I tried to explain public relations to my grandmother once …
This was many years ago, back when PR pros cut press coverage from publications we could actually hold in our hands, and few marketers talked about SEO in everyday conversation.
“So, it’s advertising,” she’d say, and I’d try again to explain that, no, it’s not.
Did you know it costs a business about 5-10X more to acquire a new customer than it does to sell to an existing one? Not only that, but on average, current customers spend 67% more than new customers.
In light of statistics like these, businesses must think about what they are doing to keep their customers coming back to their business. And if you’re like 65% of marketers, your company has implemented a loyalty program.
After pouring money into marketing for your ecommerce company, you want to know where your traffic comes from, right? The launch of a particular campaign could involve pay-per-click ads, email marketing, social media posts, blogs, guest posts, and mentions in online magazines. How could you possibly track where your buyers found you with so many possibilities?
For marketers, tracking meaningful data is key to understanding how to generate leads. Of this data, pointed feedback from prospects and customers is especially valuable.
The best way to collect it?
Surveys.
I have a confession to make. I’m a revenue (sales) guy. I can think about, conceive and vision growth opportunities without even trying. On the other hand, thinking about (and understanding) costs doesn’t come so easily to me.
I’ve learned that understanding your costs is crucial to creating profitable revenue consistently, sustainably and scalably. Unfortunately, very few small and mid-sized companies understand their sales cost structure well enough.
How often have you or one of your coworkers uttered the phrase, “I wish there were more hours in a day”?
Between work, your commute, the gym, cooking, kids, happy hours, baseball games, knitting, your band, and whatever else it is you try to squeeze in — oh yeah, I almost forgot sleep — it can be hard to accept that 24 hours in a day is all you get.
Instagram isn’t just for celebrities and teenagers anymore. In fact, it’s now the fastest expanding social network showing strong growth in nearly every demographic. Instagram’s population now encompasses 53% of all online adults between the ages of 18 and 29, and 25% of all online adults between the ages of 30 and 49. Even better, nearly half of Instagram’s users check it daily.
Of Facebook’s 1.25 billion monthly active users, 44% Like their friends’ posts at least once a day — and 29% do it multiple times a day. That’s hundreds of millions of people interacting with content on the social network on a daily basis.
So what motivates people to Like Facebook posts — and share them, and comment on them? And why should businesses care?
How can we take what we have and make it grow?
It seems like a simple enough question. But growth is hard — especially in the corporate world.
Between increased competition, shorter cycle times, and growth hackers finding innovative ways to disrupt a market in record time, scaling your business has become increasingly challenging (and more imperative than ever before).
Talking on the phone, especially with people you don’t know, can be pretty intimidating.
I have the utmost respect for my friends in Sales, Support, and other departments who spend most of their days talking on the phone — usually with complete strangers. How do they set a positive tone and earn respect using only their voice? And how do they do it without being awkward or making the other party uncomfortable?
