Why You Must Address Problems Before You Can Offer Solutions

Why You Must Address Problems Before You Can Offer Solutions written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

You make a product, hone your pitch and then get busy prescribing the benefits of your tools to anyone who’ll listen.

That’s the way it works. You know what people need, and you tailor your solutions to meet what they need. You even give your unique methodology a fancy name and construct branded processes to deliver results.

Then one day you conclude that sales aren’t what you had hoped. That sometimes when you recommend work your proposals go nowhere.

Fear not, I’m about to give you a dose of reality. Get what I’m about to share, and you’ll start writing, selling, and proposing in an entirely new way.

Hold on, though, as I’m about to shatter your world view – but I’ll do it as gently as possible.

Here it is.

Very few people want what you sell.

That’s not a knock on you or your business or your solutions. I’m sure all are amazing.

What people buy

But what you must realize is that there are only a few things people actually want, and unless you sell food or sex you’ll have to figure this one out.

People don’t want what you sell – they want what they believe they will get, achieve, relieve, dodge, or acquire based on buying what you sell.

So, your job as a marketer is to understand the problems people are trying to solve and match your solutions to those very specific problems.

What are your best customers saying to themselves when they get up in the morning?

I sell marketing consulting services, and I guarantee you that very few people who eventually engage our services wake and utter, “you know what I wish I had, some marketing consulting.”

But they might say something like, “why don’t my customers refer me to their friends?” or “why do I keep losing projects to Acme Consulting?”

Creating trigger phrases

In the past, I’ve referred to these kinds of statements as trigger phrases.

Your customers don’t know how to solve their problems, but they usually know what their problems are. If you can get really good at demonstrating that what you sell is the answer to their problem they really won’t care what you call it, they’ll just buy it to make the pain go away.
If the pain is big enough, you may have to put out the fire before they will even consider the comprehensive solution you know they truly need.

Take some time and break down every solution you sell, every benefit you attribute to what you do, and map it back to a handful of “trigger phrases.”

These phrases can be questions or statements or even anecdotes, but they must come from the point of view of the customer.

In my book The Referral Engine, I advise creating a one-page tool that you can share with your referral sources. The idea is to create a cheat sheet of trigger phrases that signal that the person saying them needs your service.

So, for example, if you sell accounting services to small businesses a trigger statement might be, “I can never get a handle on my receivables.”

That’s a real problem that your accounting solution can cure.

Problem-solving as strategy

Frankly, creating a list of trigger statements should be very high on your strategic list.

People aren’t searching for your solutions, but they search every single day for ways to address problems they see and feel.

Marketers that build their content, web design and SEO practices around problem solving will intersect their ideal client’s buying journey at a much earlier point – the point at which you can do the kind of trust building that makes your solution the obvious choice.

Google the phrase – “problems we solve” and you’ll see that some marketers are building web pages with this very idea at the center of their content strategy.

So the next time you see a marketing consultant selling a “reputation management” solution, know that no one wants that – what they want is to make the one-star review go away. I’m a marketing consultant, so I sell the “we can make the one-star review go away service.”

Make sense?

For illustration purposes, I’ll outline my entire problems vs. solutions map. If you’re a marketing consultant, then this will make total sense to you, and you should probably look into becoming a member of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network.

If you own or market for any other type of business you’ll have to do the work to create this map for your business based on brainstorming with your staff, the questions you find in forums, and through some planned, quality one on one time with your existing customers.

I’ve formatted these as questions, but you can see how they could just as easily be formatted as statements.

I’ve broken what we do into the logical chunks of the Duct Tape Marketing System.

Vision

Vision problems

• Have you lost or never found the passion for your business?
• Do you feel like you’re drifting without any real plan?
• Do you feel a lack of clarity and control in your marketing efforts?

Vision solutions

• Do you have a good sense of why you do what you do?
• Do you have a vision for your business one year from today?
• Do you have a revenue goal for one year from today?

Strategy

Strategy problems

• Do you feel like you’re trying to sell to anyone and everyone?
• Do you feel like your business is a commodity?
• Is price always and issue with your clients?
• Do you seem to be attracting the wrong types of clients?
• Are you struggling to stand out from your competitors?

Strategy solutions

• Do you have clients or customers currently?
• Do you know who makes an ideal client for your business?
• Do you have a unique message that answers “why you?”
• Do you know the greatest problems your clients face?
• Do you have graphic elements (logo) that appeal to your ideal client?
• Do you have a complete view of your competitive landscape?

Local Online Presence

Local presence problems

• Do you feel like you’re getting left behind in the ever-changing online world?
• Do you feel like your website isn’t performing as you had hoped?
• Do you wonder why your competitors show up for local searches and your business does not?
• Are you weary of the constant pitches from SEO companies?
• Do you find the need to produce content and participate in every social network exhausting?

Online presence solutions

• Have you ever had a different business name, address or phone number then you have today?
• Do you have a Google My Business Page?
• Do you have a marketing based website?
• Do you publish articles/blog posts regularly?
• Are you using and SEO plugin (WordPress)
• Are you familiar with “schema” location mark-up?
• Do you have a plan to acquire reviews from customers?
• Do you have a way to capture leads/emails on your website?
• Do you have profiles on major social networks?

Content

Content problems

• Do you wonder why anyone would want to read blog posts about your business?
• Do you feel like your website homepage is cluttered and confusing?
• Do you feel stressed out by the idea that you are being asked to produce more content with less time?
• Do you feel like you have no idea what to write about?
• Does is seem like no one else in your industry is blogging?

Content solutions

• Do you know the most important keyword search phrases used by your ideal client to find businesses like yours?
• Does your website home page promote a clear and simple message about why people should hire/buy from you?
• Do you have local content such as blog posts about events, client stories in neighborhoods where you work, etc.?
• Do you have a blog or other way to consistently publish new content?
• Do you have any written customer success stories?
• Do you create any video content?
• Do you publish an email newsletter?

Offline presence

Offline problems

• Do you sometimes feel like a dinosaur because you like real books and brochures and in person meetings?
• Do you sense that some of your marketing tactics are outdated in today’s online world?

Offline solutions

• Do you have a suite of printed or downloadable education materials?
• Do you have an automated way for people to make appointments with you?

Lead generation

Lead generation problems

• Do you feel like you’re simply guessing at how to generate leads?
• Do you wonder what it would take to consistently generate the right leads?
• Do you sometimes feel your wasting money on ineffective lead generation tactics
• Do you feel like you’re flying in the dark when it comes to choosing the right lead generation tactics?
• Do you find the technical aspects of online advertising a bit intimidating?

Lead generation solutions

• Do you know the best place or way to generate leads for your business?
• Do you have a way to attract ideal client leads who want to know more?
• Do you have a way to follow up with leads?

Lead conversion

Lead conversion problems

• Do you hate the thought of selling?
• Do you find it difficult to get in front of the right prospects?
• Do you spend way too much time chasing meetings, proposals, and deals?
• Do you sometimes drop the ball when it comes to getting a new client started?
• Do you get frustrated that sometimes clients leave as fast as you can generate new ones

Lead conversion solutions

• Do you have a consistent way to respond to leads?
• Do you have a set way to present what you do to prospects?
• Do you have a way to nurture leads before they convert?
• Do you need a proposal process for your type of business?
• Do you have a process to orient new customers?
• Do you have a process to reactivate dormant customers?

Tracking

Tracking problems

• Do you ever wonder what’s working and what’s not?
• Do you struggle with confidently know where to invest your limited marketing budget?
• Do you sometimes feel like you are simply responding to the marketing idea of the week rather than working a plan?
• Do you find it very difficult to measure the return on your marketing and time investment in your business?

Tracking solutions

Website analytics

• Do you have Google Analytics installed on your website
• Do you have Google Search Console integrated with your site
• Do you have any Google Analytics Goals created to track website conversions?
• Do you use call tracking tools on your website?

Key performance indicators

• Do you know the key indicators of success in your business?
• Do you set and track revenue and customer goals?
• Do you track leads generated?
• Do you track leads converted?
• Do you know the cost to acquire a new customer?

Okay, your turn. Demonstrate that you understand the problems and you’ll get the opportunity to pitch your solutions.

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Optimizing Marketing Resources – What to Automate and What Your Team Needs to Handle

Optimizing Marketing Resources – What to Automate and What Your Team Needs to Handle written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing

When you work in a small marketing department with a shoestring budget, you’re often faced with the dilemma of paying for automation or investing hours in managing the work internally.

Through my years in various marketing roles, I’ve gotten lucky and also learned the hard way about which processes should and should not be automated. The takeaway: growth has to be achieved through a various mix of human power and automated tools.

My team manages our work by being clear about what we do by hand, what’s better managed by the host of marketing tools at our disposal, and then reviewing our decisions when we reset our goals.

So, here’s the skinny.

Email: 100% Automate

The only thing you, as a marketer, should be focused on is getting the most out of each channel you’re using. Email is no different. If you have more than 100 customers, you should be automating your transactional and marketing emails.

Email is an incredibly important part of your business’s customer activation and retention funnels, so I don’t recommend cutting corners here. By some measures, it’s 40 times more effective than any social channel.

Writing email copy and subject lines and testing their relative effectiveness at every turn improves ROI, the mundane admin work behind running these campaigns does not.

Mail providers will handle all of your A/B testing, email design, delivery time optimization and opt-outs. Additionally, most of the players in the game today offer user-event based segmentation, which is a necessity for companies doing growth hacking.

My advice is to research email providers and find one that is going to fit your needs as you continue to grow, and don’t be shy about switching up providers when necessary. I’ve also found that email providers are willing to bargain with you over price a little more than other marketing SaaS companies.

For the price and feature offering, I’ve always been fond of Customer.io. They make the process of setting up automatically triggered transactional emails simple and without the need for back-end logic. I also really like Customer.io’s reliance on a template-based system for email creation, which makes collaboration easier. The dashboard doesn’t stink either.

Press: Keep it Human

One thing I cannot stress enough is the importance of getting a rock star PR person on your team.

Securing local and national press coverage for your product or service should be a top priority for your growth strategy. Besides the cost of a press manager’s salary, getting media mentions is a low-cost acquisition channel that can have a huge return.

Outsourcing media relations to an agency or paying a press distribution service will not cut it. The news cycle is too fast and media too annoyed with incoming press releases that stink. You need someone in-house who knows your business like the back of their hand and is eager to craft media pitches to get featured, preferably someone who understands the pressures of reporting and small outlets.

I’ve seen a single national press mention bring in the same amount of sales in one day that general marketing efforts bring in a month.

Invest in an eager, savvy, connected person to lead your press outreach efforts and I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. It’s like Christmas when a big mention lands and you start seeing the site traffic spike.

Customer Persona Building and Target Customer Research – Automate Data Collection and Analyze with Humans

In addition to growing the business, it’s also the marketing team’s job to know whom you should be selling to in the first place.

One of the best ways to determine whom you should be targeting is by talking with already satisfied customers, and recent cancellations.

If you work for a SaaS company or sell online, you’re in the lucky group because you most likely have an email address and possibly phone numbers for customers. If you know how to get in contact with your customers, you can schedule interviews with them and also perform net promoter score surveys.

Here, I recommend using tools to collect information and then pass it to your team, who follow up. Basically, the team needs the direct insight from the customer. Interviewing allows you to hear how customers describe your product and what words they use- hello AdWords keywords.

If you outsource the interviews, you’re missing out on valuable customer insights.

If you sell through retailers, or not directly to customers, collecting contact info and building relationships with them is much more difficult.

Services like BrandLoop help companies connect with their customers who do not buy directly. They make product registrations mobile and allow customers to use Facebook single-sign-on to register their purchases. This helps retailers open another communication channel with their customers they didn’t have before.

Additionally, allowing customers to register from their phones has been proven to increase registration rates by as much as 80%. 

Analytics – Outsource Measurement, Assess with Human Rigor

Sure, I like a good spreadsheet, but pulling all the data I need from Google Analytics and Mixpanel, that’s not the best use of my time. Still, I need accurate, updated customer segments, monthly recurring revenue, conversion rates, unique traffic figures and more.

Thanks to the marvels of marketing tools, I don’t have to, so I don’t. Yes, some of these services will require a little Javascript, but they’ll save you hours once they’re deployed.

I highly recommend using Segment.io and Mixpanel for event-based metrics. If you have a mobile app, I’ve always been happy with App Annie premium and also SensorTower.

Next, it’s up to your team to determine what all that data means for your funnel.

Don’t forget that the suite of metrics you’re collecting should include an absolute quantity and a rate to ensure you hit your goals.

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About the Author

Mike Hourigan is the Director of Marketing for Shoeboxed, a receipt digitization company used by over one million small businesses worldwide. He also serves as a digital marketing consultant and advisor. Mike is a die-hard UNC Tar Heel fan and a sucker for good documentaries.

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We Answer the Top 5 Questions People Have About Content Marketing

As marketers, it’s our job to know our audience. To understand their pain points. To empathize. To provide them with the answers or solutions they’re looking for.

So how do we do all these things? One way is through content marketing.

Over the past few years, content marketing has been increasingly embraced by marketers. In fact, this year 88% of B2B marketers and 76% of B2C marketers said they used content marketing, according to the 2016 Benchmark, Budgets & Trends—North America reports from Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs.

But there are still a lot people out there who are searching for some of the content marketing basics.

Our team recently dug into content marketing related keywords and keyword categories, as well as related SERPs and our own data, to identify what people really want to know about content marketing. As a result, we identified five common questions users have about content marketing—and we’ve answered them all below.

Let’s dive in.

#1 – What is Content Marketing?

Simply put, content marketing is a strategic marketing technique that aligns business and consumer information needs with relevant content.

At TopRank Marketing, we believe in an integrated approach to content marketing, using multiple content marketing tactics to help our clients be the best answer for their customers, wherever and whenever they’re searching.

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Wherever your customers are looking, be present, useful and “info-taining.” @leeodden
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From blogging and social media to infographics and eBooks, content marketing is most effective when you employ a variety of tactics to consistently inform, persuade and build rapport with your customers—without trying to sell them something outright.

For a deeper dive into this topic, check out our post What is Content Marketing? Definition, Examples & Resources for Learning More.

Of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the Content Marketing Institute’s (CMI) own resource on what content marketing is. Find that resource here.

#2 – What is a Content Marketing Strategy? (And Why Do I Need One?)

A content marketing strategy provides the answers to the why, who and how a content marketing program will help you achieve your business objectives. It’s your infrastructure. Your game plan. Your roadmap.

Without a strategy in place, you’re throwing content out there and hoping it sticks. With a strategy in place, you’re able to plan, produce, promote and measure the effectiveness of your content, and use that information to propel your efforts forward.

Get more on this topic by checking out our post What is a Content Marketing Strategy (And Why Do I Need One?).

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“Build an audience first and define products and services second.” @joepulizzi
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#3 – How Do I Create a Content Marketing Strategy?

Your content marketing strategy is your foundation and it should be uniquely tailored to your brand and audience. Here are some best practices to get you started on creating your content marketing strategy:

• Identify who your target audience is and their paint points. This will allow you to come up with valuable and relevant content concepts, and address the needs of your audience.
• Define your objectives. (e.g. more brand awareness, increasing site traffic, increasing conversions, newsletter signups, etc.)
• Identify the content marketing tactics you plan to use in your strategy. (e.g. blogging, PPC, webinars, social media, etc.)
• Identify the social channels your plan to use to engage with your audience. Ask yourself: What channels does your audience use the most? What content do they respond to the best?
• Define how you will measure results. (What metrics and tools will you use to see if what you’re doing is working?)

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Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue. @DrewDavisHere
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Resources

• 7 Steps to Documenting Your Content Marketing Strategy
• What’s the Secret of the Most Powerful Content Marketing Strategy? Simplicity
• How to Pick the Best Content Marketing Tools for your 2016 Content Marketing Strategy
• The Mortified Marketer: 8 Lessons To Help Evolve Your Content Marketing Strategy

#4 – Why Content Marketing?

In today’s digital world, buyers are self-directed. Research indicates that 71% of B2B buyers get their information online. Content marketing is a way to satisfy your customers’ quest for answers and arm them with the information they need to make decisions. Content marketing also creates signals across the web that build credibility, authority and rapport with your audience, along with many SEO benefits.

In addition, research shows that content marketing is typically more cost-effective than other forms of advertising or marketing, can drive higher conversion rates and increases audience engagement.

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If your content marketing is encouraging engagement, that’s a sign of relevance. @JasonMillerCA
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Resources

• What a GREAT Marketer Does With Content (eBook)
• Why Content Marketing is Imperative for the Future of Public Relations
• Is Content Marketing a Viable Lead Generation Tactic?

#5 – How Do I Do Content Marketing?

Content marketing is not just one tactical technique—it involves using a myriad of techniques within your strategy to drive toward your goals. We call this an integrated content marketing approach. Below are just some of the content marketing tactics that you can use:

• Blogging
• Co-creating content with industry influencers and thought leaders
• eBooks
• Social media
• Podcasts
• Newsletters
• Email marketing
• Content curation

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Writing is thinking. And for us as marketers, good writing is good marketing. @marketingprofs
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For more information on all of these tactics, as well as more than 20 others, check out our post: Content Marketing – Tactics and Best Practices. Here we offer pros, cons, best practices, industry expert insights, examples and resources for 30 content marketing tactics.

Resources

• Content Marketing: 10 Daily Habits to Create More Powerful Content
• The 4 Essential Questions Your Content Must Answer in Less than 15 Seconds
• How to Write for People: 5 Ways to Create Connections & Personality in Your Content Marketing Efforts
• 7 Ways to Optimize Your Web Content for Humans & Search Engines

What other questions do you have about content marketing? Ask them in the comments section below!

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PPC Advertising Hack: Super-Targeted Live Chat Prompts

How do I get potential customers to engage on my site?

If you’re trying to run a business online, this is a critically important question to answer—especially if you’re running any sort of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

Clicks and site traffic simply aren’t enough. If you want your business to succeed, you need conversions and sales.

Now, hopefully, since you’re here on the Kissmetrics blog, you already know that. You’re constantly improving your PPC traffic and optimizing your landing pages for maximum conversion rate.

But still, you want more out of your site. Wouldn’t it be great if there was an easy way to get even more people to engage on your site and convert?

Well, fortunately, at Disruptive, we’ve come up with a PPC advertising hack that uses live chat prompts to quadruple chats and increase conversion rates by up to 20%.

Here’s how it works:

People Love to Talk

Whenever someone visits your site, it’s because they need something. Maybe they have a problem they need fixed. Maybe they have a question they need answered. Maybe they simply want to feel understood.

No matter what the reason, people come to your site because they need something. If you can get them to talk about what they need, they are much more likely to feel connected to and engage with your business.

In fact, if you can get people talking, you’re much more likely to win their business—half of leads choose the first company they speak with.

The good news is, people love to talk and they especially like to talk about their problems, concerns and frustrations—the exact things that brought them to your site! All you have to do is find a good way to start the conversation.

Vanilla Chat Prompts

To better understand this, pretend you’re a guy who’s going to propose to his girlfriend soon. You enter a local jewelry store and start looking at the diamond engagement rings. A salesperson walks up and greets you with a cheerful, “It’s a pleasure to see you today! What can I help you with?”

How would you respond? Odds are, if you didn’t already have a specific question in mind, you’d probably just shrug and say “Oh nothing, I’m just looking.”

That’s not very helpful to either of you, is it?

Well, guess what? Most chat prompts start with generic questions like, “Can I help?” For example, check out the chat prompt below:

This doesn’t really do much for them or you, unless you show up on their site with a burning question you’re dying to ask.

Now, don’t get me wrong, this sort of chat prompt is great if you’re in the customer service department, but we’re marketers. We’re trying to start a conversation, not fill a troubleshooting queue.

Useful Chat Prompts

So, what sort of chat prompt start a conversation? Let’s go back to our engagement ring example.

After a somewhat underwhelming experience at the first jewelry store, you check out a second place and a new salesperson appears. This guy, however, asks you a specific question that relates to what you’re looking at, like “Is there specific cut you’re looking for?”

This is a much better conversation starter now isn’t it? It’s an open-ended, specific question that shows the salesperson’s interest in helping you.

Let’s apply this to chat prompts.

Instead of leading with “Can I help you with anything?” consider leading with something more directly relevant to your business. For our answering service, that might look like this:

A chat prompt like this uses something the answering service knows about their visitors (they are probably there because they need a high-quality answering service) to try and start a conversation.

After all, if you want to prove that you’re a high-quality answering service, what better way than to let people try before they buy?

It’s a great idea, but the problem with this prompt is that it still doesn’t really draw people into a conversation. If someone is seriously considering this service, they’re probably going to chat in, but a lot of those people probably would have converted anyways.

Engaging Chat Prompts

Truly engaging chat prompts aren’t just focused on meeting customer needs—they actually get people to talk about those needs, wants and desires.

Back to our engagement ring salesperson example. You still weren’t sold in store #2, so you head to jeweler #3. Here, the salesperson came up to you and said, “I noticed you’re checking out our engagement rings. When are you popping the question?”

The answer to that question will give the salesperson everything he needs to get a conversation started, steer you to your ideal ring and close the sale.

For example, if you answer, “I want to ask her in a couple of weeks, but I wanted to see what my ring options are,” he might respond with:

“Great! Congratulations! I asked my wife to marry me in December, too. Do you have any idea what sort of cut she likes?”

Look at that! You’re only a few sentences into the conversation, but the salesperson has already identified your needs, made a connection with you and shown that he’s on your team.

Assuming each salesperson has a ring and a price that fits your needs, which store are you more likely to buy from? If you’re like most people, the answer is jeweler #3!

Crafting a Conversation Starter

Now, all of this is great advice for jewelry salespeople, but how do you start a conversation like this online?

Well, the secret to salesperson #3’s success was the fact that he used what he knew about you and why you were there to draw you into a conversation. Your PPC ads tell you the exact same information—all you have to do is use it!

For example, let’s take a look at how I ended up on that call answering service page. I found their page by searching for “virtual answering service” on Google.

The search term I used and the ad I clicked tells them a couple of important things about me:

1. I’m looking for a virtual answering service. The fact that I typed in “virtual answering service” means I know what a virtual answering service is, what it does and I think I might need one.
2. Their ad resonated with me in some way. Quite a few selling points appear in this ad (call recording, price, family owned, etc), but the main message seems to be “24/7- Never Miss Another Call!” Clicking on their ad tells them that this idea probably resonated with me.

Taken together, these two points tell a story about me that the answering service can use to create a great conversation starter—possible something like this?

Odds are, if I’m looking for a virtual answering service and clicking on an ad that tells me “never miss another call,” missing calls is a real problem for my business. I’m probably frustrated, angry and would love to vent to someone about it.

What better way to get me talking than to ask me about the very thing that brought me to their site in the first place?

Not only will this start a conversation, it will also tell the chat operator a lot about what I am looking for in an answering service, which will allow the operator to emphasize the selling points I really care about.

For example, if I talk about a valuable prospective customer that I lost because no one was there to answer the phone at 3 in the morning, then the operator can emphasize that their service can respond to calls at all hours of the day.

See how powerful starting a conversation can be?

How To Customize Chat Prompts

Now, at this point, you may be thinking something like, “Well, that’s all great, Jake, but how would I ever even start customizing my chats like this?”

It’s actually pretty simple. All you have to do is use your UTM parameters.

Setting Up UTM Parameters

Hopefully, you’re already using UTM parameters to track marketing performance in Google Analytics.

If you’re not, don’t worry, it’s easy. Google has an online URL builder that’s quite easy to use. All you need to do is enter your landing page’s URL, put in the info that you need tracked and then Google will generate the UTM parameters for you:

In addition to helping you track your PPC results, UTM parameters also create a unique URL you can use to customize your chat prompts.

Using Your UTM Parameters

Personally, I find that the easiest way to set up custom, highly targeted chat prompts is using Olark (note, I don’t have any financial relationship with Olark, they just have a great tool). So, for the purposes of this article, I’ll show you how to set things up in Olark.

To set up customized chat prompts, all you have to do is log into your Olark account and choose Settings, then Targeted Chat, then +New Rule.

Once you’ve done that, add a UTM parameter that’s specific to your ad to the “Current URL contains” section and change “Expand the Olark chat box” to “Send this message to your visitor” as follows:

Last of all, add your conversation starter and hit “Save Rule.” You’re good to go!

Once you’ve got this in place, when someone clicks on your PPC ad and arrives on a page with your UTM parameters, your custom, targeted conversation starter will pop up and get them talking!

Conclusion

Remember, as you’re getting used to this, you may not get a ton of chats right off the bat. As with site optimization, you’ll probably need to test a bunch of different prompts until you find one that really catches your traffic’s attention.

Still, in our experience, creating targeted, conversation-starting chats can be a tremendous way to boost the conversion rate of your page.

So, take a bit of time, come up with some chat prompts that address the real reasons why people are on your site and start testing!

What do you think of this strategy? Does it make sense to you?

Once you’ve tried this tactic, let me know what your results were in the comments!

About the Author: Jacob Baadsgaard is the CEO and fearless leader of Disruptive Advertising, an online marketing agency dedicated to using PPC advertising and website optimization to drive sales. His face is as big as his heart and he loves to help businesses achieve their online potential. Connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter.

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Solving the Multi-channel Conundrum: How to Leverage Your Marketing Data for Success

Who are you really marketing to? It may sound like a crazy question, but it’s increasingly difficult for marketers to answer these days. 

Prospects and customers can no longer be seen as having a single customer journey. They exist, operate, and interact with brands on multiple platforms, devices, and channels.

More than 60% of UK adults online use two or more devices daily.

Not only do you have different customers and prospects interacting in different places, but also the same customer’s preferences and interactions can alter, depending on the device or channel they are using at the time. What’s more, over 40% of online adults start activities on one device and finish on another!

Gathering data and insights from the various points of contact is essential if you’re going to understand and contextualise your audience and their preferences. 

This is why marketers are turning to data management platforms to help make sense of the multifaceted customer identities we see today.

The Multi-channel Conundrum

Simply put, how do you understand who your customer is and market effectively to them in a world of fragmented customer journeys, multiple channels, and different devices?

Creating a multi-channel marketing strategy raises key challenges:

Matching customer identities across channels

The average enterprise-level business is using some 500 different applications, which is a recipe for duplication of data, particularly if the data is being stored in archaic systems like spreadsheets, which don’t talk to each other.

To avoid counting the same customer twice, marketers need to be able to identify each person across multiple channels, all the while negotiating data security.

Dealing with data silos

Another issue with big data is that it can end up in different departmental silos - the sales database, the customer service database, the marketing database…

There is near universal consensus that this is holding us back. 97% of executives said that organisational silos have a negative effect.

What modern marketers need is a unified overview of each customer, rather than a fragmented picture.

Lack of alignment between cross-functional teams

One consequence of the multi-channel conundrum is that online campaigns are increasingly involving different teams, with marketers managing cross-functional activity.

This is a positive step and can lead to highly effective collaboration. which can result in duplicate or inaccurate data inputs.

Inconsistent/Incomplete audience profiles

B2B marketers are very good at collecting the traditional bits of data – job role, location, and so on.

The digital footprint of all your prospects needs to be taken into account more widely.

What are their search, social, and mobile behaviours? How do they access and interact with content? Lack of data quality and completeness is cited by 54% of companies as their biggest challenge to data-driven marketing success.

How to leverage your data and solve the multi-channel conundrum

Data management platforms are the answer. Instead of trying to reach more customers by running more and more cross-channel campaigns, be more intelligent and effective about how you reach your existing database.

What is a data management system?

“A data management platform (DMP) combines online and offline data from first-party proprietary systems, and second-party and third-party audiences to provide marketers with a central platform that stores and helps provide insight regarding audience and campaign data that is used for optimizing campaigns and media spend across channels.”

Data Management Platforms (Frost & Sullivan)

So a DMP helps marketers to build more complete customer profiles by bringing together information from a whole host of different sources.

This in turn allows much more hyper-targeting and intelligent marketing based on deep and accurate customer insights. Small wonder that 48% of media sellers are already using DMPs.

Let’s take another look at the challenges discussed previously, and how a DMP can solve them:

Matching customer identities across multiple channels

Data management platforms both ingest old data and collect new.

This can include CRM insights and integration of third party data when appropriate.

The system pulls all the disparate information together and matches it to the prospect/customer concerned.

It uses attributes like device and cookie IDs to identify each single customer. 

Dealing with data silos

Sweep away the silos and use your data management platform as the central hub of information about customers and prospects.

The value of having a single, complete data centre cannot be overestimated.

Lack of alignment between cross-functional teams

Closely tied to the above, DMPs allow marketers to accurately identify and target prospects from a wide pool, secure in the knowledge that the data is unified and aligned.

With one master source of information to work from , all cross-channel teams are effectively singing from the same hymn-sheet.

Inconsistent/Incomplete audience profiles

The digital age requires much deeper customer knowledge than simple demographic data or job role information.

DMPs are able to analyse and segment audiences by digital behaviours and attributes. This level of targeting greatly improves the effectiveness of campaigns.

It’s been estimated that segmented campaigns can cause a 750% increase in revenue.

Solving the Multi-channel Conundrum

In the fast-moving, fragmented, multi-channel world of modern marketing, the single linear customer journey is a thing of the past.

The challenge for marketers is now to find ways of getting to know each customer as an individual despite the multi-faceted nature of interactions and the proliferation of different channels and devices.

Data management platforms act as a centralising, unifying hub for data, bringing order from the chaos of big data, duplication and silos.

The DMP has become one of every modern marketer’s most essential tools.

Main Takeaways

• Prospects and customers can no longer be seen as having a single customer journey. 
• Marketers need to understand who the customer is and market effectively to them in a world of fragmented customer journeys, multiple channels and different devices
• Multi-channel marketing raises key challenges like matching customer identities, overcoming data silos and aligning cross-functional teams
• Data management systems helps marketers to build more complete customer profiles by bringing together information from a whole host of different sources

Get the most out of your data by creating a solid strategy, download ‘Maximise Your Marketing’ now

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10 Kick-Ass Cyber Monday & Holiday Deals for Digital Marketers

Digital marketers everywhere—especially our friends in the B2C marketing world—have spent the last weeks and months perfecting their marketing strategies for the holiday season. Now that the most wonderful time of the year is officially here, we want to make sure our fellow marketers don’t miss out on deals that can help them perfect their craft.

So, in the spirit of the holiday season, we’ve put together this handy list of Cyber Monday and holiday deals that any marketer would absolutely love to scoop up. From books and conference tickets to free tool trials, you’ll find a variety of great deals.

Digital Advertising

#1- $100 Bing Advertising Credit

Depending on your product or business, Bing Ads could be a great way to drive traffic, sales and ROI. If you’re ready to dabble in Bing Ads, the holiday season may be a good time to do it, as the search engine is offering a $100 advertising credit through Jan. 15, 2017.

Get the deal.

Tools, Software & Web Services

# 2 – Free SEMRush Trials (PRO or GURU)

SEMRush is an incredible tool that can help you conduct SEO and PPC keyword research and track digital marketing efforts, among other things. If you’re thinking about signing on for this tool, now is the time to do it.

Until Nov. 30, 2016, you can get a free one month trial of the PRO plan, which is priced at $69.95 a month. In addition, a free 14-day trial for the GURU plan, priced at $149.95 a month, is also available through Dec. 11, 2016.

Sign up for the PRO deal.

Sign up for the GURU deal.

#3 – 20% of Everything on Yoast.com

Yoast, notably known for its SEO plugins for WordPress, is offering 20% off everything on its website on Cyber Monday.

Browse offerings here.

#4 – Up to 40% Off GetResponse for Life

GetResponse is an all-in-one online marketing platform that allows you to create and deliver emails, host webinars, and build, publish and host landing pages, as well as marketing automation.

Currently, the software provider is offering 15% off all plans. But there is also a 12- and 24-month pre-pay discount for EMAIL, PRO or MAX that is up to 40%.

Get more details here.

#5 – 50% off Envato Market Website Tools

Envato Market offers more than 9 million digital products to design and build beautiful websites. On Cyber Monday, the company is offering 50% off of over 500 different items, including web templates and themes, video and stock footage, and graphic templates. The sale will last until 2 p.m. Dec. 1, 2016.

Browse all sale items here.

#6 – Over 60% of BlueHost Plans

In the market for a new hosting service? BlueHost might be worth your consideration, especially now that they’re offering over 60% off on their web hosting services. The discount applies to the first term and goes to the regular rate upon renewal.

Check out the deal and the different plans available here.

Professional Development

#7 – $520 off Social Media Marketing World Tickets

The next Social Media Marketing World event is set for beautiful, sunny San Diego, CA—and you could get a huge discount on your ticket. The event is offering 100 tickets at $520 discount until Dec. 2, 2016 or until they’re sold out. The normal price of the ticket is $1,597, so you’re getting about a 33% discount.

Register for SMMW here.

Books

There are a number of fantastic and inspiring digital marketing books that any marketer would love this holiday season. Below are a few of our favorites. (And you can bet that Amazon will be a great place to get them for a great deal on Cyber Monday).

#8 – Everybody Writes by Ann Handley

In this book from marketing veteran (and one of TopRank Marketing’s favorite marketers), Ann Handley, you’ll find some inspiration for writing better content and being a sport in the content marketing world.

Find the book on Amazon.

#9 – X: The Experience When Business Meets Design by Brian Solis

In this book, bestselling author and experienced marketer Brian Solis shares why great products are no longer good enough to win with customers and why creative marketing and delightful customer service too are not enough to succeed.

Find the book on Amazon.

#10 – Optimize by Lee Odden

If you didn’t know, TopRank Marketing’s very own CEO Lee Odden is also an author. Optimize, his debut book, was designed to give readers a practical approach to integrating search and social media optimization with content marketing to boost relevance, visibility, and customer engagement.

Find the book on Amazon.

What other Cyber Monday and holiday deals have you found for marketers? Tell us in the comments section below.

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