Business.com |
- How Social Selling Can Improve Your Sales Process
- Why Backlinks Still Matter in 2019
- 4 Keys to Building a Growing Customer Base
- Is Your SMB Prepared for Back-to-School Season?
- How To Create and Write Your Business's First Ebook
| How Social Selling Can Improve Your Sales Process Posted: 29 Aug 2019 11:00 AM PDT 
Social selling is a sales method that can help your sales team. But what is social selling? It is not the same thing as social media marketing. Rather, social selling is a sales method where salespeople use social media to add more people to the sales pipeline and interact directly with prospects. It can revolutionize your sales approach, enable better lead generation and even eliminate cold calling. With the power of social selling, sales representatives can laser-target prospects and build real relationships. Why is social selling important?There are strong numbers that show what social selling can do for your sales team. According to an internal study from LinkedIn, salespeople using social selling tactics had 45% more sales opportunities, were 51% more likely to hit their sales quotas and outsold 78% of their peers. CSO Insights also completed a study on social selling which delivered interesting results. In its study, 70% of B2B professionals reported using social media for lead development, 65% used it for account research, 60% used it for call preparation and 59% used it for contact and stakeholder research. These numbers demonstrate how salespeople using social media are able to build relationships with their prospects, which leads to introductions and opportunities. As a matter of fact, the IDC discovered that 75% of B2B buyers and 84% of C-level/VP executives use social media in making their purchasing decisions. The social selling frameworkAccording to Mike Montague of Sandler Training, there are five main aspects of the social selling process to focus on.
How to build your presence on LinkedInMaking sure your LinkedIn page is complete and accurate is the easiest way to get started with social selling. Go through your profile page and complete or update all the sections. You want to have an attention-grabbing profile with a profile picture and header image, headline, summary, experiences, skills, endorsements and interests. If you already filled all these areas in, do a quick audit and make sure all the information is relevant and up to date. One aspect of the LinkedIn profile that few people take advantage of is the ability to attach multimedia to your experiences section. Adding white papers, case studies or other materials from your work that highlight you as a leader is a great way to polish your profile. Luckily for you, LinkedIn already has a tool in place to help you become a more effective social seller called the LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI). If you're already signed up for LinkedIn, this free tool is available to you at linkedin.com/sales/ssi. The LinkedIn SSI Score is a helpful metric for you to figure out how well optimized your profile is for social selling. The score is based on the following four components.
Although LinkedIn's SSI Score is a helpful tool for you to use, you shouldn't rely on it because having a great score won't make you a great social seller automatically. Some of the components of the score can be boosted artificially by likes, connection requests, comments and messages. Social selling is a situation where it is important to focus on quality over quantity. Focus on providing quality content, making quality connections and building quality relationships. |
| Why Backlinks Still Matter in 2019 Posted: 29 Aug 2019 10:00 AM PDT  Getting noticed in a competitive online industry is getting more and more difficult with Google changing the script on organic ranking almost daily. That's not all that surprising. Google wants to serve only the best results to the searcher. It wants your website to be useful, specific and just what the searcher is looking for at that moment. However, this does mean that business owners and marketers have to work hard for that coveted #1 position on the SERPs. Publishers can improve their search rank by focusing on two things – the content that they publish, and the backlinks that content earns from other reputable websites in the industry. Content is still king, but it's the backlinks that you need to be focusing on if you want your website to generate leads and, ultimately, revenue. Here are the four reasons why backlinks are still important, and why having a solid link-building strategy is essential for every business website:
Backlinks play an important role in organic rankingAlthough most SEO professionals would argue that it's all about quality when it comes to backlinks, numerous studies have found a strong correlation between a large number of referring domains (different websites linking to one site) and high organic rankings. Backlinko's Brian Dean and his team analyzed more than 1 million Google search results. When discussing their findings, Dean goes as far as to suggest that backlinks might be the most important thing that Google looks at when deciding which website to rank at the top of the SERPs. His conclusion is supported by research from other industry giants. Essentially, backlinks still serve the same purpose they served back in 2005 – they are votes cast by other websites in favor of your website. While Google's focus and reliance on them have diminished in the last couple of years, they are still the most reliable ranking factor that's under the partial influence of website owners. Backlinks help Google find and index your new contentTo rank in Google's search engine results pages, your content first needs to be discovered by the Googlebot. It helps to think of Googlebot as a surveyor and websites as real estate in development but at a huge scale. The surveyor goes around, marking new properties, and putting them on the map, so to speak. If a website is not crawled and indexed (discovered and mapped), there's simply no way for it to rank for the keywords it's trying to rank for. It's just not anywhere on the map. Each new website and every bit of new content placed on old websites needs to be crawled and indexed by the Googlebot. This takes a lot of time sometimes, depending on whether or not Google is prioritizing your website. To get around this waiting period, you can simply build quality backlinks on authority websites and news websites that get a lot of daily traffic. These websites are high on Google's list of priorities and get crawled on a daily basis. If you manage to get a link from one of them to your newly-published content, the Googlebot will follow that link (and every other link on subsequent pages) and get to your website sooner than it had intended. In essence, your website is now queue-jumping and your content is getting indexed faster because of the backlinks that you've earned for it. Backlinks drive qualified traffic to your websiteThe whole point of ranking higher in the search engine results pages is to get more eyeballs to your website. The more people see it, the more visits you get – and your chances of landing a sale or monetizing via ads increase. Well, backlinks themselves have the potential to drive qualified traffic to your website, especially if placed in content that's published on high-traffic sites that are relevant to your niche.
Not only are you getting a chance to impress a potential new client that way, but the steady stream of traffic coming your way now is another signal to the Google algorithm that your content is high-quality and valuable enough for others to recommend it. How you turn that traffic into leads (and, eventually, into deals), is another matter but you're closer to it know that they've been introduced by a trusted source. Backlinking strategies help you build online reputation and brand awarenessSince backlinks are, essentially, a vote of confidence given by one website to another, they can greatly impact how your brand is perceived by potential customers. Link-building strategies such as expert roundups and guest blogging get your name in front of large audiences that might never have heard of you otherwise. Just by associating with industry giants through links and mentions, you'll soon start to be regarded as one.
If you play your cards right and get backlinked mentions on authority websites in your industry, you will notice that you have to work less and less on subsequent high-quality links. Other experts will notice your guest posts and features, and they'll start reaching out to you for quotes and potential blogging opportunities, which will result in more backlinks and more clout. Step up your 2019 backlinking gameIn the online marketing and organic rankings game, it's true that content is still king. It's also true that backlinks are not as powerful as they used to be. To ignore them completely – or leave them to chance – would still be a huge mistake. Think of backlinks as the lifeblood of your online marketing efforts. They have the power to push your content to the top of the SERPs, establish you as an industry thought leader, and drive (almost) free traffic to your website. When done right, backlinks can transform your lukewarm business endeavor into a big success. Creating an online empire requires you to break a sweat every now and again and, if you're doing it by building backlinks, you're doing it the right way. |
| 4 Keys to Building a Growing Customer Base Posted: 29 Aug 2019 07:30 AM PDT 
Do what you love, and you'll never work a day in your life – the blessed truth for the few hobbyists who had the right combination of ambition, fortune and vision to turn their lives' passions into professions. What factors drive that ambition, lead you to create your own luck, and give you the foresight to succeed? A recent study of 400,000 hobbyists on Ravelry.com found that only 1.5% of those interested in knitting and fiber arts started selling their goods. However, if users met with a support group of fellow hobbyists, they were 25% more likely to delve into entrepreneurship. I appreciate the value of this study's insight and felt it in my own life as I transitioned from a hobby beekeeper to making honey my full-time role. Encouragement within your community and network is necessary for handling the emotional challenges that occur when switching from hobby to business. New entrepreneurs often feel guilty about charging for what they've previously done for fun (and for free). On top of that, the first employees of a hobby-turned-business are often close friends and family, who support your efforts and your passion but can create challenges as you balance what's best for those relationships and what's best for your business. And then there is the daunting feeling of confronting the unknown. At Nature Nate's Honey Company, I managed through these experiences. We've grown my beekeeping hobby into a business with the top-branded honey product across the country and continue to learn lessons as we expand into new products and adventures. At some point in a hobbyist's life, a spark ignites: "Hey, could this be viable? Could this be a realistic platform to sustain my life? Is there a way I could do this more? And is there a way I could actually start to create some income to pay for my hobby?" Questions lead to answers, which lead to more questions. Excitement builds. The first step is determining whether you can grow the hobby without incurring greater financial commitment. And then, as you continue to progress down that road, the next big hurdle is figuring out how to monetize it. All of a sudden, you go from this hobby that you do because you love it, to then monetizing the experience. You have to add the discipline to do it because you feel a little guilty about charging money at first. But now, you're trying to turn it into a viable business. Going toe-to-toe with giant companies in the same market can be intimidating, but a hobby-turned-business has an advantage that most corporations don't: a human face. Consumers trust small businesses far more than corporations. The Better Business Bureau found that 84% of consumers trust small businesses most, and the main reasons ranged from supporting local business and better customer service to convenience and the uniqueness of the products. That's where you come in. A friendly face with a strong message and a fresh product or service can take a new company a long way, especially when people can feel connected to a person and a cause. Don't kowtow to the pressure to be on par with the big boys; your smaller stature is not a detriment in today's highly fragmented world where a zillion options exist for every product. Be uniquely you and start getting in front of future customers with your story. Here are four actions that any hobbyist with business aspirations should take: 1. State your message clearlyHobbies are opportunities for people to explore and learn on the fly. But dabbling is counterproductive in small business, where focus is required to stand out. Consider your hobby, your company and your values, and try to distill all three into a singular message. Workshop your company's message with as many team members and interested parties as you wish, and then resolve to hammer that message home at every opportunity. 2. Tell your story boldlyDefining your mission and your message will set you apart from most hopeful hobbyists. Taking your business to the next level requires amplification. There are endless ways to get the word out about your company. Social media is a low-cost marketing tool that any small business should be using. Open accounts on as many appropriate platforms and start spreading your news. But for a local hobbyist, getting in front of their community is still a top strategy: Eighty-five percent of the participants in an Alignable survey of small-business owners said word of mouth was the best way to get new customers. Therefore, get your product or service ingrained in the local community. Set up a table at a farmers market, or sponsor a local event and start building those relationships. The possibilities for connection are virtually endless. 3. Make a great productPerception is important, but your product is paramount. Hobbyists typically start selling only once they're confident in the quality of what they're making. But as business picks up, the quality of a product can decline with the number of orders or as business owners are pulled by different demands. It's critical that quality keep pace or even increase as your business explores efficiencies. Analyze your operations, supply chain, and quality assurance to create opportunities for improvements, and work to employ experts in those fields to ensure you continue to make a product that you're proud of and that keeps you ahead of the competition. 4. Hold on to your passionWe stick with hobbies because we enjoy them. But when a hobby starts to become a business, numbers can become more important and the passion that got you into your hobby can start to wane. Holding on to the excitement and wonder of your pastime is key to succeeding in business as well. Consider the story of Michael Kittredge: When he was 16, he melted down some crayons and made a candle for his mother for Christmas. He enjoyed making candles and experimenting. It was only after a neighbor offered to buy a candle for $2 that Kittredge started thinking bigger. Flash forward 50 years, and Kittredge's teenage hobby has turned into Yankee Candle, a retail empire. Walk into any Yankee Candle today, and you'll find that Kittredge's love of experimenting and gift-giving continues, with a constant rotation of new scents perfectly packaged as presents. So create ways to work your passions into your daily life; you will find the necessary time if it's important enough to you. This could take many forms, such as picking up a part-time job that caters to your passion, volunteering with an organization that benefits from your talents, or just playing around with your hobby in moments of spare time. Share your goals with others so they'll hold you accountable. You'll be more likely to keep plugging away at your hobby and less inclined to quit. The transition from hobbyist to entrepreneur is undoubtedly rare and can be difficult. But with a prudent approach and an enthusiastic outlook, your passion can turn a profit.
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| Is Your SMB Prepared for Back-to-School Season? Posted: 29 Aug 2019 05:01 AM PDT  September is the unofficial "personal rebranding" month as millions of students return to school, newly committed to raise their GPAs, make varsity or adopt a goth aesthetic. As one of the largest shopping seasons of the year (second only to the holiday season), it's also an excellent branding opportunity for small businesses. We spoke to several business owners and marketing experts on how SMBs can prepare for back-to-school season. 1. Stock up for an increase in sales volume.This year, the National Retail Federation (NRF) has forecasted record back-to-school spending, with an average of $696.70 per K-12 family and $976.78 per family with a college student. That makes for a total combined spending of $80.7 billion across the country. It's not just the Crayola vendors who should be stocking up their inventory. The NRF also forecast total back-to-school spending in the following areas, ranked according to expected sales. Top back-to-school season categories:
Top back-to-college categories:
2. Create a marketing campaign with a back-to-school season tie-in.For the retail industries listed above as well as peripheral services like tutoring, hair salons and food subscription services, clever back-to-school tie-ins are an excellent way to capture some of that sales volume. Effective campaigns should serve as primers, letting your customer know how your business can be of use during back-to-school season. "Your [email marketing] subject lines need to let the user know that they will save time by opting to open the email," said Tom Buchok, founder of MailCharts. For example, "recently, Gap used a subject line similar to '7 Styles, 5 Outfits for the First Week of School.' As a parent, wouldn't that sound great, to forgo the style pairings and merely select a size, click, and purchase?" Less obvious businesses can also creatively employ back-to-school tie-ins. Often enough, it's only a matter of labels. "We recently deployed a Yelp campaign to coincide with back-to-school," said Sam White, marketing manager of Del Mar Jiu-Jitsu Club. "We positioned ourselves as an after-school program including classes for kids ranged 3 to 9+." 3. Familiarize yourself with local school hours.Most schools post their class schedules and holiday calendars online. Knowing when class gets out each day and when breaks roll around can help you not only predict traffic, but align your schedule to meet your customers' schedules. For example, Del Mar timed its kids' classes to fit school hours, White said. Knowing class schedules can also open up promotional opportunities. Hospitality services can set up packages during three-day weekends, or coffee shops can promote before-school specials for teachers – bonus points for a loyalty or incentive program to make it a daily routine throughout the school year. 4. Meet the customers where they are.Spending may be up, but September is still a hectic time of year. Parents, students and teachers are going to opt for convenience. With only 16% of respondents to an NRF survey saying they plan to use local or small businesses for part of their back-to-school shopping, SMBs cannot expect the customer to approach them first. One way to accommodate this is by meeting back-to-school consumers where they are, White said – school. "We're doing community events and going to the schools to introduce ourselves and the program." For e-commerce, another strategy is to offer free shipping, something that 90% of K-12 and 80% of college shoppers plan to take advantage of. For a demographic that's still molding their lifelong spending habits, an investment like this may pay off as students are converted into repeat customers. 5. Know your back-to-school season shoppers.For those marketing to elementary school-age children, your products and services may be intended for kids, but parents have the power of the purse. This means marketing should be tailored to parents' concerns. "History has shown that offering as many touchpoints with parents helps lower perceived risks for parents who are concerned not only with jiu-jitsu," White said, "but, more importantly, who they will entrust their kids' safety with." Beyond elementary school, students are making more of their own purchasing decisions, which is where direct social media marketing may come into play. Teens are spending $36.71 on average, up from $30.88 in 2009, while preteens are spending $26.40, up from $11.94 in 2009. "Members of Generation Z are clearly becoming more involved with back-to-school purchasing decisions rather than leaving the choices up to Mom and Dad," said Matthew Shay, president and CEO of the NRF, in a statement. Given gender stereotypes about shopping, what may come as a surprise is the NRF's finding that men spend significantly more during back-to-school season than women – a difference of $182.50 for K-12 and $391.19 for back-to-college shopping. Direct your ad campaigns accordingly. |
| How To Create and Write Your Business's First Ebook Posted: 29 Aug 2019 05:00 AM PDT 
If you are looking to reach your marketing objectives and improve your relationships with customers, you should consider creating an ebook. An ebook, or electronic book, is an online piece of content that goes in-depth about a specific topic and is exclusively digital. When crafted with your audience in mind, it's a surefire way to garner a following and show readers your brand is worth investing in. There are a number of benefits to creating an ebook for your business, including: Improves lead generation Any lead magnet, whether it's an ebook, checklist, template, or another resource, is going to help your brand improve its lead generation. It's easier to grow your email list and grab users' attention when you offer them valuable information for free. It shows you want to teach your audience new things so they can succeed in their endeavors. Since lead generation is among businesses' top three content marketing goals, ebooks are a crucial part of a successful inbound marketing strategy. Boosts brand credibility It's especially challenging for new businesses and websites to prove themselves when they don't have a large following yet. Growing your brand and attracting the right audience takes time. However, when you provide readers with knowledge and encourage their learning, it boosts your brand's credibility, positions you as an industry expert and provides you with a solid reputation. Since U.S. customers are willing to pay 17% more to do business with a company that has a positive public reputation, this is crucial. Builds brand loyalty If you're going to profit off of your ebook, you need to garner loyal readers. It's easier to turn them into paying customers once you have their attention, but you need to make sure you're providing valuable information first. Quality content can drive traffic to your website by 2000%, and that alone encourages users to become loyal to your brand. Generates sales Even if you aren't selling your ebook, providing it for free moves users down the sales funnel so they become more familiar with your brand and its content. It's essential to align your content with your audience's buying journey so they feel ready to purchase. A healthy email list mixed with valuable lead magnets is a recipe for generating sales. With such a wide range of benefits, business owners should be eager to start creating their own ebook. Here is how to do it. Research your target marketHow well do you know the audience you're writing to? If the answer is not so well, it's time to research your target market so you can create content suited to their needs. It's important to gather ample information on your audience so every piece of your ebook is relevant to their interests. If you write about a topic that isn't, it'll be challenging for your ebook to gain enough attention, and you won't reach your objectives. When researching your target audience, it's crucial to create buyer personas that give you the necessary information about your readers. These are customer profiles that will help you create an ebook that collects email addresses and builds a loyal following. Include details like their demographics, purchasing behaviors, income, education, pain points and more. Every piece of information helps to create an ebook that caters to customers. Social media is an invaluable tool to find out more about your target audience. Search relevant, industry-related hashtags and create a list of phrases and questions users have. If they overlap, you know those topics are popular and need extra attention. Pick a relevant topicThere are likely several things your audience wants to learn more about, but your ebook needs to focus on just one topic. Why? Because they're short-form pieces of content, and the more you focus on one subject, the more in-depth information you're able to provide. It isn't difficult to pick a topic relevant to your audience once you've done your research. Half the struggle is figuring out your market's pain points and interests so you can create content tailored to their needs. Once you have that, you're set to choose the right topic for your ebook. Ask yourself the following:
When you keep your goals in mind, it's easier to come up with ideas to write about. Research popular keywords used by your audience to see what terms they're searching for. If you notice that specific phrases pop up more than once, that's a reliable indicator that it's a topic worth exploring in detail. Aside from conducting keyword research, feel free to reach out to your audience and ask what they'd like to learn more about. If they're already on your email list, they're more likely to respond because they're familiar with your brand and its content. If not, you can set up a survey or form on your website asking users what they would like to see next. Create an outlineBefore you dive in head first, it's wise to create a framework for your ebook that details each chapter and how you'll provide information under each subtopic. Without an outline, you're writing without preparation, which can end up wasting valuable time later. Planning saves you time, money and resources because you know what you need to focus on before you begin. It also gives you a clear look at the ebook as a whole so you refrain from repetition and providing irrelevant information. Brainstorming ideas is essential for your outlining process. Jot down the main points you want to cover. From there, you can add subtopics to each point until you have enough to form into chapters. It doesn't matter how messy the process is as long as you get it down on paper. Once you create each chapter, make a note of what it will entail. For example, if you're creating an ebook about how to find remote work as a freelance writer, one chapter might have a note under it that says, "List of job boards." Another chapter might have a note that says, "Signs of a quality job posting." This tells you what you're going to write about for that chapter so it's easier to piece together once you start. Write your ebookOnce you've got an outline that makes sense and provides structure, now comes the fun part: writing the ebook. There are four components you need to focus on writing:
Separate main points into heads and subheads within chapters so it's easily skimmable. People don't want to read walls of text that are difficult to scan, so make it easy for your readers by removing this obstacle. Break down main points into several paragraphs and use bullet points to list information if needed. Keep your branding in mind while writing. The tone, voice, and language should match your brand effortlessly so readers know it comes from you. It's best to write with a conversational tone so it's easy to understand. Avoid clumsy, wordy sentences, and use editing software, like Grammarly, to refine your ebook and create the best version possible. Design your ebookIf you aren't a designer or are unfamiliar with how to make your ebook visually appealing, it's in your best interest to hire someone to do it for you. You can have high-quality content that offers valuable insights, but if the look is ill-designed or doesn't match your branding, few people will download it. Every element of your ebook needs to scream quality and effort. If you want to take the plunge and design it yourself, more power to you. Keep these tips in mind when creating the design:
After the design aspect is complete, convert your ebook into a readable format, such as a PDF. This ensures that no one will edit or tamper with it, and provides a smooth reading experience for your audience. All devices can read PDF files and will appear the same to everyone regardless of what device they use to view it. Ebooks are a helpful source of information for your audience and a valuable method to build a loyal following and generate leads for your business. It's important to acknowledge the time, effort and resources it takes to create an ebook, but when crafted with your audience in mind, it's well worth it. |
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