Start A Content Conversation

We all have a lot to say. Between sales pitches and proposals and PowerPoint presentations, we’re kind of up to our eyeballs in information. But is information content? If so, what information?  

If content is king, how do you ensure he doesn’t get dethroned? The answer is to have a conversation.

BE APPROPRIATE

That doesn’t mean don’t post questionable photos on your website. (Don’t do that, though). Being appropriate means having something to say that reflects the venue in which you’re saying it. Your corporate website and a product-specific Facebook page that has a college-aged audience will have different things to say. Neither are mutually exclusive. But you likely have a different way of speaking when you’re talking to your best friend versus a corporate CEO. The content, or conversation you’re having needs to focus primarily on the audience with which you’re having it. Like any good conversation, it should be a two-way street. I’m not talking about a live chat feature. I’m talking about solid research. How your customers reach out to you tells you a lot about the conversation they’re looking to have. Traditional websites, product-specific sites, individual social media interactions, trade show interactions and even Skype chats, each attracts a unique audience that will respond to you if you are appropriate.

RELEVANT WEBSITE CONTENT

One of the primary drivers of Google’s search algorithm comes from relevant content. Google, they’re pretty smart. Not long ago you used to be able to type a bunch of keywords onto the bottom of your web page and jump to the top of Google’s search. Actual content that relates to the subject of the page, the industry associated with the site, etc., is one of the things that drives search results. More is not always better. Doing extensive research about search terms and analytics data will give you a good start in providing content that corresponds to the most relevant search terms for your site. If you tailor your content to what your audience is actually looking for, you will notice a dramatic difference in your search rankings.    

KNOW YOUR STUFF, BUT DON’T BE A KNOW-IT-ALL

Content is a conversation. It’s not a lecture. There’s a fine line between the two. Your job and the job of your business is to be the expert in your field. As such, you’re expected to know a bunch of stuff. But information is like having your in-laws come to visit. A little goes a long way. Keep in mind that what most of your customers want to know is that you know. They don’t need the complete recipe to your secret sauce. They just need to know that you know how to make it. 

BE BRIEF

A good deal of your ongoing conversations with your customers will be via social media. Social media is a drop in sort of place. It’s the virtual water cooler. Your interaction should be short, sweet and to the point. You don’t need to write the entire novel, just a short chapter. When you’re writing short content, be specific. Don’t necessarily talk about all your new products, just one at a time. Or maybe a single feature of a product. 

DON’T WASTE THEIR TIME

Your audience bores easily. Quick bursts of information that grabs their attention and allows them to get on with their lives will leave them wanting more. Respect the short attention span. You can’t win against it. Don’t even try.

BE BRAND CONSISTENT

Above all else, have a plan. Don’t sacrifice your overall brand strategy for a specific venue, but be flexible enough to remain appropriate. That takes a little effort. You may need to experiment a bit. 

There is no single way to generate awesome content. Your conversation is and should be different than your competition. What is consistent across the board is that you are having a conversation. You’re building a relationship. That’s the secret to creating killer content. Your voice should be unique. That’s what sets you apart. So now it’s time to start a conversation.

What Obamacare Can Teach Us About What NOT To Do In A Marketing Campaign

Love it or hate it, agree with it or continue to vote against it, the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is here to stay. At least until their ill-fated marketing blunders sink the program.

I'm about as liberal as it gets. Personally, I favor the Canadian system. I'm familiar with it, so it's not just a talking point. I have my own issues with Obamacare, but this is a marketing blog, not a soapbox.

We can learn some valuable marketing lessons from the ACA rollout. There was a lot that was done wrong. Here are the top three.

1. NEVER, EVER GO LIVE WITH A BROKEN WEBSITE
Your website is the central hub of any marketing strategy you're building. Even a social media campaign needs someplace to point. The Obamacare website was a complex, convoluted structure that fell victim to the oldest trick in the book—requirements that changed multiple times throughout the build, often changing the entire infrastructure. Everyone's familiar with the Healthcare.gov website jokes, the opposition's continued barrage of attacks, the Congressional hearings, the whole bit.

Here's the thing—the more complex the website, the more intense the testing needs to be. Any website needs to undergo something called User Acceptance Testing, or UAT. A website begins with a set of requirements—what the site needs to do. Most sites are fairly straightforward. A homepage, some product or service information, a contact page, etc. For more complicated sites, such as those involving data, (the capturing of customer information, the dispensation of customer information, product data, etc.), requires a much more involved set of requirements, and therefore a much more involved UAT process. We won't delve too deeply into web development here, but suffice it to say that you want to do at least the following when testing any site:

a) Test on multiple browsers. Safari, Chrome, Internet Explorer and Firefox are the most common and should suffice for most UAT. Make sure you test multiple versions of Internet Explorer (IE9, for example, can throw a wrench into the most well executed and seamlessly developed website).
b) Test on multiple operating systems. Test on both Mac and PC.
c) Allow for operator error. Your clients may not be the brightest bulbs in the box. Is the site foolproof? Is it easy to navigate? Can you find information within two clicks?
d) Try to break it. The more complicated the site, the more errors you should find. Do things the site isn't designed to do—how does it handle these requests?
e) Create informative error pages. The last thing a user of your site wants to see is some convoluted error message that may mean something to a developer but just looks like your site is broken otherwise.
f) If there is an error, provide a clear path out of it. For instance, if you have a user signup page that requires a specific format for information to be entered, clearly explain this or provide a contact phone number or email address that can help.
g) For the love of punk rock, ANSWER THE PHONE and answer your email. Promptly. If someone is on your website and wants to sign up, search for a product, etc., they want to do it now. Don't make them come back. Don't make them wait.

Your website is your virtual front door. Whether you're a retailer, Realtor®, or are simply providing a contact portal, this is your first impression. Never, ever go live with a website that doesn't work.

2. KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
One of the key provisions in Obamacare is the inclusion of a robust number of 18-34 year olds. There's a reason why everyone wants to market to this demographic. For the healthcare system to work, it needs to spread the risk across a large pool of healthy users.

These people are what I call The Unmarketable. It's not that they can't be influenced—you've got to know what you're doing. If you want their business, you've got to earn it. They have been sold to their entire lives, and they can see you coming a mile away. Here are the ground rules for marketing to the 18-34 demographic:

a) Don't try to be cool. Using popular catchphrases, current references, etc., will only make you look old. They know how to filter your pathetic attempt to sit at the cool table. Don't even try.
b) Don't talk down. One of the most common mistakes made when marketing this group is giving them the impression you think you're smarter than they are. You might be, but they hate that. Be direct. You're not talking to your insolent twenty-something. You're talking to a potential customer. Give them the respect you'd give any customer.
c) Celebrity endorsements can go very wrong. This is the era of five-second fame. Everyone is famous. If you latch on to some anti-celebrity, you have immediately put an expiration date on your campaign. Remember Gangham Style? Exactly.
d) Don't try to go viral. There are specific ingredients that go into a viral video, post, etc., You don't have them. You don't have access to them. Yes, it would incredible to have your commercial go viral and get twenty million views on YouTube. It would also be incredible to win the Powerball. Setting out to "go viral" is a waste of your time and resources.

There is no single way to market to The Unmarketables. There's no single venue, media outlet, or social media service that will hit everybody. The secret with this generation is that they're compartmentalized. The days of everyone watching a single TV network or visiting a single source for news online, or a single social media venue are gone. The "18-34 year old demographic" isn't a single entity. It consists of millions and millions of individuals. You need to know a whole lot more about your target audience than simply that they're between 18 and 34 years old. If you don't know them, they won't care one bit about you.

3. DON'T LET YOUR COMPETITION DEFINE YOUR STRATEGY
There's a reason you're in business. There's a reason your product or service can compete in the marketplace. And if you're in the marketplace, you've got competition. If you don't have competition, you will. One of the biggest mistakes the Obama administration made in selling Obamacare to the American people was letting the opposition (his competition) define the argument. It's your competition's job to point out why their product or service is superior to yours. That's what the free market system is all about. Your marketing strategy will not be successful if it's simply a reaction to your competition's marketing strategy. No one's interested in why Product A sucks. They want to know why Product B is great. Believe it or not, positive messaging is far more effective than negative messaging. The businesses that are #1 in their fields (Coke, McDonald's) don't spend their time focusing on their competition. The businesses that are #2 (Pepsi, Burger King), do spend their time focusing on their competition. That's one of the reasons these businesses are #2. Not sure how to do this? Here are the basics:

a) Have the best product or service. You can't survive in any industry for any length of time if your product breaks or your service is subpar. Wait, you don't think your product or service is part of your marketing campaign? Pumpkin, it's the centerpiece. You will go out of business if you don't focus on your core products and services. Simple as that.
b) Clearly and concisely explain why you are the best. Is it taste? Satisfaction? Quality parts or ingredients? What sets you apart?
c) Why is it necessary? Neither Coke nor McDonald's products are required to sustain life on earth. Why are they necessary, then? This is what they call in sales selling the sizzle, not the steak. What does your product or service provide, make easier, make better, or help satisfy?
d) Take the high road. You don't need to mention your competition in your marketing. It's your marketing, not theirs. Don't give your competition air time. It makes your business look petty. Product comparisons are for those in second place. First place doesn't need to compare.
e) Solve problems quickly and in public. Let's say your business prides itself on providing service within a 20-minute window. For one reason or another, your service tech was unable to arrive. Your customer complains on your Facebook or Twitter feed. The first reaction by most businesses is to remove the post. After all, who wants anything negative on their Facebook wall? Instead, engage the customer and MAKE THINGS RIGHT in the same post, in the shortest possible time. It doesn't matter that your service tech had a car accident. It doesn't matter that the snow hadn't been cleared off the roads. There are always things that are out of your control. The only thing you can control 100% of the time is how you respond. It's not personal. It's business. Give the client a gift card. Refund their service call. Give them a free service call. Whatever you do, do it in front of everyone.
f) Know the difference between slander and libel. In a nutshell, slander is saying "you suck", libel is writing "you suck". There are tons of legal gray areas, but that gives you the idea. Keep in mind that your competition may engage in nefarious tactics from time to time. We wise in your approach. Overreacting to some slight by your competition can make you look like a jerk. Underreacting to something that is potentially damaging can leave your business exposed to serious trouble. Know when something is business and when it's war. Take a look at my post about when to hire a lawyer. It'll help.

Remember that you need your clients more than they need you. The world will get by just fine without your product or service. When you're developing a marketing strategy, keep in mind that every aspect o your business is part of the strategy. You can have the most vibrant website, the most dependable product, but if your customer service staff is perpetually rude, you will go out of business. Your business is a series of links in a chain. That chain is your marketing strategy. A product that works, built from parts that are high grade, with an easy to engage sales interface, a customer service team that goes the extra mile, and truly dependable service is the centerpiece of your business. Your entire business is about marketing. Break a link, break the business. At least you won't be dragged before a Senate subcommittee.

What An Online Form Tells Your Customers

We've all seen them. The ubiquitous online contact form. On the surface, these forms seem to be a convenient way to collect and distribute initial contact data. If you've had a website with a contact feature for any length of time, you likely have one of these types of forms on your site.

From a website owner's perspective, these things are great. Deployed properly, they can help reduce spam email and triage client contact. Gathering a few important details (name, email, phone, etc.), can better prepare your team to speak with these new potential clients.

But from a customer's perspective, the view is different. Online forms can be seen as an impersonal form of contact. They get in the way. When a customer has a question or wants to contact you about the services you provide, the online form tells them the following:

1. You're too busy to talk to them. 
An online form that collects data becomes a black hole where a customer inputs their information and it disappears into the void. If your customer has a question or concern, or wants to hire your company, they want an answer. If the client is contacting you during normal business hours, the expectation is that you or someone else will be able to talk to them. If someone is sending you a contact email, they have reached the point in their purchasing decision where they're looking for specifics. Putting a form in their way stops the purchasing process in its tracks.

2. You don't trust them.
The use of CAPTCHA technology, those squiggly words and numbers that separate man from machine, are used to help limit the types of website attacks perpetrated by things called "spambots". These automated hacking tools scour the web to find open email addresses, and then inundate them with spam email. Spam email is a real threat—viruses are often embedded within them, so that when they're opened, nefarious things can happen. However, that's your problem, not your customers'. What you tell your customers when you force them to use this technology is that your comfort is more important than their ability to easily contact you.

There are a few simple ground rules for opening email. First, most commercial email hosts (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) have firewalls built in. They will detect what is likely spam and quarantine it for you. Your "junk" folder is a graveyard of these types of emails. It's important to check your junk folder often. Spam quarantine software isn't foolproof. And if your business is consumer-based, you will receive emails from people you don't know. Become email savvy. If someone tells you they want to send you $9 million from Nairobi, or wants to give you a way to meet local singles, or wants to give you free software, etc., those are bad. If an email seems like a legitimate contact, but has been quarantined, send a fresh email to the address to confirm. Or, if the contact has left a phone number, call them.

3. You're too big (or small) to help them.
This is another unintended consequence of an online contact form. Think about the last time you needed information from the IRS or the Social Security office, or a large bank. If you go through the online contact process, it's very similar to the chaos of an automated phone answering system. Press 1 for English, press 2 for Swahili... You have no idea where the form is going, when you'll be called back, or if you'll be called back. The same process works in the opposite direction. Many micro-businesses use this type of solution to help triage their incoming correspondence. There may not be anyone available to answer a direct email, or a phone call.

The general rule in website development for the past decade has been the use of these forms. Recently, however, many users are electing to abandon them. Why? Because they're not as secure as we've been led to believe, and they alienate customers.

What's the alternative? If you can't collect initial data from a client, how do you know what they need? Here are a few techniques that are so old-school that they're not even retro anymore. But they work.

1. Encourage phone contact.
Yep, the old standby. Giving your customers the clear and attractive option of calling you or your team directly, whenever they need you, sets you above your competition. We all get busy—a ringing phone can seem like a personal attack on your day. But a five minute phone conversation can not only solve a problem, it can reinforce a relationship. If a customer has a problem, solving it immediately will defuse the ticking time bomb. Forcing them to send you a form and then waiting for you to get around to answering them can bring even a tiny issue to a boiling point. Answer the phone promptly. If you can't, have a message on the phone that lets customers know how quickly you'll get back to them. And follow through. Most business phones have a flashing message light. Treat that light as if you were the bomb squad diffusing the big one. The faster the light goes out, the better the outcome.

Answering the phone and returning calls promptly (within the hour), is the basis of any successful marketing strategy. All the advertising in the world won't help you if you don't return a call. Just as a professional, friendly greeting by staff when a customer visits your store or office is the front line of your marketing plan, so too is answering calls.

Consider the value of a live operator. If your customers have to work their way through a maze of "press 1 for sales, press 2 for support", they will be discouraged. A voice on the other end, no matter how inconvenient for you, is convenient for them.

2. Provide direct email addresses.
Web development philosophy for years has been to mask or hide all open email addresses. This has been done, legitimately, for security purposes. However, the ability for your customers to contact someone directly via email outweighs any potential security or spam-related inconvenience you may face.

If you have multiple departments, provide a direct email to each. And then answer them, either by email or, preferably, by phone, and within a very limited time.

I appear to be brushing web security aside in this post. That's not the case. Having your email hacked is an inconvenience. Having your website hacked can be devastating. If your business relies on its website for any type of contact, you need to ensure your website hosting company is legitimate. Commercial hosting companies have server "farms" located across the globe, which can deflect web attacks by switching to a different location. Security for commercial web hosting companies is high and dependable—it has to be. The type of data stored on these servers is crucial. If you have a blog site, or if your website is inconsequential to your business, use one of the discount hosting companies. Security is important. It's also worth more than $3 per month. If you choose the right hosting company, it's not your problem.

The basics of marketing come down to this—when someone calls, answer. When someone has a problem, fix it. The basics of marketing have nothing to do with your logo or your website or your sign. It has to do with how you and your staff treat people.

The litmus test is this—would you want to do business with you?

The Three Bears Approach

The web is filled with marvelous and wondrous technology that changes and grows on a regular basis. How do you determine how much is too much for your clients?

Consider the Three Bears approach - you remember the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. The first bowl of porridge was too hot, the second too cold... you get it. When you're building or upgrading your website, the Three Bears approach comes down to three options—is it too much, is it too little, or is it just right?

Your customer isn't always Goldilocks. Sometimes your customer is Papa Bear. Sometimes it's Mama Bear. Each have different needs—hot porridge and cold porridge. There's no single "just right" approach.

As with everything in your marketing plan, the question of how much is too much is answered by your customer. A tech-savvy, youth-targeted site requires all the bells and whistles. Your customer expects it, and your competition provides it. If your market is older, or your clients aren't techies, you may not need as much techno-pop.

Here are three questions to ask that will help determine the level of wow required on your website:

1. What type of site are you trying to build?
Most websites are informational—an online brochure. They're a way to provide a way for prospective customers to contact you and to learn about your services, skills and those special things that set you apart. We call those "static websites". They're not necessarily "static" in the sense that there's no motion on them. Slideshows, videos, etc., can and should be a part of them. But the information is relatively constant, and users are required to contact you or visit your location to complete the transaction.

Dynamic websites can include e-commerce sites (where you're selling products or services online), video upload sites, etc. These are more robust and are designed for continuous engagement with the user. Similar information to a static site is available, but the main thrust is some form of ongoing interaction.

2. Who is your customer?
Age is often the determining factor when asking this question, but not always. Younger customers are more likely to want to make a purchase online (if appropriate), but older customers (including senior citizens - surprise) will also use these types of sites. The more appropriate question to ask is, what does your customer expect to be able to do with the site? If you sell a product or service, does your customer expect to be able to order it online and have it delivered or confirmed without having to make a phone call? Or are customers using your site to gather additional data or comparison shop prior to making an in-person purchase or acquisition of services? Ask the question from your customer's point of view, not yours. You may not have considered selling goods online, but your customer may need that.

3. Who is your competition?
This is a trick question—your competition is everywhere. Don't just look at the shop down the street—look world-wide. The web has opened up competitive markets you may not know exist. Being aware of what your competition is doing will help you determine what you need to do. It can also give you research into new customers you may not have thought about. Competition isn't a bad thing. At least, if you stay competitive.

Building a website properly from the beginning will allow you to develop it for current-state as well as future-state. The web constantly changes. New technologies emerge and new standards are introduced. Examine your site regularly. Look at your competition. Ask your customers what they want to see. They'll be your best judge. And listen to them. Developing a higher-end website than you currently have may cause you to incur an expense, but not doing so means you're losing customers. And what's the cost of that?