The Internet Is Following YouKatie Fritchen, The Alternative Board, www.thealternativeboard.com

Have you ever been looking at a fantastic pair of shoes online, decided not to buy them at that time, and then suddenly started seeing ads for the shoes everywhere you go? There is a reason for this, and it’s a little marketing trick called remarketing, also sometimes referred to as retargeting.

This is a simple, yet effective technique that you can use on your site for all different types businesses. It is most popular with B2C commercial products, but is also very effective in B2B marketing. There are various reasons why a visitor might bounce off your website. Sometimes they’re just not interested, but more often they just become distracted by other things that are out of your control. Don’t let these potential customers forget about you and get lost!

Setting up a remarketing ad campaign is quite easy and can be done through your Google Adwords (google.com/adwords) account, or run through another platform such as Adroll (adroll.com). The basics involve pasting a tracking code (generated by your advertising platform) into the footer section of your browser. This code will allow the platform to place cookies on the visitor’s browser, which then allows your advertisement to “follow” that visitor around as they surf different websites on the internet. Note that there are privacy policies that you need to follow in order to run a remarketing campaign with any platform. Some countries have also passed laws requiring additional privacy notifications for websites that are using tracking codes.

The platforms will also allow you to segment your visitors based on geography, what pages they’ve visited, and other behaviors so you can effectively target those visitors with advertisements that will most effectively speak to them.

Volume 20 • Issue 3 March 2015

Business insights from those at the top for those at the top.

Inside This Issue

This month, Tips from the Top is focused on the topic of Technology for Marketing, Training and Customer Management.

From general alignment challenges, to communication issues and office culture struggles, Tips from the Top will provide insight, suggestions and advice from business experts around the globe.

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Social Media – When is it a Waste of Time?Doug Hohener, CreativeWorks Marketing, www.creativeworksmarketing.ca

Whether your business is small or big, being on social media is a good idea. The visibility and connectivity accessible through social media has convinced most business owners that it’s worth their while. But what isn’t so clear is how to measure what’s working and what’s not, and when to drop a platform that’s just waste of time and energy.

While it’s possible to track ROI and conversions, it can be tough to accurately measure the effectiveness of a social media campaign. You might find that some social media efforts that drive visitors to your content can be measured in other ways. For example, if your social strategy isn’t so content-heavy, and if you are promoting products or events, then your business would fit a more traditional measure for ROI and conversions. The only way to know if what you’re doing is enough is to have a gauge on your ROI.

In order to get there, you have to align your objectives to your measurement. For each network (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) you’ll need to have an objective before you can decide on how successful the network is. You’ll need to decide what measurement would be the most valuable to you. Maybe you’re a blogger and your goals are e-mail sign-ups and blog followers, or, maybe you are a retailer looking to increase sales and traffic to your website – either way you must consider your key metric. I can guarantee that if you have no objectives for your social media, then you will be extremely disappointed with the results.

Capturing the data is the easy part – measuring interactions (likes, clicks, shares, followers) and analyzing traffic, reach and leads, can help gauge what your business is getting out of its social media investment, but you’ll need to measure these outcomes against your objectives.

Like all marketing tools, each social media network provides some general trends and demographic information to help guide your decision as to which platform your unique business should focus on, but ultimately, you need to understand your brand and your audience before you can choose the right platform, set objectives and measure if it is successful.

If you leverage the right tools and tactics necessary to better understand your audience, then you are more likely to put out messaging and content that is most likely to increase loyalty, drive sales and help you reach company goals.

Technology Won’t Fix a Broken ProcessJohn Wright, Padgett Stratemann & Co LLP www.padgett-cpa.com

Our staff wanted to implement a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system where we could consolidate various departments’ information. After reviewing it, I realized that we were simply trying to add a layer of manual consolidation to a variety of electronic processes. That doesn’t mean we don’t need a CRM, but it does mean we need to rethink its purpose.

Let Your Fans Do the TalkingMarcy Turkington TAB-Northwestern New Jersey Board

With the advent of Google business tools and the ubiquity of YouTube, you can now tap not only your employees but also alliances, customers and your home town community creativity. Consider holding a contest among this combined community for who can create the best tagline, best logo or best YouTube video about your company and get the buzz going.

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Streamline Document SigningDiego Prusky, InStyle Digital Marketing

Are you still printing, signing, scanning or even faxing contracts and NDA’s? We have been using EchoSign (www.echosign.adobe.com) for a while and we have significantly reduced the amount of time it takes to sign a contract. All you need is a PDF version of your document and only the sender needs an account. We have also implemented some of the more advanced options, allowing us to re-use our standard contracts and just change the costs and terms online.

Simplifying TroubleshootingKaty Bryant

If your new software requires expanded and dedicated server capacity, consider having the software vendor provide the server. This way you only have one company to go to for troubleshooting and it eliminates finger pointing when there are technical issues.

LinkedIn Showcase Pages: What You Need to Know Peg McDermott, CoGo Interactive LLC, www.cogoresults.com

Many organizations have come to realize the benefits of creating a LinkedIn Company Page, which provides the opportunity to share information on everything from what your company does to who works there to job opportunities and more. In November 2013, LinkedIn rolled out a new feature known as Showcase Pages, which are dedicated pages you can use to provide more details on a particular aspect of your business. For example, you will want to create one of these pages when you are spreading the word about a particular initiative, such as a sale or an upcoming event, or simply looking for a way to “showcase” one aspect of your business. Showcase Pages give customers and prospects the ability to follow the part of your business that they are most interested in, while enabling you to engage with a specific target audience. You can only have one Company Page on LinkedIn, but you can have up to ten Showcase Pages.

Use Recorded Webinars for TrainingPete Psotny, Cornerstone Homes Realty

When developing training tools for employees or customers, keep them short. People have a short attention span. This is especially true if you are doing webinars. You can do the webinars live but you can also pre-record them or record them as you are doing the live presentation. This will allow people to go back and review the presentation or see it if they weren’t able to attend the live session. Typically shorter webinars are better received – 15 to 30 minutes maximum. People tend to “check-out” if they are longer.

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Real-time Chat Software for Sales and ServiceNeutra Ronen, Neu-tec Group Inc.

A few years ago I decided that I needed to upgrade my accounting software. While searching on the vendor’s site, a live chat window popped up. The representative answered my questions and helped me compare products to decide whether or not I needed the more expensive enterprise version. The experience was so good that I actually bought the software then and there, and at a discount that the rep was able to offer me online.

The experience made me think about my own website and whether the ability to chat with someone would provide my customers an opportunity to buy on the spot. I did some research and I found a fantastic quick-to-chat software called Live2support.com. It allows us to see who is on the site so we can provide customized responses, to transfer the chat to the appropriate person in our company, to have multiple people handling the chat, to set the hours that the chat service is available, to pass customers a link, and to redirect them automatically to another page on the site. Using this affordable service, we are able to provide our customers sales support at the time they are thinking about purchasing. We can also provide technical support more conveniently.

Is Your Website Providing a Good First Impression?Jill Ruth, Headingley Sport Shop Ltd.,

More and more consumers are using the Internet to “pre-shop” before buying, and even buying online when available. Hence, your website is an important tool to qualify, and more importantly disqualify, potential customers. When considering your website, keep the following questions in mind. What impression is your website making? What are you doing to drive traffic to your website? Is your company showing up on the first page of a Google search? Are you capturing statistics on traffic to your site? Are you following up with people that visit your site and show interest in a particular product or service?

How Yelp Promotes Your Business Michael Herring, Best Skins Ever

If your business is on the review site Yelp (www.yelp.com) or some equivalent, make sure you ask a few of your happy customers to do reviews or testimonials for your company. Ideally, these will be customers who have used Yelp before as the more reviews they have done the more credibility they have. Yelp is really good for services, restaurants and the like, but any business can use it. The reviews show up in Google searches and can help prospects decide if you are a good company to do business with.

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Cloud Computing Saves Money and TimeDick Wallace, TAB Nashville, www.tabnashville.com/

The Information Technology (IT) industry has evolved tremendously over the last 15 years. The new buzz and most cost effective way for small and medium sized businesses to instantly obtain the benefits of an enormous IT infrastructure without having to implement and administer it directly is “Cloud Computing.”

The “Cloud” itself is a collection of computers and secured servers (virtual or physical) that businesses can access over the internet, replacing the need to own and maintain their own equipment. The evolution of Cloud Computing means lower costs for your business. The Cloud eliminates your need for workstations with powerful processing and large disk space. Cloud computing also saves your business money on software expenses. When using a web-based application in the Cloud, the newest version of the application you’re using is automatically available when you log into the Cloud. This eliminates the cost and hassle of purchasing the latest software downloads and upgrades.

The two greatest advantages of the Cloud are linked to your businesses most valuable asset -– electronic data. The Cloud provides your business unlimited storage capacity for your electronic data and delivers you device independence. You have storage for whatever you need, and you’re no longer tied down to a single computer or network. If you change computers or use a mobile device to work on the go, your applications and documents follow you through the Cloud. You also receive increased reliability when working in the Cloud. Unlike traditional desktop computing in which hardware can crash and destroy your data, the Cloud offers you data-safe computing and access to your data from any location at any time.

The most asked question about the Cloud is “Who controls my data, and is it safe in the Cloud?” Cloud Computing is the newest form of outsourcing. The Cloud model not only transfers ownership of your IT infrastructure to a third-party, the third-party is also responsible for monitoring and managing your IT.

Affordable Employee TrainingChristopher Ulrich, The Direct Response Group LLC

We use a site called Lynda (www.lynda.com) for software training for our employees. For a monthly fee, users can log in and receive unlimited video training on a variety of business-related software applications, as well as business skills, productivity, leadership, management, finance and more. Trainers are vetted by the site so you can be sure the person delivering the training is knowledgeable in their area of expertise.

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Shopping for a Website Makeover? Beware.Michael Herring, Best Skins Ever

If you are looking to develop a website or redo your current site, beware. It can be scary looking for web professionals now. Anyone can put up a site that looks good. However, actually being able to develop your site, do it credibly with the right tools and in a way that can be maintained is difficult.

Do your homework. Hire a company over an individual; it may cost a bit more but it will be worth it in the long run. Make sure you understand your needs and the skills of who you are hiring. Web design, web development and search engine marketing (SEO) are all very different skills (and you need all of them). If you find someone who says they do it all -– run the other way as fast as you can. No one specializes in everything. They are all very complex functions. Search engine marketing is huge in and of itself, and just because someone is a good developer doesn’t mean they are experts in SEO or that they have the artistic abilities that you need to design your site. Take your time, hire the right company and then you will get the desired results.

Tracking ROI on Marketing CampaignsChristopher Ulrich, Highly Profitable Internet Marketing Campaigns

In a small or medium-sized business, it’s common to be the only one making decisions about every aspect of your company—thus the saying, “it’s lonely at the top.” No matter how large or small your business is, being the sole decision-maker for the company can be difficult and may impede your company’s success. It can become challenging for one person rojects, as necessary. This gives team members a sense of contribution in the company.

The Value of Videos for SupportDavid Scarola, The Alternative Board, www.TheAlternativeBoard.com

Many customer support desks – whether supporting internal or external customers – involve supporting software systems of some type. How often have you contacted a support desk only to receive a detailed textual explanation of how to address your issue? You probably dread pouring through the detailed response.

We have found that using a video capture tool is a very effective way of providing support for software systems. An example is Jing, a simple software program that videos your actions as you go, and allows you to create simple instructional videos for your customers. These simple videos save time, frustration and keep your support staff from getting mired in cases with relatively simple solutions.

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5 Common Email MistakesKris Kelso, The Kelso Group

Email has become an integral part of doing business, but many people still struggle to get it right. Here are five common mistakes I see that limit the effectiveness of email communications.

1. Addressing an email to no one in particular. Emails addressed to a large group of people often get answered by no one. Address your message to a specific person, and CC (courtesy copy) those who just need to be “in the know.”

2. Ignoring spelling, grammar and punctuation. People tend to read emails as though the sender were speaking the words. When your grammar and punctuation is incorrect, it affects their perception of your competency and expertise.

3. Writing a stream-of-consciousness email. Writing an email as you think can produce some pretty hard-to-follow text. Be sure to re-read and edit your message before you hit “send,” and eliminate run-on sentences, incomplete thoughts and contradictions.

4. Burying the key points. If the recipient of your email has to dig through lines of detail to get to the point of your message, they may not put in the effort. Make sure the key thought, statement or question is clear and easy to find – preferably at the beginning of the email.

5. Assuming the context. An email sent as a follow-up to some verbal conversation or event may not be easily understood once some time has passed or the conversation is forgotten. Make sure that any relevant context to your email is summarized, so that when read later it still makes sense.

Using Social Media WiselyBetsy Shea, Shea-Campbell Communications

We all know it’s vitally important to have a social media program integrated into the company’s communication plan. It should NOT be run by the youngest person who is totally “hip” to the social media culture. Your social media program needs to contain responsible content that adds to your brand value and shows the differentiation strategy of the business. It must be planned and supervised by a key business person who has a complete understanding of the company’s strategic goals and tactical objectives.

Copyright 2014 by TAB Boards International,Inc. All rights reserved. Photocopying is prohibited. Subscribers may use up to two Tips from the Top® articles in any single issue of their publication if source is cited.

The information contained herein is solely the opinion of each applicable individual author and is provided by TAB Boards International, Inc. for general information purposes only. This information does not constitute, and should not be relied upon as, legal, financial, health, or other advice. It is presented without any representation or warranty whatsoever, including as to the accuracy or completeness of the information. It is the responsibility of each individual reader to evaluate the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information contained herein. The information contained herein cannot substitute or replace the services of trained professionals. Therefore, TAB Boards International, Inc. urges readers to seek the advice of legal, financial, or health professionals, as appropriate, regarding the evaluation of any specific information contained herein.

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