We all want to get to know our customers better. If we could wave magic wands and have customers walking directly into bespoke products and services tailored with them specifically in mind, we would. Unfortunately, business – and life – does not work that way.

To understand our customers better, we need systems in place to acquire and analyze data, we need the right approach to using that data, and we need to be able to compromise.

With marketing automation, we already have those systems implemented throughout our company. Marketing automation systems provide us with the insight we need, as well as the means of storing and reporting on large amounts of customer data. We also have the right approach; we want to use this data to better understand our customers and provide a genuinely useful service.

It is the final element – compromise – that can cause difficulty. In essence, customer segmentation is one big compromise; we want to understand our customers on an individual level, but this is impossible. So, instead, we divide our customers into convenient groups and aim to meet their needs in as direct a manner as we can.

But how much should we compromise? How can we get the right balance and provide our customers with seamless services and support?

Segmentation aims

To begin with, we need to devise our aims for segmentation. Writing for OpenView, Tien Anh Nguyen defined the three types of customer segmentation. These classifications are a priori, needs-based, and value-based.

A priori refers to simple segmentation along a range of general characteristics. These might include gender, age, income level, or engagement medium. This is the most basic form of segmentation and uses information that is freely available to numerous other parties. This limits the usefulness of a priori segmentation.

Needs-based uses information gathered through thorough market research and interaction to divide customers based on their needs. This is a far more sophisticated form of segmentation than “a priori”, and goes some way to forming a profound understanding between customer and business.

Value-based segmentation divides customers along boundaries of overall value. This requires the harvesting of data from customer and client interaction over an extended period.

While Mr Nguyen is writing with specific regard to the B2B market, this model still applies to B2C businesses. In order to create manageable and useful segments of customers, we must first define our aims, and then decide which of the methods mentioned above is the most suitable.

Tried and tested segments

Once formed, customer segments must be subjected to intense scrutiny and examination on a long term basis. It is only by trying and testing and then trying and testing again, over and over, ad infinitum, that we can be sure that our segments are truly working and are as effective as they can be.

One problem which many of us encounter when attempting to build such customer segments is that we get a little ahead of ourselves. We think we know our customers – and we are sure that we know our business – and so we make assumptions. Making guesses and building segments based on such intangibles will only lead you down a blind alley, leaving you with customer segments and buyer profiles that are not fit for purpose.

The data is there; it is up to you to use it. Only form customer segments based upon solid truths, facts, and figures. Leave the guesswork out of it all together, re-appraising the efficacy of each segment with each new data set you lay your hands on. Don’t forget that the segments must be flexible; if you receive data which conflicts what you already have and you decide that a reorganization is necessary, then reorganization is what needs to take place.

Omnichannel approaches

Remember that modern consumers are fluid and therefore your customer segmentation strategies need to reflect this. Make sure that your customer segments are optimized for use across all of the relevant access points of your organization.

Increasing numbers of customers use mobile devices to shop for products and services, alongside more traditional means. The physical store is still an important part of retail, but customers are starting to browse products online beforehand or reserve products for collection.

Getting this right requires research and behavioral analysis. Which access points do customers within a certain segment tend to use? At which points are we losing customers from each segment? Which products would benefit this particular segment?

Develop each segment by answering these questions and use the answers to map out typical customer journeys for each segment. There is likely to be more than one typical journey for each, but by understanding them, you are coming one step closer to achieving a totally omnichannel structure within your organization.

Expanding the profile

Initially, we compromise because of time, cost, and a scarcity of resources. We must start small, working with the data we have in an effort to better understand our customers and to market to them in a more effective manner. This is the nature of the compromise in the early stages; the odds are stacked against us but we are making the best of what we have.

However, the situation doesn’t remain this way forever. Interactions develop and flourish, our marketing automation platforms feed more and more data into our organizations, and our situation hand becomes stronger. With this influx of data, we can make the segments even more accurate.

As we learn more about each segment, we can add more detail to their profile. We might find that, as the wealth of resources at our disposal has grown, we are now in a position to implement more specific profiles and segments and in increasing numbers within our business.

This is the nature of the compromise we are aiming for. It is almost not a compromise at all; instead, we have developed astonishingly accurate, inherently useful customer profiles which we can then utilize in our marketing and support initiatives.

With this level of business intelligence, client understanding and marketing savvy, the sky is the limit for what your business can achieve.

The post Customer Segmentation: The Ideal Compromise appeared first on GetResponse Blog – Online Marketing Tips.

With its lightning-fast development, social media marketing (SMM) is a thrilling industry that makes us learn new tricks daily. Social media platforms advance not only in number, but also in new features. At the same time, we see growth in the number of software services designed to help social media marketers do their jobs better. There are four main challenges that every social media marketer encounters:

1. How to schedule posts
2. How to target content
3. How to increase engagement
4. How to measure results

Let’s consider the tools that help with each of these challenges.

1. A reasonable posting frequency is the groundwork of your SMM strategy

Posting frequency is a rather technical part of SMM but still is extremely important. Posting at the wrong time can nullify all your creative efforts. Studies showed that the most efficient post amount per day is three for Twitter and two to three for Facebook (but, of course, your success may vary). Regular and consistent posting takes a lot of time and effort. To make this work easier, you can appeal to some basic tools listed below:

Buffer is one of the most popular tools to manage social media scheduling. It is compatible with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, and Instagram. Buffer assists you in synchronizing of your social media accounts. It also optimizes your video and images for different social networks. You can even create images for your social media posts using their Pablo product.

PostPlanner is a Facebook scheduling app that also helps to curate content for your Facebook feed. It is a great tool for beginners since it has a clear, free tutorial and training. PostPlanner helps its users find viral content to curate, in addition to sharing owned content. If you decide to focus specifically on Facebook promotion, this app could be a great tool for you.

Edgar is a great tool for reviving your old posts. It sorts your posts by topic and targeted traffic. Then it chooses the best time to post your older, evergreen content so to best engage your audience.

2. Precise targeting becomes easy with special tools

To understand your audience better, you need analytics tools. For example, Google Analytics has a section called Affinity Categories. It categorizes the customers according to their favorite Internet activities.

Here you can explore the lives and loves of your customers, whether they are cooks, travelers or gamers. You can adjust your content to the needs and interests of your audience. There are yet more tools to help your content hit its target.

Nuzzel app sorts out the essential info about your potential customers by their social activities (likes and shares). Along with the info about their interests, Nuzzel gathers their contact and demographic data.

Social Clout is an analytics tool that helps to research audience sentiment. It works for Facebook and Twitter, and allows analyzing aggregated comments and posts from both platforms. You can apply a filter to track positive and negative responses separately.

3. Engagement is one the most important metrics

Along with poor customer care, ignoring social engagement can notably harm your business.

FoxNews gathered more than 120 million likes, shares and comments on its page in the first six months of 2016. Answering question of “how”, FNC VP of social media Jason Ehrich pointed out that they bet on the engagement strategy. One look at the FoxNews Facebook page shows you what Ehrich is talking about. They rotate posts of “softer” news stories with hard news on politics and the economy (which is the main FNC product):

Mixing amusing content with hard news makes the critical information more readable and discussable. To figure out what topics resonate the most with your audience you can use following tools:

BuzzSumo is one of the greatest tools to build an effective content strategy. It is another kind of search engine that helps you to see what content in your niche is the hottest at the time. It sorts the topics by date and popularity, so you can see the main trends across social media channels. It also helps to build out part of your SEO strategy, allowing you to search the best performing topics and keywords.

Sprout Social allows prompt answering of users’ comments and questions. That keeps your customers happy. It works as a multi-purpose tool for SMM management and even large companies can use it easily.

To maintain engagement, you should support your visual content presence on social platforms. Among the indispensable tools are:

Canva is a favorite tool both for beginners and experienced social marketers. It’s an incredibly easy to use tool, which allows you to create the nicest and optimized visual content for every social platform. Infographics, blog graphics, email cards – anything you can think of and all of it in the one place. It’s also free, with a paid version available.

Adobe Spark is another free tool that will let its users create optimized visual content, graphic posts to animated gifs to video, for free. It’s drag-and-drop simple, and has mobile app versions as well.

4. Your choice of tools for analytics depends on the social media channel and your purposes

There are several possible points for your analytics attention. Including general reports, analysis of competition, ROI calculating, cross-platform and engagement tracking. For each of these options, you can use a different tool. Many analytical software choices are designed for individual platforms. Among the most popular and multi-purpose are the following:

CrowdBooster is based on real-time metrics. It creates reports of your Facebook and Twitter accounts’ performance. It allows following the dynamics of audience engagement. Furthermore, it offers the recommendations on how to improve your strategy. It also provides a Twitter scheduling option.

Easypromos offers a set of apps that allows diversifying content by quizzes, contest, surveys, and more, as well as KPI reports.

Tailwind is designed specifically for Instagram and Pinterest. It emails the reports on main trends in the industry and on a company’s own performance.

Final points

All these tools ease the work of social media management in four directions: post scheduling, targeting, engagement boosts, and analytics. It is not a whole range of SMM tasks, these are rather basic. Before applying any of these tools, you need to prioritize your tasks, so the apps could show the maximum of their effectiveness. Read the guides and reviews for every tool carefully, so you can choose the one that meets your needs the best.

Of course, there is a huge variety of tools for social media marketers. There are tons and tons more. If I didn’t list your favorites here, please leave a note in the comments with your favorite social media management tool.

The post 12 Social Media Tools to Keep Your Brand’s Presence Up-to-Date appeared first on GetResponse Blog – Online Marketing Tips.

Organizations as diverse as Samsung and Wells Fargo can attest to the fact that reputation is everything.

What is reputation management and why it is important

And with the explosive proliferation of social media, reputation is only going to become more important. As a prevalent saying goes, you’re only one Tweet or Facebook post away from a public relations nightmare.

But Anticipatory Organizations have long recognized the critical importance of managing reputation proactively whenever possible.

Welcome to the reputation economy

In a blog I wrote for the Huffington Post, I laid out the case that we are, in fact, in what can be labeled the Reputation Economy. Research bears this out.

Not only do consumers look at online product reviews before making a purchasing decision, but 90 percent say they’re influenced by those reviews.

Another 64 percent say social content influence their purchasing decisions.

That’s why I refer to reputation management as a genuine capital asset. Something as inherently valuable to your organization as people, products, and financial resources. And it’s essential to approach it seriously—and proactively.

Anticipation versus reaction

One of the cornerstones of my Anticipatory Organization Model™ is, as the name implies, the essential value of being anticipatory.

Use Hard Trends and Soft Trends, among other components, to accurately anticipate much of what the future holds and, whenever possible, to influence those future events to your advantage.

That kind of mindset runs counter to a competency that many organizations wear as a badge of pride. Agility is the ability to react to change quickly.

In their eyes, spotting fires such as disruptions and problems quickly and putting them out as fast as possible is the best way to deal with the increasing pace of change.

And to a degree, it is. Predictably, there will be many unpredictable events that can best be handled with agility.

But merely reacting quickly is no longer sufficient. This is a digital world that’s moving and changing at an exponentially faster rate of speed.

As I point out in my speeches and consulting work, being agile doesn’t let you jump ahead of everyone else with the certainty and lower risk that Hard Trends provide.

And given the seconds it can take for a dissatisfied customer to pen a negative online post, reacting quickly to address threats to your reputation is only one strategy that can help.

One of the principles of the Anticipatory Model is to take the time to predict and pre-solve the problems customers could have with your product or service so that you will have far fewer dissatisfied customers.

Reputation management: how to jump ahead

Let’s be absolutely clear. It is very difficult to keep all of your customers happy all of the time—dissatisfaction usually goes with the territory.

But how you anticipate addressing those who are unhappy can go a long way toward a reputation management system that is as proactive as possible.

First, consider who in your organization is in charge of reputation management, particularly online. Is it an unpaid intern or an experienced full-time professional?

And, if it is a paid position, is compensation commensurate with its importance (remember, you get the behavior you reward!)?

It doesn’t matter who’s in the job, just how quickly they respond to a negative comment

And more importantly, how they respond. That is, how they lead with reputation management. For example, another principle of the Anticipatory Model is the Burrus Law of Opposites.

In this case, a negative comment or post is a gift that gives you the ability to convert a dissatisfied customer into a raving fan. With that mindset, you will respond in a very different way.

For example, you might acknowledge their difficulty and ask them what would they like you to do. The vast majority of customers will ask for something you would have done anyway. But because of how you handled it, you took the pain away.

If you add a gift coupon or something else that will give them more than they asked for, even better. They took the time to write a negative post. So, they are likely to write a positive post as well if they liked how you handled the problem. Opposites work better!

Analyze your organization

Further, what sort of policies and procedures are in place to, in effect, help foster positive reputation-related material in advance?

Is someone in your organization in charge of creating engaging content? Of setting up and managing profiles on social media sites and soliciting mentions on other sites?

These and other similar steps not only help build a positive reputation but can also help tilt the scales in your favor when some sort of negative feedback crops up.

Of course, digital reputation management will cost time and money. But as I pointed out earlier, if you consider your reputation as a capital asset, then making an ongoing financial commitment is much easier to acknowledge.

Did you find the article useful? How do you manage your reputation online? Let us know by leaving your opinion in the comments.

For more finance and business tips, check our finance section and subscribe to our weekly newsletters.

The post What is reputation management and why it is important appeared first on AlphaGamma.

Digital marketing campaigns involve more than just blogging, posting on social media, or streaming video content on YouTube and similar platforms. Promoting products or services and creating brand awareness through various channels is fine – but at the end of the day, it’s the sum of every completed transaction that will swell your coffers and keep your business, well… in business.

“Closing the deal” is a key element in this process, and an attractive landing page geared towards generating new leads to funnel through to the next phase in completing transactions is an essential thing to have.

What’s so great about a landing page?

Besides providing a forum to introduce prospective buyers to your latest and greatest product, world-class service, or must-have publication? This type of promotional web page also includes a mechanism (usually some kind of form or opt-in field) where visitors are strongly encouraged to leave a valid piece of contact information about themselves in exchange for some kind of wonderful, free or extremely low-cost give-away.

You read that correctly. On a landing page, you’re essentially giving stuff away in exchange for your visitor’s contact details.

And lead generation?

Those contact details you collect from (hopefully all) your landing page visitors represent potential leads for your marketing campaign. After all, they’ve come from people who have taken the time to assess what you have to offer – and who have expressed an interest in what you have to say, by signing up. So it’s fair to assume that they’ll be receptive to further contact from your organization.

But how can you increase the chances that visitors to your landing page will:

1. Take the time to assess and digest what’s there, and
2. Leave their names and email addresses (or whatever), then click on that big, shiny Call to Action button of yours?

Here are some attributes and strategies for a landing page that’s optimized for lead generation.

Clear & contrasting

Landing pages should conform to good web design principles – and among these are a harmonious and strategic balance of colors.

“Harmonious”, in that light-colored backgrounds are easier on the eyes, and induce visitors to stay on site longer.

“Strategic”, because against this backdrop, dark text is easier to scan – and boldly-colored contrasting elements like your Call to Action (CTA) button stand out much better.

“Punchy”

Now, there’s a good word to live by.

Rather than having to wade through reams of text, keep your message short, sweet, and relevant – because internet behavioral studies suggest that most visitors will only skim the material, at best.

Bullet points are a great way to concentrate visitor attention on your key arguments – and they cut down on the verbiage, too.

Screenshot from landing page of Digital Marketer: Nice use of bullet points – and a clear path to their Call to Action, with the reassurance of data privacy.

They may reduce your word count, but go easy on the industry-specific jargon and buzzwords. Jargon only alienates people who aren’t in the know (and there are plenty out there, in case you didn’t), while buzzwords can simply be annoying.

Reassuring

If you can associate your product or brand with some known and trusted names within your industry or the world at large, this assures visitors that you’re “the genuine article” yourself. That’s why many of the more successful landing pages have a section devoted to logos from their well-known partner organizations and affiliates.

Screenshot from landing page of Tableau: Creating an association with some powerful names to go with their lofty mission statement. Shame about the footer with its multiple exit points…

Glowing testimonials from customers in a similar demographic to the buyer persona for which your landing page was designed (more on that later) give a reassurance that your product or service will actually work for them.

And including a note to the effect that “We care about your privacy, and won’t sell off your data”, at the point where contact or other customer information is being gathered provides an assurance of integrity on your part.

Automated & convenient

If you want landing page visitors to give out information about themselves, then making it quick and easy for them to do so is a safe bet. Auto-Completion or pre-populated form fields can help.

Social media account profiles typically contain the kinds of data that’s being sought via landing page forms – so enabling visitors to fill out their information automatically by linking to their Facebook, Google, or other accounts can automate the process.

Capturing your audience

You’ll probably have several distinct buyer personas, representing the core demographics of your customer base – and you should create a separate landing page for each one.

Having attracted visitors to these pages, make sure you have a captive audience by ensuring that they can’t leave without either supplying their contact details and following your Call to Action (great), or declining your offer entirely (not so good).

Screenshot from landing page of WalkMe: Clear and concise statements of why the visitor should stick around.

That means no clickable links to your main website, or exits to other resources like social media.

Screenshot from landing page of WalkMe: Plenty of laurels and big-name backing. And not a visible exit point in sight.

Your words have power

One of those powers is to detract from your message. So make sure that your headlines, main sub-heading, and any section headers you use are attention-grabbing, consistent, and actually assist your narrative.

Set up a value proposition (“What’s my visitor going to gain from downloading this white-paper, installing my software demo, etc.?”), and let those words of yours support it – including the text on your CTA button.

Screenshot from landing page of The Hoth: Strong headline, nice emphasis on “Free”, and good use of contrasting colors. Shame about the outdated copyright notice…

Use valid statistics to back up your argument, when applicable.

Letting your picture tell the story

A similar argument holds for any images that you use. Make them relevant to your cause – and as much a part of your pitch as any other element on the page.

If that means hiring a photographer or video editor to get your visual content just right, then do it.

You’ll also want to include a “hero shot”, featuring your development team, project guru, or the subject matter expert who’s effectively narrating the material on your landing page.

Keeping it up to date

It may seem like a minor detail, but that line at the foot of the page where you declare your intellectual property rights and issue a copyright notice should be dated for this year. Not 2016 – or 1995.

If you don’t keep details like this updated, visitors will assume that you’ve just set your landing page trap and left it unattended, and don’t really care about keeping things fresh.

Use a template?

Your web design skills may be minimal, and you may not have the budget to hire a professional. Thankfully, there are online resources specifically devoted to landing page design – including pre-made templates – that you may consider using.

Test, and test some more

As well as separate designs for each of your buyer personas, you may find it helpful to test the response to slight variations in individual landing page designs (alternate headlines, different colors or imagery, etc.), in a series of A/B or split tests. Coupled with website analytics, this sort of fine-tuning can assist in optimizing the visitor experience and maximizing the number of visits and/or conversions.

With the above recommendations in mind, you’ll be well on your way to creating the kind of welcoming landing page presence that attracts a wealth of new leads to pursue in your marketing endeavors.

Over to you

Do you have any tricks to get your landing page optimized for lead generation? Share your experiences in the comments below.

The post Optimizing Landing Pages for Lead Generation appeared first on GetResponse Blog – Online Marketing Tips.

Producing videos is becoming more accessible for businesses everywhere. High quality cameras are becoming less expensive, editing tools are becoming more user friendly, and smartphones allow filming practically anywhere. Of course, if you want to pursue a video content campaign, you’ll want it to be successful. As with most marketing, it takes time and patience before you start seeing results, especially if it’s a new tactic. As you start considering and planning your campaign, here are some tips and tactics to help it kick off as best as it can.

What will the videos accomplish?

Before you start putting on your filming makeup or buy some video equipment, you need to outline what you want your videos to accomplish. Yes, the overall goal is to increase sales. But where in your marketing funnel will the videos land, and what do you want viewers to walk away from your videos thinking?

Video content can fit into any stage in the buyer’s journey and needs to help push viewers into the next stage in the process. The video should educate and then have a call to action at the end. If the video targets potential customers, the call to action should push them further through the buyer’s journey. If the video is more for current customers or brand promoters, it should push them to share the content.

Video content has a ton of benefits that other formats lack. It’s easier for people to consume, it adds a new visual element to your information, and is easier to go viral. Using these benefits towards the right goals can be just the push your marketing needs.

Do you have the tools and skills needed?

If you’re going to produce video content, you need to do it well. Too many companies produce videos with poor sound quality, awkward acting, choppy editing, or flavorless content. Be prepared before you start making videos so that your first attempts have the best chance to succeed. This includes having the right tools and skills to making good videos.

The first step is to have the right camera, lighting, and microphones for videos if you are going to film. Professional looking videos look bright, have crystal clear audio, and just look good. It’s helpful if somebody involved has experience creating a good set with great lighting and somebody handling the camera, especially if you plan on filming from multiple angles.

If you decide to produce videos that don’t require somebody in front of a camera, you are going to require capture software for your computer. This is important for things like software tutorials or video PowerPoint presentations. More than likely, you’ll still need a good microphone to capture quality audio to mix with the video.

And finally, you will need editing software and the skills to put it all together. Editing can fix all the little mistakes that occur while filming. It can change the volume of the audio, put parts from different recordings together so you utilize the best from each shoot, and can make a decent video great.

What platform are you using?

Where people can watch your videos has an impact on the type of content you produce and how effective it is. Different platforms prioritize specific analytics and understanding how they work can help your videos succeed.

YouTube

YouTube is the king of video content platforms. It’s a search engine to find the exact video you want. Like Google, the algorithms are highly complex, but there is a heavy emphasis on video retention time and channel subscribers. If you can get people to watch all your videos and subscribe, you’ll grow your viewer base and show up higher in relevant searches and in suggested sections.

Remember, YouTube is a search engine and many popular SEO tactics apply to it. Things like having keywords in the title and description help people find your videos through search easier.

Social media

Videos on social media act differently than YouTube. People don’t search Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter for videos, but instead come across them naturally in their feed. To increase how many people see your videos, you will need to grow your number of followers and get your existing ones to share your content.

Your own site

Hosting videos on your own site can contribute a lot to your strategy. Instead of people needing to go to a third party site to watch your content, they can stay where they are. It’s easier to guide them to a specific call to action and you can better track their engagement with your video. You can also combine video content with written content to get the best of both worlds.

The downside is that it limits your reach. Videos on YouTube can be found by people viewing similar videos, but unless they are on your site already, people will have a harder time finding your work.

Making content worth watching

Great content is entertaining and educational. Want to know why Bill Nye the Science Guy is remembered by every student in the 90s? It made learning fun.

Your content is meant to inform and educate your target market. The end goal is to persuade them that your product/service is the best solution for them. Now, you can simply present raw numbers and facts, but those are boring. Presenting that same information with passion, humor, and style can make it fun to watch.

You are now prepared to start your video marketing campaign. As mentioned at the beginning, utilizing videos in your strategy takes time to refine and see results, so keep at it for the long term. As you do, you’ll collect useful data to help guide where to take your campaign and where it can grow.

Have a question about where to start your video content campaign? Looking for advice on how to make it both entertaining and professional? Let us know in the comments below.

The post How to Start a Video Content Campaign the Right Way appeared first on GetResponse Blog – Online Marketing Tips.