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How To Build Your E-mail List

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

 

Encourage visitors who visit your website to signup for your email list and make it easy for them to sign up.

In today’s market, you must build trust before converting prospects into customers.

One way to do that is with popup displays on one or more pages on your website.

It’s easy to do. You can do it yourself, and it’s very inexpensive,

 

You can use popup displays in many ways to capture names and email addresses.

A/B testing of messages, product or service value propositions, and more.

The email signups can even go automatically into your mail program (for example, Constant Contact or MailChimp).

You can also get a lot of analytical information from the program.

I use OptinMonster, and this information comes from them.

Following are some basic things to think about when designing your program,

 

1 Create a clear, very visible call to action (e.g., email address)

2 Personalize your popups (friendly tone and referral source if you know it, or special segment if the source was targeted).

3 Offer an irresistible incentive (special white paper, informative blog, special price, etc.)

4 Use a design that stands out (but it should also blend into your site because it is your offer,  not some company’s advertisement. 

5 Create popups for desktop and mobile (design for platform-specific campaigns

for mobile users are limited to touch controls, bandwidth, and certain SEO rules).

Also, a lot of mobile users are having negative ideas about ads in general on their mobile dev\ic,

6, Use exit attempts to capture abandoning visitors before they leave (you can convert

an additional 2-4% of visitors into email subscribers. (OptinMonster lets you use a mouse to track movement toward the exit

and gives you another chance to get them to pull the trigger on your call to action.

For example, you might have to offer something different,

a discount, a case study, or something else the prospect would value.

7 Show your popup ad at the end of your web page or post.

Give the visitor plenty of time to evaluate the information on your website.

The popup is often limited to appearing too quickly before the visitor has time to see what you are offering.

8 Keep your request noticeable with a floating bar.

Some popup ads are designed to be floating bars that are always visible

but not hindering their ability to digest the information on your website,

But, when they are ready, the opportunity to signup is there.

9 Build a dedicated landing page with a full-screen email popup landing page.

You can use large popup ads as landing pages and rotate different messages for testing purposes,

or with additional information in an attempt to turn them into a customer,

10 Create friendly slide-in requests.

They don’t appear until the visitor has viewed some of your content.

You can determine how long to wait (maximum number of pixels or seconds)

11 Use a welcome gate on your home page.

This full-page ad covers the content before the visitor sees what you are offering

and some gates actually switch the visitor to another page.

Make sure your welcome gate does not switch you to another page as Google will

penalize your SEO ranking for this. OptinMonster’s welcome gate keeps the visitor on your page,

12 Ask for visitor feedback.

You can also use popup ads to gather information.

You can direct the visitor to your contact page or create a popup to ask a question or take a survey.

13 Use progressive profiling,

like just asking for their email address and later ask for

additional information when they are more comfortable with you and your website.

14 Create a plan for new subscribers

A Send a  welcome email series (these emails get 85% higher opens), so send several,

B, Send information during the onboarding process to help customers get acclimated and learn more about the benefits of your product or service.   

C. Segmenting your list. Personalized emails will get you much higher transaction rates, but you must segment your list.

 

Depending on your needs and marketing strategy, there are many different kinds of popup designs and many different ways to use them.

Ask yourself how you could use these popup ads, and if interested,

put a plan together to use them effectively. Preparing and developing your materials (blogs, newsletters, white papers, etc.) takes some time.

 

Good luck. Let me know how this process worked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How To Write Headlines

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

What makes a headline go viral?

Following are some suggestions from Optinmonster.com

People want to share, want to increase the quality of their relationships with others, and want to increase their self-esteem and standing with their peers.

There is a magic 3-word phrase “will make you ____” This states that the topic will have an impact on you and often an emotional one.

There are five basic types of headlines that go viral

 

1 List posts — 50 Smart Ways To Segment Your Market

2 How to posts — How to optimize your site for the holidays

3 Resource posts — the ultimate guide to a simple option vs a double option — which is better?

4, Question post — How long should it take to earn revenues?

5. Heart-to–heart posts — An open letter to writers struggling with their first book

 

Now, if you add an infectious agent to those headlines your chances of going viral are much greater because they trigger emotion.  For example awe, anger, anxiety, fear, joy, lust, surprise, shock.

Examples

“40 belief-shaking remarks from a ruthless nonconformist”

Type: list post

Infectious agents: awe, anger, surprise, shock, anxiety

Belief-shaking — challenges you by stating its content will shake your beliefs

Ruthless — image of someone who doesn’t care

Nonconformist — someone unafraid and nonconventional

 

“How to hit 1,000,000 visitors in a year by blogging”

Type: How to

Infectious agents: awe, surprise, shock

“1,000,000” who wouldn’t want that. Even if you are skeptical, you will want to check

“In a year” desirable deadline

“Blogging” pinpoints its target audience and their biggest desire

Net: promise the desired result and a timescale for achieving it,

 

“Where to find free images”

Type: Resource post

Infectious agents: Awe, joy

Net: look for common questions or problems that people have, and write a headline that directly answers their question or solves a problem.

 

“On dying, mothers, and fighting for your ideas”

Type: Heart-to-heart

Infectious agents: awe, anger, surprise, shock, fear

“Dying” — strong emotive word, it congers up images in people’s minds

“Mothers” — emotive whatever your relationship with mother 

“Fighting” — emotive, congers up images in people’s minds of struggle, aggression

Net: fighting for your idea suggests motivation and inspiration 

 

“Are you good enough?”

Type: Question

Infectious agents: anger, anxiety, fear, surprise, shock

Net: are you good enough to challenges people. It asks a question everyone asks themselves, Ask a big question that drums up deep, human desires.

 

How to start writing viral headlines

1 Get to really know your audience

2 Know where your audience hangs out (media,etc.)

3 Discover your audiences’ infectious agents (follow them on social media, what are they sharing, any patterns in words and phrases? (topics, headlines, links)

4 Lay in those infectious agents.

Are Search Engines Missing Your Website?

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

 Some people have been saying that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is dead or at least no longer relevant to the current World Wide Web landscape. Believe it or not, the idea of the ineffectiveness of SEO has been going on all across the web for many years now, and it still creates quite an intense debate among website builders and business owners alike.

Major search engines such as Google and Bing are continually updating their search algorithms, so to say that SEO has changed quite a bit over the years is an obvious understatement. Despite the doubts, many websites or businesses continue to practice various methods of optimizations to increase online visibility and thrive. On the other hand, some who have tried implementing well-known tricks and techniques to acquire top spots in search engine results gain no benefit at all. Now, this begs the question about the specific practices those naysayers did.

 SEO is not math; while it does involve a lot of calculations, the practices do not follow the same formula all the time. When search engines change their algorithms, websites must also implement different optimization methods to stay relevant. Failure to keep up with the changes will render your website invisible.

SEO is not dead. It just evolves and gets better.

When it comes to digital marketing, especially increasing website traffic, you cannot afford to rely merely on links and keywords. While they are still essential parts of today’s SEO practices, there are just many more methods (and therefore works) required to obtain results within reasonable measure. Instead of just focusing on keywords and link-building efforts, today’s version of SEO demands constant attempts on your part of providing real values for visitors, such as user-friendly interface, relevancy to search queries, and useful, informative contents. A strong online presence is also the result of seamless integration with social media (and sometimes) advertising strategies. Having only one or two of those elements will not yield the results you need.

Every algorithm update aims to make the Internet better, more useful, and more effective for those searchers. When people say that SEO is no longer relevant, useful, or even dead, they most likely refer to specific optimization techniques that are now considered obsolete. SEO failed them because they used outdated methods.

Dead SEO Techniques

Older websites probably used the following methods to gain popularity. Still, you cannot merely follow their footsteps because some of those methods are now ineffective (or even bad) for website development. A few examples of dead SEO techniques:

All-out link building

Link building is an important part of SEO, both in the past and present. The most significant difference is that the old method did not care about the sources of the links. You could build or create as many links as you can, and almost certainly, your website would start to rank much higher. In many cases, people made dozens of sites and linked the contents heavily.

In today’s SEO, link quantity is no longer a reliable indicator of a good website. Other authoritative domains will link to an accurate, informative website. If your contents are fresh, well-written, and useful, it is not impossible to get linked by more popular sites.

Aiming for a high number of keywords

Targeting specific keywords remains an effective method to increase page rank, although, in the old days, there was an entirely different approach to that. It used to be that having more content target the same keyword was enough to gain more online exposure, but then search engines knew that it was a bad idea to rank websites based on the number of content they have. Some search engines do not rank an entire website, only individual pages. The new approach is to write a longer post and target multiple keywords instead.

Keywords Overuse

When you have tons of keywords within a single post used to be a great idea, all you needed to do was cramp as many keywords as possible in a relatively short post to reach sufficient keyword density. Search engines now despise the practice.

Appropriately implemented, SEO can do wonders for your website. Some of the most effective methods right now are as follows.

Page readability: not only does the interface need to be user-friendly and easy to navigate, but the contents have to be human-readable. People demand informative content relevant to their search queries, delivered on a website that is pleasing to the eyes in an instant. User experience and value of materials play crucial roles in today’s SEO landscape.

Topic and keywords: a combination of text- and keywords-focused content is preferable. You can use Google Trends to look for recent popular search queries and related keywords. Focus on trending search with low-competition keywords if possible.

 Let’s not forget about the marketing efforts. You must be willing to (slowly) promote your websites to gain popularity. Part of modern SEO is to integrate sites or your profile with social media, online communities, and relevant Internet forums. Be active and promote your ideas throughout the web; now and then, you can create a thread or give answers to others’ questions and link them to one of your pages.

What you need to know about Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

We are now live in a world where people Google before they shop, visit Yelp before hiring services and use social media to get informed about the latest discounts from local retailers. Some even rely on YouTube or Instagram to get a glimpse of the products they consider buying.

Regardless of the business niche, you need a website to establish a presence in the virtual world and therefore stay ahead of the increasingly competitive market. Whether you are a retailer, contractor, consultant, or offering services of any sort, having no website is just as bad as giving away customers to your competitors. It doesn’t even matter if you run a small startup or a bigger sized company.

But having-a-website-alone is enough to attract visitors and customers; bear in mind that your competitors also have websites of their own. Your website must be optimized in terms of security, layout, performance, keywords, links (both inbound and outbound), and of course contents. You need to implement Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which refers to the practice of increasing traffic to your website. There is a large variety of SEO software you can use to generate a website analysis report you can use to plan and execute your optimization strategy.

Why SEO?

By now, every business owner knows that a website is like an online representative of the company, ready to welcome customers any day anytime. It is the place where customers and partners can learn more about the company as well as its products in a convenient manner. People can even place an order via the Internet on the website from the comfort of home.

One thing to remember is that having a website does not guarantee you will gain more customers. Just because your company has a website, it does not necessarily mean you will generate more sales in an instant. You can only make money if customers are at your storefront, or visit your website to buy what you’re selling. The following are some of the things you can do to improve your chances of attracting visitors and converting them into loyal customers.

SEO Basics

Creating a website is the first step to establish an online presence, and thankfully it is quite easy. You don’t have to be a computer or software engineer to get the job done. There are free domains, free hosting services, and free templates you can use to see if the website can run as intended; if not, you can always try again without spending a dime. While free options are available, the premium ones are almost always miles better for business purposes. A website is a powerful marketing tool, and that is why you want to have it built and optimized by professionals. In addition to using a useful (and relevant) domain and reputable hosting service, you also need thorough and complete website optimization practices, including but not limited to the following.

On-page SEO: there is nothing complicated about this step. All you need to do is to make sure that you use the right title for every page, the right keywords relevant to the title, human-readable contents, useful Meta descriptions, quick loading time, and the likes. On-page SEO is about making the website function as it should.

Off-page SEO: the more challenging part is the off-page optimization. It involves more sophisticated techniques to acquire quality backlinks (links directed to your website/content) from the more authoritative sites, social media integration, guest blogging, and brand popularity, among others. The purpose of off-page optimization is to build a better reputation and make the website more authoritative.

Internal linking: make it a priority to link a post to another on your website. The goal is to tell search engines that all your contents are relevant to each other. It also promotes the idea that visitors will remain engaged with the website because it provides detailed information about a particular topic. Visitors will stay longer on the site, improving your chances of converting them into customers.

Key-phrase instead of keywords: while keywords are most likely inevitable, you may also want to target key-phrases. You use more words to target a specific idea and insert the same phrase several times in a longer post. Longtail key-phrases (consisting of at least three words) are traditionally seldom-used, which means you don’t have to compete with more websites. Search engines prefer key-phrases to keywords because key-phrases give more specific information.

Reinforced website security: search engines are more eager to index secure websites with “https” as opposed to “Http” in their addresses. HTTPS features an SSL certificate to indicate an encrypted connection to the site. Your information is secured as well as the visitors’. If your website is also an online shop, secure online transaction processing is a must.

Fast loading speed: minimize the use of large-sized multimedia files such as videos and images on every page, or at least compress them to the smallest size possible without adversely affect view quality. Another excellent method is to use a dedicated server rather than a “shared” one. Switching to a “lighter” theme and enabling browser caching also help. Mobile-friendly: search engines have now moved to prioritize mobile-friendly websites in their indexing processes. Every day, more people are using smartphones to access the web, so it makes no sense to skip this step. Being mobile-friendly means your website will work the same way across devices of multiple platforms.

Last but not least, you need good SEO software to perform detailed analytics of website performance. Based on the analysis, the software may offer suggestions on how to fix errors and increase online visibility.

 

Positioning: An Important Way to Differentiate Your Brand

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

SaaS companies are no longer unique and most of these companies have lots of SaaS competitors with similar services, This makes it difficult to break out and get attention.

Getting attention is similar to the problem in the ‘70s and ‘80s when getting through the media noise almost impossible. Marketing ROIs were getting expensive. Then, JackTrout wrote a book about “Positioning.” The idea of positioning is to find and take a unique position in the customer’s mind. For example, there were many car rental companies at that time, all fighting each other.   Hertz was the acknowledged leader. Avis realized that service was an essential outcome people wanted, so they positioned themselves as being #2, so “We Try Harder,” which propelled them into number 2 and above the crowd.

Many SaaS companies are facing that same competitive environment today. Therefore it’s time to take a look at your competitive position. 

In an article by Yasmine de Aranda, from Martet8, she stated you have to ask the key question, “Why should a prospect choose you over the competitors”? You need a compelling reason for them to buy from you. Remember, they don’t care about your awesome company until they care about what you can do for them.

The following are some questions you need to create your positioning statement.

1 What data collection and monitoring procedures have you designed to help you get and analyze customer information? Don’t rely on your instincts to generalizations. You will need this data to help you test, adjust and validate your assumptions as you create your positioning statement.

2 Get a detailed understanding of your customers and the outcomes they want. What different outcomes do they want? Have they tried alternative solutions? What concerns do they have? With this kind of data, you can begin to profile the customers you want.

3 Look at your competitors through your customer’s eyes. Look at both competitors and indirect competitors. Look at their positioning and strategy. What outcomes, if any, are they touting?

4 Measure your positioning strategy by sales results. For example, the number of leads per month, the number of qualified leads per month, the time to close, churn rate changes, the average cost to acquire customers and average lifetime value.

 Don’t just write down the answers. Ask your customers for the answers. The right position will get you increased responses and conversions, a shorter buying cycle, higher retention, and scalability. 

 

Customer-Centered: How Can I Help You?

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In today’s world, most people realize that you have to put the customer, not the product first. But, does that mean that you accept everything the customer tells you? NO,

 According to David Stucer, in a Sales & Marketing article, you believe the customer when he is talking about his issues. You do want to pay attention when they tell you their needs when they tell you what’s broken in their lives. And when they say why where they are hurting?

The reason a customer comes to you or wants to do business with you is that he wants you to solve his problem. Therefore you have to show him how you can solve his problem or issue. As David would say: “we hear you, we can help you; here is how.”

Solving the problem is easier said than done, however. You can grasp the problem conceptually, but most people have difficulty conceptualizing the solution. Make it easy for them to see how you can solve the problem,

Most often, people jump to talking about their company and their product or services. That’s undoubtedly not customer-centric. The customer doesn’t want to hear about your business; he wants to hear about how you are going to solve his problem. 

The wrong way to go about it is to put the spotlight on your company. The longer you talk about your company, the less time you have to listen and speak to them about their problem, And there is a good chance that after a short time they will stop listening and turn you off,

You  will get a better reception if you focus on how your business can help him improve his business, As David would say, “People are far less concerned with doing business with an awesome company then they are about whether the company can solve their problem”, You will also begin to build a relationship with that client,

That’s customer marketing, getting the attention of people who have a need you can meet.

How Empathy Improves Marketing Results 

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

We have the technology to reach massive audiences. But, this technology also gets in the way of connecting with those audiences. Potential customers know when the purpose is to help the salesperson rather than help them solve a problem or meet their needs. Empathy is critical to all sales. People make decisions using emotions, not just logic. 

From an article by Brian Carrol in Sales & Marketing, he explains that sending email after email through an automated system, most get deleted. To get the recipient to read them, you have to address their emotional side (needs, wants, desires). 

How do you get empathy? First, you have to shift your mindset to focus on the customers. Then, you can focus on various tactics to enlist empathy and develop a relationship with the customer.

To shift your mindset, don’t let your biases get in the way. 

Put customers at the center of your focus. Don’t treat them like sale leads, treat them like humans who have a problem, need, or opportunity. 

Analytics and machine learning are insightful and make us smarter, but customers are getting smarter also. They can tell the difference. And remember relationships don’t scale.

Also, you have to keep reminding yourself that you are not the target audience. Keep your biases in check, Have you done enough research on your clients to know what they think, what their mindset and preferences are?

Then, you can implement an empathy-based approach to your marketing. 

You have the answers, so listen carefully to the questions (why did they reply? what did they respond to?) and be sure to help them get a solution to their problem. The key is to listen.

Don’t use all your time telling them what you do, tell them what they want to hear, give them answers. This information also allows you to begin building a relationship with the customer.

In the book “The Passion Conversation,” the authors talk about how marketing problems are people problems and how marketing materials are communications tools can lead to word of mouth advertising, But, this approach takes more time than an automated response. 

But, relationships don’t scale, and if the information is not relevant, they will unsubscribe.  

 

How to find your perfect market niche

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

Harry Browne was one of America’s most successful salesmen, and he only worked 15-20 hours per week. He believed sales were natural. He passed away some years ago, but he passed along the following information he called the secret to sales success. I wanted to start this
module with his analysis because it is so fundamental to sales success. We will have other articles later on additional information.

Before you spend money on marketing and advertising, you have to find your market niche, and that niche is in the mind of your customers. Following is a condensed view of Harry’s sales secret.

The customer is the object of the sales process because the only reason we produce anything is to have things to consume — to use and enjoy because of the happiness it provides. So the one who consumes an item is the one who judges its worth.

It’s the customer’s values that count. His preferences, through the prices he is willing to pay, and your success depends on the value others place on your products and services. Also, since the customer has limited resources, he is not willing to do something unprofitable to himself.

No one willingly does something unless he’s decided it is his most profitable alternative because no one has unlimited resources. There is a shortage of funds, and everyone’s desires always outnumber resources, so everyone is choosing.

So half of the success story is: you will succeed if you are providing people what they want.

However, many people produce what they think people would like and be willing to pay for, but they are wrong. People seek happiness, and happiness is relative. Each person has a different concept of what will bring them joy. Their mistake is making the judgment based on their values to determine what other people will want. It’s not what you want that determines what other people will buy — it’s what they want that matters.

You have to make it your business to find out what people want – not what you want, and give it to them. Also, find out before you make your offer. We will find out how to do this in a sales call in another article. The net of this is that your niche must include the buyer’s values and the price the buyer is willing to pay as part of your niche — not just demographics.

 

Inbound Marketing – Its Importance and Benefits

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

Today, inbound marketing is viral. The terms “content marketing” and “inbound marketing” refer to the same thing and are often used interchangeably. It is a marketing strategy that uses almost no specific form of advertisement at all. Instead, this method focuses heavily on providing information or content on Internet-based media such as blogs, social media, online forums, and podcasts.

Contents can be in the forms of articles, infographics, videos on websites, or even a short, simple post on social media accounts. There are two crucial factors to consider for inbound marketing to be effective: quality and subtlety. The contents provided must be relevant and interesting
enough to keep the audience engaged. However, there cannot be an apparent sales pitches because they tend to drive the audience away. Inbound marketing is challenging but can also be very useful in the long run as it aims to build a good reputation in the market. The downside is that it takes severe investments of time and effort to produce quality content, and it takes considerable time to begin working.

Why Inbound Marketing is Important

While TV ads are still valid forms of outbound marketing, it is more difficult for companies to hone in on target customers. Email newsletters do a better job for that purpose, but there is always a chance that it ends up in the spam box and gets dismissed without being opened at all.
Internet ads can be quite annoying, too, and people try to avoid them by preventing the ads from appearing in the first place. Direct messaging in social media is probably a friendlier format of a newsletter, but you can always use additional tools to reach out to more people.

By providing relevant information based on people’s search queries, your products are integrated into the contents. The advertisement is indirect, mainly; it is so subtle that the audience doesn’t feel directed to any particular product. Of course, the point of marketing is to generate sales; it seems counterproductive at first, but the absence of sales pitches surprisingly works well.

In today’s competitive market, startups need to find effective methods to deliver their message. Providing quality relevant information in a blog or social media will keep readers and followers engaged in the long run. The unobtrusive nature of inbound marketing helps your company earn a place as an authoritative name in the niche or industry at large.

Major Benefits
Inbound marketing generates leads instead of direct sales. All the content used to launch the marketing effort help establishing a relationship with the audience. This relationship eventually drives traffic to the company’s website and can result in considerable online exposure. The more content you produce, the more significant the exposure you get. The additional benefit is word-of-mouth marketing. If people like your content, chances are they share those contents with friends, families, and colleagues on social media and messaging apps. This relationship is how you solidify your reputation as a trusted brand/company and increase visibility in the market.

 

Outbound Marketing – Its Importance and Benefits

Posted on by harborcapitalgroupinc

Advertisements come in all sorts of formats and delivered to the audience through many different methods. You see them on TV, billboards, newspapers, magazines, flyers, e-mail campaigns, banners, and website pages, or perhaps you hear similar things on radio and
podcasts. And then there are direct calls from salespeople. These advertisement formats are parts of sales strategy, commonly referred to as outbound marketing. Outbound marketing is meant to be interruptive as the audience is involuntarily exposed to the advertisements. These advertisements are directed at particular audiences as opposed to large, more general audiences.

Why It Is Important for Business
The main objective of outbound marketing is to acquire as many sales leads as possible. For startups looking to get on the map, there are very few (if any) marketing strategies that can reach more targeted people in a shorter amount of time. Small businesses generally don’t have the budget to buy advertisements on primetime shows, but they can reach their target audience via email or direct messaging. It is an affordable yet effective outbound marketing strategy anyone can use.

Outbound marketing, despite its antiquated status in the modern business landscape, remains essential for both new and established companies. For new companies, outbound marketing is vital to spread the word of their existence and what they have to offer. It helps companies develop “first contact” with potential customers. The more-established businesses also utilize the same method to introduce changes or new products to customers.

In the old days, outbound marketing mostly happened on print media, including newspapers and magazines. Now that people rarely, if ever, buy newspapers anymore, emails have become the prominent medium of choice besides TV. However, the former is much more affordable, and the result is almost certainly more measurable.

Advantages of Outbound Marketing

Familiarity is a valuable benefit of outbound marketing. People of all generations have grown accustomed to product advertisement broadcast at regular intervals on TV and radio. The audience knows that there are going to be advertisements in the middle of a broadcast. To some extent, people understand the companies behind the products provide the money to fund the show itself. In a world of social media, direct messaging and email newsletters are even more useful. Social media acts like channels to bring targeted customers to one place. People follow your account because they are interested in what you have to offer. Moreover, direct message and email always carry a personal touch, which is an indispensable element in any marketing effort.