lead generation

Why Pinterest Isn’t Just For Pretty Pictures Anymore

Interview with Jeremy Jankowski, Creator Management Lead, Home & Design, Pinterest

Jeremy and Jen at an Event — ultraviolet’s ceo Jennifer Smiga with Jeremy at the Business of Home’s Future of Home event in September 2021. And yes his kindness sparkles as much as his boots!

Content creators are finding new ways to connect and engage with their audiences.

Aware of the pain points that marketers and brands face on a daily basis, Pinterest has begun to respond more creatively and effectively to the need to make reaching high-intent users less challenging.

“Pinterest is moving to a model that is pretty much in sync with how people consume media,” says Jeremy Jankowski, Creator Management Lead, Home & Design at Pinterest. “It’s all meant to inspire someone to actually take action to do something.”

In an effort to respond to the growing demand for e-commerce integrations, Pinterest recently launched four new shopping functions:

We’ve previously shared our Pinterest best practices to boost your Pins and your business, and how effective these tactics are to seeing results on the platform. However, between evolving trends, platform updates, and constantly shifting algorithms, keeping a fresh strategy is key.

One thing we’ve learned from analyzing the tactics used by luxury brands on Pinterest is that aside from highlighting products, it’s essential to create compelling shopping experiences.

Successful Pinterest campaigns have one thing in common: they all, in one way or another, create content that connects with their audience. These brands are able to deliver a luxury experience through content by combining storytelling, trends, and innovation.

“Start launching idea pins. Start creating original content, you will start creating the following and more than creating the following, these will get out to people.” said Jankowski when we asked what it is that brands can do to be more successful on Pinterest. “Tell a story and provide a clean experience.”

On the other hand, according to Jankowski “What’s different about Pinterest is the mindset that you are in. We know the majority of people come to Pinterest looking for things to purchase. They’re putting something together. So they come with a mindset of planning and inspiration.”

Quote from Jeremy about Pinterest users Intent

Unlike Instagram’s frequent changes that disturb and upend the user experience, Pinterest continues to invest in feature development that differentiates itself from other social media platforms. “From a B2B perspective if you are not using Pinterest and really gathering a community using original content, a couple years from now you are really going to be missing out,” said Jankowski.

As this visual search engine platform continues to evolve, you should too. The UV team is here to execute the most up-to-date strategies to maximize your marketing efforts on Pinterest and across social media. Contact us to learn more about how we can help grow your business on Pinterest and beyond.

The Top 10 lightbulb moments from Hubspot’s 2021 INBOUND Marketing Conference

For the second straight year, Hubspot’s annual conference was virtual and…

Of course. We couldn’t miss it.

INBOUND is a three day, in-person conference that brings together inbound marketing professionals from across the world. The conference includes informative sessions, activities, debates and HubSpot product updates.

This year, sessions covered the full range of industry touchpoints, from content marketing, social media and email marketing to sales enablement and customer service topics designed to provide marketers with the latest, best-practices to bring back into the office and translate into even greater client success.

And, as always, there were inspiration, provocative luminaries owning the stage and captivating our imaginations – like Afiya Addison, Spike Lee and Oprah Winfrey (Do we stan them all? Oh yeah we do!)

As we all get set for the deep dive into 2022 planning, we want to share 10 of our most WOW takeaways from INBOUND 2021, along with some suggestions for how to turn that knowledge into action.

Presenter: Tony Verre, VP eCommerce, The Integer Group

Session: Killer SEO Strategies Through Product Design Methodology

In his presentation, Killer SEO Strategies Through Product Design Methodology, Tony Verre, VP eCommerce, The Integer Group, highlighted the importance of focusing our content on the needs and pain points of our users – first and foremost – and not a particular word or phrase we think we need to ‘rank for’.

Today, more than ever, it’s important to provide a fast and intuitive experience to help users to accomplish their goals. Google’s latest round of algorithmic updates has further evolved the focus of SEO work from packing our content with keywords (and key-phrases) to a more holistic view of search intent, emphasizing context to provide more relevant answers to more complex queries. Therefore, the content we share must answer real questions and solve the needs and pain points of our audiences with clarity, providing expert and trustworthy information.

Google’s SEO practices and algorithms are constantly evolving. Therefore, it is extremely important to stay up-to-date with these changes and assume them strategically. Learn more about SEO practices here.

TIP: Consider your searcher’s needs. What kinds of information are your target personas searching on Google? Reveal their needs for inspiration, problem-solving information, and their ultimate goals – and you’ll have better insights to inform your SEO language.

Video is the present of content marketing

Presenter: Tyler Lessard, Chief Video Strategist, Vidyard

Session: How to Maximize Video in Sales

As the world goes all in on digital experiences, video content marketing is becoming increasingly popular for B2C and B2B companies.

By 2022, an estimated 82% of all online traffic will be video content.

However, there are still some barriers that limit a company’s ability to produce video content. One of the most pervasive speed bumps is the assumption that video production is expensive. Tyler Lessard, Chief Video Strategist at Vidyard, pushed back against this limiting assumption (and demystified several other, limiting ideas) in his presentation, How to Maximize Video In Sales. Filled with practical, applicable tips and resources for budding video content creators, he also made us more aware of the importance of being intentional when it comes to creating videos.

This session encouraged marketers to experiment with videos as a new way to continue evolving and connecting with customers. Here are few tactics he shared with the HubSpot audience:

Write a storyboard that helps you organize your ideas.
Draw attention to the most important takeaway within the first 3 seconds.
Address the problem and the need in the first 5 seconds.
Design under the assumption that your video will be viewed on a mobile device.
Use text to highlight key messages.

TIP: Start where you are. Use what you have & never forget to close with a clear call to action.

Presenter: Chris Savage, Founder, CEO, Wistia & Colin Dinnie, Customer Happiness, Wistia

Session: Content Marketing Clash – Video v. Podcasting for Engagement

I am pretty sure we’ve all heard this, but like all great things, it bears repeating…

THINK ABOUT YOUR AUDIENCE AND HOW YOU WANT TO CONNECT WITH THEM BEFORE YOU BEGIN WRITING/DESIGNING YOUR CONTENT.

With so many communication channels and the growing number of tools that each one offers, the process of choosing which platform and/or tool is the best choice for communicating your message has become more complex. There’s nothing more frustrating than spending hours creating content to “stay active” on our different platforms we use, without clear insight into whether our audience is even getting the message.

The most important goal of our online, social media experiences is creating an authentic, helpful and welcoming connection with our audiences, and to do that, we MUST be intentional about what we’re communicating and how on which channels

TIP: Include your customer voice into your channels. You could begin creating videos that share customer experiences, and offering Frequently Asked Questions, with answers by existing clients.

Presenter: Courtney Sembler, Sr. Manager, HubSpot Academy & Steve Cornwell, Founder, CEO, Northpass

Session: Customer Education: A Must Have For Growth

Yes, you could keep writing and producing more content, but let’s be honest … it’s hard work.

Don’t get me wrong … we need to create new content. It is the way to keep our audience informed of what is happening in the moment and create new ways of communicating your message. It’s also necessary that search engines continue to recognize your brand as authoritative and trustworthy, essential to the algorithms to serve up your content at the top of search.

However, revisiting old content and updating it with new images, pull quotes from key partners and influencers, and updated stats, is a good way to take advantage of the value of your content. Refreshing, or evergreening, current content with updates with links to newer resources, improves the accuracy of your content, and therefore increases your SEO. You can also ask newly quoted or linked sources to share your content with their audiences – increasing your online authority and reach.

TIP: Make sure you have share buttons on the page. It’s a fact that posts with share buttons make content 7 times more shareable than content without them.

Presenter: Jay Schwedelson, Founder & CEO, SubjectLine.com, Worldata

Session: Email Myths Busted. What’s Really Working.

The global email marketing market share (say that 10x fast!) was valued at $7.5 billion in 2020 and is projected to increase to $17.9 billion by 2027.

A survey done by Statista in 2020 showed that for every U.S. dollar spent on email marketing, there was a return of $36 U.S. dollars. In industries like retail, ecommerce, and consumer goods sector, ROI was higher, with a $45 U.S. dollars return per dollar spent.

While it might be considered old fashioned, email marketing is not dead. In fact, with so much changing about the social media landscape, email is enjoying a resurgence in popularity as a top tactic for digital marketers trying to make sure they’re reaching and engaging audiences.

However, the email marketing landscape is evolving and Jay Schwedelson, Founder & CEO, SubjectLine.com, Worldata, explained it very clearly in his presentation Email Myths Busted. What’s really working.

For instance, Jay Schwedelson believes that people are less impressed (and moved to take action) based on the word-smithing creativity in writing subject lines, and in many cases, this is not the reason why your emails are opened. Instead, the use of characters () {} *, emojis, fake mistakes (oops, look what I did …), comparisons (podcast vs. video) and dots (I need …, I have a big question for you …) are the subject line tactics that can really increase your open rate.

Of course getting someone to open the email is the first, most important step in success with email marketing, but Schwedelson reminded the audience that the content of your email, the address from where it is sent, and the time it is sent, also matters.

TIP: Add a theme and graphic design to your email subject line and test the change in open rates.

Customer education is a must have for growth

Presenter: Courtney Sembler, Sr. Manager, HubSpot Academy & Steve Cornwell, Founder, CEO, Northpass

Session: Customer Education: A Must Have For Growth

While inbound marketing attracts potential customers, customer education helps to engage those who find you and are looking for good reasons to become customers.

In today’s hyper-competitive market, information is an extremely important asset. Sharing practical knowledge with current and future customers is one way to encourage better engagement with your brand and convert the curious into users of your product or service.

TIP: Think big about opportunities to educate your community – newbies and advocates alike. These can include: certifications as a way to increase product adoption, virtual webinars, live product launch training, brochures, and FAQs. Make the focus of your customer education strategy finding the best ways to make life easier and more productive.

Presenter: Marcus Sheridan, Author, Professional Speaker, IMPACT

Session: Trusted Content: 7 Steps to Becoming the Most Trusted Voice in Your Space

Building trust. It doesn’t sound like an easy thing to do – and it shouldn’t be.

Building trust with potential customers – and proving that trust was well earned with current customers – is a daily task, measured in both small actions and big decisions. When we ask customers or potential customers to invest with us, we should have earned their trust and they should be excited to engage with us and our products or services.

When it comes to customer trust, both the quantity and quality of our actions and interactions are important. Every action counts. Each action should feel personal and reassure the prospect or customer that they can expect consistency and responsiveness from us at every touchpoint.

To make your audience feel comfortable is it important to:

– Show yourself as you are

– Show them that you are not biased in your content

– Be unafraid to address any negatives, if necessary

At the end of the day, there is a human looking for real connection behind every buying decision.

Success depends on trust in the marketplace

TIP: Show your audience you care about them.

Presenter: Adriano Brito, Sr. Business System Analyst, Rock Content & João Dobbin, Sr. Manager, Business Operations, Rock

Session: How Using a Full CRM Enables Teams and Drives Revenue Growth

Many of us think ‘software program’ when we hear this acronym, which stands for Customer Relationship Management. And it’s true. CRMs are indeed software tools, but they’re so much more.

An effective CRM depends on not just fancy coding, it’s tied to a set of strategies and processes that manage your company’s interactions with customers and prospects.

When we have a good customer relationship management strategy, we have access to information about customers, potential customers and suppliers. Therefore, we can identify weak points to improve processes, sell more and build customer loyalty with a long-lasting lifecycle.

TIP: Review your CRM strategy from time to time. Review your goals and define which methods best suit them.

The effectiveness of a strategy will depend on your creativity and creative

Presenter: Carly Potock, Co-Founder, CEO, Canvas+Co & Charlene Tassinari, Co-Founder, CEO, Canvas+Co

Session: Creativity Thrives in Constraint: How Successful Brands Create Video Content

Just as you read it. No tricks or magic acts. The effectiveness of any strategy depends on how we leverage creative components, including visual and audio assets.

It is a fact that nearly 50% of any campaign’s effectiveness is driven by creative. However, spectacular creative that attracts attention in a big way won’t deliver success all by itself. Rather, leveraging this ‘wow-factor’ creative while presenting a solution to a real pain point – as part of a deeply satisfying user experience – that’s what drives real campaign success.

TIP: Look for an experience that can be improved in your product/service. Solve it creatively, and don’t forget to address your audience’s pain points.

Presenter: Shana Sumers, Head of DI&B, Community Programs, HubSpot

Session: Community Building With Customers

Modern customers want you to build a relationship. They want to feel that you are investing in their personal success and that your goals are aligned with their goals.

The task of establishing traction and growing a brand community can seem exhausting – especially on today’s crowded social media stage. However, customers are better informed than ever -and have higher expectations. Chief among these higher expectations is the idea that companies should care about more than just generating profits.

The reality that customers see themselves reflected in a brand, and are invited into a brand-hosted space to learn and grow together – is no longer something considered as ‘added value’ in a brand’s offer, but a must.

Chief community office will be important

TIP: Provide valuable experiences.

The bottom line: the future of digital marketing success belongs to those who strive to improve their relationship with their audiences and adapt to changes.

Companies that see change as an opportunity for innovation are the ones that will chart the way for the future of marketing. INBOUND 2021 left us with a lot of valuable information and takeaways that we are already putting into action.

Meanwhile, the ultraviolet team is here to provide you the most up-to-date marketing techniques to maximize your investment. Contact us and let’s start working on your 2022 marketing plan for growth.

Talking Lead Gen With Our Lead, Jennifer Smiga

When we want to talk about lead generation (we’re a bunch of marketing nerds who love talking about this stuff), we go to ultraviolet founder and creative director Jennifer Smiga. Jen isn’t just our esteemed leader, she’s a marketing mastermind and was asked to share her expertise at next week’s Design Influencers Conference. The whole ultraviolet team will be there: we’re sponsoring the Genius Bar where we’ll host appointments with brand reps seeking to improve their online presence and serve up sparkling rosé at our Mingle & Matchmaking event.

Today, we picked her brain about lead generation, real-life parallels, and why everyone needs a marketing blueprint.

Meet our lead, Jen

UV: What do you want people to know about lead generation, from a high level, that you think they might be missing?

JS: Lead generation is a completely different beast from just pushing out content.

UV: How so?

JS: With lead generation, you’re required to lay out the steps. Every campaign has to have a process, and when you’re focused on the lead gen, that process has a start, a middle and an end. The end is when you have developed a sustained relationship with a client or customer.

UV: And that relationship is the goal of the whole thing, right?

JS: Correct. You start with a campaign, and then you begin telling the story around it, to attract the right people. Then, whatever inbound marketing platform you are using, it integrates all the information you are getting from this storytelling and the response you’re getting to it, and you can see the journey, you can see it all.

UV: And other than feeling like an all-seeing superhero, what can we do with that information?

JS: Well, that ability to see all of that information is incredibly valuable, especially before an event like the Design Influencers Conference. DIC is dominating the digital design space in the lead-up to the event. People are writing about it, reading about it, sharing it on social—and this is all before it starts. We’ve been laying the groundwork ourselves, tweeting, and posting on Insta and Facebook, and writing and sharing blogs, we even partnered with DIC on a blog for their site. It’s all for relationship building. We’re hosting a Mingle & Matchmaking event there, with rosé (naturally) to help people develop these kinds of relationships in person.

Photo by Design Influencers Conference

UV: As much as I want to pretend we’re just hosting a rosé-fueled rager, I know we’re really doing this to get people together. What is the purpose of making these connections?

JS: It’s about, on the surface, meeting great people and introducing them to your brand, whether it’s corporate or personal. But really it’s about getting a step closer to your goals. I’ve been big into the concept of a blueprint lately. Being in the design space, it’s a familiar concept whether you have any marketing experience or not. It all comes back to that core idea of having a process and following it.

UV: When you’re creating a blueprint for a client, what do you do?

JS: Well, I ask them about a thousand questions first, like: What’s your product focus and how is that tied to your marketing for the year? Where’s your calendar? Is your custom content related to events, products campaigns? Are you participating in any social experiences or webinars? When was the last time you did a site audit? And after we have all of these answers, and I understand what their goals are, I create the path for them to get there. And in a lot of instances, this is where ideas like influencer partnerships come into play. They can really be the asset that pushes a campaign from being a goal into being a success.

UV: Yeah, we love our influencers!

JS: Yes we do! And for a lot of reasons. We’ve talked about it before and I’m sure we’ll talk about it again. Finding the right partner—whether you are an influencer or you are a brand—is the key to building a successful, mutually-beneficial partnership. And one of the things I take pride in is our ability to find the right person—whether it’s a designer, a macro-influencer, whoever—for a brand. Which is why I’m so excited to host the Mingle & Matchmaking sessions at DIC. Speaking of, you know I could talk about this all day, but those bottles of rosé aren’t going to buy themselves.

Meet Jen and the rest of the ultraviolet team at the Design Influencers Conference, Mingle & Matchmaking sessions, Sunday 3:00-3:30 pm and Monday 3:15-3:35 pm. And if you miss it, text DIC2020 to 66866 to download Jennifer’s brand track presentation on influencer marketing.

Think you’ve found the perfect influencer to showcase your products? Let’s help you kickstart the relationship on a positive, professional note.

LOOK HERE: Tips for Designing A Digital Product Lookbook That Gets Views

The ebook is an effective (though basic) lead nurturing offer. It delivers valuable info to contacts and is great for search authority. It’s also a bit of a yawn. So many words.

For our clients in design build we find that the ebook’s younger, better looking cousin, the lookbook gets more attention (and more lead captures). Designing one is easy, and a great way to repurpose those images you spent so much money on for your product catalog and website.

A product lookbook is a collection of images and copy put together to showcase a company’s product, whether it be in the form of a inspiration guide or case study.

Before you design it, map it

First things first: write the copy and choose the photos — then, lay it all out. A simple way to come up with your lookbook layout is to create a mock-up in PowerPoint or Google Slides. Spend absolutely no time on making it look pretty — your designer can focus on that later. This is just a helpful way to develop the concept and figure out placement. (It’s also the best way to see what you’re missing.)

Here is an example of a mock-up for a case study lookbook created in Google Slides.

Use high quality photos only

High quality photos are of the utmost importance when it comes to a digital product lookbook — after all, they are the center of attention. One blurry photo will make your brand look like an amateur. So what constitutes a high quality photo?

Higher resolution photography means higher image quality. The sharpness, definition and detail go up alongside the photo resolution. The more pixels, the better the photo resolution. Lighting and a correct exposure are also other factors that make a high quality photo. You can always adjust lighting and color with photography software, such as Photoshop or Lightroom.

Here are three reasons why you need clear, well-focused images at a high resolution.

If your photos appear blurry or pixelated, you won’t be showing the best version of your product.
If you need to use an entire photo for one page or spread it across two pages the enlargement won’t create a drop in quality.
The same concept goes for zooming and cropping. If you need to focus on one specific part of a photo, a high resolution photo gives your a little playroom and the photo quality will remain the same.

This is a high quality photo (4851 x 3435 pixels, 96 dpi)

Zoomed and cropped, this is what it looks like (still crisp and clear).

When the image size is lowered to 800 x 566 pixels, this is what it looks like when zoomed and cropped (blurry and pixelated).

Consult the brand guidelines

A company’s brand guidelines are essentially the visual DNA of its branding. The information found in these guidelines include the specifications for use of the logo, colors, sub colors, color palette, typography and icons.

While designing, consult the guidelines in order to keep a consistent look with the branding. Here’s our branding. Isn’t it pretty?

Judge the book by it’s cover

People will most definitely be judging your lookbook by its cover, so keep that in mind when designing. It should be visually appealing, while coinciding with your brand guidelines.

Here are some lookbook cover design essentials.

Make the title easy to read, and relevant to ebook.
Keep it simple by limiting text.
Feature a relevant image.
Include branding elements: logo, tagline, colors and font.

We designed the ebook above to tell the relocation story of a tech company who is now a tenant of the metroburb Bell Works (also our agency’s home). Partly a case study of their decision to move here and partly a lookbook of WorkWave’s swank offices and gorgeous surroundings, we chose to call it a Relocation Storyboard. Click here to download it.

On this cover you see the brand’s logo, the signature overlapping circles in one of the brand’s color palettes, an easy-to-read title in the header font and a relevant image.

Consider a strong focal point that will help your viewers’ eyes naturally settle on the important pieces of the design first.

For example, the focal point of this inspiration guide cover, designed for the natural stone supplier Swenson Granite Works, is the flame of the fireplace. It has been placed centrally, drawing attention toward the glow and the surrounding stone, then the fading image directs the eye down toward more information. The image is an appropriate representation of what this product lookbook is all about — fireplaces and fire pits. Click here to see it for yourself.

Be clear about what you’re offering

This case study / lookbook cover, designed for the natural stone quarrier Polycor, takes advantage of the open space on the left of the page to place the title. The pillar’s point on the top right acts as a focal point, directing the viewers’ eyes to the title next to it.

The headline and subhead follow a simple formula for communicating to the reader what the offer is (and who it’s for). Subject + simple description + offer type. The subject includes the product’s name: Saint Clair. The description in the subhead includes an explanation of the product: American limestone. The offer type – case study – makes it clear that the reader is going to get an in-depth look at a project (versus a catalog, spec sheet, etc.) Click here to see the case study.

If you find yourself struggling to come up with a creative title, go instead with something clear and obvious. Sometimes when we fall in love with our own snappy titles we forget that the reader has no idea what we’re selling. If it’s a lookbook about flush mount lighting fixtures, it’s ok to say just that.

Get viewers to take action

With a call to action (CTA), you will prompt your viewers to take action after they’ve read your lookbook. Consider including a CTA on the last page if appropriate.

Here are some some tips for creating that last page that gets viewers to take action.

Include either a simple headline and button, or a headline, message and button.
Make it clear what will happen when the viewer clicks on the CTA button. Rather than saying “click here” say “speak to a rep” or “talk to us today.”
The button design is just as important as the words — choose a color that contrasts the background color (light button with a dark background, dark button with a light background). It should be a color from the brand’s color palette.

The Polycor case study ebook includes a CTA on the last page that prompts viewers to speak with a company representative if they are interested in working with Polycor on their own projects. If the viewers were interested in reading about this one specific project that Polycor was involved with, it makes sense that they might want to see how the company can work with them as well. Polycor has a specific audience in mind and this message and CTA are designed to prompt them to take action.

Speaking of CTAs…;-)

See how we used influencers and custom content to turn soapstone into a top seller.

What is a tweet chat? One Hour of Killer Lead Gen. Don’t Miss It.

What is a tweet chat? One of my favorite social media tools and an exciting way to discover new people, products, partners and… prospects.

These are live Twitter events focused around a general topic and often scheduled for the same time and day, and held weekly or monthly. They’re about an hour long.

Chats are moderated and engaged by a media outlet, individual, company or organization. You can host a tweet chat or participate in one. For instance, #KBTribeChat, a kitchen and bath industry event, is hosted and moderated by Garcia Cabinet Makers. My team and I participate in these weekly chats on behalf of our materials clients, Polycor and Vetrazzo, both countertop companies.

Tweet chats offer quick opportunities to gain access to the key players on social media in your industry. People who can influence others and talk up your products or services.

What make tweet chats unique?

The people on the chat aren’t necessarily the same people you’re going to see at a networking event anytime soon (or ever). You can save the plane or subway ticket and talk to them right on Twitter. It’s a great place to showcase your industry knowledge. You’re not going to bust out a pic, video or blog in that cocktail party but on the tweet chat you can.

During a tweet chat at an ICFF industry event I mentioned my agency’s colorful office design and designer Bobby Berk liked the tweet. Months later I engaged Bobby again on Twitter connecting him with the building’s interior designer and scheduling a visit the space, a midcentury Eero Saarinen iconic structure called Bell Works.

And true to his word, Bobby Berk paid us a visit. Here he is with Paula Zamudio of NPZ Style + Decor, and Ralph Zucker, president of Somerset Development and the creator of the Bell Works project. I love when social media leads to social in real life!

Great connections and social visits aren’t the only benefits of tweet chats. Here are 10 more reasons your company should participate in a weekly chat:

Increased blog visits
More followers
More engagement
More opportunities for press coverage
Better relationships with bloggers and brand ambassadors
More opportunities for backlinks
Invitations to participate in industry events and conversations
More conversions on your website
Sales opportunities
Content ideas (What are people interested in and talking about?)

Pretty great right?

In many cases, companies sponsor and/or moderate the questions in a tweet chat. Through pics, links to blogs and conversations, they soft sell products, gauge interest in potential products, connect with social influences and prospective brand ambassadors, and boost attendance at events. Last week’s #KBTribeChat was sponsored by The International Surfaces Event, a materials trade show, and we tweeted from our client @Polycor’s account.

How do tweet chats work?

A hashtag is used to filter all the tweets for the chat’s single conversation. i.e. #ModernMonday which is run by Dwell and Design Milk. The moderator will pose questions tagged Q1, Q2… to prompt responses from participants who will answer with A1, A2.

Here’s an example of a predetermined question gave us an organic way of introducing our client’s product into a conversation.

In the same chat we had the opportunity to strengthen our client’s relationships with one of its distributors, Walker Zanger. Here, as Polycor we, tweeted our support of Walker Zanger’s charity efforts to recycle luxury home building materials. Good for the planet, good for the partnership and good for the people helped. That’s the kind of cocktail party like conversation and collaboration you only get when people have a place to interact online.

The best way to get comfortable engaging in a tweet chat is to watch one first and then jump in yourself next time. (You don’t have to answer every question but when you do, don’t forget the tweet chat official hashtag or your tweets won’t be part of the conversation).

Proper tweet chat etiquette

A chat is not about the sell. It’s about showing up and communicating. Relating to people in your industry, being helpful and supporting one another. Your product or service is secondary to the relationships you are starting and sustaining in these weekly conversations. (Often you’ll find many of the same people coming back every week.) Showing up regularly will keep you top of mind.

One way to engage with people is to retweet with a relevant quote / comment. Thank people who retweet, quote, like your tweets. Thank people for following you. Follow people back who you have interest in. You will not always be able to know if this person is valuable to you until later. More here on how to develop serendipitous relationships via Twitter.

We connected with the cabinet makers who run the KBTribeChat tweetchat.

Their social media manager often shares our content, and we’ve also been able to have the opportunity to host two tweet chats and provide our own questions. A great opportunity to connect with designers and to gain visibility and awareness.

Respond to the questions with the hashtag and relevant answer. Ie. start a tweet with the answer to their question. These will most likely be numbered. See example below.

How to choose a chat

If your industry is say, cyber security, you want to find a chat where CIOs and IT professionals are hanging out. You can visit Tweetreports to find ongoing tweet chats relevant to your industry. (It’s not a great directory, but I haven’t found one better.)

You will first need to lay out your goals for participating. Like anything, don’t waste time or money investing in the work with no end goal. One of our goals with our client Vetrazzo, makers of recycled glass countertops, is to connect them with designers who love to use bold color in their designs. Through a chat we connected with DIY Network host of Big Beach Builds Marnie Oursler.

Marnie is very active with the Vetrazzo brand online and represents a huge opportunity to showcase and use our product. Our continued communication on Twitter and tweet chats led to a phone call and a confirmation that they will use the materials in the near future. Score for social pr!

Download our guide to finding Brand Ambassadors on Instagram

Is that tweet chat worth your time?

Use these four questions to help qualify a tweet chat as worth your effort:

How many followers does the tweet chat host have? Note quality can be more important than numbers. Review the participation and the host’s followers to gauge whether the chat is right for you.
How much engagement does the tweet chat hashtag get? Retweets, answers, questions.
Are large companies participating? If yes, that’s a good indication that the host is credible and offers value to its sponsors.
Are your target personas on the chat? Are you trying to reach brand ambassadors or your consumers directly? Know your target market, media or brand ambassadors and if they are on the chat. More on brand ambassadors here.

Who should do the chatting?

The person who should be tweeting should understand your company, growth goals, strategies and trends. It also helps if they have a genuine love for the subject matter. Shannon and I take turns writing answers for tweet chats based on our expertise related to the topic. We both are design lovers, but Shannon has very recent remodeling and DIY design experience to pull from, and I have an art background that helps me with color and trend topics.

Who should the participate in your tweet chat? Whoever owns your social media marketing, whether your internal pr rep, agency or marketing associate, this representative on Twitter should also be the one to manage collaborations that develop out of social media work, like brand partnerships.

Being active on Twitter is great for business, but it’s not enough. Twitter only provides lead gen when you are engaging regularly with your target audience. Carefully chosen tweet chats are opportunities for leads in pr, marketing and sales. Whether it be as a source for a blogger or news outlet, or as an expert in your industry for a referral.

Hop on a tweet chat this week and see for yourself all the conversations happening in your industry, and next week, you’ll be ready to start your own Twitter lead gen.

Google Ads Are Ineffective At Wooing Buyers. Here’s Why You Should Use Them Anyway

If you use Google Adwords for your business you probably know two things: You definitely pay for the service every month. And you definitely don’t know if it’s working.

The effect is very similar to the direct mail campaign. Design a nice flyer, letter, coupon etc. Send said ad and wad of cash to direct mail company. Wait by phone for customers. Without a crush of new business it’s hard to assess if the campaign worked. Yes, you got a few new customers, but why? Did they come from other sources? Hard to tell.

What would be more effective to know is why didn’t the ad bring you a crush of new business. Was the ad design bad? Was the mailing list not your target market? If you had those answers you could pivot your strategy for next time. And that’s where Google’s power comes into effect with a side benefit to using its Adwords service – keyword data.

Today we’ll cover three points on Google Ads. One, do they work? Two, if they don’t work, then why bother? And three, how to influence Google search.

People are always clicking on Google ads. Right?

Contre mon fre. A report presented by the National Bureau of Economic Research shared the results from a series of large scale field experiments done at eBay to measure the causal effectiveness of paid search ads. It was also reported on by The Atlantic. The data wasn’t pretty.

Because search clicks and purchase behavior are correlated, the report shows that returns from paid search are a fraction of conventional non-experimental estimates. As an extreme case, they show that brand-keyword ads have no measurable short-term benefits. For non-brand keywords they find that new and infrequent users are positively influenced by ads, but that more frequent users whose purchasing behavior is not influenced by ads account for most of the advertising expenses, resulting in average returns that are negative.

Take away: Using your company name Widgets R Us isn’t going to generate short term sales. Savvy, frequent online shoppers are ignoring your ads anyway.

People are becoming numb to advertising of all kinds – even the ones that pop up when you’re searching for the exact information they have for you. We question more and do more research before making a purchase. Shoppers are on a buyer’s journey way before they make the decision to click and buy. (Unless, like me, you just had to buy that Votivo Blue Pine candle that you fell in love after smelling for hours at your mother-in-law’s home over the holidays. Click. Buy.)

According to MineWhat.com, eighty-one percent of shoppers conduct online research before they make a purchase. Sixty percent begin by using a search engine to find the products they want, and 61 percent will read product reviews before making any purchase. On average, a consumer will visit three stores before making their purchase.

Google ads have become the direct mail of the Super Highway. Intrusive and clogging our lives with junk as we do our research and try to get to know a business.

If Google Ads don’t work for sales, why bother?

Here’s an important note. Buyers might not click on your ad to purchase your product. But people are clicking on reviews and organic (non-paid) content like blogs.

There is still HUGE value in advertising with Google even though those ads may not get the powerhouse clicks you seek. Google gives its advertisers access to more analytics like the keywords people were searching for when they found your website. With that info, you can give people more of the content they crave. That’s the good stuff. If you knew that there were buyers out there looking for widgets like yours that charge phones AND brew coffee, wouldn’t you write a blog about it to capture those online searches? Of course you would, because you are smart.

And if you do advertise with Google as many of our clients do, be smart with your ads so you’re not wasting your money on keywords that are highly competitive. We frequently find with new clients that use Google Adwords that they don’t know the exact keywords around which they are paying for advertising. And they definitely don’t know if those keywords are reaching their target markets or if there could be more specific, less competitive words to go after.

Have a professional marketing team with Adwords experience analyze your last month’s report to tell you if you are actually reaching the customers in your target market. Most agencies will do this for a small fee and give you a report to keep.

Ads or no ads, you can still sway Google

Ads should never be your only marketing. They should be informed by keyword data and nestled strategically inside a larger marketing campaign that includes proactive content marketing. You have an opportunity to insert your company into the content people are using in their research.

Blogging is your key to search. The more you blog about the topics and things people look for, the more users will be directed to your site. Google rewards those who write. Keywords should also be incorporated into your website content including image alt text and on-page copy. Our blog on SEO can help you get a handle on this. You’ll want to use short keywords like “widget” and “phone charger” and long-tail phrases like, “How do I get my phone to charge by drinking coffee?”

Those long-tail phrases are perfect for blogs. In fact, go ahead and make them your titles. The best blogs for capturing search are evergreen pieces that answer questions and solve problems of the people to whom you’re selling. Use your brand platform to build trust with your audience and inform them of solutions to their problems. You know from your own internet behavior that helpful service like this is way more clickable than one of those top three ad search results we’ve trained ourselves not to click on.