What digital marketers can learn from the baseball playoffs
I’m no expert in baseball, but I’ve noticed something that happens every year during the major league baseball playoffs: When the series is on the line, managers use their best pitcher even if he hasn’t had the amount of rest required between starts. How does the manager know who is best? If you have any exposure to baseball, you know the answer to that question: It’s in the pitcher’s statistics. The manager will look at the pitcher’s ERA, his record against the opposing team, his home vs away record, and other telling pieces of data that let him know who should perform best when the team’s fate is on the line in one game. We need to take the same approach with our social media marketing, email marketing, and content marketing. Find your strongest performers and concentrate your efforts in reproducing similar content or campaigns. However, while finding your strongest performers is pretty easy, determining why they performed well is not as clear cut. You need to analyze your “super star” marketing pieces on a variety of attributes. Subject The topics you feature in your social sharing; the information you convey in your blog, videos, and podcasts; and the focus of your newsletters will be one of the most important attributes you analyze. Collect these over time, ranking them and looking for trends. Format Within each of the media you use – articles, videos, audios, emails, posts – consider the format of the content. Among these are formats such as: How to Lists In-depth analysis Short reads Tips, tricks, hacks Humorous Can you find formats that perform better than average? If nothing else, it’s a good idea to know what doesn’t work with your readers. Headlines In many cases, when you find winning formats, you’ll find winning headlines; especially if lists and tips are popular with your prospects. But, in addition to this, look for other headline attributes. For example, when I sit down to see how well this article performs, I’ll note that my headline references sports and also something that is currently in the news. A headline might be funny or dramatic, or it might be inspired by the kind of clickbait headlines that perform so well in advertising. Data analysis All the major social media platforms offer analytical tools you can use to measure the performance of your posts over time. Further, you should have Google analytics installed on your website and be using it properly to give you the insights you need. Set aside an hour or so every couple of weeks to dive into your analytics and keep track of what you discover each time. You could put together a spread sheet to capture the top five, 10, or 20 pieces of content and posts each time you do your analysis. You could also do the same thing with your worst performing content. Trends may not jump out at you the first time you do this, but after a few sessions, you should start to learn some important lessons. One more thing. You may think that your prospect base will get tired of a certain topic, format, or headline writing approach. I suggest you go back to the example MLB managers set when they are facing elimination: stick with your proven winners until they...
read more3 special days to note in your business, social media posts
I think that no matter what business you’re in, or what your occupation is, the end of the year is always “crazy.” The 800-pound gorilla in the room is the holiday shopping season; even if you aren’t in retail, it impacts both your business and personal lives. There are, however, other events to note in the coming days that you can work into your social media posts and business location to catch the attention of your audience and customers. Back to standard time. This hits us Sunday morning! No matter what business you’re in, your employees and customers feel the impact of setting their clocks back an hour. Fortunately, we’re on the good side of the time change – we’re getting back the hour we lost last spring. Some cleverly worded and designed posts to remind people of the change will appeal to your audience. If you’re open on Sunday, for example, warn folks not to show up at your door an hour early, because you’ll be taking advantage of the time change to sleep in an extra hour! Election Day. Although this election cycle isn’t one of the big ones, there may be important issues on your local ballot. Reminding people of the day and encouraging them to exercise their franchise is something you can do via your social media. And, it may be the only “political” thing you can do that pleases people no matter what their personal political leanings might be. Veteran’s Day. I think there is more awareness about veteran’s issues today than there has ever been before, at least in my lifetime. We have had men and women serving in harm’s way for so many years that I think almost everyone personally has recent veterans among their close circle of friends and relatives. Along with recent veterans, we know that we’re quickly losing the last of the WWII veterans and Vietnam veterans are pouring into their retirement years. As with noting election day, paying homage to veterans is a patriotic gesture we can make that virtually everyone supports. I also appreciate businesses who offer discounts and other encouragements on Veteran’s Day. With Thanksgiving and the ensuing holiday shopping season right around the corner, these smaller special dates can be easily overlooked. If you are one of the few that takes note, you can set yourself apart from the companies who only seem to be concerned about grabbing some extra holiday shopping...
read moreWhen you see what Dale Carnegie said about fear, you’ll start moving…fast! [Bonus: Free Download]
Are you too fearful to succeed? Fear is the single biggest roadblock that will prevent you from taking risks and without taking risks you can never be an entrepreneur. And, if you think about it, in the final analysis the biggest failure for “entrepreneurs” isn’t a business venture that goes belly up, it’s lacking the will to pursue their vision and then living with the regrets of never knowing what could have been. In a similar way, if you’re a small business owner, fear can prevent you from pursuing new ventures or shutting down a part of your business that is clearly on its way out and moving on. The fact is: You can fear yourself right into the failure you so desperately wish to avoid. How ironic is that? Almost every successful entrepreneur experiences multiple failures. The statistics I’ve seen indicate that entrepreneurs typically fail three times before they achieve success. One of the problems we have today is that we hear stories about startups that seem to come out of nowhere and within a few years turn the founders into multimillionaires. This is, in part, a symptom that there are certain elements within the investment community that have overvalued some startups, paying big money for ideas that have shown no real commercial value. This just proves that in addition to smart money, there is dumb money. However, investors wise up quickly and I believe the days of irrational exuberance over the “next big online startup” are in our rearview mirror. To see your vision come to life or your business grow to the next level, you must overcome your fear, work hard, and maintain your focus. If you need more than my encouragement and gentle prodding today, mediate on the quotes below. Also, we’ve created graphics from the first three quotes that you can download for free – just fill in your email address and first name below. They make great content for sharing on your social media accounts. Feel free to add your brand, logo, name, or URL to the graphics. The images are royalty free and can be used without attribution. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy. – Dale Carnegie Limits, like fear, is often an illusion. – Michael Jordan Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out. – Benjamin Franklin America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand. – Harry S Truman You always have two choices: your commitment versus your fear. Sammy Davis, Jr. My motto is: feel the fear and do it anyway. – Tamara Mellon Being aware of your fear is smart. Overcoming it is the mark of a successful person. – Seth Godin Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt, or fear. – Dan...
read moreThis week in small business: Talk to yourself, stop driving customers away, and price things right
One writer this week thinks digital marketing has flat-lined. I don’t entirely agree, I do know that digital marketing requires more thoughtful planning than it did a few years ago. And, that’s exactly why you need to check out the marketing tips in this batch of curated content. Marketing and sales Uh oh. Andrew Medal says that digital marketing channels are flat-lining, but fortunately he has some advice on what to do about it. But if digital marketing is flat-lining because of you, you’ll want to make sure you aren’t doing things that are driving customers away. Heather Turner has the insights. Jim David goes into great detail in his article on how to use Google Search Console to boost your SEO. Take the time to read it. Leadership, management, and productivity Writing for OnDeck, Ty Kiisel outlines six ways to help maximize small business efficiency. I especially like number two, borrowed from the software development world. Do you talk to yourself? Great, then you already are doing one of the six daily habits of extremely successful people as relayed to us by Paul Schrodt. The topic of pricing never goes out of style and I think you’ll get a lot from Raluca Popeschu’s 4+1 E-commerce Pricing Strategy Tactics. Entrepreneurship, startups, and innovation Hannah Williams gives us five tips to prevent a social media nightmare along with strategies to use when something goes wrong despite following those five...
read moreWhat you need to learn from Chipotle’s troubles
Burrito maker Chipotle is the current poster child for Murphy’s Law: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. And smart small business, medium-sized business, and large business leaders will take note of what has happened to Chipotle over the last couple of years to carefully examine their own management structure and talent. The food chain made the news recently when it sorely missed earnings expectations and made millions of dollars for investors who held short positions. The poor results caused Chipotle stock to plummet some 15 percent. The lesson to be learned from Chipotle’s misfortune is that every segment of your business must be under excellent management. This can be difficult for smaller businesses, especially when founders are reluctant to delegate. Chipotle experienced problems through: Operations: An e-coli outbreak in 2015 set the company back and since then there have been other food-safety incidents. Technology: A malware-powered data breach put customer data into the hands of hackers. Natural disasters: Chipotle said that the hurricanes also blew away some of its revenue, contributing to the poor Q3 results. Chipotle couldn’t stop the hurricanes, but the fact that it lays some blame on those storms emphasizes the impact natural events can have on your business. Chipotle has restaurants across the fruited plain and frankly, the hurricanes – as severe as they were – impacted only a small part of the nation in terms of area. How would your results look if you suffered a shutdown caused by a severe natural or man-made disaster? Do you have logistical plans and preparation in place to get back on your feet quickly? Do you have the funds required to bridge your downtime? Statistics show that many small businesses are unprepared. The operational and technological problems Chipotle suffered highlight one of the basic problems faced by small business owners. Typically, the tech guru isn’t the same person who can create and manage the nitty-gritty systems that must be in place to exert proper control in an organization – nor is he or she the marketing magician. If you look at the different leadership expertise required as we’ve outlined the problems Chipotle has faced, they cover these areas: How will you weather a disaster? Technical: Is your data secure? Operations: Does your company run safely and efficiently? Marketing: When you experience a problem, how will it be managed in the public? Let me say one more thing about that final point. Chipotle is suffering because of repeated food safety problems or scares. I don’t want to criticize any actions it has taken to fix those problems, but I do want to point to the fact that they have left a lingering skepticism on the part of many consumers. Compare this to the Tylenol 1982 tampering crisis. If you weren’t around for that terrible scare, seven people in the Chicago area died after someone laced extra-strength Tylenol on store shelves with cyanide. Johnson & Johnson recalled 31 million bottles of Tylenol and developed excellent tamper-proof packaging. It was essentially the first real product recall. Customer confidence was restored. Had there been another incident of tampering, I think Tylenol may have never recovered. Strong, immediate action, and good follow on marketing, restored its critical position in the market. Today, it’s perhaps the premiere case study in handling...
read moreThis week in small business: Early to bed, early to rise makes you health, wealthy, and wise?
Get up early, control browser tab madness, and consider paying an experienced blogger to create content for you. Sound like good advice? Don’t answer that yet – check out the full articles…the links to which you will find below! Leadership, management, and productivity Roy Olende says that the best decision he’s made all year was to start his work day at 5 a.m. Need to get your Chrome tabs under control? Kari Sonde says there’s an app (well, extension) for that: Tabagotchi. If you want to manage a difficult-to-impossible business, check out Mary Ellen Biery’s article on the industries with the lowest profit margins. In the hands of college freshmen, a credit card can lead to uncontrolled spending. In the hands of a smart small business owner, it can create greater control over spending. That’s one of the points I made in this sponsored post. And speaking of money, I discuss five financial rations every small business owner needs to understand in this article I wrote for the MasterCard small business site. If you need a fresh perspective on success and some ideas to achieve it, check out Sherrie Campbell’s 8 Ways to Flow In the Channel of Success. Marketing and sales Simple is good and that’s just one reason readers enjoyed Ronald Dod’s 9 Simple eCommerce Content Marketing Tips You Can Start Using Today. Should you pay bloggers to create content for you? That’s the question Kelly Haddock explores in this article. Jason DeMers explores the question many of us have been thinking: Is keyword density still important in SEO? When you’re looking for a CRM system, keep an eye out for these five key features, says Justin Miller. Entrepreneurship, startups, and innovation Dan Bova picks the brain of hot-roddin‘ reality TV star Richard Rawlings (Gas Monkey Garage owner) to discover how he went from flat broke to multi-millionaire. Writing for Harvard Business Review, Michael Redbord details how to scale customer service as your startup grows. Working for a startup is a special experience and in her article, Victoria Cairl outlines five things no one will tell you about it…except Victoria, presumably. You can learn a lot from building your startup, but sometimes you learn even more when it falls apart. That’s what Alexandra Dickinson reveals in her profile of Leanne...
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