Your Current Content-Based Website and Workflow Are Doing More Harm Than Good to Your Business.

A few days ago, an article caught my attention; it touched on many points about today’s marketing trends and best practices; however, what really stood out to me was the writer’s perspective about how you should be funnelling your website traffic to the appropriate pages. Here’s my takeaway and opinion on this subject.

It is known that e-commerce is growing in leaps and bounds. People, and now businesses, are looking forward to having the perfect combination of sales and convenience. E-commerce keeps growing and has become a necessity in the B2B world, but we also know that, despite e-commerce represents a huge opportunity for your business, it won’t work magically. It needs constant work and improvement.

The dream of every online business owner, regardless the industry, is to own a domain, create a good-looking website, drive traffic to it, and finally start seeing conversions/purchases, but the reality happens to be much different. The transition to an e-commerce site, is not converting your current site into an e-commerce one, or giving your current site the e-commerce ability. Clearly, the first step will always be to move to an e-commerce platform, like Shopify, today’s worldwide leader in e-commerce, but the second step should ALWAYS be optimizing your content, so it aligns with your new website and strategy.

What does this mean?

A good-looking website, doesn’t necessarily mean an industry adapted and optimized website, nor an industry adapted and optimized website should mean a boring and ugly site. Can you have both? Absolutely! And you should. People often forget that, the purpose of e-commerce is convenience; therefore, people don’t want to land on a website with large amounts of content to digest. Websites full of content are dated. People are not consuming all of that nor will they remember it, plus they are not converting by reading 4 pages of content about one of your services. If you can’t describe a product or a service in a few words, while enticing your customer to learn more, you are not doing things right. According to Nielsen, the average time a user spends on a page is less than 59 seconds.

Websites with optimized, short, and concise content alongside clear calls to action (“contact us”) always work better. The end goal should always be getting your customers purchasing your products and services, so why would you make the workflow so painful? Just give them a clean, content optimized, and user friendly site, and you’ll see how your e-commerce sales start to increase.

But wait, does this mean you don’t need a sales team anymore?

NO. You ABSOLUTELY need them. Having a content and workflow optimized e-commerce website doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t need your sales team anymore. The human component is always necessary, and these websites shouldn’t be aimed to replace them; your website should become their number 1 tool to sell your products and services. The printing and IT industries, still, heavily rely on the human component to get new businesses and to maintain and improve their current relationships with their current customers. Also, who will be receiving your customer’s contact forms submissions and requests? YOUR SALES TEAM, so they should 100% stay on the equation.

Technology evolves and so do trends and behaviours. Peoples’ needs change over time and, as a business, you need to evolve in order to remain relevant. There is no difference for the printing and IT industries. It’s simple: Divorce from your content-based websites, migrate to a cleaner and content optimized e-commerce site, and use your website as a tool for your sales team. Are you taking the right steps in this process? Are you offering your current customers and potential leads what they are looking for?

Think twice!

If You Want to Remain in Business, You Need to Use the Right Tools.

Last week, I participated in a very interesting webinar about the printing industry. Of course, one of the introductory points was how much people think printing is declining, which it is, but definitely not as fast as you might think. The second interesting point was about marketing within the industry, which I definitely disagreed with. Here’s why:

Evolution is inevitable and, clearly, we MUST adapt our marketing strategies to the newest trends. Now, how much can you REALLY adapt? That definitely depends on the industry, for sure, but here’s my point. To hear things like SEO is VITAL for your dealership, or you need to show up as the first website when those Millennials are searching on Google, are definitely statements that I strongly but respectfully disagree with.

The time I’ve been involved in the IT and printing industry may be short, but that, combined with my marketing experience, the work I’ve done for my clients, and the results they are having, are definitely a huge demonstration of how this industry is, still, highly dominated by face-to-face or over the phone relationships. SEO is always important, but should you be spending a lot of money on Google AdWords campaigns? Should you be allocating a significant amount of your marketing budget toward SEO? Not really. To me the reality is that:

• The printing industry still relies on sales calls, and the strong relationships your sales team builds with your customers. The way you still do business in the industry is based on the relationships you have already leveraged with your customers.
• Every marketer knows that acquiring a new customer costs, at least, 10 times more than investing in your current customers, so why would your main focus be on showing up first on Google and getting new leads, when you can do so much more with other marketing tactics, such as offering e-commerce to your current customers? Think about it, even just for a second!
• The future of your business relies on how able you are to evolve and adapt your offerings to the change. Stop offering just print, and start offering IT, cloud security, document management solutions such as document digitization, etc. BUT offer that to your current customers! There is so much more opportunity to grow than by only focusing on capturing leads or prospects.
• E-commerce is a MUST nowadays and it is significantly growing in the B2B world; in fact, it is the highest reported need. To my point above, this is one of the many other ways you can make more money without having to spend a lot trying to get new leads. Believe me, your current customers will thank you for giving them the ability to offer their products and services online.

 

MPSToolbox – E-commerce Factoids

I guess my point here is that I DO BELIEVE in inbound marketing. I do believe in lead nurturing, and I do believe that digital is the future. Don’t get me wrong! We MUST find a way to remain moving the businesses we work for, or the industry we work in toward the future, but with tactics that really make sense. There is no such thing as one size fits all. SEO is important, it always is, but it should not be your main focus.

Not everything is about brand awareness, recognition, and new leads. For these industries, it’s much more about the relationships and the high potential you have to grow your business by focusing your marketing efforts on your current customers, and by giving them the tools to succeed.

Vlogging Away!

I recently posted my experience and comments about one of the certifications I am working on. I have, so far, finished my Email Marketing certification, as well as Google Analytics for Beginners.

I mentioned in a previous post that, these certifications are part of the learning outcomes of an amazing course I am now taking at St. Lawrence College. The Emerging Trends in Marketing Communications course has tasked us with completing our certifications and also with some other fun projects on top of the certifications. For the purpose of this course and our Video Strategies I class, we had to create a 30 seconds YouTube ad promoting our blogs.

I have never considered myself a person with many skills to create audiovisual content, and this assignment was very hard for me. However, I have proven myself that I can, actually, make something cool. Here is my vlog!

 

Email Marketing Certification – My Experience

Welcome to the first chapter of my new journey, the Email Marketing Certification from HubSpot Academy. I recently completed this certification and here are my take-aways from the experience.

Beginning with my overall experience, I think this is a good, enriching, and very helpful course. If you, like me, have a bit of experience on email marketing, this course will serve you more as a complement to your already acquired knowledge about the subject. The course definitely walks you through some basic details about email marketing, but also touches many other important and insightful aspects of it.

I mentioned on my last post that self-learning for me represents a big challenge, since I am not a person who enjoys or easily learns by tutorials or videos; however, my experience with the Email Marketing Certification from HubSpot was not bad at all. In fact, here is a list of the positive and the “needs improvement” aspects of the course.

The Positive

The Instructors: The instructors of this course were very knowledgeable people and the way they teach each section of the course, showcases how much they know about the subject. The insight they provide about every aspect of email marketing is also very helpful and valuable. There were a couple of times in which I kind of disagreed with some things though, but that is great because they boosted my critical thinking as well.

The Content:  The content of the course was interesting and helpful. It walks you trough all the important details of email marketing in a very short , but concise and useful way. Some of the content, I already knew, but I definitely found value on the last modules of the certification, specifically about lead nurturing and email optimization and testing.

What Needs Improvement?

The Dynamic of the Classes:  I think that one thing HubSpot could improve is the dynamic of the course. Despite the instructors and the content were really good, I reached a point in which I started to feel tired of the videos. The way the videos are structured, makes the overall course very monotonous. There were several times when I almost fell asleep while taking the certification and I had to stop, go for a walk, and keep going with it. The content is very dense and perhaps including some sort of interaction could improve it.

How the Content is Presented – Support Resources:  This was not a big deal, but I think that some content is more important than other. Over the course of the certification, you can see how the instructors use a sort of slideshow to support what they are teaching; however, many times, what it was written on the slides was not as important as what they were explaining. Perhaps conducting surveys asking people who have taken the course for their feedback in some specific sections of the certification, could help to improve it.

Where to go Now?

Overall, the Email Marketing certification from HubSpot Academy is a really good and useful course, and the picture above this paragraph perfectly reflects how I feel now. With the knowledge I had plus this certification, a new horizon opens for me and my career. Not even the sky will be the limit!

 

I’m Back With a Bunch of Exciting Challenges

It has been a long time since I wrote the last entry on my blog. The truth is that, my life has changed so much during the past year, that I have not even had time to catch up with this. I am back now and ready to bring you back with me in this journey.

My life has REALLY and COMPLETELY flipped. I am on my last year of school at SLC, but I am also working now as the Creative Services Manager at TangentMTW/MPSToolbox, a website/software development and digital marketing agency Downtown Kingston. Learning how to manage the school-load + the workload + my personal life, all happening at the same time, has definitely been challenging for me, but I am learning as I go.

I do have to say though, that everything happens for a reason. This job opportunity knocked on my door right in my last semester of school, and it was a lovely and very opportune coincidence. Here is why: One of my classes for this semester is Emerging Trends in Marketing Communications and to summarize it, what this course really is, is an amazing opportunity for us to pick a side of digital marketing that we feel passionate about, and to become certified experts on it. Pretty awesome, eh? But wait, that is not it. The reality is that this course perfectly combines with many of my job’s responsibilities, so for everyone out there that is reading this and thinking “Do you really apply all that you learn at school when you get a job in the field?” Well, my answers is: YES, YOU DO.

Emerging Trends in Marketing Communications is a fresh out-of the oven course that our faculty, Laura Kittner, has been developing for the las two years. The time has come and we are finally taking it. With her guidance and support, I have decide to become certified in two main areas that are key for my skills set and professional growth. Google Analytics and HubSpot’s Email Marketing certification.

I have never been a fan of self-learning and this actually represents a big challenge for me, but I am determined to go for it and get the best out of it. Would you like to join me?

Am I a Blogger now?

January 17, 2017, I posted the first official entry in my blog. The title was “Blogging for the first time,” and I exposed my initial feelings in regards to blogging. I opened my blog post stating that some people decide to read, whereas others decide to be read. Today, April 18, 2017 I believe I can say I decided to be read. Why? Let’s figure it out.

It is always hard to put yourself out there, and even more when you are writing for a global audience in a language that is not your first language. If I close my eyes, I can perfectly remember how nervous and scared I was to write a blog post in English, and, to be very honest, I did not think I could do it, but despite this feeling, I accepted the challenge and went for it.

Source: Huffington Post

 

Writing is not always easy, and to write for a global audience can make it seem more terrifying than it truly is. However, experience comes with practice, and by having to write a blog post for each one of my AMC courses, has helped me not only to lose the fear to write a blog in a foreign language, but also to develop many skills.

I have written, so far, six blog entries, and as the time went by, I began feeling more comfortable doing it. I started to enjoy the task of opening my computer and let my ideas to be written. Today, I feel blogging is not a task anymore. Today I see blogging as an activity I enjoy because it does not only put me, my heart, and thoughts in a public scenario; it also helped me to discover myself as a writer, as a more confident person, and turned me into a deeper and critical thinker.

The art of blogging gave me the opportunity to discover my ability to write and to develop a crisp and clean writing. If someone asks me, which was my biggest surprise? I would say, to discover that I could transform the scary challenge of writing for a global audience, into an activity that, despite its challenging aspects, I love to do at present. In other words, to be capable of saying: I am a blogger now.

Now I ask myself: Am I going to keep updating my blog? I will surely do. That is what bloggers do, right?

Leadership To Grow

There are many leaders all over the world. People who make us believe in them and even make us change and see our lives from a different perspective. Dr. Robert Cialdini is one of those leaders and many of his studies and opinions about human behaviours, have helped others to understand themselves in a deepest way.

For my Leadership class at St. Lawrence College, Kingston, I had to choose a leader about whom I was interested to learn from. The story behind is that one of my best friends encouraged me to read Robert Cialdini’s books two days before the assignment was issued. I began researching him and his books instantly got my attention; therefore, once I knew about the assignment, I did not hesitate on choosing him as my leader.

At this point, I could probably say it was destiny that brought us both, Cialdini’s book and me, together, but it has been one of the most enriching coincidences ever. Influence is the name of the book I decided to read, and is the book that has helped me to realize how many times I have been influenced by situations I would have never thought they could have an impact on me. 

By reading Influence, I have learned there are many tactics when trying to persuade people. However, the author gives special attention to six tactics and referred to them as the Six Weapons of Influence. These weapons are:

1. Reciprocity
2. Commitment and Consistency
3. Social Proof
4. Liking
5. Authority
6. Scarcity

Each one of the chapters of Influence, gives an in-depth analysis in regards to the weapon in discussion, not only by explaining it, but also by giving real examples about how we all are influenced by them.

For example, Reciprocity talks about how we tend to establish obligations and match favours. The Commitment and Consistency chapter explains how we are influenced by those situations that make us to give our pledges on anything, and how those actions strongly indicate we will maintain our promises simply to preserve our self-image.

Finally, I can say there are many aspects and tactics I still want to learn from Dr. Cialdini. I believe it will be very useful to learn how to apply these weapons in a positive manner, in both personal and professional aspects. His most-recent book named “PRE-SUASION” launched on 2016 is a must in my personal library

Dr. Robert Cialdini’s books and work can be found online on the website Influence at Work, as well as in Amazon and iBooks.

Born To Be Defined By Our Generation?

Many are the studies, articles, books, and people who say that our generation define us. Either you believe it or not, here it is a small consumer profiling, decision making, and buying motivations analysis that will help you to choose a side. Meet the person I decided to analyze and name Jane.

Demographics:

• Age – 40-45 – Generation X
• Gender – Female
• Income – Middle and upper class – Annual income of $60,000 and up
• Education – Post-secondary education completed
• Occupation – House and family dedicated/Full-time moms in the process of raising their children – some working full time as well
• Household formation/Marital status – Married with children – Family of three and up

Geographics:

•  Urban and suburban regions – Kingston area

Psychographics:

• Attitudes – Positive, energetic, motherly, care givers, family oriented, hard workers, decision takers, and organized
• Interests – Home décor, health, family, gardening, cooking, self-care
• Values – Family, balance, happiness, organization, health, wellness, time (overall,) comfort, opinions, beauty
• Lifestyle – Familiar, energetic, fancy, trendy

I selected Jane because she got my attention by walking into Chapters on a Wednesday at 9:30 am, wearing exercise clothes and apparently enjoying her time there. Drinking a Teavana® Shaken Iced Passion Tango™ Tea from Starbucks Coffee. She seemed to be very comfortable in the store, with enough time to check all the home décor and health magazines. Her attitude and overall behaviour inside the store, made me very curious about her.

While Jane was spending time in the store, and after buying an iced tea; she began browsing the magazines available at the store, and finally purchasing “House Beautiful.” This magazine is of interest to her because it covers the new trends around home décor for spring 2017, and she is the type of person who is very into home decorations, trends, beauty, and comfort.

 

Patio or Outdoor Space

In terms of The Self versions, I believe the content of this magazine is aligned with the Ideal Self. The reason is simple. The content and even the advertisements are promoting new tendencies, and explaining how people can make their homes to look beautiful by following the new décor Spring 2017 trends (Colours, textures, etc.) The magazine is basically driving their lectors to what they want/should be/have.

In regards to the magazine content, there are many advertisements that align themselves with the magazine and the target audience. One of them is the new furniture collection of Ellen Degeneres. This is probably one of the most accurate ads on this magazine. It perfectly resonates with the magazine theme and audience. Ellen has a top show directed to women like Jane, so it is a celebrity who resonates with her. This means that by placing Ellen’s new furniture collection on this magazine, her brand is more likely to reach the perfect consumer since her products are what they are looking for.

On the other hand, there is an ad that despite is not aligned with the magazine content, is aligned with the magazine audience. The Neutrogena® New Rapid Wrinkle Repair® cream ad is placed there because women like Jane, who are also into health and beauty, are the perfect target for this product.

After purchasing the magazine, Jane went to spend some time in the home section of Chapters, probably looking for something that not only could catch her attention, but also that were in line with the Spring 2017 home décor trends.

Finally, I believe that people like Jane have two predominant reasons for shopping: To cover their own and family basic needs, and to fulfill their Ideal Self. Some of them are economic consumers, but the majority are recreational shoppers. They have time available to spend on this activity and view it as a fun thing to do to spend leisure time.

Brands Can Still Conquer The Oscars Without a $2 Million Commercial

During the past year, TV viewership has considerably declined, while year over year social media engagement has increased. Despite the low TV ratings, the minimum price that an advertiser must pay for a 30-second commercial is $2.1 million. However, brands not only have options for optimizing their advertising budgets, but also, they can win the Oscars without a $2 million TV commercial.

Social media platforms have become the vehicle by which people generate content, and even more so during events with a global audience. In fact, Leonardo DiCaprio led The Internet and overall social media platforms’ conversations when he finally won the Oscar in 2016. His award was the most-tweeted minute in the history of the Academy Awards, with 440,000 tweets per minute.

For the 89^th Academy Awards, brands have the option to spend their advertising budgets wisely, and to reach their target audiences in a more direct and personal manner. The 2016 Oscars had around 34.4 million viewers, and reaching an even more targeted audience is possible by spending only 10 percent of the cost of a 30-second TV commercial. This is possible by using login data, which along with the efficient costs of social media, make these platforms an interactive, effective, and more affordable tool to advertise.

It is important for brands to know that 80 percent of the social media interactions happen on mobile devices; therefore, a show-stopping social media strategy is probably the most effective approach. By optimizing the use of the many social media platforms, brands can ensure their presence on users’ conversations on each stage of the event. Snapchat and Twitter are real-time platforms, perfect to use during the day of the event, whereas Instagram and Facebook are more effective for post-event highlights and recaps.

Marketing and communications strategies must be aligned regardless the channels brands use to deliver their messages; for this reason, planning is key. The Oscars nominees were announced a month before the awards night; so, to plan the brand’s messaging around the movies and actors that resonate with their target audience, is a very effective tactic. The messaging should not only be coordinated, but above all, there must be brand consistency.

Finally, there exists different effective tools to use on social media. Video conversational and canvas ads are an example of those means. Video conversational ads include call to action buttons that allow users to customize their content with brands’ hashtags. Canvas are designed for mobile screens and allow users to be immerse on brands’ stories or to learn about their product offering.

Social media is growing and becoming a more attractive, effective, and affordable platform for companies to advertise their brands; and, these days in which content generation comes also from consumers, is easier for brands to jump into user’s conversations while spending less money.

Blogging for the first time

 

People can decide to read or to be read.  No matter what you decide to do, just make sure that decision takes you where you want to go. 

Writing for the first time can sound easy. Some people think that blogging or writing for an audience is a “piece of cake”. However, when evaluating the components of a good blog entry, the writing path seems to get harder and more complex; in fact, my own experiences have taught me that. Sometimes, at some point, challenges scare me , and regardless my writing skills, every blog entry represents a new challenge to me. I would say my strengths in writing are basically having a decent English grammar base, and to have a mind that can generate content 100 km/h. Nevertheless, having a creative mind could represent big challenges. These can be the difficulty to decide a topic and, sometimes, overthink on how to make every entry catchy and interesting. Is my entry creative, fearless, and understandable enough? This is always in my head. 

Writing is a process of growth, just as life itself. Past experiences have built me, and writing past experiences have made me the writer I am now. I remember eight months ago while taking my ESL course at St Lawrence College ; I handed in my first essay of the Academic Writing class. I was very confident about my job, so what happened the next class knocked me down. I got my essay back, with a B- on top, and tons of corrections. My expectations and confidence went down to the floor; however, I will never forget my professor’s phrase that picked me up: “You have the talent to write, you just don’t know how to use it.” That was my starting point to the commitment on learning how to write, better, in English.

Finally, writing is a path that has the potential of taking people where they want to go. Nowadays, employers are looking forward to hire people with writing abilities. I guess that makes sense in a world in which almost every connection we made includes emails, messages, blog entries, and so on. Writing for an audience will always scare me, but I am sure that it will take me where I want to go.

It’s your choice, read or be read, as long that makes you grow, and takes you where you want to go.