What's the best career advice you ever got? http://t.co/NnlCzqj32T (Post via @FastCompany)

— HubSpot (@HubSpot) June 14, 2013

Quite frankly, it’s that I would amount to nothing.

To clarify, it was — and I quote: “your company will never be more than a corner flower shop.”

I had a few choice words for the unsolicited advisor, as you can imagine. No likes being told they will contribute little to nothing to life.

Now, I did not have a literal flower shop; he was referring to the impossibility of me ever reaching more than my hyper-local market. I would never reach more than the folks who happened upon that figurative street corner.

Fast forward nearly 10 years and that quote has stuck with me. It has shaped me into the person I am now. You see, I just returned home from the umpteenth speaking engagement this year; I have flown around the world helping passionate business owners improve the reach of their brand; my office receives calls nearly every day asking to book time with me; and the business is seeing a nearly 300% increase in the profit column.

I have the privilege of reaching the masses, but still provide one-on-one help to those who need it most. I am truly blessed.

My “corner follower shop” closed awhile ago, but from it’s closure came a renewed focus and ability for Never Mind Marketing to grow. For that, I am thankful for the best career advice I’ve ever gotten.

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Even more compelling is the ability to use social media to reach your competitor’s circle of influence and — quite frankly — steal them away.

Here are 7 simple social media tips that will start you on your way to building a brand of awesomeness (more on that coming soon!)

1. Listen, Then Talk

Just like a cocktail party, social media is an on-going conversation discussing every known subject. Rather than taking a traditional “sales” approach and blasting your message into the discussion, listen. What is the tone of the group? By exercising self-restraint, you’ll gain insightful information about the group, their thoughts, feelings, and alignment. When you provide thoughtful, genuine help, you position yourself as an expert contributor to the conversation, not a sleezy-sales person looking to make a quick sale with little regard for the conversation participants.

There is a reason this is not a popular approach; it takes time. Listening and waiting, by nature, is a slow process. There is no shot-gun method, no quick and dirty. It is, however, an investment that will pay dividends for years to come.

SIMPLE TIP: Listen to what users are saying about your brand, your product, and your competitors. Look for gaps in their communication to jump in and assert yourself as an expert within the industry.

2. Respond (To Everyone)

Upwards of 60% of online brands — mostly the larger ones — currently do not answer customers or prospects on social media. That leaves huge windows of opportunity on the table. In the era of social media, everyone has a voice and a platform to share their thoughts (right, wrong, or otherwise). Embrace this reality and capitalize on the lack of attention shown by your competition.

Customer complaints are prime examples of opportunities overlooked by most brands. When a customer complains on social media, take the time to respond and solve the problem. Consumers understand companies make mistakes, the lesson is to not delete mistakes or avoid confrontation; acknowledge that a mistake was made and address how you are going to fix it. Sometimes, this takes a private message or an email conversation to resolve the issue appropriately. The general rule is to respond to the customer on the same social media platform they used to contact you. For example, if a customer uses Twitter to express their dissatisfaction, answer them on Twitter. This shows that your brand is attentive to the needs of users and is interested in making their experience better.

SIMPLE TIP: Don’t delete negative or complains made on social media (unless they are obscene or bigoted); use the opportunity to address the problem publicly and move on.

3. Tell, Don’t Sell

Social media’s foundation is relationships. It was never intended to be a platform for business marketing. Successful brands know that they need to emulate the personal connection between people and humanize their brand to “fit in”; companies who use older, one-way communication tactics on social media will quickly realize they are alienating a wide group of their customer base.

Social is about experiences. The use of stories is a powerful way to spread your message and brand across social media. Consider your personal experiences, humble beginnings, community or charity partnerships, employee stories, or customer successes. Show that your brand is made up of real people who live real lives.

“The only thing better than telling your story on social media is to inspire your customers to tell your story,” says Dave Kerpen of Likeable Media.

4. Just Be Yourself

An authentic — even flawed — personality on social media will go far further than a polished, perfect, and artificial personality. Large brands are so accustomed to running a press releases through the Marketing Department, Legal Department, Sales, and — finally — upper management. Everyone has their say and, eventually, the message is unrecognizably diluted. The feeling is gone. It is now a face-less message from a face-less organization trying to connect to very real people.

Instead, use the tone of your brand and personality of your employees to create an online culture that mirrors your own.

Your existing fans and customers chose you for a reason, and it isn’t the quality of your corporateeez-legal-mumbo-jumbo.

5. Advertise (better)

Social media is far more than the emotional touchy-feely that I have eluded to thus far. It is big business with big sales dollars on the line. Social media represents the ability to reach customers far reaching around the globe and a very powerful word-of-mouth marketing machine. While your voice, tone, and personality should be light and reflective of your brand, your social media strategy is all business.

On Facebook, rather than advertising to the largest possible pool of viewers, you can target the right people. The folks who are most likely to buy your product. This is an advantage over traditional marketing (imagine a road-side billboard that changes messages based on the driver (and each passenger) of a passing car); this type of one-to-one targeting is available. Brands have the ability to target on every piece of information collected about a user: job title, likes, age, location, interests, etc.

Reaching 1,000,000,000 may sound cool, but even better is reaching the one customer who will double your bottom line; or reaching one key influencer of your industry to land an interview. Or the one CEO …

Use social media as a laser — finely tuned to your exacting goals.

6. Give Stuff Away

This point separates the Haves and the Have-Nots. Quite frankly, if you are an expert in your field, you may have decades of knowledge, tips, tricks, shortcuts, and experience that you could spout off at the drop of a hat. This experience represents an experience that others — the Have-Nots — hold under lock and key, demanding top dollar for every drop of advice offered.

Let’s be real, if you can “give away” all your knowledge in a blog post or two, or a couple of white papers, or in social media status updates, you are not an expert. You are simply masquerading as an expert by regurgitating the knowledge of others.

Today’s consumers are doing more research before investing their hard-earned dollars. Give them every reason to do business with you by offering free resources, How Tos, Best Practices, and your expertise before they sign on the dotted line. Truly, I cannot count the number of clients Never Mind Marketing has landed because we gave away the farm to prospective clients doing research. Answer your most common questions and package it as a downloadable resource on your website. Put your favorite quotes and pieces of advice into a fun graphic and post on Pinterest. Show that you an expert by the wealth of knowledge you are able to give away. This will separate you from the Have Nots.

7. Be Grateful

According to the non-profit organization DonorsChoose.org, of those people who received a thank you note, 38% were more likely to donate again.

A simple “Thank You” will go a long way to expanding your business. Gary Vaynerchuk wrote a fantastic book entitled “The Thank You Economy” where he documents how he grew on online wine store to a multi-million dollar empire.

Use social media to reach your customers and simply thank them.

What Now?

If you would like help with your social media, I would love to talk to you. Click here to schedule a free, no-obligation social media assessment. Really, there is no hard-sale, we’ll just talk about where you are and where you want to go.

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Successful lead nurturing requires the participation of each department within your organization

The idea of building a relationship to encourage a sale is as old as time. In the 1940s, small business owners knew their neighbors so well that they could predict the needs of that buyer before the transaction occurred (think of the town’s butcher knowing that your great-great grandmother purchased a ham for Sunday brunch). Fast forward to 2013 and the need for relational marketing has gone from authentic to automated. Never before have we needed to bridge the gap between buyer and seller.

Nurturing sales leads, while an automated process, can easily be customized and personalized to be authentic. I would hate for someone to be turned off at the idea of using “automated technology”. It can be made personal!

For companies looking for sustainable business growth, the idea of one-to-one marketing must be a core value of each department, from marketing to sales and human resources to the service desk. Each member of your team must take an active step towards building a relationship with the end user of your product or service.

What is Lead Nurturing

Lead Nurturing refers to the process of moving an unknown visitor of your website to a paying customer. That is, after all, why we are in business, right? To sell a product?

When a person comes to your website, often you know nothing about them. You do not know their age, their geographical location, their likes, dislikes, hobbies, interests, intent to purchase, or even which of your products they are most interested in.

Through the use of content marketing, you can offer various pieces of content (whether it is an ebook, checklist, Top 10, collection of resources, or Best Practices) to help identify the unknown visitor and build clues as to who they are.

Our partners at HubSpot “eat their own dog food”, meaning, they practice the same principles they preach. In their recent showcase with Software Advice, Hubspot covered how they use their own tool for lead nurturing. Project Manager, Jeffrey Russo, identified several fundamentals for successful lead nurturing.

Understand Lead Attrition

“Industry research has shown that the average marketing database expires at the rate of 25 percent per year as people switch jobs, email addresses, unsubscribe, etc” says Russo.

At this rate a database of 50,000 leads will be reduced to just 21,000 after 3 years, meaning you’ll need to generate a significant number of new leads per year just to fight against natural attrition.

Further, Russo goes on to say, “the more often you hit your list with nurturing emails, the faster it expires, and any growth must come above and beyond that 25 percent loss.”

Inbound Marketing Leads

An example of a lead nurturing recipe from HubSpot

Not all leads are created equally. You may gather names, email addresses, and contact information from many sources. Understand, though, that just because you met someone at an off-line networking group, they are not a qualified lead. I see this most in MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) and professionals in the real estate industry. I am happy to meet you, but I am not looking to purchase a house next week, nor am I particularly inclined to buy from you after only knowing you for 26 seconds.

Inbound leads, those leads that give their contact information to you and express interest in your product, are the best leads for any business. I work with a lot of coffee shops. The best thing about coffee shops is the buyer’s intent when they walk in; nearly everyone who comes into a coffee shop is likely to buy a drink. Both parties are aware of the impending transaction and there is no awkward “hard sale” at the register.

Inbound marketing helps identify the intent of the buyer to the seller. Selling to someone who wants to buy is a million percent* more effective than attempting to sell something to someone who is unsure or unwilling to make a purchase.

Establishing a pipeline of inbound leads will take you much further in the long run.

*approximately. Not scientifically proven.

Best Lead Nurturing Practices

Using an automated lead nurturing campaign should mimic the natural course of a relationship you would see off-line. Much like my coffee shop example above, a natural conversation would include a greeting (we all say “hello” when someone enters our business, right?) followed by some investigation: “What can I get started for you today?” is a popular phrase at just about every coffee shop across the nation. Next, the customer is at least open to the idea of making an upgrade to their purchase. It is up to the seller to use context to make the best suggestion.

The same for online or automated lead nurturing campaigns, tailor your marketing message to include contextual information about your lead. Use your expertise and knowledge to educate the buyer in bite-sized pieces.

Best practices for lead nurturing include:

• Create useful, valuable, and educational content for visitors

Make your brand a magnet for visitors, not a bullhorn. Uses commonly asked questions as the starting point to educate your visitors about your product or service

• Segment your list

The more granular segmentation of your database, the better your returns

Start With the End In Mind

A good race starts with the end in mind. Knowing who you want to target (through the use of Personas) and where you want them to go will help map out a lead nurturing campaign. If your goal, for example, is to setup a sales phone call with VP of Sales for an exotic animal import company, what type of information are they likely searching for and how can you position yourself to answer their questions?

Side Note: What are Personas?

Personas refer to buyer personas – individuals you’ve identified who typically represent good fit customers for your company. They represent different sized companies, different interests, and different needs. Because they are interested in different things, your marketing content is customized in terms of town to cater to these distinct audiences.

An Example of Lead Nurturing

Let’s say, for example, you are running a cookie company. You are targeting cafes and bistros around the United States. Your website gets a fair amount of traffic, but does not close sales and capture leads for you.

What does your website look like? Does it walk your unknown visitor through a process that builds a positive relationship? Does it help your visitor run their business better?

We know that our sales funnel is very wide at the top, meaning it appeals to the highest number of people – most of whom are “unqualified” at this point, simply because we know nothing about them.

As a Top of the Funnel offer, let’s create an ebook entitled, “How to Display Food Merchandise in your Café” In it, we outline best practices, how to display food products in jars, cans, cases, and photos. Perhaps we discuss how to pair cookies and pastries with drinks the café already serves. Further, we cover storage and “par levels” (the inventory you always have within your café before you reorder). Our primary intent is to help the reader better their business today. Our secondary intent is to establish brand as an expert in the industry and create authority.

Next, we make this ebook available for download on your website in exchange for some basic user information, typically a name and email address. That’s it. The unknown visitor has become a lead. We know their name and email address, the lead nurturing can begin because we have been introduced to them.

The first step of the new lead nurturing campaign is to email them a “Thank You!” message. It is best practice to include a link to download the ebook and offer some tips that the café owner can implement immediately in their shop.

Much like an off-line relationship, you naturally want to follow up with your new connection. Imagine recommending a new restaurant to a friend, wouldn’t you ask about their experience? A few days later, sending an email to your lead is appropriate. This is an opportunity to move them from the Top of the Funnel to the Middle of the Funnel, a way to identify them as a more serious customer or a simple lookie-loo.

The follow up email always acknowledges your lead by name and what prompted you to reach out to them. For example, “It has been 3 days since you downloaded my ebook on how to best display food products in your café, how is that going for you?”

Secondly, offer a resource that a Middle of the Funnel lead would find helpful. Perhaps “How to Use Cookies and Biscotti to increase Sales by 25%”

Wow! What a headline. If I am a café owner, I am certainly interested in knowing how to boost my profits – and heck, this company that is offering advice, hasn’t tried pitching me a paid product once.

You Using Lead Nurturing

While the example I just used is automated (meaning you are not glued to your computer counting 3 days for each new lead that comes in, and monitoring whether they opened your email, clicked on a link, or shared it on social media), it is an authentic and natural conversation. It just happens to be emailed automatically based on criteria you control.

As you can see, the idea of “lead nurturing” is an appealing way to market your product in a personalized way. I believe we are moving towards a one-to-one marketing experience, where the buyer is looking for a customized solution to their problem. No longer can brands push a singular message to all buyers.

If you would like help creating a lead nurturing campaign for your company, I would love to talk to you. Let’s setup a 20-minute consultation to discuss your needs and where you would like to take your brand.

The post How to Use Inbound Marketing to Nurture Sales Leads appeared first on Never Mind Marketing.

The number of social media platforms has skyrocketed in the last few years. It is easy to get overwhelmed and give up, but don’t! Your customers are out there and waiting to start a relationship with you and your brand.

Let’s look at a streamlined approach to your social media management with 6 of the more popular social media platforms. They may or may not be relevant to you and your brand, but they are widely popular. Your personalized mix may vary slightly, feel free to adjust accordingly.

Here’s how to rock your social media in 30 minutes per day!

Twitter: 10 minutes

Automation Tip: Pre-schedule your tweets using a automation solution like HootSuite or Minideck to see all of your upcoming tweets in once place.

• Respond: Take a few minutes once or twice per day to respond to any tweets that may have been directed your way.
• Schedule: Schedule out tweets for the week to promote any recent content, events, or promotions.
• Share: Intermixed with your promotional content, share the content of followers, thought-leaders, and others in your industry to help build relationships.

Facebook: 6 minutes

Automation Tip: Save time by automatically having your prospect’s social media data imported into your sales management (CRM) lead profiles

• Respond: Respond to any comments, questions, or “Likes” left on your Business Page. Spend a few minutes liking the content of your partners, Fans, or allied businesses.
• Promote & Share: Promote your own content, recent photos of products, behind the scenes content, or highlight staff. Highly visual content like videos and graphics perform best.

LinkedIn: 6 minutes

Automation Tip: Use software to publish and schedule your social media posts to multiple sites from the same interface

• Promote: Share your professional content and notable news on your company profile.
  
• Groups: Share your content in related LinkedIn groups and engage in notable group discussion. Remember to add value, don’t be selfishly promotional.
• Questions: Ask and answer questions on your page and in relevant groups to start discussions of your own.

Pinterest: 4 minutes

Share: Take a few moments to Pin any recent visually-inspiring content. This may include blog images, infographics, behind the scenes pictures, or staff photos. Use this area to showcase the true personality of your company. Also, repin content from others that your audience may find appealing.

• Engage: Get social with Pinners who have repinned your content. Leave comments, repin their works, or thank them publicly.

Google+: 2 minutes

Automation Tip: Gauge prospect interest in your content by seeing who clicks on links shared on your social sites

• Share: Share your recent content to Google+ Circles. Use Circles to segment content to only those who it most applies to. Remember to provide value to your audience to stand out from the noise. Google+ is a great forum for longer posts like articles.
• Ask Questions: Your audience on Google+ is receptive to longer form content. Engage them with questions and discussions. Try to facilitate a conversation between your followers.

Instagram: 2 minutes

Culture: Take your fans behind the scenes with pictures of your staff, office space, events, and products. Some brands showcase their best customers (brand advocates)!

• Content: Promote across channels by sharing pictures of a recent infographic or slide deck. Remember to use hashtags to attract viewers outside your circle who may be interested in your topics.
• Quotes: Inspire your followers with motivational or relevant quotes in a stylized format

A well-designed and consistently-executed social media plan saves time and drives business. If you would like help creating a social media marketing strategy for your business, schedule a free marketing assessment with me today. Let’s get started and get you moving forward!

The post How to Rock Your Social Media in 30 Minutes Per Day appeared first on Never Mind Marketing.

Running a business is hard. Between staffing your shop, balance sheets, weekly ordering, and customers, there is little extra time. Add in necessary, but often-thrown aside tasks, like marketing, planning, or dreaming, and there is little – if any – time left in the day.

The problem with that, through, is that, in our effort to sort out today’s problems, we don’t focus on tomorrow’s. This week, I watch a painfully slow death of a company come to a head. The company — we’ll call it Awesome Building Blocks Company — had been floundering for many months, perhaps a year. This week, a few extra blows came at them from all sides and they are essentially at the end.

Awesome Building Blocks is a good brand, they had a solid foundation and a great vision. Their community involvement is unparalleled and their outreach programs far exceeded those of similar start-up companies. Their industry was growing and their brand reach was expanding.

Everything looked right on the outside.

On this inside, however, things were crumbling around them.

I am reminded of an analogy describing a duck floating in the lake. From the outside, a duck looks quite content and peaceful as it glides through the water, look beneath the surface, however, and the duck is paddling like mad to move forward.

Too many companies are looking peaceful on the outside and working like hell just to stay afloat.

Keep The Plain Things the Main Things

What is important? No really, what is really important? Family? Staff? Taxes? Customers? The way the chairs are pushed in around your café? The way your product is presented on the shelf? What about how clean the bathrooms are? Or the timing of your social media posts?

As business owners, it is easy to get caught up in necessary, yet unimportant tasks throughout the day, week, month, and year. Before we know it, we have missed necessary and important tasks as a result of the unimportant ones.

At the end of the day, you must accept that not everything will get done. Does the world end? Nope.

There are several approaches and solutions to prioritizing your daily tasks.

• Define Core Values

Every company I work with is forced to establish core values. Why? Because decisions are so much easier when the entire team is equipped with the overarching vision for the brand. Take for example the Zappos customer service training approach. The comany excels at creating a customer-focused culture. One where they strive to deliver a “WOW” experience to every customer. Knowing this, a customer service representative has been empowered to make the customer happy. There are no strict policies, arbitrary rules, or procedures that need to be followed.

Deliver a WOW experience.

It is as simple as that. The core values helps define the culture of a company and the experience of the customer. Core values act as a filter to make all decisions at any level.

(For more on creating a “WOW” experience, check out Gary Vaynerchuk’s book, The Thank You Economy.)

• Have Clear Goals

I say “clear goals” because everyone can say, “our goal is to get more customers!” or “offer the best service!” or “make more money!” But those are not clear goals. They are pie-in-the-sky starting lines of disappointment. You will never achieve those goals. Ever. Sure, you’ll get more customers or make more money, but you will never check that goal off the list and mark it “complete.”

Be intentional with your goals, “sell 10 more cups of coffee by 10am each weekday morning.” THAT is a goal! Or “increase our Facebook Fans by 500 before June 1st”. Or “write 1 blog posts per week, spending 20 minutes per day drafting it.”

• Talk to Your Spouse/Partner

Your spouse or business partner can present a very different perspective on a problem you’re facing. The key to talking about a business-related situation is to have the right mindset. Don’t spring it on them out of the blue or get defensive when they reject your original idea and approach. You are there to learn from them, not defend from them.

Arrange a specific time and tell them what your intentions are, “I would like to discuss this upcoming change with you to get your feedback. I want to make sure it does not take away from our family time, or interrupt our personal time together. Let’s go to dinner and talk about it specifically. When we finish dessert, we can be done talking about this topic.”

• Get Away From It All

Take a vacation. Seriously. It may feel like now is not the right time to take a vacation, and it’s not. There is no right time. There never will be. There will always be a big project happening, coming up, or being finalized. There will always be a “fire” to put out. As a business owner, we do not have the luxury of going home at 5pm and “turning off work”. We must be intentional about our time away. Even getting away for a weekend can help break the routine to help refocus your efforts.

Each day, intentionally step away from “work” and do something for yourself. I find it incredibly beneficial to go running, go to a new coffee shop, or even take a 3-hour lunch with a friend. Breaking up the routine and allowing my mind to focus on other matters is time well spent. Your subconscience is a powerful tool, allow it to work as you do non-work related tasks.

• Create a Schedule (and stick to it)

Daily devotions, my Lumosity.com training, and daily readings to keep up with the changing industry are very important to me – in that order. I start my day the same each way, every day. First, I put God first, where He belongs. Second, I invest in my brain – it is how I make my living and I believe in investing today for tomorrow’s benefit. Thirdly, I spend 30-60 minutes catching up on industry news to keep abreast of the changes in tools, tactics, strategy, and best practices so that I can be a resource for my clients. This is my practice each day before I open email; I know once I open email, the firestorms will start, the To-Do list will grow, and tasks will overtake the schedule for the rest of the day. But, I know I structured my day to give me time for what is most important.

• Set Expectations Early

I try to under-promise and over-deliver on each project. Have you noticed that Zappos and Amazon.com “Two Day” deliveries typically arrive the next day? This is their way of under-promising and over-delivering. They promise 2-day delivery, and surprise the customer in 24 hours. We build in extra time for the un-expected. Our goal is to present a finished product to the customer before they were expecting it. We strive to return phone calls within 90 minutes, regardless of where we are or what we are doing. We attempt to articulate problems that may occur with a project, even if we aren’t chosen as the vendor.

One stumbling block of the Building Blocks Company was a culture of over-promising and under-delivering. While it may not seem like much, “I’ll call you back by 5pm” was a promise never kept. “The check is in the mail” is a phrase no one wants to hear, don’t build your company culture around empty promises, but around honest dialog.

• Communicate

Even when it is bad news, people appreciate hearing it. Create an environment where employees and staff can be open and honest. Tell them the good and the bad, keep them informed of what is going on with the company.

• Delegate

Delegating tasks brings all of these points together. Through your values, goals, and expectations, it is possible to hand off chores and tasks that you, as a business owner, do not need to spend your time doing. I often think of a coffee shop owner sweeping floors. It is a necessary task, but takes away his time from finishing payroll, the weekly order, or networking with fellow business owners. Any one can sweep. Not everyone can represent a business at the local Chamber of Commerce. Any one can fix a lightbulb or take inventory, but not everyone can meet with a prospective new catering client. Take inventory of daily tasks and what is important and what only you can do. Delegate the rest.

Be Honest With Yourself

One of the struggles with Awesome Building Blocks was emotions clouded judgement. Upper management failed to see that the wrong people were plugged into positions. The entire team was build with amazing people, just doing the wrong tasks. They were not fulfilling their passion, but punching a clock and doing things because they need to get done. As a business owner, it is your job to understand the strength and weaknesses of – not only your team – but also you. If you are not a planner, you need to find someone who excels in that role. If you are not a numbers person, find someone who is. Don’t get in your own way.

Take Time To Plan & Evaluate

Not everything is an emergency. While it may seem like it at the time, knowing your priorities will help your efficiently handle incoming challenges. Think of it like an Emergency Room triages incoming patients. ALL patients require medical attention. From the viewpoint of the patient, their emergency is most important. But the next incoming patient may require such immediate attention, that the first patient’s needs seem negligible. The point is, the Emergency Room is very good at grading the incoming patients and assigning them a level of care appropriate for the totality of the situation. Meaning they consider everything that is going on as a whole. Your business should operate in the same way. Regularly prioritize your To-Do list, both for the day and the week. What is really important to be done?

Don’t Forget to Market Yourself

The number one reason I hear from business owners about their lack of marketing is, “we don’t have time for that.”

Here is a fact, if you fail to invest in tomorrow today, you run the risk of starving tomorrow.

Listen, I think it is great that you’re busy today with all the work you can handle. Your lack of priority in the marketing department shows me that you are not concerned about tomorrow. Your marketing efforts should be viewed as an investment to a more secure tomorrow. A farmer does not forget to plant a crop because he is busy selling at the market. He knows, that without a planted crop, he will not reap a harvest next season.

Do yourself a favor, invest in your marketing. Make it a priority.

If you would like help creating a manageable marketing solution for your brand, I would love to help. Schedule a free marketing consultation with me today and we can get started.

The post What Do You Want and What Are You Willing To Do For It? appeared first on Never Mind Marketing.

Social media

Social media has changed that to a two-way style of communication and marketing. Advertisers and brands are no longer pushing a message to consumers, but consumers are pulling information that they are seeking. Large and small brands alike are able to benefit from building this relationship with their current and prospective customers.

For coffee houses, using social media is a natural extension of what takes place every day within the four walls of their café.

Relationships First

Social media marketing, or relationship marketing, has a “customer first” mentality. Using language that engages the customer to talk about them is most effective. Rather than constantly selling a product or service, brands need to allow the customer to talk about their needs and desires.

Successful coffee shops do this each day when a customer walks in and the barista asks, “how are you?” The emphasis is immediately put on the customer. Focus on building authentic customer relationships first and extend that to social media platforms.

Social Media Platforms

Your social media approach should be like a cocktail party; join the conversation that is already happening around your brand, product, or service.

At the end of the day, the only social media platform that matters is the one your customers are using. We have seen a huge rise in popularity for startups like Pinterest or Instagram. The power of pictures in social has changed the way individuals consume information. In social media, and for brands, a picture is worth far more than 1,000 words. Pictures invoke emotion and a connection that words simply cannot.

Facebook still commands the most active users, so it is a safe place to start your social media marketing. Likely, there are a large number of existing customers to connect with, as well as new and prospective customers.

Don’t worry about being everywhere all the time. Find the overlap of where your customers hangout and your knowledge. If your customers spend a majority of their time Instagraming or Pinning, start there. If you are a business-to-business brand (equipment sales, wholesale beans, etc), poke around on LinkedIn, which is traditionally a more business-minded environment.

Why Before How

Understanding what you want to get out of your social media marketing campaign in the beginning is the most important element of creating a strategy. Understanding “Why” you want to get into social media will dictate “How” you do social media.

Having clear, defined goals before you get started will help map the “why” of your social media marketing campaign. Be specific when planning, as it will save hours of frustration and hundreds of wasted dollars in the end.

Consider the S.M.A.R.T. method for creating a goal:

S: Specific

M: Measurable

A: Attainable

R: Relevant

T: Time-bound

One example of a S.M.A.R.T. goal is: “Increase Facebook Fans by 500 before June 1st”.

Time Management

The absolute – without reservation – most common aversion to social media from business owners is the fear of losing your life to a never-ending cycle of status updates, retweets, pings, pins, and pokes.

I understand that coffeehouse owners did not get into the coffee industry because they are passionate about marketing online. They opened their café because they are passionate about people.

Managing a social media empire can be done through disciplining yourself to spend only 20-30 minutes per day. After you setup your social media accounts and understand your targeted audience, your daily routine should look like this:

Google Alerts (3-5 minutes) (More about Google Alerts):

• Catch up on news from the industry, competitors, and related-blogs

Blogs (8-12 minutes) (More about blogs):

• Use an RSS Reader to catch up on industry trends and similar topics (I recommend having a “Premium Reading List” of content that is always top-notch and relevant. You can read everything else as you have time. This is the list of ‘can’t miss material’ from authors and thought-leaders you respect)

Facebook (3-6 minutes):

• Monitor/Review Wall Posts, Private Messages, and Comments
• Respond to your followers’ questions, comments, concerns, and compliments
• Schedule a mix of original content (Thoughts, quotes, pictures, upcoming events, promotions)
• Use a tool like HootSuite or HubSpot to schedule posts in advance

Twitter (4-8 minutes):

• Monitor/Review Tweets/Retweets, and Private Messages
• Re-follow new followers
• Monitor conversations about your industry, competitors, or your brand (search.twitter.com)
• Follow influential users in those existing conversations
• Schedule a mix of original content (Thoughts, quotes, pictures, upcoming events, promotions)
• Retweet content from followers and industry leaders
• Use a tool like Buffer, Minideck, HootSuite, or HubSpot to schedule posts in advance

What About The Metrics

“Metrics” is a fancy word for measurement. Terms also include “analytics”, “tracking”, “ROI (return on investment), or “measurables”

Like I said before, understanding your WHY is more important than the HOW of social media. Each company has a different goal, it is impossible to say, “an increase of 500 fans on Facebook is what you need for ultimate industry domination.”

While 500 Facebook fans may be awesome, it does little without the lens of context and moving you towards your end goal. By in large, the best metrics to measure comes down to one thing: sales.

Did your action on [Insert Favorite Social Media Platform] result in an increase in sales. You can be more specific (and should be), for example:

Did our week-long Pinterest and Instagram campaign showing our delicious bakery items result in an increase of bakery item sales?

Or

Did our Facebook contest to name our whole bean roasts result in a measurable increase in whole bean sales?

Or

Did our cross-promotion partnership (a discount for showing your receipt) with the business next-door lead to more lunch-time food sales?

Tools like HubSpot and HootSuite can help you track these types of campaigns.

BONUS: Don’t Forget Local

All too often, brick and mortar businesses forget about the power of the local search. When a prospective client is driving around, chances are high that they will rely on their mobile phone for recommendations and directions to the best local coffee shop. Make sure your business information is up-to-date with Google Business Tools and Yelp (which powers data to the iPhone’s Siri).

Next Steps

If you would like help in monitoring your daily social media, setting up your Local Search, or creating a social media strategy that meets your goals, I would love to talk to you. I offer a free 30-minute consultation with passionate business owners who want the best for their business. Email me today at office (at) nevermindmarketing (dot) com

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Urgent, please read asap

That’s what gets done, of course. The urgent.

Not the article you haven’t gotten around to writing, the trip to the gym that will pay off in the long run, the planning for your upcoming birthday party, dinner with your parents (who would love to see you), ten minutes to sit quietly, saying thank you to a friend for no real reason… no, we do the urgent first.

The problem, of course, is that the queue of urgent never ends, it merely changes its volume as it gets longer.

Yes, we’ve heard it said that it’s the important, not the urgent, that deserves attention. But it understates just how much we’ve been manipulated by those that would make their important into our urgent.

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I’m not saying they’re great – just that they got a reaction out of me!

Seth Godin announced that Amazon will be giving away the next version of their popular ereader. Beyond that, they will be paying people to read books on them.

The neighborhood DVD rental box will now dispense snacks like bologna, turkey and liverwurst. Select Redbox locations also carry bagels and cheese slices for an unforgettable build-your-own sandwich experience.

Spray-On Sports Car transforms broken-down beasts into brilliant beauties. Simply spray, walk away, and when you return one minute later… Presto!

Sir Richard Branson announced that his airline empire will launch the world’s first glass-bottomed plane.

SEO Moz “answers the call” after the demise of Google Reader. If you want to share something interesting, they will even call your friend on the phone to tell them about it.

I’ve seen all these before my first cup of coffee – I’ll keep adding as I find more throughout the day.

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Social Media Rule #13: Everyone says they don’t want to be marketed to, really, they don’t want to be talked down to.

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