Email marketing is alive and thriving more than ever. 80% of marketing professionals name email as the top driving factor of customer acquisition and customer retention. And it’s got a great ROI: For every $1 spent on email, you can expect an average of $38 in return. It doesn’t matter if you’re growing your first email list from scratch or adding new subscribers to your existing list, you need be sending out welcome emails. At their simplest, welcome emails confirm that a new subscriber was added to your list. If you’re only using this message for that purpose, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to make money. Compared to other promotional emails, welcome messages generate an average of 320% more revenue. Furthermore, customers who buy products from email campaigns spend 138% more than customers who haven’t subscribed to your list. Stop missing out on your opportunity to make money with welcome emails. This article will tell what you need to do to drive sales directly with these campaigns. Use a double opt-in strategyLots of businesses use a single opt-in strategy. With this method, a new subscriber submits their email address and automatically gets added to your list. That’s it. But there are a few problems with this method. If you’re not using a double opt-in, it’s possible that customers think they signed up for your emails but actually didn’t. Maybe they misspelled their email address — they’ll never know. On the flip side, a new subscriber could also sign up by mistake, thinking that they’re submitting the email address for another reason. In this case, you’re going to be emailing people who don’t want to receive your promotional content, and not emailing the people who do want to receive it. The double opt-in strategy eliminates these problems. That’s why the majority of welcome emails are double opt-in. Without a double opt-in strategy, you’ll also end up with fake email addresses and spam accounts on your list. This will throw off your metrics. A huge list of email subscribers won’t do you any good if they aren’t qualified leads who are ready to buy. When you force new subscribers to confirm their subscription to your email list, it increases their lead score. Sure, it’s an extra step, and you may lose some subscribers as a result. However, the people who follow through with the double opt-in genuinely want to receive your promotional content. As a result, it’s much more likely that they’re willing to spend money. It’s also worth noting that double opt-in messages have higher unique open rates than single opt-in campaigns. We already talked about the fact that welcome emails have higher open rates than other types of emails. By using a double opt-in strategy, you can increase those open rates even more. Opening the email is the first step in subscribers completing the end-goal action: making a purchase. Send welcome emails immediatelyThe timing of your welcome message is crucial. As soon as someone signs up, the welcome email needs to be sent. Some companies wait and batch out all of their welcome emails for the week at the same time, but that’s not as effective. Here’s why: Your new subscriber was just on your website and signed up to receive your email content because of some benefit that you’re offering, so your brand is fresh on their mind. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to make a sale. This new subscriber is definitely more likely to buy something if the message is sent in real-time. Just look at transaction rates for real-time welcomes compared to batched emails. Furthermore, real-time welcome emails have an 88% open rate compared to just 53% of bulk welcome emails. Though 29% of people click on the CTA of welcome emails that are sent immediately, only 12% of subscribers click on CTAs that are sent in bulk welcomes. If you’re not sending a welcome email within seconds of the person subscribing, you’re lowering the chances of that customer making a purchase. Thank your new subscribersBy thanking your customers for signing up to receive promotional content from your company, it shows that you appreciate them. Here’s an example of this strategy used by Kate Spade. Saying thank you is just good manners. Even though they haven’t bought something yet, you can still thank them for having enough interest in your brand to subscribe to your email list. Saying thank you can be more beneficial than you think. That’s why you need to nurture your leads with thank you pages. Take this same strategy and apply it to your welcome email. Set a precedent for relevant contentYour welcome emails should be a good indication of what consumers can expect from you moving forward. Tell your customers how often they’ll get emails from you, and what kind of messages they’ll be receiving. Make sure you follow through with that promise. For example, if someone signs up for a monthly newsletter, don’t send them an email every day. That’s not what they asked for. In fact, too many irrelevant emails from brands is the top reason why people unsubscribe from email lists. The last thing you want to do is bother a new subscriber with too many messages. You just went through all of the trouble and effort to get them to sign up in the first place. All of that hard work goes out the window if they unsubscribe. To learn more, here’s how to get more email subscribers without annoying your customers. Start a drip campaignWelcome emails should be the first message of a drip campaign, which is a series of emails that entice an action. Ultimately, you want your subscribers to buy. Drip campaigns nurture your leads by sending them timely information. As soon as someone signs up, you can have them automatically entered into a drip cycle. After the welcome email, they’ll receive subsequent emails spaced out over the coming weeks, or however you set it up. Here’s an example path of what a drip campaign will look like: The great part about a drip campaign is that the customer doesn’t need to buy something right away in order for the message to be effective. While you definitely want to create an actionable drip campaign, it’s not the end of the world if that first message doesn’t result in a conversion. You can still plant the seed for a future purchase. After all, this new subscriber just signed up to receive your emails. Depending on the circumstances, they may not be familiar with your brand, products, and services just yet. But as these subscribers continue to receive subsequent messages throughout the drip campaign, it will increase the chances that they’ll buy something down the road. Provide valuable informationTo get the most out of your email campaigns, you need to understand why people are signing up in the first place. It’s a common misconception that people only join email lists to get a discount. While that’s definitely a motivating factor, there are other reasons why people sign up for promotional content from your brand. Your welcome letter needs to provide all of this to be most effective. As you can see, receiving a special offer or a gift ranked third on this list. The majority of people say they subscribe to newsletters to learn more about topics and stay up to date on new content. It’s still worth giving a discount to new subscribers, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be your top priority. You can also keep them engaged by giving a new subscriber an added benefit that they wouldn’t have received if they didn’t sign up for emails. Talk about new or exclusive product releases. Give them an opportunity to create an account to benefit from a more personalized customer experience. Offer an incentive to buyEven though it isn’t first on the list of reasons, getting a gift or something in return is still one of the top three reasons why people sign up for emails. And, offering a discount is a great way to get people to sign up for emails in the first place. Let’s look at an example from Freemans: By signing up for emails, this welcome message gives the new subscriber 10% off of their purchase. In addition to providing a discount, this message thanks the new subscriber for signing up. It’s personalized with her name. It also gives a sense of inside information with phrases like, “Be the first to hear” and “Here’s all you need to know.” All of these tactics used in one message will definitely increase the chances that a customer will make a purchase. Send personalized contentPeople don’t want to feel like they are just a number on your list, when in reality, that may actually be the case. If you’re sending out generic welcome emails with opening lines like “Dear Sir or Madam,” it’s not going to convey the personalized touch that you want to offer. Start simple by personalizing the subject line. Getting your new subscribers to open your message is half of the battle. Obviously, nobody is going to buy anything if the message goes unopened. Good news: personalized subject lines have higher open rates. However, opening the message alone won’t automatically translate to a sale. You need people to engage with your messages as well. The best way to do this is by providing interactive content. For example, adding a video to your welcome email can increase clicks by 300%. It’s also worth noting that 64% of people are more likely to buy something online after watching a video about a product. By combining engaging content with a personalized message, your welcome emails will have a greater chance of driving sales. Encourage customer referralsWelcome emails can be used to get even more people to subscribe to your list. In order to do this effectively, you need to implement a customer referral program that drives sales. Give your new subscribers a reason to invite their friends and family to sign up as well. Take a look at how Blinq does this in their welcome email: This refer-a-friend program offers an incentive to the current subscriber as well as any new people who sign up. Both receive a $10 credit. The more people who join as a result of the referral, the more rewards the new subscriber gets. This will also increase their chances of buying. Here’s something else to consider, if someone who gets referred by a new customer ends up signing up for emails as well, they’ll also receive the same welcome message. As a result, it will increase the chances that they’ll refer new customers too. This strategy encourages business growth without much work on your end. Plus, consumers are four times more likely to buy something if they are referred by a friend. ConclusionYour company needs to prioritize its email marketing strategy. But you don’t need to wait months to encourage new subscribers to make a purchase. You should be trying to drive sales right away with your welcome emails.
By applying these strategies to your welcome emails, you’ll be able to generate more sales from new subscribers. How is your brand leveraging welcome messages to drive sales? via Quick Sprout http://www.quicksprout.com/2018/12/26/how-to-generate-sales-with-welcome-emails/
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Every business needs to strive for growth. This isn’t a secret. However, many business owners hear growth and they jump to customer acquisition strategies, new product launches, and ways to increase their conversion rates. All of these tactics are great for your company growth. But, they’re not the only way to boost revenue and grow your business. You can also grow when you make more money with your existing products, services, and conversion rates simply by increasing your average order value. Are you currently tracking this metric? It’s easy to calculate with this formula. How to calculate your Average Order Value (AOV)In order to increase your AOV, you need to encourage your customers to spend more in each transaction. Sounds great in theory. We’ll walk you through how to actually accomplish it. There are tons of ways to get your current customers to spend more each time they shop. One of the best methods for increasing AOV is with product bundling. This marketing tactic employs a combination of upsells, cross-sells, and discounts. It also helps you generate more profit by focusing on your pricing strategy. Basically, the psychology behind product bundling entices people to spend more with every transaction simply by buying more things at once. As a result, your average order value will rise. Whether you sell products or services, your company can benefit from a product bundling strategy. But it’s not as simple as lumping any two or three random items together. In fact, that can do more harm than good. If you’ve never done this before it can be a bit of a challenge to determine which products should be bundled together and how to showcase those options to your customers. So use this guide as a blueprint for increasing your average order value. Here’s what you need to know. Don’t pair inexpensive items with premium products or servicesThis is the most common mistake we see when businesses attempt a product bundling strategy for the first time. It makes sense: they’re trying to maximize their profits and someone is buying something cheap, why not try to get them to buy something that’s expensive too. Product bundling doesn’t mean you should just throw any two or three items together and assume your customers will pay more for them. Put yourself into the mind of the consumer for a minute here. For example, let’s say you’re shopping for a new car and your price range is roughly $20,000. If the dealer throws in a free t-shirt and a baseball cap with the purchase of a vehicle, is it going to entice you to buy the car? Or, on the flip side, let’s say you’re shopping for a t-shirt and a baseball cap with your favorite car company logo on them. Together the two cost about $40. But then, at checkout it’s suggested you buy a car, too. This brings your total to $20,040. Do you do it? Two items that don’t belong together are not a product bundle. This is especially true if one item is significantly cheaper than the other. But so many brands think two items = a bundle, and it ends up hurting them. Instead of encouraging your customer to buy more things, a grouping like this actually confuses their initial purchase. Let’s take a closer look. There’s a study from the Journal of Consumer Research on consumer perception and product bundling called The Presenter’s Paradox. Here’s what happened. They gave people two options of how to bundle products for prospective customers. The first option was an iPod Touch bundled with a cover. The second option was an iPod Touch bundled with a cover and a free song download. Nearly everyone (92%) chose the second option, which included the free download. However, the study concluded that consumers were willing to pay more money for the first bundle, without the song download. Why? The benefit and cost of that download aren’t enough to enhance the perceived value of the bundle. In fact, the cheaper item — One song? What am I going to do with one song? — lowers the perceived value of the total package. That’s not what we want to do. Rather than diminish the perceived value of a bundle, we want to increase it. You can charge more for your products by enhancing the perceived value. A cheap add-on paired with a premium product makes the whole bundle feel less appealing to the consumer. This Harvard Business Review article discusses a set of similar studies that had the same results. The study showed that consumers were more likely to pay $2,299 for a home gym than they were to pay that very same amount for the same gym was bundled with a workout DVD. Again, that’s because a DVD doesn’t enhance the perceived value. It actually has the opposite effect and lowers that value. So if you’re currently using a strategy like this, it could be hurting your average order value as opposed to helping you out. You can fix this quickly and easily. This guide will also you examples of the right types of products and services to bundle. Emphasize savingsOffering a discount is a great way to make your product bundles more appealing. It’s a very simple strategy. If a customer buys two or more items together, their total purchase will be cheaper than if they bought each one individually. However, you need to make it obvious that they are saving money. So tell them exactly how much money they can save by buying the bundle. Here’s a great example of this from Lowe’s. The product bundle here is a washing machine and a dryer. If customers buy the pair together, they can save $340. The customer might think, That’s getting close to the price as of either the washer or dryer alone! However, people won’t know how good of a deal they’re getting if you don’t tell them. You shouldn’t be making your customers do the math manually or hunt through your prices. Make it obvious and plaster the savings on your website, just like the example above. In this instance, by bundling the savings together, it’s much more entcicing. The customer isn’t simply saving $170 on each, which doesn’t seem like that much. They’re saving $340, which has a lot more wow factor. As a result, they will be more likely to buy these together to get the savings. Bundle items commonly purchased togetherRemember the hypothetical scenario earlier: the car bundled with a t-shirt and hat? Those items are not commonly purchased at the same time, and that’s another reason why that bundling strategy won’t work. You need to figure out what items people will also need when they buy something specific. Refer back to our last example from Lowe’s. If a customer is in the market for a washing machine, there’s a good chance they also need a dryer. Bundling those two items together is a winning strategy. This makes much more sense than bundling a dryer with a dishwasher. Sure, they are both home appliances, but they are completely unrelated to each other. If your company sells shampoo, you can bundle it with conditioner. If you’re selling a mattress, you can bundle it with a box spring and frame. These are all products that go hand in hand. Check out this example from AT&T. It’s extremely common for people to purchase TV, Internet, and phone services from the same provider. The price bundling strategy here is a well-oiled machine. Just look at the three options above to see what I’m referring to. It’s $60 per month for just TV. But when you bundle TV and internet together, it’s only $15 more. This type of product bundle increases the perceived value: Customers are getting something that would normally cost $110, if purchased separately, for $75. That’s a great deal. This is much better than offering a TV package with free remote batteries, or something cheap that doesn’t add value or entice people to buy. By doing this, AT&T can increase their order value by 25%. Think about that for a second here. If your company does $1 million in sales annually, you can make an extra $250,000 per year just by increasing the AOV from $60 to $75. AT&T takes this one step further by adding another bundle option, which includes home phone services. By getting customers to buy this bundle instead of TV alone, the order value is 58% higher. Use anchor pricingAnchor pricing is another way to show value in your product bundles. The idea behind this methodology is that you have different prices on your website that establish a perceived value in the mind of your customers. It’s an age-old strategy. How do you sell a $500 watch? Put it next to watch that costs $1,300. The $1,300 item will serve as the anchor, which makes the $500 product seem like a much better deal. Let’s take a closer look at AT&T’s third option — adding a home phone for an additional $19.99 a month. How many people do you imagine want a phone line? This option may be less about increasing the order value and giving another point of comparison to make the middle option more interesting. Because the $75 package isn’t the most expensive package, the price point seems more reasonable. The $60 TV package also serves as an anchor. It sets the value of TV alone, so all of the product bundles after it seem like a great deal based on the customer perception of the one product. You can use this same strategy with your product bundles by adding more expensive bundles, or selling the solo products at a higher price than when they’re bundled. It doesn’t matter if your customers don’t purchase the higher priced packages. They can serve as anchors to make the rest of the options more appealing. Recommend products to your customersShow your customers products that will enhance the item that they’ve already added to their cart. Depending on the circumstances, the customer may not even realize that you sell those additional products or remember that they need to buy them until you do this. Amazon uses this strategy better than anyone else. If you’re browsing for razors on their platform, Amazon will show you which products are frequently bought with those razors: shaving cream and blade refills. The customer will realize that they need these items to complement what they were initially shopping for. Instead of having to go back and browse for these products, Amazon has a button that makes it easy to add all three items to the shopping cart. You can get more conversions by optimizing your checkout process. Click to add and Amazon has increased the order value with product recommendations. Here’s the kicker: none of the products are even discounted. You don’t necessarily need to offer sales or drastically slash your prices to have an effective bundling strategy. Just by showcasing and recommending similar items that add value to the consumer, you can increase your AOV. Offer volume discountsBut, you can also offer discounts. In addition to bundling products with other items, you can bundle the same product or service with itself. Amazon does this with Subscribe & Save. It gives your customers a reason to buy more, order-value wise, than what they were going to buy — and to make that next repeat purchase from you, instead of wherever else they would be in the future. Just like the 5% subscription discount on Amazon, as the volume increases, the price per item decreases. But your average order value will still rise. Here’s a perfect example from Todo Bien Tours. This company provides a service: bus tours. The price per ticket for their tours varies by the number of tickets sold at once. If you buy two tickets, they will cost $84.15 each, so the total transaction will be $168.30. But, groups of ten pay $69.30 per ticket. While the price per item is less, the total transaction ends up being $630. That’s more than a 400% increase in order value. Notice how their pricing structure is set up on the website.The chart displays the percent discount based on the number of tickets purchased as well as the monetary value saved per ticket. This is an example of one of our previous points: emphasizing savings. By combining this strategy with volume discounts, Todo Bien Tours can benefit from higher average order values. Allow customers to create custom bundlesStudies show that 80% of customers are more likely to buy something if they are offered a personalized experience. Furthermore, 68% of customers will pay more for this type of experience. That’s why customization can highly benefit your bundling strategy. It’s a great way to increase your average order value. Rather than telling your customers which products you’re bundling, let them decide for themselves. Look at how Texas Beard Company accomplishes this. By purchasing the bag, their customers can benefit from discounted prices on other products. The customized bundle makes it more enticing for people to buy. Here’s why. Let’s say that the bundle was preset with a bag, beard balm, mustache scissors, and beard brush, but the customer already owns a pair of mustache scissors. For that person, the bundle isn’t enticing. They don’t need one of the products offered, so it’s not a good value for them. This goes back to perceived value. Though the mustache scissors have a literal value, the value to that customer is $0, so the entire perceived value of the package is lowered. Customized options make the bundle so much more enticing. Find a way to implement this strategy for your business as well. It can work regardless of if you’re offering products or services. ConclusionOne of the easiest ways to grow your company is to increase your average order value. That’s because you don’t need new products, new customers, or higher conversion rates to accomplish this. All you need to do is find ways to get your customers to spend more money each time they shop:
If you follow these strategies, you’ll be able to increase your AOV. What types of product bundles is your business offering to increase the average order values on your website? via Quick Sprout http://www.quicksprout.com/2018/12/26/how-to-increase-average-order-values-with-product-bundling/ Traditional marketing is slowly becoming obsolete. Brands need to prioritize digital marketing strategies to stay relevant and successful in 2019. To approach this properly, you’ll need to start producing more video content. When it comes to video, YouTube is king. The platform has more than 1.9 billion monthly active users, and 180 million hours of video content is consumed there every day. Furthermore, 48% of people named YouTube as their favorite online video provider. It’s ranked first over Netflix, Facebook, and Hulu, which got 29%, 10%, and 7% of votes, respectively. YouTube isn’t just the favorite; it’s more popular than the other three networks combined. If you think that’s impressive, wait until you hear this: YouTube is the number two ranked website in the world, second only to Google, according to Alexa rankings. The reason why YouTube is great for marketers is because its content is easy to repurpose across multiple platforms. Once you add a video to your YouTube channel, it’s easy to share it on other social media sites, send it to your email subscribers, and add it to your website. I’ve identified the top ten tips to enhance your YouTube videos in 2019. Use this list as a reference to help you produce better content. 1. Share links that start playback at a specific timeOnce videos are uploaded to YouTube, you can share them on other platforms. But there are instances when you’ll want to share only a portion of your video. For example, maybe you’re discussing a specific topic in a social media post. You realize that you’ve already covered this in a YouTube video. However, the video is five minutes long. The content that’s relevant to your post doesn’t get addressed until the three-minute mark. No problem. Just click on the share link to get started. (This is how you would normally share any video on YouTube.) By default, the video will play from the beginning, as expected. You have the option to change this by using the options that pop up after you click on the share button. Here’s what it looks like: At the bottom of this menu, check the “Start at” box, and type the time mark at which you want the video to start playing. (Alternatively, you can pause the video before you click on the share button. The timer will automatically be set at that point. You still need to check the box for it to work.) Once this feature is enabled, the URL’s share link changes. As you can see, the link in the image above ends with “t=158.” This link will start playing the video 158 seconds in, which is the 2:38 mark. 2. Add a transcriptAdding a transcript will make it easier for users to find your videos and your channel through YouTube as well as Google searches. By default, YouTube will automatically generate a transcript for all your videos once they are uploaded. You just need to make sure you haven’t hidden this option from your audience. (You have the ability to edit your transcripts as well, so review them to catch any errors.) YouTube also provides a feature for you to manually type your own transcripts as you play the video. Here’s an example of what a final transcript looks like once a video is uploaded: In some instances, you may want a video or audio file transcribed for other purposes. For example, maybe you have a recording of a seminar you recently spoke at or of an important conference call. Now, you want to refer to the video to help you write a blog post. It’s much easier to use a transcript instead of constantly having to pause, fast forward, and rewind a video to catch your speech. Upload that content to YouTube, and get a free transcript of it. You don’t have to share or publish the video on your channel if you want to keep it private. You’ll still be able to get the content transcribed free. 3. Create a GIF with any YouTube URLGIFs are one of the top visual elements you can use to improve your marketing strategy. Rather than using GIFs from a library everyone has access to, you can create a GIF from a YouTube video. You have the option to use either your own videos or videos from other channels. This is very easy to do. First, find the YouTube video with the clip you want to use. Next, insert the word “gif” after the www. The URL will go from www.youtube.com/watch to www.gifyoutube.com/watch. After you change the URL, you’ll automatically get redirected to gifs.com. The video will be ready to edit and turn into a GIF. Here’s what the screen will look like:
Once you create your GIF, download it, and share it on your other marketing channels. 4. Organize your videos with playlistsIf you have lots of videos uploaded to your YouTube channel, playlists are the best way to keep them organized. When a user navigates to your channel, they will have the option to watch different playlists that have similar videos grouped together. Here’s an example from the Food Wishes page: As you can see, the videos are organized by different types of recipes based on holidays and other events, e.g.:
It will be much easier for viewers to find what they’re looking for here. YouTube also allows you to collaborate on your playlists with a friend. From your playlist settings, navigate to the “Collaborate” tab. Here’s what it looks like: Once you add a collaborator, this user will be able to add videos to the playlist. This can be a useful way to manage your relationships with social influencers—simply have an influencer upload content directly to your channel through a playlist. 5. Create a custom URLYou want to make sure your business has a custom URL on YouTube. You won’t get this by default. If you have a new YouTube channel, you won’t be able to create a custom URL right away. These are the requirements:
Once you hit these marks, you’ll be eligible to get a custom URL. You can find this option within your account settings. Just navigate to the Advanced menu: Before you claim your custom URL, make sure you think it through clearly: you won’t have the option to change it once it gets approved. 6. Add an actionable end screenWhat do you want a viewer to do when they finish watching one of your videos? If you want the user to keep watching more videos or visit your website, you can add these CTAs to an end screen. From your video manager page, click the “Edit” button for the video you want to change. Then find the “End screen & Annotations” link from the drop-down menu: A pop up will appear. Depending on your marketing goals, you can add one or more of these elements to your end page: 7. Use enhancements to edit videosYou might already be using some third-party software to edit videos before you upload them to your channel. (Editing is a great way to create killer video promotions to increase engagement.) But if you don’t need to do anything elaborate, you can take advantage of the YouTube enhancements feature. This allows you to edit directly on the platform. The enhancements feature lets you add or change music and audio, apply filters, trim sections out of your video, and blur portions of it. You can even edit content after a video has already been uploaded to your channel. However, unless you are part of the YouTube partner program, you might not be able to make all the changes to videos with more than 100,000 views. You’ll always have the option to blur faces, even if your video has more than 100,000 views and you’re not part of the partner program. YouTube allows this to help protect the identity of people in your video. 8. Broadcast live streamsHas your business jumped on the live video bandwagon? If not, it’s time for you to hop on board. That’s because 82% of people say they prefer live videos over social media posts from business profiles. Furthermore, 80% of people say they would rather watch live video content than read blog posts about a topic. Believe it or not, consumers actually prefer YouTube live streams over Facebook Live. YouTube allows you to go live from your desktop computer or mobile device. You can keep an archive of your live streams that were added to your YouTube channel so people can watch the content even after the stream is over. But you can disable this feature if you want. Want to grow your audience even more? Consider this: 87% of people said they would watch more live videos if they contained behind the scenes content. 8. Upload 360-degree videosWe now know that 360-degree videos increase engagement rates. These videos have a 14% higher ROI than regular videos. They also have a 46% higher completion rate than traditional videos. This is the type of content people want to see with 360-degree videos. When it comes to a 360-degree video, 98% of consumers living in the United States say they think it is more exciting than any other type of video. And 90% of people believe content will be improved if it can be viewed as a 360-degree video instead of a traditional format. Having a 360-degree video increases the chances that viewers will interact with it by 66%. What’s even more impressive is that 70% of marketers believe that adding 360-degree video content has helped improve their businesses. 9. Use Google Trends to find popular search termsHow do you know what type of content you should upload to YouTube? Try searching for keywords related to your company on Google Trends. This will show you the popularity of a search term over time and tell you whether you should be creating content on that subject. Here’s what “content marketing” looks like on Google Trends: As you can see, this is the interest in the term over time in web searches. You can’t assume it’s the same on YouTube. Click on the menu, and select “YouTube Search.” As you can see, the trends are different. This free Google tool will enhance your marketing strategy. You can also use it to help you create titles and descriptions that are search-friendly on YouTube. 10. Run ads on YouTubeYouTube is owned by Google. This means you can set up YouTube ads through your Google Ads account. You’ll have the option to do the following:
This is very easy to do, especially if you’re already using Google Ads for other purposes. Here are the different formats you can choose from to advertise on YouTube: The type of ad you select will impact the price you pay. It’s worth noting that 51% of marketers in the United States advertise on YouTube and 52% of brands plan to increase their advertising budgets on the platform. (There is a good chance that at least half of your competitors are already advertising on YouTube. Get on it!) ConclusionBy the year 2020, 80% of Internet traffic will come from videos. That means you need to keep up with the times and produce video content in 2019. YouTube is the best place to upload your videos. From there, you’ll be able to distribute the content on other channels as well. But you have to be doing more than simply uploading videos and leaving them there with no further action. You need your videos to have an edge to be successful. These tips and tricks will definitely bring your content to the next level. What type of video content is your brand adding to your YouTube channel? via Quick Sprout http://www.quicksprout.com/2018/12/18/10-tips-and-tricks-to-improve-your-youtube-content-in-2019/ I write a ton of blog posts. By the end of 2018, I’ll have published over 150 posts on Quick Sprout alone. Once you factor in the posts on my other websites and my guest posts, that number roughly doubles. People ask me all the time how I manage to produce such a large amount of quality content. With all my in-depth and informative guides backed up with good research, people assume it takes me 10 hours to write one post. That’s not the case. It takes me significantly less than half of that time to do so. Blogging is like anything else. The more you do something, the better you get at it. That said, there is definitely a formula behind producing effective blog content. As a business owner, you recognize the benefits of blogging in terms of SEO, driving traffic to your website, and increasing conversions. This graph clearly shows there is a direct correlation between publishing frequency and website traffic. That’s why you can scale lead generation through blogging. You know you want to publish more content. But there are only so many hours in the day, and you have a business to run. It’s a common problem I see in my consulting work. As a result, businesses usually resort to one of two solutions. They either don’t blog as often as they should be, or they rush through writing to meet a certain benchmark. But neither of these approaches are effective. You need to learn how to write more posts faster without sacrificing the quality of your work. Use this guide as a blueprint for producing quality content for your blogs. Here’s what you need to do. Have your blog topics readyWhen you sit down to write a post, you shouldn’t be asking yourself what you’ll be writing about that day. This is not an efficient use of your time. I like to have lists of topics ready for me to choose from. Spend 30 minutes to an hour once a month coming up with a long list of titles, depending on your publishing frequency. I usually have lists with 20 or 30 topics at a minimum. Once I start running low, I go through this process again. Coming up with this many subjects is easier than you think. I recommend looking at some of your competitors’ sites to see what they’re blogging about. You can use their posts as an inspiration for your own. You’ll have a big advantage here. Since their content is already published, you can make your posts even better and more informative than theirs. Take advantage of online tools that will help you come up with new titles to write about, such as the blog ideas generator from HubSpot: Write posts that tell a story about a personal experience. Look through comments on social media and your previously published posts for inspiration for new ones. Turn other content you’ve already created into a post. Here are some examples of content you can repurpose:
There are tons of opportunities here. If you’re having trouble coming up with a list of blog topics, refer to my guide on the best ways to come up with new content ideas. When you do this work ahead of time, you’ll make your writing process much easier. Rather than wasting 15 minutes on brainstorming, you can pull a topic from your list and get straight to work. Always start with an outlineStarting to write with a blank page, trying to go from beginning to end without a plan, will hurt your quality and productivity. All too often I see new writers skip the outline process because they think it’s extra work. But the outline will save you time in the long run. Your outline will give you an idea of the flow of your post. At a minimum, you should have all your subheaders determined with some notes for each section. But you don’t have to stop there. The more detailed your outline is, the faster you’ll be able to write. I like to jot down my thoughts in short bullet points for each section. I can expand on those notes when I’m writing the final copy. Outlining will also make it easier for you to reach your desired word count. Here’s a look at the average content length for the top results of a Google search: As you can see from this graph, longer posts have higher rankings. On average, all the top ten posts are over 2,000 words. You should have a word length range for each post you write. Obviously, this won’t be exact every time. By nature, some posts will be longer than others, depending on the subject matter. But let’s say you want all your posts to be a minimum of 2,000 words. If you’ve got eight subheadings in your outline, you know that each section needs to be roughly 250 words to meet that 2,000-word minimum. This is a highly effective way to write quality content. It will prevent you from rambling, repeating yourself, and filling the post with useless information. If you’re starting with a blank page and no outline, you’ll have no sense of how long each section should be or how many sections you should have in the first place. Using an outline will help you not only write faster but also produce better quality and longer blog posts, which will be great for SEO purposes. Finish writing in one sittingBlogging effectively is all about time management. I do not recommend multi-tasking when writing. Writing posts will require your complete focus and attention. Put your phone on silent. Don’t check your emails. Stop taking breaks for snacks or lunch in the middle of your post. Just sit down and write. It might be taking some of you longer than necessary to write posts because you’re getting distracted by other things. Here’s a look at the average time people take to write a blog post to give you a better idea of how long it should take you: In just four years, it’s taking bloggers roughly an hour longer to write each post. You can aim to spend 3.5 hours writing a post, but you can write even faster than that. However, I don’t want you to over-focus on the time right now. When you start looking at the clock instead of focusing on your work, the quality of your work begins to suffer. Here’s why. When you hit the three-hour mark with only 70% of the post done, you might start thinking the post needs to be finished within the next 30 minutes. Under such pressure, the quality of your content might start to go down. So what if some posts take you a little bit longer? It’s not the end of the world. I write very efficiently, but every once in a while, it takes me upward of four or more hours to write a post. Am I happy when this happens? I can’t say I’m thrilled. But I refuse to let my quality suffer. Other times, I’ll knock out a post in 2.5 hours, so it balances out. You also need to make sure you’re in the mood to write. Find a time of day that works best for you. People differ in their preferences for writing. I know bloggers who write first thing in the morning while they’re still in bed, others who write at their offices, and still others who write late at night. No matter when you write, make sure you’re in the right mindset. If your mind is elsewhere and you can’t focus, pick another time to write. Put it off until you’re mentally able to concentrate to complete the post in one sitting. Writing a post over the course of several days typically adds at least 20 minutes to each sitting. Write while everything is fresh in your mind. The words will flow better, and it will be easier for you to work faster. Conduct relevant researchAdding statistics and relevant data to your content will drastically improve its quality. It gives your audience proof you know what you are talking about. Plus, citing and linking to authority websites is great for SEO purposes. However, I see many bloggers shy away from this tactic because they think research is too time-consuming. That’s not the right way to think. Sure, it may require a little extra work, but it’s not that difficult to conduct a quick Google search. Including research in your blog gives you something to talk about. You’d be surprised how much easier it is to write about a subject when you have something to reference. Let me give you an example. Here’s an excerpt from a recent blog post I wrote about how blockchain is changing the digital marketing industry: By taking the time to conduct some research, I was able to find an image and statistic, which are both highlighted above. These two pieces of information allowed me to write an entire section. When you have a reference to help you make a point, you’ll find the words to describe it. A statistic from a recent study may just be one sentence, but you can write paragraphs before and after that one piece of information explaining it and talking about its application. If you’re familiar with my content, you know I use research and images in all my posts. Even if this is the first time you’re reading one of my blogs, you can see I’ve used research throughout this post to illustrate my points. Edit your own workYou don’t need an editor to review your posts. You can do it on your own. In fact, studies show that the majority of bloggers don’t use editors for content published on their websites. Using editors is another example of something I see people do because they think it will save them time. But ultimately, it ends up being inefficient. If you send your work to an editor, you need to rely on their schedule to get the post finished. When I write something, I want to make sure it’s done. You don’t want your posts sitting in limbo waiting to be edited and then sent back for feedback and other revisions. By the time you get those notes back, the topic is no longer fresh in your mind. Instead of using an editor, put your posts through editing software, such as Grammarly. You don’t need to make all the recommended changes. Just see whether there are any glaring errors that need to be fixed. After that, read your post out loud to yourself. This is the best way to catch any other mistakes before you publish your content. You’ll be able to tell whether something sounds funny and needs to be rewritten. Depending on the length of your content, editing should take no longer than 10 or 20 minutes. If you’re using an editor or spending much longer than this, you need to look at how you can improve the efficiency of your editing process. ConclusionIt shouldn’t be taking you all day to write a blog post. At the same time, you don’t want to write so fast that the quality of your content suffers. Fortunately, there are ways for you to write quality content at a reasonable speed. Make sure you have a list of blog topics to choose from so you’re not wasting time figuring out what to talk about when you sit down to write. Outline your posts before you start writing. Blogging requires your full attention. Try to write when you can complete a post in one sitting. Add research, statistics, and images to your posts. This will improve the quality and give you something to talk about. Don’t use an editor. This will prolong the process. You can do this yourself. If you follow the tips I’ve covered in this guide, you’ll be able to write high quality blog posts faster than ever before. By the way, for those of you who are curious, I finished writing this post in less than three hours. How long does it typically take you to write a high quality blog post? via Quick Sprout http://www.quicksprout.com/2018/12/01/how-to-write-blog-posts-faster-without-sacrificing-quality/ Videos are a crucial component of your content marketing strategy. Once your videos are created, you need to distribute them on as many channels as possible. With more than 2.2 billion monthly active users, it’s only logical for Facebook to be one of those distribution platforms. Overall, this should be a winning strategy for your business. Here’s why. According to research, 90% of consumers report that videos help them making purchasing decisions. And 64% of people say that watching a video increases their chances of buying something. Further, 77% of businesses are using videos on their social media channels. Consumers are used to seeing this type of content from brands. By using videos to improve your social media marketing strategy, your company will be able to:
But there’s a catch. You can’t assume that all your videos will be effective just because you published them on Facebook. Your videos need to drive engagement. If people aren’t engaging with your content, this strategy will not be effective. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways for you to increase the engagement rates of your Facebook videos. That’s what inspired me to write this guide. Use this as a reference to help you produce better videos moving forward and fix some of the videos you already shared. Here’s what you need to do. Add subtitlesUsually, good audio is a key factor of a good video. Spoken words and other sounds can help you convey a message. But if you’re relying on audio to drive engagement on Facebook videos, it’s going to be a problem. That’s because 85% of videos on Facebook are watched without sound. If people are speaking in your video, you need to add subtitles to the video. Even if your video doesn’t have people speaking, you can use subtitles as a way to narrate your video. Explain what’s happening. Your video must be optimized for silent viewing. Plus, Facebook videos automatically start playing on mute when users scroll through news feeds on both desktop and mobile devices. If your videos require volume to get the message across, it could be why your engagement rates are so low. Here’s an example of how Forbes Magazine used subtitles on this Facebook video: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is speaking throughout this entire video. But even those watching with the sound off will receive his message. Here are the detailed instructions for how to add closed captions on Facebook. You can also do this manually with editing software such as:
Knowing that most people watch videos on silent on Facebook will change the way you produce content. If you have videos that require audio, you could always add captions asking viewers to turn the sound on to experience the video in a better way. Here’s an example from Tasty: You don’t need to completely abandon audio. I’m not saying you should start creating videos without sound. Just make sure they are optimized for silent viewing. Adding subtitles or captions is the easiest way to do that. Publish a square formatSquare videos have a 1:1 ratio. This format is much better for mobile users. Why is this important? Well, 92% of Facebook users access it on their mobile devices daily. When square videos are played on these devices, they take up more real estate on the screen. But engagement rates are higher on square videos on both mobile and desktop devices. Furthermore, square videos have an average higher reach on mobile and desktop devices compared to landscape and letterbox formats. The only time when a landscape video outperforms a square video is when it comes to the average completion rate on desktop devices. Do you want people to watch your videos in full? Absolutely. But remember, we’re trying to drive engagement. Square videos still have a higher completion rate on mobile devices. If your desktop completion rate is the only metric that might suffer here, it’s still worth it to publish square videos. It’s also worth noting that square videos get more average views per post on Facebook than landscape and letterbox videos combined. Grab attention earlyIf people aren’t intrigued by your content within the first few seconds of your video, they won’t watch the whole thing and engage with it. Avoid slow starts. Put your most interesting shots right in the beginning to pique viewers’ interest from the get go. Here’s a great example of a video that Thrillist shared via the Matador Network: As you can see, this video has more than 75 million views. This perspective is amazing. It’s the type of shot that nearly makes you gasp when you see it. Notice the progress bar. This is shown in the opening seconds of the video. As a result, viewers will stick with the video because their attention has been grabbed early on. This video also illustrates one of my previous points about subtitles. If you look at the bottom right corner of the screenshot above, you can see that by default, the volume is muted. But you can still understand what’s happening from the captions on the screen. I also like this example because it’s a shared post. Not everything you publish needs to be your own. You can share someone else’s video on your page as Thrillist did here. On the flip side, Matador Network benefits as well since its content is being shared. The reason why you want people to share your content is it drives even more engagement when it’s viewed by more users. That’s what helped this video reach 75 million views. Upload native videosNative videos play in the feed, like in the examples you’ve seen so far. A native video will start playing automatically when a user scrolls to it on Facebook. This is different from a video uploaded somewhere else and then shared on Facebook as a link, such as a link to a YouTube video. If you’re not publishing native videos, it could be why you’re not satisfied with your current engagement rates. Native videos have more comments than links to videos: On average, native Facebook videos have a 110% higher interaction rate than YouTube videos. They are also shared at a rate that’s 478% higher than links to YouTube videos. As I said before, Facebook will automatically play videos on a user’s feed when they scroll on both desktop and mobile devices. But this happens only if the video is native. Otherwise, you need to rely on the user clicking on the link you shared, getting redirected to another platform, and watching the content, and hope they engage with it. That’s too many extra steps, decreasing your video engagement rates. Target your preferred audienceWho is watching your videos on Facebook? The engagement of your videos will depend on who sees them. You want to make sure your video content is relevant. You’ll need to identify your target audience. Once you determine who they are, use that information to define the audience for your videos. Before you publish anything, look for this option in the bottom left corner of the screen. Here’s what it looks like: Once you click on this button, you’ll see a popup with the option to select your preferred audience and restrictions for the video. With the preferred audience, you’ll be able to reach users based on factors such as the pages they’ve liked and their interests. For example, you could choose interests like “swimming” or “baseball” depending on what type of business or industry you’re in. The audience restrictions tab gives you the chance to narrow down users based on demographics such as:
Making sure the audience is relevant will increase your engagement rates. You can take this strategy one step further by publishing Facebook video ads. 71% of people say that the video ads they see on Facebook are relevant to them. That’s because Facebook does a good job of giving businesses ways to target the right people with ad settings. For example, you can use lifetime value to create a Facebook audience that converts. Craft a striking title and descriptionYou spent much time filming and editing the video. Time to publish it on Facebook, right? Not so fast. You need to put the same effort into your title and description. Learn how to increase clicks by mastering your headlines. The idea is to grab the attention of viewers and get them interested right away, before they even watch anything. Descriptive videos will also increase your chances of being seen through organic searches on the platform. There are more than 2 billion searches on Facebook each day. You definitely want your videos to be optimized for these searches. I assume you’ll be using your Facebook videos on other distribution channels as well, which you should be. It’s a great idea to repurpose your content across multiple marketing platforms. But your copy for these videos needs to be Facebook-specific. Look at this data from Sprout Social about Facebook copy: Furthermore, Facebook posts with 80 characters or fewer have 88% more engagement. Facebook gives you a limit of 63,206 characters per post. You can experiment with a longer copy if you want. But as you can see from the statistics above, fewer words and characters drive higher engagement rates. Include a CTAWhat should viewers do when they finish watching your videos? If you don’t know the answer to this question, they certainly won’t have a clue. Your Facebook videos need to have a CTA. That’s what’s going to drive engagement. Here’s an example from Thule: The CTA is a link to its website, trying to drive sales of the products showcased in the video. That’s one approach. But you can drive engagement by other means. It all depends on the goals of each campaign. If you want to expand your reach and create brand awareness, you’ll want your videos to be shared on Facebook. A potential CTA could be as simple as “share this video with your friends.” Ask viewers to comment on it as well by ending the video with a question to spark a debate. All of these strategies will increase your engagement metrics. Broadcast liveWhile you may not want to do it every day, live video streaming is a great way to boost engagement on Facebook. With Facebook Live, you can have a more authentic interaction with your audience. As you broadcast, they’ll be able to add comments and questions. This gives you the opportunity to respond to those users in real time. When should you go live? Late at night and late in the evening are the two best times to go live if you’re trying to drive engagement. I’d say you can use this strategy about once a week. Try to stick to a schedule, similarly to a TV show. If your audience knows you’re going live every Wednesday night at 9:00 PM, you’ll have more viewers. Showcase your best videosNot all your content is the same. As someone who produces tons of blog posts, videos, and podcasts, I know this reality firsthand. It would be amazing if everything you produced and published was perfect, but that’s unrealistic. Some of your videos will be better than others. You know it, and your audience knows it too. That’s why those videos have more views, likes, shares, and comments. Feature those videos on your Facebook page. Here’s an example from The Wall Street Journal: Usually, the most recent videos are displayed first. But if a user navigates to your videos page on the left menu, you have the option to have your best videos shown ahead of your newest ones. The idea behind this strategy is that you can hook people with your best videos. Once they engage with that content, they’ll be more likely to watch your other videos and keep coming back for more in the future. ConclusionYour video content might be great, but it’s useless if nobody is engaging with it. Since the vast majority of Facebook videos are played without sound, you need to add subtitles to optimize them for silent viewing. Publish square videos. Your content should be native to be played automatically in everyone’s feed. Start with your best content to grab your viewers’ attention early. Don’t slack when you’re writing a title and description. Take advantage of the preferred audiences feature to make sure your videos are shown to relevant viewers. All of your videos should end with a CTA. Go live. Highlight your best content as a featured video. If you follow the advice I’ve outlined in this guide, you’ll see a major boost in engagement metrics for your Facebook videos moving forward. What strategies is your company using to drive engagement on Facebook videos? via Quick Sprout http://www.quicksprout.com/2018/12/01/how-to-increase-engagement-on-facebook-videos/ What’s your company’s return policy? I’m sure you’ve been asked this question before by both current and prospective customers. But think about when this question gets asked. It’s not just when someone wants to return an item. Customers want to know what your return policy is before they buy. This holds true for in-store and ecommerce purchases. In fact, 90% of consumers read return policies before making a purchase online. Obviously, you don’t want to get frequent returns. But knowing that returns are easy and hassle-free will make it more likely that customers will complete the purchase process. Friendly return policies will improve your customer service. It shows everyone that you stand behind your products. If everything you’re selling is a final sale, it’s an unreasonable and questionable business practice. This will make customers think twice before buying. Some of you may not have thought of these ideas before you came up with your existing return policy. That’s why I created this guide. Whether you’re developing a return policy from scratch or wishing to change your current policy, you’ll benefit from these tips. The adjustments will make your product or service more desirable for consumers to buy. Provide free returnsI realize that returns can potentially cost your company some money. But you need to weigh that expense against the price of potentially losing a customer. Do not charge customers for returns even if they need to ship an item back to you. That money isn’t worth losing a customer over. Put yourself in the shoes of a consumer. There’s a reason why they are returning an item. It was unsatisfactory in some way. Maybe it was damaged, or it looks different from what they saw online. You could have made a mistake and potentially sent the wrong item. Regardless of the reason, they are already inconvenienced. Don’t make them pay to give it back to you. Free return policies encourage shoppers to buy products online. As you can see from the graph, this was a top motivating factor, second only to free shipping. Studies show that 27% of consumers say they would buy an item that costs more than $1,000 if the store offers free returns. Just 10% of buyers would do the same without free returns. Think about that. These customers are willing to spend $1,000 or more. You want to make sure you keep their business and encourage them to buy. If they want to return something and it costs you a few extra bucks, so what? The value of that customer will make up for it over time. Offer a free trialUsually, free trials are associated with subscription services. But you can implement this strategy even if your business sells physical products. Here’s how it works. Rather than having someone buy something and then return it, let them try it free and leave it up to them whether they want to keep the item or not. It’s not exactly the same as a free trial you’re used to, but the concepts are the same. Basically, it’s a risk-free way for consumers to experience your product. Here’s an example from Warby Parker: Glasses need to be tried on before a decision about them can be made. In most instances, it’s difficult to order well-fitting glasses online without trying them on in person. But Warby Parker makes this easy for its customers. It allows people to order five different frames, shipping them to the customers’ homes at no cost. Customers can test them to see which ones fit and look the best. Then, they send back the ones they don’t want and get charged for whatever they keep. It’s brilliant. This strategy will result not only in more sales but also in increase in the average order value of each purchase. The customer already has products in their possession. At this point, they may end up wanting two pairs instead of one. The main benefit of shopping in stores compared to online is getting to see, touch, feel, and try on products. But if you can provide your customers with the same experience from the comfort of their homes, it will give you a huge advantage. I definitely recommend this strategy, especially to ecommerce shops. Make the return process as easy as possibleYou should apply the same concepts to your return procedure as you do to your checkout process. The fewer steps a customer has to go through, the higher your conversion rates will be. Again, it’s not like you want to have lots of returns. But they are bound to happen. In fact, 30% of products ordered from ecommerce shops get returned compared to just 9% to those from physical stores. And 92% of consumers will buy from a store again in the future if they experience an easy return process. Here’s Zappos’ return policy: The return process consists of three simple steps. The website includes a picture and description of each step. Zappos even has an option for people to find the nearest UPS shipping center to drop off the package they are returning. This added value goes a long way. Even though the customer physically has to go to a UPS center to return their order, the friction has been reduced. Otherwise, the customer would have to open a new browsing window, search for UPS, and find a location nearby. That’s three extra steps. If you can eliminate the hassle in your return process, people will be more likely to buy. Don’t restrict return methodsGive your customers as many options as possible when it comes to returning items. Let’s say you have multiple store locations. If a customer buys something at one location, they shouldn’t have to go back to that exact store to make a return. Your system should make it possible for returns to be accepted at every location, regardless of where something was purchased. It’s for the customer’s convenience. You don’t know the circumstances behind the sale. Customers could be traveling away from home or be on vacation. In this case, it would be unrealistic for a customer to return to an exact store if they live hours away or potentially in another state. In this case, they would be less likely to buy something if they knew it could only be returned at one location. Let’s take this concept one step further. Online orders should be accepted as in-store returns as well. Maybe the customer doesn’t want to deal with shipping, even if you made the process easy as in the previous example. But the fewer restrictions you have, the easier it will be for your customer. People will be more likely to buy knowing they have options if they decided to return something. Showcase your return policyI already talked about the fact that customers will review a return policy before making a purchase online. Don’t make them hunt for your policy on the website. If your return policy is buried somewhere, it’s going to be difficult to find. I’m not saying you need to have the return policy displayed in its entirety on every page, but at least highlight the benefits. Here’s an example of how Lululemon does this on its homepage: Remember the graph you saw earlier about the top two factors that encourage people to buy online? Free shipping and free returns. As soon as a visitor navigates to this website, they know returns are free. They can click on it to review the policy in greater detail, but at least they don’t have to go searching for it. That’s how you design a homepage that converts. Stand behind your productWhat happens when one of your products has been opened, had the tags removed, or had been worn or used? Can the customer still return it? If the answer is no, you might have a harder time generating sales. Sometimes, consumers won’t know whether they are happy with an item until they had the chance to use it. If you stand behind your product and offer returns on used items, consumers will be more likely to buy. Here’s an example from SAXX: I’m not saying you should accept an item after it’s been used for a year and is now worn out. But the comfort guarantee from SAXX is very reasonable and something you might want to consider implementing in your business. 30 days, or your money back. This gives its customers a chance to try the underwear, which is the only way someone can truly know whether they are happy with it or not. If someone is unhappy, SAXX will exchange the item or refund the purchase. Obviously, you would prefer a product exchange, but you should still offer a refund as an option. Don’t make it seem as if you’re holding their money hostage. Provide easy access to customer supportBefore someone wants to return something, they may have questions that can be answered by your customer support team. The customer may want to learn more about the policy, find out what their options are, or just talk to someone about their dissatisfaction. Regardless of the reason, you want to make this process as easy as possible. You need to understand what people want when it comes to customer support: Customers have different preferences. You need to be available through as many communication platforms as possible, such as:
Further, you don’t always have to stick to your exact return policy. Exceptions can be made. Let me explain what I mean. The fans of the TV series Seinfeld may be familiar with an episode in which Jerry wants to return a jacket he bought. The customer service representative asks why he wants to return it, and Jerry says he’s returning it out of spite because he doesn’t care for the salesman who sold it to him. So the store manager tells Jerry that spite doesn’t meet the conditions for a return. Obviously, it’s a show and meant to be humorous. But let’s look at a more realistic example. If you have a return policy similar to the earlier SAXX example, customers can return an item within 30 days of the purchase, even if it’s been worn. Well, what happens if someone contacts customer support on day 33 asking for a return? Is the answer no? Exceptions can be made. Hear them out. Maybe they are just now trying it on for the first time. Instead of refunding their money, at least give them a store credit or offer an exchange. Your staff needs to be trained accordingly to handle these circumstances. As I said before, it’s not worth it to lose a customer over this. They want to return something that was used and cost $50. I get it. This is not ideal for your company. But if that customer is going to spend more than that in the future, it’s worth it to make an exception by providing customer service that’s reasonable and easily accessible. Extend the return deadlineThis is similar to my last point. You can avoid the above circumstances from arising if you extend the return deadline to begin with. Here’s a great example from Target: Customers have 90 days to return items. Target extends its return policy during the holiday season. It recognizes customers are buying for other people, and items might not be seen or opened by the final user right away. The policy starts on 12/26 if an item was purchased between 11/1 and 12/25. This is a great way to drive sales during the holiday season. Do you remember I said you should make exceptions? Well, Target has a separate section of its return policy that addresses exceptions: One of my favorites is the first one on the list, which is shown above. You can bring back anything within one year and get an exchange or refund if it’s a Target-owned brand item. This type of extended policy makes it really enticing for a customer to buy from the store. ConclusionYour return policy is much more important than you might think. Customers take this into consideration when deciding whether they’re going to make a purchase or not. That’s why you need to offer free returns. Set up a trial system allowing people to try products you sell online before the sale is finalized. Returns need to be as easy as possible. Give customers lots of options so they can choose a return method convenient to them. Your return policy should be easy to find on your website. Stand behind your products. Make sure it’s easy for people to reach a customer service representative. Extending the deadline of returns from the purchase date gives customers an added incentive to buy. You don’t want to encourage returns. But changing your return policy will help you generate sales. Use this guide as a reference to implement changes. What return policy does your business offer, and will you make changes to it in the near future? via Quick Sprout http://www.quicksprout.com/2018/12/01/how-to-drive-sales-by-implementing-a-friendly-return-policy/
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Dropshipping is when you sell a product that’s shipped directly from the manufacturer to your customer. It is never held by you in a warehouse or a spare bedroom, and you’re not responsible for the packaging or shipping. Your dropship partner takes care of all that. Sounds dreamy, right? No warehouse rent to pay, no upfront investment in purchasing inventory, and no shipping work on your end. Those are the perks. But those are also the drawbacks. You don’t have the inventory in your warehouse, so you don’t have control of a customer ordering something that’s out of stock. There’s no shipping work on your end, so you can’t control the shipping speed, or the packaging. Long ship times = canceled orders. Weird packaging = bad reviews. And, you’ll still need upfront money for advertising, building your website, and all the other steps you’ll need to take to start your business. And, because you’re basically outsourcing those storing and shipping tasks to your dropshipper, you may not have as great of margins that you would if you took that all in house.
In this guide, we’ll round up some of the best known dropshippers and some lessons from top dropshippers, including what to consider before you get started.
Like any business partnership, before you get involved you need to do your research on who you’re working with, what it’s going to cost you, and what you’re expecting to get out of it.
What’s the best dropshipper?Trying to find the best dropshipping company is a little bit beside the point. It’s like asking for the best eBay seller or the best store on Etsy. There are things that make dropshippers great, and they’re a lot of the same things that make an eBay or Etsy seller great: They’re super communicative and have fast shipping. The product arrives as promised. It looks like the listing and it arrives in one piece in packaging that looks nice and not chewed up by an alligator. Just like an eBay seller, the best dropshipper for you is the one selling what you’re interested in buying. They will reliably, communicatively, and quickly shipping the product you’re after at the price that’ll be profitable for you — that’s your best. Dropshipping suppliers, databases, and toolsIt can be hard to break into dropshipping because most dropshipping businesses don’t like to share their items or their suppliers. The thinking is: you’ll just replicate their shop and eat into their market. Many dropshippers use a Shopify store and an automation app like Oberlo or Spocket. This is a quick way to get set up in minutes. Shopify dropshipping apps and tools
Dropshipping databases and software solutions
Online marketplaces
4 Steps to start your dropshipping company1. Find items to sellFind your niche.There’s lots of chatter on the internet about finding your dropshipping niche, but this is just a trendy buzzword for product-market fit: are there people who want to buy your product? From you? If not, you won’t have a successful business. You’ll have the most success dropshipping a product if there’s an audience that wants to buy it and doesn’t have an easy way to access it. That’s where you come in. Some ways to find your niche: brainstorm rabid fan groups or audiences with a common need or interest (dog lovers, anime fans, parents who love to dress up their kids in matching outfits, sailors, very tall people, people who love 90s throwback tees). These are purchase-ready populations looking to love and buy things that they’re interested in. See what’s trending on Facebook.Doing a quick search of a phrase like “Get yours here” or “Buy now” and look at the videos featuring items for sale that are getting traction. This can give you a sense of which products are interesting people on Facebook right now. Look for a high number of views in a short period of time, then search for the item at a dropship supplier like Oberlo or AliExpress. Consider the price-point of the item in the video and the assets you can create for it. Can you replicate — or improve on — the current trending video? If so, you may have an item worth dropshipping. Don’t sell anything dangerous or copyrighted.If you’re a beginner, don’t start with something that goes in or on a person’s body. If you do not know the quality and source of the ingredients, and something goes wrong, do you have coverage for that liability? Also, if there’s a celebrity or character from a movie franchise on the item, it could get you in trouble. Steer clear of mice with big round ears. Look at seller’s reviews and order a test product.How long has the seller been selling? What feedback have they been getting. When you order a test product, does it meet your expectations? What do you need to tell your customers so they’ll be happy when they receive the product? Consider dropshipping only some items.Just because you’re dropshipping some things doesn’t mean you need to dropship everything. Perhaps it makes sense to use dropshipping for large, bulky, high-priced niche items. Say, for example, you have an online store that sells nautical gear. You may want to personally store and ship some items, but dropship the anchors. For items like this, your customers may also be more accommodating to longer shipping times since it’s a large and more considered purchase. Same goes for home goods: perhaps you keep small items in stock, but dropship the couches. You can increase your inventory breadth very simply this way. Go directly to a supplier and build a dropshipping relationship with them.This is a killer plan: there’s guaranteed to be less competition. You’re basically creating a new audience for an under-marketed product that’s not getting seen by a ready-to-buy audience. If you use a database, every single other subscriber is using that same database. 2. Nail the basicsInvest in a good domain name.We buy all our domain names from Namecheap. (You can read our full review on the best domain registrars.) They come with free privacy protection. Skip all of the upsells — you don’t need them. Set up your website.If you go with Shopify, you’ll be up in minutes. Lots of dropshippers recommend the Shopify Brooklyn theme with a good font choice. You can also use another ecommerce option. Here’s our review on the best ecommerce platforms, if you’re interested in exploring. Get a professional logo.You can get one for a reasonable price (and no design expertise) with 99Designs. Use a professional email address.It should be a sensible start (help@, support@) with your own domain name. We recommend getting G Suite for $5 a month per user. There’s nothing to trust about emailing a customer service that’s at yahoo.com or gmail.com. Give your customer strong trust signals.You can do this with high quality photos and unique item copy, a real and robust About Us page, and thoughtfully using things like discounted prices and pop-ups. Ask yourself: Would I buy from this store? Would I feel comfortable suggesting it to a friend or family member? You’ll need some trust logos and some FAQs at minimum. Set shipping time expectations.Most dropshipped items aren’t going to get to the customer very quickly — and in world where Amazon Prime has set the standard at two days, that means dropshipments of 30 days feel extremely slow. If you don’t prepare your customers they’ll be very unhappy. We’ve seen very straightforward copy, like: All our items ship directly from our suppliers in China. Shipments are processed the day of your order and arrive in 25–30 days. Make sure your orders go through.Bundle credit card orders so your bank doesn’t cancel your numerous orders. Let your bank know what types of orders and in what quantities you’ll be placing, so they’re not flagged as fraudulent. There is no pain so rich as having to reorder orders you’ve placed. (You do have a business credit card, right?) Prepare for returns and cancellations.How will you deal with unhappy customers? What’s your return policy and how will you chargeback customer payments? Will returned items be shipped to you, or to your distributor? How will that work? Like with anything in business, it’s important to set it all up from day one like it’ll be a huge success. Set aside money to pay taxes.If you’re using Shopify as your payment gateway, once you get to a certain sales threshold, Shopify will automatically report your sales to the government. You’ll want to make sure you have money available to pay applicable taxes. We also recommend getting an accountant and a lawyer (we’ve heard good things about UpCounsel and LegalZoom) and setting up Quicken. 3. Differentiate yourselfMake your store listings and ads unique.Remember, if you can quickly and easily set up a dropshipping order for a specific product, it’s likely another store will be able to do the same. You will need to find an edge: why would someone order from you, or find your store selling the product, and not your competitor? Take your own pictures. Write your own copy. Shoot unique social videos. Really put thought into how to best convey the product and why a person would want it: What problems does it solve? Can it make them feel joy? Import user reviews.If you’re using AliExpress, you can import the user reviews. No one likes being the first to buy something. Consider offering free shipping.Do all orders have free shipping or only when a certain order spend is hit? What threshold or minimum spend works best? Market your store.Make sure people know about your store. This can be through word of mouth, social media ads, viral memes, influencer programs, SEO, a newsletter. You’re going to need visitors to make sales. 4. Iterate iterate iterateUse ads to test and gather data.We’re assuming that you’ll be buying ads. If you do, buy and use the data to test what’s working. What gets traction? Double down on it. What doesn’t? Trash it. This may lead you to changing your products, your ad style, your audience. Following the early traction means you head toward what’s working and away from what’s not. Analyze your sales.What’s selling well? What’s not selling at all? Is there any common theme in the items? Replicate what you can. Stop what’s not working. Dropshipping vocabularyArbitrage – The simultaneous buying and selling of an item to take advantage of a difference in price for the same asset. Say there’s a board game for sale at Walmart for $20, but the lowest price on Amazon is $45. Arbitrage is listing the game for sale on Amazon and buying the Walmart game. For every sale you make on Amazon, you take advantage of a $25 price difference. If your arbitrage is online to online, with free shipping, the math suggests you could simply sell on one site, buy and ship from the other, and pocket all the profit. This does not take into account any hiccups: returns, merchandise not accurate, merchandise no longer in stock, price changes in either market, etc. Dropshipping (DS) – The supply chain system in which a seller does not keep items in stock, but rather transfers orders directly to a manufacturer, supplier, or wholesaler who ships the item directly to the consumer. Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) – Some sellers set a floor to how low you can advertise or display your product for sale. This is not the same as the price you can sell it for. So, the MAP price does not take into account coupon codes or sales, or other tricks like offering a gift card with a purchase, offering rebates, or doing things like showing an even lower price in the cart. Dropshipping examples and pressYou may have seen the posts we’ve seen — the ones about people starting dropshipping businesses and raking in the sales. We’re talking five-figures in a single day, six-figures every month. What is this magic sauce, we wonder. The magic sauce is the same sauce as any other business: it’s a math equation based on margins. How big are your margins? How big is your customer base? What’s the conversion rate? How stiff is the competition?
The mystery of the $70 hoodie is also not a mystery: it’s a one-time sale that’s not going to turn into repeat business. It’s a simple equation: high price + low product quality + poor customer experience ? repeat business
“This guy” is Justin Wong, and he made his business work by studying Instagram marketing, set up affiliate partnerships with influencers, and matched his product with his marketing technique. And, he’s not confused about the pros and cons of that marketing strategy: when the posts age on a influencers feed, his sales go down.
Further reading
via Quick Sprout http://www.quicksprout.com/best-dropshipping-companies/ Mistakes happen. If you’ve been in business for a while, you know by now that mistakes are just part of the process. New businesses and startup companies are slowly learning this. Nobody is perfect, but some mistakes happen on a larger scale than others. But here’s the thing, lots of these mistakes can be avoided. That was my inspiration for writing this guide. There are certain common business mistakes that I see people making all of the time. Brands are only making these mistakes because they don’t realize it until it’s too late. Realistically, there are hundreds of mistakes that different businesses make each day. However, I wanted to focus the attention on specific types of mistakes. Your business always needs to be growing. If sales start to plateau or even drop off, it’s going to be a major problem for your company. But you can prevent a plateau by avoiding these common mistakes that I’ve identified. Use this guide as a reference to correct any of the mistakes that you’re currently making, or you can avoid them completely in the first place. 1. Not focusing on salesShockingly, this is a major issue that I see all of the time. You would assume that generating more sales would always be a priority for a company, but sometimes brands start to lose sight of exactly why they are in business. You’ve got to be making money. This money stems from sales, period. That’s the best way to make sure your company will grow and ensure that you won’t stall in a plateau. When I’m consulting with businesses, they’ll show me all of these other metrics that they’re focusing on, which is fine. But what are your sales? If what you’re doing doesn’t translate to conversions and transactions, it’s not helping you out. Don’t get me wrong. It’s great if you’re getting more email subscribers, social media followers, and website traffic. But running out of cash is one of the top reasons why startups fail. If you can focus on new ways to generate sales, you’ll always have a steady cash flow. I understand that you have so many other areas of your company that require your attention. However, you need to have priorities. You can’t let sales to a back seat to anything, or it’s going to be a problem for you in the future. 2. Forgetting about the customerYour business will live and die by your customers. All of your decisions need to be profitable. These two statements don’t always add up. But you need to find a balance between both of them if you want to grow. Here’s what I mean. On the one hand, a decision you make could reduce your operational costs and ultimately drive up your profit margins. But if that cost reduction impacts the quality of your products and services, it’s not going to benefit your customers. As a result, sales will start to drop, which is much worse than a plateau. Let’s take a look at these priorities for businesses in 2018. Do you see some commonality here? Nearly everything on this list will help improve the customer experience. That’s what you need to prioritize. Clearly, other businesses have recognized this and are acting accordingly. So if you forget about your customers, it will be easy for them to just leave and go to one of your competitors instead. If you put more emphasis on making your customers happy, the rest will take care of itself. Don’t cut corners just to turn a higher profit. 3. Ignoring dataEarlier I explained how some people focus on too many metrics that they forget about sales. But another issue that I see all of the time is companies that just ignore these metrics completely. I’m talking about things like:
These are just a handful of the top metrics every marketing manager needs to track. Without this data, how can you know if your campaigns are successful? How will you know what which decisions to make? Another issue that I see is business owners who are clinging to the wrong data. Here’s an example to show you what I mean. Let’s say your business has website traffic that is increasing exponentially. You can’t just assume that it means your company is successful. If your sales and conversions aren’t increasing at the same rate, you’re not actually growing, which should be a major concern for you. That’s why you need to track your data and know how to analyze it properly as well. 4. Not analyzing your competitorsYour business doesn’t operate in a vacuum. There are outside factors that will have a direct impact on your success. You need to keep an eye on your competitors. Otherwise, they’ll steal your customers before you even realize what happened. Compare yourself with them to see how you stack up. The easiest way to do this is with a SWOT analysis chart. It’s simple but very effective. That’s because it forces you to see where your business stands on paper. Just saying things like “we’re really good at what we do” doesn’t give you any benefit. When you put things in writing, any glaring mistakes or areas where you can improve will be more obvious. You can also take advantage of helpful tools to monitor your competitors. One of the first things you need to do is identify who you’re competing with. You’ll want to analyze competitors locally, regionally, and online as well. Compare your prices to them. Look at their website. Check out their advertisements and social media campaigns. What’s working for them? What needs improvement? Then, you can apply what’s working for your competition to your own business. Avoid their mistakes. See what customers are saying about your competitors online. We’ll talk more about online reviews in greater detail shortly. 5. Avoiding new technologyAdapt or die. This theory can be applied to nature, as well as business. If you’re resistant to change, it’s going to be the downfall of your company. That’s why you need to educate yourself about new technology trends.
These are all things that can help your business grow. I see so many business owners that are stuck in their old ways. But just because something worked for you back in 2005, it doesn’t mean that strategy will work in 2019. To be successful in the future, you need to look beyond today, tomorrow, and next year. You need to be prepared for technology advancements coming in 2022 or 2025. Keep up with the latest trends. You don’t necessarily need to apply everything right away, but you have to start somewhere. For example, you can start by building a mobile app for your business. Why haven’t you developed an app yet? Don’t let the costs associated with this venture scare you away. 22% of business owners say that mobile app development is too expensive. An additional 23% don’t think they can run a business and maintain an app at the same time. This type of mentality is what’s going to cause a plateau, and eventually a decline. Find ways to make this happen, especially if you’re in the retail business. Mobile apps have triple the conversion rate compared to mobile web browsers. Product views per user are 4.6x higher, and the add to cart rate is 2.5x higher. Building a mobile app for your small business is just one example of implementing new technology, and it’s not even that new. If you’re resistant to change, it’s going to stunt your business growth. So have an open mind moving forward, especially when it comes to technology advancements. 6. Ignoring customer reviewsI briefly mentioned this before when we talked about monitoring your competitors. In addition to reading what people think about other companies, you need to see what customers are saying about your business online. There are lots of different places you need to check, such as:
Respond to reviews. Take notes about what customers are saying. Make the necessary changes based on this information. Group common reviews together. If all of your customers are having the same problem, and you don’t make an adjustment, it’s basically just a slap in their face. In addition to harming your relationships with existing customers, online reviews will have a direct impact on future sales as well. 92% of people read a review before making a purchase online. 88% of consumers say they trust an online review as much as a recommendation from someone that they know. This impacts their buying decisions. Furthermore, 35% of people are less likely to buy if no online reviews are available. This means that you need to take this strategy to the next level. Not only do you need to read and monitor reviews, but you also need to encourage your customers to write reviews to improve your online reputation. If you’re ignoring this, it’s a mistake that will be costly for your business. 7. Not accepting more payment methodsThis relates back to what we talked about earlier in terms of forgetting about the customer. I realize that it’s more expensive for you to accept certain forms of payment compared to other options. However, everyone has different preferences. The days of just accepting credit and debit cards are over. So if you’re still not taking every major credit card, it’s probably unlikely that you’re allowing customers to pay with digital payment methods. But as I said before, you need to adapt to new trends and technology. Digital payments are becoming the way of the future. 19% of consumers are using digital wallets. About half of the people who use digital wallets expect merchants to accept those payment forms. But here’s something else that you need to keep in mind. More than one-fifth of users who don’t use digital wallets still expect businesses to accept digital payment methods. Again, if you have integrated new technology into your business, this won’t be a problem. The last thing you want is for a customer to decide they want to buy something, but change their mind because you don’t accept their preferred payment method. Don’t expect them to just reach for another card. Instead, they’ll go find what they’re looking for from another business. 8. Never offering valueWhy should people buy from your business? It may sound like an odd question but think about it for a minute. You need to create a highly effective value proposition. This will make it clear to everyone why they should buy from your business. You need to understand the wants and needs of your customers. There’s a big difference between what consumers want and what marketers want. As you can see from the graph, 72% of consumers want to see posts from brands on social media related to discounts and sales. However, just 18% of marketers post those things. There is obviously a major discrepancy here. Even if you don’t want to offer discounts all of the time, you still need to come up with ways to add value to your brand. Otherwise, consumers won’t have a reason to buy from you, and sales will eventually decline. ConclusionNobody is perfect. Every business makes mistakes. You’re going to continue making mistakes in the future as well. However, you reduce the chances of making these errors if you know what to look for before it happens. Some of you may already be doing some of the things that I’ve covered on this list. But now you can identify those mistakes and make changes before they get out of hand. If you can stay clear of the blunders that I’ve outlined above, it will help your business avoid a plateau or a decline. What types of mistakes does your business need to fix in order to stimulate growth? via Quick Sprout http://www.quicksprout.com/2018/12/01/how-to-avoid-a-plateau-by-avoiding-these-8-business-mistakes/ Your domain name is very important. It would be a mistake to gloss over the process of coming up with a name. If you take your project seriously, then you need to start off on the right foot with your name. After all, it’s going to be with you for the lifetime of whatever business or project you intend to use the domain for. Many of the guides on how to buy a domain name or how to build a website tend to gloss over this process as well. It is often assumed that the best approach is to just register whatever domain name is available and call it a day. I think this is a big mistake. There’s nothing wrong with registering a domain name that is available, as long as you’ve thought it through and are intentional about it. In fact, I would encourage that. The issue is that in many cases, people don’t even realize that there are other options. Getting your hands on the optimal name is more doable than you might think. In this guide, I want to walk you through my process for buying a domain name, starting with how I go about coming up with a name in the first place. Understand the Cost of a Domain NameFirst and foremost, I suggest that you do put some budget behind your domain name — especially if it’s for your business. If your budget is tight, then you’ll be more limited in what you can do. There are two options when it comes to getting your domain name
Regardless of which option you go with, you’ll still need to pay the annual registration fee of $7–$15/year on average. The cost of acquiring a domain name will vary widely: You can easily spend 4–5 figures on a name. In some cases you can find a good one for hundreds of dollars. Some domain names aren’t for sale at all, while others have sold for millions of dollars. Brainstorm Concepts and IdeasBefore you even think about buying a domain name, you’ll need to do some ground work. Get creative, because it’s time to do some brainstorming. Your domain name is going to be used for something. Maybe a business, or a campaign, or maybe just a blog. And you probably already have some ideas around what it’ll be called, so you’ve already started the process. Create a Concept ListI like to call this a concept list. It’s the list before your final name list. It isn’t necessarily names, but for now, just concepts. Take your project and write down of all the words, descriptors, phrases, ideas, mantras, etc. that come to mind. Come up with as many words as possible. Use a thesaurus to help. I personally find a mind map useful for this process. Create a List of Potential NamesOnce you have a thorough concept list, you can develop a more refined list of potential names. Start by listing all the names that you like. Since you might not have an unlimited budget, make sure you dig deep here. You can’t be too picky yet, because that will end up limiting your options. Write everything down that you think might work. Narrow Down The List According to ViabilityYou can narrow your list down quickly just by typing in the .com for each name that you like. Type it into your browser and see what is there.
I find that my best domain names are generally ones that are for sale (as opposed to unregistered). I recommend browsing through the following websites to get more ideas. You might get lucky and find something you like just by browsing. If you do, add those to your list as well. BrandBucket — They put together more creative, brandable domain names and then sell them. I’ve found a lot of names here that I would not have thought of on my own. BuyDomains.com — They have a huge selection of domain names for sale. They have transparent pricing and offer a seamless experience. This is always my starting point, and preferred approach to acquiring a domain name. Sedo.com — Probably the biggest selection of domain names and the most well known place to acquire a name. BuyDomains.com and Uniregistry are the biggest players in selling domains. More times than not, if a domain name is for sale when I type it into my browser, it is one of those two companies that is behind the sale. I find them to be the most reasonable. HugeDomains.com is another one that I have bought from. Once you have the narrowed down list. The next step is to dig even deeper to determine what your final options will be. Choose Your NameYou’re ready to go through the process of choosing your domain name. Some high level rules:
Quick checklist for your domain name options
A Note on Social HandlesIn a perfect world, you’d pick a domain name whose social handles are also available. This isn’t a perfect world. My take on this is that it’s hard enough to get a good domain name. Don’t make it even harder or nearly impossible by also adding this criteria. When it comes to picking up the social handles, you’ll have options. You can get creative, or even potentially acquire the handles from the current owners. It’s a good idea to consider social handles when making your final decision, but don’t let that alone stop you from picking the right name. The Starter Domain ApproachAn approach that I am a fan of is to use the starter domain approach. The idea here, is that you can start with a domain name with the intention to move to another one down the road. Let’s say you identify a domain name that you really like, but it is out of range for your budget. For example, when I was coming up with a name for my latest company, I really liked GoodLife.com. Someone else owns it, and isn’t necessarily looking to sell it. If I wanted to buy it, I would have to offer a lot of money — a lot more than I was ready to pay. If I wanted to take the starter domain approach, I could have gone with the name Good Life Media, and acquired GoodLifeMedia.com which is for sale for $24,500. (That price must have gone up, because it wasn’t that high when I was actually considering this as an option.) Anyway, I could start with GoodLifeMedia.com and eventually try to acquire GoodLife.com. It would be very easy to rebrand from Good Life Media, to Good Life. Internally, we would just go by “Good Life.” The day that we eventually acquire GoodLife.com would be a huge milestone and would create a built-in company goal that we could go after as a team. If you want a real life example, The Wirecutter just recently rebranded to WireCutter. Considerations for the starter domain approach
Acquire And/Or Register Your Domain NameAt this point you should have a narrowed down list of viable options for your domain name. The next step is to own it. Each of your options should fall into one of three categories.
What to Do If the Domain Name is UnregisteredIn this case, all you need to do is go to NameCheap and register the domain name. You’ll find out for sure if that is an option or not once you type it into the search bar on NameCheap.
You’ll go through a straightforward process here. Don’t buy any of the add ons or worry about web hosting or any of that yet. You want to use NameCheap to simply register your domain name. That’s it. They are the best domain registrar, and I use them exclusively. I do not use them for anything else, because there are other companies that I use for the rest of my web needs. After you finish registering the domain name, that’s it. You are officially the proud owner of your new domain name. All you have to do moving forward, is be sure to renew the domain name each year. If you fail to renew it, then someone else will be able to replace you as the owner. What to Do If the Domain Name Seems AcquirableIf the domain name seems acquirable, but it isn’t clear — you have two options. Either you can try to figure out who owns the domain name yourself and reach out to them. Or, you can hire a broker to do it for you. If you hire a domain broker, there isn’t much risk. Typically, the only way you will have to pay a fee is if you buy the domain name. The downside is that you do have to pay a fee if you buy the domain name. Sedo is a good place to start if you want to hire a domain broker. In the case of doing it yourself, you can start with a WHOIS search to try to figure out who owns the domain name. Googling the domain name and seeing if it is tied to any social media profiles or other websites is also a good approach. More times than not, I will fail at finding out who owns the domain name myself. It is common for people to use privacy features that hide their contact information. Most domain registrars offer this for free, so people tend to do it by default. The benefit of a domain broker is that they have a huge network. They almost always know who owns what, and if they don’t, they have ways of figuring it out. Back to my GoodLife.com example. There is no way I ever would have figured out who owns that domain name if I didn’t have a broker to figure it out for me. Of course, I still do not know who owns that domain name, but at least I have a broker who does. Another benefit of a broker is that you do not have to deal with the awkwardness of negotiating price. You have a middle man who can be the bad guy for you. What to Do If the Domain Name Is Clearly for SaleDomain names that might be acquirable, as outlined above, can be challenging. I much prefer to focus on names that are clearly for sale. These are easy. If the name is already for sale, then the process is straightforward. The only thing you really need to think about is negotiating price. Negotiating PriceThere is often opportunity to negotiate price. Depending on who you are dealing with, there could be some room to get the price down. I don’t recommend pushing too hard or overthinking this. That might just lead to wasting time and potentially losing out on the name. However, there is no harm in giving it a shot and doing some level of negotiating. After The AcquisitionOnce you acquire the domain name, the next step is to transfer to your domain registrar. Again, I recommend NameCheap. You can see the process for transferring your domain name here. It also helps to understand how domains work. Regardless of how you acquire your domain name, the final step is to see it sitting inside of your NameCheap account. That is when it’s official! via Quick Sprout http://www.quicksprout.com/buy-domain-name/
Business
6 Video Marketing Trends to Watch in 2019
Dec 13, 2018
// function popupCenter(pageURL, w,h) {var left = (screen.width/2)-(w/2);var top = (screen.height/2)-(h/2);var targetWin = window.open (pageURL, '_blank','toolbar=no, location=no, directories=no, status=no, menubar=no, scrollbars=no, resizable=no, copyhistory=no, width='+w+', height='+h+', top='+top+', left='+left);}function pinIt(){var e = document.createElement("script");e.setAttribute('type','text/javascript');e.setAttribute('charset','UTF-8');e.setAttribute('src','https://assets.pinterest.com/js/pinmarklet.js?r='+Math.random()*99999999); document.body.appendChild(e);} // In 2019, video marketing is no longer an option: 81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool, 85% of all internet traffic in the US will be made by online videos by 2020, and 90% of customers claim videos help them make purchase decisions. It’s no wonder companies plan to continue using video marketing. But what makes your content any different from the millions of other videos craving for the attention of internet users? Keeping up with trends is an actionable way to grab your audience’s attention and hold it. If you want to jump the gun and beef your video marketing strategy up for 2019, you need to adopt current trends customers will love. To make the most out of video-based content, pay attention to top 6 video marketing trends that will take 2019 by storm: 1. Authenticity is a KeyIf you can’t afford to create video ads, don’t be upset. Although average budgets for a single commercial range from $450,000 to more than $1 million, there’s no need to spend big bucks to attract your audience attention. You can take a look at easy-to-use solutions like Moovly that will help you to make professional-looking videos in no time and with barely any costs involved. In 2019, customers crave authenticity more than ever, according to Forbes. To create genuine videos, it’s enough to take out your phone and go live on social media or take your users behind the scenes. Moreover, people spend more than 3x more time watching a Facebook Live video than a video that’s no longer live. Still, not convinced? Two main reasons to stay authentic:
2. Storytelling Hooks the AudienceTo get results with your video marketing, you need to know how to hook the audience, and storytelling is a must these days. In fact, 92% of customers want brands to make ads feel like a story. Moreover, telling your brand story well, you get a chance to increase the value of a product or service by over 20 times. Not only will storytelling hook your customers, but it will also humanize your brand. Obviously, there’s no one-size-fits-all method to create stories that cause a buzz around your brand. However, being creative is a proven way to experiment and find out what works well for your brand. For example, McDonald’s knows the art of stories that sell, so its videos bring thousands of views within a short period of time. Credits: YouTube 3. Short-Lived Video ContentLooking back at 2013, when Snapchat launched short-lived Stories, no one could have predicted the rise of so-called ephemeral content that lasts for 24 hours only. Over the last five years, the situation has significantly changed: now it’s even possible to increase sales with ephemeral video content. Why bother? Instagram stories have increased the time spent on the platform from 15 to 32 minutes a day and 82% of brand audiences prefer live video from a brand to social posts. No matter what form of short-lived video content you choose, whether Instagram Stories or LiveStream, it’s a great way to use the fear of missing out (FOMO) to attract more viewers in short period of time. 4. Educational and How-to Product VideosA recent Unbounce report says that using a video on landing pages can increase conversion by 80%, so 60% of businesses jump on the bandwagon to get these results. However, uploading a video isn’t enough: you need to understand what type of video you should post on a landing page to cause a buzz. Since most people don’t know anything about your product, you need to give them a reason to choose you. It’s harsh but true: people don’t care about your product until it can solve their problems. To grab the audience’s attention, you need to build a need for your product, and using how-to videos is a proven way to hint at what potential customers can get with your help. Moreover, WordStream has mentioned that a third of online activity is spent watching videos, so educational and how-to product videos can engage visitors and build loyalty toward your company. Although dealing with video creation can be daunting, you can always rely on Moovly to create remarkable marketing videos. 5. The Rise of Vertical Video & IGTVAccording to eMarketer, 78.4% of digital video viewers use smartphones to watch videos. Nowadays, there are 270 million mobile phone users in the United States and 94% of the time we hold our phones vertically, so the vertical video is on its rise. For brands, it means the demand for vertical video to meet customers’ needs. Since Instagram knows businesses want to satisfy their customers’ needs, it’s no wonder IGTV, a long-form in-app video hub, was launched. With IGTV, brands can upload videos that last up to 60 minutes, so there’s no need to use both channels, Instagram and Youtube, to achieve marketing goals. While small businesses don’t hasten to use this feature, big docs like MAC Cosmetics dive into IGTV to engage users and build brand awareness. Credits: Instagram 6. Collaboration with InfluencersAn influencer marketing survey by Collective Bias has revealed that the peer recommendations affect 70% of millennial consumers when it comes to making purchase decisions. Plus, three-quarters of consumers trust opinions they find on social media. When you collaborate with influencers, you kill two birds with one stone: give your customer a reason to trust your brand and enter an already-established community of the featured opinion leader. Here’s an example from Ninja Coffee in partnership with Sofia Vergara. Whether you like Vergara or not, featuring the celebrity shows that the company’s revenue is enough to afford to collaborate with big stars, so it builds trust and loyalty toward the brand. In a WordWithout a doubt, video marketing helps to showcase your product, drive website traffic, and engage your potential customers in an interesting and funny way. It’s a powerful marketing tool you can’t afford to miss out. And to stand out from the crowd of marketers who produce tons of video content, it’s important to give customers what they love, so you need to know and use video marketing trends. Since 2019 is drawing closer, it’s high time to start your new video marketing campaign and get brilliant results. Hugh Beaulac is a content manager and strategist behind MC2 Bid4Papers who also contributes to different websites as a guest blogger. With 5+ years experience in the digital marketing, Hugh believes that business strategies must constantly change, so he keeps an eye on current trends. The post 6 Video Marketing Trends to Watch in 2019 appeared first on Moovly - Create videos and video presentations. from Moovly – Create videos and video presentations https://www.moovly.com/blog/6-video-marketing-trends-to-watch-in-2019 via IFTTT from https://seanbrian0.blogspot.com/2018/12/6-video-marketing-trends-to-watch-in.html |
Sean BrianWhile radishes deter certain insects naturally, they require similar growing conditions as carrots. Although the crops both have roots, radishes grow and germinate quicker, allowing carrots to continue growing in the soil space available when the radishes are harvested, Archives
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