Inside the Drawer

It’s not even ironic anymore to make jokes about the value of “old fashioned” tools like the phone in the modernized business setting. The truth is, the phone is anything but old fashioned: with advances in call technology and the steady global incline of smartphone usage, the phone is as integral as ever when it comes to not only marketing and sales, but support and HR as well. But in case you need some inspiration, we’ll give you a few examples.
Make Recruiting Easier
If your company is growing quickly, keeping up with applicants can be a challenge. Instead of putting your HR manager through the task of prescreening a massive number of applicants, do this instead: prescreen them using an IVR and streamline your interview process. When an applicant applies online, you can set your system to automatically place a phone call to that applicant, and an IVR menu will prescreen the candidate with a unique set of questions (recorded by you) to determine the applicant’s eligibility. Their answers are recorded and entered into your system for later review, and you can call them later if they’re suitable. And if they’re not? Send them a pre-recorded voice broadcast informing them that you won’t be moving forward with them as a candidate.
Optimize PPC Landing Pages with Easy A/B Tests
Marketers are constantly tweaking PPC ad copy, landing page content, headlines, and more. You’re probably doing A/B tests with your email marketing, declaring winners, and such. But are you doing the same for your landing pages? Change the headline, video, etc. on the landing page and simply add a unique call tracking number to each landing page and monitor the calls each landing page drives. These days, the more data the marketer has, the better.
Your Trusty Tracker
Too many marketers admit that they know the importance of tracking ad success but aren’t actually integrating tools that make that possible. A simple integration is call tracking. Insert unique call tracking numbers onto every single marketing initiative you have—online and offline—and analyze the results. Being able to tell which ad, search keyword, email or direct mail campaign, or web pages drove calls and which didn’t adds important value to marketing campaigns.
Make Hotlines Smarter
Maybe you run a psychic hotline or some other call-in service that relies on specific paid selections of call duration. You can use IVR technology to route the caller to the rep (or psychic!) they’ve selected, and then after the call has commenced, notify the caller that their call will be terminated in x seconds unless they purchase more minutes. Or you can terminate the call at the exact time the caller selected and paid for. No hassle.
Your Social Media Lifeline
More and more brands have a presence on social media and many of them use those channels as a means of customer communication, often fielding complaints. But according to Nielson’s State of the Media report, two-thirds of social media users prefer contacting a company by phone as opposed to “social care.” And honestly, you as a business should prefer the phone to “social care.” Social care is just that: social. Do you really want your customers’ complaints—and your dirty laundry—to be aired out on the World Wide Web for everyone to see? There’s also the possibility of delayed response, which is easy when you’re a growing business with only one or two people monitoring your social channels in addition to their other duties. Instead, put a phone number in your Twitter bio with a line that says “Problem? Give us a call. We always answer.” The phone is a lifeline for customers who want fast service and support and can save you a lot of headache.
Take the Pain Out of Satisfaction Surveys
Often, when a customer has a negative experience with your service, they don’t tell you about it. They just use someone else. For example, if you own a chain of furniture stores and one aspect of your business is delivering said furniture, your customers may have had a beef with your delivery service, either its timeliness, the service they experience by your driver, etc. But you may never hear about it. They got their couch, hated the service, and will order elsewhere next time. To prevent the “blackout” effect, trigger a voice broadcast survey once their item is confirmed as delivered. Then, you get on-the-spot feedback on the customer’s experience and, if that feedback is negative, have the opportunity to correct the issue right away, perhaps offering some recompense to lure them back.
So there you have it. If you still think the phone is a dinosaur, then you’re looking at the wrong bones! Want some more ideas? Download this free eBook! Tips for E-Commerce: 4 Steps to Drive Sales with the Phone.

As marketers, we’ve made it our jobs to investigate target audiences, define buyer journeys and develop content and marketing strategies that appeal to our buyer personas.
We don’t have to tell you why you need to develop buyer personas. But many of the clients and marketers we work with struggle to create content that resonates with and meets the needs of their target audiences. Instead, they rely on assumptions about what they think buyers want and how their product or service should meet buyers’ needs.
Here at Kuno, we spend a lot of time talking to our clients’ customers so we can create content that truly “speaks” to buyers. This way, we know exactly what buyers are asking, what they’re searching for when they find our clients and what’s resonating with them throughout the buying process. The findings that stem from those conversations end up informing our messaging strategies and content marketing recommendations.
So rather than rely on assumptions about your target audiences and why they use your products, talk to your customers so you know for sure. Here’s how you can turn those conversations into valuable content for your inbound marketing efforts.
Ask Questions That Inspire Storytelling
Find out how your product fits into your buyers’ lives. Why do they need it? How important is it to their jobs, personal lives and overall happiness? To get to the heart of the purchasing decision, ask questions along the lines of:

What are your day-to-day responsibilities?
What are you main priorities?
What defines success for you in the workplace?

Ask questions that get interviewees to describe the struggles they faced before they found a solution to a specific challenge and stories about the buying process, such as:

Tell me about a time when everything was going well for you or for the company. What were the factors that contributed to that success? What changed?
If you could change anything about your current situation, what would those changes be?
What did your business environment look like before you started using this product or service?
What triggered your search for a solution to make those changes?
How did you begin searching for a solution? Who was involved in the buying process?

Content Ideas to Listen For
Using these types of questions to guide your conversations will equip you with mounds of storytelling power to embed in your content. For example, if you can uncover the challenging situations that inspired your buyer to search for a solution, you can create content that addresses those pain points directly and offers advice on “how to prepare” for an impending challenge.
As you identify the success factors for the buyer, such as how the buyer defines success and what that looks like in the workplace, ask follow-up questions about how your product or service can help contribute to that success. This insight will help you develop messaging that will show buyers how your product can help rather than just tell them about the benefits.
Listen for stories about the barriers buyers faced when trying to choose a solution. Create content that will address those concerns or questions buyers may have about your product during the consideration stage of the buying process.
Also, as you discover who was involved in the decision-making process, consider all the buyers involved and their concerns. For example, you’re an HR software vendor. Your ideal buyer is a Director of Human Resources but the final decision maker may be a CEO or CFO. Therefore, you will need to create content that appeals to the daily challenges the Director of Human Resources persona to build awareness for your solution. You will also need content that addresses the concerns of the CEO/CFO persona toward the middle and bottom of the sales funnel, such as stories about HR software ROI and case studies that show your solution in action.
Create Valuable Content in Every Way, Shape & Form
Once you have a long list of topics based on your buyers’ success factors, challenges and concerns, you can begin to transform those topics into ideas for blogs, videos and additional types of content. Consider the best format for the topic based on messaging and value the reader will get from consuming it.
Let’s revisit our HR software vendor example. During your interviews, you were able to uncover how your software meets specific challenges not just for the HR department, but also applicants, hiring managers and existing employees. Rather than try to tell that story with words, show prospective buyers with a whiteboard session video that depicts different areas of the organization and its HR obstacles. You can talk through and show, on video, how HR software is the connective tissue that can help the organization meet said challenges.
Or, let’s say you connect with an industry thought leader who can passionately speak about one of your buyers’ biggest concerns or challenges. Ask your contact if she’d be willing to discuss the topic with you further for a piece of content, record the conversation and turn it into a compelling Q&A style blog post.
More of my go-to content ideas include:

How-to or step-by-step content
Commentary on industry news or studies
Customer highlights that show how your product is being used
Interviews with experts and thought leaders
Q&A series in which you answer common questions from buyers
Checklists buyers can use to be more efficient
Debates on hot discussion topics

Create & Reuse: Getting the Most Out of Every Piece of Content
There are so many options for blog posts, eBook, videos, webinars and more. And once you’ve completed your interviews, your list of potential content ideas is going to be even longer. That’s great! But also consider how you can repurpose those ideas for various types of content formats and different buyer personas.
For example, HubSpot suggests turning a series of blog posts into an ebook, or repurposing content from a webinar to create a simple infographic. If you want to reuse a piece of content for a different audience, examine your word choice, tone and examples you use in the piece to make sure it would appeal to a different business type.
To see great buyer persona messaging in action, check out this blog post by Stephanie Kapera.

photo credit: GabrielaP93 via photopin cc

Managing your time is all about managing, and focusing on, your priorities.
I personally have never found time management courses very useful, as they are a little too prescriptive. As with everything, if it isn’t easy to do, we won’t do it!
The system I use for managing my priorities and getting more done is not actually mine, but a combination of different components I’ve borrowed from other people. Days of the week and how I allocate them may change but the concept remains essentially the same. I know that when I fail to use this system, my productivity drops considerably. This system works for me and I wanted to share it with you. How you modify it for yourself is up to you.
It’s very simple:
Preparation Day
I use Monday as my Preparation Day for the whole week. It sets me up to achieve more than just my to-do list; it helps me power through what is a priority. I use my Preparation Day for things like:

Setting my priorities for the week (my team are part of this process as they have to feed into my priorities as well)
Preparing for client meetings and activities and doing the required work prior to these meetings
Clearing my desk so I can focus the rest of the week on what needs to get done – this may be literally clearing it or clearing it of admin related tasks
Organising personal and business appointments (I have never delegated my diary management and still prefer to control my own schedule)

Having this one day to prepare for my week, and do the necessary preparation work for client activities, means I’m really well prepared. The better prepared, the better results I have.
Action Days
I use Tuesday through Thursdays as my Action Days. These days are for:

Client meetings
Client activities (such as workshops, strategic retreats, business mentoring sessions, etc.)
Meetings with prospective new clients
Projects with my team
Follow up calls
New business calls

By knowing I have three dedicated days in a row for revenue-generating activities, keeps me very focused on what needs to be done, and I don’t get sidetracked by other ‘interesting’ diversions!
Strategic Days
These are the days I work on my business. I use these days for planning, reading and making notes, implementing, reviewing progress and course-correcting as required.
I block out the entire day, and by having all this time to focus on my business, I can easily get into my ‘zone’ and get very strategic about priorities and growth strategies.
Once you communicate this system to your team, they can be more in tune with how you prioritise and can help you maintain this way of working to get things done.
This system is flexible but in big enough chunks that you can be very clear about how you focus your attention in any given week.
Since I started using this system I would say my productivity has at least doubled, if not more. If you’re having problems with your own output, I urge you to try a variation on this for your own business!

People leave their jobs for a variety of reasons. An opportunity more in line with career goals. Better pay. Shorter commute. But sometimes people leave because of difficult managers or colleagues, feelings of not being valued or appreciated, or being passed over for raises and promotions. Regardless of the reasons for leaving a job, quitting should be done with respect and professionalism, even if the employer doesn’t deserve it.
Review your HR documentation for policies regarding resignation. When you took your job, odds are you were given a manual or training regarding employment policies. Review this information to determine the amount of notice and any additional terms you need to give your boss before quitting.
Write a letter of resignation, but deliver the news in person. Regardless of the relationship you have with your employer and managers, they deserve to hear about your leaving in person, not through the grapevine. Telling your supervisors in person can prevent ill-will and avoids them getting the wrong information about why you’re leaving.
Give your boss adequate notice to fill your position. In this economy, you might think it will be fast and easy to hire for your job. But even when there are lots of candidates, it takes time to hire. Your boss needs to pull out the job description, advertise, weed through resumes, interview and hire someone new. If these tasks are done by a committee, it can take even longer.
Finish up current projects. Leaving work unfinished is unprofessional. If you’re angry at your boss and feeling “done” with the job, remember that leaving work behind is more likely to hurt and annoy your colleagues or the new hire who will be the ones who have to finish what you started. Your commitment to your work doesn’t end when you give your resignation, it ends when you leave the job.
Train or leave behind information to help your replacement. You’ll make the transition easier not just for your boss and your colleagues, but also for the new hire if you personally train or leave behind a list of steps and things to know.
Don’t gloat. Even if you have a better job or are the one who’s able to escape a bad job, gloating only creates ill-will and could follow you into a new job.
Be positive. Instead of gloating, try to stay positive about your work, colleagues or other aspects of your job that you can be positive about. This will make your last days go by quicker and with less resentment. Being positive includes not posting negative comments on social media, which will likely get read and undermine any efforts to avoid angst during your last days on the job.

By Jared Currier This month, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) published the results of a study revealing the state of word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) in 2014. House Party Director of Research & Analytics David Smith led the project, which surveyed over 300 marketers across a variety of industries, including food and CPG, technology and automotive. Here, we chat with … Read More

By Chadd Balbi I’ve recruited for some of the top companies in the third party recruiting industry. And no matter what company it was upper management loved their buzzwords. “Forward Thinking”, “Deep Dive”, “Manage Expectations”, “Synergy” and the list goes on and on. I don’t disagree with all of them that are out there, sometimes you really just can’t find … Read More

By Mickie E Kennedy Getting on a roll is “easy,” so to speak. When you encounter a PR move that brings you success, it’s often sudden and seemingly out of nowhere. You’ve tried things in the past that didn’t work, but suddenly and for whatever reason this particular idea you came up with took off. Now you’re on a roll … Read More