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The Evolution of Marketing

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Marketing has undergone some drastic changes in the past 10 years. Well heck, even in the past year, or 6 months! I’m sure you know firsthand that people are being overloaded with data everywhere they turn – on their phones, computers or tablets, watching TV, and even just driving down the road. It’s everywhere!

So how did this evolution come about and how is it affecting YOU and your business? Let’s look at cell phones as an example of evolution. More specifically, the smart phone.

Think back to about 15 years, the smart phone was just starting to evolve, and Nokia phones ruled the landscape.  You know, the phones that only made calls, had texting capabilities, and offered the solitary game of “Snake”. EVERYONE had one, and the only way to really customize it was to buy a different faceplate for it. Bluetooth – what’s that?!

10 years ago, the flip phone was all the rage and phones started offering alternative capabilities other than making a call. New apps were offered with the ability to access the internet as well as take and store photos. OMG – the selfie revolution is upon us! But seriously, your phone started becoming a tool that could make your life easier. And accessories, they started flooding the market!

Now think back to just 5 years ago, all 10 of the top phones where flat touch screen models noticeably larger than today’s phones but we have a trend going. The possibilities became endless – new apps were being created daily, your phone became your life line to the world, and something you couldn’t leave home without – and social media was literally at your fingertips – pics or it didn’t happen!

Over the past 15 years the cell phone industry has evolved rapidly and it’s still evolving. Cell phones changed shape, sizes, colors, and function. Could you survive without your cell phone today – of course you can, but most people wouldn’t want to.

So, what does this have to do with Marketing? EVERYTHING! Why wouldn’t your marketing have to evolve just like the cell phone did and is still doing? Traditional marketing used to include newspaper ads, AM/FM radio, billboards, mailers, etc.  – which are all still relevant today. BUT – and that’s a big BUT, only if you are hitting your target clients. The biggest draw to digital marketing (to me anyway) is the trackability and the demographic specification.

With conventional radio, you never truly know how many people are hearing your ad or if they are your actual target clients. Online or streaming radio (think Pandora or Spotify) can actually track how many people are tuned in at the time that your ad streams and you can set your target demographics. Ads on social media can provide analytics as to how many people saw your ad, clicked on your ad, and reacted to your ad. The possibilities are endless and always changing!

Now folks, this is my kind of advertising! Gone are the days where you need to throw spaghetti and the wall and hope something sticks. One of our favorite tools here at the Red Barn is email marketing! It’s incredibly affordable, easily automated, and you can receive analytics of how many people opened your email, who clicked the link, who read the blog and the list goes on.

Times change, make sure your marketing efforts are keeping up! Have questions on what marketing initiatives will work best for your company? Or maybe you just need some training on what’s new and how to incorporate it into your business? Call me!

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Holiday Vacation Requests – How to Handle PTO When Everyone Wants the Same Days Off

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The holiday season is upon us, and in addition to all the food, celebrations, and holiday cheer comes the influx of vacation or PTO requests. Some people love working around the holidays – it’s quieter, less employees are in the building to distract them, and it’s a great time to catch up on some lingering projects. But let’s be honest, most of us LOVE taking a few extra days off around Thanksgiving and the week off in between Christmas and New Year’s. But as a manager, it can be difficult to juggle all those PTO requests and determine who should get the time off. After all, you do have a business to run!

I’ve worked for several companies who have tried different approaches to this conundrum and here’s some Pros and Cons for each.

Work from Home. This one is my favorite, but it doesn’t work for everyone. Pretty much everybody has a laptop, iPad or smartphone that enables them to work remotely. If your staff doesn’t have to be on site, letting them work at home during the holidays can be a productive way to get things done. Working at home is a viable option only if the business lends itself to it and there’s a way to ensure the employees are actually working.

Seniority Rules! For employees who are at the top of the totem pole this scenario seems like a great idea. After all, they’ve put in the years and years of hard work – shouldn’t they get an additional perk? In theory it sounds like it’s a fair solution – but if you have several employees who have been with you for a while and they always want the same holidays off as the rest of the department, it may cause frustration and friction.

First Come, First Served. Rewarding those who plan ahead can make creating your holiday schedule much easier. Determine the number of employees you can afford to do without, and once you have that number of employees put in requests – all other requests will be turned down. This puts the burden on the employee to submit PTO in a timely fashion. However, you should set a timeline for how early employees can put in a vacation request – you don’t want Susan requesting the last week of December off for the next 3 years now.

Do a Lottery. Doing a lottery system for the most coveted days off when all your employees want to take PTO time may be the fairest option. Have all your employees put their name on a slip of paper, toss them into a bag, and pick as many names as employees you can afford to be without.

Split the Days Up. There are a few ways to do this one. If your employees don’t care about having the whole day off – split the shifts into mornings and afternoon and everyone works a half day. If your employees prefer full days off – split up the week instead. Give Joe Monday and Tuesday off and give Jane Thursday and Friday off. Everybody wins!

Give a Holiday Differential. If it’s in your budget, offer a small hourly pay differential to those who choose to work the day before Thanksgiving or the days surrounding Christmas and New Year’s. It may solve your scheduling problem for you.

Create Black Out Days. This one is at the bottom for a reason – it’s probably the least favorable option and won’t win you any brownie points with your employees, but it is needed in some industries: retail, hospitality, and even healthcare. If an employee wants off during a blackout period he or she would need to ask well in advance, with a good reason, and it would be at the manager’s discretion. It’s a good idea to inform employees from the beginning of the blackout policy so they aren’t blindsided come holiday time.

Handling PTO request any other time of year is typically a breeze, but navigating the request during the peak of the holiday season should be handled with care. Not only can it upset employees, but it could also disrupt your company culture and your brand.

Becoming a better vacation manager is far more important than the challenges of enduring a temporary gap in staffing. Not only are employees entitled to the time off, but research shows that taking it is critical for both their engagement and to avoid long-term burnout. You can read my blog on that here: CLICK ME!

How does your company handle holiday PTO requests? I’d love to hear about it!

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Prospecting with Email Marketing

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Email is 40 times more effective at getting new customers than Facebook and Twitter combined. — McKinsey. We do a ton of email marketing for clients and Red Barn – some of it is thought leadership focused like my Thursday morning Tribe Mail. (sign up here), but much of it is done primarily for prospecting.

So how do we get consistent above average open rates and click through rates AND conversion with our email marketing?Consistency, Great Content, and yep – a lot of trial and error with subject lines.

Consistency. They don’t call them “Drip Email Campaigns” because you just do it once. Effective email campaigns do just that – drip like a leaky faucet until someone takes notice and takes action. AHA moment – you immediately thought annoying leaky faucet. But think deeper – most sales people give up after 1 or 2 connections yet people don’t take action until after 10-12 touch points.

For thought leadership emails, I’m a fan of weekly. Same time, same place. No visuals – just great content that spurs thinking. It’s all about building your personal brand and connecting it with your company brand. Having people see you in a different light – you know, showing off your secret sauce.

For Drip Campaigns, you need multiple touches weekly and they run over several MONTHS. Visuals happen when they take action – so going to a landing page or your website, otherwise I keep them text only. WHY? One word: mobile.

Content.  Once someone clicks on your email – you need to give your prospect something valuable to read!  Remember people buy from people they KNOW, LIKE and TRUST – in that order.  So, if you are prospecting to a cold list – don’t go in for the kill immediately.  Let them get to know you and like you first – this can happen all in one email or it can get built up over time.  Why should someone take the time to know you or even like you?

I’m a fan of giving something to get something.  Offer a free download, give them some “tool” for free or some free insight into what you offer.  Again – you need to build up to the Trust phase before they will buy.  Toss in some testimonials, send them back to read a blog you’ve written.  Give them something valuable.

Subject lines. Depending on what stats you look at – up to 50% of people will decide to open or not open an email based on the subject line. More daunting, subject lines can also toss you in a SPAM folder depending on what you write and to whom you are sending it to! In the end – it takes some A/B testing depending on your Target Client Profile. Here are some quick stats from our friends at Hubspot:

  • Emails that contain the word \”you\” in the subject line are opened 5% less often than those without.
  • Emails that contain the word \”tomorrow\” in the subject line are opened 10% more often than those without.
  • Emails with subject lines containing 30 or fewer characters have the best open rates.
  • Emails with personalized subject lines are more than 20% more likely to get opened.
  • Emails with the word “Meeting” in the subject line were opened 7% less than those without.
  • Emails with the word “Newsletter” in the subject line had a 18.7% lower open rate than those with out
  • Use the word “Alert” – and see 61.8% higher open rate
  • The top 5 subject lines in recent studies all included “Re:”

Of course, these are some general observations – you need to try and see what works for you!

Email marketing works.

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To Dress Up or Not to Dress Up – Halloween Costume Office Tips

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Dressing up for Halloween can be a lot of fun, especially when you work in an office that\’s cool enough to celebrate the annual festivities. And while we don’t have an office to parade our costumes around in, enjoying the fun is certainly on the agenda in each of our respective home offices!

If you work outside the home, however, it’s a fine line between a fun costume that shows off your personality, and wearing a costume that makes everyone you work with feel extremely uncomfortable.

Here are five rules for celebrating Halloween at work that will ensure you have a good time – without becoming the office fright show or clown:

The boss sets the tone. If you ask the boss and the boss says no, then the answer is no. If the boss says, \”Hey everyone, let\’s have a costume contest!\” then it\’s probably in your best interest to put on a wig, or witches hat, and go for it. If Halloween is your thing, but Suzy in Accounting despises it, don\’t harass or tease her until she agrees to play along.

Keep your costume politically neutral. Even if you have strong political views, keep them out of the office – trust me – it’s just not going to end well.

Keep it classy. Although the typical office dress code might be taking a vacation day, it’s still a good rule of thumb to stay mostly within the guidelines – leave the Daisy Dukes and Richard Simmons outfits at home, and opt for something that’s more office appropriate.

Keep it functional. Don’t wear something that prevents you from being able to do your job. Wearing vampire teeth all day might be amusing to you, but if your co-workers and customers can’t understand you, then it’s time to ditch them.

Don’t be disruptive. Having a parade around the office at lunch time is perfectly acceptable, how else are people supposed to judge your costumes? But avoid creating your own haunted house in your office or cubicle. It can get distracting to those trying to work around you, and even hinder your concentration.

One last tip, if you work with someone who has a deathly fear of spiders, clowns, or snakes, don\’t be a jerk and show up to work in a Halloween costume that will cause a panic attack. Some people do have very real phobias that they can\’t contain.

Celebrating the spooky season at work should be fun and light-hearted, not the cause of a heart attack! Have fun and make sure to send us some pics!

So, tell us, what’s your Halloween tradition at the office? Yea or Nay?

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Q4 is here – and this what your competitors are doing!

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Like a ninja in the dead of night, Q4 has crept up on us, again – regardless of the fact that it comes this same time every year! Yes, it’s Q4 and I’m in shock. Wasn’t it just New Years? How have 9 months gone by in the blink of an eye? As the shock slowly wears off, here are a few things that you should be doing for your business: (btw – your competitors are probably already doing them!)

Talk to your team – No, I don’t mean saying Hi on your way to the coffee maker, but check in with them, conduct Annual Performance Reviews, see if they have any feedback on how things are going and what can be done better.

Improve brand recognition and reputation – If your website is from 1999 and you have no presence on social media – it’s time for a rebrand. Make sure your mobile friendly on the social sites that your clients visit. If you have negative reviews, don’t ignore them, address them, and find out how you can fix the problems. If your competitors are ranking higher on Google than you, then you’ve got some work to do!

Set sales goals – Even if you won’t reach your sales goals for 2017 – make sure you set goals for 2018. If 2017 was too much of a stretch, make sure your 2018 goals are a little more reserved. If you blew 2017 out of the water, then it’s time to get realistic and set more challenge goals. You aren’t doing yourself any favors by setting goals that aren’t somewhat of a stretch.

Clean up your contact list – That customer who won’t return your call – probably is not going to buy from you. Clean up your list and weed out any prospects who aren’t interested. It’s just a waste of your time to chase them, and probably frustrating on their end to keep dodging your calls or emails.

Plan for Q1 – It’s all about preparation! If you want to start Q1 off with a bang, you have to be ready. You should always be planning at least a quarter ahead if not more. What’s in the sales pipeline? What’s your marketing & sales strategy? Cash flow analysis and updated business planning – all need to happen now for next year.

Even with the best laid plans and intentions, Q4 can be a very hectic time. As you close out the year, and prepare for a new one, don’t forget to appreciate your staff and all their hard work. After all, you couldn’t have done it without them!

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The kind of workplace culture employees want

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One aspect of my job I particularly love is how much I get to interact with our customers. Obviously we talk about their marketing, but the conversations roam in many directions, which for me is part of the charm of working for Red Barn Consulting.

Our clients range from more corporate institutions like banks, insurance companies, and healthcare facilities, but also entrepreneurs and small businesses.

What strikes me is that no matter the business, and whether it’s based in Connecticut, the other side of the country, the need to “get it right” when it comes to workplace culture is crucial to retaining key employees, the ones you really can’t afford to lose.

As a whole, the job market is really tight. Employers are struggling to fill positions and hang on to good employees. Salary, benefits, and growth opportunity are obviously a huge part of the draw, but “culture,” often intangible, plays just as key a role.

When it comes to that je n\’ais se quoi of workplace culture, what are your potential employees looking for?

A seat at the table — Even junior level staffers want to know their contributions are valued. This doesn’t mean the CEO has to carefully consider every idea the greenest guy in the building has, but it does mean providing opportunities for employees at all levels to have their voices heard. Millennials especially do not want to just show up, keep their noses down, and go home. Being able to contribute is a strong motivator for quality employees.

A good mission — Whether your organization sells widgets or helps the homeless, it should have a strong mission that serves as a rallying point for your troops. More than just words, the mission needs to be reflected in your company’s ethos. Feeling good about what the company does and how it does it means quality employees will give 110%, with pleasure.

A comfortable environment — Starched shirts and rigorous enforcement of policy “just because” it is the policy are out. Good employees are looking for a workplace that feels positive and comfortable. When you’re spending 8+ hours a day there, it just makes sense!

A flex policy — Good employees are happy to give it their all, and not just 9 to 5. They are willing and eager to stay late when needed, to handle something off hours, to contribute when helpful to projects far outside their functional area. At the same time, good organizations provide flexibility in return. Need to leave early to catch a daughter’s softball game? Need to work remotely while the plumber fixes a leak? No problem.

A team worth supporting — “I want my employees to work collaboratively, to help each other.” The good news is, your employees want this as well! The key though, is building a team worthy of helping. It’s vital to pay attention to culture and overall “fit” when hiring. One bad apple can indeed spoil the whole bunch. You are building an army of sorts, and you need every member to feel invested in the success of everyone else.

What are some important elements in your workplace culture? I’d love to continue the dialogue.

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How to Attract Top Talent for Your Business

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When your company is expanding, hiring the right people becomes more important than ever. In order to keep up momentum and reach the next level, every seat has to be filled with just the right individual for the job. If you’ve been recruiting for a while, sometimes it feels like there are slim pickings out there. Finding candidates that match EVERY requirement are hard to come by. And to make matters worse, sometimes the people you do hire prove to be not a great fit for your company culture in the long-run. So how can you leverage your current resources to find the right player for the team? Consider these tips!

Turn Mixers into Interviews
Use every networking event as an opportunity for recruiting. Tradeshows, mixers, and marketing events are common places to find professionals you want to partner with. As a hiring manager, go in with an eye-open for your next recruit. Having this intention in the back of your mind will encourage you to listen a little harder when the people around you talk about their experience. Find ways to plug their expertise into your business. In many cases, the people you meet may even know someone who could possibly be a good fit for your vacancy.

Create an internal referral program
If your employees know that you are hiring, they may be open to sending you recommendations for the gig. Who better to choose a good fit for the company than an individual who is actually involved in the day-to-day. By setting up a generous sign-on incentive you will increase your chances of finding a recruit via your current staff. To attract the best talent, add a clause to this program that says new hire must last 30-60 days in order to receive full incentives. This will ensure your employees remain selective.

Write a detailed job description
In many cases, we will still have to use online job boards to generate a nice pool of applicants to choose from. Make sure your job description is detailed and accurately reflects the culture of the company. Those small details will attract candidates who align with your values and discourage those that don’t. Take some time to craft a meaningful job description that gives applicants a precise view of what their duties will be. Spell out the requirements clearly differentiating between mandatory qualities and qualities that re just pluses.

Make the job worth it
The small pool of top talent has top notch requirements to match. Make sure the position has perks and a salary that is competitive and worth their time. Things like flexible work schedules, lenient dress codes and work from home hours excite applicants looking to feel empowered. The best of the best is not likely to settle for or even apply to a job that doesn’t make them happy. They’ve earned their right to be selective.

Last but not least, congratulate yourself on your business growth! By following these simple steps you’ll be one interview closer to building your dream team. Good Luck!

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Why You Should Care About the Equifax Breach

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By now, you’ve most likely heard the news: Equifax — one of the three major credit bureaus — announced on Sept. 7 that 143 million consumers’ information was leaked in a security breach. Information leaked includes social security numbers, dates of birth, names, credit card numbers, addresses and more. Scary, right?!

We all assume because it’s a credit bureau – you know, those people responsible for setting your FICO score – that they have hacker-free systems and stealing information is harder than breaking into Fort Knox. Well, weren’t we all proven wrong! And if you’re one of the 143 million – like me – you’re just praying that your hard-earned FICO score won’t plummet due to fraudulent accounts being opened.
Identity theft and security breaches happen all the time so why should you care so much about this one – well, because it affects EVERYONE! You’re probably saying, but wait, you said only 143 million people – yes, ok, that’s true, but if you’re an adult with a credit card, student loan, mortgage, personal loan, car loan, or any other type of credit account, you are a victim of the breach – even if you’ve never signed up for any Equifax product or credit report. If you have credit history – you are affected!

But how can that be? That’s because Equifax is one of the three major credit bureaus, meaning any bank or financial institution that manages your credit accounts reports your social security number, name, address and credit account information to the credit bureau to build your credit report. I told you it was Scary! And Equifax has said that the investigation is not 100% complete, so expect that 143 million number to climb.
Equifax discovered the breach on July 29, but didn’t announce it to the public until September 7 – over a month after they knew about it. And the leak occurred mid-May, so your information was available for use for over 3 months before you were notified. Yikes! If you haven’t checked your credit report lately, finish reading this article and do it ASAP!

Equifax is offering free identity theft protection from TrustedID for one year – but you should be aware that TrustedID is an Equifax-owned service. Currently, the terms and conditions state that if you sign up for the free protection, you’ll be waiving your right to join any future class-action lawsuits unless you send notification in writing within 30 days of signing the agreement.

While this is the third largest security breach, the information leaked in this breach is much more valuable than the two Yahoo breaches that hold the No. 1 and 2 spots. The revealed information is all someone would need to open a credit card in your name, which is something you should be concerned about.
While Equifax is providing one year of identity theft its likely not enough. The information leaked from this breach will never get outdated and never changes, allowing someone to steal your identity now or 10 years down the line — something one year of identity theft protection can’t fix. Victims will likely have to worry about identity theft for the rest of their lives.

There are some things you can do now and continue to do in the years to come:

Monitor your credit. Check your credit often. Consider using a credit report monitoring service. These services actively monitor your credit reports and alert you if something is added or changed, or if a new account appears on your reports.

Consider a credit freeze. This is a proactive approach to protecting your credit. When you place a credit freeze on your credit reports, you’re essentially locking them, meaning no new accounts can be opened in your name (by you or anyone else) and your credit reports cannot be viewed by any potential creditor. Keep in mind, you’ll need to unfreeze your credit when you need to get a new credit card, apply for a loan, or get a mortgage, but you can refreeze it afterwards.

Report identity theft immediately. Identity theft is a crime, which means it should be reported as soon as its spotted, like any other crime. Report it credit bureaus, the police, and the company that extended any credit.

It’s possible that this breach may affect the future of credit. Due to the number of people affected, and how dramatically identity theft increases, creditors may look to an alternative method than using social security numbers as a main source of identification.

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OMG – yes you have to track it.

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I can always tell a good salesperson and yes, the ones that just are going to drive their managers bat s**t crazy and then some.

Rainmakers, top dogs – you know the superstars all have this one thing in common: They are a slave to their data.

They know:

  • Their sales goals, and how close or far off they are at any moment in time.
  • They know their stretch goals, bonus tipping points and anyway they can make extra on their book of business.
  • They are data monsters – they eat it up. They know everything about their top prospects.
  • They know who their Target Client Profile is – they aren’t wasting a lick of time on someone who isn’t going to buy from them. EVER.

Here’s a big one – they have an organized trackable process. Yes, I said process. They know exactly what to do NEXT when they get a lead, they make a pitch, they close a deal. Rarely do they waiver.

Oh Shocker – they track it all in a CRM. Now for some that are old school that may mean a spreadsheet or God Help me paper files – but however you want to track your pipeline is fine, just do it.

If you are a salesperson that doesn’t fit into what I just described you might want to search out another career. Sure, you may sell some stuff, but you won’t be the top dog. Can you change? You betcha!

Managers – if you have someone who isn’t in the “KNOW” – we need to get to the bottom of WHY they aren’t quickly. Trust me, the frustration will only get worse…and worse…until you become a passive aggressive evil boss. Yea – it will happen. Seen it more than once.

Here’s the good news – there are so many training support systems out there. (Like Red Barn – sorry – had to plug us)

If you want to win the coveted Top Sales Dog award at the annual business meeting – then trust me, you need a sales coach. A mentor – or hell, someone to get you organized!

Call us – we rock at the whole sales organization and getting act together stuff.

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It’s all about the Ops…the Ops

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“Help – I’m getting eaten alive by my competitors. I need a marketing intervention ASAP.” I’ve gotten this call, chatted with this person – more than once. When I first started out in the entrepreneurial world – I only offered marketing. Strategy, Traditional print support, that transformed into more digital work – but you know – Marketing “Stuff”. I quickly learned that if Sales and Marketing aren’t communicating or playing nicely in the sandbox together that my marketing will be less effective. So, we added in Sales training and support into the mix. We look at sales goals and capacity to ensure that our marketing endeavors are a cohesive match made in heaven.

But THEN…. I learned. I can have a kick ass marketing strategy and a rock star sales team BUT if there is no process to get the stuff out the door, or the supply chain is running a muck OR the servicing of the client is God awful – then Houston, we have a problem. You got it, all my fabulous marketing and sales guru stuff doesn’t matter because we have unhappy clients. Unhappy clients tell a whole lot of people how they feel.

So – we now start from the beginning. We focus on the operations, the leadership and the culture. Who are the people, what is the process and what is the capacity for growth and scale?

You see it really is about the ops – the operations of the business. The times my Spidey Senses said – “Cindy, this is an ops issue not a marketing/sales issue” yet the client was hell bent on the fact that they had rock solid ops, employees, blah blah blah – it failed. Every Single Time – my marketing and sales strategy failed. Why – because of everything I said above.

You must have a strong foundation before you can grow – or you will topple over. What if the pyramids were upside down? That’s a Jenga nightmare waiting to happen.

Here is how we do it – and you can surely do this yourself, but my guess is adult supervision is needed. (another thing I learned – business owners need to bring in experts to get S**t done sometimes)

1. SWOT of your business. What’s working, what isn’t.
2. Leadership – Do you even have good leadership?
3. Team – are they happy? Are they productive? Are they efficient?
4. Customer Journey and Experience – do you have happy customers? How do you “touch them” along the way?
5. Marketing – what is your “Why” – who the hell are you in the world? What is your story?
6. How will you tell your story – and how much money do you have to do it?
7. Who the heck is selling – every company has to sell something, I don’t care who you are.
8. Who is pulling it all together – who is running the ship, managing the process? PS – often the dude or dudette at the top isn’t the one. They are visionaries, not project managers.
9. How are you tracking successes and failures?

9 Steps – and trust me – you don’t want to skip any of them. Not my first rodeo, I’ve fallen off that bull just a few times and I’ve learned a few things along the way!

If you need that adult supervision –send us an email, send up a smoke signal or hey – pick up the phone and call us.

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