Before we dive into the second way to assume power in your business, let’s revisit Part 1. 

Who informs your marketing strategy? 

YOU, with your carefully curated strategy informed by data and deep knowledge of your brand and audience? Or any of the 3 Cs below? 

• Competitors: Their advertising and digital presence and seemingly never-ending budgets consume the landscape.
• Colleagues: Their tried-and-true proven tactics or lessons learned.
• Customers: Their calls, requests, and ideas. 

Considering any of the above is not bad, in fact, it can be very wise! However, listening quickly becomes devastating if it lends to their running our business or marketing department. 

It’s time we move from defense to offense, sitting in the driver’s seat rather than allowing any of the 3 Cs to control. 

It is one thing to learn from and entirely another to be controlled by. 

In Part 1, we explored how knowing what we want is critical to regaining power.

1) Knowing what you want protects the bottom line.

2) Knowing what you want protects you from the 3 Cs. 

3) Knowing what you want protects you from running on auto-pilot.

You can read Part 1 here; in the meantime, let’s dive in! 

How to Regain Control of Your Business: Knowing Who You Are

Vertical alignment is a favorite concept of mine, coined over the last two years throughout my personal journey of knowing self. 

Consider the diagram below.

Vertical alignment is the state of internal being centered with who you are at your core. 

Horizontal alignment is the state of external doing engaged with the world around you.

In a state of vertical alignment, your business operates from its core center, predicated on its mission, values, and brand. It is authentic and confident and cuts through the noise because it is entirely unique from every competitor in the market. 

From this vertical alignment, your business is positioned for horizontal alignment to fulfill the integrity of its intended services, instituted processes, and promised results. 

A strong brand is not only differentiated in the market by its vertical alignment but delivers consistently and reliably in terms of its products, offerings, and services and also in terms of the customer experience by its horizontal alignment. 

Let’s examine what knowing who you are looks like in application, as well as some habits to implement with your team to strengthen vertical alignment. 

1) Knowing who You are Protects You from Horizontal Voices. 

The strength of “Who We Are” predicates the ability to maintain vertical alignment when something threatens your stability. When a colleague proposes a tactic that is not aligned with your values. When the customer comes calling with ideas that will knock you off course as bandwidth is limited or the budget is tight. 

I was on a call with a gal from my Mastermind when I mentioned a retreat I am excited to launch in the coming months. 

I shared that I was considering its positioning, given its curriculum is rooted in emotional intelligence (EQ) to inform personal brand development. The retreat serves C-Suite, but as EQ is not a common conversation among this audience, I was considering the best positioning. 

She advised, “Sell them solely on the business aspects, and then sneak attack with the EQ when they’re at the retreat!” 

At first blush, it sounds reasonable. After all, there’s a reason why the phrase, “Sell the people what they want, give them what they need,” is popular.

Horizontal advice and counsel can produce a wealth of knowledge. However, we must always approach the horizontal landscape – the external – powered by vertical alignment – centered internally with the core of who we are. 

Upon considering my values of who I am and the vision of what I want for this event, I realized the lack of transparency is not in alignment with my values nor setting the right expectations for the experience.

Sure, maybe I would get more sales; however, my bottom line — what I want — is not just sales. I want transformation on an emotional level. I want C-Suite execs to leave powered from a place of emotional intelligence to decrease decisions made out of alignment with who they are or executing tactics rooted in guilt, not vision. 

Ultimately, one of my core values is authenticity, and I must make business decisions accordingly. 

2) Knowing who You are Protects You from Reactivity.

Operating from vertical alignment maintains focus on the bottom line and the strategy to achieve it. From this position, you are protected from reacting to the horizontal pressures of the 3 Cs: Competitors, Colleagues, and Customers. 

This does not mean you do not adjust tactics or learn. 

However, your approach to adjustments is proactive direction, not reactive deviations. To do this, consider the following questions:

First: How does their (any one of the 3 Cs) tactic measure against my proven track record of success?

If your colleague promotes adding newsletters to your strategy, lean in and ask, “Why?” 

• What are their outcomes? 
• What metrics are they tracking for success? 
• What is their bottom line against yours? 
• How do newsletters fit into their strategy and stage(s) of the customer journey? 

Always consider your historical track record of success first and foremost. 

Have you tried newsletters in the past? Is their audience different from yours? Why are newsletters good for them when they did not prove profitable for you? 

Operate with your head up and your eyes open. 

Maintain focus on your bottom line and ask questions. Revisit your data, and don’t just take their word for it. 

2. Am I allocating time in my schedule?

I had coffee with the former CEO of Jiffy Lube, who built the empire that it is today. 

He could not emphasize more how critical it is to allocate time for thinking. Just being — not doing — and thinking about your business or department. 

Especially for senior leaders or business owners, but even still for junior staff. 

The time and space to be fosters creative thinking, new ideas, and energy. Some of my best campaigns are conjured on a walk or in the shower. 

Kasim Aslam, founder of the world’s #1 Google Ads agency and a dear friend of mine, is a machine when it comes to hacks and habits. He encouraged me to take an audit of my calendar over the last 30 days to assess how I spend time. 

“Create three buckets,” he said. “Organize them by the following:

• Tasks that Generate Revenue
• Tasks that Cost Me Money
• Tasks that Didn’t Earn Anything”

He and I chatted after I completed this exercise, and I added one to the list: Tasks that are Life-Giving. 

Friends — if we are running empty, exhausted, or emotionally depleted, our creative and strategic wherewithal will be significantly diminished. We are holistic creatures and, therefore, must nurture our mind, body, soul, and spirit to maintain optimum capacity for impact. 

I shared this hack with a friend of mine. Not only did she identify meetings that were costing her money and thus needed to be eliminated, but she also identified that particular meetings could actually turn revenue-generating! She spent a good amount of time each month facilitating introductions; now, she is adding Strategic Partnerships to her suite of services. 

ACTION: Analyze your calendar’s last 30-60 days against the list above. 

Include what is life-giving! 

How are you spending your time? What is the data showing you? Are you on the path to achieving what you want and living in alignment with who you want to be?

Share with your team or business partner for the purpose of accountability, and implement practical changes accordingly. 

Finally, remember: If you will not protect your time, no one else will. 

3) Knowing who You are Protects You from Lack. 

“What are you proud of?” someone asked me last year. 

“Nothing!” I reply too quickly. “I know I’m not living up to my potential or operating in the full capacity I could be.” 

They looked at me in shock. “You need to read The Gap And The Gain.”

I silently rolled my eyes.

I already knew the premise of the book, or I thought I did. I mused: My vision is so big, and I have so much to accomplish. The thought of solely focusing on “my wins” sounded like an excuse to abdicate personal responsibility. 

But I acquiesced. 

The premise of this book is to measure one’s self from where they started and the success from that place to where they are today — the gains — rather than from where they hope to get and the seemingly never-ending distance — the gap.

Ultimately, Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan encourage changing perspectives to assign success, considering the starting point rather than the destination.

The book opens with the following story:

Dan Jensen was an Olympic speed skater, notably the fastest in the world. But in each game spanning a decade, Jansen could not catch a break. “Flukes” — even tragedy with the death of his sister in the early morning of the 1988 Olympics — continued to disrupt the prediction of him being favored as the winner. 

The 1994 Olympics were the last of his career. He had one more shot.

Preceding his last Olympics in 1994, Jansen adjusted his mindset. He focused on every single person who invested in him, leading to this moment. He considered just how very lucky he was to even participate in the first place. He thought about his love for the sport itself, all of which led to an overwhelming realization of just how much he had gained throughout his life.

He raced the 1994 Olympic games differently, as his mindset powering every stride was one of confidence and gratitude — predicated on the gains rather than the gap in his life. 

This race secured him his first and only gold medal and broke a world record, simultaneously proving one of the most emotional wins in Olympic history. 

Friends, knowing who we are on the personal and professional level, can protect us from those voices of shame or guilt that creep in. 

PERSONAL ACTION: Create two columns. On one side, create a list of where you were when you started your business or your position at your company. Include skills and networks and even feelings about where you were in life. On the other side, outline where you are today. 

Look at how far you’ve come. 

COMPANY ACTION: Implement a quarterly meeting to review the past three months. Where did you start? Where are you now? 

Celebrate the gain!

Only from this place of gain mindset, can you create goals for the next quarter predicated on where you are today.

Ultimately, my hope for you is that you deliver exceptional and memorable experiences laced with empathy toward the customer (horizontally aligned) yet powered by the authenticity of the brand (vertically aligned). 

Aligning vertically maintains our focus on the bottom line and powers horizontal fulfillment. 

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Granted, there will be strategic times and seasons for adjustment; however, these changes are to be made on the heels of consulting who we are as a brand — not in reaction to the horizontal landscape of what is the latest and greatest in the industry. 

In Conclusion…

Taking back control of your business and marketing strategies requires a conscious effort to resist external pressures and realign with what you want and who you are.

Final thoughts as we wrap up: 

First, identify the root issue(s).

Consider which of the 3 Cs holds the most power: be it competition, colleagues, or customers.

Second, align vertically.

Vertical alignment facilitates individuality in the market and ensures you — and I — stand out and shine while serving our customers well. 

Third, keep the bottom line in view.

Implement a routine that keeps you and your team focused on what matters most, and then create the cascading strategy necessary to accomplish it. 

Fourth, maintain your mindsets.

Who You Are includes values for the internal culture. Guide your team in acknowledging the progress made along the way and embracing the gains to operate from a position of strength and confidence.

Fifth, maintain humility.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of humility and being open to what others are doing. However, horizontal alignment must come after vertical alignment. Otherwise, we will be at the mercy of the whims and fads of everyone around us. Humility allows us to be open to external inputs and vertically aligned at the same time.

Buckle up, friends! It’s time to take back the wheel and drive our businesses forward. 

The power lies with you and me.

The post 2 Ways to Take Back the Power in Your Business: Part 2 appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

As I considered the topic that would best serve entrepreneurs, business owners, and marketers alike — all of whom I am — I mused over what I needed most throughout the last year. 

I needed to take back control of my business. 

And I am charging you to do the same. 

While I have provided two strategic ways to do so, the first outlined below and the second outlined in this blog post, it is critical that we first identify the root issue. 

Why are you and I not operating in the driver’s seat of our marketing and/or businesses? 

Three fundamental core challenges come in the form of 3 Cs: Competition, Colleagues, and Customers.

Who Are You Listening To?

1. Competition

We know the feeling all too well.

We feel a pit in our stomach or a slight racing of the heart when our competitors’ ads or organic content seem to be taking over social media and the internet: Google Ads, YouTube, TikTok, newsletters, LinkedIn, programmatic…

And don’t forget traditional advertising.

Especially if you are in the home services or specialty services spaces where direct mail is 100% where you need to be, but don’t forget the QR code and UTMs and unique landing pages and geotargeted ads and email nurturing sequence for a holistic approach. 

Our competition’s budget appears never-ending, and their marketing team must be fantastic. 

Is theirs the strategy we should adopt, deviating from our carefully charted course agreed upon at the outset of the year?

2. Colleagues

Or perhaps it’s that of the peers in our Masterminds or networking groups or online communities. 

After all, within these groups resides a wealth of knowledge and expertise, tried-and-true insights, and wins. I am guilty as charged — my talk at T&C 2024 was chock-full of recommendations guiding marketers on their path to generating over 800% ROAS…
Should our marketing strategy or business’s bottom line deviate then?

3. Customers

Oh! But the power of our customers…when their phone call just after 5:00 PM because they saw their competitor’s ad and want to change course. 

Or when our customers’ higher-ups ask why you didn’t generate enough leads last month and how the bottom line is threatened if we don’t do something fast.

And how they joke about your job being on the line if numbers don’t change.

Do any of these resonate? 

If you are a human with a soul that cares about your business, team, and customers, I anticipate your hand is raised alongside mine. 

Friends, it is time we unbuckle the seatbelt of the 3 Cs and graciously escort them out. 

It’s time for you to regain control.

How to Regain Control of Your Business: Knowing What You Want

I cannot tell you how many times my question, “What do you want?” is met with blank stares. 

Such a simple question with such significant ramifications. 

To assume control, we must know what we want for the following three reasons.

1) Knowing what you want keeps you focused on the bottom line.

So many of us fail to regularly take stock of where we are actually going. 

Our heads are down, focused on tasks before us, rather than heads up, looking to the finish line yet equally aware of how our strategies today are or are not moving us closer to that target. 

With our heads down, the focus is on the key performance indicators (KPIs) of the necessary activations to achieve the bottom-line goal rather than the focus being on the goal itself. 

The trick is maintaining clarity of the goal and bottom line to then inform the strategic direction.

EXAMPLE: The Knowing Agency serves as fractional CMO for a waterproofing company. A major — colossal, even — KPI is lead generation. 

This KPI is obviously important because you need leads to get customers.

However, in 2023, our lead count was down significantly. 

With the 3 Cs close at hand, I questioned myself: Am I leading the team in the wrong direction!? 

We must be willing to ask tough questions and pursue the truth, even if it may prove that we are heading in the wrong direction — especially then! 

For we must first know the truth to then be changed by it. 

But I had to zoom out in order to know. 

With the bottom line as the primary focus, I then considered the KPI. 

When we zoomed out and measured that KPI in light of the bottom line, revenue, rather than as a standalone metric, we actually saw a significant increase in overall revenue and profits despite a lower lead count.

This means that while we were driving fewer leads, they were much more qualified, hence driving higher revenue.

My question for you is: Do you know what you want? 

And do you know your bottom line goal and the KPIs necessary to get there?

2) Knowing what you want protects you from the 3 Cs. 

The bottom-line goals of your company or department serve as guardrails to keep you on the straight and narrow when one of the 3 Cs comes calling. 

Protection from Competitors: Their bottom line could very well be entirely different from yours. Perhaps you seek to expand into a new region and must allocate funds by cutting budgets on top-of-funnel brand awareness tactics. Yet your competitor is dominating TV. Don’t deviate; your bottom line is at stake. 

Protection from Colleagues: Perhaps your bottom line is similar, but your target audiences are different. They are finding wild success with newsletters reaching an older demo while your audience is highly engaged with podcasts. Yes, perhaps explore newsletters, but not at the expense of your engaged audience on your podcast. 

Protection from Customers: Hopefully, you both have the same bottom line! However, when my client called with concerns about the KPI of lead numbers, which is indeed important, my ability to maintain focus on the bottom line guided their right thinking about what matters most: Revenue. 

Protection from the 3 Cs does not mean turning a blind eye or ignoring what is working for them. But it does keep your bottom line as the chief focus.

3) Knowing what you want protects you from running on auto-pilot.

Knowing what you want maintains momentum and breathes energy into tasks that otherwise would be monotonous.

Lead yourself or your team in revisiting the vision for the company regularly.

Nine-to-five employees increasingly seek to align with impact-driven organizations, and keeping the transformation the company aims to procure top-of-mind will drive motivation.

The transformation is always emotional, even surrounding a product or service.

EXAMPLE: Returning to the waterproofing company our team supported. Waterproofing a basement transforms the customers’ emotional states from one of anxiety or worry into one of peace or assurance. 

What once was: We are a waterproofing company servicing homeowners in Destin, Florida, for 54 years. Trust our team to waterproof your basement! 

Turns into: Our company cares for your family. Our company preserves homeowners’ greatest investment. Our company, ultimately, protects your home, which is where life happens. 

Suddenly, a waterproofing company has empathy.

Just like that, we are serving families and homes, not just servicing a basement.

But before you can truly know what you want, you first have to know who you are.

Head on over to Part 2!

The post 2 Ways to Take Back the Power in Your Business: Part 1 appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

The digital marketing software market is valued at $60.3 billion. And it’s expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 15.5% over the next decade.

With a plethora of digital marketing tools in the market, choosing the right ones can be a daunting task.

However, it’s essential to invest in the best tools to enhance your digital marketing efforts and help you stand above the inevitable competition from your peers.Competition is a significant challenge for 27.1% of digital marketers today, as revealed in a survey conducted by Influencer Marketing Hub.

So which tools should you use to get an edge? 

You don’t need to spend time researching the best tools. In this article, I’ll introduce you to five digital marketing tools that can boost your efforts and give you an edge over the competition.

5 Digital Marketing Tools to Drive Better Results

Here are five digital marketing tools that address different areas of digital marketing. 

They range from tools that enhance website speed to ones for improving landing pages and enhancing overall user experience.

1. TinyImage

TinyImage is one of the digital marketing tools you need to invest in. It’s an image compression tool that reduces the size of your PNG and JPG images online by over 75%.

You don’t have to worry about the security of sensitive image files as well. TinyImage uses a secure 256-bit encrypted SSL connection. It also deletes your images within a few hours of uploading them.

How can TinyImage improve your digital marketing ROI? 

Larger-sized images take up a lot of bandwidth, which slows down loading times for your visitors.

Research by Digital.com shows 21% of online shoppers are dissatisfied by slow-loading pages. Half will abandon their shopping cart if a page fails to load fast enough.  

This app is most helpful for agencies that provide custom app development services. It helps them to compress images in a few seconds and convert apps into fast loading for their clients.

Use TinyImage to:

• Compress images without losing image quality
• Compare the file size of the compressed images to ensure you have the optimal file size
• Save time by compressing multiple images at a go

Price

• Free

2. Sprout Social

Sprout Social is one of the best social media marketing tools in the market. It helps you manage all aspects of your social presence.

You can analyze the performance of your posts and Reels to find the best Instagram Reels to embed on your website. Also, you can also monitor your competitors, manage conversations with your audience, and plenty more.

Sprout Social boosts your social media marketing efforts. And according to research, effective social media marketing results in higher sales for 55% of businesses.

What you can do with Sprout Social:

• Analyze the performance of your campaigns and get insights into areas of improvement
• Uncover current trends and opportunities to engage with your target audience through social listening
• Schedule and publish posts across multiple platforms

Price

• Standard: $249 per month
• Professional: $399 per month
• Advanced: $499 per month

Enterprise: Custom

3. Zendesk

Customer support plays a crucial role in creating a better customer experience for your e-commerce store and optimizing your digital marketing efforts.

And Zendesk is one of the best tools you can use to ensure provide personalized customer support.

It’s AI-powered AI chatbot, live chat, help desk ticketing system, and other solutions help you provide instant and right customer support.

Why is it one of the best digital marketing tools to boost your ROI? 

Zendesk has helped generate numerous leads, sales, and signups for its customers with its low-cost ownership offers.

How Zendesk can help your business achieve better marketing results:

• It offers an AI-powered chatbot and live chat that answers instantly to customers’ questions.
• It offers the right reporting and analytics software that help you get real-time insights for your business.

Price

• Free: $0
• Starting: $19 per month
• Suite Team: $55 per month
• Suite Growth: $89 per month
• Suite Professional: $115 per month

Suite Enterprise: Reach out to them

4. Ahrefs

Keyword research tools are important for any digital marketing strategy. And Ahrefs is one of the best there is. It’ll help boost your SEO strategies to improve your website’s visibility and ranking in SERPs.

It’s not just a keyword research tool, but an all-in-one SEO toolset that analyzes the ranking difficulty of keywords, simplifies backlinking, and more.

You can use it to scan your website for technical and on-page SEO problems that may be holding back your ranking.

Ahrefs also lets you keep tabs on keywords your competitors are ranking for and get insights into the SEO strategies they are implementing. 

Additionally, you can use it to get content ideas that have the potential to draw traffic to your site and find link prospects from a database of over 14 billion web pages.

Ahrefs also provides access to other free digital marketing tools like a backlink checker and AI writing tools

What you can do with Ahrefs to boost your digital marketing ROI

• Find keywords for YouTube, Amazon, and Bing and generate additional keyword ideas using AI to reach a wider audience
• Find backlink prospects to increase your SERP ranking and enhance your credibility
• Visualize your SEO progress using interactive graphs

Price

• Lite: $99 per month
• Standard: $199 per month
• Advanced: $399 per month

Enterprise: $999 per month

5. Hotjar

Google has clearly stated that it rewards content that provides a good page experience. Hotjar is one of the best digital marketing tools you can use to gain insights on ways to improve user experience and also optimize your store for conversions.

It provides heat maps that you can use to see your website visitors’ activities and identify friction points. The heatmaps show you how your visitors move, click, and scroll.

You can also compare user behavior across different devices using Hotjar to identify opportunities to increase conversions.

And if you serve video ads on your website or any other type of ad, you can conduct surveys and collect feedback from your customers to learn how they’re affecting their user experience.

What you can do with Hotjar to improve your ROI:

• Watch full recordings of your visitors’ journey on your site to find and fix user experience issues
• Access all user data from a single dashboard, including feedback, metrics, and session recordings
• Automatically generate relevant surveys using AI and get automated summary reports of the responses

Price:

• Basic: Free
• Plus: $39 per month
• Business: $99 per month
• Scale: $213 per month

Start Leveraging the Best Digital Marketing Tools Today

Leveraging digital marketing tools is crucial if you want to enhance your ROI. And these are the 5 best tools available in the market that you can use.

They all serve different aspects of digital marketing but with similar goals—improving audience engagement, driving conversions, and maximizing your marketing efforts.

Go ahead and give them a shot to take your digital marketing efforts to the next level and boost your ROI.

The post 5 Must-Have Digital Marketing Tools for 2024 to Skyrocket Your ROI appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you probably remember reading at least one article saying that our attention spans are down to a “mere 8 seconds” — or “less than a goldfish”.

While it sounds catchy, it’s not that simple. It’s easy to jump to conclusions and get swept up in the clickbaity narrative, but the research on human attention spans isn’t so clear cut. 

In fact, some scientific studies seem to point in the completely opposite direction — humans have an enormous capacity for attention. 

Our Problem is Not Attention — it’s Distraction 

The core issue isn’t a lack of attention — it’s the multitude of distractions competing for our focus. The modern consumer’s attention hasn’t become scarcer, it’s just spread thinner.

The growing popularity of platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts may give the impression that our attention span is declining. But the real issue is that we’re increasingly having to navigate a sea of rapid-fire, bite-sized, infinity well content that is algorithmically engineered to hook our interest.

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In this environment, the challenge for brands and marketers isn’t simply to capture attention, but to hold it — and use narratives that rise above the clamor as an antidote to distraction.

Long-form Content isn’t Going Away

There’s a wealth of evidence suggesting that long-form content is not only surviving but thriving. 

Long-form articles are one example. They typically outrank shorter counterparts and are frequently rewarded with more social shares and links. This indicates that audiences are engaging with it, valuing it, and sharing it within their networks.

Podcasts, too, are more popular than ever with Australia leading the charge, recently having overtaken the US as the world’s biggest podcast-listening nation. Lengthy, detailed discussions are in our earbuds, consumed on our commutes and during our lunch breaks. This content isn’t bite-sized — it’s substantial, and its popularity is growing.

Anecdotal evidence further demonstrates this point. Look at the typical American viewer who is perfectly capable of devouring half a season of their favorite TV show in a single day. In a way, our binge-watching culture itself dispels the myth of an 8-second attention span.

Measuring Brand Engagement in Hours, not Minutes

When it comes to brand engagement, the playing field between long-form and short-form content isn’t level. Let’s compare a 30-second TikTok with an hour-long branded podcast: 

• A branded TikTok video of 30 seconds duration, with 10,000 views, and an average video completion rate of 62% creates 52 hours of consumer engagement.
• A branded podcast of 30 minutes duration, with 1,000 listens, and an average episode completion rate of 75% creates 378 hours of consumer engagement.

So at a macro level, effectively executed long-form content will generate exponentially more engagement than short-form content (and often, it can achieve these results at a fraction of the cost).

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Let’s delve deeper into the data. We recently analyzed over 4.5 million consumed minutes of podcast performance data from 6 years of our client podcasts. We found that:

• The average completion rate of long-form branded podcast content was 75.54%
• The average listen duration per session was 22 minutes and 26 seconds

That’s 22 minutes of brand engagement at a time, per consumer, per listening session. It’s incredible when you compare that to producing some 20-second TikToks. And it’s much more brand depth than a 30 or 60-second ad spot on radio/TVC/pre-roll/etc.

Of course, short-form video and advertising have their place. These channels are great for generating awareness and reach, or even as a way to remind customers about your brand.

But for generating true engagement with your fans and customers, well-crafted long-form content reigns supreme.

The Secret Lies in Telling Compelling Stories

The truth is, people are capable of focusing intently on one thing for extended periods. But you have to craft something that is engaging and meaningful. 

For long-form content, great storytelling isn’t just an advantage — it’s a prerequisite.

I’ve seen first-hand that storytelling isn’t an innate skill for many brands; it’s an art that must be nurtured and developed. Creating content that not only draws in an audience, but also maintains their interest, involves understanding the audience’s wants and needs, the narrative structure, and weaving a compelling brand message into the medium.

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That’s why when we work with a brand to launch and produce their podcast, we put extra effort into helping them unlock their storytelling potential. It takes time to learn how to craft narratives that don’t just sell a product or service, but instead build a meaningful connection with your customers and fans. 

When done right, great storytelling has the power to truly captivate an audience and transform brand-customer relationships. And nothing does this better than well-crafted long-form content?

The post Attention Spans are Shrinking, but Long-form Content Still Rules — What’s the Catch? appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Social media is one of the most quickly evolving areas of digital marketing. So, your social media marketing team needs to keep pace with customers and competitors alike. 

From new social platforms and changing algorithms to the latest technologies and trends, marketing is unforgivingly fast-paced. It comes as no surprise that social media marketers are struggling to keep up. 

In a recent survey by The Social Club, it was found that the accelerated pace of social platforms is becoming overwhelming for social media marketers. 81% admitted that it was a struggle to stay on top of the latest trends and technologies.

Other marketers struggle to develop the wide range of must-have marketing skills needed to perform the diverse role. 

As a result, performance, knowledge, and skills gaps can grow within social media marketing teams—and they can wreak havoc. Luckily, you can combat gaps by identifying and addressing them in a variety of ways.

So, let’s discuss how you can identify and tackle gaps within your team. And in doing so, how you improve productivity, future-proof your business, and equip your team to meet social media marketing goals.

Evaluate Your Team’s Skill Sets & Experience

Before you can identify skills gaps, you need to establish the skills and experience your team currently possesses. 

So, start by conducting an in-depth evaluation of your team’s current skill sets, experience, and knowledge. This will present you with a comprehensive inventory of skills that you can align with your business goals. 

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Ultimately, it helps you determine where your team thrives and where it falls short.

But how do you go about this? 

As a best practice, consider using several different methods of evaluation to get a reliable picture of your team’s current skill set. For example, you might:

Create a Formal Test

Formal tests can be used to assess the technical and theoretical competency of your employees. For example, you can test how effectively employees are able to use a certain tool. Or, you can assess how aptly they identify a particular framework and apply it to a situation. 

While this is a popular evaluation method, there are some limitations to consider. 

Formal test conditions don’t always present a reliable picture of proficiency. Some people perform worse in test conditions due to stress and anxiety. Other people might display competency in test settings but are unable to apply this knowledge in real-life scenarios. 

So, consider using formal tests alongside the two other evaluation methods that we’re going to discuss below.

Conduct On-the-Job Observations

Observing real-world performance is one of the best ways to accurately gauge your team’s skill set. 

On the job, are your employees able to efficiently utilize technologies to meet goals? How effectively do they communicate and collaborate in fast-paced environments? Are they applying their skills, knowledge, and experience to a standard you’d expect?

In-person assessments allow you to observe your team within the everyday work environment. Compared to formal tests, they can give you a more accurate representation of employee performance. But, there’s still the risk that employees’ nerves may alter their performance, which can skew the results of your evaluation.

And of course, in-person observations simply aren’t possible if you’re a remote team. So, you might have to use another method: performance management technology.

Utilize Software to Measure & Evaluate Performance

Instead of relying on in-person observations, you can enlist the help of software to track your employees’ performance. This includes tracking whether employees meet project deadlines, reach benchmark KPIs, and are otherwise engaged in and attending to their responsibilities.

The data obtained from software can help you identify performance gaps. Performance gaps are just as critical to identify and address as skills and knowledge gaps, as they damage productivity and negatively impact your bottom line. 

In many cases, performance and skills gaps overlap in some way. 

For example, underperforming employees might lack the skills or knowledge they need to perform their roles effectively. Similarly, employees who regularly miss work might lack motivation or feel dissatisfied in their role, which can arise as a result of a skills gap. 

To combat this, an HR performance management system with an attendance tracker feature enables you to track performance and attendance in real-time. Attendance software automates the process by identifying absence patterns and quickly alerting you to potentially struggling employees. As a result, you can uncover and tackle performance gaps more efficiently and effectively, all while supporting your employees and earning their loyalty.

Establish Your Team’s Objectives

Setting realistic, unified team goals and objectives can close performance gaps that may be hurting your productivity. When team objectives are misaligned or unachievable, employees disconnect from them. This leads to disengagement and poor motivation. 

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However, when you set clear, realistic objectives and empower your team to achieve them, you can boost productivity and close performance gaps.

Establishing team objectives can also help you identify skills gaps. 

Let’s say that your team really wants to grow its followers on Pinterest. As you proceed to devise a Pinterest marketing growth strategy to meet this objective, you might discover that your team doesn’t know enough about Pinterest to execute this strategy effectively. So, you’ve identified a skills gap.

Armed with this knowledge, you can quickly target this skills gap by hiring a marketer with the relevant experience. Or you could upskill your employees—more on this later. 

Identify Areas for Skill Development

Now it’s time to dig a little deeper and identify any specific skills gaps that exist within your social marketing team. Chances are, you’ll find some—53% of companies currently have a skills gap, according to research by SHRM. 

Skills gaps can arise for a variety of reasons. Talent shortages, poor training, lack of experience, and failure to keep pace with new technologies can all result in skills gaps that put your company at a competitive disadvantage. 

With a fine-tooth comb, inspect your team’s digital marketing skills, experience, and objectives to illuminate any areas for improvement. For a social marketing team, the most pressing and common skills gaps include graphic design, videography, and photography.

Provided by The Social Club, here’s an example of what social media marketers deem to be essential skills, compared to how many marketers feel that they actually possess these skills.

Provide Continuous Training & Development 

Before you rush to fill your skills gaps by hiring new employees, consider upskilling your current employees first.

Upskilling is a learning and development strategy that involves providing continuous training to employees to help them learn new skills. There are a bunch of benefits to doing this—it’s more cost-effective, it boosts productivity, and it even increases employee satisfaction and retention. 71% of employees who took part in employer-provided upskilling opportunities say that it increased their overall job satisfaction.

That said, any old training program won’t do. Training content needs to be delivered strategically, with a focus on keeping it engaging and interactive to maximize knowledge retention. 

Here are some top tips for training your social media marketing team:

• Create visually engaging and interactive online training videos
• Utilize other interactive training methods too, like memory games, quizzes, and puzzles
• Assign employees to a mentor for 1-on-1 training and development sessions
• Create a centralized online knowledge base packed with valuable content (how-to’s, blog posts, indexes, etc)
• Offer bitesize training modules to help employees retain knowledge
• Most importantly, provide opportunities for them to exercise their new skills

Seek Feedback From Customers

Your customers are invaluable information sources. Their feedback can shed light on areas that your social media marketing team needs to improve on, driving learning and development initiatives in the right direction. 

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There are lots of different ways that you can request feedback from your customers. Follow-up emails, social media, and website surveys are just a few examples. And you can request feedback on pretty much anything you want, from the quality of your YouTube videos or Instagram photos to the consistency of your brand’s voice across your social channels. 

Just make sure to avoid common customer survey mistakes if you want to garner the best results.

If you’re still struggling to obtain customer feedback, there are different ways to tap into what your customers are thinking without asking them directly. 

Reviews left on third-party websites like Google and TrustPilot can be a source of valuable feedback. Try encouraging customers to leave reviews which you can use to accumulate useful information. For example, recurring pain points that come up in reviews may uncover hidden skills gaps or performance gaps within your team.

You can also use social listening tools to monitor what customers are saying about you online.

Review Your Team’s Workload

A heavy workload hinders productivity and is one of the leading causes of performance gaps. But it can exacerbate skills gaps, too. 

Without the means to undertake professional development, employees can quickly fall behind competitors. Remember, 81% of social media marketers struggle to stay on top of social media marketing developments. 

The same study found that 53% of social media marketers claim that it takes over an hour a week to keep on top of the latest marketing trends. 10% say that it requires over two hours of dedication a week.

Put simply—if your team has a heavy workload, keeping up just isn’t possible.

Assess your team’s workloads and, with the assistance of your employees, adjust them to free up time for learning and development. Through this process, you might also realize that you can reallocate resources to maximize skill utilization and reduce skill gaps. 

An employee who excels in paid advertising, for example, should invest more time in utilizing and refining those specific skills. Or, if various team members are tackling campaign management alongside their other duties, it might be wise to hire a dedicated social media marketing manager to unburden these responsibilities. This provides more time for learning and development while also closing a skills gap. 

Consider Hiring Additional Team Members

Sometimes, hiring new team members is absolutely essential. 

For example, it could be that your team completely lacks the necessary experience to fulfill duties in a complex area, like social media analytics. Or, it could be that your team’s workload is so heavy that it’s impossible for employees to leverage all of the necessary skills to their full capability. 

In these scenarios, look into bringing new team members on board. But be careful—a poor hiring process can result in bad hires and a host of other issues. Not only can this widen skills gaps even further, but it can seriously damage your team’s overall productivity. 

So, it’s critical that you precisely identify the skills and experience that you need a new hire to possess. From there, you can create job ads that accurately detail the responsibilities of the role, increasing your chances of attracting high-quality candidates. 
Using talent acquisition software, you can then leverage AI to automate the labor-intensive candidate sorting and screening process. Talent acquisition tools can match and score candidates according to your preset rules, dramatically reducing the time it takes to find the best candidates to interview.

Evaluate Your Team’s Culture

A team culture that is misaligned with your company’s values and objectives can contribute to performance and skills gaps. This is why it’s so important to continuously evaluate your team’s culture, nurturing positive cultural traits and weeding out any negative traits.

Performance monitoring and attendance tracking software can help you identify engagement issues and tackle their underlying cause. Gathering employee feedback via pulse surveys and eNPS surveys can highlight areas for improvement that you may have otherwise missed. And external employee review sites are also a useful way to glean honest, unfiltered insights into your team’s culture.

To effectively close performance and skills gaps within your social marketing team, work on fostering a culture that embraces knowledge-sharing, unity, collaboration, and continuous learning and development.

Key Takeaways

As the latest digital marketing trends, technologies, and platforms continue to emerge at an accelerated rate, knowledge and skills gaps are bound to crop up. It’s vital that you empower your social media marketing team to keep pace with competitors and meet marketing goals by identifying and addressing gaps.

Once you’ve identified gaps through observations and analysis, you can work on closing them the right way. The best ways to tackle gaps in your team include providing continuous training, hiring experienced employees, and adjusting your team’s workload.

The post Are Skill Gaps Holding Back Your Social Media Marketing Team’s Potential? appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

In today’s overcrowded social media world, learning how to create viral short videos is a great idea.

Viral marketing videos spread fast online and get millions of likes, shares, comments, and views.

And that’s not all.

Short-form video is dubbed the most engaging type of in-feed social content by 66% of marketers.

No wonder, 33% of marketers plan to invest more in short-form video content than any other type of social media strategy in 2023.

Granted, short-form video is captivating, engaging, and boosts conversions.

However, learning how to create viral short videos that resonate well with your target audience is never an easy task.

Fret not, we’ll show you how to go about it and win big on social media.

But before that, here are a few things you need to understand.

What Makes a Video Go Viral on Social Media?

Creating viral videos on social media is the dream of every marketer—a powerful way to generate marketing leads.

Generally, videos go viral on social media when they connect with their audience, make them laugh, inform, teach, and persuade them.

Here are a few key elements of viral videos:

• They tell a story
• They aren’t promotional
• They connect with the emotions of your audience 
• They are relevant
• They make people laugh

How to Create Viral Short Videos for Social Media Step by Step

Follow these simple techniques to create short-form videos that generate more views in a shorter period.

1. Understand Your Target Viewers

Knowing your audience, including what they want (or don’t want) is vital when planning to create viral short videos for your social media marketing strategy.

In fact, understanding what resonates with them and motivates them to share your video can help to increase the number of views on your videos.

Start by creating a comprehensive avatar that represents your target audience. It’ll help you identify who your target viewers are, which social media platforms they use, what they do for fun, etc.

Here are some tips to help you:

• Create well-rounded social media personas
• Examine your social media analytics
• Use Google Analytics
• Engage with your audience to understand what video content they’d want to see 
• See the types of viral videos your competitors are creating 
• Analyze data from your customer service tool understand customer preferences and interests

Gathering all this information will help you understand what grabs your viewers’ attention and what video content they are searching for on social media.

Once you have this information, you’ll find it much easier to find viral content ideas.

2. Determine Your Video Marketing Goals

Learning how to create viral short videos for social media isn’t enough for a successful social media video marketing strategy. You also need to determine why you want your videos to go viral.

Even if your videos go viral, if you aren’t achieving anything with them, you’re wasting resources.Here are 5 goals you can accomplish with social media video marketing according to Sprout Social.

Of course, you could have different goals you want to achieve with your viral short videos including:

• Boosting brand awareness
• Increasing revenue and sales
• Sharing knowledge and educating your viewers
• Introducing the latest products
• Boosting customer service and loyalty 
• Increase your online following

Each goal will require you to create specific kinds of short videos for your audience.

Most importantly, your goals should align with your overall business goals.

3. Draft a Creative Video Content Brief

Prepare a thorough video content brief and storyboard. 

It’ll help you pin down the message you want to pass to your audience, the tone and length of your video, as well as the distribution channel. This will help you stay aligned with your goals. 

Here are important elements to include in your video content brief:

• Video title: The topic of your video. For instance, you could share event planning tips to market your event planning and management brand.
• Description: What you want to cover in the video.
• Vital items to include: Include anything specific you need to add to the video.
• Related content: List any related content you intend to include or use as reference for your videos.
• Competitors: The types of video content your competitors are creating that you want to outshine.
• Social media platforms: What channels do you plan to post your videos on—and what version is best for each channel?
• Video format: What video format do you intend to use?
• Keywords: To improve your video rankings on social media, you need to identify what keywords to target.
• Hashtags to include: They help to make your video discoverable by your audience.
• Call to action: What action do you want your audience to take after watching your videos?

4. Create a Compelling Concept

To create viral videos for social media, draft a top-notch, compelling video script to grab your viewers’ attention and ultimately achieve your goals.

You also need to brainstorm compelling content ideas to include in your script.

This will give your video a logical flow.

Remember that your video needs to cover your message in the shortest time possible.

Here are key pointers for creating viral short videos:

• Start with a hook: Grab your audience’s attention with a catchy opening. Here, you can use an interesting fact, joke, or memorable statement.
• Use effective video editing tools: Outstanding video edits are what will grab your audience’s attention. Use powerful video editing tools. Here is a post on video editing software by Attrock.
• Video additions: Include images, emojis, or other components that help to attract viewers.
• Keep the video short and to the point: According to a recent Vidyard Video in Business Benchmark Report, 62% of viewers say they will watch the whole business’ video if it’s less than 60 seconds long.

5. Tell a Story

Stories drive people to take action.

Besides, telling a story in your video is beneficial in many ways including:

• It humanizes your brand
• It makes your audience remember you
• It helps to build a community that resonates with your brand
• Stories sell better

Tell a compelling story in the shortest time possible by finding a universal context for your concept. This is a great starting point to grab attention.

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The good news is that you can come up with your stories and use AI text-to-video generators to transform them into a series of captivating short video clips.

6. Pay Attention to Popular Trends

To create viral short videos for social media marketing, you need to understand what’s trending on the platforms you intend to use.

Remember that in some platforms like TikTok, new trends come up constantly.

To make your video go viral, you need to jump on a trend the moment it comes up. This will make your audience see you as a trendsetter.

Search for trending songs, hashtags, sounds and other elements that appear at the top of your Reels feed, TikTok trends, Twitter trending topics, etc.

Be sure to put your own spin on a trend in your content to remain unique.

Pro tip: Ensure your brand’s social media page has a professional profile picture that showcases your expertise and brand identity. You can use a profile picture maker to create stunning profile photos effortlessly.

Due to the benefits of going viral on social media, every marketer wants to create viral short videos. However, this is not an easy task to accomplish.

While there is no guarantee that your videos will go viral on social media, following these tips and guidelines can increase your chances.

The post 6 Tips on How to Create Viral Short Videos for Social Media appeared first on DigitalMarketer.