Monday, August 31, 2015
Sunday, August 30, 2015
Blog With Glenn: 40 Easy Ways To Make Money Easily
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Trigger Video Playback on Player Visibility
Every now and then, someone from the Sales team (usually Jeff) will come to me a weird question about something crazy they want to do with our player.
“Hey Ji, do you think this is possible?”
Jeff Saunders – Account Manager and overly ambitious Vidyard user
“Yeah probably,” is typically my default response before I’ve given any thought to the problem at hand. After all, how can I say no to those puppy dog eyes?
Jeff’s latest request was to build out an effect analogous to the experience of sharing video in social feeds these days. It can be summarized as follows:
- If the video becomes visible in the browser viewport, it should start playing automatically.
- If the visitor scrolls away from the video so it is no longer visible, it should pause itself.
- If the visitor scrolls back to the player, it should resume playback from where it left off.
Take a look at this page as an example of what I mean:
http://ift.tt/1MQieg3
We already know that video is the most engaging content you can add to your page, so having it dynamically respond to your visitors interaction with your site can really help your pages pop!
As it turns out, you can do something like this using it and a little JQuery and the player API.
The first challenge becomes, “How do I detect when the player is visible?” There was some really great discussion around this on Stack Overflow and one of our devs pointed me to this solution which seems to work.
The easiest thing to do is contain the player in a div that you can check for visibility. Something like this:
<div id=”video_container”>
<script type='text/javascript' id='vidyard_embed_code_uuid' src='//play.vidyard.com/uuid.js?v=3.1.1&type=inline'></script>
</div>
You can then check the visibility of the div when the user scrolls with:
<script type=”text/javascript”>
$(window).on('scroll', function() {
if (isElementInViewport($("#video_container")) {
// Play video
}
});
</script>
Of course, it’s not that simple. You’ll also need a flag to determine if the video is currently playing, otherwise the video will restart itself. This becomes:
<script type=”text/javascript”>
$(window).on('scroll', function() {
if ((isElementInViewport($("#video_container")) && (playing==0)) {
// Play video
// Set playing flag to true
}
});
</script>
Everything after that becomes a simple matter of inserting the relevant player API calls and manipulating the flag as necessary. Here’s a completed example for a single player:
<script src="//play.vidyard.com/v0/api.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var videos = new Vidyard.players();
var playing=0;
$(window).on('scroll', function() {
if(isElementInViewport($("#video_container")) && (playing==0)) {
videos["uuid"].play();
playing=1;
} else if (!isElementInViewport($("#video_container")) && (playing==1)) {
videos["uuid"].pause();
playing=0;
}
});
</script>
Keep in mind that if you decide to do this with multiple players on the page, as I did on my example page, you’ll need multiple flags.
So there you have it! A really fun way to add a splash of video on your page, while creating a dynamic experience for your visitors. Take it for a test drive on a page that has a few different inline players embedded and see if you can get your audience to stick around on your page for just a little bit longer.
The post Trigger Video Playback on Player Visibility appeared first on Vidyard.
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Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Using Video to Breathe New Life into your Email Marketing
For most marketing teams, email marketing remains one of the top tactics for engaging target audiences. It offers a reliable, consistent and inexpensive means to target individuals at mass with (somewhat) personalized messages. In fact, if you take a step back and think about it, modern email marketing is nothing short of amazing. But it’s starting to fall amazingly short.
The big issue with email marketing is that it’s now so easy and cheap to do, it’s become commoditized and, well, everyone’s doing it. Not only does that mean you’re no longer the cool kid on the block, you’re also in stiff competition for eyeballs and attention span. In addition to getting YOUR delightful emails on a regular basis, your audiences are getting blasted by your competitors, and their competitors, and the local hairdresser just down the street. The result? Over 100 emails in their inbox every day and the learned behavior to ignore anything that looks even the slightest bit like spam.
Email marketing is dead!
Not so fast. It will remain a critical and effective tactic for a long long time. But marketers like you need to start thinking more creatively about how you’re going to cut through the clutter and get those people (yes, there are REAL people at the other ends of those digital wormholes) to see your message, open it, engage with it, take the desired action, and ultimately have the type of experience that will make them want to open your next one too!
Using interactive video content in your email marketing continues to be proven as a hugely effective tactic to get this done. Report after report validates that emails with video content as the primary CTA generate higher click-through rates on average, and even using the word “video” in the subject can boost open rates. Why? We all love video, it’s the promise of a short burst of content that could educate, inspire or even entertain in a wonderfully convenient lean-back experience. But if you’ve tried this before, you’re likely saying to yourself…
“But Tyler, most email clients won’t play video inline, so what am I to do? Just offer a link to a video on YouTube and hope they don’t end up watching cat videos afterwards?”
Glad you asked, because I’ve got some pro tips based on industry best practices as well as our own experience in doing some creative stuff. Here’s some simple ideas for how to make the most of video content in your email marketing campaigns to boost results immediately:
1. Links are borrrrrrring. Animated GIFs aren’t.
You need to make it super obvious that you’re offering your audience a video to watch. Just hyperlinking some text like “please watch this video to learn more” isn’t going to cut it. We’re conditioned to look for an actionable thumbnail image as our queue that a wonderful video awaits. So instead, offer them a big juicy thumbnail image inside your email that links directly to the video when selected. And if you add a fake “play button” to the image, it really gets the point across. Take a look at this email that we recently sent out:
Don’t you just want to click on that play button?!?! But that’s not all. We took it one step further and made that image an animated GIF so it appears to be a short video loop playing back in their inbox:
Though video playback is not supported in most email clients, ‘playing’ an animated GIF is. Not only is it clear that a video awaits them behind door number one, but the subtle actions of the animated GIF will draw people’s eyes to this CTA (and hopefully make them want to click if the GIF is enticing enough!).
2. Send them to YOUR landing page, not someone else’s
When the person selects that thumbnail image, the video isn’t going to play back natively in the email so where are you going to send them? Don’t say YouTube, don’t say YouTube, please don’t say YouTube. Typically the answer should be my own landing page! But when you do this, make sure that the video is immediately available for them to watch. Nothing’s worse than clicking on a thumbnail like that and being taken to a page where that video doesn’t exist or is difficult to find. Here’s an example of the page that someone lands on when selecting that animated GIF above from our recent campaign:
The video is the star of the page and gives them that quick burst of information and inspiration they were looking for. As soon as the video ends, the viewer moves down the page to learn more about our offer and to engage further with our brand.
3. To Autoplay or Not To Autoplay, that is the question…
9 times out of 10 I will recommend that you do NOT set your videos to autoplay as soon as a page loads. However, there is a time and place for it, and this is one of those times! If someone selects the animated GIF thumbnail image with a play button on it, they’re ready to watch and are expecting a video to play. So in this instance, don’t be shy to set the video to autoplay. This reduces the number of steps and friction points for the viewer and will increase your overall conversions. In the example above, when the recipient clicks the thumbnail, it loads the page here and the video autoplays. And guess what? The data tells us that over 1,000 unique people have watched the video and over 70% of them watched all the way to the end, making it one of our best performing video assets to-date! Oh, and it was also one of our best performing email campaigns to-date, which brings me to my next point…
4. Measure your results and continue to do what works!
Once you start trying this out, be sure to track your results to see if you’re getting a meaningful lift. In our case, we saw nearly a 2x increase in CTR on the email campaign above compared to our average email campaign. I attribute much of that delta to the big, fat, animated GIF being the star of the email (past campaigns of similar style have also performed very well). But more than just seeing great results on the email campaign, we drove a high volume of people to interact with that video asset that we spent so much time creating, and got most of them to spend several minutes immersed in our brand. Win win win!
For some more pro tips on using video to boost the performance of your email marketing programs, check out this previous post as well. Onward and upward, you modern marketers! Hope you enjoyed this post and maybe I’ll see you at Space Camp!
The post Using Video to Breathe New Life into your Email Marketing appeared first on Vidyard.
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Tuesday, August 25, 2015
How to Email Busy Bloggers and Get Response
Do you know what happens after you click send an email to a busy blogger?
Well, you guessed it right. It gets ignored. Most top bloggers are busy. They’re extremely busy.
At an average, every influential blogger receives anything around 150 to 200 new emails every single day. Unless and until he’s a superman, he won’t get enough time to read each and every email he gets.
So what busy bloggers generally do? They ignore most of their emails!
How do they decide which emails to ignore and which ones to respond? And how can you write emails that get response?
Are you curious to find out? Let’s figure out what makes busy bloggers to read and respond to your emails. Before diving into the details, we’ll first talk about the need of sending emails to busy bloggers.
If you’re blogging for a while, you already know that, connections with top bloggers play a crucial role. If contacted correctly, influential bloggers can change your blogging career completely.
If a top/busy blogger in your niche responds to your email and does a favor, you’ll get the following perks.
- You’ll increase your sales
- You’ll increase your traffic
- You’ll get more social shares
- You’ll attract more quality links
- And most importantly you’ll connect with the awesome people
Emailing influential bloggers and getting response is a science. Sending good emails to others will not only open the doors for you to create great relationships but you will drive more traffic and sales to your websites.
So how to approach busy bloggers through emails? Let’s find out.
Using nudges to get response
Want to get a link from top blog in your niche? Instead of directly asking for a link, use nudges.
Nudge #1: Ask them for a tweet or share
Asking others for small favors can persuade people to do big favors in the long run. If you want to get something done, instead of seeking help in the first place, do favor for others first. So when you are asking for a tweet from someone, it’s always better to build a connection with them. Follow the bloggers who you want to contact, connect with them and frequently share their stuff. That way you’ll be able to build strong connections with them and once you have posted something awesome on your blog, ask others to tweet about your stuff.
Nudge #2: Ask them for feedback
Once you are succeeded in getting a tweet from your favorite blogger, it’s time to persuade them into jumping another hoop. Ask for an honest feedback about your content.
Most bloggers won’t say no and they are always happy to help others to improve their blogs. Take this step to improve your quality of your content and keep engaging with them.
Nudge #3: Ask for a link
Now that you’ve already built good communication with your favorite blogger, ask for a link after publishing a problem solving post on your blog. Make sure the content is top notch and is very detailed that will help their readers to gain something.
What happens when you ask for a link?
Mostly you’ll end up getting a link (viola) from them because they already know you and possibly know the quality of your stuff.
It’s easier to get a link from a friend rather than a stranger, right?
Refine and repeat the process until you succeed.
All the above nudging process will be done by emails. So it’s advisable for you to hone your email writing skills. Let’s now talk about how it can be done.
What captures the attention of busy bloggers?
It’s important to know what makes a busy blogger to respond. Let’s find out what are the things that will make an influential blogger read and respond to an email and include them while writing emails to busy bloggers in the future.
Short and sweet emails
Don’t waste others time by writing long and boring emails. Brevity matters when writing emails that get response. Be concise and your email response rate will be high.
Writing short emails that convey your whole ideas and message is really hard especially if you’re a beginner. Just like anything, by practicing and learning few effective email writing strategies will help you write your emails like a pro.
Here are few suggestions for writing shorter emails.
- Don’t beat around the bush. Just come to the point. Introduce yourself in the first line and directly talk about the subject you want to discuss.
- Never ever write your whole story. It is the surefire way to turn off anyone with your emails. No one is interested in reading your life story in the emails.
- Proofread thrice. Sending emails without proofreading can do more harm than good. Edit before you send the emails. And make sure your emails are grammatically correct.
Interesting subject lines
The first thing that gets noticed on any email is the subject line. If you are mailing to busiest people, you need to make sure that you have compelling subject lines that immediately grab attention. Unfortunately, most people don’t know how to write subject lines that will dramatically increase their email open rates.
If you’re one of them, don’t fret much here are few tips for writing stunning subject lines that increase your email open rates.
- The best email subject lines are always short and they give clear ideas to open your emails.
- Never sound like a sales guy. Don’t use cheesy words (or capital letters) to grab the attention of others. They won’t get you any attention, they often turn off the people.
- Using names on the subject lines is always better. It adds personalization and originality to the emails you write.
- Keeping your subject line to under 60 characters or less is one of the best email subject line writing strategies to boost your open rates.
Personalization is key
When writing emails, use names of the people. This adds extra value to your emails. People always love when someone mentions their name.
Never send an email by pitching something like “Hi there” etc., It’s always better to use names from the beginning of the email to the end. Why should anyone respond to your emails if you don’t have enough time to even find out their name?
Win/win approach
“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar
No one will help you by default. You have to help others before you seek out help.
Blogosphere works on win/win approach. If you help others, they will reciprocate. In the beginning, when you have no real online connection with others, offer help without wanting to get anything in return.
This strategy works like a charm if you are focusing on getting massive results in the long run. If you want a tweet from your favorite blogger, instead of asking him directly, follow him on twitter and frequently retweet their stuff. If you want to get a link from a blog make sure to frequently linking out to the blog you are targeting.
Before asking for any help, make sure to do it first from your end.
End every email with a proper call to action
Want to get the response from busy bloggers? Make sure to include a clear call to action at the end of every email you write.
If there’s only one effective thing that bring you great results from your emails, it is the “effective call to action”. Never end your emails without including a call to action if you want to get a response or help.
Include social proof
If you want to immediately grab the attention of other bloggers, make sure to include social proof in your emails. For instance, let’s say you want to write a guest post for a top blog in your niche, instead of randomly pitching the top blogger, you can send few of your writing samples to add more value to your email pitch.
Few email samples that are proven to get response
Here I’m going to give you few email samples that got more email responses. Just observe the pattern and you can use these email samples for almost anything from asking a tweet to landing a guest post on top blog.
If you’re asking for a tweet or link:
Hi [name],
Just linked to you from my blog [include the post URL]. If you like it, I’d appreciate a tweet from you. If you think the post is highly relevant to your blog readers, you can even link to it.
Cheers,
Your name
Why it works?
The above email is really short and you’re not beating around the bush to get a tweet or link from the bloggers you have linked it. If they really like your post, they will tweet about it. If they really read your post and find it useful, they may even link to it.
If you’re seeking help:
Hi [name],
My name is [name] and I blog at [blog url]. I’m a regular reader of your blog and I’m really inspired with your writing.
I need a feedback from you. My blog is [mention the problem, lack of traffic or sales or anything].
I hope I’ll get an insightful suggestion from you to solve this.
Awaiting for your reply.
Why it works?
The above email pitch is super short and you’re directly asking for the feedback. If the busy bloggers in your niche find your problem painful, they will either create a specific blog post for you or they’ll email you about solving your problem. Both are good!
If you want to send a guest post pitch to a busy blogger
Hi [name],
My name is [name] who blogs at [blog name]. I know you’re a busy blogger so I’ll directly come to the point.
I’ve noticed the blog readers mostly enjoy [type of content]. And I’ve written a detailed guest post solving [a particular problem], I hope your readers would find it really helpful. If love the guest post idea, please see the attachment for the guest post.
Just in case if you want to see my writing abilities.
[2 to 3 writing samples]
Let me know what you think.
Why it works?
The guest post pitch shared above is short and really effective. You’ve introduced yourself and you also said that you’re a loyal reader to the blog you’re going to pitch. You’re also sending your writing samples by including a detailed post on particular problem. Mostly, you’ll get a yes if they think your post is unique and really helpful for their readers.
Final thoughts about emailing busy people to get response
Your online success largely depends on creating great emails. If you don’t learn compelling email writing strategies, you will suffer later. Effective email writing also helps you connect with the great people in your industry.
But the only problem with emailing busy people is that your email gets ignored most of the time (especially if you don’t know how to write emails).
It doesn’t matter whether if you want to set up a skype call or ask for an advice from an influential blogger in your niche, if used proven email scripts, you’ll definitely get a response.
As you can see, I’ve included a lot of interesting things that capture the attention of busy bloggers. So make sure to use most of them to get a response from the top bloggers in your niche. Also use the email samples shared in the post to your advantage. You can directly use them or make some changes to your needs.
Hopefully the tips and strategies mentioned in this detailed guide will help you approach busy bloggers.
Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!
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Monday, August 24, 2015
How CRM Can Make Your Workload Feel Like Summer Vacation
Selling can be fun, personally fulfilling and occasionally exhilarating, but let’s face it, it’s no walk on the beach. Even for the most experienced professionals, it’s hard work.
While selling via video can dramatically improve your ability to communicate with customers and enhance the purchasing experience, combining video with customer relationship management (CRM) may be one of the best ways to make your workload more streamlined and enjoyable—almost like a summer vacation.
Planning Is Everything
Unless you’re a full-time nomad (or maybe a student), it’s not much fun to go off on vacation with nothing but your luggage and a vague idea of your itinerary. Hotels book up fast, flights have only the worst seats left and you miss out on guided tours that enrich the vacation experience. It pays to do the prep work in advance to make your vacation feel stress-free and enjoyable.
CRM brings the same principle to selling. Whether it’s using technology to identify opportunities, pursue prospects more systematically or cross-sell existing clients with new products and services, getting data into CRM early on lets you focus on the best part of sales: connecting with people.
Traveling Light Is Right
As much as you want to leave your day-to-day world behind on vacation, it’s often hard not to bring half your life with you, stuffed awkwardly into suitcases. Seasoned travelers manage to transcend this tendency by only taking what they absolutely need, and limiting the true essentials to their carry-on bag vs. what goes into a plane’s cargo hold.
CRM might have once seemed equally cumbersome to set up on and run in a corporate data centre, but cloud computing has changed all that. The software as a service model has made CRM something that can be deployed dynamically and grow alongside the rest of the organization. And thanks to the rise of mobile apps, you can get access to it from anywhere.
It’s All About The Memories
Sadly, even the best vacations have to end at some point. If you’ve been taking pictures and videos along the way, however, you get the pleasure of reliving the highlights of your experiences, and sharing them with people back home.
Same with CRM and sales: the more (and the better quality) the data, the better it works to deepen your knowledge of your customers’ needs and their trust. That way, when you’re using video as a sales tool, you’ll be greeted by eager and receptive viewers—less like someone trying to sell something, and more like someone trying to take them on a journey that will help them grow their business.
The post How CRM Can Make Your Workload Feel Like Summer Vacation appeared first on Vidyard.
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Sunday, August 23, 2015
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Friday, August 21, 2015
5 of the Best Talks to Learn About Practical Uses of Marketing Tech
Phenomenal discussions about marketing technology with industry leaders representing all different levels of the marketing tech stack occurred last week. The Marketing Tech Stack Webinar Series is now available on-demand here!
We attended every talk and made pages upon pages of notes. Here’s a summary of the key information you’ll want to take away.
The Value of Picking the Right Leads … err Accounts
Let’s start with a re-imagination of the typical funnel. The standard funnel has an extremely large opening and normally, by the time we get the bottom, there are very few leads left. Marketers are very focused on bringing in as much volume as possible to the top of that funnel. But in reality, 94% of MQLs never close (SiriusDecisions). It’s such a drastic change in volume from top-of-funnel to the bottom that it begs the question: are 94% our activities wasted?
What if we tried a different approach? Sangram Vajre, Co-founder and CMO of Terminus, an account-based marketing platform challenges marketers to shift their thinking from a focus on leads to a focus of revenue. He came to this realization after of a mentor of his said to him one day: “Sangram, we don’t close leads, we close accounts.”
It’s true.
So how do you implement this theory of a revenue-focused marketing department? You flip the funnel. Start thinking about customers as accounts, not individual people, that are the best possible fit for your business (a.k.a. the ones that have the greatest likelihood of converting).
Watch the full webinar, “Forget the Persona: Why You Need to Identify High-Value Accounts as a Whole” to discover the 5 digital strategies for flipping your own funnel.
How to Identify High Value Prospects
Starting with high-value accounts is all fine and dandy, but how do you identify these accounts (or leads, if you’re still stuck on the traditional funnel!)? Predictive analytics is one way. By providing a list of accounts you’ve closed, predictive analytics can determine common characteristics and pinpoint future prospects that are likely to close also. And this goes beyond just industry or job title, it’s more than your typical persona. This could include things as specific as whether the company just received funding, who their CFO is, or what technologies they use.
Many marketers believe they have more than enough data to accurately make decisions and select target accounts. But according to the image above, shared by Brian Kardon, CMO at Lattice, a predictive analytics company for marketers, there’s some important information we’re missing. He asks us, “why would you want to target someone whose credit rating just dropped from ‘A’ to ‘C’?”. You wouldn’t, and that’s exactly why you’d want access to this information.
Watch the full webinar, “How to Use Predictive Models to Learn Who Will Buy, When” to discover specific examples of companies using predictive analytics to better understand their converting accounts and refine their targeting.
How to Generate more High-Quality Accounts with Video
Now that your systems are building the profiles of top prospects, it’s time to see how to generate more of these prospects. And that’s where video comes in. Video is more than simply a brand awareness tool. In fact, 72% of B2B buyers are watching video all the way through their buying journey.
So how do you bring video off its island into your marketing programs and synched with your marketing technology?
- Use video across your site – by building a video hub or embedding videos throughout your site, it keeps people on your site and away from the deep, dark, black holes of YouTube
- Use video in email – simply put, emails with video see greater opens and CTRs
- Use video in content campaigns – video can increase landing page conversions by 80% and is a great way to pique people’s interest and move them to conversion
With video, you can generate leads with email gates and forms and then track second-by-second consumption to build lead profiles and qualify prospects. Unlike text-based content like an ebook, you can actually see if a prospect has viewed all or part of your video and even get insight into parts they’ve re-watched. This gives you an added element to understand your prospects and better qualify them.
Watch the full webinar, “Moving Beyond View Counts to Lead- and Conversion-Focused Video Content” to discover how Cetera Financial uses video to engage, qualify, and convert leads.
Nurturing and Engaging Leads with the Right Content
Once you’ve refined your system to highlight only the accounts or leads with the highest potential and these are rolling in, then it’s time to keep them on track with a content journey.
Notice that I said “journey” there. This is the part that’s very important according to Nick Edouard, President and CMO of LookbookHQ a content engagement platform. He explained that we’re in the age of ‘one-and-done’ or ‘catch-and-release’ marketing. We tend to focus on getting people to download one piece of content and don’t really build that into a targeted and detailed content journey.
But since 94% of MQLs never close, this lead nurturing approach that we’re all using clearly isn’t working particularly well. Nick shares that it boils down to three main problems:
- “One-and-done” content offers – we frequently work hard to get prospects’ attention for one content offer and then leave them hanging and (hopefully) waiting for more when it suits us
- Scheduled drip – we tend to send out communications on our own timelines and not our audience’s. As Nick points out, Netflix has already proven that the scheduled approach doesn’t work with their takeover of primetime TV!
- Incomplete data – the information we look at are really proxies for purchase intent, like clicks and form completions and frequently we can’t even see our audience’s true engagement in content. Did they actually read that whole whitepaper?
Nick recommends an on-demand or “always-on” nurture track that lets prospects choose their own self-nurture.
Always-on content experiences are all about optimizing a content experience in one single session and providing the content that your audience wants, as much of it as they want (frequently it’s more than one piece!), and when they want more.
Watch the full webinar, “The Secrets to Content Engagement and ‘Always-On’ Marketing” to learn more about always-on content and how to put it into practice at your organization.
Using Content to Qualify Prospects and Build Profiles
Now that you have your prospect’s attention and you’re holding it, how can you use that attention to better understand your prospects?
Seth Lieberman, CEO of SnapApp, an interactive content experience platform, suggests that the key to this is opening up the current monologues we so frequently have with our audience and branch out into dialogues, instead. You can do this with interactive content.
Imagine every piece of content on your website collected just one piece of information on your prospects like ‘what technology are you using?’ or ‘what’s your biggest pain point?’. Just think about how much more you would know! Not to mention how the engagement level of your accounts would climb. Sure, you can capture some of this information through forms, but forms are actually losing their impact. According to DemandGen Report, only 5% of buyers say they’ll provide detailed information in exchange for a whitepaper now.
In contrast, when you build interactive experiences, marketers see 2-3x more leads than static content. Plus, you can better qualify these leads with all of these additional pieces of information. Win-win!
Watch the full webinar, “Get More from Your Content with Interactive Content Experiences”, to learn more about how to use interactive content and companies that are using it today.
Want to dive deeper into all of these discussions and learn more? Check out one, two, or all five of the webinars on-demand here!
The post 5 of the Best Talks to Learn About Practical Uses of Marketing Tech appeared first on Vidyard.
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Thursday, August 20, 2015
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
227 How to Create a Simple Vision for Your Blogging Business
Do you have a simple vision for your blogging business?
When you create content, market yourself and even sell products, do you feel a sense of complete alignment with that vision?
In this episode, we deal with creating that vision and letting it fuel everything you do.
Inside This Episode
Since leaving my job more than a year ago, I’ve been struggling with the task of creating a vision statement for my business.
I’ve been back and forth with a bunch of different drafts, but it never felt right. Fortunately, Over the last two weeks, I’ve come up with something simple – and you just might laugh when you hear it.
Doing this has completely transformed the way I look at my business, and I think it can do the same for you.
Why I Started Thinking about My Vision
For the last year, I’ve been working with Social Media Examiner as the Senior Manager of their Social Media Marketing Society (currently closed to new members).
At the beginning of this journey, we had a vision-casting meeting, where they shared their new vision statement with the entire team. That vision statement was simple, catchy, and they really meant it. It was:
All that we serve is quality and we service all with excellence
Ever since that meeting, my way of looking at what I did for Social Media Examiner changed. It was basically governed by that statement. It was so simple, and we got the message.
Then over the last year of building my business full time, I’ve started to notice that there were so many marketers out there preaching the same “gospel” – Start a blog, create good content, promote that content, make money.
I started feeling like I needed something more, and that there needed to be something different in what I do for me to continue to feel motivated to move forward.
That’s where my simple vision came in.
The Importance of a Simple Vision
Going into my second year of being self-employed, I knew that I wanted something more, and that having that simple vision could make a HUGE difference. Here are my reasons:
- It’s easy to remember.
- It helps to give more focus.
- It helps you to attract the right people – those who are in alignment with your vision.
- It helps you understand what NOT to do.
- It gives you the motivation to push through the difficult times.
How to Create a Simple Vision
There’s a lot of information out there about how to craft your vision for your business. It ranges from simple mottos to very complex and detailed vision statements.
I don’t resonate with most of what I see out there. In fact, I’ve written a few vision statements in the past using various guidelines and can’t remember any part of any of them.
I knew that in order for it to be something that impacts me and my business, it needed to be simple.
Here are some of the questions I recommend for you to ask when coming up with a simple vision.
- When it comes to your blogging business, what’s really important to you?
- In a perfect world, what would your business be accomplishing?
- Who are some people you admire in your industry and what do you admire about them?
- When it’s all said and done, what do you want people to remember about your business?
These are some important questions to think about if you want your blogging business to stand for something more than just a job that you created for yourself that pays the bills.
Once you’ve answered these questions, start drafting your vision. It doesn’t have to be simple immediately.
The next step is to get rid of EVERYTHING that isn’t absolutely essential to capture what you want your business to stand for.
My Simple Vision Journey
Through this process of working on my vision, I started with some relatively complicated vision statements that I could never remember.
These were vision statements that I can guarantee would’ve ended up in a document and that’s it.
I would’ve never remembered them and they wouldn’t have impacted my business in any significant ways.
In this episode, I share some of those and I share the simple vision I ended up with. When you listen to the episode, you’ll find it quite ironic.
What to Do with Your Simple Vision
Having a simple vision means absolutely nothing if it doesn’t impact your business in significant ways.
Once you’ve gone through the effort of fine tuning that awesome vision, you need to make sure that your vision is clear in EVERYTHING you do that’s related to your blogging business. Here are some ideas:
- Share that vision clearly in all your content.
- Share that vision with your team
- Make it clear on your blog (especially on your about page)
- Let all your branding reflect your vision
While it’s not necessary to say or write the exact words in every piece of content, it should be clear that your content is influenced by your vision.
Your Turn
What about you? Do you have a simple vision for your blogging business? Do you have any kind of vision for what you want it to be about? Let me know in the comments below.
Transcript
Some people just love being able to read along with interviews, or they might just prefer to skip the audio completely and just read through the transcript. Hey, if that’s what floats your boat, it is all good. Here’s the transcript just for you.
TRANSCRIPT COMING SOON
The post 227 How to Create a Simple Vision for Your Blogging Business appeared first on Become A Blogger by Leslie Samuel.
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Have Customers Who Need Images? Check Out Bigstock Ambassador
As you probably know, word of mouth is paramount in every segment today. The explosion of social media and review sites made sharing your opinion about a service or product incredibly easy. If you have readers or customers who need royalty-free photos, you should become a Bigstock Ambassador.
First of all, if you have a blog or website and is not using affiliate marketing to monetize it, you are missing out. Affiliate marketing is when you promote the products or services of another company, and whenever you referrer refer a lead or customer, you earn a commission.
It’s a great way to generate some revenue from your website because it can be very profitable, and it demands very little work from your part.
The only tricky part is to find the right affiliate programs to promote. Some of them promise big commissions, but after you start promoting them you realize that none of your readers or subscribers is interested.
One thing you can look out for are affiliate programs that pay you even for free trials. This means that your referrals will just need to sign-up for the free trial and you’ll already earn something.
If you want a recommendation of such a program, check out the Bigstock Ambassador one. They pay $10 for every free trial signup you refer to them.
Bigstock is one of the largest marketplaces for images and video (owned by Shutterstock), and all designers, website owners and small businesses use stock images these days, either for a web page or a PowerPoint presentation.
Check it out! Visit Bigstock.com
Wanna learn how to make more money with your website? Check the Online Profits training program!
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Data as One Part of a Successful Marketing Trifecta
“The data is not going to tell you what to do. It’s going to help you make a better decision.” This was a comment that Kerry Cunningham, Research Director at Sirius Decisions, made during a recent webinar, when asked whether marketers needed to have a defined marketing framework if they were already using predictive analytics tools.
Here at Radius, we know that data is a powerful mechanism towards making better decisions and enabling better business outcomes. But we agree that using data is not like reading tea leaves. It’s not a divine force that foretells fortunes and tells the marketer exactly what to do and expect. A certain level of planning, order, and discipline is required to develop strategies before data can help marketers supercharge their campaigns.
The first stage of planning typically involves considering and deciding on a growth strategy. Kerry presented 5 major strategies for driving business growth:
- Entering new markets, such as new geographies or industries
- Targeting new buyers or personas
- Launching new product offerings beyond the current portfolio
- Acquiring another company or creating a new internal business unit
- Maximizing a team’s efficiency or effectiveness
In determining which strategy to pursue, marketers should go back to marketing basics, performing segmentation analysis to determine which scenarios present the most lucrative opportunities as well as the highest likelihood of driving revenue and business efficiencies. In the research that SiriusDecisions conducted, they found that over a quarter of businesses indicated that entering new markets was a major business initiative (28% and 26% respectively for small and large businesses). Second in importance was expanding their product offerings (26% and 25% respectively).
With any of these strategies, marketers should consider the problems that the company’s products can solve while also considering the different audiences for which these solutions resonate. Marketers need to know what each audience cares about and the struggles they experience, and then communicate how the product resolves these problems.
As marketers then begin to segment, select and then target prospects, most will engage in activities to drive prospects through the sales funnel and invest in tools to assess the likelihood of conversion or the predicted value of sales. While these are all vital steps in the sales process, it is equally if not more important to consider the quality and quantity of the prospects that first enter the sales funnel. This is where creating these strategies to determine who to target helps set the foundation for successful marketing efforts.
This is also where data can directly impact the effectiveness of marketing activities. Predictive analytics solutions can help marketers understand which prospects to target given a higher likelihood to be interested and ready to purchase products. Here at Radius, we focus on business signals beyond firmographics, such as geographies or industries, because the data shows technology adoption and other types of business behaviors can be better predictors of readiness to invest in new products to grow their business.
In this regard, data is almost like a magnifying glass—giving marketers a closer view of the things that matter and driving them closer to the things that they seek—but only after they have determined the general area in which the business is likely to find success.
Once marketers have determined where their products solve problems and which prospects to target, that is when they can move on to the tactics: figuring out the right messaging, marketing mix, products, channels and partners in order to communicate product benefits to the intended audiences.
Success, therefore, is dependent on a number of parts: development of a framework, insights to improve targeting and the right tools to effectively engage with prospects. Each part, and in the order described, is essential towards campaign success.
If you’re interested in watching the full on-demand replay of our webinar, you can find it here.
The post Data as One Part of a Successful Marketing Trifecta appeared first on Vidyard.
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