Author: Franz Malten Buemann

  • 3 Questions To Ask When Spring Cleaning Your Salesforce Org

    Poor data costs businesses around $700 billion a year, or up to 30% of the average company’s revenue (Salesforce). Conversely, effective data quality leads to better customer experience, more accurate analytics, and an increased return on technology investments, as well as less frustrated and more… Read More

  • 16 Best Out of Office Message Examples to Inspire You + Tips

    Learn how to write great out of office messages and see 16 examples that will inspire you.

  • The smallest viable audience

    It’s a stepping-stone, not a compromise.

    The media and our culture push us to build something for everyone, to sand off the edges and to invest in infrastructure toward scale.

    But it turns out that quality, magic and satisfaction can lie in the other direction. Not because we can’t get bigger, but because we’d rather be better.

    One of the three best restaurants in New York only has 14 seats. With the right fan base and technology, that’s enough to allow the chef to build an experience he can be proud of. Down the street is an extraordinary cafe that pays a tiny fraction of the rent that a midtown neighborhood would require. It’s not about getting found by everyone. A focus on experience creates something that (some) people want to look for.

    Eliot Peper writes books that his fans can’t get enough of. And the long tail of online bookselling lets him do that without having to get a movie deal or a fancy publisher to thrive.

    Junior is able to run a successful appliance repair business without a fancy truck or office, simply by earning a reputation in a very specific lane on a very specific website.

    A focus on the SVA can also enable a business to scale. PSAudio doesn’t reach many people… but the team’s focus is precise enough and deep enough that they’ve built one of the largest and most successful operations in their industry.

    Or chocolates or software or baked goods or …

    The strategy of the smallest viable audience doesn’t let you off the hook–it does the opposite. You don’t get to say, “well, we’ll just wait for the next random person to find us.” Instead, you have to choose your customers–who’s it for and what’s it for. And when you’ve identified them, the opportunity/requirement is to create so much delight and connection that they choose to spread the word to like-minded peers.

    Not everyone, but someone. And it turns out that ‘someone’ isn’t as easy as it sounds. When you strip away the alternative mantra of “you can pick anyone, and we’re anyone,” then you have to lean into the obligation of being the sort of provider that people would miss if you were gone. That’s not easy, but people with this sort of focus wouldn’t have it any other way.

    Specificity is the way. It has nothing to do with absolute scale and everything to do with being really clear about what hook you want to be on and setting a standard for producing work that people connect to and are changed by.

    What could be better?

  • A better business

    An all-in-one software to create your sales channels Do you want your company to do better? Do you want a successful business with many customers and a high monthly profit? Over 10,000 entrepreneurs use this application and are satisfied. https://systeme.io/?sa=sa0036663132f8896ca49a9817eeb061f7303f4040 submitted by /u/Normal-Ad1504 [link] [comments]

  • Auto Add Members to Account Team

    Last Updated on May 21, 2022 by Rakesh Gupta Big Idea or Enduring Question: How can you automatically add specific users to the account team? Once an Account Manager creates a new account, the Manager can add a team member, or multiple team members, to an Account Team. This blog
    The post Auto Add Members to Account Team appeared first on Automation Champion.

  • The department of bad behavior

    What if organizations had a division that simply did the bad stuff? The people who were responsible for creating system updates that slow down old computers, that cover up bad behavior by employees, the people who dump pollution into the river when no one is watching…
    If all the folks who invent dark patterns, lobby in secret, and gaslight whistleblowers all worked in the same department, we could watch them a lot more carefully.
    After all, the lawyers have a department, and so do the customer service people. Couldn’t we have a VP of dirty tricks?
    Alas, mixed incentives and short-term thinking mean that it’s unlikely we’ll ever be able to narrow it down to just a few people…

  • Auto Add Account Team Members to Case Team

    Last Updated on May 20, 2022 by Rakesh Gupta Big Idea or Enduring Question: How can you automatically add account team members to case team?  How nice would it be if Salesforce auto added users (specified account team role) from Account Team to Case Team whenever a case gets created?
    The post Auto Add Account Team Members to Case Team appeared first on Automation Champion.

  • Is a 4-day week the future of work? An interview with Charlotte Lockhart

    What would you do if you had one day off each week? Would this make you more productive, healthier, and focused on things you want to do for your career, your family, or your side business? In the latest episode of CX Lore™, we talked with Charlotte Lockhart, a founder and managing director at the…
    The post Is a 4-day week the future of work? An interview with Charlotte Lockhart appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

  • 7 Email Cadence Best Practices for Better Email Marketing Campaigns

    There’s much more to email campaigns than drafting up some copy and hitting send.
    One of the most crucial components is email cadence: the pulse, pace, and playbook of a successful email campaign. In other words, if you can get the right emails to the right customers at the right time, you can get a lot of mileage out of your email marketing efforts.

    Let’s take a deeper dive into what an email cadence is and establish the fundamental principles of structuring a successful one.
    The success of an email campaign can hinge upon the effectiveness of its cadence.
    If your cadence is too intrusive, obnoxious, or directionless, you can lose out on opportunities to guide leads through their buyers’ journeys. If potential customers feel pestered or confused by constant, irrelevant newsletters and promotions, they probably won’t stick around to hear what you have to say.
    Email Marketing Frequency
    In a recent HubSpot Blogs survey of 300 marketers, a whopping 95% reported their email marketing strategy was effective in 2021. Let’s take a look at where (and when) they’re finding success.

    When it comes to frequency, here are a few stats to know:

    Emails sent on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday get the most engagement.
    Marketing emails sent from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Tuesday garner the most engagement, followed by Monday and Wednesday at the same time.
    The weekend is a dead zone for engagement — Friday, Saturday, and Sunday have the lowest open and click-through rates.

    Another study by Databox found that 33% of marketers send weekly emails, while 26% send emails “multiple times per month.” In addition, 63% said they adjust their send frequency for less engaged subscribers.
    Of course, some marketers send emails more than once a week, while others send less. As you’ll see later, the “right” email frequency is not an exact formula. Instead, it depends on your business and audience.
    Here are some best practices to employ to ensure your next campaign’s email cadence is the best it can be.
    1. Understand your goals.
    What do you want out of your email cadence? You need to understand where you’re trying to lead your prospects and customers. Are you looking to improve traffic to your blog? Drive e-commerce sales? Schedule meetings? Close deals?
    An email cadence guides buyers from point A to point B. You can’t do that if you have no idea what “point B” is. Your ultimate goal will dictate the strategy behind your cadence. If you’re trying to do something like increase traffic to your blog, you can stand to lose more subscribers than you would if you were trying to court a group of sales leads into scheduling demos.
    If you’re sending emails purely for the sake of sending emails, your cadence will be aimless and haphazard. Plus, you’ll waste a lot of time and resources on email campaigns that go nowhere.
    2. Try to understand each customer’s mindset.
    The whole point of having an email cadence is to hone in on messaging that will resonate most with a specific customer at a given point in time. That means one-size-fits-all, “throw everything at everyone,” impersonal emails won’t cut it. You need to send your recipients something relevant to who they are as a customer. That often means understanding where they are in their buyer’s journey.
    The buyer’s journey is the process buyers go through to become aware of, evaluate, and ultimately decide to purchase a new product or service. It’s divided into three stages: Awareness, Consideration, and Decision.
    You can’t expect to target buyers in all three stages with the same message and have it immediately register with them across the board. Different stages — and engagement levels within those stages — warrant different messages.
    Additionally, through the wonders of automation, coordinating this kind of strategy is possible. Several kinds of email and marketing automation software allow you to set up the proper infrastructure to tailor email content and timing to suit different leads’ behavior and interests.
    3. Personalize when you can.
    Think back on all the targeted emails companies have sent you over the years. How inclined have you been to click through ones addressed to “valued customer,” or “to whom it may concern?” I don’t think it’s outrageous to assume the answer is “not often.”
    Why would your customers be any different? A successful cadence relies on your leads clicking through your emails and progressing through their buyer’s journey. If you’re sending impersonal mass-email blasts, crossing your fingers, and hoping for the best, your prospects may wind up suspended in buyer’s limbo.
    Fortunately, there’s a variety of email software that allows you to personalize your subject lines and email content to cater to specific leads.
    4. Don’t be too shy.
    When planning an email cadence, you shouldn’t err too much on the side of “I don’t want to bother you.” It’s easy to get anxiety about losing leads by coming off as obnoxious or intrusive, but you have to understand there’s a difference between being pushy and professionally persistent.
    You’re missing out on sales opportunities if you’re not consistently sending out emails. A big part of email marketing is keeping your prospects and customers engaged. You might become an afterthought if a lead only gets an email from you once every two months.
    Email cadences are a matter of strategically striking while the iron’s hot. You can’t do that if you’re too reluctant to strike at all.
    5. Don’t be too aggressive.
    Even though you shouldn’t be too passive, you don’t want to be overly aggressive. There’s a movie from the 80’s called Say Anything. It has an iconic scene where the main character stands outside his love interest’s window and serenades her by blaring a song called “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel from a boombox he’s holding over his head. She swoons over it, and they ride off into the sunset together on a lawnmower ( … for some reason).
    It’s romantic and compelling. But, if he did that twice a day, every day — playing similar, anthemic 80’s rock songs on her front lawn — she’d be over it pretty quickly. He’d have to take his lawnmower and Peter Gabriel cassettes somewhere else.
    That’s essentially what sending emails too frequently in your cadence is like. If your leads receive obtrusive, daily reminders and promotions from you, they’ll unsubscribe from your mailing list.
    6. Hone in on the right frequency for your business.
    There’s no magic figure when it comes to email frequency. It’s going to vary from business to business. It may take some time to get the right feel for how often you should be sending your emails.
    Studying your industry averages for email frequency can provide a solid place to start. A prominent fashion brand routinely sending out new promotions and coupons probably isn’t going to have the same email frequency as a midsize B2B SaaS company looking to set meetings with decision-makers.
    Email frequency isn’t an exact science. It’s probably going to take some trial-and-error before you find one that best fits both your business and customers’ interests.
    7. Give your subscribers autonomy.
    Always give your subscribers the option to control their own email frequency. Giving them this kind of autonomy can keep them from unsubscribing from your mailing list outright if your email frequency seems like a bit too much for them. Include a link to allow them to update their email preferences as they see fit at the end of your emails.
    Customers don’t always approach email frequencies in absolutes. Even if they’re overwhelmed by how many emails you’re sending them, they still might want to keep hearing from you. Give them the freedom to pump the brakes. If they don’t have the flexibility to do that, they’ll probably just cut you off.
    You should always be putting the customer first. Their personal interests take precedence over what you might believe to be your preferred email cadence.
    Back to You
    Finding your ideal email cadence might not happen with your first series of automated emails. Still, there are certain actions you can take to take to put yourself in the best position to find the one that works best for your business.
    Your main priority should always be your prospects and customers’ interests. Try to understand where they’re coming from, where they stand in terms of buying your product or service, and what they might want out of you and your business, and cater your email cadence around that.