Monica O'Brien is the author of the book Social Pollination: Escape the Hype of Social Media and Join the Companies Winning At It. The book is a step-by-step guide for small and mid-sized businesses that want to find more customers effectively. Get the book:

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Challenges

I finally read The 4-Hour Workweek. Here’s what I think.

By Monica O'Brien on April 28th in Entrepreneurship 21 comments

When it comes to business books, I’m like the anorexic girl at the five star restaurant. Always order, never eat. Push the food around on my plate.

My shelves are lined with interesting books, but I only ever read a small subset of fiction (usually urban fantasy or sci-fi). I told myself I would not buy any more business books, because I never read them, and because I already went to an expensive business school that assigned those classic HBR essays where 90% of the material from most business books are derived. At this point, if I want to learn more about business, my time would be better spent studying philosophy.

Find out why I finally read The 4-Hour Workweek

Gen Y Cares About Conversation; Everyone Else, Not So Much

By Monica O'Brien on March 11th in Blogging 51 comments

Back in college, my sorority had a rule when we were voting in new members: anyone who used the word “nice” to describe a rush candidate got sprayed with a Super Soaker.

Yeah, it’s weird. But we never made the mistake of voting in women just because they were nice. That’s the point.

It amazes me how many PR and marketing professionals talk about the importance of conversation – that numbers and fans and followers don’t matter, and that’s it’s actually about building relationships. I don’t disagree with them. The part I disagree with is the conversations they seem to want.

The conversations most people want are the ones where you nod your head in sheep-like agreement, write a comment like “Wow, that’s amazing!” and generally participate in the virtual circle jerk.

Continue Reading…

Integrating email marketing with social media

By Monica O'Brien on November 3rd in Marketing 11 comments

LijitAccording to the newest Small Business Marketing Health Check report from Hurwitz, the top business challenge for small businesses is by far attracting and retaining customers. As a result, most small businesses are turning to digital marketing channels. Over 70% of small businesses surveyed are using social media channels like blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube, while nearly 50% are using email marketing techniques.

The question the report poses is, how can we integrated social media efforts with email marketing to meet the challenge of attracting and retaining customers?

The best welcome email I’ve ever received

As you may have noticed, I recently revamped my website. In doing so, I added a new search service I’ve been meaning to look into called Lijit.

I first heard about Lijit through a fellow blogger, Grace Boyle, who works at the company. Several of my online friends were also using Lijit, so it was a service I definitely wanted to learn more about. My biggest question was, “Why use this instead of Google Search?”

My question was answered without me even asking, within a day of signing up for the service and setting it up on my site. Here’s the email I received from Grace:
best-welcome-letter-ever

You’ll notice I highlighted a few sections of the email that I thought were special:

  1. A simple personal greeting – fairly basic, shows me that the company at least knows my name and cares to use it.
  2. An entire introductory paragraph that is personalized with my website and exactly what I downloaded and when. Nope, this wasn’t a standard, automated email we send to everyone, so I read more closely.
  3. Over 11,000 users. Social proof. This demonstrates I’m in great company, and making a smart decision by using Lijit.
  4. SPECIAL SAUCE! I love special sauce. Let’s break it down:
    • This is a great, non-confrontational way to say “Hey, you missed some functionality we think you should use” without actually saying it.
    • “Don’t worry, we turned it on for you, because you are cool and we want to share our most useful secrets with you.” No need for me to do extra work to try it.
    • “The features will be live shortly.” A soft call to action to log in and see the new features.
  5. “A really special tip from me as your friend (not the company), to optimize your usage of Lijit as a blogger.” More personalization, more connection. And I have to admit, the tip is a simple but powerful one that I’ll definitely be using!
  6. “I hope all is well.” Email me back and let me know how you’re doing, even if you don’t have questions. We’re not just in business together, but we’re also friendly.

Overall, the email message was incredibly personalized and brought forward a ton of great features that told me why I should stick with Lijit.

So many companies tell me that their email marketing conversion rates are low (less than 10% opens), and my response is I wish more small businesses did this. Sure, it takes some time to send out personalized email messages to every new user, but it’s clearly a great investment. Besides, you can probably see how easy it would be to create a template and personalize it for different people, or even do something automated that’s a little more personalized.

UPDATE: MarketingSherpa just published research that shows the incredible benefits of putting more efforts into your email system.

Personalized email marketing pays

Personalized email marketing pays

The facts don’t lie: automation is half as effective as relevant, personalized content.

Integrating email marketing with social media marketing

Some companies think this has to be hard, but I can’t think of anything easier. Grace is the perfect example of someone who integrates email marketing with social media, because she blogs, tweets, and creates personal relationships with lots of people online. While I did find out about Lijit from Grace, she never once reached out to me to push the product. She always looked to establish a personal relationship with her outreach, with the fact that she worked at Lijit a far afterthought.

6 months later, when I was doing a site redesign, I thought of how I should try the service. Grace’s social media interactions are what planted the seed in my mind, while her follow-up email is what will keep me using the service and probably turn me into a brand advocate.

If you want to better integrate social media with your email marketing,

  • Hire people who already blog, tweet, and generally build relationships online to do your business development and/or community management.
  • Let those people initiate contact when someone new signs up for the service. You can switch your new user to more general newsletters after the initial contact.
  • Let them handle customer support from their personal accounts in addition to the company account. The roles are blending anyway.

Do these things to meet your goal of attracting and retaining customers.

How do you use email marketing? How do you integrate email marketing with social media?

Solutions to 4 problems entrepreneurs face with new media

By Monica O'Brien on October 14th in Entrepreneurship 5 comments

If you are reading this blog post, you want to be among the 25% of small companies that are rocking their businesses with social media. You probably have a lot of questions about how to use these new media platforms to generate leads, which will turn into sales. Emphasis on the sales, right?

If you are like most entrepreneurs, there are four problems that will come up that might keep you from really getting rolling on social media: here they are, with ideas on how to solve them.

Time constraints

Social media is a deceptive little area of marketing that looks easy but is, in fact, very hard. The politics of social media are so hard that most social media people can’t stop talking about it, because it’s so interesting.
To keep up with social media is a full time job. You have to keep up with current technology trends, interact with people on a very genuine level, personalize everything, and build a relationship based on helping other people a lot before you can ever ask for anything in return.

It’s a lot less time consuming to put together an ad creative. It’s a lot easier to get other work done when you can put a message out there and nobody talks back, nobody asks a question, nobody criticizes your reasoning. So entrepreneurs optimize their time and choose the fastest way to get the message out there – which is not what social media looks like.

Solution: If you lack the time to use social media, hire someone else who really enjoys marketing to do your social media, PR, SEO, sales, etc. It’s crazy to not have marketing and sales talent, especially as a startup in this super competitive and volatile economic environment. Incorporating social media into your company is at least a part-time job, but it’s a necessary means of communication your team cannot ignore.

Current lead generation techniques already work

When entrepreneurs are in the middle of trying to keep a business running, improvement measures fall to the wayside. It’s possible that social media could double or triple a company’s lead generation efforts, like it has for countless companies, from Mint online financial software to Naked Pizza, a local organic restaurant chain.

There are two problems:

1) Social media is unproven, and may not replace current lead generation techniques
2) The company may not be equipped to handle double or triple the leads

Solutions: Keep your current lead generation techniques in place, while adding new entry points to your funnel. Visitors may come to your website through online advertising, sponsorship deals, or search engine traffic – add social media as another way to enter your sales pipeline. It’s pointless to abandon a process that already works, so let social media work with your current processes instead of competing against them.

Worry about satisfying the leads once you get them. According to the 37Signals book, Getting Real, one of the main bottlenecks in startups is trying to solve problems before you have them. So it’s okay to think ahead about how you might accommodate double or triple the business if you get it, but don’t let the possibilities stop you from getting out there in the first place.

Lack of measurement

A great fallacy about measurement is that it’s something that happens at the end. Like you collect the data, and then you analyze it.

In reality, social media measurement takes place before you even create your campaigns. Because you can’t run a campaign until you know how you will measure the results – you must put the measurement methodology in place when you design the campaign so you can collect the data in the first place.

Solution: Some companies leave measurement out all together, and get frustrated because all they see are the disappointing end results. Some companies think of measurement as an afterthought, and try to decipher a mess of charts and graphs before they finally give up because they didn’t collect the data they needed to begin with. Be the company that puts measurement at the forefront. Prove to yourself that social media works by letting the data speak for itself.

Unrealistic expectations

Social media does not work quickly. So many companies want to create a funny YouTube video and get a million hits on their website, but as these platforms become more competitive, the chances of your video standing out are even less.

To use social media effectively, you have to build a platform (which consists of relationships AND content) on every social media tool you use. This takes time, and you will not see results overnight.

Solution: Plan for 3 months without results. Think of when you first started the company – did you plan to be profitable right away? At some point you will hit the break-even with social media, but it does take time.

Business Networking for Entrepreneurs

By Monica O'Brien on October 5th in Entrepreneurship 7 comments

60 Days to Entrepreneurial FreedomOver 70% of people get a job from networking. As a entrepreneur, you technically already have a job; but you will inevitably go to informational/networking meetings to sell an idea, convince clients to hire you, or secure funding. Here’s how to get started:

Action Item #1: Land the meeting

It’s not easy, but I get meetings with many CEOs and other executives in the Chicago area. When people ask me how, I tell them it’s a fairly basic process – I email people and convince them to meet with me. If I’m trying to reach the CEO, I sometimes schedule a call with one of his direct reports first. I sometimes send a couple of follow-up emails. I sometimes ask other people in my network for referrals.

Be persistent. There are many ways to ask for something, but the key to getting it is almost always persistence. Everyone calls once, some call twice, but the people who land the meetings are the ones who called for as long as it took.

Action Item #2: Ace the meeting

It is not as difficult as you would think to research a company or a person thanks to Google. I research all sorts of things, from industry statistics, to competitors, to website statistics, to hobbies of the person I’m meeting. I also read through press releases and media coverage (all found on the internet) to understand the history of the company, the pain points, and what the management team cares about. If you do your research beforehand, you can make a good impression at the meeting.

Based on your research, you should know how much you can actually contribute to the networking meeting, and how much information you will have to ask for. This will help you set expectations for yourself and the person you are meeting with.

It’s essential to set expectations for a networking meeting so you don’t waste someone’s time. I have gone to meetings where a CEO just wants to chat over beers, and I’ve gone to meetings where the CEO wants a PowerPoint deck of my ideas and how to implement them. If you set expectations well, you can avoid being under-prepared and making a bad impression.

Also, don’t forget to articulate your interest and your value. There are two things people want to see in a networking meeting: enthusiasm or passion, and what you bring to the table. Make sure that you incorporate both these answers into your story about your history and your goals.

Use language that ties both of your interest and your value to the company, the person you’re meeting with, and yourself. It’s a tough balance, so practicing beforehand helps!

Action Item #3: Follow up

Often, you will not get an immediate offer from a networking meeting. That doesn’t mean it was a waste. Instead, you’ve gotten a contact, information, or a referral. Or you found a way to help the person with one of these three things. Be open to what someone can help you with, and good things will come.

Because networking meetings are not for closing deals, you have to follow-up and check in on the person within a reasonable time frame. This reminds the person of what you discussed, what you want, and what value you have to them. I generally follow up with a thank you email to begin with, and then follow up once more within a month.

What’s your most outrageous networking story?