Sure Oak: Digital Marketing, SEO, Online Business Strategy, & More

How to reach out to Nilesh Surana: In today’s subscription economy, everyone is trying to fix the leaky bucket of customer churn. Unfortunately, current customer retention practices just aren’t cutting it. In this episode, Nilesh Surana of CustomerSuccessBox shares his take on customer retention and explains why it’s better to be proactive, rather than reactive, when it comes to solving problems your customers have with your products. Keep reading to get his tips on the ideal customer marketing strategy for encouraging people to invest in upgrades and upsells, rather than your competition. The Goal of Customer Marketing The ultimate goal of customer marketing is to retain customers and help them drive the maximum value from your product. In fact, your recurring revenue should actually be more important than new sales. This is because companies that remain relevant to their current customers as those customers grow are much more likely to develop brand advocates and reduce churn. When marketing to your existing, paying customers, you should aim to do the following: * Identify users who love your product and develop them into advocates/evangelists by providing recurring benefits. This means your product should provide value to customers at every stage, not just when they sign up for it. * Retain Customers. Don’t take your current customers for granted. Just because someone is your highest paying customer doesn’t mean they’ll stick with your product for life. Higher paying customers actually need even more reinforcement of your product’s value because they are more likely to churn out than downgrade if your product loses relevance to their needs. * Identify opportunities for upgrades and upsells. As your customers’ scale, you need to scale with them. This means being proactive in identifying the opportunities for remaining relevant to their evolving needs. Don’t wait until potential issues become actual problems. Utilize the data that’s available about your customers to determine what aspects of your product they aren’t using and how you can make those aspects more valuable. Customer Acquisition vs. Customer Marketing In the past, and too often now, companies focus too much on new customer acquisition and not enough on their marketing to current customers. This is where the leaky bucket from earlier comes in. It doesn’t matter how many new customers you bring in to your business if they churn out through the holes in your company “bucket”. To combat this churn, you’ll want to keep your current customers happy. Traditionally, customer happiness level was determined using net promoter scoring e.g. Would you recommend this product to anyone? Why or why not?. Rather than looking to your net promoter score (NPS), you should adopt the mantra, “Why ask, when you can measure?” This is because NPS is a lagging indicator of problems, not a leading indicator. You often won’t learn about issues before it’s too late. Customer marketing is a journey, so don’t worry if you don’t see immediate results. A successful strategy involves regular experimentation and A/B testing, not just a single outreach effort. Most Common Upsell Mistakes As you begin to have a concentrated focus on customer marketing, it’s common to experience some pitfalls. To minimize these snags, avoid making the following mistakes. * Marketing team not aligned with sales. To have a successful customer nurturing strategy, it’s important to keep your marketing and sales teams ...

How to reach out to Nilesh Surana: In today’s subscription economy, everyone is trying to fix the leaky bucket of customer churn. Unfortunately, current customer retention practices just aren’t cutting it. In this episode, Nilesh Surana of CustomerSuccessBox shares his take on customer retention and explains why it’s better to be proactive, rather than reactive, when it comes to solving problems your customers have with your products. Keep reading to get his tips on the ideal customer marketing strategy for encouraging people to invest in upgrades and upsells, rather than your competition. The Goal of Customer Marketing The ultimate goal of customer marketing is to retain customers and help them drive the maximum value from your product. In fact, your recurring revenue should actually be more important than new sales. This is because companies that remain relevant to their current customers as those customers grow are much more likely to develop brand advocates and reduce churn. When marketing to your existing, paying customers, you should aim to do the following: * Identify users who love your product and develop them into advocates/evangelists by providing recurring benefits. This means your product should provide value to customers at every stage, not just when they sign up for it. * Retain Customers. Don’t take your current customers for granted. Just because someone is your highest paying customer doesn’t mean they’ll stick with your product for life. Higher paying customers actually need even more reinforcement of your product’s value because they are more likely to churn out than downgrade if your product loses relevance to their needs. * Identify opportunities for upgrades and upsells. As your customers’ scale, you need to scale with them. This means being proactive in identifying the opportunities for remaining relevant to their evolving needs. Don’t wait until potential issues become actual problems. Utilize the data that’s available about your customers to determine what aspects of your product they aren’t using and how you can make those aspects more valuable. Customer Acquisition vs. Customer Marketing In the past, and too often now, companies focus too much on new customer acquisition and not enough on their marketing to current customers. This is where the leaky bucket from earlier comes in. It doesn’t matter how many new customers you bring in to your business if they churn out through the holes in your company “bucket”. To combat this churn, you’ll want to keep your current customers happy. Traditionally, customer happiness level was determined using net promoter scoring e.g. Would you recommend this product to anyone? Why or why not?. Rather than looking to your net promoter score (NPS), you should adopt the mantra, “Why ask, when you can measure?” This is because NPS is a lagging indicator of problems, not a leading indicator. You often won’t learn about issues before it’s too late. Customer marketing is a journey, so don’t worry if you don’t see immediate results. A successful strategy involves regular experimentation and A/B testing, not just a single outreach effort. Most Common Upsell Mistakes As you begin to have a concentrated focus on customer marketing, it’s common to experience some pitfalls. To minimize these snags, avoid making the following mistakes. * Marketing team not aligned with sales. To have a successful customer nurturing strategy, it’s important to keep your marketing and sales teams ...

How to reach out to Gary Malhotra: When you think of turning potential customers into revenue, what metrics come to mind? Do you focus on the typical vertical marketing funnel? If so, you likely aren’t maximizing your revenue potential. We spoke with TapClicks’ VP of Marketing and Experience, Gary Malhotra, about his approach to marketing and the one metric he assigns the most importance to. Can you guess what it is? Marketing’s Most Important Metric Rather than focusing on the numerous metrics associated with traditional marketing efforts, Gary suggests adopting a revenue-centric mindset. Revenue, he says, should be your marketing team’s most important metric. If your current strategy isn’t bringing in the right amount of revenue, change it, because revenue is what keeps a business going. What does this mean for your marketing strategy? Here’s an example. In most marketing organizations, only 5-10% of backlinks from influencers contribute to 80-90% of your total influencer revenue. Instead of increasing your total number of influencers’ backlinks, you should double down on the group of influencers that are actually providing revenue. Give them case studies or product roadmaps to work with, get their feedback on upcoming products, and make them work harder and smarter for you so they can bring in even more revenue. By focusing on currently-existing revenue streams, you will improve not only your marketing costs, but also the amount of revenue and business you’re bringing in. The Horizontal Bowtie Marketing has changed, and the metrics you focus on the need to change with it. That means shifting your mindset from the traditional image of a vertical funnel to one of a horizontal bowtie. On the left side of the bowtie are new customers coming into your business. They then convert in the middle and expand outward toward upsell revenue. This is where focusing on existing revenue streams comes in. It’s much easier and more effective to get additional revenue from existing customers than new customers. The more you can increase revenue from these established streams, the more you’ll affect your company’s total revenue. Granted, determining which factors in your marketing strategy will have the largest effect on your total revenue can be difficult. To help make your available data valuable, Gary provided suggestions for factors to focus on each side of the bowtie. Left Side of the Bowtie (New Customers) * Buying intent data - What does prospects’ activity on Google and your website tell you about their intent to buy? * Lookalike data - What do your current best customers look like, and what prospects look like them? Those lookalikes are prime targets for sales. * Clickstream data - What is the path to purchase when discovering your website? What is the path to purchase once potential customers click through to your website? * Attribution data/Multi-channel campaign data - Where are most of your most valuable leads and customers coming from? What types of campaigns and channels have proven to be most valuable to your total revenue? Right Side of the Bowtie (Current Customers) * Customer support tickets - What are the biggest issues your current customers are facing? When customers cancel, what are their reasons? * User reviews - What are people saying about your services/product and market? Are there any major issues you can work on to increase customer retention and upsells? Data Visualization Tactics

How to reach out to Gary Malhotra: When you think of turning potential customers into revenue, what metrics come to mind? Do you focus on the typical vertical marketing funnel? If so, you likely aren’t maximizing your revenue potential. We spoke with TapClicks’ VP of Marketing and Experience, Gary Malhotra, about his approach to marketing and the one metric he assigns the most importance to. Can you guess what it is? Marketing’s Most Important Metric Rather than focusing on the numerous metrics associated with traditional marketing efforts, Gary suggests adopting a revenue-centric mindset. Revenue, he says, should be your marketing team’s most important metric. If your current strategy isn’t bringing in the right amount of revenue, change it, because revenue is what keeps a business going. What does this mean for your marketing strategy? Here’s an example. In most marketing organizations, only 5-10% of backlinks from influencers contribute to 80-90% of your total influencer revenue. Instead of increasing your total number of influencers’ backlinks, you should double down on the group of influencers that are actually providing revenue. Give them case studies or product roadmaps to work with, get their feedback on upcoming products, and make them work harder and smarter for you so they can bring in even more revenue. By focusing on currently-existing revenue streams, you will improve not only your marketing costs, but also the amount of revenue and business you’re bringing in. The Horizontal Bowtie Marketing has changed, and the metrics you focus on the need to change with it. That means shifting your mindset from the traditional image of a vertical funnel to one of a horizontal bowtie. On the left side of the bowtie are new customers coming into your business. They then convert in the middle and expand outward toward upsell revenue. This is where focusing on existing revenue streams comes in. It’s much easier and more effective to get additional revenue from existing customers than new customers. The more you can increase revenue from these established streams, the more you’ll affect your company’s total revenue. Granted, determining which factors in your marketing strategy will have the largest effect on your total revenue can be difficult. To help make your available data valuable, Gary provided suggestions for factors to focus on each side of the bowtie. Left Side of the Bowtie (New Customers) * Buying intent data - What does prospects’ activity on Google and your website tell you about their intent to buy? * Lookalike data - What do your current best customers look like, and what prospects look like them? Those lookalikes are prime targets for sales. * Clickstream data - What is the path to purchase when discovering your website? What is the path to purchase once potential customers click through to your website? * Attribution data/Multi-channel campaign data - Where are most of your most valuable leads and customers coming from? What types of campaigns and channels have proven to be most valuable to your total revenue? Right Side of the Bowtie (Current Customers) * Customer support tickets - What are the biggest issues your current customers are facing? When customers cancel, what are their reasons? * User reviews - What are people saying about your services/product and market? Are there any major issues you can work on to increase customer retention and upsells? Data Visualization Tactics

How to reach out to Max Branstetter: Building a website that scales is often your top priority as a company. Nailing components like mobile UX, usefulness of content, and trustworthiness is critical if you want your website to succeed. In this episode, we’re focusing on mobile UX and the best ways to avoid the stick portion of Google’s carrot and stick approach to website rankings. Ready to get started? Let’s dig in to what our guests, Russell Jeffrey and Stephen Alemar from Duda, have to say. Mobile UX Mobile UX is the ease with which potential customers are able to engage with your website; however, there is no exact standard for the ideal mobile UX. It is a moving target. Having said that, a solid mobile experience is important because the entire world has adopted the smartphone as the most common access point for the web. Meaning, if you want success on mobile, your website has to be easy to engage with. Luckily, there are a couple ways to improve your mobile UX and avoid penalties. The first is by following best practices laid out by Google in the past few years. Their guidelines for websites and how well you follow them are the deciding factors in your ability to rank on mobile searches. In fact, Stephen and Jeffrey anticipate another event like mobilegeddon, where websites following Google’s best practices will receive huge boosts in their mobile rankings and websites not doing so will see massive drops. The second way to develop a positive mobile experience is to design your web pages in a way that you would find engaging. Examine each page and ask yourself whether you would be interested in staying on the website if you didn’t work for the company. Ask yourself, “ Is the content helpful? Does each page load quickly?” Site speed and relevant, informative, easy-to-read content are critical if you want to future-proof your website against future mobilegeddons. Biggest Mobile UX Mistakes How users perceive your website can have tremendous effects on your ability to rank and bring in business. If pages take longer than five seconds to load, are filled with irrelevant ads, or are difficult to navigate, users are likely to search for their answers on a different website. Despite incidents like mobilegeddon, many websites are sadly missing the mark on their mobile UX. Here are a few of the biggest mistakes companies make when designing their websites: * Slow Website Speed. According to Google, speed is the most important factor in a successful design, and it can make or break a mobile website experience. On average, website speed is currently 17 to 18 seconds on mobile. Ideally, however, it will only take a few seconds to completely load a page. And with Google’s recent reveal of the page speed test and optimizations to their lighthouse testing tool, page speed is likely to become the web’s next mobilegeddon moment. * Not Designed with Mobile in Mind. With so many people are the world now using their phones to search for content, it’s no wonder that Google is pushing websites to have a mobile-first design. Unfortunately, too many companies don’t do this. If you want to make your company stand out from the crowd and future-proof it from ranking penalties, you need to make sure every aspect of your website is consumable and usable via mobile from the get-go. If you don’t, you leave yourself open to drops in rankings. * Poor Formatting. Although mobile-friendly formatting has been addressed for the most part, it is still a critical part of mobile UX.

How to reach out to Max Branstetter: Building a website that scales is often your top priority as a company. Nailing components like mobile UX, usefulness of content, and trustworthiness is critical if you want your website to succeed. In this episode, we’re focusing on mobile UX and the best ways to avoid the stick portion of Google’s carrot and stick approach to website rankings. Ready to get started? Let’s dig in to what our guests, Russell Jeffrey and Stephen Alemar from Duda, have to say. Mobile UX Mobile UX is the ease with which potential customers are able to engage with your website; however, there is no exact standard for the ideal mobile UX. It is a moving target. Having said that, a solid mobile experience is important because the entire world has adopted the smartphone as the most common access point for the web. Meaning, if you want success on mobile, your website has to be easy to engage with. Luckily, there are a couple ways to improve your mobile UX and avoid penalties. The first is by following best practices laid out by Google in the past few years. Their guidelines for websites and how well you follow them are the deciding factors in your ability to rank on mobile searches. In fact, Stephen and Jeffrey anticipate another event like mobilegeddon, where websites following Google’s best practices will receive huge boosts in their mobile rankings and websites not doing so will see massive drops. The second way to develop a positive mobile experience is to design your web pages in a way that you would find engaging. Examine each page and ask yourself whether you would be interested in staying on the website if you didn’t work for the company. Ask yourself, “ Is the content helpful? Does each page load quickly?” Site speed and relevant, informative, easy-to-read content are critical if you want to future-proof your website against future mobilegeddons. Biggest Mobile UX Mistakes How users perceive your website can have tremendous effects on your ability to rank and bring in business. If pages take longer than five seconds to load, are filled with irrelevant ads, or are difficult to navigate, users are likely to search for their answers on a different website. Despite incidents like mobilegeddon, many websites are sadly missing the mark on their mobile UX. Here are a few of the biggest mistakes companies make when designing their websites: * Slow Website Speed. According to Google, speed is the most important factor in a successful design, and it can make or break a mobile website experience. On average, website speed is currently 17 to 18 seconds on mobile. Ideally, however, it will only take a few seconds to completely load a page. And with Google’s recent reveal of the page speed test and optimizations to their lighthouse testing tool, page speed is likely to become the web’s next mobilegeddon moment. * Not Designed with Mobile in Mind. With so many people are the world now using their phones to search for content, it’s no wonder that Google is pushing websites to have a mobile-first design. Unfortunately, too many companies don’t do this. If you want to make your company stand out from the crowd and future-proof it from ranking penalties, you need to make sure every aspect of your website is consumable and usable via mobile from the get-go. If you don’t, you leave yourself open to drops in rankings. * Poor Formatting. Although mobile-friendly formatting has been addressed for the most part, it is still a critical part of mobile UX.

How to reach out to Latane Conant: Know everything, do anything. That’s the motto our guest goes by for marketing to potential customers throughout the funnel. This is because so many people looking for help with B2B services do their early research without filling out any forms. They’re part of what Latane Conant from 6sense calls the “dark funnel.” So what is this dark funnel, and how can you illuminate its secrets and use them to form a successful account-based marketing strategy? Check out this week’s episode or keep reading to find out. Know (Almost) Everything When you’re looking to understand the needs of prospects and customers, your first step should be getting your data in order. This includes data from your dark funnel, which is 68% of the buyer’s journey that is completed anonymously online without filling out any forms. You want to look at your website visits to understand what pages people are looking at the most, then use that information to develop a full picture of the buyer's journey. While it can be impossible to guess everything your prospective buyers may be thinking, it is possible to make an educated guess by examining that traffic data, as well as the content your competitors are sharing. If you’re providing as many, or even more, answers to buyer questions as your competitors, you’re on the right track toward a successful account-based marketing strategy. Paying Attention to Intent Signals One of the biggest methods you can use to determine what potential customers are researching is to focus on intent signals. These signals can be at either a category level (e.g. SEO services) or a granular keyword level (e.g. best New York SEO agency). Your understanding of the keywords potential customers are searching for and their place in the marketing funnel informs your entire account-based marketing strategy. This includes the types of emails you send, the search terms you target with your content and ads, and your personalization strategy. While paying attention to these signals can help you to have more meaningful conversations with leads, doing so can also help you in lead scoring. Just ask yourself the following questions: * Is this a good account for your company? * Is the account in the market? If so, where in the buying journey is it? * Who are the people on the account and what is their engagement level? * Are these the people looking to make a decision to buy now, or are they just browsing for the future? Think of it this way - when you go to make a purchase, you tend to do your research. Your prospective customers are doing the same. To ensure they receive the best information possible (and end up choosing your company), you want to provide them with answers to any questions they may be asking. One thing that’s important to keep in mind is that purchase decisions are no longer being made by just one individual. More often than not, those choices are now made by teams. Once you have a full picture of your data and understand your customers and buyer behaviors, you can begin to move into the “do anything” phase of Latane’s motto. Do Anything B2B selling has always been account-based. However, people in marketing tend to have a lead-based mentality. Unfortunately, since many people now buy and research business investments in teams, the typical notion of a lead is broken. To successfully market to businesses, marketers should shift their focus to understanding that interest in a product from one person isn’t necessarily an opportunity.

How to reach out to Latane Conant: Know everything, do anything. That’s the motto our guest goes by for marketing to potential customers throughout the funnel. This is because so many people looking for help with B2B services do their early research without filling out any forms. They’re part of what Latane Conant from 6sense calls the “dark funnel.” So what is this dark funnel, and how can you illuminate its secrets and use them to form a successful account-based marketing strategy? Check out this week’s episode or keep reading to find out. Know (Almost) Everything When you’re looking to understand the needs of prospects and customers, your first step should be getting your data in order. This includes data from your dark funnel, which is 68% of the buyer’s journey that is completed anonymously online without filling out any forms. You want to look at your website visits to understand what pages people are looking at the most, then use that information to develop a full picture of the buyer's journey. While it can be impossible to guess everything your prospective buyers may be thinking, it is possible to make an educated guess by examining that traffic data, as well as the content your competitors are sharing. If you’re providing as many, or even more, answers to buyer questions as your competitors, you’re on the right track toward a successful account-based marketing strategy. Paying Attention to Intent Signals One of the biggest methods you can use to determine what potential customers are researching is to focus on intent signals. These signals can be at either a category level (e.g. SEO services) or a granular keyword level (e.g. best New York SEO agency). Your understanding of the keywords potential customers are searching for and their place in the marketing funnel informs your entire account-based marketing strategy. This includes the types of emails you send, the search terms you target with your content and ads, and your personalization strategy. While paying attention to these signals can help you to have more meaningful conversations with leads, doing so can also help you in lead scoring. Just ask yourself the following questions: * Is this a good account for your company? * Is the account in the market? If so, where in the buying journey is it? * Who are the people on the account and what is their engagement level? * Are these the people looking to make a decision to buy now, or are they just browsing for the future? Think of it this way - when you go to make a purchase, you tend to do your research. Your prospective customers are doing the same. To ensure they receive the best information possible (and end up choosing your company), you want to provide them with answers to any questions they may be asking. One thing that’s important to keep in mind is that purchase decisions are no longer being made by just one individual. More often than not, those choices are now made by teams. Once you have a full picture of your data and understand your customers and buyer behaviors, you can begin to move into the “do anything” phase of Latane’s motto. Do Anything B2B selling has always been account-based. However, people in marketing tend to have a lead-based mentality. Unfortunately, since many people now buy and research business investments in teams, the typical notion of a lead is broken. To successfully market to businesses, marketers should shift their focus to understanding that interest in a product from one person isn’t necessarily an opportunity.

How to reach out to Miira Leinonen: Marketing and HR don’t often go hand-in-hand, but according to this week’s podcast guest, they should. Too often the brand identity a company presents in its marketing efforts differs drastically from what candidates experience during the hiring and recruitment process. This can be massively detrimental to your company’s bottom line. Miira Leinonen of TalentAdore explains why in this podcast episode. Old-Fashioned Recruiting vs. Personalized Recruiting Companies are all about the bottom line, right? What if we told you the way you treat employee candidates can have a huge effect on that bottom line? The reason lies in your recruitment process. Many times, candidates applying to work at your company are also customers or connected to potential customers. In this age of social media, customers (and former customers) are much more likely to discuss their experiences with your brand. If those discussions are negative, you run the risk of harming your brand identity in the long run. To prevent this from happening, Miira recommends using a personalized recruitment process. Let’s get into how it differs from typical recruiting. Old-fashioned Recruiting We’ve all been there. You spend a lot of time and effort crafting your resume and cover letter for the job of your dreams, only to receive silence in return. Or worse -- a rejection 1 year AFTER you applied. That’s what happened to Miira when she was younger and applied for a summer job. The silence is frustrating. The delayed rejection? Even more so. Miira compares the feeling to pouring your heart out in a love letter and getting nothing but crickets. Simply put, old-fashioned recruiting only involves communicating with the one person who gets the job and leaving the rest of the candidates in the dark. Personalized Recruiting In contrast to the current, yet old-fashioned, method of recruiting, Miira recommends communicating with job candidates throughout the hiring process. Let them know as you move each step closer to making your decision. To help yourself and your candidates even more in the long run, you should send personalized feedback on what the candidates did well and how they can improve their resume or cover letter for future applications. Although that may sound like a lot of work, it can only help your business, not hurt it. In fact, studies show that when you used personalized communication in your recruiting, more than 70 percent of rejected candidates are likely to recommend your company to their social circles. Compare this to the mere 20 percent recommendation rate of your typical recruitment process. These rejected candidates are also much more likely to apply to your company in the future, once they’ve become more experienced, or convince friends to apply. That’s word-of-mouth marketing at its finest. The best part of personalized recruiting? It can be done in any industry. As long as you’re hiring people or plan to hire people in the future, you can take a personalized, empathy-led approach with your recruitment process. Advice for Companies If you’re looking to improve your company brand and bottom-line, take a look at your current hiring practices. A large number of people apply to companies each year, and many, if not most of them, are customers. This is a huge demographic that can make or break your company over time.

How to reach out to Miira Leinonen: Marketing and HR don’t often go hand-in-hand, but according to this week’s podcast guest, they should. Too often the brand identity a company presents in its marketing efforts differs drastically from what candidates experience during the hiring and recruitment process. This can be massively detrimental to your company’s bottom line. Miira Leinonen of TalentAdore explains why in this podcast episode. Old-Fashioned Recruiting vs. Personalized Recruiting Companies are all about the bottom line, right? What if we told you the way you treat employee candidates can have a huge effect on that bottom line? The reason lies in your recruitment process. Many times, candidates applying to work at your company are also customers or connected to potential customers. In this age of social media, customers (and former customers) are much more likely to discuss their experiences with your brand. If those discussions are negative, you run the risk of harming your brand identity in the long run. To prevent this from happening, Miira recommends using a personalized recruitment process. Let’s get into how it differs from typical recruiting. Old-fashioned Recruiting We’ve all been there. You spend a lot of time and effort crafting your resume and cover letter for the job of your dreams, only to receive silence in return. Or worse -- a rejection 1 year AFTER you applied. That’s what happened to Miira when she was younger and applied for a summer job. The silence is frustrating. The delayed rejection? Even more so. Miira compares the feeling to pouring your heart out in a love letter and getting nothing but crickets. Simply put, old-fashioned recruiting only involves communicating with the one person who gets the job and leaving the rest of the candidates in the dark. Personalized Recruiting In contrast to the current, yet old-fashioned, method of recruiting, Miira recommends communicating with job candidates throughout the hiring process. Let them know as you move each step closer to making your decision. To help yourself and your candidates even more in the long run, you should send personalized feedback on what the candidates did well and how they can improve their resume or cover letter for future applications. Although that may sound like a lot of work, it can only help your business, not hurt it. In fact, studies show that when you used personalized communication in your recruiting, more than 70 percent of rejected candidates are likely to recommend your company to their social circles. Compare this to the mere 20 percent recommendation rate of your typical recruitment process. These rejected candidates are also much more likely to apply to your company in the future, once they’ve become more experienced, or convince friends to apply. That’s word-of-mouth marketing at its finest. The best part of personalized recruiting? It can be done in any industry. As long as you’re hiring people or plan to hire people in the future, you can take a personalized, empathy-led approach with your recruitment process. Advice for Companies If you’re looking to improve your company brand and bottom-line, take a look at your current hiring practices. A large number of people apply to companies each year, and many, if not most of them, are customers. This is a huge demographic that can make or break your company over time.

How to reach out to Steve Hartert: Imagine your ideal browsing experience. Now imagine that experience involves filling out a form. How likely are you to complete the form? How likely are you to abandon and visit a different site? If you’re more likely to jump ship and not complete the form, you aren’t alone. Too often, marketers try to make their forms do much more work than necessary, leading to a less-than-ideal conversion rate. Forms may be the gateway to collecting information, but if they’re too difficult and time-consuming to fill out, you’re unlikely to get any of the data you’re looking to collect. To help you learn the best ways to construct and present online forms for marketing, we sat down with Steve Hartert of JotForm, one of the first online form builders ever created. Keep reading to learn some of the biggest takeaways from his interview. Online Forms and their Uses At their most basic level, online forms are a method of gaining insight into people’s needs and wants. At their most complicated, they are a means for businesses to gain a deeper understanding of their customer base than competitors can. Forms can be anything from a simple contact form to subscribe to a newsletter to an elaborate online survey. Of course, this data collection is only possible if your customer base is interested in completing your forms. The best way to garner that interest? Make it simple for people to provide your company with their information. The easier it is, the more information your audience will submit. So how do you create online forms that people want to answer? Steve gave us three key ingredients to help you get started. How to Create Innovative, Successful Forms When you first begin creating your form, it’s important to focus on the one key thing you want it to do. If you keep that in mind as you draft your form, you’ll find the rest of these tips much easier to execute. Don’t “Kitchen Sink” Your Forms One of the biggest mistakes Steve says marketers often make is trying to “throw the kitchen sink” at their forms. Forms should be geared toward the one key data point you focused on at the beginning of this section, not on collecting every possible data point on the web. This means only asking questions that are pertinent to that goal. When it comes to online forms, success will only happen if you follow the rule of KISS (keep it simple, stupid). Flashy, convoluted forms won’t get you the data you need. Straightforward, easy-to-fill-out forms will. Pay Attention to Design The design of your forms is equally as important as the content they contain. Poorly designed forms tend to drive more users away than they draw in. If you want to see success, put energy into designing your form and making it something you’d want to fill out yourself. Don’t be afraid to take some time and make your user experience something you would want to experience as well, and try testing a few variations of your forms to see what performs best. Understand Your Users The needs and interests of your users should go hand-in-hand with your design. Who are you targeting? What device types are they using most often to access your website and online form? If the majority of your target audience uses their phones to fill out your form, and the webpage isn’t designed with mobile UX in mind, you’re likely to see a marked difference between your actual conversion rate and the conversion rate you were hoping to see. No matter where you are in the online form creation process,

How to reach out to Steve Hartert: Imagine your ideal browsing experience. Now imagine that experience involves filling out a form. How likely are you to complete the form? How likely are you to abandon and visit a different site? If you’re more likely to jump ship and not complete the form, you aren’t alone. Too often, marketers try to make their forms do much more work than necessary, leading to a less-than-ideal conversion rate. Forms may be the gateway to collecting information, but if they’re too difficult and time-consuming to fill out, you’re unlikely to get any of the data you’re looking to collect. To help you learn the best ways to construct and present online forms for marketing, we sat down with Steve Hartert of JotForm, one of the first online form builders ever created. Keep reading to learn some of the biggest takeaways from his interview. Online Forms and their Uses At their most basic level, online forms are a method of gaining insight into people’s needs and wants. At their most complicated, they are a means for businesses to gain a deeper understanding of their customer base than competitors can. Forms can be anything from a simple contact form to subscribe to a newsletter to an elaborate online survey. Of course, this data collection is only possible if your customer base is interested in completing your forms. The best way to garner that interest? Make it simple for people to provide your company with their information. The easier it is, the more information your audience will submit. So how do you create online forms that people want to answer? Steve gave us three key ingredients to help you get started. How to Create Innovative, Successful Forms When you first begin creating your form, it’s important to focus on the one key thing you want it to do. If you keep that in mind as you draft your form, you’ll find the rest of these tips much easier to execute. Don’t “Kitchen Sink” Your Forms One of the biggest mistakes Steve says marketers often make is trying to “throw the kitchen sink” at their forms. Forms should be geared toward the one key data point you focused on at the beginning of this section, not on collecting every possible data point on the web. This means only asking questions that are pertinent to that goal. When it comes to online forms, success will only happen if you follow the rule of KISS (keep it simple, stupid). Flashy, convoluted forms won’t get you the data you need. Straightforward, easy-to-fill-out forms will. Pay Attention to Design The design of your forms is equally as important as the content they contain. Poorly designed forms tend to drive more users away than they draw in. If you want to see success, put energy into designing your form and making it something you’d want to fill out yourself. Don’t be afraid to take some time and make your user experience something you would want to experience as well, and try testing a few variations of your forms to see what performs best. Understand Your Users The needs and interests of your users should go hand-in-hand with your design. Who are you targeting? What device types are they using most often to access your website and online form? If the majority of your target audience uses their phones to fill out your form, and the webpage isn’t designed with mobile UX in mind, you’re likely to see a marked difference between your actual conversion rate and the conversion rate you were hoping to see. No matter where you are in the online form creation process,

How to reach out to Lance Loveday: Having a successful paid advertising campaign isn’t just a matter of paying some money and getting the website traffic and revenue you’re looking for. It involves data, analysis, and a good amount of trial and error. Don’t worry, though. We’ve got you covered. This week, we spoke with Lance Loveday of Closed Loop to get his tips on how (and how NOT) to do paid advertising — and the best time to start. Ready to jump in? Let’s get started. When to Invest in Paid Ads If you haven’t done paid advertising for your company before, it can be easy to feel as if you’ve “missed the boat” and have no way of catching up to (or even surpassing) your competitors. Luckily, it’s impossible to miss the boat. In fact, Lance says there’s no better time than the present to make changes and start investing in paid advertising. One thing to keep in mind as you begin your investment, however, is that finding the sweet spot for your campaign can take time if you’ve never invested in PPC before. This is because you won’t have data from your previous efforts to determine what may or may not work. To combat this difficulty, look to your competitors. What are they doing? Do they seem to be seeing success from their efforts? Yielding a high ROI is the name of the game, and it can take some time to get there. It requires ongoing analysis and optimization of your campaigns if you want to maximize the potential of PPC. For expert support, we can help with Sure Oak's paid search management services. The Point of Diminishing Returns When you begin investing in paid advertising, there will come a point when spending more money doesn’t yield the same amount of ROI. This is called the point of diminishing returns.  This point will differ for each company, as each will have a different level of ROI they are willing to accept in exchange for what they spend. And, obviously, not every company can afford to spend the same amount on their PPC efforts. Before you begin any of your campaigns, you’ll need to determine the minimum ROI and lead or sales volume that you are willing to accept. You should also pay special attention to the data you’ve collected on your competitors’ successes and failures thus far. If you aren’t certain how to collect that data, that’s okay. There are many companies out there that are willing to do it for you, and those same companies can often manage the PPC process for you and help you continually optimize your campaigns for maximum value. It’s all a matter of whether you have the resources internally or if outsourcing is best for you. Keep in mind, though, that no two companies are the same. Where one company succeeds, another may fail. Your paid advertising campaign should be just as unique as what your business offers. Assumptions You Shouldn’t Make About Paid Advertising Now that we’ve gone over the “do’s” of paid advertising, let’s get into the “don’ts.” In this week’s interview, Lance primarily focuses on false assumptions businesses and managers often make when they first get started with paid advertising. The first assumption is that Google can be outsmarted to favor your ads over those of your competitors. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on which side of that assumption you’re on) Google cannot be manipulated or outsmarted. In fact, Google is constantly changing its algorithm to counteract such attempts. If you want to see the best results from your PPC campaigns,

How to reach out to Lance Loveday: Having a successful paid advertising campaign isn’t just a matter of paying some money and getting the website traffic and revenue you’re looking for. It involves data, analysis, and a good amount of trial and error. Don’t worry, though. We’ve got you covered. This week, we spoke with Lance Loveday of Closed Loop to get his tips on how (and how NOT) to do paid advertising — and the best time to start. Ready to jump in? Let’s get started. When to Invest in Paid Ads If you haven’t done paid advertising for your company before, it can be easy to feel as if you’ve “missed the boat” and have no way of catching up to (or even surpassing) your competitors. Luckily, it’s impossible to miss the boat. In fact, Lance says there’s no better time than the present to make changes and start investing in paid advertising. One thing to keep in mind as you begin your investment, however, is that finding the sweet spot for your campaign can take time if you’ve never invested in PPC before. This is because you won’t have data from your previous efforts to determine what may or may not work. To combat this difficulty, look to your competitors. What are they doing? Do they seem to be seeing success from their efforts? Yielding a high ROI is the name of the game, and it can take some time to get there. It requires ongoing analysis and optimization of your campaigns if you want to maximize the potential of PPC. For expert support, we can help with Sure Oak's paid search management services. The Point of Diminishing Returns When you begin investing in paid advertising, there will come a point when spending more money doesn’t yield the same amount of ROI. This is called the point of diminishing returns.  This point will differ for each company, as each will have a different level of ROI they are willing to accept in exchange for what they spend. And, obviously, not every company can afford to spend the same amount on their PPC efforts. Before you begin any of your campaigns, you’ll need to determine the minimum ROI and lead or sales volume that you are willing to accept. You should also pay special attention to the data you’ve collected on your competitors’ successes and failures thus far. If you aren’t certain how to collect that data, that’s okay. There are many companies out there that are willing to do it for you, and those same companies can often manage the PPC process for you and help you continually optimize your campaigns for maximum value. It’s all a matter of whether you have the resources internally or if outsourcing is best for you. Keep in mind, though, that no two companies are the same. Where one company succeeds, another may fail. Your paid advertising campaign should be just as unique as what your business offers. Assumptions You Shouldn’t Make About Paid Advertising Now that we’ve gone over the “do’s” of paid advertising, let’s get into the “don’ts.” In this week’s interview, Lance primarily focuses on false assumptions businesses and managers often make when they first get started with paid advertising. The first assumption is that Google can be outsmarted to favor your ads over those of your competitors. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on which side of that assumption you’re on) Google cannot be manipulated or outsmarted. In fact, Google is constantly changing its algorithm to counteract such attempts. If you want to see the best results from your PPC campaigns,

How to reach out to Gregg Anderson: The main point of sales is to make money, right? Not necessarily. According to Greg Rosner of PitchKitchen, the point is actually to develop relationships and win the hearts of your customers (which, in turn, leads to sales). This approach means focusing on your prospective customers’ need to resolve issues rather than your need to sell something. How does that correlate to your sales presentations? Keep reading to find out. Common Misconceptions about Sales Presentations Before we explain the best way to structure a sales presentation so it presents you (and your company) in a helpful light, it’s important to go over some common assumptions. The first is thinking that your prospect is actually interested in your business or product. In reality, potential customers only care about the difference your product can make in their daily problems. Too often salespeople will make this assumption and go into monologue mode, rather than dialogue mode. This means their pitch is often “here’s why I’m awesome” instead of “how can I help you?” To combat this tendency, Greg suggests imagining yourself as the prospect’s trusted guide. The Dumbledore to their Harry Potter, the Obi-Wan Kenobi to their Luke Skywalker. You shouldn’t be Superman in your presentation, ready to swoop in and solve everyone’s problems. Your job is to keep the story simple and customer-focused. The second misconception salespeople often have is that they MUST put together a multi-slide, bulleted presentation each time when a simple conversation can sometimes achieve a much better effect. In fact, the best presentations are really just conversations. Remember the dialogue we spoke of earlier? That’s what mode you want to be in during your sales presentations, not monologue mode. You don’t need slides to do that. Structuring a Sales Presentation With that being said, let’s get into the best way to structure your sales presentations. Greg recommends organizing your presentations into 3 parts. 1. Challenges In this section, you’ll want to discuss topics like the challenges your prospect is facing, problems they want to be fixed, and how changes in the world have affected their bottom line. 2. Solution This second section is where you can discuss your products or services and how they can help your prospects reach their goals and solve their problems. 3. Success Stories and CTA With this final section, you’ll want to tell the story of other clients you’ve helped, followed by your call-to-action. One thing to keep in mind when you’re structuring your sales presentations is that people aren’t going to remember specific points you make or pieces of data. When they look back, your prospects are going to remember whether you had a dialogue and told a story. They’re going to remember how your presentation made them feel about your business and product, not what numbers you threw their way. This is because humans are naturally drawn to stories, and they find it easier to remember information they can connect with on an emotional level. This means they need to be able to put themselves and their problems into the story you’re telling. Final Thoughts If the stories you tell are what’s going to be remembered, how can you avoid having a me-centric presentation? Simple. Focus on the bigger picture. Tell the story about prospects in similar situations who went on to become clients. Go into detail about the ups and downs that occurred when you were help...