In life, we measure all sorts of things. Weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar all help keep tabs on our health. Measuring cups and spoons ensure your built-from-scratch birthday cake comes out beautifully. “Measure twice, cut once” is a mantra among both professional carpenters and DIY home improvement enthusiasts.

Measuring success in business involves paying close attention to key performance indicators (KPIs). These are metrics that provide you guidance on how your small business marketing initiatives are performing. If you’re not moving the needle on your business objectives, KPIs can help you identify why.

There are some KPIs that stretch across different content platforms. For example, conversions and click-through rates. Both apply to social media, paid advertising, and email marketing. Others are specific to marketing platforms. Social media marketing benefits from monitoring likes, comments, and shares. 

8 Small Business Marketing KPIs to Include in Your Marketing Strategy

The following represents the most common types of small business marketing KPIs business leaders should be tracking and monitoring.

1) Website Traffic

Your website is often the first point of contact between your business and potential customers. As such, it’s essential to track how many people are visiting your site. The number of visitors to your site, also known as website traffic, is one of the most important small business marketing KPIs to track because it gives you a sense of how well your website is performing in attracting potential customers.

To track website traffic, you can use tools like Google Analytics. This tool allows you to assess the number of site visitors, how long they’re staying, which pages they’re visiting, and much more. By analyzing this data, you can identify which pages on your site are most popular and which ones might need improvement.

2) Conversion Rate

While website traffic is a crucial KPI to track, it’s not the only metric that matters. Ultimately, the goal of your small business marketing efforts is to convert visitors into customers. That’s where conversion rate comes in. It’s necessary to keep in mind a “conversion” doesn’t necessarily mean a “sale.” Conversion rate measures the percentage of visitors to your site who take a specific action, such as filling out a form, making a purchase, or signing up for a newsletter. 

To calculate your conversion rate, divide the number of conversions by the total number of visitors to your site, then multiply by 100. For example, if you had 100 visitors to your site and 10 of them made a purchase, your conversion rate would be 10%.

By tracking your conversion rate, you can identify areas where you might be losing potential customers and make changes to improve your website’s performance.

3) Cost per Acquisition

Another key small business marketing KPI to track is the cost per acquisition (CPA). This metric measures the total cost of acquiring a new customer, including all marketing expenses, divided by the number of new customers acquired.

To calculate your CPA, add up all your marketing expenses—such as advertising costs, content creation costs, and any other expenses related to acquiring new customers—then divide that by the number of new customers you acquired during that period.

Tracking your CPA is beneficial, because it allows you to determine how much you’re spending to acquire new customers. If your CPA is higher than the amount you make from each new customer, then you might need to re-evaluate your small business marketing strategies or find ways to reduce your expenses.

4) Customer Lifetime Value

Customer lifetime value (CLV) is a KPI that measures the total amount of revenue you can expect to earn from a single customer over the course of their lifetime. This metric is helpful because it allows you to determine how much you should be willing to spend on acquiring new customers.

CLV takes into account the revenue a customer generates over the course of their relationship with your business. For example, if you run an online store and a customer makes a purchase of $50, you might be tempted to think of that as a one-time $50 transaction. However, if that customer continues to make purchases from your store over time, their total lifetime value to your business could be much higher.

To calculate CLV, you’ll need to determine the average amount of revenue you earn from a single customer per year and multiply that by the number of years you expect them to remain a customer. For example, if the average customer spends $100 per year and you expect them to remain a customer for five years, their CLV would be $500.

Here’s the thing: CLV is not a one-size-fits-all metric. Different businesses will have different CLVs based on their industry, target audience, and pricing strategies. A business that sells high-end luxury items typically has a much higher CLV than a business that sells low-cost, disposable products.

Once you have a good understanding of your CLV, you can use it to make informed decisions about how much you should be willing to spend on acquiring new customers. If your CLV is $500, you might be willing to spend up to $250 to acquire a new customer (assuming a 50% profit margin).

Tracking CLV is a meaningful small business marketing KPI because it helps you make informed decisions about how to allocate your marketing resources. Doing so ensures you’re getting the most value out of your marketing efforts.

5) Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is closely related to CPA, yet they differ in their scope and calculation.

CAC is a metric that calculates the average cost of acquiring a new customer. It takes into account all the expenses involved in the marketing and sales efforts to attract and convert potential customers into actual customers. The purpose of CAC is to help small businesses understand how much they need to invest to gain a new customer, which can then be compared with CLV to assess the profitability and sustainability of the business.

CAC is calculated as follows:

• CAC = (Total Marketing and Sales Expenses) / (Number of New Customers Acquired)

CAC specifically focuses on the cost of acquiring a new customer, while CPA measures the cost of obtaining a specific action or conversion from users. Both metrics are essential for understanding the efficiency of small business marketing efforts, but they serve different purposes and can be applied to different aspects of a marketing campaign.

6) Return on Investment (ROI)

ROI, or return on investment, measures the amount of revenue generated by your marketing efforts compared to the cost of those efforts. Essentially, it tells you how much you’re getting back for every dollar you spend on marketing.

To calculate ROI, you’ll need to know the revenue generated by your marketing efforts and the total cost of those efforts. As an example, if you spent $1,000 on a marketing campaign and generated $5,000 in revenue from that campaign, your ROI would be:

• ROI = (Revenue – Cost) / Cost
• ROI = ($5,000 – $1,000) / $1,000
• ROI = 4

This means that for every dollar you spent on the campaign, you generated $4 in revenue.

Tracking ROI as a small business marketing KPI is important, as it helps you understand the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. If your ROI is high, it means your marketing efforts are generating a significant amount of revenue compared to the cost. However, if your ROI is low (or negative), it may indicate that you need to adjust your marketing strategy to improve effectiveness.

Tracking ROI can help you make informed decisions about where to allocate your marketing budget. If you have two marketing campaigns that cost the same amount, but one has a higher ROI, it may make sense to invest more in the campaign with the higher ROI.

7) Social Media Engagement

Social media engagement refers to the level of interaction your audience has with your social media content. There are a few different social media engagement metrics you should be tracking, including:

Likes. Likes are a basic form of engagement that indicate someone enjoyed your post. Tracking the number of likes your posts receive can give you a sense of what types of content your audience finds most appealing.

Comments. Comments are a more in-depth form of engagement that indicate someone took the time to write a response to your post. Tracking the number of comments your posts receive can give you a sense of how engaged your audience is with your content and provide valuable feedback on what they like (or dislike) about your business.

Shares. Shares are when someone shares your post with their own network. Tracking the number of shares your posts receive can help you reach a wider audience and increase brand awareness.

Followers. The number of followers you have on social media is an imperative metric to track because it gives you a sense of how many people are interested in your business and want to see more of your content.

Click-through rate (CTR). CTR measures the number of clicks that your social media posts receive compared to the number of impressions (e.g. the number of times your post was shown to someone). This can help you understand how effective your social media content is at driving traffic to your website or other online platforms.

By tracking these social media engagement metrics, you can gain valuable insights into what types of content your audience finds most engaging. This helps you understand how you can optimize your social media strategy to reach a wider audience and build a stronger online presence for your small business. By monitoring social media engagement, you can identify opportunities to respond to customer feedback, address concerns, and engage in meaningful conversations with your audience.

8) Email Open and Click-Through Rates

Email marketing can be a game-changing way for small businesses to connect with potential and existing customers. However, to get the most out of your email marketing efforts, you cannot ignore open and click-through rates.

Email open rate measures the percentage of people who open your emails. It’s vital to track this metric because it gives you a sense of how interested your subscribers are in your content. A low open rate could indicate your subject lines aren’t compelling enough or that your subscribers aren’t engaged with your brand.

To improve your open rates, consider testing different subject lines to see what resonates with your audience. Additionally, segmenting your email list and sending targeted messages to specific groups can help increase open rates by ensuring your subscribers receive content that’s relevant to their interests.

Click-through rate (CTR) measures the percentage of people who click on a link within your email. This tells you how effective your email content is at driving traffic to your website or other online platforms.

To improve your CTR, make sure your email content is engaging and includes clear calls-to-action (CTAs) that encourage subscribers to click through to your website or landing page. Segmenting your email list and sending targeted messages to specific groups can help improve CTR by ensuring your subscribers receive content that’s relevant to their interests.

To calculate your email open and click-through rates, divide the number of opens or clicks by the number of emails sent, then multiply by 100 to get a percentage. For example, if you sent 1,000 emails and 200 people clicked on a link in your email, your CTR would be 20%.

By tracking these email marketing KPIs, you can gain valuable insights into how engaged your email subscribers are and identify opportunities to improve your email marketing strategy. And, by segmenting your email list and sending targeted messages to specific groups, you can increase the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts and drive more traffic to your website or other online platforms.

Small Business Marketing KPIs Evolve Your Business for the Better

Tracking small business marketing KPIs is a crucial part of any business’s operations. Doing so provides valuable insights into your marketing performance and allows you to make data-driven decisions about where to best allocate resources.

Ultimately, by tracking these KPIs, you better understand your audience, optimize your small business marketing strategies, and drive growth for your business.

The post How to Excel at Small Business Marketing: Top Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to Track appeared first on Crackerjack Marketing.

I don’t need to tell you that as a small business owner, you have a lot going on day in and day out. One look at your calendar, inbox, or stack of voicemail messages paints a picture. In your position, it can often seem like you have to “do it all.” 

Or should I say: one look at my calendar/inbox/whatever. It’s a disaster and I’m not proud of it, but it’s the life of an business owner.

Might there be a better way to accomplish your business goals? The short answer is yes. Outsource as much as you can!

This is a bit of, “do as I say, not as I do.” I’m really good at outsourcing some things, but sometimes struggle to let go of others. On the whole, though, over the nearly 13 years that my agency has existed, I’d say I’m winning on the letting go wars! And you can too.

If there are business and marketing activities that you wrestle with, outsource them!. Doing so will allow you to do more of what you’re good at and less of what you’re not. Before you head down that path, here are a few things to think about.

Step One: Identify Exactly the Work You Want to Offload

The first step is to clearly identify the type of work  you want to outsource—and what you want that to look like. For example: 

Outsource Your Marketing

Marketing is one of the biggest challenges businesses face. Unless you’re a business owner who also has a marketing background, marketing strategy and mechanics can feel overwhelming. There’s so much to cover: 

• Content marketing (website copy, assets like one-pagers, case studies, testimonials)
• Email marketing
• Social media marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Webinar development
• Paid advertising
• SEO
• And much more…

Even if you have all of those in hand, you have to pull everything together in a focused marketing strategy. Are your eyes glazing over yet? It is a lot, especially when you have your business to conduct beyond the marketing pieces.

I’m not going to lie. It is a lot to manage. Yet, marketing is crucial to business growth. It doesn’t matter how innovative your business solution is or if your product is knock-your-socks-off fantastic if consumers don’t know about it. You can also have the greatest sales team among your competitors, but they’ll spend a lot of time twiddling their thumbs if marketing isn’t sufficient or effective enough to get consumers through the door.

So: Outsource your marketing! Of course, I’m going to say: Call me! We can do it for or with you! But there are many other ways to outsource, as we’ll discuss later in this post. 

Outsource Your Financial Management

Does the financial aspect of running your small business put your brain in a frenzy (balance sheets, P&L statements, cash flow records)? That’s not surprising, especially if you’re more of a right-brained creative innovator. 

The good news here is you may not need someone with CPA, CFA, or CIA credentials (read: expensive). Oftentimes, a skilled bookkeeper is experienced enough to perform key financial duties and comes in at a more reasonable price point.

We hired a wonderful bookkeeping team a couple of years ago and it has made a HUGE difference in our business. I no longer worry about sending invoices on time or reconciling bank statements, it’s all done for me, and worth every penny to ensure our money is well looked after.

Outsource Your Human Resources Functions

What is your human resources management situation? In many cases, small business owners do this on top of everything else, sometimes by necessity. If this is you, I would offer a word of caution. There are certain rules and regulations, mandated by the government, that you may not fully have a handle on. And depending on the size of your business, serving in a human resources capacity, as the business owner, could also be a conflict of interest. Each role requires specific strategies surrounding employee issues, so crossing those boundaries has the potential to become problematic. 

Even if you only have a handful of employees, it’s probably a good idea to at least meet with an attorney or human resources consultant to make sure you’re following everything to the letter of the law. We regularly ask HR questions of our business attorney, and she’s referred us to an HR consultant for answers to a few specific questions.

Outsource Your Customer Support

Customer support is another key business component that can make or break your business’s potential. Do you or your employees have the bandwidth to address customers’ needs in a timely manner? If you or your employees are handling customer support, do you have the knowledge to accurately provide assistance? For instance, if you have someone that is doing product development on the widget you sell, and a customer calls in saying X, Y, or Z doesn’t work, what happens then?

When outsourcing customer support, it’s imperative for that person or team of people to be fully trained in what you sell, how it works, and what to do when it fails. We recommend that you start by hiring someone for a couple of hours a day, with a super clear scope of work. Here’s an excellent example of a customer service job description I recently came across.

There are many more jobs and processes you can outsource, such as IT, administrative tasks, and shipping/logistics. The above are just examples to get you thinking about what it could look like to free up brain power and time so you can focus on what you do best.

Step Two: Determine Options for Small Business Outsourcing

Outsourcing business and marketing activities takes many forms. It’s important to determine the best option for your specific needs. Some questions you might ask yourself include:

• Is it something that can be streamlined using an automated tool?
• Or, do you need a hands-on human to drive the bus?
• Will you need someone to work with you full-time? Part-time? 
• Will they be an employee or an independent contractor? 
• Do you actually have enough business to hire an agency?

Budget will factor into your decision-making process. However, remember to offset the benefits you’ll be getting by allowing for more time and focus in your day.

Step Three: Be Clear About Expectations

Setting clear expectations applies to both the outsourced entity and the business owner. I can’t tell you the number of times a prospective client has come to Crackerjack Marketing and didn’t really know what they wanted to achieve. In fact, sometimes, they asked questions of my team they should have known long before arriving on the CJM doorstep. 

If you need marketing support, what does that entail? What are you currently set up to do and what needs development and expansion? What do you hope to accomplish: greater brand awareness, more sales/conversions, improved brand reputation, a leg up on your competitors? “Marketing” is not one singular thing that accomplishes a bunch of goals in one fell swoop. 

This goes for any business function you outsource. Before you hire external help, make sure everyone is on the same page.

Step Four: Focus on the Long View (When It’s Needed)

With some business initiatives, outsourcing helps almost immediately. Others take time. Marketing, for instance, takes time to gain traction. If you hire an email marketing or social media guru one day, it’s unrealistic to expect major results the next. Brand awareness is a process, as is building up your brand reputation. It may take weeks to generate enough positive reviews to offset any negative ones. 

Rome wasn’t built in a day and your new processes won’t be either. Of course, if an outsourced entity is working against your business and marketing goals, it’s clearly not a good fit, and time to look elsewhere.

Is Outsourcing Right for Your Small Business Goals?

Outsourcing can be a valuable strategy in running a successful small business. Yet, it does require thoughtfulness and a clear focus towards what you want to accomplish. Before you hire a consultant, contractor, or agency, make sure you know exactly what you need and what your goals are—and be prepared for the timeline it will require to realize results.  
If marketing is the thing you need the most help with, we’re here to help. Crackerjack Marketing offers many different options for helping small businesses thrive, no matter the size. Contact us if you’d like to learn more.

The post Small Business Best Practices For Outsourcing Business and Marketing Activities appeared first on Crackerjack Marketing.

Are you currently using buyer personas in your marketing and business strategies? If not, you should be! Creating buyer personas can be the difference between marketing that works and marketing that doesn’t.

Buyer personas help you understand who represents your target audience. They define certain characteristics that you can then use in your marketing efforts to generate lead generation. It’s more than just demographics. It’s about really understanding who your buyer is, how they think and what they feel. Buyer personas help you tailor messaging and creative elements across your marketing content and assets.

One question I would pose is, how diverse are your buyer personas? Are they “truly” reflecting an accurate representation of your target audience? By creating a diverse set of buyer personas, you open up opportunities to a wider audience and foster business growth.

The Many Opportunities to Diversify Your Buyer Persona Universe

Buyer personas are kind of a big deal. Just do an internet search for “buyer persona template” and you’ll generate endless results. There are dozens of respected resources that offer templates designed to lighten the load for business and marketing leaders.

These templates do offer a good place to start. But we think marketing leaders need to go much deeper. There are many racial, ethnic, cultural, gender, age, and spiritual differences among consumers that can’t be tied up in a neat buyer persona bow. Reducing your target audience to a general demographic only hurts your potential.

For example, culture groups exhibit unique purchasing habits. In many Asian cultures, there’s a significant focus on collectivism versus individualism. Buying decisions are heavily influenced by what’s best for the family as a whole or even an entire community—rather than what’s best for just one person at that moment. Using “pop culture” references can easily get lost on certain cultural groups as well.

Racial representation and equality is another area that has been historically lacking. Despite a marketer’s best intentions, and anti-racist beliefs, representation may fall short. Buyer personas that are too broad don’t take into account the value of making sure consumers of every race can see themselves in a brand’s marketing. The same can be said for gender, sexual orientation, individuals living with a disability, and age. People want to know a brand is talking to them, too; not just the person who might be sitting next to them on the train.

Unfortunately, research reveals we’re still not doing a great job at this. A study conducted last year by Facebook IQ found that 54% of consumers do not feel fully represented in online ads. Underrepresentation spans multiple groups. Forbes Senior Contributor Charles Taylor states, “…surveys show that approximately two-thirds of Active Agers agree that adults age 55+ are still represented in unfair ways in advertising and marketing.” Jane Cunningham, one of the authors of Brandsplaining: Why Marketing is (Still) Sexist And How To Fix It, is quoted in this New York Times article saying, “It’s just a complete misunderstanding about the way that women think.”

One factor that may not be studied as much is one’s religious and spiritual beliefs. Research by Didem Kurt, J. Jeffrey Inman, and Francesca Gino, published in Harvard Business Review, found that people with strong religious beliefs spend less than the opposite cohort, as well as make fewer impulse purchases. This is essential information if you’re a consumer brand that serves a highly-religious community.

Removing Biases and Stereotypes

Some experts argue that buyer personas are actually an “outdated” approach to marketing. Perhaps they think personas are ineffective and thus a waste of time. I would argue that buyer personas are only ineffective if marketers don’t take the time and effort to fully understand their prospective and current target audience. Marketers also have to recognize their own potential biases when it comes to building buyer personas.

In this regard, I agree with Marguerite Moore, a strategist with an M.A. in Integrated Marketing and Communications. She writes, “There is still a place for personas, but they’re not innocuous tools. Any time you segment groups, you’re creating generalizations, and those generalizations always have the potential to perpetuate stereotypes. If we continue to create personas, we need to acknowledge our own biases as marketers, create astute observations, recognize groups as multifaceted and dynamic, and intentionally examine how intersectionality impacts groups.”

Representation Matters

Using standard buyer personas can also cause a brand to overlook the experiences and perspectives of marginalized groups, such as people of color, the LGBTQ+ community, and people with disabilities. This lack of representation can result in the brand not understanding the unique needs and preferences of these groups, and failing to create marketing messages and images that resonate with them.

This lack of representation can have a damaging effect on the brand perception in the marketplace, making it difficult to attract new customers.

Improving Buyer Persona Effectiveness

To promote diversity and inclusion, brands can focus on understanding their customers as individuals with unique needs, preferences, and experiences. This requires going beyond research by engaging with diverse communities, listening to their voices, and creating marketing efforts that resonate with a broad range of customers.

One concept that may help remove biases and increase representation is creating a “brand table.” Imagine you’re throwing a dinner party—you’d want a diverse and interesting set of guests, who are all there because you are the connector between them. Brands should want the same thing for their customers: a variety of people with different perspectives and interests, and a common thread in your brand, product, or service.

Expanding your buyer personas to be more diverse and representative opens up new opportunities for business growth. No one expects this to change overnight. To be truly authentic with your audience and market strategy, it will take some effort. It’s worth it.

Developing buyer and audience personas is one part of our process in developing social media marketing  strategies that work. If you’d like to help with your social media marketing strategy, Crackerjack Marketing can help. Connect with one of our experts today.

The post Championing Representation and Equality: Why Diverse Buyer Personas Are Important appeared first on Crackerjack Marketing.

Small business owners are often tasked with playing many roles within their company (if not all the roles). You’re the CEO, human resources manager, customer support professional, IT coordinator…the list never ends. That’s why time management is so important—not just to ensure the business keeps humming but also to allow room for small business growth.

How can you best manage all the duties and distractions that occur daily and still maintain a positive work-life balance? Here are some tips to consider.

Secrets for Creating More Time (and Productivity) in Your Business Day

1) Beware of the multitasking myth.

Research says true multitasking is impossible and takes more time than if a person is focused solely on one task at a time. According to some experts, multitasking is the antithesis of time management. Neuropsychologist Cynthia Kubu, PhD, of the prestigious Cleveland Clinic, says humans are designed to be “monotaskers” and that trying to do too many things at once reduces productivity, efficiency, and our ability to learn.

It also raises the risk of making mistakes. In business, that’s never a good place to find yourself. In my early days of composing and deploying email marketing campaigns, there were times when I wasn’t intently focused on a particular element of the email (copy, email list, day/time). The culprit? Multitasking. Thankfully, I typically caught the mistake during the email marketing test review. Yet, you can see how that process suddenly took nearly twice as long. I regretted losing the precious time I could not recoup.

Today, I’ve learned to be better about attempting to multitask, and it’s made a significant difference in time management and productivity. It’s not always easy, especially when a really critical sporting event is on the TV in the background. We all know the “Big Game” is coming up, and it’s been a tough distraction for me to endure throughout the last weeks of the NFL season and during the playoffs. (Don’t even get me started on Dodgers baseball…)

Here’s my advice: If you want to watch a game-changing portion of your favorite event, take a moment of quiet to recenter, or actually sit down to eat lunch—give yourself a gift, put your work aside, and do it!

2) Consider implementing a project management tool.

There are many free project management (PM) tools available. Some popular ones include monday.com, Notion, Airtable, and Teamwork. Each has its own “best for” application for time management, per a Forbes summary. For example, the Forbes article says Teamwork is best for milestones while monday.com is better suited for brainstorming. These tools can be helpful for organizing your day/week/month, offering a structured portal for to-do lists, communication between team members, and small business goals.

The one piece of advice I would offer is to be cautious about how much time such a tool will ultimately take out of your day. That is, will it really be a “time management” promoter? If you’re not a PM-tool kind of person, and it will incur more work than it’s worth, it may not be the best route for you. Project management solutions are often best utilized in a multi-departmental company where there are multiple teams/team members working on different projects across the company’s services. For a solopreneur, paper and pen task tracking might be the right choice!

3) Explore any processes that could be automated—or at least reduced.

The thought of “automation” can be both tempting and frightening. You want to be able to offload some work, but there’s always the chance the automation mechanism will fail. The good news is, the technology and processes behind automated marketing and business tools have improved dramatically over the past few years.

For instance, email marketing platforms/providers allow you to set up emails and schedule for future deployment (e.g., MailChimp, Constant Contact). There are social media tools that allow you to do the same (Sprout, Later, Hootsuite, Hubspot). Set aside a chunk of time (no multitasking!) and create a bundle of emails or social media posts and then get them loaded and scheduled to deploy/post at a later time or date. By dedicating a truly-focused period of time to this activity, you free up hours to focus on other small business operations.

If you have the bandwidth—and the need for timely customer support—there are also automated customer service options. Of course, you’ll want to thoroughly vet any vendor in this regard as your customers are the foundation of your business. A poor customer service experience can leave you with one or more lost patrons.

4) Think about outsourcing certain tasks that don’t need a lot of micro-managing.

Again, it’s sometimes unsettling to think about giving up control of portions of small business operations. You are, after all, the visionary who has put in the blood, sweat, and tears to make your company a success.

Yet, there are certain time-consuming tasks that could be weighing you down and preventing your business from growing. Think about this: Would it take 30 minutes to update a teeny-tiny thing on your website because you need to be tech-savvy? Someone who is adept at this could do it in a sixth of that time. Or, do you wrestle with financial reports because you’re a right-brained creative? Hiring a bookkeeper or accountant may free up an invaluable amount of time.

Sites like Upwork and Fiverr offer affordable options, but you can always lean into word-of-mouth recommendations from colleagues who have had excellent experiences with the professionals they have outsourced to.

5) Don’t be afraid to silence your notifications.

It’s okay to hit pause! We don’t always have to be “on” or available. Often, that ding of an instant messaging notification or new email gets you off track—whether you’re working on marketing efforts or any other task.

Certainly, there are times when you want to be keeping an eye on notifications—particularly if it’s something timely. Maybe you’re facing a deadline or you’re expecting to hear from a high-profile client.

My (personal) recommendation is to learn to set expectations. If you condition clients/customers that you will be available 24/7, it’s difficult to break that pattern. If one of your employees comes to assume you’ll be answering an email at midnight, that’s also hard to reverse. By establishing those expectations and boundaries up front, you’ll help avoid unfulfilled expectations down the road. Plus, you’ll preserve that ever-important work-life balance.

6) Only create “to-do” lists if they work for you.

Sometimes, looking at a running list that has nothing fully completed causes more stress. I can attest to this! I’m a pen-to-paper kind of gal, and I always have my notebook within reach. At times, it provides structure to my day and week. Other times, it serves as a reminder that I have not been as productive as I should have been—which generates anxiety and stress.

I’ll admit, I’ve written tasks down that I have already completed, just so I can cross them off my list. In the moment, doing so provides a sense of accomplishment (and neurologically, a rush of dopamine). In the long term, that strategy isn’t sustainable. Research reported on by Harvard Business Review notes, “…not completing tasks occupies your mind: You seem unable to forget tasks you’ve started but haven’t completed, so you have a hard time devoting your full attention to other activities.”

Ultimately, if a to-do list is a great time management tool for you, use it! Just be aware of the potential detrimental effects it could have on your productivity.

7) Plan ahead as much as you can.

I really should have put this one up top, because “strategy” is one of our biggest focuses at Crackerjack Marketing. Too often, small business owners are playing catch-up. The social media post that was supposed to go up on Monday is only now just getting approved on Wednesday. It’s easy to see how the catch-up game can spin out of control.

What would it look like to have some breathing room, because you’ve strategized far in advance? This doesn’t take a lot of time and effort, once you learn some real-time, viable strategy tools to put (and keep) in your marketing toolkit. It’s one of the key components of our Business Marketing Blueprint program, which aids small business owners like coaches, consultants, and service providers in both creating an actionable marketing plan and then executing it. A plan without follow-through becomes just a plan collecting dust.

8) Be kind to yourself.

This advice is easy to dish out to others, but it can sometimes be hard to accept ourselves. We’re business owners! We need to get things done! Deadlines won’t wait!

Still, your mental and emotional health is absolutely necessary for you to be able to be the business owner you know you can be. We all go through events in life—whether good, bad, or neutral—that require us to step back and give ourselves some time to breathe, mourn, and celebrate. A family member’s illness, a personal injury, a best friend’s wedding, a child’s graduation, a Big Game win… As a small business owner, a great deal of your life revolves around business. But, you have to take care of yourself, too. Otherwise, what is it all for?

Time Management = A Boost to Your Bottom Line

Time management is, in concept, about “time.” Yet, its benefits expand beyond providing you with more hours in your day. When you can strategically prioritize your time, it allows you to progress in various aspects of your small business.

For example, innovation. You will finally have the mental capacity to truly bring your ideas to life—not just theorize them in your mind. Also, it gives you the time you need to market your business to customers and prospects. You can have the most genius product or service on the planet, but those offerings remain hidden unless people know who you are and what you do.

At Crackerjack, we often see gaps where our clients don’t. Some of them do involve time management—but there are other areas in which we provide expert guidance. If you’re feeling a little underwater, or aren’t quite sure what might be holding you back, we’re happy to help. Connect with us today and we’ll brainstorm some solutions.

In the meantime, go watch the Big Game—we hope your favorite team wins!

The post 8 Time Management Tips for Small Business Owners: Boost Your Productivity appeared first on Crackerjack Marketing.

Remember 9th grade chemistry? Trying to learn all those formulas and hoping an unfortunate experiment gone wrong might cancel the rest of class?

Well, that was my experience. I’m not “science-minded” by any stretch of the imagination.

But, I do understand that when things come together in the right combination, something magical can happen. Even the most basic, elemental components are capable of producing groundbreaking results.

In marketing, there are also the “basics.” For example, marketing channels: email, social media, your website, paid advertising. Another essential component is SEO.

The Winning Content Formula

As a business owner, you know these are key tactics to engage your audience and get more leads. How you use those channels becomes specific to your unique business. It becomes your winning content formula. Let’s look at some examples:

Brand Story

Whether in your emails, blogs, social media, or any other place customers and potential customers find you, they need to understand what your company is all about. Not just what you do, but who you are. Your brand story should form an emotional connection with your audience. It might include things like:

• Why did you start your business?
• How long have you been in business?
• What obstacles did you encounter along the way?
• What’s an example of a client you helped achieve their goals?
• Why is your business unique?

One great way to add to your brand story is through user-generated content (UGC). Who better to bring an authentic, outside view of your business than someone who has had a good experience with it? Here are just a few ways to incorporate UGC in your marketing:

• Photos and videos on social media. If someone tags your brand, engage with them! Reshare, post a comment, give them a shout-out in any way.
• Testimonials. Sometimes it can feel uncomfortable to ask for a customer testimonial, but many times people are more than happy to share how you helped them.
• Reviews. You can also use positive feedback from your reviews to promote your business via other marketing channels (e.g. email, website, social media).

Tone/Voice

How you “speak” to your audience is sometimes dependent on the industry in which you operate. While it’s important across industries for customers and prospects to view you as an expert in your field, the tone or voice you use in your messaging can have limitations.

For example, a financial services consultant or insurance agency owner likely benefits from a very professional, straightforward approach. But, a nutrition coach or personal fitness trainer has the liberty of using lighter, more playful messaging. This is not to say the former can never have fun with their communications – but it may be best reserved for something like holiday greetings.

This also includes your use of memes or emojis in your content marketing. Again, it may be more appropriate in some industries versus others.

Frequency

Consistency should always be front and center within your marketing efforts. This keeps your business top of mind. Yet, the frequency with which you deploy communications might vary based on your industry.

Going back to the nutrition coach – you might think about posting a nutrition tip every day on social media, or even sending a daily email with “Today’s Bite.” The insurance agency may decide to post daily on social media but not necessarily send an email every day.

One word of caution: You never want to sacrifice quality for quantity. If you can’t produce high-quality content at the frequency you desire, it’s time to scale back. Believe me, your audience will respond to well-thought out ideas and advice far better than something you threw together at the 11th hour.

It can be a little overwhelming to keep track of all your content marketing, whether it’s email, social media, or blog posts. That’s why it’s so imperative to have a structured editorial calendar. This will allow you to get a comprehensive view of which channels you’re posting in, the topic, frequency, and “type” of content (e.g. welcome email vs. nurture email vs. offer/promotional email).

Idea Generation

The recipe concept also applies to which topics you write about. It’s very rare that a competitor in your industry is reinventing the wheel – even though we’re often fearful that is taking place!

Here’s an example: We all know that moving our bodies is good for us. It’s certainly better than a sedentary lifestyle. But, “moving your body” means one thing to some personal trainers and another thing to others. Think: cardio versus weight training, or high-intensity interval training (HIIT) versus steady, time-paced runs.

Taking a basic premise is the starting point of idea generation. Then, you can put your own flavor on it to bring it to life for your particular product or service. Even if you and a competitor agree on the approach (e.g. HIIT is the bomb!), you can still talk about it in a unique way.

A Word on SEO

I want to quickly circle back to SEO. This is one area where it’s difficult to apply your own spin. There are certain standards that remain steadfast when optimizing your website for SEO (e.g. title tags, keywords, image tags, internal links, backlinks). When algorithm updates occur, they impact everyone.

And while SEO is often perceived as a complex, insurmountable summit to climb, there are simple actions you can take to improve your ranking and visibility, such as:

• Removing any broken/dead links
• Avoiding duplicate content
• Performing keyword research
• Improving load time (the time it takes to load your web pages)
• Keeping URLs as simple/short as possible
• Adhering to SEO best practices, such as blog word count

What’s Your Winning Content Formula?

You certainly don’t have to be a chemist to create a winning content formula for your company. In following these tips, you can build a presence that reflects who you are, what you do, and why people should buy from you. Done with the right amount of each component, rest assured they will.

The post The Winning Content Formula appeared first on Crackerjack Marketing.

Is it possible to go a whole day online without seeing a meme? Wherever you look on social media, you find those amusing combinations of images and text sending a short, sharp message. Marketers can use memes in marketing, too.

Originally a meme was simply “an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture” (Merriam-Webster) but now it can be a piece of content – usually visual – that spreads quickly and may even go viral. A case in point: all the memes around Donald Trump, many of which focus on his hair and fake tan.

Getting Started with Memes

Using memes in your marketing can show that you’re in touch with what your customers are talking about. They can also give your brand some personality. For example, Grammarly has built an audience of more than 7 million by using images with grammar on Facebook and other social media channels. Several of these tap into popular memes.

Hubspot believes that memejacking is a great strategy for brands. That means hijacking a meme that you already know is popular and putting your own spin on it. That allows you to ride the trend while gaining more attention.

One tip: make sure you really understand what the meme is all about. Get it wrong and you could really hurt your image. Check out Mismeme on Reddit for some more examples.

Seven Tips on Using Memes for Marketing

So, how do you use memes effectively in your marketing strategy? Here are some tips:

1. Check to see what’s already popular. There are several great sources of meme intel including Know Your Meme and Memebase. Use those to see whether your planned meme is hot – or not!
2. Keep an eye on your social media streams. If you’re repeatedly seeing versions of the same image , that’s sure sign that a meme is on the rise.
3. Check out trending topics on your favorite social media site and see if there are any particular images that go along with them.
4. Keep tabs on current events that lend themselves to humor.
5. Decide on the idea and brainstorm some possible takes on it.
6. Use an online meme generator (try this Google search) to help you create it.
7. Be selective! Be sure that the meme is aligned with your brand. And, remember, in this case too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Too many memes can have a negative impact on your brand in social.

Tips for Meme Success

When creating memes, be careful about the copyright of the original images. If it’s not clear who owns them, you’d be better off creating your own. In fact, the Success Kid meme started when a photographer uploaded an image of her 11 month old son in 2007. People are still using this image for new memes today.

The final element you need for meme success is social sharing. Share your meme everywhere: on the main social media profiles and within groups. Don’t be afraid to share a meme more than once. The only exception is LinkedIn, where people generally expect more serious, business-related content. Other than that, use your normal content marketing workflow to help your memes to achieve their potential.

Used well, memes can be a useful part of your content marketing strategy so don’t be afraid to try them out.

The post Memes for Marketing: Should You Use Them? appeared first on Crackerjack Marketing.

It’s never pleasant to receive negative comments and reviews. You work hard to deliver your very best products and services, and bad feedback stings. However, every business receives negative feedback from time to time. It’s how you handle it that sets you apart and keeps your customers coming back to you despite one less-than-stellar experience. And it’s how you respond that influences new customers to give you a chance, despite any negative reviews. The most important thing to remember is that social media is a public forum. Your audience (current and potential customers) will be paying attention to how you handle criticism and complaints.

How to Handle Negative Comments About Your Brand

So how should you respond? Here’s a list of 6 best practices for dealing with negative reviews:

1. Check Your Ego at the Door

Criticism hurts no matter how tough you are or how long you’ve been in business, but suck it up, butter cup. It’s not about you, and usually, it’s not personal. The feedback you receive is all about your customer’s experience. You can’t change what’s already happened. The good news is, you can influence what happens next.

2. Respond Promptly

There’s little worse than letting negative feedback sit and fester because you don’t want to deal with it at the moment. Treat online feedback the way you would in-person complaints. If someone were to complain to a staff member onsite, how would you expect your employee to respond? Promptly, right? Respond to negative feedback you receive online with the same attention and speed you would give a customer standing right in front of you. Also, keep in mind that others will view your lack of response as an attempt to ignore the issue. If you already have an angry customer, expect the lack of response to make matters much, much worse.

3. Acknowledge the Complaint

It’s important to genuinely acknowledge the complaint. Don’t be defensive or use sarcasm. How do you want others to perceive your brand? You want to appear not only competent, but also interested in your customers. You want to demonstrate with every response that you care about customer experience. Don’t brush the problem off, make excuses, or attempt to minimize the customer’s complaint. Tell the customer you appreciate and value his feedback. Remember, it’s not necessarily what the complaint is about—it’s how you handle it that can make the biggest difference.

4. Follow Up

If the negative feedback was the result of a genuine problem with your products or services, take steps to fix the issue promptly. Then, invite your customer to try your product or service again, giving her incentive to do so. For example, you might offer a free meal or provide a discount on a future purchase.

5. Respond Publicly and Privately

In addition to responding to your customer’s comments publicly, contact him privately to address his concerns. Let him know you are genuinely sorry and want to make the issue right. Handling the issue in private demonstrates that you are truly committed to customer satisfaction and provides a personal touch customers appreciate.

6. Ask Your Customer to Remove the Negative Feedback

Once you are sure you have resolved the issues to your customer’s 100 percent satisfaction, ask her to remove the negative feedback or update it with her positive reaction to your attempts to fix the problem. Your customer may not fully understand how important positive feedback is to your business, but if asked, she may be willing to report how prompt and caring you were in resolving the issue.

Getting negative feedback isn’t the end of the world, especially if you handle it well. Use the above best practices to handle social media complaints the right way.

The post Negative Comments About Your Brand? Make Them Work for You appeared first on Crackerjack Marketing.

It’s only a small snippet of code, but it’s the difference between knowing whether your marketing is working or failing miserably. I’m talking about analytics software, which packs a powerful punch in terms of helping you to understand your website, social media profiles and customers and letting you know whether you’re succeeding in getting attention for your brand and making your business better known.

Marketing Analytics will Improve the Success of Your Campaigns

There are dozens of analytics tools around, but one of the best known is Google Analytics. So what can you learn with Google Analytics, and how will this affect your marketing?

1. Use Analytics for Audience Targeting

You get more from your marketing when you understand who your audience is. Analytics can help with that. Google Analytics can tell you:

• who’s visiting your site and what country, state (and sometimes city) they come from.
• what languages people speak.
• key demographics such as gender and age (you will have to enable this).

This information will help you see whether you are attracting the right audience.

2. Analyze Traffic and SEO

Google Analytics has a “traffic sources” report which is another good way to track marketing effectiveness. For best results, take a snapshot of the key metrics for your site at the start of a marketing campaign, so you can see how different initiatives affect visitor numbers.

The traffic sources report lets you see:

• how many people are coming directly to your site as their initial destination
• whether people are sending traffic your way (which probably indicates that they see you as an authority)
• whether SEO efforts are paying off in terms of search engine positioning
• how any paid marketing campaigns are doing

You can even figure out what people are looking for on your site so that if you’re not providing it you can improve your content.

3. Track Social Media Effectiveness

Google Analytics now tracks more social media data than ever before. That makes it a great tool for helping to check the effectiveness of social marketing campaigns. You can find out:

• which pages are most popular on social media
• which sites are linking to you most
• which sites are sharing your content.

It’s a good way to find out whether your customers are using social sites where you don’t have a presence. And when you use other tools to dig deeper you may find new advocates for your business that you can work with in different ways.

4. Tweak Content

Google Analytics lets you see which content titles and URLs attract the most visitors, as well as popular entrance and exit pages. That lets you know whether you need to amp up your headlines. Visitor flow shows you where you are losing people after they get to your site and that may suggest new content areas. You can also check for other issues that affect the effectiveness of your site, such as slow page load times which can drive visitors away.

5. Set Up Goals and Campaigns

If you’re marketing your business, you probably have a few goals in mind. You can set up goals and campaigns in Google Analytics, so you can see how many people are visiting your store and making a purchase, downloading a free resource or signing up for your email list. This will give you a handle on marketing conversions and see how marketing is helping your bottom line.

These are just a few of the ways in which you can use Google Analytics to improve your marketing.

The post How to Improve the Success of Your Marketing Campaigns with Analytics appeared first on Crackerjack Marketing.

So you’ve signed up for a bunch of social media accounts? Now, you can sit back and bask in your accomplishments, right? Wrong. So, so wrong. Signing up for social media accounts is only a small part of the battle. You need more than just a presence on well-known social media networks. You have to engage on them, and, well, be social. This means putting daily effort into developing your network and increasing your online visibility. How? By attending to housekeeping, monitoring, posting, and reaching out each day.

Here are some must-do tasks to include on your social media checklist:

Housekeeping

• Log in and check your messages daily. It sounds like a no-brainer but it’s way too easy to let slide when you’re busy with other things. Don’t let out-of-sight, out-of-mind thinking derail you from this.
• Respond thoughtfully. If your audience members reach out to you, the last thing you want to do is lose their interest by making them wait too long for your response. Don’t just hit the “like” button and think you’re done. Personal responses, thoughtful questions, and helpful advice will help you stand out from all the rest.
• Commit to posting on each of your social media accounts at least once per day (more is usually better) – and make each post relevant and sharable. Keep in mind, however, that your posts don’t always have to be long and involved. They can be as simple as a link, quote, or photo, or as meaty as an informative video you created or an in-depth article (or link to one). Mix things up! Nobody likes boring.

Monitoring

• Monitor your daily results. Check reviews and mentions of your business. This will help you stay on top of what people are saying about your business, so you can help keep the buzz going.
• Note which posts saw lots of engagement and which tweets fell, well, flat. This allows you to make better choices by learning what works and what doesn’t.
• Pay close attention to bad reviews and complaints. Of course you want to see positive mentions, but when bad reviews and complaints show up, your ongoing monitoring will pay off. You’ll be able to respond quickly to negativity and fix things or at least minimize the damage to your reputation.
• Watch the competition. Sure, you’re different and your business is the best out there, but there’s still plenty you can learn from your competition, both what to do and what to never, ever do.
• Find out who your friends are. Track increases and decreases in follower numbers and friends. Use the information you get to inform your marketing and social media efforts. Simply put, if it gets you a boost in numbers, keep doing it.

Reaching Out

• Socialize! Well, duh. Why are we telling you this? The unfortunate truth is that business people have a crazy way of forgetting that social media is supposed to be social. Work on beginning, developing, and nurturing relationships every single day.
• Set a goal. Connect with at least a few of your followers each day and initiate contact with the same number of new people. The attention you pay to others will boost their interest in your business, encourage sharing of your content, help you expand your network, build your reputation, and when all goes as planned, boost sales. Share content, like pages and posts, provide recommendations and endorsements, and even send good tidings on birthdays and anniversaries.
• Shut up about yourself. No one likes people who talk too much about themselves. Ask questions. Ask lots of questions, and then show genuine interest in the answers.

Take the time to accomplish the above each day. And remember, if you lack time to get it all done, you can delegate the responsibility to an employee or a social media firm – like Crackerjack Marketing! Reach out if we can help.

What’s on your social media checklist? Share with us!

The post Social Media Management Checklist appeared first on Crackerjack Marketing.

You are the social media Jedi, and your editorial calendar is The Force. Use The Force, my young Padawan. Use it well.

Making your blog or social media into an effective marketing tool is a challenge, and so many people get lost along the way. It’s harder than it sounds to not only post regularly but also post content that attracts the right type of traffic and keeps it coming back for more. Even harder is getting your audience to engage by commenting on your content and sharing it. When the going gets rough, though, you’re not at the mercy of fate. Here are three ways your blog or social media editorial calendar can make your job easier.

Mission #1: Post Regular Content

Posting regular content helps draw in traffic from the search engines and also gives your audience a reason to come back to your blog. They get used to reading your scintillating content on certain days and come back expecting more of the same. If your posting isn’t consistent, you will have a much harder time building a loyal audience.

The Force

Your blog editorial calendar will help you stay the course. You’ll have it right there in black and white—what you are supposed to post next and when. This makes it much harder to procrastinate and fall into the posting every now and then category.

Top Tip

When you create your blog editorial calendar, make columns to help you stay organized, including those for the month and the day you will publish; the topics, categories, and keywords you will cover; the images you will add; and any notes that may help you with your post.

Mission #2: Value-Filled Content

Create content of value for your audience. You could blab all day about the way your sofa swallows your remote control and the deals you got at the grocery store, but that’s only going to interest some audiences. You need to plan the right content for your unique audience.

The Force

Create a blog editorial calendar with various topic categories of interest to your audience (after you’ve done your research, of course). Then fill in post topics for each category. Use the calendar to ensure that you don’t focus too much on one topic or category and ignore the world of others you could cover.

Top Tip

So you get stuck for topic ideas? No worries. The rest of us are rowing along in the same boat with you. It’s always a good idea to spend time where your audience does and create content based on what they are discussing or asking. Don’t forget that you can, and probably should, turn those great questions and comments you receive via social media into blog posts as well.

Mission #3: Coordinate Marketing Efforts

Create content that marches in step with your other marketing efforts. Maybe you have a big promo coming up, an event, or a new product line coming out. Maybe you’re opening a new location or bringing some new, exciting talent on board. Shouldn’t your blog content reflect what you have going on in the present or coming up in the future? If it doesn’t, you’re missing out on an important chance to spread the word.

The Force

Use your editorial calendar to strategize around the release of blog content that works hand-in-hand with your other marketing efforts. Of course, many of your posts will be unrelated to your specific business activities, but when you have news, you want to share it. And when you aren’t posting specifically about your company’s going-ons, you may do well to share content that is somehow related. For example, if you are selling computers, posts about malware and anti-virus protection might fit the bill.

Top Tip

Guess what? If you’re cultivating an audience on social media, you need an editorial calendar for that as well. It’s a separate entity from your blog, and you’ll have different goals and rules of engagement. Here’s what you need to know about creating an editorial calendar for Facebook.

Become a social media Jedi, and tell us about how you’re using an editorial calendar to wrangle your content. We’d love to hear from you in the comments.

The post May the Force Be With You: Your Blog Editorial Calendar appeared first on Crackerjack Marketing.