Email Marketing: Setting Up a Lead Nurturing Email Sequence

Gary from 3Bug Media takes us through his email nurturing sequence.  We definitely start to see patterns here as it's very similar to the others we've seen, but it's good to see his personal take on it.

So, he explains that if someone has wanted our initial offer enough to give them our email address it means they're interested in our business, but not ready to buy yet...  

The lead nurturing sequence is designed to move them along the path to becoming a paying customer.  


This sequence involves the following:

- welcome email: thank them, set expectations
- educate: with tips, videos, blogs etc
- inform: tell them about new services and other products that you provide
- send offers: discounts, promotions, encourage them to buy
- personalise your business and your brand: give pictures or videos of 'behind the scenes' etc


Key Tips:

- Keep the message clear - just one, or two topics per email, tops
- Just one clear CTA (call to action) per email
- Try to use visuals in your emails, particularly if you're in 'e-commerce'
- If you're using text at all, and have their first name, then use the auto-fill option so that you're sending the email to them personally
- Get people to engage with your emails - e.g. end the first email with a question, such as 'what challenges are you dealing with at the moment'.  
- If they respond, then future emails are more likely to go into their main inbox folder, instead of spam etc.


Recommended sequence of emails is below - and set up a different sequence for each lead capture offer you have, so that the emails are related to the problem you're trying to solve:

1 - welcome email, sent immediately after sign-up.  Set expectations of what you'll be sending, end it with a question
2 - education email - FAQs, use cases of how to use the product, data, research stats etc
3 - another education email
4 - offer, encourage to buy
5 - education 
6 - inform them of other products and services you provide
7 - personalise, tell them your story, how you got started, highlight some team members, or show how you do you research etc
8 - offer
9 - education


This sequence will take approx 3 weeks.  Then move them over to your main email list, for all the general broadcasts / emails that to send to all.

Create Your Email Marketing Tribe - The perfect email sequence - The Coo...

Jimmy Kim talks us through his system for emailing his list, or 'tribe', as he calls them.  By this, he means they recognise him on a more familiar level than as an email marketer.

He says that when you're growing your list, you have to create an amazing experience for your subscribers.  

They need to feel as though the balance between what they're given, and what is asked of them, is always in their favour - which he then goes on to demonstrate using cookies :)

Generally there are 3 types of marketer:

• Marketer Type 1 - only sends promotions, nothing of value
• Marketer Type 2 - sends a lot of content and great value, but never actually markets anything 
• Marketer Type 3 - provides a great balance between content and promotions

Jimmy demonstrates his 'cookie system' and suggests that the following works to provide this great balance between giving value, and sending promotions, as it never leaves the subscriber feeling empty-handed.

• Days 0, 1, 2, and maybe even day 3 - give them a 'cookie', so good content / training 
• Days 4 and 5 - take away cookies - i.e. send promotion emails
• Days 6 - content / training
• Days 7 - promote

Now, not all of us like to email every day, but I think the same process would apply:

• 3 or 4 emails of content
• 2 emails with promotions
• 1 email of content
• 1 email with a promotion
• repeat...  :)

Thanks Jimmy!!

How To Write a Killer 7 Day Email Follow Up

Justin Brooke from IMScalable.com talks us through the 7 day email follow-up that he uses for each new lead.  I guess these don't have to be sent every day, if you'd rather you could send them every 2 or 3 days, just make sure you're consistent with that.


Email 1:  
Generally you will have used some kind of lead magnet to encourage them to give you their contact details, such as a free gift.  So obviously the first email should include whatever you've promised them.

Also, make sure you welcome them, then set their expectations for what's coming next.  Let them know you'll continue emailing them, and even list out what emails they can expect from you.  

Then briefly introduce yourself, your company, or the product. Also, recommend they white-list your email so you don't go into their spam folder.  

Finally, add a P.S.  Justin usually puts something like: Hey, I reply to every email I receive, so send me a question about anything you like - such as what's your biggest question about your business.

Email 2: 
Tell your story, so that your customer can relate to you.  Let them know why they can trust you as a provider of solutions for them.

Email 3: 
Establish a common enemy, so they feel like they're on the same team as you.

Emails 4, 5, and 6: 
Give them content, that keeps them in the same frame of mind - so articles about the solutions you're providing, without any hard sell at this point.  At the bottom of the emails you can have a soft pitch, but make sure this feels appropriate.

Email 7: 
Here's where the hard sell comes in.  Include social proof, such as testimonials, to show them why 'this' is the solution they're looking for, and you're the person to provide it to them.

3 Email Followup Strategies That Actually Get Responses - Alex Berman

Alex Berman from InspireBeats talks about how to do effective email follow-up.  This is more on an individual and personal level though, so not for cold leads.

1: The Personal Connection follow-up:  Find a personal connection with each lead, perhaps from one of their profiles, or if they've already told you something about themselves.  This is the most effective strategy of the 3

2: The Excited follow-up: let them know how excited you are to start working with them.

3: The News Item follow-up: use a piece of news that relates to them, to, well, relate to them :)

Effective Email Follow Up Sample

Freddy Rodriguez talks us through how to build a relationship with your email list.  This video is a few years old now, but the information still seems to be totally relevant!

In general people need to be exposed to a product or idea at least 6 times before they will buy.  This extends to individuals, so marketers, as well.  I've heard recent stats say people buy, generally, between the 7th and 13th contact... Either way, in your emails you need to consider the following items:

1. Attractive headline:  you don't want your email to look like spam.  People are already looking for a reason to delete your email.

2. Relate to them, then request them to click: build it up so they feel motivated to do so.

3. Follow up with your leads regularly, otherwise they will forget about you. He recommends at least once a day, although I confess I think that would be more likely to make people unsubscribe...

Some other tips I found useful:

- For some reason, if you put the Re: in the title this helps with the open rate.  Usually re. means regarding, but with email it seems to suggest you're replying to them.  This can make people curious to open it...

- Add something personal to the headline.

- Go through emails that you've received yourself, and see which ones you find intriguing to open...  Model your email headlines on this.

It's All In The Follow-Up

It's All In The Follow-Up...

This is something my coaches keep telling me... It's all in the follow-up!

When you start off in digital marketing, you're really focused on getting people on to your list... and it's hard to see much past that. You're thinking of what value you can give to them initially, and how to encourage them to sign up to the value you can give them longer term. The last thing you want to do, is then stop providing that value!

Giving people the opportunity to buy really useful things from you, that you've researched yourself and are confident in recommending - sure, that's valuable! But only if they like you, and trust you - trust that you have actually researched the product, and that you do actually believe it's a product worthy of recommendation.

Until then, you're just a stranger trying to sell them something... Would you really blame them for unsubscribing? Then all that time, effort, and money you put into getting them on your list is wasted.

I'm at the point now where my list is looking quite healthy, and I'm refining ways to grow it quite successfully. However, I am noticing I'm getting more unsubscribes than I would like. Not lots, but each time it feels a bit personal... I hate to think that I'm annoying the people I'm trying to help!

So, over the next few weeks I will be focusing on how to improve my email follow-ups, and basically nurture my list!

You are going to see me post a number of videos, together with my key take-aways, which I hope you will also find really useful.

The first video I recommend you watch is Till Boadella's description of his Indoctrination Sequence that he uses to nurture his list. I already shared this on my blog with the notes I took from it, so please see that article here.

IF YOU WANT TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS, WATCH THIS! | DAILYVEE 319

Ooooh, this is a good one from Gary Vee!!  It's about the problems people have when they need to scale their business, but can't find people who are able to replicate the standard they expect.

Basically, how to duplicate themselves :)

Gary summed it up into 2 different problems - either:

- an inability to operate - i.e. having the systems, procedures etc in place that other people can follow

- or, it's an ego issue - holding these people to a standard that is all about how good 'you' are and how 'you' would do it, rather than how well they can achieve what the client needs

It's possible to be a great consultant, but a terrible boss :)

He says, that to scale you can't hold everybody to an arbitrary metric...  

So, you need to decide if you want to build a one-person shop, or a scalable business.  

There's nothing wrong with the first option - but the way to scale is to build your business around you, and how to monetise better what you are offering.

Be you, be your best self your way, and enjoy it!

How To Brainstorm Using Google Search & Stock Photo Sites

This video is really useful for whenever you get stuck for ideas...  Chris Do runs a working session with his team for how to use 'search' as a way to get inspiration.

The key points I took from this are:

• 'To thrive in the knowledge economy you have to learn how to learn...'
• That's where searching comes in - 'use Google as a collaborative creative partner'.
• Type slowly as Google will tell you what people generally look for
• Check out the definition of the word first to make sure it means what you though
• Go to images - if in 3 flicks of the screen you can't see what you're looking for, you need to type in another word
• Start broad, then become more specific
• Add 'concept' or 'idea' or 'metaphor' after the word to go deeper 
• Sometimes Google can be a bit 'noisy', or overwhelming...  so if you're looking for images, try shutterstock or other stock image sites
• Images are very effective when they combine two separate things, to find a common thread
• Find an image you like, go into it and see what meta tags have been attributed to it.  Sometimes the words in these meta tags are just what you're looking for
• Save any image that grabs you at all
• Keep drilling down on the images you like, looking at related images or those from the same artist / photographer, until you find the ones that hit the spot

Productive Music Playlist (1.5 hrs) - October 2017 - Vol.2 - #EntVibes

Oh, just found out that Evan Carmichael puts together a playlist of productive music on a regular basis.  How great is that?!  Here's the second volume for October - enjoy :)

How to use vector graphics on the web

This video becomes a bit technical half-way through, but it's a great introduction to vector images, what they are, and why they are often used instead of the jpeg or png image files that we might be more familiar with.

Jpeg and png type files are known as rastor files: these are composed of lots of tiny dots (pixels) that make up the whole image, so they lose picture quality when they are scaled up too much.

Vector files are usually type .svg files, which stands for scalable vector graphics: these are composed of code, which the computer interprets as the image.  This means they are totally scalable, plus load times are much quicker than the pixel images.

To create vector images yourself you will need an application like Illustrator...  But if you already have the svg files then you can just upload them.  For example, if you have outsourced the creation of the images, or bought stock images already in the svg file format, then you can just use these on your websites.

26 PSYCHOLOGY FACTS YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT PEOPLE

A few fun facts...  The ones that can help us in our businesses are:

#13 - Doing things that scare you, will make you happier.  Well, that's every day for an entrepreneur!  :)

#23 - Being alone for a long time is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.  Something for us to think about if we're working from home a lot...  Make sure we get out there and spend time with real people!

#26 - Keep an eye on people's feet if we're negotiating!  :)  If they are turning away from us, it suggests they disagree...

How To Learn Anything Faster - 5 Tips to Increase your Learning Speed (F...

Really useful video, giving tips on how to reshuffle our working time so that it's truly effective.   It details these 5 tips:

1 - Deconstruct the skill, and use the Pareto Principle - the 80/20 principle.  Focus on just the 1 or 2 tasks that will give you the majority of the results.

2 - Have a laser-like focus and use the Pomodoro Technique.

This is where you shut down all external distractions and fully focus on the task for around 20 - 25 minutes, then take a 5 min break.  After 4 of these sessions, so after around 2 hours of this, take a longer break.  Apparently this increases productivity significantly, so is a great tip!

3 - Learn by Doing -and gain experience by making mistakes

4 - Be Persistent - fight through the 'dip', which is the time after your initial excitement, when things aren't happening as quickly as you wanted them to and a lot of people quit

5 - Get Enough Sleep - sleep consolidates memories, and allows our brains to continue developing given all the new information we're consuming.  The video explains this Brain Plasticity Theory.

Why you should define your fears instead of your goals | Tim Ferriss

I love this - Tim Ferriss talks us through the Philosophy of Stoicism, and the key points I took from this are:

- perform Fear Analysis, in the same way you would Goal Analysis
- anything that is making us worry about taking a forward action, should be analysed to find out why.  - sure, your fear might be well founded and completely valid, but just work through it and then you'll know for certain.
- otherwise you'll be able to find work-arounds in case the 'what if' scenario actually happens
- this is similar to the risk analysis that I used to perform in my previous life as a project manager - understanding what can go wrong, and mitigating that is the best way to get comfortable with your decisions

it's good to be BACK !!!

AMAZON BUYS WHOLE FOODS - DAILYVEE SEASON 3: PART 5 OF 6

Some of my take-aways from this vid:

- 'The new world is going to eat the old world'.

- If you're winning at the moment - don't let someone else buy you, 'buy yourself'.

- Innovation always wins

- White space in Snapchat...  just a snippet he dropped, but could be worth exploring!

Facebook Ad Insights: How Big Brands are Using Facebook Tactics in Their...

Some of my key take-aways from this:

- Concentrate on your audience - use tools to analyse and understand your target market

- Make sure your ad loads quickly - Facebook is prioritsing quick-loading ads as they give a better customer experience

- Smart Marketer use their Facebook ads in 3 phases:
1: creating awareness for new customers,
2: re-targeting people who have already engaged but not bought
3: rewarding loyalty for existing customers

- leads that come from Facebook tend to be less 'warm', so the nurture sequence is critical

- Facebook advertising is more expensive than it used to be, but they are offering so much more now in terms of their toolsets etc.

How To Build A Social Media Following— Get Started

Don't know what to post about?  This is really helpful, and gives some great examples.

Some of my key take-aways:

- People are interested in the different stages of creation, not just the final product - don't ignore the struggle of the process
- Don't just post the same thing everywhere, each platform should sound and feel different as the audiences have different expectations...
- Quality content is better than constant content - although don't forget that consistency is really important.

Email Marketing Trick to Get Raving Subscribers: The Indoctrination Sequ...

My previous post noted the importance of nurturing your email subscribers - and this is a great summary for how to do this!  What I took from this video:

People have such information overload that within a week they will forget who you are, and why you are emailing them... so Till Boadella suggests you prevent this by using an ‘indoctrination sequence’ 😊

This is usually a sequence of 3 or 4 emails, the only purpose being to position you and your brand in your subscriber’s mind.  These should hit a few different triggers – such as authority, social proof, community, and likeability.

First - welcome them to your community: explain what you do, who you help and how.  Remind them why they’re receiving the email.

Then do a few story videos about yourself, what you’ve done, basically anything that positions you as an expert.

List control is really important – i.e. that people on your list trust you, and will take the actions you recommend.  A great way to get list control is to use this indoctrination sequence.

Once they’ve completed this sequence, your subscribers should then be added to the general broadcast list.

Thanks for this, Till Boadella!

Social Media Explained Visually YouTube

So, I was about to note that I think this video, which explains social media, might be aimed at kids...  Then I realised that kids already know what social media is, so it must be aimed at us older generations instead :)  Either way, it takes things back to basics, explains that it's just a way to mix content and conversations, and I couldn't resist adding it to my blog!

The Most Discussed Issues on Facebook and Instagram in July [Infographic]

The Most Discussed Issues on Facebook and Instagram in July [Infographic]

Article originally published on socialmediatoday.com by Andrew Hutchinson, August 19th, 2017

Facebook has released the latest version of its monthly Hot Topics report, covering the subjects and issues that were most mentioned by Facebook users in July.

The Hot Topics reports are a great reference point for those looking to optimize their Facebook posts and campaigns

 – not only do the reports show you what was being discussed, but who by, in terms of general demographics (male/female, younger/older), which can help provide guidance on what’s resonating amongst your specific target market/s.

So what was gaining traction on Facebook last month?

As usual, national holidays get a lot of attention on Facebook – which makes sense, people share their thoughts and opinions on such days. 

But they can skew the data somewhat when you’re trying to conduct research on what’s most relevant to your audience – it’s pretty much a given that seasonal events will come up and you need to factor them into your marketing plan where possible.

To make it a little clearer as to what else was resonating, here’s the chart with seasonal holiday mentions removed.

That makes it a little clearer – though it is relevant to note the popularity of celebrations like Christmas in July and Canada Day, as they may help planning for future campaigns.

In terms of key topics of note, younger men are very interested in the upcoming Conor McGregor/Floyd Mayweather boxing match, while the death of Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington was also a key topic of focus.  

Among older users, you can see that Le Tour de France was popular with older men, while tennis star Kim Clijsters, who was recently inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame, was also highly mentioned. Country singer Garth Brooks also got a lot of attention, as did zucchini amongst older women. Not sure what the story is with that.

Over on Instagram, the story was, again, similar, though with more entertainment-related mentions (which is normally how it goes among Instagram users).

This is likely influenced by the younger user base of Instagram.

As always, Facebook has also provided Hot Topics charts for:

Australia

Canada

The UK

As noted, the Hot Topics report is always worth a look – even if you’re absolutely confident you know and understand your target market, there are always smaller trends and shifts within the data that come up, and may help refine your campaign focus in order to generate better response. 

Source article

My philosophy for a happy life | Sam Berns | TEDxMidAtlantic

My favourite quote from this: 'No matter what I choose to become, I believe I can change the world - and as as I'm striving to change the world, I will be happy'.  It just seems to summarise perfectly an incredible philosophy.  Thank you Sam!

BEST ADVICE FOR STARTUPS - Hustler's Digest VIP Video

Seth Godin on marketing, storytelling, attention, and the future of work

Great insights from Seth Godin...  Some of the key points I took are:

'Permission marketing is the idea of delivering anticipated, personal, and relevant messages that people want to get'.

Focus on  'working our way to a place of relevance' 'patiently building an asset... and earning attention'

People 'process information by telling themselves a story'

'Redefine authentic self as consistent self'

'We need to find meaningful work'

8 Habits of Highly Successful Students

This is aimed at kids at school and is pretty basic, but wow can it be applied to starting a new business too!  It also highlights how much extra experience we really do have over school-leavers, even if they are better at Facebook :)  Nice marketing strategy ideas too...

She's a Blind YouTuber

How to Explain Content Marketing to Anyone

How to Explain Content Marketing to Anyone

How to explain content marketing to yourself, your boss, or your relatives – Content Marketing Institute

The Content Marketer’s Guide to Story Structure

Original article posted on contentmarketinginstitute.com by Pratik Dholakiya on July 21st 2017

Content is everywhere, most of it free and most of it utterly buried by other content. As content marketers, we struggle and fight to be heard.

Meanwhile, author James Patterson earned $95 million in 2016.

Let that sink in. James Patterson is getting paid $95 million a year to produce content. People are paying to read his content. Content that right inside the cover notes, “This is a work of fiction.”

If you haven’t thought about that concept before – that people will pay a lot of money for great storytelling – then I hope you do now.

Best-selling fiction authors know something. It’s something you ought to know too if you want to be heard.

We talk a lot about storytelling in this industry. But how much do we really know about it?

You probably have heard “human brains are hardwired” to remember stories; storytelling is an “ancient art;” and “brand narratives” resonate with audiences.

And that’s all true. But is it enough?

If you’ve studied this, you probably learned something a bit more fundamental about stories – they convey meaning through change.

And you know what? That understanding is still not enough.

Humans may be hardwired to tell, pass on, and remember stories. But we’re not all hardwired to tell the kinds of stories that people can’t put down.

We’re not all hardwired to tell the kinds of stories that people can’t put down, says @DholakiyaPratik

That’s why I think every content marketer needs to learn how authors structure their stories. People pay money to spend hours to read their books. Let’s find out why.

The 3-act structure

Stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is basic stuff. It’s not the secret sauce, which I’ll talk about later. Still, it’s not just any beginning, middle, and end that will hold somebody’s interest or make an impact. And, to understand the secret sauce, you need to understand the main course.

Let’s pick apart this three-part structure.

Beginning

Do you know where many content marketers fail in their storytelling? Right at the beginning. To be blunt, most content marketers hardly write a beginning.

Of course, I don’t mean their stories don’t start. What I mean is the stories don’t start with a complete beginning – a beginning that lays the groundwork for the story.

In the beginning of a fiction work, readers expect the author to:

• Establish the way things are
• Establish what the character wants
• Establish what the character needs

If you don’t establish the way things are, you are not able to see how things change.

Now for the piece everybody misses. What the character wants and what the character needs are two different things.

If characters don’t want anything, nothing will pull them to the end of the story. They will walk away at the first sign of conflict. Want is what drives the plot.

Need is what the character requires to make it to the end. Need is what drives the theme.

A content marketer’s story is broken from the start if the writer doesn’t understand that what the customer wants is not what the customer needs. The customers don’t want your product. They need your product to get what they want.

Customers don’t want your products. They need your product to get what they want, says @DholakiyaPratik

Don’t waste time trying to make readers want your product.

Show them their beginning. Show them how things are for them now. Show them you understand what they want, and lay the groundwork to show them what they will need.

Middle

The marketer’s story seems to break down at this stage even more often than with a poor beginning.

While most marketers don’t develop a strong beginning, they at least start. When it comes to the middle, many marketers fail to include one at all.

In the middle of a work of fiction, readers expect that the character will:

• Develop a reasonable plan to get what he or she wants
• Try to execute the plan (but the problem is more complex than expected and fails)
• Rinse and repeat the try-and-fail process

This process must happen at least once for anybody to feel like a story is being told. Thematically, the middle of the story serves a clear, essential purpose. It illustrates what happens when characters try to get what they want without having what they need.

Without a strong middle, readers do not believe the theme of the story. They are not sold on what the character needs. They have no reason to believe that the character can’t get what he or she wants without it.

The middle is where readers learn the true scope of the problem. It seemed small in the beginning. As readers learn more about it, they learn it is not so simple. It becomes increasingly complicated. The more the characters try to get what they want, the more insurmountable readers realize the problem is.

Without a strong middle, readers aren’t sold on what the character needs, says @DholakiyaPratik

A weak middle revolves around a weak problem. Develop your problem and you will have a strong middle and a strong story.

Finally, it’s important that the character really gives it their all here. The plan is the best the character could reasonably put together. It should seem foolproof. Otherwise the writers have an idiot plot, where the problem could have been solved by a smarter character, which makes it difficult to identify with the character.

If you don’t know what I mean, think of “as seen on TV” product ads featuring solutions to non-problems or idiot-only problems. These stories identify the wrong problem or a weak problem, and they have weak protagonists because of it.

End

Since the end is where the most important things happen, a lot of marketers just skip to the end in their storytelling. But, a strong ending isn’t strong without a good beginning and middle.

At the end of a fiction work, readers expect that:

• The problem has grown to the point where another misstep would be a complete failure
• The characters overcome the barriers that kept them from understanding what they needed
• The characters now understand their needs, which allows them to solve the problem and get what they want
• A new world is created because the change has occurred
• 
  

Some Caveats

Now, I can’t in good conscience move forward without some qualifiers. A story can make the same point by making it clear what the character needs, then allowing the character to fail to get what’s needed and to fail to solve the problem, and to not get what he or she wants. This storytelling is a tragedy genre.

Likewise, there are powerful stories where the characters learn that what they’ve been wanting has been preventing them from getting what they need, and it turns out that the want wasn’t that important after all. These alternative story structures can have a strong emotional impact, but in the context of marketing they might be harder to pull off.

Now, I won’t elaborate much on how the characters overcome barriers or demonstrate how they solve their problem once they get what they need. Marketers understand these things well. Instead, I focus on two things.

First, is the finality of the problem – a ticking clock, a point of no return, an unavoidable sense of urgency. I’m not talking about imposing a limited time offer on the customer. I’m talking about the point at which the problem has grown out of control. I’m talking about establishing the dread of actual and complete failure.

Second, it is crucial to explore how things have changed now that the problem is solved. The writer should contrast where things ended up with where things started. The resolution should clarify what was missing and offer closure. If the writer doesn’t have a strong contrast between the beginning and the end, there isn’t a story.

That’s all there is to great storytelling, right?

No.

I still haven’t talked about the secret sauce, the stuff that keeps readers hungry for more pages as they turn through a book, the stuff that makes people pay for content.

Secret sauce

Ready for it?

The secret sauce is suspense.

Suspense makes the reader wonder what is going to happen next.

Suspense makes the reader wonder what is going to happen next, says @DholakiyaPratik

It seems almost tautological to say that what keeps somebody reading is wondering what they’re going to read next. And yet, did you know the secret sauce before I said it?

If the value of suspense was obvious, more people would use it.

Of course, understanding that suspense is what you need doesn’t necessarily help you know how to build it.

Predictability is the enemy of suspense. But unpredictability alone isn’t nearly enough. For suspense to work, you need both uncertainty and anticipation.

The first way to build suspense is to do it directly. You blatantly state that something is coming, but you are vague about what it is. I did it in this very blog post.

How do you best implement suspense in the context of content marketing?

Well, for one, suspense should not be the only thing you use to keep somebody reading. Imagine if the section on three-act structure above was mere filler. My promise of a secret sauce wouldn’t have kept you reading, would it?

Second, turn your format on its head. You’re used to thinking that you should state the problem and solution in the beginning, then list your supporting arguments. That’s not always the way to go.

People read fiction in large part because they quickly learn the problem, but don’t know what the solution will be until the end. That’s why we have spoiler alerts.

An alternative structure is to state the problem, present the supporting arguments as answers to smaller related questions, then piece them together at the end in a massive climax where it suddenly all makes sense.

Is this always the best way to do it? No. But it clearly keeps people engaged on a different level. And this is essentially the logic of the page turner.

There is a second form of suspense. This is how famed filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock described it:

“There is a distinct difference between ‘suspense’ and ‘surprise,’ and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I’ll explain what I mean.

“We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let’s suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, “Boom!” There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence.

“Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at 1 o’clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to 1. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: ‘You shouldn’t be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!’”

This form of suspense is based on “superior position.” The audience knows something that the characters don’t.

At first, this seems like it contradicts my definition of suspense. Why would the audience be wondering what is going to happen next if they’ve been told something the characters haven’t, like the fact that a bomb is going to go off?

If you reflect on this a little, though, it becomes clear. The audience may know a bomb is going to go off, are shouting, hoping the characters get up and walk away, but they don’t know if the characters will escape.

With that understanding of suspense, I’ll leave you with a final question.

How would you feel if you could tell a story that had your audience shouting at your character, hoping he or she will use your product before it’s too late?

Source article

8 Steps To Better Social Media Marketing

8 Steps To Better Social Media Marketing

Original article published on prdaily.com by Robby Brumberg on July 20th, 2017

It’s one thing to be on social media; it’s quite another to be good at it.

Here to help in this confusing cyber quest are the people of Digital Marketing Philippines, who’ve created an infographic to improve your online messaging. 

They offer eight tips to keep your footing in the shifting sands of social media marketing.

The infographic’s first bit of advice is to “go deep, not broad” by focusing your efforts on no more than three platforms at a time. 

As you cultivate an audience, you’ll see where your message resonates and where you get crickets.

Don’t forget to explore niche sites as well (the graphic mentions Wayn to reach travel and tourism people and Etsy to find more artistic types)—you might find your most avid fans there.

As for rising above the competitive din, the graphic recommends using influencers and video to amplify your message. 

The infographic cites a survey that found “84 percent of consumers said they were convinced to make a purchase after viewing a brand’s video.” 

You’d be hard pressed to find a social media platform not banking on video as the future of content marketing.

Digital Marketing Philippines also advises optimizing Facebook ads to reach your most likely prospects, taking bold steps to expand your audience and varying content formats to avoid becoming white noise.

They conclude with a call to build genuine relationships with your audience, along with a reminder to stay patient. 

Social media success is primarily about consistency and perseverance.

Take a gander at the graphic below to ensure your social media strategy is on point.

Source article

364 SECONDS OF GROWTH HACKING BUSINESS | DAILYVEE 266

6 Tricks To Be A Social Media Pro

Top 10 - Most Epic Inspirational Speeches

Some Do's and Don'ts of Social Media

How to Build a Sustainable Social Marketing Strategy [Infographic]

How to Build a Sustainable Social Marketing Strategy [Infographic]

By the time you figure out what works, it doesn’t.

That’s social media for you – a constantly changing frontier where “best practices” are best because they’re unique and interesting, standing out from the crowd. They challenge the status quo, suggesting a new and better way of engaging with an audience.

And then a bunch of other people figure out how to do the same thing.

Well, it doesn’t have to be that way. If you’re able to learn some core best practices, you can apply your skills to whatever social trend-of-the-day may come along. Some things, like authenticity and responsiveness, will never go out of style.

BUILD A BETTER SOCIAL MARKETING STRATEGY

A new infographic from Yeager Marketing shares some timeless advice for building a better social marketing strategy. (Which – by the way – is worth it.)  Did you know, for example…

• 6 hours of social media management per week = 66% increase in lead generation and 61% improvement in search engine rankings.

That’s less than a fifth of a full-time employee, yet those are results that many businesses would gladly hire someone to do for 15 hours a week if it drove the same results.

MAXIMIZE YOUR EFFORTS ON SOCIAL

If you’re looking to maximize your efforts, squeezing the most from those six hours a week, here’s what you need to know:

• 80% of your audience will read your title - But only 20% will read your content. There are two ways of approaching this statistic. Glass half-empty: “That’s really disappointing.” Glass half-full: “Oh, so I only have to come up with an awesome title?” The optimistic – and strategic – approach may be writing great titles and getting wide distribution. Of course, you still need solid content to back it. But by putting extra effort into the title, you can widen your reach significantly.

• 43% of people want more video content from marketers - Not a videographer? You don’t have to be. 92% of marketers are making videos with the assets they already have. (Also, 90 seconds is the optimum length time for video engagement on Facebook; you don’t have to be Hitchcock.)

• Put an emphasis on visual content - We want your content – not you – to do the heavy lifting. So, instead of sinking tremendous effort into writing, put it into a visual instead. After all, visual content is shared 40x more than text alone.

• In B2B? Use infographics - Infographics are shared 3x more often on social than any other B2B content. 

• Avoid clickbait titles - Lastly, remember that you’re working hard to earn trust, so, avoid clickbait titles that overpromise and under-deliver. You don’t want to lose your hard-earned credibility with a false title or two.

Check out the infographic below to learn more.

Source article originally published on June 29th 2017 by Bob Hutchins on buzzplant.com