Category: Sales & Marketing

Millennials are currently the largest generation within the U.S. labor force with a purchasing power up to $200 billion per year. Your business’s success is dependent on marketing to them. Understanding their buying behavior is the first step in this process, so we’re going to go into some of the strategies for millennial marketing.

Influencers

Influencers have the power to be engaging through their content even if it’s promotional. With word-of-mouth weighing heavily on millennial purchasing decisions, an influencer program is definitely something to look into. Aside from generating sales, they also build brand awareness which will grow your social following.

Two-Way Conversation

Millennials are selective with the brands they trust. This means you should be actively trying to build a relationship with them. Utilize social media to increase brand awareness and also to respond to customer’s questions and concerns. By communicating with them through social media, you’re giving them an opportunity to instill confidence and trust within your company. It may also be a good idea to conduct customer interviews, it’s a great way for your business to gain insight on what they’re looking for.

Video Content

Give millennials a digital experience by creating video content. There is 80 percent of millennials that use videos to conduct research so it’s important to have it readily available. It can quickly grab their attention when scrolling through their social feeds and is easy to share among social platforms. You can even be creative about it and give users a digital experience by posting it on a landing webpage, similar to Audi’s.

Transparency

Millennials will do all the necessary research before making a purchase. They are also quick to fact-check what you claim your products to be. Ensure that your marketing efforts don’t include exaggerated ads of any sort and you’re completely transparent about your products and services. If they’re not, it can cause a negative wave of word-of-mouth.

Social Responsibility

If you’re a brand that tries to support causes and gives back to the community, millennials want to see that. They’re looking for companies that are making an impact on the world around them.  If you can effectively communicate exactly what your purpose is, you’ll make an emotional connection with them.

Optimize for Mobile

Most millennials are going to be viewing your content through a mobile device. You want to ensure that your content is mobile friendly. Your landing pages and emails should be optimized and image loading time should be quick. Creating vertical images and videos can also create a better experience for the user.

After having a strong grasp on millennial shopping behavior, start implementing some of these new strategies. Track your analytics to see what’s working and pay attention to those demographics. Once you’ve established your credibility to them, you’ll gain their loyalty.

Byline

This guest post was written by Katherine White. She writes articles for businesses that want to explore different marketing strategies. Currently, she is a contributor for 365 Business Tips and a digital marketing expert.

A significant proportion of marketing advice for small businesses focuses on digital marketing – using your blog, targeted advertising, or social media – and this approach makes it seem as though digital advertising is the only kind that matters. In doing so, this advice overlooks the power of in-person contact and any exciting and affordable ways to reach your community. Build deeper connections with these classic strategies, standbys from a brick-and-mortar era, that never stopped working.

Join Your Chamber Of Commerce

Your local Chamber of Commerce may seem like a minor organization, especially if you’ve been in business for a few years, but joining forces with your area branch can yield a number of benefits. In particular, the Chamber of Commerce tends to promote new members and can increase the visibility of area businesses through their events, social media activity, and community outreach events. Your Chamber of Commerce also offers valuable networking opportunities, which can create connections and foster cross-promotion with other local businesses.

Try A Trade Show

If you’ve considered attending a trade show in the past but declined, now is the time to try something new, even if you only go to a small or niche show. Trade shows offer you an opportunity to meet others in the field, a kind of real-life LinkedIn, and practice your professional pitch in a place where pitching is expected. Furthermore, you don’t need much to go to a local show: invest in a branded tent, print some fliers, and set up shop. Types of marketing require a big investment, but your first trade show doesn’t need to be.

Create Community Ties

Working with your local Chamber of Commerce isn’t the only way to create ties with your community; in fact, some of the most tried and true options are to sponsor a local sports team or make a float for an area parade. By doing so, you have an opportunity to foster goodwill among a wide range of people and give something back to those who support you. The fact is, even if you don’t have a real interest in being in the local Memorial Day Parade, many people will turn out and see your willingness to participate as a sign that you’re an active member of the community – and that could be the first step towards a sale.

Sponsor Something Special

In addition to sponsoring local sports teams and other extracurricular events, consider planning a business event for other professionals in your community, such as a speaker series or networking event, or bring other businesses together to host a job fair. Don’t aim for anything too big, just something that will increase your opportunity for exposure and enhance your local connections. Despite the shift to online-first marketing, people still prefer to do business with local companies so how you engage with your local community matters.

Even if you don’t have a brick-and-mortar location in your town or make many sales in person, face-to-face marketing opportunities are vital to your success – so don’t overlook them. Whether or not you make a valuable connection that day, those events could be the start of word of mouth promotion and support that will take your business to the next level.

As a small business or startup, the holiday season is a great time to watch your revenue grow — it’s estimated consumers will spend $1,536 each on holiday goods and gifts. But you have to plan ahead and develop the perfect holiday marketing campaign before you can reap the rewards. Here are eight holiday essentials for small retail businesses and startups.

1. Plan a Holiday Marketing Campaign

The holidays are about more than selling your items. You need different messaging and tactics to tug at people’s heartstrings and remind them of your brand name. Your holiday marketing campaign such include SEO, emails, influencer marketing and display advertising. Don’t forget to adapt those messages whenever an event or a holiday happens to bring in even more customers.

2. Create a Personalized Experience

During the holidays, you can choose to increase your revenue by bringing in more customers, or you can increase profits through quality, loyal customers. Neither way is wrong, but choosing to focus on loyal customers may pay off in the long-term. Try to make your business approach personalized to keep those customers coming back. Hand-write thank you notes for purchases that are shipped or create an email campaign that targets repeat customers to keep people coming back.

3. Take Advantage of Big Shopping Dates

The last quarter of the year is typically when the biggest shopping dates hit. Throughout October, November and December you need to plan for Columbus Day, Halloween, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas. Also look at some of the big online spending days to figure out when you should be pushing paid advertisements and more.

4. Decide on a Return Policy

This one isn’t as exciting, but you should decide on a return policy and payment options before you get a rush of customers. Some online and offline stores offer more liberal and extended return/exchange policies during the holidays. Consider what is best for your store and how it will impact sales. You can also consider accepting other payment options such as PayPal.

5. Offer Multiple Delivery Options

Another important aspect of holiday shopping is delivery. Holiday shopping is important to consumers, and you want to keep them coming back by offering multiple delivery options that will allow their package to get their on-time. Whether it’s FedEx, UPS, USPS and more, check out the drop-dead shipping dates to know when the last possible day you can ship something is.

6. Pay Attention to Pricing

All sellers know that consumers will buy during the holiday season, no matter what the price of the product. However, good sellers will drop or increase the price of an item at just the right time based on many factors. Either watch the changes yourself or use dynamic repricing tools that use an algorithm to price things accordingly.

7. Make a Few Site Improvements

The last thing you want is for consumers to have a cart full of items that disappear if your site crashes. Factors such as site speed, slowdowns, content issues and overall stability will impact whether or not you make a sale. Take some time before the holiday rush to see what you can do to improve your site and make it more user-friendly for individuals who prefer to shop online.

8. Decide Where to Advertise

Not every advertising channel is the same, and you need to craft different messages depending on where you’re advertising. The more targeted you get with your promotions, the more people will buy. Do your research ahead of time to see where your competitors are advertising. Will a Facebook campaign work best? What about PPC on Google? Find the best ways to reach your audience this season to realize the biggest rewards.

Have Fun While Doing It

The holidays can often seem stressful, but they don’t need to be. As a small business or startup, you should have fun experiencing the holidays along with your customers. Help them find the perfect gifts for friends and family and do it with a smile on your face. The holidays are about giving, so give back with a cheerful attitude especially when the sales start to pile in.

Are you sure you that you know everything about CBD? Think Again.

The time for knowing the truth on CBD has come. You are simply not prepared to learn about it through the mundane scientific articles.  What is a better way of educating yourself about CBD than learning through the hilarious “I am CBD, I am THC”video series

The interest in the Cannabis industry is exploding in the recent years. The increase in the number of cannabis based products in the market only adds on to confusion about them.  As such, Diamond CBD launches the “I am CBD, I am THC” video series as part of their campaign to educate people on the uses and effects of CBD such as CBD Oil.I am THC, I am CBD” campaign is a spin-off of the iconic “Get A Mac” ad campaign thatsees two actors taking on the personas of THC and CBD, with brief but humorous exchanges that educate and inform the audience about the differences between CBD and THC. There are a total of 8 episodes in the first series which covers issues such as the legal topics concerning CBD, side effects, common misconceptions, benefits of CBD, lineage of CBD which comes from Diamond CBD. After enjoying the “I am CBD, I am THC” videos, people can visit the Diamond CBD What Is CBD guide and information center to learn more about the facts and myths that the videos are based on.

Diamond CBD has launched the CBD Education Center called “What is CBD” which will become the official online database for factual, up-to-date information about CBD. So, what are you waiting for? Time to binge on the 8 short episodes if you are still confused about the differences between THC and CBD.

Why Learning to Tell a Good Story Helps in Branding

Stories are not a luxury; they are the single most effective way to get your audience to remember your messages. Customers buy the branding behind the product, the story that they can relate to and have an affection to the business itself.

Quality content presupposes several factors. First of all, whatever you’re writing about, it’s highly important you’re being transparent, meaning the communication between you and your audience/clients is honest and direct.

People will always buy from those who they trust, so in order to build that trust, transparency is a must. It means that that the content you’re putting on your site needs to be honest, even when it’s uncomfortable to you and you should also be prepared to share some of your personal stories and prepared to take public responsibility for your potential mistakes. Diamond CBD is able to provide knowledge on the positive impact to the world and make people want the product that brings positivity to the world.

Now, let’s not forget the true power of story, which is to trigger our emotions. Stories provide us with a safe container to feel our emotions. Whether it’s a scary story or suspenseful or sad or romantic, when we’re in a story, we feel the emotions.

And, it’s safe, because it’s not our life that’s causing us to feel those emotions. It’s a fictional reality.

So often (especially because we spend so much of our time running away from feeling our fear-based emotions), we walk around feeling completely numb. That’s because it’s not possible to just numb one emotion, we’re either feeling all of our emotions, or none of them.

But, as humans, feeling emotions is an important part of fully experiencing life. So, if we’ve numbed our emotions, we find ourselves actually craving them.

Stories can help us feel emotions, that way. Now, as a marketer, people buy because of emotions. So, what better way to sell more with love than by using stories?

Here are the 5 reasons your business needs YOUR story and these are also the 5 ways you can build your business authentically and easily.

1. Your Story is evidence of your expertise. What you have experienced; including your personal life events, research, education and approach, is the best evidence of why you are perfectly placed to provide your service to others.
2. Your Story creates powerful connect. When we hear your authentic story we are reminded of our own related experiences and instinctively understand that you get it.
3. Your Story is inspiring.Your potential clients are struggling to achieve something. You have grown beyond that struggle so by telling that story you are inspiring others.
4. Your Story is the key to attracting clients. Your story differentiates you from others in your market. People always remember the story and be attracted by it. You show up as human, approachable, knowledgeable and most importantly, relevant.  Clients find you when you start telling your story.
5. Your Story makes you money.Add up all of what’s said before…more connection, more expertise, more inspiration, more clients – yes, it means you will make more money and have a thriving business. Now what business owner would say no to that!

You need a great story. And you don’t have to make it up. A big shout out to the lads who helped to produce the fun video series of “I am CBD, I am THC”. They are none other than Creative Propulsion Labs  who offer full service creative and marketing solutions in web, print, branding, and digital media to navigate every facet of a design project. They have an amazing team that helps to come up with the most creative ideas to help market your ideas efficiently.

Are you feeling a bit confused about how to get started with email marketing? This unique approach to digital marketing has been around for quite a while, yet it is still a mystery to some. Even seasoned professionals in the industry might struggle to stay up-to-date with the times, and with the best practices in the industry. Keep reading to learn more about some important things you might not know about email marketing! Whether you are learning something for the first time or dispelling some outdated notion, this article will highlight some of the current best practices to consider when creating killer emails for your audience.

1) A good headline is actually the most important part of any email.

It’s unbelievable how little effort goes into headlines sometimes. Many people go as far as leaving the title section blank! This is a crucial mistake because headlines are a huge opportunity. They allow you to impress the reader immediately, often providing them a reason to click and keep reading the rest of your email. A good headline is like the first bite of a delicious slice of pizza. If you enjoy it, you certainly going to want more of it!

2) You should not include too many links and media.

Many emails are completely overrun with links, images, and lists of URLs. There is nothing more confusing and unprofessional than receiving poorly formatted emails that are filled with ridiculous amounts of content. It’s important to realize when too much is too much. Avoid adding more than 3 links to an email, and don’t use too many text anchors, which can be confusing and annoying. In addition to that, emails that are loaded with media can actually slow down the performance of certain browsers, meaning that users that have a slow connection or read through their mobiles might not get the best experience.

3) The quality of your writing matters.

We don’t mean to sound like the grammar police, but great writing matters. If you want to appear credible, professional and trustworthy, start with good writing. Errors, poor formatting, and overly conversational writing will make you sound goofy. On the other hand, if you sound too serious and formal, you will appear tedious and stiff. It’s important to strike a good balance between the two extremes.

4) A final call to action is the second most important section of your email.

A call to action, also known as a “CTA,” is vital, yet many forgot to add one at the end of their emails. CTAs are a good way to advertise your links and contact information, so your readers can take action and experience more of your brand.

5) Sending emails too often is not a good idea.

Don’t overdo it: sending too many emails can be annoying for your subscribers. It’s a bit like “that annoying friend” on Instagram that floods your wall with bathroom selfies. You don’t want your readers to feel the same about your emails!

6) Emails should not be too long-winded and formal

Many businesses try to use a formal and long-winded tone when sending emails to their customers. While you think this might make you look more professional, the opposite is often quite true. Emails with “big words” and long-winded text bodies can be unappealing. Readers often read at a 7th-grade level, and the more complex your text is, the harder it will be for them to understand. Empathize with your audience by keeping your content relatively short and easy to get.

7) Using automated software is vital to a better workflow.

Automated applications are perfect to enhance your email marketing strategies. Software solutions like EMMA are particularly geared toward optimizing your email. With their extensive features, these programs can easily fulfill all of your email processing needs.