Small Business Summit, April 10, 2018 - Part 3
Okay. So. I think we're actually gonna get started, so, if you're, filing in kind of come in closer to sit down there are plenty of seats but. We. Want to start to get. This going so, today. We're gonna be talking about the, three steps to developing. A content. Strategy. My. Name is Jory and I'm. The conversion, rate optimization. And analytics, professor, for HubSpot Academy what. Does that mean essentially. It means that I'm, tasked. With keeping. A pulse on what's happening in the marketing services. And sales industries, so, that I can kind of keep you guys informed into, the best practices, for lead generation efforts, I'm also, tasked with making sure that people, have. The education, they need to take. Their data and turn it into a, usable, story, so I guess you could say that I'm, the data nerd HubSpot. Academy for the HOS that of you that don't know HubSpot, Academy, is have spots official Learning Resource and it's the worldwide leader in inbound. Marketing and sales education, completely. Free to use so, we only have short time together and if I mention, any tactics, or strategies, that, really piqued your interest today feel, free to head, over to academyav.com. Where. You can sign up for a free portal, and, kind. Of access our full. Certifications. And our more bite-sized. Lessons. If you have, more. Of a time crunch and. It, will go into all of the steps that I mentioned, here today, so. Our agenda again, it's. Pretty packed but that's okay so. I've just gone through the introduction, of Who I am but. Then I'm gonna go into a bit of the state of marketing. Sales and services as well. As the three steps to developing, a content strategy and, then I also want to leave you guys with some next steps so sometimes it can feel like these presentations, are really abstract and I. Don't necessarily want you guys thinking okay like that's a great idea, what next so I want to give you guys some next steps that you can do today to, really get started with these techniques, so. Before. We dig into the weeds too much with strategy, I'm actually gonna start with. A story so. Without further ado I have, a kind, of dramatic. People. Have changed. At. The. Dawn of the internet when, the internet first kind of arrived. It. I should in a an, era of unprecedented. Information. Exchange. Suddenly. Anyone. With an idea could. Get attention for free now. This meant that company's, products, and media platforms, all multiplied. Information. Was everywhere. So choices. They, felt pretty limitless. But. Then something interesting happened. People. Suddenly had access, to, infinite, content. But. Over, time that actually became, a bit of a hassle a lot, to sift through and, so. Technology. Helped. Streamline. That content. People. Suddenly had access, to endless. Options. Predictably. That. Overtime also, became a hassle and so. Technology helped. Refine those options, Alexa. Siri and. People. Kept having to enter in their information, everyone. These days seems to have their own opinions, about forms, and. You can imagine over. Time that. Became a hassle and so. Technology. It took, care of that too so. These, might seem like a, couple. Of b2c. Disapparate. Examples. But, the message becomes, clear right, little. Or small our little or big. B2c. Or b2b if you're, creating hassle today you're. Gonna be gone tomorrow. So. Back, at the beginning, of the Internet in. The past we. Had endless, publishers, created. Endless options. This. Led to a relatively, homogenous, website experience. Now. We've. Evolved, a bit, we're. Using a few aggregators, like Google. But. Also like Facebook and Amazon to. Really, get. The, information in, the data we need. These. Services are, leading, to highly. Curated options and, are. Producing a highly personalized, experience. So. Business.
It A today, in some ways you, could say it's. Not just about what, you're selling anymore it's. About how you're selling it and this. Should make sense right like the the march of progress is, always favored, simplicity. When. Humans, started navigating. The world we started by. Using. The Stars and. That. Was really difficult right, they, always seem to move you never could really figure. Out where you left over I ins belt the. Ad to squint it was a total plain and, this. Led to the development of maps. But. We're now, in the 21st century, so. This maps again got, simplified. Into. GPS. And, today. We're. Sort of in the the, time of, self-driving. Cars and you, have to imagine that teleportation. It's, on its way right maybe, not okay. So. Let's take a look at more. Specific, examples, so. The companies that are really winning today, they're. Again favoring, simplicity, but. You'll notice a couple trends, so in the past if you wanted to get music for, example you'd, have to your local record, store maybe buy a record, but that became a CD as technology, advanced, and then. We. Turn to iTunes you know if you wanted to make that epic, break up playlist it was. A hassle, to download. Those 15 albums to get just what you needed and. Now. Recently people, are turning to, streaming. Services like Spotify. Because. They don't want to even make the playlist anymore they. Want it there perfect. And, ready for their bleeding heart. But this can be translated, into the, b2b realm right so. In the past if you had a specific strategic challenge. That your business, was facing you would go on ahead hunt for that. MBA, or, that strategist. That could help solve that unique challenge, and. Technology. Helped. Streamline that process. Businesses. Like McKinsey rose out of this need and. Suddenly. It was more of an on-demand consulting, firm, but. At the same time now. Businesses, are turning to companies, like Katalin which are much more on demand because dealing, with McKenzie's contracts. Their Terms of Service it can it can feel like it weighing you down it takes effort the. March of progress is, going, and favoring simplicity. So. The companies that are winning today they. Share a few key traits in the. Past it was okay to be available 9:00 to 5:00 right, your your workforce it has to go home, now. The companies, that win are. Available. 24/7. In. The. Past it was okay to have a relatively, high upfront, investment, that would pay off over time. Now. The, companies that are winning are free. And quick to start. In. The. Past it was okay to, have your website experience, offer a.
Relatively. Generic. Not very focused experience, for every every, customer. Now. Businesses. That win are offering, a very, highly personalized, experience, people. Don't want to feel like, they're just a number. To your company anymore they, want to feel like they have a very one-to-one. Relationship, with, you and. In. The past it was okay to have. Your customers. Really. Tell you what they needed and to respond with what can I help you with today. The companies, that win are highly, predictive, they. Know what you need they're so calm they're so in tune with what you, could want that. They already know before, you even ask. So. As this, trend is kind of moving towards simplicity as we're seeing high, refinement, in the space of the Internet this, has changed marketing. Information. Is going from soft to surfaced. So. While it's really good to be findable, I thought you guys have learned a lot about that today where, you know you need to break into that first page of search results it's. Far better to meet, your customers where. They are and really break into those snippets, that you see to. Rise to the top of the Facebook algorithm. This. Too has changed, the way people experience. And. Expect sales to operate in sales. What, we're seeing is that there. Is the, shift from buyers. Wanting, an unlimited. Amount of choice to. Buyers wanting, convenience. So. Where it's good to have, a very helpful, selling process, it's. Far better these days to. Have one that's as easy as humanly, possible. This. In turn has also affected. Customer. Service in. The past it's. Been okay to be too highly transactional. But. Now, customers. Are expecting, highly, tailored and again personalized. Experience. So. While it's good to be able to ask, what. You need. It's. Far better these days to. Have that, answer ready here's. What you need, so. This might make sense right this might seem intuitive and you might be thinking okay but why. Are companies. Doing. This more and more and as. It turns out, it's. Actually not so easy to be easy, so. As over. Time the, world favors. Simplicity. Businesses. Over time and as you scale become more complex. So. You. Know we as we, scale we start to get, processes. And operations you. Start to use different technology, and it can feel like you're juggling a lot so. Over time the choices we make as companies, make us more complex. So. As a consumer, I know that I get all my information from Google Facebook and Amazon, but. As a marketer, I realized, that I'm struggling to get discovered on any of them. As. A consumer, I realized. That I buy most from companies that make it easy, but. As a. Sales rep I create. Artificial obstacles, in the buying process to, get that, extra bit of information.
And. As a consumer I expect, a highly personalized, experience, from. Everyone, big or small company. But. As, a, customer service rep I might, look at my queue and see a list of problems I need to solve that day not, the people behind them. So. This is a new era of business, and, customers. Are really, expecting, better. So. This. Can seem like a lot right you need to be at the top you need to already be, firing on full cylinders, whether it's with your content, strategy your. Social strategy your, conversational. Tools which Connor will be speaking to a little bit later so. You need to be at the top but, in some ways as these, trends, start to move it. Can feel, like you're starting from the bottom you. Have to kind of look, up at this summit that seems insurmountable. So. Where. Do you start. Well. That's, why we're here today so. Content. Marketing just, to review is the. Marketing technique, of creating and distributing, valuable. Relevant and consistent content, to a very defined, customer. Base. This. Brings. Us to the three steps of developing a content. Strategy again. As we're, moving towards, simplicity and the highly. Personalized, experience. These. Vectors, the, content, mission statement. Understanding. Your buyer personas, and understanding. Your buyers journey, will. Help you get there so. I know it's been a long day but raise, your hand if you've heard of any of these before. Awesome. Raise. Your hand if you have all of these right. Now. Nice nice. Experienced. Marketer, in the room awesome. So. Let's dig into, each of these a little bit more in detail. So. As simon, Sinek says simon Sinek is a marketing, consultant, a bit of a prolific writer. People. Have a lot of opinions about simon, Sinek but. The famous quote of his is that people don't buy what you do they buy, why you, do it and. He has a lot, more materials. That go into this relatively, in-depth this is kind of referencing, his golden circle check. It out develop, your own thoughts moving. On your. Content, mission statement, and regardless, of how we feel about simon, Sinek is about. Helping. You understand, not, only your companies why. Not. Just their product, but your why. But. Also understanding. How you're making a difference in your customers. Lives and this. Is really going to set the tone for your entire content. Strategy. So. We're gonna actually walk. Hands and hands to. Using examples I always find that examples help with. A business called attuma now. Attuma. RIA. Is a finished based company and it helps businesses, transform. Unstructured, text. Data into, business, decision, making information. Long. Long, purpose lung-lung, schpeel, um, but. They realized, that, they were actually not, getting the. Response. From their content, marketing that they had anticipated so we're gonna walk alongside. Atooma, because they realized that they needed to make a change in the way they were approaching, their content marketing. So. First they, started, by. Creating. That content mission, statement and again creating, a Content mission statement really, helps you solidify your company's why why are you doing what you're doing because if you can't even, answer that question how, can you sell it to a customer how can you sell it to a customer in a highly personalized, way so. It helps you start to define. Your, company or businesses. So. In attuma's, mission statement, it's. A bit long. They started off by saying we sell an application, that transforms. Unstructured, data into. Business, decision-making information that's what they do. However. When, it comes to our content, strategy it's. Not about marketing, our text. Analysis application, so, it's actually not, about. Their. Products it's. About the idea that everyone, should know, that. There's an automated, solution to, categorize, comments, and detect, emotions in real-time in multiple, languages so. Rather than focusing, on their products. They're. Trying to solve the unique challenge. Or goal of their users, through, education, there's. This problem, that exists, and there, is this solution. So. At this point you might be like why. Am i planning content, I'm already. Trying. To juggle, so many different strategies and the, idea of planning. All of your content, out in advance might, seem a little insurmountable. There's. A couple different reasons you're going to want to plan content, so. The first is that it gives your content, a roadmap ultimately. Your content, should, be focused, on clearly. Demonstrating. That, why behind your company. The. Second is that it connects short-term content, towards, your long-term goals. You. Know it it makes, a difference if that tweet, is related. To your long-term goal. That. Blog, post any. Of, their other types, of content. It. Also helps you identify potential. Opportunities, and uncovers potential, roadblocks right, because different, types of, content are going to require different amounts of time different.
Types Of resources, so, as you start to plan out, content. In the long term you, can start to really allocate. The, time and resources you need to really, execute. Each of these content, types well. Again. It ensures that each piece of content has a purpose you're, clearly trying to demonstrate. What. You're what. Each of your content is trying, to do which is that that, why. And it, can help you create real business alignment, not everyone's, gonna have distinct, departments, between you. Know marketing, sales and services but, it, can really. Help. You start. To with your purpose. Talk to other parts. Of your, organization and. Make. Sure that you're all going towards the same, United. Front the same United purpose. So. That brings us to the second two parts of creating. Your content strategy and, that's aligning, what, you're trying to do your, purpose, with the people you're trying to attract and, the. Two main vector is that you're going to use to do this art your buyer personas, and your, buyers journey. So. We're gonna start off with buyer personas, so. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional, representation. Of your ideal customer, using. Quantitative. And qualitative, data or. Analysis. And. This, is gonna include. A little bit of. Different. Bits of information. So. It's going to include of your. Ideal customer, their, backgrounds how. They function in the world. Potentially. Any demographics. That might set them apart, any. Identifiers, Zoar channels that, they're going to be using. Goals. That, they might want to be accomplishing, with you and your products and, any challenges that might prevent them from getting there, so. We're gonna take a look at how a tuma. Use. This to. Craft their own, directed. Ideal. Customer so, they identified, through the research of their current customer, base that. Usually. The buyer, that. They were working with was a customer experience manager in this case they called her Maggie for, reference, they. Identified, that she was an insight manager or director and. Usually. A woman between the ages of 30. To 50. Well-educated. Lived. In an urban area and how to a distinct, salary so this is already a lot of information, right, but. They took it that step further. Because. They also realized, it's it's a little small, that. The, person that they were dealing with was usually actually very. Savy and. How. Did different had their own unique goals and challenges but what really stood out is, that. They were dealing with a, lot of text, data that was unstructured and, needed a solution but. Was also usually, also dealing, with a boss that didn't quite understand. The extent of the problem so. They identified, that the typical challenge, faced by their ideal customer, is again, they had that text, data that was unstructured, and the Touma had the product to solve for that so, they've already aligned, that they they, need to educate users, that a solution exists, and they've identified that, their ideal customer, has that challenge, but might not know that, software. Directly aligns with. Their needs so. Then. Let's, take it to the buyers dream so, we have again, our content, mission statement that allows us to be direct in the way that we're creating content, the, ideal. Persona. Or a customer, that, you're going to be dealing with and then, we have this thing called the buyers journey and the. Buyers journey is the active, research process, people go through, leaving, them to make a purchase so. These are the steps your customers, will take before. They ultimately decide. To buy from, you and usually, despite. The industry, or despite, the, business, this, can be broken relatively. Easily into, three stages there's. The awareness stage the, consideration, stage and the decision stage, so.
And Then we're in this stage this is when your ideal customer, will, start to identify that they have a problem. In. The. Consideration, stage, this. Is when your ideal buyer, will start to determine, that there are different, types of solutions there might be more than one and it might not be just your product, but there are solutions to their problem and. In. The decision stage that's when they start to narrow down that there, is a distinct. Product, or service that can best help, them solve their problem usually. You want in this stage for them to be deciding, on you. So. In attuma's example. Maggie. Has a lot of unstructured, text, data and, needs to make sense of it again, this is something they identified, in their research of their current customer, to. Really. Help solve, and, create content, that showcases. Their value, to their ideal customer in, the. Consideration stage, Maggie would usually realize. That, there's, an automated solution to categorize, comments. And detecting, motions in real-time in, multiple, languages. So. Again that directly aligns with the service that attuma. Offers. But. In the decision stage one, thing you'll notice will actually go back a couple slides is that. A challenge, that Maggie faces, is that, she often deals with a boss that doesn't understand. The extent of her problem, and so. What attuma did to align their vectors is in. The decision, stage they decided, to offer free, consultations. Of, their. Buyer, personas. Feedback. Data or data. So. That they could help. Showcase to, not just Maggie, but. The boss that doesn't understand, the extent of the issue that Touma, is the correct, service for them so they decided that in the consultation stage, or in the decision, stage that, consultations. Were going to be how they were going to stand apart, as a, business, stand, apart as a. Product. Versus. Their competitors. So. Again before, creating, content, you, want to make sure that you understand, and make. Simple. The. Content mission statement, of your company you. Want to understand, who your ideal customer. Is and, what. Their journey with your company, or to your company, or product looks like so. That you can make sure that everything. Aligns you, can create content types, for the awareness stage the consideration. Stage the, decision, stage that, can help them through that process and. So. What did this do for attuma. In. The. End what. They were able to do is once, they aligned, their vectors behind, a Content mission statement behind. You. Know their buyer persona, and they understood, the full extent of their buyer persona, Maggie's journey they. Were able to create a content, piece that. Was. Receiving, four times, as, many. Leads if he measured by quality, compared. To a piece of content that they had created before. They had done this research before, they had aligned these vectors so. It can be very effective as you can imagine to. Align your contents, behind these three steps in these three stages. So. I don't want to again leave you without things, to do it, can seem like a lot a lot of this is abstract, you know we have this, march towards simplicity you. Need to think about ideal. Customers, and what. You can do because, we again only have so so, long together is if, you're interested in following attuma's, story a little. Bit more in depth to go step, by step through the process they did to, create this content piece specifically, that, was able to convert them four times as many leads you. Can't and I believe this presentation, is going to be sent out afterwards, so don't worry about the links. You. Can head, over to academy.com. Where. We, continue to walk through how. Atooma was able to create. A piece of content that that was that high, of, impact. That it was creating four times as many qualified leads, again. We have very many bite side's lessons, if you're a little strapped for time but I would definitely recommend kind, of following their journey there and. That's. All I've got for you. And. Then I'm not quite sure if we're doing a QA I wasn't. Told. Yeah. Yeah. So HubSpot. Academy, again is like a subset, of, HubSpot. That's, really just keyed in on focusing, on educating, about the marketing space about. Educating. About the sales and services space so we create content usually, in the form of video content but also in form of articles depending, on what type of learner you are so, that we can help under, like help users understand. All levels, of the different strategies that might help them. Be more effective at qualifying leads, at closing deals at retaining. Customers so, we're, kind of a full-scale educational. Service but we. Understand, that not everyone has the time to, do a several. Hour certification. Right so, we also key. Into making you. Know lessons. That are a set, of videos any anywhere. Between, 10. Minutes to about 30 minutes, covering. Everything from SEO.
Conversion, Rate optimization, to just general email marketing. So. Definitely, totally free to use yeah. Right. Definitely. So. I think that, that's a really awesome question, and I'm glad you asked that because, you'll. Find that at first when you're making your buyer personas, there's going to be a lot of assumptions, that you are making because there's only so much data available to you but, as you grow, your customer base you can start to if, you're using like a CRM, for example you can start to really fill in the blanks so there's a handoff, between the. Assumptions that you make with your buyer personas, in the, beginning to, where you will develop them I don't see them as stagnant, resources, you should always continue, to revisit, them to make sure that, it is the most accurate representation. Of your ideal customer, so, as you gather more data and collect. It in whatever CRM, you choose to use using. That insight, to really develop out like who, this is again. Talking with their customers, talking with your sales team there. Are different ways that you can get on the, pulse of who you're actually talking to but, your company and the, the people that are dealing with your customers, are also going to be the best resources, for that not just kind of what you'll see in, your CRM so I would recommend talking. To the people that are selling to your customers, and getting their insight as well but. I I think it's, important, to move from, generalizations. To data-driven, specifics. Over, time. Right. Definitely so Google. AdWords is a good. Way to start. It. Could be difficult in the advertising, space because budget becomes a big. Indicator. There um, in. That case I would really suggest thinking. About the different channels that your buyer. Personas, and then your, current customers are on so for, example you, can think about the social media space, are they on Facebook, could, you advertise. Or promote that, post on Facebook would, it be worth it to start. To invest in. Thought. Leadership pieces, like, in medium to get that kind of awareness out. There but. Ever I would think about what, channels. Are best to reach and again, Connor is going to be talking about the messaging, space which is this, new. New. Era of communicating. With customers um you. Could definitely start with advertising, but, I would think about the ways that you could promote it for free on socials, that might all right social media that might be most meaningful if. You're more, into. Kind of b2b business LinkedIn, might be the best way to go um. Potentially. Not but. Really. Thinking about the other platforms, besides your website because the the Internet is such an organic, space. Right now where and. There, there are a lot of kind. Of strategies, emerging, conversational. Strategies, that, speak to it's, not just enough, to be on your website anymore, you have to meet your customer, where they want to talk and sometimes that takes taking. It to a platform, that's about messaging, to take it to a platform that's on social web they'll already organically.
Be As well, as mixing, that with your paid, advertising. Strategies. I. Think. We have time for one more. Okay. I think, we're going to turn it over to Connor then I. Don't. Need that okay hey. Can you guys hear me awesome. I need, this one let's see my egg look, at that hey. Guys thanks all for coming out CA Cambridge, and Google thank you very much for hosting my. Name is Connor cirillo and today, we're gonna talk about chat bots we're gonna talk about messaging. Quick, show hands how many of you texted, a friend today or texted a family member yeah. About all of you now, at the end of this talk you'll understand, why that's actually the way that you're gonna talk to businesses, in a few short years and, you may have seen it already the, way that we communicate with businesses is going to change and it's gonna move from calling, an email which are kind of the channels of yesterday, to, this more instantaneous, back and forth messaging. One-to-one. Relationships. At. HubSpot I help, lead our conversational. Marketing efforts so figuring, out what are the best ways to build relationships. By, using one-to-one, platforms, things like SMS. IMessage. Facebook, Messenger, these places that we, as consumers spend, a ton of time and our customers, as people spend a ton of time how, do we figure out how to meet people where they are. If. You want to follow me on Twitter I do post a lot about this space so. If you want to learn more about it for that you're. Also welcome to use the hashtag chat about chat bot today if you have any questions, that we don't get to at the end of this I'm happy to follow up with you privately. There's. A lot we're gonna cover in a very short amount of time the. First thing is you'll understand, the rise of messaging, what, is going on with the way we talk to friends and family and how does that impact what, we expect from businesses, down the line, I'll. Help you with a framework to identify your, biggest opportunities, it's probably the first time you, might be thinking about this space and that's totally cool you are very much ahead of where everyone else is right now just by being here and I'll, leave you with a framework that makes it really easy to understand, regardless, of what, you're selling your buyer persona, where, they like to spend time things.
That You can start to find the biggest. Opportunities. That can make an impact, I'll. Show you a case study from start to finish so we're not just gonna talk theoretical, I'll show you in a very grounded, example, how, we at HubSpot generated. Leads, communicated. With customers, in a better way and just overall built better relationships. That led to more dollars which at the end of the day it's, why we're here and. The fourth I'll give you some actionable things that you can take back to your business today whether. You're a team of one or a team of a hundred very. Grounded, easy to do free things that make it easy to start chatting, with your visitors chatting, with users and building. Better relationships. But. In order to go forward and figure out where we're headed we actually need to go back and understand the rise of messaging. Marketing. And sales throughout time has always been about building real relationships. This focus of one-to-one and they'll, good olden days we knew everyone, we did business with we, had very personal, relationships, we knew their birthdays, our, sales reps were like our friends, and over. Time as we wanted to reach more people and more people came on the internet we, started having this concept of one-to-many, and it, wasn't just about building a relationship with you it, was about I need to reach everybody, in this room and there's only one of me so I have to use things like email and kind of talk, at you but. As users that's not really what we love we love that, one-to-one, communication, as. A quick example another. Graphic didn't, load right but whose inbox, looks like this you, have an abyss of emails I saw a hand thousands, of emails I really, hope I didn't miss a bill because I'm never gonna see it but, we've. Read every text message we get and, that's, because we love talking, to our friends we love talking to our family and the. Place we expect to hear from them are, these messaging, platforms, and increasingly. That's what we're gonna want from businesses, we don't want them to talk at us we, want to talk with them and. We. Get back to this one-to-one, marketing. One-to-one, relationships, really. Getting a deep connection with the business that you, might be buying from or the customers, you're selling to, with. A thing called chat BOTS and a thing called messaging. Let's. Set the table there's. A lot of buzzwords that have been thrown around in this space and, I really want to make sure we kind of have we're, all on the same page. When you do go back to your teams or your business you, kind of have a good understanding of what this stuff is and what it's not. Let's. Start with things we all know that's conversations. And. That's interactive, communication. Between, two or more parties now, we have conversations, all the time whether. You're ordering coffee talking, to a family member we, like talking, to each other and that's a thing we know how to do. Where. That gets interesting, though is this concept of chat BOTS and these, are computer programs that can simulate one, side of a conversation.
Throughout. The all of history we knew conversations. As one-to-one human to human that's. What there was but. Now we can, talk and still have these one-to-one. Conversations. With actually a robot on the other side a chat bot on the other side and when, done right that, lets you you and your business reach more, people than you ever could if you, only had humans helping. It. Comes together in this new space called conversational. Marketing and I know it sounds like such a fluffy thing, but. It really is the next evolution of marketing. We're, getting away from that talking, at people and just hoping enough of them by overtime to keep the lights on it's, about building, real, relationships. And you can actually do that a lot easier than. You think. In. Order to give some perspective on like, the fact that this messaging, stuff is really here and now is the time I want, to play a game with you guys called which numbers higher rules. Are super simple I'm gonna say two numbers, you, tell me which is higher, the. First one who thinks, the. Amount of people on the top for messaging, platforms, of Facebook, Messenger whatsapp. WeChat. And viber is higher. Than the people on the top for social, networks Facebook. Instagram, you, know the Twitter and LinkedIn who, think more people are messaging, every month a couple. All. Right who thinks there's more people on this social networks I mean these are the big ones right, you'd. Be surprised, it's. Actually, the messaging, platforms, there's. Four billion. Monthly active users in the top four messaging, platforms, alone now. 3.5, on the social networks nothing to scoff at but. This chart really paints a great picture of what's kind of going on behind the scenes that. Gray line shows. The social networks and how they've grown over time no. Surprise there they've been big they, got bigger but. If that orange, line in, just a few years went. From these messaging platforms, not really being a thing to, actually passing, the social networks in 2015, as the biggest, way that people, like to spend their time numbers. Not slowing down at this point over four, billion people and still counting, messaging. Has taken, over the way that we like to spend our time as consumers, and it's bleeding into what we like as buyers. To. A second one which, numbers higher the. Amount of people in facebook Messenger every month or the amount of people on earth in the year 1800, like the whole big spinning rock thing who, things more people and messenger.
You. Guys get it who. Think there's more people on earth like, the whole thing. Okay. There we go one. Its. Messenger. Platforms. Like facebook Messenger have an astronomical. Amount of people that love spending time in the platform, over, 1.3, billion, people every month use, Facebook Messenger and, if. We zoom in right, that chart that showed messing messaging, platforms, have gone crazy in a few years I mean, this charts a great example facebook. Messenger only launched in 2014, and, Facebook. Has invested, so much in, the product, the people that, it has become, a juggernaut, of a platform in just a few short years. People. Like Mark Zuckerberg know, it right, messaging is one of the few things that people, do, more than social, networking now. You don't have to agree with everything he says or does but at this point he knows how to see around the corner of the ways that people like to spend their time if you, look at where companies like Facebook have focused, over the past few years its building, out these messaging, platforms, they know that we like being on social but, we get much better connections, being on messaging. This. Third one for my football fans in the room which numbers higher the, amount of gifts shared on facebook, Messenger every second the, amount of yards Brett Favre threw for in his entire career I would, use the Tom Brady one for this but I couldn't find a good gift, things, hired gifts, are Brett Favre. Guess. No. It's far. Yeah. So 72 thousand yards nothing to scoff at for Favre but, the. Way that people are using the messaging platforms, is not just about the things we say to each other it's not just about talking it's. About expressing, ourselves things. Like gifts, and emojis, and stickers, have, become, ways that we can express, ourselves with more than just words which, lets us build deeper relationships it's. Not just what I say to you it's, how I say it it's how I communicate it, and that's how I really express, myself deeper. But. Why does it matter like we are businesses, you guys are all here to help your business grow and you're not here to text your friends, well. It matters because messaging, is changing. What consumers, expect from companies, the. Way that, we are spending time on our mobile devices, and our desktop, devices where. We like spending time and messaging, is, now kind of altering, what we are expecting, from businesses, and moving forward you talk about the next generation, of consumers, I mean they are they are only messaging. That is like their dominant, way of spending time. 9, out of 10 people today, want. To reach a business through messaging, and. 51. Percent of people want, to reach a business 24/7. So. You have lots of people who want to engage with you in this way now. I've come from some small teams and there's not enough people to go around right to make that happen so what do you do well, you have to find a way to scale it and automate, it and that's, where things like chat BOTS come in the ability, to automate parts, of a conversation, and let, people build these one-to-one, relationships.
With Your business is. Such a powerful, force for, what the future of marketing and business looks like. And. There's ways that you can get started with this stuff a framework that you can take home it's. Only three parts pretty straightforward, of all, the ways that you interact, with your customers and your visitors now whether that's in a retail store or visitors, to your website right, there's lots of ways that you talked to people and communicate, with them today. And this, framework will help you understand what things might make sense to try to introduce messaging. Or the idea of a chat bot - the. First is you want to look for things in your business that are repeatable. Frequent, and common that impact lots, of people, in your business this. Could be you, have a lot of people asking. Common. Questions on your website or calling, in with the same few questions, right the. Concept, of an FAQ it's frequent for a reason. With. A chat bot this could be great here because people could help themselves, instead of having to call in or email the, same few questions if you can let them just ask in a way that feels totally natural, to them you, might be able to help them help themselves and, not, have to boggy, bog your support people or bog your people in the store down. You. Want to look for things that are predictable, they, have a defined start middle, and end, the best kind of chat bot experiences right now are ones that focus on solving a real problem and doing it well things. Where you know kind, of how people are gonna get into it what, should happen in the middle and then that goal that business goal you, want on the other side. Like. Customer. Onboarding or, nurturing. Could be a great example here where you know if someone, signs up for a product or is interested in something you're offering you probably are sending them some kind of messaging, overtime to, show why your product is great well, instead of just talking at them with an email making, it more bite-sized, and making it more one-to-one, and focusing, on why you and, your business, are so great for the pain that they're facing. Introducing. Messaging, here is a great way to build, better relationships, in, a shorter amount of time and. The. Third and this is the important one it, should help you make money it, should add real value to your business everything, you do with, any marketing channel, but particularly, this messaging, space should. Help your business automate. A process, that, helps you get to more dollars perfect. Example contact, forms who VR is like a contact, form on their website to let people get in touch right. So, this one's easy this, is a layout you, already know the things that you need to get from people their name maybe their email and a message instead. Of giving them a wall of stuff to fill out making. It feel more consultative. And be like hey Conor what. Can I help you with today awesome. What's a great place I could follow up little. Things like that makes such a better experience, that when. We go to think about where we're gonna buy a product, from we. Remember how people make us feel, and we, remember how companies treat us little. Things like this could be a great opportunity to just just make people think of you a little bit more when, they start to think about buying. So. To bring it back when, you're thinking about introducing chat BOTS or messaging, or really this next wave of marketing. Focus. On things, that happen a lot in your business that, could be a marketing, a support, a sales anything, but any way that you interact with your customers a lot things. That are predictable, focus. On solving one real, problem we, don't need to go from zero to Terminator in a day right focus, on a real use case that makes, your users life better and it. Also should be something that makes you money or get you better value. Now. I do this exercise a lot with my team where I'll take a whiteboard and a bunch of sticky notes and we'll just start to think about things that we do and the way we interact with website visitors and leads and customers and, try to figure out if any of those fall into the buckets we just talked about and. The, last time we did this pretty. Recently actually was, we found lead generation was a great example I know. That we are a very leads driven business we like having people talk to us or want to talk to us we. Know how that goes I know the pieces of information I need from somebody in order, to like kind, of convert them and. Then every lead we get gets us closer a dollar so for us this was a perfect, example of, a place you could start.
Now. If you look on the left this is our typical landing, page form if you've ever been to HubSpot the. Web site or you have, forms on your own website that should look pretty familiar right, go, fill out some stuff and there's value on the other side, but. On the right I'll show you how we actually turn that into a more one-to-one, a better, experience, a more real human-like, experience, and. It had a business impact you might not expect. But. First. Typical. Landing page when you're pushing people here right there should be some way for them to convert and. For us it's a web form like this nothing. Crazy but what. I found is that web forms actually feel a lot like this you. Just are asking people to fill out eight things and, in. A normal conversation, I would have with any one of you there's. No way, I would expect you to say eight things to me before I acknowledge, you that's just weird that's not how we as people like to talk we, love one to one acknowledging. Each other taking. Turns going back and forth the things that we passively, do all the time. Businesses. Haven't been able to meet us there yet until. Now, so. What we did was instead of pushing people onto Facebook to, a landing page we. Actually tried a new ad objective, down when they clicked a button it, actually popped up a conversation inside, Facebook messenger, and they could chat with us right then in there and. It looked like this now. If you squint or you take your glasses off in my case you, kind of go wait doesn't that look like a normal conversation. Doesn't it look like I'm talking to somebody and even. Though these people are talking to a business we're able to turn that form and those, things those same things we need to get out of visitors and make. It much more back and forth hey. Conner tell me about your company how, many people work there little. Things like that really. Add up and people. Grow. Affinity, to what you're doing. And. If you kind of put them side by side now me. As a consumer and a human I will always go for that one on the right I will always want that one-to-one. Consultative. Approach, that, just feels more real, the, forms, that's kind of in the way of the past and I know we spend a lot of time trying to make those better but, the way, of the future is one-to-one the. Way people want to communicate they, want to feel special in. Today's kind of business as Jory, mentioned, the, world is changing and people want convenience they want to feel loved. And respected by your business meeting. Them in a way that's one-to-one, that they already like to spend their time is a great way to do that. And. Conversations, are a totally, natural way to collect information we. Give information through. Messaging, to our friends and family all the time what. Time will you be home from work kind. Of pizza do you want like, those little things we are totally, desensitized to. Giving information and asking for information through, messaging, one, of the biggest things that people ask me as they go well why, would anyone ever talk to a business that's so weird, but, it's still messaging, so what's so weird about it Hieu. As humans, this is the way we like to be. Introducing. Like being able to talk to a business is actually a great way to add value people. Aren't going to be scared it really doesn't matter what you're selling this is a very natural behavior. But. How did it go it's, not just that it looked cool where it was fun and I got to text at work right, it's like did we make money and. We did we brought the cost per lead down on Facebook, messenger over 30 percent versus. A landing page we, were able to make it easier, for people to convert it wasn't about dragging, them to a forum and making, them fill out stuff, it, was we met them where they were spending time and the results showed that on.
The Flip side though are further down the funnel we. Built better relationships. And those people who came through messenger, were 40 percent more likely to talk to our sales team than, if they had come through that same landing page when. You meet people where they spend their time and talk. To them the way they like to talk to their friends and family you, will see better results that's just kind of a fact. Inside. The bot this is really cool sorry, on the comments these are real comments from people signing up for it, was a webinar that we had run for. This particular case study and, if you noticed people are saying that's a cool ad you, should totally sign, up for this I had, so much fun registering, I have. Run a lot of marketing campaigns in my day and that's the first time people have been excited, about signing up for something in. The past you know it's been like the dentist right you know you have to do it let's, just get it over with but now when. I saw this I said wait a minute we, can actually make this delightful, and enjoyable. For people to do, inside. The body gets cooler, we. Told people it was a bot it was really straight up that this is not a human we've, automated, this conversation. But. Check, out this software check out this webinar we're doing and people. Are still saying wow that's amazing and I love you, what. We also noticed, was that people were saying thanks a lot and, if, someone thanked me as a human like, I would say you're welcome but because, I'm a millennial and I ruin everything I'd probably use a gif and on. Messaging, platforms, using gifts are totally natural. That's how I primarily, talk to everyone, I know and using. A gif in this case for a business, was awesome, people loved it. Met, people, in the way they spent their time in, a way that's already normal to them we don't have to teach them how to how, to look at a gif and understand, it it made sense so. How. Can you do this how, can you go back to your team of 100. Whatever, you're selling and start, getting messages that. Build better relationships. The. First thing and this is the easiest one you can do right, now is. Add a button to your Facebook page if your business has a Facebook, page you, can actually add a button to it so people can message you now, you can have a human behind that you can automate parts of it but leverage. The traffic you already have if there's already people going to your Facebook page why, not make it really, easy for them to get in touch with you I kind. Of think of this as like when you started a business 20, years ago everyone, had a phone number and a lot of businesses still do but now the. Ability to message of business is kind of going to replace that phone number as the way, that a lot of people will, want to reach out to start. You. Can install things like customer, chat this. Is a free plugin from facebook free tool where. You're actually able to talk, with people on facebook Messenger without, them ever leaving your website you. Again can automate it not automate, it have a real person in there. But. Being able to engage with them in real time and, then, what is really cool is once someone chats with you on that customer chat or through messenger, they. Can keep the conversation going maybe they talk to you on your website but then they have to go run and pick up the kids but, they can keep that conversation going, on messenger, the, ability to carry that conversation, with them is super, powerful there, have been plenty of times where I've been sitting on hold with a company willing, to give them my money or willing to do something with them and, it just took too long and I had to go but, the ability to take that wherever I go and pick the conversation, up later it's really, powerful as users are on the go more and, on their phones more. You. Can use CTAs, and buttons on your website it's, not just about facebook Messenger but messenger I think is one of the better platforms, that does this.
You Can add buttons so people can click it on a website or whatever or an email and then engage with you on facebook Messenger this could be great if maybe. You have a blog that already gets a lot of traffic or an, a list that, you're using to reach people if there's something specific you want to use messaging, for adding. A button like this that says hey chat with us on messenger, or sign, up for this on messenger, it's a really easy way to start driving traffic to to, that experience. And. Then you can run a send a messenger campaign, this is what we did for that webinar but, the ability to capture, people, while they're still on Facebook and they don't have to leave Facebook that's. Really powerful, platforms. Like Facebook are rewarding, advertisers. Who, keep people on the platform if you don't let if you don't make people leave kind, of Facebook products, you, will see cheaper. You. Will see cheaper reach you will see better results and messenger, I think is like the most powerful, tool we've had in years to do that, letting. People sign. Up for things or interact with your business again, without them ever leaving those blue walls is super, powerful and you will see cheaper results. There. Are free tools to get started with this stuff one I really like is called mini chat so, mini chat calm it's a free tool has, a really, easy to use kind of layout for this stuff like, building conversations. And chat BOTS really. Isn't that hard to do it's. Very linear you would just kind of think of well if I could have this conversation person. With you how would it go and just, thinking of it like that I mean this stuff is really easy to get started with and. The. Paid paid, plan is like 10 bucks a month you, will get your money out of it if that's what you want to do I can, promise that. Conversational. Marketing is like the biggest shift we've had in marketing, in ten years really, since mobile phones started, becoming a thing and people, had the internet with them everywhere I'd, say this is the biggest shift we have people. Spend more time on their phones than ever before whether, they're b2b, buyers b2c. Buyers it really doesn't matter as people, that's, where we're spending our time we're. Also spending it in fewer places than ever before to most. People only use three or four apps in a given day and messaging.
Apps I bet, are one of them for just about everybody, by. Being able to meet buyers where they spend their time and, kind. Of build, those one-to-one, relationships, that we as humans just crave and love is super. Powerful, so. Go chat now, go start with this stuff it is we are in the very early innings of this space the, sooner you can figure out what use cases make sense for your business and. What ways you can delight customers in a better way you, will have crazy, crazy, success, in this space again. If your buyers are humans they, want to chat with you. I'm. Connor guys thank you so much for having me. Happy. To take questions if anyone has, any. Yes. Yesso chatbots. Basically, can live inside any messaging, platform, think of chatbots. As that underlying tech that you can put in any place so, if you want to do it through iMessage, or text messaging, or facebook Messenger basically, anywhere that you go to talk with like texting, kind of communication, you, can deploy this stuff chat bots aren't like an app that's, an underlying, technology, that you can kind of use, you're, out everything. Yeah. Chat, feels a good one yeah, chat feels another good one that integrates to a lot of other tools if you power. Your website through like zapier. You connect your tools together chat, feels a good one ch, 80f. UEL. I didn't, win the spelling bee but I got that one, yeah. That's a good one there definitely are like. Other, I'm trying to give another good one for what's. Fall bleed off I'll find some like there's like texting or iMessage, ones I can show you but message. The messenger ones are really sophisticated yeah. You. Can deploy them on your website the you, can have them on like the social media stuff like messenger but, it is really powerful to be able to chat with people too on your website things, like live chat like you don't again you don't have to automate everything but. You want to build those one-to-one, relationships, so you can put messenger. On your site a normal, live chat widget that's, cool but, just make sure you're like able to message back with people or, have a bot do it yeah. That. Particular platform, there's like it's a freemium thing so it the paid plan is like 10 bucks a month but you could do this stuff for $0 like there's no. It. Depends on the use case so there are some things like collecting information for, like lead generation or a contact form where like I know how that should go I kind of know the things I need from you if we could have it face to face it's. Kind of a pretty straightforward experience. So why would I pay a human more to do that when, I could probably have a bot handle that part where, it is great to use humans, and BOTS together it's, things like the bot collects, the information and then you can have a real sales rep follow up with them your, sales rep shouldn't have to keep collecting information, right like that's kind of not the best use of their time but, when you use bots and humans together it's a great way to maximize, everybody's. Time which is awesome. Yeah. Hmm. What's. Out yep. Turn. Yep. Yeah. So, the question anyone in here is basically like what's the best kind of platform, over all different, generations, and different regions like using different platforms what's kind of like the best one, overall to use I use, messenger, a lot because I think the platform, itself is really really sophisticated, you, also don't have to have a Facebook account to use messenger, which i think is super important, so business like even if your your, audience maybe doesn't use Facebook all the time the ability to still chat with them on messenger, is pretty, powerful to. Jewelry's point of understanding who your buyers are where they'd like to spend their time this. Is part of as you develop that persona, something that should be more clear of oh my, users fall into this age bracket this is the social network they like to be on maybe, messenger, makes more sense or, it could be maybe like, SMS, or texting makes more sense there's, not one right or wrong platform I really, love messenger, just because it's easy to, build great experiences what. Messenger does that some of the other platforms don't is they give you a lot of like visual, tools so, things like buttons to help steer the experience, so. People can kind of click of where to go next so it's about using kind, of texting, and also the buttons and there's Facebook, does a good job of building a full platform for it what, the problem is with things like SMS, sometimes, if you're just texting words it's, not always super clear what you should do next, and, I think messenger, makes a much more kind of like steered, experience, which, is great focusing, on solving that one real problem messenger.
I Think is a better way to do it and the platform itself 1.4 billion people every month if, your audiences in North America, you could put all your time on facebook Messenger and that would be great that's. Really where people like to be if, you have more of a global audience places, like, South America Latin America, parts of Europe that whatsapp platform, which is also on by Facebook is, huge ages, a little bit fragmented, so it kind of depends on the country but, yeah messenger, I would say is like if you could pick one to start with today it'd be messenger and then if you have a more nuanced, use case build. Into that over time but messenger is the one you should start with. Yeah. To. Set clear expectations up, front this. Is a bot humans, are available, if you need them the worst thing you can do is deceive people that's, when they get mad what, I found though and after running a ton of tests here people, don't care if it's a bot a human or a cat with a keyboard right they just want their problem solved, and they want it done fast so, as long as your experience. Is actually good at solving that problem this, insincerity, part I wouldn't worry about that too much to, his point earlier of using them together using, humans and BOTS of look this box just gonna collect some information and then we have a real human to kind of step in using. Them together as a great way that you can still get that real. Kind of emotional, connection but. We any if you saw from earlier when we got people to say they love this bot and, they knew it wasn't a human so the. Concept, of messaging I don't think people are worried about it. Being insincere per se. Yeah. It. Depends on what you want to do you. Could have you could start collecting information and like replace your contact, form in half an hour it really like there's no code to set this stuff up it's really straightforward. I like, the many chat platform because like I'm not a developer by. Any background and so the ability to kind of drag and drop and just move things back and forth in a very visual way is good for me also not having to code is super helpful so yeah. You, could do a contact form in half an hour, this. Stuff is really really easy to set up the hard part though is actually how do you like right for a good conversation, the thing like we have them all the time with each other but like thinking about oh how would I actually start, this conversation with the user kind, of that copy is a harder part to refine the building the skeleton of it super, easy but. Over time you'll have to iterate to find like what's the right way to start this experience, or oh my I asked for an email my user said something totally different how do I steer them back on track so it's those little things after, its launch that take more time, yeah. Nooo, so that's a great distinction it's, really easy to get humans in there to take it over Facebook.
Has Like the business account kind of inbox so you can respond. To people, on your, business's page through messenger and there's a really easy place to do that on Facebook with. The tools like many chat and plenty of others have it they actually have like a dedicated, inbox, what's, really cool if you can set rules of when you should escalate, things to a human when, you want people to talk to a human for, instance if someone gets something wrong three times, okay maybe then the bot can't help them you should probably get, them in touch with a human if you can you, can make it really easy to alert the humans to if hey somebody, needs help it's time to kind of step in but. It's really easy to hand that back and forth again, finding, what the balance is on one, end right we have conversations, that should be totally automated and then ones that are totally, human finding, what that balance is for your business in your use case will. Kind of be the important thing that you figure out there testing over time but. It is easy to move it around. Yeah. Yep. I'll. Go back to. Yeah. So in. This. Proceeding. Up. Button at the bottom they would click that and, then actually a conversation messenger, would pop right up which. Is great so then they it would be like really targeted, from there we'd say you, know hey Connor sign. Up for this webinar what's, your email kind of thing. Yep. Right. And in our case like we said we basically like let them we, kind of told them this is what you're about to get into like you're, gonna sign up for this webinar we need to collect some information from you click, here to start kind of thing so but. Other you can get people into these experiences, in a lot of other ways so, again using these buttons on your website. Using. Paid ads there's, a lot of different ways that you can kind of get people into them. Yeah. That's pretty easy yeah this, that's where this like customer chat thing is super cool because they can chat with you on messenger, without leaving your website which is super powerful to have those best of both worlds but, plenty of experiences, where maybe, on mobile if you have a forum normally, on your website but you don't really want them filling it out you could just say click here to sign up right and they could kind, of go right in a messenger for that experience so moving. Between the two is super easy also. Getting for a messenger back to your website if that's what you want to do that's really, really easy Facebook. Has cool, basically. Like cards that you can put images and, text and links and really, format it in a really nice way to move people back to a website if, that's what you want to do so moving around is really easy to do. Yeah. No. These, platforms, I really like that you can like glue together all the tools you're using today so if you just. Want like an email in your inbox that says hey there's someone on messenger, to chat with you, could have that you could also use a tool, like zapier, it's, a really good one if you want an email and you, want the messenger conversation, being able to do both. What, I do yeah again love about these platforms, is you shouldn't have to rip out anything you're doing today, it should augment, everything, you're doing and kind of add another layer of, personalization. On top of kind, of everything else you're doing to reach people. I'm. Gonna be hanging around to if anyone has any other questions I'll be right outside but thank.
You Guys very much. So. Thank you Connor we're. Gonna do a quick stage, reset, just give us 60 seconds here and I'll bring up our next speaker, I'll be right back with you. Hi. Everyone I think we're gonna get started. So. Thank you so much to the city of Cambridge and Google, for having us here today thank you for having me my. Name is Emily Kanter and I'm the second generation co-owner, of Cambridge Naturals, we're a 44, year old natural, products retail business, in, Porter Square and. I'm, here today my father Michael is also in the audience. So, today I'm going to talk a little bit about how, to, stand. Out or watch out how to be extraordinary, in, a competitive retail, environment. And. You know I think we all understand, that online. Is, becoming an increasingly, prevalent, part of the retail
2018-05-03 13:22
