Local Marketing Strategies For Your Small Business written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing Marketing Podcast with Laura Nelson In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Laura Nelson. Laura has marketed, sold to, and collaborated with local businesses for over 10 years of her career as a marketer and business manager. She is currently VP of Marketing at Signpost, following roles with Broadly, Reputation.com, and Patch. Laura earned an MBA from the University of Michigan and a BFA at Carnegie Mellon University. Key Takeaway:Marketing has changed for all types of business in the last few years thanks to new platforms, channels, and technology. But for small businesses — the changes have been revolutionary, often leveling the playing field and providing a way to reach their customers and new audiences in a low-cost, targeted, and personalized way. In this episode, I talk with the VP of Marketing at Signpost, Laura Nelson, about the latest trends in local marketing and what strategies to focus on. Questions I ask Laura Nelson:
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Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please! John Jantsch (00:00): This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the salesman podcast, hosted by Will Barron and brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network. Look, if you work in sales, wanna learn how to sell, and frankly who doesn’t check out the salesman podcast, where host will Barron helps sales professionals learn how to find buyers and win big business ineffective and ethical ways. And if you wanna start someplace, I recommend the four step process to influencing buying decisions. Listen to the Salesman Podcast, wherever you get your podcast. John Jantsch (00:44): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch. My guest today is Laura Nelson. She’s marketed, sold to and collaborated with local businesses for over 10 years of her career. As a marketer and business manager, she’s currently the vice president of [email protected] and patch. She an MBA from the university of Michigan and a BFA at Carnegie Mellon university. So Laura, welcome to the show. Laura Nelson (01:15): Hi Jen. Thanks for having me. John Jantsch (01:17): So what did you work on in your, uh, fine arts? Laura Nelson (01:20): I was a paint drawing, um, print making specialists. So mostly two, two dimensional works. However, through the program, we had to learn how to use every medium from the traditional media to, uh, computer based video, everything in between. John Jantsch (01:42): So, so what do you do with that now in life Still paint or, Laura Nelson (01:47): Yeah. Awesome. I do still practice my art. I, I draw quite a bit and make prints of it and give them the friends or sell them. The pandemic was a great opportunity to get back into it. Just given that I had more spare time as John Jantsch (02:03): We, I picked up the, I picked up the mandolin. Oh, there you go. So yeah, I think a lot of people did that. Yeah. So, so let’s, you are at signpost for those that don’t know signpost specializes in, in a lot of, uh, local marketing, uh, tactics. So we’re gonna talk about local national differences in marketing. So let’s start there. Are there any significant differences, uh, say for a plumber versus say a software company when it comes to digital marketing? Laura Nelson (02:33): Yeah, absolutely. Um, a plumber primarily is trying to attract homeowners, you know, to his or her business right John Jantsch (02:42): In their community generally. Right? Laura Nelson (02:45): So like, you know, they are restricted by geography. They have a certain budget in mind. Often there are trade offs when they’re budgeting for marketing versus other, you know, expenses and other staff, et cetera, company like ours signposts. We are a B2B or business to business company. So we sell all across the United States and we sell primarily to businesses rather than to homeowners plumbers are our customers. Right, right, right. Along with other contractors who are looking for ways to, uh, attract homeowners with looking for ways to build their brand and their communities and ultimately grow their businesses. Right. John Jantsch (03:30): So that local business that works in a community, obviously they, they want people generally speaking in proximity for a lot of businesses to, to be able to go online and find them. I mean, that’s obviously the major difference. And in, in my experience, especially lately, if they’re not finding you in maps and things like that, it’s almost like you don’t exist because so many people are making or purchase decisions that way. What about that business that has 10 locations, they have a, a different problem, a different challenge. Do they need to be optimizing for all 10 locations? How does that kinda change their calculus when it comes to, to online local marketing? Laura Nelson (04:13): Absolutely. And you know, we work with businesses that have one to 10 locations. It’s just an example. That would be our sweet spot. You know, the single location is going to be solving for slightly like different problems than someone operating a business at 10 locations. Sure. They’re thinking about scale and achieving economies of scale, right. Depending on how they’re set up, you know, across multiple communities or multiple states, you know, they may have different, um, needs in turn of their marketing strategies, the reach and the software that they invest in. However, they, you know, the things that they have in common are the basics, right? You mentioned showing up on Google maps, like if your business is not optimized for that, you’re not part of the conversation. A homeowner is not going to find you and, and pick your business. John Jantsch (05:07): Yeah. The, so, so let’s jump right to what makes Google maps happen. The Google business profile for a lot of businesses is I, I mean, we work with businesses. It’s probably the most important aspect. I mean, it’s scary because it’s owned by somebody else, but it’s, it is, it’s probably the most important aspect having optimized, having the right signals there, having lots of good reviews, but obviously showing up. I mean, that, that, that, you know, for a lot of local marketers is maybe job one. I mean, so what advice, I, I know you work with business owners, helping them optimize that, uh, tool. So what, you know, what advice I, I’m sure people come to you all the time, say, I wanna show up in that thing of, of course you do. What do we have to do to show up in that thing? Laura Nelson (05:49): You’re absolutely right. John, the Google business profile also formerly known as Google. My business is probably the most important thing you can do to establish your business’s presence online. And everyone wants to be in what we call that local repack, right? When someone searches for plumbers in your area or roofers cetera, you wanna be one of those businesses that’s in the top three that are most obvious to those homeowners looking to solve a problem. The real challenge as you alluded to is that, you know, that is somewhat out of our control. Right? Right. There are basics that we can do to invest in improving that profile. Like first claim it first. And for most, if a business hasn’t claimed their presence on Google, you know, they’re missing out on this free opportunity to be found and chosen. So that’s number one. But beyond that, there are optimizations to do right. Laura Nelson (06:51): Link it to your website, link it to your scheduler, add photos of your team and the work that you do, make sure your phone number’s right. Yeah. I just went over to, uh, a granite countertop business over my lunch break a few minutes ago. And you know, I told him, Hey, I’ve tried to call you for two days and your number’s not ringing through. Right. So we’ll get into what happens next in terms of a homeowner making that next step. But getting all that critical information is, you know, absolutely essential to showing up online. And of course, I, I don’t want to leave out customer reviews. Right. We don’t know the perfect Google formula to, you know, what enables a business to rank in that three pack. But we do reviews are an important part of that. So having a lot of reviews, ensuring you’ve got a consistent, um, stream of them over time is really important. John Jantsch (07:50): Yeah. And, and, and actually I think they are giving some pretty good clues these days, because if you do a local search, a lot of times what they surface will say, well, these words were in some of the reviews. I mean, and they’ll actually show you some of those reviews. So we obviously know that they are, that they are using those really almost like keywords in the past for optimization. One of the things that, of course over the last 10 years, let’s say has dramatically changed for local business is, is just the way people buy. You know, everybody wants to talk about how all the changes in these platforms and new, you know, new networks and things that show up, but it’s really the consumer behavior, you know, has really changed dramatically. And I would say that even comes to referrals. So referrals are for local businesses, word of mouth for local businesses, still a huge, uh, way that they generate business. But you used to be, if I went across the fence and asked my neighbor and they said, oh, you should call this for remodelling contractor. I just picked up the phone. I called, you know, today I go and I do a full review of them, you know, to, before I ever call. So how has that, how has that, what I just described kind of changed the game for local vis. Laura Nelson (08:58): Yeah, it definitely has. And we perfectly described how homeowners have shifted their behavior. Right? We’ll still have those conversations with friends and neighbors and trust what they say, but then we’re gonna go online to what we learned. Right. So if my neighbor tells me, Hey, work with this contractor, he did a great job. I still need to go on Google to figure out how to get in touch with him. Right. Right. If I see something lower than a four and a half or four stars, I’m gonna start to question right. That recommendation, right? These are people who are coming into homes and, you know, doing an important job. And you know, if the quality of the reviews isn’t aligned with that recommendation, I’m gonna start doing my homework. I’m gonna start looking at other providers in my area. Yeah. That’s one way, I think also, you know, first and foremost, people are starting that search on Google, right. Laura Nelson (10:00): That’s where the majority of people are starting, but there’s this other class of referral that I don’t want local business owners to miss out on. And, and that’s the conversations that are happening in Facebook groups. Sure. On nextdoor, you know, especially when it’s a tougher project. And for instance, I can refer back to the contracting project I’m working on right now. It’s a smaller job. It’s not a mansion, but I do have a renovation planned. And you know, I had a hard time connecting with the contractor through traditional means, right? Like filling out contact forms and calling people. Yeah. So I went on next door and posted, I went in faced groups to post and asked people, you know, who do you recommend? And I got a lot of responses that way. Yeah. So it’s another important thing to keep an eye on. John Jantsch (10:52): And now let’s hear from our sponsor. Look, if you’re tired of slowing down your teams with clunky software processes and marketing that is difficult to scale, HubSpot is here to help you and your business grow better with collaboration tools and built in SEO optimizations. A HubSpot CRM platform is tailor made to help you scale your marketing with ease, integrated calendars, tasks, and commenting, help hybrid teams stay connected while automated SEO recommendations, intuitively optimize your webpage content for increased organic traffic ditch, the difficult and dial up your marketing with tools that are easy to use and easy to scale learn how your business can grow better@ hubspot.com SOS. John Jantsch (11:38): So many of the home services industries right now are swamped in, I mean, getting somebody to even call you back right now, it’s gotten, uh, much more difficult than you would think it should be is hasn’t it? John Jantsch (11:48): So, so let’s jump back to, uh, reviews. You mentioned that 4.5, uh, I’ve actually seen some interesting research on that, that, that says 4.6, 4.7 is actually the perfect score. And that’s because I think as consumers, we see 105 star reviews and we kind of go, uh nobody’s perfect. And so I think that’s interesting. You actually wanna few three star reviews that you can respond to in a public way. I think, because it, it, it feels more believable, but I know I work with a lot of businesses that have customers that love them, but they still can’t get reviews. So how do we get those reviews from customers that seem to be happy? Laura Nelson (12:33): You’re absolutely right about, you know, these mid four star reviews are great. Yeah. Right. Real business is perfect and they’ll make mistakes and you’ll see the occasional irate customer that adds to the authenticity of the reviews that are there. Right. So it’s so painful and so personal. Right. Especially when a business gets a, a one star review it, the recommendation here is to bury it with positive reviews. Sure. So you asked how, right. It all comes down to putting a process in place and getting your team behind it and ensuring that you have the right tools. Yeah. So for example, I see team all the time who, you know, wrap up a job, they have a happy homeowner right there and, you know, fail to take the extra step and say like, you know, Hey, are you happy? And, and if so, would you mind writing a review for our business? Laura Nelson (13:26): You know, these matter to us, they help us find more homeowners just like you. And you know, it’d be mean the world to us, if you did, that’s one, you know, making that ask personal, when you wrap up every job and number two is actually following up, right. Gotta make it easy for the homeowner. If they can’t find your Google listing, if they can’t find your Yelp listing, even if they have the best intentions they’re gonna move on with their day. Right. They’re gonna go somewhere else. Like they wanted to do it, but it wasn’t easy. And, and that’s where tools like signposts can really make a difference. Right? You shoot, ’em a text message. You shoot, ’em an email goes right to your listing link and takes several steps out of the process and ensures that it gets done. John Jantsch (14:13): Yeah. And I, it, it’s funny that, uh, you know, QR codes are certainly high having a day again. Right. Um, because we all got used to ordering our hamburgers with them and Laura Nelson (14:23): Yeah. John Jantsch (14:23): So I’m seeing more and more people put those on business cards and things, you know, for reviews because it is actually, everybody knows how to do it now, you know, you you’re seeing them in ads on television and things. I mean, it, it’s kind of funny cuz they were hot 10 years ago and then it just kind of went away. But they really so, so to your point of making it easy, certainly a way to do it. Laura Nelson (14:44): Yeah. QR codes are a great tool and, and you used to need a separate app to read them, but now we can read them through the cameras on our phones and you know, that’s a great DIY way to leave behind a card with a customer, no matter what business you’re in. Like they know how to use them. Now. John Jantsch (15:05): It’s kinda like when it’s kinda like when podcasts first came out, it was very hard to listen to ’em and when apple put the app right on the iPhone, all of a sudden podcast took off as well. Laura Nelson (15:15): Oh yeah. John Jantsch (15:16): So what about all the, one of the things I know frustrates some business owners, but I think it’s, it’s like back in the day when it’s like you, you have to take credit cards and checks and cash, you know, now you have to be online and chat. You have to use SMS, have to have appointment scheduling because people are going to, people want to interact with you the way they want to interact with you. How do you manage all of those various channels? Laura Nelson (15:41): Yeah. It’s incredibly difficult. And this is where technology and other services can make it super easy. I referenced that granite countertop store, my first breast for reference was not to call them, but they forced me into it. John Jantsch (15:56): Right, Laura Nelson (15:57): Right. So I will not always do that because I would like a path of lease resistance. Yeah. And that’s what homeowners and customers are really gravitating toward, but I send way more texts a day than make phone calls. And I think that’s common across the population. So if I can get a quick answer, you know, through text message or through chat, I’m gonna do that. I’m gonna take out the friction of a phone call, but that’s like, that’s very difficult for businesses to manage if they’re using like their traditional tools. Yeah. Like, you know, the owner’s cell phone and you know, a team member, cell phones and you know, a chat widget, John Jantsch (16:37): Someone’s gonna be there’s yeah. Graded. Laura Nelson (16:39): Yeah. If it’s not integrated. Yes. It becomes overwhelming. Right. Right. And you have to hire someone to manage all of that. That’s what signpost helps to make easy is to bring all of those messages into one place. So you don’t and have 50 tabs open of leads coming from different sources that can come into one dashboard. Yeah. Right. And you’ve got all your messages there where you can fire off quick replies or automated replies too. Yep. Is really important. You know, if you miss a customer’s call, for example, know, our system can send a text and ensure that customer was heard. Right. We got your message. We’ll get back to you. And that enables you to start a text conversation, right. With them. John Jantsch (17:23): You can say, while you’re waiting, here’s the 27 projects we did last week, right? Yeah, exactly. Laura Nelson (17:27): You can customize that reply. You can send your scheduling link, you can get them kind of moving down the funnel of making a decision of whether they’re going to hire you. John Jantsch (17:37): Yeah. Yeah. It’s a very differentiator too. Cuz a lot of people may maybe called three people, you know, Sunday night, you know, waiting for them to all come call ’em back Monday morning. And uh, yeah. All of a sudden you’ve advanced the ball a little bit by having Laura Nelson (17:50): And people are gonna hire the person who responds first simple John Jantsch (17:55): Cases. That’s right. Especially the environment where we’re in now, its anybody responds. They’re probably gonna get hired. What are some industries where you think or ahead of the curve in this and, and then I guess maybe, well you don’t have to name some that aren’t doing it well other than to say, if you’re not doing it well, you can learn from these people. Laura Nelson (18:15): Yeah. I think, you know, in the realm that we’re talking about, say online reviews and communications technologies. In my experience, I’ve seen dental and medical offices a little ahead of the curve there. That’s not to, to say all of them are because you know, the issue now that we’re seeing is that the software is pretty educated, so it doesn’t solve all of their needs, but there was a time when dental adoption of these products was quite sure John Jantsch (18:43): The it’s probably true of anybody who lived by appointment, you know, scheduled all day long. You know, that, that, that those were probably some of the first adopters weren’t they? Laura Nelson (18:54): Yeah. Because like they, you know, they want to fill every slot in their day and they know if, you know, if someone cancels, didn’t get a reminder as just an example and they’re losing revenue yeah. For that spot. And it’s very difficult for them to fill unless they’ve got a long waiting list and you know, people are available fill slots. John Jantsch (19:11): Can I just complain about the people that send me an email, call me and send me a text as well. They really need to, it’s like when we first got into the AI bots, you know, it’s like, they’ve gotta be done well or they’re really not very helpful. Laura Nelson (19:25): I totally agree. I think that, you know, businesses, you’ve gotta choose one and my recommendation is communicate in the way back that the person came in. Right? Yeah. With the exception, if you missed their call, you ha you give them that option of texting back. That’s just, you know, a common courtesy. Right. But yeah, aside from that, you know, people don’t need to be bombarded. Correct. That’s not a great experience and you know, that may turn them off. So it’s really risky. John Jantsch (19:55): Yeah. Laura Nelson (19:56): To add on the question that you asked previously, signpost really concentrates on contractors though, we serve dozens and dozens of industries. We focus on contractors because we saw real need, you know, there are companies across the spectrum when it comes to tech adoption and, and marketing savviness. So we saw that, you know, there was a need, we had the best product market bit. And so that’s why primarily we focus in that area. John Jantsch (20:25): Yep. So we’ve mentioned the name signpost, it’s just signpost.com. Do you, do you wanna invite anybody for the 50% off, uh, special because they’re a duct tape listener. Laura Nelson (20:36): Yes, absolutely. Um, visit, sign post. I can’t guarantee that you’ll get a 50% off rate, but you know, certainly if you are a listener, you are eligible for a promo rate. So visit signpost.com, visit the upper right corner and request a demo, check our product out, see if it’s a good fit for your company. John Jantsch (20:59): Laura saying, thanks so much for stopping by the duct tape marketing podcast. And hopefully we’ll, uh, get to run into you one of these days out there on the road. Laura Nelson (21:06): Thank you so much us John. Really appreciate it. John Jantsch (21:09): All right. So that wraps up another episode. I wanna thank you so much for tuning in and you know, we love those reviews and comments. And just generally tell me what you think also did you know that you could offer the duct tape marketing system, our system to your clients and build a complete marketing consulting coaching business, or maybe level up an agency with some additional services. That’s right. Check out the duct tape marketing consultant network. You can find it at ducttapemarketing.com and just scroll down a little and find that offer our system to your client’s tab. Scroll back to top Sign up to receive email updates
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Original source: https://ducttapemarketing.com/local-marketing-strategies/ The post Local Marketing Strategies For Your Small Business appeared first on connect social networks. via Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/local-marketing-strategies-for-your-small-business/
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Dominating The News Feed With Ads For Less Than $10 Per Day written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing About the show:The Agency Spark Podcast, hosted by Sara Nay, is a collection of short-form interviews from thought leaders in the marketing consultancy and agency space. Each episode focuses on a single topic with actionable insights you can apply today. Check out the new Spark Lab Consulting website here! About this episode:In this episode of the Agency Spark Podcast, Sara talks with Jody Milward on how to dominate the news feed with ads for less than $10 per day. Jody likes to call herself an “accidental entrepreneur”. Like many women, after having kids she didn’t want to return to a 9-5 office gig so she started her first business as a Private Investigator (obvious choice, right?). After 9 years, 7 figures in revenue and much government red tape, it was time to move on and she stumbled into the Social Media and paid traffic world. From her first client in 2014 making $12 per hour to generating over 7 figures in revenue 6 years later, she’s lived and breathed digital marketing as a freelancer, sub-contractor, in-house, agency owner, consultant, speaker, educator and mentor. More from Jody Milward:
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Original source: https://ducttapemarketing.com/dominate-the-news-feed/ The post Dominating The News Feed With Ads For Less Than $10 Per Day appeared first on connect social networks. via Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/dominating-the-news-feed-with-ads-for-less-than-10-per-day/ How To Fix Loss of Productivity At Work The workplace environment is constantly evolving. Just as new tools and technologies enter the field, so does an increased demand for increased productivity. While it’s hard to pinpoint a single reason for the recent increase in losses of productivity, it may be due to the constantly changing and overly demanding nature of work. Dr. Jordan Sudberg argues that having a good system in place can prevent a loss of productivity by improving teamwork, creativity, motivation, and communication. There is always the feeling that progress is being made at work, whether it’s winning a new client or completing an important project. For many people, this feeling is great. They feel comfortable and somewhat invincible in their jobs because they know that anything can be achieved with enough time and effort. However, if you experience a loss of productivity amongst employees, you will know first-hand that it can lead to disaster. What Causes Loss of ProductivityLoss of productivity can be caused by many factors. For example, it may be part of a company culture that people feel pressured to meet unrealistic deadlines; or it might be that staff are so focused on their job that they have no time for anything else. Lost productivity is usually one of the following issues: 1. Overwork Overworked people are those who work 12-hour weeks without a break, often because they have a lot of work to do. 2. Poor communication Being able to communicate effectively with colleagues is crucial for productivity. Sometimes this is lost due to poor communication skills in other circumstances, such as when there is no trust between colleagues. 3. Lack of team spirit Teamwork is a vital part of success in any organization. If people at work don’t work together, the chances for good teamwork will be significantly reduced. 4. Lack of motivation and creativity People who are not motivated tend to work slower than those who are. That is why it is essential to motivate staff, both in terms of personal motivation and performance-related incentives. 5. Emotional problems Studies have shown that those who have suffered a psychological illness typically lose productivity. Some people can take longer to recover than others, but even those who feel fine after a breakdown can suffer from a lack of productivity. 6. Problems in management and leadership Having a good manager is vital for the success of any organization. This is why managers should encourage staff to work hard, reward those who work well, and punish those whose productivity is poor. To improve overall worker motivation and creativity, it helps to have clear goals and self-management tools. For example, employees could be encouraged to set specific targets to bring them closer to their personal or team goals. 7. Lack of skills If there is a lack of skills in any key area, you’ll find that productivity suffers as a result. To fix this problem, you must assess your employees’ performance and identify any areas where there are problems. How To Fix Loss of Productivity at WorkHaving a good system in place can help solve the problems caused by the loss of productivity. It is therefore important to structure the working environment. Dr. Jordan Sudberg recommends the following solutions to help tackle the loss of productivity at work. 1. Communication Employee communication is vital for a successful team. If you want to improve communication, it is important to have open lines of communication so that everyone knows what’s going on and who is responsible for what. Communication can also be improved by meeting to discuss initiatives and goals, holding regular meetings and training sessions for employees, or holding a company newsletter. 2. Teamwork Good teamwork is one of the keys to success in business. The first step to improving teamwork is to set goals and objectives for your team. For example, you could set a company-wide target of reducing the number of errors made by 10% in the next three months. The second step is designating each team member’s specific responsibilities so that it is clear what each person has to do. The third step is rewarding good teamwork; often, it’s only when there is some form of reward that people really work as a team. 3. Motivation Motivating employees can be achieved through a number of methods. For example, you could give people training to help improve productivity, reward the best workers in some way, or thank those who go that extra mile. A more simple method of motivating employees is to praise them for good work or simply show them that you care about what they’re doing. 4. Team Building Team building and creativity improve productivity through clear goals and objectives set by management or the team. Team building is also important because it strengthens personal relationships with colleagues. 5. Assessment Assessment is an important part of preventing loss of productivity at work. You could use a number of methods to assess employees’ performance, such as personal development plans, a peer-to-peer evaluation, or having regular meetings with employees to discuss their progress and how they can improve in their roles. 6. Planning The most efficient way to improve overall productivity is to have a clear plan for each project. The best plans include goals and objectives, deadlines, and a budget of time and money. It is also important to ensure that the team has all the resources it requires, such as equipment and spare parts, to progress their work. 7. Personal responsibility Personal responsibility is vital in any organization as people tend to be more productive if they feel responsible for their actions. Everyone should be able to work to their own strengths and weaknesses without being afraid of being judged. Many people feel happier and more productive if they do not feel under pressure in their jobs. 8. Structure It can be helpful to structure the working environment in a way that encourages good teamwork, motivation, and creativity. For example, you could move desks in the office so that groups of people share a space or make your office more colorful and exciting to improve motivation. ConclusionThe key to keeping a productive workforce is to provide a positive working environment that encourages employees to work effectively and efficiently. This can be achieved through an above-average work environment and a policy of team building. A good working environment ensures that employees are motivated and take pride in their work. It also encourages collaboration between staff, which is vital for high productivity and creative thinking. The post How To Fix Loss of Productivity at Work appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/business-innovation-2/how-to-fix-loss-of-productivity-at-work/ The post How To Fix Loss of Productivity at Work appeared first on connect social networks. via Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/how-to-fix-loss-of-productivity-at-work/ Referral Programs: A Guide for Small Business written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing Running a business is hardBut with a good referral program it doesn’t have to beAs a small business owner you are probably thinking about helping your current customer or trying to figure out how to increase sales. But you’ve also got to think about increasing leads, and that is where referral programs come in. As a business owner myself, I know you just want your customers to be happy with their purchases. But wouldn’t they be even happier if they could get something more? One of the best ways to accomplish this is by having good referrals program in place. In a recent survey of 2,000 business owners by Texas Tech, 83% of the respondents claimed that they have a business that they love so much that they’d recommend it to others, yet 29% do so. There is a lot of potential and profit in closing that 54% gap, but where do you start? You start by building referral programs. Read on to learn more Why are referrals programs a thing?I am willing to bet that you have made referrals to other people and you have had a time in your life when you needed a referral. This symbiotic relationship leads to a level of understanding. A type of survival mechanism that comes from referral reciprocity. Referrals are also seen as a type of social currency. There are people that crave the social currency of being the go-to person, that connector. Buy the workbook Most importantly, referrals remove risk. Referrals help us solve a problem. They reduce the amount of work we have to do to find the right solution to our problem, and they come prepackaged with answers to common questions: Will they work? Will they know? Can I trust them? That is the best way to think about referrals, as the ultimate way to lend and borrow trust. Why do referrals programs matter so much?Easily attract your ideal customer.Frankly, most of the people that get referred to me are much closer to my ideal customer because my ideal customer is the one referring them. They understand our business and they know who would make a good fit for us. Shorten the sales cycleA strong referral program can significantly shorten the sales cycle. Referred leads were likely sent to you from someone you trust, so you can skip the know, like, and trust stages and jump straight to the try stage. Increase your premium pricingReferrals also allow you to diversify your pricing portfolio and charge a premium for your product or service. Customers that are familiar with your brand and have a positive perception of you are willing to pay more. Magnify Lifetime ValueReferral programs increase the lifetime value of your current customers. A real estate agent might receive 12 to 15 new referrals from just three initial leads if he or she creates an exceptional experience for those first three leads. Therefore, your customers’ lifetime value can be multiplied to a great extent if you focus on referrals. Referrals are invaluable to any business. By ignoring customer referrals or not incorporating customer referral program ideas into your marketing strategy, you’re missing out on a valuable source of revenue. 7 Types of Referral ProgramsHow can you start building referral programs that actually work and what do they look like? That is what I am going to share with you in this post;
Every Client Referral ProgramsEvery business should have everyday referral offers that work for any type of customer. So what do these referrals look like? How can you make them successful? And what elements should they consist of? I like to group client referrals into four main types; direct, implied, tangible and community. For more explanation on these referral types see my post, How to Make Your Business More Referable. Every client referral programs are probably the ones you are most familiar with, a gift certificate, refer-a-friend model, donation matching offers, etc. Each of these types of referrals offer something different, but they all need the same elements to be successful. Client Referral Keys to SuccessFirst, everybody needs to win or feel like they have won. The person giving the referral should not be the only one rewarded. If that referral turns around and does business with you, they should be rewarded too. Next, there should always be a strong tie back to your brand. A referral program with a strong connection to your brand should also have a strong connection to your most loyal customers. The last key is consistency in your approach. You need to be consistently nurturing and developing these programs. Referral programs are not set it and forget and they are not a one time play. These programs need to be scheduled regularly. They should be weekly, monthly and quarterly depending on the program type. Client Referral ElementsCreate easily shareable contentIf you want to increase the likelihood that you will be referred then you must make it easy. Build content for your referral programs that are clear and concise so your customers can easily find what they need. This can be done through special referral program landing pages or posts. You can also offer pre-written emails or social content for your referral clients to seamlessly share with their followings. Have a special process for referral leadsNot all referral leads will be ready to buy right away but they are definitely at a different stage in the sales funnel than your regular leads. They have a far more intimate relationship with your business through direct recommendations and should be treated as such with a special funnel built for them. Recognition is important to everyone, especially those who go the extra mileYour referral clients should receive a special thank you note. You can also publicly thank them through your newsletter or on social media. These thank-you notes can also include special offers for just your referral clients. Appreciation is a wonderful thing; It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. – VoltaireFind Your Referrals ChampionsCustomers and clients who are already referring business to you are what I call ‘Referral Champions’. They are a great customer, they are a returning customer, and they have had a good experience with you. In a lot of ways they are your ideal customers and they know how to connect with someone like themselves. Types of Champion Referral ProgramsOffer LunchGet a handful of your best customers together for a free lunch. The lunches and get-togethers are offered as a thank-you, but the networking that occurs can be mutually beneficial to you, your business, and your referral champions as well. Peer-2-peer TeachingGathering all of your champion referrers to meet creates an opportunity for them to build a peer-2-peer teaching relationship. This could have further positive impact for everyone involved. Exclusive Events & OffersCreate exclusive events or offers just for your high value clients that have continually supported your brand. Track who these people are and target them with something that is more lucrative or enticing than your Every Client Referrals. Highly exclusive offers are more than $10 of your next purchase. These are offers for premium products at cut-rate prices. Exclusive Content or Advisory BoardYou can create exclusive content or an advisory board of your champion customers. For example, the advisory board could facilitate a quarterly meeting to brainstorm ideas on topics such as expand your target market or unique ways to broaden your customer reach. There could even be incentives involved such as product discounts for ideas that win. Keys to Champion Program SuccessHave a specific askThere needs to be a very specific ‘ask’ for champion referral programs. The more specific you can when describing exactly the kind of customer you are seeking, the better your chance of success. A client of mine used to take his champion referrals to lunch and show them a list of people he wanted to meet in this client’s church or club. This approach was very direct and as a result, the customer had an easy time connecting my client to the names on his list. Make it easy and reward themWith any champion referral program, you should make your champion referrers’ job as simple as possible, and you should definitely acknowledge them and publicly thank them for referring your business. Ecosystem BalancingEcosystem balancing is the idea that you should take your existing clients and think of everyone else who serves them and find ways to form relationships with those people in order to add even more value. The benefits for B2B companiesIf you work with clients that also work with other professionals or have a B2B model, ecosystem balancing is a great option for you, but not only for referrals. Knowing the individuals in your mutual client’s ecosystem can help you understand what they do for your customer and help you to better serve your customer. Speaking from experienceA past client of mine, who is an author, wanted to expand her brand. When we were developing her marketing strategy she told us that she employed an executive coach and an accounting professional. So after we built her brand plan, with her permission, I reached out to the executive coach and the accountant and had a quick session with each of them explaining the newly created plan. Afterward, they had a better understanding of our mutual clients business than ever before and were able to better serve her. They were both so blown away by this process that those two individuals actually became referral sources. They wanted to introduce me to their clients because they realized their other clients needed that level of innovation and collaboration. Understand the client ecosystemIf you work with any clients that also work with management consultants or executive coaches or accounting professionals, or even have advisory board members, think in terms of how you could actually add value to the relationship that they have with your mutual clients by holding strategy sessions or giving presentations. By doing this you will have a better understanding of who the other players are in that person’s ecosystem, because there is real value in meeting those other professionals. For the right business, the ecosystem balancing approach could be really potent. If you want a deeper understanding, I talk more about ecosystem balancing in my book, The Ultimate Marketing Engine. Internal ReferralsOne of the most valuable referral systems you can build comes from within your organization. When given the right information, incentives, and tools, your internal team can be a great referral source. Teach your team marketing strategyTeach them about the core message, explain who your ideal customer is and what makes your business unique. By doing this, they will feel more involved and have a better understanding of the business. Ultimately leading to a better understanding of your ideal customer and improved internal referral generation. Make it easy for them to share good news about the businessYou can do this by developing simple ways for your employees to share business news and offer their feedback or opinions. For example, you could produce easily shareable content for you internal team to re-post on their social media platforms. Create buzzKeep things exciting by offering rewards or contests for referrals. This adds an element of fun to the work and can create a positive and productive internal culture for your business. Customers and HiringUse your referral system for hiring. Some of your best candidate recruitment people are the ones that already work for you and love what they do. Use them as a resource and leverage their insight. Buy the workbook Your Referral Partner NetworkCreate a strategic partner network by building a best-in-class team that offers services your customers might need. Start by identifying key players and recruiting them for your partner network. You can find them by polling your best clients and seeing who else they work with, who else helps them, and who else solves their problems for them. After you have identified six or seven potential strategic partners it is time to begin the conversation. Start by writing, what I call, the perfect introduction in reverse. Which is a process that lets a potential partner tell you exactly how to refer your customers to their business. Example
“Hello, We have customers that we believe could benefit from your services. And we’d love it if you would take a moment and tell us the best way to refer you to our clients. In order to make it easy for you to tell us how to spot your ideal client and refer your services to them we have included a form with this note. We have also included a completed example for your reference. Regards,” After you have built the relationship, establish how you can continue to work together to build up each other’s referral business. Some examples are; create content together, create special offers for each other’s clients, create co-marketing opportunities, interview each other, host webinars for each other’s audiences, hold events together, etc. I built a great deal of my following by going to organizations that I knew had small business owners as part of their universe and offering to do educational webinars for their audience or offering free eBooks that could be co-branded. These deals helped me gain exposure to new referrals and helped them win with their audience. Below are some examples of partner network ideasNotice how they all are unique to the industries involved, provide value to clients, and both businesses involved win.
Start Your Very Own Expert ClubCreate a program for your ideal customer by starting an expert marketing club. You can host a monthly breakfast or webinar for your audience and bring in additional experts to speak. Best PracticesThere’s an example in my latest book, The Ultimate Marketing Engine, where I worked with a real estate agent who moved to a new town. She was having trouble establishing her business so we brainstormed how she could start reaching out to the local community. The result; she started her own networking club for business owners where she talked about social media and marketing because she was also experienced in that field. In these meetings she didn’t sell her business as a realtor at all, but guess who the members thought of when it was time to buy or sell a home? She built her entire massive real estate business by hosting these monthly networking clubs. Another great example is Derek and Melanie Coburn in Washington DC. They have an organization called Cadre. Derek was a financial planner who wanted a better way to network. He brought a group of folks together and they started curating content for their businesses. This small group turned into a 300-person networking organization. Eventually he sold his financial planning business and now he and his wife run the networking organization full-time. Referral MastermindLastly, you can create a mastermind group for referrals. This option is very beneficial to B2B industries. If you’re a coach, consultant, or marketer it is a no brainer. The referral mastermind approach is similar to the partner network approach, but you work directly with your own clients instead. How to get startedStart by setting up monthly training for your clients around a specific topic. You can charge money, but my gut feeling is that it would generate so many referrals for you that it would be worth it if you made it complimentary. Once you build a reliable audience for these smaller training sessions you can start to offer them the mastermind concept. You wouldn’t even need to teach anything necessarily, just facilitate everyone coming together to learn from each other. Offer even more valueIf you wanted to add another layer to your referral mastermind you could offer to run one for your client in exchange for referrals. In this system you would bring their clients together to help them make their business more successful, but it would benefit both parties in the long run. Through the mastermind process you are naturally sharing referrals with each other. And that is where the magic really happens. When you start working together and build up each other’s businesses, leading back to that everybody wins mentality. Now it’s time to implement some of these referral program ideas and best practices to generate your best customers yet. Don’t wait, get started today! Buy the workbook Original source: https://ducttapemarketing.com/referral-programs-guide-small-business/ The post Referral Programs: A Guide for Small Business appeared first on connect social networks. via Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/referral-programs-a-guide-for-small-business/ Elon Musk has over 82 million Twitter followers and is undoubtedly the largest influencer of the social media site. Sure, celebrities like Justin Bieber have higher numbers, although he hasn’t tweeted for several weeks. But, Musk’s tweets are a catalyst for people to take action. Musk, who is the most prominent example of social media influence (hint: It isn’t about where you shop or what scarf to buy), is the clear choice. There are many millions and billions of people that he has reached out to. InfluencesIn a genuine and authentic manner. One example of this is the poll that he did a few days back. He asked whether shareholders should decide whether Twitter becomes private. Almost three million people responded, which is remarkable because the question wasn’t about Coke versus Pepsi or your favorite pop song. This means that three million people pay attention to his words and questions, regardless of whether they are related to social media platforms themselves. Here’s the poll and the results: Musk made it clear in recent days that he desires more than just a spot at the twitter table. You may have seen the latest drama and know that Musk invested as a shareholder. He currently holds 9.2%. We all assumed he would join the board. However, that could have been wishful thinking. Everybody has their theories, but I believe there was an inconsistency between what Musk wanted to do and the current Twitter leadership. An even bigger surprise? Musk announced that he would offer $54.20 per shares to buy the company’s stock. A number of Twitter users learn new investment terms, like a poison pills strategy (where some investors buy more shares in order to avoid a hostile takeover) or a white knight shareholder, (e.g. another entity acquires the company). The Amazon Prime Movie starring Chris Pine would have a drug-smuggling theme, with cuts to the boardroom scenes that show people in turmoil and anguish, as well as a couple of yachts. One question that hasn’t been asked yet, though, is this: Is it possible that Elon Musk would abandon the idea altogether and give up on Twitter? Other platforms exist, even though none have the same reach and popularity as Twitter. I can’t see Musk switching over to Instagram, but there is a precedent for a major influencer starting his own social media platform. Musk is well-known for his quick decisions and may be tired of all this drama. He could lose his Twitter account and cause an enormous domino effect, where his 82million followers seek out greener pastures. Use Twitter to meet #crickets. None of it will be possible, I think. The distraction of social media for us all is to make quick comments and watch the reactions. It’s addictive, and it works. I’ve been an avid user since launch. It’s still my main platform of choice. However, it should be noted that Musk buying Twitter is a better option than any other. Let’s say that Musk decides to cut himself from the group and start his own platform. This could prove frustrating for everyone on the board. What if Twitter becomes a popular graveyard for him? That’s when we should really start to worry about the future of social media. The post What Would Happen If Elon Musk Abandoned Twitter? appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/content-sections/news-and-noise/what-would-happen-if-elon-musk-abandoned-twitter/ The post What Would Happen If Elon Musk Abandoned Twitter? appeared first on connect social networks. via Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/what-would-happen-if-elon-musk-abandoned-twitter/ Sustainable Fat Loss For Busy Entrepreneurs written by Sara Nay read more at Duct Tape Marketing About the show:The Agency Spark Podcast, hosted by Sara Nay, is a collection of short-form interviews from thought leaders in the marketing consultancy and agency space. Each episode focuses on a single topic with actionable insights you can apply today. Check out the new Spark Lab Consulting website here! About this episode:In this episode of the Agency Spark Podcast, Sara talks with Garrett Serd on sustainable fat loss for busy entrepreneurs. Registered Dietitian, Entrepreneur, Fat Loss Expert, Speaker and Pancake Addict, Garrett Serd is the founder and owner of the online women’s fat loss company – Tandem Nutrition. Despite Garrett’s love for one-on-one nutrition coaching, he now travels the country speaking at events educating the common consumer and the busy professional on how to lose fat, gain muscle and improve their health in a simple, realistic and sustainable way. More from Garrett Serd:
This episode of the Agency Spark Podcast is brought to you by Podmatch, a platform that automatically matches ideal podcast hosts and guests for interviews. Imagine your favorite online dating app, but instead of using it for finding dates, you’re booking podcast interviews. I use Podmatch to find guests for Agency Spark and it’s made booking engaging and talented guests incredibly easy. Learn more here! Original source: https://ducttapemarketing.com/sustainable-fat-loss/ The post Sustainable Fat Loss For Busy Entrepreneurs appeared first on connect social networks. via Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/sustainable-fat-loss-for-busy-entrepreneurs/ Weekend Favs April 16 written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you to check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from an online source or one that I took out there on the road.
These are my weekend favs, I would love to hear about some of yours – Tweet me @ducttape Original source: https://ducttapemarketing.com/weekend-favs-april-16/ The post Weekend Favs April 16 appeared first on connect social networks. via Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/weekend-favs-april-16/ ToplineAs speculation continues to swirl around Elon Musk’s $43 billion offer to buy Twitter, more Wall Street analysts are downgrading shares of the social media company, remaining skeptical of the takeover bid and warning it could drag the stock lower. Here are some key factsStifel analyst Mark Kelley downgraded Twitter stock to a sell rating, calling the recent moves from Musk a “full blown Elon circus” that will either end in him taking the social media company private or a major sell-off in shares if he cashes out. The speculation about Musk’s takeover bid “offers significant downside risk” and could put the company in a difficult position if Musk sells off his roughly 9% stake that he acquired earlier this month, Kelley argues. Twitter’s stock has recently gotten a boost, rising nearly 15% to around $45 per share since Elon Musk took a big stake in the company on April 4, but analysts at KeyBanc predict those gains are likely to reverse and downgraded the stock to a “hold” from a “buy” rating. Musk’s takeover bid is likely to “go up in smoke,” according to KeyBanc analyst Justin Patterson, who “struggle[s] to see Twitter’s board accepting this offer given shares traded at around $73 last year.” If the board rejects Musk’s offer, however, that risks losing the Tesla billionaire as a shareholder and opens Twitter up to “potentially receiving more criticism” of its product, Patterson argues. Amid the recent downgrades on Twitter’s stock, few Wall Street analysts remain bullish about its prospects: Only 23% have a “buy” rating, while the vast majority maintain “hold” ratings, according to FactSet data. Important QuoteMusk’s move to buy Twitter “sets a near-term ceiling on shares, detaches the company from fundamentals, and offers significant downside risk,” especially if the Tesla CEO “decides to abandon his offer or sell down his stake,” Stifel analyst Mark Kelley said in his recent note. The Key BackgroundTwitter shares fell almost 2% Thursday after Musk made an offer of $43 billion to purchase the company. Stocks usually rise on news of a takeover offer, but Twitter declined and closed at around $45 per share, well below Musk’s all-cash offer of $54.20 per share. With Twitter’s board set to review Musk’s offer, the Tesla billionaire said later on Thursday that he has a “Plan B” if his first offer is rejected. Speaking at the TED conference in Vancouver, Musk insisted he has “sufficient assets” to buy the social media company, though he remains unsure if he will “actually be able to acquire it.” Additional ReadingMusk Says He Has ‘Sufficient Funding’ To Buy Twitter, Claims He Has ‘Plan B’ If Offer Is Rejected (SME) Are you looking for distraction? Here’s What Analysts Say About Elon Musk’s Offer To Buy Twitter (SME) Did Elon Musk Trigger New Legal Headache With SEC ‘Bastards’ Comment? (SME) SEC Filing reveals Elon Musk’s desire to purchase Twitter and take it privateSME) The post Some Analysts Downgrade Twitter Stock Amid ‘Full Blown Elon Circus’ appeared first on Social Media Explorer. Original source: https://socialmediaexplorer.com/content-sections/news-and-noise/some-analysts-downgrade-twitter-stock-amid-full-blown-elon-circus/ The post Some Analysts Downgrade Twitter Stock Amid ‘Full Blown Elon Circus’ appeared first on connect social networks. via Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/some-analysts-downgrade-twitter-stock-amid-full-blown-elon-circus/ Why Partnerships Are The Future Of Marketing written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing Marketing Podcast with Robert Glazer In this episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast, I interview Bob Glazer. Bob is the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Acceleration Partners, a global partner marketing agency. He is also the Co-founder and Chairman of BrandCycle. He has a new book out called — Moving to Outcomes: Why Partnerships are the Future of Marketing. Key Takeaway:Marketers today have a choice. They can keep doubling down on advertising with the digital goliaths of today or begin to diversify and invest in other marketing channels, with an eye toward the future. In this episode, I talk with the Founder and Chairman of Acceleration Partners, Bob Glazer, about why diversifying your marketing strategy with other channels — like partnerships — is the way of the future. Questions I ask Bob Glazer:
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Like this show? Click on over and give us a review on iTunes, please! John Jantsch (00:01): This episode of the duct tape marketing podcast is brought to you by the salesman podcast, hosted by Will Barron and brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network. Look, if you work in sales, wanna learn how to sell, and frankly who doesn’t check out the sales podcast, where host will Barron helps sales professionals learn how to buyers and win big business ineffective and ethical ways. And if you wanna start someplace, I recommend the four step process to influencing buying decisions. Listen to the salesman podcast, wherever you get your podcast. John Jantsch (00:44): Hello, and welcome to another episode of the duct tape marketing podcast. This is John Jantsch and my guest today is Bob Glazer. He’s the founder and chairman of the board of global partner marketing agency, acceleration partners. He’s also the co-founder and chairman of brand cycle. He’s been a guest on this show for previous books, but today we’re gonna talk about as newest book moving to outcomes. Why partnerships are the future of marketing? So Bob, welcome back, Bob Glazer (01:12): John. Thanks for having me. John Jantsch (01:13): So you’ve written a book called performance partnerships, as I recall. So let’s define, well, let’s do two things. Let’s define partnerships in your view because there’s a lot of definitions. And then also, you know, what are you offering new in the area of partnerships in this book? Bob Glazer (01:29): Well, I just retitled it figured it’d been a while and, and, and released it. So yeah, I, there there’s some confusion around these terms, partner, marketing partnership, marketing affiliate market, and you have influencer and B2B. I, I think there is this convert urgents where affiliate marketing was a model that used technology to, to work with partners at scale. I think it became known as like a certain type of partner set who were like professional affiliates. And then as the technology kind of became available more to, you know, to own than, than, than to rent people started to look around their organization and say, oh, there are other things they weren’t using their affiliate network for business development partnerships and closely held partnerships because it, it just the economic model of paying, you know, couple percent of revenue or 20 or 30% of sale, or sort of sending people off to a third party site didn’t feel right for that. So there was always the affiliate program and then all this other and business development, I think now it’s all coming under one roof under one platform. So I just consider affiliate marketing, part of this greater ecosystem of partnership marketing now, which includes influencer and B2B and aspects of business development. What makes it scalable and more of a marketing channel is that it’s managed using software. John Jantsch (02:44): The partnership, of course, for a lot of people at least implies some sort of affinity. I mean, we are truly in business together, whereas yeah, I think a lot of affiliate thing was like, I don’t care. You say you’ll pay me 10 bucks. Sure. I’ll promote. Yeah. Bob Glazer (02:55): I agree with you. I don’t like the word for that reason. In fact, you know, we have an event every year for outside of global pandemics for like the top 20 programs in the world, the people that are running them sort of like a mastermind. And that was one of the things like when they say, look, I need this for an affiliate versus I need these things for a partner affiliate just implies a loose connotation. And that’s probably how things were 20 years ago. It was like, don’t ask, don’t tell, right? Yeah. You get me the sale. I have no right to ask you how you got it. That was before companies with brand departments got involved with eCommerce. John Jantsch (03:30): So is there, would we create that distinction as two levels of partnership? I mean, so like, could you, could you make a case for people saying, well, yeah, we it’s okay to have that low level top of the funnel maybe kind of affiliate thing, but then for a deeper relationship on a, maybe a higher ticket sale, we need something different. Bob Glazer (03:48): Yeah. I mean, I, I think it’s generally good to know like what it is that people are doing to your brand and how sure they’re doing it. You know, McDonald’s has a franchisee, like, it’s not like, Hey, well just open that store wherever you want it and serve of whatever you want. Right. It’s very control. And I, I consider this sort of a, a franchise thing, but I think you can have different types of partners that have different levels of engagement otherwise. But again, if you put them all on the same software platform and you start doing that with people, that stuff that was going through business development, or otherwise you start to have a lot more data around what’s, what’s converting, what’s doing well, partners find out how they’re doing in, in, in real time too. And all the, all you don’t need blockchain for this, but you know, a lot of the pro all the contracting and payment and everything is all handled sort of in real time too. John Jantsch (04:36): So in some ways the idea of moving to outcomes, which is of course the, the primary title of the book is that sort of juxtaposed to say, advertising or sponsorships, that you hope you get outcomes, that this model is performance. Bob Glazer (04:50): It’s two things, right? So the biggest thing that’s changed since performance partnerships came out for years ago is, you know, continued to see direct to consumer companies shift from and to performance budget. So, so what I don’t understand, and, you know, we’ve got our little clever graph here of, you know, jumping over all the hurdles. Yeah. But is if we’re measuring all this stuff and we’re tracking it and all this stuff, why are we still paying for inputs? Why are we paying for impressions? Why are we paying for clicks? Like, why are we paying for, you know, other things that are not the old outcome that we want when we have the ability to do that. And I think as budgets continue to move, you know, as Gillette goes from, you know, spending money on billboards to getting people to its subscription razor club, uh, I, I think they start to be, there’s a lot more budget available for channels that prove the right outcomes than just the inputs John Jantsch (05:42): Is, is as opposed to just another channel. Would you say this is potentially a complete point of view shift for a lot of marketers? Bob Glazer (05:50): Yeah. Like it’s a methodology more than a channel, right. So when I’m buying from Facebook, Amazon, Google, which is like 60 to 70% of the market that people do today, I am buying single source of traffic, right? Yeah. That, that stops work. They are the partner and the supplier are all in one. If I can build a partner program using software with a thousand different partners, with a thousand different tactics, I, I have inherently a, a diversified portfolio. It’s also not something. I mean, you know, we talk about the, the Tripoly where that, like, it’s the world’s biggest auction. We talk about that in the book. It is a real time auction and auctions benefit sellers. If you read all kinds of auction theory and data, and someone did a study, we talk about in the book that the stuff on the auction side of eBay, the same product, we’re going for 70% more than on the fixed price side. So you know that you can’t come into a partner program and just outspend someone in a day. I mean, eventually you can, but it it’s kind of like SEO versus PPC, right? One pour the money into gratification, the other, you do the work and you build a moat and you kind of collect results. John Jantsch (06:59): So I think there are a lot of businesses out there that instantly say, yeah, this is for me, this makes sense for my business model, but I, I’m sort of guessing that you’re saying, no, everybody needs to do this. This will work for any kind of business. I mean, so is this expanded, do you have a limited range of who this expanded version works for? Or do you think that this just every business now? Bob Glazer (07:19): I, I, I think it’s, every business needs to add the sort of activity to their portfolio. I, I think about it like stocks, right? And you know, if, if, if you own Tesla, apple, any of these things over the last decade, you made a lot of money. Chances are, you won’t make as much money open in those stocks over the next decade as finding the next blockchain company or crypto or someone who’s gonna, you know, 10 X, I, I think the large digital marketing channels are now bonds. Like they’re gonna produce a very low, predictable, not a great return, may not even, you know, beat inflation. And, and, and you’re gonna have to find something else that, that, that is your sort of growth engine in stock. So you look, this is much easier for some businesses, but I think all businesses should be thinking more about how they can use technology to, to scale partnerships. Now they can be, there are tons of hundreds of thousands of different ones that they can do, but you know, the amount of CEOs I’ve talked to who in the last five years built their business on a Tripoly or on social media or whatever, and say they could not possibly do that today. That the economics just aren’t the same as they were five years ago. John Jantsch (08:26): Uh, that’s true. I mean, you think of a lot of marketers, there are a lot of, uh, influencers, you know, that jumped on Twitter early. You know that, I mean, jumping on Twitter or starting a blog today is not what it was 15 years ago. And no, Bob Glazer (08:38): Everyone I know is I everyone’s podcast. Maybe, you know, except for yours are all on hiatus. Now, everyone jumped in late thought it was gonna be super easy and, you know, they reach out or they schedule something and they’re on break or on hiatus, you know, look first, first mover advantage. But, but this is like a, the thing about affiliate or partnership has always been cool is that there’s always new publishers every year. Like there that’s the new within the, even if you have a program, but you have the same publishers for 20 years, you’re missing out on, who’s doing cool, new, innovative stuff with who has influence that you, you know, wanna partner with em. John Jantsch (09:11): So you led right to my next question, which was gonna be, how do I find partners? Or before you answer that, is that the first step Bob Glazer (09:19): There, there are probably a few first steps. I mean, if you’re gonna build a new program, you wanna pick the platform, you wanna figure out how you’re gonna staff it, which we talk about in the book, which is, is a challenge. But look, recruiting’s a life, but of any program, the way a lot of people have operated their program is inbound only, right? A if you had a sales team that just sat around, waited to see who called them, like that’s not gonna be a high performing sales team. So, you know, to have a robust program, you need people who are, are recruiting and know where to look and are constantly calling and finding new partners. You know, the programs that we see, they high performing are reaching out to hundreds of people a month, you know, and they it’s like a sales funnel. They might get 10 that are really interested and then five that convert and become, and then, then they move on to the next thing. Bob Glazer (10:01): So yeah, the there’s, you know, the tech, the, how you staff the team, you know, whether you’re gonna spend a fit of your, these programs have been largely overlooked too. The other thing is, I, I mean the amount of times that we get introduced to someone who’s managing the channel, who’s never, or been in the channel before, to me is fascinating. Like you don’t usually get introduced to, Hey, here’s John, our new paid search manager. And just so you know, he, he has not done paid search anymore, but he’s excited to figure it out. Like that happens in this channel every day. Cause there isn’t a barometer of talent. There isn’t a Google certification. There isn’t a lot of that stuff. There’s a lot more demand than supply right now. John Jantsch (10:42): So you mentioned a word spend. I mean, so that, I mean, that’s obviously a piece of, this is if you’re gonna look at this as a channel and a platform, and obviously there might be some tech, I mean, it’s a budget item, isn’t it? It’s not just, we pay for performance. Bob Glazer (10:56): Yeah, it, it is. And one of the tricks is that, I mean, we try to argue that it should be a budget list item. And I say that a little tongue in cheek, but it, you know, the way most teams work is they set up budget for the quarter. If one channel’s under over it, borrows, begs and steals from the other channel to try to get the number. And then they revisit the next quarter. You know, this is again, sales. Like you, you have a budget for commissions, but if your sales team doubles the performance, you don’t say we’re out of the budget for commissions. Like that’s crazy. You say like great for every dollar we’re selling, it’s costing us five. So, you know, there needs to be a new discussion with the finance team around looking at quality, you know, making sure there’s not fraud, but saying, look, as long as we are getting what we want. Bob Glazer (11:37): And we just decided that we’re willing to pay 7 cents on the dollar or, you know, we should spend 7 cents on the dollar or 7 million on a hundred million. It, it really shouldn’t matter. So it has been hard for a lot of teams to, uh, I just seen some really poor decisions, particularly around Q3 or Q4 where people shut down their program. Cause they ran out of budget. Yeah. And that’s like firing your sales team because you’re outta commission and saying, Hey, well you guys can’t make any money into this quarter, but just stay around and you’ll make money with us next quarter. Like there would never fly. Right. John Jantsch (12:11): Right, right. Right. And now let’s hear from our sponsor. Look, if you’re tired of slowing down your teams with clunky software processes and marketing that is difficult to scale, HubSpot is here to help you and your business grow better with collaboration tools and built in SEO optimizations. A HubSpot CRM platform is tailor made to help you scale your marketing with ease, integrated calendars, tasks, and commenting, help hybrid teams stay connected while automated SEO recommendations, intuitively optimize your webpage content for increased organic traffic ditch the difficult and dial up your marketing with tools that are easy to use and easy to scale learn how your business can grow better @ hubspot.com. So, so let’s go back to that and maybe it’s best done through an example, but we never really fully touched on it. How do you find good partners do, is there an example, um, case that you’d like to maybe run through with us that you’ve worked with or that that was in the book that can kinda says, Hey, here’s what they did. Here’s how it worked. Here’s how they went about it. Bob Glazer (13:18): Yeah. There was a, a case in the book around, again, thinking outside about working with Valpak on a performance basis to get to small businesses and, you know, using them and having them use their reach and paying them on a conversion basis for getting people to sign for a food delivery program. So again, looks more like a traditional business development deal, but executed across using the tools and technology and sort of, you know, outreach of a partner marketing campaign. John Jantsch (13:49): Was that a new initiative or a new innovation from Valpak or is that actually a, an off to shelf product? Did they? Yeah, Bob Glazer (13:56): No, I, I, you know, I, that, I don’t know, it was our team reaching out and saying, Hey, how could we work together with, uh, this food delivery service? You know, you have reached into these things. We have budget to spend on this. I, I, I think, yeah, one, you know, on the flip side of the coin, there are a lot of people out there, you know, who even are retailers looking to be publishers saying, Hey, how else can I make money? Look, you just bought, you know, something from my baby store. And then I show you four baby subscription services afterwards for which I get, you know, 30% of the first year revenue, if you sign up for them. What’s interesting is cuz obviously a lot of folks, we deal on the marketing. They’re not normally the task with generating revenue, but we’re like, Hey, if you put this in and you make money, you could take that money and then increase your budget for your own acquisition. And then they’re a lot more interesting. John Jantsch (14:46): So let’s talk about mistakes that people make. I I’ll share one that drives me crazy is, you know, you go and you make a, I FTD, I, I ordered some flowers off the FTD site recently and before I could actually get off of the site, you know, they offered me eight other things that were unrelated to my purchase. And it just felt like they were craming crap down my throat. Bob Glazer (15:08): Yeah. That John Jantsch (15:11): Is that an example of how not to do it. Bob Glazer (15:13): Yeah. I mean, you want it to be relevant. You want it to be helpful, be much better if you were buying a ticket to Seattle and the post purchase it, preloaded concerts in Seattle restaurant reservations in Seattle hotels in Seattle where you’re like, oh, this is all the stuff I wanted to do anyway. They’ve helped me with that. So yeah, to me, that’s just more of, you know, the USF good. That’s like the interruption marketing stuff and just like how many swings can we take at it? And they’re probably paid for impression. I mean that stuff doesn’t no one likes that stuff. Yeah. Let’s be honest. John Jantsch (15:44): Yeah. So, so how, how would somebody’s listening to this? They’re thinking I’m gonna go pick up a Bob’s book. I mean, how would they get started? I know it’s impossible to answer cuz every business is different, but essentially how would somebody go about, you know, initiating something like this? Bob Glazer (16:00): Not, not to be self promotional, but look, the reason why a lot of agencies like acceleration partners exist is cuz people want to do this, but they don’t know how to do it. Generally, if you have no idea how to do something, I find it’s better to talk to someone and add it before. So whether you’re recruiting someone to help launch a program in house, I, the thing to do of saying, we wanna do this, let’s pull someone off our display team. Who’ve never done this before. We’re not amended here. So let’s figure it out ourselves. Like, I don’t know that’s you never wanna make mistakes on your own. So I mean, there’s a big industry of agencies. That’s special. I, as in this, they work with all the platforms. It’s not necessarily outsourcing. They might work with the in-house team, but handle a lot of the externally facing aspects of the program, including how to use that software recruiting to people like getting them their there’s almost a customer service function. If you have a program with a thousand partners in it and it’s cyber week. Yeah. They need stuff and have requests on Saturday and Sunday and weekend. Most companies aren’t staffed to really support that. So I, I, I look, there’s some great in-house teams or people do stuff in house. Generally, if you have no experience in something, I think it’s good to find someone who does. John Jantsch (17:08): Yeah. I, I guess in some ways, would you say that not apples to apples, but in some ways this is like a sales force. How are you gonna support this sales force? Right? Bob Glazer (17:18): Yeah. We’re like systems integrators too. We’re experts in these platforms. People on our team know how to use these platforms. If you’ve never used them before again, you can learn how to use it. But from the company’s standpoint, your digital marketing jobs, they high turnover, 18 months is a career these days. So you get some one who knows the software, learns it, trained up, builds relationships. They leave in 18 months. Then you’re kind of like starting over from zero again. John Jantsch (17:43): What are some of the platforms that, that people would probably encounter? Bob Glazer (17:48): Yeah. So like on the network side, you’d have the Eun CJ Rockton, a more traditional, a smaller side share sale in the SaaS play. That’s growing, you’ve got impact partner eyes, uh, partner stack. And there’s a whole host of ones in the B2B space. So there’s been kind of explosion in the software that allows you to track, measure and pay in the partnership arena with some, you know, better in some verticals or countries or regions or stuff than others. But you know, one of the main thing, you know, paying out people in a hundred countries or something is not trivial. So the large global companies that have figured out how to do that. Yeah. You can just have your program globally and people can join from wherever in the world and your account team and finance team does not have to deal with that. John Jantsch (18:31): Have you seen examples of service companies that may not, I mean, use you, for example, how would a company like yours acceleration partners create a partner? Bob Glazer (18:40): Yeah. You know, we just did cuz the cobblers had no shoes. So we went to look like for an example, we went to like a lot of people that we know like other agencies, right. Publishers who see a lot of programs and they struggle and we’re like, look, if you’re trying to work with a program and the management sucks or they don’t have any management, like, Hey, you can use this link, send it to us, we’ll track it. And you know, we’d love to pay you for that. So yeah, it could be used really in any context. And the technology now can track through Salesforce in addition to tracking through a cart, that’s where some of the more B2B stuff comes, you know, it’d always usually be add to be through a cart. Cause I had to know you bought something. Right. But now I can send that into your Salesforce instance, attracts it when someone on your team closes in Salesforce that says, Hey, that was Bob’s, you know, lead, you know, we owe John Jantsch (19:25): Him something. Yeah. So it’s a, a pipeline deal at that point almost so. Yeah. But I think the point of that really is I do think a lot of people, when they think of affiliate, they think of, you know, build a landing page, have an affiliate sign up, you know, kind of thing. Yeah. But I think in this it’s all old. Bob Glazer (19:40): Yeah. Overall when, when all the, the, when the affiliates were just professional marketers yeah. Versus they were like people who have access to the audience that you want. Right. Right. So imagine like a, just an it shop and people are always asking about, they kind of the reseller stuff they’re always asking about, you know, Google apps or this, or otherwise they just say, Hey, here’s how you sign up. You send it here, you use our code, it’s all tracked. And, and then, you know, instead of being like a traditional kind of reseller partner, it’s just, it, the whole thing is more automated. John Jantsch (20:10): But I love that idea of the, of going into your CRM though, because it, then it becomes more of a true sort of curated network, you know, as opposed to just, Hey, you know, all comers. And I think that there are a lot of companies out there that haven’t considered it because that’s their view. I think of partnership marketing. Bob Glazer (20:28): Yeah. Again, marketers standing up landing pages verified to told you, you know, that Craigslist was a massive publisher and you know, yeah. Years ago, like when we were working with a ride share service, you know, we did a deal with job boards where they’d say, Hey, one set of a job. Do you wanna ride for Uber? And they’d make a fair amount of money when a driver signed up. Right. I think that’s a very different, yeah. And that’s where partnership marketing is very different than what people remember as their sort of father’s affiliate marketing. John Jantsch (20:56): Yeah. Yeah. ClickBank comes to mind, for example. Yes. Um, as one of the early players in that, Bob Glazer (21:02): A lot of this ACI E Barry and all this stuff, look it, if you’re talking about stuff, that’s five to 10% margin, you know, then that’s pretty normal. The stuff where people were paying 50% affiliate commissions would imply that like it’s a junkie product. That’s being Mar like it’s a cream that’s being sold, you know, a $5 cream being sold for $50 a month. So they had that much margin to play with, like when someone’s paying you a 6% commission that would imply like normal margins, you know, in, in whatever that product or services. John Jantsch (21:32): Yeah. Yeah. Good, good point, Bob, uh, tell people where they can find out more about your partnership work as well as pick up a copy of moving outcomes. Bob Glazer (21:41): Sure. You can find out more about acceleration partners in our work. We’ve got a lot of also free resources, 1 0 1 guys, if, and just learn more how to acceleration partners.com moving outcomes is available. Everywhere books are sold and you can learn more at Robertglazer.com/outcomes. John Jantsch (21:56): Awesome. Well, thanks again for taking time to stop by the duct tape marketing podcast. And hopefully we’ll see you one of these days soon out there on the road. Bob Glazer (22:03): Thanks Jo hn. I John Jantsch (22:04): Did you know that you could offer the duct tape marketing system, our system to your clients, and build a complete marketing consulting coaching business, or maybe level up an agency with some additional services? That’s right. Check out the duct tape marketing consultant network. You can find it at ducttapemarketing.com and just scroll down a little and find that offer our system to your clients tab. Scroll back to top Sign up to receive email updates
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Original source: https://ducttapemarketing.com/partnerships-are-the-future-of-marketing/ The post Why Partnerships Are The Future Of Marketing appeared first on connect social networks. via Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/why-partnerships-are-the-future-of-marketing/ The United States Navy had its headquarters in the Second World War. Essex-class aircraft carrier USS LexingtonThe enemy reported that (CV-16), was twice damaged in Japanese air strikes. She quickly recovered and returned to fighting, even so that Tokyo Rose, a Japanese propagandist, nicknamed her “The Blue Ghost.” This colorful name was quickly adopted by all the pilots and crew members who served aboard the aircraft carrier. A different American EssexUSS -class carrier Intrepid(CV-11) was also spared seven bomb strikes, five kamikaze attacks and one torpedo strike. However, the ship continued to return to action even after repairs. This earned her the nickname “The Ghost Ship” among enemy forces. While in the past, reports of the demise of warships may have often been “greatly exaggerated” – to paraphrase Mark Twain – in the era of social media, it could be far easier to confirm an enemy’s vessel’s destruction. The Russian Navy’s cruiser missile was a perfect example. MoskvaThe Black Sea Fleet’s flagship, On Wednesday night, reports circulated that the ship was severely damaged and that her crew had abandoned it. A military spokesperson in Kyiv was the first to report that the ship had been struck by a cruise missile. This reportedly led to it being tipped over and eventually sinking. Smartphones and social media make it much simpler to verify these “facts”, and clear out the “fog war”. The victory is what makes history. As it has been in wartimes, and the Ukrainian government was the one who first declared the defeat of the guided-missile cruiser, Oleksiy Istovych was a Ukrainian blogger, adviser and actor. He also served as a columnist for the Ukrainian political party. MoskvaThrough his Twitter account @arestovych, he is struggling in the Black Sea. His tweet read, “The Black Sea Fleet flagship of Russia’s Russian Federation cruiser Moskva’ experienced a negative ascent at the area of U200bu200bthe Island where it was supposed to be sent. As of Thursday afternoon, the video had been viewed over 133,000 times. However, Wall Street JournalYaroslav Trofimov, a foreign affairs reporter (@yarotrof), tweeted that Russia has admitted to the fact that its Black Sea Fleet’s flagship, Moskva, was set ablaze by two Neptune cruise-missiles from Ukraine. This could be a turning point in this war. Russia’s Defense Ministry announced on Thursday that they had received the MoskvaIt “remains floating” and measures are being taken to bring it to port. Real Time Analysis Real-time comment from experts is another notable innovation that social media has brought about in the battle for Ukraine. Daily Beast David Axe (@daxe), a SME.com reporter, was quick to comment on the implications of Russia’s loss in the guided missile cruiser. Even more amazing, we only know of one Neptune battery in Kyiv. Then SAVED IT AND a few other missiles to get a shot at Russia’s largest ship. Patience. Discipline,” Axe tweeted. He said, quickly: “It gets worse für Russia. Turkey will not allow any of its two remaining ‘Slava-class cruisers to enter the Black Sea in order to take the place of ‘Moskva. Russia lost half its naval firepower off Ukraine and can’t restore it without going to war with NATO.” Fighting Misinformation Even though it is confirmed that there are MoskvaWhile the Black Sea disaster severely damaged the warship, misinformation continues to circulate on social media about it. Images of another ship in flames were also included, as they had been incorrectly linked to the Russian Navy’s missile cruiser. “A manipulated photo is being shared online with false allegations it shows the Russian warship Moskva ablaze. The image actually depicts a vessel that was set ablaze in Kerch Strait, in 2019, It seems that social media can provide real time reporting and analysis of a conflict, and help clear away some of the fog of war – yet the platform still can spread misinformation. Tokyo Rose could have tweeted about it. LexingtonAnd Intrepid. The post Social Media Is Clearing The ‘Fog Of War’ As Reports Confirm Destruction Of Russian Black Sea Fleet Flagship appeared first on Social Media Explorer. The post Social Media Is Clearing The ‘Fog Of War’ As Reports Confirm Destruction Of Russian Black Sea Fleet Flagship appeared first on connect social networks. via Connect Social Networks http://connectsocialnetworks.com/social-media-is-clearing-the-fog-of-war-as-reports-confirm-destruction-of-russian-black-sea-fleet-flagship/ |
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