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The Secret to More Online Sales? A Persuasive Product Page

What’s the most important part of your e-commerce site? Is it that eye-catching landing page that keeps customers browsing? Or is it the checkout page, which you’ve tweaked to provide the smoothest purchasing experience possible? Yeah, both of those are important, but if you’re focusing mostly on those two things, you’re missing out on a crucial component of the conversion process: your product pages. Your product page is the place where the majority of your customers make the decision to buy (or not!), and customers won’t even get as far as your checkout page if you don’t have a persuasive product page that’s optimized to convert.

In fact, consider this: the average product page conversion rate is a mere 7.91%. So if you want to get a leg up on the competition – and generate more sales and revenue – you might just need to do an overhaul of your product pages. So what should you be focusing on?

What’s the Big Deal About Product Pages?

First of all, why exactly is a product page so important? Well, we’re talking about ecommerce here, so your customers can’t physically hold or see your product, meaning the product page and all its components are all they have to go on. That means you might have the better product, but if another company has the better product page, you’re going to lose the sale.

Don’t just take our word for it: according to Salsify’s 2017 “Cracking the Consumer Code” report, 87% of shoppers say content on product pages is extremely or very important when making the decision to buy, and 98% of consumers say they decided not to purchase something because the product page seemed incomplete or incorrect. That should make you sit up, and rethink your product pages!

The Essential Components of a Product Page

If you’re worried that your product pages aren’t all they should be, you’re not alone – but you can turn it to your advantage. Baymard researchers found that, out of 60 top grossing ecommerce companies, only 18% had product detail pages that were deemed “good” or “acceptable” when they graded them for usability according to 95 different benchmarks. That means you can jump in and grab sales from your competitors if you really work on optimizing your product pages. So what makes a high-converting product page?

A good product page tells customers why your product is valuable, explains which needs it fulfills or problem it solves, and lists all the information a customer needs to make a buying decision. To do this, start by breaking down all the elements that you’ll need to include to make your product pages successful, including:

Product details that don’t simply describe the product, but give benefits and why customers should buy the product

Parts of the page that will urge customers to buy now, instead of shopping around

Components that will help customers choose exactly which product to buy and to overcome hesitancy

Elements that help customers understand how you will fix any problems that could come up post-purchase

So now let’s get more specific, and break down how you can include all of the above components to create some seriously converting product pages.

How to Craft the Perfect Product Page

Cramming in all of the above elements can seem impossible, especially since you don’t want cluttered product pages – but, trust us, it’s all about quality and not quantity, and there are ways to do all of the above that aren’t simply spelling it out in words. Try the following ways to improve your product pages:

black exclamation point in an orange circle — *Get straight to the point about your products with a brief paragraph, explaining their benefits.*

Get to the Point!

Before you can think about anything else, you need to craft the perfect product descriptions, and that means never burying the lead – or forcing your customers to dig around to find essential information. Use a descriptive title that includes keywords, and include a brief paragraph (1-4 sentences) explaining the benefits of your product, also including keywords, as well as an easily scannable bulleted list. According to Nielsen Norman Group, scannable and concise content has been shown to improve usability by 124%. You can certainly add some more rich detail further down the page, but the most important thing is to have “at a glance” information that doesn’t make customers wait to be intrigued.

Understand the Need for Speed

Speaking of not making customers wait, it’s incredibly important that you pay attention to the speed of your product pages – after all, why do customers shop online? Convenience and time saving, right? So that all goes out the window if your customers encounter sluggish product pages; in fact, you can lose 40% of shoppers if your product pages don’t load within 4 seconds.

To combat this, make sure you’re regularly testing your page speed, optimizing your content and images so they load fast, and clearing your cache regularly. Consider also using a tool like Google’s PageSpeeds Insights to help you analyze your product page load time.

Be a Product Picture Pro

illustration of a woman squatting down taking a picture with a camera — *Take compelling, high-quality, high-resolution picture to look more professional and get more traction on your site.*

It goes without saying that you need to include images of your product on your product page, but they’ve got to be the right images. For example, your feature image should ideally be an eye-level, mid to long shot, crisp, and clear image. Compelling, high-quality, high-resolution images will get you, on average, 94% more views than pages with dull, poor quality images. But you shouldn’t stop with just a pretty picture; go above and beyond by adding things like a zoom function and multiple product pictures at different angles to give a fuller visual breakdown of your product.

You should also add video to your product pages, if at all possible. According to Kissmetrics, site visitors are 64-85% more likely to buy your product after watching a video on your website. One real-world example: Stacks and Stacks found that shoppers who saw videos on its product pages were 144% more likely to add a product to their cart.

Create a Sense of Urgency

Sometimes you’ve just got to throw a little psychology at your customers, and create a sense of urgency to close the sale. For example, you can use a countdown timer for sale prices or free shipping offers, or indicate with your language that quantities of your item are limited. Does this strategy work? According to Conversion XL, you can increase sales by as much as 332% by creating scarcity and a sense of urgency. Not bad.

On a related note, you can also add an intent-based, or exit-intent, pop-up to offer a last-minute discount (especially if it includes an email list sign-up push) to reduce cart abandonment.

Win Their Trust

If you’re trying to increase your conversion rate, you’ve got to help your customers make the decision to buy. Creating a sense of urgency is definitely one way to do this, but building trust is another very important one: if your customers have any doubts about your product or company, you can kiss that conversion goodbye. So what are some ways to build trust and convince your customers to click that “buy” button?

Include customer reviews – Products with customer reviews have a 10% higher conversion rate than those without, and studies show that 91% of 18 to 34-year-old consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. Bonus: you can also use customer reviews as testimonials on your social media pages.

Add trust badges and SSL certificates – A recent survey showed that 61% of respondents had cancelled a purchase because trust badges were absent from the site. Customers seem to approve most of Norton, McAfee, and TRUSTe.

Have a clear return policy – A survey conducted by UPS in 2019 found that 73% of buyers become repeat buyers because of their experience with returns. Hassle-free returns and refunds increase the chances of customers returning to buy.

Answer Their Questions

Don’t ever leave your customers hanging! Always make sure you proactively answer their questions, so they’re less likely to hesitate and more likely to make the decision to buy. There are multiple ways to make sure you’re doing this:

Include FAQs right on your product page – Answering questions upfront in a visually pleasing, orderly way will ensure visitors don’t abandon the page simply due to confusion.
Use your images to give info – Include size charts or dimensions right in your product images so customers don’t have to navigate away from the page to find that info.
Have a live chat feature – In a survey conducted by Forrester, 44% of respondents said that having a live person answer their questions while they were in the middle of an online purchase was one of the most important features a website could offer. Not only that, but 51% of customers are more likely to purchase after using a live chat – and 29% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase with the option of live chat, even if they don’t use it.

Have a Clear Call-to-Action

Make sure your product page has a clear call-to-action (CTA) – in this case, a simple, sleek “add to cart,” “buy now,” “add to basket,” etc button. Whatever wording you choose, make sure the button stands out from the rest of your content, provides a simple instruction to your customer, and has a well thought out design that includes attention to basic color theory. green button with "add to cart" written next to a green cart

Does the design of your CTA really make a difference? Well, to give you a real-world example, when RIPT Apparel changed the color of its “add to cart” CTA and added a countdown timer next to the product, they saw 6.3% more conversions.

Stepping into the world of ecommerce means a lot of work crafting the perfect website, and you need to make sure you’re paying attention to all parts of your site, not just the landing page and checkout process. Remember that your product pages are vital to your business, and, while an unstructured or poorly presented page can break you, a well designed and well thought out one can give you a leg up on your competition and really make you! It’s a lot to think about, we know, but if you follow the above tips, start making even small, simple changes, and utilize A/B testing on your product pages, you’ll be watching your conversion rates rise in no time!

This Year, Resolve to Be a Content King or Queen

What are your thoughts on content as a way to market and grow your small business? Is it one of those “That would be nice to do, but I’ve got other things to worry about right now” kind of things? Or are you dabbling in content creation, but without a clear strategy? You could be making a mistake if you’re not engaging with content at all, or if you’re doing it haphazardly: after all, 70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing and 77% of companies say they have a content marketing strategy, so if you’re not on the content wagon, odds are you’re going to get left behind. We get that there’s a lot on your plate, and creating content as well as a strategy to make it work for you can feel overwhelming, but there are some simple steps you can take to start developing your content marketing strategy right now!

What Is a Content Marketing Strategy and Why Do You Need One?

We want to emphasize again: content marketing and a strategy to go with it isn’t just a “nice to have” kind of thing: in the year 2022, it’s pretty much a necessity for success, and almost every business can benefit from it. Think about it this way: do your potential customers have problems or goals that you want your business to solve for them? Well, then you need a content marketing strategy! You can use blog posts and videos (instead of or in addition to paid advertising) to solve their problems for free. Not only will you gain their attention and their trust, but you will also be at the top of their minds when they’re ready to buy.

And that’s basically the end goal: to be their go-to, right? But you need a strategy to make sure that you’re there at the moment a prospect decides to buy, and that includes knowing:

Which keywords will get you more traffic
What voice to use in your content to resonate with your audience
When to bring your product into the content and how to create a killer call-to-action without sounding like all you’re doing is selling

And remember, content is an investment of your time and resources, so you want to make sure you’re doing it right – if you do so with a solid content marketing strategy, according to the Content Marketing Institute, you could end up generating three times more leads than you would with paid advertising.

So what should your actual content strategy look like? Write it down, and include the following:

An analysis of your customers and the types of information they’ll need as they look for solutions to their problems
A discussion of your business goals and the role your content will play in supporting those goals
An outline of your plans for building and distributing content with the resources you have available to you

Steps to Creating a Content Marketing Strategy

You know you need content, and a content marketing strategy to get it out there, and you know generally what you should include in your plan, so let’s look at some steps to get you there.

1. Establish your goals

We’ve been pretty clear that going the content route is important for a lot of businesses, but what do you actually want to get out of it for your business? Creating content for content’s sake should never be your goal; rather, you should get specific. Do you want to:

Create leads?
Build relationships?
Improve your customers’ experiences?
Increase traffic to your website?
Establish yourself as an authority in your field?

Once you’ve decided on your main goals, try to quantify them with specific targets.

2. Define your target audience – and the problems they need solved

picture of a website with a lines connecting it to multiple people underneath it — *For your content to be successful, you need to know what your audience likes and dislikes.*

You can’t be successful at content marketing unless you know your audience: you need to know their likes and dislikes, as well as what content will appeal to them. To do this, you should create a persona for your typical customer, perhaps by reviewing customer data, interviewing employees who interact with customers, sitting in on sales calls, or surveying customers. Include in your persona the standard demographics of age, gender, location, and income, and also think about their pastimes, concerns, and what motivates them – and what problems they need solved. Ideally, you should be connecting with your audience, reinforcing the solution you’re offering, and building credibility.

3. Now define your business! What makes you unique?

You know your customers pretty well by now – but how well do you know your own business? Really stop and think about what makes you stand out from your competitors – otherwise, you could just end up adding to the sea of content for content’s sake that’s already out there. So think about what will be your content’s “thing”? What can you do better? Can you:

Motivate and inspire?
Be useful in a new way?
Educate and entertain?

Need more help breaking down your message and differentiating yourself from your competitors? Try writing down all of your brand messages, then the brand messages of your top three competitors. Finally, cross off the overlapping messages, and you’ll be left with your unique messages – your “thing!”

And remember, when it comes to having your content stand out, you’ll also be competing with news, reference, and entertainment sites, so make sure you have a unique spin, and are effectively using keywords, so you can rank as highly as possible on search engines. Which brings up to…

4. Do your research on keywords

Once you’re clearer on who your audience is and what your goals are, you need to do some serious research into keywords, so you know what your audience is searching for online. You’ll need to look at what people are searching for on Google: start by examining what you think you should be using, then decide what you should actually be using based on the data.

For example, if you want to be at the top of the pack when it comes to “public relations” in your area, you’re going to have to be more specific in your keywords if you want to beat out all the ads and listicles that come up when you put those terms into Google. Or, if you’re selling “running gear,” be more specific in your keywords about what problems you can solve – for example, using the keywords “running shoes for people with bad knees.” There are free keyword search tools available, including Ubersuggest, that can help you start with a simple keyword and then find long-tail keywords to add on to more effectively target your audience.

5. Figure out the nuts and bolts of your strategy

There’s a lot of theoretical things to think about surrounding your content marketing strategy, but there’s also a whole bunch of practical stuff to start thinking about, namely: megaphone with mail, a camera, and other content pics around it

What types of content are most suited to your audience. Will they respond to white papers, blog posts, videos, infographics, etc?
What platforms will you post on? For example, if your audience is more suited to long-form videos, YouTube is a good choice; if your audience is younger, though, TikTok or Instagram would be better choices.
What methods will you use to promote your content?
Decide on a schedule for both publishing your content and promoting it, including on social media and through email marketing – consider using an online tool to keep all your scheduling in one place and under control. You’ll also need a well thought out calendar that includes who’s doing what and when.
Work out how you’ll use the resources available to you: for example, will you handle the content creation and scheduling yourself, will you have a team to take it on for you, or will you outsource it?

6. Create your content and set it loose on the world!

Now you’re ready to actually create your content! When creating, keep all of these things in mind:

Stay focused on your goals – not just to entertain, inform, educate, or establish yourself as an authority, but also to get your prospects to heed your call-to-action
Use keywords based on your research
Try to find original angles on your topics
Use a consistent voice and style that speaks to your target audience
Create some longer content, since content that is longer than 5,000 words often gets better search engine results
Link back to your other content
Use a mix of text and non-text content

7. Make sure you’re measuring

Content marketing is not a one-off thing, rather, it’s a work in progress. You’ll need to refine as you go, and as you learn more about your audience and what works and what doesn’t – and that means tracking and measuring. Remember, though, not to get sucked into looking at vanity metrics, and to measure the actions that your prospects are taking, and not just focus on your clicks and likes. Consider using these 4 content marketing metrics: person in a suit with analytics graph next to them

Consumption metrics – What did your audience do with the content?
Sharing metrics – How often are they sharing it?
Lead generation metrics – How many leads did you get from this content?
Sales metrics – Did you make any money on this piece of content?

It’s a brave new world of marketing out there, and there’s a good chance you need to be in the content marketing game – and that means you’ll need a solid strategy to get it right. It’ll take time, organization, and creativity to build your successful content marketing strategy, but if you follow the tips above, we know you can charge into the new year with a new outlook on attracting customers and growing your business!

End of the Year Stress? How You Can Wrap This Year Up Right for Your Business

Can you believe that 2021 is almost over? Nope, we can’t either. But, as the owner of a small business, you’re probably worried about more than just how quickly time seems to be passing at this time of year. As Q4 comes to a close, you’re probably thinking about – and maybe stressing over – whether your business performed as well as it could have over the past year, where you stand right now, and how you can set yourself up for growth in the new year. And while we can’t promise simple answers or solutions (wouldn’t it be great if the business world was simple?), what we can do is lay out a checklist that will help you find the balance between looking back over the last year and looking forward to the new – no stress necessary!

1. Take a Step Back – and Celebrate the Year’s Wins!

This first step might not seem like the most practical bit of advice on the list, but it is so necessary to actively stay engaged with and excited about your business, otherwise stress and doubt can really hamper your ability to move forward. The sad fact is that many entrepreneurs never feel truly successful, and many are plagued by stress. According to a Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, 34% of entrepreneurs – 4 percentage points more than other workers – reported they were worried, and 45% of entrepreneurs said they were stressed, 3 percentage points more than other workers (and that was pre-pandemic!).

So, before you move on to the next steps on the list, take a moment (or more than that, ideally) to not just give yourself a little pat on the back, but actually list the successes of your business for the year, no matter how big or small. Then reward yourself with something that makes you feel good. If this step seems optional, and easy to skip, you might want to rethink things, or you could be facing some serious burnout in the new year.

2. Do Some Serious Analyzing

If you’re worried and stressed, take a breath and start asking questions to focus on what’s really important for the health of your business, and what it is that’s keeping you up at night. Are you not growing at a rate that’s appropriate for your business? Are your expenses outstripping your revenue? Are you acquiring fewer customers than you did last year?

Where do you go from the question-asking stage? Well, if you’re going to really understand what worked and what didn’t last year, and what needs to happen in the new year, you’re going to need to do some number crunching. Before you do that, though, figure out what’s really important to your business, and what you should be looking at. In other words, separate out the actionable metrics for your business from the vanity metrics, or the less meaningful things such as likes and subscribers.

So which metrics should be most important to your business? Well, you can look at some or all of the following, remembering it’s always better to calculate year-over-year growth rates for these metrics (instead of looking at just one period in time):

Revenue
Expenses
Number of customers
Average customer value (for the year)
Average length of time that you keep your customers
Lifetime value of a customer
Click-through/conversion rates on email newsletters
Conversion rate from lead to paying customer

Remember, these are meant to be actionable metrics, so learn from these numbers, and make a plan of action based on them to keep doing what you’re doing right, and change course where things are going wrong.

3. Get Some Outside Help

calculator next to some papers — *Consider hiring a financial advisor to help wit financial statements and taxes.*

Now is a great time to meet with a financial professional, like an accountant or bookkeeper, so you can get some help reviewing financial statements, and can ask all your tax-related questions (like about deductions, for example), You can also work out a timeline for your tax deadlines (you might want to pay taxes on a quarterly basis, for example).

In addition, if you’ve been thinking about getting some help for your business, now is the time to finally keep that resolution, especially if you’re starting to feel physically and emotionally burnt out. If you’re looking to hire full-time employees, now is a great time to get your ads and paperwork ready. Or, it might be less stressful for you to consider outsourcing as an alternative to hiring full-time employees – or doing everything yourself. You can outsource any number of tasks, including web security, payment processing, and even email management. You might think you can save money by trying to do everything yourself, but more often than not, you just end up saving neither time nor money, and you end up with a not-so-great result.

4. Get Social

Having a strong social media presence is so important for most businesses these days, but that does mean a lot of upkeep, or you could be doing more harm to your brand than good. If your social media accounts aren’t doing you any favors, revisit them now so you don’t have to stress about this aspect of your digital marketing next year. For example, head to your Twitter account and change that months-old tweet that’s pinned at the top of your handle, refresh your Facebook cover images, or actually start using your Pinterest account!

5. Take Stock, Literally

Worried about having too little or too much inventory left over from last year? Or, if you don’t sell physical products, are you worried about whether you’re focusing on offering the right services? Use this time to literally take stock (or evaluate what services were most popular), and do some ruthless paring down, so you can focus on what sells, and what is just taking up your time and money.

6. Set Some Goals for Next Year

Once you’ve done all of your analyzing of the past year, it’s time to look forward to next year. How should you do that? Start with the practical, if tedious, stuff, like:

Gather your tax documents to be on top of tax season, including bank statements and financial reports, proof of business expenses, mileage logs, and 1099 forms
Renew any licenses that need renewal
Revisit vendor agreements to see if any changes are necessary
Talk to your landlord about your lease, and see if you can do any renegotiating

After that, it’s time for some bigger-picture thinking: it’s time to set some goals for the next year. But that doesn’t mean creating a laundry list of tasks with no clear focus; rather, you should be focusing on setting SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals that put you on the road to growth. For example, making a SMART goal would mean that, instead of saying you’d like to grow your revenue by 20% next year, you might say, “By the end of next year, I want to hit $X in revenue from acquiring X more customers than we did this year, and upselling X% of existing basic customers to our more premium plan.”

So, take your actionable metrics from above, and choose the four most-impactful ones that you can emphasize in the coming months, one for each quarter. Then publicize these goals within your team and make plans to evaluate your progress on a monthly basis, to keep you on track.

We know it’s easy to put all of this important stuff off when you’re in the weeds of your business’ day-to-day operations, but analyzing where you’ve been and planning ahead for where you want to be going are vital for the success of your business. So instead of stressing at the end of the year, take a firm hold on the reins, get done what needs to be done, and celebrate making it through another year, so you can be energized for the year to come!

Could Guerilla Marketing Lead to Surprising Sales for Your Business?

What do you think of when you see the word “guerilla?” Probably guerilla warfare, right? Not exactly what you’d have in mind if you were trying to come up with a new and innovative marketing strategy! But think about it in another way: guerilla tactics generally involve some sort of ambush, or – more relevant to the business world – the element of surprise. That type of thinking can lead to some seriously surprising marketing campaigns – ones that can catch people off guard and really get their attention. So what exactly is guerilla marketing, and what are some examples of how you can use it to grow your business?

What Does Guerilla Marketing Mean?

The term “guerilla marketing” was coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his 1984 book of the same name. Although marketing looked very different in the 80s, his ideas are surprisingly relevant to a 21st-century business landscape where companies are all competing for the attention of consumers who can often be immune to traditional advertising. His strategy was to use surprising and unconventional interactions to cause an emotional reaction in potential customers, or a buzz around a business, but the basic purpose is the same as for any type of marketing strategy: to get people to remember you.

Probably the best thing about guerilla marketing? The bang for your buck. Generally, these types of surprise-tactic campaigns are pretty budget-friendly, but there is a catch: they require a lot of resources other than money, namely time and creativity. Ideally, you’ll use your audience’s own everyday environment and directly connect with them there (hence the relative low cost). But you’ll have to find ways to repurpose that environment (whether it’s digital or IRL), which is where the investment of time and intellectual powers come in.

So, if you’re wondering where to even start, let’s take a look at some different types of guerilla marketing, as well as some examples of how you can implement them for your business.

Types of Guerilla Marketing

To get more of a feeling for what we mean by using your audience’s own environment and repurposing it in a surprising way, check out the following types of guerilla marketing that businesses have been engaging in:

Outdoor or street guerilla marketing – This type of guerilla marketing refers to any type of surprising marketing action taking place outdoors, and can involve adding something interactive or creative into the existing urban landscape. Think changing up statues or putting some large-scale artwork onto the street itself.

Indoor guerilla marketing – Similar to outdoor marketing, but usually takes place in big, public urban spaces like train stations.

Ambient guerilla marketing – This is a type of marketing that interferes with the flow of things in people’s environment, usually by placing ads in unconventional places.

Event ambush marketing – With this type of marketing, you hijack (so to speak) the audience of an event already in progress, like a concert or sporting event, to promote your business. Be careful with this one: you usually do it without the consent of the event sponsors in order to make it truly authentic, so be careful of any legal issues!

Viral marketing – This is a tough one, because, ultimately, it’s the decision of the audience whether a video or other marketing campaign goes viral, but if you think you can come up with something creative and smart enough, go for it!

Guerilla projections – Again, if you’re willing to risk some legal issues, you can try this type of marketing, in which you install hidden projectors and project advertisements for your business on high-rise buildings in high-traffic areas.

Experiential marketing – Also known as participation marketing or live marketing, this type of marketing involves getting the public to interact with your brand, usually in some sort of pop-up, immersive experience.

Real-World Examples of Guerilla Marketing You Can Try

The above are some general ideas for how to incorporate low-cost, high-impact guerilla marketing tactics into your marketing strategy; below are some other specific ways you can use creative guerilla marketing tactics to boost your brand.

Supreme sticker decal in different pastel colors — *Stickers are a great way to get your business’ name out there.*

Stickers

Did you know that the creators of Reddit have only ever spent $500 on marketing? Seems amazing, doesn’t it, considering that they have over 36 million user accounts and 169 million unique monthly visitors! And do you know what they spent most of that money on? Stickers. Stickers can be a very affordable and memorable way to market your business, as long as you have a solid design, and an interesting way to distribute/place them.

Simple, Cheap Outdoor Installations

You don’t have to spend a huge amount on an installation like Volkswagen’s experiential, interactive piano staircase in a Stockholm, Sweden subway station (seriously, check it out: they made a working piano staircase in a subway station!). Consider how the makers of the movie It gained massive social media traffic and views of their movie’s trailers by simply tying red balloons to subway gratings in Sydney, Australia. The tactic creeped people out and got them interested enough to learn more.

Reverse Graffiti

If you’re not into the idea of spray painting public property to get your name out there, you can try a unique take on the idea of graffiti: use a stencil with the message you want to get across, and then power wash the area in the stencil (instead of spray painting it). You’ll have a unique-looking bit of branding, and hey – who can complain about you washing away dirt and grime?

Counter-Campaigns

We’ve all heard of reverse psychology – but have you ever thought about using it for an inventive – and effective – marketing campaign? Yes, you can take a chance and literally argue against your business to try and get people to take notice of you. For example, when a library in Troy, NY was facing a vote to close it down for financial reasons, an advertising agency devised an ingenious campaign to get people to vote against the closure, which was backed by a local anti-tax organization. They made up another organization, and pretended that this organization agreed with the anti-tax group – but this fake group was arguing to close down the library so they could have a book-burning party the next day. People were disgusted, they sat up and paid attention, and then voted to keep the library open.

Clever Product Placement

two boxes wrapped with string and a heart tag — *When sending freebies to a potential customer, incorporate something unexpected.*

It’s always a good idea to send free stuff to potential customers, right? But not super unexpected, right? So consider finding a way to add something unexpected to your freebie, like when an advertising agency working with the makers of the TV show, “Prison Break” sent beautiful cakes to members of the media and hid files in the cakes promoting the show.

Beautifying Something

Your guerilla marketing campaign shouldn’t disrupt people’s environments in an unpleasant way (well, unless you’re promoting a movie about a super creepy killer clown) and, in fact, you can really get people’s attention by making their world a little bit brighter. For example, furniture store IKEA has been known to unexpectedly spruce up spaces like bus stops and train stations with some cute, cozy furnishings, pleasing passers-by – and keeping IKEA’s brand in the top of their minds.

Using Social Media in Unexpected Ways

Sure, you can post standard content on your social media platforms, like updates and notifications, but have you thought about starting some beef online? Brands, like Burger King, have been known to get on platforms like Instagram and create whole sagas of relationship drama with their brand at the center, grabbing them thousands or even millions of views. So maybe it’s time to channel your inner soap opera writer…

There are so many ways to market your business, and a lot of them will help you to grow, but if you feel like some of those avenues have become a bit stale or pricey for you, you might want to start thinking outside of the box and getting a little more inventive. Sure, it’ll take some time and brain power, but if you take a bit of a gamble, you might find that you’re the talk of the town, and that you’ve got a whole lot of new interest in your business.

Measuring Up: Vanity Metrics Vs. Actionable Metrics

What gives you a thrill when it comes to your business? Are you totally excited about your product, or do you love spending time with customers? Or maybe you’re a numbers nerd, and nothing gets you going like checking out your analytics and seeing all sorts of metrics skyrocketing – and hey, there’s nothing wrong with that! But before you get too worked up about things like how many visitors, subscribers, or followers you have, stop and think about what these numbers actually mean. Are they things that just make you feel good, or are they truly things you can act on to reach your business goals? In other words, are you focusing too much on what’s known as “vanity metrics”?

What Are Vanity Metrics?

Vanity metrics are based on likes, comments, and traffic to your site without conversions.

Eric Ries introduced the term “vanity metrics” in his book, The Lean Startup, describing them as metrics that make you feel good, or that look good on paper, but that don’t actually do anything for your business: they’re not actionable to business health or business growth.

Ries also describes vanity metrics as dangerous. Why? Because they distract you: let’s say, for example, that you’re focused on the traffic your site is getting, but you’re not paying enough attention to getting the right traffic, which is more important. So if you’re focused on a vanity metric like traffic for the sake of traffic, you’ll be wasting your time on something that doesn’t matter all that much because:

If you’ve had a big spike in traffic, for example, the spike on its own tells you nothing about why you’re getting more traffic – it could have been something you did, or some outside attention you received, so there’s no way of knowing how to replicate what’s working for you.
It doesn’t ultimately matter how much traffic you get if you’re not seeing conversions; to put it more bluntly, traffic doesn’t make you money, only paying customers do!

Vanity metrics can ultimately lead you down the wrong path, and make you think that everything is great with your business, when, in fact, you should be tweaking certain strategies. So how do you know what metrics are more important?

Vanity Metrics Vs. Actionable Metrics

If vanity metrics are all glitter with no actual substance, the antidote to being sucked in by them is using actionable metrics, which are tied to the goals of your business. These metrics are specific, replicable, provide you with insights on how to make better decisions for your business, and, well, actionable. How do you know if you’re looking at an actionable metric? Well, business growth experts suggest you make sure your metrics can help you answer questions like the following:

How do we gain or lose revenue?
How do we gain or lose customers?
Why are people coming to us?

In addition to using these questions to determine if the metrics you are using are actionable, you’ll also need to ask yourself what your business goals are – remember, actionable metrics are tied to your business’ specific goals, so one business’ actionable metric might not be as relevant to another business. Try using the SMART method to create goals that are:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-bound

For example, when it comes to marketing goals, think of it this way: improving social media visibility is a marketing goal, while social media engagement is a metric. Other examples of marketing goals might be things like:

Improve brand awareness
Improve content quality
Improve SEO
Having the right goals, with the right actionable metrics pointing the way to reaching those goals, will put you back on the right track and keep you from focusing too much on those feel-good vanity metrics. So let’s take a closer look at some examples of how you can replace these impressive but substance-free vanity metrics with more useful actionable metrics.

What to Focus On

Below are just some examples of some common vanity metrics and the more important actionable metrics that correspond to them; remember, your business might have different goals that require looking at different actionable metrics, or you might even want to look at both the vanity metrics and actionable metrics, depending on your aims. Consider the following vanity metrics versus their more goal-tied actionable metrics:

Number of social media likes vs. number of social media referrals

Number of social media followers vs. engagement rate

Time on site vs. time on page or scroll depth

Number of newsletter subscribers vs. email opt-in conversion rate or acquisition path

Pageviews vs. social shares or bounce rate

Number of customers acquired vs. customer acquisition cost

Monthly recurring revenue vs. customer lifetime value

Email opens vs. email clicks

Free trial sign-ups vs. free trial usage

Focusing more on the above actionable metrics will help you to build a process for tracking the health of your business, not just the health of your website or your social media accounts. If you’re not sure where to start, pick out up to five actionable metrics, perhaps that focus on revenue, like customer acquisition cost, recurring revenues, or customer lifetime value, and use analytics tools to see if your numbers are aligning with your goals. Then add in other metrics to get a fuller picture of how your customers are getting to you, how engaged they are with you, and how you can improve in all aspects of the health of your business and its online presence.

You’ve only got so much time, energy, and money to put into your business, right? That means you don’t have time to waste focusing on things that make you feel good, but aren’t necessarily telling you anything about your business, or helping you to grow or get closer to your goals. Don’t get sucked into a false sense of security – or success – or you could end up hurting your business; instead, take the vanity metrics with a grain of salt, and invest your precious resources in actionable metrics that will help you make the best decisions for your business that you can.

Can a SWOT Analysis Help You Grow Your Business?

At some point in the history of your business, you’ve probably conducted some sort of market research so you could gain a better understanding of your target audience. But have you ever taken a good, hard look at how your business is running so you can better understand what’s going well and what needs work? If not, you should consider doing what’s known as a SWOT analysis, or an analysis of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Asking honest questions about your business can help you to pinpoint inefficiencies and highlight your strengths, so you can improve productivity and increase sales.

The Why and How of SWOT

Why conduct a SWOT analysis? Well, doing so will give you a better understanding of the internal workings of your organization, as well as a better understanding of how you compare to your competition. It can be easy to get bogged down in all the little day-to-day issues at your business, meaning you could be missing out on the broader view of what’s going on in your organization, or the bigger picture of how it occupies space in your industry – and a SWOT analysis will give you a bird’s eye view, so to speak, of all of this.

And the great thing about a SWOT analysis is that it focuses on your business in a real-world context, so you’ll end up with actionable steps you can take to make improvements, or capitalize on your strengths. So where do you start? Before we get down to the specifics of examining your strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats, let’s take a quick look at how generally to put a SWOT analysis together:

Get a team together – If you’re a bigger business, with multiple employees in different departments (or even if you have any size team), gather representatives from every department and team to get a variety of perspectives. If you’re flying solo in your business, you can still try and get perspectives other than your own by being creative: try involving your customers, friends and family who know your business, vendors you use, or even people you outsource tasks to, like your accountant.

Get your ideas out there – Once you’ve got a team together, take a little time to brainstorm, perhaps by having everyone write down ideas on sticky notes and then sticking them all up on a board when they’re done, grouping similar ideas together.

Get your ideas together – Prioritize the ideas that come out of this session, whether you allow everyone to vote or you simply choose what you think is most actionable.

Once you’ve done all this, you can create your SWOT analysis, which will look like a square divided into four quadrants, headed “strengths,” “weaknesses,” “opportunities,” and “threats,” with the finalized ideas in the appropriate category.

The Categories and Questions

If you’re wondering where to even begin brainstorming for your SWOT analysis, the best way to get going is by asking questions related to each category, so you can focus on how your business is performing in or reacting to them.

We say “performing in” or “reacting to” because the four categories are actually broken down into two subcategories: internal and external factors. Your strengths and weaknesses are considered internal factors, because they are things having to do with the performance of your business, or things that you can control, like who’s on your team, your location, or your intellectual property. Your opportunities and threats are external factors, or things that you can’t control and that you must find a way to react to, like competitors, vendor pricing, or trends in consumer behavior.

So what does each category look like, and what should you be asking?

Strengths

Strengths are the internal, positive attributes of your company and, again, are things within your control. To determine what you and your analysis team think are the things you’re performing best at, ask questions like:

What do your customers love about your products or services?
What makes your business unique?
What assets do you have, either in manpower (knowledge, skills, education, reputation) or physical (cash, customers, technology, equipment)?
What competitive edge do you have, or what do you do better than other businesses?
What has been your business’ greatest achievement?

Weaknesses

Another internal set of attributes, your weaknesses are things you need to improve upon to become more competitive. To figure these out, try asking things like:

What have you received negative feedback or reviews about?
Do you have customers who are canceling on you, and why?
Are there assets that you are lacking, like money or equipment?
In what area do you or your employees need more knowledge or training?
Are there areas in which your business is not competitive?

Opportunities

Now we get to the external factors in your SWOT analysis – these might be a little bit harder to figure out because they are the ones that are beyond your control, and it might require a little more effort and reliance on data to determine. But, you can start by asking yourself questions about your opportunities like:

Is your market growing and are there trends that might mean more people will want your product or service?
In what ways can you take advantage of any changes affecting your industry?
What new business ventures can you afford to take on in the next 6 months?
Are there gaps in the market that you might be able to fill?

Threats

exclamation point with a red triangle around it — *Ask questions to find out what kind of threats there are for your company.*

There are always going to be external threats that your business faces, but doing a SWOT analysis can help you be proactive in tackling them. Ask questions like:

Are there competitors entering your market?
Will suppliers be able to offer you the same materials for the same prices for the foreseeable future?
How might changes in technology affect your business?
Is consumer behavior changing in a way that could affect your business?
Are market trends changing?

How to Use Your SWOT Analysis

Ok, so by now you’ve gathered a whole lot of facts about your business – but creating a SWOT analysis is not merely a fact-finding mission. You have to take what you’ve learned and convert it into a real strategy, with actionable steps and goals with a specific timeline.

To do this, look at each quadrant of your SWOT analysis; start with the strengths quadrant and compare it with your opportunities and threats quadrants. Decide how you can use your strengths to take advantage of the opportunities and help combat the threats, and then make a list of actions you can take – write them down on a timeline, giving yourself goals or milestones to meet each quarter, month, etc.

Next, it’s time to move to the weaknesses quadrant – hopefully you’ve been very honest about them! You’ll need to think about ways to convert your weaknesses into strengths by focusing on what you can do better, and by analyzing what external opportunities could possibly combat your weaknesses. In addition, think about how working on your weaknesses could possibly help ward off any external threats that might be coming your way, and, again, create an action list that you can prioritize and schedule.

Once you’ve done your SWOT analysis, you’ll find not only that you have a more comprehensive understanding of your business and its place in the market, but you’ll have gone a long way toward creating a strategic, actionable plan for your business. All of that can add up to achievable growth goals and a big boost in sales – so gather your team together and get analyzing!