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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.”

By 

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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3 Actionable Insights from… retail prognosticator Piers Fawkes

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By Kenneth Hein

Cleanup in aisle five! Has there ever been a more disruptive time in retail? To get a better handle on what businesses should be doing to fix this messy situation, The Drum called up long-admired retail trends spotter and PSFK founder Piers Fawkes. Here are the three top actions he recommends:

1. Own the experience. Customers are anxious to return to their everyday retail and lifestyle routines, but stores and physical marketplaces are having difficulty offering any creature comforts as they reopen with limited services. Consumers are looking for brands to step in and streamline the purchase path or even reduce the frustrations of today’s in-store visits ‑ all to make the total shopping experience feel just a little bit more manageable. At Best Buy for example, after scheduling an in-store appointment, customers preparing for a visit receive a call from a store employee ahead of their visit to review store procedures and offer more information about their shopping purpose.

2. Reenergize the relationship. Regular store visits were an anchor for customer/brand relationships. As customers are forced to spend more time on apps, websites, and digital spaces, use this moment to re-establish and reenergize relationships with shoppers by focusing social engagements around community building and amplifying the voices of your most loyal customers. For example, Vans has done wonderful job celebrating, supporting and promoting the subculture of LBGTQ+ skaters called The Skate Witches with a series of online photo, video, and writing workshops. Vans have found the right way to say welcome to this culture in a way that is authentic.

3. Redesign the infrastructure. The retail industry as a whole is realizing a new level of nimbleness and flexibility necessary to survive constant consumer trends, marketplace evolutions, and global economic shifts. In doing so, retailers and brands are learning to navigate and thrive in environments that are less certain and consistent. Part of this evolution involves brands allowing customers to shape your brand’s long-term operational strategy and product direction. Enact this change by inviting customers into the design process, while reconfiguring retail infrastructure to respond to their real-time trends and behaviors. For example. makeup and skincare company Arfa promises 5% of its profit to the customers who participate in creating, testing, and marketing the products.

Piers Fawkes is founder of PSFK. Fawkes has inspiring leading brands, retailers and their partners on trends and innovation since 2004.

Feature Image Credit: PSFK founder Fawkes. / Randee St. Nicholas

By Kenneth Hein

Sourced from The Drum

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How to Improve Social Influence with Content Marketing

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By Chris Christoff.

Your social influence, if used properly, is one of the most effective marketing tools you have at your disposal.

Internet shopping has fundamentally changed the way consumers interact with businesses across all industries. Until this time, people were primarily influenced by what friends and family said about a company or their personal experiences.

Now, social influence is on the rise, and business owners are finding more unique ways to engage and build trust with their audience with the power of the internet. Another name for social influence is social proof. It all boils down to taking actions to show users that you’re reputable, trustworthy, and offer top-notch products and services.

There are plenty of exciting ways to show consumers that your brand is worth their time by creating unique content.

In an effort to help online businesses thrive, we want to examine several low-cost ways you can build social influence and grow your business.

Create a testimonials page

Testimonials are effective tools you can use to grow your business. If a high-profile client or reputable news source makes a statement about your products, ask if you can use their feedback on your testimonials page.

As a general rule of thumb, you’ll want to make sure that the testimonial is honest and represents a typical experience with your brand. Create a page dedicated to showing prospects why you’re the best in the business.

You can break down your testimonials based on the product, customer case use, and more. If someone leaves you positive feedback and say that shopping with your business helped them accomplish a specific goal, or addressed a common pain point, don’t forget to highlight that feature on your sales page.

Congruency between what you’re selling and what the testimonials say is vital for building trust and helping prospects come to the right conclusion about your brand.

Allow on-site product reviews

The next way you can use content to build social influence with your audience is through individual reviews on each product. Believe it or not, 70% of consumers look for reviews before making a purchase. This statistic means that people don’t just rely on friends and family for feedback. Instead, the opinions of people with real experiences play a dominant role in purchasing behaviour.

You’re likely familiar with the effectiveness of this strategy if you’ve ever used Amazon. Under every single product on Amazon is a list of reviews for the product on display — providing users have left feedback.

Consumers are free to browse through the good and bad reviews and make a decision for themselves. There’s evidence that shows the effectiveness of product reviews. Specific products with a list of real reviews see a 270% boost in sales compared to pages without reviews.

Mention company milestones

Company milestones are often mentioned during internal meetings, but are you using this information to improve social influence? Consumers want to hear about how your company is performing in a way that makes sense to them.

For example, a SaaS company might include the number of downloads on their homepage. When someone stumbles across the brand website for the first time and sees that thousands of people have invested in this product or service, they are experiencing social proof.

Here’s a quick example to show you what we mean.

If you had to choose between two companies that offer a similar product, but one states that they have over 1,000,000 installs and features awards from reputable news organizations, and the other is a basic landing page, who would you trust more? It’s a safe bet that you would go with the company with awards and over one million customers.

A little transparency goes a long way. The next time you’re thinking about updating your homepage, start thinking about ways you can display these tidbits clearly for new visitors.

Share customer feedback on social media

Customer feedback is useful on your website, but it can provide more value when you share it on social media. You’re going to see people mentioning your brand and telling you how much they enjoyed their experience with your company. Use this as an opportunity to share their thoughts with the rest of your audience so people who are not committed can see how other people feel about your business.

Let’s say you’re interested in a new coffee company. You’ve browsed their website, checked out on-site reviews, but you’re still not ready to make a purchase. One day, you’re browsing Twitter and find the company, so you decide to give them a follow.

Weeks go by, and you start seeing more and more posts from real users complimenting the coffee company for their exceptional product and service. You would probably feel justified to go back to the site and have another look. This situation we just described is social influence in practice.

If you’re not getting much feedback on your social media page, you can create a feedback form and use it on your website and email. Reach out to current customers and ask them to leave their thoughts. Make a note saying that their opinions may be shared on social media. If the user agrees and fills out their form, you can create the perfect piece of social proof content.

Compile the best reviews and make a collage that shows off your company’s strengths. Sharing this image on social media is a sure-fire way to get more people engaged in your brand. What makes this tip more compelling is the fact that 43% of consumers check social media when they’re thinking about buying a product.

Work with partner brands and influencers

It’s possible to create content that builds social influence by working with partner brands and influencers. Regardless of your industry, plenty of other companies would happily promote your brand on their website if you’re willing to return the favour.

Partner brands are especially helpful at building social influence because it’s a safe bet that the brand you’re writing for has a similar target audience— the difference pivots on the type of product, and the pain point it solves. Look for companies that operate in your industry with an audience that could also benefit from the products or services you offer.

The reason this qualifies as social influence is because the brands promoting your product have a dedicated audience. So the opinion of this company can have a significant impact on how consumers perceive your brand. Think about your favorite company. Now imagine that the company promoted a product from a different brand. You would go in assuming that the other company is a good fit because you value the opinion of the brand sharing their content.

A whopping 60% of bloggers write between one and five guest posts every month for other publications. Their goal, in this case, is to spread brand awareness while bolstering social proof.

On the same note, social media influencers are an excellent choice for building influence. The same rule to other businesses applies here. Consumers trust influencers on YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram to promote helpful products with actual value. If someone’s favourite influencer is sharing your product, the person seeing the ad will instantly trust you more than if they found your company elsewhere.

There’s no doubt that adding a social influence strategy to your business can help you dramatically improve consumer confidence and sales. You have to take the time to gather valuable feedback from customers, which can include sending feedback forms via email, making it easy for users to leave product reviews, and by forging partnerships with other companies.

All of these steps lead to a more transparent and trustworthy business. At the end of the day, your goal is to provide a great product to your customers. But for people to see the value of your brand, you have to find ways to put your company on display.

By Chris Christoff

See Chris Christoff’s Profile
Co-Founder of MonsterInsights, the leading WordPress plugin for Google Analytics.

Sourced from business.com

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5 Effective management tools to boost your online writing business

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By Ralf Llanasas.

Given the growth of social media and content marketing, there has been a visible growth in online writing businesses. The demand for writers in today’s information age will keep on rising. The success that awaits is exciting, but admittedly, it can be challenging to deal with the day-to-day pressures of managing tasks and the business-side itself.

So here’s a good question to ask: What can you do to maximize your writing opportunities? How do you improve your writing business management? Here are five tools that you should incorporate into your activities to streamline your workflow.

  1. Simul

In a writing business, you don’t handle things on your own. Your success is dependent on other writers and editors. Having different people checking out write-ups would also entail having revisions and a little back-and-forth until the client is satisfied with your output

This is where Simul comes in. This software will allow you to compare Word documents and track the changes in the document. It also allows multiple people to collaborate in real-time, showing the changes made by each party, and allowing you to choose which one was better. With Simul, preparing documents and writing articles will be so much easier.

  1. Whitesmoke

No human writer is ever error-proof. Whether you are a native speaker or well-studied in the English language, you are bound to make mistakes, so you need software to do some checking for you. Whitesmoke provides these solutions, with features like spelling, grammar, punctuation, and style checks to help you correct and enhance all your written works.

  1. BPlans 

In building a business, advice from experts can help you achieve the goals yourself and boost the growth of your brand. Bplans is a resource filled with various business know-how that can help you set up and get ahead. They offer business plan templates, guides, marketing reports, pitch templates, and other tools you never knew you needed. From coming up with a business idea to learning how to be a business manager, Bplans has a wide selection of videos, blogs, and other pieces that will serve as your digital mentor and guide.

  1. Xmind 

Developing ideas is essential in gaining a competitive edge in your business.  More than that, your creativity must be at its best for you to be able to write better and offer something new to your clients. Xmind is an amazing software that will help you keep track of your ideas and opening you to the possibilities that can grow from them.

Xmind offers mind mapping features, with a version that offers a more modern design and another going with the traditional route. This is perfect for people who require more organization in their projects and for those who want to retain more information in the things they are trying to learn. You can create non-linear documents, organization charts, matrix, timelines, and other

  1. Daily Grammar

As a writer, improving your grammar skills is a vital part of the job. Expanding your vocabulary and learning about the different rules can help you produce topnotch work and set you apart from your competitors. Aside from reading books and watching video lessons, you can also explore the available resources from Daily Grammar.

Daily Grammar is a teaching tool for people of all ages and English proficiency levels. You can explore 440 grammar lessons and 88 quizzes to test your knowledge. They also have a daily newsletter that will give you tips and lesson reminders to keep you on the road towards the best writer you can be.

These five tools are just a few among the thousands of apps and programs out there, but they can be a good way to start. The key to succeeding in your writing business is to do this important thing: write. By continuously practicing this skill, you’ll learn more and you will be amazed at how far you can go!

By Ralf Llanasas

Ralf Llanasas is a content marketer at Simul docs specializing topics in business technology, SaaS, and automation. His writings can be read across different online publications.  He love’s taking photographs when free. Follow him on Twitter at @IamRalf12.

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