Are you interested in learning how to create a social media campaign? Looking for the latest social media marketing tactics? It is not terribly hard to accomplish these objectives. We’ll share with you how the most successful businesses use social media to grow business and brand loyalty. This is a four-part series, with this article presenting the big picture. The remaining three parts will present details on the three most important tactics.
Here are the links to the other Social Media Campaign Secrets series articles:
Part 2 Targeting Customers
Part 3 Listening and Engaging
Part 4 Telling Stories
How many times have you seen companies requesting people to friend them on Facebook? Like farming followers was the name of the game. Sad but true. The truth is that social media marketing campaigns are really about cultivating relationships with potential customers. Fan ‘skins’, by themselves, are of very little value, are they?
Related: 9 Great Ways to Improve Your Social Media Design
What is the importance of social media in your business? Dialog with customers for sure. What about reading your content and remembering? Appreciating your help? Marketing? Building relationships? We believe it is all of these things, but the bottom line goal is relationship building.
Keeping up with the latest in social media campaign tactics is not always easy, but always a worthy thing to do for your business.
Social media has provided marketers with some powerful new tools. They are global, potentially viral and low cost. But they take considerable effort and time. Businesses will often have entire teams dedicated to communicating with followers and will spend a significant chunk of their budget acquiring new leads from the Internet.
From blogging to pay-per-click advertising, there are plenty of ways to establish a web presence. Most businesses will use multiple techniques in order to maximize results; however, as the years go by a new form of marketing has emerged; viral marketing.
Marketing for small to mid-sized businesses is a different animal than it is for big brands. For the former, the cost is always a factor, they insist on measurable results (even if their metric is as vague as “Do we think it worked?”), and creativity usually takes a second place to cost-effective, day-to-day manageability.
And yet …
Whether you are Millifiore Skin Care, Black Tulip Restaurant, or Coca-Cola, the challenges are much the same: To grab prospects’ attention; re-explain quickly and memorably how you make life better, and give them good reasons to buy now.
Here’s the bottom line:
No matter how many zeroes appear on your marketing invoices, there is never enough money to reach the market the way you’d really like to, so all businesses need to experiment with new ways to reach their target markets.
Why social media campaigns are so important
Social word-of-mouth
Social media enables consumers to generate and tap into the opinions of an exponentially larger universe.
While word-of-mouth has always been important, its scope was previously limited to the people you knew and interacted with on a daily basis. Social media has removed that limitation and given new power to engage a much wider set of consumers.
Hyper-informed consumers
Social media is transforming the way that consumers across the globe make purchase decisions.
Consumers around the world are using social media to learn about other consumers’ experiences, find more information about brands, products and services, and to find deals and purchase incentives.
These are the ones you will need most with your campaigns. We believe they are the ones most critical to the success of your social media marketing:
Define target customers
It all starts with knowing who your customers are and knowing as much about what makes them tick as you can. Without this step, most of the other steps become just a shot in the dark.
You might be wondering
This will be the subject of Part 2 of this series. So spent a lot of your time on this action. Keep in mind that you can’t be everything to everybody. Remember that not all customers are alike.
Choose best channels
Once you understand who your target customers are, you’ll need to study which social media sites they use most frequently and to what end. Social media takes a lot of time and energy, so you need to know where your time will be best spent.
Share unique content
Your content goal is simple … be as helpful as you can and/or be entertaining, or else be ignored. If you are going to put in the time and energy, you don’t want to be ignored.
What are you doing to make their first 30 seconds on your platform extraordinary? If you can’t answer this question, you need to start here. First impressions are everything.
Strike an emotional chord
Make consumers feel something. If you want to grab my attention on Twitter, make me laugh. Make me cry. Make me feel something, anything.
Here is a thought to remember
When I have a super busy day and I am replying to tweets on Twitter I have no choice due to the amount of them and time constraints but to choose where and when I am going to respond. It is an easy choice for me. I respond to the people who grab my attention.
These are the people who are nice, who make me feel good. The people who are genuine. The people who make me laugh. Pull an emotional chord.
Don’t send snarky tweets trying to get attention. Most people can see right thru the snark and won’t respond. I ignore the trolls and the folks looking only for attention. Be genuine and offer something of emotional value.
Listen and engage
Listening comes first and foremost to understand what customers are saying about their needs and perhaps about you. Once you have heard, then engage in as near real-time as you can.
This is the third part of this series. It is critical. Just be YOU and be consistent. Remember customers deal with people and not businesses.
As we said previously, social media marketing takes a lot of time and energy. There many good tools in existence that will help in the workload. But keep this in mind … customers take note when it seems they are dealing with a robot. Don’t be that robot.
The big picture … emphasize social
One of your key business objectives is to build relationships with customers. That end game results in customer advocates and trust. This process takes constant attention to being social on a very consistent basis.
Tell short stories and educate
Not sure what content your fans want? Prototype and test your ideas! Try posting different types of status updates, related and not related to your product and company. Also, use your social media insights to see what your readers are engaging with the most, and then deliver more of it.
Many brands build TV commercials and then share them with fans on their social media sites. A great example is with the Guinness ad we discussed in our article on Guinness marketing using storytelling. This technique used subtle messaging with a great story to appeal to fans. The story’s light touch made sharing the story seem less like an advertisement
Just keep in mind
Doing a great job of creating campaigns that tell short stories and have subtle messaging is an effective campaign tactic.
If you’re inexperienced in video marketing, that’s okay. There is a very large variety of articles on the topic, and a good place to learn. But remember the best way to learn is by doing and practicing. Start your video creations with free tools like Vine and Instagram.
Consumers always enjoy good stories and helpful information that educates.
The big picture … partner with complementary brands
Contests and giveaways are standard tactics on social media campaigns. You can overcome this challenge with some creative thinking. Find complementary brands that fit with your objectives … say for contests. You can also retweet content on Twitter and likes Instagram photos of complementary brands that promote something related to your products and services.
Capitalize on major local events
During the Sochi Olympics, Coca-Cola hosted a contest/series called #CokeGames. The gist of it was that they created simple Olympics-inspired games like Bottle Cap Hockey, Coke Curling, and Ice Cube Ski Jump. Then, they asked their followers to play along by filming and uploading short videos of the Coke fan playing the game. The incentive was an opportunity to win a $100 gift card.
Here is the kicker
Your small business could adopt this idea, using any big local event as inspiration. It might be a local seafood festival or perhaps a local hockey team championship game. These local events happen all the time and offer great opportunities for the attention of your brand and therefore your relationship building.
Stimulate conversation with thought-provoking questions
How do you create fan conversation? One great way we have found is through asking fans a thought-provoking question. Use questions that relate to your brand. For example, Internet Explorer asked how people imagine the web in 5 years. Remember that you need to be part of the community and give your answer.
When asked to share their vision of the future, fans had fun sharing their thoughts and others used the Q&A as a way to voice their opinions on IE’s products.
The big picture … show your fans the fun
It’s always appropriate for a brand to show its personality. If it’s a personality that wants to be a little weird occasionally, go ahead and get a little weird.
Skittles is a great example of this tactic. Yes, most of their posts are silly, but it’s working for Skittles.
A typical day’s posts can include observations such as “Really boring pirates carry pigeons on their shoulders” and shots from the page’s ongoing BFF series, in which it posts photos from users posing with their beloved Skittles.
If you’re a product-based company, ask your users to send photos of themselves using your product or service in exchange for a shot at a prize, or for the honor of being featured on the page.
Post fun facts and popular topics
Not all of your company’s posts should be brand-centric, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be branded. Kit Kat posts fun facts and takes advantage of popular topics, but also includes their tagline, “Break Time. Anytime.” on the images they share.
You should always look to tap into a trending local topic, particularly if it relates to your products and services. Find useful creative visual designs to reinforce the message.
Crowdsource ideas
Always use any and all ways to gain customer insights that you can employ. One way to accomplish this is to crowdsource ideas from customers. We have written about two companies that have used this technique very successfully. (See our 2 crowdsourcing articles … one on Starbucks and one on Legos.)
My Starbucks Idea website is at once a crowdsourcing tool, a market research method that brings customer priorities to light, an online community, and an effective internet marketing tool.
Now
Encourage customers to give their opinions and reward the best ideas. It’s a great example of how a business can use social media as a mini–focus group and learn what customers really want.
Use social media as a customer service/ experience gateway
There are many ways a brand can use social media to help manage customer service and experience. Start small, just collecting all inputs, good and bad. And then grow from there.
For example, the Olive Garden showcases their food with “Yum!”-inducing photos to draw attention to their social media as a way to solicit customer service insights. That’s to be expected of a restaurant.
What’s more impressive, though, is that Olive Garden uses their platforms as a gateway to customer service. They encourage customers to chat with their guest relations team about experiences at their restaurant.
The thing to remember
Don’t you think you can follow this model? You certainly don’t have to be a restaurant. How serious are you about customer service and customer insight engagement?
You don’t have to make the social network your main source for support, but you should respond and interact with your fans to answer their questions. You’ll not only boost engagement but also show that you’re human and you care about their opinions and questions.
Create new customer experiences
At the core of Ford’s social media marketing strategy is an effort to give the company’s potential customers a chance to experience the brand and the product in ways they never expected. Before the unveiling of the 2011 Explorer, Ford created a Facebook page that gave its fans sneak peeks at features and video interviews with the design team and chief engineer. And in both campaigns, it’s the customers themselves that are selecting and talking about the new experiences.
Scott Monty’s advice on whether Social Media Marketing is right for your company,
If your customers are there you need to be there too … he also went on to say ‘You need to listen’. Observe how they behave and act similarly.
Respond to everyone
No matter what you do, if you want to build engagement you have to be engaging with all customers and potential customers. What does this mean? Do a great job of responding to most comments.
Tag people in a comment stream to let them know that you’ve responded to their inquiry and/or appreciate their comment.
Analyze, correct, iterate, and learn
Analyze your measurement results, and continuously make corrections, iterate, and most importantly, learn.
Follow the 70/20/10 Rule
Here is an important guideline to keep in mind for all of your social media sites. Follow the 70/20/10 guideline … not a rule, but a guideline. Let us break that down for you. The majority (70%) of content that a social media site page puts up should be brand- and business-building, meaning it’s information that is valuable to your followers. Content shared from other sources makes up 20% and the remaining 10% or less (NEVER more) is self-promotional.
Apply the 70/20/10 rule to your own content mix and generate more interest for your social media and increase your customer engagement.
The bottom line
There are a lot of misconceptions about social media marketing. Just because you read something in a blog post or hear something from a credible source doesn’t mean it is true or true for you and your business.
Always do your research, and continually try to improve. Social media marketing is here to stay, and it can drive a lot of business for you, assuming you are leveraging it correctly.
There is more opportunity to fail in social media than to succeed if we treat it like any other marketing vehicle. Social media requires us to get away from being promotional and sensational and instead treat our customers with special attention. Special attention that means being social, building relationships, and creating trust.
Bottom line, listen more than you talk. You’ll be amazed how much you can learn about your audience when you shut up and listen. Try it!
Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?
Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on marketing and advertising from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it. Interesting quote from Picasso, yes? Which communication skill do you use most frequently? One of the most critical skills of successful people whether in the business world or in private life is their ability to communicate effectively. The most important component of better communication is active listening skills.
What works best for your personal listening skills? We would love to hear what it was. Would you do us a favor and post it in the comments section below? Be the one who starts a conversation.
Is that a surprise to you? It shouldn’t be. Listening is the communication skill most of us use the most frequently.
Therefore, listening is one of the most important skills you can have. How well you listen has a major impact on your job effectiveness and on the quality of your relationships with others.
We listen to obtain information. We listen to understand. We listen for enjoyment. We listen to learn. Given all this listening we do, you would think we’d be good at it!
In fact, most of us are not, and research suggests that we remember between 25 percent and 50 percent of what we hear. That means that when you talk to your boss, colleagues, customers or spouse for 10 minutes, they pay attention to less than half of the conversation.
An amazing fact isn’t it?
Various studies stress the importance of listening as a communication skill. A typical study points out that many of us spend 70 to 80 percent of our waking hours in some form of communication.
Of that time, we spend about 9 percent writing, 16 percent reading, 30 percent speaking, and 45 percent listening.
You don’t even need exotic examples. Visit a restaurant and see how many people you can count checking email on their phone while carrying on a “conversation” with their dinner partner.
Maybe that’s OK. But if you’re an employee, conversations are an important way you get your work done. And you can’t have a conversation without listening to your peers.
Listening is not just a way to find things out. It’s also a sign of respect. So send the message that your conversation partner is valuable. Listen like you mean it.
Related post: How Good Is your Learning from Failure?
Turn off, put away, or turn away from any screens. They’ll distract you despite your best intentions.
Active listening skills … the way to become a better listener?
Practice active listening skills. This is where you make a conscious effort to hear not only the words that another person is saying but, more importantly, try to understand the complete message being sent.
In order to do this, you must pay attention to the other person very carefully.
You cannot allow yourself to become distracted by whatever else may be going on around you, or by forming counter-arguments that you’ll make when the other person stops speaking.
Nor can you allow yourself to get bored, and lose focus on what the other person is saying. All of these contribute to a lack of listening and understanding.
There are five key elements of active listening. They all help you ensure that you hear the other person and that the other person knows you are hearing what they say.
Give the speaker your undivided attention, and acknowledge the message.
Recognize that non-verbal communication also “speaks” loudly.
Defer Judgment
Interrupting is a waste of time. It frustrates the speaker and limits the full understanding of the message.
Why is active listening important … respond appropriately
Active listening is a model for respect and understanding. You are gaining information and perspective. You add nothing by attacking the speaker or otherwise putting him or her down.
Show That You’re Listening
Use your own body language and gestures to convey your attention.
Our personal filters, assumptions, judgments, and beliefs can distort what we hear. As a listener, your role is to understand what is being said.
This may require you to reflect on what is being said and ask questions.
It is really very simple. Demonstrate that you’re listening. Paraphrase, re-state and react to what you hear. Ask for clarification. Get involved.
Key Takeaways
Most of us are poor listeners for a variety of reasons. We have had little training and few training opportunities exist. We think faster than others speak.
Listening is hard work. And most of all it takes lots of practice.
It’s a challenge to be a good listener. But good listeners get big rewards.
Conversations are how you communicate and grow relationships. Listening is an important part of any conversation. So listen like you mean it.
What are some of your experiences with listening skills in your business?
Please share an experience with this community.
Need some help in capturing more improvements for your staff’s teamwork, collaboration, and learning? Creative ideas in running or facilitating teamwork or continuous learning workshop?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy continually improve your continuous learning?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on learning from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
The Nine Most Valuable Secrets of Writing Effective Copy
How Good Is your Learning from Failure?
10 Extraordinary Ways for Learning to Learn
Continuous Learning Holds the Keys to Your Future Success
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of a small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Talking to or performing in front of crowds is a real art, isn’t it? Bands do it. Magicians do it. Politicians and inspirational speakers do it. They personalize their performances and their messages for great customer engagement.
Be in touch with your customers. It is the only way to gain meaningful insights.
When politicians enter a crowded auditorium and as they walk down the aisle they stop to warmly shake hands with a few people on the aisle and shares a few friendly words with each.
The lead singer in a band bounds onto the stage of a packed arena, punching the air with energy. He pauses at the stage edge as if he’s caught someone’s eye in the crowd. He smiles broadly, points and waves at what appears to be a fan he’s spotted. He then calls out to the whole city all the time maintaining a pointed finger to his “friend” in the crowd.
Related: Improve Customer Engagement to Win Business
So remember this. Once you stop treating the crowd as a crowd and start focusing on individuals, people notice. The more you do it, the more everyone engages.
One by one, the experience and expectation in the crowd is that this isn’t just a one to many thing. It’s about the performer and me, a unique, unrepeatable, magic moment shared. Even people who don’t get individually called out still start to believe this.
Multi-channel communications need to focus on customer journeys and customer centric communications. It is all about the imperative of getting into the crowd, waving and smiling and connecting with our customers where they are.
Quite simply, we are moving to a customer centric marketing approach.
So here are 10 building blocks for even better customer engagement and customer centric marketing:
Make changes
… based on your insights.
Best customer engagement companies.
Do the right thing
… even if it adds costs. Dealing with people means that you will have to take the good with the bad. The patience to deal with all types of customers is vital.
Exercise
… occasional random acts of kindness.
Be social
… offer smiles and friendly words. When dealing with the public, things can go wrong. You have to be flexible enough to roll with the punches and think outside the box sometimes. And be social at all costs.
Demonstrate
… that you listen, hear, and most of all, remember.
… for customers to do business with you. Keep in mind that time is the most valuable resource of most customers. Being able to look at a situation through the eyes of a customer is an extremely valuable skill that can enable you to provide the highest degree of service.
For great customer engagement … personalize
… your services as much as you can.
Best customer engagement examples … be proactive
… take initiative for as many actions as possible. It’s never a good idea to wait until a customer is stressed or agitated before offering assistance. Being one step ahead to gauge when someone needs help is the best way to minimize a brewing situation.
Customers don’t want to deal with sales associates who have to force themselves to be pleasant and nice.
A great example
JetBlue recently launched a brilliant new ad campaign called “Air on the Side of Humanity”. Have you seen it? You might want to check it out.
They ingeniously use pigeons as a transposed metaphor for frequent flyers who are challenged by business travel and crowded flights. Believe me, I can relate. The spot shows crowded skies full of pigeons while an off-camera narrator says “the reality of flying is not very pretty”. It’s a royal headache and a major inconvenience.
They show crowded jostled pigeons on a building ledge lined up single file facing the camera while the narrator says, “They pack you in there, you hardly have any space for yourself. Hey, I’m a big guy and I need some room to breathe”. As the narrator continues talking about the future situation being bleak the camera focuses on a man’s legs sitting on a park bench throwing crumbs to pigeons on the sidewalk as the narrator says, “They throw you crumbs and act as if it’s a 5 course meal”.
Next, they show a lonely pigeon on a busy pedestrian sidewalk as people walk around ignoring a confused bird as the narrator says, “I feel completely ignored”. Then the narrator asks the question, “There’s gotta be a way to fly with a little respect, you know?”
Then they cut to a different voiceover announcer which says, “Enjoy JetBlue’s award-winning service, free unlimited snacks and the most legroom in coach.” An awesome way to engage customers, isn’t it?
What I love about this engagement approach is that it takes a customer experience perspective that no doubt was derived through deep customer insights. As a frequent flyer myself I was able to relate to the spot on multiple levels. I can just imagine what the creative brainstorming session must’ve looked like.
It probably went something like this… Let’s find a metaphor for flying … pigeons. Put them in crowded lines and jostled frustrating situation … crowded skies of birds flapping their wings. Demonstrate the food is not very good … throw some crumbs. And show how nobody cares about the passenger … show bird on a crowded sidewalk alone being ignored.
Then ask the question, there has to be a better way and the answer from JetBlue is … Air on the side of humanity! Simple and easy. And brilliant.
Do you have a lesson about making your customer engagement better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you.
It’s up to you to keep improving your customer attention and focus. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer engagement? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on customer engagement from our library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
A huge number of websites share a common problem: they have a problem bringing people to action. The visitors will go to the page, and they will bounce off without subscribing, making a purchase, or checking out another piece of content on the website. Try a call to action landing page.
Why does that happen? Are you doing something wrong?
Maybe you’re not doing anything wrong. The problem is that you’re not doing enough. Getting people to do what you want them to do is not easy. You want to make them feel like they want to do what you want them to do.
Is there a special trick to achieve that effect? There are few. We’ll list ten hints on how to create awesome call-to-action articles for landing pages that will get you conversions.
Make the call to action as clear as possible
When a visitor gets a great article at a website, they rarely think: “Hey, this was useful. I should subscribe to get more of this.” You should provoke that action by a direct call.
“You liked this? Why don’t you subscribe for more of this awesomeness?”
That’s the kind of call that triggers action. If it’s missing, people will simply read what you give them, and they will leave the website. You want to tell them to sign up, try a service or product in its trial version, shop today, see a video or another article, contact you… There are many different actions you can provoke only if you ask for them.
Pay attention to the content
The overall content at the landing page serves to convince the readers that they will get something great when they follow your advice.
Rush My Essay, for example, has few calls to action on the landing page: “Check Your Price,” “Order Now,” View More Samples,” and “Contact Us.” Do you know why these calls work? The content on the page convinces the readers that there’s something cool about this service. Everything makes sense, and after reading the content, you’re convinced that this is exactly what you need.
Do it in the voice of the visitor
“Show Me My Heatmap” is a pretty effective call to action that’s recognizable for Crazy Egg. Do you know why it’s so cool? It uses the voice of the visitor. It practically tells you what to think at this moment, so you’re listening to that little voice in your head, telling you to do what these guys want you to do.
Make the button pretty
Okay, so you give them a call to action, such as “donate for this great cause today!” Do you just use that as a conclusion to your post? Then what? Should you expect your visitors to scroll through the page or browse through the website so that they could donate? Of course not! You must make this as easy as possible for them, so you should turn the call into an actionable button.
The call-to-action button makes an immense effect. Different placement, color, and size will make a big difference. That’s why it’s smart to do A/B testing to find the perfect position and design for the button.
Call to action landing pages … make a good offer
Your visitors won’t subscribe to anything.
Your offer has to be cool. It may be a great product or service, or high-quality content on a regular basis. Just make it seem attractive through the content you write. You can offer something extra, such as discounts, coupons, or free monthly membership.
Don’t push it
When people land on your website, they won’t be ready to subscribe or make a purchase. They still don’t know what your site is all about.
Do not block the entrance with pop-ups. Do not ask people to share their email addresses just to see what’s on your website. Do not ask them to turn the ad blocker off just to check out your content. These requests usually lead to one kind of action: leaving the website. There are tons of other sites that will give them what they want without making so much effort.
Invest in the visuals
Manpacks, a site that offers men’s grooming products, gets your attention with great visuals from the very first second. They are relevant, manly, and highly appealing.
The call to action, no matter how cool it is, won’t work if it’s placed on a site with the lousy design. The visuals are what gets and keeps the attention of your visitor, so invest in them!
The majority of Internet users are skimmers. They won’t read long-form pieces of content just to get to the call to action even if they need and want this product or service. That’s why your call to action should be placed above the fold. It should be short, sweet, and easy to understand. Action verbs give that effect.
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All these calls are based on action verbs, and they work when placed in the right environment. What’s the right environment? Great content, beautiful design, and a punchy appearance of the call-to-action button.
Offer long-term benefits
This is not a one-night stand. If you want the visitor to take action, you have to build a relationship. Even if this visitor doesn’t take action straight away, you want to keep them as a prospect.
You can build a relationship by offering many benefits to your subscribers, such as free eBooks, exclusive articles via email, trials, and discounts.
Netflix, for example, comes with a really attractive call to action: “Join free for a Month.” Then they ask for a credit card, but this is Netflix, and people already know they can unsubscribe before getting charged. The point is: they are not trying to take the visitor’s money from the very first attempt.
Give them social proof
“Millions of people rely on Evernote to stay organized and get more done. Find out why.”
This statement works because it gives proof of the popularity of the service. If so many people are using it, then it must be good! This kind of thinking triggers the need of a visitor to see what the fuss is all about. So mention the numbers. They matter!
The bottom line
It’s not that hard to craft a great call to action. Fitting it in a proper environment is a bit tricky. Hopefully, you’ll get there when you start relying on the tips presented above.
Brandon Stanley is a professional independent journalist. He is interested in writing articles concerning copywriting, SEO and marketing. Apart from that, Brandon loves traveling and playing the piano. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter
So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the effectiveness of word of mouth marketing created by remarkable customer service. And put it to good use.
It’s up to you to keep improving your creative marketing strategies. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.
When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.
Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?
Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add to the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of the small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
