PlayMakers Talk Show

We are thrilled to announce our very own CEO of Globe Runner Eric McGehearty will be joining PlayMakers Talk Show on 770 KAAM this Friday, September 30 at 3 pm.

Be sure to tune in! If you miss the Friday show, don’t worry because there will be an Encore Presentation on Saturday at 2 pm.

For those who don’t know, Eric is an entrepreneur and thought leader. His writings on business and entrepreneurship have been published in Forbes, Octane Magazine, and Yahoo Small Business Advisor.

In is not so “free time” he is a nationally recognized artist showing in galleries, museums, and public spaces. His sculpture in Fort Worth was recognized by America for the Arts as one of the top 40 pieces in 2007.

Eric is also the co-founder of the non-profit Stand UP LD a support network for parents and educators seeking resources to support and inspire children with learning differences.

Play below to listen to a promo for the show!

Micro-moments are the small instances each day when someone uses a mobile device to quickly search for a bit of desired information. One type of moment, called an “I-want-to-buy” moment, centers around using internet searches to help with purchasing decisions. These moments present a massive opportunity for companies looking to attract buyers.

‘I-Want-To-Buy’ Moments Defined

An “I-want-to-buy” moment is any instance when you search for information to help with a purchase. This can include both on-the-spot purchases (like which brand of cologne to buy during a shopping trip) and large investments (such as buying a house).

These moments are often spread throughout the day, made either before a shopping excursion, while in the store, or over the course of days, weeks, or months prior to a large purchase. The one thing all these instances have in common, however, is the fact that they usually result in a purchase.

The following scenario breaks down what actually happens in these moments.

Scenario

Let’s suppose Doug is out on a grocery trip during which he intends to buy something to help with his athlete’s foot. He finds the foot cream section in the store and notices a wide variety of different brands, the prices of which range from around $6 (for a 10oz generic brand) to $60 (for a 4oz name brand).

How does Doug decide? He certainly doesn’t want to spend $60 on a small tube of foot cream, but what if the cheaper brands don’t work at all? He does a quick search for reviews on his phone to help him choose a brand.

Making the Most of the Moment

Doug’s not going to sit there forever sifting through content, so if you’re in the foot cream business, you need to provide content he can find and digest quickly. Creating this kind of content involves planning and online marketing savvy. During the process, consider what your audience needs to know prior to making purchasing decisions. Well-executed content will draw customers during these moments.

For additional help with “I-want-to-buy” moments, contact us at Accelerate Online Marketing today.

Mobile devices, and especially smartphones, have revolutionized the way we use the internet. Online searches are now faster and more focused than ever before, often taking only a minute or two. Being able to provide what users are looking for in a quick, digestible manner is the core of online marketing today.

The brief moments people spend online are referred to as “micro-moments.” Google has divided these into four categories, one of which is “I-want-to-do” moments.

‘I-Want-To-Do’ Moments Defined

One of the reasons why people go online is to learn how to do something. The time they spend online researching how to perform various tasks is concentrated and brief, so to fulfill their needs (and increase the odds that they’ll come to your brand), you need to make sure the content you publish online is designed to quickly provide what people are looking for.

Scenario

To break down “I-want-to-do” moments, let’s look at a common scenario. Suppose Penelope has spotted a bit of mold in the sink that grew over the past week while her roommate’s dishes were sitting there unwashed. She knows that mold is difficult to remove, but she’s not sure what to do about it.

So she pulls out her smartphone and does a quick search for “how to remove mold.” She doesn’t have much time to spend researching this, so she’s likely to go with the first promising-looking result that comes up.

Making the Most of the Moment

Most of us know that mold is pretty difficult to remove, generally requiring certain chemicals. But who’s going to let Penelope know what she needs? If your content is well designed, it will be you. To satisfy her need in this moment, your content should:

1. Be optimized for search engines so it comes up high on the list.

2. Provide answers quickly in a digestible, easy to navigate format.

3. Give complete, reliable information.

The challenge is doing all this in one piece. Our skilled digital marketing experts in Dallas can help you there. Contact Accelerate Online Marketing for help working with “I-want-to-do” moments today.

Online reputation is an important aspect for not only large enterprises, but small businesses as well, and it’s an area that’s often neglected. So the question is, how can you improve your online reputation, or even establish one if you don’t already have it?

Some of the basics that can help you get your name out there are your Facebook page, your website, and Google Plus page, to name a few. But how can we get positive reviews and customers raving about our business?

That’s what digital reputation is about: getting customers to give you five-star reviews. Of course, it’s essential to have a good service/product, but that doesn’t seem to be enough these days. We have to ask our customers appropriately to give us feedback and reviews.

There’s a lot of different ways you can go about doing this, but we have come up with a system that really works and is effective: We don’t ask our customers to give us reviews. Now, that may be counter-intuitive, but that’s not what I’m going to lead with. As soon as a customer comes to my store or I go to their location to provide a service, I don’t automatically ask them to review my performance. Frankly, a lot of customers are turned off by that and they don’t think they would benefit from it.

So instead, I ask them for their feedback. Feedback doesn’t have a positive spin to it. It could be negative or positive, and it urges the customer to give their honest opinion. That’s the differentiator. Asking for feedback rather than reviews. I don’t want that feedback to go on the web because I don’t know if what my customer will say will be positive or negative. So we take that feedback internally and we have a system that allows us to decide whether or not that feedback was positive, negative, or neutral.

If the feedback was negative, we need to put that into a customer service group where they get an apology e-mail, and once that has been sent out, an actual customer service rep will call them asking them how we can best resolve the situation. That way, we catch them before they have time to get angry, go on yelp or any other review site, and write something negative about our establishment.

Once we resolve all of the issues with the negative feedbacks, we look at the positive and neutral ones. For the neutral ones, you can decide if you want to reach out to them or not. The ones that have great, positive things to say are the ones that get a follow-up e-mail thanking them and requesting them to share their positive feedback on their social media accounts, our Google Plus, or Yelp pages.

Depending on the industry, you can pick which social media and review platform works best. This way, I’m controlling my digital reputation. I’m not artificially inflating who I am. I’m handling customer feedback by asking the ones who have great things to say about my business to promote those things publicly.