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

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

4 Reasons Your Companies Traditional Marketing Is DEAD

If you are a long time owner of any sort of company, you may wonder why your traditional marketing efforts are not working like they did in the past. With usage of internet and mobile applications on the rise, your customers are not responding to broad advertisements that they hear on TV or radio, or read in newspaper or magazines. Consumers today are more informed and want to be engaged and build a relationship with the brands that they love. There are many reasons for the demise of your companies traditional marketing efforts, here are the Top 5

1. Traditional Marketing is not personalized

Traditional marketing is about producing one advertisement that caters to everyone that it reaches (while spending a ton on $). The content of those ads are NOT personalized and when advertisements come on, people tune out. Traditional marketing does not take into consideration the specific needs and wants of each individual customer. Today, we need to market to each individual separately. When customers are engaged with your company, they leave a trail of clues as to what they are most interested. Companies today should be using all of the information there customers give them and implementing it through individualized content in the form of social media posts, videos, e-mails, articles, etc. The days of guessing what your customers want are over, so why is your company still advertising aimlessly, instead of individualizing you marketing?

2. Traditional Marketing does not promote interaction with customers

In the past, your marketing department would come up with an advertising campaign, roll it out to the public, then sit back and wait for customers to call or come in. With the way buyer behavior has recently change, you simply cannot just sit back and expect customers to come to you without interacting with them. Your customers expect you to be there and expect a quick response when they have questions. Marketing in 2015 is a great way to communicate with your customers and gain insight about your customers. Don’t just sit back and expect this generation of consumers to come running to you.

3   

      3. Your customers have more resources

10 years ago, using traditional marketing tactics, your marketing department played the role of the expert. Due to a lack of information back then, the customer usually took your word because that was all the information they had. But in todays changed marketing environment, consumers can easily gain information about your brand through review sites, social media posts, and blogs. Even better, this content is coming from and unbiased source, their peers. So not only do they read what you have to say about your brand, but also read about that other consumers have to say about your brand.  Taking that into consideration, your company not only need to generate great content, but also need to promote the content that your customers are saying about you and insuring that the customer experience is a great one.

4   

      4. Your traditional marketing is temporary

With traditional marketing, your ads only last as long as you keep paying for them, but the internet has change the lifespan of your marketing to FOREVER. When you use content marketing, whatever you post is a marketing asset that will generate new business FOREVER. I like to think of Traditional marketing as leasing an apartment and content marketing as buying a house. Content marketing is an asset that will last forever. Keeping this in mind, with content marketing, you have to make sure that the message that you are sending is consistent. If your consumer finds a post or article form 2010 and its different from the messaging you are sending in you most recent post or article, your customers will get confused about what your company actually stand for.

Technology has changed the way that your customers shop for products and service. Traditional marketing is dying but your company can use content and context marketing to engage with your customers and create a pleasant buying environment. Worth a try, eh?

For more information please visit our NEW website www.socialstride.org and like us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pages/Social-Stride/642974392492344?fref=ts

Randy Delling

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

P.S. 

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Two Reasons Your Social Media Is Slacking

The reason you are reading this doesn’t matter. Whether you are starting your own car detailing company or the next Kim Kardashian look-a-like model, you probably need some help online.

I could have titled this: How to get 1,000 twitter followers a day, and I may have reached the same crowd.

Good.

I need the people looking for numbers…the people ALMOST willing to throw away money to have it! The numbers you can buy on the black market of social media most likely will have profiles that look like this:

Or

If you know how hashtags work you know the first two things he highlighted were FUTURE and NO. You mean, no future? Oh the jokes I could make about Proudly, SMD, and No Future.

  

That, along with a few thousand XXX profiles (no joke) and….

 

a ton of useless eggs. If that suits your needs, throw your money away for a number! Your schoolgirl popularity contest via the Internet will do you and your business no good.

So, how do you get real, human, followers?

Content and Sustainability.

1.Content

What you write has to be:

a.     Original

Even if you are the millionth person to write about fedora hats, there’s something in that head of yours that will bring people running to your page. Maybe it’s “how to wash your fedora hat” and pair it with whatever you REALLY want to write.

The reason I didn’t title this “How to get 1,000 twitter followers a day” is because that’s been used about 32,800,000 times (thanks Google). https://www.google.com/#q=how+to+get+1%2C000+twitter+followers+a+day

Even though what I’m writing can easily make that happen, I can’t cross my fingers for 1 out of 32,800,000. I have to be original. Now, go copy and paste MY title. J

b.     Personal

Honestly, people want to know YOU. It’s a weird feeling to put yourself out there online to strangers, but that’s what people like. A decade ago, everyone could hide behind their computer screen and be whoever they wanted. Now, you have the gift of being the REAL you, and have millions of people love exactly that!

Even if you are a small business owner, people want to know the passion you have!

2. Sustainability

Sustainability: “Strengthen or support physically or mentally.”

By sustainability, I mean be quick to respond, be patient, and continue regardless.

·      When you get a comment or email, respond within a few hours. Or, if you have a large business, having a online webinar people can attend at a specific time to ask questions is a great way to become personable. Make yourself available.

·      Be patient with the humans; they are only humans. They’ll follow back eventually (if your content is useful).

·      Continue posting even if progress is slow. In this day and age, the marketability online is too huge to look past. You honestly don’t have a choice.

Post smart, be patient, and be you. That’s the main thing. It may be frustrating, but not only do you have endless opportunities, you don’t have to spend thousands to reach thousands.

Get yourself a coffee, watch inspirational videos, come up with ideas, and just write.

-Lana

Social Stride

P.S.
What do you think? What aspects make a great blog/social media following? Leave your comments and questions below!