Posted by
Will McNae on Fri, Sep 27, 2013 @ 02:50 AM
Let's walk through how to setup a new Facebook advertising account using the Ads Manager. By doing so, you will have control over the creation of new ads, measuring performance of ads, adding new users and updating billing information.
To get started:
Step 1: login in to your personal facebook account.
Step 2: Click on this link to go to the Facebook Ads Account Settings page: https://www.facebook.com/ads/manage/settings.php
(If you aren’t directed to the proper place however, go to the Ads Manager by clicking on the link from the left side of your Home screen.)
(Then click on the Settings link on the left side while in the Ads Manager.)
Step 3: Scroll down to the Permissions area and click “Add a User.”
Then (as an example) enter my name (Will McNae) if we are friends or my email address to add me (willmcnae [@] hotmail.com) if we're not yet friends.
Add as “General User”.
General Users can see and edit your ads and set up ads using the funding source you associate with this ads account.
Step 4: Add Billing information by clicking on Billing and then Funding Sources in the left menu.
Click on Add New Funding Source.
Step 5: Add business/company credit card or PayPal information.
This completes the setup process for your new Facebook Ads Account.
If you have further questions or would like to learn Best Practices that will help using Facebook for business - please contact our team.
These are questions we get often.
In conversation with business owners and principals, when people ask what we do, many remark that they, too, need to grow. Some comment that they need to “figure out” how to generate more business from their website. The question that follows is typically, “How do I get more leads from the web?” or “Would my business be a good fit for what you do?”
My answer is always the same: Let’s run a Visibility Assessment and find out.
I liken it to a blood test that a doctor runs on a sick patient -- before prescribing a course of treatment or writing an actual prescription. Doctors are good like that; they generally like to find out WHAT is making someone sick before they present the solution. (Can you imagine a doctor who prescribed medicine without even asking the patient about their symptoms or allergies…?)
Yet that’s what I hear / read / see from far too many “digital agencies” and “SEOs” in the online marketing world: They’ll tell you all about their wonderful solutions and “guaranteed results” --- without even talking to you first about your pain points. It’s as if they know what’s wrong with you, without even asking. These businesses are quick to provide pricing sheets and proposals, but hesitant to hold meaningful, substantive conversations about your business and your sales process.
The Website + Social Media Visibility Assessment marks a vastly different approach.
When we are approached by a business owner, principal or marketing director and asked to provide solutions, pricing, a proposal or participate in an RFP, we decline, opting instead to start with a methodology we know to be more successful instead: We run a Visibility Assessment on that business and several of their closest (online) competitors, and we don’t just look at their website. We dig in and examine the company’s social media properties, their mobile user experience, the speed at which their website responds to users… even down to the technologies they’re currently using to publish their site and those of their competitors.
The act of creating an assessment takes time, investment by our team, and results in a detailed and valuable report, which we share during a brief web meeting, phone call or in person meeting.
This process creates a value exchange with a prospective client. When we meet, we have SUBSTANCE to discuss. Instead of walking through mindless PowerPoint slides together, we have a meaningful conversation about specific actions that business can take to improve their visibility and grow their business online. They learn about what we do WITHOUT us having to spell it out in 30 slides. Clients evaluate us on our insights on their business instead enduring boastful and unsubstantiated claims about what we could do.
We learn if they are a good fit for what we know we do well WITHOUT investing weeks and months with a client to find out that we weren’t meant to work together, that we were incompatible or that there is “no chemistry” between our teams. It works for all parties.
How do you define Visibility? What does this report actually measure?
Growth Potential and Competitive Positioning.
We define Visibility as your company’s ability to be FOUND by prospective customers (or clients or patients or subscribers) who are looking for WHAT it is that you do, but do not yet know your brand name* or URL. If you’re not being found easily, chances are these prospective customers are still buying… they’re just seeking out your competitors instead. (*Brand Visibility is more of a traditional advertising concept that relates to Share of Voice, Advertising Spend, and “aided and unaided recall”.)
We don’t delve into Brand for the purposes of Website Visibility; instead we assume you are already getting the vast majority of your brand visits and search queries. We’re looking at growth potential instead.
I often ask this question: If you had to stake your company’s growth on the people you already know, or the ones you have yet to meet, which one would you choose? Typically 8 or 9 out of 10 tell me their growth potential from people they don’t know yet far outweighs those customers with whom they already have a relationship.
What is the end result? Why go through all this Visibility work up front?
The Visibility Assessment creates a baseline for performance. It provides immediate value for the business receiving it. It provides a scorecard to benchmark against competitors. And it provides a meaningful blueprint on what needs to get done to improve a business’s Visibility so that they can be FOUND by more prospective customers, clients or patients. This blueprint provides a roadmap for the first phase in our five-phase growth model: VISIBILITY.
What do you think about the Visibility Assessments process?
We’d love to hear from you. We love challenges, and we don’t mind tough questions. Feel welcome to talk back to us by leaving a comment or posing a question (below).
Ahhh, the art and science of buyer behavior.
Watching a prospective buyer from across a board room table -- their eyes, their gestures, mannerisms and body language, either with you or against you -- seems downright predictable compared to what many companies face selling and generating new business online.
What if those same "buying signals" were available to your sales people who are tasked with selling from leads generated online?
- What are the signals prospects send you that your sales team is missing?
- What if you could solve the timing puzzle -- and always contact the prospect at just the "right time"?
- Does your team know what to ask next of their prospective buyers?
The behavior of prospects is both an art and a science that can be puzzling, but thanks to emerging technology, we can now give businesses the know-how of 20+ years of sales and marketing experience, coupled with new "sales intelligence" tools and real-time data which can open doors for any business that needs to bring in more customers from their website and online presence.
There are certain actions that indicate when a prospect is ready to buy. We call these "buying signals." The identification of these signals early on can save time in the sales process and shorten the sales cycle for most prospective buyers. A sense for "good timing" is much needed inherent advantage for any sales team, which in turn provides opportunities to focus on real and serious prospects, who demonstrate their qualifications through their behavior (revisiting your site, downloading your latest ebook, etc.)
With assistance from the new product development team at HubSpot, we now have access to information from millions of contacts across thousands of websites. We have jointly uncovered key buying signals to monitor that will put you ahead of your competition. Most of your competitors don’t have access to this data, nor are they able to provide instant notification of "sales intelligence" events.
Any modern email company can tell you which prospects are opening up emails, but what about which telling a specific sales rep WHICH prospect is back on your site, downloading your pricing sheet, in real-time? That's much harder to do... but it's now possible.
Enabling your sales team to focus their follow up with those that are interested saves time and unlocks real value.
If you are serious about converting prospects into customers, implement the tools that unlock sales intelligence and bring in more prospects with the best chance of converting to paying customers or clients.
Benefits of unlocking Buyer Signals include:
- Closing more sales - Use sales' time on qualified prospects and higher value customers.
- Identify lost opportunities - Uncover a staffing need or deficiency that is affecting the success of your sales cycle.
- Understand and avoid negative buying signal behavior - Every prospect has a buying cycle and some businesses don't know how long they should nurture that relationship, and when to call it quits.
- Upgrade the dialogue between sales and prospects - arm your team with intelligent conversation starters based on buyer behavior.
What do you think?
What are the inherent benefits of a solution like this in your organization? What are the risks? What kind of training is needed to make sure sales people don't overreach and end up "freaking out" those with which they are trying to build trust and gain acceptance?
We'd love to see your comments and questions. Please feel free to leave them below.
Posted by
Will McNae on Mon, Aug 05, 2013 @ 04:32 PM
A great series of SEO tips and infographic have been created by the marketing leaders over at HubSpot this week. As Google continues to evolve and change the playing field, these are trusted resources to study and learn from.
One of my favorite quotes to keep at the center of our focus is by Dharmesh Shah:
"SEO is not about optimizing for search, it's about optimizing for humans." - Dharmesh Shah, HubSpot CTO (Tweet This Quote!)
Also, you can sign up here to receive "5 Days of Quick Tips in Your Inbox from SEO Experts" by email. A great way to start your day.
Enjoy the Infographic:
SEO Tips From the Experts [Infographic]
Posted by
Will McNae on Wed, Jul 24, 2013 @ 11:48 PM
"Are blog articles and downloadable content really that important to our online sales strategy?"
That's a question we get asked by just about every client. And it's a fair question as we watch the digital world rapidly changing from the "old days" of traditional media channels to the new, and often foreign, platforms in social and digital media.
In today's article, I'm sharing 3 excerpts and perspectives on content regarding how the content world is changing and why even big traditional media companies are struggling to stay ahead.
Below are the first two (of five) tips from eConsultancy on getting started with content for your company.
Why Media Companies Are Struggling
The internet, tablets, and smartphones have changed the way audiences consume media and the way advertisers use media to engage with consumers. Average time spent with mediums like radio and print have declined up to 15.4% in 2012, according to research published by eMarketer .
And while time spent with mobile, online and TV show growth, the time spent with these mediums are all highly fragmented. According to eMarketer, 57% of people use Smartphones, 67% use PC’s, 75% use tablets, and 77% use TV’s while also using another device. In other words, captive audiences are a thing of the past, and so are the connections that advertisers used to be able to make with them.
On top of the shifts in time spent with media and the fragmentation of audience engagement, media companies are also challenged with shifts in revenue. More traditional media companies like newspapers, radio, local TV stations, direct mail, and directories experienced a total decline in revenue ranging from $25 million to $1.7 billion from 2012 to 2013 according to Borrell Associates 2013 Local Advertising Outlook .
All of these factors are taking a big toll on media companies, forcing leaders at media companies to face their challenges head on. As I speak with more and more consultants, General Managers, VPs of Sales, and Directors of Marketing they tell me that if their companies don’t adapt to accommodate their audience and their advertisers, they’re going to fall behind. Here are the top challenges these media companies have shared with me, and how we believe inbound marketing can help them meet and defeat those obstacles.
[ by Melanie Collins from HubSpot's Inbound Marketing Blog ]
[ Read original: Why Media Companies Are Struggling (And How Inbound Can Help) ]
Does our Business need to publish all the time?
A lot has been written about brands as publishers. Let's face it, to get it right requires planning, investment and the operational agility to react in real-time to breaking news as it happens.
However, the returns can be more than worth it, as a growing list of examples shows.
Becoming a ‘brand newsroom’ isn’t just a trend amongst the big companies either. Whilst there are plenty of big consumer brand examples, smaller brands, B2B companies, non-profits, and public sector organisations are also aligning their marketing and communications plans around content creation and social media.
If you are wondering if you should take the plunge, or have already jumped, the five tips below will help you get the most out of your strategy.
1. Real time is the best time
In these times of media saturation and information overload, brands must be ready to react in minutes or seconds, not hours or days to breaking news and the social web and be equipped to publish, distribute and promote new content - instantly.
Some of the best examples are Paddy Power’s response to Alex Ferguson’s retirement, or an even swifter reaction from Golden Wonder and of course the now obligatory example of Oreo’s “Dunk in the dark” Super Bowl ad.
2. Multimedia makes the difference
Granted this might sound like an obvious point, but content doesn’t have to be text based and it doesn’t have to be posted in the obvious place. Some of the best examples of this have been simple, shareable content that people can quickly digest.
If you look at the recent launch of BT Sport, the Mail Online’s coverage contained 13 images, a video, an infographic, two financial graphs and numerous quotes.
Even more traditional releases can benefit from adding a multimedia element, whether that’s a simple unboxing of a tech product like the Raspberry Pi or an infographic on cyber security that got some good national media pickup.
[ by Adam Cranfield from Posts from the Econsultancy blog ]
[ Read original: Five tips for brands acting like publishers ]
What is the benefit of relevant content to my audience?
Editor’s Note: This is a guest post from Michael Brito, Senior Vice President for Social Business Planning at Edelman Digital .
Here are 3 quick reasons why relevant content matters.
1. Relevant content adds value to the conversation
Many companies today are not sure where to start. One way to determine if and where the conversation is happening about the brand is to conduct a conversation audit. A conversation audit uses social listening software platforms such as Radian6, Meltwater Buzz or Sysomos to data mine the internet for “brand” or “product” related conversations. The data from an audit will give an organization insight into the following:
- where the conversation is happening (Twitter, Facebook, forums, blogs)
- nature of the conversation (sentiment, product, brand or both)
- share of voice in comparison to competitors or the general market category
- influencer identification; their total reach, community size and where they spend most of their time online
- competitive audit i.e. competitors community size, growth rate, web traffic
The results of a conversation audit will help organizations to determine if they can actually add value to the conversation going on around them. If the conversation is happening on Twitter and the sentiment revolves around complaints about the product; companies should be prepared to jump into the conversation on Twitter and start solving customer problems. If they aren’t prepared to do this for any reason, they need to think long and hard about how they plan on engaging on the social web. By merely saying “thank you” or just following disgruntled customers’ Twitter accounts is not adding value to the conversation and will most likely add more fuel to the fire.
That said, if the conversation is positive resulting in several users praising the product; companies can say “thank you”, retweet content, follow them and decide later how to engage them in a way that does add value i.e. creating formal advocacy programs, adding them to specific Twitter lists, or inviting them to be a part of another community.
For those who are asking general questions about a product or brand (i.e. does anyone know where I can download the latest driver), a great way to add value to the conversation is to simply respond with a link to the page where they can actually download the driver. Sometimes it’s the little things that not only adds value but can potentially create customer advocacy and position the company as a trusted advisor.
2. Relevant content positions the brand as a trusted advisor
In the past, some companies relied solely on press releases to launch products. Others have leaked product information to tech influencer blogs in order to leverage their reach, influence and community size and create buzz. The problem with these two methods is that they result in a onetime communication opportunity. After all the hype and buzz dies down, there is no way for a company to communicate with the social customer again; until of course the next release hits the wires or the next blog post goes live; assuming the 3rd party tech blog is willing to post it.
As organizations today are getting smarter, adopting governance models, empowering their employees to blog and tweet; they are now relying on their owned media channels to share and release information. An owned media channel is a company owned community where they have more control the messaging i.e. corporate blog, Facebook fan page and corporate Twitter account. The result of this approach is that allows a company to communicate directly with the community rather than through a third party. And, it makes sense that most consumers interested in a product or brand will want firsthand knowledge about a release date, future enhancements about a product or service and other corporate communications.
As long as the messaging on a company’s owned media channels is relevant, not inundated with sales propaganda, and delivers valuable information, they will essentially position themselves as a trusted advisor of content related to their own products and/or industry related information. The key is to be authentic and trustworthy; with the end goal of being believable.
3. Relevant content is authentic but more importantly, believable
One could question the authenticity of any politician; but during the 2008 Presidential Election, Barack Obama did something that business can learn from. He was not only authentic in the way he communicated, but the core of his message was believable. During his entire campaign, his message of “Change we can believe in”occupied every piece of media, conversation and bumper sticker from California to New York. This can be attributed to a variety of things.
First, Obama was consistent with his messaging and hammered the “change” point in every television appearance, speech and interview. Also, the content of the message itself was also very relevant for that time period in history. Lastly, his supporters (i.e. advocates) were sharing the same message with their very own micro communities over and over again; in every channel and community that they were a part of.
The lesson for business is that being authentic is an expectation that consumers already have today; and they are holding business accountable to live up to those expectations. From a business perspective, their content and messaging has to go beyond authenticity. It has to be believable. A company can truly be authentic with all their communication strategies but if they aren’t relevant and adding value, the community will not fully believe the message. The end result is a huge disconnect and irrelevant messages that will be ignored.
Building and fostering a healthy community; establishing trust and becoming believable takes time before seeing any positive results. Obama’s message wasn’t believed over night. It took more than a year before voters, especially those who were unsure, to learn to trust his vision for the country and believe in him.
[ by 3 Reasons Why Relevant Content Matters | Social Media Club from Comments on: 3 Reasons Why Relevant Content Matters ]
[ Read original: By: 3 Reasons Why Relevant Content Matters | Social Media Club ]
“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it” – Lord Kelvin
The British mathematical physicist and engineer who figured out the value for Absolute Zero (and has had Absolute temperatures named in his honor ever since) gave us a rule to live by as marketers and business people: If you want something improved, you have to be able to measure it... benchmark it, set goals round it, and figure out how to "move the needle".
We throw that "needle" phrase around a lot these days, especially when helping clients relaunch a stagnant website or begin using social media effectively. But what does it really mean to measure a business? What are the critical KPIs (key performance indicators)?
I was really impressed when a prospective client turned us onto the For Entrepreneurs blog by David Skok, a five-time serial entrepreneur turned VC, at Matrix Partners. He goes above and beyond and shares some serious know-how and business value in a post entitled, "SaaS Metrics 2.0 – A Guide to Measuring and Improving what Matters".
David uses HubSpot, of which we are a platinum agency partner, as one of his two primary examples, which makes the article even more compelling and timely.
If you have a Software as a Service or Subscription revenue model business, this post is a must read. If you're merely a fan of measurement and analysis, you'll get a ton of value out of reading it as well. Here's the premise of David's post:
SaaS/subscription businesses are more complex than traditional businesses. Traditional business metrics totally fail to capture the key factors that drive SaaS performance. In the SaaS world, there are a few key variables that make a big difference to future results. This post is aimed at helping SaaS executives understand which variables really matter, and how to measure them and act on the results.
The goal of the article is to help you answer the following questions:
- Is my business financially viable?
- What is working well, and what needs to be improved?
- What levers should management focus on to drive the business?
- Should the CEO hit the accelerator, or the brakes?
- What is the impact on cash and profit/loss of hitting the accelerator?
Read the entire blog post, "A Guide to Measuring and Improving what Matters".
What KPIs do you use to measure your business?
Tell us in the comments and we'll publish the more thoughtful responses.
Posted by
Will McNae on Wed, Jan 16, 2013 @ 05:29 PM
Have you ever noticed that great sports teams are made up of players who perform their roles really well and understand their strengths & weaknesses? In basketball, it wouldn't make sense for a coach to ask their 7 foot Center to dribble the ball up the court every time, right? No, you'd prefer your quick and agile Point Guard to do the task of dribbling so they could get the ball into the hands of the Center under the basket. Turn and shoot - score! It's a well oiled machine when all roles work together playing to their strengths. 
Your marketing team is no different. As your organization continues to build and develop Digital Marketing Equity™ with Connection Model, consider identifying what your team's strengths and passions are (and where you might need to make adjustments). HubSpot shows in their awesome Infographic, "Discover YOUR Marketing Super Powers", a decision tree to help identify what your interests are and where your strengths lie so your marketing team can perform to it's fullest potential. Each of the roles are critical to success.
Do your skills and passion relate to writing, publishing, analyzing or optimizing? Find out by following the Infographic below!
What Is Your Marketing Super Power
Have we missed a role that's critical to your organization? Let us know.
Here's an excerpt and Infographic from a fascinating study that was done to test the response -- by 14 major brands -- to individual customer service messages via Twitter. I found it intriguing, and thought we'd share it here on our blog. -DC
The Great Social Customer Service Race – 14 Top Brands Tested on Social Support Savvy
Guest post on Marketing Zen by Ashley Furness. Ashley is a market analyst with Software Advice, a lead generation and research advisory firm that offers software reviews and comparisons.
Today, consumers tend to base their purchase decisions on reviews, social media and referrals from friends. They are interested in marketing, but only if it matches their expectations about the brand.
If anyone had a handle on social customer service, I assumed 14 of the nation’s top brands – such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi – would be among them. But recently I completed a research project that tested this theory, and I came up with some surprising results.
The five-week project, dubbed “The Great Social Customer Service Race,” assessed the how quickly and often the companies responded on Twitter. Four Software Advice employees used their personal Twitter accounts to send messages to the brands, sometimes with the @ symbol and sometimes without the @. When the @ symbol is used, the account holder is notified that they’ve been mentioned in a tweet.
It’s not feasible to expect these brands – some receiving thousands of messages per day – to reply to everything. But we designed questions that should have received some kind of response based on social customer service best practices. Overall, the participants responded a mere 14 percent of the time.
Read more of this article: http://www.marketingzen.com/the-great-social-customer-service-race-14-top-brands-tested-on-social-support-savvy/#ixzz2Hb15r99L
The Results of the Study (via Infographic, of course!)
Talk Back
What do you think of this study? Did the results surprise you? Do you think there is opportunity in the emerging feield of Social Customer Service?
Google has compiled some valuable research on the wants and wishes of mobile website visitors, and HubSpot has made a list of 20 of the top stats available on their Inbound Marketing blog.
Still trying to make the case for mobile optimization of your company's website?
Or worse -- have you gotten the green light, but are so overwhelmed by the project that you don't know where to begin?
Makes sense. Starting from square one is hard. Google probably figured as much, and they graciously conducted a study to help make mobile marketers' lives a little bit easier: "What Users Want Most From Mobile Sites Today."
The study, which we found via Marketing Land, reports on two helpful perspectives. First, it helps you make the case for mobile site optimization by reporting on how smartphone users feel about mobile browsing experiences with businesses now. Then, it dives into the actual things smartphone users want from a company's mobile site.
With this data, you can build a case and actually make a user's dream scenario happen! Take a look at some of the highlights we've pulled from the study that we think will help you with your mobile marketing.
How Smartphone Users Feel About the Mobile Browsing Experience
1) 96% of smartphone users have encountered sites that weren't designed for mobile devices. Tweet This Stat!
2) 67% of users are more likely to purchase a product or service from a mobile-friendly site. Tweet This Stat!
3) 74% of users say they're also more likely to return to a site in the future if it's mobile-friendly. Tweet This Stat!
4) On the other hand, 79% of users who don't like what they find on a mobile site will go look for the information they need on another site. Tweet This Stat!
5) Additionally, 52% of users said a bad mobile experience made them less likely to engage with a company. Tweet This Stat!
6) And even if users really like a business, 50% of users will use that business less if their site isn't mobile-friendly. Tweet This Stat!
7) 48% of users say they feel frustrated and annoyed when on sites that are poorly optimized for mobile. 36% say they feel like they've wasted their time when they visit those sites. Tweet This Stat!
8) 48% of users that report a business' site didn't work well on their smartphones took it as an indication the company didn't care about their business. Tweet This Stat!
Read the entire post including 11 more stats on HubSpot's Inbound Marketing Blog.
For companies looking to drive business online, lots of time and money is invested in lead generation. But what happens when the leads start flowing in?
Unfortunately, it's easy to perform reverse alchemy on leads, taking a golden lead and turning it into lead. What's worse: oftentimes, this happens almost immediately.
The good news: it doesn't have to be this way. Successfully following up on a lead and starting the process that will take it to a sale doesn't have to be a trying and disappointing process.
Here are seven tips for following up on leads effectively.
1. Strike while the iron is hot
In many cases, a lead is an asset that depreciates in value very, very rapidly. As such, it's worth trying to respond to qualified leads as soon as humanly possible because your response time will often determine whether you close a sale or lose a sale you could have easily closed.
2. Read the lead
Common sense: it's important to read a lead so that you know who you're dealing with and what your opportunity may be. Fact: this doesn't always happen. To avoid looking unprepared or lazy, it can help to create a checklist that your inbound marketers use as part of the lead follow-up process.
3. Have the right person respond
To make the most of a lead, ensure that the person best capable of following up on it is the person who responds. While new prospects may necessarily have to deal with several people throughout the sales cycle, it is often desirable to ensure that their first point of contact is someone they can start to build a rapport, if not a relationship, with.
4. Don't be afraid to pick up the phone
Thanks to technology, phone calls are more and more infrequent for many individuals, particularly younger members of the workforce. But the phone is still a powerful sales tool and if your lead contains a phone number, make a habit of picking up the phone and dialing it.
5. Get on the same page
When speaking with a prospect, walk before you run. Even if your lead came with a lot of detail, it's important to confirm that you have a good understanding of what the prospect needs and haven't made any assumptions that could unnecessarily limit your opportunity, or ruin it altogether.
6. Set expectations and timeframes
In just about every aspect of sales and business, expectations are everything and it's never too early to set them. If an initial conversation with a lead confirms that there's an opportunity, take control. Once you're on the same page with the customer and understand her needs, you should at a minimum lay out what you think the sales cycle will look like. This includes proposing dates for key milestones.
7. Always respond
Not all leads are created equal. Some, unfortunately, are less-than-desirable for a variety of reasons. But provided that the individual who submitted the lead is a real person, a response should always be provided. Not only can this help maintain your reputation in the marketplace, it could ensure that you're kept in mind for future opportunities that may be a better fit.
View the original article on the Econsultancy blog, published September 12, 2012.