For instance, Twitter just celebrated 5 years online and LinkedIn just signed up its 100 millionth member.

These milestones may not have generated much fanfare, but to the savvy small business marketer, they demonstrate how online news and information are becoming  highly prized commodities.

Ironically, thanks to smart phones and tablet computers, fewer people want to pay for it.

With information becoming a hot commodity, its abundance can lead to scarcity of something your business needs: attention.

Kipp Bodnar at hubspot.com shares 7 signs that demonstrate what’s happening and what it means to small business marketers:

1. In 10 Years Newspaper Classified Revenue Has Fallen 92% – Classified advertising was long a major money maker for the newspaper industry. But since 2000, the floor has dropped out of the classified advertising market. See the chart here.
2. Adults Don’t Pay for News On Tablets and Mobile Devices – The graphic at this link illustrates the disconnect between adults that are currently paying for news and the growth of news consumption on mobile devices. This data shows that payment for news and information isn’t keeping pace with consumption.
3. 47% of American Adults Get Local News On a Mobile Device – Nearly half of all American adults (47%) report that they get at least some local news and information on their cellphone or tablet computer.  See the survey.
4. Americans Say They’d Feel Little or No Impact If Newspapers Closed – 39% of people surveyed said they would feel no impact if their local newspapers shut down. 30% said it would have a minor impact, but only 28% said the impact would be major.
5. 75% of U.S. Adults Unwilling to Pay For Online News – About three-quarters of respondents to the survey of 2,251 U.S. adults said they wouldn’t be willing to pay anything for online news if their newspapers failed to survive.
6. 65% of Mobile Connected American Adults Feel It Is Easier to Keep Up With News – 65% feel that today it is easier to keep up with information about their community than it was five years ago (vs. 47% of nonmobile connectors)
7. 47% of American Adults Use Their Cellphones and Tablet Computers to Get Local News and Information

The online information age is feeding people’s information consumption at an increasing rate.

The downside is that with so much news & information at their fingertips, people can quickly become overloaded.

To capture the fleeting attention of your prospects and convert them to leads requires your business to become a content creator and to harness the power of search engines and social media.

Relevant content combined with inbound marketing tactics like search engine optimization, social media marketing and blogging will enable your business to adapt to the new information landscape.

Copyright © KGAPS Consulting, LLC. All rights reserved.

Too Much Information Can Be a Good Thing

You’re using the power of the Web to market your small business online.

You’ve built a killer website that’s rich in keywords, SEO and back-links.

Your permission database is growing.

You’re using social media to connect with potential customers online.

You may not realize it, but you’ve also picked up a new job title.

You’re now a publisher of content.

The content that you create online is an essential part of the value you’re offering your customers.  The useful information you provide is what keeps prospects and customers coming back to your site.

CC Chapman, the author of Content Rules has some timely advice:

“The hardest thing is you really need to figure out what you want to create. Because let’s face it, content is a beast. Once you start doing it, to do it right, this is not a one and done thing. This isn’t, oh, we’re going to set up the website and then forget about it. This is something that has to become part of your core DNA, that you keep doing on a regular basis”

The good news according to Chapman is that your content doesn’t have to be perfect to be effective.  It will improve with time, but a few rough edges here and there actually show authenticity.

You’ll need to consider how your customers consume content.  Do they need a snack or a 5 course meal?

If you’re having trouble creating new content, it may be time to ask yourself “What else can we do with existing content?”  You’ll want to repurpose your content–not just recycle.

Here is where content curation can help you pull together relevant content for your Hub community.

This is done by pulling together content from the top resources from your industry to supplement the content you’re already producing.

Be sure to link back to the originals and add your own comments as to why you’re sharing it.

Chapman cautions that content curation is not a replacement for content creation.

Your content can be in the form of blog articles, online videos, e-books, white papers, podcasts, etc.  The goal is to pull people into your community by earning their trust.

It may take some time to get going, but publishing substantial and valuable content that engages and educates your target audience is critical to building your hub.

Copyright © KGAPS Consulting, LLC. All rights reserved.

Congratulations On Your New Job Title!

It’s like standing with your feet firmly placed in two separate canoes that are slowly drifting apart.  At some point, you must commit to one or the other–or get soaked.

This principle also applies to marketing your small business.  The straddling strategy doesn’t work there either.

Straddling is when a business tries to occupy multiple positions in the marketplace without fully committing to any of them.

It sends a message of indecision and uncertainty to your customers.  It robs your business of the credibility that is the lifeblood of Hub Mentality.

Here are three solid reasons from Marketing Beyond Advertising’s Tom Wanek on why you should avoid such a strategy:

1. Straddling dilutes your limited resources. Most small business owners just don’t have the capital necessary to occupy more than one position in the marketplace. Generally speaking, a straddling strategy requires additional advertising, inventory and expertise. And as you know, successful business owners sip their available resources and wisely spend every asset they own.
2. Adopting a straddling strategy prevents you from developing a unified vision. What happens when your employees find themselves confronted by conflicting organizational goals and objectives? Do they know which goal bows a knee to the other? Do you? Employees (and your customers) need to know what your company stands for, and what it opposes. Moreover, straddling often sparks conflict between what you are saying and who you are being, which shatters credibility.
3. Straddling results in quiet, understated ad copy. Powerful marketing messages make a statement by choosing who to lose. Weak marketing messages attempt to please everyone, and in the end, please no one.

Wanek also differentiates between straddling and extending your brand.  There’s a world of difference.

The key to remember is that a proper brand extension must contain a string of value-based activities to demonstrate your commitment to the customer.

Committed relationships require good communication, trust and transparency.  These are exactly what you need to develop and retain your customers.

It’s part of sending your customers the right message.

Copyright © KGAPS Consulting, LLC. All rights reserved.

Your Customers Need a Commitment

Ironically, the same online environment has depersonalized the sales/lead relationship that drives business.

A lead-generation Web site can effectively bring prospects to your door, if you have the right content, message and process.

The staff at FutureNow has an excellent white paper on Increasing Qualified Leads Online.

Among the gems you’ll find in this paper are the reasons prospects fail to convert to leads:

1. They don’t understand the value they get in exchange for giving their information.
2. They are informationally challenged and collect too little, too much, or incorrect information.
3. You haven’t established trust and set proper expectations of what to expect when doing business with you.

If you wish to create the proper targeted content, you’ll need to ask certain questions to pinpoint your prospect’s sticking points.

• Do you know exactly what your sales team considers a qualified lead?
• Do you know exactly how the lead to customer sales process unfolds?
• What are the obstacles prospects might face when they research their options?
• What are the questions your prospects ask as they go about making their decisions?
• What questions arise at different stages of the buying decision process?

Prospects have to be able to picture themselves reaping the benefits of your product or service.  When your content helps them see this, the trust and value factor tips in your favor.

When creating a business website, the essential questions that must be asked include:

1. Whom are we trying to persuade to take the action?
2. What is the action we want someone to take?
3. What does that person need in order to feel confident taking that action?

These questions are the backbone of FutureNow’s proprietary Persuasion Architecture method.

By considering each step your prospect takes along the way to conversion, you’ll better understand the content you need to provide.  The right content will build the necessary trust to help you convert individuals into buyers.

You’ll also persuade more effectively when you speak to your prospect’s personal and business needs, intentions, buying styles and propensity to purchase.

Copyright © KGAPS Consulting, LLC. All rights reserved.

It’s All About Asking the Right Questions

For instance: Should you spend on demand generation or brand investment?

Branding has been characterized as a “rich man’s game,” but your brand is the identity that keeps you recognizable to your customers.  It’s what makes their eyes light up when they pick you out of a crowd.

Effectively marketing your brand on a tight budget requires picking the brand investments that deliver tangible value, preserve brand equity and mitigate risk.

Lawrence Vincent of imediaconnection.com has identified a handful of branding pitfalls you’ll want to avoid:

• Poor Strategic Rationale – Celebrities can afford a nip/tuck from time to time just for the newness of it. Your brand cannot. Don’t touch your identity unless there is a sound strategic reason to do so.
• Obscure Naming or Renaming – Names are often the most vital brand asset a company owns. We measure unaided name awareness and attempt to track how consumers link product attributes to brand names. It requires time and money to establish these associations.
• Clever Brand Advertising Splash – It’s the kind of advertising campaign that doesn’t contain a call-to-action – it’s just designed to promote core brand attributes. This mode of advertising is essential for a brand launch, but it’s hard to justify for established brands when budgets are tight.
• Topical but Over-Reactive Messaging Campaigns – A brand messaging platform should be evergreen. Unlike promotional messaging or product messaging, brand messaging should remain fairly constant during the ups and downs of the market.
• An Obligatory Social Media Push – Sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn offer tremendous possibilities for brands, but the opportunities should be explored strategically, not because there is an obligation to introduce the brand in those channels.  Too many companies spend hard-earned money to launch their brands on Twitter with nothing to say, no guideline on how to say it, and no strategy on how to respond to those who decide to engage in conversation.

Having pointed out what to avoid, Vincent goes on to suggests focusing your branding efforts on brand architecture simplification, message alignment and  brand health.

The brand that makes you familiar to your customers is an asset, not an expense.  In good or bad economic times, your customers place value on what’s trusted and recognizable.  Your brand strategies should maintain that value.

Copyright © KGAPS Consulting, LLC. All rights reserved.

Will They Still Recognize You?

There’s no shortage of advice and and information about how to adapt your selling approach.  But hubspot.com points out that the selling landscape is constantly changing.

That means your techniques must be adaptable to the changing selling environment.

Here are three solid guidelines from Andrew Quinn to keep you on top of the game:

1. Do Your Research

Quinn points out that the internet has made it simple to do incredible research.  When someone lands on your website and initiates contact, chances are they already feel like your product is a good fit.

This power of internet research isn’t just limited to customers.  It’s also one of your greatest tools to understand what your customers actually need.

You can learn about your prospects via social media like LinkedIn and Facebook.  Or if your prospect is another business, you can access their website and really see who they are.

2. Always Be Listening

Fancy closing techniques aren’t necessary when you clearly understand what your customer needs.  This is vital.  It’s not about positioning your product, it’s about what value you are bringing to the transaction.

What does the customer need?  How can you help them?  Sometimes you’ll have to be brave enough to recognize that you can’t help them.

3.  Manage Your Reputation

Your reputation travels at the speed of light today thanks to social media.  Your relationship with the customer continues long after the sale is consummated.  Unhappy customers can share their experience with thousands at the click of a mouse.  But so can happy ones.

Keeping your customers happy will keep them coming back and attract new prospects as well.  Yes, it’s a lot of work to build a stellar reputation.  That’s the nature of long term relationships.

Remember, you’re creating a community of customers, not just trying to close a transaction.  Selling products isn’t enough anymore.  Your success is directly linked to building trust and advocacy with your customers.

The internet has drastically changed how we do business.

To learn more about implementing the strategies, methodologies and technologies required today, check out Hub Mentality.

Copyright © KGAPS Consulting, LLC. All rights reserved.

Adapting to The New Social Selling Environment

As a business owner you don’t want to believe it.  After all, you’ve identified a market.  You’ve done your homework. You’re filling a need.

And though your ads glow with benefits, your product isn’t selling.

How can that be?

It’s not always a matter of price, competition or even the offer that’s standing in your way.  It may be something as simple as focus.

Michael Fortin points to three essential elements that distinguish great copy from background noise:

1. One message
2. One market
3. One outcome

Your one message needs to be clear and should never confuse the customer.  This means that your copy should make one offer and one offer only.

Multiple offers, going off on tangents and excessive information make it difficult for the customer to think clearly.  Don’t tell irrelevant stories.

Instead, help your customer make one wise choice about how to spend their money.

To focus on reaching one market, accept that you cannot try to be all things to all people.

It dilutes your message and robs it of clarity.  Too broad of appeal leaves a majority feeling that you’re indifferent to their unique needs.

Fortin advises segmenting your market and writing copy that caters to each segment.

Even if the product is the same, talk to each identifiable group separately.

Finally, the one outcome needs to be an ultimate call to action specified in your copy.  Every other facet of your copy should lead to this one outcome.

Don’t let the customer get sidetracked by distractions.  Prevent procrastination by focusing on why they came to you in the first place: to buy.

Fortin offers one final thought on bringing down the barriers that prevent your message from getting through to your customers–focus on the customer.

The individual reading your copy is more interested in their personal wants and desires.

Illustrating the perceived value of your product to your customer is more effective than bragging how good or innovative the product is.

Your customer’s perception is personal so tell them about the value you’re bringing to them.

Hub Mentality is an excellent resource to learn more about the difference between selling and persuading.

Copyright © KGAPS Consulting, LLC. All rights reserved.

Getting Your Message To Your Customers

Interactivity with current and potential customers has never been easier.

Consider your choices:  Facebook, blogging, Twitter, Linked In, on line forums, Squidoo, Youtube, RSS channels or podcasting.  Each can be a valuable tool in growing your business.

But do you know how to use them?  Or why?

A common mistake that small business owners make is getting caught up in the fun of connecting through social media without understanding what they wish to get out of it.

Ellie Mirman at hubspot.com has some excellent rules of thumb to consider before jumping on the social media marketing bandwagon:

Her first question: What is the top metric you’re trying influence?

Traffic: Ad supported websites use social media to drive a larger audience to visit their website.

Leads: Social media drives people to your website to download a free offer and to give you contact information.

Reach: Increasing your social media followers & fans increases your reach which translates into more traffic or more leads.

Buzz: More awareness of your company or product over a wider audience means you’ll want to measure mentions of your brand in social media over time.

Customer Happiness (Customer Support): Social media allows you to see what your customers are saying (good or bad) about you.  It’s also a fine tool for responding to customers when they’re having problems with your product.

Once you’ve determined the top metric you wish to influence, Mirman says it’s time to set your social media goal numbers.

She recommends setting your social media goals on your high level business goals.

Finally, track your progress.

For traffic you’ll need Google Analytics.  For leads Hubspot is an excellent resource.  For reach try Facebook Insights, or Twitter Counter.

For buzz or mentions try PostRank.  And for Customer Happiness you’ll need good CRM software.

Once you’ve put together your plan and set your goals, go for it!  Keep track of results and you’ll soon see which social media marketing best fits your company.

Above all, remember that effective online marketing is based on the quality of your relationships, not just the quantity of connections.

Use Hub Mentality to give your customers what they want, how they want it.

Copyright © KGAPS Consulting, LLC. All rights reserved.

Setting Your Social Marketing Goals

Now that the nature of marketing has shifted the power to buyers over sellers, new marketing strategies are required.

Something that hasn’t changed is that every business needs to make sales and needs people to sell to.

A key strategy today is a database of customers to whom you can market.  But not all databases are created equal.  Building a proper database takes time.

Which leads some to ask: “Why not just purchase a huge list of names and email addresses and start from there?”

Here are four solid reasons from aweber.com explaining why that’s a risky move:

1. The addresses on those lists get sold to all kinds of marketers. So they get all kinds of mail. So, they lodge all kinds of spam complaints. If ISPs like Gmail and Hotmail notice, they might put you on a blacklist, blocking your emails from all their users in the future.
2. Because of the way these lists are compiled, many of the addresses you receive will be misspelled, abandoned or non-existent. When a big chunk of your emails goes to such addresses, ISPs, again, might notice. Again, they might block all future emails from you. List merchants know this. It’s such a sure thing, they even offer a refund of credit for those addresses up-front.
3. And if you’re sending through an email service provider and you get blocked, other messages they send from the same IP address could also be blocked. So you’ll actually find that no reputable ESP will let you import a purchased list anyway.
4. Unprepared recipients aren’t likely to think, “Oh gosh, I was just hoping for yet another offer from a company I don’t know! Let me click over to their site and buy something!”

So what’s the better way?

One of the most powerful tools a small business can wield in the Information Age is a permission-based database of customer information.

This is the seed crop that will provide your company with long term, lifetime customers if you protect it and use it wisely.

This means that you must capture customer information in the right way and never ever abuse the trust of those customers.

When encouraging people to sign up for free content on your website, they must understand exactly what they’re signing up to receive.

How often will you contact them?  Can they opt out at any time?  They must know these answers before they click.

Confirmed opt in is the preferred way to gain your customer’s permission to share high quality content with them.  This method ensures that the customer really wants to receive your information.

Once you have that vital customer information, you must treat it as a sacred trust and never share it for short term profit.  Those customers are now part of your community and must never be taken for granted.

Hub Mentality requires a more genuine, long term approach.  By persuasively pulling customers into your community, you first gain their permission and then their trust.

But above all, you gain lifetime customers.  Isn’t that what we were after all along?

Copyright © KGAPS Consulting, LLC. All rights reserved.

Building a Database to Build Your Small Business

What they’re looking for could be better described as solutions.  They’re looking for peace of mind; to be entertained; for their lives to be made easier.  In short, they have problems to be solved.

This spells opportunity for the savvy business owner who chooses to market their products or services as a way of meeting their customer’s needs.

The first priority is to discover what your customers want, then decide how your products can deliver the goods.

To get the right answers, you’ll need to ask two very important questions:

What do I have?

What do they need?

Start by listing your assets, whether it be better business hours, well-informed sales personnel, or an overstock of a particular item.  Figure out what you have to offer.

Next, you’ll need to consider the basic human needs and wants of your customers.

Basic needs include security, companionship, greater freedom, etc..

Wants, on the other hand, could include looking better, impressing their friends, or getting their kids to eat healthier.

The final step is to match them up.

For instance, REI doesn’t just want to sell you a GPS unit.  Instead they “keep you safely on the beaten path” and help you navigate with confidence.

The Container Store isn’t looking to sell you containers, they’re helping you find happiness through being better organized.

See the difference?

Solutions are much more persuasive than stuff.  Now you just need to match the assets of your businesses with the wants and needs of your customers.

Approach your small business marketing with a focus on providing your customers with solutions rather than stuff and your Hub Community will grow.  

Copyright © KGAPS Consulting, LLC. All rights reserved.

Are You Marketing Stuff or Marketing Solutions?