New Office for Saffron Edge
May 10, 2019
10 min read
It has been a long yet exciting process of getting a brick and mortar office in New Jersey, but we have succeeded in finding a fabulous location that is about 30-minutes west of New York City. S3 is located in Fairfield, New Jersey which is in Essex County. The Deepavaal Brook is behind us and the Passaic River in front of us. We are able to see Deepavaal Brook from the office window, giving us a nice break from looking at our computer screens all day. The Deepavaal Brook gets its name from either the Ojibbeway or the Ioway Native American tribes, or also known as American Indians. The word means deep fall though it’s just a babbling brook by us.
S3 Office
The building is very cozy and quaint and the neighbors are very warm and welcoming. The office is divided into three different sections, Alicia sits in the front, Stephanie sits in the middle section in the far left-hand corner (because she has no indoor voice and insists on speaking loudly even at 8:00 in the morning), and the back office is reserved for the conference table and meetings. We make more coffee than we’d like to admit and tend to move around a lot (a treadmill desk is sounding better and better).
More about our location
We were very lucky to obtain this space as it is centrally located to numerous stores, restaurants (many of which we’ve already tried) and we’re in the middle of a large business sector where we have started calling upon the businesses to provide our service.
Our Landlord
Our landlord is a very sweet 70-something-year-old gentleman who has been extremely generous. The office is quiet, the area is clean and it’s a joy to come into the office in the morning.
Taco Tuesdays
We’ve become quite addicted to a small Mexican restaurant with a funny name that is located less than a block away from the office, yes, we do still get it delivered. Something Alicia is very proud of since she is half Mexican! It is not uncommon for us to have “Taco Tuesday” twice a week (Taco Wednesday’s, Taco Friday’s, you get the idea), the team in India knows to ask us for things on Taco days since we’re in such good moods. Our newest mission involves finding the best homemade ice cream shop in the area, more on that next month.
Office Decor
As for decorating the office, that has been quite a journey. Thankfully Alicia is a natural because Stephanie would be (happily) sitting on the floor with her laptop until somehow office furniture magically appeared. Trying to decide on an aesthetic that is both pleasing yet reflective of the personalities of those who work in the office has been an interesting tightrope to walk, but yesterday we finally put the finishing touches on the office, woohoo! We have the furniture built, the pictures in frames, and the decorative pieces placed perfectly in their designated spots (all chosen by Alicia of course). And all done just in time for our first high-profile client visit this Friday! All in all, we’ve worked together to create a fun and motivating work environment that we can honestly say we look forward to coming to every day.
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Hire a Virtual Marketing Officer (VMO) to Set up Your Account-Based Marketing Strategy
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) has very quickly evolved from the “new thing” in marketing to the need of the hour for all businesses. Its rapid growth can be credited to the fact that it expedites your marketing initiatives and makes good use of the company’s data, time, and resources. The structure of ABM is such that it can help businesses navigate through complicated deals with ease. The factor of providing the right value to each customer stands true in lieu of ABM. Patience and persistence are the words to go by for incorporating ABM in your marketing plan. However, a Virtual Marketing Officer (VMO) comes equipped with tools that can cut the strain off of the discipline and rigor it takes to target the right accounts. By working per the needs of sales teams, VMOs are able to determine the scope of growth for existing accounts and can also help them target new ones. Personalized content is the core of ABM and in order to develop an aesthetically right message, it is imperative to utilize the data sales teams have at hand. Here we have a list of components VMOs use to accelerate the implementation of ABM in your marketing plans- Align sales and marketing A key aspect of the implementation of ABM is to create alignment between the sales and marketing teams. VMOs overcomes the challenges of mapping and managing effective communication between the teams by creating a strategic channel at the account level. Now, if you look at it from a macro perspective, you will realize that this strategy enables segmentation and communication with greater ease without having to overburden the teams into diverting their flow of communication. Tying up of territory-level sales activities with your marketing strategy can effectively reduce the time and effort required to reach a goal. This can only be achieved when the sales and marketing teams are perfectly aligned and in sync with each other. Some activities that can bring in this alignment are hosting shared training sessions, collaborative meetings, and such. Segmentation of accounts ABM works towards targeting the right audience with the help of strategically devised tactics. Segmentation of accounts enables you to significantly improve your campaign results and increase personalization. It is imperative to have a definitive framework to segment your database in such a way that it complements your marketing strategy. By focusing your delivery value largely on activities and messages targeted to specific segments, you can achieve effective results. Some of the basis of segmentation include categorization based on- Classification of company Size of the organization Annual revenue Current spend Projected spend Products bought Opportunities that are open or closed Geography Segmentation of your accounts ensures effective messaging and helps in simplifying execution at all levels. ABM can only help you if your audience is resonating with your content and segmentation can help you in refining your approach. Most VMOs have automation tools that can help with the segregation based on uniquely defined account-related information. Automation plays ABM programs yield effective results only if the coordination between sales activities and marketing plays is in place. VMOs target to achieve measurable results and automation is what helps them align their efforts. Automation tools guarantee efficient workflows at all levels be it program, campaign, or territory. They can provide palpable insights into the effectiveness of our strategies with flow-based alerts, follow-ups that are pre-programmed, alignment of tasks, and such. Not just these, automation in ABM enables- Definition of ABM strategy Alignment between targeting audience, creating messaging, and execution Tracking results Continuous and rigorous optimization A comprehensive marketing strategy can struggle to take root because it requires additional planning and execution which can be strenuous for the already overworked sales and marketing teams. This is where a VMO steps in and helps organizations in developing the tools required to automate the process and take control of core ABM strategies. Evolve per needs The final component to drive an ABM campaign is constant evolution and optimization of the marketing approach. Taking up consistent review sessions and measuring the performance bi-weekly or monthly is what VMOs suggest. This way they ensure the delivery of your campaign is efficient and the experience of targeted accounts is on point. Working in sync with the sales team allows VMOs to utilize the data of different segments and create a thorough segmentation system. The data collected by the sales team also helps in focusing the efforts per the needs of the audience. Source-Unsplash Now, with the key components in check, let’s move on to growing your ABM strategy. Here’s what VMOs recommend to help you- ABM- Strategy, not tool Adoption of ABM is not like any other marketing tool, it requires precision and changes on the organizational level. Thoughtful planning and effective use of data are the two components that can ensure you are targeting the right accounts. The process starts off with your sales team categorically dividing the accounts based on their territorial knowledge. Then comes the task of data utilization; by working in line with the sales teams you can analyze the customer trends and then strategize on the ways to target them and build a rapport. Then comes the usage of automation; you can simply use marketing tools to brush through details of your latest mega deals, be it a success or not. These details will then help you in analyzing the wins and losses from a microscopic perspective. Once you are through with the comparison, you will have a proper analysis of the factors of dos and don’ts. ABM allows you to optimize your messaging and build better relationships with your clients. It acts as a channel between sales and marketing and allows both teams to fully explore its potential. Identifying key customer profile Another significant aspect of your ABM strategy must be to build a kay customer profile. Now, these accounts to you may feel like the ones that will get on board the earliest. Well no, these are the ones that have the most likelihood for staying the longest with you. The development of key customer profiles is another process altogether, it requires you to analyze your alpha clients and map them for similarities. The data mapped will be on the basis of industry, size of the company, region, technology, and such. Once you are able to determine the similarities, it will get easier for you to target the right accounts. High-relationship clients are invested in their customer relationship and this is what can help you in making more strategic decisions about them. You can start by analyzing the needs of their customers and work towards making them more efficient in terms of reaching their goals. If you’re successfully able to evaluate the client and their customer profile, you will easily be able to nail your key customer profile as well. Internal engagement The alignment of sales, marketing, and other departments of an organization is of utmost importance- this is one fact that simply cannot be stressed enough. However, implementation of such an effective channel of communication requires persistence and constant management and that can be extremely difficult to achieve especially in larger corporations where the data flow is abundant. Internal engagement can be increased by laying focus on complementary training sessions for divisions that are to work together, seminars that showcase the importance of such a channel of communication, and activities that help both the teams in seeing the benefit of complementing each other. The fact that humans can be extremely competitive especially in a professional environment simply cannot be overlooked in a scenario such as this. And, this is why it is encouraged to instil the benefits of team-work and alignment in the organization. The future of marketing is ABM. It may evolve just like everything else but the core values that ABM brings in focus towards a wholesome approach that incorporates finding new accounts, engaging with them interactively, winning them over with your strategies, and driving mutual growth. This never-ending process is what will help your organization scale to the heights you have always dreamed of. Reach out to us today to know how VMO can help you with a tailor-made marketing plan and ABM strategy. ...
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Email Marketing Hacks That Will Help You Dominate Your Customers Inbox
Email marketing can be an efficient and orthodox form of marketing campaign. This form, coupled with strategic planning can prove to be fruitful for marketing managers who seeks to boast around that ‘Best employee of the year’ badge. Like a coin, email marketing is too bilateral in nature. Either it can help achieve great marketing goals set by marketing chiefs or it could disappoint your boss a tidbit. So, marketing directors may often ask this question: what could be some great email marketing strategies to ensure that could help build a larger customer base? We call these methods are termed ‘hacks’ as they can greatly aid in email campaigning and provided they are intelligently used could take the Email marketing game to the next level. Creating a consistent Brand Identity It is quite unlikely that one can demarcate email marketing strategy from any strategy regarding branding, messaging and other forms of content. Hence, it is evident that this entails building an image of a business which includes style, tone of communication, the logo and overall look (especially if you are a registered business/company) which should be in line with the composition of emails. For instance, if the logo of an elite class stylist salon is embedded in the middle of its newsletter and articles, your email marketing director should incorporate this little detail so that customers know what to expect. This would enable customers to perceive the business as consistent. Secondly, it is more than obvious that any business eventually thrives because of its products. If the product is mediocre and lacks real quality, no customer would only just subscribe to the email service just for the heck of it. This means after a certain period of time either those subscribed will keep receiving the emails or they will unsubscribe eventually seeing that they receive no incentive (such as a mere free goodie) for reading the emails. Yep, it is a cruel world. Collect addresses anywhere and everywhere The first step to having a large base of customers is to have a large accumulation of addresses to which you can direct the emails towards. If a business is doing things right it should already have an email subscription sign-up form embedded in their website. This could involve an interesting tagline which would encourage customers to pay heed to the subscription pop-up box and sign up. Also, we know that the emergence of social media has marked the beginning of a great aeon of technology. Social sites such as Facebook and Twitter help take businesses to a whole new level in terms of marketing. MailChimp, Sign up Anywhere, Onspotsocial are amongst the many hundreds of websites which lets us embed free email collection forms in the form of apps on Facebook. With a majority of individuals having a social networking account such as Facebook and Twitter, emails are collected with ease. Talk to the right audience It would be a grave misconception of a business thinking that hitting the send button to thousands of subscribers is a good idea. Yes, to gain someone’s attention is difficult. More than that it is not free at all, it is earned over time. Second comes trust. Suppose you have to bake brownies for a friend. What is one ingredient you would put which binds the flour and cocoa/ chocolate? Eggs. Here, the word RELEVANCE is equal to THIS one vital ingredient. Relevance binds together the vital elements of trust and attention which every marketing manager would crave for. Every relevant email and one consecutively followed will grasp the customer’s attention. However, irrelevant email spamming provides no coherent reasoning why any customer should bear with a business sending them irrelevant emails. Customers see it as spamming. Attention can be gained over time and so can trust, but if trust is based on a shaky foundation the attention becomes scarce too. Trust is fragile.Hence, directing relevant emails to the right audience could help secure their trust and attention. A helpful strategy of ‘Email forking’ automatically categorizes subscribers to new email lists which are more specific to their interests for instance if someone clicks on ‘Belts’, emails specific to that category will be re-targeted. Offer loyalty with incentives Always give a reason for customers to take that step of subscribing to emails. Let’s be realistic. Incentives such as free printable discount coupons are a great incentive for customers. Freebies such as free E-books which offer product samples in the form of free brochures are always an instant hit. Send a Few impactful emails “Half a loaf is better than no bread”. This expression proves true in the field of email marketing also. In order to do this, we must grasp a few ideas which could enable this: Proof-reading, building customer’s curiosity and sending other people’s content. The importance of proof-reading is two-fold and cannot be stressed enough. Often a times the proof-reading stage is neglected which could lead to a vital difference between an increase in sales and readers un-subscribing en masse. Curiosity is the key to actively engage customers with the reading. This can overhaul the email marketing campaign for the better. One astute way coming from a brilliant Email marketing person would be to compose emails which ask a lot of questions. A compelling question can give astounding results. Sending someone else’s content may show that you genuinely care about your customer’s interests. This could not only enable you to provide great quality content (eg; from popular blogs, tumblr etc) but also would save time. Even Marketing Department Directors seldom have spare time to write great content also which the customers enjoy reading. Introduce yourself with a catchy subject line Subject lines could be short but must be irresistible. “Hey” has been proved to be an excellent subject line. The Obama Campaign raised a massive $690 million online so obviously, it did wonders afterall. Brevity can be quite impactful and piquing the reader’s curiosity is of immense importance through a attention-grabbing subject line because this is what hooks the reader into reading rest of the email. Brainstorm viral ideas This idea could be a vital factor in arousing the reader’s interest. Naturally when an individual enjoys reading some content it has a fair chance of going viral. Jonah Berger, Associate Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School confirms through his research that useful content that evoke high arousal emotions (anger, pain, fear loss, laughter, sadness etc) gets shared the most). Ideas are twice as likely to get shared if they arouse human emotions as compared to content write-ups that don’t. Personalize, personalize, personalize! Sending an email from a real person offers the opportunity for readers to reply to emails. When they receive an email from Dan Joe, Head of your company, they will definitely see it as a great user experience and will be impressed. A business should employ a few persons who can draft emails in a human-like tone and could also proof-read thereafter. Personalizing emails could greatly boost up customer interaction. According to Hubspot, companies between 1 to 10 employees overall contribute to open click rates of around 35% while companies employing 26 to almost 200 earn a slightly lower rate of 32%. Using the first name when addressing emails is indeed the first small step to personalizing emails from a batch company. Also, using your personal name or company name as the ‘From’ address. It is evident that incorporating these Email Marketing Hacks can contribute to a boost in email click rates. These hacks, if implemented properly with due diligence can help achieve a positive visible change in the overall sales of a company. There are many other ‘hacks’ which businesses can incorporate in order to achieve their desired objectives. ...
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4 Cool Ways To Tap Into User Psyche And Succeed in Content Marketing
Wendy Marx in her recent article for business to business community has pointed out that approach of contacting a client makes the difference between single transaction and long-term success. In an analysis done by IPA dataBank, there were 1,400 successful advertising campaigns case studies in which purely emotional content has performed nearly twice well than the rational content. You probably must be aware of some psychological triggers that are urgency, novelty, and scarcity. Your main aim is to drive sales in order to fulfill that you need to create a relationship through your content with the audience. So what are those psychological triggers that one should use for succeeding in the content marketing. A few years ago, two researchers from Wharton made a study on content in which they discovered commonalities in them. Some of them were: Awe and shock: data and fact that can shock people are shared more frequently Positivity: when people get entertained and feel good about what they are reading, there are more chances of that content getting viewed and shared Anxiety and Fear: people usually share content about which they are angry. This stimulates the process of sharing and commenting. Content instilling fear gets the same reactions. 1. Providing Authority People prefer internet for getting the answer to their queries and exploring their interest areas. It is important to provide your audience with a reason to listen to you rather than any other competitor. Here is the correct time to display the psychological principle of authority. Marketers use this aspect all the time for selling their services and products. This is even relevant in the content campaigns also. You need to convey authority in content campaigns that demonstrate your knowledge about the industry. You can display it through: Backing your content by creating data which will convey a sense of authority. Rather than explaining them prove your point with illustrations. Guest blogging on the platform of high authority. Creating E-book and Whitebook for conveying an exhaustive understanding of specific topics. Hosting or sponsoring events of Industry for boosting authority. Industry awards are also high authority endorsement Media referrals that are outside your blogs 2. Relatability One of the psychological triggers is relatability. If you can make your audience relate to you through your content then you can derive benefits in your business. People always associate with businesses and individuals which they have something in common. So make sure that when you are developing content, always put a face to the name of your business considering this aspect. In your ‘About us’ section you can demonstrate relatability. Start with describing about your business, highlight those aspects which you might have in common with your audience. Share posts and photos about your team environment to engaging them. 3. Narrator Emotional Stories According to research, 95% cognition occurs in the subconscious mind of humans. Emotional stories can have a deeper effect without much thinking. Few brands are great at injecting wider emotions into their contents every time especially on social media. You should include these points in your content: Share success stories which are heartwarming Focusing on the pain point of the audience and addressing them A bit of humor but don’t offend anyone Include surprise news of your industry 4. Create In-Crowd Human psychology has a need for coherence. Marketers and politicians encourage coherence by highlighting that they have a common enemy. You can create a connection which is beyond selling your product like gender stereotypes. You can reach a conclusion of finding an enemy that resonates with your audience too through embracing these points: Issues that are important to your audience What is that they don’t want What are the main things makes them behave in an anxious manner? These are the top powerful emotions that you can stir of your audience for increasing sale of your product and services. Many strategies of content marketing get trapped in SEO techniques, latest technology and traffic analyzing. Go for the correct marketing techniques. You shouldn’t forget buying is only 15% are logical and rest 85% are emotional. ...
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