What Can MLB Teams Teach Us About Inbound Marketing?

As a baseball fan, it is hard to escape the lure of heading to the ballpark to watch my favorite team! The food at baseball parks are basically like going to a sit-down restaurant, the sing-a-long songs allow any shy person to be a fool in public,  and a family just cannot resist a themed night! For Detroiters, how can a Tigers fan resist Star Wars Night at Comerica Park? Simple: You can't!
Not to mention, compared to any other major league sport, baseball is typically the most affordable, so families and friends can attend multiple games a season.

 As a business owner you can take away and apply the principles that MLB teams are using to your advantage. So what is it that makes the MLB teams use of Inbound Marketing so effective?

Behind The Scenes

With the emergence of social media, fans want to be engaged and get a behind-the-scenes look into the lives of their favorite players. MLB teams in 2015 encourage their players to post updates to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Players and Teams use these social media channels to give fans an inside look into what players are doing on their days off, how they are helping in the community, what goes on in the clubhouse before a game, or how they celebrate after a big win. Using social media to engage make fans feel as if they have a more personal connection with their favorite team and promotes interaction between fans and players that they pay their hard earned money to watch and see. Inbound is the same: engage, engage, engage! 

E-Mail Offers

If you are a fan of baseball, I’m sure that you have already subscribed to your favorite teams email list. MLB teams do not use these email lists to spam their subscribers! Instead, teams use these lists to educate readers on the current state of the team, offer specials on new merchandise, and promote ticket offers that make taking your family to the ballpark more affordable. Teams also use images to portray their message in every email. Nobody likes to read a wordy email with no value other that a link to buy. Consumers what to be educated and entertained when they open an email. MLB teams use email effectively and efficiently.

Content Hub

MLB teams use their website as a content hub that draw fans in for much more that just buying tickets. The main reason fans visit their favorite teams website is to learn about the team. Teams provide highlight videos, player interviews, injury updates, promotional schedules, and blogs. Providing this content insures that the first place that fans look for information is on their website. In turn, these visitors will reward the team by purchasing tickets and merchandise directly from the source, rater that visiting a ticket broker or another sporting goods store.

So how can you apply these tactics to your business?

1.            Use social media, not only to promote your current promotions or specials, but to give your customers a behind-the-scenes look at how your business runs and why you’re the best.
2.         Don’t spam your email subscribers with wordy email that provide no value. Use email as a medium to educate your customers and provide valuable information that make them want to buy from you. Also, just a "Hello" or "Happy Birthday" email is much more memorable than a spam email in the trash bin. 
3.             Make sure that your website is a hub of information that has everything that the customer needs to make a buying decision. You do not want you customers visiting other sources to get information about your products.

Thank you for reading!

Please visit our website for more information on how Inbound can help grow your business!

www.socialstride.org

Randy Delling

Social Stride

Setting Your Business Apart: Social Selling

 Whether you are a seasoned sales professional or are just starting out, it’s easy to see that traditional selling methods are just not working like they once did. My first career out of college was as a life insurance salesman. My mentor with that company’s philosophy was, “open the phone book and start dialing." It did not take me long to find out that I was wasting my time and energy making cold calls. What my mentor failed to realize was that in this day and age of caller id and spam blockers, the time one puts in to sending ghost emails and making cold calls is not an effective use of a salesman’s time. In 2015 access to information about people is easy to get. People now want to work with individuals that they have a connection with and can trust. Most importantly they want you to prove your worth and expertise before they even consider accepting one of your phone calls.

You may have already heard of the concept of social selling, a concept that every sales professional CLAIM they are using. They think  having a vague LinkedIn profile is enough. Then, they’ll wonder why they aren’t getting the leads from social media that they should.

If you want to succeed in this new way of selling you have to put the time in. Just like cold calling, if you only made 10 cold calls in a day you probably won’t net one worthwhile conversation.  Social selling is time consuming, but if done right can net amazing results!

Here are the three steps that make a great social seller in 2015:

1. Promote

When you reach out to a prospective client, the first thing they are going to do is look you up on social media and google to get as much valuable insight as they can into what you offer.  So, have it available!  A clearly defined personal mission statement, a detailed description of what you do, testimonials from clients that you have worked with in the past, gives a better idea of you personality outside of work. Consumers want to work with professionals they can see themselves having a drink with on the weekend.

Promote as if you had to buy from you. Who would you want to work with and what would you want to know about yourself before making a purchase?

2. Educate

Your potential clients want to know what your skills are, and they want you to prove it to them! The best way to do this is to educate them. I believe that this is the most important aspect of the social selling model. I also know, that this is the part of social selling that most professionals skip, and is the reason they are not successful getting business opportunities through social media. There are many ways of educating your customers. Some of my favorites are: blogs, webinars, YouTube videos, e-books, and white papers.  Writing one blog per week or hosting one webinar per week is not time consuming and can make all the difference in your customer’s eyes. Educating your potential clients will give you a leg up over your competitors.

3. Delight

The final step to social selling is delight. Your potential clients want to get a pat on the back every once in a while, so give it to them! If they have a birthday, make sure to send them a message, if they just had a new baby reach out to congratulate! Those are the obvious ones. But if you really want to impress them you have to customize your delightful messages. Once a month, try sending them some information about something that you learned about them on their social media accounts. For example, if the person is a baseball fan. Send them and e-mail and tell them you read an article about baseball and it made you think of them and send them a link. Consumers will appreciate this small gesture more than you think.

Thank You For Reading

Randy Delling

Social Stride

Three Tips To Inspire your Millennial Workers

As a millennial myself, it’s hard to write an article telling baby boomers how we need to be treated. I mean, why take me serious? Aren’t I just asking you to cater to us so we don’t need to work and grow?

No.

The thing is, baby boomers tend to think young workers aren’t inspired. I can’t tell you enough how much we KNOW you think technology made our lives way easier and we probably wouldn’t have been able to get where we are if we had it the way the boomers did.

They also didn’t have to have over a 3.5 GPA to get anywhere in life. That is the minimal requirement for anything.

Back to my original topic, your millennial workers do want challenge. They are very creative, because creativity is highlighted everywhere they go (thanks to that crazy technology stuff), and they want to be the best.

www.Millennial2020.com

If your business isn’t changing to work with both generations, your millennial will become robots to whatever you tell them to do and your business will start to decline. As hard as it may be to accept, a millennial will NEVER think like a baby boomer. Stop trying to change and mold.

As you cater to their creativity, you still hold reign. All you need to do inspire.

Give Feedback Regularly

Honestly, so many young people have it in their heads that their boss will never see them as an equal in the company to a baby boomer. Most people who’ve been with a company over 10 years get feedback, try it for a day, shake their head and go back to thinking they know how to run the office. A millennial, when given feedback, WILL change. A simple “thank you” does the job most of the time, and your youngsters can handle constructive criticism better than anyone. Let them know you reward hard work and they will want nothing more.

Share Ideas with Them and Give them Opportunities for Idea-Implementing 

Invite the youngsters to more meetings. They probably want to sit in on the big-wigs talk, and they want to feel important. On your end, they will be most active when implementing new ideas, not to mention have ideas of their own. Ask regularly what ideas they have, and if they have a good one, allow them to work on it. Google is a great example: they allow team members to work on whatever they want on a regular basis. It allows them to feel in control while boosting innovation.

Complete win-win.

Allow work-life balance and flexibility

Some of the greatest companies of our time allow unlimited vacation time, travel time, and the opportunity to where from anywhere. This may sound ridiculous to give them so much freedom, but provided their great performance, why not work from home if possible? You can still have constant communication, and a millennial honestly couldn’t ask for a better day than sitting in sweats and making money. Vacation time can give given without being taken (millenials are in tune with school and other debts after they get a job), but freedom is the best feeling.

A millennial who feels encouraged, inspired, and free at work=a loyal and hard worker.

How To Find The Time For Social Media Marketing

As a small business owner, you are always looking for ways to save time. And let’s be honest, marketing through emails, social media, and your website can be very time consuming. For this reason, most business owners will neglect the attention that social media and other online marketing outlets need in order to maximize marketing potential.

Well I’m glad to say that that this problem has been solved.

Enter, Marketing Automation. What is this Marketing Automation?  It refers to software platforms that are made for businesses that more efficiently market and automate repetitive tasks on multiple online outlets including email, social media, and website. Some of these software options include Hubspot, Marketo, and Infusionsoft. Usage of Marketing Automation Technology is expected to Rise 50% by 2015 (via Sirius Decisions).

Unfortunately for your business, traditional marketing just does not work in today’s tech friendly environment and does not produce the ROI that it once did. In 2015, people can easily perform product research on multiple easy-to-navigate websites, skip through commercials through DVR, and do  not accept phone calls from phone numbers they do not recognize.
 It’s time to face the facts, and set up marketing automation for your business to get back the reach that your traditional marketing efforts had in the 1980’s!

Here are 10 Marketing Automation statistics that will have you ready to take your business to the next level.

1.  79% of top-performing companies have been using marketing automation for more than 2 years. (Via Gleanster)

2.       B2B marketers who implement marketing automation increase their sales-pipeline contribution by 10%. (Via Forrester Research)

3.     58% of top-performing companies (defined as those where marketing contributes more than half of the sales pipeline), have adopted marketing automation. (Via Forrester Research)

4.   25% of Fortune 500 B2B companies have adopted marketing automation. (Via ClickZ)

5.       63% of companies that are outgrowing their competitors use marketing automation. (Via The Lenskold and Pedowitz Groups)

6.  CMOs at top-performing companies indicate that their most compelling reason for implementing marketing automation is to increase revenue (79%) and get higher quality leads (76%). (Via Gleanster)

7.  Companies using marketing automation see 53% higher conversion rates (initial response-to-MQL) than non-users, and an annualized revenue growth rate 3.1% higher than non-users. (Via Aberdeen Group)

8.  78% of successful marketers cite marketing automation systems as most responsible for improving revenue contribution. (Via The Lenskold and Pedowitz Groups)

9.  B2C marketers who take advantage of automation – which includes everything from cart abandonment programs to birthday emails – have seen conversion rates as high as 50%. (Via eMarketer)

10. Companies that use marketing automation are 3 times more likely than companies without automation to track and attribute their content-marketing efforts to multiple touchpoints (36% to 11%). (Via The Lenskold and Pedowitz Groups)

Thanks for reading!

Randy Delling

Social Stride



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How to: Easily Convert Followers Into Paying Customers

When you first started on social media, you looked to get as many followers as you could. You probably followed everyone back, reached out and engaged.
As your platform and business grows, it’s harder to sell and manage your accounts, but it’s still the simplest and most useful way to grab loyal customers.

Loyal. This is the keyword.

First, think about what makes a relationship loyal, then translate that into your accounts.

Here’s some simple tips:

1.    Communicate and take their advice

It’s great you got followers and did the work it took to get those. But, the more people=more noise. You may get a ton of complaints and suggestions, but don’t overlook them! If suggestions become redundant, fix it and LET THEM KNOW! Tell your followers you heard them and are making changes.

If you get a great idea from one person, give that person a shout out! If you become their internet friend, they will eventually become a loyal paying friend.

2.    Create exclusive deals for followers

Not only does this help track your sales coming from followers, they will feel the URGENCY to buy your product. Constant specials on social media will actually devalue your company, but when used at the correct time for the right length of time, it will create desire.

How?

1. Coupons and promotions with specific codes
2. Referral program offers for 
1. Shares
2. Likes
3. New Customers
3. Create a #hashtag!

3.    Share Customer Testimonials

Share, share, share! No, also PROMOTE! Nowadays, everyone looks at reviews to decide which restaurant to go to, or brand of vitamin to choose, or any other service they use. Every company should have great customer testimonials highlighted on their sites and updated often!

Another great idea is if you have a blog (if you don’t, go get one!), interview a loyal customer on their experience and your products. Any way you can put a happy face to a happy comment, you’ll generate more happy customers.

As you can see, there are simple steps to amp up your online marketing campaign. I'd love to hear how this article has helped your company! Please comment, shout out, and share :)
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Have an amazing day,

Lana Sache

Why and HOW to Find Your Targeted Audience

When I watched Steve Forbes interview Jessica Simpson about her billion-dollar clothing company, I realized how brilliant this woman really is.  Of course she has her corkiness, but so do I.  I didn’t think I’d watch her interview and have my brain wheels turning, but boy was I wrong!

She says, “We like to see the trends that are coming. We are behind.” She is aware of her targeted audience of “everything beyond New York and L.A.” She knows women take time to see what trend they like, and she understands that. She waits to see what fashion trend women admire and will last beyond one season, and then makes a great color scheme that a wide age range will like, and creates something amazing and affordable. It’s not just affordable clothes, it’s trends that most people admire but couldn’t get their hands on yet.

She dug deep into her targeted audience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml2oObyWFmc

This is where I think a lot of companies thrive at or fail at. Every single company will have a low period, but what gets them back or makes them fall off determines if they can rediscover their targeted audience.

Here’s the 2 major factors you’ll need to keep in mind (and keep rechecking) when you are finding your targeted audience:

1.    Demographics

This isn’t just age, gender, and location. You need to think into who you really want to target by answering these demographics also:

• Income
• Occupation
• Education
• Ethnicity
• Marital status
• # of children

Some of these things may not be relevant to your business, like ethnicity, but some of these are something to really think about. If you are a small town farmer, you’ll still want to target families who have mouths to feed and can afford local produce. Reevaluate what you first decided was your demographic, dig deeper, and come up with a campaign to get that specific audience this year.

2.    Psychographics

Psychographics tells you the WHY, not just the WHO. In order to tell you why your targeted audience works (or is failing), you need to closely watch their

• Behaviors
• Values
• Personality
•  Interests
• Lifestyle

For example, you should know when most people view your website, what pages on your site are most clicked (and what factors about it make it so liked), what graphics tend to attract your clients, and what other types of posts your market likes/shares.

Analyzing psychographics can be challenging because there is no clear answer; you have to play psychologist, emphasize with your market, and change accordingly with the way they work.

Just like Jessica Simpson, you need to know how your demographic thinks; which may be completely different than how you think.

No matter what, it’s never a bad idea to look over your targeted audience again and again, since it will continuously change!

Thanks for reading!

Lana Sache

Social Stride

Top 5 Tips for Social Media Customer Interaction for Small Businesses

People go online for three reasons. To connect with other people, to be educated, and to be entertained. When building your social media strategy make sure that you are fulfilling all of these. Although you may find running a business and building your social media following stressful, it’s where your customers are! It is important that you are building a social media strategy that will effectively and efficiently reach as many potential customers as possible. Before you start building your Social Media presence there are 5 points to keep in mind:

1. Be Available

Not only do people learn about businesses through social media, they also want their questions about your products of services answered in a timely fashion. With this in mind, it is important that you set expectations for your customers, outlining when you are available to answer questions on your social media sites. One way is to make a “available to reach time” for questions to be answered (9am-11am for example) within during normal business hours. That way you can glace at your computer for an hour or two and reach maximum clients.

2. Consistency

Consistency is key to building a loyal customer base on social media. So many people start off posting multiple times a day but over time, start drifting off. Also, if you say you will be available to answer questions during certain times doing the day, make sure that you are following through on your promises. Just as in any aspect of business, you are only as good as your word so be consistent and reliable.

3. Don’t focus on all platforms

You can’t be everywhere at the same time. After all, you do have a business that you need to focus on and social media can be very time consuming. If you focus on using too many platforms, your social media strategy will not be effective.  Start with one, like a Facebook page or Twitter.  Your customers will notice the high level of customer service they receive on those platforms. You can always add another platform once you get comfortable with the one you are currently using.

4. Promote products in creative ways

Every business is on social media. Most of them use social media to post special or promotions and leave it at that. If you want to create an effective social media presence you need to think outside the box. The reason for being on social media is to RELATE to customers, not ANNOY. People are more likely to refer their friends to businesses that are generating awareness. Stop trying to sell, instead, help people buy. Some great examples are photos of your business, behind the scenes actives in your business, and blog posts on past events that your company has been involved with. Think outside the box.

5. Organize your thoughts

An effective social media strategy needs to be organized. At the start of every week, take ten minutes to write out a list of topics that you can generate content for social media with. Using this tactic you will avoid having to think about possible content that you want to post and instead will be ready to get your content out there for everyone to see.

Follow these steps and comment below on how it's changed your business' social media!

Have a great one,

Randy Delling

Social Stride

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