Author: Franz Malten Buemann

Calling all marketing/analytics experts: What’s your tool stack for marketing, user journey, analytics, & customer support / CRM etc? We’re a small online subscription biz based on WordPress; looking to upgrade our stack to a more robust / connected system. Main factors: Connectedness(integrations), Simplicity, and Cost. So, this is the stack I’m considering: Klaviyo (Email, SMS, CRM) Google Tag Manager (Tracking) Google Analytics 4 (Storage) Google Data Studio (Reports) GetEmails.com (Email & Attribution) DeadlineFunnel (Evergreen Funnels) Hotjar (Heatmap / CRO) Zapier (bc idk why yet) HelpScout (Cust. Supt) ManyChat (FB msgr) Agorapulse (Social Media management) What about y’all? What have you found to work well and also play nicely together? Klaviyo caught my eye bc of their emphasis on their integration ecosystem with our other tools: Stripe, ViralSweep Giveaways, ManyChat, HelpScout, WordPress, Google Drive, AWS. Your expertise, experience, and current tools would be mighty helpful y’all 🙂 P.S. – still wishing for a dashboard that connects email/sms marketing, customer support, & social media. (i.e. Mailchimp, Intercom, and Hootsuite) or (i.e. Klaviyo, HelpScout, and AgoraPulse) etc. submitted by /u/spyrangerx [link] [comments]

Last Updated on May 31, 2022 by Rakesh Gupta One of the best parts of Salesforce is its out-of-the-box features that can be easily tailored to meet the specific needs of your business. But while it may be easy to update a new sales process or create a custom layer
The post Salesforce Smart Testing Best Practices with Panaya Foresight appeared first on Automation Champion.

When I first started my leadership communications company Pencil or Ink, I knew growth was key. Revenue growth to support myself, client-list growth to gain more credibility, and headcount growth—because I assumed a small business grew by becoming a large one.Fast forward three years. I had a long client list, healthy revenue, and a new employee. Outwardly, I had achieved growth. Internally, I had achieved a major crisis. Growing by hiring meant investing a lot of time and money in developing my new colleague instead of doing the work I was best at. Growing my client list might have meant more revenue, but my profits (and free time) were dwindling to zero.If this was growth, I wasn’t sure it was for me.Ultimately, I realized that some of the assumptions I was making about growth simply aren’t true for every business. Here are some of those myths I once believed, and how I’ve since redefined growth to create a truly successful business on my own terms.Myths I Believed About GrowthLooking back (what’s that expression about hindsight?), there were several ideas I had about growth that led me down this path.Myth #1: Growth Requires Saying Yes to EverythingEarly on, I said yes to every piece of work, even if it was only tangentially related to what I wanted to be doing. I also said yes when clients reached out asking if I could offer multiple coaches or concurrent workshops, services I hadn’t previously offered.It felt good. “People seem to value what I do!”, I told myself. I also thought those bird-in-hand projects spelled GROWTH. And revenue was flowing, though I was sloppy about pricing and often charged too little. But I was playing a game of hours. Mine were filled, which initially seemed like a win, but a win it was not, particularly at the rates I was charging. I realized that, by saying yes to everything, I was effectively saying no to better opportunities, as well as to the work-life balance I set out to attain. I was also trying to compete with larger companies I simply could not compete with—for projects I didn’t necessarily want in the first place. Saying yes to everything seemed like a growth move, but I soon found myself with less and less time to spend on the work I loved doing most.Myth #2: Growth Means Hiring Instead of Doing the Work YourselfI hired someone to fill a role that I thought would help grow the business, but it actually shrunk it. I poured hours into coaching the person to do the type of client-facing work I did. Hours turned to weeks, weeks turned to months. As a result, I had even less time to work with clients myself.Our margin narrowed. “Things will improve,” I told myself. Our margin disappeared, “Soon this will be a net gain for the business,” I said. I stopped paying myself. “Hmm,” I said.The cashflow challenges were hard. But perhaps most significantly, I had lost what I loved about running my small business: relative autonomy, a sense of purpose, and the enjoyment that comes from loving what I do.I still thrived on every minute of client work, but my headspace was no longer my own. It was devoted to developing a colleague, reassuring clients, and fearing for the future of a business I had worked hard to build. Clients wanted to work with me, not someone with less experience and an altogether different approach. It’s not that hiring can never be a good growth strategy. But, looking back, I could have focused on clients, considered the broader strategy, and hired an assistant to free me up to do more of these two things.Myth #3: Growth Means Never Turning BackSince I had made a splash about growing, I suspected any sign of my business “un-growing” might reflect poorly on the team and on my leadership. It was uncomfortable to give voice to these challenges. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had failed, but I procrastinated on doing anything about it. When I finally found the courage to speak up, though, my advisors and clients were supportive and aligned: It was time to make a change and rebuild the business from the ground up. And more than a few pointed out something I have no trouble seeing in others but couldn’t see in myself: that sticking with a bad situation to save face is always worse than just dealing with it head on.What I Now Understand About GrowthAfter making the painful and overdue decision to let the employee go, things improved. Almost overnight. In the three wild years since then, here are the new beliefs about growth I’ve adopted.Growth Isn’t Measured by the Number of Projects or EmployeesInstead of hiring again, I shifted my business from an agency model to a consultancy. A one-woman operation with a part-time contracted administrative assistant.I also made a commitment to stop saying yes to everything and start refining what I would take on: leadership coaching, team workshops, and offsite facilitations. Anything else, I refer out. In doing so, I have ensured that my approach and expertise are perfect for the task, that clients know exactly how I can support them, and that I am fully invested in every client engagement—to mutual benefit. Rather than equipping someone else to do what I love, now I get to do it myself and delegate the distractions. Since then, I have grown both revenue and profit exponentially, and I’m bringing home three times what I made in my last job. The irony isn’t lost on me: Precisely what I thought would make the business shrink is what made it grow. Reducing headcount was the first step on this high-growth trajectory: growth in impact, revenue, and client satisfaction.I’ve also grown my time. Since making these changes and charting my own course, I’ve got some to “spare.” (In quotation marks, as it’s happily filled with family, teaching part-time, serving on a few boards, and a pandemic-born running habit.)Growth Can Be About Doing Purposeful Work, Not All the WorkHaving regained time and headspace, I was freed up to figure out purpose and strategy. If it wasn’t “growth,” what was it?  I had a light-bulb moment: When approached to provide coaching, workshops, or facilitations, I always asked why. A trend emerged: Companies aren’t looking for a coach. They’re not even looking for a facilitator. They are looking to improve their cultures. To address the human side of their strategy. Coaching and facilitation are just the means. I realized that my work wasn’t about providing a suite of specific services; it was helping organizations address their cultures to deliver on their strategies. With this purpose as a guide, I have been able to hone how I do it, providing tailored approaches for each organization. For one client, it might be a company-wide culture analysis and targeted workshops. For another, it might be one-on-one coaching for influential leaders. I’ve even been paid to write about workplace culture and interviewed by the New York Times about office communication. Today, all of my business is either referrals or previous clients. And notably, few of the latter are from the era in which I had an employee and said yes to everything—rather, they’re almost all from the periods in which I’ve been laser focused on my purpose and doing what I believe I do best. Rather than acting as an occasional coach or facilitator for organizations, I am a partner who connects the dots among people, culture, and strategy. Reframing my services has helped me create both a purposeful business and a sustainable one.Growth Doesn’t Have to Look Like Everyone Else’sIn launching a business like Pencil or Ink, it was tempting to invest in a coaching accreditation. “All the other coaches have them,” I reasoned, “And it’s a shortcut to credibility.” But having been trained in-house as a coach at a previous employer and having racked up hundreds of hours of experience at leading companies, I wasn’t sure this was the right path for me. This was born out when a long-term client said, “You are not ‘all the other coaches’, Ellie.” Today, with the benefit of hindsight, I know she was right: Clients don’t hire me because they want any coach, facilitator, or consultant, they hire me because they want someone who understands culture and strategy, has a track record of success, and who brings their whole self to the task.So instead of looking around to what everyone else is doing, I started looking into the professional development opportunities that were right for me. I ended up studying Organizational Leadership at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, thus deepening my understanding of the challenges leaders face, gaining a mastery of strategy, and expanding my cultural toolkit. The education gained in the classroom and out has been life-changing. But there has been a coda I could never have predicted: the business school recently approached me to teach strategy and innovation part-time, alongside my role at Pencil or Ink. This was beyond my wildest dreams when I first launched the business amid the fog of postpartum depression, let alone when I was struggling with scale.By saying no to some opportunities, refining my purpose, and focusing on impact, I’ve built something I am proud of. And if this is growth, I’m just getting started.

Sending whatsapp message while present on browser is tedious. Stormy is an extension that allows you to send whatsapp message without saving contact. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stormy-send-message-witho/ofemdidpfidcildnbofhobedhabifaec?hl=en&authuser=1 submitted by /u/raxrb [link] [comments]

I run an e-commerce business and we sell on the website and on Amazon. On the website is pretty simple to see assisted conversions, but is there a way to see it on Amazon? How can I see if someone clicked on a FB ad and then go to Amazon to buy the product (even if the link is for the website)? Is there any platform that could run multi-channel campaigns (even Amazon campaigns) so we can measure indirect conversions? submitted by /u/FlyingPinkIcecream [link] [comments]

Social media marketing isn’t easy, and it’s even more challenging for introverts.

Up to 50 percent of people consider themselves introverts. Sometimes considered antisocial, the truth is that many introverts enjoy social activities but find them exhausting — where an extrovert might gain energy from being in a big crowd, introverts need time to recover and recharge.

For introverted entrepreneurs and small business owners, this poses a challenge: With social media a key component in brand building, how do they manage the demands of social interaction with the need to take care of their own mental health?
In this piece, we’ll offer eight easy tips to help improve your social media marketing (without losing your sanity) and four great apps to help you get the job done.
Social Media Tips for Introverts
1. Create a social calendar.
It’s easy for introverts to get overwhelmed with the sheer number of social posts, replies, and activities required to build a personal or business brand. But given that these connections are critical to boost your public profile and help drive new career opportunities, they can’t be ignored.
Best bet? Start by creating a social calendar that maps out what you’re going to post, where, and when to help make sense of social media efforts. Using a calendar also gives you more opportunity to be socially spontaneous if you’ve got the energy, since your posts are already penciled into your calendar.
Not sure where to get started? Check out HubSpot’s Social Media Content Calendar Template.
2. Pick and choose your people.
The great thing about social media is how it offers connections to so many people — and the terrible thing about social media is that it offers connections to so many people.
This is the case for many introverts; what starts as a great way to connect turns into a continual avalanche of opinions and ideas that’s hard to navigate and even harder to manage. As a result, it’s worth regularly assessing your social media feeds and curating who you follow. While you don’t want to create an echo chamber that cuts off your ability to build brands outside narrow circles, there’s nothing wrong with being choosy about who you follow and why.
3. Schedule social posts.
Despite best efforts, you’ll still get overwhelmed from time to time. That’s OK — and it’s important to take a break and recharge your batteries. The challenge? While introverts are resting up, they’re often still worried about what they’re missing on social media.
To help solve this problem, opt for an app that lets you schedule social posts at the time of your choosing. That way, you can confidently take breaks knowing that you’re still delivering content.
4. Find a matching platform.
Facebook is great for larger conversations, LinkedIn works well to connect with specific people, Twitter offers space for quick-fire interactions, and Instagram is all about images.
Chances are, you have a preference: Maybe you like the quieter atmosphere of LinkedIn, or maybe posting pictures makes it easier to feel connected with your audience. While it’s important to keep your social avenues open, there’s nothing wrong with investing more time in the platform that best suits your style, since you’ll be more productive over time.
5. Curate your content.
Not everything needs to be posted on social media. While sharing details about yourself and your life can help grow a social following and in turn bolster your business efforts, you need to draw a line between personal and professional posting.
In practice, this means deciding what content you post and what you keep private. There’s no right answer here — the key is setting boundaries that work for you so that you feel comfortable about what you’re sharing and secure in what you keep to yourself.
6. Track your social media metrics.
Social media metrics help you see what’s working and what isn’t, and come with the benefit of letting you take a break from people. Rather than reaching out to see why connections haven’t engaged with your brand or aren’t viewing your content, leverage data tracking and analytics tools to see where you’re losing interest. These metrics help you build out a better strategy and let you do it in peace and quiet.
7. Opt for one-on-one interactions.
Introverts are often incredibly engaging and social — when it comes to one-on-one interactions. Consider a party with hundreds of people all having a good time. Many introverts will seek out a single individual or small group and set up camp, rather than trying to mingle.
This approach also works for social media. As people make comments on your posts, consider reaching out with a direct message to strike up a conversation. These one-on-one conversations can let you shine socially without the need to navigate multiple interactions simultaneously.
8. Hire help as needed.
If social media marketing simply isn’t in your wheelhouse, consider hiring help. The complex and evolving nature of social platforms has created a market for social specialists capable of directly targeting your key audience segments and curating your social calendar. In much the same way that you might hire an accountant to manage your business finances, you can now tap social media expertise to streamline the process.
Best Social Media Apps for Introverts
1. Google Analytics

When it comes to metrics, you can’t go wrong with Google Analytics. The app lets you track which of your posts have been shared and on which platform, in turn helping you develop a more focused social media strategy.
You can also use Google Analytics to identify potential weak points in your current efforts. Are there certain platforms where you’re not reaching engagement goals? Are specific post types outperforming others? This data sets the stage for better interactions.
2. Buffer
Buffer lets you easily evaluate social media performance, schedule posts, and respond to comments ASAP.
With just a few clicks, you can schedule posts on the platform you prefer at the time of your choosing, freeing up your time to create new campaigns or build new content. Using labels and hotkeys, meanwhile, you can quickly pinpoint comments on your posts that need immediate attention so you don’t miss a customer concern or a new connection opportunity.
3. Adobe Creative Cloud Express
Formerly Adobe Spark, Creative Cloud Express provides the power of pictures with thousands of pre-built content templates. Easily make standout graphics, logos, and photo collages to showcase your brand or highlight your mission, and then posts these images on the platform of your choice.
Available for iOS, Android, and for desktops, you get full access to the app for 14 days for free — after that, you’ll need a Creative Cloud subscription.
5. REP
Love the impact of influencer marketing, but don’t like the idea of cold-calling influencers to work with you? REP has you covered. This influencer marketplace lets you post job opportunities, connect with potential influencers, and negotiate terms, all from the app.
It’s a great choice for introverts who want to leverage the power of social media but want to keep the number of uncomfortable interactions to a minimum.
Solving for Social Media Marketing Stress
There’s no way around it: Introverts will always find social media stressful. But it’s still a powerful tool in your arsenal, and with the right approach, it’s possible to strike a balance between building a public presence and protecting your private life.
Best bet? Prioritize where and what you want to post, and make sure to take regular breaks. Push yourself to do better, but recognize that introversion isn’t a problem to solve but rather a different approach that lets you cultivate more direct and in-depth, one-on-one connections.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in April 2009 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

When we build a brand, we build an experience that reflects a purpose. Visual identity is a huge part of this brand experience. Colors, graphics, and fonts turn brand concepts into visual identities that can be recognized.
Once a brand is established, it needs to become a recognizable identity that the external world can perceive. This recognition comes with consistency, and achieving that consistency requires a strong visual identity system.

To create a visual identity system, you need all the visual elements that the brand has. The visual identity system’s basics are a strong brand guide and its implementation tasks. The ultimate goal of this system is to turn all the brand assets into principles that all the content team can follow to make sure that the online presence is aligned with the original brand concept.
Visual Identity System Benefits
A visual identity system is a way to make things easier, help people achieve a manageable and effective workload, and avoid mistakes. These mistakes can take place when there is no clear guidance about how to achieve excellent work results.
Putting systems in place turns complex processes into easy-to-understand steps that increase efficiency.
An effective visual identity system will help an organization:

Improve the outcome of their content creation process.
Avoid mistakes related to misunderstanding what the brand entails.
Make collaboration between teams easy.
Create complex strategies with a strong foundation that can help implement them.

How To Create a Visual Identity System
Step 1: Develop the Brand Identity
A visual identity system starts with what we know as the brand image. This includes the logo, fonts, and brand colors. Ideally, you’ll have these in a brand guide already, but if you don’t you should develop them in this step.
Step 2: Create a Mood Board
Mood boards are similar to visual identity systems in the sense that they depict far more than a logo and color scheme. Mood boards go a step further in displaying photographs, video, and even audio or scents to get a well-rounded feel for a brand.
Mood boards are curated content (i.e. not developed in house at a company or organization) and are not public. They’re strictly helpful in gaining inspiration and feedback from stakeholders about what the official visual identity system might look like once it’s finished.
Step 3: Get Feedback
Sounds simple enough, right? But this can be a step in the process that you revisit several times before settling on the perfect draft of your visual identity system.
Rather than creating proprietary content for your visual identity system every time you get new feedback, use your modo board from the step above to relay your vision. Once you get buy-in, you’re ready to put together your own visual identity system.
Step 4: Include Guidelines
In order for a visual identity system to work well, it’s important to include guidelines for using each element. These guidelines answer specific questions “How do designers create new content without breaking the consistency?” and “How does a website developer understand what the website should look like?”
There are, for example, types of content where a logo is not the best option to add, so designers can opt for a word mark or simplified logo instead.
It’s important to be very specific and particular with the guidelines so that there is little confusion and designers can develop discernment about best practices for using the visual identity system.
Once you have them in place, it’s time to add guidelines for each element. There are several ways you can structure this, but here are a couple of common ones:

Dedicate a page to each element and include guidelines on the same page as the element.
Include your brand guide at the beginning of the visual identity system document and add guidelines toward the end.
Add an FAQ sheet explaining the guidelines for each element.
Add samples of do’s and don’ts so the team sees real-world examples of the guidelines in action.

Visual Identity System Basics
If you want to build your visual identity system to make your brand stand out from the crowd, here are some best practices that can help you avoid common mistakes and achieve great results.
Know your message.
Know your message, purpose, and how you want to talk to your audience. Visual identity system basics need a strong foundation to succeed. Think about those values you want to share and the misconceptions you want to avoid at all costs. Create a schedule that prioritizes your main goals and allows you to create results aligned with your values.
Knowing what you want to communicate will help you build a message that is not only profitable but also aligns with your values.
Have a strong theoretical background.
Do you know that psychology studies the foundations of the relationship between colors and feelings? Have you noticed that a message can be read as scary or romantic based on your font? If you have this information, you can shape how people visually perceive your brand.
Psychology tells us a lot about colors and how they can affect people’s perception of our brands. If you don’t know much about this, maybe it is time for you to start diving into some research work.
Create an effective system.
Create an effective but scalable system so it can be upgraded based on your brand and business needs. The main goal of any system is to make things easier. That should be on top of every requirement that comes along the way.
Visual identity system examples are successful if they show the potential to scale without losing their efficiency.
Be specific.
Be as specific as possible, as this will make you avoid mistakes and the unnecessary back and forth between team members. Choosing details like the stock photos that suit the brand can make the difference.
Making things clear can be incredibly helpful for new team members who don’t have the brand background needed to understand the virtual identity system basics by themselves.
Create an Amazing Visual Identity System
Building a system is a concept that sounds more technical and specialized, which makes it hard to start. But, the truth is, even if you have just a bunch of tasks together, you’re already building the first steps towards your system creation. You’re close to the goal.
Systems can make everything easier, even if you start small with many questions. You will learn the details along the way.
Have you created a strong visual identity system? If you haven’t, today is the day to start.

All customers have different communication preferences regarding the brands they like. Some may want to call a company to learn more about what it offers, while others may initiate a conversation with a chatbot. 
As your goal is to create a customer experience that speaks to customer needs, you want to know which channels they prefer. 
Read on to discover new HubSpot Blog insight about customer communication preferences with their favorite businesses. 
Customer Communication Preference Statistics
How Customers Prefer to Learn About Products
A HubSpot Blog survey asked respondents how they prefer to interact with companies when looking for information about a product or service. 
46% said they prefer to review its content (videos, commercials, blog posts, images, etc.), 15% follow or visit its social media accounts, and 9% go to the company’s physical store and read reviews on review sites or social media pages. 

Data Source
1. Reviewing Content
Audiences overwhelmingly prefer to review the content your business puts out, so it’s essential to speak to this desire in your marketing strategy by creating the useful content your audiences are looking for. 
With this tip, it’s important to also be aware of the channels your audiences use the most so you can meet them on their preferred mediums. For example, Gen Z spends most of their time on YouTube, and 47% research products they’re interested in on the platform, followed by Instagram, Snapchat, then TikTok. 
2. Social Media
When it comes to social media, 56% of consumers are influenced by posts shared by friends and family for sourcing ideas. In addition, 54% of Gen Z shoppers and 58% of millennials agree that social platforms are better than online searches for finding new products. 
3. Reading Reviews
When it comes to reading reviews, a 2021 Stackla report found that UGC, which reviews are a type of, is 8.7 times more impactful than influencer content and 6.6 times more than branded content. 56% of people have also reported leaving an eCommerce store without purchasing because the site didn’t contain any customer reviews or photos. 
How Customers Prefer to Communicate with a Company
When reaching out to a company online, survey respondents preferred to message a human representative from your business (45%). 

Data Source
This is a crucial statistic to be aware of considering the rise of chatbots. While the AI-powered tool is undoubtedly helpful, customers are letting us know that they don’t want you to shift your entire messaging strategy to revolve around an automated tool.
However, the second-highest preference is for a mix of chatbots and human representatives. So, even though customers want to talk to a person, you can combine both tools in your strategy. When you leverage a mix of the two, aim to have bots complement the human experience. For example, a bot can initiate a conversation and collect information to transfer the customer to an agent most equipped to provide a solution. 
Customers are also okay with simply using chatbots for routine and simple tasks, like order tracking, checking status or balance, or changing an order. 

Image Source
Looking Ahead
As a business, it’s important to match the ways you sell with the ways people want to buy. Leverage the insight from this HubSpot Blog survey to ensure you’re speaking to current customer desires and meeting them on their preferred channels.