Business Growth School 2.0

Mailchimp Alternatives... Mailchimp is great for those who are just getting started, when you start needing something a little more sophisticated, it’s time to start looking for a new tool or simply you don't like their pricing structure here is an alternate for you: https://www.sendinblue.com/ https://www.mailerlite.com/ https://www.mailjet.com/ https://www.wix.com/shoutout/email-marketing https://sendpulse.com/ https://www.hubspot.com/pricing/crm   Bonus: Marketing email copy from 500+ popular brands and 6000+ emails: https://emailcopy.freeshopifytools.com/inbox

Between 2014 and 2018 the average office worker received about 90 emails a day and sent around 40 business emails daily. To take these numbers in context, if your company has 1000 employees the team will send out 40,000 business emails in just one day. Based on a calculation of 250 business days per year, that culminates in an astonishing 10,000,000 emails annually. Turn your emails into targeted ads. Generate leads and drive prospects through your sales funnel with one-to-one branded email. Cross-sell and up-sell to existing customers. Email is a critical part of the sales process. It’s where customers start to ask the probing questions about your products, and actively look for purchase decision validation. This part of the sales journey falls outside of normal above-the-line, digital marketing, and CRM channels; and it really is where you need to have your very best sales processes representing your business. Tools to help you with email signature marketing:   https://www.rocketseed.com/ https://www.wisestamp.com/ https://mysignature.io/ https://si.gnatu.re/ https://newoldstamp.com/ https://htmlsig.com/

How to manage your Instagram from Desktop or Laptop for free? Use mobile version Instagram directly in your Chrome browser. You can upload and download photos and videos from instagram. This app allows you to access to the Instagram™ mobile website like you can do on your smartphone

Find emails from Facebook Groups. Group leads helps you to instantly convert facebook group members into leads in your favorite email marketing software. Group Leads chrome extension helps you convert new facebook group members into leads in your favorite email marketing software. No more copy and paste, saves you tonnes of time, build your email list & make more money from your facebook group. Link to the Group Leads Chrome Extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/group-leads-facebook-grou/fflgpaejocnobejfanekjilflogejjch

As we talked about 2 presentation tools and resources which will help you create engaging, powerful, persuasive and thoughtful presentations. In this episode we will continue with presentation resources. AI Powered presentation design + hundreds of free pitch decks from big companies like Yelp, Tinder, Wework etc. https://slidebean.com Second tool we talked about: Turn your presentations into conversations. Share a link to present to anyone, anywhere, on any device, and let them talk back to you too. https://www.swipe.to/ Third tool we talked about: Discover. Share. Learn. Share what you know and love through presentations, infographics, documents and more. https://www.slideshare.net/

32% of people have fallen asleep during a PowerPoint presentation. Source: https://www.clearslide.com/product/sliderocket/ Have you ever sat through a really boring presentation and felt like you learned nothing? The bottom line is that design matters. Regardless of how dynamic the speaker, mind-blowing the statistics, or captivating the idea, boring PowerPoint slides could make your audience fall asleep -- fast... Solution: https://prezi.com Free templates and inspiration: https://www.slidescarnival.com/

Although Digital text is easier to edit, search and store, handwriting on paper is still commonly used, since it's fast, easy and accessible. Pen to Print's handwriting recognition (OCR) is a great solution for those who still like the feel of pen on paper, but want to enjoy the benefits of digital. It is easy to use, fast and affordable. Android users: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=p2p.serendi.me.p2p Apple users: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/pen-to-print-handwriting-ocr/id1308003011 Alternates: https://brill.app/ https://www.wallsync.net

Only 2-6% of the website traffic converts into calls, leads or any action. What to do with the silent majority of the customers who don't take action. Instantly identify your anonymous website visitors' contact details including: Business Name Contact Information Demographics Search Behaviour Financial Data Combine next level digital intelligence with sales ready leads to accelerate your online ROI Convert anonymous traffic into leads Measure from first click to sale Go beyond analytics – truly measure digital ROI https://www.whoisvisiting.com Alternatives and competitors: https://www.visualvisitor.com/ https://www.leadforensics.com/

Convert tweets into posts or stories for #Instagram. Quickly and for free, forget about the screenshots. Https://tuigram.app Dont take weird screenshots which look unprofessional.

Find anyone's email address, verify anyone's email, find out if people opened your email or not. https://hunter.io Hunter let's you find email addresses, verify emails, run cold email campaigns and much much more. They have a free plan which is great for small businesses, entrepreneurs and startups.

600+ free templates for social media, content marketing, strategy, sales etc. www.usefyi.com/templates All the free resources and templates you need to get work done in one place

Content is king and we know visual content (images and videos) are the most consumed kind of content. Question is....how can you pump out amazing looking graphics fast??   Your solution: www.Crello.com Alternate: www.Canva.com  

Competition is everywhere, and if you’re not aware of it, you should. Competitors are our best friends and enemies at the same time. Knowing how to beat the business competition is of crucial importance.     https://competitors.app/    

It can be a struggle to feed the social media machine. This app is intended to augment your regular posting and help grow your social visibility. www.heyoriana.com Augment your social media content with semi automatically generated quote image. No design skills required.

Today's marketing product discovery is: www.cameo.com    

  Last Episode #  ➡️ Speed Matters     “This it too expensive.” “We can’t afford this right now.” “There’s no room in the budget for this.” I’m assuming you’ve heard these objections before. You get to the finish line…And instead of signing the contract, they balk at your price. Pricing is a tough objection to get passed. Mostly business owners and sales people when they try justifying the price, they seem defensive. Our natural gut reaction!! If you give them a discount, you seem weak and value of your product or a service goes down. But, that’s the wrong thing to do! And you also know that if you hold to your price, you might lose the deal.   Read the whole blog https://rapidboostmarketing.com/overcoming-pricing-objections/    

✅ Today’s fastest growing brands have this secret when it comes to how they design and build their services, experiences and products. And, that is …” Consumer Compassion ” They just show empathy, they design products and services which has taken consumer compassion into account. Cabs and Taxis existed before, but Uber keeping consumer experience in mind which was super inconvenient and inefficient. They streamined the whole process, made it super easy and fast…..This is consumer compassion, where your products, services and experiences are designed keeping consumers in mind and they are very important. Compassion in the time of need...   Show notes: https://rapidboostmarketing.com/secret-sauce/

✅ Tom’s Shoes…Billion Dollar Brand We all know many large companies that participate in cause marketing, but the one that is often at the top of people’s minds is TOMS shoes. TOMS was founded in 2006 and boasts a business model that promotes giving back. Their model is referred to as the “one-for-one concept” where they promise to deliver a pair of free, new shoes to a child in need for every sale of their retail product. Show notes: https://rapidboostmarketing.com/power-of-causes-and-cults/ 

Emily Howard Stowe was denied entrance into the Toronto School of Medicine in 1865 and was told by its Vice Principal, “The doors of the University are not open to women and I trust they never will be. “Unable to study medicine in Canada, Emily Stowe earned her degree in the United States from the homeopathic New York Medical College for Women in 1867. The same year, she returned to Canada and opened a medical practice in Toronto, on Richmond Street. Stowe gained some local prominence through public lectures on women’s health and maintained a steady clientele through newspaper advertisements.   https://rapidboostmarketing.com/taking-paths-of-most-resistance-and-breaking-the-status-quo/   Show notes

 ✨ Mitch joins me on Business Growth School to talk about things which stop any business from growing and scaling 

  Last Episode #  ➡️ What if you can improve your email response rates by 558%…..and cold calls rates by 209% 

These 2 phrases have just 1 word which makes a huge difference on your growth:  “Your marketing doesn’t just need to give your customers a reason to buy, your marketing needs to give your customers a reason to buy NOW!”   Grocery Store How many times you walked down the grocery aisle and told yourself maybe later. Alot of things which you want, we tell ourselves we will get it later. Now imagine you walk down the same grocery aisle and you see a sale which has limited quantities and time offer. Only 30 pieces are remaining and offer is only valid today. Now your maybe can change to I want that!!   Supreme Look at this example from a brand called Supreme. You won’t believe, what this brand has been able to achieve. They have a cult following and with only 11 stores worldwide they are valued at 1 Billion $. This is crazy right….their cult following reminds people of michael jordon or nike limited release days in 1990’s, when people use to line up outside stores to buy them and then when gaming companies use to launch games on Xbox or Nintendo there use to be lineups on Best Buy and other electronic stores. Supreme works on the principal of Exclusivity and Scarcity. They produce just limited number of products. Crazy stuff is there are websites which re-sell Supreme merchandise for like 400 or 600% original price…if a hoodie costed $300 it’s reselling for $1600….holy!! Show notes: https://rapidboostmarketing.com/grow

If you have been in business for awhile, then when was the last time you contacted your previous client or the clients you didnt end up working up

What I told you that you can improve your email response rates by over 558% and phone by 209%? The solution is much more easier than you think: switch from sending emails or cold calls to sending LinkedIn messages to your prospects and potential clients.  In a recent experiment, where one social selling expert sent out 100 InMails and 100 emails and made 100 phone calls, LinkedIn responses outperformed e-mail by 558% and phone by 209%. Here is a real world case study conducted by John Dougan that targeted 300 senior executive contacts. The database used for all outreach was comprised of known contacts and all three used similar language in the text or script. Read more

Ditch The Old Way of Targeting Your Potential Clients.... 

✅ Do you know the reason behind it? ✅ Brand perceptions are shaped by the sum of all experiences customers have with your brand. In short, people buy when they believe in the value of what they are getting and their focus is drawn away, through critical factors like perceived quality, from the plethora of options available in the market to the one or two products that ‘feel like them’. If your business is just positioning on price, you will be compared like a commodity although you provide better service then the industry...   Previous Episodes: https://rapidboostmarketing.com/grow

Did you know that between 70 and 96 percent percent of people who abandon your website never return? As a marketer, your number one goal should be to convert those one-time visitors into customers. You can’t achieve this goal if visitors aren’t sticking around to read your content. The longer your visitors stay on your site, the more engaged they'll be, and the higher the chance for them to convert. Previous Episodes: https://rapidboostmarketing.com/grow

#BusinessGrowthSchool 

What will help you outrank and out beat your local competition on search engines in 2019... In the past, they've had to do all sorts of algorithms to try and get at this from obtuse angles. But now, with a lot of the work that they're doing around measuring engagement and with all of the data that's coming to them through Chrome and through Android, they're able to get much, much closer to what is truly accomplishing the searcher's task. That's because they really want results that satisfy the query and fulfill the searcher's task. That is so different from how it used to be. It used to be that you could have that contact form. You could have that on there. You could not solve the searcher's query. You could basically be very conversion rate-focused on your page, and so long as you could get the right links and the right anchor text and use the right keywords on the page, guess what? You could rank. Those days are ending. I'm not going to say they're gone, but they are ending, and this new era of searcher task accomplishment is here. Previous Episodes

People have options now 

Announcement 

Holiday season Shopping in Canada - Statistics & Facts The holiday season is considered the busiest time of year for the retail sector, with a surge in trade typically commencing on Black Friday, the day following U.S. Thanksgiving. Deemed an American shopping tradition, the annual Black Friday sales have gained increasing popularity in Canada in recent years with consumers eager to find a bargain. Consumers are using various channels on Black Friday to purchase their discounted goods, with 55 percent of consumers using Canadian websites and 58 percent visiting Canadian stores. With increased marketing and awareness, the number of consumers buying items from Black Friday promotions has increased to 31 percent in 2017. The average holiday shopping expenditure for Canadians shopping in-store in 2017 was 1,622 Canadian dollars, with children and partners being the people consumers spend the most on during the holidays. When it comes to generational holiday shopping budgeting, Millennials are the generation most likely to exceed their budget, with 55 percent of Millennial consumers stating they over-spent in 2017. Despite the high prevalence of over-spending across all generations, price is an important factor to consumers when they are purchasing holiday gifts. This comes as no surprise when you consider that 50 percent of consumers anticipated that the prices of holiday goods would be higher in 2017 than the previous year. Department stores in Canada are the most popular location for holiday shopping , followed by mass merchants and grocery stores - Statista

This topic is something very close to my heart. A lot of small business owners I talk to they are stuck at the level they are at. 

 What small companies can learn from big organizations when it comes to sales and marketing ✅  3 things that differentiate big organizations from small companies 

In a Q&A with Google, Andrey Lipattsev, a Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google, said the other two factors were links and content: I can tell you what they are. It is content. And it’s links pointing to your site. He wouldn’t say which was more important, so the top three list now looks like this: 1 & 2: Links & Content 3: RankBrain (Source) Part 1: https://rapidboostmarketing.com/part-1-3-core-pillars-of-ranking-number-1-on-google-other-search-engines/   Part 2: Content!! Content in 2015: Ask many writers for a quote to research and write an article, and the response is typical: What’s the word count and deadline? Content today: Here’s what the question should be: Who is the audience and what’s the goal?     It’s a sad fact that the 50% of content created goes unread. You don't want to get lost in soo much content which is generated on daily basis. There are app. 1440 minutes in a given day: 5.8 billion daily Google Searches in 2017. 1,209,600 new social media users each day are added. 659 million tweets per day are posted More than 4 million hours of content uploaded to Youtube every day, with users watching 5.97 billion hours of Youtube videos each day. 68,305,600 Instagram posts uploaded each day 4.4billion Facebook messages posted daily! 5.79 billion Facebook likes every day. 23 billion texts sent every day.   EECU formula makes your content addictive = More traffic = Search engines love your content If your content doesn't follow EECU formula, you will not be seen. Because search engines are now following user behavior to analyze which websites provide good content and where people stay the most + keep coming back. We applied this formula to go from 10k in monthly traffic to 32k in monthly unique visitors (Without using paid advertising) These 4 things of the puzzle make any content marketing strategy explode. Here is how we went from 10k to around 30k in monthly traffic within 4-5 months and now plan to hit 100k a month by December 2018. Be authentic and add value to the conversation by being in-depth and writing with an intention that it will help the person who is reading it to make a decision or choice.    To make your content super addictive you need to apply EECU formula: Entertainment value / Enjoyable Educational value Curiosity value / Boredom kills copy. Addictive articles use ‘seeds of curiosity.’ Ultra-practical / actionable / not confusing    If your content doesn't follow EECU formula, you will not be seen.  Read more and download free gifts: https://rapidboostmarketing.com/part-2-3-core-pillars-of-ranking-number-1-on-google-other-search-engines/

3 Core Pillars of Ranking Number 1 on Google & Other Search Engines   In a Q&A with Google, Andrey Lipattsev, a Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google, said the other two factors were links and content: I can tell you what they are. It is content. And it’s links pointing to your site. He wouldn’t say which was more important, so the top three list now looks like this: 1 & 2: Links & Content 3: RankBrain  (Source)   Backlinks or Links weight almost 1/3 of the total algorithm. It has anywhere from 20-35% importance in overall algorithm and that’s what we will talk about today.  Show notes https://rapidboostmarketing.com/part-1-3-core-pillars-of-ranking-number-1-on-google-other-search-engines/  

  What is different about you? And why should I work with you over dozens of other options?...   Do you struggle with this??  Whether you are a builder, accountant, realtor, or manufacture loudspeakers or baseball bats, the way you position your firm can determine your success. Do you want prospects to seek you out? Do you want people to pay you more? Do you want to stand head and shoulders above your competition? With a simple positioning strategy you can get more attention than you imagined and bring in those high-margin projects and the profits you want.

Cost of not doing it right!! It’s like going to gym for 6 months and not seeing results or following a diet plan but not seeing results. Sometimes we keep doing things and don’t improve or make adjustments over time.  In marketing it’s like spending 100,000 and not sure what you are getting or if that’s the best you can get.  Problem is that no campaign or marketing strategy is perfect, but over time through testing and trying it gets refined and becomes very effective. Just putting a strategy in place and not refining it over time has a cost.    It’s Ok!! Just start Changing 1 Thing at a Time It’s ok if things are not working out but you have to change them in order to improve. It’s like going to gym and seeing no results but going for another 6 months just with the hope that time will change it.  In marketing you have to constantly test and improve. Which can create amazing opportunities for growth and fix the leaks in your marketing program.  A podcast listener from Red Deer, Alberta emailed me 6 months ago. It’s a family owned plumbing company and they were spending $4000/month on online marketing or almost $50,000 a year. They had 4 vans running and they wanted to get a fifth van but sales were not there yet.  We chatted and I sent him some recommendations. Among those recommendations one of them was to have a exit intent or behavioural pop-up on their website. He went ahead and implemented few things, among them was also the pop-up I recommended him.    Show notes