, you can have the entry requirements be relevant to your business. For example, if you sell jewelry have them draw a design, or if you are a bakery have them bake a cake and then submit their entries. At this point you can either have the entries judged internally or use it as an excuse to include social media and have people vote.

Make it Personal

You have probably seen the personalized Coke bottles with names on them. It doesn’t matter if you sell a retail product or an in office service. Find a way to make your experience personal. Let’s say you work in a legal office. You could offer them a personalized pen to sign the final documents. At a doctor’s office, special stickers based on the location and time of year. Tie this together with a promotional campaign (a specific hashtag, etc), and you’re creating a story for your consumer to play a unique part in

Host Fun Giveaways

A giveaway does need to be as bland as “put in your email and phone number to win”. While those may be effective based on the prize, are they memorable? A more unique take would be to have a “local treasure hunt” and hide clues within partnered business establishments. This is a great way to create buzz, as pedestrians may enquire what people are doing and get involved.The barriers to entry for marketing are lower than ever before because of social media. This is great for small businesses to enter the market – but also means it’s harder to be memorable. Instead of focusing on checking off all the traditional “boxes” for a full marketing plan, really take a look at your demographic and unlock your inner creative. You’re going to like the results a lot more.

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