IM Sphere

Saying “thank you” can go a long way.

For starters, it’s basic manners you learn at an early age. When someone does something for you, you thank them.

But it’s also a crucial inbound marketing strategy.

According to research, 68% of customers will leave a company if they don’t think it cares about them.

That’s why your website needs to have a thank-you page.

Website visitors will be redirected to your thank-you page after filling out a form on your site, e.g., opting into your email newsletter. Right now, if your thank-you page simply thanks the visitor and does nothing else, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.

These landing pages can be used for much more, such as building brand awareness, getting customer feedback, or even increasing sales.

You just got a new lead. You’ve got to nurture that lead.

Converting leads into customers is a top priority for businesses in the coming year:

Sure, you’ll send them a confirmation email welcoming the lead to your email list, which will be the first of several messages in your drip campaign.

But for those to work, the person needs to check their email, open the message, consume the content, and then convert. You can’t assume it will always happen.

However, the thank-you page is right in f… Read More

Looking to connect with an audience that has buying power? Wondering how to reach LinkedIn users with video? To explore how LinkedIn video marketing works, I interview Goldie Chan. More About This Show The Social Media Marketing podcast is designed to help busy marketers, business owners, and creators discover what works with social media marketing. […]

The post LinkedIn Video: How Marketers Can Create Videos People Watch on LinkedIn appeared first on Social Media Examiner.

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Posted by DiTomaso

Organic and paid search aren’t always at odds; there are times when there’s benefit in knowing how they work together. Taking the time to know the ins and outs of AdWords can improve your rankings and on-site experience. In today’s edition of Whiteboard Friday, our fabulous guest host Dana DiTomaso explains how SEOs can improve their game by taking cues from paid search in this Whiteboard Friday.

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Hi, my name is Dana DiTomaso. I’m President and Partner at Kick Point, and one of the things that we do at Kick Point is we do both SEO and paid. One of the things that’s really useful is when SEO and paid work together. But what’s even better is when SEOs can learn from paid to make their stuff better.

One of the things that is great about AdWords or Google Ads — whenever you’re watching this, it may be called one thing or the other — is that you can learn a lot from what has a high click-through rate, what performs well in paid, and paid is way faster than waiting for Google to catch up to the awesome title tags you’ve written or the new link building that you’ve done to see how it’s going to perform. So I’m going to talk a… Read More

How are you currently communicating with your customers?

If calling, emailing, or submitting a form on your website are the only means for your customers to reach you, you need to get with the times and make some changes.

Offering live chat on your website is a better way to provide customer service.

According to studies, 73% of consumers say live chat is their most preferred method of communication.

This ranked highest compared to other methods. In fact, 61% of consumers said they preferred email, 48% preferred social media and only 44% preferred phone.

Furthermore, live chat had a 92% satisfaction rating.

This was also the highest satisfaction rating compared to other forms of customer support.

It’s clear your company needs to have this feature on your website. But how do you implement it? You’ve got two choices: chatbots or live chat representatives.

Chatbots are computer-generated responses. They allow customers to receive answers to their questions via AI software.

Experts predict that by 2020, 85% of consumers will be able to manage their relationships with brands without human interaction.

And 80% of businesses are either currently using AI or planning to use AI for customer service in the next two years. Further, 45% of customers say they prefer chatbots for customer service inquiries.

With this technology on the rise, you need to have marketing skills to survive in the age of AI.

Getting more followers is pretty much Twitter’s Holy Grail for any small business. And getting relevant, engaged, valuable followers – even more difficult!

It’s not enough to follow people and hope they’ll be kind enough to follow you back – growing a business’s Twitter following needs a strategy.

Influencers should be a part of that strategy.

Influencers bring a lot of benefits to your Twitter account. They provide essential social proof, extend the reach (and impact) of your Twitter messages and can provide fruitful input on your activities. Plus that follower growth thing we mentioned? They can help with that too.

How? Let’s take a look.

Before we get started… isn’t follower count just a vanity metric?

It’s true that having a bunch of bots following you is not a great look. It’s also never a good idea buying Twitter followers just to bump up your numbers, as many small businesses do.

But getting more followers is still a valid Twitter objective. Follower number has a direct, measurable impact on your reach, impressions, and clicks. And follower count has a ripple effect because if your followers themselves have a lo… Read More