What’s the point? That’s the question I asked myself after another newsletter didn’t produce results. Sure, I was “keeping in touch” with my leads and prospects. I spent a couple of hours writing great content, optimizing for various devices, tweaking headlines and when I finally hit send, nothing happened. After months of getting no results with my email newsletter, I finally found myself asking “what’s the point?” The…
The Narnia Effect: Invisible Tactics Marketers Use To Get Your Money
by / ⠀Entrepreneurship• Finding Customers / April 11, 2014Let’s face it: Nobody likes to be “marketed” to. In fact, the word “marketer” has gained a slimy reputation from being batted around by unscrupulous salesmen for the last 20 years, and now the good ones are left trying to dig themselves out of the used car lot. As a result, companies have had to become much more creative to get your attention, keep it, and ultimately, guide…
We’ve all seen ads follow us from the sites we visit. How did my favorite sports blog know I was in the market to purchase an easel for my daughter? The answer is retargeting. It’s a new(er) way to retain the customers who check out your site without actually checking out. Retargeting is more cost-effective than Google Adwords. It’s also more focused, as it reaches the individuals who…
11 Ways to Cultivate and Maintain Important Contacts through Email
by / ⠀Entrepreneurship• Finding Customers / March 3, 2014Did you know that roughly 91% of people log onto their email accounts on a daily basis? This significant figure explains why email marketing ranks so high (3rd place) when it comes to the best way to generate leads for marketers. They’re responsible for approximately 13% of leads generated. Clearly, if you want to succeed in the business world, it’s essential that you accrue and maintain email contacts.…
10 Tips for Maximizing Your Customer Survey’s Effectiveness
by / ⠀Entrepreneurship• Finding Customers• Startup Advice / February 5, 2014Q. What’s one tip for maximizing the effectiveness of customer surveys on your website? The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses. 1. Offer an Incentive Your customers will be way…
A Document and 5 Questions That Will Transform How You Grow Your Company
by / ⠀Entrepreneurship• Finding Customers• Personal Branding• Startup Advice / January 9, 2014Hiring new people can be a daunting process for small companies. Just one new hire can affect a startup’s culture and success, yet many don’t realize this process should begin long before you even post a job opening. I’ve spent a long time developing the best way to identify whether a candidate is a good fit for our company and ultimately realized one thing: To identify the right…
How to Get Potential Customers Without a Product and on Zero Marketing Budget
by / ⠀Entrepreneurship• Finding Customers• Startup Advice / December 23, 2013“Your product SUCKS.” He said it to my face. Cold, objective, but straight to the point. Yeap, thats exactly what my 13th potential customer told me in 2007. It was an EDE – ego destruction event. It was a harsh reality check and I was down for the count. Having spent 18 months of my life with my partner building up this prototype for my 1st startup and…
Ten Online Tools to Boost Your Marketing Strategy
by / ⠀Entrepreneurship• Finding Customers / December 14, 2013When we first launched our company, we were tracking everything in Excel. We were making hundreds of calls every day, sending emails out by the thousands, and marking notes on every interaction we had in painful detail. In short, we were wasting way too much time trying to keep our data organized. We needed to find tools that would improve our efficiency and enable us to properly scale…
How to Get Startup Ideas by Interviewing Customers
by / ⠀Entrepreneurship• Finding Customers• Startup Advice / December 11, 2013“By far the most common mistake startups make is to solve problems no one has.” – Paul Graham The first step in building a product people love is to identify a problem that some group of people have. Solutions to clearly defined customer pain points make for the most compelling value propositions. You don’t need to start with a “startup idea.” By learning what problems people have you…
4 Reasons to Consider Short-Term Client Contracts
by / ⠀Entrepreneurship• Finding Customers• Startup Advice / December 5, 2013Many CEOs of small- or mid-sized businesses view long-term contracts as a sort of arrival. If your young company can acquire a big, long-term client, you’ve “made it.” You can relax a little, resting easy now that you have an ongoing source of revenue. But while longer contracts may give you a (sometimes false) sense of security, short-term contracts offer many benefits that are often overlooked: 1. Demonstrate…