It’s likely that you can list a dozen companies that do what your business does. So, why would someone choose you?
Core Values are the essence of your business’s identity. They tell people what sets you apart from the guy next door. They tell people what your business cares about, and people care about what you care about.
So, what sets Fireworx Digital apart? What do we care about?
These Core Values are important to us—they keep us aligned as we strive to live them out everyday!
1. Begin with the end in mind.
Plan ahead. Set goals. Be prepared. Stay focused. It’s easy to get off track, and most of this happens right at the beginning. Each choice we make affects the future of a project, a client relationship, the effectiveness of a campaign, so at Fireworx Digital, our first core value is to begin with the end in mind.
2. Exceed Expectations.
It’s easy to say a project is “D for done” when you’ve met the expectations of your client. Some believe a job is done when the bare minimum has been completed. But it should not be just about checking an item off your list and accomplishing the task. We believe loyalty comes with exceeded expectations—with our clients and with each other.
3. Choose to Be Positive.
Did you know that our brains are actually wired to be negative? That means positivity is a choice—a choice that is difficult, but one that is necessary in a world of competition, roadblocks, and complicated projects. We choose to be positive, not only to simply maintain a good perspective and attitude, but in order to enjoy our jobs and lives more!
4. Be Humble, Honest and Transparent
Pride, dishonesty, and disloyalty make for bad business. We believe that humility is step one to success, and with it comes honesty and transparency. These are the types of qualities that can revolutionize entire cultures—entire industries even! At Fireworx Digital, we value these qualities in our relationships with our clients and as a team, and strive to live and work daily with humility, honesty, and transparency.
5. Pursue Growth and Learning Every Day
Stagnancy is dangerous. We see the marketplace as a place to both execute the expertise we have while simultaneously learning and growing from each unique project and client. We hope to never stop learning from the people, projects, and resources around us.
6. Celebrate the Wins
When you work hard, it can be tough to remember to celebrate when what you’re working so hard for actually happens. We believe that this is important because it builds momentum, unifies our team towards a goal, and ultimately keeps us positive!
7. Stay Hungry
When we lose our appetite, we lose our drive. It’s important to stay driven, focused, and striving for success and progress. We desire to work hard and stay motivated to not just win clients, but to win for our clients.
8. Honor and Serve our Clients and Each Other
It’s the little things. And when honoring and serving others is a priority from the top down, no matter who we’re interacting with, big things happen. We don’t want to focus on what’s best for ourselves, but what’s best for our team and our clients—putting them first.
9. Be Creative and Open-Minded
“The mind that opens up to a new idea never returns to its original size.” – Albert Einstein. Sometimes we can get into a rhythm or routine that keeps us boxed into a certain way of doing things. We believe that there is importance in planning, routine and process, but we must always keep our minds open and creative to new ways of doing things and solving problems.
10. Make a Difference
What’s it all for? At the end of the day, we want to make sure that our work, our attitudes and our interactions are making a difference in the world. Meaning comes from not just what we do, but also by how we do it and what we do it for.
What about you?
So, what do you think? Hopefully you’ve been inspired to either write out and commit to a set of Core Values for your business, or dig out the list you wrote years ago and adjust to or recommit to them.
Want more information on Core Values and how to get started? Check out our blog post here.
How to Turn a Negative Review into a Positive Experience
Your business’s reputation is everything. Not only is it how potential customers are finding you, it largely influences whether or not they’ll give your business a chance. Having a beautiful website and social media posts that speak to how great your business is doesn’t carry as much weight as when your customers are the ones sharing their experiences, particularly if that includes a negative review.
The more you focus on building your online reputation, the better off your business will be in both the short and the long run! A higher quantity and frequency of reviews means higher credibility which ultimately means more clicks for your business. The flip side to focusing on gathering more reviews, however, is that the more reviews you get, odds are you WILL receive a negative review once in awhile. But we’re here to tell you it’s not the end of the world! Or, at least it doesn’t have to be if you’ve been building a solid reputation.
So, when is the worst time to receive a negative review, and how can I avoid that scenario? How can I respond to a negative review appropriately? What’s the best case scenario for a resolution of a negative review? We’re answering all of these questions below, so let’s get into it.
When is the worst time to receive a negative review?
At first, you might think, “Always! Why would I ever want a negative review left about my business?” Ok, sure, we aren’t saying you should be hoping for a negative review. Our point is that in a lot of scenarios, a negative review doesn’t mean you should panic, but there is a particular scenario where a negative review is a huge cause for concern — when you have very few total reviews.
It’s a game of averages when it comes to your overall star rating. Someone with dozens and dozens of positive reviews can get a terrible, 1-star review and it will hardly make a dent in their overall rating. Although you should still respond to it (as we’ll discuss below), your overall score will bounce back quickly. But having just a few reviews and receiving a 1-star review will drop your rating significantly, forcing you to go into damage control. It will take multiple new positive reviews to help make up the difference. Don’t ever find yourself caught off guard in this type of situation!
Avoiding that situation comes down to being proactive about gathering new reviews consistently, and engaging with those reviews, so consumers know you take their experience seriously.
How to respond appropriately to a negative review
Although human instinct is to fight back against someone who is attacking you (in this case, a verbal, online attack), it is of utmost importance that you don’t fire back in defense, or try to turn it on them for why they had this poor experience.
It’s very possible that this review was not warranted. That their perceived negative experience was actually the result of something they did. Whatever the reason may be, you’ll follow the the same guidelines to respond in a way that diffuses the situation rather than escalating it into a back and forth comment war on the review site for everyone to see.
Step back for a minute
The first thing you need to do is to take a moment, a few hours, or even a day (but not much longer than that!) to make sure what you respond with isn’t coming from a defensive or emotional posture.
Be kind & apologize
As you’re crafting your response, make sure you are being kind, apologetic and understanding of their feelings. You don’t need to fall on your sword necessarily, but you can easily disarm someone by letting them know you’re sorry they had this experience and that you understand their frustration. People want to feel heard, and letting them know that can help bring their anger or their guard down.
Get honest about your business
Now this next suggestion is something you can only implement if you actually believe and have seen it to be true about your business. We like to apply the old saying, “You can’t put lipstick on a pig,” to businesses that want to take their reputation seriously. If you have bad business practices, horrible customer service and/or a terrible product, focusing on reviews ultimately won’t help you. The truth WILL come out.
However, if the details in this negative review actually aren’t the norm, you can acknowledge that in a way that builds your business up (rather than tearing the reviewer down!). Something along the lines of, “We take pride in our ability to provide excellent service and a happy customer experience, and while it sounds like we didn’t get it right this time, we hope you’ll let us try to win you over!”
Take it offline
Finally, offer to take the situation offline by providing contact information for someone who would be happy to talk it through with them. Like we mentioned earlier, you don’t want to start a negative comment thread for the whole world to see. As much as this interaction is between you and an unhappy customer, it is also an advertisement to anyone else looking on about the experience they might be subject to if they choose to do business with you. Let’s make sure they see it will be a positive one!
What happens next?
Every situation is different, but there are a few things that could happen next.
The best case scenario would be the reviewer modifying or updating their review to reflect how their situation was dealt with in a positive way. They’re giving your business a second chance, but are also essentially advertising for you with this update. You just turned a negative situation into a positive, money making experience. This is why you should ALWAYS follow up on a poor review, no matter what!
Alternatively, the issue might be cleared up, but the review will not always be updated. Don’t be surprised if this is the case! They may not be holding it against your business anymore, but they just don’t feel compelled or motivated to go back through the process.
As long as you followed our guidelines for how to respond to their negative review, anyone who sees the interaction will most likely give you the benefit of the doubt because you took the time to respond in a rational, sympathetic way. You’ve humanized your business, and that goes a long way with people! Also, if you’ve been taking your reputation management and marketing seriously, you know that there are dozens of other positive reviews that will make this one almost obsolete.
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes
You can’t go wrong if you take the approach of putting yourself in your customer’s shoes when it comes to all-things-reputation. Chances are, like your potential customers, you check out Google or Yelp reviews before staying at a hotel or using a new auto mechanic. Think about what you want to see before committing to visiting a new business. Similarly, if you leave a negative review, how would you want the business to respond to you? Most likely, you’re looking for an understanding response and an effort to make things right.
By following our guidelines above, learning from each experience and building up your overall rating, a negative review will just become a tiny bump in the road as you outshine all of your competitors!
Interested in quickly building your reputation, but think you don’t have time to add hours a day onto your already full plate?
One of the most addictive podcasts out there, in our opinion, is NPR’s How I Built This, with Guy Raz. Every episode takes you on an adventure, from the birth of an idea, whether by accident or on purpose, or even out of necessity, through trials and failures, hard work and perseverance, perfect timing and a bit of good luck here and there, and an inevitable happy ending. Because these are the successful brands we’ve all heard of.
There are tips, tricks and inspiration to be gleaned from every episode, but one of our many favorites is an interview with Patagonia founder, Yvon Chouinard. What’s perhaps most fascinating about it, is the fact that he truly does not want fame or fortune. In fact, he has tried many times to slow growth in order to keep the company small. But despite his efforts, Patagonia continues to grow and have record-breaking years.
So, what tips can we learn from the man with unstoppable growth and success? Below are some highlights from his episode.
7 Lessons to Adopt
**Note: This is not a word for word transcript on the various parts of the episode. The ideas themselves are from Yvon Chouinard, although we’ve paraphrased where appropriate. Listen to the entire podcast here when you get a chance!
Baby Steps
If I get an idea, I immediately take a step forward. If that seems right I take another step. If it doesn’t feel right, I take a step back.
Growth
Try to grow slowly, because there are two kinds of growth. Growing stronger or growing fat.We wanted to grow slowly, so all decisions were made as if we would be around for 100 years.
Responsibility
This company (Patagonia) is the resource I have, and I should use that resource to show a different way of doing business.
Learning
Once I decided I was a businessman, I learned everything I could about it. I studied every kind of business style, from all over the world.
Team Building
Hire motivated, young, independent people and leave them alone. But you can’t just decide one day to adopt this. You have to start with the very first hire. “Ant colonies don’t have bosses, they know their job and they get it done.”
Differentiation
If you want to be successful in business, you just have to do it differently. Do it how no one else has thought about. Break the rules. Do it better.
Simplicity
The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life. Everything pulls you to be more and more complex. But if we go to a more simple life, it won’t be an impoverished life, it’s going to be really rich.
We love his overall approach to business and life. It seems more common these days to hear about the need to do more, consume more, or to buy one more piece of technology in order to truly succeed. But Yvon shows how success can be achieved through living simply, caring for others and the environment, and taking your time to do it right. Check out his full episode and take a moment to get inspired by some of the other amazing guests on this podcast as well!
People have personalities, businesses have them too. And they’re called ‘Core Values’.
When you started your business, you had a reason—a “why”. Maybe it was to break out of the mold, or to be the boss for once. Maybe you wanted more money, more control or saw an opportunity you just had to seize. Whatever the reason, you probably (hopefully) started by sitting down and making a business plan that included your goals, a mission and a vision statement—the “what” and the “how” that would drive every business decision you’d make.
Since then, perhaps your company has grown and you’ve hired some talented people to help you carry out that vision, and wherever there is a group of people—in this case, you may call them your “employees”, “staff” or your “team”—a culture exists. And culture is important. So important that many business owners or leaders decide to write “Core Values”. These core values are the culture deciders and drivers. They don’t claim what decisions your business will make; they claim how you will make decisions, do business, and interact as a team. They are the essence of your business’s identity.
So why does your business need them?
First, Core Values tell people what your business cares about.
This includes both your employees and your existing and potential customers.
When your employees’ values are aligned with your business’s values, “people understand one another, everyone does the right things for the right reasons, and this common purpose and understanding helps people build great working relationships. When values are out of alignment, people work towards different goals, with different intentions, and with different outcomes. This can damage work relationships, productivity, job satisfaction, and creative potential.” (Mind Tools)
Second, core values set your business apart.
According to Leadpages.net, the “About” section is typically one of the four most visited areas of your website. People care about what your business cares about. They want to know what makes your company different from the guy next door who can do the same thing. So, when your business has a set of core values that it is actually living and working out in the day-to-day, people will notice. And people will ultimately be drawn to the companies that value what they value.
So, where do you stand?
Here’s the thing. In order to be effective, core values must be more than a list of neatly worded statements. Especially in a world where we see countless headlines about companies large and small that lack integrity and accountability, your business’s Core Values must be available and known and practiced from the top down. If you’ve already written your business’s Core Values, take them out and read through them. Post them somewhere you’ll see them everyday. Re-disperse them to your employees. Talk about them in meetings. Memorize them.
If you’ve yet to write them, that’s okay! We believe it starts with where you first started out. It starts with tapping into the entrepreneur you were when you started your business—the one that wanted to do things better, differently, more honestly and with more integrity. Write down the personality that you want to see your business take on—the one that you want people to notice, not just on your “About” page but in the way you do business on a day-to-day basis.
One last thing.
We’re looking forward to sharing more about our Core Values in the coming weeks – what they mean to us, how they impact the way that we do business, and even how we’ve helped others with their core values and culture branding. Here’s what we’ve come up with and strive to live out every single day!
“You might not need a new website.” There, we said it.
As a digital marketing agency, whose portion of their business revolves around developing websites, writing this post almost feels like blasphemy. Don’t misunderstand us, we feel strongly that there is a basic, essential need for every business to have an effective website.
(Disclaimer: If your website hasn’t been touched in a number of years, you probably do need a new one. There’s a lack of credibility that unfortunately comes with having a completely antiquated website.)
Pretty pictures don’t equal conversions.
But we’ve come across many businesses that feel the need to redesign and redevelop their website just because it isn’t being the top salesperson for their company they thought it would be, or because they don’t feel it’s the most cutting edge version it could be. They want the most current design, a whole new look and feel, and maybe if they just showcase more of their personality on the site, people will pick up the phone and do business with them.
Right?
Well actually, no, that’s usually not how it works.
While a website may aim to accomplish many goals, a funnel has one goal: to convert visitors on a specific offer.
Focus is key.
Ever heard of “voluntary simplicity”? While things like minimalism and capsule wardrobes may just sound like a trendy millennial movement, there’s actually something to it. Having less choices, less clutter and fewer things vying for your attention naturally leads to less stress, can make people happier, and (what we’re most interested in) allows the individual to be more focused. Focus is key when it comes to someone sticking around on your site long enough to realize the true value you have to offer and to take action on one specific thing.
Picture this: A prospect arrives at your website. Their eyes scan the screen. There’s a top navigation menu that can take them a dozen or more places right off the bat. They might decide to learn more about your company or the many products or services you offer. They’ll take note of how easy (or difficult) it might be to get in touch with you. Now they’re distracted by the beautiful photos of your team, checking out upcoming events, reading blog posts, etc. Not to mention the countless other links to social platforms, special offers and more, begging for just a moment of their short attention-span.
Your first thought might be, “Wow! I would love to have a visitor checking out every page of my website and learning more about who we are!” And if your goal was just for a prospect to know about you, it would be a success. But a real conversion would be much more valuable. We want to see a specific goal accomplished; whether it’s a form fill, email submission, phone call, or maybe even a purchase.
Limit choices, increase conversions.
By limiting people’s choices, you’re actually increasing your conversion rates. We looked at multiple studies on removing header navigation done by Hubspot, Yuppiechef, Career Point College, SparkPage and more, and while percentage of increase varied, it was still always that – an increase. Hubspot’s increased percentages on middle of funnel content, such as a demo or free trial showed as much as a 28% lift in conversions. Yuppiechef and Career Point College both increased conversions by 100% and more!
The beauty of a funnel is in its simplicity, focus, and sophistication. As opposed to walking your prospect into a room with 100 doors and asking them to choose one to walk through (like your website is doing), when someone comes into your funnel, you are walking them into a room, and in that room they have just one door to walk through. The choice is simple! They can take a specific action, or leave.
Fortunately, even if they choose to leave, it doesn’t mean you’ve lost them forever. Because, retargeting. And while it’s true you can retarget from your website as well, the fact that your funnel is so specific means you can segment this visitor as having an interest in that very specific area of your business.
No ‘spray and pray’ marketing, just marketing that works.
Your marketing strategy becomes laser focused on those who are actually interested in what you have to offer when you take the funnel route. And the most exciting part is that implementing your funnel can simply be a matter of integrating with your current website and marketing systems.
One day, you will have to spend your marketing dollars on a brand new website. But we’re here to tell you, that day might not have to be today. Our advice is to create a system that funnels your audience into a specific offer, where you have a higher chance of conversion, and then follow up with them until you make the sale. Bonus points if this system is largely automated!
Now THAT’S effective, time and money saving marketing. And that’s something we can all get behind.
It’s Time to Manage Your Business’s Online Reputation! Here’s Where to Start.
Reputation is everything. For 83% of consumers, what people say about a business is more important than what the business says about itself. (Nielsen) For local, service-driven businesses, this is especially important as 86% of consumers would pay more for a service from a business with higher ratings and reviews. (BrightLocal)
Managing your business’s online reputation is a lot of work, but even with the limited time that local business owners have, there are a few great places to start—some low-hanging fruit so to speak. We believe that these are the most effective and important areas to focus on first when it comes to managing and marketing your business’s online reputation.
Ask for reviews.
Ask yourself which of the insurance agencies below you’d have more confidence in hiring:
They both have five stars, but when it comes to online reviews, it’s not just about the amount of stars you have. It is important to have many positive reviews. Not only does this give consumers more confidence in your business’s ability to meet their needs, it also protects your online reputation from being tanked by one negative review.
The way to get more positive reviews is simple: ask! We see a great increase in amount of reviews simply from asking. And if this process is quick, easy and automated after a purchase or completed appointment, even better!
Respond to reviews.
It’s very important to keep track of reviews as they come—positive or negative—and respond. It’s encouraging for customers to be thanked for positive reviews, and it’s especially important for businesses to reply to negative reviews quickly and professionally.
If handled well, a negative review from a poor experience can be turned around into a positive experience for the customer. Not only can you work through a solution before it becomes a bigger problem, you can also do this in a public forum where other potential consumers will see that your business cares about customer service.
Promote positive reviews.
You’re good at what you do and it’s important for people to know that! Be sure you share the positive reviews that your business is receiving on other review platforms, on social media, your website, landing pages, and on print material and let your happy customers do the selling for you. When you share these positive reviews on social media, just make sure that you are spreading them out over time and mixing them in with other content.
Remain FTC and ISO compliant.
An effective reputation marketing strategy can take dozens of precious hours a month to execute. From monitoring the many review sites out there, to asking for and responding to reviews, some decide that managing and marketing their business’s online reputation isn’t a top priority, which is understandable! It’s easy to make excuses for a lack of investment in marketing, especially when your job is already pulling you in a thousand directions.
In this case, many people decide to turn to services and platforms to do it for them. A very smart move, but only if you know exactly what practices are used to garner reviews. Unfortunately, a lot of solutions out there use processes called ‘gating’ and ‘filtering’, essentially meaning they ensure a positive review will be received before the customer is officially allowed to even give one. This is an illegal practice and up until recently, a lot of people were getting away with it. Now it is being more strictly enforced, and many businesses have been penalized because of it.
Conclusion
With review platforms today being considered the new word-of-mouth, your business can’t afford to not be the one people are talking about. You may not receive all 5 star reviews, but guess what? An average score of 4.8 or 4.9 will be just as trustworthy, and consumers will know your business is getting real, honest feedback from people in every kind of scenario. But it’s important to put some resources into this aspect of marketing…to give every customer the opportunity to review, to follow up on all reviews (especially negative!), and promote the positive all while following the rules. It just might be the biggest (and quickest) bang for your marketing buck you could hope for!
These Google Ads Excuses Might Be Holding Your Business Back
Believe it or not, Pay-Per-Click advertising is one of the best marketing investments you can make today. Consumers go to Google when they want to know, go, do, or buy something. That means, when leveraged correctly, your business, product, or service can appear before the eyes of a consumer who is itching to convert. However, many businesses still aren’t taking advantage of Google Ads.
Here are four common excuses we hear from those who aren’t making this marketing investment:
“Google Ads is too expensive.”
Yes, it is an expense, but businesses make an average of $2 in income for every $1 they spend on Google Ads. When done correctly, these campaigns can be worth every penny.
“I have an SEO campaign.”
Not only can you see the benefits of Google Ads more quickly than SEO alone, but Google Ads visitors are 50% more likely to purchase something than organic visitors. These campaigns compliment SEO very well and can even help you dominate all search results above the fold.
“No one clicks those.”
Actually, they do. Over 45% of people couldn’t identify paid ads on the search results page and the top 3 sponsored spots get 41% of the clicks on the first page of search results.
[bctt tweet=”It’s time to put your money where their search is. -@PaulMcQuadeOC” username=”FireworxDigital”]
“I already tried it, it didn’t work.”
When done well, a Google Ads campaign can be highly effective. First, assess things like your ad copy, the landing page your prospect is taken to, keyword categories and negative keywords lists. Then, make the necessary adjustments to help your campaign run more effectively.
In the end, Google Ads is one of the best tools for lead generation—one where you can see fast, measurable results. 80% of search results now yield Google Ads. And these ads take up 85% of the space above the fold. That means it’s time to stop making excuses.
It’s time to put your money where their search is.
You take the time to make a list of goals and resolutions for the new year ahead. You care about your business and you want to see it grow and thrive. But as days turn into weeks, before you know it an entire month has flown by and you haven’t taken one actionable step towards your big goal…oh, and all of us are already back to eating carbs again.
Better luck next year, right?
Wrong. This is 2018. Twenty-GREAT-teen if you will. (Still on the fence about that one, but we’re goin’ with it for now.)
But more seriously, we get it. Life never slows down. You’re trying to keep your business running smoothly, and new goals and objectives inevitably take the back seat to the needs of your clients, making sure payroll goes out, bringing in new business, and the dozens of other tasks that have to be done each day. But you made those goals for a reason, and it’s not too late to get back on track and make them happen!
So while only about 8% of people typically keep their New Year’s Resolutions, with a few focused steps and a little motivation, we’re confident that we can easily boost that stat and be well on our way to our best year yet.
Revisit your goals
The first step towards accomplishing your business goals is the easiest one: just look at them again! So, open up that document from your New Year vision session. Bring out the notebook where you jotted down your late night hopes for your business this year. Take a moment to look at the goals that you set at the beginning of the year, and watch your motivation to make them happen reignite.
As you look at your goals, re-evaluate them using one very important filter: making sure your goals are SMART—specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound.
“The only thing worse than starting something and failing… is not starting something.”– Seth Godin
Take action: What are your SMART 2018 business goals?
Make your task list
“Increase revenue by 20%,” won’t get you very far without an actionable task list to help you get there. A task list takes one large, year-long goal and makes it attainable and realistic. Each item on that list is a tiny obstacle that must be overcome in order to achieve the larger goal, and checking items off a list is as rewarding as it is motivating. If this seems overwhelming at first, break up the journey to your goal into milestones. Then create your task lists to allow you to hit each milestone with ease and prioritize those tasks in an efficient way.
“I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through–then follow through.” —Edward Rickenbacker, World War I fighter ace
Take action: What steps are necessary to accomplish each of your goals?
Set deadlines
Tasks are just a list of things you want to eventually do unless you set deadlines for each item on the list. Take the task list you just wrote and set realistic deadlines for each item. Making these items time-bound is especially important if you consider yourself a procrastinator. If there’s no deadline, it probably won’t happen.
“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.” – Paul J. Meyer
Take action: What date do you need to finish each task and milestone in order to accomplish your goal by the end of 2018?
Ask for help
We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Often, we allow our limitations to prevent us from achieving our goals. The truth is, not everyone can do everything. There are times we must get some help with checking the tasks off the list. Whether it’s an employee that you can delegate items to, or a 3rd party agency you can hire to take care of items outside of your skill or knowledge-base, make sure you are playing to your strengths and delegating when necessary.
“I knew that if I failed I wouldn’t regret that, but I knew the one thing I might regret is not trying.”-Jeff Bezos
Take action: What are the items on your list that you’ll need help accomplishing? Who can help you do them?
Make it happen
Sometimes we allow fear, time limitations, or just general lack of focus or motivation keep us from doing what we want and need to do. There comes a point where we just need to do it. We can plan and dream and prepare, but none of it will happen if we don’t make it happen.
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”– Walt Disney
Take action: What have you allowed to hold you back from accomplishing your goals in the past? How can you make sure that doesn’t get in the way this year?
So here’s to not giving up in 2018. Let’s do this.
The Top 5 Blog Moments of the Month from Seth Godin
Seth Godin hits “publish” on a blog post every. single. day. And it’s all, well, just really, really good. So, let’s take a break from envying his diligence or his focus or his team or whatever it is that keeps that content flowing and appreciate the top five moments from the last month.
1. “Airbrushing”
“‘Compared to what?’ is not always a great question. It might be better to merely say, “this is pretty good.”
It’s widely understood these days that everything is airbrushed, touched up, or “photoshopped.” So much so, that when something isn’t, it gets recognized and celebrated.
A constant stream of other people’s airbrushed lives and advertiser’s airbrushed marketing ploys definitely takes its toll and if you’re not careful, “you’ll come to believe that you’re the only one with a less-than-perfect situation.”
“More often than not, trying to please everyone a little is a great way to please most people not at all.”
People have opinions. They have likes and dislikes, tastes and distastes. As a marketer, when you try to hit all of the targets at once, you’ll waste a lot of money only to not hit any of them at all.
We live in a results-driven society. Sales women and men show their competency based on their numbers. Campaigns are declared as a success or a failure by conversions. But what really matters?
“It seems like almost everything important matters more than results.”
“Some people persist in thinking that marketing is about ads or low prices. It’s not. It’s about human nature and promises and who we see when we look in the mirror.”
What sort of marketing do you choose to respond to?
Should we really be comparing ourselves to goldfish?
In 2015, Microsoft Canada released a study on people’s apparent shrinking attention spans. The study showed that due to technological advances, the average individual’s attention span was down from 12 seconds in the year 2000 to 8 seconds —one second shorter than the attention span of your average goldfish.
Noise.
I’m sure you’ve heard that statistic before, along with the goldfish reference. But what are the ramifications of that? Has this research on lack of attention span largely become an excuse for poor marketing?
We all end up playing the content marketing game, because, Content is King after all. Don’t get me wrong, we’re huge advocates of content marketing, we wouldn’t be writing this blog if we weren’t. But when that content marketing becomes about pushing out a huge quantity, or trying to be louder or more flashy in hopes of simply getting noticed, it often ends up aimlessly adding to the noise.
We’ve been told we have to capture their attention in several seconds so we throw everything against the wall and hope something sticks.
With a constant stream of noise and excitement jumping up and down for your customer’s attention, how do you get them to focus on you, your service, or your product? And then if you do get their attention on you, how do you hold onto it until they take action, or ‘convert’?
But wait, there’s more
There are differing opinions, though, that believe a shrinking attention span might not necessarily be the problem.
(Although it still is a problem.)
The issue of attention span, it seems, might actually just be a growing number of options to choose from. It makes sense, doesn’t it?
Take this, for example. It’s Friday night in the year 2000 and it’s time for your family to choose a movie for movie night. What do you do? You jump in the car and head to the local Blockbuster to see what they have. You take into account what’s age appropriate for your children, what you haven’t seen yet, and what’s left on the shelves and eventually a decision is made.
Fast forward to 2019 and the options are basically endless: Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Vudu, HBO GO. They all have streaming options, not to mention that you can rent almost any movie on Apple Movies. Where do you even begin? How do you make a decision? Sometimes it seems like we take longer to choose a movie than the length of the movie itself!
Endless options and access creates new challenges and opportunities for marketing today.
It’s about accuracy and simplicity
It’s about getting your product in front of those who will find it useful, whose attention will be grabbed by it, whose focus will stay on it. It’s about reaching those who will find what you have to offer valuable.
(If you want to learn more about this, you can download our free ebook here.)
Once you have reached this audience, it’s your job to not let them slip away. One of the most common reasons your prospect doesn’t convert, is because you’ve distracted them with too many options. Think about the one thing you want your customer to do at the moment they’ve found you, and focus on that.
Moral of the story?
Whether our attention span is actually shrinking or we’re just overwhelmed with options, we can say these things for sure. Know your audience. Don’t make the mistake of distracting them with multiple goals, calls to action, or other products or services you think they might need down the road. Take a focused approach, cut through the noise and effectively grab your audience’s attention.
Like many of you, we have had our share of trial and error experiences in gathering and implementing the perfect toolbox for our everyday tasks. And, full disclosure, I tend to be a bit of a shiny metal object guy when it comes to technology, productivity apps and awesome user interfaces. But while we have many apps and solutions in our arsenal of options, there are some tools that have become our favorite standards that our team uses on a daily basis.
Below is a list of our top go-to tools.
1Password
I’ve always said passwords are the bane of my existence. Having to think them up, figure out how to remember them, remember where I wrote them down, and worry about some hacker out there accessing my data because I used a weak password…I’m sure you all can relate. But 1Password has made them a bit more tolerable.
We use 1Password for Teams which allows us to set passwords and share them with each other within “vaults”. We have vaults for our development, marketing, and general office teams, in addition to our individual private vaults for passwords not shared with others. The password generator is easy to use and fills in the blanks automatically and then stores the password for future access. It’s a great timesaving tool that we use a lot every single day..
Autopilot HQ
One of the most important aspects of our business, and what we teach all of our clients, is how to properly identify and set up customer journeys. Autopilot HQ makes this incredibly easy, with a user-friendly interface, and drag and drop functionality to connect each piece of the puzzle.
From capturing leads on your site through a heads-up display to adding appropriate delays between each optimized email, you can engage your contacts at the right time with just the right content. You can also connect Autopilot to Salesforce, Slack, Zapier and more to get a more complete view of all your contacts, map custom fields with CRM to see the actions those contacts take in real time, and then most importantly, track the data on everything.
It’s been a great tool to help us visualize our various journeys and connect the dots on many different pieces of our business!
Dropbox and Box
One aspect of our business that seems to be under constant refinement, is file management and storage. While there’s always room for improvement as existing tools are updated and new tools are released, this system has been working for us most recently.
We use Dropbox for sharing most files on a day-to-day basis. Our team shares folders set up for clients and projects and we can easily share links to those outside our team, making it really convenient as our primary folder system.
We primarily use Box to archive all our projects and client access folders. When we finalize a project, we upload all of the working design files to our own archive folder, and also set up a client shared folder. We invite the client to their download-only access folder so they can reach their files any time into the future, while giving everyone peace of mind that files cannot be removed or changed, especially on accident or without full consent.
Evernote
We use Evernote all day every day. If in doubt it goes into Evernote. I am still amazed at what I easily find in Evernote that I’ve stored over the years while searching through it. Things I long ago forgot about are still ready to call up at a moment’s notice. Web clippings, code snippets, images, articles, travel receipts, various scans we’ve uploaded from SnapScan S1500, also an indispensable tool, and so much more are all stored in notebooks, tagged and shared with our team. Suffice it to say, this is an app our team can’t live without.
Google Docs
I must admit I was a late convert to Google Docs. But after years of struggling with multiple and confusing versions of Microsoft Word and Apple Pages documents, with incompatibility issues to boot, we made the switch. And the primary reason was collaboration. It’s truly liberating to be able to real time collaborate on a doc while on a video conference call. It’s incredibly efficient as we work together on proposals, presentation notes, and a variety of project deliverables.
We most often use “suggesting” rather than “editing” mode when giving feedback on a doc that one of our team members produces. We also love the commenting capabilities, allowing us to literally turn the doc into a conversation about a certain topic.
I personally still like moving the final text into a Pages document for my favorite document formatting templates. Proposals and many client facing reports still make their way back to Pages for final export to PDF.
iAnnotate
This PDF annotation app is our go-to for communicating changes to our design team. It makes it really easy to mark up a print document or web page in minutes. I especially love using iAnnotate on my iPad Pro with Apple Pencil. It’s a breeze to just hand draw circles, arrows and underlines in red, type the text changes using the keyboard and then simply re-upload the doc to Teamwork for final design changes. It’s fast and efficient.
Keynote
As a lifelong Mac devotee, I personally have embraced all of Apple’s native apps, including Keynote. While I continue to be disappointed with the lack of compatibility between Keynote and PowerPoint, there are reasons we are committed to this elegant presentation software. Its usefulness goes way beyond presentations, although I’ve found it much easier to present highly professional, beautiful presentations in Keynote over PowerPoint over the past 10 years.
One major reason I love it is how easy it is to mock up a UI concept in Keynote. Rather than getting lost in layers and the technical aspects of Photoshop, we can breeze through ideas with each other even in real-time collaboration in Keynote, often bouncing in and out of Illustrator or Photoshop into Keynote slides where we can continue to experiment and communicate visually with each other. I used to be slightly embarrassed to admit this until I learned that some of the top UI/UX designers in the industry also depend on Keynote for a variety of design tasks.
Slack
Slack has become the central hub of our team’s daily communication, replacing much of what we previously communicated through email with simple communication through channels. We have channels for projects or clients, “departments” within our agency like #new-business, #marketing, #accounting, etc.
We especially like some of the integrations available within Slack. One of our favorites is Zoom conference calls. Whenever we are on a call and want to start a quick Zoom conference, we simply type /zoom within a channel and it opens a Zoom call and provides a link. Instant video conference. Trello is another useful integration. We connect certain Trello boards to a channel in Slack, providing instant communication when, for instance, a new card is created. More on Zoom and Trello below.
Teamwork
We love Teamwork as an incredibly capable project management system. As is quite common in the agency space, we’ve tried different tools and solutions over the years, some that seemed to lack innovation or give us everything we needed, some that were just too complex, But then we came across Teamwork PM. We love the interface, and it just ticks a lot of boxes for managing our virtual workflow. There is incredible versatility of its privacy settings, making it easy to grant clients and outside contractors access to only those aspects of a project that they need to see without unnecessary details of our inside team’s tasks and timelines.
Trello
While we don’t use Trello for project management, we find it indispensable for a variety of tasks including high level project planning, client reporting and accountability. We invite clients into these boards and use them as a basis for our weekly status meetings.
Zoom
We used to use GoToMeeting as our conferencing tool but discovered Zoom along the way, which allowed for more participants for less money per month. It’s super dependable for audio, video conferencing and screen sharing, which makes it our go-to app for almost any face to face collaboration meetings. The meeting recordings are conveniently stored for later reference and these have become invaluable for going back and taking notes on important meetings where note taking would have been distracting during the live conversation.
Our Tools are a Work in Progress
I’m sure we could (and we might!) do an annual update of tools we can’t live without, but this is where our agency is at currently. Hopefully this post has sparked an interest to check out a few tools that will help streamline a part of your business, and since we’re always on the lookout for ways to better our agency, feel free to comment with any must-have tools in your toolbox! We can’t wait to hear about them.
You’ve heard the old saying, but do you practice it when it comes to your business? Whether you are selling a product, or providing a service, there are going to be certain types of people that are more likely to buy from you than others. So focus on them. You want these ideal customers to think of you when they need what you provide, but are you thinking of them in the meantime?
Using proven research methods, including how you will segment your audience, then conducting in depth interviews (IDI’s) and persona interviews is the surest way to get accurate data for your buyer personas. Whether you are a B2B or B2C company, the takeaway is the same – taking the time to create and utilize buyer personas is the most powerful way for you to truly understand your customers – their needs, their pain points, and how you can make their lives better.
While the subject of buyer personas goes incredibly deep, we want to focus this post on 5 reasons why buyer personas inform your business.
1. Know where your customers spend their time
…so you can be there, too. Hear us out, though. Please don’t bombard your customer with annoying sales pitches on every channel they utilize. You don’t even need a buyer persona to tell you that, because, nobody wants it.
But do let it inform things like what social media platforms your persona prefers, so you can be there to provide relevant, useful information through that avenue. By conducting research and talking to your current customers, you may find that they never even open their Instagram account, but have LinkedIn running in the background all day long. You can then put the appropriate resources into building your LinkedIn presence instead of just dipping your toe into all social platforms.
It can also inform the places that would be most beneficial to place ads, because they have a higher probability of visiting one website over another, or reading one magazine over another, etc.
2. Create content with a purpose
If you write it, they will come…said no one ever. Producing content for the sake of content will end up frustrating everyone involved. It also won’t give your marketing team a win in your company’s eyes.
On the other hand, having well-developed buyer personas will give you insight into exactly who you are writing to so they are more likely to resonate with your content when they read it. Remember all of those categories you focused on when developing your personas? Well, this is where they can really come into play.
What are your persona’s biggest pain points? You can now create a blog post for each pain point. Include solutions in these posts, particularly how your company can help. Have a new customer? Develop a series of emails to be sent that will help to onboard them and give them tips and tricks for how to be successful using your product or service. Maybe you’re aware of what would make your persona’s life easier. Create an infographic with 20 things they can do to achieve that goal.
Now let’s take that a step further, remembering that you also know where your target personas spend their time, as we discussed above. Imagine a targeted ad appearing in front of your persona leading them to an article that offers a solution to the exact kinds of problems they’ve been trying to address. This is where you go from just another company pumping out content, to a trusted partner helping them achieve their goals.
3. Build a website that works hard for you
Setting out to build or rebuild your company’s website can seem like an incredibly daunting task. There are countless agencies vying for your business, but clearly they are not all created equal. Not all agencies know how to properly use buyer personas to inform your website development.
A great, effective website will address the motivational drivers of each persona. In some selling situations, personas might be based on role. For example, marketing managers vs. marketing directors vs. business owners, each with different motivations for buying the same product. In another case, you may find personas driven more by attitude than role, ie strategic, financially or technically-driven buyers. The type of design, the images you choose, and your text and calls to action should specifically appeal to your personas.
4. Create the product your buyer wants
Done right, personas will inform more than just your marketing department. An area greatly affected by properly developed personas tis the product development department. Personas provide insights to your development team about who they are selling to, who they are creating for, who they are constantly working to attract and retain as loyal customers.
Just about every product in the world will continue to evolve over time, to become more useful and to stay relevant to its users. The personas you have already created, as well as having built a culture of communication with your customers, can be invaluable as your product development team looks to improve. You are able to provide them with clear wants and needs, as well as feedback on what might not be working or valuable to the user.
This is also a good time to mention that buyer personas not only come from talking to your customers. They are also the ones who didn’t end up buying from you. Their opinions can be some of the most important because you can save countless other prospects from slipping through the same cracks. Again, you can never be all things to all people, so for some it might just not be a good fit. But whether it was a hole in the sales process, or because your product didn’t have a certain critical feature, this type of information can serve your company well.
5. Bring in qualified leads
Speaking of the sales process, buyer personas can easily become your sales team’s best friend by increasing the amount of qualified leads versus unqualified leads coming across their desk.
If your personas are being used to their fullest potential, you might see a scenario like this:
The process of creating the buyer persona has informed product development, now making it the ideal solution for your prospect. You have written an ebook outlining the persistent problems facing the persona and how those problems can easily be solved. After creating and placing a targeted ad on your social platform of choice, your prospect downloads the ebook, resonates with the problem and is excited about the solution.
With all of the information that’s available with just a single click, most people do their research and read reviews ahead of time. They only really want to connect with a salesperson when they are ready to buy. So let’s look at the scenario above. As soon as the prospect decided to download, the power of person-driven marketing automation takes over. It nurtures your lead through the sales funnel, with content that engages, educates, and removes barriers in the buying process. By the time this person gets to a decision point, or talks to a salesperson, they are already informed about who you are and how you can help them. This makes the sales team’s job much easier…finally, marketing and sales REALLY working together!
Conclusion
We’d go so far as to say your marketing strategy should begin, first and foremost, with creating buyer personas and mapping the customer journey, using research and data tools. Buyer personas are all about getting into the minds of your customers, so you can truly understand them and their buying behaviors, and then serve them in the best way possible.
By taking the time to talk to your current or past customers, or those who chose not to become customers, you will be able to develop a strategy across every area of your business that can attract and engage a prospect through their buying decision, and then nurture that customer relationship long into the future.
A Lesson in Realigning Your Focus, From Seth Godin
“What we see, depends mainly on what we look for.” – John Lubbock
We wanted to share a post on perception and where you’re choosing to place your focus, by the always brilliant, Seth Godin. While you read, think about your perceptions – of your personal life, your work habits – and what you’ve been focusing on recently.
Depth of field
Focus is a choice.
The runner who is concentrating on how much his left toe hurts will be left in the dust by the runner who is focusing on winning.
Even if the winner’s toe hurts just as much.
Hurt, of course, is a matter of perception. Most of what we think about is.
We have a choice about where to aim the lens of our attention. We can relive past injustices, settle old grudges and nurse festering sores. We can imagine failure, build up its potential for destruction, calculate its odds. Or, we can imagine the generous outcomes we’re working on, feel gratitude for those that got us here and revel in the possibilities of what’s next.
The focus that comes automatically, our instinctual or cultural choice, that focus isn’t the only one that’s available. Of course it’s difficult to change it, which is why so few people manage to do so. But there’s no work that pays off better in the long run.
Your story is your story. But you don’t have to keep reminding yourself of your story, not if it doesn’t help you change it or the work you’re doing.
We challenge you to take a few moments to reflect on the past year. Have you been aiming your lens of attention on perceived failures? Chances are, there is something much more worthy of your focus.
Take some time to shift your focus onto greater possibilities rather than missed opportunities, onto accomplishing your goals rather than the things that are holding you back.
We all know that time can’t actually be stopped. But there are a ton of ways to use that time more wisely, and, sometimes, even make it feel like we are stealing more hours than our allotted 24 hour day.
There are countless books, blogs, videos, articles and more geared towards helping you live your best life, be your best you, overcome procrastination, form a routine, etc. So we decided to do some of the work for you, rounding up a list of some of the best productivity advice, so you can start each day more relaxed, and end each day feeling more accomplished than ever. Oh, and be sure to stick around for an added bonus at the end of this post!
1. Set Weekly Goals
We are committed to setting weekly goals each and every Monday morning during our production meeting. It can feel necessary to dive right into tasks at the beginning of the week, but starting without having a path laid out in front of you, while it might feel productive at first, will eventually lead to an aimless workflow.
Each week we set goals for what everyone wants to accomplish that week, so we can use it as a productivity checklist. At the end of each week, we go through each bullet point, talk about if we accomplished it and if not, why not, and we set the goals for the following week. It helps keep everyone in check and moving forward.
–Mackenzie Barth, co-founder and CEO of Spoon University
Have you ever caught yourself mindlessly clicking back and forth between open tabs in your browser, to an email, to your project management window and back again? Well, maybe it’s just us, but if we’re not working off of a carefully crafted to-do list, there are far too many distractions that will flood our mind and interrupt our work-flow, instead of allowing us to check off one item after the next.
If you want to get it done, put it in the calendar. If a task isn’t in my calendar, then it isn’t going to get done.
Depending on the type of work you do, typical days will always look different. But for us, a day in the life at a digital agency must include billable time put in for a variety of clients. And when each client can tend to somehow all take ‘first priority’, it’s easy to jump from one task to another for several different clients. But come end of day, you’ve just accomplished a bunch of 30 minute increments, never allowing your brain to fully dive into any of them. Enter: time blocking.
I put everything in my calendar: meals, email, sleep. On busy days it’s easy to forget about all three of these things. Blocking out time guarantees that, at the very least, I’ll be aware of my ideal schedule when things get crazy. For bonus points, block out an hour each day for exercise.
Between social media alerts, emails, and drive-by visits, people can be distracted dozens or more times per day. Since one study found that people take 25 minutes to resume interrupted tasks (after dabbling, on average, in more than 2 other “work spheres” in the meantime), pushing distractions to predictable times can easily save hours. “Schedule time in your calendar for email/social media or when you will have interruptions,” suggests Murphy. “For example, professors have ‘office hours’ when they expect to be regularly interrupted by students. Is there a time of day when you are regularly interrupted? Plan for it.”
You might also consider more radical solutions. One study found that people spend 47% of their time on the internet procrastinating (indeed, you may be procrastinating now!) That’s why Bailey says that “Whenever I hunker down to work on something important, I almost always disconnect from the internet.”
Chris Bailey, author of The Productivity Project, spent a year test-driving productivity techniques on his blog, A Life of Productivity. He says that the best tactic he’s found for working intentionally is what he calls the Rule of 3. “At the start of the day, before you start working, you simply step back from your work and ask yourself: by the time the day is done, what three main things will I want to have accomplished?” Figuring out what’s most important keeps you from losing hours as you blindly respond to whatever comes in. It also encourages investing time in high-yield activities such as mentoring new employees.
By thinking through your days, you can also match the right kind of activity to the right time. Deep focused work is best done when you have a lot of energy. “People who are high achievers are ruthless schedulers,” says Wendy Murphy, an assistant professor at Babson College who teaches organizational behavior and management. “When are you most able to focus? Schedule the type of work you need to do during the times you have the most energy to do it.”
It’s tempting to sleep in on the weekend to catch up on your sleep. Though it feels good temporarily, having an inconsistent wake-up time disturbs your circadian rhythm. Your body cycles through an elaborate series of sleep phases in order for you to wake up rested and refreshed. One of these phases involves preparing your mind to be awake and alert, which is why people often wake up just before their alarm clock goes off (the brain is trained and ready). When you sleep past your regular wake-up time on the weekend, you end up feeling groggy and tired. This isn’t just disruptive to your day off, it also makes you less productive on Monday because your brain isn’t ready to wake up at your regular time. If you need to catch up on sleep, just go to bed earlier.
We all have those mornings where you’re rushing your morning routine and barely have time to brush your teeth before running out the door to make it to the office on time. It’s when the morning rush becomes a habit that there can be negative consequences to your sense of well being and your overall productivity.
When you start off your day in a frenzied state of mind, you’re not giving your brain any time to decompress, reset, and prepare for the day. Instead, you’re pumping it with adrenaline first thing in the morning, which can cause you to crash later on.
It can be difficult to get time to yourself on the weekends, especially if you have family. Finding a way to engage in an activity you’re passionate about first thing in the morning can pay massive dividends in happiness and cleanliness of mind. It’s also a great way to perfect your circadian rhythm by forcing yourself to wake up at the same time you do on weekdays. Your mind achieves peak performance two-to-four hours after you wake up, so get up early to do something physical, and then sit down and engage in something mental while your mind is at its peak.
It can be very tempting to get all the easy tasks out of the way first before tackling the tough stuff. This is especially true when you’re dreading that challenging task. You push it further and further down your to-do list … until you’ve left it untouched for days or even weeks.
But tackling the most difficult tasks on your to-do list early on in the day is actually better for your overall productivity. Researchers have found that willpower is a finite resource that steadily decreases throughout the day, according to the book The Willpower Instinct. So your brain is much better at handling the hardest tasks at the beginning of the day when you’re more focused.
Mornings also tend to lend fewer distractions, making it easier for you to get things done. My colleague James Gilbert suggests that folks “take advantage of morning hours to crank through meaty projects without distractions, and save any calls or virtual meetings for the afternoon.”
When you start time blocking and scheduling everything, this becomes easier to do. Well, maybe the task itself isn’t easier. But getting your head in the right space to be able to take the task on will be. You’ve set aside the time, and you can use that as an excuse to ignore any possible interruptions that might try to make their way in.
10. Stop Multitasking
Multitasking can seem inevitable in our modern, ever-connected lifestyles. But research shows it can make us less effective, increase mistakes and stress, and costs the global economy an estimated $450 billion every year.
Think you’re an exception? Consider this: Only 2% of the population is capable of effectively multitasking. For the other 98%, all it does is cause us to be 40% less productive and make 50% more mistakes than non-multitaskers.
Eating at your desk doesn’t just make you antisocial. According to NPR, it’s also “bad for thinking, bad for creativity, bad for productivity, [and] bad for your body.” Sadly, though, only one in five people actually leave their desks or the office for a lunch break.
To be fair, if you’re among those people who take lunch at your desk instead of taking a break, it may not be your fault. Perhaps it’s not built into your office culture, or maybe you have a deadline that’s pressuring you to squeeze every waking moment out of your day.
But research shows taking the midday break can be mentally rejuvenating — and, in many ways, more productive than plugging away at your desk between mouthfuls. The best way to take a lunch break is to remove yourself from your desk or workspace and eat somewhere else — like a cafeteria, restaurant, or public park.
One of the biggest perks of working for yourself is not having to worry about face time. You’re actions are responsible for the success or failure of your company — not when you show up or leave work or how long your lunch break is (admittedly, right now these are really early, really late, and nonexistent, respectively). Every so often I dabble in 15 min power naps in the late afternoons, and wake up so much more productive than I could have been otherwise.
One of my favorite tricks is to conduct most of my meetings standing up. I find it to be a much quicker way of getting down to business, making a decision, and sealing the deal. When given the opportunity, I often like to take things a step further–literally, with a walking meeting.
For us, while walking or standing meetings aren’t always a possibility, we never start a meeting without creating an agenda first. We use Do.com as an easy way to add agenda topics with sub-items, and it is easily shared with all participants. While we can’t say that a meeting never goes off topic, it’s definitely helpful for us all.
14. Disconnect
Disconnecting is the most important weekend strategy on this list, because if you can’t find a way to remove yourself electronically from your work Friday evening through Monday morning, then you’ve never really left work.
Making yourself available to your work 24/7 exposes you to a constant barrage of stressors that prevent you from refocusing and recharging. If taking the entire weekend off handling work e-mails and calls isn’t realistic, try designating specific times on Saturday and Sunday for checking e-mails and responding to voicemails. For example, check your messages on Saturday afternoon while your kids are getting a haircut and on Sunday evenings after dinner. Scheduling short blocks of time will alleviate stress without sacrificing availability.
You know the feeling when you search for something on the internet, then click on a “related article” or other link … and before you know it, you’ve charted the entire Russian Revolution?
Yeah … I’ll be the first to admit it: I do this a lot. It’s a dangerous side effect of having a job that requires internet research. It’s one thing to mindlessly browse the web outside of work or when you’re on a break. (In fact, I have a great list of the best sites for wasting time on the internet for times like those.) But it’s another entirely when you’re supposed to be doing actual work.
That’s what Tousley likes to call “black hole browsing,” and it’s become one of the most productivity-sucking psychological addictions out there.
The whole “easily distracted” thing goes for social media notifications, too. Turns out we actually have a psychological urge to check for social media notifications, which makes it hard to check our News Feeds “just this once” — and usually ends up in a lot of mindless browsing.
As my colleague Scott Tousley says, “We are madly in love with distracting ourselves.”
My colleague Alec Biedrzycki solves this problem by removing all social networks from his toolbar bookmarks. “Even if I don’t mean to browse them, some uncontrollable impulse subconsciously clicks on them when I experience downtime,” he says. “You can get sucked in without knowing it (or even intending to), so eliminating the gateway to those networks keeps me on track.”
Another useful tip is using social media management software for automation capabilities. While this can’t cure the addiction to deliberately checking, scrolling and posting, it can take away some of the perceived need to go on social media multiple times a day because your updates are still being published. Your accounts cannot be fully automated if you want to appropriately and genuinely engage your audience. But you can still post multiple times per day while not having to physically log on each time.
17. Stop Checking Emails As They Come In
Email is supposed to help us do our work, not distract us from our work. So why does it always feel like a productivity suck?
In an effort to stay on top of a constantly overflowing inbox, it can be tempting to check and respond to every email as soon as it comes in. Receiving email notifications in real time certainly doesn’t help. But constantly switching tasks between work and email can really hurt your productivity.
You might be surprised what happens when you pursue something you’re passionate about on weekends. Indulging your passions is a great way to escape stress and to open your mind to new ways of thinking. Things like playing music, reading, writing, painting, or even playing catch with your kids can help stimulate different modes of thought that can reap huge dividends over the coming week.
Being stuck in a rut can lead to decreased productivity. Matt Cutts argues in his TED Talk that taking a relatively short, doable 30 Day Challenge can help in some pretty big ways. You can add a new habit, or subtract a bad one, and see where it takes you even after the 30 days are done.
A few takeaways he found was that time became much more memorable, his self confidence grew, and he was able to do things he assumed he never could.
Watch the video, and think of what you could try for your 30 Day Challenge!
20. Listen, Really Listen
One of the sad consequences of being constantly distracted is the epidemic of only half paying attention — and thinking that’s OK. You might think that any time someone else is talking and you’re not, that means you’re listening. But, as my colleague Andrew Quinn wrote in his post on bad conversational habits, it doesn’t. “The real question is who are you listening to when [someone else] is talking,” he wrote. “I’m willing to bet a good portion of the time, you’re actually listening to the voice in your head.”
That, or you’re reading that email that just came in. Or checking to see why your phone buzzed. When you’re in a meeting, how much can you really be paying attention when your laptop is open?
Not only can not listening carefully cost you relationships, it can also cost you in the time it takes to make up for whatever information you missed. Becoming an active listener is a critical part of becoming more emotionally intelligent. This mean really, truly paying attention to what people are saying — and it’s a skill that’ll set you apart in both your professional and personal life.
We’ve covered the concept of a few of these tips throughout the list above, but for all you visual learners out there, here’s a beautifully designed infographic created by Hubspot that gives even more great productivity tips!
How many times have you heard that storyline before? Not many, I’d guess.
I’m a sucker for a good story. Who isn’t, really? But then add a touching song to that story, and play it out in living color through video, and you’ve got the best case scenario for sparking emotion from their audience. And Wrigley’s Extra gum ad portraying Sara and Juan’s budding romance is the perfect example of nailing this trifecta right on the head.
The Story
The actors in this story were amazing. They were real, genuine people, who connected with the audience on so many levels. American Idol singer Haley Reinhart’s sultry voice sings Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, with a beautifully filmed sequence of events as the couple’s love story evolves. Again, they nailed it.
But, back to my my initial point. The brilliance of this piece of content and the star of the show was a lowly gum wrapper.
Whereas just about every gum ad since the beginning of time uses the ‘first kiss’ or at least the ‘our-faces-are-really-close-good-thing-we-have-gum’ scenarios, Wrigley’s takes a chance on letting this item, which is typically just thrown away, shine.
They’ve dared the audience to, yes, still grab a stick of Extra right before your first kiss, but to also think about chewing gum during just about any other life moment as well:
first interactions
a picnic in the park
arguments
airport departures
even long distance communication (basically the opposite of the gum ad status-quo)
The Proposal
I absolutely loved the simple gum wrapper drawings that chronicle the couple’s relationship, all framed and leading to the culmination in Juan’s proposal down on one knee.
Chicago-based advertising agency Energy BBDO produced the video that has amassed 80 million plus views on Facebook. That certainly qualifies it as effective content marketing! And while we might not all become avid gum wrapper artists, we as marketers should always be thinking of how we can better tell a story.
The Conclusion
So whether it’s through video, drawing on emotion, or by focusing on a completely different aspect of your product you’ve never thought of before, these are the kinds of stories we should be telling in our content marketing. They’re what create memorable experiences for your audience, who is probably chewing a stick of Wrigley’s as we speak.
Enjoy the full video below!
Essential Guide to Creating Effective, Shareable Emails Worth Opening
Yes, you read that right. While our inboxes are fuller than ever, email is still how consumers want to be contacted by brands. But the catch is, and don’t take this the wrong way, they probably don’t want the emails you’re currently sending.
You can spend a whole lot of time, and money, trying to crack the code of how to talk to your customer, and while there may be specifics for your audience, you can use data and best practices to cut down the trial and error process substantially.
As you’ll read below, nearly one third of emails are opened based on the subject line alone. You spend so much time on what goes in the email, and the landing page the email takes your reader to, but are you placing enough emphasis on coming up with an effective subject line? Because who cares what’s in the email if no one ever opens it.
Keep scrolling to learn to create better marketing emails, get them opened, and make them shareable.
Next, is GetApp’s Ultimate Email Newsletter Cheat Sheet. This may seem trivial, but are your emails showing up the way you want to on people’s mobile devices? Almost 70% are checking emails there.
And have you put any thought into your reply-to address? Putting some thought into these areas could be the difference between just an email open, and an email open with continued engagement.
Wrapping Up
A great email campaign doesn’t have to be elusive. Start with a benchmark of data and metrics, then gradually start implementing these tips in your next email and keep an eye on what works best for you and your industry.
As you may have noticed, things are looking a little different around here! The past few years have been nothing but a focus on our client work and projects, but as we expand, we’ve begun to devote some energy into Fireworx, and we’re excited to share our new and improved brand with the world.
With over 25 years of marketing and Direct Response experience, we’ve pretty much done it all at one point or another, when it comes to connecting your brand’s vision to your audience. But most projects we focus on fall under one of our six areas. These are Strategy and Consulting, Design and Creative Services, Web Development and Technology, Content Marketing, Email and Marketing Automation, and Search (SEO/SEM). Check out our What We Do page to see more about each area of focus.
From giving you a new custom website, to evaluating and implementing the best marketing automation platform for your business, to designing a channel partner strategy, optimizing your content to get found on Google, or any number of other needs you may have, we approach projects and ongoing consulting work with our proven, effective process, along with a genuine desire to see your business get to the next level. Learn more about our process here.
You can also expect to see more valuable insights, case studies, tips and tricks, free downloads and more, aimed at helping you learn more best practices. We’ll base a lot on real life examples of how the vast world of marketing can work for you. We’ve learned a lot over the years, and we’re excited to share these things with you through our blog.
We work with a wide range of industries – everything from tech and telecom, to insurance and non-profits, from start-ups to companies with long heritages, and we’d love to connect with you about your business needs. Have a look around our site, drop us a line through our connect button below, or enter your email to stay up to date – we promise we’ll only be sending you relevant, beneficial insights. Check back often as there will be new content published each and every week!
As a marketer my email inbox is stuffed to overflowing with not only uninvited messages that I put up with in the name of “creative stimulation” but also of really great informative marketing messages that I need to help my clients, but alas, I end up ignoring about 87% of them, many of which could be life altering, business game changing (overused term I know) ideas.
But every once in a while an email catches my eye and causes me to read. OK you have my attention! This is one of those rare emails. Good job Ann Handley at Marketing Profs!
Here are just a few reasons this email resonated:
The message is highly targeted to me and other marketing professionals
The message plays (very well) off my fear of becoming irrelevant!
Using the Don Draper character instantly creates a visual of a “traditional ad guy” (something I have run from my whole career and they must know that over there…)
Since they “must know somehow” (Gee, personas must work) that I don’t want to be a traditional ad guy, they use Don Draper in a negative light, refusing to attend something that will lead to “misguided attempts at innovation.”
Finally, receiving an email from a fictional character regardless of who it is arouses curiosity and a desire to at least give it a read.
Whether I can attend this year’s B2B Marketing Forum or not, you can bet they have my attention, and I visited the site and checked out the agenda. (Not surprisingly this year’s theme is “This is NOT Your Father’s B2B.)
Here is the email message:
A message from a real Mad Man about MarketingProfs B2B Forum 2012.
For my entire career, I’ve been telling people what they should buy, what they should do, and how they should think. It’s brought me success. A lot of success. In fact, there are whole bookcases devoted to my success.
And now, some individuals are trying to change things. They think they’re making B2B marketing better, and more insightful, all under the guise of “progress.” But I know better. I know people want to be told what to do, and in the same manner they’ve been responding to for decades.
So as of today, I’m putting my foot down. I’m telling the world that I will not be attending MarketingProfs B2B Forum in October.
If you want to abandon tried-and-true practices that have brought me countless victories, then by all means, attend. If you want to leave your success up to misguided attempts at innovation—put your faith in junk tactics like social media, mobile, content creation and search—then please, register now. If you think knowing how to optimize your lead gen funnel will help you attract and retain customers, then book your flight to Boston today.
As for me, I don’t need a marketing conference to tell me about the future. After all, the “future” was invented by guys like me simply to sell products. I’m just fine in the present.
Sincerely,
:: Donald F. Draper
:: Creative Director
:: Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce
Lost Your Twitter Feed to LinkedIn? Here Are Some Nifty Workarounds
As many of you may already know, LinkedIn announced recently that you will no longer be able to link your Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, which accounted for much of the sharing activity on LinkedIn. (You can still share LinkedIn posts on Twitter.) Despite the frustration of many developers and partners, and regardless of Twitter’s reasons for doing so, Twitter has cut off API access to LinkedIn and other developers in an effort to gain tighter control over the use of Twitter’s features. Most of Twitter’s content is viewed on other sites due to their liberal API policies in the past. An API is basically a developer’s tool kit that helps them write programs that integrate with other programs or websites. Twitter is focusing more attention on getting developers to build applications that run within Tweets. But that is not the purpose of this post.
Before we get to the workarounds, it’s important to reinforce that sending all of your tweets to LinkedIn was never a good policy in the first place. It’s best to be selective about what posts you send to Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, and breaking this policy of limiting your posts can actually be a turn off to your target audience, rather than engaging and building a relationship with them.
Here are two quick and easy ways to make sure you keep your social communication flowing on LinkedIn.
Workaround #1: Use a social media service such as HootSuite, Tweet Deck or Seesmic. I’ve used all three (and there are many more) but have now focused mostly on HootSuite as I like their interface and collaboration tools the best. Simply set up each of your social media accounts and then select which ones you want to post to and hit send. You’ve now sent your post to a variety of social media sites simultaneously.
Workaround #2: There’s an amazing automation tool called IFTTT (If This Then That) where you can create a “recipe” to automatically post a Tweet to LinkedIn. Here is a recipe I found using the hashtag #in created by Adam Nash. You can do the same with the popular #li hashtag as well. Just set up your IFTTT account and use this recipe http://ifttt.com/recipes/43398. The next time you want to send a tweet to LinkedIn, simply add the #in or #li hashtag and you’re done.
Acris Technology Launches Mortgage VCO, the Mortgage Industry’s First Complete Virtual Office Solution
Fireworx Digital just completed a full branding, website and collateral development project and launched this innovative new cloud technology company. Here is the press release that went out this morning…
Cloud-delivered software suite allows lenders to slash IT and office expenses and run an entirely paperless mortgage business – including loan processing, customer relationship management (CRM) and integrated telephone communications – in a secure, centrally-managed virtual environment San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) July 14, 2011
Acris Technology, formerly Acris Solutions, a software development company and provider of paperless technology for mortgage bankers and lenders, today unveiled Mortgage VCO, an end-to-end, cloud-based “virtual corporate office” suite of software applications, IT and consulting services that enable any mortgage lender to run a compliant, scalable, paperless mortgage business without the expense and complexity of on-site servers, software, maintenance and upgrades. The announcement was made at the 39th Annual Western Secondary Market Conference in San Francisco.
Developed and refined over a period of 12 years, Mortgage VCO had been in use privately for years by Laguna Hills, California-based Millenia Mortgage to process over $10 billion in funded loans and is now available to mortgage bankers, regional and community banks, credit unions, and other mortgage lenders. Mortgage VCO’s suite of solutions includes cloud-delivered virtual desktops, sophisticated loan origination and processing software, paperless document storage, digital signature technology, IP telephony, and mortgage-specific consulting and IT services. As a virtual, cloud-based office solution, Mortgage VCO drastically reduces lenders’ IT costs so they can focus on what matters: closing more loans in less time. It also removes all geographical boundaries from a lender’s hiring criteria and integrates all communications among all parties – including emails and phone calls – into the mortgage production process, enabling ultimate transparency and accountability within a lender’s operations. Lenders simply need a high-speed Internet connection to run Mortgage VCO.
“The enormity of the changes sweeping through the mortgage industry is having a fundamental effect on how lenders do business,” said Richard Johnston, president of Acris Technology. “If there was ever a time to reinvent the mortgage office, this is it. For the first time, lenders can have one office solution that does everything they need it to do and more – including a completely integrated communications platform that provides total control over leads and call campaigns, and the ability to run an entirely paperless operation. Simply put, Mortgage VCO makes lenders’ lives easier and more productive.”
The Mortgage VCO suite begins with the VCO Desk platform, which delivers a Windows desktop environment to any computer, laptop, thin client, iPad or tablet PC with a high-speed Internet connection. VCO Desk also includes the Microsoft Office® suite and MS Exchange® Server. Any third-party or proprietary software can also be hosted and delivered through VCO Desk’s secure Citrix® environment. Each of the five separate components described below can be added individually or together as part of the integrated suite:
VCO Lend – Loan origination and processing software that lets lenders enjoy increased productivity from their sales and processing teams, get real-time visibility into their operations and staff, reduce errors and ensure complete, compliant loan files. Designed for a compliance-driven marketplace, VCO Lend features highly-advanced task parsing and file queuing technology, custom rules-based workflow management, real-time performance reporting, incentive-based compensation, lead tracking and distribution, and comprehensive secondary marketing tools. VCO Lend allows multiple people to collaborate on the same file at the same time, improving turn times from application to funding. VCO Lend is packed with features yet can be fully customizable to a lender’s unique business needs.
VCO File – An easy-to-use paperless document management and hosted storage solution that integrates seamlessly with VCO Lend and other loan origination systems, VCO File saves time, money, and eliminates the need for on-site servers and file cabinets, enabling instantly-searchable digital file sharing anywhere, anytime.
VCO Sign – A digital electronic signature tool that uses public key encryption to ensure security, turbo-charging a lender’s pre-disclosure and document signing processes.
VCO Link – Provides seamless integration links with a variety of title, escrow, flood, credit, appraisal management, compliance and other settlement service providers – plus the ability to integrate with most pricing or automated underwriting engines.
VCO Voice – Based on IP-PBX technology, VCO Voice integrates call center phone service capabilities into the mortgage production process, with features such as a CRM-driven dialer that provides click-to-dial capabilities directly from a borrower’s file and the ability to have a borrower’s loan file appear on the loan officer’s screen when the borrower calls. Integrated call reporting ensures company-wide accountability and performance monitoring.
Mortgage VCO also provides a full range of integrated IT, technology and managed services, infrastructure support, customer training, and software customization, all tailored specifically to mortgage lenders. Mortgage VCO was originally developed by Millennia Mortgage, which has been processing loans in a paper-free environment since 2003. Acris Technology was founded to market the continually-developing proprietary software technology to the industry.
“It’s important to understand that while Mortgage VCO is new to the market commercially, it is a tried and proven platform that benefited from full-time developers and mortgage banking professionals, working side-by-side for many years – with innovation and process improvement as two of our primary core values,” said Martin Williams, CEO of Acris Technology. “We believe it’s the ultimate complete office solution for mortgage lenders that want to minimize overhead costs and IT complexity, increase efficiency and improve business processes.”
Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Laguna Hills, California, Acris Technology is a technology provider offering custom software development and a full range of IT services and infrastructure support. Its flagship product, Mortgage VCO, is a virtual corporate office solution that provides all the necessary software and tools to run a completely paperless, cloud-based mortgage office, enabling clients to realize increased productivity, shorter loan life cycle times and reduced expenses. The virtual suite includes loan origination and processing software, paperless electronic document management (EDM), digital e-signature tools, IP telephony, virtual desktops with Microsoft Office® and Outlook®, plus software customization and development services, IT, telephony and Citrix® virtual office consulting. For more information, visit http://www.mortgagevco.com.
Ecommerce Site Launched For World Renown Fishing Tackle and Clothing Company
Fireworx Digital recently launched a new ecommerce web site for internationally recognized sportswear and fishing tackle company AFTCO Manufacturing, located in Irvine, CA.
For the first time, customers can make direct online purchases from the entire AFTCO fishing clothing line, including fishing shorts, shirts, pants, gloves and more. In addition, the site features a comprehensive catalog of AFTCO’s world famous hardware, including AFTCO roller guides, rod parts, gaffs, fishing harnesses and fishing belts, outrigger clips, Unibutts, and much more. These tackle items are not available for sale online, but each item includes a direct link to a dealer locator for finding retailers in a visitor’s local area.
The site is built on the Searchfit ecommerce platform, a favorite of ours here at Fireworx Digital, based largely on it’s extremely SEO-friendly architecture. Also included are a video blog, a dealer locator database for both clothing and tackle lines, and additional information pages featuring AFTCO’s unique technology that contextually tie back to each product. In addition, the site tells the story of AFTCO’s colorful history, including founder Milton Shedd’s founding of Sea World, and many other major ocean conservation efforts over the last several decades.
The AFTCO.com online store is the third site built for AFTCO Manufacturing. Fireworx previously designed and built online stores for GuyHarveySportswear.com and AlAgnewSportswear.com, two of AFTCO’s licensed product lines. As with the two previously developed sites, AFTCO.com is fully integrated with the company’s ERP software, Full Circle, which enables near real-time, two-way flow of pricing and inventory data between the two systems, as well as providing order and shipping information exclusively through one interface, familiar to employees at AFTCO.
One of the biggest challenges for businesses in this current market is to avoid the temptation to figuratively curl up in a ball under our desk and wish it was 2005. Sure the market is soft and customers are tentative but instead of taking a reactive position we need to be active. There are upsides to the recession- there is less noise in the market and an incredible assortment of digital tools for you to better engage your prospects in a one-on-one conversation. Seth Godin is spot-on in his blog post Death spiral!
As Tom Peters says, “You can’t shrink your way to greatness,” and yet that’s what so many dying businesses try to do. They hunker down and wait for things to get better, but they don’t. This isn’t a dip, it’s a cul de sac. It’s over. Right this minute, you still have some cash, some customers, some momentum… Instead of squandering it in a long, slow, death spiral, do something else. Buy a new platform. Move. Find new products for the customers that still trust you. Change is a bear, but it’s better than death.
Let’s make something of the time we have – cause times may not be optimal but this is the only time we have.
Fireworx Digital just launched a new online store for GuyHarveySportswear.com This innovative line of fish art clothing and accessories with over 7,000 styles and sizes has seen incredible sales growth not only among it’s loyal salt water fishing fans, but also among university students at campuses across the country.
The site was designed with a primary focus on extending and promoting the Guy Harvey brand. It provides one online location where Guy Harvey fans can see the entire line of Guy Harvey clothing items. A dealer locator makes it easy to find retail locations within a given zip code.
Fireworx selected SearchFit as the shopping cart platform for client AFTCO Bluewater, master license holder for Guy Harvey Sportswear, based largely on the fact that it was built from the ground up for maximum search engine optimization. Together with SearchFit, Fireworx was able to deliver a cost-effective, turnkey eCommerce solution for the new consumer direct site. The shopping cart was fully integrated into AFTCO’s existing ERP system, provided by Innovative Systems, LLC.
I absolutely love this TED talk by JJ Abrams. Now I know why I am so drawn to all of Abrams’ work, Lost, Alias, Cloverfield, Mission Impossible, Star Trek, 10 Cloverfield Lane, etc. It has to do with Abrams’ mastery of mystery.
He talks about buying a Mystery Box at a little magic shop in NYC. It was decades ago that he went there with his Grandfather and bought the box for $15, completely sealed with a big question mark on the front. I can’t imagine the discipline it took to leave the box unopened on a shelf in his office! But a few things he said really rang true for me. Here are a few highlights if you don’t have the 18 minutes to watch his talk…
• To Abrams, the unopened mystery box represents infinite possibility, infinite hope, infinite potential.
• Mystery is the catalyst to imagination, it’s more important than knowledge, and mystery boxes are in everything.
• He is an Apple fanatic (as am I) and when he sits down at his Mac PowerBook laptop, he feels inspired by the technology in front of him. His Mac asks him “what are you going to write worthy of me?”
• The blank page is a mystery box, waiting to be filled with spirit, thought, and emotion.
• Going to the movies, watching the lights go down is a mystery box.
I love what he implies about technology inspiring creative people to be creative, which inspires technology people, an endless look of inspiration.
Seth Godin is one of my favorite writers on all things marketing and business. I just had to quote his post about Dolphin Leather because it hit me between the eyes. He nailed it.
So many business owners are struggling with a doom and gloom attitude because their business isn’t working the way it always did before, and yet I am seeing and hearing about so many that are going out and reinventing themselves, getting serious about their marketing, improving their systems, rethinking their processes, and staying (or getting) excited about their businesses.
Read Seth’s post and enjoy.
There’s a story in the bible with very specific instructions for building an ark.
Included in the instructions is a call for using tanned dolphin leather. Regardless of your feelings about the historical accuracy of the story, it’s an interesting question: why create an impossible mission like that? Why encourage people who might travel 100 miles over their entire lifetime to undertake a quest to find, capture, kill, skin and eventually tan a dolphin?
My friend Adam had an interesting take on this. He told me that the acquisition of the leather is irrelevant. It was the quest that mattered. Having a community-based quest means that there’s less room for whining, for infighting and for dissolution.
Having a mission not only points everyone in the same direction, it also creates motion. And motion in any direction is often better than no motion at all. All around you, people are telling you two things:
1. whatever you want, forget it, it’s impossible, and
2. sit still, preserve resources, lay low.
And yet, the people who are succeeding, creating change and (not coincidentally) are happier aren’t listening to either of these pieces of advice. Instead, they’re on the search for dolphin leather. Frank Sinatra had it wrong. Your dream shouldn’t be impossible, but it sure helps if it’s improbable. Don’t choose your dreams based on what is certain to happen, choose them based on what’s likely to cause the change you want to occur around you.
