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12 Instagram Marketing Tips for Business

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By Marisa Sanfilippo,

Check out these tips to help drive your Instagram marketing strategy toward better engagement and higher ROI.

If you’re looking for a way to grow your business, you may want to consider Instagram marketing. Instagram is an essential part of many business owners’ social media marketing strategies. This guide covers the benefits of using Instagram for business and top Instagram marketing tips to follow.

Business benefits of using Instagram

Instagram is a smart marketing tool if your business has products and services that can be presented visually and your audience is active on the channel. If your business checks those boxes and you carefully plan and execute your Instagram social media marketing strategy, this social media channel can have these big benefits:

  • Increased brand awareness
  • Followers’ trust
  • Brand loyalty
  • A boost in website traffic
  • New leads
  • New customers
  • Repeat business

Instagram marketing tips and best practices

Instagram marketing strategies vary from business to business. Although the following Instagram marketing tips have been effective for select brands, you should cater each tip to your unique audience and sales offerings.

Know your audience.

If you don’t know your audience, you are essentially creating content blindly. Many small businesses think their audience is everyone, which is almost never the case.

To help pinpoint your target audience, HubSpot suggests creating buyer personas. A buyer persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. You can have more than one buyer persona, but limit them to five to ensure they are manageable. Include important details about your target audience, such as their demographics and how they think and act. For example, consider the following characteristics:

  • Age range (keep it within 10 years)
  • Specific location (city and state)
  • Job title
  • Gender
  • What motivates them at their job
  • What motivates them at home
  • Three main problems they have
  • Where they go for information (e.g., business.com, Facebook or a local radio station)
  • Any additional information you can identify (e.g., if they have pets and/or children, their salary range, their hobbies)

When developing buyer personas, make them as clear and as detailed as possible. The more specific your buyer personas are, the better you’ll succeed in creating content that appeals to your audience. If you’re unsure where to get this information, start by surveying your current customers. Email them a survey, letting them know how long it will take to fill out. Keep your questions brief, and offer multiple-choice and open-ended options.

To further entice your current customer base to take your survey, you could offer a promo code to be applied to their next purchase, and you might even get some extra business from it. If your business is brand-new and you really don’t have any idea where to begin with surveying your customers, reach out to your personal social media networks for assistance. There has to be an audience you had in mind when you started your company. Find those people, even if you have to go through your personal Facebook friends list and phone contacts.

Another option is to use a paid digital tool to survey a group of people. If you choose this route, start with an audience of 100 or fewer people, and increase it as needed. Sometimes, a small sample is helpful and saves you money.

Optimize your bio.

Your bio is an important part of your Instagram page, and it needs to be optimized. Include the following elements:

  • A clear and engaging Instagram profile picture that’s sized appropriately
  • A bio that tells a story of what your brand or Instagram influencer page is about
  • A link that visitors can access for more information
  • Hashtags (when applicable)

Your bio is an important part of your Instagram page, and it needs to be optimized. Include the following elements:

  • A clear and engaging Instagram profile picture that’s sized appropriately
  • A bio that tells a story of what your brand or Instagram influencer page is about
  • A link that visitors can access for more information
  • Hashtags (when applicable)

Example: Just for fun – micro-influencer Instagram bio Zoey the Maltichon

Source: Image courtesy of Zoey the Maltichon

Incorporate relevant hashtags.

Hashtags, including those that are trending, can help people find your page on Instagram and Twitter and are essential to grow your audience and sales. Josh Stutt, founder of ABCD E-Commerce, said to make sure to research hashtags before you start using them. If you’re not a widely known brand or celebrity, using generic hashtags won’t get you anywhere. For example, if you’re a new vintage T-shirt brand, don’t waste your time with broad hashtags such as #fashion or #tshirt.

“You need to find hashtags that are typically on point [and] have a good following but aren’t being used by everyone else in your space,” Stutt said. “By using the Instagram search function, you can see the popularity of any given tag (#tshirt has 38.5M posts, but #vintagetees only has 388K). Dig around and find 50 or so tags that are applicable to you.”

Once you’ve done this, use about 15 hashtags in various combinations on your posts, and keep track of where you use each one, Stutt suggested. After that, he said, review the results, looking at which posts resonated, which hashtags brought people in and what people talked about in your posts.

“As you learn which ones work for you, use them continuously while slowly adding in other ones and trying to scale up as you gain popularity,” Stutt said. “Once you start connecting on certain tags, that’s when you can hit the Discover section, and that’s how you get Instagram working for you instead of the other way around.”

Interact with other users in your target audience.

Building relationships is an age-old sales tactic that is effective in social media as well. It is also the best organic way to increase your audience and get new business. The key to building relationships is to be genuine. Here are a few ways to build relationships on Instagram:

  • Follow people in your target audience who interest you.
  • Like and comment on their posts.
  • Sometimes, share their posts to your stories.

It can take time to build these relationships, but doing so can generate some of the hottest leads.

Team up with other brands to host giveaways.

Jenna Labiak, owner of The Silk Labs, said hosting giveaways with other small businesses that have the same values, location and target audience has been beneficial to her business on Instagram.

“This way, we can have a mutually beneficial relationship within this giveaway and share both of our audiences with one another,” she said. “On average, I would say for each giveaway with another small business, The Silk Labs gains 200 new customers.”

Source: Image courtesy of The Silk Labs

Use a link tool to drive traffic to your website and other important links.

There are quite a few link tools available, but one of the most effective and widely used is Linktree. When you set up and add Linktree to your Instagram profile, users who click the link are directed to the Linktree page that shows all of the links you have added. You can customize the Linktree page with a profile image, such as your company logo, and edit the links at any time. The Linktree tool has a “forever free” plan that is ideal for small businesses. Additional plans start at $6 per month.

Capitalize on affordable influencer marketing.

You may know that partnering with Instagram influencers, or people with large followings for a particular interest or category, can be an effective marketing strategy. However, it often comes with a hefty price tag.

As a more affordable alternative, “Strike a win-win deal with other companies that have affiliations with influencers, and do a collaboration,” said Amy McWaters, CEO of The Hamper Emporium.

As an example, McWaters’ Australia-based company collaborated with Ponting Wines, which is promoted by Ricky Ponting, a cricket legend. As part of the collaboration, her team created stories featuring him and, in return, he promoted his wines in The Hamper Emporium’s e-commerce store.

McWaters said her company received a lot of direct messages asking about the products, and the campaign resulted in an overall sales increase of 43% that quarter.

Humanize your brand.

This is a strategy that works well across all social media channels. Think about the content that resonates with you on the pages you follow. Most likely, it’s the stuff that you can connect with personally, not corporate business posts. That’s why it’s so important to show your human side.

For example, payment processing company Priority Payments Local created a “Meet the Team” series and, during the COVID-19 pandemic, got its team together to convey the message “We’re all in this together.” The photo of the company’s business development manager, Vincent Napoli, shows him in a different light than his clients are used to seeing him in: with his son.

Source: Image courtesy of Priority Payments Local

Leverage Instagram analytics (also called Instagram Insights).

Instagram Insights, Instagram’s analytics tool, is available to use for free on the Instagram app and is available on business accounts and contributor accounts (sometimes called influencer accounts). The tool provides the following metrics:

  • The number of accounts reached (with increase or decrease percentages)
  • Content interactions (with increase or decrease percentages)
  • Total followers (with increase or decrease percentages)
  • Content your page shared
  • Instagram story content
  • IGTV video content
  • Promoted post data

This information is available for the previous seven-day period. Unfortunately, unlike Facebook’s analytics tool, it does not show the best times to post different types of content. If you have a Facebook business page, experiment with the best posting times (as determined by when your audience is online).

Post awesome content.

You and your audience may not have the same idea of what constitutes impressive content. Research what types of content get the most engagement on your competitors’ pages.

Fill your followers’ Instagram feeds with engaging content. Note the type of content that gets the most engagement, so you can keep giving your audience what it wants. For example, some brands do better with Instagram Live posts than they do with Instagram Stories. Ultimately, you can define “awesome content” by how well it performs. Your posts should be carefully planned, crafted and distributed.

Grow your page and your business with Instagram advertising.

Instagram advertising can be beneficial for expanding your brand’s reach across the social media platform, thereby growing your following and increasing sales. Depending on your industry, for Instagram to be effective, you may need to run your ads through a sales funnel, like Credit Repair Kings did. The company’s strategy was to target consumers within a specific age group in the local area who had an interest in the credit services and financial categories. When someone clicked on the ad, Credit Repair Kings used ClickFunnels to capture the lead to schedule a call with them using Calendly.

Source: Image courtesy of CreditRepairKings.com
Source: Image courtesy of CreditRepairKings.com
Source: Image courtesy of CreditRepairKings.com

Test and try again.

The social media landscape is always changing, so it’s important to test new tactics. Don’t be afraid to create Instagram content that gets zero or little engagement. Learn something from every post, and keep trying. With time and practice, you could find yourself with a flood of new sales straight from Instagram.

By Marisa Sanfilippo,

Sourced from business.com

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7 top graphic design trends for 2021 revealed

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Find out what’s in store for design in the next 12 months.

After experiencing all the year has thrown at us so far, we can’t be the only ones looking forward to 2021 (it hasn’t been cancelled yet, has it?). Perfect for creatives who want to get a jumpstart on life beyond Christmas, this infographic sets out seven key graphic design trends expected to blow up next year.

Full of useful information, this infographic from Ryan McCready might be one of the best we’ve seen (check our list of best infographics for more). It intelligently explains why certain trends are on the way – relating them to current consumer needs in relation to the rollercoaster that has been 2020 (muted colour palettes instead of bold, brash colours, for example – because they feel safe and secure). Click the picture below to see it in its full glory.

(Image credit: Ryan McCready on venngage.com)

According to the graphic, the general design arc will be to favour simplicity and practicality. This means that flat icons and illustrations are making a comeback, classic serif fonts will take centre-stage and text-heavy videos are here to stay as a necessity (because of the limitations the pandemic has put on shooting production-heavy footage).

You can also look forward to seeing (and creating) simple data visualisations, an abundance of geometric shapes and social media slide decks to communicate longer messages (things are probably going to remain pretty complicated, after all).

By 

Sourced from CB CREATIVE BLOQ

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Why The Psychology Of Rewards Confirms Cash Back Is King

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By Ryan Wuerch

When people think of rewards programs, they often think of points, such as frequent-flyer miles, or punching in a phone number at a pharmacy or grocery chain. Those experiences can feel a bit empty because there is no instant gratification; it’s as if there were value there but you’re not sure exactly when it will pay off.

With that said, those rewards programs work. They motivate consumers to achieve a benefit from spending their money with a brand. There’s a psychological pull that most consumers do not — and sometimes cannot — resist.

From leading a cash back rewards company, I’ve seen first-hand the impact such incentives can have on customer loyalty. We just surveyed 19,000 of our users about their shopping behaviour, and 82% said they prioritize special promotions, discounts or cash back when choosing where they’ll shop. That’s a powerful loyalty stat.

Rewards Reactions

People react to rewards in various ways. According to global consultancy McKinsey’s research, these reactions entail context, habit, friendly influence, incentives, emotions, congruence, salience and other factors. It’s a sure-fire way to engage someone’s emotions, and in turn, gain or lose their loyalty.

When it comes to spending, neural studies have shown that consumers have unpleasant emotions when contemplating the monetary cost of making purchases. As a matter of impulse, people simply do not want to part ways with the cash they’ve worked hard to earn.

Making customers feel positive about their purchase is crucial to not only the customer experience but also brand loyalty. It’s why 79% of consumers look for deals in loyalty rewards programs before buying an item.

Reshaping ‘Value’

More generally, the psychology of rewards and this pandemic should have companies rethinking “value” and how it pertains to their marketing budgets. In previous years, “value” meant consumers attaining something meaningful for what they give to a business. In the current public health crisis, consumer needs have shifted dramatically, and “value” should now play out with brands and financial institutions helping customers achieve their budgetary goals.

Even when things return to normal, brands and financial institutions will need to think much differently about how they provide value to customers. Marketers should consider factors like easing consumer stress, communicating availability, offering more options for convenience and putting money back into consumers’ wallets when they need it most. Appealing to consumer sensibility during Covid-19 has never been so impactful, and, more than any other reward, it’s cash back that ensures a strong finish to the customer experience. For financial institutions, it’s identifying ways to add value that don’t demand their customers to jump through hoops for the benefit.

The New Reward King: Cash  

With consumer budget worries in mind, rewards are on the rise as more brands turn to “surprise and delight” experiences with cold hard cash at the forefront. Financial institutions, neobanks and digital payment platforms are flocking to embed engaging cash back rewards into their user experiences. Whether it be attached to a specific card product or generally available to their customers, cash now speaks volumes when it comes to creating value and remaining top of wallet.

For example, financial membership platform MoneyLion knew these things to be true as early as two years ago when it started giving customers $1 cash back each day for opening the financial membership brand’s mobile app. And in February, Level, a challenger bank app, began giving customers 1% cash back on debit card purchases, which its customers have surely been appreciating since then due to pandemic-driven economic anxiety. Such brands understand that their customers not only have always been hard-wired toward cash back and rewards, but they are especially now during these hard economic times.

Rewards such as cash back also drive sales. For instance, more brands see increased revenue via rewards (36%) compared to discounts (28%). More specifically, my company Dosh — in a research partnership with The Centre for Generational Kinetics — found that brands that offer millennial and Gen Z consumers at least 5% instant cash back will see even greater sales impact now and in the months ahead.

Cash back’s momentum is clear. And with miles racking up and nowhere to go, consumers are questioning their miles cards. Credit card companies are starting to recognize this reality with 80% of card members redeeming cash back rewards during the pandemic.

What Fintechs Need To Know

The best way for fintechs, neobanks and other financial services companies to implement cash back into their offering is to make the customer experience as frictionless as possible. Don’t make the CX more than one step. When customers sign up for your loyalty/rewards program, the savings that follow should be automatic: Cash back should be built-in, not opt-in. Once customers experience the ease and delight of automatic cash back notifications, yours will be their payment method of choice.

Every financial services company wants to be top-of-wallet and have their customers highly engaged. Providing a vast array of merchants that provide 5% to 10% cash back automatically to a customer is already proving that customers will use that payment instrument more times than others. The fintech winners will be those that provide the right offer, to the right person at the right time, and find the right way to celebrate savings with their cardholders.

What’s Next For Rewards 

Even before this pandemic, my company’s survey found that 82% of Americans will shop more frequently with retailers that send cash back notifications. And McKinsey has revealed in a study that immediate gratification, like cash back, results in positive customer experience and creates brand loyalty. Once again, rewards are all about psychology, and cash back entails the greatest positivity in shopping and the best outcome for both consumers, brands and financial services companies alike.

The psychology of rewards is powerful. Brands have the opportunity to make such rewards even more memorable for customers, when the rewards look more like something they need and can use immediately, like cash back.

Feature Image Credit: GETTY

By Ryan Wuerch

Ryan Wuerch is CEO & Founder at Dosh. Read Ryan Wuerch’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

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Pick a Point of View That Boosts B2B Conversions

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By RACHEL FOSTER.

To hit your conversion targets, you need content that motivates your audience to act. A strategic point of view will help you accomplish that.

In the B2B space, you or others in your company may have concerns about your POV. Should you avoid a conversational tone? Is it better to be formal or personal? Be deliberate in selecting a POV that can attract and engage prospects through the long term.

In case you have better things to do than geek out over grammar, here’s a quick refresher on the three POVs:

  • First person uses “I,” “my,” and “we.”
  • Second person refers to the audience as “you.”
  • Third person calls the audience “they” or “them” and frequently uses the company’s name.

Let’s explore each point of view and when to use each to better engage your audience and boost conversions.

Third person creates barriers between you and your audience

You may prefer to use a formal tone when speaking with your audience. After all, you’re selling to executives and other sophisticated B2B buyers.

You might think that the third person sounds more professional than the other voices. Since journalists write in the third person, this voice can also seem objective.

However, using the third person in your content holds your audience at a distance. When people read your copy, they’re less likely to see themselves. They’ll think of someone else.

Using 3rd person in your #contentmarketing copy keeps your audience at a distance, says @B2BTechCopy via @CMIContentCLICK TO TWEET

If audience members don’t think you’re speaking directly to them, they may question whether you can solve their challenges.

A recent study confirmed that using the third person creates barriers. In the study, participants who experienced anxiety talked about themselves in the third person. Using this voice created distance between participants and their negative emotions, helping them calm their anxiety.

According to the study, “(T)hird-person self-talk leads people to think about the self, similar to how they think about others, which provides them with the psychological distance needed to facilitate self-control.”

While this technique may help with anxiety, it does the opposite of what you want to happen when your audience consumes your content. You need readers to feel their pain points so they realize they need your help.

Using the third person can also make your content sound stuffy. If you mention your company or product a lot, you may come across as self-focused instead of audience focused. No one wants to be around someone who talks about themselves all the time.

You can check how well your content focuses on your audience with the free Customer Focus Calculator. Enter a link to any page on your site and the tool calculates the percentage of space devoted to talking about your company vs. your audience. Your results may be eye opening.

Is your #content focused on the audience? Use the free Customer Focus Calculator from @UpatDawnLLC to find out, says @B2BTechCopy via @CMIContentCLICK TO TWEET

Of course, there are exceptions. Here are some formats where the use of third person makes sense:

  • Case studies or other content where you talk about a customer and position them as the hero
  • White papers or research reports where you want to convey a formal, objective tone (If you want your white paper to nurture leads, consider using the second person to draw readers in and get them to take the next step.)

    Follow the POV Golden Rule: Start with second person

    Addressing your readers as “you” is a best practice in content marketing.

    Addressing your readers as “you” is a best practice for #contentmarketing, says @B2BTechCopy via @CMIContentCLICK TO TWEETHere’s why: Using the word “you” draws readers into your content. It makes your voice more conversational and allows readers to visualize themselves in your story.

    It also motivates audiences to take action. A study by the University of Illinois confirmed this. It examined whether using first or second person would motivate students to exercise. Students in the second person group, e.g., “You can do it,” exercised more in two weeks and generally had a better attitude than the first person group. (A more recent study echoed this finding.)

    Want to make your content better? Write (or rewrite) it in second person.

  • Use first person in these 2 places

    Popular bloggers such as Neil Patel use first person POV. This voice can make articles more personal and help readers connect with your stories.

    First person POV is effective in blog posts or other content where you want to:

    • Share your personal experiences and lessons learned.
    • Discuss your challenges and how you overcame them.
    • Talk about tests you conducted and the results you achieved.
    • Voice a strong opinion.

    Another great place to use the first person is on call-to-action buttons. Studies have shown that adding the words “I,” “me,” or “my” to them boosts conversions.

    For example, Unbounce saw a 90% increase in conversions when it changed the pronoun on the button from “your” to “my” – “Start your free 30 day trial” to “Start my free 30 day trial.” All other elements on the page remained the same.

    Although Unbounce conducted this test several years ago, it still uses first person today:

    Will this work for you? Change the copy on one of your CTA buttons to first person. Then, see if your conversion rate improves.

    However, you should limit the use of “I” and “we” in your other content. Overusing these words puts the focus on your company – not on your audience.

Next steps

Point of view is an often-overlooked aspect of B2B content. But when you think strategically about your POV, you can improve the quality of your content so that you can engage more B2B audience members and turn them into customers.

Try for yourself. Find an underperforming blog article, newsletter subject line, social media post, infographic, landing page, or call-to-action button. Change your POV to see if you can boost your conversion rates.

Have you experimented with the POV in your content? If so, what have you learned from your results? Share your insights in the comments section. 

By RACHEL FOSTER

Rachel Foster is a B2B copywriter and the CEO of Fresh Perspective Copywriting. Since 2009, she has helped B2B tech marketers improve their response rates, clearly communicate complex messages and generate high-quality leads. She has also presented at Content Marketing World and taught B2B copywriting for MarketingProfs. Connect with Rachel on LinkedIn or check out her B2B marketing resources at www.freshperspectivewriting.com.

Sourced from Content Marketing Institute

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Is Your Leadership Pipeline Ready? Don’t Guess — Test

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By Takiyah Gross-Foote

It’s succession planning time again, and your organization is likely faced with identifying and planning the development of employees who will “one day” replace existing leaders. For many leaders, brainstorming potential successors is easy, similar to adding items to your Amazon cart.

However, you eventually have to determine the time frame of each successor’s readiness to lead and defend your point of view in a succession planning meeting. How do you really know if Carol is ready now to become the head of the product team? What science did you use to determine that Bryan will be ready to lead sales in three to five years? How objective is your readiness time frame estimate? Did you consider how long Bryan has been at the same readiness time frame? Often, successors appear on a succession plan year after year with the same readiness time frame as in prior years. Or worse, successors appear and disappear from a specific succession plan based on recency bias.

More organizations are focused on the diversity of their leadership pipeline; however, developing succession plans that support diversity can be even more challenging if organizations are not proactively preparing successors to lead within the desired time frame.

More than anything, organizations want new leaders to succeed in bigger, more challenging roles as soon as possible, but the risk of failure is real. If organizations promote successors before they have the skill, will and leadership capabilities to take on a new role, it is highly likely that the successor will crash and burn, which may directly impact business results. When organizations are risk-averse, the fear of failure will often result in hiring experienced external talent even though a well-defined succession plan is in place.

When organizations are unsure of a successor’s readiness, they should test instead of guess.

By testing the readiness of future leaders, you simultaneously develop them by gradually presenting challenges that mimic their future role(s). Below are few considerations when designing a readiness test approach?

• Apply an internal ‘gig’ strategy. Match your key successors to challenging strategic projects that specifically address their development gaps or areas where risk of failure is the highest. For example, when I interviewed general managers (GMs) to inquire what it takes to be a GM, most of them indicated that commercial acumen, emotional intelligence and experience leading cross-functional teams was key. Therefore, a successor to a GM who lacked direct sales experience could be assigned a project to gather customer insights and build the business case and plan to launch a new line of business.

• Leverage internal and external experts. Borrowing internal and external leaders/experts who can aggressively teach up-and-coming leaders the ropes is an effective way to improve successor readiness. For example, many organizations are focusing on digital marketing; however, if your organization’s current marketing team is long-tenured and does not have digital marketing capabilities, consider hiring a digital marketing expert on short-term contract to cocreate a new digital marketing strategy and upskill the team on effective digital marketing best practices.

• Use technology and talent analytics to track progress. With the emergence of AI-powered internal talent marketplace technology, organizations can easily define and match employees to short-term development gigs or opportunities. By leveraging technology to define, match and track project completion, you will speed the logistics of managing internal gigs. Also, it is critical to leverage talent analytics to truly understand the state of your succession pool. Your succession dashboards should provide actionable insights about the diversity of your succession pool, changes in readiness (e.g., how long has this successor been at said readiness?) and the success rate of succession targets (e.g., what percent of key successors are actually promoted to the desired role, and what percent are successful once promoted?).

Ensuring your leadership pipeline is ready for the future is both an art and a science that is critical to a successful enterprise. By testing your future leaders, you can be sure they will be ready for what lies ahead.

Feature Image Credit: GETTY

By Takiyah Gross-Foote

VP, Talent Management at LexisNexis Risk Solutions. I research, write and obsess about Leadership Development, Learning and Transformation. Read Takiyah Gross-Foote’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

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Sticky Widgets lets you put a virtual Post-It on your iPhone home screen

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By Ben Lovejoy

When iOS 14 launched, it was somewhat lacking in the widget department. Since then, we’ve seen a wide range of third-party apps offering useful widgets, and Sticky Widgets is the latest …

The app is a simple one. Install it and then add it as a widget to your home screen. Just tap the note to edit the text on it.

You can have multiple notes on your screen. For each, you can choose between three colors (yellow, pink, and blue) and three typefaces (MarkerFelt, Noteworthy, and System). You can, of course, also choose between the three different widget sizes supported by iOS 14.

If you’re looking for more widget inspiration, check out our growing guide in areas covering finance, health and fitness, photo and video, music, and more. If you’re not yet up to speed on how to use them, we have how-to guides for both iPhone and iPad.

Widgets have proven one of iOS 14’s most popular features, with one app even allowing you to completely customize your home screen.

Sticky Widgets is a free download from the App Store.

By Ben Lovejoy

Sourced from 9TO5Mac

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I Took Over an Entire Convention With The Smallest Booth — Here’s How

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By Stu Sjouwerman

Trade shows offer an unmatched opportunity for connecting with potential customers; this strategy can help you make the most of them.

Traditional trade conventions are an outstanding way to show off your products or services and connect with potential customers and partners. But just like on the Internet, there’s a lot of noise you need to overcome to stand out and make people want to walk over to your booth instead of someone else’s. I have a simple strategy I’ve used with enormous success for this very purpose.

The survey-raffle combo

In my previous company, Sunbelt Software, we focused on selling products to system administrators. So, in terms of events, we hit up Microsoft tech conferences and similar trade shows. Those events usually brought in anywhere from 4,000-8,000 people, so we knew they would be a fantastic opportunity to rub elbows in a huge way — if we could just figure out how to draw people to us.

We had to think — what could we do that would appeal universally to this particular demographic and that would outshine the other vendors even if we couldn’t anticipate what they’d offer?

And then we had our “Aha!” moment. With a raffle, we could generate positive interest with a little friendly suspense, taking advantage of everybody’s natural inclination to want to beat the odds, which at a trade show are much better than the lottery.

Of course, there was the little problem of the raffle item. We had to make sure it was something people would really go nuts for, or nobody would drop by the booth to get scanned and grab a ticket. The solution? A quick survey of our fellow techies to find out what they thought would be the ultimate, super-cool giveaway for a trade show.

After doing the survey, we went to TechEd 2006 in Boston. Our booth was nothing special, just a 10-by-10 space. But based on the survey results, we’d brought in — picture this — a spectacular custom-painted Harley Davidson chopper.

The buzz was overwhelming. We could tell that everybody was itching for a shot, imagining themselves getting away from technical code, security and so on and winning the freedom the bike boldly offered. To get a ticket, though, they had to register with us. And did they ever.

By the time the show ended at 4 p.m., it was pretty obvious our strategy had paid off. Crowds of people were gathered around our booth to see who would win. We had someone get up on a ladder with a megaphone and pull a number from the raffle barrel. There was a terrific moment of tension, and then everybody gave a mix of oh-wells and congratulations as a very happy attendee came up to claim the bike. Everybody had a great time, and for our effort, we walked out of the show with practically every attendee there in our database.

Making the technique your own for the long-term

Because this trick was so successful, it was a no brainer for us to keep doing it — so we’ve been using raffles at shows for a number of years now. It’s something that you can use at virtually any conference, and the sequence of survey-raffle-get leads isn’t going to change much regardless of which industry your event might be for.

But there are two caveats.

First, make sure that you introduce your raffle at the right time at events that have a sufficient audience. We tried this strategy in the early days of KnowBe4, but there just weren’t enough people at the show to make it worth it.

Secondly, be flexible in what you raffle off based on your survey results. If we were to do this today, people might tell us that their ultimate giveaway item isn’t a Harley chopper anymore. It could be a Tesla Model 3 or any other number of things you normally wouldn’t associate with your own business. You always need to listen to your audience and decide from there, and you should give people at least a little bit of an idea about what they might see to drive interest.

As you keep these points in mind, remember that there are a lot of convenient ways to survey your audience, such as with an online form. You can use whatever makes sense given your timeframe, resources and your audience’s known preferences. And you’ll have two ways to get the items you’re going to raffle. The first is to approach the company that makes or sells what people want and ask them if they’ll donate the item for the exposure they’ll get at the show, which can be a great way to make new connections and build lasting partnerships. But you can also purchase the raffle item yourself if you have the budget to do so — you just need to have some evidence that the value of the leads you’ll get will outpace the cost of the raffle item.

Visibility and fun in one package

Raffles at trade shows work largely because, on top of offering fantastic visibility, they’re super fun. Most people don’t have one going on, so attendees naturally will turn their attention to what’s different. And people like the idea that they’ll leave with more than they put in — that they’ll come out ahead compared to everybody else.

So yes, there’s definitely a serious side to business and getting yourself out there. But you should be able to enjoy yourself along with your customers, too! With a convention raffle, you can do both with enormous success.

Feature Image Credit: rclassenlayouts | Getty Images

By Stu Sjouwerman

Sourced from Entrepreneur Europe

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The Changing Tide Of Influencer Marketing In 2020

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By Goldie Chan.

How has influencer marketing radically changed in 2020?

In my continuing series of “State of Marketing 2020,” I run interviews on the changing landscape of 2020 with key leaders in different business and leadership areas. For influencer marketing, I tap Lindsay Fultz, SVP of Partnerships at Whalar and influencer marketing expert for over a decade.

Goldie Chan: You’ve been in influencer marketing for nearly a decade. You’re considered a veteran in the industry. After all this time, what gets you excited?

Lindsay Fultz: This industry is fast moving. So much has changed. From types of creators and redefining what the word “influence” actually means, platforms, features, how cultural trends are intertwined and what makes them go viral, ways content can be repurposed, algorithms, to accessible data and now influencer marketing during a global pandemic and influencer and brand activism during a long overdue social justice movement.

Some things that get me excited:

  • Shoppable features that enable us to create strategies that tie ROI to particular influencers and activations. My company, Whalar is the only global partner to five social media platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok which not only means rich first party data but also access to all the cool private beta features like TikTok’s creator shopping program — The ability to tie video views from a specific influencer to actual purchases — that’s huge and something we’re very excited to pilot with a brand for a case study.
  • Interactive survey features that can double as consumer surveys and coordinating influencer focus groups for brands. Since the pandemic, we’ve been doing a lot of this at Whalar.
  • Live-streamed shopping which for 2020 is projected to be a $129B revenue stream in China. Instagram quietly rolled out their Live Shopping Feature in private beta a few weeks ago which I’m very excited to pilot with a brand. Whoever gets this right in the U.S will unlock a gold mine in Influencer Marketing for both creators and brands.
  • Virtual events! Marc Jacobs recently leveraged Zoom for their new product launch and Fenty VR and livestreams for their virtual house party. Both were super interactive and attendees left with keepsakes and an incredible, unforgettable experience. And we’ve only just scratched the surface on the possible integrations.
  • Leveraging influencers as your in-house production arm. Since the pandemic we’ve been getting a lot of briefs about partnering with creators behind the lens to create a library of branded assets from still and dynamic images to short and long form video content. This is quite exciting.
  • Even though it’s all P2P, partnering with creators that hit a B2B audience. Keynote speakers, marketers, entrepreneurs, thought leaders — because they are practitioners and educators, they attract an audience composed of C-suite executives, decision makers, people that control large marketing budgets and people that aspire to be in those positions. They are regularly in front of large super targeted audiences that people pay to gain access to — albeit now virtually.
  • Influencer and Brand Activism. This has been exciting to watch unfold and I think it’s a good thing! It’s been incredible seeing brands take a stance, and influencers unafraid to lose brand deals by taking a stance. It adds an extra layer to the influencer vetting process but it’s a very important layer when partnering influencers with brands — to make sure both brand and influencer viewpoints are aligned.

 

Feature Image Credit: GETTY

By Goldie Chan.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

 

Sourced from Forbes

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Don’t Be A Clutterbug: Personalized Emails Are More Welcome Than Batch-And-Blast

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Retailers are barraging inboxes with emails — and customers don’t like it, judging by The Cost of Annoying Customers With Email, an infograph by SmarterHQ.

Of the top email clutter generators, 70% are retailers, the study says. That’s saying a lot, considering that 205 billion emails are sent every day worldwide.

The average person receives 97 emails per day and 416 commercial emails per month.

The top ten inbox stuffers are:

  1. Daily Deals
  2. Social Networking
  3. Dating
  4. Apparel
  5. Home
  6. Department Stores
  7. Children’s products
  8. Music/Movies/Games
  9. Health & Beauty
  10. Entertainment

Despite these irritations, 72% of consumers prefer email for communications — and apparently, they like it even more when emails are personalized.

People sent personalized offers are 78% more likely to be a repeat customers, the study states. We can infer that they don’t like impersonal, batch-and-blast emails.

Moreover, 73% prefer to patronize brands that use their personal data to create personalized experiences.

The takeaway is that “failing to effectively personalize is far more expensive than investing in it,” the study notes.

The proof? Forrester reports that failure to personalize can cost up to $5 million in lost revenue over three years, it says.

But only 10% of brands feel the are personalizing effectively, according to Gartner.

All this is in line with Brand Loyalty 2020, a recent study by Formation. This research showed that consumers crave personalization, so much so that 81% will share personal information to get it, and 50% will even pay a premium for it.

What’s more, 79% say that the more personalization tactics a brand uses, the more loyal they will be.

Email ranks as the second-most effective channel in generating loyalty — 33% of consumers say personalized emails will cause them to stick with a brand. But 39% say the same of personalized website experiences.

For its part, SmarterHQ concludes: “The gap is wide, but the window to personalization is small in a retail environment that is more competitive than ever. The brans who survive and thrive will do so trough personalization.”

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Sourced from MediaPost

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Data-driven Visits – The Future of E-commerce Websites

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By Kaushal Thakkar.

A testament to its reliability and rigidity, e-commerce is expected to cultivate even greater results once the pandemic subsides

With the monumental shift in all marketplaces amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the e-commerce sector has emerged more unscathed than other sectors. A testament to its reliability and rigidity, e-commerce is expected to cultivate even greater results once the pandemic subsides. This shift can be attributed to the major change seen in customer behaviours and their growing preference for online transactions.

For instance, the U.S retail sector saw consumers spending over $146 billion on online transactions, which is a 14.5% rise compared to last year. Moreover, the U.S daily e-commerce sales also saw a significant 49% rise from April 1st to April 23rd, when compared to 1st-11th March, when the pandemic was not in its full effect.

So, the main concern for e-commerce businesses now is how to generate traffic organically on their websites/portals and gain more consumers? Let us take a closer look at this predicament and the possible solutions.

DATA – More enticing and relevant than you might think!

Ever wondered what makes e-commerce giants like Amazon, JD, Walmart, Alibaba, and many more stand out in terms of the heights they are reaching? If you delve into the details, you will also come across questions such as how are they able to offer better and seamless customer experience and position themselves as the top search results on search engines?

The collective answer to these questions is that these e-commerce giants are heavily data-driven in their operations. Not only this, but they also implement the intrinsically analytical outcomes of data processing to get a better view of the market and customer behaviours.

Now, becoming data-driven in operations can be a major hurdle for e-commerce websites if not done correctly. But here is how e-commerce giants smartly and viscerally approach the implementation of data-driven reports to generate traffic on their websites:

1. Mobile-First Indexing

Over 52% of web searches are done via mobile devices. Hence, the first and foremost element that e-commerce businesses should concentrate on is indexing their websites for mobiles, as it can significantly impact their search rankings.

Mobile websites are going to be crawled first by Google’s bots and indexed to be shown as preferred search results for mobile users. Making a mobile-friendly website, optimizing it for increasing page loading speeds, and streamlining the UX are the key determiners for attracting more visits to the website.

2. Building Up Steadfast SEO Strategies

Implementing a data-driven approach on various domains while creating SEO strategies has helped major  e-commerce websites create the best marketing campaigns in their respective domains. For instance, knowing your conversion rates and bounce rates can help you determine the areas you are lagging behind and developing SEO strategies to bridge that gap that can significantly improve your figures.

Similarly, knowing how much time a customer is spending on your website can let you know if the customers are closing your website quickly and why they are doing it. This can help you in building competent SEO strategies to battle the problem statements detected from collecting data for the same.

3. Conducting Comprehensive Keyword Research

It is a widely known fact that keyword research is one of the most important elements in SEO. Hence, conducting keyword research based on data collected through consumer behaviour, search patterns, and search volume are very imperative to attain higher search engine rankings. Moreover, determining the right keywords to implement on your website, which aligns well with your products/services or what your potential customers are searching for can propel your website visits to a whole new level.

4. Publishing Only Data-Driven SEO Content

Writing keyword flooded content with little to no context or girth to its meaning is a tried and failed strategy. Identifying your target demographic, analysing what type of content they read or respond to, and what benefits they are seeking to achieve from the content is the first stepping stone of data-driven content.

Now, the next step is to make the content have a ”goal”, which encourages the reader to make desirable actions, while simultaneously educating them on what they searched for. The data-driven approach comes into play at the front gates when determining what actions you want the reader to take.

5. Spotlighting Product Reviews

Any e-commerce business would know the power held by product and service reviews when it comes to customer retention and acquisition. Positive reviews not only safeguard the brand image of e-commerce businesses but also prove them to be socially credible, which in turn attracts more visitors on the website.

Over 67% of the customers are influenced by reviews, which becomes a major factor in driving more traffic on e-commerce websites. Moreover, product reviews, whether bad or good, are also an integral factor in improving conversion rates if they are promptly responded to.

6. Leveraging Forms and Surveys to Collect Customer Data

The use of forms and surveys can significantly help e-commerce businesses in getting a collective overview of their customers’ feedback and requirements. There are three types of customer data you can potentially obtain from surveys and forms, which are:

  1. Purchase History: To help e-commerce businesses analyse the buying patterns of the customers to suggest them with the best-suited products exclusively.
  2. Geographic Data: To help e-commerce businesses in finding out the most common locations from where most of their revenue is coming, along with focusing on promising or primary locations for determining key market regions.
  3. Customer Demographics: Collecting customer information such as average income, occupations, gender, age, etc., to determine your key target audience. This can help in creating targeted and successful marketing strategies.

Being Data-Driven is the Call of the Future

Building an e-commerce website and making it attractive for the target demographics is a data-based activity in today’s digital world. Knowing the customer behaviours, competitor tactics, updates in SEO guidelines, and much more are the key determining factors of an e-commerce website’s success.

Keeping the aforementioned points in mind, it is safe to say that a data-driven approach is a make or break factor that e-commerce businesses should take very seriously. Collecting, Analysing, and Implementing – These are the three pillars of a successful data-driven approach, that can help budding e-commerce websites in generating as much or even more visits as are being generated by e-commerce giants.

Feature Image Credit: Pixabay

By Kaushal Thakkar

Founder, Infidigit

Sourced from Entrepreneur India

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