This week the Iowa Democrats caucus experienced an epic fail with their mobile/web app. The ugly truth is nearly every enterprise client has had the same failure; so much so that our #1 source of new business is to succeed where a prior vendor failed.

The stories of a mobile/web app failure all have the same components — it was delayed, it was delivered without key features and capabilities, the release experienced catastrophic errors and issues, or the selected technology/platform wasn’t robust enough. Ultimately, the stories also share the same fate — the VP of Marketing that made the decision will be fired, a manager will quit out of frustration for being blamed for the decision of their boss, and the end-users — the customers — will lose confidence and faith in the brand.

Also, the company will look to blame someone else for the failure, and that blame often falls upon the prior vendor that led them astray. SHERPA will spend the next few months, if not years, course correcting the new client to a better, safer place. We don’t relish these situations  — there are many frustrated parties involved, documentation is non-existent, and there is a lack of institutional knowledge available to us.

As a letter to this future client, here’s how these web/mobile app failures can be avoided; all informed from wisdom gained from two decades of building custom web applications.

7 Steps to Avoid a Web/Mobile App Failure

1. What’s Your Problem!?

Before you start planning a solution, first understand the problem you will be solving.  This seems intuitive, as the horse has to be in front of the cart, right? Yet, it rarely happens.

Here’s what identifying the problem looks like:

• What are you trying to achieve?
• Who will it affect?
• What have the users said needs to be fixed?
• Why are you investing resources into solving this problem?

This is the most critical step of starting on the path towards a technical solution, and yet it is often overlooked. Don’t be that person; instead, define the what and why first.

2. How Will Success Be Measured?

You will notice above that we never asked “how” — as in “how will we solve this?” or “how much will this cost?” That’s because those “hows” will come later in the process.

If you are just itching for a “how”, then answer this one — “how will success be measured?” What will the effect be after the solution is put into place? Implicit to this aspect of measurement are two things:

1. What is the current baseline measurement?
2. What is the expected/desired measurement after?

With these two “hows” answered, you can begin to calculate the value of the initiative, and thus a possible budget you might need to start building your web/mobile app.

3. Calculate Return on Investment

Once you have a baseline and expected result measurements in place, you can now establish the elusive treasure of all web/mobile app development projects — return on investment (ROI).  The good news is that there are many ways to calculate ROI; so many, in fact, that the subject will be covered in another post altogether. In the meantime, here are two quick and easy formulas for your immediate consideration:

1. Monthy Potential Revenue = (# of Leads/Month) x (Customer Lifetime Value)
2. Monthly Cost Savings = (# of workers) x (# of hours/week) X (# of weeks) x (avg. hourly rate) x (% time savings)

4. Define What Users Want

Ok, so now we can start the fun part — thinking about and tinkering with technical solutions, right? Not so fast. We still need to define the features that the key stakeholders — investors, leadership, employees, customers — want from your solution. To do that, you have to engage in another challenging part of building a web/mobile app — listening to users.

When you ask a lay user what they want, you will experience something magically refreshing– they will rarely mention a specific platform or technology!  They are not going to say “leverage Drupal feature X to enable the desired effect”, nor will they say “build app with Python because I hear it is neat.” Rather, you will hear what they want and expect:

• “I want to be able to access X thing while on my mobile device.”
• “I want the app to load faster than the current one.”
• “I want to be able to export Y data into a spreadsheet, where I can report on it.”

Use this user-based feedback to start to build your solution’s list of desired features.

5. Prioritize When Users Will Get Features

The full feature-list in hand, it is now time to prioritize it. No web/mobile app release will provide every desired feature on the first-go. Rather, you will work on that list of prioritized features across multiple small iterations across a span of time.  When it comes to web/mobile apps, there is no “build once.” There is only “iterate often.”

Need help prioritizing the features for your web/mobile app? Try this simple-as-it-gets chart:

6. Figure Out a Solution

Finally, we have arrived — the Solution!  Now is the time to begin considering which platforms and technologies can help you achieve the prioritized capabilities sought by your users. Unfortunately, this is when you realize that you don’t have the resources — time or money — to build a custom web/mobile app! Instead, you may seek a more cost-effective, turn-key solution that “mostly fits” your users’ immediate needs,  or you will “value-engineer” your first deployment. Don’t worry — you can roll-out a more robust custom web/mobile app several months later after you have proven some success with your first iteration. When it comes to web/mobile app development, the name of the game is “kaizen” — Japanese for “continuous improvement.”

This is also the time you can begin setting expectations with your key stakeholders on the roll-out schedule. If they want something faster, be ready to ask for more budget to commit more resources. However, more is not necessarily better, or even feasible. Sure, China just built two 1,000 bed hospitals in just 10 days, but that required construction teams of 7,000 workers with armies of trucks and excavators dug and scraped around the clock to complete the project. And have you seen what it looks like inside?  These “hospitals” are warehouses filled with rows of cheap wood pallet beds. Then again, maybe that’s all that was ever needed — see steps 1-5 before passing judgment.

7. Schedule to Test. Test Again. And Test One More Time.

So you are ready to go live? Or maybe your boss is demanding you deliver the final product before a big, high-exposure deadline. At this point, there are two things you should say to your boss:

1. Remind them that your roadmap has no “final” product. Rather, you have a strategic roadmap with periodic, planned iterations.
2. Clarify that you have weeks or months of testing.  If they balk, remind them of the fact that testing will ensure their success with their own boss.

When it comes to testing, there is no right length of time. As a rule of thumb, however, we recommend a minimum of one week for every month of development, with a minimum of 4 weeks. Seem like a lot to you? Here’s all the testing you will need to consider in your process:

1. Quality assurance by the vendor
2. User scenario testing by the vendor or client
3. Key stakeholder feedback/review by the client
4. Stress and/or load testing by the vendor

Once a round of testing is completed, you will need to decide which of the unforeseen issues revealed during testing you want to address now, or later.   If you elect to address some issues now, prepare your budget and timeline for another round of testing.

Final Thoughts on Web/Mobile Apps

The Iowa Democrat caucus app built by Shadow, Inc cost only $60,000 — and that was enough to deliver a failed, untested mobile app!  We get it — change is hard, and improvement is even harder.  To be successful, just keep asking “what/why”, avoid buzzword bingo, and focus on execution.

If you are thinking about your next web application or stuck with current web app development, just holler for a SHERPA to help guide you to success!

The post How to Avoid Web/Mobile App Failure appeared first on SHERPA Global.

In content marketing there is a myriad of strategies and tactics that can be deployed—some may get results, others may not. As you get started, make sure you add these best practices to your task list:

Create a Content Marketing Plan

If you enjoy spinning your wheels, then by all means, don’t create a content marketing plan. However, if you’d like to build your company and sell your products in an efficient manner, then let’s start with the foundation of content marketing best practices.

A content marketing plan starts with setting objectives: What do you want your content marketing to do for your company? Then ask yourself, “why?” Keep asking yourself “why?” until you get to the root reason. From this exercise, craft your objective statement to reflect the what and the why behind your content marketing plan.

Once you have an objective, all content should serve that objective. With the objective at the start, then create broad content topics like overviews—also known as cornerstone content—at the next level. Then, create specific content based on the broad topics. In this way, you’re creating a cornerstone piece of content with related content branches coming off of it. Having these content hubs aids SEO efforts, as well as site stickiness.

Research Head and Long-Tail Keywords

If you haven’t already, link your site to Google Search Console. This tool will reveal the keywords your site visitors used to find your site. This is one aspect of your keyword research.

Think about the top five topics your business covers. From those five topic buckets, create a list of keywords, including longtail keywords, that are relevant to your business. What would your audience type into their browser to find you?

After filling your topic buckets with keywords, use Google to search each of those keywords and review the “related searches” that Google serves to you. In the suggested related searches, you might find new keyword phrases to add to your topic lists.

Analyze the Data

Taking a look at the data from your website is an effective way to gain insights about your audience and where they spend their time on your site.

• What page/content gets the most traffic, or the least traffic?
• What pages get shared on social media—those shared the most and the least?
• Which content led to a conversion?
• If you offer downloadables, what is downloaded the most?
• What ads convert the best?
• What social media channel drives the most engagement?

There are plenty of questions you can answer through gathering and analyzing your site data. When you find the things that work, think about how you can further the reach of those content pieces, or how you can expand the content around the keywords that are working.

Build Targeted Landing Pages

The essence of content marketing is delivering valuable information—the keyword being, valuable. Targeted landing pages that offer your audience a valuable ebook, checklist or template, is another content marketing best practice.

Think through the topics you compiled in your keyword research. What landing pages can you create around those topics, using the associated keywords? Perform a Google search for landing page templates and see how others are using landing pages in their content marketing.

How Do I Create Content that Answers Users’ Questions?

Research around voice search shows that users are asking direct questions to their smart speakers. With the growth of voice search, the industry is seeing an increase in long tail keyword phrase searches in the form of questions. Back in the day, Google searches went something like this: “Content Marketing Planning.” Now, users type questions like: “What is a content marketing plan?” or “How do I create a content marketing plan?”

In your online content—including social media, ads, and blogs—include questions as subheadings, or as the lead sentence in a paragraph. Then be sure the content answers the question.

These are just a few content marketing best practices you can implement now that will make your efforts more effective. If these ideas have you wondering how you can do all of this research and create these plans, then we’d like to talk to you about how we can help. Contact a SHERPA today and let’s get started on a content marketing plan!

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Days later, the project is complete and the components (or ingredients) are configured the way you first intended them to be.

Now think about the question again: What part does project discovery play in web development? The most critical part. Discovery of the project’s purpose; what talents are needed; what tech is needed; and how it all fits within your timeframe and budget.

Project Discovery is Scouting

The discovery phase of a project is a chance for both the client and the vendor to “discover” the purpose of a project and ensure that the client receives product that they truly need. At SHERPA, we call project discovery by a name that suits our culture: Scouting.

What is Scouting?

Scouting ensures your technical requirements are defined and that they can be implemented within your timeframe and budget. It may include some or all of the following:

• The drawing up and systematization of your requirements for your website
• Research performed about your target audience, their needs, and preferences
• An analysis or audit of the efficiency of your current website
• Meetings to discuss the expected and required functionality of your website
• Analysis and research of competing websites, applications, or products
• Assessment of the technical requirements of your project

Why is Scouting Important?

In the scenario at the beginning of this article, there were things omitted from the home project that required multiple trips to the store, and time delays—costing money and time. Jef Blocker, SHERPA’s UX/UI expert and project lead explains:

“The few times I’ve seen clients’ projects fail to meet their objectives, it’s always been due to bypassing a scouting phase. It’s not uncommon for a client to have a solution in mind when they contact SHERPA with a problem without understanding how their proposed solution might affect other stakeholders in their company—e.g., marketing making a decision without understanding the consequences for customer service or sales. When the final product ships, it results in either change orders or a scrapped product. This wasted effort and additional expense can be avoided by taking the time to ensure every stakeholder’s voice is heard.

“Organizations have a wealth of valuable internal knowledge that is siloed in various departments and rarely shared. Scouting begins a conversation that increases buy-in from all stakeholders and leverages that institutional knowledge. This is helpful when documenting requirements and ensuring an awareness of business objectives that must be met. An objective should determine a deliverable—not the other way around.

“Also, scouting also helps clients stop to consider who will be using their product and better understand their needs. If a client’s web application frustrates users and fails to meet their expectations, they won’t return. By considering the user’s needs and how they will use a product, we can assist clients in building applications that will create a satisfying customer experience and keep users coming back.”

When adequate time is not given to scouting, necessary functions or features of your website may be overlooked, requiring change orders that incur additional charges and time delays. Omitting project discovery could result in massive disruptions, added fees, and missed deadlines.

Scouting Leads to Thoughtful Solutions

The discovery phase is when the team working on your project can become more familiar with your products, your company, your organizational goals, and more. When your development team has this understanding, they may be able to develop better solutions, and make smart, informed changes to your original project scope.

Scouting is Objective-Focused, Not Deliverable-Focused

Just because a deliverable, like a website, is delivered on-time and on-budget, doesn’t mean the project will be a success. To truly succeed, the deliverable must meet your organizational objectives, such as improving SEO (search engine optimization), increasing conversion rates, and decreasing website bounce rates.

If you start a project by simply defining the deliverable—and not the objective—you may end up with the wrong solution. Project discovery allows you to define your objectives for your project, not just the deliverable.

Scouting Prioritizes User Needs

Most project briefs are not user-focused. They do not consider the user’s perspective, only the goals of the project. A discovery phase allows your web development team to take a deep dive into your proposed project, and truly understand how your users will interact with your website or your web application.

By doing so, you can reduce the risk of building functionality or producing content that your users don’t care about—and wasting both time and money.

By performing user research and assessing every part of how your users interact with your website, user needs can be prioritized—ensuring a better and more satisfying user experience.

Scouting Gives Stakeholders a Voice

Project discovery is a period of time when everyone involved in the project, from developers to managers, executives, stakeholders, and more, can get on the same page. It will reduce the risks of misunderstandings and costly mistakes, and allow both your team and your team of developers to make better, more informed decisions—providing you with a better overall product or website.

What is Not Part of Project Discovery, AKA Scouting?

The following deliverables are never part of scouting, as these items lack clarity until scouting is completed to understand what needs to be done. These deliverables can certainly be proposed as the scope for the next phase—Mapping—which is before the Building phase.

• User Research—listening labs, surveys, etc.
• Wireframes
• UI Designs
• Prototypes
• Content Creation

Scouting enables the team to understand what is and is not known at the time, and thus what needs to be defined before the project can proceed.

Going back to the scenario at the beginning of this article, what would have the project discovery, or scouting looked like? Perhaps measurements were required, or an inventory of supplies. Maybe a realistic summation of time required would’ve been helpful, as well as an assessment of the skills you possessed. Any number of things could have and should have been considered before embarking on your home project. Some costs of time and money could’ve been avoided by taking the time to discover all that the project required.

Don’t waste time or money by jumping into a web project without proper scouting. When you enroll in a project with SHERPA, we put forth the effort in scouting to understand you, your company, and your users, making your project comprehensive and successful. Reach out to a SHERPA—we’d love to meet you for coffee and talk about how we can help.

The post Why Project Discovery is Critical to Web Development Success appeared first on SHERPA Global.

Last year, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect in Europe. The purpose of the GDPR is to provide control of personal information to individual citizens of the European Union and the European Economic Area.

At the time the GDPR went into effect, you likely received emails from brand newsletters and email communications asking you to affirm your opt-in to their email list. Though the United States as a whole doesn’t have a standard regulation, U.S. businesses conduct sales and transactions throughout the world. The email privacy notices you receive, and even the notifications by American websites of their use of cookies, is due to the GDPR—and in anticipation of this type of regulation in the U.S.

Over the last two years, California has been working on state legislation to similarly protect and provide control of individual personal information to residents of their state.

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) was signed into law in June 2018, and launches into effect January 1, 2020.

According to Wikipedia, the intentions of the act are to provide California residents with the right to:

• Know what personal data is being collected.
• Know whether their personal data is sold or disclosed and to whom.
• Say “no” to the sale of personal data.
• Access their personal data.
• Request a business to delete any personal information about a consumer collected from that consumer.
• Not be discriminated against for exercising their privacy rights.

How is Personal Data Defined by the CCPA?

The CCPA defines personal data as information that identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, to a particular consumer or household such as a

• Real name
• Alias
• Postal address
• Unique personal identifier
• Online identifier
• Internet Protocol address
• Email address
• Account name
• Social security number
• Driver’s license number
• Passport number

or other similar identifiers,” according to the CCPA Wikipedia page.

What Businesses are Affected by CCPA?

The CCPA applies to any business, including any for-profit entity that collects consumers’ personal data, which does business in California, and satisfies at least one of the following thresholds:

• Has annual gross revenues in excess of $25 million;
• Buys or sells the personal information of 50,000 or more consumers or households; or
• Earns more than half of its annual revenue from selling consumers’ personal information.

How do I Comply With CCPA?

• Implement processes to obtain parental or guardian consent for minors under 13 years and the affirmative consent of minors between 13 and 16 years to data sharing for purposes (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.120(c)).
• “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” link on the homepage of the website of the business, that will direct users to a web page enabling them, or someone they authorize, to opt out of the sale of the resident’s personal information (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.102).
• Designate methods for submitting data access requests, including, at a minimum, a toll-free telephone number (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.130(a)).
• Update privacy policies with newly required information, including a description of California residents’ rights (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.135(a)(2)).
• Avoid requesting opt-in consent for 12 months after a California resident opts out (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.135(a)(5)).

For more information about CCPA and how it might affect your business with the citizens of California, see the CCPA Wikipedia page or Californians for Consumer Privacy. For assistance with making your site CCPA and GDPR compliant, reach out to us at SHERPA Global!

The post How Will the CCPA Affect Your Business? appeared first on SHERPA Global.

From modules, to design elements to content tactics, here are some ideas to help convert leads—share your ideas in the comments:

Convert Leads Using Chatbots

When a customer has a question about your service or products, do you send them off the page to the blog section of your site, or the FAQ pages? What if you could answer their questions while they remained on the page where you wanted them to take action? Enter the chatbot. Embed chatbots on your site to discretely pop up and offer assistance to your customer. Chatbots can be set up with answers to common questions your customers have. If a customer enters a question into the chatbot that doesn’t have an answered assigned to it, the chatbot can offer instructions to customers to call, email, or chat with a live operator.

Optimize Lead Forms

Lead forms capture information from your site visitor and can include name, email, business name and industry. In many cases, lead forms consist of name and email address fields. While keeping forms this short is appealing to site visitors, it doesn’t capture much information for you. Adding one or two fields for company name or job title or industry still keeps the form short and provides additional information about your site visitor. This additional information can help inform—along with knowing the page the form submission came through—can inform your decisions regarding list segmentation and remarketing efforts.

Include Contextual Calls to Action

It’s important to have one main call-to-action on your pages. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t have more than one call-to-action on a page—just one main call-to-action. In the blog section of your site (and we do think you should have a blog), for each article, add contextual calls-to-action within the body of the copy. These calls-to-action are formatted in the same way as the body copy of the article, and are often set off by parens or brackets. They do not have a button, box or color associated with them.

Share Case Studies, Testimonials and Social Proof

Client testimonials often contain hidden gems about your company that could persuade a site visitor to buy your product or hire your services. Have you ever read a product or service review and thought: “Me too! I have that same problem.” Sometimes customer testimonials phrase product experiences in fresh and descriptive ways that make connections with site visitors.

Often for services, like web development or content marketing, case studies summarize a complex project into easily understood concepts while showing successful results. Sharing case studies gives potential customers an idea of what it is like to work with your company, and what results they might have.

Highlighting social proof—recommendations for your brand by customers through social channels—is another way to reveal to potential customers the quality of your product or stellar customer service. Before using social posts from your customers, ask their permission and let them know how their praise will be used for your marketing.

Convert Leads with Landing Pages

Use landing pages throughout your site for calling attention to specific products or services. Optimize landing pages with appropriate keywords, imagery, copy and call-to-action.

Create a Responsive Design

We’ve said it before, and we’re saying it again—it’s that important. Responsive design matters. We carry computers in our pockets that we sometimes use as phones. Many of us no longer sit behind desktop computers with hard drives warming our toes. We surf online in the aisles at stores, waiting at the doctor’s office, on vacations, at weddings and even at funerals. Your website must be mobile responsive when visitors click over to your site from an ad or search result.

What does mobile responsive mean? With the development of coding languages, various features and functionalities were created to enhance the desktop surfing experience—in the beginning, the desktop experience is all that mattered. Think of Flash—a software used to create animated works. Viewing a Flash site on mobile is typically a very bad experience: elements move around or fall off the screen; it’s difficult to scroll or click appropriate links; etc. Flash’s technology doesn’t work well on mobile—and it’s not the only software that doesn’t. That’s why you want to be sure that the way your site is built adjusts seamlessly to the configuration of a mobile device. You want customers to add your products to their cart without scrolling on their phone to find the add-to-cart button. And when they do click that button, you don’t want the next action from your site to reset their browser or send them to a difficult to navigate page.

Set Up Tracking

It is often assumed that anyone practicing digital marketing knows they need to set up Google Analytics in order to gather data about their site visitors. It bears repeating, that tracking visitor behavior on your website—and analyzing that behavior—is a foundational building block of an effective digital marketing strategy. Double check that you have the appropriate tracking code added to the correct place in your website header. It could take a week or two to gather trustworthy data, so give the tracking code time to work before analyzing data and making changes in the early days.

Archive Webinars and Tutorials

If your company uses webinars or video tutorials, archive those videos on your site so visitors can play them on-demand. For each video, provide a landing page with optimized copy and a clear call to action, requesting them to complete a form before watching the video.

As with any efforts to help potential customers take the desired action—convert—on your site, it’s essential to have a thorough plan for follow-up and nurturing. Speak with a SHERPA today about creating a customized digital marketing plan that convert leads and make an impact!

The post Convert Leads by Adding These Elements to Your Website appeared first on SHERPA Global.

It’s tempting to think that the out-of-the-box options provided by your shopping cart software of choice should do enough to make sales happen. However, features and functionalities aren’t the only thing you need to consider when optimizing product pages.

Use this list to update your pages and get more sales:

Image Optimization

With the growth of platforms like Instagram and Pinterest—even the development of emojis—we’re relying more and more on imagery for information. Take this into consideration for your product pages. Show your product from different angles, in use, and in various colors, if applicable. Linking your variants (color, aroma, style, etc.) to images boosts conversions. Also, short videos demonstrating your product carry a lot of persuasive weight for customers when deciding between products.

Copywriting Optimization

If you’ve set up your marketing strategy appropriately, you have created a profile for your ideal customer. Copywriting that converts addresses that ideal customer and the needs they have. Using your brands tone and voice, include information that addresses questions your ideal customer might have. The length of copy for a product description is mostly dependent on the price point of the item. Lower-priced items likely only need a short, direct description. Higher-priced items require more details, and lists of features to substantiate the cost.

Social Proof on Product Pages

Including customer testimonials and reviews allows your customers to read about real experiences with your products. Many times, a review from a customer might mention the use of your products features in a way that applies directly to someone else. Through testimonials and reviews, sentiment is shared and trust is built as construct a meaningful reputation with customers.

Access to Customer Service

Make it easy for your customers to get their specific questions answered by deploying a chatbot on your site. There are many options you can choose, from standard FAQ-type of chatbot messages, to a live assistant available 24/7. Enabling this type of question-answering service removes potential buying barriers.

SEO Optimization of Product Pages

With Google Search Console, perform keyword research and make a list of terms your customers use to find product on your pages. Once this list is established, optimize product descriptions, meta title and meta descriptions with relevant keywords. In all images, make sure the image alt attribute field is complete with the appropriate keyword phrasing. When appropriate, link to other products or blog articles on your site to create an internal linking structure.

Use Data and Make Adjustments

Marketing without data is like being in a house of mirrors, everything is a reflection of your company, and you can’t tell which way leads to your goal. Adding Google ecommerce tracking to your site will reveal your product page impressions, average order value, conversion rates, time to purchase, and more. Regularly review ecommerce analytics, make relevant adjustments to product pages and document the results. Making decisions based on ecommerce tracking, will directly impact your bottom line.

If your product pages aren’t converting, it may be time to take a look at ways to optimize performance, or reconsider your shopping cart system. If you’d like better results with your ecommerce site, we want to talk with you. Contact us now to learn how we can take your results from awful to awesome.

The post Optimizing Product Pages for Results appeared first on SHERPA Global.

You need a plan for your seasonal landing pages, just as you do for any marketing effort. Your plan for seasonal landing pages should start with the best practices you’re already using the remainder of the year. Some of those best practices include:

• Keep the call to action above the fold
• If scrolling is necessary on the page, use directional indicators
• Remove navigation, such as breadcrumbs and links that would take visitors away from the page without taking the desired action.
• Use social proof or client testimonies
• Design for mobile
• Keep graphics and videos simple for faster load times
• Use clear, compelling copy that tells a story

Now that the basics are established, let’s get specific for punching up holiday landing pages.

Be Specific About the Holiday Being Promoted

Though this seems like common sense, being explicit about what your customers can expect on specific holidays boosts the likelihood of customers returning to your site to make a purchase of that offer.

Design the Seasonal Landing Page for the Holiday

Think about the elements on your seasonal landing page that will remain stagnant. Then use seasonal imagery and colors around those elemenets to make your landing pages standout. However, be mindful not to crowd the design and frustrate customers—you want to tastefully implement the “look” of the season into your branded page.

Highlight Time-Sensitivity and a Sense of Urgency

Make sure you are clear about deadlines and provide clear, compelling information to drive sales within the posted timeframe. A countdown calculator generates a sense of urgency, and shows people how much time they have left to make a decision.

Post and Repost the Specifics of the Special Offer

If posting a percentage discount, state the discount clearly and often. For special offers, such as gift with purchase, include a photo of the free item, as well as the dollar value of the free item. Sharing the retail cost of the free item elevates the value of the offer in the eyes of the customer.

Enable Social Sharing and Message Personalization

When customers have the ability to share the product on your landing page with friends on their social media channels or send direct emails, you’re enabling your customers to promote for you. Give your customers options to use provided copy that you’ve crafted, or write their own message for email messages and social media posts.

Our SHERPA team members are ready to create a landing page that will suit your ecommerce needs this season. Contact us to get started!

The post Make Your Seasonal Landing Page Stand Out appeared first on SHERPA Global.

That’s why our team completes multiple certifications per person, per year.

Digital Content Manager and Strategist Jennifer Wilder has become the resident Hubspot expert and content strategist by achieving six certifications in the last seven months. These certifications include:

• Hubspot Marketing Software – A step-by-step course of study outlining the unique features and functionality Hubspot Marketing Software. At the completion of the course, practitioners have a thorough knowledge of how best to use Hubspot’s software to gain measurable results on digital marketing efforts.
• Content Marketing – A foundational certification in content marketing—what it is, and how to use it.
• Inbound Marketing – A fundamental certification in inbound marketing techniques that range from content creation to social promotion to converting and nurturing leads and beyond.
• Email Marketing – This email marketing course teaches participants how to create an email marketing strategy that grows business. From contact management and segmentation to email deliverability and analyzing email sends, we’re able to build an email marketing strategy that is human and helpful and builds trust with contacts.
• Social Media – Game-changing instruction on how to build an effective social media strategy, set up social listening and moderation, create social content, extend reach, excel in digital advertising, measure ROI, and more.

As tools of technology change—and the ways we leverage technology develop—it’s important to maintain certifications and training that can be immediately applied to businesses seeking to improve their digital marketing return on investment.

“I’ve always loved learning; I’m curious by nature,” Wilder said. “I feel fortunate that the SHERPA team values continuing education and that they allow me the resources to increase my proficiency in subjects that have direct benefit to our customers.”

Among SHERPA team members, there are approximately 15 certifications relating to software and digital marketing skills that are applied directly to clients’ success. We want to help you level-up your business’ online presence for maximum ROI. Talk to a SHERPA today to learn more!

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It is through the Georgia Heart Hospital Program that rural and critical access hospitals receive necessary funds to facilitate life-sustaining results in rural community hospitals.

According to Putnam General’s Health Needs Assessment, there is a high risk of heart disease and stroke in Putnam County as demonstrated by the prevalence of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and obesity. The Hospital offers free lab screening and health education in an attempt to have early identification of heart disease and stroke risk. There is a need to upgrade and replace equipment in the hospital’s imaging department and cardiopulmonary department to further diagnose and treat those patients identified at risk.

“While I heard that Georgia’s rural hospitals were facing a financial crisis, it wasn’t until some of my family and friends sought care in Eatonton that the need became clear,” said David Felfoldi, founder and CEO of SHERPA Global. “Our donation will not only improve access to care and equipment for tens of thousands in Putnam County, but a full 25 percent of our donation will be used to offset the costs of providing uncompensated care to the residents of the community. Now that’s a strong foundation!”

Every year, SHERPA gives up to five percent of profits to local non-profits in metro-Atlanta as part of its annual Strong Foundation initiative. This year, we expanded our reach to positively impact communities throughout the state of Georgia. We selected one of the 58 rural Georgia hospitals participating in the Georgia HEART Hospital Program. SHERPA’s support joins a combined $60m by other individuals and businesses to ensure rural Georgians receive access to adequate health care.

Click here to learn more about participating in the Georgia Heart Hospital Program.

Just as SHERPA took the lead among digital agencies contributing to Georgia Heart, we’d like to lead your digital marketing to having more impact for you and your customers. Contact a SHERPA today, and let’s get started making an impact!

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What is an Email Newsletter?

An email newsletter is a communication your company sends to subscribers, donors, members, or another segmented group of people who are interested in more than free offers, or your latest products. Effective newsletters are focused, though they offer various pieces of information. Whether weekly or monthly, newsletters provide news, updates, or tips from the organization.

What Makes an E-Newsletter Engaging?

Readers or subscribers engaging with a newsletter looks like clicks and forwards. Whether that is a click to watch a video, a click-through to your website, a forward to a friend, or a click to answer a survey question—all of those are engagements. Naturally, if you want someone to click on something, you need compelling copy and a clear ask of them to do so.

Include various types of content that entertains, adds value and educates your reader, thereby influencing them to engage. A good rule of thumb is to provide 90 percent educational information and 10 percent promotional offers. This is the “jab, jab, jab, right hook,” philosophy that Gary Vaynerchuk talks about—give more to your customers than you ask them to give.

Are You Trying to do too much with Your Email Newsletter?

This 90/10 concept is even more effective when it’s focused. If your newsletter jumps around between various audiences—perhaps your company serves parents and teachers—or, if you’re talking about future events and past events, and volunteering and changes in the organization, your readers may be confused and not read the information you need them to.

One way to get focused is to decide three or four categories of content to share in each issue. For example, customer testimonials, user-generated content, the next event, and tips. Two out of three of these categories are others-focused—testimonials and UGC. The information about the next event is “the ask”—“Buy tickets now!” And the tips section is added value.

Decide which one of these items will have the main call to action in this issue of the newsletter. Make sure the main call to action is the most prominent visually, and the most compellingly written. The other three items can also have calls to action, but they shouldn’t match the prominence of the main call to action in copy or design.

How Can E-Newsletter Design Engage Readers?

The presentation of content plays a significant part in whether or not that content is noticed, read, and clicked on. Together, design and content work together to engage and inform. Ways to engage readers through the use of design include colors used, responsive design, alt text, and interactive elements, and so many more.

Throughout the design, make sure you are using brand logos and colors to pull the newsletter together. Stick to a few colors rather than assigning a different color component to each content piece. Then, use those colors in meaningful ways—headlines are all the same color, links are a different color, but all the same color, and all section breaks are a third color. Any logos should be linked to your website for easy navigation.

More and more, we’re consuming content on our mobile devices. That means your newsletter must be easily consumed and clickable on mobile. First, make sure your font and font size are readable on a mobile screen. I’m on two email lists and both organizations use a font that is too small, requiring me to zoom into read copy, then move the copy block around the screen to finish reading. Make sure the fonts you are using are “web safe.” In addition to fonts, make sure the main call to action link is a button, not linked text. Buttons are easier to click on mobile than lines of text.

Some readers choose not to download images with the download of email content. That’s why it is important to include alternate text on the images you’re using in your newsletter. Alternate text is the description of a photo that is displayed when an image doesn’t download. Including alternate text also helps the sight-impaired know what image is being displayed, as their text readers will not only read the copy in the article, but also the alternate text contained in the image file.

An effective way to nurture engagement is to tastefully incorporate a one-question survey into the newsletter design. Use the survey question to learn more about customers, and to help them take action and engage with your content. Be creative as to where this interactive element is placed and displayed so that it’s easy for the reader to engage.

There are even more ways to engage customers through your company’s email newsletter. We’ve named a few, now it’s your turn! Tell us how your subscribers are engaging with the content in your email newsletter.

With your ideas and our skillsets, the SHERPA team stands ready to helpfully guide you to an effective email marketing strategy or through a dynamic web development project. Connect with a SHERPA today!

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