Finding A Balance Between Hard Selling And Soft Selling

Often times, businesses have trouble balancing hard selling and soft selling. We all want to make sales but we don’t want to run people off accidentally! Before deciding on the best plan of action, it is important to understand the concepts of hard selling and soft selling.

Hard Selling

What is it? A hard selling is often considered as a very aggressive technique. When making a hard sell, you push the client to buy in to your business, often repeatedly. Over social media, an example of a hard sell is constantly asking fans to “like” your page or share a link.

Why is it Important? Hard selling is important because, the majority of the times,potential customers do not know what they need until they are prompted to think about it or are given a clear route to get your product or service. A clearly worded call-to-action is a great way for your business to direct customers to a service that they need. Even if they do not need the service immediately, they will remember your brand and message when needed the product or service such as house repair, credit scores, or even a new watch.

Soft Selling

What is it?Soft selling contains a lot of hints and connections. With soft selling, the business will provide solutions to their problems in a discrete way, while also portraying content is that appealing to those who follow the social media sites.

Why is it important?As much as we want to tell a client about our products or services, we must understand that they do not need it every moment of every day. Building relationships is the most important way to create loyal customers! Soft selling is also a great way to help entertain, educate, or emotionally connect with your clients as well causing those bonds to be even stronger.

Many times, businesses only use one type of selling technique. Over 67% small businesses only use the hard selling method. This can result in the loss of possible connections and future clients. Clients often times feel that a page with hard selling seems excessively aggressive and somewhat rude. While on the other hand, businesses that use only soft selling might be growing a base but there is no call-to-action to convert engagement into sales.A call-to-action is one of the most important parts of social media marketing, as it creates a connection between the content you post to the services you offer.

The best ratio of both together is the “80/20” rule. The 80/20 rule suggest that 80 percent of your content on your social media page should be soft selling and 20 percent should be hard selling. This creates a call-to-action on a regular basis, along with something which is not excessively shared on your social media page. The 80/20 rule often times is argued for different variations such as the 75/25 or 60/40 rule. This depends on your type of business as well. It is important to organize your postings and thoughts to reach out to every person who follows your social media accounts.

By Sahil Maherali, Digital Sapien

This Article originally appeared on digitalmarketingsapiens.com

How to Pick The RIGHT Digital Marketing Agency For Your Business

When picking a digital marketing firm, you have to do your research! You are investing in someone to bring business to you. That isn’t a decision to make lightly. This firm is one that you will be working closely with along with investment a lot of money in as well. When picking a company to represent it is important to look at these five main aspects:

1. Their website
2. Their portfolio
3. Consulting with them
4. Do their services fit your needs?
5. How much are they willing to invest in you?

A Digital Marketing firm should have responses prepared for any questions you bring regarding these things, as they are key for potential clients. Here is the value in exploring each of these five main aspects with a digital marketing agency.

1. Their Website: A digital marketing firm’s main responsibility is making your company look presentable to the public. A company who wants to represents others must have a clean and presentable webpage that will show a sample of everything they can offer for you. Their website should be able to tell a story of why they want you to be their client and why you should join with them. If they cannot sell themselves, they cannot sell you! Be sure to go through their website for their previous work, research their team, and also their services offered.

2. Their Portfolio: Any business that you partner with must understand and design your vision for you. When looking through a company’s portfolio, be sure to look at their style of content and layouts. Note the items you would like for your own business and how the agency has implemented that material into their portfolio. Also, be sure to look at their past or present clients whose businesses are similar to yours and see their work. Companies will often allow you to reach out to their previous contacts and references . Take advantage of this to see how their service will be five months from now. It’s helpful to know how an agency will treat you when they are not when they are trying to win you over.

3. Consulting With Them: Most companies will offer you a free consultation. Using that free consultation, carefully note their take on your business and their thoughts on an action plan. If possible, meet face-to-face. This helps you obtain the most out of the meeting. When consulting, be sure to take notes on what they say, what they do not say, and what they will follow up on after a contract. These three key conversation points will help show their take on your business and how open they are to building a partnership with you. It is important to remember that they will not give all their tools and answers away. Instead, note their speaking styles and how helpful they are.

4. Do Their Services Fit Your Needs? It’s quite possible that a company you are looking into might be great and has won awards in their area but also might not specialize or focus on your needs. This means that you have to ask questions and research what your needs are when going into the meeting to see if this company can do what you need for them to do. Digital marketing is a very broad field that can range from social postings to search engine optimization, awareness campaigns to landing page design. Some wonderful companies might not have the experience in the area you are looking for or might not have the resources needed to complete the task you have in mind.

5. How Much Are They Willing To Invest In You? This does not mean how much money will they invest in you. Instead, time is money! Look at the size of the business in relation to the clients they have and consider where you may fall in that line up. If your project is significantly smaller than what they usually do, you may not get priority treatment. Likewise, if you are a big fish in a small pond, your project may be overwhelming and could require more resources than they have available. It is important to understand what your needs are before going in so you can find the proper fit. Make sure to come to an understanding of what they will do for you to reach your end goal so you both have clear expectations of what the other is investing in your success.

Picking a digital marketing firm is a big step! Whoever you choose will help you present your business and your passion to the world. They need to be a reliable, proactive, and esteemed corporation to take charge of your digital marketing so you can focus on other aspects of your business!

By Sahil Maherali, Digital Sapien

This Article originally appeared on digitalmarketingsapiens.com

Is Using Snapchat for Surgeries Appropriate?

Over the past year a new fad has developed: doctors recording Snapchats live during surgeries! For those who are not aware of Snapchat, it’s a social media platform where the user can take a picture or record a film up to 15 seconds in length and post them on their account for 24 hours.

Only those following the user can view their work and see the surgery only for 24 hours. They do have the opportunity to take a screenshot, which can be posted on the web. In order to come up with a verdict for this, it is important to look at the legality of the situation along with reaction viewers have at home.

Is it Legal?

The first concern which many doctors have about any patient information is whether it will affect the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). HIPPA is responsible for making sure all medical records and client transactions are kept confidential and private.  Doctors such as Dr. Salzhauer, one of the most famous doctors on Snapchat, says “We always ask permission, not all my patients sign up to be snapped.” This shows that as long as consent release forms are signed by the patient, only their surgeries will be photographed or video-taped. Along with that there is a second consent form about an identity connection between the two. Therefore, it is possible for a client to be taped, but their identity not released.

Public Reaction

Although there have been a spectrum of reviews, overall recorded surgeries have had a great response. Many viewers love to see surgeries up close who would like to one day perform surgeries as doctors.

Another great response to this are doctors learning from one another. Doctors can watch one another’s stories and Twitter feeds, if available, to chime in on hints and tips for doctors to develop and continue to learn. The greatest response doctors have seen is that they have people watching from countries such as India, Greece and Kenya. This shows how doctors from all over the world and viewers can be inspired to become surgeons of all types. Lastly, those who do not like to watch the surgeries can easily avoid them. In order to view “surgery Snapchats”, you must add the account and hold the video while watching it. These two steps show that those who are not interested in watching the surgeries would be nowhere near these surgeries on their phones. It simply takes too much effort to find and view them.

The Verdict

Based on the legality of the situation and the reaction, snapchatting surgeries is legal and a great teaching tool   for those who want to study surgeries along with those inspired to go to medical school!

There are many forms of social media and although many people who fear that this can be an invasion of privacy must remember that HIPAA has taken serious steps to ensure that only patients who have willingly given their permission are allowed to be recorded. How has that played out? Dr Salzhauer is booked for the next 20 months! This shows that viewers want more and patients are giving consent!

By Sahil Maherali, Digital Sapien

This Article originally appeared on digitalmarketingsapiens.com

What Makes A Good Logo?

A good logo is important for every business. It is important to remember that a logo is the face of your company and something that is going to be attached to every piece of marketing or content your company produces.

In order to have an effective logo, make sure it is:

1. Simple yet elegant
2. Timeless
3. Appropriate

It is important to make sure your logo has these three attributes or a great idea can turn into ahorrible marketing display.

Simple and Elegant

A good logo is simple. A simple logo is one that can be instantly recognized by anyone that sees it. A simple logo is one that does not have more than four colors and can also look good in black and white print. A logo needs to have less than 20 characters, and it must be memorable. An elegant logo also has a meaning behind it.

For example, the logo for Apple is an apple which represents knowledge,while FedEx’s logo has an arrow showing moving forward. Both of these logos use a minimal amount of colors and words. They also have simple and relatable attributes such as apples and letters.

It is important to make sure that your logo is effective in conveying the message you want when people see  it.

Timeless

It is important to have a logo that is timeless. Fads are always coming and going and even though your logo might catch traction at one time, in the long run it is hard to keep a persona if your logo is outdated. When creating a logo it is important to consider if it will be effective a year from now, five years, 10 years, and 50 years from now? Logos should try to avoid using key word fads or regional fads as well. Forexample, “ya’ll” might work in Texas, but if your business expands to California; your business will have a Texan connotation.

When looking at the Pepsi and Coca-Cola example, it is clear that a logo needs to be timeless, as changes can cause issues in rebranding along with connecting the company across many target audiences. Pepsi’s logo is trying to always be modern and revolutionize while Coca Cola is keeping their original logo with some types of adaptation keeping it connected.

This can cause two ways of thinking toward Pepsi. People will either think Pepsi is trying to adapt to their newer targets or that Pepsi is having a hard time maintaining one image. In a recent survey, 64% of people were not able to guess which Pepsi Logo is the most recent one.

Appropriate

The meaning of appropriate can be taken in many different directions. It is important that a logo suits, or is appropriate for, their target audience. The logo must be able to attract its target audience and they must be able to relate to it.

There are many ways to showcase an appropriate logo — by font, colors design, etc.. A logo for a Disney or ToysRus will not have the same font or color choice as a United States Government Department. Logos should be appropriate for the client’s entire product line and not feature their products. Although a business may think they will not be expanding their product line, it is important not to be too specific about your products and services too soon.

By Sahil Maherali, Digital Sapien

This Article originally appeared on digitalmarketingsapiens.com

How To Use Linkedin To Find Clients

LinkedIn is a powerful social media site that connects professionals from all over the world. It is important to make sure your profile on LinkedIn is professional, detailed, and filled out as much as possible.

When looking for clients it is important to use many methods. It is important that you diversify yourself as much as possible so you are able to attract many prospective clients. There are two main ways to attract people on LinkedIn for your business.

1. Joining Groups
2. Building a Network

Joining Groups

Joining groups is a must on LinkedIn. When you join a group your profile becomes easily accessible to all those who are interested in your company. There are many types of groups you can join on Linkedin. For example, there are groups for previous affiliations such as high school, college, service projects, and professional networks. There are also groups of similar workplace/industries such as “Digital Marketing Professionals” or “Small Business Owners”. These groups can be as large as thousands of users all over the world or even made just for your own city! Lastly there are groups that you might be targeting clients from. For example, if you are a restaurant marketing firm you can join groups of chefs or small business owners to target them.

Joining groups is not where it ends. It is important to converse in the group with professionals, which causesyour profile to be viewed more. Do not be the one recruiter who messages everyone right away as soon as as you join a new group! It is important to get acquainted with a group and filter through active profilesto see what their needs are.

Building a Network

Building a network is the most important part of LinkedIn. Whether you are looking for a job or looking for people to hire, people will stumble across your profile and there are many key attributes to your profile that you should make sure are fully covered.

Picture: Having a picture is a very important part of having a linkedIn account. People will leave profiles within five seconds if there is no picture to back up who a certain person is. A picture is a professional headshot only of you.

Professional Headline: A professional headline is the first thing someone will come across as it is right next to your picture. The headline is editable so make sure it covers everything you do and make it clean to read.

Summary: Your summary of your profile is something that can be almost  as long as you would like. A summary should be crisp and clean. The summary should be your elevator speech written out which includes your past, your current job, where you would like to be and your mission on Linkedin.

Uploaded work: Uploaded work is great for businesses and professionals as they can showcase their work here. Whether it’s pictures of your small business or your portfolio,this is a great way to show future clients evidence of your talent.

Experience: Filling out your experience is very important as it shows a clear definition of what you have done and what you can do. Your previous experience can appear as a paragraph or bullets, all depending on personal preference, and the amount you would like to write.

Skills and Endorsements: Skills and Endorsements are a great way to show value to everything you can do. Skills and Endorsements are skills you think you do well in and people who can endorse you for those. The more endorsements you have the higher it ranks on your profile. It is important to not have too many endorsements so your profile doesn’t look over crowded.

Education: It is important to include all your educational background such as your degree and what organizations you were a part of.

Having a profile completely filled out is important for key word searches on LinkedIn. Perspective employers can use key word searches such as “accountant” along with a city or company to see who comes up. It’s very important that your profile covers key words that can easily be found.

Having a LinkedIn account can make finding clients a lot easier. It is important to develop a proper account before doing so, fill it out 100%, and stay active with your account!

This Article originally appeared on digitalmarketingsapiens.com

What Makes an Outstanding Landing Page?

Gone should be the days when landing pages were unattractive, unappealing, and just plain boring. And yet, these horrible web pages still exist! It’s 2016 —  a perfect time to make every digital media source top-notch. But how do you pull this off? In the smartest way possible, of course. Here are a few features that make your landing page engaging, enticing and even a bit exciting.

Have a Landing Page That’s Relative to your Hyperlink

This is called message match. If you’re offering a promotion that offers 50% off your product and you send your potential customers to your homepage, it makes them less likely to search for this deal and more likely to press the back button. The copy for your landing page should highlight this deal and be the first thing they see. It works even better if a “buy now” button is one click away.

Bring an Information Scent

Your customers’ buying process  starts with them first seeing the ad. Once they click the link that sends them to your landing page, you want them to be assured that they went to the correct site and that they should be just as comfortable on your site as they are from the place they saw your ad. This means that there needs to be some association between the site that brought them to your product and the landing page.

Example: If your ad was placed on xyz.com, placing their logo somewhere on your landing page will show your customers that they landed in the correct place.

Make your Contact Form as Simple as Possible

Simple contact information is critical. The less work customers have to do to contact you for services, the better. Assigning long forms to fill out or hiding your contact form is almost like you’re giving the impression that you want to display an awesome thing that no one is allowed to have.

If your product is a tangible object, it’s still important to have a simple, easy-to-find contact form. It establishes the fact that a customer can reach out to you whenever something is wrong. This is something that a customer looks for when considering to buy.

Make your Call to Action Impossible to Miss

Show them the reason for clicking your ad, and then give them the chance to make the conversion right then and there. Forcing them to scroll down, open a new window, or fill out information will just be one more thing keeping them from buying your product.

Get Feedback for Each and Every Landing Page

Your definition of an outstanding landing page may be different from everyone else’s, so it’s important to know if your landing page is universally appealing. If it’s not captivating to anyone you ask, it certainly won’t be attractive to your target audience.

Save Your Best for Last

Wait until your potential customer is aiming for the exit button before showing that pop up that allows them to receive a discount, free resource or better alternative for staying on the page. If you present your wild card too early, you’ll be giving them the opportunity to spend less before they even decide that they want to buy. Or, worse, your spontaneous pop-up will discourage them from staying on the page for another second.

Check out an example of an eye-catching landing page here, or click here to see what Digital Marketing Sapiens can do for you.

By Ramil Rodriguez, Digital Sapien

This Article originally appeared on digitalmarketingsapiens.com

Embracing Technology In Your Business Without Losing Older Clients

Technology is amazing! Businesses acquire new tricks and tools virtually non-stop. Tracking the trends of the Millennials, Baby Boomers, and Generation Xers is vital to staying relevant. As increasingly more millennials join the work force,business need to adapt to the new ways of reaching audiences. But, by constantly moving forward, are businesses accidentally leaving older clients behind?

First, it’s important to understand who is who in a discussion about generations.

• The Silent Generationor Greatest Generation is anyone born in the mid-1920s to the early 1940s.
• Baby Boomers are individuals born between 1946 and 1964, during the post-WWII boom.
• Generation X, also known as Gen X, is not very clearly defined but can generally be used to refer to the early 1960s to early 1980s.
• Millennials, who grew up during the turn of the millennium, were born between the early 1980s and late 1990s. They may sometimes also be referred to as Generation Y.
• Generation Z’s name is still developing. However, some ideas are iGeneration, Digital Natives, and Plurals.

As one might expect, as time passes, businesses are patroned less and less often by the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers, while the number of Millennial customers increases. Businesses must cater to the growing demographicsbut ideally without alienating older, established client-bases.

How exactly can a business balance the rapid increase of millennial clients while losing boomer business?

Don’t Transition Too Fast!

The fastest way a business can fall off track is with sudden movements. A business must understand its clients, perspective clients, and past clients to create an informed plan of evolution. Baby steps are needed in a significant transition as every transition comes with hiccups. To properly evolve, you must fix problems as they occur while alsoteaching your older clients how to use these changes to their benefit. A Millennial will understand Groupon, for instance, but a Boomer may need assistance the first few times.Help them overcome their technical fears and confusion so they do not feel lost or a sense of miscommunication.

Tailor Your Business To Adopters, Early Majority, And Late Majority Clients!

In marketing jargon, there are 5 types of buyers.

There are those who are Innovators. Innovators are those who are the smallest group as they are very involved in constantly learning about new products in the market. They are always the first ones to jump onboard. Only 2% of those in your target market will be innovators.

Next, there are Adopters. Adopters are willing to try a new product if it will help their life. They need to understand the product before jumping on board. They are about 15% of the market.

After that are the Early Majority. They will jump on board with a product after seeing their peers embrace the technology. With the early majority caring about longevity and reputation, they must see the product in place. The Early Majority and Late Majority both make up for about 39% each of the market. The Late Majority however, purchase later on. They usually wait till the Innovators are already on their way to a new product.

Lastly, the excessive traditionalistscomprise the final 5% who either adopt products after they are old news or never adopt it at all.

Businesses need to target adopters, early majority, and late majority buyers. These groups establish a product or service for everyone else. However, with a combined of 93% of the market, it is important to not push the late majority out of the picture. Although early adopters can be a risky target, later adopters are possible clients as well.

When you create your marketing plan and business plan, make sure to evolve at a pace that will not lose a strong market segment. Although it seems great to be a leading company, it is important to have a clientele base who strongly needs your work, especially if you are not a major company. With the economy being such a diverse place, living on the bleeding edge of technology isn’t necessarily the best strategy for every business.

Communication Is Key!

A business must move at the pace of the clients. If you want to push into new technological territory, you must work WITH your clients to make the change happen. Help those who need assistance adapt to the new setting while giving your savvier clients the freedom to help themselves.

When communicating with clients,remain understanding of their needs, wants, and desires. Businesses have to meet their needs so remaining in touch with those needs is important.Jumping onto social media platforms and newsrooms to keep an eye on your younger audience’s opinions but also explore keeping a traditional touch. Email or even direct mail can help leave an impression on older audiences.

Whether you work in manufacturing, retail, or marketing, you must understand your clients and how to move your business forward. Remember that everyone moves at their own speed!Adapt your business plan to the timesbut keep an eye on your older audiences and late majority.

By Sahil Maherali, Digital Sapien

This Article originally appeared on digitalmarketingsapiens.com

Pollyhop Is Real!

For those of who you watch House of Cards on Netflix, you probably heard about Pollyhop!  Pollyhop is a fictional search engine created by the NSA. The framework of Pollyhop allows someone who has access to it to search  people’s digital records to view specific search habits or any information to help for a personal need. This helps someone (a person running for office, for instance) to get the results they want and steer people (voters) in the direction they choose.

This TV show concept is actually a true practice. Called Search Engine Optimization, SEO is a powerful tool to help pull traffic in your direction! To understand this concept let us take the city of San Antonio, Texas as an example.

In San Antonio there are over 4,100 restaurants not including all fast food joints and trucks. If there is a restaurant that focuses on barbecue foods that wants to help develop their brand, they can use digital marketing and SEO to help make them the best barbecue restaurant in San Antonio!

It’s important to have an SEO company or SEO agency find keywords to help you boost your internet traffic. Having a keywords listing will then help you use certain keywords such as “bbq food in San Antonio” or “restaurants in San Antonio” will help lead more people to your page. Analytics go through geographically to see what words people are using. It is important to use this to your advantage! If your restaurant is in a specific part of town you can use posts such as “barbecue in San Antonio” or get specific with keywords such as “barbecue restaurant in Stone Oak.”

This can work in your Internet marketing as well. San Antonio is a large city with many restaurants. Using social media and a mobile website can help direct traffic if short SEO  blogs are posted on the Internet and lead to your website.

It is important to promote your social media and ratings to your clients because 88% of people trust online reviews as much as personal reviews. All these Internet marketing and search engine marketing tools will help bring more clients to your business today!

This relates back to Pollyhop in that companies can use keywords to their benefit. Using “steakhouse in San Antonio” in your website copy can help you rank higher on search engines, causing more people to visit your mobile website or mobile app.

Search Engine Optimization works with search engines, social media, blog posts on your website, and apps which all need to be used effectively in your business!

This Article originally appeared on digitalmarketingsapiens.com

How Social Media Affects Online Reviews

In Essence, Social Media Posts Are Online Reviews!

Whether you’ve made your way into the social sphere or not, customers are letting their friends and family know how great or unsatisfying your service is via social media. If you think of social networks as customer service reviews without the rating scale, you’ll see that people are constantly posting their opinions about your brand! That word-of-mouth spreads to anyone who listens (e.g. their followers), so it’s important to acknowledge posts that praise your brand and offer solutions to users who had a bad experience.

This is your opportunity to engage with your customers. Having an account on the social network your customers are posting from will allow your business to not only bring out daily awareness for those who follow your page, but also allow you to respond quickly to positive and negative comments.

They’re Thinking What Their Friends Are Saying.

Also known as influencer marketing, 92% of consumers believe recommendations from friends and family, according to Nielsen’s latest Global Trust in Advertising report. Social media users are giving their review of your company to their friends and family, which not only promotes awareness for your brand but also sets expectations for what your future customers look forward to when choosing your product or service.

Social Media Can Bring In Major Traffic.

If you’ve nailed the social mediamarketing tactics, you’ll see an increase in followers, attention, people talking about your brand and most importantly a significant ROI (Return On Investment). A few brief methods you can use to bring traffic include following your target audience, posting frequently, and encouraging fantastic customers to leave feedback online.

But It Can Also Destroy Your Reputation!

Of course, it’s not always 100% positive feedback. Being able to respond to negative reviews as soon as possible will give you the opportunity to turn it into a positive experience for the user. Recover and resolve the problem before it catches fire, and do it in the most appreciative way possible where you respect their input. This has the potential to uplift your reputation rather than depreciate it.

Note: Sometimes it’s impossible to come to a resolution. In this case, your last option is to remove them from your network. In a scenario where there’s no way to come to an understanding, taking them out of your social circle will avoid possible escalated events.

If you feel convinced that it’s important to hop onto the social media sphere, great. Do it. Being able to get in touch with your customers from as many mediums as possible and develop a sense of recognition can lead to positive reviews, customer loyalty, and even people referring others to buy your product or use your services. Additionally, it will allow you to have more control over what your customers are saying about you online.

Read more about the importance of online reputation here.

By Ramil Rodriguez, Digital Sapien

This Article originally appeared on digitalmarketingsapiens.com