I attended a seminar this week put on by Anna Bates of the National Christian Foundation and Mark Farrel of Ron Blue and Co. The talk was given by Jim Wise, Managing Director of Ronald Blue & Co.'s Orlando branch. Jim's talk was to a room of development officers for faith-based nonprofits. Jim was delivering a message from a donor's perspective and gave some great insights on how donors make decisions about giving and what motivates them to their core.
Jim's experience helping his clients plan for their financial future and also steward their current finances shed light on why donors give to organizations and how nonprofits need to shift from a financial emphasis to a discipleship or relationship emphasis in their fundraising efforts. As I listened, I realized how many great insights there are for businesses and how the way we sell and market needs to align with the model Jim proposed. Much of the talk focused on things that line up perfectly with inbound marketing methodologies. Now, some of this may fly in the face of an aggressive sales organization's methods, so my suggestion is to stop right here, but if you know relationships matter for long-term success, read on. Here are a few notes that I think will make any business improve greatly in their sales and marketing efforts.
"Inbound marketing refers to marketing activities that bring visitors in, rather than marketers having to go out to get prospects' attention. Inbound marketing earns the attention of customers, makes the company easy to be found, and draws customers to the website by producing interesting content." -Wikipedia
Focus on the person and not just their capacity to purchase your product. By being people-focused, you are immediately different than all the "me too" businesses. Focusing on people helps your business begin building goodwill and relationship with your customers.
Redefine what success means for your relationship with your customers. If the only focus is revenue, then your customers are a means to an end and they will know it. If success looks like your customers enjoying the experience of working with you, or they come to you first because you help them solve problems no one else will take the time to solve, then you are redefining success beyond monetary value.
Jim mentioned the "hat in hand" approach has got to stop. This is when every "touch" or contact with a donor has a "financial ask." This is common with sales also. We've been taught "sell, sell, sell." But what if our sales organizations put on an educator hat? I believe a sales person's job is to educate, and not just why your company is better, but help your customers with better solutions to old or new problems. I believe most sales conversations or "touches" should not be selling but solving and educating.
How do you connect your business to the personal experience of a customer's needs? Understanding what is most important to your customer helps you tailor solutions and conversations that meet their felt needs. Not all customers have the same perspective on what is most important. If you can discover why they chose you, or why they chose a competitor over your business, you may have unlocked a way to sell that reaches the heart of the consumer. Also, the more you know about your customer allows you to have conversations full of context. Do they love fishing, professional football, rock climbing, Alaskan cruises? Knowing things about anyone and asking them about things they love is a sure-fire way to start building positive relationships. I love music and songwriting. If you ask me about it I will likely talk for twenty minutes without pausing.
Communicate your passion and conviction. I love talking with people who love what they do. Jim had excellent advice for development officers working for organizations where they've "lost that love and feeling." If we do not believe in what we are doing and have no passion left, we are not going to convince anyone. In business, I want to partner and buy from people who love what they do. Perhaps it is tied to a cause, or simply excellence that appeals to me. I think of Apple and/or Toms, the shoe company that gives a pair of shoes away for every pair that is purchased. Are you emphasizing quota over passion in your business?
This doesn't happen overnight and likely doesn't happen without a plan. Write down a checklist of how you can build relationships and and become more person-focused in your business. We spoke about sales people mostly in this blog, but marketing and operations are not off the hook. Retailers, restaurants, residential service industry, and others can all take a look at everything from how they answer the phone to how they invoice their customers. What are little things that show you care and know your customers? Being solution-minded, kind, and mindful goes a long way. Here are few examples.
It is never one thing that builds relationships and not all of these suggestions will work for every business, but some of them will work for you. Keep selling, keep marketing, but make the decision to care more for and connect with your customers. It will pay off more than you can measure now.
Are you a small business trying to rank for keywords for your industry? Have you experienced some success, a little success, or no success? There are some definite advantages to using Google Webmaster Tools that might just help your business get over some very real obstacles. First, let's cover some history of how SEO has changed and why using Google Webmaster Tools is critical.
The way search engines reward websites has changed dramatically over the past decade. For a long time, some of the best ways to rank well for search terms was to make sure you had more keywords on your pages than your competitors, to simply have more pages than your competitors, and to have more backlinks than your competitors. More is no longer better, it is just more.
In an attempt to make the search experience better for its users, Google rolled out, and continues to do so, periodic updates to their algorithm and how they reward websites with good ranking. Some of these updates actually penalized content that was intentionally trying to trick the algorithm by stuffing keywords on web pages. One such tactic would put hundreds of key phrases on a page and make the font white if the background was white to hide their scheme visually. Another tactic was to pay third parties to create backlinks to your website from thousands of websites built only for the sake of linking to other sites. Well, that doesn't make the content more valuable for the consumer, so Google penalized that practice. Some people simply would crank out a new web page for every keyword variation in hopes that it would generate more traffic to their website, as opposed to simply creating one great web page that explains each unique service or product. Needless to say, there were many tactics that Google now frowns on that Webmaster Tools may shed some light on, so let's dig in.
I won't be covering every tool, but here are some of the top features. Are you wondering if there are links to your site that Google frowns on? Once you have created a Webmaster account and verified it, you can dig into the tools. To find who is linking to your site, you can download an exhaustive list from Google Webmaster Tools by navigating to "Search Traffic" then clicking on "Links to Your Site." Click on "more" below the initial short list and then request the download of the list. You can look through the list and see if there are any potentially harmful links that Google suggests you remove. There is a process for "disavowing" links. You can click here to learn more about this process. Generally, Google wants you to make an effort to contact the webmaster of the site that is linking to you that you wish to have removed. If this is unsuccessful, they have a way for you to manually disavow links.
Mobile internet usage has become the dominate platform for Internet use. Google Webmaster Tools offers an area also under "Search Traffic" called "Mobile Usability" to give you helpful information if there are any issues with your content getting indexed on mobile devices. On the description page for this tab, it says, "Global web traffic from mobile devices is on the rise, and recent studies show that mobile visitors are more likely to revisit mobile-friendly sites. The mobile usability report identifies pages on your site with usability problems for visitors on mobile devices." It is critical that you fix issues related to mobile usability as mobile search continues to become the primary way people browse online.
Under the Google Index tab, you can see how many pages are actually being indexed by Google. This simply means Google knows about your content and uses it in search results for peoples' search queries. It does not mean you are on the first page, but it gives you an accurate number of pages Google believes you have. If you believe this number is lower than it should be, you can use Webmaster Tools to crawl your website or unique pages you believe Google hasn't indexed yet. If you see on the graph a sharp decrease in indexed pages, this might be cause for concern. Some possible causes could be a recent update to Google's search algorithm, or the website platform you are built on may not be providing access to some of the content Google is looking for. Also, under the Google Index section, you can see your content keywords. This is a place where you can see how people are finding you. It does not offer insight to how they are not finding you, but at least you get a good picture of the words people are using to make it to your website.
Most webmasters should be familiar with the tools under the Crawl section. These tools can be utilized more routinely. I always encourage business owners to make sure they first check the "Fetch As Google" tool. This allows your entire site, portions of your website, or individual pages to be "crawled" by Google. This is the process they use to determine what content is on each page and how to appropriately add it to their search engine results. Google will crawl most websites regularly throughout the year; however, this tool manually causes Google to look at your content and index it. This is very helpful to do when you launch a newly redesigned or migrated website. Once you are certain you have successfully "crawled" your website, you should check any possible "crawl errors." If there is content that was previously known by Google and it cannot be located, they will let you know. They will list out all the known errors and what types of errors they are. Minimizing the number of errors in this section is helpful for you and Google also likes to see that you are taking time to reduce errors.
Another great tool under the Crawl section is the sitemap tool that allows you to upload a sitemap directly to webmaster tools. The value of uploading a sitemap, in contrast to crawling the site, is that it may add more information that shows Google the importance of some of the pages over others. This may give additional information to Google that it cannot attain through the crawl. To read more about the benefits of uploading your sitemap, you can click here.
You don't know what you don't know if you don't have a webmaster account for your website. Your SEO efforts might be like swimming upstream if you have undesirable backlinks, a large list of crawl errors, or mobile usability issues. Webmaster Tools gives you great insight to the health of your website from Google's perspective, and that is about the most important perspective there is. If you need help setting up your webmaster account and getting feedback on the health of your website, give us a call or email me at joel@themarketingsquad.com.
There are hundreds of criteria for web pages ranking well in Google. Many of us know about the value of having authoritative back-links and how high traffic volume can impact page-rank, but there are many other criteria that we should also be focusing on. Two of these important factors that are closely related are Bounce Rate and Pogo Sticking.
The bounce rate is when someone lands on a single page of your website but does not proceed to another page on your site. This is not altogether as bad as some might think. It is great if you can lower your bounce rate, but keep in mind that if someone finds you organically and they click through to your result, they may find what they need on that single page. This could be a good thing. A classic example is looking up the contact information for a company. I might type in "Acme Anvil Address and Phone Number". If I find the information on the first result and I just need their address or phone number, then mission accomplished. I will not likely proceed to another page on their website. Even though bounce rate is not the end of the world, it is still good to have a website that entices users to go deeper and explore more than one page. We will discuss this more later.
Pogo sticking is when someone uses a search engine, clicks on a result, does not find what they want, and immediately clicks back to the search results and chooses something different. This is bad. There is no way to sugar-coat this. If someone clicks back from your page within seconds of landing there only to look at other search results, you clearly did not serve up what they were expecting to find. Google may reward sites that have a lower level of this behavior. Remember, they are in the business of serving up the best results the first time, so their users keep using them. It is in Google's best interest to constantly evaluate if people are having good experiences on the content that ranks the best. Let's discuss some ways that you can lower both your bounce rate and pogo sticking behavior on your website.
Bounce rate and pogo sticking are not the same thing, but they have common solutions. Start by asking yourself if the way your content is optimized by title and description match what is actually on the page. I absolutely hate when I see a search engine result page (SERP) with a title and definition that looks exactly like what I am looking for, only to find when I click on the result that they baited me to a page with very little relevant information. To create a great experience, we must make sure we deliver what we are advertising. In this case, we must make sure the content of the web page we are leading people to has honest and accurate titles and descriptions for search engines to display.
It is not enough to be honest and accurate with your SERP titles and descriptions. You must look at your competitors and those who are ranking in the top results and determine how and why their content is better than your own. This does not mean your page should mimic theirs, but ask yourself if your information is easy to digest, simple to understand, and actually solves a problem or answers the question the person is asking. More is not better, but better content is better. Many companies spend a little bit of time, when compared to the rest of their marketing, on their web copy. I would suggest looking at your most important web pages every six months and determining what can be improved. Then, once you have made changes, measure your bounce rate for those pages and see if there is improvement. You need to measure your bounce rate because the changes we make do not always result in improvements. Save the web copy you had previously for that page in case you want to revert to it.
Once you have taken the time to make sure your content is answering and solving the problems of the people surfing your site, take some time to determine how well you are giving them logical opportunities to click to another page on your site. Google analytics offers many clues to the path people take when surfing your site. Take advantage of this information. If most people surfing your site most naturally move from your homepage to your services page and then to your blog, try creating even more prominent options to get to those same places on the site by using well-designed calls to actions above the fold. Again, measure and see if the flow through those paths increase by a greater number of people. User flow is never perfected on the first attempt. Just because water flows on a natural downward path does not mean those surfing your site are clearly showing you how to improve the path. The analytics may not be leading you to make the right changes. Every website has a user flow and sometimes the best improvement might be to ignore the analytics and start over with a new user flow. Analytics will only reveal the success or flaws of a current UX, but it cannot show you what will happen if you make a significant change to the existing UX. Don't be afraid to experiment and test.
So much of good SEO is focused on what we are saying, and we may forget to talk about how it looks. Design cannot be left out of the discussion. The only way to measure this is to make design or layout changes, allow some time to pass and measure again. Great design can overcome some of the weaknesses of web copy, but not completely. When both your copy and design are excellent, you have a winning team that is hard to beat. I did a Google search for "Pogo Sticking vs Bounce Rate" and compared some of the top results. Result number one is FosterWebMarketing.com. When I compare their content visually with that of the second result, Business2Community.com, I would clearly choose the first result, because the Business2Community page had a floating menu and large stationary footer that made it difficult to read the content body in a more narrow area. The design of the page made my experience less desirable on the Business2Community page; however, they made good use of practical links that could grab my attention and take me to a second page of the site. This could reduce the chance of me becoming another bounce rate or pogo sticking metric. By the way, here is the link they suggested I look at, and you may want to view it also: Seven Great Tips to Reduce Sites Pogo Sticking Rate. You may also want to look at why having a mobile responsive website matters so much.
Your company might use LinkedIn, but do you really maximize the potential of this powerful social network? Most companies and individuals underestimate LinkedIn and do not invest fully in what it can do for their business. This topic is one I love to train and speak on with organizations because it can have such a big impact. I will touch on some of my favorite ways to use LinkedIn to achieve the ultimate goal of building stronger, lasting professional relationships.
LinkedIn is the best place to develop professional connections that can truly lead to new business. When I ask businesses what social platforms are the best fit for their organization, LinkedIn is at the top of the list more than 90% of the time. The problem is never convincing companies they should be on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the ultimate social platform for developing your professional networks. It is a great platform to share content but most people do not understand how to find the big wins because LinkedIn is different by design from Facebook and Twitter, and it is good that it is different. Let's dig in.
It can be so frustrating to leave a networking meeting and not have an email address for some of the people you just met. It could be a new sales prospect, a potential investor in your company, or a someone that has ideas to take your business to the next level. The good news is that nowadays, everything is searchable and finding that person on LinkedIn is very easy.
There are a few ways you can find people through LinkedIn:
As you build your network on LinkedIn it will become much easier over time because every time you are able to add connections you are becoming 2nd-degree connections with all of their connections. Let's say you do not have an email address for a contact you wish to communicate with. LinkedIn has their own internal messaging system called InMail that acts like email and allows you to send individual messages to your contacts. I usually use this as an opportunity to share my email address and other contact information with them and ask for their contact information also. Not everyone uses their InMail frequently, and just because someone is on LinkedIn does not mean they check it regularly or even respond to the notifications they receive through email. Keep this in mind when you are using LinkedIn to build new relationships. Sometimes I receive a reply from someone I sent an InMail to several months prior. A common response is, "Sorry I am just now seeing this. I don't use LinkedIn very often but here is a better way to contact me." If I had to guess, this is the case half the time, which tells me about 50% of the people I do message are checking LinkedIn often enough to receive my messages in a timely fashion.
I mentioned that LinkedIn is not built like other social platforms. It is not the place for the same type of content as Facebook or Twitter, so no family photos, pics from your vacation or silly memes. It is a place for professional content or inspirational content centered on what you do. Since LinkedIn is so focused on a professional environment it is a great opportunity for companies and individuals to share about accomplishments or educational content and expertise in their fields. You can certainly overdo it but from my experience, most businesses do not share enough about what they do or how they do it to alienate anyone following their company. What does happen is it helps brand businesses that do share relevant, professional content as an authority in their space. A bi-product of sharing content on LinkedIn is you will be seen as someone who knows what they are talking about and you will become trusted by your community as a go-to resource for information about your industry.
Another great feature about LinkedIn is the ability to stay informed on what is happening with people in your network. It could be benchmarks for them personally or for their business, but keeping your finger on the pulse of your network helps you start new conversations with them and who knows where that may lead. Under the "My Network" tab is "Connections." If you click on connections it will bring up a list of your connections and some of them who are having birthdays, a work anniversary, or possibly have a new employer. All of these cues give you a great opportunity to strike up a new conversation that might result in a new opportunity for your company.
The old adage "it's not what you know, but who you know" has merit. LinkedIn can help you build a network of new relationships, and by virtue of this technology, there are unlimited possibilities to grow your networks substantially. Bigger isn't always better so build your networks strategically so you can build good relationships. If you would like training on using LinkedIn for your organization reach out to me at joel@themarketingsquad.com.
We spend so much time educating businesses on marketing to-dos, but we don't want to leave out our friends with religious organizations. We see so many companies neglect their web presence and faith-based groups like churches are no exception. It used to be that having a website was just a necessary tool for getting found; however, organizations like churches, who have learned how to use their website to engage their members through digital content, have learned their website can be much more than a place to just discover the address and church service times. Here are three reasons why it is important to have a modern website for churches and other non-profit organizations.
Mobile usage for internet surfing has surpassed desktop usage. More people look up information online and consume content on mobile devices than laptops or desktop computers. If your church website is not mobile responsive you are likely losing many users every day because they are having a less than desirable experience. Mobile internet usage will only increase as new mobile devices flood the market.
More and more churches are learning how to capture the content they are creating on weekends and the power of delivering that content through their social channels. But you do not want to simply share your new content, like sermons, songs, and sermon notes on social media. You want a great place to collect the content so your members and strangers that find your site can find content that intrigues them. An older website has many limitations and may not be able to leverage the power of add-ons or plugins that can create beautiful and functional content libraries that make it easy to access the content with great user experience. Imagine having your resources being accessed by greater numbers of your congregation and beyond.
Older websites may not have all of the sharing tools that a modern website will afford. What would happen if you armed your congregation with tools to evangelize and promote events, services, sermons or songs? If you keep telling people a message, a portion of those people will not only listen but they will follow through on an action you present to them. So if you are able to use your website to help your congregation or organization's partners, share your content. A little bit goes a long way. What would happen if you got even 20% to 30% of your community to share your content regularly? I believe you would see a dramatic and continual increase in new people visiting your church.
Watch the video below to learn more.
The internet has provided some great resources that make it easier than ever to help your organization grow. If your website is not up to par you should seriously consider making these improvements to your site. If your organization needs help implementing some of the strategies I mentioned you can reach out to me joel@themarketingsquad.com or call our office to set up free 30-minute discovery session. Keep in mind we give ministries and nonprofits a 10% discount on projects and on-going services.
For most of my history with The Content Squad, I have had a role that was primarily focused on our client's strategic goals. In January, I was commissioned into a new role with our company. I still get to work with our clients on a monthly basis, but now I also get to go out in the community and tell people about who we are. My new title is Brand Evangelist. Part of my new job description required me to start a "Tribe." For those of you who are familiar with marketing guru Seth Godin, his book called "Tribes" has an overarching premise that states:
"Lasting and substantial change can only happen through a united group of people, a tribe, and this tribe can only be created by a person, a leader, who connects the group through a set of goals or ideas."
My job was to create a Tribe that connected a group of people around a central idea and goal. A tribe cannot just be centralized around an idea or no change will occur because no goals are established. The idea I desired to see a Tribe established around is that of faith in the marketplace. The goal is seeing Christians throughout the city of Louisville united around a common idea and goal of moving beyond general guidelines and principles of faith and encourage every believer to invite God into their work and partner with Him in every facet of what they do. The outcome I hope for is a city transformed by a large community of believers who want to see God's Kingdom come to earth.
I approached our leadership team in February and asked for their permission to start a Christian Business Meet-up. The response was unanimous and we were able to launch our first meet-up on March 22, 2016 at Macaroni Grill on Hurstbourne Lane here in Louisville, KY. The result was a sold-out gathering of 55 enthusiastic believers who wanted to see God work through them in the marketplace. Our first speaker was Gregg Dedrick, past President of KFC and co-founder of Iron Bell Ministries. Gregg had spent over 30 years in corporate America with Pepsi-Co, Tricon, Yum! brands and most recently with KFC, and it wasn't until the latter part of his career that he saw God begin to work through him on a consistent basis. Gregg spoke about how our work is worship unto God and how He desires to partner with us in life, work and every moment of our day. He shared some key insights that helped him shift from what seemed like God using him occasionally to using him on a daily basis. We are excited to have Gregg give part two of his talk next week at the next Christian Business Meet-Up, Thursday, April 14 at The Iron Bell. Click here for more information or to register.
It's for the employee to owner, or the custodian to the CEO. All believers are welcome. We will be having new speakers and venues throughout the year and look forward to seeing a tribe emerge that has a common purpose of seeing their businesses and communities changed through God's power at work through us. I love that our company started this. I hope other companies come alongside us and champion this. This is not sponsored by any churches or ministries because for this to work, I really believe we need businesses to lead the charge. You can contact me if you are interested in helping or promoting the meet-ups. You can reach me at joel@themarketingsquad.com. I am so excited about seeing the thousands of Christians in this city come alive to partner with God, not only for their workplace but also their local communities and neighbors.
Many of us are familiar with the passage in Jeremiah 29:11 that says:
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
In the context of that verse, the people of Israel are in exile in a foreign land and God gives them a decree to be people who are focused on the prospering of the city they are in. Most of us have not considered Jeremiah 29:7, which says:
"Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper."
Prospering is much more than economic growth. It is also spiritual. My desire is to see people come to know God and seek first His kingdom, then everything else will be added.
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