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Learn Why and How to Offer a Free Report

Craig Klein — Mon, 14 May 2012 14:00:21 +0000

Offering a free report to people who visit your site can do a great deal for your credibility as an expert in your niche. Chances are that while many visitors to your site are looking for specific information, they are reluctant to buy anything right away. Providing them with a free report that’s filled with information they find valuable increases the chances they will return and actually purchase one of your products or services.

Building Trust

Giving your site visitors the option to download a free report usually causes them to view you in a more positive light. Many will see you as an expert who is genuinely interested in providing valuable information to others. And instead of thinking of your site as being run by a faceless company that’s only interested in making money, offering a report at no cost will also make many people feel more comfortable returning to your site and interacting with your business.

Creating Loyalty

Customers who download and read your free report are more likely to recommend it to their friends who share the same interest in your area of expertise. This strategy can also be quite effective at building a following of subscribers to your business website. A tactic to make sharing easy for your readers is to add a Tweet or Facebook Like button to the download page for your report.

Standing Out From the Rest

Running a successful business blog or website takes a good deal of time and dedication. Many online entrepreneurs find the idea of writing a full report overwhelming because of the perceived time commitment. The good news is you can actually use their frame of mind to your advantage. Investing the time or resources necessary to complete this endeavor will make you more memorable in the minds of people searching for what you have to offer. Many business owners find that creating such a report is not as daunting as it first appears once they break the whole project into smaller steps.

The most challenging aspect of creating a free report for your site visitors is often just getting started. Many writers find that prior to doing any actual writing, mind-mapping helps them brainstorm and organize their thoughts.

The second part of the process simply involves taking that organized information and creating chapters or sections around it. A final recommended step is to create realistic goals for finishing a certain number of pages per day until the entire report is complete. After this process, the only remaining tasks are converting the report to a PDF and making it available to download.

If you’ve already implemented this strategy, what impact did it have on your conversion rate?

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Sales Perceptions

Craig Klein — Fri, 11 May 2012 16:52:50 +0000

My friend, Kimberlee Stephens, an account executive for Magnet Media Films, sent me this great image that gives a great perspective on how sales people are perceived.

If you’d like to succeed at sales in a way that’s professional, stress free and human, I highly recommend Dave Blanchard’s new book, “Today I Begin A New Life“.

Automating Your Social Media Activities – How to Separate Right from Wrong

Craig Klein — Tue, 08 May 2012 15:09:39 +0000

As a business owner, having a strong social media presence can help you increase your customer base. While the process of setting up and maintaining several profiles can be time-consuming, the good news is there are now plenty of tools that can help you automate this process.

The most important thing to keep in mind is due to the nature of social media, you need to find a balance between technology and human involvement. To help you get started, here are several key strategies that will allow you to automate parts of your business’s social presence without doing anything that could be labeled as spammy:

Diversify Your Content

A common mistake is to post a link to the same content on several different social sites without any further elaboration. Visitors who find the same link on your business Facebook page, Twitter feed and Google+ page aren’t as likely to return because they feel your business has less to share in terms of valuable information. When your social media sites of choice allow you to post content of any length, take advantage of that freedom! Posting a short but compelling summary of your latest article, product or other type of project can pay off quickly because it will capture more people’s attention.

Time Your Posts Correctly

Popular social media automation tools like HootSuite allow you to write and schedule posts ahead of time. If you decide to utilize this option, be sure you take into account when you will be available to respond to them. One of the worst mistakes is to schedule a batch of interesting posts just before you go on vacation. If your readers’ comments and questions are met with digital silence, this can significantly tarnish your business’s customer service reputation.

Keep a Personal Touch

The reason it’s a mistake to fully automate all of your social media posts is because visitors will eventually realize that the content they’re reading is being produced by a program rather than a human. Since the purpose of social media is to make connections between people, it’s important to “keep it real.” That need is why you should create a mix of personal and automated posts. The exact ratio of personal to automated content can depend on your schedule, as well as the topics you’re addressing.

Automating social media for your business can be an effective measure when planned and implemented the right way. As with any business strategy, some thought needs to go into it first. Posting different material across your profiles, keeping your audience in mind and automating only a percentage of posts will help you build a strong social media presence in a shorter amount of time.

Have you used any tools to help automate your social media activities?

Drive B2B Sales with Email Marketing

Craig Klein — Tue, 01 May 2012 11:21:34 +0000

Traditional sales organizations tend to think of email marketing in terms of nurturing client relationships, newsletters, etc.

Especially for B2B sales pros, emails seem to be superfluous and run the risk of annoying valued prospects and customers.

Of course, there are plenty of good reasons to succumb to these fears but, in a world where customers’ attention is their scarcest resource, wise sales teams take advantage of all the communication mediums they can.

What makes and email campaign effective? There can be plenty of answers but, there should be two core goals of any campaign…

Motivate the right prospects or customers to take the desired action
Build a relationship of trust with prospects and customers

No email campaign will yield 100% success in motivating the desired behavior (request a quote, schedule a demo, talk to an account manager or make a purchase) but, even those that choose not to act should be left with a feeling they were treated with respect, their needs were understood and a respect for the expertise of you and your company.

A simple formula for creating a strong campaign that achieves these goals and more is to start with the end goal in mind – what is the desired action of the prospect? – and work backwards from there to develop copy, content, subject lines, etc.

Create a call to action that speaks to the inner needs or pain of the prospect – use “Click here to Relieve Back Pain” instead of “Set an Appointment Today”.

Then write your email with that “pain” in mind – highlight it. For more complex products and services, ask yourself “Do my prospects typically already understand the type of service we provide and it’s ability to address the “pain”? If not, then the email should focus on the pain, highlight how it’s costing time, money, energy, etc. and make the call to action an educational report or whitepaper or a video – “3 ways to stop overspending on Internet service”.

If deciding on the desired action is the obstacle, ask yourself what most commonly motivates customers to contact your customers? What do they want or need badly enough to call and ask to talk to a sales person? That’s the pain your call to action should correlate with.

If there are more than one answer to that question, write several emails. Now you have a campaign!

Remember, not communicating with emails is a missed opportunity. Your sales team has limited time and resources. Leveraging email to allow the most qualified prospects to “self-identify” can maximize the productivity of your team.

What Really Persuades People to Buy?

Craig Klein — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:00:16 +0000

You’re proud of the products or services that your business sells. However, as you’ve likely discovered, just because you’ve got something great to offer doesn’t automatically mean people are going to buy it. This is especially true on the Internet.

Countless businesses are frustrated by the fact that they don’t sell as much online as they’d like. While the Internet can connect your business to customers around the globe, there are some hurdles you need to overcome in order to make this happen. Fortunately, by learning what actually persuades people to buy, you can make your website more effective.

When someone is thinking about making a purchase, they want to:

Avoid Hassles: Because the Internet makes it so easy to jump from one site to another, people have a very low tolerance for online inconveniences. If a site creates a hassle for someone, it’s much easier for them to simply go to a competitor’s site than it is to deal with the problem they’re facing. This approach to online transactions is why it’s so important to ensure that your site is dead simple to use. Not only do you want to make it as easy as possible for people to get the information they want, but you also want to eliminate any pain points from your checkout process.

Get Information from Multiple Sources: The Internet puts a seemingly unlimited amount of information at everyone’s fingertips. As a result, people want to get information from more than one source. The best way to allow them to do this is to link out. Whether you link to general information about your industry or something like an editor’s review of one of your products, allowing potential customers to gather information from multiple sources will give them the confidence they need to actually make a purchase.

Know What Other Customers Think: One of the underlying forces that drives buying behavior is people’s desire to avoid making a decision that they end up regretting. This is why so many consumers make purchases based on what previous buyers have to say. If someone is happy with their purchase, people know that they should be as well. This feeling is why it’s so important to include testimonials on your website. To maximize their impact, be sure to include a picture with each testimonial. In addition to testimonials, you should link to any sites that include customer reviews of your business.

Feel Like They’re in Control: The truth about buying behavior is that much of it is driven by people’s subconscious. However, this doesn’t mean people want to go on autopilot when they’re thinking about a purchase. On the contrary, they want to feel like they’re in complete control of their decision. The best way to appeal to this desire is to use your website to make people feel empowered. When someone has everything they need to feel that they’re making a savvy choice, they’re going to feel good about completing a purchase.

What Questions Do You Need to Ask During a Website Review?

Craig Klein — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:00:10 +0000

The best website designs don’t magically hit someone during a moment of inspiration. Instead, they’re the result of consistent improvement. When a company wonders why their website isn’t performing as well as they’d like, it’s likely because they paid to have it designed and then didn’t pay attention to it again until now.

Since active involvement is crucial if you want your website to reach its full potential, one of the best things you can do is conduct website reviews on a regular basis. Depending on your business, the right interval for these reviews may be every six weeks or three months. While the review interval may vary from business to business, what won’t vary is the importance of consistency and understanding what these reviews need to accomplish.

If you’re worried that website reviews are going to turn into meetings that drain everyone’s energy and clog their schedule, you’ll be glad to know that’s not the case at all. Instead, the goal of the reviews is to come up with actionable tasks that can significantly increase website performance. In order to do this, you need to know what questions to ask. That’s why the following five are such a good starting point. As you look at your homepage, you need to ask if it:

Identifies Pain Points: Whether your business is based around products or services, what you offer makes life easier for your customers. In order to convert visitors into customers, you need to show them how your business can make their life easier. One of the most effective ways to do this is by clearly defining the problems your products or services solve. Once people know what your business can do for them, their interest will quickly increase.

Offers Solutions: This ties into the first question that you need to ask. Not only do you need to show visitors that you’re aware of the problems they’re facing, but you need to prove that your product or service can solve these problems for them.

Provides More Information: In most cases, you don’t want to bombard visitors with every piece of information possible on the initial landing page. However, you do want to make it easy for them to access this information. When you’re reviewing your site, make sure that the most interested visitors are only a click away from getting all the information that they could possibly want.

Collects Email Addresses: A lot of prospect aren’t going to buy right away. As a result, your site needs to have at least one enticing way to collect their email addresses. In addition to likely giving something away for free, your review should focus on ensuring that it’s dead simple for people to submit their email address.

Allows Visitors to Easily Contact You: Regardless of how great your landing page and site are, many visitors are still going to have questions. To avoid losing customers because people can’t get their questions answered, be sure that anyone who wants to contact you can do so without any hassles.

The Right Way to Send Automated Emails

Craig Klein — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:23:00 +0000

You can use our platform to automatically send emails that will improve your relationship with potential and existing customers. While automated emails are a very powerful tool, they can also be scary at first. The reason is no legitimate business wants to look like a spammer. Since you’ve worked hard to build a great reputation for your business, you want to do everything in your power to preserve it.

If you’re just making the jump into this marketing practice, the good news is there are some clear guidelines you can follow to ensure that you’re taking the right approach to sending these emails:

Properly Gather Addresses: One of the biggest differences between legitimate marketing email and spam is how the addresses are gathered. When someone submits their address through your website, you need to make it clear to them what kind of email they’re going to receive. By being upfront about your intentions, you can avoid catching recipients off guard.

Let People Know It’s You: When you send an email, you want the people who receive it to immediately know it’s your business. This will ensure they know it’s something they want and not junk mail. To do this, check that your From field is set up to display the name of your business. In addition to possibly including your business name in the email subject, you can also use our platform to create attractive HTML emails that include your logo.

Be Prompt: When a prospect visits your website and submits their email address because they’re interested in receiving more information, you have their interest at a peak. If you wait too long to send an email to them, there’s a good chance that they’ll move on to one of your competitors. The ability to instantly send exactly what someone wants is one of the big advantages of automated email. Even if you have a product or service that requires an extended sales cycle, this will start it the right way.

Target and Personalize: If you’ve ever browsed through your spam folder, one of the first things that stands out is that none of the emails are personalized. They’re also about things that don’t interest you at all. When you email prospects or your list, make sure it’s about things they actually want to know. And because our platform makes it so easy to personalize the emails you send out, there’s no reason not to take advantage of this extra touch.

Always Analyze: While the previous four guidelines will put you on the right track, every audience has its own unique set of characteristics. Once you get your automated email campaigns up and running, you can really hone in on your audience by analyzing the results of what you send. Our platform allows you to see how many emails were sent, how many times they were opened, the number of clicks to any links in the email and much more.

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5 Important Things to Remember About Website Design

Craig Klein — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:17:46 +0000

You don’t have to be a web designer to benefit from learning more about this topic. If you’re a business owner, you not only want a website, but a very effective one. The best way to achieve this goal is to consistently test and improve it.

Since you’ve already got a lot on your plate, you will likely delegate this task to an employee or contractor. While that’s a good decision, the person you delegate it to will still look to you for guidance. By keeping the following pieces of information in mind, you’ll be able to steer them in the right direction:

Quality or Bust: Pictures can make your website more effective. However, it’s important to understand that not all pictures are created equal. If you’re going to add one to your homepage or another key page on your site, make sure that it’s a high quality one (preferably of a smiling person). Also, you’re better off using a picture that looks like a “normal” person instead of a stock photography model.

Above the Fold Still Matters: In the past, usability experts always harped on the need for websites to display their most important content “above the fold.” One of the main reasons was since it took awhile for sites to fully load, many visitors didn’t scroll. While faster Internet speeds have made this a minor issue, the content that you put above the fold still serves as a type of snapshot that people use to form a first impression about your site.

It’s Not Just Your Homepage: When business owners decide to update their website, it’s common for most of their focus to be on their homepage. While there’s no denying the importance of a good homepage, Google sends visitors to many more pages than just that one. Whether you have a blog or a collection of articles, it’s worth testing how well their design is working. One way to get more out of your written content is to emphasize the first paragraph of every post or article. A study called Eyetrack III found that articles that began with a bold paragraph resulted in 95% of visitors continuing to read.

Remember Scanning: Because the Internet has so much to offer, people are always somewhat distracted as they’re browsing. This results in a lot of scanning instead of careful reading. Several eyetracking studies have found that the pattern people follow when they scan resembles an F. Adjusting elements to create a better fit with this pattern can increase the results your website delivers.

Know the Sweet Spot: The first place website visitors look is the upper left corner. If this spot doesn’t grab their attention, they’re going to hit the back button on their browser. Because this area of your site is so important, it’s worth testing different components in it. For example, you may want to test several different headlines to see which one is the most effective at keeping people around.

Social Media – It’s All About the Content

Craig Klein — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 14:00:12 +0000

There are countless guides on how to use social media to attract more leads for your business. While every guide claims to have the secret you need for success, there’s really just one thing you need to know. When it comes to social media, it’s all about the content. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest, content is what drives the social interaction on these sites. From sharing a piece of content to leaving a comment about a story, people use content to interact with each other.

If you’re wondering what exactly you need to do to properly harness the power of content, here are a few tips to help you out:

Make It Great: Despite what expensive ebooks may promise, there’s no shortcut around coming up with great content. If content is boring, it’s not going to attract any social media attention. While some people are intimidated by the thought of coming up with great content, the good news is it’s actually not as difficult as it may seem. Content doesn’t have to be worthy of a Pulitzer Prize in order to attract a lot of social media attention. Instead, it simply needs to connect with its audience. As a result, great content can come in many different forms. Depending on the audience, the definition of great may mean entertaining, informative, packed with facts, educational or even humorous.

Ensure It’s Easy to Share: This may sound like a no-brainer, but there are plenty of websites that shoot themselves in the foot by not making their content easy enough to share. For example, if you’re using WordPress, you will probably want to install a caching plugin to prevent people from bouncing away from your content because it takes too long to load. Another example is having too many commercial elements on a page of content that you’re trying to promote. While you don’t need to hide the fact that you’re a business, make sure that the content is the primary focus of the page.

Don’t Exist in a Silo: Social media revolves around sharing and relationships. Because social media really is social, there’s no reason that the entire burden of coming up with great content needs to be on your shoulders. Instead, you shouldn’t be afraid to reach out to others. Whether you want to conduct an interview or simply want to get a notable figure’s thoughts about a piece you’re writing, you’ll find that you get better results by interacting with others as you craft your content.

Measure Your Results: In order to hit home runs, you can’t be afraid of the occasional bad swing. Since it takes time to learn what your audience wants, it’s important to measure the results of each piece of content that you publish. By always paying attention to how posts are received, you will be able to put your learning process on the fast track.

Although it takes effort, the payoff via social media that the right content can yield is well worth the investment of resources and time!

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How Do You Know If Your Press Release is Any Good?

Craig Klein — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:00:10 +0000

Because it’s very easy to throw together a press release and distribute it to multiple online outlets, many people have turned to this option as a way to build backlinks. Unfortunately, these backlinks are about as effective as those from overused article directories. While using press releases for their instant backlinks is not a good way to spend your valuable time, that doesn’t mean you should remove press releases from your arsenal of marketing tools. Instead, your focus should be on using them to accomplish what they’re actually intended to do.

Your goal should be to get the attention of bloggers and even mainstream media sources. Although it’s easy to assume that bloggers and reporters ignore press releases, you have to keep in mind that they are almost all overworked. As a result, they don’t always have time to go out and dig around for a story. If the roots of a story are delivered directly to their inbox, it’s easy to see why they will be happy to run with it. But in order for this to occur, the press release you write needs to actually be good. If you’re wondering what makes a good press release, here are the qualities one needs to possess in order to get results:

It Isn’t a Commercial: You want to be able to persuade people who visit your website to purchase the products or services your company offers. However, when you’re writing to members of the press, you’re not trying to get them to buy from you. Instead, your pitch is to write a story about your company. Because the focus is different, your press release shouldn’t be a sales pitch.

What it should contain is useful and interesting information that bloggers and reporters can craft a story around. If you’re not sure what kind of information they can use, identify the top five sources where you want to get coverage, and then read some of their posts and stories to get an idea of the type of information they use.

Focuses on the Key Facts: Your press release doesn’t need to be a long narrative. It’s going to be up to the blogger or reporter to choose the length of a story. What it does need to have are the key facts that a writer needs to craft their story. The questions are how, plus the Five Ws: who, what, where, when and why.

Is Timely: Adding evergreen content to your website is a great way to consistently bring in a stream of search engine visitors. However, blogs and other news outlets are more interested in supplying their loyal readers with the latest and greatest stories. That’s why it’s absolutely vital to find an actual news angle for your press release. While it may take some brainstorming and creativity to come up with the right angle, it’s worth it since this factor can make or break your press release.

Have you sent out one or more press releases during 2012?