I love getting really timely direct mail messages that are relevant.
This one came just in time to help me navigate a change to podcast categories.
Let’s analyse the direct message
Hello podcaster,
[Small fail here as they don’t know my name. Implies a purchased list rather than an opted in CRM database.]
In case you missed it, Apple Podcasts have changed how they categorize podcasts. In short, new categories like True Crime have been introduced, old categories have been rebranded and lots of new sub-categories dedicated to sports, comedy, TV and more have been added!
[Opening paragraph – helpful link to contextualise in case I haven’t seen the news. It’s a blog post on their website…. that’s good because it drives traffic and cookies my browser. Nice bold text for likely interesting new categories to draw my eye.]
Unfortunately, some services as SoundCloud don’t support them yet. Spreaker is a platform dedicated to podcasting and we put the podcasters’ needs first.
[Natch! a snipe at a popular competitor. I use SoundCloud for my podcast and so this is relevant to me. Could be a merge field – but not likely. I think they may have targeted me from the SoundCloud platform.]
For this reason
our podcast platform already fully supports the new Apple Podcasts categories so you can improve your show’s discoverability
Spreaker allows you to set three categories – your podcast will rank in more than one category on iTunes at the same time – and fully customize the RSS feed tags
our service enables you to earn money with your podcast thanks to the Spreaker’s Monetization Program.
[Small quibble about supplying 3 reasons and not numbering them… and referring to “this reason” when it should be “these reasons”. However, their nimble coding enabling the new categories quickly is encouraging when considering an alternative hosting platform. Hopefully they keep up the speedy work.]
If you want to start using the new Apple categories and are curious about what Spreaker could do for your podcast – why not give us a try with our FREE, no strings attached, month-long trial.
https://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/alesia-kazantceva-XLm6-fPwK5Q-unsplash.jpg36485472Rebecca Caroehttps://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpgRebecca Caroe2019-09-04 14:39:232019-09-04 16:05:48Anatomy of effective cold direct mail
As a business owner, you’re always looking for ways to boost your sales, enhance customer relationships, and stand out from your competition. This is why you should engage your customers through SMS marketing.
If you use it the right way, it can be your most powerful marketing tool. It’s an indisputable fact that many people are now hooked to their devices and are spending more time on them. You can exploit this and connect with your audience at a more personal level.
So, how do you use SMS marketing in the best way possible? Here are five essential elements that have been tried and tested for all businesses.
1. Valuable Message
This is one of the core pillars of SMS marketing. Before sending text messages to your audience, you should sit down and seriously consider what you’re offering your customers.
Before sending an SMS campaign, always ask yourself whether the message offers any value for your audience. If your answer is ‘No’ or ‘Not Sure,’ then you should reconsider the campaign or have a brainstorming session with your team to come up with a message that’ll have your audience see your campaign through your eyes.
Always put yourself in your readers’ shoes. Ask if you’d like to receive the kind of message you’re sending. Nobody wants to feel their precious time is getting wasted by reading a message with no value.
When it comes to SMS marketing, the trick is to center the message around your customer. Your texts should address your customers, their problems, and the solutions you’re offering to make their lives easier. Make the value in the message captivating and timely. Doing so will boost your response rate.
2.Call-To-Action
Call-to-action can be described as a marketing phrase that prompts a specific action or sale. A call-to-action gives your audience a direction on what next to do. It’s also meant to keep them going.
As small as it may appear to be, a call-to-action plays a huge role in the success of your SMS marketing campaign. This is because, with SMS, you don’t have a lot of space to convince your clients to take action. When you give your audience a direction on what to do next, you eliminate the possibility of indecisiveness.
A good call-to-action is clear and straightforward. Remember, it should give your readers the direction to take. The most common call-to-action phrases include:
Buy
Subscribe
Call
Contact
Start
Click
Your call-to-action can come at any place within your message. Either way, make sure your readers understand what benefit they’ll enjoy by clicking the link.
3.Sense of Urgency
When sending your SMS marketing campaign, you don’t want your readers to vow to reply or take action later, then end up forgetting. You should motivate them to act there and then. The most common way to do this is by including a limited offer.
You don’t really have to shout to show it’s urgent. Simply create a sense of urgency in your readers such that they have a ‘fear of missing out.’ One way of doing this is to have an expiration date for your offer or service for a limited number of subscribers who act first.
Phrases that can show urgency to your audience include, ‘now,’ ‘fast,’ or ‘quickly.’ For example, ‘Act now as this offer runs until today midnight’ or ‘This offer is only limited to the first 20 subscribers.’
What most people don’t understand is that this strategy also brings in social proof. It shows your readers that your products and services are already on demand.
4.Brand Identity
No one wants to receive a message without knowing who the sender is. This is why your audience needs to know who’s sending the text. Your entire SMS marketing campaign will be meaningless, regardless of how amazing your offers are, if you fail to identify yourself.
Proper identification is not only necessary but also a requirement by law. Some countries require that you either identify yourself through a sender ID or within the message. To take it a notch higher, include your site’s link in the text.
You should prioritize including your brand name in all your messages. Brand identity also helps build a relationship with your customers. Besides, your brand will stay at the top of your client’s minds.
5.Measure Results
Your SMS marketing campaign should be measurable. You should be able to track how many messages you sent, to whom they were delivered, the number of responses received, and who unsubscribed. You can also go into the details such as how many promotions were redeemed. These details enable you to measure the success of your SMS marketing campaign.
After each campaign, make sure you see and carefully analyze such data. By using data on sales from your SMS marketing campaign and customer traffic, you can come up with a strategy for an enhanced campaign in the future.
Key Takeaways
SMS marketing can be the most significant marketing tool for your business. To maximize it, make sure your messages offer value to your customers. Also, include a call-to-action and a sense of urgency to increase the click rate. Remember, your marketing campaign would be pointless if you omit your brand name.
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https://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/AdobeStock_175929394-scaled.jpeg17072560Sudip Mutthttps://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpgSudip Mutt2019-09-01 16:45:542020-09-01 16:48:165 Essential elements of SMS marketing
At the weekend I was teaching a class on The Art of Conversation and it was such an enlightening experience.
Firstly, the topic intrigued me because I wondered who wanted to learn – and I soon found out that the group was a complete mix of people.Some wanted improved networking for work and some wanted to make new friends and others who found it hard to keep a conversation going.
Marketers and sales folks all use conversation in our daily work. Step back and take a read of the insights below and challenge yourself to improve or work out solutions to these situations.
How Conversations are Structured
Conversations are unique – but they are all underpinned with a framework which can be easily learned. The 4 Fs which give ideas about how to ask initial easy questions around four themed topics.
Because I like to balance teaching theory with practice we spent time face-to-face with each other trying out the techniques – a bit like speed dating!Then we moved into practicing “branching” which is when the topic of conversation can move to adjacent topics.
As a tutor, I delight in the unique learning experience every class has and so the second day began with feedback from overnight practice of “The Conversation Game”. The students had chatted with parents, relatives, people at the bus stop and supermarket.Each was a special and individual insight into their new confidence gained by practicing the framework.
Our final task was to learn how to disagree.This is difficult because many think an argument is not a conversation.I think learning how to respectfully disagree is an art form and a useful skill to balance with listening and really hearing the message in a conversation.
What our conversations lack
In researching the topic I asked the crowd what they thought was lacking in good conversation and the top picks were:
balance in exchanges – time speaking
listening deeply
ensuring the next topic is related to the previous one
bringing in spectators to the dialogue
interpreting body language successfully
don’t propose a hypothesis – ask a question
know how to conclude a conversation graciously
listening to understand, rather than listening to respond
Some good insights on conversations [forgive me if I don’t attribute]
Dialogue is like a good game of ping pong or a satisfying volley. Full of questions, quick 2 sentence exchanges, more questions. Good conversation is Not about serving aces, or hogging the ball (pontificating). That’s boring for both players as well as anyone watching.
In Howard’s End E.M.Forster has that great phrase ‘only connect’ which can be read many ways, but the art of conversation (rather than the art of debate) is about connecting and listening, and making your contribution to a conversation relevant to those of others. It is about connecting with their point of view or description or anecdote, being appreciative of what someone is sharing with you and listening, even if you don’t agree, and even committing it to memory – even if only as an exercise in concentration.
In the Steve Martin film, LA Story, he’s at a trendy dinner party and says to the woman next to him, “I hear you’ve just finished your masters in conversation”. She says “Yes” and then just sits there.
Reframing can be helpful or follow up questions to check what they really mean. In a group of more than two, take care that it doesn’t become a spectator sport for the rest. Ask the third person if they can describe a similar experience to draw them in.
Indicate that you are committed to spending some time in this conversation and talk about random stuff. Never ask a woman what her husband does for a living or show other gender discriminating assumptions. Ask a lot of ‘what made you..’ ‘how did you manage to..’. Ask for opinions and advice from the field of strength of your conversation partner. Go a bit crazy and don’t be predictable. Make the person feel accepted and belonging, not patronised or alienated.
Conversational Challenges
Some of my correspondents play games during their conversations – especially if they think the dialogue is not balanced
Sometimes I have even stopped mid sentence just to see if they noticed and they don’t they simply use to gap to jump in as that’s all they were waiting for. I see this a lot at work and especially in meetings. If I call them out on it gently we laugh and it resets the exchange. Most don’t even know they do it.
Others presented situations which are worthy of our thoughts and so put your insights in the comments.
I particularly notice that many men do not ask open questions, and if they do, they are significantly less likely to actually listen to the answers. Of course #notallmen, but there is a strong correlation. They often just expect to be interviewed about how brilliant they are, and the idea of putting in effort to develop a conversation seems alien to them. I honestly think that there are plenty of men out there to whom it has never occurred that this might be a specific responsibility to be shared equally.
Here’s a problem that I don’t know how to solve: providing honest feedback has about zero if not less than zero benefit to the person providing the feedback. And so most feedback is dishonest – either superficial or irrelevant or in what may be the most misleading and useless cases, inaccurate. What to do?
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https://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/austin-distel-mpN7xjKQ_Ns-unsplash.jpg39755300Rebecca Caroehttps://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpgRebecca Caroe2019-08-22 12:39:112019-08-22 12:39:11Conversation as a marketing tactic
What are the key essentials for promoting and marketing a podcast to grow listeners so you can improve monetisation? This article runs through some of the fundamentals and also asks some important questions so you can find out if a podcast is the right marketing tactic for your brand.
Brand suitability for podcast marketing
Here are some simple questions for you to review before deciding to start a podcast.
Microphone for podcast: Photo credit Neil Godding on Unsplash
Who is the target audience?
Are they are already listening to podcasts?
What does your brand want to get out of the podcast (leads, brand awareness, thought leadership etc)
Which channels to market do you already use?
What headcount / analytics are in each of the existing channels?
What will success look like?
These are all questions worthy of a full day workshop. Now, assuming you have robust answers to each of them, let’s dig into the tactics suitable for marketing a podcast.
Podcast marketing tactics
Cross-promote through all existing channels controlled by the brand
Select guests who have a large audience on the understanding they will cross-promote
Add listeners by adding podcast into existing marketing tactics e.g. record a live episode at a trade show / a conference stage
Get other podcasters to do a mutual episode with each broadcasting the same episode to their feeds
Record in video and audio so you can use YouTube as a distribution channel
Advertise
Use clips and short video as content for social sharing
Run campaigns which include the podcast e.g. contests where you have to listen to find out how to enter
Use the podcast shownotes on your website and blog as SEO
In 2014, Matt Cutts, former head of the Web Spam team at Google, wrote the following:
“Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using
guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop.”
Ever since the state of guest blogging has been debated heatedly. Indeed, guest blogs with low-quality content have truly been dead for decades.
On the other hand, high-quality blogging is an effective strategy to create backlinks, and drive traffic to your website. Even Cutts eventually published a correction, and said: “There are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.)”
So, the question is, how can we create
quality guest blogs every time?
Here, we have outlined three easy and effective
strategies to create guest posts that are sure to attract links, and bring in
traffic:
The Robin Hood Technique
The Robin Hood technique, as suggested by SEO Gold Coast, is a quick and effective way to write guest posts with good quality content. This technique involves recreating great content from popular blogs and offering them to platforms with a low ranking, and less credibility and traffic.
Keep in mind, however, that this does not
mean plagiarizing the content – instead, you must only take inspiration from
the blog to recreate ideas for your own post.
The following steps can be undertaken for this technique:
Ahref’s Content Explorer Tool contains one billion pages and can be used to find blogs you can write a guest post for
Enter a keyword corresponding to your chosen topic to find similar articles
Check the “one article per domain” box to find unique blogs related to your keyword
Sort the results according to Language, Shares, Domain Rating, Organic Traffic, and Number of Words to truly find a customized blog post idea
Note the importance of Domain Rating (DR)
that showcases the popularity level of a backlink, based on a scale of 1-100.
While it is tempting to only work with high
DR blogs, low DR blogs are also worth investing your time and energy in, as
they usually have a niche following and are bound to grow.
What’s more, low DR blogs usually receive fewer pitches and have less strict editorial standards – thereby making it easier to get featured or published.
Finally, you can move on to step 4:
4. Read the content of your chosen blog piece, and recreate it by adding a unique spin to it – conclude by pitching it to low or high DR blogs through email outreach
Splintering Content
Another effective way of guest posting is by splintering or breaking existing blogs into shorter, but authoritative posts.
The point of splintering content is to dive
deep into a topic that you have already researched before, as it is easier to
recreate, revise, or rewrite.
After writing detailed individual posts, you can then pitch the pieces to online magazines and platforms that would publish it as guest posts, whilst still re-directing the reader to your original blog post – thereby creating quality backlinks.
The Perspective Technique
A small change in perspective can lead to a
completely new, and unique piece of writing.
The trick here is to use a previously written blog post and turn it into multiple guest posts by simply tweaking your overall perspective.
For instance, if your previous blog post was on the “The Future of Link Building” – you can now write on a variety of topics by changing your viewpoint, such as:
Future of link building for
small business
Future of link building for
E-commerce
Future of link building for
startups, and so on
Effective Guest Posting
The techniques outlined here are a good way
to get you started. Keep in mind, however, that once you start pitching your
guest posts, you may be faced with some problems.
For instance, editors and bloggers may
routinely reject your pitch, negotiations may take months, or the link to your
article may be taken down suddenly and without prior notice.
To address this concern here is what you can do:
Focus on creating good quality
content for your blogs
Pitch to multiple blogs at the
same time
Include links to your other
guest posts to generate more traffic
Keep exploring and writing for
new platforms and sites
In short, by following the techniques outlined above, you can defy Matt Cutt’s claim that guest posts are dead. Indeed, guest posts are thriving and can be used to generate traffic and brand awareness for your business in the long run.
One of the joys of being a freelance consultant is that sometimes I get to act on behalf of my client and hire specialists to work on their B2B marketing campaigns.
I recently advertised a job and was stunned by one of the proposal submissions. As a new business specialist I know how hard it is to make your proposal stand out from others. This one hit all the gold stars for me.
Integrate proposals and CRM
I was sent an unique URL to view the proposal. This makes everything trackable – it was on a sub-domain of the B2B marketing agency’s website and so I know they will be able to track:
How many times I opened it
Which sections I browsed (they are distinctly separate)
How long I spent reading each part
Which sections I expanded to read further
All in all it was a pleasure to read and to be “sold” to. I felt engaged in the process and I know my actions on that page enabled the agency to get better insight into me as a prospect.
Screenshots from the marketing proposal web page.
Welcome screen for proposal, personalised
Background about the company
Details of the work team – set expectations
Detail of project processes
Calendar embed to start the conversation
Reasons to work together
The small print
And a final note, there’s a Squarespace service Qwilr which offers this on a 14 day trial.
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https://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Proposal-screen1.png9942062Rebecca Caroehttps://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpgRebecca Caroe2019-07-29 14:19:222019-08-13 15:15:48Make your B2B proposal stand out
Digital marketing is very finicky. You are not just contending with customers; you have impartial algorithms to contest with, the attention market, your competitors, technological glitches, and so much more. Knowing how to successfully market your website means more than simply knowing the basics. Yes, email newsletters help. Yes, social media marketing is an option. Knowing how to successfully implement these tactics is the real challenge, and to help you overcome the common hurdles of these marketing hurdles we have put together a great beginner’s list to guide you:
Improve the Quality of Your Website
The first step to successfully marketing your website is to improve your website. All marketing efforts will be wasted if you do not improve it. Consider this – if you have a treasure map, and went through the effort of following it, how would you feel if you turned up to an empty field or a busted down house? Your customers follow a similar path to your website. Sometimes it is direct, other times it takes several attempts to get them to your site, but if your site is not worthwhile, they will leave immediately.
Example: A Slow Website
If your website is slow, then all the marketing efforts in the world will be a waste of money. That is why one of the first steps you should take is to switch to Krystal, which offers 300% faster speeds than most other competitors.
Improve Your Social Media Approach
To improve your social media approach, you need to understand how each platform works. Optimizing a post is standard practice, but you will want to go beyond and see how your competitors have succeeded or failed. Once you have that information, work on creating an account that provides users with the experience they are looking for in a company such as yours.
Example: A Technical Social Media Account
Take a company that offers technical service, like computer repairs. How can you possibly market such a company on a social media site like Instagram? What if you were an accountant?
The answer is to provide information. Create simple yet well-designed text posts. Be unique with your photography – a computer repair company has plenty of interesting textures you could photograph, for example. Try to be a source of information so that people follow you to get tips and tricks daily. Collaboration and PR is one of the best ways to market your company, as it gets your name out there and brings in high-quality inbound links.
Example: Collaborating With Another Business
To collaborate with another business, you will want to first see if there are any opportunities in your business model. If you sell high-quality phone cases, for example, partner with local artists that have a healthy, dedicated, and real community of their own. They create phone case designs for you, you give them a healthy chunk of the profits (after costs), and in turn, their fans know about you, buy from you, and then go on and advertise your product to their friends and family.
There are so many ways you can improve your marketing efforts, and hopefully, with these examples, you have a more concrete idea of how you can grow your community and reach.
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https://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/How-to-Successfully-Market-Your-Website-1.jpg8971355Sudip Mutthttps://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpgSudip Mutt2019-07-25 15:53:022019-10-03 15:02:00How to Successfully Market Your Website
Apple has launched a beta service to analyse listenership of your podcast episodes on Apple devices and via Apple services.
I took a quick look – log in to iTunes Connect and select the drop-down next to the header. [Note the URL – since podcasts are being split off from iTunes, it’s now got its own URL podcastsconnect.apple.com]
The service obviously only works on Apple devices and so this will in all likelihood be a small segment of your audience. But the data has all the normal data points [#devices, #total time listened, time listened per device] defaulting to a past 60 days view.
The most interesting data point for me is the percentage “Average Consumption” measure defined as
The average percentage of the episode that was played across all devices. Playback duration is compared against the episode duration as reported in the podcast feed. If a device plays the duration time of an episode more than once, the consumption from that device will be greater than 100%
Neatly summarising most of what you’ll want to see – the Apple Podcasts Analytics beta has a nice dashboard showing Total time listened, a country analysis and split of subscribers and ‘not subscribed’. This is neat as I’ve always wondered about the proportion of my listeners who are not subscribers but do listen.
Partial audience analysis
In the analytics help documentation I noted the following:
Podcast Analytics begins gathering data as soon as users play content in the Podcasts app (iOS 11 or later), in iTunes 12.7 or later (macOS and Windows), or on HomePod. [NOTE only recent app versions]
Apple only displays data from users who agreed to share their diagnostics and usage information with providers. [NOTE Reduces total audience size]
To collect data, the duration of a play event must be at least five seconds. [NOTE fair enough]
To display data, more than five unique devices must play the show or episode content. [NOTE fair enough]
Final thoughts
Get on to Apple and take a look at your stats. Compare it to other analytics services [I use Podtrac] and compare the data points and your absolute numbers.
My Apple numbers and Podtrac numbers are not directly comparable as one is included in the other. But for me the average consumption metric is pretty neat and will be something I add in my media pack for advertisers.
The images below show the respective analytics for 7 recent episodes.
Anatomy of effective cold direct mail
/0 Comments/in B2C, Direct Marketing, Lead Generation /by Rebecca CaroeI love getting really timely direct mail messages that are relevant.
This one came just in time to help me navigate a change to podcast categories.
Let’s analyse the direct message
Hello podcaster,
[Small fail here as they don’t know my name. Implies a purchased list rather than an opted in CRM database.]
In case you missed it, Apple Podcasts have changed how they categorize podcasts. In short, new categories like True Crime have been introduced, old categories have been rebranded and lots of new sub-categories dedicated to sports, comedy, TV and more have been added!
[Opening paragraph – helpful link to contextualise in case I haven’t seen the news. It’s a blog post on their website…. that’s good because it drives traffic and cookies my browser. Nice bold text for likely interesting new categories to draw my eye.]
Unfortunately, some services as SoundCloud don’t support them yet. Spreaker is a platform dedicated to podcasting and we put the podcasters’ needs first.
[Natch! a snipe at a popular competitor. I use SoundCloud for my podcast and so this is relevant to me. Could be a merge field – but not likely. I think they may have targeted me from the SoundCloud platform.]
For this reason
[Small quibble about supplying 3 reasons and not numbering them… and referring to “this reason” when it should be “these reasons”. However, their nimble coding enabling the new categories quickly is encouraging when considering an alternative hosting platform. Hopefully they keep up the speedy work.]
If you want to start using the new Apple categories and are curious about what Spreaker could do for your podcast – why not give us a try with our FREE, no strings attached, month-long trial.
All you need to do is click this special code: GETAPPLECATEGORIES
[Simple offer, clear time limit and a coupon code so they can identify subscribers from this campaign.]
If you need instructions to move your podcast over to Spreaker, you can follow this guide.
[More useful user guides to smooth a transition.]
We hope to see you on Spreaker sometime soon!
Template your own message
Follow the same paragraph structure when approaching your own prospects and try this for yourself.
Read more of our articles on copywriting and learn tips for your own marketing.
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5 Essential elements of SMS marketing
/0 Comments/in SMS Marketing /by Sudip MuttAs a business owner, you’re always looking for ways to boost your sales, enhance customer relationships, and stand out from your competition. This is why you should engage your customers through SMS marketing.
If you use it the right way, it can be your most powerful marketing tool. It’s an indisputable fact that many people are now hooked to their devices and are spending more time on them. You can exploit this and connect with your audience at a more personal level.
So, how do you use SMS marketing in the best way possible? Here are five essential elements that have been tried and tested for all businesses.
1. Valuable Message
This is one of the core pillars of SMS marketing. Before sending text messages to your audience, you should sit down and seriously consider what you’re offering your customers.
Before sending an SMS campaign, always ask yourself whether the message offers any value for your audience. If your answer is ‘No’ or ‘Not Sure,’ then you should reconsider the campaign or have a brainstorming session with your team to come up with a message that’ll have your audience see your campaign through your eyes.
Always put yourself in your readers’ shoes. Ask if you’d like to receive the kind of message you’re sending. Nobody wants to feel their precious time is getting wasted by reading a message with no value.
When it comes to SMS marketing, the trick is to center the message around your customer. Your texts should address your customers, their problems, and the solutions you’re offering to make their lives easier. Make the value in the message captivating and timely. Doing so will boost your response rate.
2.Call-To-Action
Call-to-action can be described as a marketing phrase that prompts a specific action or sale. A call-to-action gives your audience a direction on what next to do. It’s also meant to keep them going.
As small as it may appear to be, a call-to-action plays a huge role in the success of your SMS marketing campaign. This is because, with SMS, you don’t have a lot of space to convince your clients to take action. When you give your audience a direction on what to do next, you eliminate the possibility of indecisiveness.
A good call-to-action is clear and straightforward. Remember, it should give your readers the direction to take. The most common call-to-action phrases include:
Your call-to-action can come at any place within your message. Either way, make sure your readers understand what benefit they’ll enjoy by clicking the link.
3.Sense of Urgency
When sending your SMS marketing campaign, you don’t want your readers to vow to reply or take action later, then end up forgetting. You should motivate them to act there and then. The most common way to do this is by including a limited offer.
You don’t really have to shout to show it’s urgent. Simply create a sense of urgency in your readers such that they have a ‘fear of missing out.’ One way of doing this is to have an expiration date for your offer or service for a limited number of subscribers who act first.
Phrases that can show urgency to your audience include, ‘now,’ ‘fast,’ or ‘quickly.’ For example, ‘Act now as this offer runs until today midnight’ or ‘This offer is only limited to the first 20 subscribers.’
What most people don’t understand is that this strategy also brings in social proof. It shows your readers that your products and services are already on demand.
4.Brand Identity
No one wants to receive a message without knowing who the sender is. This is why your audience needs to know who’s sending the text. Your entire SMS marketing campaign will be meaningless, regardless of how amazing your offers are, if you fail to identify yourself.
Proper identification is not only necessary but also a requirement by law. Some countries require that you either identify yourself through a sender ID or within the message. To take it a notch higher, include your site’s link in the text.
You should prioritize including your brand name in all your messages. Brand identity also helps build a relationship with your customers. Besides, your brand will stay at the top of your client’s minds.
5.Measure Results
Your SMS marketing campaign should be measurable. You should be able to track how many messages you sent, to whom they were delivered, the number of responses received, and who unsubscribed. You can also go into the details such as how many promotions were redeemed. These details enable you to measure the success of your SMS marketing campaign.
After each campaign, make sure you see and carefully analyze such data. By using data on sales from your SMS marketing campaign and customer traffic, you can come up with a strategy for an enhanced campaign in the future.
Key Takeaways
SMS marketing can be the most significant marketing tool for your business. To maximize it, make sure your messages offer value to your customers. Also, include a call-to-action and a sense of urgency to increase the click rate. Remember, your marketing campaign would be pointless if you omit your brand name.
No related posts.
Conversation as a marketing tactic
/3 Comments/in Sales /by Rebecca CaroeAt the weekend I was teaching a class on The Art of Conversation and it was such an enlightening experience.
Firstly, the topic intrigued me because I wondered who wanted to learn – and I soon found out that the group was a complete mix of people. Some wanted improved networking for work and some wanted to make new friends and others who found it hard to keep a conversation going.
Marketers and sales folks all use conversation in our daily work. Step back and take a read of the insights below and challenge yourself to improve or work out solutions to these situations.
How Conversations are Structured
Conversations are unique – but they are all underpinned with a framework which can be easily learned. The 4 Fs which give ideas about how to ask initial easy questions around four themed topics.
Because I like to balance teaching theory with practice we spent time face-to-face with each other trying out the techniques – a bit like speed dating! Then we moved into practicing “branching” which is when the topic of conversation can move to adjacent topics.
As a tutor, I delight in the unique learning experience every class has and so the second day began with feedback from overnight practice of “The Conversation Game”. The students had chatted with parents, relatives, people at the bus stop and supermarket. Each was a special and individual insight into their new confidence gained by practicing the framework.
Our final task was to learn how to disagree. This is difficult because many think an argument is not a conversation. I think learning how to respectfully disagree is an art form and a useful skill to balance with listening and really hearing the message in a conversation.
What our conversations lack
In researching the topic I asked the crowd what they thought was lacking in good conversation and the top picks were:
Some good insights on conversations [forgive me if I don’t attribute]
Dialogue is like a good game of ping pong or a satisfying volley. Full of questions, quick 2 sentence exchanges, more questions. Good conversation is Not about serving aces, or hogging the ball (pontificating). That’s boring for both players as well as anyone watching.
In Howard’s End E.M.Forster has that great phrase ‘only connect’ which can be read many ways, but the art of conversation (rather than the art of debate) is about connecting and listening, and making your contribution to a conversation relevant to those of others. It is about connecting with their point of view or description or anecdote, being appreciative of what someone is sharing with you and listening, even if you don’t agree, and even committing it to memory – even if only as an exercise in concentration.
In the Steve Martin film, LA Story, he’s at a trendy dinner party and says to the woman next to him, “I hear you’ve just finished your masters in conversation”. She says “Yes” and then just sits there.
Reframing can be helpful or follow up questions to check what they really mean. In a group of more than two, take care that it doesn’t become a spectator sport for the rest. Ask the third person if they can describe a similar experience to draw them in.
Indicate that you are committed to spending some time in this conversation and talk about random stuff. Never ask a woman what her husband does for a living or show other gender discriminating assumptions. Ask a lot of ‘what made you..’ ‘how did you manage to..’. Ask for opinions and advice from the field of strength of your conversation partner. Go a bit crazy and don’t be predictable. Make the person feel accepted and belonging, not patronised or alienated.
Conversational Challenges
Some of my correspondents play games during their conversations – especially if they think the dialogue is not balanced
Sometimes I have even stopped mid sentence just to see if they noticed and they don’t they simply use to gap to jump in as that’s all they were waiting for. I see this a lot at work and especially in meetings. If I call them out on it gently we laugh and it resets the exchange. Most don’t even know they do it.
Others presented situations which are worthy of our thoughts and so put your insights in the comments.
I particularly notice that many men do not ask open questions, and if they do, they are significantly less likely to actually listen to the answers. Of course #notallmen, but there is a strong correlation. They often just expect to be interviewed about how brilliant they are, and the idea of putting in effort to develop a conversation seems alien to them. I honestly think that there are plenty of men out there to whom it has never occurred that this might be a specific responsibility to be shared equally.
Here’s a problem that I don’t know how to solve: providing honest feedback has about zero if not less than zero benefit to the person providing the feedback. And so most feedback is dishonest – either superficial or irrelevant or in what may be the most misleading and useless cases, inaccurate. What to do?
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Podcast marketing
/0 Comments/in Marketing, Podcast /by Rebecca CaroeWhat are the key essentials for promoting and marketing a podcast to grow listeners so you can improve monetisation? This article runs through some of the fundamentals and also asks some important questions so you can find out if a podcast is the right marketing tactic for your brand.
Brand suitability for podcast marketing
Here are some simple questions for you to review before deciding to start a podcast.
Microphone for podcast: Photo credit Neil Godding on Unsplash
These are all questions worthy of a full day workshop. Now, assuming you have robust answers to each of them, let’s dig into the tactics suitable for marketing a podcast.
Podcast marketing tactics
Plus take a look at all the Quora questions I’ve answered and articles I’ve written about podcasting.
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Customer Reviews – a reality check
/0 Comments/in B2C, Digital media, Lead Generation, Marketing ideas /by Rebecca CaroeThe New Zealand Commerce Commission is investigating online retailers who they claim have manipulated customer reviews and testimonials in
What actions constitute “misleading consumers”?
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Is Guest Posting Dead?
/0 Comments/in Blogging, Digital media, Direct Marketing, Local Marketing, Marketing, Social Media /by Sudip MuttIn 2014, Matt Cutts, former head of the Web Spam team at Google, wrote the following:
“Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop.”
Ever since the state of guest blogging has been debated heatedly. Indeed, guest blogs with low-quality content have truly been dead for decades.
On the other hand, high-quality blogging is an effective strategy to create backlinks, and drive traffic to your website. Even Cutts eventually published a correction, and said: “There are still many good reasons to do some guest blogging (exposure, branding, increased reach, community, etc.)”
So, the question is, how can we create quality guest blogs every time?
Here, we have outlined three easy and effective strategies to create guest posts that are sure to attract links, and bring in traffic:
The Robin Hood Technique
The Robin Hood technique, as suggested by SEO Gold Coast, is a quick and effective way to write guest posts with good quality content. This technique involves recreating great content from popular blogs and offering them to platforms with a low ranking, and less credibility and traffic.
Keep in mind, however, that this does not mean plagiarizing the content – instead, you must only take inspiration from the blog to recreate ideas for your own post.
The following steps can be undertaken for this technique:
Ahref’s Content Explorer Tool contains one billion pages and can be used to find blogs you can write a guest post for
Source: ahrefs
Note the importance of Domain Rating (DR) that showcases the popularity level of a backlink, based on a scale of 1-100.
While it is tempting to only work with high DR blogs, low DR blogs are also worth investing your time and energy in, as they usually have a niche following and are bound to grow.
What’s more, low DR blogs usually receive fewer pitches and have less strict editorial standards – thereby making it easier to get featured or published.
Finally, you can move on to step 4:
4. Read the content of your chosen blog piece, and recreate it by adding a unique spin to it – conclude by pitching it to low or high DR blogs through email outreach
Splintering Content
Another effective way of guest posting is by splintering or breaking existing blogs into shorter, but authoritative posts.
The point of splintering content is to dive deep into a topic that you have already researched before, as it is easier to recreate, revise, or rewrite.
After writing detailed individual posts, you can then pitch the pieces to online magazines and platforms that would publish it as guest posts, whilst still re-directing the reader to your original blog post – thereby creating quality backlinks.
The Perspective Technique
A small change in perspective can lead to a completely new, and unique piece of writing.
The trick here is to use a previously written blog post and turn it into multiple guest posts by simply tweaking your overall perspective.
For instance, if your previous blog post was on the “The Future of Link Building” – you can now write on a variety of topics by changing your viewpoint, such as:
Effective Guest Posting
The techniques outlined here are a good way to get you started. Keep in mind, however, that once you start pitching your guest posts, you may be faced with some problems.
For instance, editors and bloggers may routinely reject your pitch, negotiations may take months, or the link to your article may be taken down suddenly and without prior notice.
To address this concern here is what you can do:
In short, by following the techniques outlined above, you can defy Matt Cutt’s claim that guest posts are dead. Indeed, guest posts are thriving and can be used to generate traffic and brand awareness for your business in the long run.
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Make your B2B proposal stand out
/0 Comments/in B2B, Pitching, Sales /by Rebecca CaroeOne of the joys of being a freelance consultant is that sometimes I get to act on behalf of my client and hire specialists to work on their B2B marketing campaigns.
I recently advertised a job and was stunned by one of the proposal submissions. As a new business specialist I know how hard it is to make your proposal stand out from others. This one hit all the gold stars for me.
Integrate proposals and CRM
I was sent an unique URL to view the proposal. This makes everything trackable – it was on a sub-domain of the B2B marketing agency’s website and so I know they will be able to track:
All in all it was a pleasure to read and to be “sold” to. I felt engaged in the process and I know my actions on that page enabled the agency to get better insight into me as a prospect.
Screenshots from the marketing proposal web page.
And a final note, there’s a Squarespace service Qwilr which offers this on a 14 day trial.
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How to Successfully Market Your Website
/0 Comments/in Branding, Content Marketing, Digital media, Marketing, Marketing ideas /by Sudip MuttDigital marketing is very finicky. You are not just contending with customers; you have impartial algorithms to contest with, the attention market, your competitors, technological glitches, and so much more. Knowing how to successfully market your website means more than simply knowing the basics. Yes, email newsletters help. Yes, social media marketing is an option. Knowing how to successfully implement these tactics is the real challenge, and to help you overcome the common hurdles of these marketing hurdles we have put together a great beginner’s list to guide you:
Improve the Quality of Your Website
The first step to successfully marketing your website is to improve your website. All marketing efforts will be wasted if you do not improve it. Consider this – if you have a treasure map, and went through the effort of following it, how would you feel if you turned up to an empty field or a busted down house? Your customers follow a similar path to your website. Sometimes it is direct, other times it takes several attempts to get them to your site, but if your site is not worthwhile, they will leave immediately.
Example: A Slow Website
If your website is slow, then all the marketing efforts in the world will be a waste of money. That is why one of the first steps you should take is to switch to Krystal, which offers 300% faster speeds than most other competitors.
Improve Your Social Media Approach
To improve your social media approach, you need to understand how each platform works. Optimizing a post is standard practice, but you will want to go beyond and see how your competitors have succeeded or failed. Once you have that information, work on creating an account that provides users with the experience they are looking for in a company such as yours.
Example: A Technical Social Media Account
Take a company that offers technical service, like computer repairs. How can you possibly market such a company on a social media site like Instagram? What if you were an accountant?
The answer is to provide information. Create simple yet well-designed text posts. Be unique with your photography – a computer repair company has plenty of interesting textures you could photograph, for example. Try to be a source of information so that people follow you to get tips and tricks daily. Collaboration and PR is one of the best ways to market your company, as it gets your name out there and brings in high-quality inbound links.
Example: Collaborating With Another Business
To collaborate with another business, you will want to first see if there are any opportunities in your business model. If you sell high-quality phone cases, for example, partner with local artists that have a healthy, dedicated, and real community of their own. They create phone case designs for you, you give them a healthy chunk of the profits (after costs), and in turn, their fans know about you, buy from you, and then go on and advertise your product to their friends and family.
There are so many ways you can improve your marketing efforts, and hopefully, with these examples, you have a more concrete idea of how you can grow your community and reach.
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Apple Podcast analytics beta
/0 Comments/in Data, Metrics, Podcast /by Rebecca CaroeApple has launched a beta service to analyse listenership of your podcast episodes on Apple devices and via Apple services.
I took a quick look – log in to iTunes Connect and select the drop-down next to the header. [Note the URL – since podcasts are being split off from iTunes, it’s now got its own URL podcastsconnect.apple.com]
The service obviously only works on Apple devices and so this will in all likelihood be a small segment of your audience. But the data has all the normal data points [#devices, #total time listened, time listened per device] defaulting to a past 60 days view.
The most interesting data point for me is the percentage “Average Consumption” measure defined as
Trends, episodes and overview
Neatly summarising most of what you’ll want to see – the Apple Podcasts Analytics beta has a nice dashboard showing Total time listened, a country analysis and split of subscribers and ‘not subscribed’. This is neat as I’ve always wondered about the proportion of my listeners who are not subscribers but do listen.
Partial audience analysis
In the analytics help documentation I noted the following:
Final thoughts
Get on to Apple and take a look at your stats. Compare it to other analytics services [I use Podtrac] and compare the data points and your absolute numbers.
My Apple numbers and Podtrac numbers are not directly comparable as one is included in the other. But for me the average consumption metric is pretty neat and will be something I add in my media pack for advertisers.
The images below show the respective analytics for 7 recent episodes.
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