I think small businesses, and marketing campaigns, fail because they try one or two things, it doesn't work, and boom - they're done. Instead of stopping, I think it's important to learn how to bounce. The harder you hit the pavement, the higher you bounce...
Slack is a team messaging app that has created a great deal of excitement since its release in February 2014. Those who use it love it, as shown in its high engagement rates.
If you’re considering implementing Slack as part of your marketing efforts, here are some statistics courtesy of DMR. Slack currently has 3 million daily active users and is growing at a rate of 3% to 5% each week. Over 75% of Fortune 100 companies use Slack and there are over 60,000 teams on the platform. Users actively spend 140 minutes per weekday on Slack. There's no doubt that Slack's highly engaged user base is growing fast. The opportunities for marketers to use the app to build a Slack community are, obviously, huge.
The team-orientation makes the platform a natural for building out your Slack community just like you would on LinkedIn or Google+. There are far fewer groups on Slack than there are on LinkedIn, so there’s little competition for getting new members. Of course you can just participate in relevant groups, but you’ll gain the greatest return by creating your own. Although creating a group on Slack is free, it does require some time and effort to build and sustain your community.
Writer Karin Winegar explains why despite all these new messaging channels, the basics of good writing never change “Keep it short and make it sing,” my late editor told me at the big Midwest newspaper when I started my job as a general assignment reporter. He’d had...
Profiles- This section shows images for the top 100 most relevant members to give you an idea of how they represent themselves visually. The top bio keywords this audience uses to describe themselves are also provided in a chart with bars that let you simultaneously see how other tribes use this term. The top categories of audience members and the devices they use to tweet from are also provided. Three different types of graphs are available for this data.
[caption id="attachment_12573" align="alignright" width="228"] In the bowl at Breckenridge, where my concussion happened.[/caption] Or what I like to call, forced unitasking. In late March of 2009 I had a freak skiing accident. I was launched like a lawn dart about 30 feet and landed on my noggin....
A business can never have too many qualified leads but it can be challenging turning traffic into customers. Surely, truer words have never been spoken. Despite the obvious impact of quality lead generation, most companies struggle in creating a comprehensive marketing strategy. Relying on one...
Designer's desk with responsive web design concept.[/caption]
The things that make a website great are somewhat debatable, but they all seem to fall under three categories: attributes, technology and organization. Under these three large umbrellas, there is a lot of room for creativity, passion and fun, all of which are important to get the consumer to click on the buy button.
We often try something once, or for a short time, and when there are no immediate results says “Well that doesn’t work.” It’s like lifting weights one day and expecting a tricep cut to develop overnight. I’m not suggesting that we all go out and spend a bajillion dollars on advertising. But I do think that in order for promotional tactics to work you have to learn to wait a bit.
Here are some questions to ask yourself to see if maybe your own sense of urgency has turned into a bad case of entrepreneurial impatience:
[caption id="attachment_12542" align="alignright" width="300"] Neil Blumenthal, founder of Warby Parker and a new entrepreneur.[/caption] Over the past few years as I've focused on integrated marketing and communications for my clients, I've often been asked for guidance from young entrepreneurs. My background is a bit unique, having...
Getting your content to resonate with your audience depends to a large extent on the customer experience, in other words their journey to making a purchase. Prospects in the early stages of research have different needs than those that are closer to making a decision. Creating content that gets noticed isn’t just about finding the right keywords. Although some content marketers place a significant amount of emphasis on the search for high-volume keywords, that approach is short-sighted.
Top-of-the-funnel generic keywords are bound to have greater search volume than those used for specific situations. For example, there will be more searches for “productivity widgets” than “productivity widget integration ISO 9000.” Yet, there may be a strategic reason for creating more content that addresses the needs of those lower volume searches. More on that in a moment.
Despite all the "fancy" customer experience stuff out there, people always have and always will follow five basic steps; problem resolution, information gathering, solution evaluation, purchase, post-purchase behavior. The names may have changed, but the song remains the same. Whether it’s B2B or B2C, people experience problems, look for solutions, figure out their best alternative, buy what they believe is the right choice, and engage in some sort of post-purchase interaction.
[Tweet "Stop chasing keywords and align your content with the customer experience. "]
Stop chasing keywords and align your content with the customer experience. Google handles trillions of searches per year and a good portion them are unique. If you can’t guess those keywords or their search volume, it’s tough to execute a keyword-oriented content strategy efficiently. However, if you are empathetic to your customer and their experience, creating content that meets their needs is far easier.
Let’s borrow a concept from the world of growth hackers and startups.