Partnerships | Powerful Collaboration Techniques for Your Agency

You’re proud of everything your marketing agency has achieved — and you should be. But have you considered that the most effective strategy to boost your agency’s billings might be partnering with another agency? If that gets your hackles up, stick with me until the end.

Collaborating with other firms can make your agency stand out as a business that’s easy to work with. More importantly, your willingness to solve problems by bringing in another resource will help you maintain long-term client relationships.

Channeling a competitive attitude into passionate, productive collaboration will help you build long-lasting business relationships that not only maintain stability but also keep your business growing. If you don’t, you’re sacrificing valuable relationships for the sake of ego — and that’ll never pay the bills.

The Pitfalls of Partnerships

Collaborating with another agency requires a degree of vulnerability and trust that we’re not always prepared for. We work in a highly competitive atmosphere, to say the least.

You might not always choose who you work with, especially during your first few cross-agency partnerships, but that’s why it’s so important to develop a reputation as a great partner agency. You’ll secure more referrals. And eventually, clients might ask for your recommendation when selecting other folks to hire.

All of this isn’t to say that partnerships are easy. Uncomfortable situations can rear their ugly heads, and these involve more than just your basic fears surrounding competition. Sometimes, the bigger agency tries to play alpha throughout a project, or the agency with the best connections or longest tenure thinks it should run the show.

We’ve all heard horror stories about agencies undercutting each other and bad-mouthing fellow agencies in front of the client. Power moves can make both groups look bad, and these actions place clients in an awkward position.

When Competition Becomes Collaboration

Agencies don’t want to do one-off work. They want long-term relationships and collaboration — it’ll only help the companies and brands they work with. And though the client plays a huge role in the success of bringing two agencies together on an opportunity, there are things each agency can do to lay the groundwork for a successful partnership. 

The best relationships evolve when all parties truly want to see the client succeed and view the partnership as a huge asset for all. Why tarnish the opportunity to have a win-win-win relationship?

While you can’t control every variable of a marketing partnership, use these quick tips to set yourself up for success.

Evaluate the opportunity

What do you know about the other agency and brand? Try checking around with industry professionals to see whether the agency you’re partnering with plays well with others. After, try to highlight your own agency’s strengths and see how others can fill in the gaps on certain projects. 

When digital- and experiential-based agencies get together, for example, it’s a match made in heaven. Digital agencies extend the brand’s reach, drive awareness, and earn digital engagement for an experiential event. The experiential agencies get to physically engage the audience, drive interest, and create that aha moment that clearly highlights a product’s superiority.

If your client has a need you can’t fulfill, partnering with another agency that has that ability provides benefits. You could build upon your relationship with that client and bring additional billings to your agency that you might not have had the opportunity to see. Remember that well-defined roles represent a symbiotic relationship.

Check your ego at the door

Successful agencies understand that their function in the marketing world is to support brands and do great work. The best award is a repeat customer, so don’t allow pride to get in the way of a robust program.

Anheuser-Busch partnered with our firm along with two other experiential marketing firms. There was no need to sulk, though, because there was so much work to go around. And for 14 years, we all did great work for the company within our own niches and areas of expertise. The positive partnership between our agencies allowed for friendly competition, and our work improved as we raised the bar together.

Remember that sharing is caring

No matter what kind of relationship you’re trying to build and maintain, communication will always be key. It’s crucial to develop a clear process for communicating key information with other agencies. Because nothing is worse than presenting competing ideas, you should both take part in the creative process before pitching to clients. 

Lean Labs provides a great example here: To lay the foundations for agencies it partners with, it actually created a downloadable agency partnership playbook. You don’t need to put together a playbook of your own, but back-end work can help achieve more alignment in the future.

Besides this, be sure to ask the client for a clear direction. You should understand the roles and responsibilities of each agency and have a budget list right off the bat.

Learn from each other

Learn how to think and process ideas with the “1+1=3” mentality — or that agencies can do better work by partnering up rather than doing things alone. This gives you the opportunity to experience how other agencies communicate with clients, present their ideas, and act as experts within their niches.

Besides this, you’ll also get to show them how you work. When two hardworking organizations come together, the outcome is greater than the sum of its parts. When you bring important lessons away with you, you can apply that valuable knowledge in other future projects.

Celebrate together

Achieving positive results for the client should be a win for all agencies involved, so make sure everyone has a part in sharing the end results. Everyone should also have a seat at the table during post-program evaluations. This makes sure clients can understand how each agency played a part in the project or program and provides the opportunity to discuss future client needs.

You can still be proud of everything you’ve achieved and be open to partnering with others. In fact, it might be one of the best growth strategies you can employ. Use these five tips to forge powerful partnerships that “future proof” your agency.

The post Partnerships | Powerful Collaboration Techniques for Your Agency appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog – Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

source https://thebtrade.com/2019/11/19/partnerships-powerful-collaboration-techniques-for-your-agency/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=partnerships-powerful-collaboration-techniques-for-your-agency

I Need Your Help With Ubersuggest

It’s been more than a year since I launched the “new”
Ubersuggest.

And over the last 12 months, I have made a lot of progress.

Just as a quick recap: Ubersuggest went from a basic keyword research tool to now containing backlink data, rank tracking, content ideas, site audit reports, and many more features.

If you haven’t played with Ubersuggest in the past few months, give it a try. Type in a URL or a keyword and click around.

The reason I am asking you to give it a try is that I need your help to determine what I should develop next so I can help you improve your traffic and rankings even more.

But before we get into that, let me first tell you what I am releasing in the next few months.

Upcoming features

So, let’s break it down by section as I am making a lot of
small changes that should not only improve the data, but also the usability of
the product.

Funny enough, there will be changes to every section of the
tool.

Keyword research

Over the next month, the keyword overview is going to change in which I will start to tell you demographic data. You’ll see what percentage of the searches are done by males or females as well as the average age range of a searcher.

You’ll also see what portion of the clicks for any given keyword go to SEO results, ads, or result in no clicks.

I am also going to break searches down by mobile versus
desktop.

More accurate data

Another big change that is happening, and this one won’t be
visual, is all of the data will become much more accurate.

From traffic estimations for a domain, to even keywords,
you’ll start seeing a more accurate database.

For example, when I look at all of the keywords
neilpatel.com ranks for, a lot of them are junk keywords that don’t drive much
traffic.

Sure, the report still provides value as a lot of the keywords are good and can provide good SEO insights, but with more accurate data it should make your job easier.

New backlinking data

Another feature that I am excited about is the new backlink charts.

I’m adding historical link data over time as well as a
snapshot of daily new and lost links.

In addition to that, you’ll start seeing more data on anchor text or link distribution.

Alerts

A huge problem with Ubersuggest is that you have to continually come back to get value. In the next month or so, you will start seeing email alerts that will tell you what’s happening with your site and what you should fix.

The overall purpose is for you to not have to come to
Ubersuggest to figure out what you need to fix.

Usability fixes

The biggest problem with Ubersuggest is people don’t know
what to do with the data or how to improve their rankings.

This will be fixed in the upcoming months.

From an education center and demos to tutorials and more, we are creating a guided path so you can see better gains in your search traffic.

Alright, so now that you know what I am working on, I now need your help to figure out what I should do next.

Where do you want me to take Ubersuggest?

I have a few options for you, but I am not sure what you
want me to do with the tool.

Sure, I know you want more free features and I will do that,
but what’s going to provide you with the biggest gains?

Here are some options…

1. Automated SEO – would you like me to focus my efforts on automating your SEO? All you would have to do is add a javascript to your site like Google Analytics and it would automate 40 to 50% of your SEO tasks. It would even adjust your code for you automatically no matter what CMS you use. Again, it would ONLY automate 50% or so of your tasks, I can’t automate all 100%… yet.
2. Ad management – do you want an easy to use ad management system? From Facebook and Google to even smaller sites like Quora, there are tons of ad opportunities. I could create an easy to use system that helps you find all of the ad opportunities and optimize/manage them for you in an automated way.
3. Free email marketing – I know there are tools like Mailchimp that are great, but what if I made it so you can send an unlimited amount of emails to an unlimited number of contacts for free?
4. Chrome extension – what if I took extensions out there from tools like Moz, Ahrefs, Keywords Everywhere, and SEMrush and combined the best features and made it free?
5. Or do you have any better ideas? I am open to anything.

Conclusion

I can take Ubersuggest in many different directions. There isn’t really a right or wrong approach and, wherever I take it, I will make sure that the product is still really easy to use.

The question is, what do you want me to focus on first?

That’s all that matters in the grand scheme of things because I am building this for you.

So, if you can, leave a comment below letting me know where you want me to take Ubersuggest. It can be one of the options above, or if you have a better idea, I am open to that as well.

The post I Need Your Help With Ubersuggest appeared first on Neil Patel.

source https://thebtrade.com/2019/11/19/i-need-your-help-with-ubersuggest/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=i-need-your-help-with-ubersuggest

[Webinar] Agile Marketing: How it Affects Content and Planning

A common misconception about the agile marketing methodology is that it means you don’t need a documented strategy. But in fact, the opposite is true. In order to have an agile marketing organization, you need to have a strong strategy in place, as well as the ability to take in ad-hoc requests and make continuous iterations to optimize content and campaigns.

Watch our webinar for Demand Gen Report’s week of Strategy and Planning to learn from Bruce Brien, Hive9‘s Chief Strategy Officer, and Anji Ismail, NewsCred’s Director of Product, as they dive into the ins and outs of agile marketing’s impact on content and planning:

You’ll learn:

• The principles of agile marketing
• The impact of agile marketing on content creation and campaign planning
• How it can maximize your marketing team’s time
• How to build an agile team to continually optimize marketing efforts
• Tips and best practices for going agile

 

Questions on how NewsCred’s content marketing platform can help your team become high-performing, agile marketers? Get a consultation from one of our experts.

The post [Webinar] Agile Marketing: How it Affects Content and Planning appeared first on Insights.

source https://thebtrade.com/2019/11/18/webinar-agile-marketing-how-it-affects-content-and-planning/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=webinar-agile-marketing-how-it-affects-content-and-planning

Brand Secrets for Standing Out in a Crowded World

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These days, we live in a world of infinite supply…

In just a few clicks, anyone can start a business. Anyone can create products, build an online store, publish ads, and reach an audience online. This means that every market is becoming flooded with businesses offering similar products, features, and solutions. 

So to stand out you need to have a brand that your customers connect with, and care about deeply. 

In this post, we’ll be sharing some tips and strategies to help you to build your brand. These insights all come from our new podcast series — it’s called Breaking Brand and it’s out there for you to listen to right now. 

What exactly is a brand?

Before we jump into some strategies and tactics for creating a brand your customers will truly care about, let’s first look at what exactly a brand is. 

The word “brand” is used a lot in marketing today. But what exactly does brand mean? That question that might sound simple… but is actually pretty complex, and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer.

David Ogilvy describes a brand as “the intangible sum of a product’s attributes.”

Marty Neumeier, an author and speaker who writes about branding and innovation, says “a brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization.”

And Camille Baldwin, one of the Pattern Brands founding team, and star of Breaking Brand, says “brand to me is identity. It’s all of the things that make up identity, your values, your principles, who you are, your characteristics and your intention.”

Brand to me is identity. It’s all of the things that make up identity, your values, your principles, who you are, your characteristics and your intention.

Camille Baldwin, VP of Brand, Pattern Brands

So to summarize… Your brand is the identity of your business, and how it makes people feel. 

Now, let’s dive into some takeaways from Breaking Brand to help you build a buzzworthy brand that stands out against your competitors.

4 Ways to build a memorable brand

1. Know what your consumers care about

Most people are really good at explaining the “what” and the “how” of their business. For example, say you’re an accountancy company, describing the what and the how is pretty simple…

• What you do is you help individuals and businesses to ensure their finances are in shape.
• How you do it might vary, but it tends to involve some form of account management where you assist with invoicing or balance the books every month or quarter.

And the thing that will help one accountancy company stand out from its competitors is moving from the what and the how to the why.

The “why” is what will make a potential customer choose your business over another. The “why” is your differentiator. 

In general, consumers aren’t too fussed about how you do your work — the tools you use, your internally processes, and things like that. What consumers care about is “why does this business matter in my life?” 

And to go back to the accountancy example — we already explained the what and the how — but the “why” might not be so obvious. For example, if an accountancy company mostly serves small businesses, the “why” might freeing up time for the business owner to spend with family and friends. 

So how do you find your why? 

Customer research is a great place to start.

At Buffer we often do research interviews with customers to learn how our product helps them, and to better understand how they describe the benefits of Buffer. We’ve even had teammates spend the day with customers at their offices to see first-hand how Buffer fits into their routines and workflows.

And in Breaking Brand, Emmet Shine, co-founder of Pattern Brands, talks about the importance of knowing the customer when it comes to building a brand consumers will care about.

Before starting Pattern Brands, Emmett helped over 50 businesses launch to market, and one of those businesses was Sweetgreen, a restaurant chain selling healthy salads and grain bowls.

When working on the Sweetgreen brand and trying to understand its customers, Emmett and his team spent countless hours at Sweetgreen restaurants. They would watch how the staff would prepare salads, listen to how customers would place orders and immerse themselves in how the company works.

Essentially, they were trying to understand every tiny detail about what made Sweetgreen unique and special. 

This enabled the team to craft a brand that really emphasised what customers were looking for from Sweetgreen and helped them to find their “why”. 

Now Sweetgreen has over 75 restaurants and reportedly generated in excess of £100 million in 2018. So they clearly have a brand that fits what consumers are looking for.

2. Find the technical, functional, and emotional benefits of your business

Once you’ve done your customer research, you can begin to think about the various types of benefits your business offers consumers.

In episode one of Breaking Brand, Pattern’s VP of Brand, Camille Baldwin shares how the brand pyramid framework can help you to define those benefits. 

Brand pyramids have been around since the late nineties, but still play a key role in brand strategy. Pyramids help you to answer fundamental questions about your business and its place in the market. Here’s an example brand pyramid from Insead Knowledge:

Three of the key elements of any brand pyramid are the technical, functional and emotional benefits your business offers consumers. 

Technical benefits

At the bottom of your pyramid, you’re thinking about the technical benefits of your brand (labeled ‘Features and attributes’ in the above image). Essentially this will help you to define what you do as a company. At this stage you’ll want to ask questions like: How is this business benefiting the consumers? How will it make money? What are we offering? 

For example, at Buffer we might say the technical benefit of our product is to manage all of your social media content and profiles in one place. 

Functional benefits

Then, with the technical benefits of your brand defined, it’s time to look at the functional benefits you can offer consumers. Functional benefits are essentially what your customers get when they buy your product or service.

Functional benefits tend to focus on things like how a product can improve your life, help you stay connected to others or help you to make forward progress. 

At Buffer, a functional benefit might be not having to hit publish manually every-time you want to share to social media. Or in the case of a car: a big, spacious family car will offer the functional benefit of space for your whole family to travel in comfort. 

Emotional benefits

Next up, are emotional benefits. And these are really what makes one brand stand out from another.

Emotional benefits are how your brand makes someone feel based on the stories you tell consumers. 

One emotional benefit of Nike, for example, is that its equipment will make you feel like a professional athlete. And at Buffer we might say the emotional benefit of our product is peace of mind knowing that your content will be posted to social media platforms at exactly the right time every time. 

As you go through everything you’ve learned during your customer research phase, start looking out for emotion-based words your customers, or potential customers, use to describe your company or the problem you’re solving. 

Whenever someone says “I feel” or “it made me.. happy, relaxed, proud, or healthy”, for example, this helps you to identify the emotional benefits your company delivers. 

 3. Craft a simple tagline and message

Just Do It, Think Different, I’m Lovin’ It… 

Those are all examples of great brand taglines. By saying just two or three words, I bet you knew exactly which businesses I was talking about. And that’s the power of being able to boil your message down to something simple, and memorable. 

In episode three of Breaking Brand, Emmett Shine, co-founder of Pattern Brands explains: “The thing about branding and marketing, is you can do years worth of research. But if you can’t boil it down to this thin sliced tagline it doesn’t matter.”

The thing about branding and marketing, is you can do years worth of research. But if you can’t boil it down to this thin sliced tagline it doesn’t matter.

Emmett Shine, Executive Creative Director, Pattern Brands

But this isn’t easy to do.

It took the Patten Brands team months of ideating and back-and-forth to land on their tagline “Enjoy Daily Life”.

But now that simple statement acts as a guiding light for everything they do. From the content they post on social media to the products they sell. 

Boiling your whole business down to one sentence, or even just a couple of words can be very tough. And you can’t force it. One of the best ways to craft the perfect tagline is to facilitate brainstorms and create space for idea sharing. Another thing the Pattern Brands team has done was to journal about their business and riff on ideas in private too. 

And sometimes the best ideas will come to you outside of the office. So don’t be afraid to think outside the box, and away from your desk. 

Communicating a clear message in just a few words is very difficult. One way we’ve found to come up with taglines at Buffer is to start long and edit down.

So to begin with, write exactly what your business delivers for customers in as many words as it take — this could be a paragraph or two, maybe even longer. And remember to think about the emotional benefits here too, not just the technical and functional benefits you offer. 

Next, you’ll want to take what you’ve just written and edit it down to just one or two sentences. Repeat that process to make it one sentence, or just a few words. Then take that final piece of copy and play with a number of different versions: Rewrite it, change out words, and experiment with different lengths. This process will help you to distill all of the thoughts you wanted to share about your business into a short, memorable tagline. 

Now you might be wondering: “Why is a tagline so important?” 

From personal experience, I know I’ve never bought a Mac because their tagline is “think different.” But having that tagline in places means that Apple has a clear mission, and everything it does — from the adverts it makes, to its keynote launches — is guided by that vision.

4. Ensure your business lives and breaths your brand

To be successful, and for consumers to trust your message, you have to live your brand. 

For example, Nike says its mission is to “bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world.” And the company sees every single person as an athlete, not just the pros. 

But Nike doesn’t just say that, it lives by it. 

That’s why the company focuses on creating the most innovative clothing and footwear, and why its advertising revolves around inspirational messages and stories.

Nike’s brand is reflected in every piece of content it puts out on social media. Just before writing this, I jumped over to Nike’s main Instagram account, here are just a few posts I spotted:

• An IGTV video with Saquon Barkley sharing where his NFL dreams started.
• A photo of women’s marathon world record holder Brigid Kosgei with former record holder Paula Radcliffe.
• A photo of Rafael Nadal sharing his ambitions as a child.

Of course, not all businesses will have the resources of Nike, or the access to global superstars for that matter. But it still serves of a great example of ensuring the essense of your brand shines through on every platform. 

To go back to the accountancy example I mentioned earlier. If your “why” or emotional benefit is giving small business owners more free time to spend away from work, you could ensure all of your messaging and content supports this mission. This could mean Instagram posts with clients enjoying themselves away from the office or blog posts about disconnecting from work. It could even mean you rethink the imagery and copy you use on your website.

As I mentioned right at the start of this post, your brand is the identity of your business and how it makes people feel. So every single touchpoint where someone can interact with your business should represent what you want your brand to be, and how you want people to feel. 

source https://thebtrade.com/2019/11/18/brand-secrets-for-standing-out-in-a-crowded-world/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=brand-secrets-for-standing-out-in-a-crowded-world

The Newest Black Friday + Cyber Monday Ideas for Your Social Media Marketing

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The biggest retail dates of the year are just around the corner. Do you have your social media marketing ready?

We’ve researched some of the trendiest marketing ideas for Black Friday + Cyber Monday, including flash sales, messenger marketing, and UGC. In this blog post, we’ll cover a host of new ideas, tips, and tactics that can help you boost your already-planned campaigns or give you some inspiration for an upcoming piece of content.

Find out some of the numbers behind Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and see what the most cutting-edge brands are trying out this holiday season.

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Holiday shopping begins for people all the way back in September! So there’s a wide window of opportunity to reach customers who are in the shopping mood.

According to the National Retail Federation, the average shopper is planning to spend $1,047 this holiday season, which is a four percent increase from last year. 

Overall, sales in November and December are expected to rise between 3-to-4 percent, reaching more than $725 billion. 

That’s a huge amount of spending. We’ll get into some ways to best position your products and promotions during this spending season. But first, we wanted to start with a couple of outside-the-box campaigns to get you feeling inspired. 

Inspiring examples of Black Friday / Cyber Monday marketing

Outdoor apparel retailer REI has taken a rather unique approach to its Black Friday marketing. For the past four years, REI has chosen simply to not participate at all. They close their stores and send their employees home. Even the website has a giant takeover message. They want you to feel empowered to opt out of Black Friday and spend time outside. The hashtag campaign “Opt Outside” has been a hit. 

And this year, they’re taking it one step further by not only encouraging people to opt out of shopping but also asking folks to spend their time cleaning up the environments around them of trash and waste. 

It’s a really powerful message to send, and it’s been very effective for REI’s brand.

For another example of Black Friday creative campaigns, there’s this amusing one from the New York Public Library. The library put together some simple content to share on social, advertising a 100% off sale on all its books. 

Of course, the joke here is that the New York Public Library is a .. well, library. All of its books are free to check out all the time anyway. 

Nevertheless, it proved to be a very memorable campaign.

So with these fun examples in mind, let’s jump into some of the specific strategies and tactics you can take with your Black Friday and Cyber Monday marketing.

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1. Conduct hourly flash sales

When researching this episode, we came across a really interesting case study of HostGator, a web hosting service, and how they approached Black Friday / Cyber Monday. Essentially, HostGator put together a spreadsheet with multiple sales at multiple different hours of multiple different days. It was fascinating!

Yes, their sales typically lasted one hour with some steep savings of 60 to 70 percent. And each hourly sale had its own coupon code so they could track the results. 

It’s a really interesting strategy, especially when you think of how you can use it on social media. 

That’s right. Think of all the possibilities for Stories content and social posts if you have multiple sales during the shopping weekend. Especially with Stories, you have things like countdown timers and reminder stickers that you can use to great effect. Each new sale gives you another chance to reach out to your audience in multiple ways — getting attention before the sale starts, holding attention during the sale, and teasing the next one. 

2. Think beyond Black Friday and Cyber Monday

HostGator’s plan included sales for Early Access Black Friday as well as Small Business Saturday, and it’s a trend that many other businesses are emulating. 

The Black Friday weekend is almost a four day affair, if not more. We have Gray Thursday, which is U.S. Thanksgiving Day, then there’s Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday, which some companies extend for the whole next week. 

If you’re thinking of using multiple days for your marketing plans, you can consider some fo the unique behaviors of your audience on these days. For instance, on Black Friday, you might tie some of your marketing into some Buy Online / Pickup In Store specials (commonly referred to as BOPIS) and on Cyber Monday, you can of course focus on online sales. Shoppers spent $7.9 billion online for Cyber Monday last year. 

Related to this, it’s also worthwhile to start, really, any time between now and the holiday weekend, if you haven’t already. Around 40% of consumers start their holiday shopping before Halloween. So shopping is definitely top of mind for your audience, even before Black Friday hits. 

3. Update your design assets for each of the holidays

You’ve probably seen this with many of the brands you love. All their designs, photos, and graphics match the season we’re in. This might mean harvest colors in October and early November, short and catchy ads around Black Friday, and then holiday themes in December. 

If you’re able to align all these creative assets across all platforms — Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, even your display ads — it can create a very powerful and memorable brand experience, which often ends up tying back to ad performance and sales!In fact, according to Twitter Business, ad recall is 60 percent higher if a brand does something as simple as placing the logo in a consistent spot. These little things – logo placement, color, font, hashtags — they make a difference! 

4. Make the most of Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp

There are some really big opportunities out there for messaging platforms around the holidays. 

The website Retail Dive touched on a bit of this in a recent blog post explaining the virtue of SMS and text messaging. Get this: During Black Friday 2018, there were reports of brands getting 2000% ROI from using SMS campaigns during the Black Friday weekend. 

That’s an incredible number!So probably your mind goes next to, well how can I get this set up for my brand? 

You can definitely go the SMS route. We think it can be almost just as effective if you think of applying this strategy to Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp as well. Either way, the workflow looks a little like this: 
Step One: collect the contact information and the person’s opt-in consent.

This can happen at signup or with a special one-off campaign to collect contact info with the promise of special deals coming soon. 

Then, you can apply some messaging strategies to the data. Send a discount code to subscribers. Follow up with an email with the same discount and more product offerings. For those who don’t purchase right away, send a reminder nudge. 

You can even tie this into the hourly flash sales we talked about earlier. Just be careful not to overuse this messaging channel — you want to always uphold first and foremost a solid, genuine relationship with the person. Sending too many messages can be a turn-off.

5. Focus on user-generated content (UGC)

You probably have a lot of content to create around these busy holiday dates, so it can be quite a relief to get some help from your community by re-sharing the content that they’re already making. 

This can take a lot of different forms like photos of your brand and product, or positive user reviews. It’s especially easy on Instagram Stories where you can reshare someone else’s post to your Stories with just a couple taps. 

Some companies go the extra mile and create programs to incentivize users to create and share content about the brand. You can tie giveaways into this strategy — offer prizes to random winners who have used a certain hashtag or commented on a post. We recently added a Giveaways feature to our social engagement product, Buffer Reply, if you want to check it out at buffer.com/reply. 

For some simple ideas for creating UGC contests, we quite like this list by G2 Crowd. 

1. Ask your community to share a video or photo of them using your product
2. Ask your community to reshare your content
3. Ask people to follow you on social
4. Have people tag people in the comments, people who they think might benefit from what your brand has to offer

6. Craft a well-designed mobile experience, from social to your website.

For last year’s Black Friday / Cyber Monday shopping, Adobe Analytics found that mobile devices sent 58 percent of traffic to websites, which represented a 20 percent increase from the year before. 

That means that more than half of your website visitors are likely coming from mobile. Is your website prepared? 

it’s worth considering this type of user flow when you’re putting together your social media campaigns. Be sure that whatever you’re linking to — whether it’s from your social ads, from the Swipe Up in your Stories — that the page is well-optimized for mobile. It’s going to make a big difference with user experience and with conversions. 

7. Prepare for product returns

People often turn to social media to get in touch with brands for product questions. You can expect that volume to be especially high around the shopping weekend. 

Yeah, we thought this stat was really interesting: projections say that 77% of consumers expect to return some of the presents they get this year. And almost 20 percent of consumers say they’ll return more than half of their gifts. 

Knowing this in advance, you can put together some workflows and some docs to help prepare your social media teams to handle these types of requests and this volume. 

8. Stories, Stories, Stories

As has been the case in past years, Stories on Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat continue to be more and more important for showcasing what your company sells. 

According to Facebook’s holiday marketing guide, Stories have become a hugely popular place to window shop. Last year, 63 percent of shoppers either watched or posted videos on Stories and more than a third of shoppers claim that videos were influential in choosing what to buy. 

So whatever you do with your content plans this Black Friday and Cyber Monday, be sure that you’ve allocated plenty to Stories! 

About the Show:

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing strategies from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each episode.  It’s our hope that you’ll join our 27,000+ listeners each week and rock your social media channels as a result!

source https://thebtrade.com/2019/11/18/the-newest-black-friday-cyber-monday-ideas-for-your-social-media-marketing/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-newest-black-friday-cyber-monday-ideas-for-your-social-media-marketing

Top 10 Physiotherapists in Ajax

If you need help recovering from an injury, or if you have an illness where you need regular physical therapy, having the right physiotherapist is essential. You want someone with a lot of experience and expertise, but also a clinic with a great patient focus.

A doctor with a great bedside manner can make all the difference as you work to overcome your injury or illness. But how do you find the right physiotherapy office? The good news is you don’t have to guess. This list of top 10 physiotherapists in Ajax will give you a great place to start.

Top 10 Physiotherapists in Ajax

Lifemark. Lifemark is a clinic dedicated to helping you recover quickly and get back to your day-to-day life. They offer a wide variety of specialty care, including programs for cancer recovery, concussions, mental health, and sports therapy. They have everything from chiropractic to massage therapy to kinesiology, so you’re sure to get the care you need.

“Exceptional care and an amazing, supportive team! All of the staff is courteous and caring at the Ajax Lifemark. Haslin treated my elbow tendinitis which has improved greatly. I would definitely recommend this clinic to all of my family and friends :)” –Kam Nagra

PARC of Ontario. With a convenient Ajax office, PARC of Ontario offers a wide variety of services to help you recover. They have evening hours most days of the week, being open until 7pm. The Ajax location offers a variety of assistance, from concussion management to driver retraining to rehabilitation equipment. There are also programs for orthotics, psychological help, shockwave pain therapy, and more.

“Great place for physiotherapy. From the front desk to the chiropractors and therapist, great people, friendly faces and a comfortable environment.” –Conscience Man, Local Guide

“The clinic is very well put together. The kinesiologists and PTAs were very helpful and they always taught me new exercises. I was going through a tough time with my injury but the rehab staff helped me get through it. I highly recommend this clinic, especially if you are looking for friendly, yet exceptional staff.” –Abdulahi Abdikadir

Great Lakes Physiotherapy Centres. The Great Lakes centres are among the oldest and most established clinics in the area. They offer convenient hours and access to injury treatment and prevention. They focus on hands-on physical therapy to provide real, long-term relief. If you’re looking for evidence-based, patient-centred care, this is a great option.

“If you’re looking for the best physiotherapy in Ajax, this is it. Impressive level of knowledge and care from this clinic. Highly recommend, and a pleasure to review Baywood Physiotherapy.” –Anne Genge CIPP/C

“Janice Evelieigh was great treating my 12 yr old son.  He liked the mini hottub for his arm. He liked the two exercise bands he was given and used them.   Hope we never need physio again but I’d use this clinic again.” –Catherine Davis

Ajax Family Physiotherapy. For care that helps with everything from orthotics to injury or sports medicine, Ajax Family Physio is here to provide evidence-based care that makes a difference. They have late hours on Monday – Thursday to help make the clinic accessible to everyone. They have caring therapists and all services are covered by most Extended Health Benefit plans.

“Amazing physiotherapists, staff and good facilities. Direct billing to insurance. Definitely recommend.” –Margaret Smith

“An excellent clinic to work for AND receive treatment at. I have worked here for a few years and have never witnessed anything other than professionalism, kindness and compassion from all the staff members. I feel blessed to be a part of such a great team.” –Cotsy

Healing Touch Rehab. Another clinic with a variety of services, you can get anything from physiotherapy to acupuncture to massage therapy. They are committed to helping heal your pain and allow you to return to life as usual. Whether you struggle with shoulder, knee, or neck pain, or you need supportive devices or orthotics, this clinic can help.

“I’m extremely happy with the treatment I have received. I highly recommend going to Healing Touch (Ajax).

The receptionist is very informative, helpful and friendly. The therapists are very knowledgeable and take great care in reviewing and treating my condition. The exercises prescribed to me were very effective. I noticed a huge improvement in my ability to bend my knee and the pain associated with it. Thank you so much for your help.” –Roxana Su

The Physio Clinic. TPC specializes in improving your physical and emotional quality of life. Whether that means injury recovery, increased mobility, pain relief, or sports recovery, they are here to help. If you’re looking for a comprehensive approach to your health and wellbeing, TPC is a great place to consider.

“The staff is great and always on time. I used to go to another clinic and wait over 20 minutes to be seen and treated. They are professional and I am making much more progress than I have ever made.” –Gordon Tweak

ProFusion Physiotherapy and Wellness. If you’re looking for therapists with a lot of experience in treating a variety of conditions, consider ProFusion. They offer services from the assessment of acute injury to ongoing care for chronic pain. They also share injury prevention and wellness tips on a regular basis. You won’t go wrong with ProFusion.

“I received very excellent care from Pro Fusion Rehab, their receptionists (Julia/Sarah/Mandy) are very friendly. Mary, Physiotherapist, super caring, you won’t believe how much care I received from this wonderful lady. And their 2 massage therapist, they have wonder hands to make you feel very relaxed and feel good after a massage.” –Rizelle Lorenz Garcia

Pickering Village Chiropractic and Massage. Pain can have a big impact on your life, and finding relief is a top priority. At PV Chiro and Massage, you can get help that includes acupuncture and orthotics in addition to chiropractic and massage. For pain relief and a path to a better, more healthy life, check out PV Chiro and Massage.

“Dr. Fera saved my neck and shoulder injury. I have been going to him for many years, & when I saw him for the first time I could not turn my neck. Since then his treatment has made my pain disappear. I have been getting massages from Rolf for over a year, & I also recommend him. They are both great at their profession and very knowledgeable at what you need to help with your recovery. I thank them both.” –Mike Miskelly

North Ajax Rehab. North Ajax Rehab offers pain relief and recovery through physiotherapy, osteopathy, and massage therapy. Whether you were in an accident or have a sports injury, this clinic can help. They focus on relieving pain and inflammation while giving you better muscle strength, flexibility, joint mobility, and balance. Clients love them, so visit for yourself!

“Great experience and very professional.  I have been going here for years for a few reasons; started off with wanting a relaxing massage to getting the help that I needed to recover from an injury.  Lee helped me by using acupuncture and physiotherapy to get proper movement back into my leg and keeping my back in proper posture as did Kelli with her being the Registered Massage Therapist at the clinic. Without their combined help I wouldn’t be back to work as quickly as I was, lifting weights at the gym or riding motorcycles again. I would definitely recommend anyone to go to this clinic. Thank you for all your help North Ajax Rehab & Sports Injury Clinic.” –Zangief Kaczorowski

Rouge Valley Sports Injury and Wellness. If you’re injured, disabled, or suffer from chronic pain, this clinic will help you regain and maintain physical mobility and function. They offer custom orthotics and bracing along with physical therapy, massage, acupuncture, and chronic pain relief. They have great reviews from clients, so you can be sure you’ll receive great care as well.

“Had severe frozen shoulder. Pain was 10/10. Zero movement. Staff at Rouge Valley were unbelievably amazing. The Physio and Massage therapists were fantastic! Helped me out immensely. Thank you!!!” –Patty Swanson

What should you look for in a great physiotherapy clinic? Here are the characteristics to watch for:

• A Wide Variety of Services. You want to make sure that you can get the care you need. Most clinics offer a wide range of treatment options, from massage to physical therapy to alternative therapies. Be sure they offer what you need before you begin treatment.
• A Convenient Location and Hours. It’s best to find a clinic that will be able to offer appointments that fit your schedule. Look for at least one night a week with later hours, or if you plan to go on your day off ensure they aren’t typically booked full on that day.
• Great Reviews. The surest sign of a high-quality clinic is when they have great reviews from other clients. Check to see what other patients have said about the clinic before you visit and get a consultation.

Your pain and injury care matters, and you should only trust the best. These 10 physiotherapists are a great place to start as you look for treatment options.

source https://thebtrade.com/2019/11/18/top-10-physiotherapists-in-ajax/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=top-10-physiotherapists-in-ajax

Agile Marketing | Overview and 8 Reasons to Adopt It in 2020

Marketing responsibilities and methodologies have changed drastically in the past decade.  

It’s no longer logical or affordable for brands to create 12-month marketing plans to be reviewed annually. In the ever-changing digital space, a single Google update can pull the carpet right out from under your feet. While traditional marketing places the producers and their sales cycle at the center of the business, agile marketing prioritizes the customers and their buying process instead.  

Agile marketing is quickly gaining momentum, as 98% of organizations report experiencing success with agile projects. 

Understanding agile marketing 

Inspired by the term agile software development, agile marketing is a marketing strategy wherein teams work collectively and collaboratively to accomplish projects within a short, definitive time period. Team members track the results of their efforts, and continuously strive to iterate and improve over time. Agile marketing values:

• Responding to change over following a plan  
• Rapid iterations over long-term campaigns  
• Testing and data over assumptions and opinions  
• Numerous small experiments over standalone bets  
• Collaboration and transparency over silos and hierarchy

Features of agile marketing 

The most commonly known aspects of agile marketing include:  

• Sprints – time given to the team for project completion. Generally, it ranges from fifteen days to six weeks; however larger projects are often grouped into several achievable sprints that can be easily managed. 
  
• Stand-up meetings – 15-minute check-ins with the whole team to briefly discuss work from the previous day, in addition to plans for that day. Any hiccups are addressed and resolved as quickly as possible to ensure timely project completion. 
• Project progress tracker – project management tools, like ActiveCollab and Trello, to help efficiently maintain a record of each sprint. Not a fan of using software? A whiteboard with sticky notes will also suffice.
• Teamwork – a well-oiled team improves project completion rate and time. In closed teams, personal wins become collaborative successes, while also allowing individuals to improve and learn new skills.

Traditional vs. agile marketing 

Traditional marketing often fails to adapt quickly enough to the rapid evolution of marketing trends and constant change in customer needs. And when you witness a poor click-through rate, experience customer backlash, or communicate a product recall- every second counts. Agile marketing aims to increase campaign transparency, speed, and adaptability in an age of buyer-persona based marketing. This necessity for a quick response time is where agile marketing proves king.  

Benefits of agile marketing

Below are ways in which agile marketing increases employee productivity, conversions, and ultimately sales. Check out 8 reasons why you should adopt it in 2020:

• Enables Better Internal Communication 

One of the biggest reasons businesses should opt for agile marketing is because it transforms communication within the marketing team. Daily scrum meetings ensure every team member knows what the other is working on, and any challenges that may arise are immediately resolved.

• Enhances Productivity 

Marketers who choose agile marketing experience increased productivity. The term ‘productivity’ refers to projects and user stories completed, points scored, and results. As every marketing task warrants a different level of effort, teams assign value points according to the level of work required to complete each story. Visitors to a site, return visitors, bounce rate, trials, and sales are all metrics to be considered. No matter what you measure, the objective should always be enhanced productivity and velocity of the marketing team. 

• Imparts Competitive Boost 

Improving the productivity of marketing and adopting a customer-centric method boosts the overall competitiveness of the business and increases customer satisfaction. Timely delivery of projects results in faster time-to-market, which in turn drives better ROI and explosive business growth.

• Mitigates Marketing Costs 

Agile marketing is a cost-effective solution that helps businesses yield long-term results from their marketing efforts. It enables companies to efficiently and effectively increase their reach to a larger audience without any exorbitant investment in multiple solutions. 

• Ensures Employee Satisfaction 

Happy marketers exhibit better productivity. According to a survey, agile marketers are more satisfied with their work management approach when compared to others.  

This is because agile marketers have a better ability to prioritize their tasks and accelerate the delivery of projects. When visibility, communication, and coordination improves amongst teams, morale does too. It’s, therefore, no surprise that an increase in the quality of work and employee satisfaction go hand in hand. 

• Facilitates Transparency

Agile marketing provides clear insights into projects being delivered by the marketing department. Sprint review meetings allow management to give constructive feedback, which subsequently leads to better results. It also affords team members the opportunity to bring up tangible contributions they’ve made, and be acknowledged for their hard work. Transparency, however, is not simply limited to team members, but also requires marketing to work closely with their customers to provide honest services to them.

• Allows Measurement of Results 

Measurement and accountability are the fundamentals of agile marketing. Agile marketing teams typically execute small tests to measure results. Based on these findings, they invest more time into strategies that prove to be working, and less time into those that don’t. Additionally, it enables marketers to effectively communicate their contributions to management using data and metrics

• Makes work fun

Agile marketing provides an open atmosphere to discuss projects, challenges and achievements, as well as an opportunity to better know your teammates. Daily standup meetings mean you’re always looped in on what others are working on, which in turn leads to a more cohesive, empathetic, and accountable team environment. One of the biggest assets of agile teams is the inherent nature of collaboration and self-management. 

Wrapping Up 

Agile marketing methodologies enable teams to stay up-to-date with trends and understand what customers want in real-time. It allows marketing teams to get an idea or product in front of customers in a short amount of time, with a smaller budget and less risk. Success in today’s ever-evolving digital space depends on getting the right message in front of the right audience at exactly the right time, a feat made possible with agile marketing. 

The post Agile Marketing | Overview and 8 Reasons to Adopt It in 2020 appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog – Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

source https://thebtrade.com/2019/11/15/agile-marketing-overview-and-8-reasons-to-adopt-it-in-2020/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=agile-marketing-overview-and-8-reasons-to-adopt-it-in-2020