MackCollier.com

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What’s the Difference Between a Brand Ambassador Program and an Outreach Program?

Influencer Marketing and working with Brand Ambassadors are two of the hottest areas in marketing today, but they are completely different tactics often aimed at completely different audiences.  So what’s the difference?

A Brand Ambassador program is where the company and its customers (fans) have a sort of informal and ongoing relationship.  Typically, the participants in a Brand Ambassador program have signed up with the company, so they are raising their hands and telling the brand that they want to work directly with them.  Most Brand Ambassadors are compensated for their involvement.  That compensation could be in the form of cash, or products, or discounts on products, or greater access to the brand, or possibly all of the above.  The benefit to the brand is that it gives them a way to stay connected with its most passionate fans, so they can work with those fans to help them better promote the brand’s products to others, but also the brand can get valuable feedback from its ambassadors and apply that feedback to the business and product cycle.  The Brand Ambassador benefits by having a closer connection to a brand it loves and supports.  Often, Brand Ambassadors will get advance access to upcoming products or projects, and get to go ‘behind the scenes’ at the brand, and are given a level of access that the average customer could never gain.  If the Brand Ambassador program is organized and executed properly, there are clear and obvious benefits to both the brand and its Brand Ambassadors.

For example, Chick-Fil-A has a program where it works with moms, #ChickFilAMoms. It will send them coupons for certain items and also promote certain items to them (especially new menu items). CFA tries to get the moms to try the items, but they also want the moms to tell other moms about the products so they’ll give them coupons but also instructions on messaging, how to promote the items to other people, etc. The customers will also give feedback on the items and brand experience, and Chick Fil-A can then leverage that feedback for change (see Chick Fil-A launching a Mom’s Valet service for moms that bring kids to Chick Fil-A). Customers opt-in to be a part of the program, it’s all about having an ongoing relationship with fans that have raised their hands and told the brand that they want to help them.

Outreach programs are a bit different.  Typically, these inititiatives are designed to raise awareness among a particular group, often a group of influencers.  For example, if Chick-Fil-A wanted to work with influencers, what they might do was identify say 25 moms that were also ‘influencers’, and fly them into Atlanta and let them spend the day with their chefs, see how the food is prepared, maybe learn more about how CFA works with moms, etc.  As Janice Person explained in a recent MarketingSmarts podcast with Kerry Gorgone (Click to listen), Monsanto brings in foodie bloggers to its partner farms to give them a complete look at the process in bringing food from the field to the table, and along the way they also learn more about Monsanto’s role in helping to facilitate that process.  In both examples, the idea of the outreach is to educate the influencers with the hopes that they will then go and tell others about their experience.

And in that regard, both a Brand Ambassador program and an Outreach program are tactics to drive Word of Mouth.  The tactics are simply aimed at different audiences.  With a Brand Ambassador program, you’re working with an audience (your existing customers) that loves your brand and who is already spreading Word of Mouth about your brand.  You want to work with these customers to help them do a better job of this as well as working with them to gain better product feedback from customers they interact with.  With an Outreach program, you’re dealing with an Influencer that has often built a large and (ideally) engaged online following, and you want to expose them to your brand so that they can share their experiences with their networks.  So the Outreach program is a brand awareness tool as well.

Another way to think of the difference is, an Outreach program is a good way to build awareness for a new product line or initiative, whereas a Brand Ambassador program is a good way to increase the marketing efforts of your customers around an established brand.

Is your company looking for a kick-ass Content Marketing Manager? I’m in the market!  Here’s my details, please email me if you have a remote opening! 

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This Is Why Your Brain Hates Case Studies

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Companies (and their agencies) love sharing case studies. They can be great PR for your business, but they typically aren’t the best way for your brain to learn.

Let’s be honest: Case studies are shared to promote the company and sometimes its agency or partners.  They aren’t positioned as learning tools, they are positioned as promotional tools.  And there’s nothing wrong with that, if a company has done good work and wants to toot its own horn, they should feel fine doing so.

I’m currently looking for a job, most specifically, a Content Marketing Manager or similar position (if you’re hiring, here’s my information).  In talking to B2B companies and agencies, one of the most common needs I am hearing from companies hiring for this position is “We are looking for someone that can help share our client success stories in order to grow our business”.  For B2B companies and agencies, this sharing of case studies makes perfect sense, because it’s proof of concept.

But often, these case studies aren’t positioned in a way that encourages learning.  Too often, case studies are shared, results are given, and takeaways provided. Unfortunately, this isn’t the best way to teach your brain the core concepts that drove success for the case study.  It helps the reader understand the case study, but it doesn’t help the reader understand how to apply the same core concepts to its own business.

Let’s say that your business sells productivity software.  If you share a case study from how your software helped a big-box chain retailer, the reader is going to understand how your software helps in that particular situation.  What you need to do is also share hypothetical or abstract examples that would be more relevant to your targeted audience.  For example, if you want to attract more software clients from the manufacturing industry, you could share your case study from the big-box retailer, but add to it a hypothetical example or two from the manufacturing industry.  Give an example of how a potential client in this space could use your software in the same way as the big-box retailer did.  The added relevance will help the potential client in the manufacturing industry understand how your software could help THEM.

By offering both case studies and hypothetical examples, you make it easier for the brain to both spot and learn the core concepts.  If you only offer the case study, then the brain will learn why the case study worked, but it won’t fully grasp the core concepts, because you are only sharing them in one environment (the case study).  But when you offer the case study AND hypothetical examples, it becomes much easier for the brain to detect (and learn!) the core concept that flows through both the case study and your examples.

The best part? When you marry a great case study with relevant examples that facilitate learning, then you drive more engagement and more interest in your business.  It becomes far easier to see the benefits of working with your business, which also drives more leads.

So if your business wants to make better use of its client case studies, focus on adding relevant hypothetical examples that facilitate learning of the core concepts.  This helps the reader understand why they should work with you and will greatly improve the efficiency of your content marketing efforts.

Or you can just hire me to do it for you!

Pic via Pixabay

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How to Write Your First Blog Post

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Recently a friend asked me a question that any business that begins blogging will have to answer; What should your first blog post be about?  That first blog post is terribly important, because it sets the tone for the blog. Not just for the readers, but for the writers as well.

From the reader’s point of view, I would want to see four areas covered in your first blog post:

1 – Who you are. Tell me about your business, but also introduce me to the blog’s writers.  Share pictures.  The more information about yourself and your business that you share, the easier it will be for me as a reader to trust you.  This is very overlooked by many businesses but we want to see pictures of the people that work for your business and more importantly, those that will be writing for the blog.  It helps us identify and connect with them!

2 – Why you are blogging. Possibly the most important question you can answer, because it will force you to spell out your intentions to your audience.  And as always, consider your audience when answering this question, ask yourself, ‘Why would someone come to this blog, what would they be looking for?’  Hint: They won’t be coming to your blog so that you can market to them.  Maybe you want to share your thoughts on your industry with your readers, or maybe you want to teach them how to do a certain set of skills that tie into your business.  Another way to think about this is to ask yourself ‘What’s in it for the reader?’

3 – What will you be blogging about.  Answering the above question makes this one much easier to answer.  Will you be blogging about your business, or perhaps the lifestyles of your customers?  Spell out the content on your blog so that I know what to expect when I arrive.  And remember that this will also serve as a ‘bookmark’ for your writers to keep them focused on what the goal of your blog is.

4 – How I can leave feedback. Tell me how I can be involved.  Can I leave comments?  Do you encourage comments?  What if I want to email you?  Spell out exactly how I can contact you, and don’t be afraid to encourage feedback, and even disagreement.  In fact this would be a good place to formally spell-out your comment policy, which again can serve as a reference tool for your writers as well.  But do everything you can to make sure that my feedback is appreciated, and encouraged.  If possible, give readers ways to contact you online (such as an email address) and offline (such as your address and phone number).

If your first blog post contains these elements, your business blogging efforts will be off to a fine start!

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Facebook Study Reveals How Brands Can Drive Engagement With Users

Facebook did a study in 2012 to determine what type of content drives engagement on its brand pages.  From the study:

“We examined four weeks of Page posts, across 23 brands and six industries and divided the posts into three types of content:

Messages about the product or service

  • Travel brand example: Our new resort just opened! Book your trip today.

Messages related to the brand

  • Travel brand example: I decided to go on my first cruise because______.

Messages unrelated to the brand

  • Travel brand example: Hang in there everybody. Monday will be over before we know it!

Posts on topics related to the brand, but not specifically about the product or service, were the sole universally significant predictor of all types of engagement.”

The study also clarified that brand content related to the brand but not ABOUT the brand was the top driver of Shares, Likes and Comments for these brands.

Does this surprise you?  It shouldn’t, people will engage with content that taps into the Bigger Idea behind a product or service.  Nike figured this out 30 years ago with the iconic slogan Just Do It.  It’s not about the shoes, it’s about what you do while WEARING the shoes.  If you want to create more engaging content and marketing, think less about promoting yourself, and more about promoting the themes/beliefs/lifestyle that ties into your brand.  Think about why people buy your product and how they use it.  Create content that’s customer-centric instead of product-centric.

For example, check out this commercial from Nike.  Nike’s content and marketing taps into the Bigger Idea about its products.  The product itself is secondary to who its customers are, and why they buy its product.  This COMMERCIAL has been viewed over 4 Million times.

What is Nike selling with this commercial?

https://youtu.be/KSPJkauND68

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The Secret to Doing Real-Time Content Marketing Well: Catch Opportunity When it Falls in Your Lap

If you’re a sports fan, you owe it to yourself to go back and watch the 2012 Daytona 500.  The February race is NASCAR’s biggest event, and it annually kicks off the new season.  In 2012, the Daytona 500 saw multiple rain delays that pushed it to primetime for the first time ever.  NASCAR was actually thrilled with this development as it meant a large audience was going to be exposed to the sport for the first time.  And that audience saw quite the spectacle, indeed.

With 40 laps left in the race, there was a caution that happened when a car on the track had an issue.  As usually happens, trucks were sent out on the track to clean up debris. As this happened, the race cars continue to circle the track at a much slower ‘pace’ speed.  Basically the cars on the track go into a sort of ‘holding pattern’ until the debris on the track is cleared and NASCAR deems the race can continue.

While under caution, one of the cars on the track suddenly lost control and slammed into one of the trucks on track to clear debris. This led to a huge explosion and resulting fire.  Then things got really interesting.  Driver Brad Keselowski just happened to have his smartphone with him in his car and he snapped a photo of the cars on the track, and sent it to Twitter from the race track.  This was the first time that a NASCAR driver had ever tweeted DURING a race!

Brad Kesolowski, Twitter, Daytona 500, Fire, Tide

The tweet itself became a huge deal and Brad gained over 50,000 followers on Twitter in an hour or so.  It also drove a lot of spontaneous attention on Twitter, to the Daytona 500.  Suddenly everyone on Twitter was talking about how ‘one of them race cars hit a truck and exploded and a driver’s tweeting it!’  Remember this was 4 years ago in 2012, athletes and celebrities using Twitter was still a bit of a novelty.

So back to the race, when the car struck the cleanup truck and caused the explosion, it also created a huge oil and gas leak as it ran out of the truck and down the track.  The stuff was so toxic there was fear that it would literally eat away the finish of the track and potentially cause the race to be postponed.  The solution?  NASCAR and Daytona officials hurry to the scene with a cleaner that would quickly save the day.

Boxes of Tide detergent.  That’s right, a national audience watched as Tide detergent got one of the best organic product placements since CBS focused in on the Nike logo on Tiger Woods’ putt as it fell into the hole during The Masters.  Even better, Fox NASCAR announcer Darryl Waltrip was calling the race and Tide was his main sponsor during his racing days.  So as the cleanup is being performed with simple Tide detergent, Darryl is doing what any good NASCAR driver does (even former ones) he was plugging his sponsor and singing the praises of Tide detergent.

It was the real-time content marketing opportunity of a lifetime for Tide, and it fell right in their laps.  Unfortunately, at the time Tide’s Twitter account was asleep and missed capitalizing on any of this.  Ironically, I quickly wrote up a blog post during the delay, published it, and the next morning ESPN interviewed me for a story they did on the race, and I got to discuss how Tide dropped the social media ball here.  So one brand’s loss was another blogger’s gain!

But last week, Kohl’s was a bit smarter. You’ve probably already seen the Happy Chewbacca video but just in case you did not (or want another good laugh):

Note at the start that Candace mentions buying the mask at Kohls. So when your brand gets a positive mention during one of the most popular videos in the history of the internet, what does your brand do? If it’s smart, it goes out of its way to reach the person behind that video and thank them for the kind mention. Kohls was smart enough to do just that, they drove to Candace’s house, gave her and her family loads of Star Wars toys (including Chewbacca masks for everyone in the family), and plenty of gift cards. Candace was clearly moved and thrilled by Kohls’ act.

The cynic will argue that Kohls is just trying to capitalize on the popularity of this video.  Of COURSE that’s what they are doing!  That’s what they SHOULD be doing, but the first thing they should do is communicate to Candace that they appreciate the fact that she shopped at Kohls, and mentioned them.  Think of how much money Kohls would have had to spend to get as much positive publicity as Candace gave the brand in 4 mins?  Millions.  So showing up at her doorstep with a few thousand dollars in merchandise and store credits is a very small price to pay for that publicity.  Plus, that act itself gets Kohls MORE positive publicity, as you see here.

The two most important words in social media are ‘Thank you’.  When a customer does something for you, you thank them.  Don’t overthink this social media stuff, y’all.

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Now I Get It: Three Tactics For Incorporating Learning Into Your Social Media Content and Training

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One of the most important traits of good content is that it helps teach its audience a core lesson.  Too many ‘experts’ focus their content on ‘let me tell you what I know’ when they should be focused on ‘let me teach you what you don’t know’.  When your only frame of reference is what works for you, then you can’t effectively teach others how to succeed.  The best teachers are the ones that can share a successful case study and then relate the core teachings to your business so that you can learn how to apply those lessons to your unique situation.

Over the last decade I’ve created content here, I’ve spoken at hundreds of events, I’ve given workshops and training sessions for companies, and even written a very successful business book.  These are three traits I’ve discovered for creating content that also facilitates learning for your audience:

1 – Case studies alone don’t teach anything. So many ‘teachers’ miss this, but if you are trying to teach a new concept to a group, probably the worst thing you can do is simply use one case study to illustrate the concept in action. What happens when you do this is your audience won’t learn the concept, they will learn the case study.  They will be able to explain what the company in the case study did, but since that’s their only reference to the concept in action, they won’t understand the concept itself.  Instead, you want to use a mix of case studies and hypothetical scenarios.  Instead of just explaining a case study of how Chick Fil-A used hashtags to reach moms, you want to also explain how a babyfood company and a small daycare could do the same thing.  By using both exact and abstract examples, the audience can more easily grasp the core concept that runs through all examples.

2 – This is what it looks like when you do it right, and this is what it looks like when you mess up. When I’m working at home, I will often turn on the tv just to have background noise so I can better focus on my work.  Sounds weird, but it works for me.  And I will typically have the PBS Create TV channel on, which has a mixture of cooking, travel and hobby-related programming.  One show they have is called Cook’s Country, it’s a cooking show that teaches you how to cook.  But one thing the staff does that I love is before they start showing you how to cook a particular dish, they will show you how it will look if you mess up.  And they will explain how you messed up.  If you cook it on too high of a temperature, it looks like this, if you use warm butter instead of chilled, it looks like this.  They address common errors that are made in cooking a dish at the start, and explain what you did wrong and how to avoid it.  Then as they cook the dish, they explain how they aren’t replicating that error, then the end result is a gorgeous dish and you have a complete understanding of how the dish should look if you do it correctly.  More importantly, you understand what you did wrong before, so you can correct your error in the future.

3 – You learn by doing. Building on both of the previous examples, you can also use scenarios to apply what you’ve learned.  Giving your audience examples of ‘this is what it looks like when it’s messed up’, and let them apply what they have learned to fix it. For example, in my content strategy and creation workshops, one of the exercises I have attendees do is I give them a ‘bad’ post headline, and ask them to re-write it, using the concepts I’ve taught them for writing a better headline.  This is especially true in an in-person setting, but if you just explain a concept without having the audience put that learning into action, they won’t grasp it as fully.  This is honestly where a lot of workshops fail attendees, they forget that a workshop isn’t a presentation with Q&A, it’s for learning via participation.  The attendees are supposed to be involved because you want them to apply what they have learned before they leave, so it helps cement the learning process for them.

 

When you are creating content, whether its writing a blog post or creating a white paper, give thought to how you are teaching and more importantly what you are teaching.  Don’t just write that case study because you think it will make your business or your agency look good, also teach your audience how they can get similar results for their business.  If you teach your audience a new skill that improves their own business efforts, you have created value for them, and that’s how you win their attention and create word of mouth (word of mouse?) for your business online.

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Great Marketing Is About Understanding People, Not Tools

About five years ago I talked to a District Attorney who spent a lot of time talking to high school students about the dangers of drug usage. It was a passion of his and it allowed him to gain a great understanding of how teenagers communicated with each other online.  He told me something (again, this was in 2011 or 2012) that surprised me.  He said “The kids I talk to have left Facebook and they’ve moved to Snapchat.” Now fast forward 5 years and it seems like within the last 6 months every marketer on the planet has suddenly ‘discovered’ Snapchat.  It’s the hot shiny social media tool of the moment, even though it’s been around for years.  The next Instagram, maybe even the next Facebook depending on who you talk to.

But let’s go back to that revelation from 5 years ago that ‘the kids have left Facebook’.  Why?  What caused these teenagers to shift their behavior away from Facebook and move to Snapchat?

In short, it’s because their parents were getting on Facebook. If you want to push teenagers and millenials off a social media site, then add either their parents, or marketers on the site.  And what was happening 5 years ago?

Marketers everywhere were telling us that we had to be on Facebook.  Now fast forward 5 years, and what are marketers telling us today?  That we have to be on Snapchat.

Marketers have never understood that it’s not about understanding the social media tools, it’s about understanding the people using the tools. The only way to understand the people using a tool is to be a part of the community of people that use that tool.  You have to interact with them directly to understand their motivation for being there.

Marketers typically don’t want to ‘waste their time’ with that, they just want to sell.

Surfing

You can only sell to someone that is ready to buy.  Seems like common sense, but too many companies market their products to potential customers that have no idea how those products fit into their lives.  It would be like marketing a surfboard to someone that has never surfed.

If a potential customer has no interest in a surfboard, then you don’t market the product (surfboard), you market how the product fits into the customer’s life (surfing).  Once you’ve sold the customer on surfing, then they are ready to buy a surfboard.

At that point, it makes sense to shift to product-specific marketing that focuses on the surfboard.  But if I have never surfed and have no idea why I would ever want to, selling me on why I need to buy your surfboard is a complete waste of time and money for you.

When you’re crafting your content strategy focus on these key points:

1 – It’s more important to understand your customer than it is social media tools. You don’t need to understand Snapchat, you need to understand IF and WHY your customers would use these tools.  That gives you insights into how you can use the same tools in a way that creates value for them, instead of distraction and irritation.

2 – If your goal is to leverage social media to build awareness for your business, then you want to create content focused on how your product and services connect with your customer.  Create content focused on surfing, not the surfboard.  Create content focused on safe driving, not your auto insurance policy.  Creating content focused on the connections between the customer and your products helps get their attention.

3 – If you know your customer is ready to buy your product, then you can create product-specific content, because that’s what they want and need at that point.  But if they aren’t ready to buy, then sell how you product fits into their lives, sell the product itself when they are ready to buy.

Sell me first on how your product makes my life better, then I’m ready to buy, and you can sell me your product.

Pic via Flickr user Kevin Cole

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Ten Elements Every Company Blog Should Have

Understanding the Ten Elements Every Company Blog Should Have

Social media sites come and go (Remember Google Plus and Friendfeed?), but a company blog remains one of the best tools available to drive organic traffic to your website. A company blog lets you promote your business, introduce yourself and your employees to the world, and gives you a place to provide valuable information to your customers.

Thinking about launching a company blog? Great, now if you want to avoid being “that guy,” then here’s the essential elements that you should incorporate into your blog.

1 – A strategy. Why are you blogging? What are you attempting to do with your blog? Establish your company as an industry leader? Boost your brand awareness? Provide customer service? Know what you want to accomplish with your blog, and make sure that your goals are consistent with your overall business strategy.  This post goes in-depth into creating a solid content strategy for your blog.  Once you’ve created your blogging strategy, make sure every member of your content team understands what that strategy is. Every content creator you work with will need to intimately understand your blogging strategy. It will make their jobs much easier, and they will create better content as a result.

2 – A dedicated group of bloggers. If you only have one blogger, or if you have five, every blogger needs to know what is expected of them, and what their role is. If each blogger needs to write 2 posts a week, they have to be willing to give you 2 posts a week.  Keep in mind when setting your team and expected goals, that it’s better to start with less and then grow as the skills and familiarity of the team improves. For example, it makes more sense to start with asking 3 new posts a month from each writer, then after a couple of months you may want to increase the rate for each writer up to 5 new posts a month. Starting small and growing makes more sense than taking on too much right out of the gate.

3 – A posting schedule. This ties in with #2. Ideally, a company blog should have at least 1 new post a week. Make sure each blogger knows how many posts a week/month they are responsible for, and have the posts up on a set pattern. Don’t have the bloggers put them up whenever inspiration strikes, that’s how you end up with 2 posts a week; one on Thursday night at 10:46pm, the other on Sunday at noon. Set up your posts to run in the middle of the week, and then move outward. Tues, Weds, and Thursday are usually the best days for traffic, so schedule posts to run these days, usually around 10am-noon.

Remember, it’s more important to keep to a set schedule, than it is to post more often. Creating and keeping a regular schedule trains readers to know when to expect new content from your blog. This helps drive engagement and traffic.

4 – A comment policy. Do you moderate? If so, how long does it take to approve comments. When Shelia leaves a comment at 3am Saturday morning, will it be noon on Monday till it’s approved? You need to know this. For extra credit, list it on the blog itself.  Keep in mind that you are under NO obligation to let stand ANY comment that personally attacks any of your writers or any of your writers. Challenging ideas presented is fine, but if any comment attacks or attempts to bully either a writer or reader, feel free to delete the comment without prejudice. Your house, your rules.  In fact, if you want to turn off comments entirely, that’s totally fine.

5 – An ‘About Us’ section. Tell me who you are, what you do, and how I can get in touch with you. It’s best to include an email address AND a phone number.  Yes, people still like to reach you via a phone call. For extra credit, add a section explaining what your blog is about.

6 – Pictures and bios for EVERY blogger. Again, this is non-negotiable. I need to be able to SEE who every blogger is, and I need to know their background. Simply seeing the face of the bloggers writing for your blog makes it much easier to trust and relate to the writers. Really.

7 – A clear Call to Action. You want to direct your readers to engage in some type of action.  Maybe you want them to download your new white paper, or signup for a product trial. Perhaps it’s simply asking them to call you, but you should have some type of Call to Action. Notice at the top right of this blog I have Calls to Action asking you to hire me to speak, or check out my LinkedIn profile, or read my recent posts. You need to give your readers an action to take.

8 – Ask for subscribers. Give your readers a way to subscribe to your blog, via a feed reader, or email. Feedburner can help you set up both, go to Feedburner.com and set yourself up a free account, if you haven’t already.

A small section explaining what RSS is and the advantages of subscribing would be a nice touch as well.  Also, if your company has a newsletter, you can promote it to subscribers as well.

9 – A section for Recent Comments. This isn’t a ‘must have’, but it’s a really nice way to put the focus on your readers, and it also gives them an idea of which posts are getting the most attention. If you aren’t really interested in getting comments on your posts then you could focus on something else like your most popular posts or promote your company website.

10 – A personal touch. Be human. Refer to commenters by name. Say ‘thank you’ early and often. Ask for feedback, and opinions. Remember that ultimately, people don’t want to connect with companies, we want to connect with people.

What did I miss? If your company blogs, what are some other elements that you believe are vital to your blogging efforts? Which of these are most important?

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How The Container Store’s POP! Customer Loyalty Program is Driving New Business With Data

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A couple of weeks ago Adobe invited me to attend its Summit as part of its Adobe Insiders Program. The Adobe Summit is a user conference primarily for customers of the Adobe Marketing Cloud, and has become a massively-popular and important industry event, reaching an attendance of 10,000 this year. I also did a Live #Blogchat as part of the event and was compensated by Adobe for my involvement before and during the event.

The event itself was heavy on case studies from Adobe clients with a focus on how Adobe’s Marketing Cloud services are helping clients grow their businesses.  This is to be expected from a user conference, and the information shared was very compelling. Over 3 days I learned how Adobe clients like the NFL, ESPN, Comcast, McDonalds and dozens more were leveraging emerging marketing technologies to better connect with their customers.

The use of storytelling and data was a focus of many of these case studies and success stories. One of the case studies that I attended was a closer look at The Container Store’s customer loyalty program called POP! or Perfectly Organized Perks. The POP! program was launched in 2014, and its goal has been to utilize data about the members to customize their perks, whether that is discounts or gifts or just thank yous. The Container Store uses data about its members to track what areas of their company they work for, where they are located, if they are buying online, or offline.  Additionally, it tracks number and type of sales and uses this data to identify its ‘best’ customers, and then further customizes offers and perks based on being part of this group. And perks go beyond simply discounts or birthday gifts, POP! members get early access to new products and free concierge services during in-store visits.

What are the results? The POP! customer loyalty program drives one incremental visit a year per member for The Container Store. I talked to Nicole Coburn, The Container Store’s Director of Customer Engagement and Loyalty after the session, and she clarified to me that the average customer visits a location twice a year, and that POP! members increased their number of visits by an average of 1 a year after joining the program. She did add that POP! members tend to visit a Container Store location more often than the average customer, so the POP! program is driving an increase of one incremental visit versus increasing from 2 to 3 visits a year. I didn’t think to ask Nicole, but I would assume that the average amount spent per year is higher for a POP! member than the average customer.

I did ask Nicole if The Container Store has an existing brand ambassador program and she said it did not, but said with the success of the POP! program, it may be possible in the future. If you’re a customer of The Container Store, it sounds like the POP! program is definitely something you should check out.

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My Guide to Writing Totally Awesome Blog Posts Every Single Time

5003010775_55c8701deb_zOne of my pet peeves in #Blogchat is when we are discussing how to create engaging content or how to grow readership and someone will tweet ‘just write awesome posts!’

Yeah, because it’s that easy.

It’s like saying that the solution to losing weight is to ‘eat less, exercise more’.  Want more readers?  Write awesome content.

But we still haven’t addressed how to do this.  How do you write totally awesome blog posts that readers will love?

That’s what this blog post is for, to share with you all the things I’ve learned from blogging for the last 12 years.

Prep before you start writing the post

Before you start writing your post (and this is something you should do for every post you write), ask and answer these three questions:

1 – Who am I writing this post for?  Be as specific as possible.  Is it for companies wanting to learn how to better leverage social media marketing in the hospitality industry, is it for cross-stitchers in New England or single dads that own dachshunds in Oregon?  Know who you are writing for.

2 – What do they get from reading this post?  Are you trying to inform them?  Teach them a skill?  Entertain them?  Shock them?  Know who your readers are and know why the post you are about to write is of value to them.

3 – What do YOU get from writing this post?  How does this post benefit you, the writer?  This is important because while you need to make sure the post has value for the reader, you also need to make sure that you know what you want from it as well.  For example, I am writing this particular post in a very specific manner to test a new online content marketing tool.  Know what you want to accomplish with each post you write.

Elements you need for a totally awesome blog post

First, you have to nail the post headline.  This has become increasingly important in recent years since so much activity on Facebook and especially Twitter is now simply linking to other blog posts.  We are all sharing our favorite blog posts, and typically all we are sharing is the title of the post and its URL.  On top of that, we are all scanning our Newsfeed or list of tweets from the people we follow.

So at best, your headline has about 2 seconds to grab the attention of others and get them to click on the link.  So you need to craft a killer headline that immediately gets attention.

But writing a great post headline is an art in and of itself.  Here’s some tips:

Make sure the headline doesn’t simply summarize the post.  This is probably the biggest mistake bloggers make, they simply let the headline summarize the post, almost as if the headline is an afterthought.  For example, let’s say you write a very detailed blog post on a 10-step process for building more engagement on a blog.  Which headline is more likely to get you to click on it:

1 – Building blog engagement (Summary of post)

2 – 10 Steps You Can Use To Start Building More Engagement On Your Blog TODAY! (Specific)

It’s probably going to be the 2nd choice, because it’s more specific, and you have a better sense of exactly what the post covers.

Make a specific claim with your headline.  In the 2nd example above, the headline tells you that it will not only show you how to create more engagement on your blog, but it also promises to give you a 10-step process that you can begin implementing immediately to build engagement on your blog.  In other words, you have a better sense of what the post is about, based on the specific headline.  Tell potential readers exactly what they are getting if they read your post.

Make a specific claim with your headline then back that claim up in your post.  Nothing is worse than clicking a link based on an awesome headline, then the post ends up being 250 words of fluff, or worse a thinly veiled sales pitch.  I made a specific claim in the headline because I wanted to force myself to have to write a comprehensive and complete guide.  For example, right now we’re already at the 700+ word count for this post and we haven’t even got into the writing of the post itself yet.

Writing the totally awesome blog post

First, let’s discuss the proper length for an awesome blog post.  There’s no one right answer to this, many people will swear by shorter posts, but it’s more difficult to truly make an impact in 200 or 300 words.

So my advice when it comes to ideal blog post length is to use as many words as you need, but edit relentlessly.  If you want to write a 2,000 word post fine, but keep in mind you are asking a lot of your readers to hold their interest that long.  So edit, edit, edit.

Proofread your post.  See if you have repeated any points or ideas that can be removed.  Make sure you are using clear language.  The idea is to strip out all of the filler so that you are left with a lean post that’s value-packed.  You don’t want to go into writing your post thinking “I can’t go over 500 words!’  Write the post you want to write and with the words you want to use.  Then go back and see if it needs to be shortened via editing.

What type of post should you write?

1 – The How-To Post.  This is my personal favorite (this post is an example of this type), because you are teaching others a valuable skill.  The more valuable that skill is, the more likely that your content will be shared.  Additionally, teaching others a valuable skill helps establish your expertise.

The key with these types of posts is to make the information easily digestible and organized in a clear manner.  Basically you need to give your readers a roadmap.  This is why ‘X Steps to’ type posts are so popular, because people want to know the exact steps that they need to follow in the exact order.

There’s two approaches to the How-To post.  The most obvious is to teach readers a skill that they want to learn.  The problem here is that more than likely there are many posts about this same topic.  So you need to do a better job than the competition.

The second type of How-To post is to teach readers a skill that they don’t know they need.  Sites like Lifehacker are great for teaching you how to do things that are useful, such as filling up a bucket with your sink faucet and a clean dustpan.

You can also curate how-tos into a larger post or series as well.  Length is again an consideration, but as long as the additional tips are valuable you’ll be fine.

2 – Raising awareness about an idea or a belief.  With this type of post, the idea is to share your passion and to make sure that your readers share that passion, or at least are moved to respond based on their passion for you and your passion.  You need to clearly articulate to your readers why this idea is worth their attention.  Also, it helps to give them a clear and easy way to become involved.  An example might be to show your readers that a problem exists, and then explain to them how solving that problem would lead to a better outcome for them.  Then show them how their involvement can help you solve that problem.

3 – The Research-based post.  These types of posts are often very time-consuming, but the payoff can be huge if you can create a research/fact-based post that is valuable for your readers.  The most popular post I have ever written here was this post on how much social media costs companies.  It currently has over 100,000 page views, but it also took me over three months to write.  I interviewed over a dozen social media consultants, agencies and companies to learn what they charged for social media marketing services, plus I researched what similar consultants, agencies and companies were charging for their own services.  I wrote this post because I knew from talking to clients and companies that there was great demand for guidance on how much basic social media marketing services cost.  You can do the same thing by first identifying a question that a lot of people have, then finding the answer and sharing it with your readers.

4 – The Rant.  This type of post is pretty self-explanatory, and for me at least, has been completely hit or miss.  The key to an effective rant is to hit on a topic that’s relevant to a lot of people.  You want to elicit an ‘Amen!’ or ‘I know exactly what this guy means!’ type of response.  That prompts others to share your post.  Often, a blogger will say that their ranty posts are the ones that they never thought would be popular, but often are.  And then leads to a final point about writing an awesome post….

Whatever you write, write it with passion.  Passionate writing is always more interesting.  We want to read your emotions in your posts.  If you can’t get excited about the topic then you can’t expect your readers to either.

Bloggers are always lamenting that “All the topics have been covered to death, what is there left for me to write about?”

It’s not about writing about something new, it’s about writing in your voice and with your passion.  That’s truly the key to creating awesome blog posts.

 Wait, you need an awesome visual!

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An awesome visual to go with your awesome post is imperative to ensuring that your content spreads.  Ideally, the visual will expand on and enhance the post itself.  But there’s no substitute for a killer visual when it comes to attracting attention.  If you have an eye-catching visual and an attention-grabbing headline, then you’ve already won half the battle.

When using pictures, you first need to consider copyright and if it’s legal for you to use someone else’s work.  Luckily, I’ve already written a post on using other people’s pictures, so just click over here to read everything you need to know.

There are plenty of sources you can use for legit pictures but my favorite is the Flickr photos that are licensed with the Attribution License via Creative Commons.  These are pictures that the owner has said you can use and even adapt, as long as you attribute who the owner of the work is.  And Flickr currently lists over 55 Million photos with this license, so the odds are you can find an awesome image for your photo.

Another way to incorporate visuals into your post is to include charts and graphs that support the idea of your awesome post.  This ties in with the idea of the research-based post.  Often research firms and agencies such as Forrester or HubSpot will release their own research study, and with it include charts and graphs that you can use for free.  Obviously they want you to blog about their report, but you can take those charts and graphs and use them as visuals for your own posts.  Also remember that this helps your readers understand and process the information you are sharing with them, and in a new form (visual).

Finally, don’t forget about video!  It’s now painfully easy to embed a video from YouTube and other video-sharing sites.  Plus the additional benefit to you (assuming you pick an interesting video) is that readers will at least spend the amount of time on your post that it takes them to watch the video.  And the more time they spend with your content the more likely they will enjoy it (again assuming that you’ve written useful and valuable content for them!).

If you can give your readers information in multiple contexts and forms, it can help them learn the core lesson you are trying to teach them.

The Formula For Writing an Awesome Blog Post Every Single Time

1 – Do the prep work beforehand.  Figure out who you are writing for, why the post will be valuable for them, and also determine why the post will be valuable for you.

2 – Write an amazing headline.  The post’s title needs to immediately grab the attention of potential readers, and be as specific as possible.

3 –  Post length is optional, but in general don’t make the post any longer than it needs to be.  Make sure you proofread and edit your post before publishing it (I often forget to do this!).

4 – Decide what type of post you want to write, and make the information easy for your readers to digest and absorb.  Again, my personal favorite is the How-To post because you are teaching your readers a specific skill.

5 – Pick awesome visuals to go along with your awesome post.  Remember that your content is being shared on other sites like Facebook and Plus, where the picture you add to the post will be shown.  If the image is eye-catching, that simply increases the chances that your post will be read.

6 – Write with passion.  If you aren’t excited about the topic then your readers won’t be excited about the post.  Passionate writing is more interesting writing, you want the readers to be able to feel the passion you have for that particular topic.  Because passion inspires us.