By Kathi Kruse
Kruse Control Inc.
I’m struck by the dichotomy of authenticity that consumers experience on a daily basis. It’s a constant question about whom to believe, will the product or service be right for me and can I trust this person or brand to deliver what they say they will. Authenticity is not for amateurs. First, you have to have it. Then you have to communicate it.
Authenticity requires vulnerability, transparency and integrity
It all starts in the heart of your brand. A brand is defined by the place it holds in the hearts, minds and wallets of its customers.
Trust is the currency exchanged at the core of this relationship. Gain trust and credibility with your customers and brand loyalty is yours. Lose it and you’re forced into a transactional relationship that turns your brand into a commodity.
New digital technologies and the emergence of the sharing economy have brought authenticity and transparency to the forefront, adding another layer of difficulty for companies to navigate.
I like to use real time examples of transparency and authenticity and I’ve got a good story for you illustrating the polarized differences we face, not only as consumers but as marketers. If you want to succeed in building brand trust, you have to know what success and failure actually look like.
Failure in authenticity
Oprah is one of the biggest names in media. She’s propelled her brand to places that others rarely get to visit. Since leaving "The Oprah Winfrey Show," she’s had some wins and some losses. With the birth of the OWN Network, I feel like her brand has gotten a little muddled in the last few years.
OWN broadcasts a show called "Super Soul Sunday." I have a strong yoga and spiritual practice and I sometimes tune in to see what today’s spiritual thought leaders have to share. It’s not always great, especially when Oprah starts pontificating, which I find a bit off-putting.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Oprah and I applaud her for trying to raise the consciousness of our world. I just would like to hear more from the guest than from Oprah.
There was a show this week called "Super Soul Sessions." I’d never seen it before so I recorded it. It looked like a take on the TED model and being a new customer, I carved out some time to check it out.
What it ended up being was short snippets of talks by thought leaders and, in order to see more than five minutes of the person’s talk, you had to go to the website. Now, I watch a lot of programming on the Web but having sat down to watch it on TV, I didn’t feel like jumping over. I don’t know — I guess I just didn’t feel like doing what they told me to do.
OWN was not authentic in their delivery. When a person makes time to view your content, and you don’t let them know that it’s only a preview of another channel’s content, you’ve broken the contract you had with the customer. Had they sold the show as a preview for Web content, then I could’ve made the choice whether I wanted to watch it. Instead, it felt like manipulation.
Now, this exchange I had with the Oprah brand may seem inconsequential but in the war for attention, the devil is in the details. I’m busy like everyone else and when I decide to take a break from the rat race, that last thing I need is a pathetic attempt to get me to spend more time on your website.
Lesson here? You never hear the door slam on lost opportunities. I doubt that I’ll ever go back. With so much content vying for my attention, don’t make me jump through hoops to see what I want to see.
Success in authenticity
Like all of us, I need to periodically replenish my wardrobe. I was looking for the perfect white v-neck t-shirt (aren’t we all, right, gals?). I like my T-shirts soft, but not see-through; long enough, but not too long. I did a Google search for “Best women’s v-neck t-shirt” and landed on a great blog post spotlighting 10 pretty great options. There were some priced as high as $100 and I found a company called Everlane that was on the list whose T-shirt was only $20.
I clicked over to their site and found a company that sounded like a dream. Their about page says:
“Introducing Radical Transparency. Know your factories. Know your costs. Always ask why.”
“We constantly challenge the status quo. Nothing is worse than complacency, and as a brand our culture is to dissect every single decision we make at every level of the company.
We know our customers are also rule breakers and questioners, so we hope this philosophy is palpable in the products and choices we make. And by all means, challenge us too.”
Wow, now this is a brand I can get behind! So, I ordered two white T-shirts. They offer free shipping on two or more items and they used Facebook Messenger to keep me updated on when the package would arrive.
The package arrived promptly and it comes in a post-consumer recycled envelope that looks nothing like I’ve ever seen before … another cool detail!
By the way, the T-shirts are AWESOME! I actually went back and ordered two more, along with a few poplin shirts that are very high quality. I’m thrilled because they fit me perfectly! I can’t even believe how amazing Everlane is. I was going to share my experience on Facebook but decided to write about it instead. I wanted to compare my stories to show you that authenticity and radical transparency can happen … and does … and it’s often the reason someone buys from you.
A focus on authenticity pays you back in sales and customer loyalty.
Know your why
In conversations with clients and prospects, we always advocate the need to understand why you are doing what you do.
- Why did you start the business?
- What drives your vision?
- Do your employees understand your vision and do they share it?
- Why do your customers choose you over your competitor?
In the world of women’s T-shirts, nearly every single brand has been reduced to a commodity. At Everlane, they’ve fully dissected their WHY and they do a great job at communicating it:
“They say you should start a business that you wish already existed, so we quit our day jobs.”
“We have a passion for great design and frustration with the lack of innovation in the retail space. It’s a motley group held together by a shared passion for pushing boundaries and challenging conventions.”
Even their job opportunities page oozes their brand:
“Rule breakers, questioners, straight-A students who skipped class: We want you.”
Where are you on the authenticity spectrum?
Thirty-two percent of senior executives say building trust is one of their biggest challenges, second only to expansion and top-line growth over the next one to two years.
“Brands earn trust by being authentic, and by being seen as authentic.” — Robert Wolcott, Kellogg School of Management, Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Disruption is upon us. Nowhere is that more evident than in automotive retail, where I spend the bulk of my time with clients. Clearly, those brands that are open to change and embrace authenticity and transparency will thrive. Will that be you?
This column originally appeared on www.krusecontrolinc.com.
By Kathi Kruse
Kruse Control Inc.
In this world of cheap knockoffs, hidden agendas and mud-filled transparency, the reality is that not all social media connections are created equal.
We’re searching for authenticity in ourselves and our network and that leads to craving more meaningful interactions. The winds of change are upon us. The new trend in social media is to be more deliberate about connections in favor of quality over quantity.
Regardless of what commands our attention, value is the driver in everything we do. Now that social media has matured, users and companies are beginning to discover that a larger number of social network connections may be less valuable than a smaller, more intimate circle.
I spent the better part of last weekend purging my Facebook friends list. I’d been thinking about it for a very long time (maybe you have, too?) because my newsfeed was cluttered with either meaningless noise or offensive rhetoric.
The catalyst for my purge party was a satirical post I shared referencing the well-known 79% wage gap between men and women.
Some goofball connection of mine actually wanted to argue about the validity of this wage gap stat. After listening and responding to a few of his comments, and taking the time to figure out that he was not interested in a civil, informed, adult conversation, I deleted him.
I always give people the benefit of the doubt, but I’ve been a community manager/content strategist/monitor for a long time now, and I’m pretty good at spotting hidden agendas. I don’t expect people to agree with me but I do expect authenticity and civility. When it becomes evident that those are not present … I wish them into the cornfield.
My goal for being on social media is to always bring value to conversations.
I’m not perfect but I do try hard to answer these questions before I post:
Is it kind? Is it necessary? It it true? Does it improve the silence?
On social media, I also aim to:
- Represent my personal brand
- Advocate for animals
- Share pictures of my cat Jack (and sometimes my other cat, Sammy)
- Network with like-minded business people
- Learn from others to improve my business
- Get inspiration for my blog
- Market and advertise my social media strategy and training business, Kruse Control.
After the exchange on the wage-gap post, I realized that life is too short to be connected to people who don’t share my goals. Who knows, that guy might have thought he was bringing value to a conversation. What he needs to do now is go find where that conversation is. It’s certainly not on my Facebook page.
There had been growing evidence over that past few months that I needed to “thin the herd” of Facebook connections.
So, I started out with 2,867 friends. The strategy that I once used for connecting with people is not the strategy I use now. My former strategy was to welcome anyone from within the automotive industry because I believed we could network and refer each other. Clearly, this was naive. I have since been much more discriminating about who I invite into my world.
If you’re considering a clean up, here’s the most efficient way I found to purge connections:
I pulled up the mobile site on my desktop (m.facebook.com) and clicked on the Friends tab. Then I opened another window with regular Facebook so I could look up the connections in question. The friends list on the mobile site begins with those you interact with most so it was easy to scroll past them and see all the others who I didn’t recognize or interact with.
I spent about 8 hours over 4 days and when I was done going through every single one of those unfamiliar connections, I had cleaned out about 700 people. And WOW, you cannot believe some of the stuff I saw in those profiles! I can’t believe I was ever connected to people so full of hatred!
The result is that my newsfeed has better, more relevant content now and the conversations are civil, interesting and in some cases, inspiring.
I’ve also noticed that every person I mentioned my purge party to said, “Oh my gosh, I’ve got to do that!”
We have a new trend in social media now.
So many of my valued connections are throwing their own purge parties.
- Tech-guru Robert Scoble purged his list a few months ago.
- Michael Stelzner (Social Media Examiner) just purged 2,200 folks from his friends list.
- Jason Falls just wrote a post about quality over quantity called “Why Vanity Metrics Don’t Matter.”
In the salad days of social media (2013 and prior), most everyone was positive, friendly and helpful. Now that it’s grown up, social media more closely reflects the state of our culture — all the positive and all the negative.
- People are much more willing to post things that they would never say in person now.
- Unsuspecting users blindly share fake posts.
- Ego-driven individuals post disingenuous information that suits their ideology.
Like I say, social media has matured.
This new trend in social media is a move toward deeper and more meaningful connections. Not everyone has the same goals for social media so isn’t it smarter to take the time to design who you really want to interact with?
Here are 5 tips to help you downsize your connections and improve your experience on social media:
1. Solidify who you are as a personal brand. Don’t take to the airwaves without standing firm in what you believe in and how you want to be known in the world.
2. Set goals for why you are on social media. Determine the reasons you’re on social media and act with your goals in mind.
3. Employ the “Am I delivering value?” filter to your actions. Before you start a post or reply, answer those questions (Is it kind? Is it necessary? Is it true?) and do everything you can to bring value to the conversation.
4. Keep your house clean and purge when needed. Decide your criteria for maintaining connections. Refer back to your goals for social media and unplug from anyone who isn’t delivering value.
5. If you’re a business, laser focus on your target audience.
Now that Facebook has developed a reliable, relevant, paid solution with never-before-seen targeting capabilities, it’s no longer necessary to focus on quantity of audience for social marketing success. Social ad targeting now makes it easier and more efficient to focus on quality of audience.
Prior to 2013 or so, the game on Facebook and Twitter was to collect likes and followers — vanity metrics. The more you had, the better chance your content would be seen by an audience predisposed to respond.
But with social ad targeting capabilities available in these platforms today, you can now serve the content to the right audience, not just a broad, best guess group that might include them.
Facebook ads have made promoting your content and your company more successful by targeting those who would most likely buy what you’re selling. Money, time and effort are used efficiently when you’re deliberate about reaching an engaged audience for your brand. Why spend money pushing messages to people who are not interested?
When it comes to social networking, bigger is rarely better.
A big network, goes the argument, gives you reach and, potentially, that holy grail of “influence.” But with an enormous collection of friends or followers on a network, you lose the benefits of intimacy, discoverability, and trust, all of which canwork better when you have fewer connections.
This column originally appeared on www.krusecontrolinc.com.
By Kathi Kruse
Kruse Control Inc.
Let’s face it: finding the right path to successful social media marketing is difficult. Lots of companies invest time and money into platforms to get likes and followers without truly knowing what success looks like.
You look at their profiles and they’re not really being social at all. While many still find success in social marketing elusive, it really doesn’t have to be. If you’re new to social media, you’re in the right place.
It’s been 10-plus years since the beginning of the social era. Today, it’s nearly impossible to go a day without hearing some mention of social media and its value. It’s no longer an optional component but an integral part of any online marketing campaign.
As a beginner, it’s important to stay grounded and not get overwhelmed. Trusted information is your best friend.
Start with one platform and choose the place where your customers/prospects most likely spend their time everyday. For most businesses that sell to consumers, that’s Facebook.
Once you’ve mastered the strategies for Facebook (ie: content marketing and advertising), you can leverage your tactics to structure your approach on the other platforms.
Social media is not a big, scary monster and you no longer have the luxury of ignoring it. It takes a considered intentions and the right information from a trusted resource. The following best practices and key points will allow you find your footing.
Facebook: The world’s largest marketplace.
These 7 elements outline your best plan and they’re useful in designing marketing campaigns on other platforms as well:
1. Clear objectives. Ideally, you want to create a marketing plan and set realistic goals. It isn’t enough to say you “see” results. Your results must tie back to your goals and objectives. You’ll never know ROI without goal setting and strategy.
2. Design strategy. Visual content has a lasting effect on the viewer. When creating your Facebook page and other profiles, make your branding consistent. Whether it’s your status updates, your landing pages or your Facebook ads, what the audience sees is what they’ll remember. Make sure it’s compelling and gets the point across.
3. Solid content strategy. One of the most frequently asked questions I get is,“How do I know what to post on our page?”
In order to know the answer to that question, you must have a solid idea of who you are as a brand and who your target customers are.
What is it about your company that makes it unique, makes people want to buy from you? Answer that question in detail.
Then, describe your target customers. What are their interests, concerns and issues? How can you help them come to a purchase decision with the content you publish?
Don’t forget about those fans who are not in-market. What can you offer them to make their time with you interesting?
4. Promotion strategy. Social media is now pay to play. Facebook ads are how you’ll continually grow your fan base. A small budget with carefully-selected photos and ad copy will drive likes to your page.
5. Engagement strategy. Leverage Facebook ads to promote your content and increase your audience reach.
As your page grows, you’ll begin to engage fans and build those relationships. Designate one person internally to listen, respond, ask questions and engage with your audience.
6. Conversion strategy. Once you’re growing fans and engaging them, your next step is designing a way to convert them into customers. This more advanced form of Facebook marketing utilizes Facebook ads, custom audiences and compelling landing pages. Be sure to include a call to action and a lead form on your landing page to generate leads for your business.
7. Measure and analyze. You’ll need to determine the KPI’s (key performance indicators) that matter most to your success. Here are the top 8 KPI’s that we measure and analyze:
Audience growth
Audience profile
Audience engagement
Content reach
Engagement by content type
Leads
Response rate and quality
Negative feedback
Business Blog: Increase online authority and dominate search results.
1. Start with a solid framework. WordPress (self-hosted) is the best choice for most companies. WordPress provides a great SEO-friendly platform right out of the box. It allows you to easily update your content and there are literally limitless customization options.
2. Optimize your posts for search engines. Blog posts are valuable in two ways:
— Humans (customers and prospects) read them during their shopping research.
— Search engines look for fresh, relevant content when ranking sites and blogs are the best at providing it.
Do keyword research to see what your target audience is searching for when it comes to your products and services.
Once you know how they’re searching, use this handy plug-in I use on my WordPress site. It’s called WordPress SEO by Yoast. Install it and it will guide you through the process of optimizing your post for search engines.
3. Commit to posting at least once a week. Utilize the content strategy you created above to inform your content decisions. Publish consistently. Get traction by asking your front line personnel to give you their 3 top customer FAQs. Answer each one of those with a blog post.
4. Write what you’re passionate about. This is where leveraging your staff’s expertise can really come in handy. You may already have a blogger as an employee! Capitalize on your team members’ passions. Share interesting stories mixed with super-helpful tips.
5. Make sure you’re seen. Publish your posts on social media and use Facebook ads to promote your content to more users.
It’s important to know that clicks to your website from social media channels increase your relevance in search engines, so leverage your content wisely.
Twitter: Conversational, content-driven channel to reach target customers.
1. Create your profile. Take advantage of the real estate Twitter gives you. Make sure you stay consistent with your brand’s message. Optimize your bio and install a branded header to capture attention (part of the design strategy we mentioned above).
2. Follow your thought leaders. When you’re new to Twitter, it helps to follow people who’ve been there a while and take cues from them for publishing. In this knowledge-based, sharing economy, we’re all able to learn from each other and support each others’ success.
3. Follow your customers/prospects. Use Twitter Advanced Search to locate your customers on Twitter. Follow them and if they don’t follow you back within a few days, unfollow them. It’s about attracting those that are most likely to buy from you, not every person on the planet.
4. Connect with others by sharing awesome content and engaging in conversations. The more you talk about yourself, the less people want to follow you. Leverage the strategies you designed for your Facebook marketing. People only share and interact with awesome content. Think about what’s relevant to them and do your best to give it to ’em.
Instagram: Sell your company’s personality not your products.
1. Humanize your brand by using Instagram to introduce your fans to the people who make your company what it is. A great way to show your brand personality is to share images/stories of your team when they’re delivering an outstanding customer experience.
2. Tap into the employees and customers’ personalities. Highlight employees and customers in their “natural habitat.”
3. Generate leads with a solid Instagram content strategy. Show a side of your business that’s consistent with your “personality”:
— Content that unmasks a more intimate or fun-loving side of your business.
— The genesis of your business is a great place to start.
— It’s perfectly ok to showcase your products and services but do it in a way that doesn’t annoy.
Online review sites: Your online reputation influences buying decisions.
Eight-eight percent of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. But getting online reviews is not a simple task. The No. 1 criticism I hear from business owners and managers new to social media is how difficult it is to obtain online reviews with any sort of consistency.
Here are some Do’s and Don’t’s for getting online reviews:
Do’s:
— Earn the right to invite a review
— Make it easy for customers to submit their feedback
— Respond to every review with a thoughtful reply
— Provide training for employees so they know exactly how to approach asking for a “referral”
Don’t’s:
— Don’t specifically ask for a positive review
— Don’t pressure or coerce your customer
— Don’t offer anything in exchange for a positive review
— Never get into a heated discussion, no matter how wrong you think they are
If you’re new to social media .
Remember, everyone starts somewhere. No matter how far behind you think you are, there’s always a solution to capitalize on social media.
Don’t underestimate yourself or your organization. Social media is a valuable tool to generate leads and sales. You’re only new once and from there, it’s a fantastic and fun journey.
This column originally appeared on www.krusecontrolinc.com.
By Kathi Kruse
Kruse Control Inc.
If you’re a social media marketer, your day is busy.
Sometimes, at the end of the day, you feel like all you did was spin your wheels. The boss is breathing down your neck waiting for results and you’re hard-pressed to give him anything concrete. You long to develop the habits of highly effective social media marketers but you’ve got so many balls in the air, you’re not sure which way is up.
There is a better way.
Taking the time to create a system that works for you will allow you to breathe easier. It might be painful during the process but once you’ve got it down, things will become manageable and the results you and your boss were craving will begin to emerge.
Following the habits of highly successful social media marketers requires that you make a choice. You can go along the same way you always have and get the same results. Or, you can choose to focus on building a system that works…and let it do some of the work for you.
It’s your choice.
7 habits of highly successful social media marketers
1. They develop a core strategy
Create goals that give you room to stretch, fail, get back up, and grow. State what you need to accomplish and determine the type of content that will help you achieve these goals. Then, create a plan to help you accomplish them.
Be nimble and agile. Core strategy should be flexible enough for you to easily adjust as your environment shifts. Your core strategy should align with your core values because you’ll need to sustain it and endure challenges over the long haul.
2. They know content strategy is key
- Who are your target customers? Identify and describe who you are trying to reach.
- Who are your competitors? Determine who or what can take prospects away from you.
- What do you bring to the table – better than anybody else? Resolve your “Why Buy Here.”
- What customer problems, concerns, or questions can you solve, clarify or answer?
- What content are you currently publishing?
- What’s the purpose of your specific content types? Examples: Increase interest, show up in search, engage prospects, advertise for leads.
3. They manage their content just like any other company asset
- Who will produce your content? Who will research, write and design it?
- How will you distribute content? Where does your ideal audience spend their time?
- Who’s in charge of your content? It may be you but in growing companies, this may need to be outsourced.
- Who’s going to maintain your content? Content is like a garden, it needs to be cultivated. Name that person and create a schedule.
- Who’s responsible for the results? If you have a small team, make each person responsible for some area of content. Make sure these goals are measurable, achievable and specific.
4. They manage their time with ease
A social media manager’s job is really a 24/7 gig. It would be nice to shut off the spigot sometimes, but customers want what they want, when they want it. In social marketing, so many components need to come together to achieve results and managing it all can be overwhelming. Time management is crucial so you don’t feel like you’re going to lose your mind.
Social media marketing is a creative process (contrary to what all the “tools vendors” tell you). Creativity needs breathing room. One of the reasons you feel overwhelmed or tapped out is because you haven’t designated a space, with no distractions, to focus on what matters most. Here’s where the 90-minute rule comes in.
The 90-Minute Rule:
Choose each next day’s most important task the evening before.
- Silence your phone, close all windows on your computer and put voicemail on do-not-disturb.
- Begin your work day focusing uninterrupted for 90 minutes on that one task. Routine is vital so commit to at least 21 days of practice.
- Typically, you’ll get more work done during those 90 minutes, and feel more satisfied with your output, than you do for any comparable period of time the rest of the day.
5. They focus on conversions
Highly effective social media marketers behave as though everything they do leads up to conversions.
- Building fans and followers
- Increasing reach
- Boosting engagement
- Selecting the right content (posts, blogs, landing pages, ads)
Taking these important steps to lay the foundation for conversions is crucial. It often means the difference between getting the sale… and not.
Once you’ve got a solid audience who knows, likes and trusts you, you’ll need a system to capture leads and turn them into sales.
- Creative campaigns capture attention
- Click throughs to landing pages deliver compelling offers
- Lead forms bring prospects another step closer
- Expert follow up turns fans into customers
6. They measure and analyze to inform next steps
It’s not enough to hang your hat on how much traffic is coming to your site. Years ago, this was the golden ring. Today, it’s simply a part of your overall analysis.
Determine the top KPI’s (key performance indicators) that measure success for you and use them to form your next steps. Here are the top 8 Facebook KPI’s we use to determine our client’s next steps:
- Audience growth
- Audience profile
- Audience engagement
- Content reach
- Engagement by content type
- Leads
- Response rate and quality
- Negative feedback
7. They have fun
Highly effective social media marketers are passionate about connecting with people — online or off. Producing content that attracts target customers comes easy to them because they are passionate.
Doing what you love is fun. If you’re not loving what you do, it’s time to do something else.
Are you ready to be a highly effective social media marketer?
Scaling the wall to develop these habits is your choice. Take time to investigate what makes sense for you and put in down on paper. Don’t be distracted by every tip, trick or hack that comes to your inbox. Free advice only goes so far. It’s taking that information and making something useful that’s going to get you to the finish line.
This content originally appeared on www.krusecontrolinc.com.
By Kathi Kruse
When does customer experience actually begin? Certainly, it’s in full force during the purchase transaction, but what many companies don’t realize is that customer experience begins in the weeks or months leading up to the first time they contact you.
Social media has opened the gates to information about your business. Consumers ask friends and family for facts (like they’ve always done) and social media provides an easy way to communicate. Consider this quote:
“Advertising is the tax you pay for being unremarkable.” — Robert Stephens, founder of The Geek Squad and Best Buy.
Remarkable customer experience excels beyond …
- Price
- Expensive marketing initiatives
- Super Bowl-sized ad campaigns
- Rebranding efforts
- Sales production
Why does this matter?
Being a brand with consistently great customer experience means your company can focus on keeping current customers — and not solely on acquiring new customers. Why? Assuming a current customer loves you, has had nothing but great experiences, and is a true fan — an advocate — they will work for you.
There’s no need to spend massive amounts on advertising and marketing; the experience speaks for itself and your customers will do the talking.
And you’ll benefit from some other cost efficiencies, too.
The economics of loyalty
Your most loyal customers (your Raving Fans) …
- Are less price sensitive
- Will pay a premium for a better experience
- Stay longer, spend more, churn less
- Expand their purchases/relationships to other/new products or services you offer
- May overlook product shortcomings
- Are more likely to forgive occasional/infrequent service shortcomings (just make it right, though!)
- Cost less (in marketing, advertising, promotions)
- Have fewer complaints
- Provide feedback and want to help you improve and succeed
- Become technical support for you by helping other customers (answer questions, solve problems)
- Will evangelize the brand for you
All of this adds up to a strong case for focusing on customer experience, not only as part of your culture but as key to cultivating your online reputation, upon which many buying decisions are made.
By providing solid, original, high-quality content and concentrating efforts to attract and engage prospective buyers prior to sale, you create an experience that keeps your sales pipeline full.
Raving fans tell stories about how wonderful you are.
Your content bolsters those stories and solidifies trust and credibility.
By the time a prospective buyer makes the first contact with you, they’ve already had a genuinely great customer experience!
What influences buyers?
The following is a list of the top five influences on customer purchase journey behaviors. Leveraging these will help you create a stellar customer experience prior to sale.
1. Social media. Buyer confidence and satisfaction are influenced by a company’s social presence and responsiveness.
2. Online reviews. Genuine customer feedback, and the internal company process that supports it, helps buyers learn more from those they perceive as, “people like me.”
3. Quality content. Save buyers’ time and money by providing useful information and answers to frequently asked questions. Engage prospective buyers so that they are able to make informed decisions about your brand, your products and services.
4. Mobile. Help buyers make purchase decisions anywhere, anytime.
5. Video. Provide buyers with a rich, “show me” environment for researching products and services.
Over two years ago, Steve Cannon, then president/CEO of Mercedes-Benz, said this about customer experience:
“Customer experience is the new marketing. If you don’t have a passionate, committed executive leadership team … you won’t get out of the gate. It’s the most important thing we do. We have the most demanding customers on the planet. Customer experience better be at the top of your list when it comes to priorities in your organization.”
These words are truer and even more important today … no matter what industry you’re in.
What steps are you willing to take in your company to greet the customer online, before they visit your store or website, and position yourself to win the sale?
The opportunity is there to develop a stellar customer experience prior to sale and for it to become one of the main selling points in the transaction.
This content originally appeared on www.krusecontrolinc.com.
By Kathi Kruse
One of the common pain points companies suffer from is that, while a solid content strategy is integral to their revenue goals, creating and publishing quality content, with any kind of consistency, continues to be elusive.
The frustration has reached a fever-pitch and it’s something I like to call “The Empty Fridge Syndrome.”
You know that feeling. It’s 8 p.m. on a Sunday. You’re chillin’ on the couch and you get the urge for something interesting to eat but you know from your earlier visit that there’s not much in the fridge.
Undeterred, you walk over, open it up, hoping against hope that there’s something you missed the last time, something that’ll catch your eye this time that will satisfy your craving.
Then, the disappointed, defeatist, downright dejected part of you scowls back at the fridge and you slam the door as if you’ve just learned that you missed tonight’s Lotto by one lousy number.
Content strategy (or the lack of it) can feel very much the same. Your website and social channels are your fridge and your content strategy is what gives you the power to fill it up with interesting, lead-generating content!
Chances are, as you walk over to the fridge, it’s not really the food you’re craving … it’s something to replace the boredom. If your website and social channels are lacking excitement, there’s a 100-percent chance your customers are bored, too!
Don’t get caught up in the vicious cycle of having nothing to write about on your blog or post on social media. Give yourself the opportunity to come up with solutions you can use at these times…instead of scrambling for inspiration and feeling defeated.
1. Learn Your Cues
The secret here is to practice observing yourself, the people around you and the events that cause you to end up clamoring for content ideas.
Quality content (the kind your customers need and appreciate) doesn’t just happen out of thin air. It takes a concerted effort to publish solid, original content. The more quickly you’re able to recognize what needs to happen (and what needs to nothappen) in order for you to achieve your goals, the more effective your marketing will be.
2. Replace Bad Habits
It’s Friday at 3 p.m. You’re due to go home for the weekend and you haven’t come up with anything to post on your blog next week. You haven’t figured out what exactly you want to post on Facebook.
Time management is a social media manager’s best friend. It’s time to impart the 90-Minute Rule.
Content strategy is a creative process (contrary to what all the “tools vendors” tell you). Creativity needs breathing room. One of the reasons you feel overwhelmed or tapped out is because you haven’t designated a space, with no distractions, to focus on what matters most.
THE 90-MINUTE RULE:
Choose each next day’s most important task the evening before.
Silence your phone, close all windows on your computer and put voicemail on do-not-disturb.
Begin your work day focusing uninterrupted for 90 minutes on that one task.
Routine is vital so commit to at least 21 days of practice.
Typically, you’ll get more work done during those 90 minutes, and feel more satisfied with your output, than you do for any comparable period of time the rest of the day.
3. Take a walk
We often think that taking a break is sinful. Quite the contrary, doing something physical for 20 minutes can not only break the pattern of boredom and worry but when you return, you’ll have fresh eyes to complete your task.
4. Brainstorm
There is power in the crowd!
Another common occurrence with content strategy and creation is that our head will say, “You got this.” Now, in some cases, that’s completely true but when you hit a creative wall – and you will – you need support.
When this happens, you may think, “Well, I can figure this out later.” and that will guarantee you a spot staring into the fridge expecting something to pop out that’s delicious.
Set yourself up for success by asking a few skillful, savvy, well-positioned co-workers to brainstorm content ideas with you. The ideas that arise will be greater than the sum of your individual contributions.
5. Prepare for resistance
Resistance to change is a human event. We are programmed to seek pleasure and avoid pain. It’s much easier to go back to your comfort zone but that will secure you a spot in front of the fridge.
Making changes, even small ones, is challenging. Be prepared when things seem to be reverting back to your old habits. Your first clue is defending your position and spending time on other tasks.
Bypass the empty fridge with a solid content strategy plan
It’s no secret: planning and strategy make for a winning team. Attracting and engaging today’s modern, hyper-connected buyers requires your A-Game.
The effort you put into building your content strategy and process shows in your success. Don’t get to the point of frustration. Walk away from the fridge, set up your strategies and meet your challenges head on with a routine that energizes you.
This column was published first on www.krusecontrolinc.com.
By Kathi Kruse
“Content is anything that adds value to the reader’s life.” -Avinash Kaushik, Google’s Digital Marketing Evangelist
In a world where consumers choose to connect with the brands they love, and where smart, savvy companies want to be included in that choice, getting the right message to the right customer at the right time has never been more important. As a shrewd marketer, you know there are many reasons to create a content strategy that helps you reach those most likely to buy.
Solid, original, self-published content needs to reach customers in order to inform, educate, entertain and guide them through their journey to the sale.
When content attracts and informs customers, it drives leads and sales.
But in order to create that solid, original, self-published content, it’s crucial to construct a foundational strategy from which to build your loyal following. Digital marketing success begins with a design blueprint from which all content will be generated.
Many companies are finding it difficult to sustain a viable, consistent process for content creation and often that’s due to having no written content strategy and/or marketing plan. All the signs point to very good reasons to have a content strategy but sadly, many companies are reverting to their old ways of advertising.
I’m not sure what it’s going to take to convince the key players that old school advertising just doesn’t work anymore. If the key players looked at their own shopping habits, they would most likely see that they’re bypassing commercials, scrolling past paid search results and ignoring banner ads.
Customers possess the same shopping behaviors so it stands to reason that adapting the company’s marketing and advertising plans to include content is the next best move.
5 Mega-Important Reasons to Create a Content Strategy
1. Content Drives Everything
Content is the centerpiece of your marketing and advertising:
- It’s what drives engagement on Social Media
- It’s what gets you found in search results
- It’s what drives organic traffic to your website
- It’s what makes or breaks your advertising success
- It’s what brings you inbound leads
2. Strategy Makes You Awesome!
Have you ever tried to achieve a goal without strategy? If you sat down right now and wrote out your goals, the very next thing you would think about is HOW to achieve them.
Achieving Goals = Awesome!
Quality content drives leads and sales….but quality content doesn’t just happen on its own.
3. Your Customer’s Attention Span is Less Than That of a Goldfish
According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, the average attention span of a human being has dropped from 12 seconds (in 2000) to 8 seconds (in 2015). This is one second less than the attention span of a goldfish.
Getting and keeping customers’ attention is no small feat. In a world of ever-increasing noise, a solid content strategy helps ensure production of higher quality content. High quality content attracts eyeballs because it stands out from all the meaningless messages. High quality content keeps the customer’s attention!
4. Illustrate WHY Your Customers Choose You
“People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it. The goal is not to do business with people who need what you have. The goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.” -Simon Sinek
What you post isn’t as important as WHY you post:
- When you know your WHY, it’s easier to create content.
- It’s your WHY that establishes value in the buyers’ mind.
- When employees know your WHY, they’re inspired too.
- Jumping into Facebook and other social media without your WHY makes your message impotent.
5. Customers Do Not Consume in Silence
Customers are social. They socialize while consuming (and deciding to consume) your products and services. Your content is your calling card in these social situations.
Going a step further, your content plan should include strategies on how you’ll interact with customers while they’re socializing. Once you’ve attracted fans, how will you manage your brand’s community and who will be the voice of your business?
What’s Next Then?
Don’t let your loyal fans and most interested buyers get distracted and wander off to your competitor. Keep them engaged by drawing up your content design blueprint and build a brand that’s so good they can’t ignore you!
By Kathi Kruse
The more we share, the more we have…
Although it’s become a buzzword, there’s still huge value in the act of social selling. The problem with buzzwords is that some people who don’t know exactly what they mean, act as if they do.
Where it gets dangerous is those “actors” decide to sell tactics around the buzzword and those who buy the tactics wake up one day saying, “Wow, this isn’t working for me.”
I would like social selling to work for you.
The first place to start is understanding that social selling is a process (just like any other sales process) whereby you build a network (online or offline) to increase referrals both ways and leverage relationships to create warmer leads.
Many talented sales professionals already have an offline network they’ve been nurturing for years. In order to attract, engage and sell to today’s modern, hyper-connected buyers, you need to build a process to connect with your network via social media.
Where you start is governed by two factors:
— Which platform you feel most comfortable using.
— Where your target customers are spending their time.
Beginning your process with both of these factors in mind will get you the traction you need.
Sales does not have to be a fight.
So many buyers and sellers come to the table with their armor on, ready to do battle. There’s no need to fall into the adversarial trap when you sell. Use a social- selling process to get out of the game of sales and onto the same side of the table with your customer.
Before we get to the five steps I’ve promised on social selling, it’s important to know that being genuine is a prerequisite. You will fail if you just go through the motions, trying to demonstrate qualities that are associated with emotional intelligence. You have to be genuine.
Studies have shown that people who have high EQ (emotional intelligence) make $29,000 more annually than people with low EQ. Ninety percent of the top performers have high EQ.
Social selling fact: If you’re genuine in real life, you’re genuine on social media. If you’re disingenuous in real life, you’re disingenuous on social media.
Selling from the same side of the table means your customer feels understood and comfortable. You know your customers so well that they feel a connection with you.
The 5 steps to sell from the same side of the table with social selling
Once you’re decided to be genuine (and yes, it is a decision), it’s time to put a process in place to build your network and grow your referrals.
Step 1: Identify prospects in your network
This first part of your process is about deciding who you want to deepen your relationship with. Within your network, there are two types of prospects:
— Those who are buyers of your product or service.
— Those who are available to become a referral partner.
Take a look at who is actually in your network and make a list of 20 people you’d like to connect further with. It’s not enough to simply be connected. People get busy and it’s on you to take the action required.
Step 2: Identify prospects out of your network
Dreams don’t work unless you do.
You never know how far you can go if you don’t decide who can help you get there. LinkedIn Premium (paid) is a great tool for this step.
Make a list of your top 10 “dream” customers. Using LinkedIn’s Advanced Search, investigate who in your network knows someone who can connect you to one of your dream customers/clients.
Step 3: Connect and deliver value to those prospects
Relationships are leverage. If you’re the first to provide value to someone else, you have leverage.
Solid, original, high-quality content is the most valuable thing you’ve got to give. It attracts prospects and referral partners and makes the connection memorable.
When you connect, offer them evidence of your value:
— Your helpful e-book on the “10 Tips to…”
— Your personal website or Facebook page that contains helpful info.
— Your stellar online reviews (many companies are providing salespeople with their own review pages).
— Your LinkedIn profile where your participation in your industry as a thought leader is unmistakable.
Step 4: Let expertise “introduce” you
When I started out, all I had was my site and my content strategy. I understood that without lending my expertise through content that I would not have a chance against the big companies that have millions of marketing dollars.
Do the work. Publish content regularly that illustrates your expertise.
Offer to do a “Lunch & Learn for your biggest prospects.
Step 5: Begin initial conversations
We’ve all received unwanted messages from people and companies who’ve not established any value with us. Today, spam is much more than just an unwanted message. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth about that person or company for a very long time.
Initial conversations that have been “pre-introduced” through helpful, expert content or from a referral partner have a much higher chance of turning into sales.
Reaching and educating customers has dramatically evolved.
Take these 5 steps to up your game and become a master at social selling. A warm lead beats a cold call any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
This column was published first on www.krusecontrolinc.com.
Most businesses agree they need to A) produce more content and B) connect on a deeper, personalized level with today’s hyper-connected buyers. But, following through on these two challenges and actually producing results (ie: leads and sales) is elusive without specific markers. Fortunately, encouraging employee participation in content marketing can help with both of these challenges.
But not all businesses and their cultures are created equal. There are many pitfalls to avoid when considering employee participation in content marketing and your business needs to be ready for prime time (ie: the social media spotlight). Which is one of the reasons some businesses haven’t yet leveraged this valuable strategy.
Employees are perceived as “people like me” by your customers. Employees are trusted more than any other representative or manager in your company. Happy employees who share their expertise by way of content on your website and social media send a very clear message to prospects: “This company is trustworthy and I can feel safe and/or comfortable doing business with them.”
When you showcase employees as thought leaders in your industry, the company receives more recognition online. Employees reap the benefit of their voices being broadcasted, paving the way for more referrals, leads and sales.
The company looks smarter because its employees look smarter.
Avoiding the hazards that can happen when you open your company up to employee participation in content marketing is crucial. One false move, one case of poor judgment, or one public altercation with a customer can spell doom.
It’s important to know the Do’s and Don’t’s of employee participation in content marketing so you can avoid the risks and retain the value.
Do’s of Employee Participation in Content Marketing
Always start with amazing, real-life customer experiences.
If you aren’t differentiating your business from your competitors then you’ll never be heard above the noise. The best way to create a remarkable presence is to capture images and video that illustrate why you are better.
Every customer-facing employee has stories of how they delivered a great experience. Encourage them to document their experiences.
You must establish WIIFM.
It’s human nature to be motivated initially by “what’s in it for me.” Any way you slice it, even if they tell you otherwise, there has to be something valuable in an employee’s actions for them to adapt to it long term.
Ask them to Google themselves. If they come up like a ghost, it’s time for them to get out of the shadows.
If things come up that are negative, even more reason to participate so they can redeem themselves.
Employees who are mentioned in online reviews, blog posts and social media are provided an opportunity to build a strong online presence, be perceived as a thought leader or expert, and thereby garner more referrals.
Encourage growth of employees’ personal brand.
Many companies think that if an employee has worked to build their personal brand and promotes it, they will eventually leave and take customers with them.
Now, if that’s all it’s going to take to get customers to leave then you’ve got much bigger problems.
The more effective and lucrative way of handling employees’ personal brands is to incorporate them within your company’s marketing and message. A strong employee personal brand represents trust to those they connect with. As an advocate for your company, they have much greater influence over customers and prospects.
Weave content participation into their job description and pay plan.
I believe in content creation and participation should be mandatory. Before you argue with me, consider this. You require employees to show up on time, right? You require them to perform their job duties, right? Why wouldn’t you gently fold in participation in content marketing as part of their duties…and compensate them for it? Done right, it’s worth every penny.
Recognize and reward 4-5 star reviews.
I have a client who wished to increase their Google reviews. They started with 23 reviews for a total of 4.8 stars. They began a program where each salesperson would get $25 for every 4 or 5 star review that mentioned the salesperson’s name (and was verified).
The result? In 90 days, they amassed 133 Google reviews and were able to retain their 4.8 star rating. A few months later, they have over 200 reviews.
Make content submission easy.
With any employee initiative that involves change and growth, you need a super-simple process to avoid most of the issues that arise. These tools will help bridge the gap between content creation and submission:
- Dropbox is always a good option for small business.
- Shared Google Docs are also a good option, depending on the technological aptitude of your team.
- For enterprise: DynamicSignal, SocialChorus and PostBeyond.
Track, analyze, show evidence and reinforce value.
You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Employee’s need to see the fruits of their labor (and so do you!).
- Check in with results during sales meetings
- Review metrics. Ask for suggestions on how to improve.
- Recognize how many leads came in
- What was the result of the sales follow-through?
Don’t’s of Employee Participation in Content Marketing
Don’t expect everyone to jump onboard: 80/20 rule.
20% of your staff will participate in and create 80% of the content you’re looking for.
The middle 60% will sort of participate and it’s your job to keep them motivated.
The bottom 20% will most likely never participate and that’s just how it is.
Don’t even start without a social media policy.
With any employee initiative, specific guidelines must be in place so they know what is expected and what to do if something goes wrong.
A social media policy alleviates fear on both sides of the table. Employees know what they need to do (or not do) in order to do a good job and the company satisfies their need for compliance and control.
If you’re the type of owner or manager who believes employees should not be allowed on social media, a social media policy just might help you get more comfortable with the fact that today’s hyper-connected buyers prefer online communication. You don’t restrict the phone or email so why restrict social media, especially if you have a policy in place?
Don’t overestimate employees’ skills. They need training!
Putting a social media policy in place is a great start but it won’t get you to the promised land. Valuable content produced by employees does not happen on its own…ever! They need training on:
- How to look for content opportunities
- How to tell the right stories
- How to professionally document those stories
- Know where their strengths and weaknesses lie
- Understand which types of media they feel more comfortable with
Don’t get overwhelmed.
Start slow and keep your expectations in check. A few employees may grasp the value right away and deliver great results. But don’t be fooled into thinking it’s all going to be easy – that’s the best way to get overwhelmed or disappointed.
Set easy-to-reach goals for yourself and for your staff. Track the wins and losses, learn from everything you do.
Employee participation in content marketing is the key to growing your business and increasing leads and sales. Take these steps to build your own internal process and your competitors won’t know what hit ’em.
The full column from Kruse can also be found here.
There’s a lot of discussion going on right now in nearly every company about whether to encourage employee participation in social media and content marketing. It’s a fact that employees and content marketing can be a minefield without certain components in place. However, I wouldn’t want you to miss a major opportunity to leverage your most valuable asset and bring in more leads and sales.
Each year this global credibility and trust study delivers juicy information on the important marketing trends and behaviors happening in the world based on trust.
The Trust Index component is the average of a population’s trust in institutions, business and media. The U.S. general population is in the “Distruster” column (no surprise there, eh?). However, employees are now essential advocates – they are the most trusted “spokespeople” for a company.
Consider the following stats on how peers recommend companies and influence purchases:
- Actions taken in the last 12 months based on trust: 59% recommended companies to a friend or colleague.
- Impact of peer conversations about brands: 75% make decisions/overcome concerns/warn me about risks.
- Peers and employees are more credible than leaders:
- 63% say a “Person Like Yourself” is more credible than CEO
- 52% say an employee is more credible than CEO
Employees are essential advocates.
Employees are the most-trusted resource in communicating treatment of employees and customers. Employees are trusted more than the CEO, a senior executive, an activist consumer, an academic and a media spokesperson (advertising).
What this means for your business is that employees who receive thoughtful training about how to communicate their brand along with the company’s brand online, and are encouraged to participate in content marketing, can essentially improve your online reputation and increase sales.
However, without training and establishment of “what’s in it for me” (WIIFM), this can in fact be a minefield. But you’re smarter than that. With the numbers coming out of this study, it’s clear you have a major opportunity here.
Leverage employees’ expertise by allowing them to become thought leaders within their own network and throughout your market.
With your most-trusted ‘spokespeople’ on the job, your company develops and solidifies credibility and trust.
Once you’ve made the decision to enhance your content marketing with employee participation and contributions, your next steps will either bring you to the next level or cause you to crash and burn. Here are 5 questions to answer that will make your efforts stick:
1. What are our first steps in getting employees to participate in content marketing?
- Show them the value. Customers are Googling salespeople. Be ready!
- Alleviate fears with information and training.
- Make it fun! Gamify your goals wherever possible.
2. How do we motivate employees to participate?
- Compensation always helps. The companies who’ll win in this new sales paradigm will offer rewards to employees who share their expertise.
- Check in at sales meetings. Recognize the wins and learn from your missteps.
3. Should employee participation in content be mandatory?
- Yes, but it must not be perceived so. It’s all in the delivery of your requirements and how well employees can assimilate content creation into their job duties.
- Everyone has something they can contribute. You make other things mandatory, right?
- It’s a delicate balance because you’re introducing something very new and weird for most.
- Recognize and reward for ‘superstar’ participation.
4. What tools can we use to make it super simple for employees to contribute?
- Dropbox is always a good option for small business.
- Shared Google Docs are also a good option, depending on the technological aptitude of your team.
- For enterprise: DynamicSignal, SocialChorus and PostBeyond.
5. Should employees be compensated for their contributions?
- YES.
- Hey, don’t expect quality content if you’re not willing to pay for it.
- Don’t expect employees to support the company for free. It’s a task like any other and that needs to be compensated. Adding more work without recognition or compensation will produce the opposite effect you’re looking for.
- A solid plan and process includes compensating your most-trusted ‘spokespeople.’
I realize that this concept of trusting employees with your brand can be very off putting for some managers and owners. I find some who bristle at the idea have not fully considered these processes or explored them at any great length.
Get some help to bridge you to the other side. We at Kruse Control consult with companies regularly about their content marketing and employee engagement strategies. With someone to light the way, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
Truly engaged workplaces are rare but there are companies who buck this trend. Leaders of these winning organizations understand that employee engagement drives real business results.
The only question now is…will you be one of them?
The post Employees and Content Marketing: Minefield or Major Opportunity? appeared first on Kruse Control Inc.
