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  • 6 Ways to Support Black-Owned Businesses During the Holidays

    2020 has presented unprecedented challenges for businesses. COVID-19 has forced most to pivot their strategies online and adapt to a growing digital landscape. While some have been able to stay afloat, others haven’t been as successful and many have had to close their doors permanently as a result.
    Black-owned businesses have been disproportionately impacted by the global pandemic. In the United States, 26% of Black-owned businesses closed their doors permanently between February and May of 2020, compared to 11% of white-owned businesses.
    That’s why, this holiday season, HubSpot is joining Google, the U.S. Black Chambers, Inc., and other companies participating in Black-owned Fridays — an initiative to drive visibility and support for Black-owned businesses.
    I spoke with Gianne Doherty, Founder of Organic Bath Co., to learn more about what businesses, and consumers, can do to support Black-owned businesses during this holiday season. Below are a few thoughts she offered during our conversation.
    How to Support Black-Owned Businesses
    1. Tell someone about a business or product.
    Doherty started by saying that the simplest way to support Black-owned businesses during the holiday season is to tell people about their products. When you buy something cool or get a good deal, tell a friend. Online customer reviews are great, but a one-on-one interaction is usually the best way to convince someone to check out a business or product you love.
    If you don’t know of any Black-owned businesses in your area, Doherty recommends heading to Google and doing a quick search. There are plenty of resources that can direct you to a Black-owned business in your area — one of which is the Official Black Wall Street Directory.
    She also proposed searching social media sites to find Black-owned businesses online. For instance, if you search “#BlackOwnedBusiness” on Twitter, you can find plenty of accounts managed by Black business owners — liking, reposting, and sharing their content is also a great way to support these businesses.

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    2. Refer customers to Black-owned businesses.
    Word-of-mouth marketing is incredibly important for small businesses, especially if you’re operating in a B2B setting. Doherty noted that customer referrals make a huge impact on buying decisions, because customers will trust each other’s recommendations more than they’ll trust your brand’s advertisements. If you have the opportunity this holiday season, refer a Black-owned business to your customers or peers and help promote their brand.
    Doherty also emphasized the importance of focusing on the value of the products and services you’re referring — and not just the fact that they’re Black-owned. After all, “shopping Black or shopping small doesn’t mean lower quality,” as she put it. When making a referral, Doherty encouraged people to highlight the benefits of the product or service along with the fact that they have been created by individuals who have been historically underfunded.
    3. Shop early during the holidays.
    The holidays are already a busy time for small businesses, and COVID-19 has made it even more difficult to keep pace with customer demand. In the United States, 99% of minority-owned businesses are small businesses, which means that many don’t have their own shipping operations like Amazon or Walmart.
    Most small businesses in the United States use the United States Postal Service (USPS) when shipping their products, which can lead to delays as orders pile up around the holidays. Doherty recommends that customers try to buy their products early in the holiday season to avoid any potential problems that might occur with shipping.
    4. Be patient with small businesses.
    Alongside shopping early, Doherty also noted that customers will need to be a little more patient with small businesses this year. The holidays are already busy as it is and now, with COVID-19, many businesses are still learning how to adapt their marketing, sales, and customer service strategies. There are likely to be some new roadblocks to tackle this year, and customers need to be patient with small businesses as they work to overcome those challenges.
    Black-owned businesses have already saw an increase in customer demand this year when searches for Black-owned businesses increased by over 7,000% between May and July. Unfortunately, this growth has declined since, creating a greater need for buyers to support Black-owned businesses during the holidays. While it’s wonderful to see a sudden spark of interest over the summer, Doherty encouraged buyers to continually support Black-owned businesses year-round and not just when it’s trendy.
    5. Partner with Black-owned companies.
    If you’re a business owner, one way you can partner with black-owned businesses is on promotional campaigns. Doherty, for example, has been partnering with other Black-owned businesses to hold giveaways. She’ll give away another brand’s product while that brand will give away one of hers. This is a great way for each company to raise awareness for the other among their customer bases.
    Here’s one example from her company’s Instagram page, where she partnered with two other Black-owned beauty brands to give away products.

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    6. Buy from Black-owned businesses.
    At the end of the day, the best way to support Black-owned businesses is to buy their products. Doherty said, “We’re voting with our dollars.” The businesses where we spend our money will be the ones that grow and thrive. If we don’t consciously shop at Black-owned businesses, we will continue to lose them at a disproportionate rate. If you really want to support Black-owned businesses this year, go out and purchase one of their products and tell a friend about them, too.
    These are just a few of the ideas that Gianne Doherty wanted to share for Black-owned Friday. We hope it brings some attention to Black-owned businesses, especially those that have been significantly impacted by COVID-19.
    If you’re a Black business owner and are looking for ways to optimize your visibility this season, below are a few resources from Google that can help you reach new customers.
    How to Get Support If You’re a Black Business Owner
    Here are three things that Google recommends doing if you’re a Black business owner.

    Add your business to the U.S. Black Chambers, Inc.’s ByBlack directory. You can add your listing and become a part of the community for free.
    Highlight that your business is Black-owned on your Business Profile on Google. By adding the Black-owned attribute, you’ll stand out to customers looking for your business on Google Search and Maps. Here’s how to get started.

    Get free coaching to help your business reach new customers, thrive online, and grow. Grow with Google Digital coaches provided dedicated support for Black and Latinx small businesses.

     

  • Contradictory answers to obvious questions

    That’s how you know that they’re not obvious.
    When smart, committed people disagree about the answer to a question, you’ve found a question worth pursuing and a discussion worth having.

  • CX is a label, it’s not a struggle.

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  • Getting Started with Lightning Flow – Part 24 (Automatically Assign Permission Sets to New User)

    Last Updated on November 27, 2020 by Rakesh GuptaTo understand how to solve the same business use case using Process Builder and Lightning Flow. Check out this article Getting Started with Process Builder – Part 78 (Auto Enable Lightning Experience … Continue reading →

  • The Secret Behind ROI on CX: Harnessing the Power of Data

    Did you know that the average organisation analyses just 2 per cent of all customer interactions and it’s mostly for random checks? It’s become common knowledge that acquiring a new customer costs 25 times more than keeping an existing one. Yet, companies are still not utilising the data that’s provided by existing customers to calculate…
    The post The Secret Behind ROI on CX: Harnessing the Power of Data appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

  • The Comprehensive Guide to Impression Shares

    Online advertising is booming.
    But, when you’re launching digital campaigns, you want to be sure you’re maximizing your efforts — and your profits — by boosting your ad’s impression share. Your impression share tells you how well your ad is performing compared to its total potential audience, and boosting it can help increase engagement as well as profit. 
    If you’re only engaging a small portion of your target audience, then analyzing your impression share is usually a good place to start. Increasing this value will help you propel ads to the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) — and ultimately generate more engagement for your campaigns.
    In this post, we’ll explain what impression share is as well as the different types that your marketing team can track during your online ad campaigns.
    Each time your ad is displayed on a webpage, that’s counted as an impression. Ads have the potential for more impressions for different reasons, especially when they’re keyword-savvy, attractive, and relevant.
    When you track impression share, you have a clear representation of how well your ad is performing and how you can improve it over time — particularly through keywords. While there are plenty of metrics that can track how well your ads are doing, impression share helps you identify the shortcomings of your ad so you can fix it and make it more engaging to your audience.
    Read on to learn about the different types of impression share that your business can track to generate more engagement for its ad campaigns.
    Types of Impression Share
    Search Impression Share
    Search impression share is your ad’s impression share on a search network. According to Google, a search network is “a group of search-related websites where your ads can appear,” including Google search results, Google apps such as Maps and Shopping, and on Google search partners’ websites. This metric divides the impressions that your ad receives by the number of impressions it could receive on the search network.
    This metric is greatly impacted by budget. If you have a low daily budget on Google, your ad will no longer be shown once you hit your budget. This means your ad might be getting impressions, but it’s still missing out on more engagement because of this daily limit.
    If you’re not looking to spend more on your campaign, another way to improve search impression share is to focus on the quality score, target, bid, and conversion rate of your ads. These metrics gauge the effectiveness of your ad and improving them will lead to more engagement.
    Display Impression Share
    Google defines its Display Network as a group of over two million websites, videos, and apps where ads can appear. Display Network sites reach up to 90% of internet users and can show your ads in a particular context, or to a specific audience.
    With display campaigns, you can increase your ad placements to improve impression share, but you’ll need to adjust your budget to accommodate this increase as well. Or, you can decrease your number of placements to make your campaign more cost-effective, but this will reduce the frequency of your ad’s display. The best approach is testing the number of placements until you’ve reached a point where you’ve optimized impression share without going over your campaign’s budget.
    Target Impression Share
    Target impression share provides an automatic approach to bidding on ads. With this tool, you can set automated bids for your campaign, which gives your ad a better chance of reaching the top of the SERP. And, with a more prominent position on a search results page, your ad is likely to gain more impressions over time. 
    Although impression share is only available per campaign, you can track target impression share for all of your campaigns at once. There are plenty of options for customizing it, too. For example, you can set it to bid for a certain section of the page — like the top half — or for certain times and places.
    Adwords Impression Share
    Wondering how to access your impression share data in Google Ads?
    Once you’ve logged into your Ads account, just go to Campaigns > Columns > Modify Columns > Competitive Metrics > Impression Share, then click Save.

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    Now, your impression share will appear in a table that you can download.
    Exact Match Impression Share
    Exact match impression share is just as it sounds. This metric compares the impressions your ad received compared to how many it was eligible to receive for searches that exactly match your keywords. You can use exact match impression share to hone in on your keywords and improve your ads.
    Search Lost Impression Share
    The “Search Lost Impression Share (budge)” column shows you the percentage of impressions that you’re missing out on because of your budget. A high percentage here may mean that investing in a larger budget could boost your advertising efforts and sales in the long-run.
    The “Search Lost Impression Share (rank)” column shows you the number of impressions you’re losing based on a low rank. If this percentage is high, advertisers should consider how to boost rank through quality score and cost-per-click rates. Quality score evaluates your keywords’ past performances, ad relevance, landing page experience, and expected clickthrough rate.
    Consider making adjustments to your campaign’s keywords and creative assets if your search lost impression share (rank) is high. A relevant ad with great keywords will rank higher on the SERP, which can lead to more impressions, clicks, and sales.
    If you want to manually determine the impression share for an ad, below is a formula that can help you calculate it.
    As Google explains, “Eligible impressions are estimated using many factors, including targeting settings, approval statuses, and quality.” Once the maximum number of impressions is determined, all you have to do is divide the number of impressions that the ad receives by the maximum number of impressions that Google decides it’s eligible for.
    We can see how this formula is written in the example below. 

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    We can also modify this formula to find the total number of impressions that our ad is eligible for. For instance, if we already know our impression share, we can reformat the formula to look more like this. 

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    Impression Share Formula Example
    Let’s say we created an ad and Google says there are 5,000 potential impressions available. After monitoring our ad’s performance for a month, we recorded about 4,000 impressions. This would mean that our impression share is 80% (4,000 recorded impressions / 5,000 available impressions =  80% impression share). 
    Impression share is a handy metric for determining how well an ad campaign is doing and what your team can do to help it reach its full potential. By tracking impression share, you can automate bids, fine-tune your budget, and track keywords and quality score to reach your targeted audiences more often and generate greater brand awareness and profits.
    For more ways to boost online ad engagement, read this list of helpful SEO tips.

  • Why Workwear is Important for Remote Employees

    As new lockdowns come into effect, remote working is becoming more widespread again. Offices have been instructed to close in order to manage the spread of the virus. While some workers jumped at the opportunity to go back into offices when they re-opened, many UK employees who found remote working to be beneficial have been…
    The post Why Workwear is Important for Remote Employees appeared first on Customer Experience Magazine.

  • Why You Should Hire Agents Based on EQ Not IQ

    When hiring new talent, it’s easy to get caught up in qualifications and work experience. However, customer service professionals need more than smarts to be successful — especially when working in a contact center.
    Empathy is one of the hottest topics in the industry right now, with the pandemic revealing how important genuine human connections are. This skill isn’t something you can immediately identify in a resume and cover letter, and it’s definitely not something your candidates can take a course in.

    Empathy is one of the hottest topics in the industry right now, with the pandemic revealing how important genuine human connections are. #CustomerServiceClick To Tweet

    We did some digging on the best indicators of high EQ so you can narrow down your next superstar hire!
    The Difference Between EQ and IQ
    The terms “IQ” and “EQ” get thrown around a lot, especially in the workplace. IQ stands for “Intelligence Quotient,” which typically indicates academic intelligence. On the flip side, EQ stands for “Emotional Quotient” and refers to one’s ability to identify, evaluate, and manage their own emotions, as well as those around them.
    Both of these scores are important when measuring employee performance. However, according to Business World, IQ only covers 10-25%of the equation, meaning EQ is responsible for around 75% of a person’s ability to succeed in the workplace. It’s also an excellent indicator of someone’s leadership skills and ability to work in a team.
    Why EQ is Important for Customer Support Agents
    If EQ is a strong indicator of a person’s ability to succeed in the workplace, it’s even more true for customer service professionals. After all, EQ is directly rooted in one’s social-emotional skills.
    The Perfect Call Center Agent Does Exist
    Customer support is about more than just solving problems. A huge part of this role is the ability to tune into the customer’s feelings and support them emotionally. The pandemic cemented this fact as customer support agents across the world dealt with overwhelming call volumes, many from distressed individuals looking for a human connection during the lockdown.
    Your customers want that human interaction — if they didn’t, they’d be dealing with chatbots and emails. But the voice channel remains the most popular form of support for businesses. It’s more important than ever to invest in hiring and training agents to be more compassionate so they can build lasting relationships for your company.
    How to Identify EQ Qualities in a Candidate
    Now that we’ve established the importance of EQ in contact center agents, the question remains: how do I find the right talent?
    1. Read their cover letter
    The cover letter is one of the earliest touchpoints where you can get to know a candidate. It’s much more telling than a resume when it comes to evaluating EQ. Remember, you can teach technical skills, but you can’t teach social-emotional skills!
    2. Pay attention to how they treat others
    Don’t just take the candidate’s behavior in the interview at face value. How did they treat the receptionist who greeted them at the door? The custodian they passed in the hallway? The way they treat other people in ordinary settings can speak volumes.
    10 Huge Mistakes Your Call Center Agents Are Making Right Now
    3. Evaluate their listening skills
    One important quality in a contact center agent is their ability to listen to a customer, remain engaged, and provide helpful answers. During the interview, pay attention to how they answer the questions. Are their answers thoughtful? Do they indicate that they’re in tune with your experience?
    4. Ask behavioral interview questions
    Behavioral interview questions are among the best ways to get a sense of how a candidate responds to different and often challenging scenarios. You may choose to ask them about a time they disagreed with someone and how they addressed the situation, or how they’ve handled irate customers in previous roles. Be prepared to use follow-up questions to delve into their mental process and understand their unique perspective!
    The post Why You Should Hire Agents Based on EQ Not IQ first appeared on Fonolo.

  • The grateful pumpkin

    It might not be autumn where you live, but the iconography of the large orange pumpkin travels around the world.

    People carve faces into them, stick a candle inside and use them to ward off the darkness.

    Perhaps we could consider writing on one instead. Inscribing all the things we’re grateful for, all the people who show up in our lives. We could highlight our heroes, our friends, the selfless people who show up for the community instead of simply looking for a shortcut… We could even remind ourselves of the systems, situations and dynamics that we take for granted.

    Seeing that pumpkin every day is a great way to remind myself of how extraordinarily lucky I am. Even when it seems as though the news is an unending litany of selfishness and tragedy, it’s possible to find someone who made a difference.

    Thank you for caring, for showing up and especially, for leading.

  • How to get hired as a Marketing Automation Specialist

    Hello, I’ve been in digital/content marketing for about two years now and am looking to gain some more niche skills. I’ve really enjoyed working on email drip campaigns for my company and would like to purse marketing automation as a career path. Any suggestions of courses/ basic skills that would help make this transition? Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!
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