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4 Tips To Craft the Most Intriguing Email Subject Lines

randy@honeycomb.buzz (Randy Wilson) — Mon, 04 Apr 2016 18:34:21 GMT

The subject line of an email is almost more important to craft than the email itself. It's fact - 33% of email recipients open emails based on the subject line alone. The subject line is what tells the recipient that the email is worth opening or not. You will want to craft a few subject lines and test them out to see which ones gives you the best open rate.

Either way, there are many ways to produce effective email subject lines and none of them have to involve misleading your reader. We want to give you four tips in crafting the best email subject lines.

1. Use Curiosity

Curiosity is an instinctual response - it creates an emotion within us that wants us to learn and investigate more. This is why subject lines that are constructed in the form of a question to our reader, giving them the chance to make a choice, will yield a higher click-through rate. Subject lines that create a sense of urgency and exclusivity can give a 22% higher open rate.

An email subject line has to demonstrate value and include an element of urgency in order to spark the need to take action now. Couple this together with the emotion of curiosity and pose it in the form of a question and watch how far it will take your email in terms of getting a click-through response.

2. Make it Personal

Personalization gets results, so it’s no wonder emails that have the reader’s name in the subject line get opened. Personalized subject lines are 22.2% more likely to be opened.

A savvy email marketer knows his/her audience. By putting in the time to research your readers, you’re able to get far more quality opens and clicks because you’re writing things they want to read. So when writing a subject line, ask yourself, “does this work for my audience?”

3. Attitude

Setting the tone in a subject line under 50 characters can be tough. The way in which you speak to your audience can drastically alter your open-rate. You can use different approaches such as humor or controversial headlines and either can work wonders but they both need to be used with the right people. You must know your readers. One in three people open their emails based on the subject line alone, so you can make or break your content before the reader even gets to see your message simply with the attitude you approach the subject line with.

4. Length

You will need to make sure you are able to quickly capture your audience’s interest. You have limited space to use and with so many people now opening emails on their smartphone, those subject lines should be no more than 35 characters at most. 40% of emails are opened on mobile devices first – where the average mobile screen can only fit 4-7 words max.

This is an important factor to a winning email subject line. According to a study conducted by Return Path, they found that open rates were 12.5% higher where subject lines contained less than 49 characters, compared to those that were 50 characters or more, while click-through rates were 75% higher for the shorter subject lines.

So keep the length down, and you might just see your click engagement go up.

The Do's & Don'ts of Pinterest for Your Business

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Mon, 28 Mar 2016 17:44:55 GMT

If you've recently decided to use Pinterest to market your business - awesome! You'll be joining the 100+ million pinners out there in the social media universe. And almost half of these Pinterest accounts are from outside the U.S.; good to know if you're trying to market internationally.

But how do you get your pins to stand out from the rest? What can you do with your boards to ensure that your brand is recognized and brings you qualified leads and customers? Well you'll be pleased to know that using Pinterest for business marketing isn't complicated at all! Just pay attention to our list of do's and don'ts and watch your numbers grow.

DO have a strategy

Just like the rest of your social media marketing campaign, you'll want to have a strategy for Pinterest. This is where you get to share your brand voice visually, so think about how you want to portray your business with images to the rest of the world. And speaking of images, make sure that you have high-quality photos on your Pinterest boards that look great on a mobile device, too. Over 75% of Pinterest usage takes place on a mobile device, and the Pinterest audience is super visual, so make sure and draw them in with top-notch pins!

DON'T pin too much

While we as marketers always want to shout the benefits of our services and products from the rooftops, we don't want to inundate our audience. Keep to pinning about 5-8 images a day. More than that, and you risk having people unfollow you. If you've got loads of pins that you want to share, save some in a secret board and then make them public at a later time.

DO consider your target audience

This sounds obvious, but you really want to pin from the perspective of your buyer personas. Beyond just having a board about your company, have a few boards about your buyer personas' pain points and post what they have a hard time finding. This will add value to their search and make them more likely to pin your content, and keep coming back for more!

DO use CTAs

Pinterest allows marketers to use direct CTAs in the description of a promoted pin, so take advantage of this great tool! Use action words like “sign up today” or “download the free guide” but stay away from being too salesy. The Pinterest audience is generally on the site for appealing imagery and creative ideas, not to see tons of ads. And just make sure you don't use CTAs in the image, as Pinterest doesn't allow it. Keep it to a brief, easy to read link in the image description.

DON'T confuse your audience

Have a clear, visually stunning profile so that your audience knows it's you. You might even consider getting your profile verified by Pinterest so that pinners know it's you. And when it comes to naming your boards, don't get too creative. Come up with literal names for your boards so your pinners can easily find what they're looking for: "Healthy Recipes" is better than "Yummy for My Tummy"!

DO link your pins

Make it easy for your audience to link to your site - they may want to buy from you instantly! Did you know that 93 percent of Pinners (male and female) shopped online in the past six months? And a study from Shopify showed that people referred by Pinterest are 10 percent more likely to make purchases on e-commerce sites than users of other social networks, and they tend to spend twice as much as those referred by Facebook. Wow! Always link your pins back to the original source page to boost traffic back to your website or blog and double check that those links work.

DO add "Pin It" buttons

And put them everywhere! On your blog, on your website, in your newsletter. Make it easy for your followers, readers, and fans on your other social media account to pin your content to their boards. Doing so helps your pins gain visibility and increases their chances of getting repinned by your followers' followers. Pretty cool, huh?

DON'T forget about keywords

In this world of social media, keywords can help your brand get noticed, and noticed by the right audience. Take the time to optimize your Pinterest account with relevant keywords. Boards, pins and profile descriptions are all great places to add your company’s keywords to help your Pinterest account pop up in search results.

DO get active!

Join community boards, repin, and engage in the visual conversation that makes Pinterest a unique social platform. Community boards are a great way to stay in front of pinners who share an interest or are in the same industry. And repin other users' content. Repinning not only increases the chance that another user will repin your content, it keeps your board from looking overly self-promotional in front of your followers. Just make sure you are engaging with other content and boards that resonate with your brand and stay in line with the image you want to project to the Pinterest universe.

So take a look at Pinterest for your business and make sure you're doing the best job to get your pins in front of your target audience!

What You Need to Know about Using Google Plus for Business

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Wed, 16 Mar 2016 19:30:40 GMT

Google Plus was established in the beginning of 2013 as the second largest social network in the world, having over 500 million users. However, it seems that this social network and its benefits are often overshadowed by social media giants like Facebook and Twitter. But using Google Plus for business can be a great tool to add to your marketing campaign since it is used by many influential bloggers, technology enthusiasts, and early adopters all over the world. What this means for you is that it can be a good place to share content you believe others will want to pass on to their communities! Take a look at a few Google+ numbers:

Google+ reaches over 40% of the U.S. digital population
Over 65% of B2B marketers use Google+ to distribute content
Google+ is used equally by the Millennial, Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z demographics
This social network has a 33% growth rate each year

Knowing that you can reach a wide range of folks with your Google+ could be reason enough to start a page. Let's consider some other reasons why you might want to create a Google Plus for business account and start sharing your content globally!

1. Focused relationships

We've all seen a friend's Facebook post that has us debating whether or not we should "unfollow" them since the info they're sharing seems irrelevant to us, right? Well, the beauty of Google+ is that you are able to find information that’s relevant to you and to share it with people who have the same interests as you, not every single person on your friends list. This social network helps you widen and build a new network of contacts based on industry, interests, and information that you want to see. And the same goes for your contacts. Google+ enables you to bring your brand closer to your followers, potential leads, and current customers in a unique way that is different from the other social networks out there.

And your brand can participate in different communities which you can actively seek out and join. Be proactive instead of waiting for an invitation from another contact or colleague. This is the great thing about Google+; your brand can go around the world connecting with people based on similar interests!

2. Google backing

And let’s not forget, if you’re part of Google+, you’re part of Google! What does this mean for your business? Well since everything you post on G+ is immediately indexed by Google, this influences search engine results positively. According to a study by Optify, websites that appear on the first page of Google, and especially in the first few positions, get 54.8% of all clicks from users. This promotion by the biggest technology platform on the planet is huge for your content.

Additionally, content you share with the members of your community or circles will probably be viewed, shared, and then re-shared by them later. This naturally creates trends and gives relevance to your content. All of these things significantly influence your site’s ranking position on Google’s search engine, which is always a good thing!

3. Party of +1

The +1 feature on Google Plus helps you discover and share relevant content, whether it's a website, a result on a Google search, or an ad that you've come across in your network. This is pretty powerful because the +1 button allows people to establish what’s trendy, beyond those robotic algorithms that rank a website. According to a study by Hubspot, after analyzing more than 5,000 websites it was revealed that the sites that use the “+1” button get 3.5 x more visits on Google+. Wow! Adding the +1 button to your site allows visitors to share your brand worldwide, recommend your content in Google Searches, and share it within their circles. All of this activity directs traffic to your website - and we like that!

4. Let's hangout

One of the most valuable tools on Google Plus is Hangouts on Air (HOA). This free video conference function offers an excellent opportunity to get closer to your users by means of live demonstrations, debates, and online conferences. To connect with your audience in different ways, try these ideas: displaying how your new application works, hosting a Q&A with someone from your company, conducting an interview with a social media influencer, or performing a live demonstration of a product. And these can be “broadcasted” and watched live or later, and then distributed out on your other social media sites like Youtube. Definitely take full advantage of HOA to reach your customers, leads, sponsors, partners, vendors, and social media contacts at no cost!

Adding Google Plus to your online marketing campaign is easy; the search giant has plenty of tutorials to get you up and running in no time. Once you're done, start sharing your content and watch your online presence grow!

Instagram for Business: Our Quick Guide

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 16:00:00 GMT

Contrary to what you may know about Instragram; it's not just for fashion bloggers and food pics. This photo-sharing app has millions of businesses using it to promote their products and brand voice every second of every day. There's companies focusing on everything from in-home entertainment to education, and travel brands to sports beverages. Still wondering if it's really that popular? Here's some usage data for Instagram:

400 million active monthly users
Users share an average of 80 million photos per day
Over 75% of users are outside of the U.S.

So if you're trying to grow your business globally, sharing great pics on this photocentric social media platform is a definite next step for your marketers. It's easy to sign up for an account and even though business and personal accounts function the same, Instagram is primarily a mobile app, so you'll need to sign up for an account through your smartphone. Now check out our quick guide to start sharing great photos and grow your customer base today!

1. Get the balance right

Instagram is all about the pictures, so you'll want to share what makes your brand unique and speak to your users through great images. Create and cultivate a dynamic brand voice with a balance of fun shots of products, some behind the scenes business images, and staff profiles and milestones, too. Giving your followers a sense of what happens at your company is a great way to build trust with your audience. Your distinct visual sense should try to capture the attention of your core target customer, so always keep that at the forefront of your posting activities.

You know that phrase, "a picture is worth a thousand words"? Well it's definitely true on Instagram - followers love pictures! Although those 15 second videos are gaining popularity on Instagram, photos and still shots generate 36 percent more likes than videos(Instagram). So definitely get a good photographer and entrust your Instagram presence to a social media marketer in the organization who understands how to align images with the interests of your target customer.

2. Follow for follow

You'll definitely want to cultivate a large following on Instagram, since "more followers = more exposure", and that's always a good thing. But to really get the most out of Instagram, you will want to engage by following others and liking their photos, too. To create strategic relationships on Instagram, find the brands, influencers, and people that resonate with your brand and follow them. It's that easy! And mention these other users in your posts, too. Did you know that simply mentioning another user in the caption of your Instagram posts can result in 56 percent more engagement? This stat illustrates a huge opportunity for brands, so get to it and start creating those posts.

And speaking of posts, connect your Facebook account with your Instagram profile since their partnership offers brands a unique opportunity for promotion. Sharing your Instagram posts on Facebook, enables brands to reach Facebook’s 818 million monthly active mobile users, which dwarfs Instagram’s 130 million. You're easily profiting by distributing your brand voice on the world’s largest social network.

3.There's an app for that!

Of course there is. Using apps to make Instagram a significant part of your social media marketing strategy is definitely something that your business should consider. There are apps that let users print images, search tags and keywords, subscribe to Instagram profiles via email, download everything into a single archive folder, plus many more. A few of our favorites are highlighted here.

Gramfeed allows you to browse Instagram on a web browser with links to user’s profiles and you can quickly follow, comment, and like other account images. If you're running a print ad campaign, trying integrating some of your Instagram feed with the Prinstagram app. You can make mini albums, posters, and stickers to distribute at a trade show or other event where you'll be targeting current and potential customers. Or how about using the simple Instarchive to help you download all of your Instagram photos in a single archive folder? Whatever you want to do with your Instagram for business account, there's probably an app out there that does it!

4. It's not a pound sign

It's a hashtag! At least in Instagram lingo, and you'll definitely want to use them since this is what drives this photo-sharing app. Use relevant, popular hashtags that your buyer personas and target audience will be searching for, and even using themselves. If you’re at an event or location that’s designated by a hashtag, add it to your photos so that event coordinators, sponsors, and other attendees can find your photos in the feed. You might even want to create your own company specific hashtag that you include on every post. Make it something catchy and encourage followers to use it in their images of your product, too.

And don't forget about that cross-promotion with Facebook that we mentioned earlier. Share selected Instagram images to your Facebook page with a hashtag that aligns with your marketing campaign or brand image to help people who don’t know you’re on Instagram to find you there. It's an easy way to get more Instagram followers from the folks on Facebook who wouldn't otherwise know about your brand!

5. Schedule & Track

Take a look at your photo arsenal and decide what you have ready to post. Do you have great, high-quality images that speak to your buyer personas? Do you have a list of trending hashtags? Well then get going and create a posting schedule. Just don't go post crazy and flood your followers' feeds. Space out your posts so that you stay in front of your audience, but that you don't inundate them with too many filtered angles of your new product!

Once you're on a schedule, you'll want to use image analytics tools such as BlitzMetrics and Curalate that will provide detailed insights as to how your Instagram account is actually performing. Tracking an Instagram post’s likes and comments so that you can see how that popularity translates into added followers is great, but these tools also allow you to capitalize on that popularity. If you find that an image is resonating on Instagram, push it out as a Facebook ad and watch your numbers soar.

This quick guide to Instagram for business should get you up and running with this extremely popular social sharing app. Get started and work it into your marketing campaign today!

Considering Pinterest for Your Business? Here's Our Top Tips

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Mon, 14 Mar 2016 16:00:00 GMT

Now in its sixth year, the popular visual bookmarking tool known as Pinterest is catching on as a useful and efficient way for companies to gain new customers. Known as a discovery, sharing, and storage tool for both consumers and brands, Pinterest is one of the top social platforms, and is one of the top search engines, after Google and YouTube. Here's some quick stats on Pinterest and its users:

66% increase in annual visits, year after year, which is more than any other social network.(Ahalogy)
Almost half of U.S. online shoppers bought something as a result of a Pinterest recommendation.(Pinterest)
Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social platforms among millennials.(Business Insider)

To capitalize on these numbers, you'll want to consider Pinterest for your business, too! Let's dive in to some of the things to know about Pinterest before creating a business account.

The nuts & bolts

If you're not already using Pinterest, no fear - it's really simple! This visually inspired social media platform allows you to share and save, or "pin" content to virtual collections called pinboards, also known as "boards". You'll definitely want to sign up for a business acount since doing so allows you to access special features like viewing analytics and purchasing ads. Take time to name your boards and organize them in whatever way makes sense for your business. You can name them according to seasonal campaigns, product types, or however you want to categorize them so that your audience, or "pinners", can easily navigate through the boards.

Once you've got some basic boards up, get to pinning! You can pin your own content, which is highly recommended for a business account, or pin info from other sites. As long as there's a captivating image that resonates with your brand and isn't a competitor - go for it! Re-pinning is also an easy way to be more active on Pinterest when you're getting started and don't have enough of your own content to share. Plus it can get other Pinterest users to notice your brand pretty quickly!

One stop shopping

This past year, Pinterest launched Buyable Pins, which lets people buy products right from the Pinterest app. This feature makes it easy for people to take action right while they’re browsing Pinterest to discover new inspiration and buy what they see. So far, Pinterest business accounts with Buyable Pins are having great success with this e-commerce feature. Using Pinterest in this way allows your business another customer acquisition channel - and that's always a good thing!

Speaking of shopping, a recent Shopify study showed that people referred to the site by Pinterest are 10 percent more likely to make purchase on e-commerce sites than users of other social networks, and they tend to spend twice as much as those referred by Facebook. Wow! So whether you incorporate simple product pins or use the newer Buyable pins feature, double check your Pins' links - there's nothing worse than when a buyer clicks on a broken link or unrelated page on your site and can't find the product they're looking to purchase.

Picture perfect

Clear, helpful descriptions and beautiful images are what drives clicks on a visual platform like Pinterest. Great photos and infographics are what inspire pins, drive traffic, and ultimately create customers. And if it’s not mobile-friendly, it’s time for a revamp. Pinterest user data states that almost 75% of Pinterest usage takes place on mobile devices.

And speaking of pictures, a Curalate study showed that images without faces receive 23% more repins. Interesting, right? The good news is that you won't have to hire a supermodel as part of your marketing campaign, but you will still need to have high quality images. Some features that Pinterest's top shared images have in common: less than 10 percent background, multiple dominant colors, and an aspect ratio between 2:3 and 4:5.

Mommy dearest

Are moms part of your target demographic? If so, then launching Pinterest for your business should be top priority! More than half of all moms are on Pinterest, and "Mom Pinners" are 30% more likely than non-moms to buy products they discover on Pinterest, according to Ahalogy. Wow! And moms on Pinterest share 3 times more than the rest of the users on Pinterest. So take a look at your buyer personas and consider curating a Pinterest page for moms if it makes sense as part of your marketing strategy.

But don't forget dad!

Although Pinterest established its user base with a strong female demographic, in 2014, the number of men using Pinterest doubled. In fact, according to the company, more men use the platform in the U.S. every month than read Sports Illustrated and GQ combined. Categories like Food & Drink, Technology, Cars & Motorcycles, Humor, Men’s Fashion, and of course Sports are all popular categories with the men. Considering marketing internationally? Well you should know that there’s even a 50-50 split between male and female Pinners in emerging markets like India, Korea, and Japan.

Spread the word

In the same way that you can use Facebook ads to reach a larger audience on Facebook, Pinterest uses what they call "Promoted Pins" for people to discover your business. You can buy Promoted Pins for all of your marketing goals including awareness, engagement, and traffic and change them as your campaign evolves. Businesses that used Promoted Pins were repinned an average of 11 times per advertisement, which translates to about a 30 percent bump in earned media from their campaigns. And these promoted pins perform long after the campaign ends. Pretty cool, right?

So now that you're more familiar with Pinterest and its use for business, decide with your social media team if this is a viable platform for any part of your target audience. Once you've done that, using Pinterest for business marketing is super easy on this popular social platform. Happy Pinning!

5 Ways To Exceed Customer Expectations

CJ@Honeycomb.buzz (C.J. Bergmen) — Fri, 11 Mar 2016 17:15:03 GMT

You did it! You got the sale. You have a new customer. You probably feel a great sense of accomplishment, and you should! All that work you have done to demonstrate your ability to deliver that which your new customer needs has paid off. Go grab a drink. Celebrate. But tomorrow, we have to get back to work. Our customer has expectations based on what we have promised. And I hope you are not just planning to meet, but also exceed customer expectations. Let me give you 5 ways to exceed customer expectations that I think every company should consider.

Anticipate

Right after I graduated from college, I worked as a server for a couple of years in a restaurant. Most of the money I made was based on receiving great tips. Over the course of my time in that job I learned one very valuable lesson on how to be sure I received a good tip: anticipating the need. A great server is one step ahead of their table. I paid very close attention to one particular need - drinks! The best moment in my dining experience is when a refill of my beverage gets dropped off either right before or just as I am taking that last sip. I remember one time I had a table where a guy must have drank 50 glasses of iced tea while he was there. I was quick on the draw. The guy never took that last sip without me swooping in to refill that iced tea. It paid off very nicely. This is how we have to roll with our customers and clients. We cannot be reactive. We must be proactive, anticipating their needs before they are voiced, and even before they are felt. Our customers should regularly think, "Man, I didn't even think about that, but it is really helpful that you did."

Go Above and Beyond

You are probably thinking, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know this". It seems like a no-brainer, right? We all know in order to exceed customer expectations we need to figure out how to deliver not just what we promised, but even more. Let's take a new approach to this age old concept. I encourage you not just to think about generally going above and beyond, but specifically how you're going to do it each time. You and your team need to determine what, for this customer in particular, would be a statement that says "We are aware of your specific needs and desires and are committed to taking our service a step further." What is it that will feel like a big gesture to your client or customer that is a very small thing to you. Be specific, and have a plan to do this for each customer.

Apologize

Guess what? Newsflash. You are human. Which means, you are going to make mistakes. You will mess up, let your customer down, fail in some way, miss the mark. Plan on it. It is impossible to be perfect all the time. So, that means you are going to have to say you are sorry at some point. It seems so simple, but in my experience with human beings, sometimes the hardest thing for us to do is utter those 3 words, "I am sorry." We need to do it. And when we do it, we need to leave out the excuses, the stretching of the truth, and the blame shifting. Your customer probably expects you to try and wiggle out of your mistakes a little bit. We all do it. So this is actually an area where you can exceed customer expectations by fully owning up to your mistakes and then expressing a plan and true desire to make it right in the future. I know it sounds scary, but you can do it. Just try it. Say you are sorry. Your customer will respect and trust you more for it.

Sacrifice

It is costing your customer to work with you. They are paying money, but they are also having to give in some decision making, entrust their brand to someone else, and let go of some control. Their sacrifice goes beyond just paying their invoice. It is good and valuable that you demonstrate that you are making some sacrifices as well. It shows you have some skin in the game. It shows you are laying something on the line too. This will build trust. And, it will exceed their expectations. Your customer is not expecting you to make clear and demonstrated sacrifices beyond what is required. This goes along with going above and beyond, but is slightly different. We want to have a plan to communicate to our customers along the way that we are actually giving something up or losing something in order to best serve them. This kind of service goes a long way with our customers and helps make the complete customer journey a positive experience.

Take Ownership

This is something more directed at B2B companies. We work with other businesses on their marketing, so this is the world we live in every day. I have the privilege of working very closely with a few of our customers, spending regular time each week connecting with them as we manage their marketing funnels. One of my greatest goals is that they would feel like I am one of their employees, sitting in a desk in their office, part of the team, on the inside. I do not want any of my customers to feel like I am a remote, disconnected, corporate account manager. I want them to feel like I am taking ownership in their brand. If they teach underwater basket weaving, then I am into that. I care about it. I learn about it. I think and act as though I too own and operate a world class underwater basket weaving company and I want all the world to dive down and weave baskets as part of their own journey to self discovery. I have to decide to care about my customer's brand as though it is my own. This is a level of engagement that will exceed customer expectations like nothing else. I encourage you to put on a wetsuit, get some basketry reed and weaving cane, and dive in to the deep end!

The Do's & Don'ts of Facebook for Business

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Wed, 09 Mar 2016 20:18:52 GMT

Getting started with social media as a small business owner can be daunting; the constant evolution of social networks can make it quite challenging to stay on top of best practices. These are common questions that business owners and marketing managers think about when trying to figure out how to use these popular channels:

When should you use Twitter?
How can I maximize Facebook ads?
Is a Youtube channel right for my business?

And learning the etiquette behind each channel it isn’t much easier. When using Facebook for business, you'll want to pay attention to the rules, written and unwritten, to maximize your posts and bring in new customers with every like!

DO Complete your page profile

Facebook accounts that are only partially completed are hard to take seriously because they automatically appear less professional. First impressions mean a lot in this world of short attention spans and quick click aways. Keep your potential followers engaged by choosing a name and image that easily identifies you and your business. Take the extra few minutes to fill out the “About You” information and keep it consistent with your brand; don't just have a link to your website. Use your logo or a brand-consistent photos for the cover and profile photos.

DON'T Create a "profile"

And speaking of profiles, Facebook differentiates between a "page" and a "profile", so if you're using Facebook for business, you will definintely want to set up a page to comply with the rules. Pages are used for businesses and have some benefits that personal profiles do not; for example, you can have an unlimited amount of followers, promote posts, run ads, and integrate apps that you wouldn't be able to do with a personal profile.

DO add a recommendations page

When you get a good review, you'll want to share it with the world! Integrate a recommendations app like Yotpo so that your followers can read the good reviews in their feed. Or simply add the "Product Reviews" tab to your page so that when potential customers are clicking around your Facebook page, they can read other customer reviews and learn more about the great job your company is doing!

DON'T Always be selling

It's tempting to always want to be selling your product and services, but this isn't a good idea for a few reasons. One, Facebook made an update to deprioritize promotional posts from pages. So what this means for your business is that if you are only talking about your product or company on Facebook, your fans are less likely to see it. Instead, gain some trust by posting original content in your News Feed before you try to send out more promotional posts. And when it comes time to sell, you can always use Facebook ads for those messages! Turning your CTAs into Facebook ads is a great way to go instead of clogging your News Feed.

DO Share diverse types of content

Mix it up and share your blog posts, videos from your latest campaign, and pictures that accurately reflect your brand. Facebook's recent investment in video technology like QuickFire and LiveRail, as well as the Facebook algorithms all point to continual growth for the popularity of videos. Adding some high quality content that your company has created can not only strengthen your brand voice, but your followers are more 62% more likely to share videos than photos (Quintly). So dust off that video equipment and get recording!

DON'T Ignore negative comments

Having a Facebook for business account means you're going to have to be a little more active and engaged than you would on a personal page. Followers can leave negative comments or you might even have competitors that post information about their own products. Instead of just ignoring them, schedule regular times throughout the day to monitor your feed and see what's being said on your page. If it's a customer service issue, handle it immediately so that other followers can see that you care about your audience. If it's truly negative or spam, delete the comment, or even ban that user from making comments like that in the future.

DO Add apps

You've spent so much time building a great page, so give your customers a chance to buy your products instantly through a shopping cart app or a direct link to your products page. Make it easy for followers so that they don't have to click through to multiple screens, links, and tabs. Research the apps that might be helpful for your potential customers and integrate them into your page.

DON'T Overpost

And finally, don't go on a sharing frenzy. While it's tempting to use this popular social media channel to spread the word about how great your company is, schedule your posts at strategic times and at an optimal number for your business. Small businesses benefit the most from sharing 4-5 times per day on Facebook, while larger brands benefit from just 1-2 postings per day (SocialBakers). And make a point to share in those popular afternoon hours, too!

With these handy do's and don'ts for your Facebook for business page, you can ensure that you'll start seeing your likes and followers increase, hopefully leading to more customers for you!

The Do's & Don'ts of Twitter for Business

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Tue, 08 Mar 2016 21:04:27 GMT

If you want your business to be well-represented on social media (and who doesn't these days?), make it a point of getting a Twitter account set up soon. You'll be able to keep on top of business trends, industry news, and share your own business ideas with the world. Here's some compelling stats:

Over 75% of Twitter users follow small businesses to get product updates (Twitter.com)
Half of Twitter users are more likely to visit a company's webpage if they follow them on Twitter (Twitter.com)
85% of followers feel more connected with a small business after following them (Twitter.com)
67% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from the brands they follow on Twitter (MediaBistro)

So why don't you become one of those businesses and start upping your Twitter presence today! Using Twitter for business will bring you more leads and qualified contacts when you use it properly. Let's take a look at some do's and don'ts.

DO have a profile image.

When you sign up for Twitter, make sure you change the default profile image. Don’t leave it there and confuse potential customers. Instead, use your company logo as your profile picture. It makes the account easy to recognize and creates brand awareness. Twitter recommends a profile image that’s 400 x 400 pixels, so get one that fits and is easy to see.

DON'T USE CAPITALS

Unless you want everyone to thing you're shouting all of the time. Use caps for emphasis, but don't overdo it.

DO be consistent

Your image, header, pictures, and all background designs should reflect your brand image. Be consistent with your marketing on Twitter so that customers know what to expect from your company and brand.

DO retweet content

The great thing about Twitter is that you can engage with other accounts and see what people are saying and share this content with your own followers. If you're following quality accounts, feel free to share interesting stories and links that are complementary to your brand and audience. Again, stay consistent and retweet content that is relevant with your audience.

DON'T only retweet

As good as it is to retweet and engage, you want to also share your own content. If you're using Twitter for business, you'll want to share your own business blog posts, links to webinars, offers for e-books, or whatever quality content you have in your arsenal. If you're only retweeting other people's content, you're not establishing your brand and company as a trusted source. And when people retweet your content, give them a shout out and say thanks if you can!

DO monitor keywords and trends

Use hashtags and lists to keep track of what's trending in your industry. Then use those to promote your own content. Doing this ensures that you're in the conversations that matter, and the ones that your buyer personas are paying attention to!

DON'T forget to edit

The worst thing you can do is send out tweets with typos or glaring grammar mistakes. With only 140 characters to use, you've got to be careful with your message because mistakes are easy to spot in short tweets. Have your social media team follow some guidelines on what is appropriate and make sure someone on the team is responsible for last minute edits.

DO monitor your account

Customers are now using company's twitter handles to get their attention and will turn to Twitter when they are frustrated and can't get a hold of a customer service rep by phone. Make sure you monitor your feed so you can respond to their inquiries and put out those fires in a timely manner. Don't ignore these negative messages; instead use it as an opportunity to show how your company provides great customer service and cares about the customer journey!

So now that you've got a few guidelines to follow, get out that smartphone and start sharing your business with the world!

How to Write a Cold Calling Script for Software Sales

cory@honeycomb.buzz (Cory Teese) — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 17:00:00 GMT

Writing a cold calling script for software sales is the most agonizing and painful part of your sales job - but it doesn’t have to be. What if you had a system that would ultimately help you sound more professional and confident at all times during the conversation? I want to give you some tips to writing cold calling scripts that actually work. The key is to think through the entire conversation so that you avoid sounding like a blabbering idiot. Here are a few tips to help make the most out of those calls!

1- Do your homework and reach out before you ever call.

Know who you are about to speak with and what you are going to say before you ever make the call. How you approach the cold call could be the difference between closing a deal and never hearing from this person again. We have so many tools available today to be able to connect with people before we ever make a call. Send an email, connect with them on LinkedIn, or research their social media accounts and try to give them something of value for their world. Many times you can offer an ebook or a white paper that will pique their interest, as well as be something of value to them. Then when you follow up with a call, they automatically associate you with something of value.

2- Ask good questions and connect early on.

A good salesperson doesn’t jump right into their pitch. They recognize not only is the prospect valuable, but their time is as well. Be ready to make your first priority one of giving valuable information for the growth of their business. We must stop talking at our prospects and figure out how to engage them right away into a conversation. For example you might say, "Hi, I’m Jim from Company Inc. I sent you a white paper on XYZ last week. Is now a good time to talk?” If the prospect says yes, they are giving you permission to keep going. As you continue, you should make sure and stop to ask them questions periodically to keep them involved. Questions such as, “Do you see this as a need in your business as well” or “Would you say this is true for you?”

3-Listen and respond to what they share.

Writing a good cold calling script for software sales will help you focus on actually listening to the prospect. This is important because it is only then that you will be able to build good rapport and establish a sense of trust over the phone. Once this trust is built, you will be given an opportunity to share how your product can help solve your prospect’s needs. Even with a good script, it is important that you are prepared to pivot so that you are speaking to the needs of your prospect and not just speaking at your prospect.

4- Have a list of questions.

It is vitally important to answer questions that you feel the prospect will be asking, as well as those objections that will come your way. Having thought through a variety of difficult scenarios will also be key in writing your scripts. You want to be able to manage those difficult questions and be able to handle any objections that come up without stumbling all over your words.

You also want to have key questions that help to qualify the software sales prospect before hanging up as well. You will want to ask a few key questions that will help identify four specific areas:

Who is the key decision maker?
Do they have budget for the product you are offering?
What are their specific needs and pains - do they need your product?
What is their timeframe for making a decision to use your product?

5- Set a time to reconnect.

Before you ever get off the phone, make sure you ask for permission to follow up with them. When they say yes, make sure and nail down a specific time that you will reconnect for the next conversation. Offer to send over some helpful information in the meantime, and keep it focused on the topics you guys have just discussed.

Cold calling for software companies doesn’t have to be painful. Being prepared and ready to anticipate the pivots will result in positive steps towards a sale. Great cold calls scripts take planning, a good listening ear, the willingness to help a prospect and pivot with them, as well as closing with the future conversation in mind. Good luck!

How To Get a 5-Star Rating Every Time!

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 18:00:00 GMT

In a world of likes, stars, and double-taps, there's no shortage of ways for people to share a customer service rating with the world. For better or for worse!

So what are some of the things that you can do to ensure that every customer walks away wanting to give you a great customer service rating? Excellent service, a superior product, and a personalized experience are just some of the ways that your company can guarantee 5-star ratings for every customer!

The cost of bad service

It may not seem like it, but the cost of bad service is pricey. These stats paint a stark picture:

78% of consumers have abandoned a cart, walked away from a transaction, or not made an intended purchase because of a poor customer service experience.
News of bad customer service reaches more than 2x as many people as praise for a good service experience.
91% of unhappy customers will not do business with you again.

Yikes - not a pretty picture! Think of all of the effort that you made in getting someone to your website, only to have them abandon their cart because they didn't feel valued. The time and money spent on advertising, value-based selling, and lead nurturing only to lose them at the point of purchase. Kind of a waste, right?

And then how about that bad news spreading like wildfire across social media? With consumers now having instant access to online feedback that everyone can see, it's even more important to provide your customers with a stellar experience. This is critical because these negative comments and reviews could end up on your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts in seconds!

Listen up

If you're in the business of dealing with other people, and most of us are, then customer service is not something you can ignore if you want to have a successful and thriving enterprise. So start by listening to your customers, blog readers, prospects, and anyone who you do business with and get their feedback on how you're doing as a company. When customers share their story, they’re not just sharing pain points. They’re actually teaching you how to make your product, service, and business better. So pay attention to what you're hearing from their valuable insights and feedback.

Did you know that according to consumers, customer service agents failed to answer their questions 50% of the time? So what's missing in half of those interactions? Most likely it's a human connection and superb listening skills. While automation can be efficient, the resulting impersonal experience and risk of poor information increase the chances for a dissatisfied customer. But most importantly, businesses are missing a valuable opportunity to connect with current and prospective customers. Although your customer service organization should be designed to efficiently communicate those issues with the other departments like sales and marketing, ensuring a 5-star rating from every customer means that every customer touchpoint has to be consistent, and positive.

Fix it!

Great - so now you have a good handle on your customer's complaint. But how do you ensure that they don't walk out the door and tweet about the "horrible experience" that they had at your company? Resolve it right there on the spot! Studies show that companies who do this have a much higher chance of repeat business since customers state that they'll do business with you again 70% of the time when their issues are resolved immediately. A popular car rental company is known for doing this right as a customer is turning in their keys by asking, "How was our customer service? Would you give us a 10 out of 10?" This is effective because the rental agent knows right away if there are any issues, giving them the power to rectify and address it before the customer walks out of the office. Pretty smart!

Fixing the issue is also important because you want to show potential customers that you care. With customers having access to just about any piece of information about your company, almost 60% of Americans perform online research about the products and services that they are considering purchasing. While it's inevitable to have the occasional dissatisfied customer, you'll want to have some success stories from customers talking about how you helped them with a problem and that they walked away happy. Potential customers will appreciate your efforts and sense that you care about the satisfaction of your customers, making them more likely to do business with you.

Getting a great customer service rating every time isn't difficult, but you do have to listen to your customers throughout the entire process. Keeping those current customers satisfied only guarantees you future, repeat business, and of course more revenue for you!

The C-Suite Guide to Social Media

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 18:30:00 GMT

You can't underestimate the power of social media today. No matter what business you're in, it's important that you know the lingo and the basics of the social media platforms being used by billions of companies all over the globe. Right here in the U.S., Americans spend an average of 9 hours engaging with digital media. Wow! Even if you don't have your own personal accounts on these channels, use our C-suite guide to social media to brush up on the basics and make sure you have a solid understanding of how social media can impact your business. Let's go!

FACEBOOK

We'll start with one of the most popular social media sites out there, Facebook. Once just an online network for Ivy League college buddies, this social media platform has grow into a more than just a way to post vacation photos. Facebook is now being used by over 1.5 billion people, with more folks creating profiles every day, so to reach this demographic it might be worth it for your company to create a Facebook for business page.

Creating a Facebook page for your business allows you to share photos, promote blog posts about your industry, and even remind potential customers about a special promotion that you have coming up at your company. The great thing about Facebook, and why it's so popular with businesses, is that anyone who sees your page can share your content. That 50% promotion you're running? Well your fans can share it with all of their friends and then the number of people that see your promotion multiplies and can "go viral".

Starting your social media campaign with a Facebook isn't a bad idea. Did you know that Facebook drives almost 25% of all social referral traffic, the most for any social channel? This is great news if you have other social channels like Twitter and Pinterest, because your Facebook page can drive traffic there, too!

TWITTER

Since we mentioned it, let's talk a bit about Twitter. Although just as popular as Facebook, Twitter operates quite differently and has a few nuances that users should know about before posting messages and media, also known as "tweeting". Twitter is more open than Facebook since users can have virtual conversations with each other without being "friends", and there's not a lot of ways to make your account private on Twitter, which allows for anyone, anywhere to follow you.

Don't have a Twitter account already? Let these stats convince you that starting one for your business could be a good next step:

85% of followers feel more connected with a small business after following them (Twitter.com)
67% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from the brands they follow on Twitter (MediaBistro)
Over 80% of B2B marketers are using Twitter for their business (Twitter.com)

So once you set up your account (which we know you'll do after reading those stats!) is to start following thought leaders in your industry, brands you want to emulate, and maybe even a few competitors. Then start using your Twitter account as a way to promote your awesome content. How will anyone find it you ask? Well the great thing about Twitter is that marketers can take advantage of topics that are trending, also known as "hashtags", and post messages with the hashtags that are relevant to the current marketing campaign. This allows your posts, promotions, and company info to get found by people that are looking for those hashtags, who you might not otherwise reach in this giant cyber universe!

Speaking of getting found by new people, did you know that Pinterest is one of the top 3 search engines? Now in it's sixth year, this image-centric platform allows users to share images, also known as "pinning", with their followers and people who are searching for those types of images.

But it isn't just about the images. If you're managing your Pinterest account correctly, you can promote blog posts and other types of content that have an image associated with it. This is another great way for your blog content to get found by prospects who might not otherwise be looking for your company. And when they do find your company, statistics show that almost half of online shoppers make a purchase based on a Pinterest recommendation - wow! Still not impressed? Well, the users that do buy something from a Pinterest recommendation spend more than 2x as much online as the average U.S. internet user. Okay, now you're sold!

YOUTUBE

Everyone's favorite channel for watching crazy cat videos or reading lyrics along with their favorite songs, Youtube is a video platform that more and more businesses are starting to use. If you've got a good videographer on your marketing team and want to share your customer experience with the world, Youtube might be a social media channel worth adding to your online marketing strategy.

Consider your audience and buyer personas. Are you trying to reach Millennials and consumers aged 14-17? Well then get yourself some good video equipment and start planning some stellar videos because over 80% of these groups use Youtube daily. But marketing to today's youth isn't the only use for Youtube. Maximize your Youtube account and promote some of your webinars or product tutorials, which viewers can then share with their networks. As with all social media content, make sure your Youtube videos are dynamic, valuable, and well-edited. This is one of the first impressions a prospect might have with your company, so make it great!

Now that you've had a chance to review our guide to social media, hopefully you can start with a couple of channels that you feel are right for your company. And while there's plenty more out there, make sure that the ones you do start with are done right. Always remember to speak to your buyer persona and add value with whatever content you're sharing online!

How to Repurpose Content to Save Time

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 22:17:39 GMT

Wouldn't it be ideal if all of the content we spent oodles of time on could be everything to everybody? Well the social media universe is so diverse that marketers need to come up with content to reach a wide variety of people on different channels, making our jobs pretty time-consuming sometimes. But what if there was a way to repurpose content to make your job easier? Like turning that awesome Youtube tutorial into a blog post or vice-versa?

Well here's a few ideas to get you started on repurposing content to save you time, and of course money!

1. Information articles into Q&A

Did your company just publish an awesome series of informational blog posts that are really resonating with your readers? Well to capitalize on that positive response, turn these blogs into a Q&A session with someone from your team. Host a live session where prospects can hear answers to their questions, or record a podcast with this same information. You're not creating anything from scratch, just using your old content in another platform. This is also a way to catch more prospects that might not want to sit down and read a blog post, but will listen in to a podcast while they're on their morning run.

First, you'll want to use your reporting tools to find out which blog posts are really resonating with your audience. Choose a few of your best performing posts. Then decide on what format works best and highlight some FAQs that are relevant to those blog posts. You can even use readers' comments to help you gauge what questions to cover.

2. Read about it!

You know those super-popular blog posts we mentioned before? Repurpose content that fall under the same theme or speak to the same buyer persona, and turn it into an ebook. You can use your ebook as a CTA to gain more prospects after they download the info, or you can even send it to your current customers in an email newsletter. People always love getting new stuff, and if you can provide something of value that they can use that instant - perfect!

3. SEO to go, please!

Maximize your old content and give it an SEO boost. No matter what changes Google makes to algorithms and formulas, good ol' keyword research and rankings can bring you more traffic, and ultimately customers. Repurpose multiple pieces of content around the same topic so that you can generate additional opportunities to focus on a desired keyword. Also, when you promote your repurposed content outside of your site, you can receive quality links back to your site with the added bonus of controlling the anchor text in the link. Amplifying your content marketing efforts with SEO is still a great way to repurpose content and maximize those keywords in your posts.

4. Get visual

You know all of those stats, numbers, and success stories from your latest blog posts? Put your graphic designers to work and turn all of that information into a pretty infographic! Did you know that over two thirds of the population are visual learners? And visuals are processed 60,000 times faster by the brain than text? Well now you do, so get started on repurposing content from some of your old blogs into visuals that you can share on Facebook, Twitter, and whatever other social media channels your company uses.

And no matter what content you're putting out there, whether it's new or repurposed, always remember to provide value and speak the language of your buyer personas so that they keep coming back for more!

Our Tricks for Managing Customer Expectations

CJ@Honeycomb.buzz (C.J. Bergmen) — Fri, 26 Feb 2016 18:33:15 GMT

A new era has dawned in the world of managing customer expectations.

What used to live behind closed doors is now as public as Donald Trump’s hair. Consumers and businesses are more empowered than ever to tell the world what their experience has been with your brand because of the internet.

How you are managing customer expectations can either make or break your company. I would like to lay out some principles that I think are crucial in navigating this. While this list is certainly not exhaustive, the things I mention below are some of the heavy hitters in this discussion.

You only get one first impression

I probably don’t even need to elaborate here, because the section heading says it all. You cannot underestimate the importance of getting off on the right foot with your customer. Therefore, you have to go to the very beginning of your sales process to evaluate whether you are setting appropriate expectations from the get go. Is there clarity about not only what you will offer them, but when you will offer it?

How you will offer it?
How will you communicate with them?
How often?
When should they expect to hear from you?
Who is their main point of contact?

These are crucial questions to answer from the very beginning. It is likely that whatever their first experience is, that is how they will expect things to continue. It is very easy in the sales process to wine and dine your prospects. You answer emails right away, call back right away. You need to make sure you set up a healthy and consistent communication protocol that carries over with their account manager. This is where the warm hand off comes into play.

The warm handoff

The Sales Rep and the Account Manager need to be on the same page; there's only added value for everyone in keeping messaging consistent between sales and marketing. There needs to be a smooth transition from one relationship to the other. When the Sales Rep hands their new customer off, they need to bring the Account Manager up to speed on both what they have promised the customer will receive and how they have promised they will receive it. I recommend doing this with your new customer on the line so that they are aware that their Account Manager has been brought up to speed. The Account Manager needs to know what the key selling points were for this particular customer. Every customer is different. They value different things. One customer will be completely numbers driven. All they care about is the bottom line. Don’t coddle them with smooth vernacular, they don’t care! Another customer, however, built their company from the ground up. It is their baby. They want to make money, but they don’t want to lose the soul of their company to do it. When thinking about managing customer expectations, you must be mindful of the differences between each of them. Therefore, the communication between all of your team members who have interacted with them up to this point is vital.

Stay engaged

Whatever expectation is set must be maintained. Watch out for this! As you move past the front end of the relationship, you might be tempted to drill down and focus on the work, but not give as much time and attention to keeping your customer in the loop. Whatever communication you have maintained up to this point, needs to continue. You need to regularly check in with your customer to navigate any new or changed expectations. Think of your whole relationship with your customer as a continued sales cycle. There will always be new ideas to sell them on based on evolving desires and dreams they have for their company.

Translate the numbers to English

This is something I have had to learn the hard way more times than I would like to admit. Your numbers reports make complete sense to you. You look at them and they tell you how awesome a job you have done making your customer a lot of money. Don’t forget that reports are often a language you know how to read, but your customer doesn’t. And frankly, most of them don’t want to learn that language! Make sure you not only send regular reports to your customers, but that you walk them through what those numbers mean and why they are good news. Along the way, be sure to teach them enough about the language to empower them, but don’t expect them to get as excited about the report as you are without showing them why these numbers are such good news.

Give 'em the pickle

This is probably the simplest, but most crucial point in this conversation. There is a great story in Bob Farrell’s book "Give'em the Pickle!” about a man who goes to his favorite restaurant for 3 years and every time asks for an extra pickle on his sandwich. He is always kindly accommodated until one day a new server tells him there is a $1.25 charge for a side of pickles. The man gently restates that he would only like 1 extra pickle, not a whole side. The server goes to her manager, and then returns to tell the man he can have 1 extra pickle for a $.05 charge. He is appalled and never returns. Here is the point. You have a pickle. What is it? It is something you can give your customer in exchange for their continued loyalty. It will probably be something they ask for that you don’t initially want to give them, but after you really think about it, is not a big deal, and is not worth the battle. I personally believe that this is 90% of the battle in managing customer expectations. There will be moments where they will ask you for something slightly beyond what you have agreed. Should you give them everything they want? No. But if it’s 1 pickle, give ‘em the damn pickle!

The Art of Asking Survey Questions

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Wed, 24 Feb 2016 19:00:00 GMT

As marketers, we use surveys with focus groups to learn more about a potential campaign, with our customer database to find out how to make product improvements, and with our social media fanbase to test what types of messages resonate with our target audience. But what happens when you spend time administering a survey only to pore over the data to find out that it doesn't tell us anything new? Well it could be that you drafted your survey questions all wrong! Knowing how to ask survey questions to illicit the type of insights and information you're seeking will put your on your way to getting the reliable responses you need to reach your business goals.

Lost in Translation

Speak the same language as your potential respondents, both literally and figuratively! Keep the survey language simple and direct, so you don't confuse readers. Stay awy from using industry jargon or marketing language that a respondent might not understand. The last thing you want is for someone to misinterpret the question and provide a wrong answer, or get frustrated because they don't understand the question.

One at a time

As tempted as you might be to ask about multiple issues in your questions, always ask about just one idea at a time. For example, asking "how valuable and organized was the e-book?" is mixing two issues together: value and organization. Maybe the respondent really enjoyed the content in the e-book and they were able to find value in it right away, but thought it was organized poorly and could have been segmented into a few more chapters. If you ask them that question, the response may be for either issue and you won't really have a sense of what needs to be changed for your next e-book launch. Instead, ask two questions: "how valuable was the e-book?" and "rate the organization of the e-book" to get better quality data.

This is not a test

I repeat, this is not a test! So don't have survey questions that make your respondents feel like they are taking a final exam. Questions shouldn't be too hard for people to answer; don't make them think too much. A question like, "rank these 10 items in order of preference" is a bit much. Stick to a shorter list to rank, around 5 or 6 is manageable for most people.

Follow me!

followers

Be sensitive

There are some questions that your respondents might not feel comfortable answering, so give them an option like "prefer not to answer". This will provide clearer data to you, instead of a "no comment", or "other" option. If you do have an "other" option, always provide a space for the respondent to write in their explanation. When you get the data, you'll be better equipped to understand the responses, instead of trying to decipher what they meant by "other".

Get the balance right

If you're asking respondents to rate a service or product, make sure you give them adequate choices and balance the scale. Options like "Awesome - Great - Good - Fair" really doesn't give people a chance to share if they feel the service was "Poor". Or they might misinterpret "Fair" as the bottom of the scale when you really mean, "just okay". Survey experts say that the "strongly disagree–disagree–neutral–agree–strongly agree" scale is pretty standard and dependable for seeking the kind of valuable data that you want from your survey.

Check your next survey against this list of helpful tips to make sure you know the right survey questions to ask, and how to ask them!

The New, and Better Way, To Do Event Marketing

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Tue, 23 Feb 2016 17:30:00 GMT

You've spent time securing a great venue, coordinating speaker panels, and fine-tuning a dynamic agenda for your next event, but how do you ensure that the right people are going to show up to your event? No matter if your event is a technical conference, a film festival, or a travel expo, you'll want to take a look at some new and improved ways to do event marketing to get the right people registered.

1. Remarket using Facebook

Hopefully you've built a good Facebook following by showcasing your brand through photos, blog posts, and industry updates. Now is the time to turn that follower base into event attendees! One of the great things about using Facebook for business is that you can create custom audiences and remarket to people who may have visited your event website, but didn't register. This is called remarketing, also known as retargeting. Maybe a reader heard about your event through an ad banner that you had on an affiliate website and then visited your page to check out event details. But they didn't register on that first visit. Maybe because they had to check on travel dates, work conflicts, budgets, or any number of other reasons. Don't lose them to the cyberspace maze!

Remarketing can be a very effective strategy for event marketing because data shows that for big ticket events like a conference or a convention, people rarely buy or register the first time they hear of the event or see the news about the upcoming event. When you remarket using Facebook, you can advertise your event to prior website visitors, while excluding those Facebook users who have already purchased a ticket. We like that!

2.Blog about it!

Plan ahead and weave in some blog posts into your content creation strategy about your upcoming event. Put the focus on the purpose, goals, and any educational elements of your event. This creates value for your readers and eventually drives traffic and new registration. Your posts can feature interviews with speakers, some history of the venue or location, and even provide a mini-itinerary about what there is to do in the city where the event is being held. And as with all of your blog posts, add social sharing buttons at the bottom so that your readers can share the information with their network. It's a great way to reach even more potential attendees that you might not have had the opportunity to come into contact with!

Also, consider giving your blog readers a bonus with an event specific CTA. You can offer a direct reward, a prize, a premium, or something that they can redeem there at the event that other attendees wouldn't have access to through regular registration channels. This element of exclusivity for your blog readers makes them feel valued and encourages them to register early!

3. Use multimedia

Of course, you'll want to supplement any print marketing efforts with any and all forms of multimedia that speak to your audience. Engage them with videos! The multimedia experience of a video provides a unique opportunity to convey the energy and excitement of a live event. Dynamic visuals and catchy audio are a winning combination that drives registration. Use testimonials from previous attendees, footage of the location, and interviews with conference speakers and/or performers. This multimedia part of your campaign also creates engagement opportunities when your fans share it with their followers and friends!

So where do you put your videos? Well, while Youtube has a huge audience and is a top search engine, Vimeo offers more control over your brand since there's no ads distracting from your video message. And definitely share those videos on your Facebook page! Studies from Socialbakers reported that Facebook videos achieved a 10 times higher viral reach than YouTube links did. Pin your video to the top of your Facebook page so that it gets maximum exposure, too! If you've got a good following on Instagram, add some 15 second clips of your video to gain new followers and attendees from that social channel, too.

4. Give it some life!

Bring your event to life for people who can't be there, but may still want to learn more about your brand and company. Use GPS, real time event tracking, and social media to allow anyone to participate virtually, while watching and seeing the event in real-time. Use your social media accounts like Twitter to build a community around your event and create an event specific hashtag that makes it easy for attendees and fans to follow minute to minute event happenings! For attendees who are there, have them participate in on-site scavenger hunts, photo contests, and virtual reality demos and then capitalize on their experience and excitement. Encourage them to share and send in content and provide a button for them to immediately tweet or post when they land on your page.

And don't forget about all of those event sponsors, speakers, vendors, and affiliates. Tag them in any social promotion that you are doing before and during the event. This cross promotion allows you to reach a whole new base of potential customers and attendees. Pretty cool, right?!?

5. It ain't over...

While all of the booths have been taken down and everyone's gone home, there is still a way to have significant and meaningful consumer engagement long after the event is over. Hopefully you captured contact information during the event and created opportunities for one-on-one direct engagement that allows your attendees to have a better sense of your brand and company. If you've done this step right, you should be able to continue the relationship when the attendees are back home. Create some targeted workflows and outreach so that you can maximize your marketing outreach and event attendance. And definitely share footage from your event so that you can start building excitement and planning your next event marketing campaign!

5 Steps To Nailing a Sales Call

randy@honeycomb.buzz (Randy Wilson) — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 18:00:00 GMT

The truth is most saleseople talk way too much! And when salespeople are too busy talking, they stop listening and deliver way too few customers as a result. But that doesn't have to be the case; here are 5 tips to nail a sales call.

1- Have a Goal To Add Value!

Approach the sales call like a real conversation. Calling is not just a numbers game- quality has to matter. Take a deep breath before you press dial and remember they are people on the other end of the line- not objects- and think of ways you can get them talking, especially about themselves. The key to being able to tell your prospect what they need, is to let them talk and then determine ways to add value to the conversation. Listen closely so that when you do speak, it will be adding value into the conversation.

2. Know What You Want!

Do your research and know who you are about to speak with, and then make a quick list of things that you want to learn and find out on that first call. Spend time looking at their company to find out if what you are offering is something that they indeed need. Ask key exploratory questions that would excite the person on the other line. Practice using phrases that include the words “would you”. For example: what would you like to do about it? what would you think if your conversation rates looked like this? how would you go about…? Know what you want from them before you ever pick up the phone.

3. Destroy the Memorized Script!

Be real and approachable. Now I’m not saying go into the conversation and fly by the seat of your pants. Do your homework and write an outline of key points that you want to discuss, as well as key questions that will help you get to the pain point. Once you have listened and identified what the prospect really needs, then the opportunity to share your company's solution will open up naturally. Too many times in a sales calls, the goal seems to be to have your pitch heard - but they have already mentally hung up the phone before you ever finish talking. Don't take this approach; be natural, and conversational.

4. Engage with Real Stories!

As you listen carefully and provide genuine conversation, you will build trust and rapport. People tend to buy from people they like and trust. Stories are a central piece to life that brings people from all walks of life together on common ground. Connections begin through sharing short stories and humor, but make sure those stories motivate and contribute to the point you are trying to make. One key thing to remember is to manage your time well so that they feel they aren’t giving away more than what they are getting from you.

5. Answer Any Potential Objections!

Before you ever make the call, come up with a list of objections that the prospect may ask & identify possible answers to those objections. Being ready for an objection, even if you don't have a clear answer at the time, will drastically determine the direction of the rest of the conversation. Although they can be frustrating, objections can also be a great opportunity for you to use your expertise to influence a qualified prospect's decision to buy.

All great sales reps know that the sales call is just the first step in building a long lasting relationship with a client. So use this list to get prepared for your next round of calls and here's to more business!

4 Successful Types of Company Culture for Software Companies

michael@honeycomb.buzz (Honeycomb Team) — Wed, 17 Feb 2016 18:30:00 GMT

The best companies know that having a great company culture is critical to their overall success. You want your employees coming to work every day because they look forward to the challenges, their co-workers, and the office atmosphere - not just to pick up a paycheck. Of course, each culture has a different feel and unique qualities, but ultimately culture is about your employees and ensuring that they have a productive work environment. Quite simply, better moods = better performance.

So how do you meet company goals and get results while also creating an environment that people actually want to work in? Let's talk about 4 ingredients for types of company culture that develop great leaders and employees.

1. Walk this way

You know that mission statement that's hanging in the lobby? Well, when you have a thriving company culture, the leaders walk the walk. They're not just giving lip service to a placard that's hanging in the break room and sprinkled on company sales brochures. For a great company culture to thrive, everyone in the company must not only know the core values, but live them in their day to day work and responsibilities. That's why they're called "core" values, because they are at the center of everything your company is doing. Keeping this culture alive means sharing your company culture with prospective hires, creating marketing campaigns that bring your company culture to life, and of course encouraging management to make decisions based on these values.

2. A little fun & games

Companies that have types of company culture with team building also have a better team mentality. Employees who share in that spirit of healthy competition know that teams work together on all work related projects and help out where necessary. In a recent study by TINYpulse, an employee management firm, respondents cited a "poor company culture" as one of the top reasons for leaving a company, even more than compensation. When probed further, respondents said a positive work environment can make a tough job tolerable.

So to retain those employees that you worked so hard to recruit, find ways to create and nurture a positive and rewarding work environment. Creating fun ways to foster competition beyond the traditional "salesman of the month" contest can bring your organization together while creating a fun work environment. Coordinate a sports day between your company and the one down the street, start department softball teams, or host monthly cooking contests. It really doesn’t matter what the contest is or who wins, but giving everyone a chance to showcase their talents and enjoy themselves is what keeps a healthy company culture alive.

3. Everyone has a voice

Open communication is always a key element for companies that have a winning company environment. And no, this doesn't mean just handing out an annual survey whose results get sent out in an email to management. What open communication really means is that employees feel like they have a voice and that they can have a meaningful impact on the company and its direction. When you have only management making decisions, it's a surefire way to disengage your key employees, and possibly lose them to your competitors.

Initially, most companies start out with open lines of communication because it's just a few people starting up a new and exciting enterprise. But as some companies get bigger, they fall into the trap of limiting employee freedom and funneling feedback through the "proper channels". Over time, your employees are less and less involved in key decisions and their impact on the business is lost amongst red tape and "process". Unfortunately the open communication style is lost. To give your employees a voice and encouraging creative, inventive thinking, encourage town hall meetings, office hours, and brown bag lunch sessions designed to give employees a forum for sharing their opinions and ideas.

4. A game plan

When you're leading an organization, it's a good idea for people to feel like they're moving in the right direction. Companies that have an effective company culture have a game plan - and everyone knows what part they play in it. Developing an organizational roadmap allows you to put your culture into practice and creates guidelines for “how you do things” at the company. While there is always room for innovation and creativity, employees know what's expected of them and what constitutes a job well done. Making sure that everyone from the C-level to support staff knows what goals they're working on, how good work is rewarded, and how responsibilities are divided, creates a healthy structure to execute your company culture.

Don't let types of company culture that fail to reward employees destroy the business that you've worked hard to build. Culture, as you can see, isn't something that just sits on a shelf in the HR department; it must be worked on daily, and be consistent. Start with these 4 ingredients for a great company culture and watch your employees, and your business, thrive!

Beyond Email: How to Master Marketing Automation

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 18:00:00 GMT

You know those stressful days when you've got meetings about your upcoming campaign, a review with your boss about the latest numbers, a to-do list that includes scheduling blog posts and updating social media queues, and on top of all that a conference call with another vendor?

They're exhausting and the last thing you want to do after a day like that is think about sending emails to prospects and leads. If only there were a way to automate marketing follow up and make your day more efficient...

Well, this is where marketing automation comes in!

Why should I automate?

When you think about your ultimate goals when it comes to marketing, it's probably to generate more revenue for your company. And to do this, you'll need to drive traffic to your website, convert that traffic into leads and close those leads into customers. This is where marketing automation provides an efficient solution: you're driving much more traffic to your site through these tailored emails and messages than you would with a blanket, generic email blast.

But where marketing automation really makes an impact is during the conversion and closure stages of the customer journey. Marketing automation allows you to virtually hold your customer's hand and connect with them while they figure out what and when to buy. Automating these tasks enables you to nurture your leads through the entire buying process, delivering highly-targeted, personalized messages that address their specific concerns and possible barriers to purchase.

How do I start?

Here's an example of how automated marketing works:

Step 1: You send an email invitation to download your latest webinar to a targeted list of prospects.

Step 2: You send a follow up email to all the people that downloaded and watched the webinar.

Step 3: A few days later, you send a follow up email to these same people who downloaded the webinar, highlighting a recent blog post that relates to that same topic.

Step 4: Finally, when someone reads that blog post, your sales team will get a notification so they can follow up with them.

Work it!

Beyond just automating emails, when you're truly executing marketing automation you want to use workflows. Workflows easily and efficiently allow you as a marketer to trigger messages based on a lead's actions. Setting up workflows allow you to send the right message at the right time. For example, you can set up workflows to message a lead who looks at a certain page on your website or send emails to leads in a certain region or location. Studies by Market2lead show that leads that are channeled through automated workflows have a 23% shorter sales cycle. That's the kind of efficiency we want to see!

Best practices

Personalize your message: The beauty of automating marketing messages is that you can still connect with each buyer persona and speak to their unique needs, producing authentic content for each reader. Don't send generic blasts; link your messages to the buyer personas that you're trying to target and how your leads have identified themselves.
Schedule at appropriate intervals: The last thing you want to do is bombard your new lead with a flood of emails in their inbox. Instead, schedule follow up emails a few days apart. You don't want to seem to pushy and have a potential customer block your email, unsubscribe, or delete your messages.
Time your messages: One of the great features of automated marketing is that you can time your messages to coincide with other promotions that your company is running, holidays, or seasonal trends that may influence your readers' buying decisions.
Don't automate blindly: Before scheduling out workflows and automated messages, revisit your overall marketing campaign goals and make sure that everything is aligned. Connect your messages to coincide the rest of your inbound marketing campaign so that your efforts are coordinated.

Whatever technology and software you use to help prospects move through the customer journey, make sure that your automated marketing campaign is personalized, relevant and aligns with what your customers and prospects are looking for!

Are You Thinking About the Customer Journey: Part 2

CJ@Honeycomb.buzz (C.J. Bergmen) — Mon, 15 Feb 2016 18:53:24 GMT

In my first post about the customer journey, we talked about how easy it is for us as proprietors, marketers, and salespeople to only focus on the destination of our customer: when they actually buy and experience our product or service. I made the case that we need to go back to the very beginning of their journey.

Let's recap:

Step 1: The Idea - When your customer has a pain point that can only be solved with a product like yours.

Step 2: The Need For More Information - How your customer conducts research to buy what they need.

Step 3: The Google Machine - The search phrases your customer uses to find your product.

Step 4: The Search Results - Why your customer prefers organic results over ads.

Step 5: Your Website - What your customer does when they get to your website.

What's next?

You might be thinking, "Man this customer journey is taking forever. There's more?" Absolutely. Have you ever taken a really close look at what peoples' behaviors are when they go to your site? What are they clicking on most frequently? What pages are they quickly leaving? Is your site a free-for-all, or is there a specific path you want them to go down? These are all very important factors to take into consideration.

Your website is very realistically your storefront. People may have decided to come to a store like yours, and they have done some research and your store seems like a good place to begin their shopping experience, but the work is not finished when they arrive. There is still so much to do.

We're open!

When I enter into any store, brick and mortar or website, there are some very important things I am looking for in my overall experience. Some do's and don'ts if you will. Let's talk about a couple of these:

Do welcome me. I want to be greeted, but not in a pushy way. No pop ups please. But, I would like you to tell me what is most important for me to know. What is the first image I see? What is the first text I read? You only get one shot at this, so make it good. Don't be pushy - be informative. Give me something interesting that catches my eye. Greet me warmly. And please, keep it brief and simple.

Do lead the way. What is my next best step? Guide me. Do you have a helpful blog that teaches me something I didn't know related to the product? After all, remember that research is how I got here in the first place. I like to feel empowered. Don't make me give you my contact information without giving me anything in return. And no, adding me to an automated email list with a bunch more of your products doesn't count as me getting something valuable in exchange for my information. Give me something tangible. A guide. A print piece. An e-book. Something I can really use right now.

Do treat me as an individual. I am not everyone else. I am me. I have specific wants and needs. Don't treat me like a number. Do you have content tailored to my particular situation? Are your blogs and social posts only focused on one particular niche of which I am not a part? I need to know that you have taken someone like me into consideration.

Do keep me in the loop. I may not be ready to buy this time. I might still need to think about it awhile, or get some more information. So, next time you write a blog like the one I read and liked enough to give you my info, go ahead and shoot me a line. Don't hit me with a hundred emails a week, but from time to time, a well thought out email from you would be nice, something to remind me that you are a trusted resource for me on my journey. When I am ready, you will probably be the place I decide to buy from.

If we're honest, these are all things you and I want out of our own experience, our own customer journey, so why not make sure our customers have this same experience on our website? This is a revolutionary way of thinking about marketing and advertising. It gives the power back to our customer. That may seem scary, but in this new world of social media, 5 star ratings, and Google's search engine, people want engagement, a human interaction.

If we create the right online space for this through our social channels and website, we can actually achieve this. The best part is, when you attract and delight your customers in this way, they are highly likely to become promoters of your brand through their own networks, which helps you build a lasting brand based on real people who genuinely like your products and your customer service. And it all starts with the customer journey.

Why CEOs Love HubSpot Marketing Agencies

michael@honeycomb.buzz (Honeycomb Team) — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 17:30:00 GMT

It’s hard to find a marketing agency you love. As CEOs trying to successfully run our companies, finding reliable agencies that can produce results and work well with our internal marketing teams can be difficult. There are thousands of online marketing agencies, and each one claims to bring better results than the next. How do you separate the wheat from the chaff and identify the truly successful marketing agencies you want to work with?

HubSpot marketing agencies have quickly built a reputation in the digital marketing world for their ability to generate proven marketing success for CEOs who value ROI and trackable marketing results. How do we do this? Our online marketing agencies are built to serve the customers’ needs. We know that inbound marketing works when executed properly. We also know that CEOs need a unique approach in the agency/customer relationship - one that focuses heavily on proving effectiveness, working well with internal teams, and generating a positive, long-term ROI in a reasonable amount of time.

Are you looking to hire a new inbound marketing agency to create a campaign for your company? Here are three reasons why you should consider a HubSpot marketing agency first.

We Create Strategies That Focus on ROI

If you’ve spent any time talking with online marketing agencies, you will quickly realize that few agencies focus on ROI (return on investment). Why? Simply put, most marketing agencies don’t have a process for bringing their customers a return on their investment. We’ve hear of lots of marketing agencies saying it’s “impossible” to show return on investment with marketing. They will tell you to invest thousands of dollars into their social media management strategies or their “viral” campaigns that they promise will bring thousands of visitors to your site. But when it comes to tracking how many of those visitors convert into customers, they have no plan or process to prove their success. This is simply bad marketing - and good agencies know how to track success.

If your digital marketing company has the right software and processes set up, it’s easy to show return on investment. HubSpot Marketing Agencies like Honeycomb can literally see the entire customer journey from first contact to close of contract (and everything in between). We place tracking pixels on your leads’ computers so we can track all of the activity they make (in face, we just placed a our tracking pixel on your computer when you came to this blog post!).

Another important part of tracking ROI is understanding the value of a customer to your business. If your digital marketing agency does not ask you the Lifetime Value of a Customer, Average Purchase Price, Cost of Customer Acquisition, and Average Number of Customers Per Month, then walk away. Marketing agencies need to know these numbers because it informs how many customers they need to bring every month to obtain a positive ROI. If your marketing agency is charging you $10,000 a month for their activity, they should know that an average customer is worth $5,000 to you - and therefore needs to convert at least 3 customers each month to maintain a positive ROI for the customer.

We Educate Your Team On Inbound Marketing

The principles of inbound marketing are a valuable piece of knowledge your team needs to have. When you begin a new marketing campaign, it’s important to keep your entire team engaged and excited. We’re not just talking about your marketing department, either. Sales needs to know exactly how inbound marketing works because their leads are being nurtured through that process before they ever have a conversation with a sucessful sales rep.

Good HubSpot Marketing Agencies take the time to inform and educate your team about inbound marketing. Many of your team members may know how social media, email marketing, or SEO functions. But few to none understand how inbound marketing takes all of the facets of digital marketing and makes them work together to convert visitors to leads and leads to customers.

At Honeycomb, this looks like preparing web conferences at the beginning of the relationship with our customers and demo-ing exactly what the customer’s inbound marketing funnel will look like. We’ll explain how writing business blogs that are optimized for search engines helps generate qualified, organic traffic to the customer’s website. Next, we’ll walk through the role of call to actions (are you wondering - what is a CTA?), how to optimize your landing pages, and how to build smart forms. We want our customers to know how these variables contribute to the lead conversion funnel. Finally, we’ll go into the back end of the marketing campaign and show the team how email nurturing is used to subtly direct leads through their buyers journey to the eventual conversion into a customer.

We Use Data To Prove Our Marketing Activities

Let’s be honest: Marketing agencies that don’t use data…are not very good marketing agencies. Before digital marketing created the space for macro- and micro-data reporting, marketing didn’t use data to prove the return on investment. How can you determine whether a radio ad was effective in driving new sales? Better yet, how do you know whether the radio at a 3PM converted more customers than the radio ad at 9PM?

HubSpot Marketing Agencies use data gathered from HubSpot, Google Analytics, and other reporting tools (Like Shopify if you are selling via e-commerce) to track lead activity, conversion rates, and other value pieces of data. This data shows whether or not the marketing work being done is in fact effective. It also allows the HubSpot marketing agency to not only report on marketing activities, but also gives us the ability to make decisions and changes based on real results. If we see that an email is not performing as desired based on the reporting data, we can change the content, subject, or design to test variables for improved effectiveness.

What are the important pieces of data to prove marketing effectiveness? Honeycomb uses three major data points to determine success: Website Traffic, Converted Leads, and Close MQLs (Marketing Qualified Leads). We always shoot for a 20-25% month over month increase in traffic. Our goal is to convert between 1-3% of these visitors into leads. And our final goal is to close 4-8% of those leads into MQLs, which get sent to the customer’s sales team.

The Most Overrated Marketing Tactics

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 19:00:00 GMT

As marketing professionals, we have a ton of options when it comes to putting together an effective marketing strategy. But this is a bit of a blessing and a curse: which ones do you choose? Before jumping right in and spending a huge portion of your budget on a mailing campaign or a Facebook ad, it's best to understand some of the most overrated marketing tactics and what you can do instead. Take a look at our top 3 and see if you're using any of these...and possibly change up your game!

1. Print Ads

More and more people of all ages are conducting business online, so a typical mailbox is often a mixture of birthday cards, political proganda, and print advertising. Can you guess which of these end up in the recycling bin? That's right and this is why print advertising is becoming one of the most overrated marketing tactics by marketers as well as the general public. Quite simply, direct mail is hard to track. Unlike an email marketing message that you can analyze open and clickthrough rates, a direct mail piece could end up in the trash, in the wrong mailbox, or sitting on someone's desk long after your promotion has ended. If you are going to use print advertising, use it to supplement your online efforts and personalize the content with the information you have in your contact management system. This is much more efficient and you can effectively make the necessary adjustments to increase conversion rates and get real customers, instead of spending money on paper and postage.

2. Broadcasting

While Super Bowl ads are a testament to the power of a television commercial, you need an insane budget to run these types of ads and it's hard to track if consumers really bought your product because of what they saw last night on TV. And the number of live TV watchers continues to decline as video-streaming services such as Netflix, become the preferred home viewing option of choice. A study by Deloitte in 2015 showed that over half of American households prefer the streaming services. That number is only going to increase since the study showed that for consumers age 14-25, 72% cited streaming video as one of the most valuable services. Beyond the dwindling numbers, broadcasting's ROI is almost impossible to track since it's a marketer's guess if a television commercial or a billboard inspired a consumer to buy.

3. Pay Per Click

Online outbound marketing tactics like pay per click, or PPC, are actually great ways to get more leads if it's in your budget. But you'll want to be smart about it and use PPC ads in conjunction with your inbound marketing campaign. Millennials typically have "banner blindness" and although this group is online most of their waking hours,
you'll want to do social advertising and have a good organic social presence as much as you do PPC. According to a recent study by Telefonica, 57% of this powerful consumer demographic uses search engines to find information on just about everything and a little over half of this same group said they also use social media when trying to get information about products. So don't rule it out altogther. Just make sure you're doing it right. When done right, PPC ads can play an important role in giving your content a more prominent stage - reaching new customers and retargeting current ones. Studies by Hubspot show that users who are retargeted to are 70% more likely to convert, so take some time to make sure that you're using PPC ads the right way.

So what to do instead?

Among marketing professionals in a worldwide survey from Hubspot, the least overrated marketing tactics are content marketing and blogging. If done correctly, it's easier to measure their ROI and make real-time changes to your marketing strategy when things are or are not working. Spend some time investing in your content marketing strategy and brainstorm on some ideas for your blog. If you're not convinced on the idea of a blog for your company, take a look at these 10 stats that prove the value of having a blog on your website. Whether it's through your social media presence or an email newsletter to your contact database, spreading the word about your blog and content is one of the best marketing tactics that you can employ. Investing time and money in this strategy instead of some of the more overrated, and possibly outdated tactics will prove to be a more efficient and profitable use of your resources.

How to Hire Tech Talent for Your Software Startup

cory@honeycomb.buzz (Cory Teese) — Tue, 09 Feb 2016 18:30:00 GMT

Trying to hire tech talent can be daunting, especially if you're not a technical person yourself. But you don't have to write code or become a developer overnight to look for, interview, and hire folks with technical skills. If you're handling the recruiting process in house, make sure you pay attention to some dos and don'ts when it comes to getting the best candidate in a seat at your company.

DO get creative with recruiting tactics. Instead of using the same online job posting sites as every other company, try attending a tech meetup in your area, search on LinkedIn or your alumni database, or post on niche boards or online communities where these techies congregate.

DON'T contact them with a cold, generic e-mail or uninspiring job description. This will just turn off the good candidates that you are trying to attract. Spice up your emails with a personalized video introduction instead.

DO understand the basics in the job description. Make sure you know the acronyms and department lingo for the technical terms in the job description. Come prepared with a basic knowledge of programming terminology that's needed for the job.

DON'T throw around a lot of buzzwords or try to impress your candidate by tossing in references to the latest technologies. This is kind of baseline for them and they'll see right through the act, causing you to lose credibility.

DO leverage any connections you may have to the candidate. Spend some time building rapport so that the candidate feels more comfortable opening up about their current projects and their vision for their career.

DON'T mention a specific job in your opening. Instead, focus on the projects, what your organization has accomplished, and get them interested in the bigger picture.

DO ask them about their values and see where they align with your organization’s mission and vision. Cultural fit is always an important consideration and it's never too soon to bring it up in an interview.

DON'T do all the talking. Ask open-ended questions that will help you keep the focus on the skill set and personality of the candidate, instead of how great your company is!

DO come prepared to be interviewed, too. When it comes time to wrap up your questions, know that the good candidates will have done some research on your company, so be ready to answer questions about the business.

DON'T bombard the candidate with everything on the first call. Keep it like a first date; have some intrigue and share enough information so that you can set them up with a follow up call, preferably with a leader or someone very hands-on with the technology or project.

DO streamline your interview process. Having every team member and manager interview the candidate just extends the process and lengthy hiring cycles might cause top candidates to lose interest and look for other opportunities. Keep it efficient!

DON'T draw out your offer process. Talented workers may have multiple job offers, so slow and overly selective employers will lose their top choices. Know the salary ranges for your company, as well as what competitors typically offer, and be prepared to negotiate. This will save time and multiple rounds of phone calls and emails that will just drag out the process.

With this handy list of guidelines, you'll feel better equipped to recruit and hire tech talent. In a hiring environment where demand far outnumbers supply, use this non-tech guide to hiring tech talent and get the best employees hired at your organization!

6 Business Blogging Mistakes & Their Easy Fixes

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 18:00:00 GMT

It takes a lot to start a blog, so congrats on getting yours started! Blogs are becoming an increasingly popular way for businesses of all sizes to spread the word about their company and relevant industry trends. And the data proves that your time and money spent blogging are well worth it. Studies from Hubspot show that B2B companies that blog only once or twice a month generate 70% more leads than those that don't blog at all. So even your smallest blogging efforts can make a positive impact on your business if you previously weren't blogging at all. But before you ramp up your efforts, take a look at these 6 business blogging mistakes and some quick fixes that will increase your inbound traffic.

1. Pushing product

Your temptation might be to turn your blog into a sales channel, but beware. This is the fastest way to turn off an audience, and lose possible leads and customers. Don't turn your blog into a constant commercial. Save the sales talk for when your readers become a qualified lead.

FIX: Share content that has an educational angle. This type of content has a much better chance of attracting readers and is more likely to be shared by these readers. You want to gain traction with your audience and establish your blog as a trusted source.

2. Having a separate site

If you are hosting your blog on a separate site from your company website, that's a big mistake. What happens when a reader wants to learn more information about your brand? It's highly unlikely that they'll go to a separate tab and enter your web address. Instead, they're more likely to click away to the next thing that's grabbing their attention.

FIX: Build your blog within your company website. Not only does this make browsing easier for your potential customers, it allows your corporate website to benefit from the search engine optimization advantages your blog will create.

3. Forgetting about SEO

Speaking of search engine optimization, you'd be doing your company a huge disservice by spending time and money on writing an awesome blog if nobody can find it. Don't make one of the top business blogging mistakes and forget about SEO. This mistake means you'll be missing out on a tremendous opportunity for your blog to increase your keyword rankings and grow your organic search traffic.

FIX: Develop an SEO strategy for your blog before you even start writing and identify the right keywords for your business. Then optimize your blog content with those keywords and watch your blog traffic increase!

4. Being inconsistent

Failure to commit to a schedule is another business blogging mistake that costs you money in the long run. Maybe you've started a blog and just got too busy to keep up with it, or you're out of ideas on what to write about. Whatever the reason, identify the issue and get on a schedule. Research from Hubspot shows that business blogs that keep to a regular schedule and increase blogging from 3-5X/month to 6-8X/month, almost double their leads!

FIX: Get on a schedule; at least once a week to start. If time or bandwidth is a major concern or deterrent for you, consider hiring someone to blog for you. Establish a schedule and stick to it.

5. Not having a personality

Your blog can't be everything to everyone. Some companies try to write generic blogs with no personality that forgets to showcase their company culture and brand voice. Being too broad and trying to "please everyone" is a surefire way to turn away everyone because your blog will seem dull, lifeless, and without a true voice.

FIX: Take some time before you launch your blog and create a theme, choose a layout, and get some photos that resonate with your brand. Did you know that total views increase by 94% if a post contains a relevant photograph or infographic, as compared to articles without an image? (Source: Skyword) As part of your blogging strategy, identify your brand voice. Readers want to know what to expect when they read your content and constantly changing your brand voice confuses them and you lose readers.

6. Forgetting about social promotion

That's great - you have a blog! But how do you expect people to find out about it if you don't tell them. Companies who use social media to promote their blogs rank higher in search engines. And social promotion provides a forum for your readers to share it on their social networks, which only increases the probability of more people seeing your great content!

FIX: Use every opportunity to spread the word. Promote your blog on social media, put a link in your customer newsletter, and add a link on your sales materials. And don't forget to update any online profiles you have like LinkedIn, alumni databases, or industry networks that you belong to.

So after you're done editing your post for grammatical errors and spelling mistakes, use this handy checklist to make sure that you're getting the most out of your blogging campaign!

Simple Steps to Warming Up a Cold Call

randy@honeycomb.buzz (Randy Wilson) — Fri, 05 Feb 2016 18:08:12 GMT

Nobody likes receiving a cold call and honestly, no salesperson likes making the cold call either. There is no upside to a cold call from any angle you look at it. So let’s make this first step simple - Stop cold calling.

So what do you do instead? You got it - Warm calls. Take the age-old, ineffective cold call, warm it up a bit, and track the responses you begin to receive. Here are a few simple steps to warming up a cold sales call.

1 - Do your research!

Salespeople who research their prospect before making the call will have enough information to build some real rapport and connect to their prospect. This easy intro allows you to be able to quickly arrive at specific pain points. Knowing some information about the company and its employees’ roles will give you the confidence you need to show genuine concern about your prospects' specific problems, as well as be in a better position to freely offer help and guidance while you're in the call.

2 - Make your conversation personal

Being over-friendly is about as disruptive as being completely detached over the phone. Make sure you approach the first few seconds on the phone with confidence. You will need a personal touch in your voice to get past the gatekeeper, so talk to the other person with respect and keep it light-hearted. Don't attack the gatekeeper! When there is a gatekeeper that answers the call, speak confidently as though the person that you are trying to reach is your best friend.

3 - Know what you are going to say

You want to add value but you also want to respect your prospects time by getting to the point as well. Have a cold call script or an outline written down, and don't be shy about taking a left turn if that's where the conversation is naturally going. You don't need to give your prospects an elevator pitch when they answer the phone, and you shouldn't be reading from a script, but do come to the call prepared and well-rehearsed. Use some of the data from your contact management system, or look at your marketing metrics and find out if this prospect has visited your website or read any of your blog. Coming to the call prepared will go a long way and make the remainder of the call go much more smoothly.

4 - Add value

You've finally built some rapport and are now into the part of the conversation where your prospect is opening up and sharing their issues. Take this time to add value to your prospect's day. If you've already done your research, you should have 3-4 points of value that you can pull from to enhance their business and that will address their pains and needs. Make sure and ask good, open-ended questions that get your prospect talking, which allows you to truly understand where your company can provide a solution. Most importantly, take the role of a consultant, not a salesperson and continually add value to the conversation.

Remember they are human, and so are you, so approach your prospect with the same enthusiasm and respect that you'd want. Listen to your prospect and allow them to fill in the natural pauses. Be sure and add value, speak to a couple of pain points, and then set a firm appointment for follow up call where you can dig in a little deeper. Remember, you don't have to cover everything in this call! The next call could be the best lead you have to work with, and all because you warmed up the initial cold call. Be confident, be human, and do your research!

Use the SMART Goal System to Track Marketing Goals

michael@honeycomb.buzz (Honeycomb Team) — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 19:24:19 GMT

Creating marketing goals, specifically SMART goals, for your upcoming marketing campaign is a great way to get your team rallied and excited. When brainstorming the goals you want to shoot for as a marketing department, the basic SMART goal system is the first set of rules you should know before beginning your marketing campaign:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Timely

When we sit down with our inbound marketing customers, we collaborate on ideas and strategies that will help us achieve our marketing goals for the year. We want each goal to follow the SMART guidelines. Here’s how you can track marketing goals that give you the greatest chance to meet or exceed expectations:

S = Create Specific marketing goals for each stage of your funnel

The first step in developing successful marketing goals is ensuring your goals are Specific. Creating a specific goal helps to inform the exact work that your company will need to do to be successful. It also creates clarity across the entire team so everyone knows what to shoot for. General goals don’t create urgency, excitement, or drive. By developing goals that are specific and targeted, you and your team are more likely to achieve them.

Bad: I want to convert more leads this year and onboard 100 new customers.

Good: We want to bring in 200 customers at $22,500 average revenue per customer over the next 12 months for a total of $4,500,000 in revenue. To do this, our goal is to attract 5,000 qualified leads to our website through inbound marketing because our historical conversion rate from leads to customers is 4%.

M = Make sure the marketing goals are Measurable

You need to establish a quantifiable smart goal so your marketing team can use data in their execution. If your marketing team or agency doesn’t know exactly how many leads or how much revenue you want to make, they may struggle to develop an execution plan that aligns with your expectations. This also helps your marketing agency gauge it’s success throughout the entire timeframe of the campaign. They can create milestones that determine whether or not they’re on path to meet or exceed expectations by the end of the campaign.

Bad: I want to increase our revenue by $2,500,000 this year.

Good: We want to increase our revenue by 10% every month for the next 12 months, for a total of $2,500,000 in new revenue.

A = Develop marketing goals that are Attainable

It’s important to make sure you have the resources and capabilities at your disposal to achieve your marketing goal. A smart goal system analyzes the resources available and matches the marketing goals to the capabilities you have. If a company does not have the resources to achieve the goals desired, one of two things must happen. 1) The goal must be reduced until it matches the level of resources available to achieve it, or 2) the company needs to increase it resources and capabilities, often by hiring an inbound marketing agency, to reach the desired goals.

Bad: We don’t have an internal marketing team. As the CMO, I’m going to spend 40 hours a week executing an inbound marketing campaign that includes 20 blog posts a month, 6 automated email marketing campaigns, and 1,000 social media posts per month.

Good: To get to my goal of $4,500,000 this year, I need to find someone who can execute an inbound marketing campaign that brings in the level of website traffic and qualified leads we need for our sales team to close $4,500,000 in business this year.

R = Design marketing goals that are Realistic

The best smart goal setters are people who are realistic. One of the worst marketing goal setting problems is creating goals that are extremely unrealistic. Look at the historical growth of your company. If you’ve grown by 50% year over year for the last 5 years, it’s not realistic to think that your inbound marketing process is going to give you a 600% increase in sales this year. It would be realistic, however, to set a goal of 75% growth with the inclusion of a new inbound marketing campaign.

Bad: Our business made $1,000,000 two years ago. Last year, we made $2,000,000. This year our goal is $12,000,000.

Good: Based on our historical growth rate of 100% annually, our goal is to make $4,500,000 this year. $500,000 of that will come from our new inbound marketing campaigns.

T = Produce marketing goals that are Timely

Your marketing goals should be maintained in a timeframe that is achievable. This helps the team to understand how quickly they need to reach certain milestones and will help you as the goal-setter to critically determine if your goals can be achieved in the time requested. Creating a timeframe is also helpful because it allows you to take a pause at the end of each phase and analyze whether or not your marketing campaign has been effective so far.

Bad: We want to bring in 200 new leads

Good: We want to bring in 200 new leads over the next 90 days.

The inbound marketing goal process is super important because it sets the standard for your marketing team's success or failure for the upcoming year. Whether you've got an internal team managing all of your inbound marketing work or you're working with an official inbound marketing agency (or a mix of both), developing thoughtful goals is crucial. The SMART goal guideline is a great start for any Head of Marketing professional and will give your team a great starting space in their pursuit of success.

10 Best Email Subject Lines

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 19:01:46 GMT

You might be thinking, nobody reads email anymore. Or you might be thinking that email is an obsolete way of marketing. Well let these stats change your mind:

According to a study by ExactTarget, 77% of consumers prefer to receive permission-based marketing communications through email.
64% of consumers say that they open an email because of a subject line (Salesforce).
Lead nurturing emails generate 50% more sales (Entrepreneur.com).
And 44% of email recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email (Convince & Convert).

Fine tuning your email campaign to reach prospects, leads, and current customers will only bring you more qualified business. And that's something we all want!

1. Specific benefit

In a succinct and catchy way, tell the reader about a specific benefit that might interest them. What types of benefits do they need to run their business? Think about these and then craft an email subject that quickly informs them about what you're sharing. Here's a couple of examples that do just that: "Two words: cheap traffic" or "Our Facebook ads cheat sheet".

2. Use statistics

Business folks love numbers - so use them! A statistic in your subject line catches their eye and piques their interest about the topic and gets them thinking about the reasons for a certain stat. Something like "75% percent of customers had an increase in ROI" or "128% ROI on your Twitter ads" will definitely get people's attention.

3. Curiosity

Ask a question. It really doesn't matter whether or not your prospects know the answer; what you want to provide in the body of your email is an answer that helps them understand the issue better, and possibly shows your company as part of that solution. Two good examples are "Want to see our email stats?" and "Will the Facebook change affect you?".

4. Sense of urgency

Create that last minute sense of urgency. Your reader should look at the subject line and feel a hint of desperation if they don't open and read your email. "THIS disappears at midnight" or "50% off sale ends TODAY!" will definitely prompt some readers to open, instead of delete, your message.

5. Thank you!

Pretty simple. You should send an email to your current customers and thank them for their current business. "Our gift to you" or just "Thank you [customer name]" can go a long way. Set yourself apart from the crowd and don't send this email blast out during the holidays when your message might get lost in the shuffle of seasonal greetings. Instead, choose a non-peak time and surprise your contacts. It's a good way to show your appreciation and highlight some cool things that are happening at your company. Don't forget to include some social sharing buttons so that your customers can forward it along to their network.

6. Feel the pain

Make your prospects a little uncomfortable and make them feel the pain. Create some doubt in your prospect's mind about their current business strategies and processes. Then use your email message to talk about what happens when that situation is left "untreated". Subject lines like "Don't make these SEO mistakes!" or "Are you using landing pages the right way?" pushes those pain points, creates some doubt in their mind, and allows your prospects to see you as a possible solution to this problem.

7. Offer a list

People love lists! So give them some. Try "Top 5 customer survey questions" or "8 marketing ideas for software startups" and provide your leads and customers with some tools that they can use immediately after reading your email. Giving them a handy checklist will make them feel productive, which builds your reputation as a trusted resource and they'll be more likely to open future emails from you.

8. Teach me something

Add some value to your prospect's day and offer to teach them a new skill or shed some light on an industry issue. Everyone likes learning about something that will help their business, so offer some insight into topics that your prospects want to focus on in their companies. Something like "How to optimize your landing pages" or "How to improve office morale" provides a quick lesson on a meaningful topic.

9. Action verbs

Just tell your prospects what to do! Sometimes people need to be led, and a simple action verb in your subject line can make all the difference. "Get this e-book" or "Read now for our latest offer" prompts the reader to do something, and this little nudge might be all they need.

10. Inside scoop

Everyone wants to feel special and like they're getting access to some private info, so give some to your readers. Plan accordingly and use this campaign with highly qualified leads and current customers so that they really feel like they are getting something that other customers don't have access to - kind of like a VIP treatment. Use phrases like "We've designed this exclusive offer for you [lead's name]" or "Open now to become a member of our VIP club". And definitley deliver on your promise! The people who are opening these emails want to feel privy to some information and offer that nobody else does, so use this sparingly!

Now that you have some useful ideas on how to craft the best email subject lines, integrate these into your marketing campaign and watch your open rate soar!

Are You Thinking about the Customer Journey?

CJ@Honeycomb.buzz (C.J. Bergmen) — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 20:53:35 GMT

When you have a product or service to sell, it's easy to picture your potential customer holding your product in their hands, opening up the package, or beginning the process of enjoying your service. After all, as salespeople and marketing experts, we love our product and we created our product to be experienced and used by people. The challenge with our thinking though, is that when it comes to marketing, we have to start much earlier in the process with our potential customers. We have to think narratively. We have to visualize the entire customer journey, not just the customer destination.

Where are we going?

Customer destination is the end goal we have for our buyer. We want them to buy our product, remain a repeat customer, and become a promoter to their networks. The problem with destination, however, is that it has an end. As a company, it should be our goal to never end our relationship with the customer, but instead to cultivate a long-term, never-ending sales cycle with them. So, if you've had a customer destination mindset, it is time to toss that out! In order to do that, we have to start thinking in circles, not lines.

Let's go...

So let's talk about the entire Customer Journey. When does the journey begin for your customer? Well, think about the last time you decided you were interested in buying something and all the steps you went through before actually making a purchase.

Step 1: The Idea

Last year, I bought a trampoline for my kids for Christmas. My journey began when I looked out in my backyard and pictured my kids jumping on a big trampoline. I decided pretty quickly that this was the greatest idea I had ever had as a dad. So, in a real sense, I had made my decision to purchase that item right then and there.

Step 2: The Need For More Information

But, I immediately thought about my San Francisco climate and wondered if a trampoline would be able to hold up in those conditions. Lots of rain, fog, etc… I thought about my gas grill and how rusted it was. I thought about price. I wondered how expensive a good trampoline was. I started to have more questions.

Step 3: Google It

My next thought was, ‘what am I going to type into Google to gather more information?’. This is a critical moment for us as marketers and business owners. This is the first time we get involved with our customer in their journey. This is the moment when our customer walks by the store front and thinks about walking in. What we have to determine is, ‘what keywords are people using to find my product?’ If you haven’t given this an enormous amount of thought, you are already in trouble. As marketers of our brand, we have to both know what people might be searching for and rank for those keywords, and also creatively work at telling people what they should search for related to our product. How are you increasing your ranking for existing keywords? Are you reasearching new terms that haven't been ranked yet?

Step 4: The Search Results

When I typed “best giant trampoline”, I was met with a large menu. "About 1,370,000 results (0.64 seconds)” to be exact. At the top of that menu were 2 ‘enemy’ words that I avoid at all costs when I am buying any product. You know what they are: “Ad” and “Sponsored”. Let’s take a second here. I talk with lots of companies about their marketing, and I am always amazed at the amount of money being spent on advertising. I always ask my prospects, ‘when you search on Google, do you ever click on the ads?’ The answer is almost always ‘no’. We don’t click on the ads. We want real, unbiased data. We want to know what real people are saying about their real experiences. This is the moment in the customer journey where you either tell your customer “you should come check out our product because it is really good”, or “you should come buy our product because we have lots of money”. Are you paying for Google Ads? It’s all good, keep it going, but you should also be working your tail off to rank organically.

Step 5: We're Here!

'Okay, okay, you got me. I'm here on your site.' This is where we get all pumped up about our website and our products. After all, we've just spent thousands of dollars on our new site, and people are going to love it! All we need to do now is shove our product in their face and they will hand over their credit card! Right? Wrong. This is a critical moment. Don’t blow it. Imagine walking into a retail store, and as soon as you come in, someone runs up and holds their product up in your face like a human pop-up ad and starts saying over and over gain, “Hey, you want this? Do you want to buy this? How about now? Now?” Fail. You are leaving, and you aren’t coming back. This is called “bounce rate”, people. When you have a high one, it’s probably because people aren’t being treated like they are a human being when they get to your website.

We'll talk more about the customer journey in Part 2. For now, I hope you will begin taking a hard look at your potential customer’s journey from the idea stage, to what information they need, to Google, to how you want to present in search results, and what someone’s first impression is when they enter your "store front", or your website.

Timing is Everything: How to Ensure Your Prospects See Your Content

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 18:51:33 GMT

So you've written some awesome blog posts, created a compelling webinar, or put together a cool slide deck. Well, sorry to break the news, but your job is only half done.

Content doesn’t get an audience just because you put it on your site. You have to promote it - and at the right time!

Did you know that only 26% of marketers invest in content distribution? And an even smaller percentage of these marketers know the right time to promote their content. In fact, timing your social media messages often depends on different factors like the social platform you're using, how often your target customers interact with that platform, the time zones or regions of the world that you're targeting, and even the tone of your post (e.g. funny, intimate, or informative). Spend time understanding your buyer personas and learn how to ensure your prospects see your content so that you can earn some true customers from your content marketing efforts.

Show me the data

Your reporting tools should give you great insight as to how engaged your prospects were with your recent marketing campaign. Use that data to identify the content that actually spoke to your prospect. Where are most of your prospects coming from: LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter? Once you know this, you can decide when to post for maximum exposure. For example, if you are using Facebook for business to promote your content, it's good to know that Facebook's heaviest interactions are in the afternoon(EST) towards the end of the week and on weekends. Or if your prospects are active on Twitter, some software tools will generate a report that will show you which times of day your tweets had the most engagement. Once you know these times, you can import them into whatever scheduling software you're using. Being data-driven is a much more efficient, strategic approach than just randomly scheduling posts. Data is your friend when it comes to social media scheduling!

What's trending

If you're using Twitter to reach your audience, take a look at what hashtags are trending. Do you have a holiday promotion coming up that you think customers and prospects might want to take advantage of? Then use hashtags like #giftguide or #valentinesday, or whatever holiday is coming up to get your message and content found by potential leads. Time your tweets and make sure to use the proper hashtags for maximum exposure. You can also use industry relevant hashtags and browse through competitors' streams to find other people using hashtags that might help get your content discovered. Since Twitter tends to have heavy use during the middle of the day on weekdays, try to schedule messages around this time. And definitely spend some time doing a brainstorming session to decide on the best hashtags for your buyer personas and marketing goals.

Automate it

Of course, if you're marketing your content across different platforms, which you definitely should, then you'll want to automate your social media messaging. With the right predictive tools, insightful reporting, and behavior analytics, you can offer your prospects and customer base the most relevant content items at the right time. Use your software to time content marketing for each buyer persona and at every stage of their individual buyer journey. For example, if you're using LinkedIn, which targets professionals, you'll want to have some messages hit in the early morning hours, which are a heavy traffic time for this social site. Automating these messages ensures that your content is getting seen even if you're not in front of your computer at 7 a.m. pushing send!

Friendly reminder

We're all busy people and may have missed a tweet or two while tending to our professional lives. Who hasn't favorited a tweet and then forgotten to come back and read it a few days later when you have the time? Well an easy and helpful tactic to remind forgetful prospects is to send out a friendly reminder on Friday, which is a peak day for social media interaction in general. Say something like "in case you missed it" and encourage your readers to take another look. Send out messages like this around 3 p.m.(EST), which is the time of day that tends to have the most click throughs. Use this opportunity to highlight some of the week's best content, or share a weekly newsletter that wraps up some of the ideas and trends from the previous week.

Now that you know more about timing your messages, get working on your content creation strategy and watch those leads come in around the clock!

Using LinkedIn to Generate Genuine Leads

randy@honeycomb.buzz (Randy Wilson) — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 19:23:54 GMT

LinkedIn is now 300+ million strong, and the world’s leading professional network. It’s a place where the business community can connect, find new opportunities, showcase their careers, maintain professional relationship and it’s an ideal place to turn professional relationships into opportunities. More importantly, it’s a place where millions of leading business people are not only within reach, but are actively looking to connect with you. Using LinkedIn to generate genuine leads can be a huge win. So get started now and use this tool to research employees at companies to help identify decision makers and influencers within a company who may turn into your next customer!

Most people don’t have a clue about how to build honest and real relationships with people on LinkedIn. Well, here are 4 easy steps that will save you time so that you can quickly use LinkedIn properly, making it a very effective tool!

1. Connect, Create and Join LinkedIn groups

Start connecting with your current and past contacts, focusing on relationships where they already know you and where trust already exists. Make sure you have imported your contacts into LinkedIn for the fastest and easiest way to connect to as many of these contacts. Then turn your attention to LinkedIn Groups.

Groups are a great way to connect with people in the same industry and trekking through life with the same challenges and questions. You can use these groups to learn loads about the current trends and fail-safes that exists within your industry. Connect with these groups and then make a point to participate in the conversations that are happening. Look for questions that you know the answer to so you can bring value to that conversation. Don’t use this place to sell.

When you begin to feel comfortable, create a group of your own and begin asking questions and while providing valuable resources to others within the same industry. Let people know you are a leader in your field and someone who can be trusted. Additionally, when you create your own group, you can send out a group email blast to share relevant content with all of your group - adding value to the conversation.

2. Identify Decision-Makers with LinkedIn searches

Use the advanced search option to identify prospects and people within the industry that you want to connect with. In the advanced search options, you can choose different filters to weed out all of the confusion. You can search for specific keywords, jobs, company size, location, etc. By using these options, you will be able to get a very specific list of prospects. These aren’t just any lists of prospects; these are warm contacts that you already know important information about, so feel comfortable reaching out through this social media platform.

3. Add Value to your Leads

Now's the time to start the conversation! Invite them to connect with you. With a free account, you can reach out to anyone you are connected with via InMail. When you begin to contact people, make sure you communicate why you are reaching out and always have something of value that you are sharing with this person. Don’t try selling them anything at this stage, just connect. Be normal- be human!

One way of connecting with a specific prospect is to look at his/her groups that they belong to and join in the discussion. Participating in these conversations is a great way to establish relationships with potential prospects and begin sharing things that might interest them.

4. Make the Ask

As you build the relationship and your prospeccts begin to interact with you, now is the time to reach out. Feel confident in the things you have shared with them and know that you've helped them and added value to their business already. Remind your prospect about some of your valuable interactions and conversations on LinkedIn as you would with someone you already know, ask then if they have time for a call on a specific date. If you don't ask, they don't have the opportunity to say yes!

Now you may be thinking, that sounds like a lot of time invested and you are right but It will be time well spent. So if you haven't already joined LinkedIn, get started on this productive social platform today!

How To Improve a Facebook Company Page and Get Traffic for a Nickel

michael@honeycomb.buzz (Honeycomb Team) — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 18:25:00 GMT

You better believe it - we've been running Facebook Ad campaigns for over three years, and we consistently return better ad results than 98% of other advertisers. Maybe you've been asking how to improve a Facebook company page for a while, but your ads aren't running effectively and you're struggling to see substantial ROI. There are many social media mistakes you could be making that influence this, but for most businesses, it's because your ads are missing a few crucial variables.

You CAN get ROI in terms of traffic, leads, and customers through Facebook advertising. It all depends on your ability to deliver VALUE in the ads, which drives traffic to your website. If you follow these few steps, you'll be well on your way to creating a campaign that gets clicks for less than a nickel - just like us.

How do we do this?

1. Choose the #1 Facebook Ad Objective to Generate Traffic

When creating a Facebook ad, you have the option of choosing from 10 different objectives.

With a traffic goal in mind, the most effective objective is “Boost Your Posts” to help you increase traffic to the site.

Choosing "Boost Your Posts" allows you to bypass any text limit restrictions on creating ads through the Ad Manager, which you will find in all of the other ad objective options.

This is because you’re promoting a Facebook update that you’ve already created in your timeline, not creating a new one.

Here are some of the practices we follow when creating these Boosted Posts advertisements on Facebook:

We suggest you create a Facebook update with 2-3 paragraphs that outline all of the value someone can get in clicking the link to your website.
Make sure you are linking back to a valuable piece of content on your website. Follow the main tenants of value based blogging to generate content that your customers want to read.
Optimize the photo for clickability. It is a good idea to use a professional stock photo or custom photo from your library. Facebook lets you use Shutterstock photos for FREE when creating ads that are NOT Boosted Posts, so make sure you are purchasing your own photo for this.
Optimize the Link Description with attractive words like Free, Help, New, Updated, Download, Access, Exclusive, etc.

Choose the Correct Budgeting and Ad Lifecycle

Budget allocation is a huge part of creating an ad that is delivered effectively to your audience. Allocating a larger budget to a smaller number of ad sets will optimize more effectively rather than splitting your budget into many ad sets. Don't spread your ad budget too thin - if you only have a few hundred dollars a month, only run 2-3 ads and keep them underneath the same campaign with the same advertising objective.

The second important aspect in budgeting your advertisements is the bidding process. Bidding for clicks is required in order to deliver your ads to people who are most likely to clickthrough to the website. Make sure you also choose "automated" cost per click in Facebook. The manual is not optimized and can severely impact your ad results unless you are monitoring it on a daily basis. No one wants to do that!

It's tempting to change up your ad frequently. Do not make any changes to an active campaign. Every time you make a change, the Facebook algorithm will need to relearn how to deliver effectively to your audience. Wait until the last day of the campaign to increase the budget and duration of an active Campaign and make your changes then. This also gives you more data to make your next move on the campaign so that you're utilizing the Facebook ad reporting to its highest potential. Finally, we recommend the minimum campaign duration should be 2 weeks as it may take up 2-3 days to reach the highest optimization point. We suggest doing a monthly ad calendar.

This is one section of four Facebook ad guidelines in our newly released ebook, The Ultimate Facebook Advertising Guide. Download it now!

What's the Difference Between Inbound Marketing and Content Marketing?

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Fri, 15 Jan 2016 18:00:00 GMT

When marketing professionals talk about the difference between inbound marketing and content marketing, it can sometimes sound like the age-old question of what came first, the chicken or the egg? But it really isn't that confusing and no matter what you decide about these two important components of a marketing campaign, you're going to need to do both really well in order to maximize your marketing resources.

Inbound Marketing

In general, inbound marketing is a strategy that is rooted in the idea of attracting and drawing in those people who are actively looking for information pertaining to your industry or solutions for their problems, instead of the traditional outbound marketing philosophy of pushing your message out to the masses. With inbound, your marketing message is weaved into content or information that is already being sought out by someone, whereas with outbound, your marketing message sometimes interrupts an audience, as in the case of a radio or TV commercial. And irrespective of what marketing software you run, most marketers will agree that there is no inbound marketing without content.

Content Marketing

So let's talk a bit about content. Content marketing is the part of your marketing strategy that deals with creating relevant, compelling, and timely content and distributing it in a consistent manner to your buyers personas. This content can take many forms: blogging, e-books, webinars, guest blogging, lead nurturing, downloads, newsletters, landing pages, and more. Great content marketing campaigns don't just focus on attracting new customers, as is usually the focus with inbound, but it focuses on all stages of the buying process, from initial brand awareness through to brand evangelism.

Hand-in-Hand

Now that you know the difference, it's best for marketers to think in terms of "and", definitely not "or", when it comes to inbound and content marketing. Your marketing success relies on both and a well-structured campaign will have each component complementing the other. Take time to align your marketing philosophy, strategy, and campaign tactics so that your inbound and content marketing efforts run seamlessly. For example, if your content writers are drafting great blog posts with pertinent information and data for your buyer personas, but there's no inbound strategy to help the information get discovered, then you're wasting dollars and time. Use valuable inbound tactics like SEO, premium trials, or interactive tools to help the content get found by the right audience.

Similarly, if you have an effective inbound campaign, but then have no content to nurture these leads along once they're in your pipeline, then you've spent a ton of resources building a contact management system that you're not maximizing. Make sure you have a content marketing campaign in place to track the efforts of your inbound campaign, highlight metrics for multiple stages of the buying cycle, and alert you when it's time for an upsell with a current customer.

So the moral of the story is that you've got to do both, and do them well! If the two aren't working together, you're limiting your effectiveness as a marketing leader.

Marketing for Nonprofits? Here's 10 Tips!

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Thu, 14 Jan 2016 00:01:09 GMT

If you're in marketing for nonprofits, then you know it's rare to have an ample budget to get everything done. It can sometimes seem as though your campaign has to keep getting revised due to budget restraints and that you don't have enough funding to launch a complete marketing campaign. But you can still reach quite a few potential sponsors and donors if you get creative and use some of our tips below!

1. Understand your donors

One of the primary marketing techniques that you should be using to maximize every dollar is understanding what makes your donors tick. Make sure you understand why your donors give their money and resources; is it that they identify with your cause on a personal level, or do they need a tax write-off? Knowing what motivates your donors to give will help you launch marketing campaigns around their needs and timelines, not yours.

2. Leverage your sidebar

A quick and cost effective way to reach out to more people in your marketing efforts is to use your sidebar. Of course, your overall page should be artfully designed with content that will excite and inform supporters, but even a small sidebar can have a big impact. Use your sidebar to highlight impact stats, suggest giving levels, or show some animation related to your cause.

3. Ramp up your social media

You probably already have social media accounts for your nonprofit, but if you don't, now is the time to do it! Statistics show that over 80% of small businesses use social media to grow their business and market to potential leads. So whether you get on Facebook, Twitter, or any of the other platforms out there, make sure your nonprofit is taking advantage of this powerful marketing tool.

4. Have donors participate

Engage your donors and have them speak at events, share their own stories in a monthly newsletter, or participate at sponsorship rallies where they can market on your behalf. Donors are usually thrilled when they are asked to participate in campaigns where they can speak with other people who feel just as strongly about your cause!

5. Give your recipients a voice

And what about your recipients? They can be a meaningful part of your marketing efforts, too! Have them write a thank you note to your donors and spread it around on social media, or even have them write a personal story for your newsletter. This personal touch is an effective marketing tool because it lets possible donors and sponsor see how their funds are being used, and often makes them want to keep donating!

6. Psych 'Em Out

Studies from Kiva.org show that donors are more likely to give at the end of a campaign when you are closer to your fundraising goal. The psychology behind it is that donors have a greater feeling of satisfaction when they help your campaign surpass its goal, rather than being a part of the few that get it off the ground at the beginning. To build the best momentum for your campaign, split it into two and market to your strongest supporters at the beginning, and then launch a more robust campaign to the public as you get closer to reaching your target.

7. Know your demographic

If you're new to social media, figure out your demographic and what sites they're on. For example, if you want to target men, it's good to be on LinkedIn, which is dominated by this demographic. Or if you want to target women, one of the more popular social sites for this demographic is Pinterest. And it's good to know when your target donors are online; do they use Facebook? If so, you want to be posting on Fridays, which is a heavy traffic day for this social site.

8. Use your volunteers

It's no surprise that nonprofits have to stretch every marketing dollar, in fact every dollar, to the max. So think of ways you can use your volunteers to help out with tasks and jobs that you might otherwise have to do in-house. Do you have any volunteers who are great photographers or videographers who can capture donors, sponsors, and recipients at your events? Is there a social media expert that can beef up your Instagram profile? Whatever your needs are, don't overlook this untapped resource for marketing your cause.

9. Write a blog

Just like the one you're reading now, use your blog to share valuable information about your nonprofit, trends in giving, and any other information that you think your donors might be interested in seeing. Blogs are a cost-effective way to market your organization and your readers can easily pass this information along to their colleagues and friends if you add some social sharing buttons to each post. If you're not convinced, read our 10 stats that prove the value of having a blog on your webiste and you just might change your mind!

10. Get Visual

Did you know that over 90% of mobile video viewers share the content with other viewers? Wow! Have one of your volunteers do a cool video about your nonprofit. Or even have your recipients send in videos of their success stories and do a contest for the best video. Whatever you do, get visual and get some video content up on your site and on your social media so everyone can see the great work you are doing!

12 Marketing Ideas for Small Business Owners

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 18:00:00 GMT

As a small business, marketing budgets are always tight. But it's a critical part of your growing your business and getting new customers. You don't have to break the bank and spend every dollar on expensive campaigns: use some of our marketing ideas for small business owners to get the word out!

1. Infographics

Infographics are powerful marketing tools and stats show that people are 21% more likely to share an infographic. Why? Well they’re visual eye candy, they’re easy to read(if done right), and people love to share them, so they’re a great way to drive up site traffic and links. You can hire an intern designer to make you an arsenal of cool infographics or you can make your own on the cheap if you have the time and don’t mind a bit of a challenge.

2. Eco-friendly

You know the phrase, "reduce, reuse, recycle"? Well it applies to your blog content, too. Recycle and refresh your old content into new creations. Turn your webinar into a series of video tutorials or transform a collection of blog posts into an ebook. As your current readers begin to share, chances are there will be a ton of people who never even saw your old stuff, so it’ll be new content for a bulk of your audience. What - you don't have a blog? Well take a look at 10 reasons why you should!

3. Social butterfly

Get out there and join the social media universe! It's one of the most cost-effective ways to use your precious marketing dollars. For one, readers can easily share your content, news, and product information with their networks. And secondly, as more people get access to smart phones and technology, the number of visits to your social channels will only increase. Did you know that over 80% of Americans are on social media? Don't miss out on marketing to a huge group of people!

4. Customer referrals

If you've got some happy and satisfied customers, provide them with an incentive to bring you some more business. Reach out to some of your best customers and ask them for names of people in their network who could benefit from your service. Or provide a discount to current customers who refer you to qualified leads. Whatever you decide to use as an incentive, your current customer database is more likely to respond with this little nudge.

5. Get recognized

Are there industry awards and certifications that will help you stand out from your peers? If so, apply for them so that you can promote that info on your website, add it to the bottom of busines cards, or put it on your sales brochures. Adding this recognition will set you apart from the competition and give you an edge when vying for business.

6. We've got a winner!

Launch a contest and build up some media hype with potential customers. You can do this online through your social media channels or partner with another local business to do a raffle or drawing. The gift doesn't have to be extravagant; maybe it's part of your service for free, or something from your new product line. People love winning things, so use this to your advantage.

7. Join affiliate groups

Get out there and network with other businesses in your industry. This is a good way for small businesses to market their product since it puts you in touch with people who might be able to refer you business. Once you get to know more people and establish meaningful relationships, you can enjoy the added business from these groups.

8. SEO

Search engine optimization is an effective process that increases your website or a web page’s visibility in the unpaid (organic) search engines. When you optimize your content, your business page will rank for search terms that your potential customers are looking for.

9. Start a Meetup

Are you getting out there and attending networking events and are finding that there's nothing that really suits your fancy? Well try starting your own networking group! Use the popular MeetUp platform that has groups all over the world. Use your social media to promote your new group and watch your network grow!

10. Sponsor a non-profit

Check out the local non-profits in your area and consider sponsoring one that is aligned with your business. This is a good way for your company to build brand awarenes with a whole new set of potential customers that you might otherwise not reach. And it's just a good way to give back to the community.

11. Host an event

If you've got a great office, great! This should be easy for you, but don't let lack of space deter you. There's lots of coworking sites sprouting up all over, or consider partnering with another business and using their location. Whether it's a networking event, a seminar, or a holiday party, it's a chance for you to get your name out there and promote your business with new people.

12. Listen up!

Reach new prospects with a podcast. Create a list of topics, contact some thought leaders in your industry, and record some interesting content that you can share with your customers and prospects. Encourage people to share it on social media or send it out in an email newsletter.

5 Landing Page Examples to Help You Convert More Leads

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 17:30:00 GMT

If you're looking to improve your ROI with great landing pages, it's helpful to know what makes a good landing page and see some examples of ones that actually work. At this point, you've spent some time developing a page that has a form to capture your reader's email and key information in exchange for some valuable piece of content you've provided. But is your landing page capturing tons of lower quality leads, or a few high quality submissions? Depending on what your goals are, you'll want to fine tune your landing pages to get the kind of leads you want!

1. Honeycomb

Of course, we're biased, but this first example is a great one because it combines a clean layout that tells the reader exactly what they'll be getting, while highlighting our Hubspot certification so that potential leads know we're qualified to do quality work. When designing your own landing pages, stay away from having too much extraneous info floating around to distract a potential lead. Keep it clean and add any industry certifications or qualifications that you think will help validate your offer and website.

2. P2Life

This is a good example of a landing page because it speaks to the pain points of your buyer personas. Stay away from using fancy marketing jargon and talk directly to your prospect. Tell them what they're getting. The P2Life landing page does just this with the opening statement: "Balancing your meals and busy schedule can be tough." You're instantly connecting with your buyers by empathizing with how they feel and shows them that you understand their plight. When drafting effective landing pages, always check to see if they are relevant to your buyer personas.

3. Viance Nutrition

People love pictures, so if you want an effective landing page, have some visuals of what your readers will be getting when they download your content offer. Statistics show that over half of people respond better to content with visual information than just plain text. So maximize the effectiveness of your landing page with some great shots of either the content offer, or some visuals that help them better connect with your brand.

4. Dolphins and You

Use color! This Dolphins and You wedding planning guide has the information layed out on a pretty aqua that not only reflects their brand, but is a cool, calming color that helps brides-to-be envision their wedding destination in Hawaii. Think about your brand and the colors that resonate with it and then integrate them into the design of the landing page. And stay consistent with the rest of your web pages; you don't want your readers to suffer a shock when they land on your page!

5. H.Bloom

Sometimes, you've just got to stop and admire a landing page for being beautiful. Using high-resolution photography and lots of white space, H.BLOOM's landing page is a pleasure to look at. Besides its beauty, the page has some great conversions elements: an above-the-fold form, clear and concise description of what'll happen when you fill out the form, and even the bright orange "Submit" button. The only thing we'd change up? The copy on the "Submit" button -- that could be more specific to the offer at hand.

8 Marketing Ideas for Software Startups

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Thu, 07 Jan 2016 18:00:00 GMT

What's the secret behind why some software companies make it and others don't?

There are plenty of startups that have great products, but some fail, ending up in that virtual graveyard and others go on to be the next big hit.

It's a combination of hiring quality people who believe in the product, investment in customer satisfaction, and a stellar marketing campaign that targets their ideal customer.

While the first two components are important, let's focus on some marketing ideas for software startups that can send you on the path to success.

1. Invest into inbound marketing collateral

Your online presence through a great website and social media will help drive your inbound marketing efforts.

Rather than paying sales reps to make cold calls and rely on the rare response from a prospect, successful software companies lean on their inbound marketing presence to bring them qualified leads.

It's a more efficient way of doing business, which is what all startups should do. Lean operations mean leveraging the automation capabilities of an inbound marketing campaign using a tool like HubSpot.

Practicing an inbound marketing strategy that provides value to website visitors creates a scalable, long-term marketing funnel.

2. Value-driven email marketing campaigns

How about an email newsletter? As long as you do it the right way: Don't Spam, Give Value.

Use your core customers to share the good news about your company. Include social sharing buttons at the bottom of every newsletter so that your readers can share it on whatever social media channel they like and watch your contact database grow.

While you want to share industry news, product updates, and occasional promotions, don't bombard your leads with this.

If you wanna run email marketing campaigns for leads, use drip sequences that drive the lead to download another content offer or watch a demo video of your software.

3. Write about it

Have you consider starting a blog? Blogs are a useful way to drive traffic to your site around the clock. It's one of the best investments of your time because with the right promotion on social media, your blog posts can go viral. Remember not to use your blog as a forum for how great your company is, but rather share valuable information. Try doing some interviews with thought leaders in your industry, or feature one of your customer's success stories. If you're not convinced on the value of having a blog, read our post on 10 stats about blogging that will definitely change your mind!

4. Pay-per-click ads

One of the most simple and cost effective marketing strategies for new software companies is by buying visits to your site than earning them organically. One of the most popular forms of PPC advertising is bidding for ad placement in search results. If you're going to use this strategy, take some time to research the right keywords, choose those words and place them into a well-organized campaigns, and then set up PPC landing pages that are optimized for converting those visitors to leads.

5. Growth hacking

It's not as bad as it sounds, trust us. What successful software companies do is rely on their network of influencers to help grow their business. They leverage developer and user communities to test their products, get design input, and then have these folks promote it through their networks. In exchange, these brand partners receive a commission of sales or become resellers themselves.

6. Class is in session

Using your website as an educational tool is a helpful way to drive business because it provides your viewers with valuable information. You can also link a YouTube channel to your site, or share it in your email newsletter to get even more readers checking out your company. Whatever way you go, keep the information relevant and brief so as not to bore your potential customers.

7. Is it just hype?

Be careful not to overmarket a product that is just plain bad. It doesn't matter how amazing your marketing is if your product is just plain horrible. And in this day and age where a bad customer review can go viral at lightning speed, make sure you've done the right testing before running out and launching a full-scale marketing campaign.

8. The early bird

Doesn't always catch the worm, but sometimes builds too much hype and then your startup can't deliver on the (amazing/life-changing/insert hype adjective here) product that everyone is watching for. Instead of making this mistake that most software startups do, make sure your product is tested and ready for the prime-time coverage if and when it does come. Make sure you have the manpower in place to handle the flood of customers that may come your way!

Awesome Chrome Plugins for Marketing Professionals

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Tue, 05 Jan 2016 18:30:00 GMT

Sometimes it feels as if we're swimming in the Google universe, and with the advent of Chrome in 2008 came the added feature of plugins. These extensions will definitely make your life easier, once you know how to use them, and anyone who works in digital marketing should add a few of these handy helpers to your toolbox. While there's tons of extensions out there, I'll focus on the ones that my colleagues and I use every day.

Sidekick

You don't have to be in marketing to love Sidekick. It's a tool that anyone with an inbox needs. It works with Gmail, Outlook, Apple or Salesforce accounts to schedule emails in the future, will let you know who opens and clicks your emails and will give you a bunch of other information like your recipients’ title, company social profiles, and recent tweets. It's a timesaver and highly recommended for anyone who wants to improve their email productivity, coordinate teams, network, or stay on top of sales leads.

MozBar

For the digital age marketer who wants to stay current on SEO, the Mozbar is the perfect tool. The Mozbar plugin allows you to see crucial data about any site you visit, such as Domain/Page Authority, keywords, no-followed or followed information. This is an absolute must for SEO’ers because you can create custom SEO searches based on search engine, city, country and other parameters. If you want to subscribe to Moz Pro, you'll get even more detailed analyses of the pages you visit.

ColorZilla

Don't waste time trying to color match anymore! Colorzilla allows you to pick any color off of a webpage and provides you with the color number for future use. It then stores the hexcodes for you to use within your own content or design creation. It easily gives you a color reading from any part of your browser, where you can quickly adjust it and paste it into Photoshop, GoogleDraw or any other design or drawing tool.

Ghostery

Digital marketers know exactly how tracking works, so to see what other businesses are doing on the web and vice versa, Ghostery is the plugin for you. This extension will allow you to see the invisible side, showing the trackers, pixels, bugs and beacons that companies place on pages. Another bonus is that you can identify who is tracking you from Facebook or Google and get links to businesses’ privacy policies where you can choose to opt-out.

WhatFont

Well the name says it all! Hover over any text and this extension will tell you what font it is - easy.

Evernote

Think of it as a way to make the internet your own personal library. Curate anything you see on the web with this extension and turn it into a "binder" of sorts. This one is a favorite with marketers, but really just about anyone could use it to keep track of all the stuff that they want to reference on the web.

3 Social Media Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Mon, 04 Jan 2016 21:34:29 GMT

Social media is what's driving B2B and B2C these days, so it's important for you to beef up your social media channels and make sure that it's an integral part of your marketing campaign. Whether you have a huge Facebook following, an active Instagram profile, or a colorful Pinterest page, make sure you aren't making any of these social media mistakes!

Ghost Town

One of the biggest mistakes that companies make is not having a personality or a brand voice online. They're just a ghost of a company and it's hard for customers and prospects to really get a sense of who you are, what you're all about, and how they can relate to your company. Spend some time thinking about how you want to come across on social media to your customers. Do you want to share action shots and pictures, behind the scenes videos, blog posts about industry trends, or all of the above? Whatever you decide to share, make sure that you have a consistent message across the board and that your brand voice really resonates with the audience that you want to target. And speaking of ghosts, don't spread yourself too thin and jump on every social media channel out there. Make sure you have the manpower to actively engage with the audience in each channel. Decide which channels will get you the most bang for your buck and concentrate on those instead of starting a page or profile only to disappear from it because you are too busy to maintain a quality social media presence.

Retweet Frenzy

And speaking of a quality social media presence, make sure you are sharing your own unique content. Don't get in the habit of just retweeting everyone else's great posts, create your own! One of the biggest social media mistakes that companies make is not crafting their own content. Take some time to develop your arsenal of insightful blog posts, high quality videos, staff interviews, engaging e-books, or whatever you think your audience will want to see. While it is a bit of an investment of your time and resources, your readership will be much more likely to respond. Studies by Hubspot show that 61% of people feel better about a company that delivers custom content and are more likely to buy from that company, so what are you waiting for? Dust off those writing skills and videocamera and get started creating great content that can show off your brand to the rest of the world!

Too "Salesy"

Marketing on social media is all about building relationships. Stay away from the hard sell tactics of the past and don’t abuse the platform by using your messages as billboard or a commercial. Strike a balance with the content you are sharing and aim for engaging, high-value content 80 percent of the time and then share product facts and promotions the remaining 20 percent of the time. Try to envision your social media channels as funnels to move your followers down a path that will engage them with your brand until they are ready to buy. Being too "salesy" will turn people off and send potential leads to other sites that actually share information instead of push product. Add value and your prospects will be that much more likely to buy from you in the future.

While social media blunders are endless, you don't have to fall into the trap that so many companies do! Instead, take a minute to assess your social media strategy and see if it's working for your company. If it's not, make some small tweaks and watch your engagement and leads soar!

Here's How to Improve Office Morale in 2016

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Thu, 31 Dec 2015 17:30:00 GMT

This is the time of year when everyone is taking inventory on their goals, plans, and objectives for the new year. While the focus tends to be on numbers and percentages, when is the last time you focused on your team and the quality of your work environment? Take a moment to check the pulse of your team's morale. Signs of low morale are increased turnover, rare personal initiative, and lack of team work, in addition to poor overall performance. If your team is showing any of these symptoms, consider some ways on how to improve office morale in the upcoming year.

1. Don't Micromanage

If you find yourself constantly checking in on your team and having endless meetings to provide "updates", then maybe you should take another look at your management style. Are you micromanaging and afraid to delegate tasks? Are you nervous that your employees aren't working if you're not standing over their shoulder? Well maybe it's time to reconsider your behaviors and see how they're impacting your team. In a recent study by Workfront, over 60% of employees blame an overbearing and demanding boss as having the most negative impact on their work-life balance. Don't be that guy! Instead of micromanaging, delegate tasks, give clear definitions of expectations and timelines, and then sit back and watch your team flourish. Properly delegating shows that you have faith in their abilities and motivates your employees to give their best performance, even when you're not watching.

2. Practice What You Preach

Your mission statement shouldn't just be a placard on the wall or an insert in a sales brochure; you should be living it every day as an example to your team! When you say that you value your employees and their success, your actions need to back it up. Align your values with what your employees value and you'll see employee morale improve dramatically. You set the tone as the manager, so if you want to encourage teamwork and a positive team environment, put some initiatives in place to get that going in the new year. Consider doing some team building activities like an off-site lunch, or start to recognize professional accomplishments around the office if you're not doing so already. People want their contributions to be recognized, and feeling undervalued is one of the top reasons that good employees leave a job. Keep the team you've got by practicing what you preach and show your employees that they matter.

3. Show Me the Personal Day!

Does your company give employees the chance to reboot and maybe take a day off to recharge? Personal time is important for all of us and one of the best ways to boost office morale is to provide a chance for employees to manage their work-life balance. Did you know that almost 40% of Americans have missed an important life event due to work schedules? Don't be one of those employers that prevents your team from participating in the meaningful events of life; it just builds resentment from your employees and results in low productivity. Try offering a flexible work schedule with the ability to log in and work outside typical business hours to compensate for time off during standard operating hours. Or consider adding in the benefit of a few personal days for employees to take charge of their time. Whatever option you put in place, your employees will feel empowered to make the most of their time at work, and their time away from the office.

While we're not recommending a total overhaul of your corporate culture, do a quick scan to see where you can make some quick improvements to give your employee morale a boost. Give your team the nudge that they need to get back on track for 2016 and watch performance and productivity soar!

5 Essential Activities in a Tourism Marketing Plan

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Wed, 30 Dec 2015 18:13:51 GMT

Nothing is more rewarding for a tour company than seeing eager visitors from all over the world enjoy the sights while creating memories with family and friends. So how do you attract more of these happy guests and encourage them to come and visit when they decide to use that precious vacation time? Putting together a tourism marketing plan doesn't have to be hard; start with these five steps and build a marketing campaign that will bring your more visitors and revenue!

1. Blog Consistently

If you're not already convinced on the power of having a blog, how about this statistic from Hubspot that shows marketers who have a blog are 13x more likely to receive a positive ROI. And who doesn't want that? A blog is a simple way to connect with potential customers and have them learn about your destination and your company, while building a brand voice. Of course, you could just share someone else's blog on your social media, but it's much more powerful to create your own. Data from Social Media Examiner shows that 94% of B2C marketers are using original written content instead of just curating someone else's content, making it that much more impactful and SEO-friendly when blogging and sharing information on your site. Blogging doesn't have to be hard; brainstorm some ideas and then get to writing and publishing with one of the user-friendly platforms like Hubspot or Wordpress to build your page. Keep it up by sticking to a schedule and share your valuable information with the world!

2. Share It!

Because you're attracting people from all over the world, social media is going to be a big part of your marketing campaign. If you don't have them already, create Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts to spread the word about your tour company and all that your location has to offer. Share your blog posts, pictures from your photography team, and any promotions that your company is offering. And make sure you are including images and other media in your social media feed. Did you know that Tweets with pictures receive 150% more retweets than those without images? Wow! Get a good photographer on your team and start sorting through those pictures to share all of the fun that your guests will be having when they join your tour!

3. Star Power

Those 5-star ratings are going to be your best friend when it comes to bringing in new business. But what good does it do if nobody can see the great feedback that previous guests have given about your tour and the awesome experience they've had? Make sure that your rating system is easy to use and interfaces directly with your social media channels and your website. And make it easy for guests to leave feedback; if it's too complicated, they'll click away and the positive review will be lost in cyberspace forever.

4. Convert Those Leads

It's great that people are reading about all of the amazing excursions that your company offers and the breathtaking sights that they'll see when they do actually visit, but how do you ensure that these leads actually turn into your customers and not a competitor's when they finally arrive for their vacation? This is where you'll need to build some "call to action" links in your blog so that you can capture the emails of these potential guests before they arrive at your destination. If you capture their email with a call to action for a helpful 7-day itinerary or a handy packing list, you can nurture them along the marketing funnel with other emails until they are ready to book their tour with you.

5. What's Your Brand?

You're probably not the only tour company in (fill in exotic/urban/remote locale here), so you're going to have to differentiate yourself from the rest of your competitors in the neighborhood. Think about what sets you apart from the other tour companies in the area; does your company have a special connection with the place, are your tour guides trained with special knowledge, or is it something else that adds that special touch that your guests won't get anywhere else. Whatever it is, make sure your message is consistent across all channels so that the customer knows what they're getting and will be excited to join you and your company while they're on vacation.

So what are you waiting for? Start your year off by taking a good look at your tourism marketing plan and fill in the holes with these helpful tips. Then sit back and watch the guests arrive!

How to Create Attainable Marketing Objectives in 2016

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Mon, 28 Dec 2015 18:00:00 GMT

This isn't the first time you've set some goals for your marketing team, but do your goals sound more like a lofty new year's resolution or a true action plan? If it's the latter - great! But anything other than that is going to create inefficiencies in your day to day work and lead you off course as the year goes on. One of our favorite systems is the SMART goals system; it's straightforward, easy to implement, and has stood the test of time because it works! Putting this system into place will ensure that you attain your marketing goals and attract more business.

1. Specific

This is the stage where you really define the goal and drill down on the what, where, why, and who of your goal. Let's start with a key piece of this step; the "why". Before any change can take place, you need to state why the goal is important and why it's a part of the campaign. Studies show over and over that when employees know why they are doing something, they are much more invested in the process and more motivated to act. Once you've defined the specific goal for you and your marketing team, talk about who is involved and what each person's role is - this creates more buy-in too. It also gets people excited about seeing where they fit into the bigger picture and how they contribute to the overall goal. Once you've defined the "why" and "who" of the goal, the later step of figuring out "how" becomes much more streamlined since everyone is now on the same page. Working out the nuts and bolts of how the goal is going to play out over the marketing campaign is now simply a matter of each team member contributing to the plan.

2. Measurable

Now come the numbers - the stuff that every manager wants to see if you're on target! Decide how much or by what percentage you want something to increase. For example, if part of your goal is to increase qualified leads from your social media channels, first take a look at how many leads you currently have coming in from Facebook, Twitter, and other campaigns you've used in the past. Then make a reasonable goal based on your sales and marketing resources and how many leads you'll need to bring in to reach that target dollar amount. Beyond just being a number, you need to also be able to track this progress and measure it, so make sure that you have the reporting tools in place to check on how you're doing.

3. Action-Oriented

If you've done step #1 and have outlined some of the specifics of your goal, the action plan or "how" becomes relatively easy. This step is where you simply state what you are going to do! Assign each team member tasks and deliverables that feed into that overall goal. Let's use the previous goal as an example: if you're going to increase leads via social media channels, part of that is assigning someone the task of publishing a daily schedule for your social media channels. Additionally, you'll want to have someone review the reports to see where your leads are coming from and adjust the plan to invest more time and resources in those profitable channels.

4. Realistic

Your goals should be the right combination of optimistic and challenging. You want your team to reach some success early on so that they're encouraged to keep going and working towards the overall goal. If you're goal is too high and not realistic, you are going to set everyone up for failure. Not a good idea since this causes people to disengage and lose motivation. If you've set a goal that is a bit unrealistic, look at why that might be. Do you need to outsource some tasks that might enable your current team members to do their jobs more efficiently, therefore allowing them to stay on task with the goals you've given them? Or are your sales and marketing teams not communicating and you're out of touch with what a reasonable and realistic goal should be? Whatever the case may be, do a thorough check of your goals and make sure that you and your team can attain them, which only leads to more success. And that's something that we all want to shoot for!

5. Time

Finally, decide when you want to achieve this result. Don't throw out a goal with no timeline; it's bad management. Your team will feel lost and may even make up their own deadlines if you're not clear about when this goal should be achieved. If your goal is to increase your Facebook leads by 25%, how about stating "by the end of Q1"? Putting a stake in the ground gives everyone a sense of what they're working toward, and allows you as a manager to do some monthly reviews before you hit that first deadline at the end of the quarter. Having a clearly defined timeline helps everyone, including you, manage their workflows and see if they're on target.

So definitley take some time to develop a goal system that will put you and your team on the path to success from month to month and the whole year through!

5 Things to NEVER Say on a Sales Call

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 18:00:00 GMT

You've screened out leads, had the initial phone conversations, and done all of the prep for your sales presentation. Take some time to role play and think about what you're going to say, and not say, so that you have a successful meeting with your prospect. Here's a list of 5 things never to say on a sales call if you want that lead to turn into a customer for life!

1. "Well, I didn't have a ton of time to prepare..."

You might as well pack up your bags and walk out of the customer's office. Saying that you are unprepared sends the message that you don't value the prospect's time and that this appointment really isn't that meaningful to you or your company. This is not a good message to send! To avoid blurting this out, take time to prepare and list possible objections and concerns that you think your potential client might have and use some of the information that you already have from previous calls or data that you have about them from your social media tracking. Then write down some ways to overcome these possible objections and some solutions to offer in the event that these issues come up. If you're truly caught off guard say something like, "That's a great question and I'm glad you asked. I don't have that specific information with me, but I can follow up when I get back to the office. Should I call you with the info or email it to you?" Keep control of the call and any future follow up that you'll have to do with the customer to ensure that the sales process moves along.

2. "If I could show you a way to save money, would you be interested?"

This question is a set up and unfortunately, both you and the prospect lose on this one. Turning the attention to money and cost automatically puts the customer in a mindset of having to haggle and ask for discounts. And it puts you on the defense when the customer starts negotiating every line item and looking for other ways to "save money". Stay away from this kind of language and the discussion of costs and fees until the end of the meeting and your customers have sold themselves on the value of your product or service. If you've done your job correctly and focused on how your company provides a solution to the customer's problem, price shouldn't be the focus of the conversation.

3. "Are you the decision maker?"

Don't undermine or offend the person you are meeting with by asking this question. It immediately makes the prospect feel unimportant, and makes it seem as if you don't respect their position. Of course, you do want to know if all of the key players are in the room, or if you're speaking to the right person on the phone so that you don't waste everyone's time, but how about something like, "Who else will be participating with you in making this decision?". It's a tactful way to find out who the real decision makers are and how many additional people you'll need to speak with before the ball gets rolling.

4. "We'll get back to that later"

When a prospect asks a question, don't delay in answering it. Address the issue head on and acknowledge their concerns. This immediately gains you respect in their eyes and makes them feel like their issues are valid. If you truly feel like answering the question will require a complete overhaul of your presentation and derail you completely, give a brief response with something like, "I'm glad you brought that up. I have some information on (ABC) that addresses that specific concern you're asking about and we're going to cover it a bit later when I walk you through the steps of (XYZ)." Putting the client at ease with a brief acknowledgment is appropriate; just make a note to come back to the issue when the time is right to show that you're paying attention and care about their concerns.

5. "When should I follow up?"

Definitely do not leave the next steps in the hands of the customer - unless you want to delay the process even further! Based on what you already know about the prospect's schedule, suggest a time and a date that you will call or follow up with them. Say something like, “It’s going be about (a day, two days, a week, etc.) to get this started on my end, how about I give you a call on Thursday at this time; does 1:30pm work for you again?”. Get a firm commitment from your prospect and keep control of the time line. Definitely don't let them decide or else it will get put at the bottom of their to-do list, which is not where you want to be!

Get some practice and role play through some different scripts with a trusted colleague or your sales manager. Take these phrases out of your vocabulary and focus on some sales skills that will get you the business and on the path to success!

3 Reasons Why Shopify and HubSpot is the Best E-Commerce Combo

michael@honeycomb.buzz (Honeycomb Team) — Wed, 23 Dec 2015 17:42:47 GMT

Do you run an e-commerce store? Picking the right marketing software and shopping cart is one of the most important decisions you make for your business.

There are over 110,000 revenue generating e-commerce stores online today. That's some serious competition. How do you separate yourself in a meaningful way to bring in new customers and keep current customers coming back?

You need to integrate a successful inbound marketing campaign with a robust shopping cart for maximum conversions. How do you do this?

Connecting sales and marketing enables your e-commerce business to create a seamless user experience that increases your daily sales. Up to 95% of customers who visit your website for the first time do not buy anything. You need to nurture these visitors through an attractive inbound marketing strategy that includes emails, product pages, value-based content, business blogs, and personalization.

We've worked with dozens of e-commerce retailers and direct sellers who do millions of dollars in revenue per year. And we've used all the platforms: WooCommerce, Infusionsoft, Squarespace, Magento, and more. Here's what we've found:

The two software solutions that provide the highest value and potential for growth are Shopify and HubSpot.

HubSpot is an inbound marketing software platform that helps companies attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers. It includes everything you need to run an inbound marketing campaign, like blogging, SEO, social media marketing, and email nurturing. It's the ultimate way you can start selling value in your marketing activities.

Shopify is a complete ecommerce solution that allows you to set up an online store to sell your goods. It lets you organize your products, customize your storefront, accept credit card payments, track and respond to orders — all with a few clicks of the mouse. Plus, it has dozens of third party developers working to build amazing integrations and apps so you can connect your store with distribution, warehousing, fulfillment, and shipping.

Why do we love these two software solutions the most? Here are the three biggest reasons.

Reason #3: Unlimited Reporting Capabilities

HubSpot and Shopify provide the most robust reporting capabilities available in the industry. When these two softwares are connected, you can see a full closed loop report of converion. Simply put: You will be able to see every customer's activity from first contact to purchase.

Want to know if your organic Facebook marketing is generating actual sales? Does Twitter for business actually work on e-commerce? With HubSpot and Shopify, you can look back to each customer's interaction with your Facebook page and how much revenue they've brought you.

Reason #2: Apps and Plugins for Days

Both HubSpot and Shopify have robust app stores and integrations, making your life about 1,000 times easier.

Shopify has a third party network of developers who make applications to connect you with other aspects of your business process. You can integrate apps that connect Shopify to your fulfillment, distribution, and shipping. Some features app integrations include:

Calculate shipping automatically in your shopping cart based on the customers location
Add pop-up coupon offers as people are exiting your website, increasing conversions
Upsell complimentary products in the shopping cart so customers buy more product.

HubSpot also has a robust network of integrations, both native and third party, that bring together your other solutions. Google Apps, Slack, Zapier, SalesForce, Evenbrite, and other apps all work within HubSpot to create an all in one solution.

It makes your business process waaaay more efficient and reduces your time spent working and sharing data between different software solutions. Plus, HubSpot connects APIs with the most important software solution in the whole mix.......Shopify!

Reason #1: Seamlessly Connect Marketing and Sales

Shopify and HubSpot's ability to connect is huge. Why? It allows your current marketing strategy and sales solution to share all data, so that you can utilize your sales data to make better marketing decisons, and vice a versa.

For Example: A customer visits your ecommerce site and places a product in their shopping cart. However, they leave before making the purchase. Shopify will communicate the customer data, including their email, what products were placed in the cart, if they have bought them before, and when they left the site without purchasing.

HubSpot can then use this data to create a follow up email marketing sequence encouraing that person to complete their purchase over a week's period. We have seen up to a 42% conversion rate on these abandoned cart nurturing sequence. Imaging if you increased your sales by 42% just from creating an email nurturing sequence.

Another Example: HubSpot has the ability to send reminder emails to reorder products. When someone orders a product on your website, Shopify will tell HubSpot what was ordered, who ordered it, and how much they ordered.

HubSpot then uses this data to send a set of follow up emails when it's time for the customer to purchase a new product. This is huge for ecommerce sites that sell consumable products or subscription based products. Imagine having a set of 10-15 emails that are automatically sent out to customers over a month period when it's time for them to reorder? It's all done automatically for you. All you have to do is watch the customers roll in. ;)

All in all, Shopify and HubSpot is the best solution we've found over our years of working with many ecommerce customers. It brings the best ROI and has the most robust integration solution. It also provides the best turnkey solution for ecommerce businesses looking to automate some of their processes. We hope it works for you too!

Need help with your Shopify and HubSpot inbound marketing campaign?

We'd love to help! Click below to get a free 30 Minute Assessment of your ecommerce website.

6 Qualities That Define a Successful Sales Rep

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 18:30:00 GMT

Maybe you're a sales manager, recruiter, or a sales rep yourself. Whatever role you're in, one thing's for sure - great salespeople definitely drive the business forward. So what are the qualities that make one salesperson stand out from the rest? And how can you hone and develop qualities so that you are creating value and revenue for your company? Start with this list of traits that anyone can practice and set yourself apart from everyone else!

1. Listens

Nobody likes a person who chatters on incessantly, especially when it's a sales rep talking about how great their company is. Instead, work on your listening skills and really pay attention to what your prospects and leads are saying. If you're truly paying attention to what they are saying, and what they are not saying, you'll have a better picture of the whole story and be able to make valuable recommendations that fit what your potential customer is looking for. Instead of thinking about what you're going to say when the person is finished, try to focus on 2-3 key points that they mention while speaking. Then when it comes time for you to talk, recount those key things for the person. They'll be impressed that you were paying attention - which is something people rarely do nowadays!

2. Proactive

Don't wait around for someone to tell you what to do - be proactive and take the first step! The best sales reps know that nobody is looking over their shoulder and giving them a to-do list; they are doing it on their own and are being proactive about their sales success. A great sales rep will take initiative and look at where they are succeeding, and also where they are not, and focus on what they need to do to go above and beyond their quotas. They don't wait for direction - they take the first step!

3. Driven

While nobody likes a cut-throat coworker, there is something to be said for healthy competition. A unifying quality of all great sales reps is that they are driven to success and are not only competitive with others, but with themselves. They are driven to be the best they can be, and often set goals for themselves beyond their standard quotas. And they usually foster this dynamic spirit with their teammates, which encourages everyone to do better and be better. Having a driven and motivated player on your team increases the success of everyone since this star sales rep sets the bar pretty high for performance and fosters that competitive spirit.

4. Approachable

Of course, we all know that sales people are outgoing, talkative, and seem to have no fear of chatting it up with strangers, but do people feel comfortable approaching you? The best salespeople are approachable and people instantly feel at ease when they're talking to them. Why does this happen? Well part of it is like we mentioned earlier, being a good listener, but there's also an element of truly connecting with your prospects, leads, and customers that sets the great reps apart from the crowd. Data from Market Magnet shows that whether you are in your first year or a veteran sales rep, the most successful reps have the sales IQ of a "relationship builder", versus the "straight shooter" or the "charmer". So when you're out there at your next networking event, remember to make yourself approachable and really connect with people instead of going straight for the sale.

5. Humble

The best and most successful reps are usually the ones winning the prizes and awards for their stellar performance, but you will rarely see them flaunting their accolades around the office. What they do instead is accept the award graciously and then revisit the plan that they took to get there, while thanking the people that helped them along the way. Being humble doesn't have to be seen as a weakness; what truly defines humility is the ability to keep one's accomplishments in perspective. Celebrate your successes, but then get back to work and use the lessons you've learned to become even better the next quarter!

6. Adaptable

There's a reason that the book "Who Moved My Cheese?" is one of the most read business books, in fact you may have received a copy from an old boss! Change is inevitable. And the salespeople who know this and adapt to change are the ones who are most likely to be successful. Everything from sales territories to sales quotas, or client needs to marketing campaigns can change from day to day, so a sales rep who can quickly adapt has a much higher chance of success than the guy who stays stuck in the old way of doing things. Don't reject change if you want to be a top player. Instead, understand why the change is taking place, and do your best to adjust your sales plan and daily activities to this new system.

So if you want to become the best, figure out what qualities you need to work on, get a coach or mentor to develop these areas with you, and then watch your performance and sales soar!

7 Reasons Why Your Current Marketing Strategy Just Isn't Working

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Mon, 21 Dec 2015 21:15:30 GMT

You've broken down your numbers by demographics, quarterly goals, sales territory, etc., but nothing seems to add up. If you've analyzed your marketing data and your sales results look a little shabby, maybe it's time you dig a little deeper and find out why your current marketing strategy just isn't working. Consider some things that you may, or may not be doing with your inbound marketing campaign that could help your numbers grow and put your company on the path to stellar sales in the new year!

1. You Talking To Me?

One mistake that marketers make is not defining their audience. This is one of the top reasons why your marketing strategy isn't working - because you're not clear about who you're talking to! Spend some time defining buyer personas and think about your ideal customer. What are the issues that they are dealing with? What are their social media habits? What are their lifestyle patterns? Answering these questions will help you tailor your content and your marketing strategy to specific customers rather than just throwing random messages out there to see if they stick. Directing your marketing campaign is much more efficient, cost-effective, and successful in the long-run.

2. Is It Optimized?

So you've got great content that speaks to your specific buyer personas and helps them solve their issues, but is anyone able to find it? This is where search engine optimization, or SEO, comes into play. You can hire the best writers, develop great content, and get great images, but if nobody can find your content, then you've wasted a ton of time and money. Optimize your blog with keywords that your buyer personas are reading about, then use reports to tell you what they're searching for and put those words in your blog and in your images. Doing this small step ensures that your content gets found by your target customers in Google searches and on the web.

3. Stop Selling Yourself

Don't inundate your readers with sales talk; it's the fastest way to turn off a potential customer. It's tempting to sell yourself and talk about how great your company is and what you can do, but stay away from this type of marketing. If you're producing quality content that your audience wants to read, you'll gain credibility and trust and have an easier time selling them when the time is right. Studies from Sales Panda show that over 60% of consumers feel more positive about a brand after reading custom content on their site, so use your site to create a positive image for your company instead of always pushing a the sale - you'll have time to sell later, so just be patient!

4. Where is Your Buyer?

And this brings us to the next point: where is your buyer in the buyer's journey? Are they ready to buy or are they still deciding on a solution for their concern? Or maybe it's neither or these! Maybe your potential buyer is just browsing the web and learning more about the subjects you're talking about in your blog and on your site. If it's the latter, this is where you'll want to spend some time nurturing these "lukewarm" leads until they are ready to buy. Provide a link to a piece of content like an e-book or an online seminar where they'll exchange their email for this information you're providing. Once you have their email, you will be able to track how many times they've visited your site, what content they're reading, and where they are in the buyer's journey. This process is tailored to each lead and you'll have a much higher success rate if you're selling when your leads are ready to buy!

5. Add Some Value

We've mentioned the pitfalls of constant sales-talk already, and the flip side of this is providing value. This is what you want to be doing with your marketing strategy since it's how the majority of consumers respond to companies. At every touchpoint that you have with the customer, add value. Share content that makes their life a little easier, or provide some information that gives them insight into how they can solve their problems. Building trust this way allows the customer to develop a relationship with your company that funnels right into the sales process and allows the next steps to go much more smoothly. Your leads will have spent time interacting with the valuable pieces of information that you've provided and will be much more likely to do business with you in the future. And that's something everyone wants!

6. What Do I Do Next?

Part of the reason blogs are so successful for marketers, if they are done right, is that they give your readers a chance to learn more about your brand and the value that you provide. Guide your visitors through your site and give them the opportunity to connect with your company. Use a call-to-action to do exactly that: encourage them to act! If readers don't know what to do once on your site, they'll quickly click away to another source and they might never return to your page. Don't let this happen! Provide links in your blog and banners on your page to give them the opportunity to stay engaged.

7. Did You Forget Something?

One mistake that marketers make when setting up their content marketing strategy is failing to stick to a schedule. They forget about the blog and the social media promotion that comes with it and then before you know it, a few months have gone by and your blog is gathering virtual cobwebs. Develop a schedule that works for you and commit to it. Put your content writers on a schedule, edit in a timely manner, and publish away! Consistency is what will drive readers and potential customers to your site, so create a plan and watch the traffic increase exponentially as the months go by.

Now that you've got some insight into what may be preventing you from reaching your sales and marketing goals, take another look at your content marketing strategy and see where you can make some improvements. Doing so will enable your marketing and sales teams to achieve success and put your company on the path to profitability!

Stop Selling Yourself and Start Selling Value

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Fri, 18 Dec 2015 19:30:00 GMT

Everyone wants more sales, right? Well did you know that on average 87% of B2B sales revenue is being generated by just 13% of the sales population? That means a small minority of sales people are getting the majority of the business - how are they doing this? One key reason cited by customers across the board is that they are creating value, and this "value" is defined by the customer, not the company. So how do you create value for your prospects and customers in the sales process?

Well, you should be contributing value at every stage of interaction, not just the sales call. If you've done a good job of establishing yourself and your company as offering value at every touchpoint, the sales process should be easy. For example, if you've given your leads valuable information through your blog, provided them with a useful tool through a CTA, and shared resources on social media, then you've probably already done most of the work to earn the prospect's trust and respect and the sales call becomes that much easier.

If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

Your potential customer absolutely has to understand the value of solving the problem in the first place, otherwise they won't act. They also need to acknowledge the cost of inaction and the urgent need for change; if they can't do this, your sales call is going to be an uphill battle.

Have the prospect articulate what their issue is and get them to discuss the problem and sell themself before you present any solutions. Having the prospect talk through these issues out loud helps make the issue real.

If the problem remains unclear and there is no real issue at hand, maybe this lead needs a little more nurturing and the timing isn't right. Put this lead back into the pipeline and continue to reach out to them periodically.

Tailor Made

Value based selling is all about creating unique value to your customer; focusing on that "unique" part. You'll need to translate general marketing messages into specific propositions for each prospect; prospects know if you're being genuine or just pushing the same product on everyone, and no one likes this. People want to feel special. If you've been doing a good job of listening and building rapport with your prospect, you'll easily be able to personally tailor each message to the client's unique pain point.

Highlight the value of one or two solutions that you're presenting to the client and stay away from extra, and usually distracting, information that may end up confusing the prospect.

As much as you're tempted to share the story of how amazing your company is and all the solutions you offer, keep it brief and stick with what's meaningful to them.

Everyone Wins

When you're selling based on value, everyone wins. Research shows on average, a 1 percent reduction in price results in an 11 percent decrease in profits. Don't fall into the trap of discounting every prospect since it's obviously very costly. If you've done a good job selling value, you won't need to discount your price. Your sales calls become less about pricing because the prospects see the value in acting on your proposal and changing to a new system, and they're willing to pay for it. The sales call should be about implementing a new system that is going to dynamically change the customer's business and drive growth for them. In a value selling environment, everyone wins!

Creating unique value to customers through the disciplined application of value based selling techniques gives both your sales team and your prospects a feeling of satisfaction, productivity, and overall success that leads to even more business for your company in the future.

The Value of Value Based Blogging

michael@honeycomb.buzz (Honeycomb Team) — Thu, 17 Dec 2015 19:30:00 GMT

Want more visitors to your website? Yeah that’s what I thought you’d say…

Did you know that companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website than those who don’t. Did you hear that? 97% more links!

Want even juicer information? Companies who publish 16+ blog posts of value per month get almost 3.5X more traffic than companies that publish 4 or less monthly posts. There is no question that blogging has extreme value with todays digital consumer- but what is the measurable value of value based blogging? Here’s my top 3:

Value #1- It helps drive valuable traffic to your website.

Blogging is like pointing a spotlight on your business and highlighting it through social media channels. Providing reliable, insightful truths to your readers pays off. Every time you write a blog post, you're creating valuable content that people will dive into, resonate with, and ultimately share on their social networks. This instantly increases your inbound links. This sharing activity will gain you more visibility that now has even more value in a reader's eyes because it was shared by a trusted friend or peer. Over 46% of people say they read blogs more than once a day. Simply put- this exposes your business to a multitude of audiences that may not have even heard of you yet. What else could you ask for?

Value #2- It increases your business’s value.

Blogging establishes huge credibility to your business and elevates you as a leading voice in your industry. Blogs were recently rated as the 5th most trusted source for accurate online information. Customers will identify you first as a reliable resource for information on your industry; then return back to buy what they were initially looking for because you are the most informative and trustworthy source. For companies that are transparent about discussing customer concerns in their content, they will establish credibility as the leader in the field and differentiate themselves from the crowd with their blog.

Value #3- Low investment with a high-value reward.

So what does it cost you to produce a high quality blog? Nothing but time! Now I agree, time is money but this is not wasted money that you are typically pouring into advertisements that most people will skip over to click on the content they know will have more value in it. Did you know that the Content Marketing Institute stated that 8 out of 10 people consider themselves blog readers and reported that 23% of all time spent online is spent on social media sites? The numbers don't lie. One of the highest rewards of blogging is that your company is constantly being able to attract high quality leads- even when you are away from work. Now that’s High Value Reward!

If your company is putting out valuable content on a regular basis, you’ll be surprised how many leads will begin rolling in. So what’s stopping you- get to blogging…

The Importance of Keeping Messaging Consistent Between Sales and Marketing

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Wed, 16 Dec 2015 19:30:00 GMT

Aligning your Marketing and Sales teams is potentially the largest opportunity for improving the overall performance of your business. When these two groups unite around a single goal, they significantly improve marketing ROI, sales productivity, and, most importantly, top-line growth. It's not enough for these two important functions to just coexist—they need to work together to create value for the company and for customers. Unfortunately, more often than not, sales and marketing are not aligned and end up disagreeing on everything from department budgets to product pricing. But keeping these two teams in sync is important, and here's why!

How Did We Get Here?

When small businesses start out, it's usually just a few people making decisions, planning strategy, and executing tasks. At this stage, marketing ideas come from managers, the few salespeople that you've hired, or an outside advertising agency. Early on, marketing isn't considered as a separate function; it's just an extension of the sales department. But as companies and budgets grow, they hire marketing managers and people who are truly experts to do the work, which leads to competition for budgets, priorities, and objectives. A study by Harvard Business Review found that this scenario is pretty typical of most small businesses and the disconnect falls into two main categories: economic and cultural. And while it may feel like a huge divide, the study found that it's not difficult or costly to assess the quality of the working relationship between sales and marketing.

Collaborate on Exisiting Leads and Opportunities

Once you've identified the status and quality of your sales and marketing relationship, aim for a true partnership by breaking down barriers between these two important groups. One easy way to build the bridge is to ask Sales and Marketing VPs to collaborate in defining a lead-generation strategy. A first step that both teams can work on is defining a lead scorecard which helps companies know whether prospects need to be fast-tracked to a sales rep or developed with lead-nurturing. This conversation helps the teams break out of their departments' silos and continue developing ideas around when a lead should be moved from a "Marketing Qualified Lead(MQL)" to a "Sales Qualified Lead(SQL)", which streamlines the revenue cycle and minimizes misunderstandings. Making sure that everyone is on the same timeline is also important so that internally, your Marketers are launching campaigns when the Sales team is equipped to handle the potential influx of leads, and externally you are all speaking the same language to prospects and clients. Nothing will turn a lead away faster than getting mixed messages from the same company. Collaborate from the beginning, and throughout the process to maximize those opportunities!

"Smarketing" - Sharing Communication Between Both Teams

Sounds kind of cool, right? Well it's even cooler when your teams are working in such unison that they almost become part of each other. When Sales and Marketing are fully integrated, boundaries become blurred and bridges are built. Since both teams have played an active part in redesigning the relationship to share cycles, systems, and rewards, there is more synergy with communication to the leads and clients. Conversations about budgeting becomes more flexible and less divisive, while a team mentality of "we're in this together" culture develops. This development and implementation of shared metrics and use of the same language to define leads and customers will create more efficiency for your business and gain you more customers in the long run.

When you align your sales and marketing teams, everyone becomes invested in the success of the brand and the company. The importance of keeping messaging consistent between sales and marketing impacts you internally and externally so continue to foster open communication between teams and departments and watch your numbers grow!

What is Cost of Customer Acquisition?

michael@honeycomb.buzz (Honeycomb Team) — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 13:00:00 GMT

If you are a successful professional marketer, optimism is probably one of your greatest assets. You know how to dream up a new product, build a team, bring it through the various stages of development, and probably even market it. You know how to make a product you believe in, and get others to believe in it too. What may not be at the forefront of your mind, and is often overlooked by startups, is Cost of Customer Acquistion.

What is Cost of Customer Acquisition?

Cost of Customer Acquisition (or CAC) is the total amount a company must spend to acquire a new customer. This includes product development, personnel, marketing, and research. The CAC metric is fairly new in the world of web-based advertising as companies evolve in new ways of drawing potential leads to their product or service.

In the old days, it was more difficult to measure what it took in dollar and cents to attract someone to your brand. Companies would shotgun some advertising to a wide range of audiences, and not necessarily know who engaged in their efforts. Now that the web is the primary method consumers are using to research new product, marketing campaigns can be targeted and the behaviors of the customer can be tracked, thus yielding some helpful CAC data.

Why is it so important?

In short, CAC can make or break your company. Most businesses know that the acquisition of their customers will require the use of SEO, SEM, Social Marketing, direct sales, PR. The problem is, most businesses underestimate how costly these channels can be. Attracting quality leads through organic traffic is not plug and play. In fact, a company needs to strongly evaluate how much digital and human touch is required for their customers along the way.

All of these costs need to be calculated and measured against the “Lifetime Value” (LTV) of the customer. This will help determine if your company has a realistic balance of their CAC to LTV, to be sure the product is not only marketable, but profitable, and that your company understands just what it will take to get those new customers in the door.

How do I reduce CAC?

The name of the game is “conversion rates”. Your conversion rate (the percentage of people engaging your product or service and actually purchasing) is the most important metric to manage in order to reduce your CAC. The more value you are bringing to potential leads as they visit your website, the more likely they are to convert into customers.

If you can increase the amount of leads converting to customers, you will drive down your costs per customer percentage and make your product more profitable overall. Welcome to the new world of digital marketing. Quality blog content, targeted social campaigns, and email marketing that delight your leads are a must for any digital marketing strategy. These strategies are built to directly impact CAC reduction.

Still have questions on how this all works? Take a look at our free ebook below.

4 Inexpensive Logo Design Options [Under $100]

michael@honeycomb.buzz (Honeycomb Team) — Wed, 09 Dec 2015 12:00:00 GMT

Are you in the process of launching a new company? Well, getting a cheap logo design may be on your to-do list. As strapped as you may be with all your other start-up costs, having a well-designed logo presents a way for your business to guide customer perceptions instead of allowing customers to form their own perceptions of your business.

While you might think designing a logo is simple and straightforward, in reality, it can be quite challenging. Logos are the face of a company: they reflect a company's unique identity. Logos provide essential information about a company through images, words, colors and fonts and allow customers to identify with the company's core brand. They act as an anchor point for other marketing and advertising materials.

So, having a good logo is important, but it can be pretty tough (and timely and costly) to hire and manage a designer on your own. The good news is that there are already lots of great platforms that specialize in affordable logo design at the tips of your fingers, and chances are you won't spend more than a $100. Check some of these platforms out:

1) Fiverr ($5+)

Fiverr is a great platform to get an affordable logo design starting at $5. You'll pay more if you need extra services beyond what is advertised for $5, it totally depends on what the provider is offering. For example, if you need the source files, express delivery or a Facebook banner, you'll pay more. We recommend using the logo search filters and looking through portfolios of the highest rated providers to ensure a positive experience. Also, it's worth paying extra to get the source files in case you want to edit your logo in the future.

2) LogoTypers ($30+)

Logotypers is a great option if you already have some ideas in mind but need the help of a designer to transform and digitize those ideas. You can select one of Logotypers' packages from uploading and converting a sketch into a professional logo or allowing a designer to brainstorm some logo concepts. You'll be able to provide feedback so the designer can refine and deliver a finalized design.

3) Odesk ($50+)

Odesk is a platform that connects you to a community of freelancers worldwide. It gives you the flexibility to post a job description based on what you want, including your budget and deadline, and hire based on what the freelancers are offering. When selecting a freelancer, take a look at how well they approach your needs in their proposal. We recommend working with a freelancer that is responsive, that has successfully taken graphic design skills tests, that has logo designs in their portfolio and that has positive reviews from past clients. It's a great idea to break up the project into milestones including designing multiple logo concepts and allowing a few rounds of revisions.

4) 99 Designs ($100+)

99Designs is an online graphic design marketplace that uses crowdsourcing. It allows you to purchase a package based on what you need and fill out a brief describing what you need. Dozens of designers will submit ideas to your design contest and you give them feedback. You then pick the design you love the most.

These are all low-cost platforms to help you get your logo designed cost-effectively and relatively quickly. However, it does take some work on your end to vet the right candidates by looking at logo designs the designers have done in the past.

And remember, as good as a designer may be, it's important for you to have some idea of what you want or the logo styles you like. Being able to describe this will bring you the best results, such as whether you want your logo to be modern, playful, flashy or with a hint of vintage. It's also a great idea to show examples of logos you like so the designer can get a feel for your taste.

You may have to invest some time Googling logo designs and browsing other websites to get a grip of what you are looking for, since having a positive experience ultimately comes down to communicating what you want. You'll save a lot of money using some of these online platforms that have skilled designers ready to work for you.

10 Stats That Prove the Value of Having a Blog on Your Website

sarah@honeycomb.buzz (Sarah Taylor) — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 11:30:00 GMT

One of the top buzzwords for 2015 was "blogging". It seems like everyone is quoting them, reading them, or even writing them. But if you're still not convinced that business blogging should be a part of your marketing strategy, consider these statistics that will have you thinking about diving into the new year with an online presence.

1. B2B marketers that use blogs receive 67% more leads than those that do not blog. So you want more leads? Seems like having a business blog is a good start!

2. 61% of U.S. online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from a blog. This number is only going to increase as more of the population gains access to the internet through improved technology, software, and apps that make it easier for your blog to be found. Consider adding a blog to improve the branding of your company.

3. Marketers who use blogs are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI. And who doesn't want a positive return on their investment? If you consistently blog, you will reap the benefits of this inbound marketing strategy.

4. Companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website. Partner websites want to seem helpful and credible, too and will share your content to help add value to their site. This mutual sharing will send their visitors to your site, and vice versa. Make sure you are adding links to other resources in your blog to get maximum exposure for your company!

5. Blogs are rated as the 5th most trusted source for accurate online information. It's a pretty simple equation: people read your blog, you provide valuable information to them, they begin to trust your company. Blogging is just another touch point for the customer that helps them learn about you. So if you want to be more trustworthy in the eyes of your clients and potential customers, get a blog and start producing quality content.

6. 43 percent of B2B companies and 49 percent of B2C companies are now outsourcing content creation. Content writing is the task most likely to be outsourced since business blogging is gaining more popularity but nobody has the in-house skills to do it. If you want to add a business blog to your marketing campaign, definitely consider having an expert do the work to get your brand noticed.

7. Companies with 51-100 pages on their website generate 48 percent more traffic than those with 1-50 pages. You can increase your pages pretty quickly by adding a blog to your site. It doesn't take much to get started: hire a writer, get on a schedule, produce quality content, and immediately increase traffic to your site!

8. Companies who are using HubSpot for their blogging and inbound campaigns received 125% more (B2B) and 294% more (B2C) leads than companies not using Hubspot. This valuable tool can turn that traffic coming to your blog into leads for your sales team.

9. And what happens when you've got those leads? The conversion rate for B2B clients was 43% higher than those not using HubSpot. For B2C clients, HubSpot users averaged a 50% higher conversion rate than their counterparts not using HubSpot.

10. For companies who use e-mail marketing, companies that blog get twice as much traffic from their email than those who don’t blog. Again, blogging adds an element of trust, credibility, and expertise to your company that your readers and potential customers respond to and enjoy reading.

There's more data we could throw at you, but really, business blogging is not an option for your business. As you already know, the value of having a blog filled with industry news, insights, and informative content can only be beneficial to your business.

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