Category Archives for : Marketing & Sales

Over the last few years content marketing went from been a buzzword to a near necessity in your marketing efforts. According to this content marketing institute report 70% of North American businesses are creating more content than they did a year ago.

With so much content created it’s natural that sometimes users can feel overwhelmed with the content. This is why smart marketers are turning to a new type of content, namely user generated content.

What is user generated content?

Whenever a user is involved in creating content they can be considered as user generated content. Probably the best example of user generated content is YouTube. Everyday thousands of users are creating and adding videos to YouTube.

Even our diagramming community is powered by user generated content. Everyday thousands of different diagrams are added to the community which in turn inspires and help many others to take part in visual communication.

User generated content comes in many forms

Like that user generated content comes in various forms. Below are some of the more common ones.

• Videos – They could be general videos similar to the ones found in sites like YouTube or specific brand videos done for campaigns like Coca Cola Open Happiness campaign etc.
• Images – User generated photos of your business locations, products and goods that are shared on sites like Instagram, Pinterest
• Reviews – Review left on sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, AlternativeTo, Google Chrome marketplace etc that can be used in marketing material
• Blog comments/Forum posts – Specific comments talking about a feature, how a feature helped them to get their work done faster and similar ones like that
• Social posts – Facebook comments, Tweets recommending the product or service
• Blog posts/articles –Written about the product or service which highlights its capabilities and how it helped them to get something done

Why user generated content is so effective?

Because people trust user generated content more than brand advertisements. According to Nielsen only about 33% users trust online ads. But 90% of people trust peer recommendations. Although user generated content is not exactly a peer recommendation it’s more powerful than an advert run by a brand promoting their product.

How to include user generated content into marketing channels

Listen

The obvious first step is to be vigilant and listen to conversations happening about your brand. This is a must whether you’re going to use user generated content or not.

To track blog mentions and other website mentions you can use Google alerts. For social media mentions you can use one of the many social media dashboards like HootSuite, SocialOomph etc. Most review sits allow you to create a business account so you can gather review as well as respond to reviews. So make sure to create an account with sites that have you listed in their directory.

Repurpose

Repurposing is a very powerful and a cost effective way to amplify the reach of your content. You can do the same with user generated content.

From sharing via your social channels to including them in your landing pages and newsletters, there are multiple ways for you to repurpose user generated content.

Some of them include

• Sharing on social media
• Using them on advertising displays
• Include them in blog posts, landing pages, newsletters

Depending on your business, budget and marketing strategy you might not be able to implement all the repurposing methods, but you can definitely try ones that are relevant to you.

Empower

You can take this a step further and encourage users to create content on your behalf. As I mentioned before our diagramming community mainly consist of user generated diagrams and it’s a major traffic source for us.

We encourage this by providing powerful drawing features that make diagramming fast and easy. Similarly you can also think of ways to encourage user generated content for your business or product.

For example you can increase your number of positive reviews by quickly engaging with users who leave positive feedback. Whenever someone tweets us about how they love our product we direct them to review sites where our product is listed. That way instead of just a tweet we have access to a positive user review with 5 star ratings that we can use in our marketing material.

If you’re looking for some inspiration checkout this article by HubSpot and this article by Postano which has some great user generated content examples.

Gantt charts are a popular tool for the simple reason that they allow easy forecasting and tracking of project schedules with just a straightforward diagram.

This effectively provides management with key information to help improve productivity, while also improving communication of project goals and tasks with team members to build a cohesive environment.

While you don’t need us to preach on about the benefits of using a Gantt chart for scheduling, we do have something exciting to share that you definitely would want to hear!

The simple to use, but yet powerful revamped Creately minimizes time and effort spent on creating Gantt charts!

While project management and drawing software such as Ms Project and Adobe Illustrator can be used for the creation of Gantt charts, there are several limitations. Who’s got the time to spend hours drawing, resizing and filling in all those details when all you require is an uncomplicated visual?

Backed by a nifty array of new features, Creately simplifies the drawing of a detailed Gantt chart from hours to minutes. So, how does Creately make this possible?

User Friendly Timeline Format

Creately is all about drawing faster, easier and prettier Gantt charts! From the quick addition of objects in a familiar drag and drop environment to just increasing the length of the timeline for the dates to be adjusted, Creately simplifies tedious tasks.

Let’s not forget the fresh and spacious interface which allows you to maximize your screen space when drawing, rather than being besieged by menus.

With Creately adjusting your timelines a breeze

You don’t need to be a techie to wrap your head around this, hell if you’ve never created a Gantt chart before, Creately’s unique, user friendly environment is the perfect place to start!

Choose Your Diagram Style

With a plethora of templates available to help you get started, you can pick between different diagram styles to suit your unique requirement. For instance, choose between a timeline that has a description below each task for easy readability, or a standard Gantt chart.

Switching between days and weeks couldn’t get any easier

Once you’ve placed a container on the timeline, you can customize it by adding month, week or day tasks and editing the properties, it’s really that simple!
Easy Customization

The beauty of Creately is the no-nonsense customization it offers! Apart from the automatic date changes mentioned earlier, duration labels are updated by just resizing week, day or month bars.

We didn’t just stop there, you can choose from a plethora of styles and colors with a few clicks of your mouse to customize your drawing too.

Fast Track Exporting

When drawing a Gantt chart you will require input from different team members in order for it to be an effective and accurate representation of the project schedule.

Creately allows online collaboration with easy sharing, so edits can be made simultaneously on a work in progress drawing either from across the hall or from the other side of the world.

One of the great strengths of using Creately, is the range of different formats that you can export your drawings in. These can be easily embedded into a presentation or document using the Creately diagram viewer with great graphical quality and clarity.

If you’ve never played with Creately before, sign up for a demo account and give it a go – we’re sure you’ll be raving too!

You’re probably thinking, ‘I already know who my most profitable customers are, they’re the ones who spent the most money, right?’ However, this is not always the case. For example, somebody could buy the most expensive item on sale, but then never return to buy from your business again. On the other hand, a customer could buy the cheapest product, but return regularly to buy it. Which of these customers is the most profitable? You’ll be glad to know that there’s a way to find out using Microsoft Excel.

When figuring out which customers are profitable and which are not, it’s of vital importance that we recognize the fact that revenue does not always equal profit. It’s easy for customers to talk about their future spending plans, but what’s more important when looking for profitable customers is that the customers actions clearly show evidence of past buying as well as a good prediction to buy again in the future.

Figure Out Your Customers’ Recency, Frequency, and Monetary Value

Things to consider when identifying profitable customers

The technique we will discuss here is known as RFM analysis. RFM stands for

• Recency: How recently did the customer purchase?
• Frequency: How often does the customer make purchases?
• Monetary Value/Margin: How much does the customer spend?

Each one of these three measures is able to give you a good idea of how good any one individual customer is, however when used together it provides a strategy that can provide you with a great deal of information about where you are getting your profit from.

Create Your Customer List

Depending on the type of program you use, you may have customer information readily available to you. Most fully-featured ecommerce systems will store basic information about customers and their purchases ready to export.

Depending on the type of system you use sometime it’s necessary to convert other formats to Excel. For example to convert PDF to Excel you can use a tool like Cogniview and get a fully functioning spreadsheet.

If you do not have easy access to this information, you may need to talk to your tech team, or input data yourself. An example of a basic spreadsheet that you could create that would have the same effect as a shopping card system is the following:

• Customer Name or ID.
• Last purchase date.
• Number of purchases over a specific time frame (e.g. one year).
• Total spend over a specific time frame – should be the same time frame used for number of purchases.

In order to create the first column, use the formula A2+1 which will create a sequence from one to one hundred. For the second column, you are looking to generate a random date from within your time-frame.

For example, if your time-frame is within 28 days, the formula would be =TODAY()-INT(RAND()*28). This formula translates in simple terms to ‘Today minus random days from 1 to 28’. The third and fourth columns are also created using the same formula, but in relation to maximum and minimum spend.

Bringing It All Together

Once you’ve got the basics of your spreadsheet laid out, it’s time to start bringing it all together in order to be able to score your customers’ levels of profitability. In order to do this, the first thing that you will need to do is copy the cells and paste them onto a new sheet using the ‘Paste Special’ option – this allows you to keep a copy of the values. You should now have a list of ‘customers’ along with their associated buying activity. The next steps are:

1. Sort the list by ‘Last Purchase’ descending.
2. Create an additional column titled ‘R’, and allocate scores – e.g. give the top 20% a score of 5, the next group down 4, and so forth.
3. Remember that you will need to copy the column of scores in order to be able to paste it later in the process.
4. Create additional columns, named ‘F’ and ‘M’.
5. Sort according to ‘Purchases’ descending, paste the scores from the ‘F’ column, then sort according to ‘Total Spend’ descending and paste the scores from the ‘M’ column.
6. Once you have done this, you can then sort the spreadsheet to ordered by ‘Customer’. You will see that once this is done, you will have the appropriate values clearly displayed for the RFM (Recency, Frequency, Monetary Value) for each customer. Adding these scores together will provide the total RFM score per customer.
7. An easy way to do this is to create a new column named RFM, and use the formula =E2+F2+G2 or similar, and paste this into each customer row.
8. Once complete, you should now be able to sort the spreadsheet by RFM descending, so that the customers with the highest score will be at the top.

The customers who have appeared at the top of this list are your best customers – the ones who have bought from you multiple times, regularly, and recently. Because of this, they are the customers who are most profitable to your company. Now look at the bottom –although these customers may still have spent a lot of money, they haven’t been back often, and haven’t bought anything from you recently. This proves that the customers who make the biggest purchases aren’t always the most profitable – you are more likely to be making much more profit from those who spend smaller amounts, but buy often.

Using the Results

Split the list into percentages – e.g. the top 20% are classed as ‘Gold’ customers and need to be focused on more, then silver, then bronze, for example. The last 20-40% are most likely making you no profit, so they could be used as an example of where you’ve gone wrong.

Never underestimate your regular customers who spend small amounts – they are the backbone of your business. Customers who don’t return usually do so because of a bad experience, whether it be poor customer service, poor quality products, or some other bad experience – so identify your best customers, and work to keep them!

There are quite a few Creately users who run small to medium size businesses and one thing they all want to identify is profitable customers. So we’re delighted to present this guest post which introduce a scientific method to find them using MS Excel. Just because we’re a Visio alternative doesn’t mean we don’t like Microsoft products.

Building a brand can feel like going back to middle school. You want to be popular and you want people to like you. But at the same time the harder you try to connect with others, the more they shy away. So how do you transform your business into the popular kid in school without looking desperate?

Create a brand “personality”

Successful business owners view their brand as the persona of their business. This doesn’t mean you always have a spokesman front and center. In fact, appearing in all your promo materials can backfire. Instead, consider the set of personality traits you want customers to associate with your brand.

Do you want to be funny? Generous? Trustworthy? Limit this core set of traits to 3-4 to avoid diluting your brand image. Unlike being the popular kid in school, you can’t be everything to everyone when building your brand.

To understand how some companies have nailed their branding check out this branding done right article. Notice how some brands like KSwiss are not afraid to move away from the traditionally accepted path. So be creative and inventive with your strategy when it comes to branding.

Also, be wary of accidentally cultivating negative qualities. We tend to dislike people who are obnoxious, annoying, and boring, and the same goes for brands. You want people to build a relationship with your brand, and that starts with constructing an appealing brand personality. This might sound a bit contradictory to the previous paragraph where I highlight KSwiss, but its a fine line and you need to tread carefully.

Once you’ve decided on your brand’s core personality traits, the next task is to cultivate those traits through consistent messaging and goals.

Don’t just sell, compel

Thinking back to middle school again, you might have noticed that the popular kids always seemed involved in an array of activities. They played sports. They joined clubs. They served on committees. They were always visible, interacting with large numbers of people. Likewise, your brand needs a tint of extraneous demeanor: pursuits that aren’t directly about moving the product.

One of the most prevalent ways to emotionally engage customers outside the sales floor is through philanthropy. Choose a local non-profit (or a few, depending on the size of your organization) whose mission aligns with those core personality traits you previously chose, and become an active patron. Sponsor events, help them with fundraising, and they’ll put your name all over their promotional materials.

Potential customers will view your brand as a community-contributor, and they’ll see the name of your business in positive emotional contexts.

Build Brand Loyalty

Creating brand loyalty is another key component of any brand building exercise. And different companies have different approaches to this.

Probably the best modern day example of brand loyalty is Apple. That loyalty has helped them sell millions of devices at a premium rate. They’re brand is built on amazing user experience and ease of use among other things. When you buy an Apple device you know that it just works.

Most supermarket chains and retail stores ensure brand loyalty with loyalty programs. There’s a reason why POS software like Vend have built in features for loyalty programs.

Others ensure loyalty by giving special access to exclusive features. It could be the opportunity to try out the beta version of a new game. Or access to training material as HootSuite does for their evangelists.

If you think about it there are hundreds of ways to go about this, so it’s up to you to find the best possible one for your business.

Tell your brand’s story through different media

Finally, remember that back in school different kids had different learning styles? Some were visual thinkers. Some were audio tuners. Some need hands-on applications to learn new ideas. Well, your customers are the same way. There will be different types of media that they prefer, and the savvy businessman thrives in that diversity.

You probably already have a professional website with clear information about your business, and it’s likely that you have an informational blog and social media presence. Maximize those platforms by investing in content that support the core personality traits that you’re developing for your brand.

Is your business about to host a fundraising event for your favorite non-profit? Hire a videographer to produce a 2-minute video highlighting the most engaging parts of the event. Did one of your staff members just attend a professional conference? Write an article about the exciting new industry developments he or she learned. If you’re building the next big app, be sure to establish firm connections with Apple and/or Android.

Afterwards, post all this great material on your website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and wherever else your brand has a presence!

Remember that cultivating a brand is a long-term process, and that building relationships with customers takes time. However, if you have consistent, intentional messaging about the core traits of your business, people will begin to associate those positive qualities with your brand. Over time, you can become the popular kid in your industry.

Got more tips to build your brand ?

Mentioned about are some basic but necessary tips to build your brand and take your company to the next level. However it is by no means an extensive list. So if you have an awesome tip to share with us don’t hesitate to add that in the comments.

The internet probably wasn’t designed to be a virtual playground for social media and content marketers, but it is now. Yet, as it constantly evolves and we communicate more, an entirely new set of challenges arises; and as the amount of information multiplies and attention spans shrink, marketers will be all the more pressed to stand out.

The 3-5-7 rule illustrates how to navigate a crowded environment of sales pitches. It claims that you only have 3 seconds to get someone’s attention, 5 seconds to continue engaging them, and past 7 seconds, if they are still engaged, then your mission will have been accomplished. That may seem unfair to have so little time available to effectively market a valuable service or product, but, truthfully, that is the state of the world we now live in requiring us to constantly innovate.

You’ve got 3 seconds to grab their attention

Innovating means reassessing stagnant methods, making improvements, and redesigning for ergonomic or economic purposes. Essentially, innovation is about taking inspired action; it’s what provokes the internet marketer to ask: what hooks a potential buyer to focus in on my product in the middle of the hoopla? When content is the keyword of content marketing, a mind map holds a viable solution to rid the marketing madness shuffle once and for all; it is the alternative way of creating the right hook that marketers are looking for.

Realistically, it’s going to take time for someone to learn about a topic well enough to understand it. When you want to educate your consumers–some of whom are averse to paying attention long enough to learn anything at all–the trick is being able to guide them and get them to tune out the endless 140-character messages, pop-up ads, or those incessant notifications blaring from each one of their digital devices.

You must tell these casual internet browsers that their time will be well-spent paying attention to what you’re selling. As the 3-5-7 rule predicts, you have a decent chance to convert them from browsers into buyers if they are still hanging around after 7 seconds. You won’t be able to rely on fancy words and stellar copy alone, though. Because of this, mind maps increase your advantage and the impact of your sales pitch by giving the viewer alternative ways to process new information.

Understanding Visual Learning to Improve Your Content Marketing

Western society is expected to be predominantly literate, but literacy doesn’t automatically entail the interest to read. Penn State York presents a case about how people who learn primarily from a visual stimulus, indicating that they tend to more easily remember information presented in pictures, charts, or diagrams. There is some debate among neuroscientists and psychologists about whether or not there are any hierarchies of the learning styles many educational systems have adapted. There may be such a thing as a kinesthetic learner, an auditory learner, and a visual learner. On the other hand, as some might argue, there might be no such thing.

Regardless, some individuals are going to have more visual-spatial intelligence than others. Anyone with sight is going to retain information at least to some degree from illustrative images. Tap into the psychology of what makes strong, captivating content marketing and you will hack your way into the minds of your new customers. 

Mind Maps: A Versatile Marketing Resource

Mind maps are good tools for organizing business meetings as well as other general concepts into a more cohesive idea. Ironically enough, mind maps are useful for more than mind mapping itself. If you were to construct a mind map and embed it in a website or blog, you instantly have for yourself an infographic. Another good reason to appreciate visuals is that they encourage social sharing. A link on Twitter to your blog won’t be as impactful especially when the rocking content you’ve curated can’t be seen firsthand. When you or your audience share images on content-driven sites like Pinterest, Instagram, and Flickr, your reach will expand even further. The very fact that there are social media platforms created just for images should motivate you to factor in visual data in all your sales and marketing goals.

4 Ways to Use Mind Maps in Digital Marketing

• Devise a social media marketing strategy using a mind map.
  There are many social media sites and few more pops up every day. Keeping track of them and updating them is a total headache. You can create a mind map template for this task. For instance, you can create a simple mind map with few social networks for everyday updates while maintaining a bit more complex one with all social sites for important updates. There are endless options so you can take a pick.
• Develop or refine the niche for your blog’s content.
  We all have suffered the writers’ block at some point. Which is why it’s critical to have a strategy to brainstorm ideas for your next blog posts or article. Mind maps are perfect for that too. Or you can consider creating a concept map which is very similar to a mind map. Keep in mind that mind maps drawn using Creately can be shared with others for instant feedback. Finding and collaborating on ideas just got easier.
• Design an infographic.
  Info-graphics are a powerful marketing tool. However creating info-graphics is a complex time-consuming task. It’s a combination of many tasks like finding data, analyzing and extracting data, initial mock-up and finally creating the info-graphics. And these main tasks have subtle sub-tasks attached to them. If your planning on using them heavily in marketing it’s a good idea to maintain a mind map so you can easily repeat the steps.
• Explain a business model or its services page for your website.
  Want to explain your business model in a visual manner? Mind maps are perfect for that too. If creativity is your thing you can probably use a mind map for your FAQ page as well. Time and again studies have proved that visually appealing content makes it easier to grasp an idea. So showcase your business model using a mind map and see the difference.
  

  How to plan a web design projects ( click on image to use as a template )

Let your mind map guide you to clarity about new business developments. Use it to compliment your sales copy. Let it be the tool that gives you that precious 7 seconds that will convert your browsers into buyers. Creately offers remarkable mind mapping software to help you do all these things and more. Contact support to learn more about the neat visuals, diagrams, and charts that you can construct using our product. We would also love to hear your feedback and stay connected. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter.

Ken Myers is a father, husband, and entrepreneur. He has combined his passion for helping families find in-home care with his experience to build a business. Learn more about him by visiting @KenneyMyers on Twitter.

Creating a blog for your startup business is a great way to generate an interactive community centered around your business culture. By regularly posting thought-provoking content to your blog, you are creating a platform for sharing ideas, and inviting your viewers to interact with you and your startup.
A blog for your startup is a great tool, but there is a right way and a wrong way to build and operate a blog. Below are several dos and don’ts for business blogging.

Do Use WordPress

There are several services, like WordPress that make blogging incredibly easy. I recommend WordPress, because it is by far the most popular and best blogging platform on the web.
WordPress has loads of free themes, or designs, to choose from, so you don’t have to be a web developer to create a great looking site. There are also more business appropriate themes that can boost the professional image of your blog. If you want a fully customized design then you need to hire a web design company. Just make sure to use a wire-frame software or a user interface mock-up tool to clearly communicate your design to the other party.
Other features that WordPress offers include thousands of plugins (features that extend the usability of your site, like a search bar, calendar, social media buttons etc.), great technical support, and SEO benefits.
WordPress is very user-friendly, but it can be difficult to know where to start if you’ve never used it before. Refer to the guide below, created by Simply Business, for detailed information about every step in setting up a WordPress site.

Detailed Guide to Creating a WordPress site.

Click image to open interactive version (via Simply Business).

Do Plan Ahead

It’s important to map out your goals for blogging. Are there themes you want to cover? Is there a series you want to write about? Are there topics your readers are suggesting? It’s usually best not to blog randomly, because you can cover a wider breadth of information if you plan out your posts.
Many business blogs cover a particular theme for one month (i.e. agile marketing for your business), or conduct a series (i.e. ways to increase employee productivity), which allows them to anchor their readership in a particular idea. Your readers will be more likely to follow your blog over the long term if you follow an organized pattern of thought. Mind maps are a great way to organize your thoughts. Use Creately to create mind maps online or simply browse our mind map examples to get an idea.
There are plenty of ways to organize your ideas for blog posts. If you’re into planning apps, there are several that allow you to quickly add notes, if you’re struck with an article idea and need to jot it down, and allow you to plan in detail over the long-term. Apps are great if you need to plan on the go, or want to go paperless. Of course, if you need to actually write down your ideas, instead of type, there are plenty of planners that come in all varieties, so you can plan however works best for you.

Do Use Photos

The best blogs always use photos, and plenty of them. Why? Because they capture your readers’ attention, provide your page with visual interest, and give your text a balancing component. Just because you’re blogging about your startup doesn’t mean you have to go without photos.
Using photos in your blog posts can be fairly easy. If you have a quality camera, take pictures of your business, employees, products, or service in action (if, you own a restaurant, take photos of your food being prepared or served). If you cannot afford a quality camera, do not post poor quality pictures to your blog.
Poor pictures will instantly make your blog look low-quality, which is the last thing you want your business to be associated with. If you don’t have a great camera, try using stock photos, which are fairly inexpensive.

Don’t Go It Alone

There are thousands upon thousands of other startups blogging about their business, which means there is a vast community full of resources. Especially if you use WordPress, there are people who know the ins and outs of blogging from a business platform. Don’t hesitate to reach out to other business blogs and ask them about their common problems, reader responses, or solutions.
There are also plenty of forums and resources specifically for startups that can help you navigate new territory successfully. It’s important for you to embrace partnership with other organizations and businesses, as they can often provide you with great tips and information.

Don’t Get Too Promotional

If your customers wanted promotional materials they would be looking at your ads, instead of your blog. Your blog should be about quality content, not marketing. By producing quality content, you will be branding yourself as a business that is focused on great idea sharing, which will attract you more readers.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking you don’t have anything to blog about but your brand, there are plenty of businesses in “boring” niches that are creating great content within their markets.
Services like WordPress know that content that is too promotional will not succeed, because readers want genuinely helpful or insightful content. Under WordPress’ terms of service, they say “content is not spam… and does not contain… unwanted commercial content.” Blogs that are driven by content give their readers real information that will be helpful to the reader.

Don’t Be Hands Off

Don’t just schedule your blog posts and leave it at that. Engage with your readers by responding to their comments on your articles, asking for feedback, and suggesting other resources for them to check out. You can also invite guest posts, which will engage other audiences and writers.
The internet evolves quickly, which means your blog needs to evolve quickly too. WordPress has automatic updates, which is nice because you don’t have to worry about keeping up with the latest format, but as far as your content goes, you need to be engaged with your readers very often in order for your blog to be successful.

Is a blog a must for a Startup

We at Creately thinks so. The blog provides us a way to provide useful information about diagramming, to share our experiences as a startup and to share information about our latest features. Every startup has something interesting to share and a blog is simply one of the best ways to do that.

About the author: James Daugherty is a blogger from Seattle who love technology, marketing, and snowboarding. Follow his thoughts on Twitter – @jimmydaugherty