More Than A Few Words

When people throw around the term customer experience, what are they really talking about? They're talking about the experience that customers go through when interacting with your brand.  It is not just a single moment, but rather a series of interaction in their customer journey. The cumulative impact of these experiences defines how they feel and how they perceive the brand is delivering on their promise.    This week, Stacy Sherman of DoingCXRight®shares some tips on how and when businesses should measure their customer's experience. 

Every day when you leave your home, you lock the door and you take your keys. That's what you do to protect your home.    As a business owner with a website, you need to lock your website to protect that as well. To do that you need to add what's known as an SSL, a secure socket layer to make sure that your information does not fall into the wrong hands and to signal to search engines that you're serious about security.   Because you see, Google and other search engines don't want to send visitors to websites that could be potentially dangerous, that could potentially distribute their information into the wrong hands. If you don't have an SSL on your web sight you need to get in touch with your web developer today.

It is human nature to be judgmental, to look at things which are different and judge them good or bad.   What is the difference between judgement and curiosity?  Actually, they're two sides of the same coin.  They occur as we recognize that something is different from how we'd like it to be or just different from what we're used to.   Judgment is what we typically do as human beings. We recognize something as either better or worse, good or bad. Where as curiosity is just looking to see what the differences are.  Our guest, Ryan Stanley explains that choosing to be curious opens us up to so much more opportunity as we ask the questions which help us improve instead of focusing on just the current state.    

In this week's Marketing Minute, we look at the art of the Meme   If you’ve been using social media for any length of time, you’ve probably seen a meme. What makes memes so popular is the fact that they give people a common topic or trend to make jokes about, creating a community feel as the meme is expanded and shared.   But what about brands? Are they invited to the party? It’s a question that every social media manager grapples with at some point, and the answer is more complicated than you think.   Why? Because memes move quickly. What’s funny today is outdated tomorrow. And so if your organization is not prepared to jump on a trend quickly, it may be something that you simply want to avoid. Secondly, meme humor can sometimes be cutting or biting. And if that doesn’t fit with your brand, again, you may want to avoid the topic entirely. 

This week's guest Robby Slaughter discusses the pros and cons of remote work.  He shares tips on how to make  working remotely more productive without allowing it to take over your life.   Stop using the phrase wok - life balance.  Think of it as life - work balance. When you put your life first in that phrase you are making a decision to  think about the person you want to be and how you want to live. Then the work is what enables you to have the life you want to have with your friends, with your family with your community.  to do that it is important to have a physical space which you can close off when your working time is over.   As you manage remote teams, think about switching form an open-door to an open-mind policy, creating virtual office hours and creating intentional and purposeful social interactions to build team camaraderie. 

Remember when everyone thought the internet was free, you could put your message out there and suddenly traffic came to your website? It was like magic. Well, those days are gone. Today, you are competing with so many messages as you try to drive traffic to your website that you need to push your way to the top with a little bit of advertising. As you think about advertising, you need to think about your business to see if it’s going to make sense. If you’re running a transactional business and there’s no residual value to advertising every day, you’re going to need to find new customers and start new relationships over and over again with a new batch of prospects. In contrast, relationship businesses can really benefit from advertising, using it to start the process of bringing people into your business and then staying in touch with them with other less expensive marketing opportunities.

Ten years ago, More than a Few Words was in its infancy. We tested a lot of formats, short programs, live broadcasts, and interviews with marketing professionals. And for about a year, simply the show was comprised of  conversations between Lorraine Ball and Allison Carter.  it was the early days of social media and there was so much to talk about.  There were mistakes by larger brands like Kenneth Cole and little regional publications as businesses of all sizes looked for guidance on using these new marketing tools. We also enjoyed talking about marketing trends and how we were approaching them at Roundpeg. In celebration of our 500th episode, Allison is back, for an update on some of our favorite conversations.     

Today, I want to start with a simple question. Is your website ready for company? Think about when you invite guests over to your home, you take a little time to clean up, dust, polish, put things where they need to be, you make sure your refrigerator is well stocked, and you have clean plates and silverware.  Well, when you bring visitors to your website, you need to do the same thing. You need to take time on a regular basis to make sure that the site is well organized, that you’ve got fresh content (new information) for people to browse and not that same stale stuff that you’ve had forever. Take time to clean up your code. Make sure you have new pictures and new resources as people come to your website. 

Everyone wants their website to  look awesome, with interesting pictures and cool animation. Unfortunately, none of that matters if the words don't tell your story. Why?  Because while it may be impressive, people don't come for this great scrolling animation across your homepage. They come for information.  In this episode we share tips on planning and writing the all important web copy.

When you're trying to get someone's attention, get them to open your email, or click on a link from social media, you have to be able to tell them what's in it for them.  You need to use what's called a Gain Headline. To use this style of headline you have to be specific and define for your reader how they will benefit if they take the time to click or read more. And if you want them to come back, you need to be sure that your content lives up to the promise your headline makes. This marketing minute features Lorraine Ball - Host of the More than a Few Words podcast. 

Some web hosting firms are definitely better than others.  While they were once your very best choice, these days we find ourselves saying No Daddy to GoDaddy. 

When someone stumbles across your content or social media or it’s dropped into their inbox, you have just a few seconds to make them care enough to click and read more. With so much information thrown at potential clients every day. Your challenge is to compete with all of those other messages and get readers to pay attention to you. While there are a lot of techniques you can use. One of the most effective is the pain headline Why? Because hardwired into people is the drive to avoid an unpleasant outcome. Human beings are much more likely to take action to avoid negative situations than to achieve pleasant results. That’s why pain headlines work so well.

Building a website is easy, but building it correctly is not.  In this episode Sam Moss of the 1Click Agency shares the five most common web design mistakes.  The biggest mistake is not including bold call to action buttons. Maybe you have a flashy website that looks great, with some really cool cool pictures, and you spent a ton of money on it.  But if it is missing a strong call to action such as "call now", "get a quote" or "schedule an appointment" you are wasting your time. Bold call to actions show prospects you're confident in what you do 

Wouldn't it be nice if we all just got along? Well, that seems like a nice idea. But when it comes to running a business, you can't eliminate conflict completely. And quite honestly, you shouldn't.     Managed conflict helps cultivate discussion and creates opportunities to uncover new and innovative solutions. So as a business owner, one of your main jobs should be to establish an environment that cultivates healthy conflict.  You can do that by being willing to invest the time it takes to resolve issues. Conflict can be messy and it may take several conversations to come to a solution. You have to create a climate of mutual trust and you have to have a desire for resolution, and not let a desired win take precedence. And finally, if there are two best options, don't choose yours. Let one of your team members take the lead. Why? Because if it's their idea and they're passionate about it, they're more likely to work to ensure that it's implemented properly. 

We are living in a visual world. And as a brand, every image you choose has to support the message you want customers to receive.  Jennifer Riley Simone of Fresh Figs Marketing joined me for a conversation about how businesses can do just that.  She suggested three simple strategies business owners should adopt:  Cohesion - There are many ways to make images cohesive.  For example you can use consistent coloring or style of photography or the kind of images you choose.  The objective is when the images are side by side on a page they fit together well. Cohesion begins with creating a branding guide Use a Professional - If you are serious about your business image, don't leave it to an intern. Turn to a professional graphic designer.  They are experts at creating visual messaging and that is what you're creating with all of your imagery and graphics. Then once you have a template or a particular look at a graphic designer has created you can turn to your team to replicate that look across your brand.  Making a

Why You Should Conduct Web Performance Reviews If you have employees, you're probably conducting performance reviews on a regular basis, evaluating the quality of their work, the objectives you outlined for them, and the results they delivered. But my question is, do you hold your website to the same standard? Are you conducting web performance reviews on a regular basis to determine if your website is delivering results? You should. As the epicenter of your marketing, it's feeding social and email campaigns, answering customer questions, and capturing leads. And so you need to know if your website is living up to its full potential. To conduct a web performance review, start with your analytics. Take a look at how many visitors are coming to your site. How are they finding it and what are they doing when they arrive?  Use the data to make improvements.

In the early days of SEO, it was all about the links. It was about quantity, how many inbound links could you build for your website.  These days, the search engine algorithm is a lot more sophisticated, considering multiple factors to calculate your ranking, but a good link is still valuable. In this conversation, we chat with David Pagotto about simple link building strategies such as  leveraging  existing relationships and connections.  For example reaching out to suppliers, referral partners and industry associations to build your first tier of valuable inbound links.

Let's face it, everyone wants to feel special. When you walk into a coffee shop and you're greeted by name, or a waitress remembers that you like your eggs over easy before you order, you feel at home. And the next time you want a cup of coffee or an omelet, you're more likely to go back for the personal touch that makes you feel special. With so much business conducted remotely and online, sometimes it feels like we've lost that personal touch. But it doesn't have to be that way. Companies willing to invest in getting to know a little bit more about customers and prospects can build a competitive advantage through the use of marketing personalization. Where do you start? Well, it can be as simple as incorporating a person's name into your marketing. For example, when you send an email to your entire database, add the person's name or a relevant fact about them to the email to increase your response rates. I'm not suggesting you send an individual email to hundreds or thousands of people, but take advantage o

Why do reviews matter?  Part of the answer to that question lies in the psychological phenomenon of social proof. We look to others for advice and ideas.  Whether it is contagious laughter at a comedy show,  or turning around in an elevator to face the door, behavior is observed and replicated. Particularly when buying something we have never bought before reviews provide that social proof. How do you solicit reviews? Ask for them when customers are still excited about the purchase.  For example: As you serve dessert at a fine restaurant Just as you sign the closing papers on your new home As you hand over the keys to their new car. What about negative reviews? Bryan Caplan suggests using the four "p"s to guide your response. Professional Prompt Pleasant And Pick up the phone!

“I can do that,” I said calmly, as I looked across the table at a potential client.  All the while in my head, I could hear a loud frantic voice saying, “Are you crazy? You have never done that. You don’t know how to do that!” That was the early days of  Roundpeg  and people were not exactly beating down the doors to work with me. I was excited to be sitting in front of someone who actually had money to spend on marketing. So I decided I would figure it out.  Sure, it was a little outside my comfort zone, but it wasn’t as if I was signing up to do accounting. And that first project opened up the door to other related opportunities, essentially changed the course of Roundpeg. The characteristic that made me comfortable saying I can do that is common among successful entrepreneurs. It’s what allows us to jump off the edge of a cliff into the unknown as we grow our companies. But that courage shouldn’t only be limited to entrepreneurs. It’s a equally valuable to anyone who is in a position where they want to be