Anyone ever made a cold call? ✋ Probably all of us. Anyone enjoy them? Probably a very small minority of people… extreme extroverts only. ???? So, that begs the question: if we all hate cold calls, then why are we doing them?

Put it this way— if you’re starving and someone offers you a fishing pole or a pack of seeds, which would you take? The fishing pole, of course. Cold calls are like fishing. They’re useful when you need a client now, and we get it. Cold calls let you survive another day, like fishing for dinner. That’s also the biggest issue with cold calls: If that’s your only real way to gain clients, the cycle will never end. You’ll be making sales calls FOREVER. But we’ve been there— survivor sales. Also known as a traditional Outbound Sales Funnel (AKA, fishing). At the end of 1,000 cold calls, you have 10 clients, a headache, and an emotional breakdown. Then you get to start over again.

Here’s a little quip from one of our owners Joanna about her time in that cycle:

“When we relocated from NC to Greenville, SC, I knew that I would need to do the hard work to find clients. Along with attending dozens of networking events, I spent hours upon hours making cold calls or sending cold emails. And I hated it. But I have three kids who eat a lot, so I had no option. But I refused to accept the fate of cold calling every day forever. So I made a choice. I would keep on ‘fishing’ but I would ALSO plant some seeds. I began putting a long-term plan in place that is paying off now. At this point, I literally can’t remember my last cold call but the clients keep flowing in.”

SO, what can you do to get out of the survivor sales cycle? Our suggestion is: DO BOTH! Keep fishing if you need to now, because you gotta eat. But also plant some seeds to invest in long-term growth. And you can do that through creating what’s known as an Inbound Funnel.

Goal of an inbound funnel is to, instead of going after clients, simply take steps. You plant seeds to attract clients, then you water them so they come to you, then you get to harvest the crops. (Can you tell we love a good plant metaphor? ????)

At surface level, the funnels can seem similar, but when you break them down, you’ll see the clear differences. Plus, perhaps the biggest difference comes in step 4. Stay tuned. ????

1. Create Awareness

Potential clients won’t come to you unless they know you exist. Crazy, right? So the best way to get your name out there is to use a variety of methods. The more methods you use, the broader your funnel will be. In the farming metaphor, think of planting a variety of crops. Ideas for exposure? Most exposure methods are free/cheap but you can amp up your funnel by paying. Check out our handy dandy graphic for ideas for free vs. paid exposure.

2. Build Value & Trust

After exposure is executed, potential customers may visit your website, visit your store, or follow you on social media. Caution: Do not try to switch back to fishing and scare them away. Step 2 in a sustainable inbound funnel takes time. Many people fear losing the customer’s attention so they jump to sales again. Yes, short attention spans are real and they may lose focus, so using forms to gather contact info is okay, but don’t start a hard sell just yet. The natural progression is awareness, discovery, interest. The jump from discovery to interest is difficult because no one wants to be “sold,” so the marketing/sales tactics need to be balanced with building trust/goodwill.

So how do you do that?

  1. Offer Valuable Free Resources
  2. Testimonials & Customer Reviews
    • Ask your customers/clients to write you a positive review online. In fact, we wrote a whole blog about how to do this well and why they’re beneficial. Check it out here.
  3. Insider Info
    • Meet-the-team posts add a personal story and help viewers get to know you in a low-pressure setting.
    • Sharing industry secrets by blog or social media can be a huge advantage for you over your more tight-lipped competitors.
  4. Features v. Benefits
    • Keep touching on the benefits of your business or product rather than just the features. People make purchasing decisions based on benefits, not features.
  5. Nurture Interest
    • Whether through email, social media, blogs, etc., make sure your customers see a product that meets their need(s) several times.

3. Close the Sale

You are still not a salesman here. We repeat. Not a salesman. ???? This isn’t time to “reel them in;” it’s time to reap the harvest. BUT When the customer shows true consideration (fills out a form, adds item to cart, asks for price quote), you need processes in place to help convert them. Some things to consider here:

  1. Ease of purchase: Can they do so without having to call? Is it intuitive? Do you accept various payment methods?
  2. Incentivize purchase: This may include increased direct marketing (call or email), coupon codes, limited-time introductory offers (positioned as only ONE TIME).

4. Create a Sustainable Funnel

The initial sale conversion isn’t the end. It is simply the beginning of the customer relationship journey and start of constantly refilling your funnel. If your whole funnel ends after a single purchase, your funnel isn’t sustainable. Here are a few great ways to create a sustainable funnel through customer relationship and retention

  1. Multiple Purchases: Could customers buy more than one of your products? How about a subscription model? How about a discount on second purchases in the same month? A loyalty program.
  2. Replacement Purchases: If customers won’t need multiple products, how long until they need a replacement? Do you have a long-term marketing plan in place that keeps the customer in contact until that time? Should you offer loyalty incentives? Email marketing and social media work great in this long-term plan.
  3. Complementary Products: What complements your product? If you know they will need another product in conjunction with yours, selling that complementary product not only gives you another sales channel, but also it’s good customer service. People like convenience.
  4. Customer Service: Go above and beyond expectations. Create a culture so your employees know to do the same. Great customer service creates a sales force of brand advocates, because content customers just come back. Surprised customers tell others!

Conclusion

Speaking of telling others, word of mouth is the best way to get you inbound leads, and by the way, it has the absolute best ROI you can ever get. So, ask customers to leave you reviews. Ask them to share with a friend for them both to get an incentive. “Ask and you shall receive…” That’s a popular saying for a reason!

And if you go above and beyond to thank customers who advocate for you by sending a hand-written thank you note, sending a gift card, or mentioning them on social media, they will feel validated as an important part of your company story, which they are! And then they’ll be more likely to continue to advocate for you. Advocates help fill your funnel with potential customers that are not only aware, but already have trust and are ready to convert. This cycle will grow, and soon you will be done with sales. Woohoo! We’re so excited about the potential of that, we’re leaving you with another awesome graphic.

Being a small business owner or entrepreneur comes with a lot of perks, like a flexible schedule and not having a boss. BUT it also comes with its own challenges, just like any job. When you own a business, there’s a lot of pressure to do things the right way and make it a success. After all, a lot of people will associate you with your business. Often times, this causes business owners to run themselves ragged. But listen, you don’t have to do that. You can delegate and still be successful. You just have to be strategic about what you delegate and to whom. We even wrote a blog about outsourcing that you can go read if you haven’t already!

Okay okay, moving on. We know we talk about this all the time, but we’re not going to stop any time soon because A) it’s important, and B) if we know anything about small business owners, it’s really hard to let things go.

But if you’re not ready to start delegating, why not try automating? There are tons of tasks you can automate that will end up saving you precious time, and also your sanity.

Automation doesn’t just save you time; it also increases overall customer service, makes you more efficient, and clears up your time for big picture stuff. Plus, there are some really great apps available to you! Alright, let’s get to it.

1. Social Media

Instead of wasting time every day thinking of what to post, breaking up your day by taking photos, writing captions, and then posting, try sitting down one day a month to choose photos and type out all your posts. Then, you can schedule them out a month ahead of time. Facebook has its own built-in scheduling software found in the Publishing Tools section of your business page. You can also utilize other softwares like Hopper or HooteSuite for your other social media accounts on Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn. ????

 

2. Customer Communication

Prompt and professional customer communication is an absolute must. In fact, most studies say customers expect a reply to an email or contact form submission within 24 hours. Everyone loves a thoughtful reply, but it could take the whole day to individually reply to everyone who contacts you, depending on your business size. So why not automate some of those emails? Whether you want to send an automated reply to contact form submissions on your website with helpful information or just send a thoughtful thank you email after every purchase, eliminating the time it takes to do so can free you up significantly. Another great idea is to set up an auto-reply on your social media accounts and emails, letting them know that their message DID go through (very important), and that you’ll get back to them within 24-48 hours. Head on over to your email provider and social media platforms to set these up there!

3. Inbox Management

Did you know that there are apps that will declutter your inbox for you and unsubscribe you from annoying email lists? Run, don’t walk. And whoever invented these services, we’d like to shake your hand. ????

 

4. Invoice Reminders

Have a client who owes a payment? Don’t we all. ???? Many apps will allow you to create automated email reminders and send them to clients for you. This not only helps free you up, but it also means you won’t be tempted to send emotional emails about past-due payments. (#aspermylastemail, anyone?)

5. Your To-Do List

There are several mobile and computer apps that will streamline your To-Do lists, keep everything in one place, and allow you to set reminders. Anyone else thankful for auto reminders? ✋

 

 

 

6. Payroll

So, you’re not a bookkeeper and can’t afford to hire one. Do you just make yourself miserable doing all that #math even though you’re not passionate about it? The answer is no. No, you don’t. Try a payroll automation company, like Gusto, and free yourself up for very important non-math related work. Because life is way too short to do things that make you miserable. (Disclaimer: If you love math, we see you. We respect you. Keep up the good work.)

 

7. Receipts

Have trouble keeping up with endless receipts? Honestly, #same. Right after your purchase, you can simply snap a picture of your receipt and keep track of your expenses via an app like Shoeboxed or Expensify. Those apps can automatically get the necessary information exported from them. Bonus points for this one because it will help you avoid getting bogged down during tax preparation. And your CPA will love you. Win-win.

 

 

8. Backing Up Files

Backing up files is one of those things that’s essential but also can be kinda annoying. And a LOT of people don’t really do it unless they’ve learned the hard way. It’s like properly removing a device from your computer… does it REALLY matter? Oh, we’re here to tell you it does. One of us may or may not have had their whole iPod erased back in the day. (RIP⚰️). ANYWAY, backing up your files is really a necessary precaution. And it’s super simple to automate. You can set up a cloud-based backup like Dropbox or Google Drive. And by syncing all your files to the cloud, they’re accessible on any device with an internet connection.

 

 

 

9. Website Analytics

It’s simple to set up a Google Analytics report to be emailed to you once a week. Et voilà! Your website analytics magically appear in your inbox ✨No more wasting precious time logging in to find it.

10. Bill Pay

Whatever you can automate, you should. Whether it’s a payment on your business credit card payment, your office rent, any software you utilize, or any building maintenance services such as cleaning, cutting down on the time you spend writing checks is critical. If you know you’re going to pay it every month, ask if they do auto-draft, that way you don’t have to keep it on your to-do list.

These may seem small, but every minute matters when you’re juggling a business, family and friends, and trying to have some sort of remnants of a social life. That’s why taking routine, recurring tasks off your to-do list can really help boost your productivity. These are the types of things that can break up the day at the worst times and have the potential to ruin a perfectly good train of thought. And no one wants that! If you can delegate some everyday tasks to employees, do it!! But even if you’re not able to delegate (yet), you could potentially free up some much needed time by automating these simple tasks. So just do it.

Is it too soon to use this GIF again? Asking for a friend….

Social Media can either seem pretty straight forward or it can feel overwhelming (depending on the day, AM I RIGHT? ????), and Instagram may be the biggest culprit. With constant changes in things like algorithms, a need to curate the perfect feed, and a steady stream of new features, keeping up can feel like a full-time job! So we’re going to take a few minutes today to let you know about some new updates with Instagram and break down some of the most popular features.

Instagram started as a simple feed of photos with cool filters, meant for users to share their everyday adventures in real time. But it has morphed into a huge social network full of photos, stories, IGTV, GIFs, and video clips all fighting for attention. While it’s still used for personal documentation, it’s also become a huge platform for businesses, marketers, and influencers to interact with and grow their audiences.

In recent years it’s turned into probably the most “curated” part of social media, where presets, Photoshop, advertisements, and fake smiles can make a lot of people wonder if they measure up. But that could all be changing…

The Grid

If you don’t know what the grid is. It’s another way of saying your personal Instagram page, or profile. Here’s a look at our grid as of late:

When Instagram started, there really wasn’t any focus on how the grid looked. No one even thought of it, but as Instagram became a tool for marketing, whether to promote a business or to advertise as an influencer, there became this obsession with how the grid looked to potential customers. The thought was (and mostly still is) that if someone visits your profile and your grid is messy, you won’t attract them as a customer as easily as your grid is very cohesive.

The Aesthetic

Over time, a lot of people got tired of the perceived perfection from businesses, influencers, and even just personal Instagram users. And content creators got tired of spending so many hours thinking about exactly what order to put photos in to make the perfect grid. So now we’re seeing a steady change towards an “anti-Instagram aesthetic” from many popular influencers, especially younger ones. After a few years of perfect profiles with filtered presets, it looks like we may be experiencing somewhat of a shift, with an article in The Atlantic suggesting that the ‘Instagram Aesthetic’ is over.

This article in The Atlantic was really about influencers. But if you’re reading this, you’re probably not a famous influencer. You’re probably a hard-working small business owner, trying to put food on the table and grow your business. So how does all of this affect you on Instagram? The reason we’re mentioning popular influencers now, is because businesses and brands always tend to follow suit.

We found two great examples of businesses already moving away from the Instagram aesthetic.

Here’s the feed of Glossier, a beauty and skincare brand, 2 years ago:

And today:

Two years ago, their feed was only professional photos, shot in-house, all with the same color aesthetic and filter. Today, you see a mix of memes, user photos they’ve shared, and some professionally shot product photos. But why the change? I think they, as they should have, realized that users didn’t want to look at a professional catalog of their products, but they wanted to connect. People want to see themselves in what brands post.

We’ve seen a change in Nike’s feed as well. Here’s two years ago:

And today:

2 years ago, Nike’s feeds was all professional, stock-like photos with the same high-clarity edited style. Now we see a mix of videos and photos, and a more natural look on a lot of them. Especially for an athletic wear company, having everything purposefully curated is kind of a catch 22. After all, athletics are messy.

The main takeaway here is that businesses should be aiming to connect with their specific audiences, even if that means creating an “aesthetic” that goes against outdated Instagram expectations. But one thing we will note is, depending on your industry, the aesthetics of your grid may stay cohesive in some ways. And that’s okay. Obviously with creatives, designers, artists, and the like, your grid will still have one solid aesthetic because usually artists have one style, at least for seasons. So since artists have a style, the grid looks more cohesive naturally, without a ton of planning.

Alright, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about how the aesthetic of Instagram is changing, now let’s hit some of their ever-changing features. Shall we?

Stories

According to recent statistics, Instagram Stories have about 250 million daily users, and 33% of the most popular stories are posted by businesses. So stories are a great way to get engagement from your audience as a business owner. The statistics also show that 20% of stories posted by businesses result in direct messages.

Ever feel like your business is competing with a million stories to get seen by your audience? You’re not *entirely* wrong. So here are a few ways to get your story more viewership!

1. Use a geotag for your location. Geotags have been shown to get 79% more engagement.
2. Use a hashtag for a 12% increase in engagement.
3. Get a friend, an influencer, or one of your employees to “takeover” the Instagram account. These stories get a lot of engagement and are a great opportunity to be more personal and add a face to a name.
4. Use a poll. Asking followers to help you make decisions here and there can give your engagement a boost as well as make them feel like an important part of the online community.
5. Offer them a sale exclusive to Instagram Story viewers.
6. Post Stories Monday & Thursday 7-9pm, and avoid 3-4pm.

Videos & IGTV

For a while, video was the new “it girl” in the social media world. And Instagram even prioritized video over photos in the feed. They got higher priority in the algorithm. Meaning, if you posted a video, your users were more likely to see it than if you posted a photo. Well, that is no longer true. Videos and photos now get the same authority. But recently, Instagram has introduced IGTV to the mix. IGTV is a great tool, allowing videos up to 10 minutes long. If you’re a business that sometimes utilizes YouTube, but haven’t seen high return there, this could be a way to reduce your workload and consolidate your content into one place!

Since IGTV’s release, it’s been common to see IGTV videos in the Explore tab, but recently Instagram also added the ability for users to add IGTV previews to their own Stories AND allowing users to post previews directly into the main feed. It’s a great way to share how-tos or any important stories behind your business!

The Explore Tab

The Explore Tab is a great way to grow your following. It’s a way for Instagram to suggest new accounts to people that they think they’ll like. Just like the feed, the Explore Tab has an algorithm that makes this all happen. And we’re going to break it down for you. There are 3 main factors to how your posts can show up on someone’s Explore Tab: Interest, Timeliness, and Relationship.

1. Interest: Instagram tracks what people like and comment on, which stories they watch, and they use that information via their algorithm to keep showing what they think you’ll like based on that information. So, if you want people to see your business’s posts more often, give them incentive to like or comment on the post!

2. Relationship: Instagram has an algorithm to understand your relationship with others. It’s mostly like interest but a bit different. Rather than liking and commenting, it has to do with tagging. If someone tags you in things, the algorithm thinks they might be your friend or family, so they’ll show you that person in Explore Tab, and vice versa. They’ll also show people or businesses also connected to those people. So, think about creative ways you can get your users to tag your business in their photos!

3. Timeliness: For example, newer posts get more authority on the Explore Tab rather than posts that are a week old. So post regularly!

Conclusion

According to digital strategist Taylor Cohen, the Instagram aesthetic hit its climax sometime in mid-2018, and since then, it’s slowly been changing. But again, what does this mean for your business? This means you can share what you want in the moment, what you think your audience and potential clients would like, without having to spend hours getting your photos in an order that will look a certain way when someone visits your profile. So you get some of your precious time back. (Yay!)

With all of these new features, the important thing is to not get bogged down in feeling like you have to do them all. Plus, things are always changing, so don’t put all your eggs in one basket, only to have the feature you’re using filter out after some time (pun intended). Figure out which features boost engagement and add value to your business. Don’t just use tons of your time with no return on investment. For example, if you don’t have any big stories to tell, or need to do how-to videos, IGTV may not be for you. And that’s okay! Stick to photos and Stories.

Alright that’s it for this breakdown on the ole Instagram. We hope this helped! Happy ‘gramming, y’all.

If you’re a small business owner, we can pretty much guess that you wear (at least) 9,000 hats every day. Maybe it’s because you feel that you don’t have the budget to hire anyone to take some things off your plate, or maybe you’re one of those business owners who can’t let anything go because there’s no way anyone else will ever care about it as much as you do. Others think they can probably just do the work, and even if it’s not perfect, it can’t be that hard. Sound familiar?

Well, research from the American Psychological Association shows that when you multitask, or manage multiple projects at once, you can experience a 40 percent drop in productivity. Your projects take longer to complete, and you increase your overall stress levels.

Also, most small businesses usually start out with little or no overhead. But let’s be real, expenses build up a lot faster than revenue in the beginning. We’re not saying you should increase expenses unnecessarily by outsourcing tasks you’re capable of accomplishing, but the fact is, some areas require more expertise than you probably have.

(Brief pause for the nobody-can-do-it-better-than-me guy to have a good silent scream.)

As a small business owner, you can find good help by turning to freelancers or small firms as a less expensive source of assistance, and their expertise can help you realize that maybe you’re spending money in the wrong areas, or the amount of time it takes you (or an inexperienced employee) to do something is costing you way more in the long run. Before you hire one or more full-time employees to take over specialized tasks, consider outsourcing as a more cost effective alternative.

You don’t need to outsource everything, especially if you really are trained in a specific area, but we’ve put together a list of 5 areas we think would serve the average business owner well to outsource.

1. Accounting & Bookkeeping

This is a big one. If we had to choose one thing to tell you to outsource, this would probably be it. It’s really important to leave accounting to a professional. Having an administrative assistant or someone else handle accounting who isn’t well versed or trained in software or basic accounting rules is like playing roulette with your finances. When handling the finances for your business, you really can’t afford to make mistakes, and outsourcing is a great way to prevent that.

An experienced freelancer or accounting firm can save you a lot of money in the long run because they know what pitfalls to avoid and what tactics can be beneficial. If you’re a business owner trying to manage your own payroll, for example, and you’re not familiar with tax regulations and requirements, you could have a lot of issues or fines down the line with the IRS which can be more costly than simply hiring a professional.

2. Market Research & Branding

Market research is extremely important to the growth of any company. In-depth research on your industry or target audience can provide your business with important information for current and future strategies. Outsourcing this to an experienced individual or firm and having them build a set of customer profiles can help you make more informed decisions about your branding and marketing.

It’s almost impossible for business owners to view their business from an outside perspective, and so often they make branding decisions based on personal preferences and not market research. Basically, as a business owner, you’re too close to your business to see it the way others do. When you live in your business every single day and know the ins and outs of your industry and, it’s hard for you to know what an audience who has no previous knowledge about your business wants or needs to hear. So, enter the professionals!

3. Social Media Marketing

In 2018 there are so many different social platforms to choose from and each of them requires a lot of attention, so outsourcing social media can be invaluable to business owners. Professionals can develop a strategy, write strong content, and building up your following. Social media experts can give you a huge bang for your buck, helping you skip the expense of hiring someone full-time or taking other employees away from their job to do something they’re not really good at. (If we see one more cat meme from Karen in accounting….)

4. IT

Let’s just say you have a tech-savvy employee who you think can handle any IT issues that come up. That’s awesome, and not necessarily worst case scenario, but it’s definitely not best. If you outsource IT, technicians can fix issues faster and therefore save you money. But that’s not where the real savings are. A good IT company will help you put better systems in place to cut down on the number of issues you have in the first place, so your employees can get more done, without wasting company time waiting on the internet to work or an old computer to boot up. Also, IT companies can help you improve your data security, which minimizes your chances of experiencing a costly data breach. (You can read our blog to learn all about what a data breach can do to hurt a company’s reputation and, therefore, sales.)

5. HR / Staffing

Ooh, This is a good one. Everyone wants good employees, but how do you know who will be good and who is just really good at BS-ing their way through an interview? Not every business owner is experienced in hiring, so outsourcing HR to a professional can help your business attract great talent, weed through applicants to help you find the best fit, and also help you retain the good employees you already have.

Some mistakes in HR, made by someone who isn’t really trained in the field, can hurt employee retention and lead to costly fines. Leaving HR responsibilities in the hands of an employee who switches back and forth to HR on an as-needed or part-time basis, or who isn’t sufficiently trained in HR matters, can cost you dearly. Firms that specialize in compliance to HR regulations can be a huge asset to you to protect you from lawsuits or other unneeded expenses.

It may feel like HR isn’t an option for you as a small or medium-sized business owner. But even if you don’t have the budget to support a trained, full-time HR team, outsourcing tasks to an HR firm is a great idea that ultimately saves you money.

Conclusion

One misconception about handing off tasks to people is that it’s expensive and out of reach for small businesses. But, you don’t have to hire 6 new full-time employees to get these important tasks done the right way. You can outsource for a fraction of that cost. While there will be some cost associated with it, it won’t necessarily break the bank, and will often save you money in the long run.

There are a lot of areas you can outsource, but only you know which areas you need help with. Look at your finances, your team, your processes, and the work you are juggling yourself on a regular basis. And then really consider outsourcing the areas where you or your team struggle.

Simply said, outsource your weaknesses, so you can have the time to hone in on your strengths and kick booty at those.

In last month’s blog we spent a lot of time telling you how to talk about something besides yourself and your product on social media, but this month we’re going to pull a fast one on you and focus on how to do just the opposite. At the right moments anyways. We’re not changing our position here—we still think you shouldn’t constantly be shining the spotlight on yourself—but we are saying that when you do, you need to make it count, especially in the age of #communityovercompetition.

What is Community Over Competition?

The idea of community over competition has gained a lot of traction over the last few years among creatives and other professionals, with good reason. It’s an extremely positive movement. When owning a small business, especially as a creative, it can be very difficult to not keep tabs on competition. After all, competitive research is taught in business school. But competitive research is one thing… then there’s continual competitive “research” (aka: stalking), when you look at others as “competitors” all the time and have a high likelihood of becoming jealous, territorial, and negative. And that’s not good for anyone, especially your customers.

The other problem with competitive research is that none of your competitors are doing exactly what you’re doing the way you do it, so they’re not technically your direct competition anyway. (More on that later.)

So here we are, acknowledging just how positive this movement is, but we need to also acknowledge this elephant in the room. While collaboration is a beautiful thing, your livelihood still depends on successfully promoting your business, a business that you really believe in. But we get it. It can sometimes get tricky to know exactly how to support others in your industry, but still self-promote without getting competitive or seeming too pushy.

Here are a few ideas to get you started…

Defining Your Brand Story

“Storytelling” has become such a buzzword in recent years that a lot of business owners have started to ignore the idea, but the story of your business is maybe the only truly unique aspect you have to share. People love and crave genuine connections, and sharing your story is a great way to let people know about you, your day-to-day, the behind the scenes of your business, and ultimately build your brand.

Be Competitive With Your Brand Positioning

This is where things get tricky. “Community over competition” doesn’t mean you can never present yourself in a strategic way. You don’t have to be overly confident or put others down to get ahead, but you do have permission to own the things you truly are great at. The fact is, you have a unique selling proposition. No one is just like you. And just like others excel beyond you in certain areas (and you should encourage them in that), you’re better at some things than others are– so why not promote that? But remember, there’s a way to elevate your strengths without knocking the way others are doing things.

Determine How Your Add Value To Your Industry

Your customers are paying the most attention to your services or products, but that doesn’t mean they’re unaware of how you interact with other businesses in your industry. If you’re using passive—albeit extremely witty—captions to shade others in your lane, it puts a bad taste in people’s mouths. Instead, figure out how you add value to your industry (and by default, your customers too) and focus on expanding that. For example, maybe host a networking event, a lunch and learn, or an instructional seminar for others in your industry. Your peers will thank you and your customers will think you’re awesome, mostly because you are.

Conclusion

The bottom line here is, even if you’re all about celebrating the ???? out of others, you can still be proud of your work and believe in your business enough to promote it. There’s room at the table for everyone, especially you!

A blog about budgets? Really, Tangible Strategies? REALLY?

Alright, alright. It’s not the most fun blog topic we’ve ever tackled, per se, but budget doesn’t have to be a four letter word. If marketing budgets lead to more prospects (spoiler alert: they do), and more prospects lead to more revenue, and… do you see where we’re going with this? Increased revenue is pretty great. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want in on that. So let’s do this…

We talk about how hard it is to run a small business all the time… because it’s true. But it’s not all hard. It’s also so rewarding to offer a product or service you believe in, and to be your own boss! The problem is that just because you’re an expert in your specific field, you’re not necessarily an expert in accounting or marketing, and well, those are kind of necessary to growing a successful business! One big mistake many small business owners make is engaging in reactive marketing instead of proactive marketing. An example of reactive marketing is taking out a Facebook ad because your sales are low one month. Proactive marketing means making your efforts a line item in the budget rather than something you think about when your sales aren’t where you want them to be. To ensure more consistent sales and growth, it takes consistent planning. [Insert cheesy inspirational quote here.]

A good way to make sure that your money is being well spent is to develop a solid marketing plan before you set your marketing budget. Following a plan will help ensure you’re focussing your efforts in the best way possible. We wrote a blog recently on creating a comprehensive marketing plan, so you’ll definitely want to read that if you haven’t already!

If you don’t have time to read that and want a 3000ft view, the basis of your marketing plan should include an understanding of your target market and your competition, how you’ll reach your market, as well as how you’ll set yourself apart from your competition to make sales.

One of the most important facets of your small business marketing plan is—you guessed it—the budget. Your marketing budget is the cost of how you’re going to achieve your marketing goals within a certain timeframe (usually a year).

Many small business owners and managers aren’t sure how much to spend or if the money they do spend will even be worth the investment.

Let’s breakdown the process of how to create a small business marketing budget, so it doesn’t seem as cumbersome or mysterious, and so you can feel confident that your marketing budget will propel you towards your business goals.

1. Start With A Goal

In order to have a great plan or a great budget, you need to know what you’re working towards. So, what do you want? To increase your revenue by 10%? Establish 3 new accounts per month?

Once you have a goal, the next step is to calculate how much money you may need to spend on marketing each month to reach the goal. Whatever it is, it’s going to give you clear direction when deciding on a marketing budget, as well as the KPIs needed to measure your efforts, things like how many customers you’ll need to acquire to hit that goal, or how many leads typically turn into prospects and then customers. (KPIs? It’s all laid out in our Key Performance Indicators Blog.)

2. Figure Out How Clients Find You

One of the best ways to gather user data is through analytics. Most web hosting platforms will provide you with complimentary data, like how many monthly unique views your site gets or which search terms are leading the most traffic to your site. So check with your developer or hosting site to see if you have access to analytics. Online advertising will also provide you with insight into how people are connecting with your ads. Or you could also go straight to the horse’s mouth, aka – just ask your customers!

Include a question like, “How’d you hear about us?” on an interest form for prospective clients, or have your team ask those who call in, or even add a pop-up to your website. Wherever people keep telling you they saw you, focus more money there in the future.

3. Consider Your Revenue

Once you’ve created your fiscal plan, it’s time to determine the size of your marketing budget and allocate your funds. A common practice is allocating a specific percentage of your gross revenue to your marketing costs, but there are also a few other factors to consider when setting your budget (like your growth stage).

As a part of your overall small business strategy, you should always create projections for your yearly sales. These projections will help you decide on a marketing budget that feels doable. According to a recent industry survey, most small businesses spend around 10% of their annual revenue on marketing. However, if you have a new business, you’ll likely need to spend more than a company that’s already established. A bigger budget in the beginning helps build brand awareness and get your name out there!

4. Pick Your Platform(s)

If you’re a business owner, you know you’ve got to have an online marketing presence, but the options can seem endless… between Search Engine Optimization (SEO), social media (a number of platforms), AdWords, and more, the marketing dollars can add up really quickly.

It’s unrealistic for a small business with limited budget to compete in every area, so you’ve got to figure out which one works best for you. It’s so much better to focus your efforts and resources heavily in one or two areas, rather than trying to do it, which most often results in minimal results or success.

So, where do you fit in online? Good question. Well, if you’re a restaurant, you need to be on Yelp, but a Snapchat account isn’t so necessary. Who are your customers? If the majority is older than 40, we’d go with Facebook. If under 35, Instagram is where your customers are most likely to be!

Conclusion

We hope this made you feel LESS overwhelmed and not moreso. ????

Putting together a marketing budget will help you in the long run to stay on track with spending. It will also help you see which efforts have a better ROI, so you can adjust accordingly as your audience changes or grows.

Regardless of where you spend your marketing dollars the main takeaway is to plan for your marketing in advance instead of treating it as a last minute thought.

If this all still seems overwhelming, there are some great online resources that can help to point you in the right direction, like free online marketing budget templates. We’d also love to help answer any questions you have, or help you map out your KPIs and budget for marketing, if you don’t feel like you have the capacity for that!

But the end of the day, you need to know that Ryan Gosling thinks you have what it takes. And we do too.

If you’ve never heard the words “Accessibility” and “508 Compliance” in regards to web design, you’re not alone. As a business owner, it can be quite intimidating to learn how to run every single facet of your business, especially areas like finances (ugh) and design (fun, but quite a learning curve!). Now add on U.S. laws and codes your website must comply with, and things can get overwhelming… fast. (And don’t even get me started on all this GDPR stuff…) But seriously, follow after me…. Breathe in, now breathe out, and repeat as necessary.

That’s why we’re here! We’ve got your back. And we hope that by the end of this blog post, you feel as informed as possible about these extremely important aspects that should be implemented into your website design.

What Is Accessibility?

Simply put, accessibility is making sure that your website or app works for the physically disabled, whether they’re blind, a paraplegic, an amputee, or they have some other physical impairment that makes it difficult or impossible for them to use a keyboard or mouse in the usual way.

What Is 508 Compliance?

Section 508 of the U.S. Code is the law that enforces website accessibility. A good summary of this law is: “the use of text labels or descriptors for graphics and certain format elements. (HTML code already provides an “Alt Text” tag for graphics which can serve as a verbal descriptor for graphics). This section also addresses the usability of multimedia presentations, image maps, style sheets, scripting languages, applets and plug-ins, and electronic forms.”

If you have absolutely no idea what that last paragraph said and you’re thinking, “That’s all greek to me.” It’s okay. While all federal government departments and agencies—as well as any organization receiving federal funding—are required to have websites that are 508 compliant, not every business is required to be completely 508 compliant. (Whew!)

Why You Should Care

Even if your business isn’t *technically* required to be 508 compliant, we think you should still care deeply about your site’s accessibility for a few reasons. First, as we’ve already mentioned, it’s a good business practice to make yourself available to as many people as possible. It’s also good to show kindness and inclusivity to those with disabilities. Finally, just as a worst case scenario, you could get a fine from the government if you’re a business or organization that’s required to be 508 compliant. If you’re not in that category, there could still potentially be a lawsuit from web visitors with disabilities involved, as we’ve seen in the past with big companies like Target not having an accessible site.

Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, actually said, “The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”

Think about it this way: almost all businesses, stores, and public venues have wheelchair access by ramps. This is mostly because they are required to, but it’s also because as a society we highly value equality and inclusiveness. Not to mention, it’s just plain bad business not to be accessible and get as many potential customers as possible.

So if brick and mortar businesses are placing high value on this, why are there so many websites with content that those with disabilities have trouble accessing? Unfortunately, there is still a chasm between people without and people with disabilities online, because of a lack of awareness about accessible online content. It’s like there are proverbial stairs and curbs in the way of disabled people accessing websites that others may visit often and even take for granted.

Maybe you didn’t realize that, because it’s not something you or anyone close to you has dealt with. No worries. We’ve all been there!

Think about it this way: have you ever been frustrated when your internet was EXTRA slow one day? Or if a site malfunctioned when you really needed it to work? Or even if the site had really bad user flow? Of course you haven’t. You’re an angel. ???? But for the rest of us, frustration often leads to a negative view of a brand, and that leads to bad business.

Take it from the famous Elle Woods, “Exercise leads to endorphins, and endorphins make you happy, and happy people just don’t kill their husbands. They just don’t!”

How does this apply to you? We thought it was obvious! Happy webpage visitors return more often and buy more, and happy customers don’t kill a business. They just don’t!

Heavy Hitters

Here are some of the most important aspects of accessibility that we think you should consider for your own website.

1. Color Contrast

Guideline 1.4.3 – Contrast (Minimum) – “The visual presentation of text and images of text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1”

The first is the color contrast between text and background, because those who are colorblind will have a hard time determining different colors. Your text must have a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1. Here’s a really useful tool for figuring out your contrast ratio. So, thin light text and a light background would make the content hard to read for certain people. You may have to adjust your colors ever so slightly (or majorly), and maybe add a dark overlay and/or a drop shadow here and there when putting text over an image to achieve this. It’s okay, drop shadows are totally “in” right now!

2. Color As The Only Indicator

Guideline 1.4.1 – Use of Color – Color is not used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element.

Unless you’re a designer, you’ve probably never thought about how using color to indicate important information or to direct users to take action could be an issue. If color is the only indicator, those with colorblindness will never get the cue. For example, if a product or a service time is unavailable, don’t just make it in a red font, while making available times green. Yes, the red and green fonts would be an obvious indicator to users without vision impairments; however, someone who is colorblind wouldn’t be able to see the difference. A quick fix is simply adding an icon or some other text indicator of products or times that aren’t available. Easy peasy!

3. Flashing Lights (& Words)

Guideline 2.3 Seizures: Do not design content in a way that is known to cause seizures.

Guideline 1.2 Time-based Media: Provide alternatives for time-based media.

Guideline 2.2 Enough Time: Provide users enough time to read and use content.

One of the more well known design elements that affects accessibility is flashy and bright images that can cause epileptic episodes. It’s best to consider that when choosing design elements. Another thing is fades. They. Look. Awesome. But users with dyslexia, ADHD, short term memory problems, or cognitive delays that affect reading comprehension might find it hard to read headlines that fade out. Even if you think the fade is slow enough, it may not be to some people. Since “enough time” is very vague and impossible to calculate, a creative solution could be to include a control that allows users to stop and start the animation so they can read at their own pace.

4. ALT Text

Alt text is a good way to make your website more accessible. It was originally intended to serve as a placeholder for graphics that didn’t load properly, but it eventually caught on as a way for screen-reading software to pick up descriptive labels so blind people could have a description of website images. It’s best practice to provide descriptive text for every image on your website by using alt text. In HTML, you can provide alternative text for images by adding alt=”your description of the image” within the image tag.

5. Specific Link Titles

People with vision impairment often use screen readers to visit websites. If they know where they want to go within the site, it’s pretty common for them to quickly tab from link to link, skipping over explanatory body text, just like we all do. So, “Click Here” is way too vague for a link title because it gives them no indication where they’re headed. Instead of “Click Here,” use a description of the page they’ll visit such as, “Call Us Today!” or “Register Now.”

It’s also important that you try to avoid using images for links, which are hard for people with low vision to no vision to interpret. If you absolutely want to use an image as a link for aesthetics, you should definitely provide alt text to tell disabled users where they’re going.

Conclusion

To sum it up, accessibility matters. A lot. And it’s in your best interest as a business owner—and in the best interest of your clients and potential clients—for you to have a more accessible website. One serious misconception about accessibility is that it always compromises aesthetics. There isn’t anything about being accessible that necessarily makes a design look ugly. Anything that you can do with web standards and other best practices can be done in an accessible way, so don’t fear, you still have plenty of room for creativity and excellence in your design! Excellence + inclusion = ❤️

In case you haven’t heard, we’ve announced a summer internship opportunity beginning in May of 2018. Get the details below of the program available, and if you’d be a great fit for it, send your resumé and cover letter to hello@tangiblestrategies.com.

Creative Content Internship

This summer, we at Tangible Strategies are offering an internship position like no other. We’re calling all interdisciplinarians (you know who you are)—photography students with a passion for sculpting, graphic designers majoring in world history, creative writers who macramé on the side—get the idea? Our Creative Content Internship Program is best suited for individuals with a knack for communicating brand messages in new, innovative ways, whether that’s through engaging illustrations, interactive social media campaigns, or gripping photography. If you’ve got that interdisciplinary itch and a love for growing local businesses, this is the internship for you.

Ideal candidates are located in the Greenville, SC area, are seeking an agency-setting summer internship, and have both aptitude and experience in design, copywriting, and/or photography.

Responsibilities
Specifications
Qualifications
Preferred Qualifications

 

In order to be considered for the internship position, students should submit their resumés and cover letters to Anthony Reese at hello@tangiblestrategies.com.

How do you measure the success of your small business? If we could guess, we’d say you probably typically focus on sales and revenue. (Which, by the way, is a great place to start.) But we’d like to propose that you don’t stop there.

A great way to assess the success of your small business is by measuring key performance indicators, or KPIs. In the world of tech/e-commerce/digital startups, this is a super common term, but maybe as a small business owner you know little to nothing about KPIs. Maybe the mention of measuring statistics online has your heart beating fast and has you typing the web address to Wikipedia as fast as you can. Step away from the Wikipedia. And don’t worry. We felt the same way about all this at first.

If you’re a small business owner, we know a few things about you automatically. First, we know that you care A LOT about what you do. Second, we know that you’re an extremely dedicated and hard working person who wants your business to thrive. If that’s you, we’ve put together a super non-intimidating list of key performance indicators you can start thinking about or maybe even tracking!

What Are KPIs?

A KPI is a measurable value that helps a company know if they’re reaching their business goals successfully or not. Organizations often use KPIs to analyze metrics from specific platforms. KPIs can measure financial performance, operational and internal processes, sales and marketing, and customer satisfaction (among many other things).

Key performance indicators give you the answers you need in order to know how to move forward with your business. But before you can get useful answers, you have to ask the right questions. It’s important not to waste time in your already busy schedule getting answers to questions you don’t care about or that won’t help grow your business.

Choosing the KPIs to focus on all boils down to a having good grip on what is important to your business, or in other words, “What is your why?” Once you figure out who or what you’re going after, you’ll be able to decide which KPIs you should start measuring.

To get you started, we’ve put together this handy dandy list of KPIs we think might be important for you to track along with a little more information about each.

1. Customer Acquisition Cost

Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC, is the cost of getting a prospective customer to buy your product or service (also known as your cost for marketing). Your CAC can be easily calculated by dividing the total you’ve spent on marketing during a certain period and dividing that figure by the number of customers acquired in that same period. So, say a company spent $1,000 on marketing in a year and acquired 50 customers in that year; their CAC is $20.

Like we said, as a small business owner, we know you’re passionate and you love what you do. These are really great attributes that can make you a successful entrepreneur. However, a common pitfall of many entrepreneurs is that they can sometimes be too optimistic and assume everyone else will automatically “get it” and love their product or service as much as they do. Loving your product or service is great. This will help you sell it in an authentic and exciting way. However, one thing you have to be careful of is to not underestimate the cost it will take to convince people who’ve never heard of you to love your product and eventually become new customers.

Sometimes business owners are shocked at the amount of money needed to acquire customers through things like SEO/SEM, PR, Social Media Marketing, direct sales, channel sales, etc. And many businesses fail because they don’t pay attention to their CAC or find a way to get their CAC low enough. Successful businesses, on the other hand, are not only aware of their CAC, but they actively brainstorm and execute ways to lower that cost, or adjust their product or service cost to increase their margins.

2. Customer Lifetime Value

Unfortunately, a lot of business owners overlook Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), even though many agree that it’s a key factor in determining the present and future success of a business.

The lifetime value of a customer is basically the gross margin you can expect to make from that customer throughout the lifetime of your relationship. A big pitfall for many businesses is when their CAC (which we just talked about) exceeds their CLV, while successful businesses will have a CAC that’s not just less, but considerably less than their average CLV.

So, it’s important to come up with a good plan to find out your CLV as soon as possible. Measuring the net profit that you’ll make throughout your relationship with a customer is super important because it helps you realize how valuable they are—or aren’t—to your business. And once you realize which customers are valuable and why, it will ultimately help you properly focus your time, energy, and resources on going after that person and others like them. It’ll help lower your CAC because knowing who you should be targeting helps you spend less money targeting individuals who don’t ultimately turn into customers.

Hopefully you’re starting to see how all of these are connected and could thoroughly help you build a successful business model.

3. Traffic-to-Lead Ratio

Now that we’ve focused on some high-level, generic key performance indicators, we’ll focus on some more specific examples of KPIs that relate to individuals elements of your marketing efforts. Your Traffic-to-Lead ratio addresses the performance of your website specifically and is calculated by dividing the number of visits to your website in a particular timeframe by the number of leads generated over the same timeframe. For example, if you have 100 website visits in a month and 10 of those visitors contacted you, your traffic-to-lead ratio is 10:1 (a 10% conversion rate).

The traffic-to-lead ratio is important because in analyzing your site traffic, you may discover that you have a great conversion rate, but your overall traffic could be higher. If this is the case, you may decide to invest in pay-per-click advertising or organic traffic-generation methods. Or you may discover that you’re reaching a large audience but have a low click-through rate. In which case your action step would be to re-evaluate your target audience or optimize your site’s copy, calls-to-action, and images.

4. Social Media Engagement Conversion Rates

Let’s say you’re one of the lucky ones, and your marketing and social media campaigns are working, your website traffic is high, and people are super supportive of your brand. But maybe your actual sales figures don’t seem representative of your traffic numbers, and things just aren’t adding up. This could be caused by a couple of things. For example, maybe visitors are getting half way through a purchase and then backing out, or maybe they’re viewing a couple of pages of your site but ultimately leaving. It’s important to figure out why, but it’s also super comforting to know that you’re not alone.

(Tangent, if you’re not one of the lucky ones who has great social media engagement, check out our blog on social media engagement for some great tips on how to boost it.)

Although social media now accounts for more traffic to websites than organic search, conversions from social media traffic are lower across the board. According to statistics from Shareaholic, “social media is now the No. 1 driver of referral traffic to websites, responsible for 31.24 percent of the total. In fact, social media traffic has an average conversion rate of 0.71 percent, which is very small compared with search’s 1.95 percent and email’s 3.19 percent.”

One thing that can help your conversions from social media traffic is to give your audience an incentive to purchase. Strong calls to action, such as flash sales or promo codes, are a great way to boost conversions. Another important way to boost conversions is to share your content and offers multiple times. It’s something psychologists refer to as “the mere-exposure effect,” which means the more exposure we have to something, the more we notice it and the more we begin to like it.

So in short, if you want your audience to grab onto your message or your product, it’s important that you regularly expose them to it by posting about it often. In fact, Buzzsumo recently researched over 100 million articles and found that resharing content can boost engagement by 686 percent.

5. Landing Page Conversion Rates

In short, a landing page is a page within your website that’s sole purpose is to drive conversions. It’s focused on one goal, and it’s optimized to achieve it as many times as possible.

The best way to maximize your traffic is to optimize the first page people land on. On average, each small business website has just three landing pages, and by tracking your landing page conversions you can stop spending time and resources optimizing pages that don’t turn into conversions, and pour all of your resources into the one that is.

A homepage can be a landing page, or a landing page can be a completely separate page within your website that users land on after clicking an advertisement or social media link. A good landing page always has a clear “ask,” telling visitors what they get and what they’re submitting information for. Studies show that the sooner you start asking for email addresses the better. So, a great idea for a landing page is a highly visual page that asks for the user’s name and email address, and tells the user what they will receive in return.

A great example of a landing page that converts is the homepage of a company called Ipsy. Before you’re able to browse their products, they ask a few questions about your preferences and for your name and email address so they can follow up with emails and deals. What they want website visitors to do is clear, because it’s the only option when a visitor lands on the page.

6. Advertising ROI

Return on Investment, or ROI, is the money an investor in a business earns for the money they’ve invested. Your return is the net profit of your business and is used to measure the success of your investments.

Return on investment is the most common profitability ratio, and there are many ways to determine the overall ROI of your business. But when looking at advertising ROI specifically, your equation would look something like this:

(Sales Revenue – Advertising Cost) / Advertising Cost

So if you invested $1,000 dollars in an ad campaign and saw a $5,000 increase in revenue, your ROI is 400% or 4 times the amount you spent on advertising.

The trick to successfully calculating your Advertising ROI is in determining what portion of your revenue is attributed to a single marketing effort. When advertising, it’s good to use a unique call-to-action to associate with your campaign. Unique website links, single-use phone numbers, or discount codes are all great elements to use when tracking a specific campaign. That way, you can easily measure how many clicks and/or purchases come from a specific advertising campaign and ultimately see if your return on investment is lucrative.

Many people think return on investment is the same as profit but that’s not the case. ROI specifically looks at the money you invested in advertising and the return you receive on that money based on profits from the campaign.

Conclusion

Show of hands if your brain is on major overload right now. ✋???? We know this is a lot of information, but we hope it’s useful and helps you with some ideas of where to start. Measuring the success of your business can be an intimidating task, but it’s an absolutely necessary aspect to regular growth and development. We hope you’ll take this information and run with it in the right direction towards defining your key performance indicators and growing an extremely successful business!

In case you haven’t heard, we’ve announced two summer internship opportunities beginning in May of 2017. Get the details below of the programs available, and if you’d be a great fit for either of the internships, send your resumé and cover letter to hello@tangiblestrategies.com.

Creative Content Internship

This summer, we at Tangible Strategies are offering an internship position like no other. We’re calling all interdisciplinarians (you know who you are)—photography students with a passion for sculpting, graphic designers majoring in world history, creative writers who macramé on the side—get the idea? Our Creative Content Internship Program is best suited for individuals with a knack for communicating brand messages in new, innovative ways, whether that’s through engaging illustrations, interactive social media campaigns, or gripping photography. If you’ve got that interdisciplinary itch and a love for growing local businesses, this is the internship for you.

Ideal candidates are located in the Greenville, SC area, are seeking an agency-setting summer internship, and have both aptitude and experience in design, copywriting, and/or photography.

Responsibilities
Specifications
Qualifications
Preferred Qualifications

 

Business & Marketing Internship

This summer, we at Tangible Strategies are offering our first ever Business & Marketing Internship. We’re seeking strong candidates with a natural instinct for business growth and marketing strategy. Our Business & Marketing Internship Program is best suited for individuals desiring in-depth agency exposure and authentic business management experience. If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur with plans of operating a business post-graduation, this internship is a perfect fit.

Ideal candidates are located in the Greenville, SC area, are seeking an agency-setting summer internship, and are currently studying business administration, marketing, entrepreneurship, and/or related fields.

Responsibilities
Qualifications:
Preferred Qualifications:

 

In order to be considered for an internship position, students should submit their resumés and cover letters to Anthony Reese at hello@tangiblestrategies.com.