Winners Must Be Present

Today your target audience can use social channels to identify decision makers and influencers and develop relationships with them. They are talking on social media; asking questions, posting information and looking for answers. We can use this dialogue to learn about your audience before engaging with them. Gaining intelligence allows us to turn what would be a cold call into a warm(er) outreach.

“People don’t find content by mistake, or by accident. Every content plan needs a complementary promotion plan that combines paid, owned, and earned media.”

Matthew Gratt, Digital Marketing Manager, Continuum Analytics

There are no more competitors, only potential collaborators. We will find and connect with similar influencers and also their followers. The benefit is that we can jump into their established online conversations and draw their audiences back to your website.

Great marketing reaches audiences where they are, across targeted channels and devices. By way of a blog post, a 280-character tweet, a newsletter, or other effective forms of marketing. Creating good content is hard, managing content is hard and distributing content is time-consuming. However, there is no question that the market pull is real and sustainable.

We aren’t focused on the numbers. We’re focused on the things that produce the numbers. –Apple CEO Tim Cook

Measurements and Analysis

We will take the guesswork out of knowing how and why your prospects discover you. Google Analytics should be installed and activated on your website. We will monitor and translate vital data such as;

Marketing Reach by Channel
Website Visits by Source
Leads Generated by Source
New Customers by Source
Top Marketing Campaigns

Online listening tools do more than listen. They provide us with valuable insights into how our online audiences are thinking, acting and responding. There are many social measurements tools available that add value to our efforts. Some of these tools are free (or trial versions) and others are part of the platform offering. I use several different tools to scan for mentions of a particular person or brand on blogs, bookmarks, social networking sites, news, video, and more. These tools rate the mentions on strength, sentiment and reach.

What We Won’t Do

Trying to Be Everywhere at Once. We will allocate the appropriate amount of effort to each network and make sure it’s worth it.
Agonize Over Follower Count. We recognize that follower count is important, but when you’re just starting out, follower count is not the best metric to measure your progress, its quality over quantity – always. There are other metrics we should be paying attention to that will illustrate how effective our efforts are – engagement, engagement as % of followers, reach, impressions, etc. Creating a healthy community comes first.

Lose Focus. Remember, we are creating demand for your services, not buzz. The reality of this new world order of viral marketing is that we’re not going to get it right every time. Sometimes certain pieces of content or campaigns just don’t resonate with our audience – it happens. If a piece of content isn’t performing, despite all our best efforts, don’t continue to pump it – let it go.
Try to Please Everybody. People are always going to have issues on social – some of them warranted some of them not. If we see or hear of any issues, we should always try addressing them immediately. Don’t try and please everyone – it won’t work. Dealing with unreasonable people or trolls online will waste your time. Do your best to fix the problem, apologize, learn, and then move along.

Avoid asking for help. When I first started out I was hesitant to ask for help. I would promote our content, people would engage with it, click-through, and download. That’s what I’m supposed to do – right? Well, what I didn’t realize was that I was wasting time hitting the same people over and over again. Once I started working with influencers, they would give our pieces of content sometimes 2x, 5x, 10x the reach. Not only that, but it also attracted new followers and people who were previously unfamiliar with our brand. When it comes to circulating content, don’t be afraid to ask for help. This will not only get your brand’s name out there – it will also save you a ton of time you would’ve spent trying to hit that kind of reach.

Marketing has always been viewed as expense, Sales has always been viewed as revenue. That’s not the case anymore. – Marcus “The Sales Lion” Sheridan

Desired Outcomes

I typically ask my prospective clients to visualize our engagement as follows: Next year at this time we are busting open a bottle of champagne, what would we have accomplished to make that happen?