Super Bowl may be the one time in American TV viewing throughout the year when the public looks forward to the advertisements. Super Bowl ads have fast become part of the Super Bowl Sunday experience as much as the game, the snacks, and the halftime show. In fact, in lieu of a wardrobe malfunction or a bad 2 nd down call on the 1 yard line with 26 seconds left to play, the ads are often the most talked about part of the game, especially if you are a fan of any of the 30 NFL teams that were also at home watching the game.   Super Bowl ads may be entertaining, but they are bad marketing examples, especially for small business owners.   1. No call to action. Marketing today especially is about eliciting a measurable response. With limited time and resources, small businesses cannot waste any of them on branding. They need to have a call to action that gets prospects in their sales funnel. What is that first step in your sales cycle? What do you want your prospects to do once they find you? Is it subscribing to your email list? Filling out a form on your website? Calling for an appointment? This needs to be very clear in all your marketing. Unfortunately, most Super Bowl ads, do not have a call to action or more specifically a call to action that leads prospects down the path to purchase.   This year, however, I like two ads that have a direct call to action: Groupon and Stella Artois. Tiffany Haddish gives a clear call to action: download the Groupon app.     Matt Damon implores you to buy a limited-edition Stella Artois Chalice which provides water to someone impacted by the global water crisis for 5 years.   2. No value to the customer. Super Bowl ads are more about being cute and getting talked about than delivering value to the customer. As a small business, you cannot afford to be cute and not make it clear to your customers what you do. As a society, our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter; the most effective marketing is to be direct about whom you serve and how you can help them.   A good example from this year’s Super Bowl ads is Percil with honorable mention going to Febreeze.   There's no question what Percil does. This is a good clear message.   3. No increase in sales. Often the most-loved ads do not improve the sales. Perhaps, the most-loved and favorite Super Bowl ad of all time featuring Mean Joe Greene was pulled after a few months by Coca-Cola because sales did not increase.   Unfortunately, this beloved ad did not help Coke sales.   Small businesses need to make sure there is a positive Return on Investment for every dollar spent marketing. Winning the ads on Super Bowl Sunday does not equate to winning sales. A smart small business owner should not be concerned with winning ad competitions, but rather sales competitions.   So by all means, enjoy the ads and the memes that spring from them. You can view them all here. However, please do NOT model your marketing after Super Bowl ads. Model your marketing with a good solid strategy that focuses on eliciting a measurable response.   Integration of Social Media Now that social media is a key factor in business marketing for businesses of all sizes, I wanted to give some honorable mentions to those ads which do a good job incorporating social media. There are the occasional social media handles and hashtags at the end of some of the ads but this early Super Bowl commercial took it a step further.   The ad by Kraft is a great way to engage the audience during the Super Bowl however, they are asking viewers to go to a website and there is no indication in the ad of appropriate hashtags or Kraft social handles. Sometimes it is the little details that can greatly affect a campaign.   Kraft wants you to share your family game day pictures to be part of their Super Bowl commercial.   All your marketing should include your social media information. However, before you start pushing people to your social media, be sure you are not making these 6 Social Media Mistakes.   And finally, an honorable mention: part 2 of the Michelob Ultra Super Bowl commercial. Just for fun, because it's Chris Pratt but mainly because it includes my favorite country song from my childhood. You can ask my siblings, they will attest...I Like Beer by Tom T Hall.   Michelob Ultra "I like beer" commercial is part 2 of Super Bowl ad.       The original version of this post was published in 2015: 3 Reasons Super Bowl Ads are Bad Examples of Marketing. This updated version was originally posted on laurabcreative.com at http://www.laurabcreative.com/blog/2018/01/2018-super-bowl-ads/   ... View more

If you are a Constant Contact user, be sure to grab this quick report before year end.   Constant Contact tracks your list growth and gives you the following options under Contacts > Reports: last 30 days last 60 days last 90 days month to date year to date This is all great information and you should be tracking your list growth and unsubscribes on a regular basis.   However, the year to date data will reset on January 1. So, follow these instructions to grab the data before the New Year. Log into your Constant Contact account. Select Contacts. Select Reports. Select "year to date" in the drop down on the right. Take a screenshot of the full window, including the "Growth by Source" information below the overall growth chart. I use Snagit by TechSmith but you can use any screenshot software or just use Print Screen on a Windows machine or Shift-Command-4 on a Mac. Save your screenshot so you can access the data when you are ready to review it.   This post originally appeared on my blog at http://www.laurabcreative.com/blog/2017/12/year-end-list-growth-in-constant-contact. You can view a two-minute video demonstration of this report there. ... View more

  I have found Constant Contact is the right fit for 90% of the thousands of small business owners and nonprofit marketers I speak to each year. And email marketing is the number one digital marketing strategy you should be implementing in your business   In case you are unaware, Constant Contact is an email solution provider. What does that mean? It allows organizations to send one-to-many emails to that organization's permission-based list. It has long been the industry leader, especially for small business. I have been a user since 2003 and the product just keeps getting better.   I’m often asked why I love and recommend Constant Contact.   First of all, I believe Constant Contact knows its market is the small business and as such has kept the platform easy to use and cost effective for small organizations. Plans start at just $20/mo! And you can always start with a 60-day fully-featured trial.   They also have award-winning, patient, US-based customer support. If you spend more than 5 minutes on a question or problem within Constant Contact, contact Customer Support. They are amazing.   Lastly, Constant Contact has made an investment in the local community by establishing local education teams who present best practices on email marketing throughout your area. Local marketing professionals like me. You can find my webinars and Washington, DC-area events at www.laurabcreative.com/calendar. Many of my events are free, thanks to the support of Constant Contact.   11 New Constant Contact Features So there are all the reasons I love Constant Contact as a company. Let's dive into some of the amazing new features. Some of these are brand new, others have rolled out across accounts over the last 6-12 months. All of these features are in the new Drag and Drop Editor, officially called the Third Generation Editor. This interface is so easy to use. You can create a mobile-responsive email in minutes with tons of cool features like: Background Patterns. There are currently 8 different background patterns you can choose along with the ability to color them to match your branding. I've heard the ability to upload your own background images is coming soon. Import PDF to Email. This is amazing especially if you deal with another stakeholder who provides a PDF promotion like an event flyer. You can now import this PDF into Constant Contact and the system will create an image in the email that is automatically linked to the PDF download as well as a download button below the image. I encourage you to include descriptive text and details in the text of the email as well for those users who have images turned off. Specialty Blocks. These make it easy to add specific types of content above and beyond the general blocks that include text, images, videos, and social media links. Read More. Pull all the info from a blog post including image, title, first few lines, along with a link to the rest of the post. Poll. Ask readers a question and track their responses. RSVP. I have been loving this simple, one-click way for readers to RSVP for an event. That's just creating an email. There's also a ton of magic happening after you send your email. Segmenting with Tags. You can segment your lists based on who has a certain tag or who does not have a tag. This means you can segment by customers or location easily. Social Share. The new social share allows you to share your email on social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter). I like to use this with clients to enhance their social media editorial calendar. New Email Archive. Simply place a piece of code on your website and then select which email campaigns show up in your archive right in the Constant Contact dashboard. I love the control and simplicity of this feature. We also want to serve our subscribers and manage our email lists. Send Welcome Email by List. I have waited for this feature for so long. Now you can send tailored welcome emails with specific content for each of your lists. Read 3 Autoresponders to Use in Your Business Right Now for tips on creating your welcome email including a downloadable checklist. Do not overlook this important first contact that typically sees an open rate of 60-80%. Resubscribe Contacts. You can now send an email directly to a subscriber with instructions on how they can resubscribe. This is handy when a business associate or colleague has accidently unsubscribed. This is a great feature but should only be used for contacts that you've spoken to about resubscribing. Now you can make sure your emails are more effective with these great new reporting features. Mobile vs. Desktop Opens by Campaign. Now you can see how many of your emails are opened on mobile versus desktop devices across the last 50 campaigns in your account as well as in each campaign. Search and Compare Campaigns. Within the reporting section, you can search and compare results from campaigns. The compare feature will give you a graph showing key metrics. With this in mind, remember to name your campaigns so you can identify the subject and content of the email in the reporting section. Click Through Heat Map. Now you can see which links were clicked in your email campaigns by viewing the heat map of actual clicks. This is helpful if you have the same link, say to an event registration, used in a headline, button, and image. I know there are lots of options for email marketing but give Constant Contact a try. And if you are a past customer, I invite you to start a new free 60-day trial to check out all the cool new features. ... View more

You are on social media. You are posting updates. You may have even built a respectable following but you are getting no engagement or growth in your profiles. And, more importantly, you are not seeing increased sales from your efforts. What’s the problem? I see the following mistakes most often when I review a business’ social media presence through my social media audit. Surprisingly, the worst offenses happen when a business is actually paying an outside firm to handle its social media. Review this list and look at your organization’s social media. I hope it helps you tweak your existing efforts for better results.   No consistency. There is no consistency in your profiles. Can an outsider tell that your Facebook page, your Twitter profile, and your website are the same business? Do you use the same handles for all profiles? For instance, I am @laurabcreative everywhere: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Periscope, Snapchat, Blab, and Vine. This doesn’t mean that you need to be on every platform, but you need to have consistent handles across all platforms as well as consistent imagery and completed profiles. To help you review this for yourself, I’ve created a Social Media Profile Checklist. This is where my social media audit starts and I always find a few places for improvement when reviewing a business. It is well worth your time to follow the checklist and review each platform.   No direction. The next biggest mistake I see is posting with no direction or what I call “posting just to post.” This is where you may have a social media plan and may even be paying an outside agency to post for you and that is what they are doing – just posting. In fact, I don’t see a compelling reason why you should post every day. I’d rather you post a few times a week with really engaging posts than just putting something up there. Social media is about engagement and connection with your audience. Posting just to post or taking a “set it and forget it” approach is counterintuitive to the entire opportunity that is social media marketing. Many businesses continue to post the same type of content over weeks and months and wonder why they have nothing to show for their efforts. Here’s an example: do you post motivation quotes that are completely unrelated to your business? Do you actually have comments, likes, and shares on those posts? Even if you do, are they moving your clients or prospects any closer to buying your product or service? How about related articles? No likes and shares? Then why are you still posting them? Please have a goal for your social media and make sure all your content stays on message. That doesn’t mean that all your content should be your own but it should certainly be on message. As a caveat to this posting with no direction, we see the same posts across all platforms. Again, you are ignoring the different cultures and norms of each platform and just blasting your message. Please read Friends Don’t Let Friends Autopost.   No variety. Along the same lines, even with businesses who are posting and getting engagement, is a lack of variety in your posts. This means you are always posting a link or a photo but it’s the same photo -- even if it’s a happy customer in your store, it’s basically the same photo. I look for variety in types of content – photos, videos, links, text updates along with variety within those posts. Have you ever gone to an Instagram account and all the posts are different motivational quotes with the exact same design? Guess which posts will just get glanced over in the news feed? The boring ones. Shake it up a little bit. Vary your posts and watch which ones your audience reacts to. No plan. Posting sporadically. I see this a lot in marketing in general. You ignore your audience until you have a big event or promotion coming up and then you post about it – everywhere and too much. You want a consistent drumbeat of valuable content to your audience. You need to earn the right to promote to them. If you need a deeper dive on this point along with fantastic examples, I recommend Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk. No one is listening. This comes from posting where your audience is not. You can be posting great content all day long but if your audience is not there, you are speaking to an empty room. Not sure where your audience is online or if they even are? You need to ask them where they are and where they would like to receive updates about your offering. Not sure who your ideal customer is? Define your ideal client here. No response. Not responding to your audience is a huge no-no. This is why you want to limit the number of platforms you are on so you can manage the engagement and interactions. Be sure to assign someone to monitor the comments and messages on all platforms and empower them to respond quickly. Some platforms, like Facebook, now show how quickly a page responds to messages. I applaud your efforts to integrate social media into your marketing plans. It’s important to realize that there is no magic bullet and that social media is a conversation with your audience. I hope you will review these 6 mistakes and they will help you improve your social media marketing resulting in better engagement and, of course, increased sales.   Start with my Social Media Profile Checklist.   And for goodness sake, have fun. Social media is supposed to be social so inject some fun into your posts. If you want some ideas to increase engagement and growth, please schedule your customized social media audit today. ... View more

5 Tips to Help Your Small Business Decide There are so many social media platforms available for businesses and it’s often hard to decide which platforms you should use. You are hearing advice from all over that you HAVE to be on this platform or that. With my clients, I utilize my 3 Cs of Social Media to determine which platforms to utilize in the custom social media strategy I design for them, but what do we do to evaluate the latest and greatest, in-the-news platforms? Initially, you want to do some general research on what type of platform it is. Why was it built? What type of content is shared? Who were the early adopters? Make a note of those influencers who are quoted in the articles, we will need them for step 3. This should give you a general idea of what is going on with a platform. Once you decide from this initial review that it may be a platform your business should consider, I recommend these steps: Secure Your Handle. Download the app, create an account, and secure your handle. Remember we want a consistent handle across all platforms so try to match your existing social media handles. The advantage of jumping on early is that you should be able to secure your handle. I’m @laurabcreative everywhere. Complete Your Profile. Now, upload your profile image or logo and complete your profile including your website URL and any other pertinent info. Make sure it matches the imagery, logo, and branding of your other profiles. Listen. This is the biggest step. Don’t jump on and start pushing out content. First, find influencers in your industry or just early adopters on the platform and see what they are doing. Make sure you choose people who are using the platform well – remember any influencers mentioned in your initial research. Find brands that are doing well that speak to your same target audience so you are seeing both individuals and brand voices. Be sure to follow more than one or two. You may find you just don't like the style of some of the people and need to find others to follow. There are some bloggers/authors that I love but I don't enjoy their Snapchat stories, for example, so I don't follow them there.The benefit of listening is not just to see what other people are doing but also to get an idea of the culture of the platform so when you start producing content (if that is what you decide), you will be up to speed. Decision Time. Does this new platform make sense for your business and your audience? If the answer is yes, now you need to integrate this new platform into your existing social media strategy. What type of content are you going to share? What is the goal of the platform for your business? Is this something you can do well? Remember we are not just going to start autoposting our content here. For more, read Friends Don’t Let Friends Autopost. If the answer is no, this platform doesn’t make sense for your business right now. That’s okay. Be sure not to add this profile link to your website, email signature, or anything else. If you are not participating, you don’t want to be driving people there. But, you should leave your completed profile up for SEO reasons and so you will be well-positioned should this platform make sense for your social media strategy in the future. I hope these tips will help you make sense of the ever-changing online world. Did this process help you to choose or disqualify any platform? Let me know in the comments.   ... View more

  Do you want to know what your audience wants? You should ask them.   But, you may have reservations about conducting a survey even if it’s just a few questions.   Over the past year, I have gained incredible insight into my audience by using a simple technique I call the faux survey (H/T to Digital Marketer for the term).   What’s a faux survey? It’s one question in the text of an email with multiple choice answers.   [We should note that Constant Contact does have a great survey tool that I use with my clients as well but sometimes I only have one question or I want immediate results. When that is the case, I use the faux survey.]   I ask one question in the text of an email and then list the multiple choice answers. I create different hyperlinks for each of the answers. This not only makes the survey results as easy as checking my click through rates but it also gives me added marketing exposure because my audience is now going where I want them to go.   You can also create a simple 2 or 3 answer faux survey using images like this example for a restaurant: How was your meal?   Sounds easy, right? But does it work? Of course, or I wouldn’t be writing about it. Here are a few case studies for you:   Case Study 1: Content Consumption by Laura B. Poindexter I wanted to know how my audience consumed content. I really wanted to start a podcast. I listen to podcasts. I love them. I started out my career in radio. I love to talk. I really thought podcasting was for me. So, I asked my audience. Here’s the email:     Curious about my results? Considering I speak a lot both at live events and through webinars, I knew those 2 would score well. That is how I have built my list so it makes sense. The only result that really surprised me was the answer for podcasting. Can you guess how many people listen to podcasts? 1.92% That’s it. I was so sad. I mean there are always arguments for why I might want to podcast like to reach a new/different audience, but this is MY audience. This list is how I have built my business over the last 16 years. Surely I should start with what they are telling me.   The good news: think of all the time and money I didn’t waste on launching my own podcast. Now, I still love podcasts and it’s not off the table forever, just for right now. However, I am happy to dip my toe in the water (with little investment on my part) by being a guest on other people’s podcasts.   Added Benefit The added benefit of this strategy is in the link locations. Not only are you training your audience to click on your emails but you can also send them wherever you want through the link, just be sure it’s relevant. For the survey above, answering "I like to read blog posts" would take you here:   See the note at the bottom? I used Sniply to add the note at the bottom which helped to explain why they were redirected.   But wait, there’s more…after a few weeks, I went back into the email reporting and segmented the respondents into new lists based on their answers. If I ever launch a podcast, you can bet that handful of people will be the first to know.   I also took this opportunity to ask a bonus question for those not in the Washington DC area and sent them to my webinar calendar. I also then removed them from my local events list.     I like to say marketing is just about staying in front of your audience until they are ready to buy your product or service. (click on the bird to tweet that)   This email received an initial 25% open rate and a 16% click through rate. And to improve results, I used this strategy to Increase My Open Rate by 30% (which it did) bringing the total open rate to over 30%.   I’d say that’s LOTS of positives above and beyond the info I gained, just by strategically asking one question.   Case Study 2: Net Promoter Score, Data Services Company My client wanted to implement a Net Promoter Score survey and track their results with clients post contract completion.   So we implemented a simple faux survey that asked if they were likely to recommend the business to anyone.   As per Net Promoter Score standard, scores between 0-6 are Detractors (so there was a problem), 7-8 are labeled Passives (they are happy but not likely to promote), 9-10 are Promoters (also know as your raving fans). We set up 3 landing pages with the following messaging: Scores 9-10: Thank you so much, here’s how you can recommend us with clickable links Scores 7-8: Thank you for your business. Let us know if we can help you in the future. Scores 0-6: We are sorry to hear that we did not exceed your expectations, please contact us if there is anyway for us to serve you better. This page included a link t0 book a phone call directly with the CEO.   So you can see how powerful this simple strategy can be for your organization.   I’d love to know how you plan to implement a faux survey in your organization and if you felt this was helpful, please let me know in the comments below.   If you’d like more helpful tips like this and access to me to answer your questions, please join my free Facebook Group for small businesses and nonprofit marketers at www.marketing-hive.com.     ... View more

You many know I'm not a fan of autoposting from one social media platform to another. Every platform has a different culture and different norms in terms of content. This practice of autoposting also defeats the entire social aspect of social media. You should be engaging in conversation with your audience, not just pushing your updates on them.   There are, however, best practices to repurpose your content across platforms to avoid many of the pitfalls of autoposting. Here I tackle how to repurpose your Instagram content on Twitter and Facebook along with step-by-step instructions and a link to a how to video.   I wrote in Friends Don't Let Friends Autopost why you should not autopost your Instagram to Twitter. Here’s what I said…   Instagram makes it easy to post to other platforms when you publish your photo. However, when you post from Instagram to Twitter, the image does not carry over; instead it is converted to a link. So create that Instagram image and publish on Instagram, then go into Twitter or an app that posts images to Twitter and upload the photo. Here are some more reasons not to publish from Instagram to Twitter: The hashtag conventions on Twitter and Instagram are different. The number of characters allowed on Twitter is limited. Links do not hyperlink in Instagram updates so should not be included. However, Twitter is all about links so you definitely want to include them in your updates. Are the people you are tagging on Instagram using the same handle on Twitter? They should be but if they don’t you may be tagging someone else. Repurposing Instagram images on Twitter But what if you want to use that same image on Twitter? Here’s the easiest way to do that. Post your update to Instagram. Go to Instagram and select the share option which is found in the menu just below the image on the right. The post will open up and you can select the text from your update. Select all and Copy. Compose a new tweet in Twitter. Paste your text and edit for space and Twitter conventions including links and hashtags. Select the camera icon to add media. Navigate to the Instagram image and add it to your update. Publish It only takes a minute or two, but it is worth it to share your image on Twitter as an image instead of a link.   Repurposing Instagram images on Facebook In that same article, I said…   I do sometimes (not all the time) post from Instagram to Facebook. After publishing on Instagram, I go back to the image and choose SHARE, choose Facebook, and edit the update removing the tagging and hashtags. I most often do this when I am at an event. This can also help build your Instagram audience from Facebook because the image will have a link to your Instagram profile. The images are perfectly square which works great on Facebook especially on mobile. I tend to share a wider variety of images on Instagram so I definitely do not just post all my Instagram photos to Facebook. I pick and choose a few choice images to share to Facebook.   Here's the best way to post your Instagram images to Facebook. Post your update to Instagram. Go to Instagram and select the share option which is found in the menu just below the image on the right. The post will open up and you edit the text from your update. Select Facebook underneath the update. Publish Please note: You won’t be able to tag other pages but you can post this update and then go to Facebook to edit the update and tag as needed.   Click here to see the how to video of repurposing Instagram images on Twitter and Facebook as described above.       ... View more

Autoresponders are a great tool to ensure that you are following up and staying connected with your audience when they join your list or opt in to receive specific information from you. I use them with all my clients and recommend 3 specific types, in this order: Customized Welcome Email Indoctrination Series Lead Magnet Follow Up Series Customized Welcome Email The first type of autoresponder is the Customized Welcome Email. If you are using an email solution provider, like Constant Contact, this email is already getting sent to new subscribers to your list who sign up (not who you add yourself). This is the most opened email you will ever send because the subscriber just signed up and is interested in you at that moment. Your email solution provider is already sending out a generic welcome email because it is a good best practice to follow. You might as well take a few minutes to customize it for your organization. Be sure to keep your content evergreen and relevant. Here is a checklist to structure your welcome email: Introduce Yourself. Tell the recipient a little bit about yourself and your business. Let’s assume they don’t know much about you and we want to make a strong connection. Reinforce permission and set expectations. Make it clear that the recipient signed up for your list and remind them what information you plan to share and how often. Deepen the connection. Remember they are already very interested in your business because they just signed up. Give the recipient the opportunity to dive deeper with you. This is a great place for social media links or to popular pages on your website. Don’t overthink it. Customize the email then check back in a few weeks to see if your overall engagement has increased. Be sure to revisit this email every 6 months or so to make sure all the content is still accurate. Click here for a downloadable copy of this Welcome Email Checklist. Indoctrination Series Once you have customized your Welcome Email, it’s time to move on to the second type of autoresponder: the Indoctrination Series. I recommend this email series just consist of 2 or 3 emails. Here you have the opportunity to introduce your business to the new subscriber. It’s also a great opportunity to point the reader to resources, blog posts, guides, or videos that help explain the story of your business, why you do what you do, and what services you offer. You may choose to drive the reader to pages of your website that explain these things as well. There is no offer involved in these emails. It’s just an opportunity for the reader to learn more about your business and how you can help them. Case studies and testimonials also make great content for the Indoctrination Series. The key is to give the reader a picture of you and your organization in a simple concise manner. Each email should be short and have one main point. Set the Indoctrination Series up to run every few days spanning a week or so. Remember the prospect just subscribed and is still interested in what you have to offer. This is the time to use that to your advantage to educate them about your organization. Depending on the content of this series, you may decide to turn your Welcome Email off. If you don’t, be sure to factor that email, its content and timing into consideration when writing and scheduling this Indoctrination Series. The last email of the series should explain that the subscriber is now on your list and will now receive emails monthly or whatever your frequency is. This is also a good time to restate what type of content you share in your emails. For example, “From now on you will receive our monthly newsletter including the latest updates on our services. You can unsubscribe at any time.” Even if this series starts as just one email, you can always go back in and add more emails to the series. If you customize your Welcome Email and institute an Indoctrination Series, I would say you are ahead of 90% of the small businesses I come in contact with every year. Lead Magnet Follow Up Series Now, the third autoresponder series is attached to a lead magnet, also known as an opt-in bribe. This is a download, ebook, report, webinar replay, coupon, or other type of content that you are giving the subscriber in exchange for subscribing to your list. There is a lot of strategy involved in this autoresponder series and many of the decisions depend on your business model and sales cycle. Now we are talking about setting up a true sales funnel which I do for my clients all the time. It’s a big topic with lots of differing opinions. The key points to remember are: The lead magnet should be directly related to your core offer. The lead magnet should be delivered immediately after opt in. The rest of the autoresponder series should share related content and offers to the lead magnet and your core offer. I hope this article inspires you to look at the autoresponder functionality of your email solution provider and motivates you to take advantage of this marketing automation that you have at your fingertips. If you do nothing else, go check out your Welcome Email. Even if you customized it in the past, it can’t hurt to revisit the content. Don't forget to download the Welcome Email Checklist and customize your email right way. ... View more

How to set up a #GivingTuesday campaign in 5 minutes What is a micro-donation campaign? This is a donation campaign for your nonprofit where you are seeking small donation amounts. This is a great way to reach new donors.   Here are 3 ideas for a micro-donation campaign for your nonprofit that you can set up today. This is a great idea to try for a day of giving promotion like #GivingTuesday. Do you have a specific project that appeals to the younger, more mobile-savvy generation that you will hopefully reach with a modern online campaign? Or you can offset an unexpected expense, especially if this expense is a result of your nonprofit’s success with their mission. It’s also a great complement to your traditional end of year snail mail appeal and gives your current donors another way of giving. The keys to choosing a micro-donation platform: Easy set up – it should only take a few minutes to set up the campaign Ease of use for the donor – we want fast and easy Integration – it should be integrated into your email marketing platform so your new donors will be added to your email list Mobile-friendly – you need to reach your prospects where they are and they are on their phones Shareable – integration with social media is key to extending your reach and finding new donors. Supporting nonprofits make us feel good and we want to share that feeling with the world (and pat ourselves on the back at the same time). It should be no surprise that I recommend Constant Contact’s Donation Campaign for this purpose. Watch this video to see how easy it is for me to set up a campaign in my demo account. Hint: it only takes 5 minutes.       Tips for setting up the Donation Campaign: Upload a campaign image that includes some text. The platform gives the image a lot of real estate onscreen so I recommend adding some enticing text to the image. Remember to include all the pertinent text in the text block as well. Send the email to a test list of your staff to activate the campaign and use the short link to promote the mobile-friendly landing page on social media. Create a separate email campaign (using a mobile-friendly template) and link the Donate button to the short link of the donation campaign landing page.   Want a script to get you started on your first email? Download my One Page Checklist and Boilerplate Text for Your First Email. ... View more

I speak to thousands of business owners every year about online marketing and social media strategy. My goal is to make it easy for business owners and their staff to develop a marketing strategy that makes the phone ring. Through these discussions and experience with my clients, I developed a simple 3-step process to determine how to focus your online efforts. I have been presenting this process to develop a social media strategy since 2011 and it continues to work!   Before we walk through the process though, we need one thing. What is the measurable action that you want your audience to take? Some may say sales. And while that is true in the end, it is also very possible that you have a multi-step sales cycle. For my business, the first call to action with a prospect, especially one who finds me online, is to get them to subscribe to my email list. So, step one is determine your goal and write it down. We are going to drive your prospect to this first step.   Once we have that, we can move through my 3 Cs of Social Media Marketing: customer, content, and capabilities.   #1) Customer. This is by far the most important of these 3 steps. Who is your customer? What does your ideal customer profile  look like? Where do they hang out online? What are they doing when you want them to take action? If you are a retail business targeting young professionals who are out and about when you want them to take action, then mobile and online review sites are going to play a big part in your strategy. Likewise, if you are targeting Baby Boomers, Twitter is not going to be the first platform on our list. There is no right answer here as long as the platform matches your customer and where they are online.   #2) Content. What do you have to say and share? What formats will work best for this content? Can you make your information visual in the form of product images, infographics, or video content? Can you make your calls to action simple to complete? Be sure to offer value to your audience as a rule and sprinkle in your marketing messages. No more than 1 in 10 messages should be self-promotional. An easy and powerful type of content is the Customer Testimonial.   #3) Capabilities. This one is really important. Your social media and online marketing activities have to fit in with your daily workflow and personality. If you don’t like to write, I’m not going to ask you to blog. If you take pictures of your projects, let’s find a way to fit that into your strategy. If you have funny tidbits of information or daily thoughts, maybe Twitter will work for you. It is important that capabilities comes last in this list because the first two pieces are so important to reaching the right prospect. Capabilities should simply guide the execution of the strategy not help to mold the strategy. Once you decide on your capabilities, develop an editorial calendar using these templates.   I recommend you take some time now to develop a unique online strategy that fits this 3 Cs test of Customer, Content, and Capabilities. Keep it simple. Stay focused on the one measurable action you want your audience to complete and the one social media platform that makes the most sense. Measure your success and adjust accordingly.   If you'd like to see my original 5 minute presentation of this concept, check out the video at www.laurabcreative.com.   I’d love to hear about your successes. The best way to interact with me is on my Facebook page or to leave a comment below.   ... View more

Why you should stop focusing on Social Media and Tune Up Your Email Marketing Strategy   A recent study concluded that email is almost 40 times better at acquiring new customers than Facebook and Twitter (Source:  McKinsey & Company1).   That’s great but let’s dig a little deeper. Let’s look at the two platforms with equal numbers of contacts and through average engagement what you can expect for your business.   Side note: I reference many statistics in this article in case you want to dig deeper, but that is a deep dark rabbit hole you might not want to go down.   Platform 1: Facebook The Facebook page has 1,000 fans/likes/followers. Organic reach of native Facebook posts has plummeted recently and sits around 2-6% (Source: Ogilvy2). We’ll use 4% for this scenario. So when the page posts a status update only 40 people see it. If you are a Facebook page administrator, you can see the reach of your posts and get a pretty good idea of how many people you are reaching. I think you will find for most small businesses, these numbers are not far off.   The click through rate on Facebook posts by pages is about 5% (Source: Forbes3). That means that out of an audience of 1,000 fans, only 40 people are likely to see your update, and only 2 are likely to click. I really hope that landing page has a stellar conversion rate.       Platform 2: Email A business has a permission-based email list of 1,000 subscribers. We see an average open rate on a good quality list around 25%. (Source: Constant Contact4) That means that 250 subscribers will open your email. The bonus here is that the other 750 may see your name and subject line in their inbox that reminds them of your business.   Of those 250 that opened the email, we see an average click through rate of 10% (Source: Constant Contact4) or 25 people. Since the goal of marketing today is to elicit a physical, measurable response, we’ve achieved that goal with 25 click throughs compared to 2 click throughs with the Facebook post.     As with any hypothetical situation, there are plenty of variables. I encourage you to look at your recent Facebook fan engagement and recent email results. If your results are higher than my scenarios, congratulations. If your numbers are lower, make a concerted effort to improve your email marketing metrics to increase your engagement and your organization’s success.   Bonus Tip: You can benchmark your own Facebook page at Agora Pulse’s Facebook Page Barometer > http://barometer.agorapulse.com/. This will give you specific benchmarks for your page against other pages that have used this tool, currently over 11,000 pages.   References http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/marketing_sales/why_marketers_should_keep_sending_you_emails http://social.ogilvy.com/facebook-zero-considering-life-after-the-demise-of-organic-reach/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2015/05/13/why-your-organic-facebook-reach-is-still-falling-and-what-to-do-about-it/ If you’d like to see how your open and click through rates compare to others in your industry, check out http://support2.constantcontact.com/articles/FAQ/2499. We found a ton of studies all over the place on email marketing statistics, but based on this data from Constant Contact and what we see in our clients’ accounts, we’ve averaged out to the statistics mentioned above.   And if you are a Constant Contact user and want more tips like these, consider enrolling in my VIP program to gain access to my Email Marketing Workbook resource library.   ... View more

Are you struggling to reach your audience? Do you feel like you have a respectable email open rate, but your message is still not getting through?   This simple tactic takes only 2 minutes and can increase the reach of your message by an additional 30%. What is it? Resending your email to those on your list who did not open the email the first time.   I use this strategy for all my important emails. Not necessarily every email campaign I send but if I have a big event announcement or some really juicy content I’m sharing.   If you have 1000 email subscribers and you average a 25% open rate, then 250 people opened your last email. You know what else that means? 750 people did NOT open your last email.   We want to give them another opportunity to see the great content you are sharing without badgering those subscribers who did open your message. And to help increase our chances, we’ll also change the email subject line and send it 4-7 days later.   If we resend this email to those 750 people and assume a conservative 10% open rate, that is 75 more opens, and that means that 325 total subscribers saw your important message. Is that worth a few moments of your time?   Do you have a bigger list? 5,000 or 10,000 subscribers? Imagine the impact of this 30% bump in opens.   It makes sense, right? And it’s so easy to do.   I love this feature of Constant Contact. I’ve included a screenshot from within Constant Contact along with step by step instructions. You can also scroll down to link to a video tutorial on my blog.   We need an email campaign. Choose the email you want to resend. Make a copy of the email. Change the subject of the email. Let’s try something a little snappier if possible. Remember, 75% of your list did not respond to your original subject line. Send the new email to your Test list. (Sidebar: Your Test list should be a list that includes at least your email and maybe some other stakeholders like employees.). It is important to note that this email must be SENT and not remain a Draft. Finding those Did Not Opens. Go to Reports. Click on the Opens for the original email campaign. On the left, click on Did Not Open. Now you see a list of all those who did not open your email. Select all the address by choosing the checkbox at the top. Now, choose More Actions > QuickSend. You will see the names of the last five email campaigns you sent. The revised email you just sent to your Test list should be at the top, select it.  Send the email. It’s important to note that at this time, you cannot schedule this email. It will be sent immediately upon clicking Send. Alternatively, if you wanted to schedule this email you can repeat the steps above and instead of choosing QuickSend in step 2e, save the contacts to a new list that you can use to schedule the email.   Have you sent an important email message in the last few weeks? I want you to go try this now and let me know your results in the comments below.   For a short 2-minute video tutorial on this tactic within Constant Contact, head on over to my small business marketing blog post: Increase Your Email Open Rate.   And if you are a Constant Contact user and want more tips like these, consider enrolling in my VIP program to gain access to my Email Marketing Workbook resource library.   ... View more

  Why you don’t have any engagement on social media   Let me first define autoposting. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use tools such as HootSuite to schedule your posts. I’m saying you shouldn’t have a post on one social media platform, Facebook, for example, automatically post to another like Twitter. Or have the same exact update go to all of your social media platforms at the same time.   Each platform has different types of posts and differently crafted posts that work best. As well as individual style and technical factors that make it important to post each update separately by platform.   Also, you should schedule posts as often as possible natively in each platform especially when it comes to Facebook. We are seeing explosive engagement on Facebook with native video versus posting a YouTube link. Also, tagging other pages and people is not currently available outside of Facebook.   Here are four examples of why posting from one platform to another is a bad idea along with a quick solution to these problems.    #1) Facebook to Twitter I see many businesses post from Facebook to Twitter. If you find such a business, go ahead and look at their Twitter feed. Often it is difficult to figure out what the posts are about. The number of characters available on Twitter for your update is limited to 140, but you should keep your updates much shorter to allow for Retweets. Facebook posts tend to be much longer and just get cut off by Twitter with a link back to your Facebook page. Also, you are not engaging in the Twitter community using hashtags and tagging other people.   #2) Twitter to Facebook It’s rare but I also see businesses post from Twitter to Facebook. Here you are likely bringing in Twitter handles that don’t translate on Facebook and hashtags that may or may not mean the same thing on Facebook. Also, Facebook thrives on visual content. You should always be posting with a photo or video directly into Facebook.   #3) Instagram to Twitter Instagram makes it easy to post to other platforms when you publish your photo. However, when you post from Instagram to Twitter, the image does not carry over; instead it is converted to a link. So create that Instagram image and publish on Instagram, then go into Twitter or an app that posts images to Twitter and upload the photo.   Here are some more reasons not to publish from Instagram to Twitter: The hashtag conventions on Twitter and Instagram are different. The number of characters allowed on Twitter is limited. Links do not hyperlink in Instagram updates so should not be included. However, Twitter is all about links so you definitely want to include them in your updates. Are the people you are tagging on Instagram using the same handle on Twitter? They should be but if they don’t you may be tagging someone else. I do sometimes (not all the time) post from Instagram to Facebook. After publishing on Instagram, I go back to the image and choose SHARE, choose Facebook, and edit the update removing the tagging and hashtags. I most often do this when I am at an event. This can also help build your Instagram audience from Facebook because the image will have a link to your Instagram profile. The images are perfectly square which works great on Facebook especially on mobile. I tend to share a wider variety of images on Instagram so I definitely do not just post all my Instagram photos to Facebook. I pick and choose a few choice images to share to Facebook.   Please read my follow up post: Repurposing Instagram Content    #4) Anywhere to LinkedIn; LinkedIn to anywhere I never understand treating LinkedIn like a social network. LinkedIn is a business networking site. It is not a place to blast your message or share details about your vacation. Make sure you know your audience (and it will be different on each platform) and deliver the appropriate content to them.   My LinkedIn connections are my business associates. People I know and see around at local events. I have no desire to blast them with my latest promotion or event. I do occasionally share the best of the best of my content on LinkedIn. I also share business accomplishments that interest this audience. Think of LinkedIn as milestone type content. When you post on LinkedIn, use an image of the appropriate size and do not use hashtags.   The Solution: Repurposing Your Content So, now that I’ve told you what NOT to do, I want to share with you what you can do. The solution is repurposing your content across the platforms. You can use the same content, just not the same update. Here’s what it might look like if I was posting the same content to ALL the platforms discussed here:   I write the update in Notepad or another text editor. I create all the appropriate sized images. 2015 Social Media Image Size Cheat Sheet I copy and paste the post in Facebook and schedule for later in the afternoon with an image or video. I will also tag any other appropriate Facebook pages. I copy and paste the post in HootSuite for Twitter. I will likely take the same update and rewrite it three different ways using appropriate hashtags (one or two) and maybe tagging a partner or the subject of the post. I would upload an image for one or two of these posts and schedule them out at various times based on when my Twitter audience is online. I craft an image and update for Instagram and post. Keep in mind that Instagram (and Pinterest) updates tend to have more shelf life so write them with that in mind. Also, find up to 11 appropriate hashtags that relate to the post and your audience. One or two of them can just be fun. This is social media, right? Copy and paste the original update in LinkedIn and rewrite to my business contacts – how is it important to them? Maybe if I am promoting an event, I’ll ask them whom they might know who can benefit from the topic instead of just blasting the registration page. I would also include an image here and post during normal working hours. LinkedIn is also not as immediate as Facebook or Twitter so make sure you give some time for your audience to act. Mix these updates with other content so if I follow you on multiple platforms, I don’t just see “here’s my event”, “here’s my event”, “here’s my event” everywhere.   I hope you find that spending this small amount of additional time to craft your posts appropriately for each platform will exponentially increase your engagement across your social media platforms and you will start to get a better feel for what works on each platform for your particular audience.   Remember to choose the one platform that makes the most sense for your ideal customer profile and start there.   If you want to learn about more effective and timesaving tips for your social media, join me for my next free webinar. ... View more

  Let me start by saying what I tell all my clients. It is more important to have 100 fans/subscribers/followers who love you then 5,000 who are moderately acquainted with you.   On the surface, boosting a post seems like a good thing: You will reach a larger audience. Facebook is helping you. It only costs $5. I mean who wouldn’t pay $5 to reach 20-52,000 people?  The problem is that if that exposure doesn’t lead people into your funnel to business then you are not only wasting the $5 but you are hurting your own organically grown Facebook engagement.   There is a better way. It’s called Custom and Lookalike Audiences. We are going to base this on your existing email list but you can actually create Custom and Lookalike Audiences from your existing fans (and their friends), customer database, LinkedIn connections, or from people who have visited your website.   Here we go. First, you need to upload your email list to Facebook. Just the email addresses. Don’t worry Facebook isn’t going to spam your list. Facebook isn’t after your list. I mean, they are Facebook. They have a bit of the market cornered already. Uploading your email list creates a Custom Audience that says “these are my people”. Facebook matches the email addresses up to their users with the same email addresses. What can you do with this information? You can advertise to just those people – your email subscribers who do not like your page on Facebook. Encourage them to like your page so that they can automatically receive your special offers and exclusive content. This is a great strategy to form deeper relationships with your existing audience. You can find people like those people. When you boost a post, you can choose targeting like age and location. But let’s be honest, you are just guessing really. However, Facebook knows everything about its users. Think about that for a moment. Facebook knows EVERYTHING – your birthday, your friends, where you work, where you went to school, the keywords in your profile, whom you interact with, which pages you like, EVERYTHING. All of your fans may share interests like wine and Scandal. You have no way of knowing that, but Facebook does. When you create a custom audience, you say, “these are my people”. When you create a Lookalike Audience, you say “find more people like my people”. Facebook is not going to tell you what those factors are. I am not sure a human could tell you. It’s an algorithm, but it’s a very accurate algorithm. You can target that group of people based on all of the broad targeting factors available like gender, age, location, language, relationship status, and pages they like. Pause. Read that again. Pages they like. Boom. Do you ever wonder how you get that ad for the Dallas Cowboys t-shirt for a woman living in Virginia? Now you know. Now, let’s take this planned advertising strategy where we are targeting people who might actually be interested in our products/services and put those leads into an online sales funnel that will deliver value over time. If you want to learn more, join me on an upcoming webinar.   For more marketing insights into Facebook advertising, visit laurabcreative.com. For a limited time, there is a special free 11-part video course on Facebook advertising. ... View more

  Originally published in 2015, this post has been updated at:  2018 Super Bowl Ads .   Super Bowl may be the one time in American TV viewing throughout the year when the public looks forward to the advertisements. Super Bowl ads have fast become part of the Super Bowl Sunday experience as much as the game, the snacks, and the halftime show. In fact, in lieu of a wardrobe malfunction or a bad 2nd down call on the 1 yard line with 26 seconds left to play, the ads are often the most talked about part of the game, especially if you are a fan of any of the 30 NFL teams that were also at home watching the game. Super Bowl ads may be entertaining, but they are bad marketing examples, especially for small business owners.   1. No call to action. Marketing today especially is about eliciting a measurable response. With limited time and resources, small businesses cannot waste any of them on branding. They need to have a call to action that gets prospects in their sales funnel. What is that first step in your sales cycle? What do you want your prospects to do once they find you? Is it subscribing to your email list? Filling out a form on your website? Calling for an appointment? This needs to be very clear in all your marketing. Unfortunately, most Super Bowl ads, do not have a call to action or more specifically a call to action that leads prospects down the path to purchase. The exception this year may be McDonald’s. McDonald's featured an endearing ad with a clear call to action. 2. No value to the customer. Super Bowl ads are more about being cute and getting talked about than delivering value to the customer. As a small business, you cannot afford to be cute and not make it clear to your customers what you do. As a society, our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter; the most effective marketing is to be direct about whom you serve and how you can help them. A good example from this year’s Super Bowl ads is Weathertech. There's no question what Weathertech does. This is a good clear message. 3. No increase in sales. Often the most-loved ads do not improve the sales. Perhaps, the most-loved and favorite Super Bowl ad of all time featuring Mean Joe Greene was pulled after a few months by Coca-Cola because sales did not increase. Unfortunately, this beloved ad did not help Coke sales. Small businesses need to make sure there is a positive Return on Investment for every dollar spent marketing. Winning the ads on Super Bowl Sunday does not equate to winning sales. A smart small business owner should not be concerned with winning ad competitions, but rather sales competitions. So by all means, enjoy the ads and the memes that spring from them. You can view them all here. However, please do NOT model your marketing after Super Bowl ads. Model your marketing with a good solid strategy that focuses on eliciting a measurable response. Not sure where to start? Read about the 10 Marketing Must Haves for Every Business Owner. ... View more

  Start the New Year on the right foot with this quick online snapshot of your business. Even if you do not get most of your customers through online channels, you can be sure that they all at least check you out there. 1. Private Browsing. Since you always look at your business pages and profiles from your computer, it makes sense to do this entire process by browsing anonymously. Go to the menu of your favorite browser and choose the appropriate window: Internet Explorer (InPrivate browsing); Chrome (Incognito window); Firefox (Private window); Safari (Private window). 2. Call to Action. Now, visit your website. - What’s the first thing that jumps out at you? Is it your main call to action - whether that is signing up for your email list, filling out a form, or calling you? - if it is a form, then go ahead and fill it out. Read the Thank You page. Review the email you receive or welcome email if you are joining a list. Is everything accurate and up to date? Did everything go smoothly? Did you, as the site owner, receive the completed form or was your email added to your list? In short, did it work? - if it is to call you, then go ahead and double check your voice mail message. Is it conveying the information a caller would need or do you still have that vacation message turned on? 3. Social Media links. Check your social media links on your site. It seems like an obvious thing, but more often than not, when I look at a potential client’s website, there is at least one social media link that is incorrect. - are you only linking to the social media sites where you are active? Please do. If your web developer set up a Twitter account that you have never used, then you need to get that link off your website. You are sending potential customers off your site. - are those social media profiles complete? If not, then go ahead and make an appointment in your calendar to update each one of them in the next week or so. Also, make sure that your social media handles are consistent across all sites. - is that all important call to action prominent on these sites? Is it obvious to a visitor? 4. Mobile-friendly. Now open your website on your mobile phone. Does it look good? Is the call to action prominent and easy to complete? Think about your audience. What are they looking for if they are searching you from their mobile phone? It is likely that your phone number and address should be prominent. If you are not a retail location, maybe your contact form should pop up instead of your address.   If you are considering a mobile app for your business, please read To App or Not To App first. 5. Sharability. Back to your website, is your content sharable? This is, I think, the most overlooked use of social media - letting your audience share your content to their networks. It not only spreads your name and content, but it gives you an eye into what social networks your audience prefers. 6. 404 Error page. Enter a page on your site that doesn’t exist to see what your error page looks like. This is a huge opportunity to catch visitors who may have followed an old link from a search engine or just mistyped a link. Present a call to action and send them back to your home page. 7. Search yourself. This item is last on the list, because it can lead you down the rabbit hole of the Internet. So I would first set a timer, maybe 15 minutes, then search yourself. Start with Google, but don’t forget Bing, Yahoo!, and the other top search engines. - Search the three key terms you think a potential customer would use to find you. Often this is a combination of “service” + “location” for example, “auto service reston” - If you are a solopreneur or have a well-known owner, search that name as well. - Lastly, search your company name. You should come up first. If you don’t find your business, then it’s time to schedule some time on your calendar to find out why. I hope by doing the research and maintenance of this quick online marketing audit, you have now set up your online presence to give you your best year ever!   If you enjoyed this article, please share with your circles:  Start the New Year on the right foot with this quick online snapshot of your business   ... View more

Can you add a field under the Event URL where the short link will show up? It's annoying that I have to go into Simple Share for every event to copy the short link when it should be more visible.   Thank you ... View more