September is a great month to get your business involved in local schools.
It’s September already (can you believe it?!) and maybe the schools in your neighborhood have been in session for a few weeks now or perhaps they’re just kicking off the new school year. No matter where you live it’s not too late to think about reaching out to a neighborhood school or school district to see how you can help out. Not only is it a great way to build a positive image of your agency, it’s a wonderful, cost-effective, subtle advertising technique that has the potential to reap so many benefits for your business’ reputation. The options are endless to make your community and clients remember your business this September and beyond.
A backpack drive is a great tool to increase your business’s visibility in the community.
Schools need support from everyone, not just teachers and parents. Businesses in the community are a great resource. You likely have assets that schools can benefit from and the payback may be the most valuable you’ll ever receive. Your public perception from an act of community goodwill will skyrocket. You’ll be reaching an untapped audience and will gain some loyal clients in the process.
Think Outside the Backpack
Of course a school isn’t going to turn down a check so if that’s all you have time or energy to commit to, don’t hesitate to fill one out and send it in. The recipients will be more than grateful and any amount large or small will be appreciated and a positive association to your agency will be made. But if you have some time to offer, try some of these creative ideas that can help you help the kids and schools in your community and leave a lasting impression and impact.
Sponsor a backpack drive. To get started, set up collection boxes in your lobby, design posters promoting it, and post on your social media accounts exactly what you’re collecting. Clients old and new can swing by and drop off their donations. Give a goal that you want to fill up X number of backpacks before school begins to distribute to children in the community. Once the deadline passes and you have your backpacks filled, you can distribute as you see fit. Contact the school’s principal if you’re not sure how or where to hand the backpacks out. Even if school is already in session, you can collect some supplies to distribute all year long.
Get branded supplies. Think about a cheap, customizable school supply that will be used constantly and then order within your budget. Be sure to order it with your logo or contact information prominently displayed so your name isn’t forgotten. There will always be a need for a pencil, pen, or highlighter so why not have potential clients (or their children) reach for one with your name on it?
Get in touch with the PTA. If you’re at a loss as to where to focus your efforts, ask the parents, particularly ones on the school’s PTA. They know what projects need the most attention and are most urgent. Maybe there’s an upcoming Teacher Appreciation Day that needs a lunch sponsored or the gym needs a new coat of paint. Foot the bill and get great exposure and word-of-mouth advertising for your agency.
Sponsor Back-To-School Night. It’s the one night a year where parents and teachers are running through the halls trying to get acclimated to their new normals. You can have a table with giveaways (don’t forget to display your business cards) or maybe some water bottles to quench the thirst of some chatty parents. Whatever it is you come up with you will have guaranteed foot traffic of potential clients that night.
Little Effort, Big Impact
Pull your company out of a marketing slump and get involved in a back-to-school campaign.
Back-to-school time is a golden opportunity for you and your business to get involved in your community or foster an already established relationship. It’s easy to get lost in a sea of other businesses so use this time to put you and your business back on potential clients’ radar. If you’re in a marketing slump, consider a September comeback and make it an annual giving event. You’re the best judge of the amount of time, money, and involvement you can afford so take a look and make a big (or small) move and make it a September to remember!
Things move pretty fast in the world of social media, and internet marketing. Blink, and you might miss something! The landscape of social media is changing all the time, and businesses need to keep up with the times. So is your business keeping up with the times? You might already have a strong presence on Facebook, Twitter, and maybe even Instagram, but how confident are you about using one of the newest, youngest, and most popular platforms: TikTok? If you’re feeling a little unsure how to best use this platform for your business, we’ve got some essential strategies for boosting your popularity on TikTok, and boosting your business in the process.
TikTok: The Basics
TikTok is not just for dancing, it can help boost your business and brand.
While TikTok started as a fun video streaming app mostly aimed at Gen Zers, it has now taken the marketing and advertising world by storm, completely changing the way brands create and share content. It’s a video-based app, but unlike on YouTube, the videos have a time limit of ten minutes (recently upped in the past few months from only three minutes). TikTok has over 1 billion active users, so if you get it right, you can reach a huge amount of potential customers.
So what is TikTok all about? Some people might think it’s all dances, challenges, and pranks, and while that’s a lot of the content on this platform, it’s not all there is, and there’s definitely potential for creating interesting stuff. What’s most important to remember about TikTok is that it’s all about fun and visually appealing content, meaning this isn’t the place for serious, sit-down sales pitches!
No, this platform is a place to entertain and connect with potential customers on a personal level – and those potential customers will often be, shall we say, on the younger side. In fact, almost 50% of US TikTok users are below the age of 30, and over half of those users are teenagers. For brands targeting younger audiences, TikTok can be the best thing that ever happened to them. But remember, even if your business is not completely focused on Gen Z, you can still benefit from marketing on TikTok. More than half of the users are over 30; not only that, but it’s always a good idea to be somewhere that’s influential with the younger generation: they could grow up to be your target audience, after all!
So what are some of the basic ways you can get a presence on TikTok? Start by:
Creating lighthearted videos set to music, perhaps demo-ing your product. TikTok videos don’t need to be highly polished. In fact, you can just take out your phone and start filming! But they do need to feel authentic. It’s better to make a simple video that highlights your brand than to try to create a wacky one in an attempt to go viral – you can’t predict what will go viral and you could just end up looking inauthentic.
Launching a hashtag challenge encouraging TikTok users to create or recreate content and add your branded hashtag to it.
Working with TikTok influencers. Influencers on this platform might not be as big as on other platforms yet, but they can still help you avoid looking like you’re making traditional ads, which Gen Z and other TikTok users tend to avoid like the plague.
The above are the basics of using TikTok – not so different from other social media platforms, right? So there’s nothing to be intimidated about! You just need to remember to keep things fun, authentic, and short when using TikTok. But before we get to some more technical details, we want to briefly go over why you should be making the effort in the first place.
So why use TikTok for marketing? Because it allows you to:
Increase your brand’s awareness – With all of the creative videos you make and the hashtag challenges you invite people to join, you can really highlight what you’re all about, and boost your brand.
Promote your products/services in an authentic-feeling way – We’ve moved a long way past traditional marketing these days, and most people can sniff out a sales push a million miles away, so finding ways to connect with people while promoting your products in a non-pushy way is essential.
Enlarge your audience – As we already pointed out, TikTok has a billion active users – and these users are spread out over 140+ countries, meaning you have the potential to gain an international following.
Reach new customers – You’ll be building your customer base by connecting authentically with people, and probably getting your brand noticed by people who don’t engage on other social media platforms, or who rarely see traditional advertising.
Making the Most of TikTok
That all sounds pretty good, right? And like we said, using TikTok is not much harder than creating content for other social media platforms – you just need some creativity. With that being said, though, there are some specific things you should be doing so you can boost your brand’s popularity on TikTok as much as possible. For example:
Know how “For You” pages work
What’s the holy grail for businesses when it comes to any social media platform? Having their content recommended to users! And it’s no different on TikTok: your goal should be to appear on TikTok’s “For You” page. The TikTok For You page is basically a personalized, scrollable feed of content, serving as the app’s home screen – meaning it’s the first thing users see when they open the app. It’s known for its fine-tuned algorithm that produces accurate recommendations based on each user’s actions on TikTok (e.g., what they like, share, view more than once, etc.). But with that being said, TikTok is also pretty secretive about its algorithm, so you’re going to have to work at getting on these pages, especially since not appearing on any For You pages means your chances of getting noticed are pretty slim.
Basically, what happens is that whenever somebody creates and uploads a video, TikTok pushes it to a batch of viewers, and the TikTok algorithm will evaluate its “Performance Ranking” The “Performance Ranking” is based on the video’s Completion Ratio (i.e., the percentage of the video the initial viewers watch), shares, comments, and likes. If the resulting “Performance Ratio” is high enough, TikTok will continue to push the video to another group of viewers. The Completion Ratio is the most critical part of the equation, so you need to ensure that your video is good enough that people watch it until the end, and that they engage with it.
The good news is that their algorithm doesn’t take into account follower count or a history of high-performing content, so you don’t have to be an established TikTok star to make a dent. Not only that, but unlike on other social media platforms, the For You page encourages users to try out content from strangers before showing them videos their friends might have uploaded since they last opened the app.
So, as with most social media content creation, it essentially all comes down to creating high-quality content, and using the platform’s content publishing features in an effective way (see below). But if you do want a bit of a leg up, there is one cheat you can use: if you pay for your business to have a Pro account on TikTok, you will be able to access trends and analytics for the application, and will be able to see insights into who is watching your videos and sharing them. Since there is not much insight into TikTok’s algorithm, this information can come in pretty handy.
Be up on TikTok’s content publishing features
There are ways you can leverage the platform’s content publishing tools to make sure your videos get the attention they deserve, and hopefully get you into as many For You pages as possible. For example, you can:
Write a short description – You’ve only got 150 characters, so make it good!
Include hashtags – Be sure to keep on top of what is trending, and make sure you’re targeting them to your specific audience.
Use trending sounds – Yes, sounds are a ranking signal for the TikTok algorithm. So, using trending audio clips can increase your chances of surfacing on more For You pages.
Tag friends – Tags are especially useful if you’re collaborating with another brand, an influencer, or a content creator.
Add links – If you have a TikTok Business account, you can add a link in your bio by editing your profile and adding a URL to the Website field. In your videos, you can then ask users to sign up, browse products, or make a purchase via the link in your bio.
Enable duet/stitch – By enabling this feature, you can allow users to use your videos to create duets or stitch your videos with their own to create unique or response content.
Use TikTok ads
TikTok avoided having advertising on it for a while, but now there are multiple possibilities for your business to advertise on TikTok:
Infeed Native Content: Similar to Snapchat or Instagram story ads, and supports features like website clicks and app downloads. These ads are limited to 60 seconds, so you’ve got to keep them tight!
Brand Takeovers: Lets your brand “take over” TikTok for the day. You can create images, GIFs, and videos with embedded links to landing pages or hashtag challenges. These ads can be 3-second photos or 3.5-second videos, so you have to be ready to craft something powerful. Doing a brand takeover will mean that your business will show up as soon as users open the app, so you have to be prepared to pay for that privilege: these ads are much more expensive than in-feed ads, especially if you choose TopView ads, which can be 5-60 seconds, and allow viewers to engage with them.
Hashtag Challenges: As pointed out above, you can create your own hashtag challenges, or you can pay to use promoted hashtags to get more engagement.
Create branded lenses or filters
As on Snapchat, you can create lenses and filters on TikTok – and you can brand them! Your filters and lenses will stay live for 10 days, and users will be able to add them to their content. That means all the followers of the users who incorporate your filters/lenses will also see your brand, making this a unique way to build brand awareness.
Marketing your brand can feel overwhelming these days. It’s no longer as simple as creating a print ad or one-off commercial, you’ve got to be out there engaging with potential customers online, all the time. But if you know which platforms to engage with – and more importantly, how to use them most effectively – you can reach more people than businesses of the past could ever dream of! So what do you think: is marketing on TikTok right for your business?
What have you given up for your business? Sleep, free time, a healthy work-life balance? There was a time when we thought you had to eat, sleep, and dream your business to make it work and to get ahead, but now a lot of experts are rethinking the whole “workaholic” thing. In fact, not only is overworking yourself not good for you, it’s also not good for your bottom line. It turns out that working more doesn’t equal working better, so to get ahead (and stay sane), you might want to rethink the long hours you’re putting in.
A Pointless Amount of Overtime
Here’s one of the best and worst things about modern working life: technology allows us to always be just a tap away from work, and presumably allows us to constantly be getting more and more done. You can always be on, and so can your employees, and we’re often expected (or expect ourselves) to be always on, working longer and longer hours. But are these long hours necessary – or even beneficial? Here’s good news for your social life: studies have been done on this subject, and the answer is an emphatic no.
Take, for example, a study out of Stanford University. According to economics professor John Pencavel, working longer hours simply does not make us better workers, or more productive. In fact, he found that productivity per hour declines sharply when a person works more than 50 hours a week. After 55 hours, productivity drops so much that putting in any more hours would be pointless. And, those who work up to 70 hours a week are only getting the same amount of work done as those who put in 55 hours. Wait, what?
And how about this: in a study of consultants by Erin Reid, a professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, managers could not tell the difference between employees who actually worked 80 hours a week and those who just pretended to. Reid was not able to find any evidence that those employees actually accomplished less, or any sign that the overworking employees accomplished more.
The funny thing is, we’ve actually known about this for a while. According to Harvard Business Review, “In the 19th century, when organized labor first compelled factory owners to limit workdays to 10 (and then eight) hours, management was surprised to discover that output actually increased – and that expensive mistakes and accidents decreased. This is an experiment that Harvard Business School’s Leslie Perlow and Jessica Porter repeated over a century later with knowledge workers. It still held true. Predictable, required time off (like nights and weekends) actually made teams of consultants more productive.”
So how can all this be? You probably already know the likely answer: the stress and fatigue that come with working long hours just aren’t conducive to working to your full potential. According to Pencavel, “In a nationally representative survey of almost 30,000 U.S. workers interviewed between August 2001 and May 2003, almost 38% replied affirmatively to the question, ‘Did you have low levels of energy, poor sleep, or a feeling of fatigue in the past two weeks?’ Full-time workers were more likely to lose productive time from fatigue than those working part-time.” You could have told us that, right?
Not only that, but you’re probably even more tired than you think, and the effects of being tired are also probably more pronounced than you think. Studies show that only 1-3% of the population can sleep five or six hours a night without suffering some performance drop-off; cut your sleep down to that amount for multiple nights in a row and you could be looking at a hit to your reaction speed, short-term and long-term memory, ability to focus, decision-making capacity, math processing, cognitive speed, and spatial orientation. In addition, for every 100 people who think they’re in the 1-3%, only five actually are.
And maybe it’s not just that. Maybe, as Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, a Stanford scholar and author of “Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less,” writes “Busyness is not a means to accomplishment, but an obstacle to it.” He argues in his book that when we define ourselves by our “work, dedication, effectiveness and willingness to go the extra mile,” it’s easy to think that doing less is the real barrier to success – but maybe if we took the time to clear our minds, rest, and refocus, we could be getting things done in a better way.
A Worldwide Study
Not convinced that all this extra work isn’t making us more productive? We’ve got another study for you! And this 2021 study didn’t just look at individual workers; it compared the productivity of workers by country, along with how much they worked.
The B2B marketplace Expert Market looked at the workforces of 42 countries around the world, determining their productivity level by dividing the annual gross domestic product (GDP) – the value of all the goods and services produced within each country over a year – by the average number of hours full-time and part-time employees worked over a year.
Where did the US rank? We were 11th overall in productivity out of the 42 countries, which doesn’t sound so bad – but the more interesting part of the findings was that all of the ten countries ahead of us worked less than us. For example, in Luxembourg, the tiny European country at the top of the list, employees worked 1,427 total hours in 2020 and produced an average of $84.77 per person per hour, while in the US, we worked 1,767 total hours and produced an average of $36.94 per person per hour.
That means that workers in Luxembourg worked a whole lot less than we did, but their productivity was more than double ours! All of this data should lead us to the conclusion that overwork is just not worth it financially – but an even bigger problem is that it’s just not worth what it’s doing to our health.
What Is Overworking Doing to Our Health?
Research has shown that working too much can make many of the skills we use in modern working life, like interpersonal communication, making judgment calls, reading other people’s faces, or managing your own emotional reactions way more difficult. As we’ve already talked about, that’s probably because of the stress and exhaustion that overworking brings on. But stress and exhaustion aren’t just affecting the way we work, it’s also seriously affecting our health.
Numerous studies by Marianna Virtanen of the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health and her colleagues (as well as other studies) have found that overwork and the resulting stress can lead to all sorts of health problems, including impaired sleep, depression, heavy drinking, diabetes, impaired memory, and heart disease. Yikes.
Not only that, but the World Health Organization (WHO) did a study on deaths from stroke and heart disease related to working more than 55 hours a week, and the results were shocking. They found that long working hours led to 745,000 deaths from stroke and ischemic heart disease in 2016, a 29% increase since 2000. When broken down, they found that deaths from heart disease due to working long hours had increased by 42%, and from stroke by 19%.
All of this is bad enough when taken on its own, but you also have to remember that poorer health means higher health insurance/medical costs, lost time at work due to illness, presenteeism, and sky-high rates of employee turnover. So if working more and more is bad for you, bad for your employees, and bad for your business, sounds like it’s time to find a better work-life balance, right?
Finding a Better Work-Life Balance
So what can you do to find a better work-life balance, and encourage your employees to do the same? You and your employees can achieve a reasonable work-life balance if you all commit to the following steps:
Set your hours, and stick to them! – Work when it’s time to work, and then go home and power down when it’s time to stop. Don’t work outside of your working hours unless absolutely necessary – those emails will still be there tomorrow!
Prioritize your time – We’ve talked before about ways to more effectively manage your time, such as using the Eisenhower Matrix to determine what is urgent versus what is truly important. We’ve also talked about dealing with all of those little things that waste time at your business – check that out here
Block off your time – Need another way to make sure you’re not overworking? Try dividing up your schedule into blocks of time, so you don’t commit to taking on more than you can actually get done.
Use technology – Try using things like time and attendance software tools that include timeclocks, so you can keep track of how long certain recurring tasks take and either cut some out (see our advice in the two articles we linked to above), or better manage how they’re done, as well as more effectively block off your schedule.
Take breaks – Yes, you heard us: you and your employees should always take some time off during the day, the week, and certainly on the weekends – take all the time that’s coming to you/them! Better yet, take vacations, and get away from work totally for a while (and no checking emails!)
Work is important, but not that important – not important enough to risk your health, your employees’ health, and the health of your business. If you’re overworking yourself or your employees, it’s time to take stock and find a better work-life balance for everyone – it’ll do you and your business good!
There is strength in diversity. That statement holds true for all of society, and it holds true for the business world, as well. Having a workforce that is racially diverse and made up of different genders and orientations makes not only for a more socially interesting place to work, it actually also makes for a stronger business! But when we talk about diversity in the workplace, there’s one type of difference that we often overlook: age. We talk about multicultural workplaces, but we don’t often talk about multigenerational workplaces, and that could be a mistake. And not because you could be opening yourself up to an ageism lawsuit, but because limiting yourself to a younger population at work could mean missing out on the benefits of a multigenerational workforce. So how could having a range of ages working for your business benefit you?
The Benefits of a Multigenerational Workforce
We’re involved in the workforce at an interesting and unprecedented time: it’s possible to be working somewhere or running a business where up to 5 generations of employees are present! From Boomers to Gen Zers, there is a wide range of ages getting down to business these days; the problem is that we often view this diversity as a hindrance to growth. Surely older workers will slow others down, or there will be intergenerational tension, right? Wrong.
In fact, according to a Harvard Business white paper, “Each of these five generations is vastly different, but research shows that these differences have very little impact on the way we act or what motivates us at work.” And we’ll go a step further: most research – and real world examples – show us that having a multigenerational workforce can actually lead to greater productivity and growth. How? Consider the following benefits of having an age-diverse employee population:
Gives Businesses a Solid Pipeline of Talent
It makes sense: widen your recruitment efforts, and look at a wider range of candidates, and you’ll have a more solid pipeline of talent available to you. Reevaluating the way you recruit so you can attract employees from all generations means you’ll end up expanding the talent pool available for you to fill open positions, and tapping into unreached areas.
Not only that, but if you make the effort to retain the older members of your workforce, you’ll be able to keep up a level of productivity and institutional knowledge that are expensive and difficult to replace. After all, how can you bring up a new generation of workers without the help and knowledge of those who have come before them?
Having wide range of employees can help increase innovation and company culture.
Younger workers get all the credit for having new, fresh ideas, but there’s also something else they have: less experience. So they might be able to bring the goods when it comes to new approaches and current trends, but older workers can bring a more measured approach based on strategies that have worked in the past, and the balance between these things can end up being a beautiful thing.
That’s not to say that older workers shouldn’t be given the opportunity to innovate. In fact, when everyone on a team has the freedom and support to share diverse opinions and ideas, it creates an energetic environment that utilizes the strengths of everyone at the table, whether those strengths are wisdom and experience, or a daring new approach. In one survey, 83% of workers said that they are able to come up with more innovative ideas and solutions because they work in an age-diverse team! So if you’ve got a workforce made up of all generations, you could find yourself with new products/services, improved processes, and interesting strategies that result in business growth.
Did you know that 46% of job candidates believe culture is very important in the application process, with a grand total of 88% of job seekers citing it as at least of relative importance? The culture at a business is also important for retention: employees who don’t like their organization’s culture are 24% more likely to quit. Not only that but a whopping 88% of employees believe that a strong company culture is key to a business’ success.
Employees’ opinions aside, a positive work culture is linked to higher rates of employee engagement, which has been shown to improve productivity and profitability. So what does this have to do with an age-diverse team? When companies have employees with a diverse range of ages, experience, knowledge and tenure, it can dramatically enhance the culture. After all, people with varying perspectives, backgrounds and life experiences help to create an energized workforce that builds/nurtures relationships and learns from each other.
We’ve seen a whole lot of people do a whole lot of quitting over the last few years. But the “Great Resignation” aside, losing employees is always a fact of life, and you’ve got to be ready for it! That can include leveraging the skills of the older employees that you have on your team. While some employers might see having older workers as a problem (since they are closer to retirement age), you should actually see it as a competitive advantage. You just need to properly leverage workers’ institutional knowledge, experience, skill sets, and strengths by encouraging cross-generational mentoring.
If you’ve got a multigenerational workforce, you’ll have built-in training opportunities, which will enable you to promote from within. That’s always a good thing, since employees familiar with your business and its culture will be more ready to fit right into their new roles. In addition, when employees have opportunities to advance, it leads to increased retention and less turnover, which can save you a whole lot of money.
Can affect your brand
Sometimes you want to look young and hip, and sometimes you need customers to see you as experienced, knowledgeable, and well-established. Having more seasoned workers in the mix can help you to put your best foot forward in certain situations; not only that, but being seen as an inclusive, diverse, and professional place of business could take you even further.
How to Make It Work
Let’s go back to the benefits listed above. They are very real, and they are things that you could be easily taking advantage of – but you’ve got to get there! So the following are a few notes on creating an age-diverse workforce, and making it work for your business.
Think about how you recruit and retain employees
If you want a more age-diverse workforce, the first thing you’ve got to do is find that more age-diverse workforce, right? That means reevaluating your recruitment efforts: you need to update your job descriptions with language that appeals to everyone, and look for different avenues of recruitment.
Bring employees together
Like we said, watching your employees collaborate and innovate is a beautiful thing. But how can you get them to this point? One way is to try a “reverse mentoring” programming, in which younger employees pair with older employees to share their ideas. This shouldn’t simply be the younger folks schooling the older ones on tech topics and social media trends, and it certainly shouldn’t ever feel patronizing; on the contrary, it should be a two-way street, with those paired together offering both of their perspectives, making the learning a mutual experience.
Remember, while younger employees might know more about tech and trends, “Seasoned employees have a lot more to teach junior employees about business intuition,” says Aaron Harvey, executive creative director at Ready Set Rocket. “Business is much more than trends and technology. It’s applied intuition that takes years of experience to develop.”
Work on leadership and communication
Some surveys show that employees of different ages sometimes find it difficult to communicate with coworkers outside of their age group. This should come as no surprise, but it doesn’t have to be that way. With that being said, an environment where people with a wide range of perspectives working to their mutual benefit, and the benefit of your business, doesn’t happen by accident – it begins with leadership.
According to Dennis Collins, senior director of marketing at West Unified Communications Services, you need to “Establish a solid understanding of who makes up your staff and the different dynamics at play,” and you shouldn’t be afraid to open the lines of communication in a respectful way. “Having an open and candid conversation about the benefits that come from a multigenerational workforce makes everyone feel more comfortable voicing their needs and concerns,” says Collins.
Don’t focus on one age group
It kind of feels like we’re spending all of our time focusing on the needs of one group of employees – often the younger generations. We want to make sure we’re speaking their language, and adopting the tools they prefer, but this can be a big mistake. Again according to Collins, “Ignoring the needs of any group of people in a company will result in a drop in productivity and unhappy employees.” So don’t worry about keeping up with every single latest trend; think more about looking for what works in your current culture, and make sure everyone feels spoken to and included.
If you’ve got an age-diverse team at your business, you don’t have a problem on your hands – on the contrary, you could be sitting on a gold mine! And if you’re looking around and seeing a lot of fresh faces, but not a lot of diversity of viewpoint, you might want to reconsider your recruitment process, and add the spice of age into your workplace. But remember, to make the most out of a multigenerational workforce, and to get all of the benefits we laid out above, you need to be the right kind of leader, and work on bringing people together so the sparks of innovation can fly. Just follow our tips above, and you’ll get there in no time – and we want to hear about your experiences with an age-diverse team!
With so many advertising platforms available, you might not know how to pick the right one, or where to start.
As a small business owner you have tons of advertising options coming at you from every direction. To say it’s overwhelming is an understatement! There are countless platforms and opportunities where you can spend your advertising budget, but there’s a lesser known new kid on the advertising block that you should check out: over-the-top (OTT). While traditional television ads may have been perceived as too expensive or unattainable, their cousin over-the-top ads might just be your best option to get the most bang for your advertising buck.
What is OTT?
OTT advertising refers to advertising delivered directly to viewers via streaming services such as Hulu and Netflix.
OTT stands for over-the-top which is a type of advertising on streaming TV. Any content delivered to viewers over the internet (as opposed to a traditional cable box) is OTT content. So your favorite streaming service like youtube, hulu, or any other non traditional TV service that offers ads would be considered OTT. The biggest advantage of this type of advertising is that advertisers can create personalized, varied marketing messages that you are able to measure in a way that you cannot do with traditional TV advertising. While the advertising content isn’t much different (if at all) than what you’d see while watching traditional television, the specific demographic filtering features is what differentiates it. OTT allows for hyper-target audiences to be reached which is making it more desirable to advertisers to really pinpoint the audience they want. Let’s say you are selling a hot new children’s art toy. Instead of putting your ads on a channel and anyone watching that channel can see it, with OTT you can narrow down your audience to a specific show, a specific account type, specific areas, and even specific habits. This really helps you make sure the people most likely to purchase your product or service are the ones who see your ads, making sure you get the most bang for your buck.
Why OTT?
OTT data provides valuable information to help advertisers understand the viewer’s habits and preferences.
Television commercials are quickly becoming a thing of the past because of over-the-top ads. Regular cable and broadcast TV advertising simply doesn’t allow the precision to target audiences the way OTT advertising does. This is great for advertisers because they can spend their money on OTT ads that will be delivered to viewers using these streaming services. OTT cannot be skipped, closed out, and viewers cannot install any kind of software that blocks these ads. Beyond that, advertisers can take their ads and pick a demographic more specific than the broad demos used for TV advertising such as women 25-54. They can now not only target women between 30-35 with at least one child who owns a home and 2 cars. It’s that specificity that makes OTT stand out among the sea of weaker advertising options.
Since OTT ads are delivered on any device that streams video over the internet, the options are more vast than a television sitting in someone’s home. The net of OTT ads is cast to all phones, laptops, smart TV’s, and even gaming consoles that stream videos over the internet so they are not limited to one television with a cable box. The data that can be drawn from OTT ads is unmatched. The detailed data of ad performance allows the advertiser to really find out whether or not their ad was effective, use that as a tool to optimize future ads, and adjust their strategy going forward.
When taking a look at all of the advertising options out there, OTT is one to strongly consider. Traditional TV advertising is a shot in the dark. You can pick channels or networks but you never really know if you are reaching your target audience, and you have no way to analyze your results accurately. With all of the options and platforms offering OTT, there is sure to be one that will fit your business, reach your target audience, and get your message across.
Running a small business requires passion, expertise, and time, all of which you might have plenty of (well, you could probably use more time!) But it can also require a whole lot of money, which you might not have as much of, especially if you’re just starting out. There are multiple funding options to look into, like loans and other types of debt, but you can also consider seeking out investors who could give your business a cash infusion. But before you speak to anyone, you need to know the pitfalls that a lot of small business owners fall prey to! So take a look at these common mistakes to avoid when seeking investments for your business.
Where to Start
First things first: you need prospective investors to pitch to. Where can you look for people, groups, or businesses that might be willing to put up some cash to get your business idea up and running, or to inject some cash into your existing business? There are plenty of options, including:
Friends and family
Equity financing investment firms and equity crowdfunding sites that will help put your business in front of potential investors
Venture capitalists
Angel investors
Incubators (for getting business ideas off the ground)
Accelerator programs (for existing businesses)
Crowdfunding platforms
Remember, though, there are mistakes you can make at this stage. Some mistakes to avoid include:
Not keeping things professional with investors who are friends or family members
If you have a personal relationship with an investor, you still need to stay as professional as possible, otherwise things could get ugly, fast, and you could end up losing an investor and a friend. You need to explain the details of your plan and create a contract that lays out any terms and conditions attached to the funding. Clarify repayment terms in the contract, including any interest rates, partial ownership, or other stipulations. Be as upfront as you can about expectations for all involved parties, so things stay beneficial for everyone involved – and civil.
Sending your business plan unsolicited to prospective investors
Thinking a venture capitalist, angel investor, or like-minded business owner is the way to go? Be careful about contacting them cold. The majority of them often don’t read unsolicited emails, since they get hundreds, if not thousands, of such emails, and don’t have the time to sift through them all. A better tactic in this situation would be to get a referral to an investor, maybe through someone in their network, like a lawyer, an entrepreneur from one of their portfolio companies, or a fellow venture capitalist. Ask around in your network, as well, and see what you can find out.
Before pitching to an investor, you want to do your homework first!
Not doing your homework on the investor
Some investors have a niche for what type of businesses they will invest in (like tech, for example), so be sure you know something about each investor you’re contacting. Not doing your homework on investors will make you look unprofessional and won’t get you very far, especially if you’re trying to pitch to the wrong people. But knowing something about the background of prospective investors will allow you to have meaningful conversations, and hopefully get the ball rolling.
Pitching to your ideal investor first
You might think that you should go right to your first choice investor, but you should actually treat your pitches more like a good meal: eat your least favorite part first, and then get to your favorite things, and dessert (are we the only ones who do that?)! Seriously, it’s actually a good idea to do a few pitches with “warm” or “friendly” investors that you aren’t so, well, invested in, so you can refine your pitch and get ready for the big one.
Not checking out other pitch decks
First things first, have you started creating your “pitch deck,” or a brief presentation, usually made up of slides, that gives investors a summary of your business and business plan? Before you finalize yours, make sure you check out samples to make sure you know how to make a successful one. When it comes to your pitch deck, you’ll want to avoid things like:
Having too many slides with too much information in each – 15-20 slides is enough. You’ll probably only have an hour for your pitch, so don’t go into too much detail in each slide; you can always provide more info after your initial pitch. It’s more important that your pitch deck is crisp and clear.
Not highlighting your and your team’s experience and expertise
Not giving evidence of current customers/interest, if you have any
What to Avoid When Pitching to Investors
Hopefully, now you’ve got some investors ready to listen, and you’re ready to pitch – this is the time to really get it right! So let’s look at some mistakes to avoid when pitching to investors.
Making unrealistic projections
You’re excited about your business, and that’s great – but is it really going to grow to $500 million over the next three years? We hope it will, but that kind of figure just looks pie-in-the-sky to investors, who want to see you back up your claims with realistic figures. Avoid making any projections that are difficult to justify.
Not having a good grasp on your marketing strategy
You know your business, but you also have to know how you’re going to get other people interested. Being vague on your marketing strategy can be a red flag for investors, who will want to know you’ve thought through how you will get noticed by prospective customers in a cost-effective way, whether it’s through social media, content marketing, or paid search engine ads.
Brushing off tough questions
No one is just going to throw money at you, unfortunately! They’re going to ask you a lot of questions before they make their decisions, and some of those questions will be tough. It’s your job to anticipate the questions that will come up during your pitch, but if you do get a question that you haven’t anticipated, don’t tell an investor you will get back to them later. Be ready to think on your feet and answer as best you can: that skill is something investors will be looking for.
Being unclear on customer acquisition costs
Hopefully customers will come flocking to your business, but it’s usually a little more difficult – and expensive – than that! Show investors that you understand how much it actually costs to acquire each customer, as well as that you know how to calculate the lifetime value of each customer you bring on board.
Not giving your product or service its due
Sure, your customers will be at your business’ core, but your business wouldn’t be anything without the product or service you’re selling! That means you need to be ready to really highlight your product or service, answering questions about things like what differentiates your product/service, what milestones you’ve met, how it has evolved, how you could enhance it in the future, what you’ve learned from earlier versions, etc. Better yet, you should be able to demo your product or service, whether physically or with a video presentation.
Avoiding bringing up risks
When pitching, be upfront, and show that you have thought through how to mitigate those risks.
No business is all rainbows and unicorns (unless you’re in the rainbow and unicorn business) – there will always be risks. Investors know this; they’re big boys and girls and can handle hearing about them. In fact, they will want to hear about them, and will ask you tough questions about the risk associated with investing in your business if you don’t bring them up. So it’s better to take control of the conversation, be upfront, and show that you have thought through how to mitigate those risks.
After You’ve Pitched
Finally, once you’ve pitched your business to your potential investors, there are two more big mistakes you should avoid.
Failing to follow up
You should always send a thank-you note to an investor you’ve pitched to – and we’re not talking about a generic form letter or email. Customize each of your thank yous, and make sure they sound genuine and personal.
Being afraid to say “no”
You put your time and effort into making pitches to multiple investors, and now you’ve got a bite. Buuuuut you’re just not sure that the investor who’s interested is offering you a good deal, or maybe you even feel like they might be trying to take advantage. Trust us, it’s better to say “no” to a bad investor, and keep up the search for funding, than to take on the headaches of that bad investor. So always be discerning about who you allow to get involved in your business, and be prepared to say “no” if it’s in your best interest.
There are a lot of mistakes and missteps you can make when you start looking for and pitching to investors (and the above are just a few!) but don’t panic. No one mistake will ever be fatal to your business; in fact, you can use them as learning experiences to improve your pitching prowess, as well as your skills as an entrepreneur. Remember, honing your pitch will only make you more knowledgeable about your business, which will be a good thing for you, and an attractive quality for investors. Good luck out there!
