Website Magazine November 2016

How to Build Your First Chatbot

THE MAGAZINE FOR WEBSITE SUCCESS NOVEMBER 2016

Collaborative & Curated

SOCIAL MEDIA INSIDE THIS ISSUE...

New Developments Shaping SEO in 2017 Optimizing Fears for Website Conversions Must-Automate Email Marketing Campaigns

PLUS

0 5 P O T Media l a i c o S ns Solutio

WEBSITEMAGAZINE.COM

Collaborative & Curated

SOCIAL MEDIA

Regular social media management can become quite overwhelming for marketers responsible for this critical channel, leading to poor decision-making and lackluster performance. While some brands are giving up on social altogether, others are adopting a more collaborative and curated approach.

THIS MONTH IN WEBSITE MAGAZINE Developing Buyer Personas

How to Build Your First Chatbot

More companies than ever are starting to develop and leverage customer personas to know exactly who customers are and how they behave. Here are a few steps to get started.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are becoming increasingly popular ways to manage customer service inquiries and conduct other business.

The PPC Tactic Used

by Data Experts

Be the Next Mobile Hit

Google is introducing a new audiencecentric feature, which allows advertisers to spend their budgets smarter and more accurately target their core demographics.

As cost paid per user remains high for apps, marketers and publishers are seeking ways to attract new audiences – and search marketing presents the perfect opportunity.

Fear Optimization for Websites

Six Email Campaigns to Automate Today

Fear is something that is challenging to include on a website but those who do manage to put in the right amount of “scares” tend to win long term.

Email automation can be daunting, but it can provide customers with helpful info while saving time and effort for marketers down the digital road.

EXPLORE WEBSITE MAGAZINE’S DEPARTMENTS Net Briefs: Personalization, Cyberattacks & More

Stat Watch: Preventing Customer Churn

Quiz Time:

Small Business Lab: Creating a Business Roadmap

E-Commerce Express: Fulfillment Efficiency with EOM

Design & Development:

How Data-Driven Are You?

Redefining Accessibility

Enterprise Ready:

Mastering Search:

Augmented Reality in the Enterprise

Top 50: Social Media Solutions

4 Developing SEO Updates

Web Commentary: Moving to the C-Suite

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DIGITAL SCOOP Check out Website Magazine’s email newsletters covering search, e-commerce, social, design and more at wsm.co/webscoop.

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From the

EDITOR The Magazine for Website Success

LET’S GET SOCIAL As most enterprise marketers can attest, success with social media requires a great deal of time, resources and creative effort. Despite the potential effectiveness and the increasing maturity of the channel, however, many brands continue to struggle.

While 75 percent of marketing leaders now indicate that social media is generating a return on investment (compared to last year’s 27 percent) according to Salesforce data, for example, 61 percent believe their social media processes still need work (Boston Retail Partners, 2016). While the opportunity may be there, enterprises know they have a long way to go to make the most it.

In this month’s feature article of Website Magazine, Managing Editor Amberly Dressler suggests an alternative approach to social media, one that takes advantage of the channel’s natural qualities – its collaborative nature and opportunity for a personalized, curated experience – that will continue to help brands deepen engagement with their followers and increase conversions and revenue in the process. This issue also includes a great deal more to help companies and ’Net professionals like you make the most of their digital experience.

In addition to the insights shared in Website Magazine’s November 2016 feature article, readers will have access to other helpful articles on topics including augmented reality, inventory and order management, search engine optimization trends, digital design for universal accessibility and more from some of digital media’s brightest mind. This issue also offers useful information on conversion optimization, resources to build enterprise-ready chat bots, guidance for developing buyer personas, as well as a list of 50 social media software solutions.

As always, we hope you enjoy this issue of Website Magazine and encourage you to join us on the ‘Net where our editors and industry contributors share the technologies and insights that matter most to Web success.

Best Web Wishes, Peter@WebsiteMagazine.com

SIMPLIFIED ANALYTICS The data is available for enterprises wanting to take a more calculated approach to decision-making about the user experience, marketing campaigns and driving revenue. Next month, discover a simplified approach to gathering and leveraging needle-moving information in our December 2016 issue of Website Magazine.

Reaching the largest audience of Web professionals of any Internet industry publication

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF:

Peter Prestipino peter@websitemagazine.com

MANAGING EDITOR:

Amberly Dressler adressler@websitemagazine.com

*CONTRIBUTORS:

Krish Kupathil Corey Bray Shane Desrochers Derek Miller Ryan Larkin Martin Greif Fabien-Pierre Nicolas EJ McGowan Alexis Robin

GRAPHIC DESIGNER:

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Website Magazine, Volume 11, Issue 11, November 2016, (ISSN# 1942-0633) is published 12 times a year, January through December by Website Services, Inc., 999 E. Touhy Ave., Des Plaines, IL 60018. Periodicals Postage Paid at Des Plaines, IL and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Website Magazine, 999 E. Touhy Ave., Des Plaines, IL 60018.

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Net

BRIEFS

MARKETING NEWS The Alpha Channel Is… Adobe Campaign’s second annual consumer email survey confirms what many digital media professionals have long expected – email is still the alpha channel with time spent checking email increasing 17 percent year over year. Respondents say they check email while watching TV or a movie (69 percent), in bed (57 percent) and on vacation (79 percent).

Just Text Me Brands looking to connect with millennials may want to consider adding text messaging to their communication channels, as 83 percent of this generation open texts within 90 seconds and 80 percent of them would prefer to text a company’s 1-800 number versus waiting on hold, according to recent survey results from OpenMarket.

Searching for Relevance, Revenue Omnichannel personalization solution RichRelevance has released some rather interesting research that explores how U.S. consumers search for and, more importantly, find products online. Three out of four shoppers, for example, always or often use the search box when shopping on a retailer’s site while 35 percent of shoppers are generally unsatisfied with the search results they receive on a mobile device.

Facebook Ads: Did You Overpay?

Bad news for Facebook advertisers – video metrics were misreported over the past two years. According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook apparently indicated that its measure of the average time users spent watching videos was artificially inflated because it was only factoring in video views of more than three seconds – resulting in data that overestimated this metric by a significant 60-80 percent.

$ WHO GOT PAID Acquired: Aptos, a spinoff of Epicor Retail, announced the acquisition of long-standing European partner BT Expedite. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Aptos will benefit from BT Expedite’s nearly 100 retail customers in 13 countries.

Acquired: Just months after its multi-billion dollar acquisition of Demandware, Salesforce announced the $700 million purchase of Krux, a data management platform.

Funded: Social Tables, which provides cloud-based collaborative event software, has closed a $13 million Series B round led by QuestMark Partners. This funding brings Social Tables to a total of $22.6 million raised.

Funded: Shippo raised $7 million in Series A funding, led

by Union Square Ventures (USV) with participation from SoftTech VC, Version One Ventures and other investors. Shippo is known for its shipping API used by 10,000-plus merchants.

TECH UPDATES The Cost of an Average Cyberattack Kaspersky Lab released research that indicates a single cybersecurity incident costs large businesses, on average, a total of $861,000 while SMBs lose an average of $86,5000. According to the results of the “Measuring the Financial Impact of IT Security on Businesses” report, which was based on the 2016 Corporate IT Security Risks survey, nearly half (49 percent) of U.S. businesses and over half globally (52 percent), assume their IT security will be compromised at some point.

I’ll Raise You a Bot Both Facebook and Microsoft are hedging their bets on bot platforms, but Microsoft currently has the winning hand at least in terms of the total number of developers using each framework.

Microsoft’s bot platform, which allows bots and machine learning developers to create apps for communication and chat platforms like Skype, FB Messenger, Kik and others, is now being used by more than 45,000 developers (significantly higher than the 34,000 developers who are making bots on Facebook).

News that’s Not Suitable for Work The team behind Yahoo’s system to mark NSFW (not suitable for work) content on the ’Net has just made the technology open source. Yahoo’s technology crawls a variety of imagery and gives each a score, from 0 to 1, on how NSFW it thinks that particular picture is. This could be useful in many situations, and not just censorship. Such a system, for example, could inspect emails and messages without any human intervention and provide a warning if an image is potentially NSFW.

POPULAR WITH WM READERS Revamping Your Homepage for the Social Web +

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Do you need a Web developer to work on your WordPress site? Before you decide on the right candidate, make sure they will bring these five traits to the project.

Net

BRIEFS WEB TECH WATCH

APP FOCUS

Check out what has the digital community all abuzz with Website Magazine’s #WebTechWatch series, a monthly roundup profiling emerging and established technologies and some of the most useful solutions for today’s Web workers. Submit your own recommendations by tweeting us at @WebsiteMagazine.

Serpstat

Stash.ai

Content ideas from autocomplete suggestions

Cross-device bookmarking powered by AI

Mobilizer

Yotilo

Mobile user-experience optimization tool

Could Facebook Replace Craigslist?

Facebook recently announced it will begin rolling out a new service designed to help users buy and sell items in their local area, similar to the offering Craigslist made popular. Available for Android and iOS users, Marketplace is accessible through a small shop icon at the bottom of the application. Users will be able to see a default grid of photos of items for sale nearby, or search by keyword or category. Users can also list an item for sale directly through the app.

Heek

Telepat.io Cloud

A free, open-source, browser-based time tracker

A conversational website builder

Open-source, real-time API platform

Blue by Belly

GoSquared Live Chat

OpenVid 2.0

Lokalise

A configurable, omnichannel loyalty platform

Free live chat for websites and apps

One-click desktop, cam and mic recording tool for Chrome

Translation platform for software developers

Have tips, stories, funding or acquisition news to share?

Tweet us @WebsiteMagazine

Stat

WATCH

Turning the Table on Customer Churn $102 Billion

The ability to recognize when a customer is about to cancel their subscription, decide not to renew their contract or skip their next regular purchase, is critical to the success of a company that relies on recurring revenue.

As more enterprises take part in the subscription economy – data from MGI Research indicates it will be a $102 billion market over the next four years – companies must invest in the right strategies and solutions in order to analyze, monitor and predict customer churn.

By understanding when and why consumers may leave, companies can adapt and optimize their content development, digital experiences and channel outreach in real-time as well as learn to prevent the reason for revenue loss with similar audiences in the future.

The technology industry is laying the groundwork for predictive marketing, but it’s up to executives to invest in the solutions that can help them improve customer retention in both the short and long term. Even though a 2016 IBM study of the C-suite reveals that predictive analytics is already used by 69 percent of chief marketing officers, it is not a simple endeavor for most enterprises.

Companies reporting the use of predictive analytics are likely still struggling to connect the many available data sources to get an accurate picture of who a customer is, why they have subscribed and why they may leave. For instance, a customer may voice their dissatisfaction for a brand on social media – a message that could never arrive in a CRM much less “communicated” to a CMS where “rescue” content can be delivered.

It is time for enterprises to turn the tables, and use customer data to stay in business and improve performance; predictive analytics provides such an opportunity and it’s never been more accessible than it is today.

A Forrester survey (commissioned by EverString) of respondents with at least 5,000 active leads in their B2B databases reveals the following about predictive marketing analytics:

47%

Nearly half of survey respondents (47 percent) indicated that ensuring data quality and managing data from various sources inhibits their ability to create actionable insights.

39%

Over a third (39 percent) of marketers said they struggle to provide real-time insights to their business.

2.9x

Predictive marketers are 2.9 times more likely to report revenue growth at rates higher than the industry average.

2.1x

Marketers in organizations using predictive analytics are 2.1 times more likely to occupy a commanding leadership position in the product/service markets they serve; and 1.8 times more likely to consistently exceed goals when measuring the value their marketing organizations contribute to the business.

49%

Companies leveraging predictive marketing are more likely to believe the practice is “very likely” to determine customers in risk of churning (49 percent compared to 21 percent for non-users).

Quiz

TIME

How Data Driven Are You, Really?

Every department within an enterprise, from customer service to the C-suite, expects access to business analytics to help inform decisions.

These expectations in great part manifest from what software applications make available today, often providing high-level views of the metrics that matter to that user “type” or permission level. Deeper dives into structured and unstructured data, however, are typically associated with higher pay grades and bigger budgets, but a new report says that may not necessarily be true moving forward.

Worldwide revenues for big data and business analytics (BDA) will grow from $130.1 billion in 2016 to more than $203 billion in 2020, according to IDC’s Oct. 2016 report.

While large and very large companies (those with more than 500 employees) will be the primary driver of the big data and business analytics opportunity – generating revenues of more than $154 billion in 2020 – small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) will remain a significant contributor. IDC reports SMBs (with fewer than 500 employees), for example, will account for nearly a quarter of the worldwide revenues.

Expanding big data and analytics activities should be a top priority among all companies as investment in this area is increasing – dramatically. Content analytics tools and customer relationship management (CRM) analytic applications, for example, will see above-average growth (compound annual growth of 18.5 percent and 10.4 percent, respectively) in the next few years. Is your enterprise ready for an increased investment in time and financial resources?

Take Website Magazine’s November Quiz Time to test your data savvy.

1. Who is most commonly recognized as the first to

coin and make popular the term, “big data” in the tech community? a. Al Gore b. Larry Ellison c. John Mashey d. Tom “Big Cat” Adams

2. In Sept. 2016, this company introduced its AI

powered product, Einstein, which learns from all a company’s data — CRM, email, calendar, social, ERP and IoT — to deliver predictions and recommendations in context of what the business user is trying to do. a. Salesforce b. Demandware c. Google d. Sugar

3. Which data-driven company says it is committed to

using open-source software (particularly in the Apache ecosystem) to process its data (3 Petabytes daily)? a. Birchbox b. Netflix c. Blue Apron d. Dollar Shave Club

4. Despite current shortages for this position, a recent poll

indicates people filling this job will be unemployed by 2025, as the practice becomes automated: a. Email marketer b. Content writer c. Data scientist d. Chief marketing officer

5. Who or what is Cassandra?

Find out how you scored by going to wsm.co/qtnov16 or by scanning the QR code on the left.

a. A marketer recognizable by her first name alone b. An open-source distributed data management system c. A recent feature launched within Woopra d. Twitter’s first move into the artificial intelligence space

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Enterprise

READY

THE FUTURE OF WORK:

Augmented Reality in the Enterprise

By Krish Kupathil, Mobiliya

While the earliest roots of augmented reality (AR) may be traced to consumercentric domains like retail, advertising, media and entertainment, its future lies in the core enterprise sector.

For the believers of stats and figures, a recent report

by Juniper Research indicates the use of AR apps in enterprise will grow to $2.4 billion in 2019, a sharp ten-fold increase – in just five years – from $247 million in 2014. This year has already seen a phenomenal rise in the release of enterprise apps and can well be the turning point for this still-nascent technology. In 2016, we have already seen the biggest AR blockbuster yet, in the form of Pokémon Go, a game that can well go on to become the face of AR. From being considered niche or futuristic, AR has now suddenly become a common household technology that employees, who form a large segment of active Pokémon Go players, can relate to and even willingly use for everyday workflows. AR is already helping employees boost producPokémon Go has made everyday audiences tivity and find better ways to work. comfortable with using augmented reality, which Below are four ways in which makes it the perfect time for enterprises to introit can completely transform the duce AR capabilities to improve operations. way enterprises function:

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1. Reducing Training Time This is arguably the best use case for AR. Be it interns learning the ropes of a multinational company or a shop floor worker training on the assembly line, AR serves as a more robust tool than the traditional 2-D manuals or guides. AR-based 3-D models allow users to train in a practical environment, effectively “using” parts or components instead of just reading about them and hence learning faster.

Visual-rich AR apps allow trainees to explore a huge machine by actually taking out every part one by one, making it easier to get a hands-on training experience on even the most complex mechanisms and industrial systems.

2. Better Recall of Work Instructions A picture is worth a thousand words and that’s exactly what AR leverages. From a car engine, a large warehouse with different divisions or an overseas client location, AR can bring a place or product to life in just one click and allow the user to walk through an environment. Using elements from games such as Pokémon Go will further drive the idea of quickly finding virtual objects in the real world as employees can now relate to these digital environments much better, making it easier to follow and recall work and field instructions.

With Microsoft’s HoloLens, enterprises can use Skype to make remote calls to subject-matter experts and share holographic instructions between users, like these elevator technicians.

Augmented Reality in 2017

Field workers such as site engineers, logistics employees or factory personnel can often run into situations where they need quick assistance from headquarters to guide them through rough ground conditions, changes in client delivery locations or machine failures. In these situations, an AR-powered smartglass, for instance, can be the perfect guide to help them through these roadblocks.

Workers can connect with experts or managers located at the base and live stream step-by-step methods of fixing machine breakdowns or the precise area on the site that is volatile or environmentally hazardous.

This greatly reduces the time that is otherwise taken by field engineers or workers to go back and forth with experts at base to consult over complex matters before giving a resolution. This remote guidance helps employees become increasingly efficient, less prone to errors and thus increase enterprise profitability.

Clearly, two of the key areas that AR impacts are communication and collaboration. Already, companies like Microsoft are developing AR-based video conferencing techniques that allow 3-D projection of participants as if they are talking to each other sitting in the same room. Such mechanisms can completely eliminate the dividing screen between the two participants and even allow them to display and interact with 3-D images of equipment, architecture models, products and shapes for better perspective and understanding during the conversation.

Judging by the current trends, we can expect more mature enterprise AR apps to hit the market later this year and next. And considering the availability of a range of powerful mobile devices like tablets and more sophisticated head-mounted displays (HMDs), enterprise augmented reality adoption is on track to become widespread across a range of verticals.

Krish Kupathil is the founder and CEO of Mobiliya, which provides device-to-cloud software engineering and system integration services with specialization in IoT, enterprise software, augmented reality, embedded systems, security and automotive. Kupathil is a trusted advisor to senior executives in blue chip companies such as Google, Microsoft, Deutsche Telekom, Qualcomm and Intel.

Microsoft Research demonstrates its holoportation capabilities – virtual 3-D teleportation in real-time – which could change how distributed teams communicate and how enterprises attend meetings.

“

Judging by the current trends, we can expect more mature enterprise AR apps to hit the market later this year and next.

“

3. Increased Work Efficiency

Top

50

RANK WEBSITE

Social Media

Solutions

Interest and investment in social media is incredibly high despite the obvious challenges marketers face within the channel – from shifting consumer expectations to dramatic platform developments, and of course, the demand to generate tangible results.

As marketers and advertisers continue to increase their social media spend, they are becoming increasingly aware they must prove a return on investment (ROI).

Current levels of social media spending have witnessed a 234 percent increase over the past seven years, rising from 3.5 percent of marketing budgets in 2009 to 11.7 percent in 2016 (The CMO Survey). Despite that exceptional growth, it falls woefully short of what was predicted five years ago. Marketers spent only 11.7 percent of their budgets on social media in the past year as compared to the 17.5 percent predicted five years ago. One of the reasons may likely be because it can be difficult (some might argue impossible) to accurately prove there is an actual return from social media participation.

According to Simply Measured’s “2016 State of Social Marketing” report, 61 percent of marketers identified measuring ROI as their top challenge. In order to overcome that obstacle, enterprises are adopting a range of social media solutions to enable them to gather more useful insights, optimize their participation and monetize the interactions that result. Fortunately, the social media ecosystem is filled with some of the most well-known technology companies and many of the hottest startups in the history of digital.

In this month’s Website Magazine Top 50, readers will discover some of these top solutions for social media listening and monitoring, managing, marketing and influencing audiences, as well as engaging followers and analyzing results.

There are thousands of these offerings currently available for enterprises of every size and industry. Let this month’s Top 50, however, serve as Web professionals’ starting point as they explore the opportunities they have to maximize their use of social media.

The Future Web

Don’t miss next month’s Website Magazine Top 50, which spotlights solutions ‘Net professionals should keep a virtual eye on in 2017 and beyond! To recommend a solution, tweet @WebsiteMagazine.

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Salesforce.com Hootsuite.com SproutSocial.com Buffer.com Iconosquare.com Klout.com SocialBakers.com Adobe.com Zoho.com SaS.com Bitly.com Microsoft.com ShortStack.com Lithium.com HearsaySocial.com Brandwatch.com SimplyMeasured.com Meltwater.com Mention.com Spredfast.com Sysomos.com Smarsh.com CrimsonHexagon.com AgoraPulse.com OutboundEngine.com SocialMention.com Nuvi.com TrackMaven.com Cision.com Audiense.com Unified.com Curalate.com Falcon.io UnionMetrics.com Klear.com Wayin.com ReadyPulse.com GetLittleBird.com Quintly.com Tracx.com TalkWalker.com Grouphigh.com Synthesio.com Sendible.com Trackur.com Digimind.com Sprinklr.com Infegy.com BuzzSumo.com RivalIQ.com

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Small

BUSINESS LAB Start Here

Roadmap to SMB Success

By Corey Bray, LegalNature

A company’s business plan, its road map, is one of an enterprise’s most important documents.

The plan should be a comprehensive guide that provides answers to the questions and problems entrepreneurs will face in each stage of its growth – laid out in detail. It should provide both a literal and proverbial roadmap to reach the financial goals that the business has set out to achieve.

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE AND THEIR NEEDS

The primary purpose of a business plan has less to do with the actual product or service and more about the process of delivering these products or services to the customer – an audience one must fully understand.

Being able to effectively explain this process through a clear vision will allow the reader to understand the feasibility and viability of a business. A detailed explanation of how the business will bring its product/service to market is much more valuable in the analysis of a business than merely describing it.

SHOW YOUR STAFF’S STRENGTHS

It is very rare that a business will be led to success by an inexperienced leader, and investors know that.

It is extremely important for a small business owner (SBO) to highlight any relevant experience.

Savvy investors understand that without the right people at the helm, nothing else really matters. SBOs also shouldn’t forget about their team members.

Employees were hired for a reason, so they likely have relevant experience they bring to a company’s offerings. It’s important to include a “Personnel” or “Management” section emphasizing a team’s industry experience and insight.

ANSWER DIFFICULT QUESTIONS

Entrepreneurs must ask tough questions and, more importantly, find answers to them. Investors will be looking for holes in a business plan. SBOs must be 16

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able to self-scrutinize, look for inconsistencies and even scrap their own work if need be, because readers will most certainly be critical and even defensive as they read. By doing so, SBOs can reassure investors they have thought of every potential flaw and have provided solutions. It is good practice to have a mentor or trusted friend review the document and play devil’s advocate as well.

INCLUDE FIGURES WITH CAUTION

Stop for a moment and think: What good is it to deliver a business plan that projects revenue and profit, more than three years into the future? As a new company, it is virtually impossible to accurately predict revenue and profit. The fact is seasoned investors know this. By becoming overly technical in their approach with numbers, startups may in fact come across as naive.

It is far more important to show that an owner has considered financial drivers that will ultimately determine the success – or potential failure – of the business. Additionally, numbers need context. When introducing figures, startups will want to make sure to explain why they have included them, and their relevance to the success or failure of the business.

REMEMBER, IT’S JUST A PLAN— WHAT MATTERS IS FVD!

While a business plan is an important introduction to a venture, it is by no means set in stone. With this in mind, no matter what the contents of the business plan are, entrepreneurs should stick to what matters: feasibility, viability and desirability.

Feasibility in that you can successfully bring the product or service to market.

Viability in that your business is sustainable.

Desirability in that your product or service fulfills a meaningful consumer need.

Make sure to take the time to do the job properly.

Be sure to keep detailed notes about your sources of information and on the assumptions underlying your financial data. With all of this in mind, the question shouldn’t be if you should write a business plan, but how will you draft an effective business plan that will take your company where you want it to go.

Corey Bray is the CEO and founder of LegalNature. A serial entrepreneur, Bray has successfully exited several startups and is currently focused on revolutionizing the business document industry.

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E-Commerce

EXPRESS

Getting Inventory from Point A-C Efficiently with EOM

By Shane Desrochers, Aptos

“

To meet today’s omnichannel expectations, retailers are doubling down on enterprise order management (EOM).

A new report from Research and Markets found a full 54 percent of retailers will have the capability this year with more to follow as investments in distributed order management systems and shipfrom-store technologies continue to be a significant area of investment While the priority to for retailers. date for order man- This is not surprising as traditional brick-and-mortar retailers make agement has been the move online, while other traditional players have established a on getting inventory e-commerce local presence. Retail business modfrom point A to point B, els are fluid and morphing, yet many order management systems remain many have overlooked siloed presenting big barriers to providthe art and science of ing the customer with the delivery or pick-up flexibility, options and speed getting goods to point they expect and demand. obtain a single view of the cusC - the customer. tomer,Toinventory and order throughout their lifecycle, from initiation to fulfillment and back, retailers are adopting EOM. For retailers with a physical and online presence, EOM is a critical capability to help them turn their brickand-mortar store into a competitive advantage. Having a single order management system that allows for shipping from the warehouse, pick up at store or simply traditional store fulfillment is key to not only surviving, but thriving in the future.

“

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The growing adoption of EOM is in part due to the fact that the role of order management has changed significantly. Rather than simply shuttling orders to legacy systems, such as warehouse management systems (WMS) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, retailers must orchestrate order fulfillment scenarios that allow customers to receive items more quickly and wherever and however they choose. According to research from industry analyst firm Forrester, 25 percent of U.S. online adults feel that it’s “important” for a retailer to offer a “buy online, pick up in-store” (BOPIS) service, and 26 percent already have used the BOPIS fulfillment option. Today, 15-20 percent of retailers have some form of omnichannel fulfillment capability. Forrester expects that number to double capabilities such as “buy online, ship to store” and “buy online, pick up in-store” in the next 12 months.

While the importance of order management as the centerpiece of successful omnichannel retailing is being recognized, many solutions approach the order management equation through a purely operational lens. To date, retailers have invested millions into processes and technologies that are primarily focused on improving the efficiency of the order management lifecycle by optimizing inventory productivity.

With all this emphasis on getting inventory from point A to B efficiently, we could expect the industry would be flush with profits. Unfortunately, research indicates otherwise. Last year, Aptos and EKN Research investigated how much order management is costing today’s retailers. The survey results were downright shocking.

Despite significant efforts by many retailers to optimize profits throughout the order lifecycle, the

research found that retailers spend, on average, 18 percent of online sales getting orders into the hands of shoppers. That 18 percent is in addition to the cost of goods, the cost of marketing, and the cost to maintain/manage the website, among other expenses.

To compound the problem, while most retailers have tried (and largely failed) to make order management more profitable, they also haven’t always done right by the customer. While the priority to date for order management has been on getting inventory from point A to point B, many have overlooked the art and science of getting goods to point C – the customer.

To evaluate retailers’ efforts to optimize the omnichannel order lifecycle experience, Aptos commissioned a second study – this time with Retail Systems Research. The results showed retailers’ use of order management to support the customer experience were equally lackluster: Only 12 percent indicate that their omnichannel operations are differentiating, while 16 percent indicate their operations are inefficient or inconsistent, at best.

Just 52 percent provide internal inventory visibility across sales channels.

Barely half (51 percent) offered online shoppers visibility to in-store inventory.

Somewhat shockingly, only 48 percent of retailers track customer satisfaction with store fulfillment processes.

Most surprisingly, only 48 percent had the ability to take, edit or view orders across multiple channels.

These struggles highlight several questions, chiefly: Given these tallies, how many shopping journeys end in disappointment?

Clearly given the need for retailers to serve an increasingly empowered consumer base through exceptional seamless customer experiences, inventory productivity can no longer be the sole focus in the order management equation. While retailers should do everything they can to manage costs and streamline supply networks, customer experience must also be a priority throughout the order management lifecycle. If not, then we are just giving lip service to putting the customer first, and in the long run, profits won’t matter if we disappoint and alienate shoppers.

Placing profits ahead of the customer experience isn’t enough to retain shopper loyalty, and a course

correction is now required for any retailer hoping to remain agile enough to keep pace with shifting customer demands. As a result, EOM requires a new approach where order management processes anticipate, adapt and align to shifting customer expectations, rather than supply-centric processes that are focused on optimal inventory productivity.

Putting the customer first in the order management equation to enable seamless customer experiences – no matter where, when or how customers shop requires a singular commerce platform that integrates every part of the enterprise.

For omnichannel retailers, this entails integrating order management to the point of sale (POS) and customer relationship management (CRM) solutions to create interconnected experiences. This will empower shoppers with personalized and integrated choices that are rich with the flexibility they expect. Additionally, this brings clarity to retailers by providing a 360-degree-view of their customers, completed orders and pending orders at every customer touch point – POS, e-commerce and the call center. Only with all this interconnectivity in place, can retailers maximize their chances of converting and keeping customers.

Once order management systems are aligned to support a customer-first focus, retailers can then develop strategies to optimize profits within the context of what best serves the customer. What’s more, they can shift their focus from integration to innovation in customer experience. Retailers will be able to conduct omnichannel shopping journey mapping and craft experiences that offer value to the customer. For example, a customer who realizes a sudden storm is headed to their final travel destination can order inclement weather gear online on the plane and have it delivered to their hotel. The possibilities to delight and win over the customer with highly relevant and personalized experiences are endless once the right systems and integrations are in place.

The current period of disruption in the retail sector offers tremendous opportunity, but the stakes are high. Without a doubt, the upcoming holiday season will accentuate retail customer experience leaders and laggards and all the omnichannel “oopses.”

With enterprise order management in place and in use to empower the customer, retailers can better address every touchpoint from point A to, what matters most, point C – the customer.

Shane Desrochers is the vice president of digital commerce and retail analytics at Aptos.

Design and

DEVELOPMENT

Accessibility Considerations for the Modern Digital Designer

By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

The ideas behind “universal design” and “accessibility,” two topics central to the Web experience today, provide digital workers with guidelines and principles that allow content and design to be easily consumed by all users, regardless of their abilities, natural traits or limitations.

Designers that enable their users to more accurately perceive, understand, navigate, interact with and contribute to the Web, are those embracing the principles behind universal design and accessibility, but they must do so without alienating the rest of the ’Net population. While Web accessibility as a topic and concept has traditionally been concerned with allowing users with disabilities to access the Web, its presence also impacts everyone else whether they know it or not.

Let’s explore some of the issues that must be addressed in order for products to not just be design-ready for all visitors and meet the minimum accessibility stands in Section 508 and the WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), but surpass them. Keep in mind that while there is no guarantee enterprises that focus their attention on improving accessibility will experience a higher level and volume of conversions, there is some obvious correlation.

Realize that abiding by these standards is not meant to be a barrier to creative self-realization and innovation, or a panacea for all that ails a digital property.

This guidance is not to temper designers’ enthusiasm or force them into making ugly, plain, boring websites and applications. Rather, they are simply reasonable constraints in which those sensitive to the nuances of the customer experience can and should work if the aim is to optimize accessibility. Ultimately, designers should not design for designers but rather the users that use their products, consume their information and interact with the experience they create.

Think Beyond Color How many times have you come across a form, completed one field incorrectly, and could not for the digital life of you figure out which one it was? It’s quite common and not just among those that are visually impaired in some way. The light red of an error message can be easily overlooked. Imagine having a color vision deficiency (color blindness), for example, and experiencing a mobile form (see images). It’s easy to see how difficult it would be, so designers should consider using more than just color to highlight or complement what is already visible – for example, showing an arrow icon or asterisk along with descriptive, useful helper and error text (in red) to indicate what field is in an error state and causing the problem with submission.

Leverage Visual Descriptions Digital experiences that drive interaction are often those with many different types of content formats – from text to images. Providing a visual text description (information) about images (charts or graphs for example) will facilitate consumption by users that are unable to view those (e.g., people using screen readers) as well as those users requiring additional context. Fortunately, most content management and e-commerce systems provide, by default, the ability to create and customize image meta data in a manageable way.

Learn more about how today’s brands are managing their visual assets to maximize each user experience at wsm.co/vismgmt.

Reduce Distraction The “bells and whistles” that businesses often request often get in the way of creating a truly accessible Web experience. Simplifying overly complex navigation and reducing unnecessary options (which often manifest in the form of text and hyperlinks) doesn’t just make it easier for those with actual visual impairments but also those without as it reduces the choices they must make and helps them avoid decision paralysis.

Discover a list of the most common digital design distractions at wsm.co/destract.

Accessibility is For Everyone Ultimately the WCAG aims to make digital assets more perceivable, operable, understandable and robust and with some consideration in the development phase, it’s not that complicated for designers to develop websites that are not just more useful for those with visual impairments but a more immersive one for all users of the Web.

ACCESSIBILITY CHECKLIST FOR DIGITAL EXPERIENCE DESIGNERS Provides transcripts and captions (for audio and video), enabling users to consume content based on their ability and personal preference Avoids complex color schemes and uses colors with high contrasts to help elements stand out from one another Defines alt-attributes for every visual asset (images, infographics, animations) in order to describe the function and action taking place Uses clear and consistent navigation Ensures all mouse actions can be completed with a keyboard alone Uses properly formatted headings to structure pages, using the appropriate order and not skipping heading levels Avoids or limits blinking/flashing content to a maximum of three seconds Establishes a clear hierarchy, placing important information higher and following a predictable flow to help users focus their attention and navigate more easily Labels form fields and buttons clearly and in a logical reading order Includes tables with both column and row headers to ensure a proper reading order Formats lists properly for both assistive technologies and mobile devices so they present information as it is meant to be consumed Makes hyperlinks noticeable (large enough on mobile and desktop devices to be controlled with ease) and located in an obvious position Uses link text that indicates the destination to the user Avoids the use of justified copy, and uses left-aligned copy with 50-70 characters per line for optimum readability Requires only accessible software and applications and shuts no user out

Mastering

SEARCH

4 Developments Shaping Google SEO in 2017

By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

Search engine optimization (SEO) is increasing in sophistication each and every day, and 2017 (now just a couple months away) stands to be the most complicated in the history of the practice.

The keyword research, link acquisition and content development practices employed by SEO professionals remain immensely important, of course, but influencing rank/position on search engines (specifically Google, which accounts for roughly 64 percent of core search traffic according to a 2016 Comscore report) will require a great deal more than that.

In the month’s Mastering Search column in Website Magazine, let’s take a closer look at some recent developments at Google, which greatly impact the digital industry and search engine optimization professionals, as well as how they approach marketing in the natural/organic results in 2017.

Real-Time Penguin Google announced an update that will reduce the time sites owners (and SEOs) have to wait if they were negatively impacted by the Penguin algorithm.

For the unfamiliar, Google’s Penguin algorithm (introduced in April 2012) was designed to better catch sites spamming search results through a process of buying links or acquiring them through 22

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participation in link networks as a means to increase their search rankings.

The new “real-time” Penguin, announced on the Google Webmaster Blog in Oct. 2016, is the search engine’s first update in two years and differs from the previous version in two important ways.

First, the Penguin algorithm is now part of the core algorithm (which has more than 200 signals at present, learn what they are at wsm.co/rank200).

Moving from a filter to a core part of the algorithm means that Google can operate Penguin in real-time. In the past, those sites affected by Penguin were periodically refreshed at the same time. That left many waiting around for the update to take place, which was obviously problematic for those that spent time improving their sites. With data now refreshed in real-time, changes will be visible faster. Google suggested that changes could take effect shortly after it recrawls and reindexes a page.

The second significant development noted by Google is that Penguin is now more granular. This means that Penguin now devalues spam by adjusting ranking based on spam signals, rather than affecting ranking of the whole site (meaning Google can devalue a specific page and not the entire website).

For those SEOs that concentrate their efforts on creating the best possible website and digital experience for users, these changes should not mean

much, but can provide them some confidence that if things do go wrong, they won’t need to wait an extended period of time for a fix.

Reasoning with RankBrain Ever since Google notified the Web world about its move to RankBrain, question after question has been asked about how it works and what, precisely, it will impact.

RankBrain is essentially a method used by Google to understand (through artificial intelligence) more about the queries it receives. Often, the search terms and phrases entered by end-users are quite ambiguous (there are even, as impossible as it may seem, search queries that Google hasn’t seen before) and it can be difficult to understand what the user really, actually wants.

The introduction of RankBrain, which is now used on a large percentage of search queries the engine sees each day, aims to correct that rather significant problem by using artificial intelligence to “guess” what searchers mean – just like a human might do.

What does this mean for a company’s SEO campaigns? SEOs should know that RankBrain doesn’t necessarily add any new ranking signals but, depending on the query, it may weigh the existing signals differently (so it won’t impact crawling or indexing).

As always, if an SEO is focused on providing content to users that fulfills their information, education or entertainment needs, not much needs to be done.

AMP Adoption Google integrates results from its Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project into its search results (specifically the “Top Stories” carousel in mobile results), and in Aug. 2016 began displaying links to AMP pages in the main organic search results as well.

With approximately 150 million indexed documents already in its index and Google indicating its giving preference to these pages, it’s time for SEOs to concentrate on using the system within their optimization initiatives. Adoption of AMP, however, has been somewhat slow moving.

A study released by SEO PowerSuite in late April 2016 showed that just 18 percent had deeply researched the AMP Project, which means few had begun utilizing it. That has likely changed, of course, as Google recently began expanding AMP to new con-

tent verticals and offering updates that help publishers optimize the experience.

The AMP Project announced a beta for a new AMP component this past summer, for example, that updates page content dynamically (without additional navigation or reload required). And in late September, Google confirmed that AMP was rolling out in the core mobile results. Google is obviously concentrating its efforts on the project and it’s starting to show.

Google now has over 600 million AMP documents in its index, covering retail (e.g., eBay and Shopify), travel (Skyscanner), recipe (Cybercook) and general knowledge (Wikihow, Reddit) from websites all over the world.

Information Wealth Google’s long-stated mission of organizing the world’s information and making it universally accessible is seen in great detail through its Knowledge Graph, and search engine optimization professionals would be wise to optimize for the shifts in consumer demand and the interactions that users now experience on the search results.

The Knowledge Graph is essentially a knowledge base used by Google to enhance its search engine’s results with semantic-search information gathered from a wide variety of sources (like Wikidata – to which Google moves its Freebase data). While only a few select sites will be able to earn a Knowledge Graph listing, there are many other ways for content to stand out on the search results pages such as optimizing titles and using rich markup.

Optimizing for the expectation that answers will be provided within the results pages is a paradigm shift of rather epic proportions. Those SEOs that understand how to optimize in the age of personalization and instant answers are those positioned for the greatest level of success in 2017 and beyond.

Ready for the New Year?

Search engine optimization professionals would be wise to realize that much of what has been addressed here they will have little control over (how Google interprets queries for example, or the degree of preference the search engine shows in its index for pages built with AMP components). They can however concentrate on providing users the best and fastest experience possible.

RankBrain Facts Are you prepared for AI and machine learning factors within SEO? Read more at wsm.co/rbfacts16.

Collaborative & Curated

SOCIAL MEDIA

By Amberly Dressler, Managing Editor

The everyday conceptualizing, creating and circulating of content for social media can become monotonous for marketers responsible for this critical marketing channel. Should progress slow and performance falter, however, it will force brands to ask the question: Is it time to give up on social? In some ways, the answer is yes, but only in favor of a more collaborative and curated approach.

Does Ad Blocking Impact Social?

With organic reach dwindling, brands are turning to social advertising in droves. Ad blockers, however, are threatening the practice. Learn more at wsm.co/socialblock.

While it may seem harmless for a social media manager to be on auto pilot in respect to what he or she shares – content type, format and scheduling of posts, videos and promotions – the opposite is true. There are a number of problems marketers face when trying to acquire and retain an audience of customers, users and followers on social media today and brands that choose to stick with the same strategies will have a more difficult time improving organic reach, taking on ad blockers (see sidebar), increasing engagement and, finally, showing real returns from the channel.

Even though many of the efforts made by today’s social media managers appear weak at best, it’s not time to give up on social media but rather relinquish sole control of the channel. With a more collaborative and curated social media management style, advocates and influencers can provide fresher ideas, greater reach and better results.

PUNCHING THE SOCIAL CLOCK The way in which many organizations manage their social media stems from a near decade-old notion that social media is essentially a free marketing channel. As such, people vol-

unteered or were “volun-told” to manage a company’s social efforts (typically Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn). These arrangements remain in effect across many businesses (the alternative being hiring an agency or dedicated social media manager), which explains the few hours a week that companies are allocating to social.

The most recent industry snapshot from Social Media Examiner indicates 34 percent of organizations (large and small) are still spending only 1-5 hours a week on social media management – meaning they have carved out time from their primary roles to manage the same top networks, using the same-old strategies – neither of which bodes well for capitalizing on this channel.

There is little room for growth in this approach; little time to adjust strategies or explore emerging networks; little time to create new campaigns; and little time to make better decisions, which can often lead to no decision.

What is required in this new era of social media – where paying to play is becoming increasingly common – is a more collaborative and curated style and approach. Luckily, there are many software solutions allowing brands to give up social in favor of a more measurable and effective practice.

Popular Pays is a marketplace for finding these types of influencers. The platform “connects brands with stories to tell and the content creators who’ll help them tell it.” In exchange for posting about brands on Instagram, “creators” get free products or cash.

Popcorn brand Skinny Pop, for instance, selected creators for a campaign that showed off #SkinnyPopLove to followers: “how, when and why” they love SkinnyPop Popcorn, shared in their own unique style.

When the campaign ended, there were 30 total participants who created 90 pieces of content (see image). The posts reach 2,918,936 people for 698 comments and 38,810 likes – as the result of a collaborative and curated social experience.

REACHING AN AUDIENCE Organic reach is crippling under the weight of algorithm updates designed to limit brand exposure (developed in the name of user experience, of course) and help networks sell more ads. There will soon be nothing left for brands relying on organic posts to reach audiences within Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – all of which now have highly refined “quality” filters. A creative approach is required, yet marketers are already under time constraints balancing their many existing responsibilities. Enter: influencers.

Popular Pays The chances are slim of opening up Instagram (and increasingly Snapchat) and not seeing a celebrity (or pseudo-celebrity), athlete or blogger promoting weight loss programs, drinks, apparel, subscription boxes or other merchandise. Bringing on influencers to share a company’s message is smart in many ways – and not just for those in B2C markets. For one, Instagram’s algorithm (in both its feed and stories) filters what users see – relying on engagement signals to prioritize posts. Companies with low engagement prior to the algorithm release likely have even lower engagement after it (wsm.co/postalgo), yet many influencers still enjoy the reach that networks once provided the rest of us since they’re actively sought after by each network’s users and often yield far higher reach than a brand could achieve alone.

What’s more, Forrester reports that consumers engage with 11.4 pieces of content prior to a purchase, which means influencers can be used to complement a brand’s messages rather than control it – a collaborative approach.

The Popular Pays platform connects brands to influencers who share their messages in exchange for cash or free products.

These campaign types work because they fit the channel they are on (aka native advertising). Even great content will not resonate with an audience if it’s seen as out of place by a social network’s users according to Popular Pays CEO Corbett Drummey. He believes the biggest benefit to influencer marketing is handing the brand story over to someone else to tell (also a perk for time-strapped marketers).

“People believe it more since it’s authentic, and we’ve seen that in the data everywhere from increased engagement, brand lift and conversion,” said Drummey. “Brands are often pleasantly surprised when they see the ways that creators use their products in everyday life. It’s refreshing to hear that side of the story.”

These native ad formats, however, are catching the eye of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), so companies have to be mindful of the approach and methods they adopt.

“We pay very close attention to the FTC,” said Drummey. “It’s important that we’re informed on current regulations and communicate that to our community of creators and our brands. We have buy in from our community as they’re just as concerned with transparency with their audiences as we are. The platform also has some checks in place to ensure compliance. Every creator’s post and caption prior to posting is given a stamp of approval from the brand.”

To remain compliant, businesses should require transparency like using the #ad hashtag within influencers’ posts while also keeping an eye on new capabilities within Instagram and its parent company Facebook, which leverage influencer marketing’s popularity and effectiveness.

Direct Selling Instagram currently does not offer a native way to shop directly within the app. If a person is interested in a product or service promoted by an influencer, they can typically tap on the image to see which brands are tagged, go to their profile and then visit the link in their bio. It’s a workaround that needs improvement. Instagram has made upgrades in this regard but within paid media where calls-to-action (CTAs) like “shop now” or “download now” are more prominent in the news feed ads and also carry over when a person goes to a company’s profile.

Startups also exist that curate and provide links within popular Instagrammers’ posts, but in a way, says Bigcommerce Group Product Manager Nate Stewart, Facebook and Instagram are unseating these startups by doing it themselves.

Product tags, for instance, are currently being tested by Facebook. For the unfamiliar, they offer the ability to tag an image with the product and make it purchasable. While still in its infancy, Stewart expects this feature to play a big role in social commerce particularly when it comes to content curation. If an influencer is wearing items, eating food or visiting a location that a person is interested in, very soon that user will be able to buy or book the product directly within the app.

Currently, however, select brands (Pages with a shop section, which is still a feature being tested) will have to share an Instagram post on Facebook in order to tag the products.

Two significant advancements by Facebook and partners (like Bigcommerce) are in how they process and support the actual completion of social orders internally or externally. Bigcommerce merchants, for instance, can either direct checkouts to their e-commerce site from their Facebook Shop or, and this is new, use Facebook Checkout to allow shoppers to complete their orders natively within Facebook (via PayPal and powered by the Braintree gateway). The ability for retailers to tag products in influencers’ photos and complete the checkout directly within Facebook (and seemingly Instagram in the future) is significant when we know just how well influencer marketing works.

The Google Effect on Social Selling Elana Anderson, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for commerce cloud at Demandware, predicts when Google fully launches its purchase capabilities that the industry will start to see huge adoption of social commerce. And we’re seeing it already.

Read more at wsm.co/socialbuy16.

Better Social Exchanges If authentic social media engagement is your goal, consider: Hosting a Twitter chat - wsm.co/chatweet Refocusing on the 80-20 rule - wsm.co/80social Encouraging more user-generated content - wsm.co/ugcnow Creating Instagram Stories - wsm.co/istories Publishing Facebook Live videos - wsm.co/goliveonfb Getting started with Snapchat - wsm.co/brandsnap Buying Snapchat filters - wsm.co/sellsnap

Bigcommerce brings value to retailers interested in social commerce by simplifying selling across a number of different channels (syncing product catalogs) like Facebook and Pinterest (and even Amazon) while managing inventory and order processing through a single interface – the Bigcommerce dashboard. With that, merchants can convert more sales without requiring any additional work on the back-end.

The increasing popularity of automatic product feeds, native checkout capabilities, influencer marketing and content curation make a strong case for where the industry is heading – minimizing the intervention needed by brands to manage social media.

Activating Advocates Social media managers have their pick of tools to identify their most engaged customers (e.g., SocialRank) and locate industry influencers (e.g., Popular Pays, BuzzSumo, Followerwonk), but the best advocates may be who they speak to every day or casually pass by in the hall – their coworkers. Dedicated employees are often the people who most staunchly contribute to, defend, and eagerly promote a company’s products or services. Enter: employee advocacy.

There are many benefits to employee advocacy programs: (1) they likely won’t fall under FTC jurisdiction; (2) they are suitable for all industries (particularly as many offerings, like

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those mentioned above, cater to retailers); (3) they can increase the organic reach and engagement marketers so desperately covet; (4) they may appear more authentic than the previously mentioned native advertising types; and (5) they will help managers beat the social fatigue and lackluster decision-making that goes along with everyday management of this channel.

Since there is very little chance that a company’s employees are not already actively engaged on social media throughout their workday (Bambu by Sprout Social indicates 7 in 10 people check social networks while at work), brands should harness the advocacy power that this user group can offer.

Despite so many benefits, employee advocacy programs have been slow to take off, and marketers are partly to blame – isolating their social media efforts to retain control in the name of consistent brand messaging. This attitude has resulted in nearly 60 percent of people saying they aren’t given ample guidance from their marketing department on how and when to advocate for their brand (Bambu, 2016).

The status quo of employee advocacy has to change as people are 16 times more likely to read a post from a friend than from a brand themselves (Bambu, 2016). Employee advocacy programs can also provide on-brand collaborative environments that are mutually beneficial to the employee and employer relationship.

Enterprises like Deloitte and Nissan have found the solution for mobilizing their staff within SMARP, a Web and mobile app.

With SMARP, admins include the content they want employees to post. Staff members then go to the dashboard, find something they want to share and click (suggested copy and hashtags are included but can be edited). Using the pulls of gamification, employees accrue points for each share, which are tallied in a company-wide leaderboard and can be redeemed for swag or other rewards.

Social media managers are drawn to offerings like SMARP because they aren’t entirely giving away the house – letting employees post whatever they want on their behalf. Rather, they select content for employees to circulate within their networks (particularly important for regulated industries) while still giving staff members some control by letting them select which content and adjusting the copy of their Users of SMARP’s employee advocacy program can choose which pre-selected content they want posts/tweets to their role and style. To increase parto share on their employer’s behalf.

How to Use UGC From emails to product pages, the content that users develop on a brand’s behalf can be curated to move the needle for companies. Discover several companies offering this capability for retailers at wsm.co/usingugc. ticipation, the content that is fed into the SMARP dashboard should be valuable for the individual, their network and the company. SMARP Co-founder and COO Mikael Lauharanta says providing value to all three is key.

SMARP pulls together all the fundamentals of social media today: providing engaging content (often curated), allowing influencers to share it to increase reach and calculating the return on those efforts. It’s community driven, it’s curated and it’s proven to work.

Admin users can access the company’s analytics, which shows a breakdown of clicks and calculated earned media value (how much money they would have spent if they promoted posts, used LinkedIn advertising, etc.). Companies know how much they pay for SMARP and can see how much they would have paid to get the same reach. This is where many marketers today, however, typically end their social calculations. SMARP helps them go a step further (like everyone should) and feeds the data into the company’s website analytics provider of choice and by using UTM tags allows brands to see how long visitors spent on the site, which pages they visited, and if they completed any goals or conversions like applied for a position or bought something (learn more at wsm.co/calcsocial).

Employee advocacy programs help employees boost individual goals: sales can make more sales, HR can make more hires and content creators can get more page views.

Calculating return, increasing reach and better automating social media tasks – the trifecta of social media today.

HANDS-OFF? NOT ENTIRELY Companies have stories to tell and products to sell, so they want current and potential customers to listen now and in the future. Social media presents the near-perfect opportunity to exchange those messages and build brand loyalty, but increasingly companies are required to pay for placement and battle their own (and their users’) heightened fatigue of the channel. By leveraging influencers, getting more user-generated content, and keeping shoppers/ buyers/users on the platform of their choice, brands will position themselves to social success. This type of collaborative approach to social media isn’t entirely hands-off, however, as this strategy requires that brands keep an ear to the digital ground to monitor mentions and adjust their approach accordingly.

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Insights on

ANALYTICS

Easy Steps to Develop Buyer Personas for Your Target Audience

By Derek Miller, CopyPress

More companies than ever are starting to understand the value of customer personas.

Instead of targeting a certain demographic or large group of people, personas allow a company to know exactly who customers are and how they behave. Persona development often dives much deeper than age, income and interests. Today, marketers look at path to purchase, position within a company, and other insights into buying motivation and power. Here’s how to build audience personas to use in marketing materials.

START WITH ANALYTICS

Next Steps: Outreach and Content Once buyer personas have been identified, strategies need to be implemented to turn these browsers into buyers. Read more at wsm.co/buyers16.

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The best way to identify target audiences and create personas is through analytics solutions and platforms like those from Google, Coremetrics and Adobe. Marketers can even use social media data such as that supplied by Facebook Insights if it provides the information they need.

With these tools, companies have access to almost unlimited data no matter what demographics they use to segment their audiences. Marketers may want to start with age and gender to better understand who is interested in their products, or they might filter by locations to understand where their audience is coming from. After all, an outdoor apparel retailer will have different personas for customers in Florida than for those in Colorado.

There are many other defining segments that can also be helpful. Companies using Google Analytics, for example, can sort customers by interest (e.g., shopping, crafting or travel), average order value, and even the time and path taken to purchase. The latter has become .com

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one of the most prominent tools for creating personas.

By using this information, companies can learn about the type of customer who buys almost immediately versus those who take a few days/weeks to convert.

COMPARE EXISTING PERSONAS WITH YOUR IDEAL ONES Keep in mind that analytics solutions will give an accurate depiction of who comes to a website and buys, regardless of whether or not they fit into the target persona. Many companies that target ideal personas in their advertising (from CEOs and VPs to college students and recent grads) are surprised to learn that their advertising targets are often different from their actual customers. They might be getting the sales numbers they want, but it’s because their brand actually appeals to an unintended audience.

Analytics solutions can be used as a wake-up call for a marketing department. Companies might want to create two different segments with this data: the customer who’s currently buying and the customer whom they want to target. Once these personas have been identified, brands can create marketing materials to see how they respond.

MAP OUT THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY IN YOUR SALES FUNNEL As businesses start building their personas, they should make the most of them by mapping out their journey in the sales funnel. Which personas take longer to buy, and why? What information do they lack, and how can the brand provide it? Companies should not try to shorten a consumer’s journey, but rather understand it so they can set marketing strategies and goals around them.

Understanding a customer’s journey is a critical step in the sales process and often leads to successful merchandising and marketing initiatives. Understanding how consumers work their way through a company’s sales funnel will help brands structure their marketing in-store and online to best match each particular persona.

For example, a persona might take one to two months before buying – researching one day, reading reviews a few days later, comparing a company’s products against its peers’ a week later and eventually buying.

Taking care of the interest part is easy, but the information aspect is harder. To solve this, marketers want to create in-depth guides, testimonials and comparison content for their blog so that all questions are answered and trust is built – on the customer’s pace.

Derek Miller is a content marketing consultant for CopyPress, which is a leading digital content production company, specializing in articles, infographics, interactives and videos.

Net

ADVERTISING

DFSA and the Not-So-Subtle Hint that PPC is Changing

By Ryan Larkin, Power Digital Marketing

In essence, brands are now able to layer demographics (age and gender) over their search campaigns in the same way they leverage RLSA (remarketing lists for search ads) as bid only. There are also many other features that you may or may not have noticed Google rolling out that are equally audience-centric.

What DFSA and these changes provide AdWords users is the ability to spend their budget better (e.g., smarter) and more accurately target core demographics. For many, this is a no-brainer as companies can use this to zero in on their key audience. For instance, non-branded terms that may once have been budget busters could all of a sudden be a top source of return. Campaigns that hit their daily budget cap can now spend their allotted money more wisely and accrue more impression share.

There are similarities to RLSA in its ability to isolate a group of users to serve ads more accurately using multiple targeting criteria. And this is precisely the direction Google AdWords is headed: audience-centric.

Year of Audiences

This year thus far has been the year of audiences for AdWords. Many are now leveraging RLSA for product listing ads (PLAs) – although an older function by now, still relevant to 2016 – and have started to see and use similar audiences in the Google Display Network. What’s more, Google representatives have been pushing RLSA harder than ever before, Demographics for Search Ads has pushed the envelope, and signs point to being able to use similar audiences for Search Ads in the not-so-distant future.

This is the most movement from Google since Enhanced Campaigns rolled out in 2013, and it comes at a time when the landscape has really called for change. If you’ve been in the industry for the last few years, you’ve probably noticed (depending on the client and industry) increasingly higher cost per clicks

(CPCs), increasingly lower conversion rates (CVRs) and overall, a more challenging environment to get positive results in.

The competitive landscape is becoming more and more crowded with new companies and in-turn, the industry leaders increase their bids/budgets in an attempt to drown out the would-be threats. This is why RLSA has been so effective – it isolates a more qualified audience and makes it possible to bid up to match the competition. Advertisers can afford to bid up here because the quality of click is theoretically higher.

The problem with this is that advertisers are extremely limited by one factor: how many people have visited their site. Google’s RLSA experiment was an incredibly successful one, and marketers saw amazing results. However, as with the inherent problem of the above limitation, it is only possible to get so many conversions utilizing this strategy. Ergo: DFSA.

Google’s New Experiment

Unlike RLSA, it is not necessary to rely on a pre-set pool of site visitors. The new audience is a demographic-based group of users who potentially have no idea who an advertiser is or what their brand does. Their click is still more valuable because of the demographic qualifier.

Powerful? Yes. This is exactly what Google needed to do. Gone are the days when advertisers can casually generate non-branded clicks at less than $1.50 in a somewhat competitive e-commerce environment.

Digital marketers needed help staying ROI positive, and DFSA among other upcoming AdWords betas are Google’s answers to the plight.

Welcomed Change

If you are currently running AdWords campaigns, heed these words: change is not coming, it is here – and it is good.

Ryan Larkin is a paid media account manager at Power Digital Marketing, a San Diego-based Internet marketing agency.

“

This is more movement we’ve had from Google since Enhanced Campaigns rolled out in 2013.

“

Demographics for Search Ads (DFSA) has been a welcomed addition to many advertisers’ arsenal of tricks.

Conversion

CORNER

Optimizing Fears for Higher Website Conversions

By Martin Greif, SiteTuners

On a salad, you need to balance the amount of dressing you use. Too little, and the salad tastes bland. Too much, and all you can taste is dressing. Replace salad with websites and dressing with fears, and you’ve got pretty much the same balancing act at work.

expensive site). The hot trigger – the buy button, tied to a timer – can help brands close at a much, much higher rate.

This is especially useful as a counter to the industry trend of high cart abandonment rates. By adding a deadline to the mix, marketers are giving themselves a better shot at getting the sale.

On a website, if marketers want people to convert, they need to play around with the optimal amount of fear – ensuring that fear works in their favor and nudges visitors to act. Marketers also need to make sure that there’s more to see on their websites than fear-based triggers, and that users don’t experience the wrong kinds of fears.

To optimize the use of fear on a site, brands need to understand the way users experience different types of fears.

Useful Fear Two: 1 non-smoking room left A cousin of offer validity, the configuration play is also a useful type of fear.

The idea is that visitors will convert sooner based on two things:

Useful Fear One: This offer is only valid until today There are good types of fears that move users toward a goal, and bad types of fears that keep websites from converting. Offer validity falls squarely on the former; used correctly, it can help nudge people who are on the fence to act before leaving the website.

The principle behind this is rooted heavily in BJ Fogg’s behavior model, which essentially says brands need to put hot triggers in front of motivated people. Marketers need to work on both motivations and triggers, and offer validity helps quite a bit with triggers.

When people are uncertain about something, fear of loss (in this case, loss of the product or service that’s available for a short time) is a better motivator than potential gains (more savings from another, potentially less

Now, this is especially useful in particular industries.

Airlines have a pretty convincing play, for example, with “12 aisle seats left.” Hotels obviously have a ton of things they can test as well around the sizes of rooms available in smoking and non-smoking. Car rentals have pretty good leverage here, too.

Even with actual physical products, though, the configuration play can still be tested and used – colors available for a certain period, and various other configurations and specifications can get people to act sooner when used correctly.

Forever 21 uses offer validity to get more people to convert.

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There’s a specific configuration available that they want

The configuration is in demand, and limited

This product detail page visually highlights ‘Signature Edition’ to nudge customers to act soon, as this particular variety will not be available for a long time.

Useful Fear Three: 4 items in stock Robert Cialdini, author of what is pretty much seen in the industry as the gold standard in persuasion (“Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion”), notes there are six core persuasion principles: liking, social proof, commitment, authority, reciprocity and scarcity. They are all useful, but the one marketers can apply to balance user fears is scarcity.

Now, brands can’t generate scarcity; or at least they can’t do that solely by changing their site. There are a host of factors at play, including how a company stores items, how it manages its supply chain and inventory, how it controls price points and so forth.

What marketers can do is experiment with the different ways they emphasize scarcity. Brands can highlight that there are only a certain number of stock left.

They can experiment with the positioning of how they display that information, and making that the second or third most important element of the page, next to the product image and the call-to-action. If brands experiment until they get the balance right, scarcity can be one of their most useful tactics.

Anthropologie lets customers know they have to act fast if they want their order delivered in time for Christmas.

Bad Fear 1: Transaction Worries Not all fears move visitors to conversion. One fear visitors have is about the transaction itself. If marketers can’t get users to trust the site enough to transact, they’ll leave even if there’s something they want. Brands need to display trust symbols above the fold and ensure their professional design alleviates those fears.

Walmart applies the scarcity principle by showing how many items are left in stock until it sells out.

Useful Fear 4: Deliver this in time for Christmas Thus far, the fears described in this article have been internal. The offer of the website expires today. The company has 4 items in stock. There are only 19 aisle seats available from the airline. To the user, there are a host of external fears at play. Some people want to have flowers delivered on Valentine ’s Day. Others will want to have presents ready for Christmas. People fear missing those dates. The fear is already there – what marketers need to do is convince them that by using their site, they will get the item when they need it. To maximize this, brands need to test how they display delivery times, especially for holidays.

Bad Fear 2: Hidden Costs Another bad form of fear is around hidden costs. Pricing and shipping costs need to be displayed immediately. People fear being suckered into a purchase that’s more expensive than they initially bargained for, and some will leave even if they’re fairly deep into the funnel if this fear isn’t addressed.

Putting It All Together Fear is something that is tough to balance on a website, but those who do manage to put in the right amount of scares tend to win long term.

Other Side of Fear

Martin Greif brings 25-plus years of sales and marketing experience to SiteTuners where he is responsible for driving revenue growth, establishing and nurturing partner relationships and creating value for its broad customer base.

Learn how humor can work to increase conversions at wsm.co/crohumor.

Software

EVERYWHERE

Resources to Build Your First Chatbot

By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

You can’t open up your browser these days without hearing something about chatbots.

Many consider artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, manifesting in the form of chatbots, the next great evolution of digital business (and pretty much all business for that matter).

Chatbots leverage artificial intelligence to chat with users and answer any questions they ask. They function in a number of different ways, and can help users resolve problems, provide information and even help perform some basic tasks.

While the prospects can be both exciting and frightening for many (particularly those in the customer service realm), and the technology itself is still somewhat rudimentary in most cases, the potential is most certainly there. The savviest enterprises are doing all they can to get involved in the development of their own bot offerings (Google, Facebook, Slack).

It is unlikely, of course, that most enterprises will have the resources available to staff a team of AI experts and invest in the appropriate machine learning technologies to capitalize on the trend, but there are numerous solutions available to make the release of a chatbot an actual reality. Let’s take a closer look at some of the solutions Web professionals will discover as they research the opportunity.

guidance solution for their users. The NanoRep platform imports content from website FAQs, knowledge bases and external sources. Developers looking for even more might want to consider a platform such as API.ai, however.

While it too offers conversational Facebook Messenger bot (similar to ChatFuel and Botsify), the API.ai platform goes far beyond to provide one of the leading conversational user experience (UX) opportunities, working with wearables, mobile applications, smart televisions, automotive and more.

Developers will be drawn to API.ai’s long list of integrations and features.

Cashing In On the Chatbot Craze As digital professionals seek out an appropriate chatbot platform for their enterprise, they will encounter numerous perfectly viable offerings, and the aforementioned solutions are just a few (although they are often considered the cream of the virtual crop).

When evaluating the right solution for your enterprise, consider features and integrations (capabilities) as well as price. Some other popular solutions include KitBot, Init.ai, Botkit from Howdy.ai, Beep Boop, PandoraBots and Rebot.me.

Is your enterprise capitalizing on the chatbot craze?

Are you considering doing so? Let us know by tweeting us @WebsiteMagazine.

ChatFuel A free and increasingly popular chatbot platform for Facebook Messenger and Telegram used by many well-known brands including Uber and others. Integrates with many popular services (e.g., Twitter and Instagram) and offers AI that understands and answers basic user requests. Two similar (in that they are designed for Facebook Messenger), but somewhat more restrictive and less powerful offerings to consider include Botsify and Smooch.

NanoRep A very robust offering with loads of features catering to those enterprises seeking a far more personalized 34

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The NanoRep support bot (top) is built to handle user scenarios and customer inquiries while ChatFuel (bottom) is a WYSIWYG bot creator.

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Mobile

MATTERS App Store Optimization

The Best Chance to Be the Next Mobile Hit

By Fabien-Pierre Nicolas, App Annie

As cost paid per user stands well over $3 for the majority of apps, marketers and publishers are seeking ways to attract new audiences.

app. It is common, but risky, to go off intuition for an app’s keywords; a smart optimization strategy anchored in data, however, can truly boost an app’s discoverability through organic search.

The first place to look is within the app store itself. In fact, more than 65 percent of all downloads on the iOS App Store still come from search, according to Apple.

Competition is fierce in the app economy, however, with 2 million-plus apps in the iOS App Store and 2.5 million on Google Play. Given these numbers, how can companies make their application stand out?

Unless an app is already topping the charts, a welldefined and executed app store optimization (ASO) strategy is crucial to success in today’s app economy.

ASO is not a set-it-and-forget-it tactic, though.

Continual monitoring and refinement are required to meet two key objectives:

THE KEYWORD SWEET SPOT

Discoverability - How easy it is for users to find an app within the app store. This is affected by keywords, app categorization, ranking within categories and being featured, which provides a significant early boost.

Keyword optimization is both an art and a science.

It takes creativity backed with quantitative analysis.

Two key metrics should help guide keyword strategy: search volume (how often a term is searched for by the app store users) and difficulty (how hard it is for an app to rank in the top 10 for a keyword). The sweet spot for a keyword’s discoverability success is to have high search volume but a low level of difficulty, meaning an app is likely to get a high amount of traffic but with lower effort to rank in the top 10 for that keyword.

Taking one example: If we look at the very competitive video streaming and music streaming apps on iPhone and Google Play respectively, we see that keyword changes make a big difference in discoverability success. This is critical for niche apps trying to compete with the likes of Netflix, Hulu or HBO NOW.

Conversion - A critical question to ask is: Once a user lands on an app page in the app store, are they convinced to download the app right away? Creative app store assets, such as an app icon and screenshots, along with reviews and ratings, impact download performance. Those assets require a significant amount of testing before marketers turn on paid channels to boost visibility and conversions.

Within an ASO strategy, one of the most important tactics to understand is keyword optimization for the 36

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Keyword testing helps compete with top apps.

While words like “Watch TV shows” on iPhone and “Playlists” and “Free songs” may accurately describe an app, they drive a relatively low amount of traffic and therefore offer fewer opportunities for install.

Conversely, keywords like “TV Shows” and “TV” on iPhone and “Listen” and “Music” on Google Play are searched for more often by users. Even so, high traffic keywords such as “TV” and “Music” are often highly competitive, making it harder for an app to stand out when using them. Therefore, to rank in the top 10, the optimal spot is finding keywords with both high search volume and low difficulty, such as “TV shows” and “Listen.”

across similar markets that use the same language like the U.S. and the United Kingdom, search volume and difficulty for each keyword could vary, causing some words to be closer to the sweet spot in one country than in another. For example, “Listen” proves to resonate in the UK for Soundcloud.

MONITORING APP FOR KEYWORD OPPORTUNITIES Many ASO tools are available to help identify which top keywords are presenting an opportunity.

If we take the Soundcloud example below, who is competing with well-established players like Pandora or Spotify, the first assumption would be to depend too heavily on the word “Music.” However, using the right tools, we know they can also rely on the keywords “Discovery” or “Audio” as key terms to help promote their core benefits and offering.

Search volume for “Discovery” is higher than “Music” and less difficult to rank.

MAXIMIZING YOUR LOCALIZATION STRATEGY An app’s keyword rankings, and therefore its discoverability, varies by each country’s app store. Even

The keyword “Discovery” surprisingly has more search volume than “Music” in this case.

CLOSING THE ASO LOOP ASO is crucial to an app’s success. In a crowded app economy where the majority of downloads come from search, it is important to optimize keyword strategy to generate the largest amount of traffic to an app page and increase opportunities for downloads. It is important to continually monitor, test and evolve an ASO strategy to get the best results.

Choosing the correct keywords to secure an app’s discoverability is only half the battle to achieving an optimal ASO strategy. Once a user is on an app page, marketers still need to convince them to download the app.

The practice of building and testing assets like icons, screenshots, descriptions, and ratings and reviews is crucial to communicating an app’s value proposition and driving downloads. Search offers a unique opportunity to acquire users at minimal cost and should be prioritized within a larger user-acquisition strategy.

Fabien-Pierre Nicolas is the vice president of marketing communication at App Annie, a single easy-to-use platform for running every stage of an app business.

“

“

Search offers a unique opportunity to acquire users at minimal cost and should be prioritized within a larger user-acquisition strategy.

Email

EXPERIENCE

Six Email Campaigns You Should Be Automating

By EJ McGowan, General Manager of Campaigner

Email automation may be daunting to some, but it’s an efficient and effective approach that can provide customers with helpful information while saving time and effort for marketers in the long run.

The benefits of automation for marketing administrators (email senders) are numerous: It cuts down on tedious manual tasks, reduces human error and increases consistency. It also helps establish a regular message “cadence” (the pace at which emails are sent) with recipients and provides marketers a regular baseline upon which to build metrics and improve measurements.

Automation is not ideal for every campaign, however.

To most effectively leverage this approach, view it as the first step in a broader event-based marketing initiative.

The more marketers can tie emails back to a trigger point – an easily identifiable time stamp such as an event, specific date or customer action point – the more customers will anticipate receiving the message, creating a higher likelihood of interaction. Event-based campaigns to consider might include:

1. Renewals & Reminders If contacts subscribe to a company’s products or services it’s likely that those subscriptions are set to expire. Marketers are pressed for time, so it’s nearly impossible to get a firm grasp on which subscribers are within a 30-day, or other, renewal window at any given time.

This is where automation comes in. Marketers should use subscription deadlines to set triggers for reminder email campaigns. This kind of campaign can be used for many different types of businesses or subscribers. For instance, those who have audiences with contracts or subscriptions expiring, previous buyers who have purchased a product that is usually consumed or expired within an average span of time or even contacts who have received a time-sensitive promotion from a specific brand, all stand to benefit from these automated emails.

2. Welcome Messages Welcome emails are an important way for brands to establish a relationship with new subscribers and are some

of the most easily automated. The trigger is clear – senders need to set their emails to be sent after a certain amount of time has passed from the time a contact first subscribes to their mailing list. The aim should be to have these welcome emails delivered within the first 24 hours of sign-up. Internal data suggests that the ideal time frame to send welcome emails is between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m.

3. Transactional Emails Similar to welcome emails, brands can also leverage automation for their transactional emails – the messages that are sent when a customer interacts with a brand in a direct and meaningful way. For triggers, companies use certain actions (or inactions) such as purchases or password changes as an example.

Businesses can distinguish their transactional messages from other email deliveries by refraining from using sales language and including critical information exclusively that the customer is expecting, such as purchase confirmation, shipping information or new password verification. By doing so, brands can leverage recipient anticipation around these emails to increase overall campaign open rates.

4. Helpful Hints Rather than trying to sell something, companies will want to use some campaigns to promote usage of a previous purchase/service. For example, if a B2B marketer notices that many customers are not utilizing a service included in their package, a helpful reminder will assist them in using the product to its fullest, while building a trusting relationship between brand and customer. In this case, use the absence of certain events (e.g., no download) as the campaign trigger.

5. Feedback Requests In the same way that marketers like to help their customers, some customers might want to help them.

Companies can use recent purchases and subscriptions as triggers to automate emails asking for product reviews, service feedback or survey participation. Senders should set parameters within the automation so that only the company’s most active contacts receive these emails, as they’re most likely to participate and provide valuable feedback.

6. Reactivation Campaigns Companies can also rely on automation to help boost interaction with inactive email recipients – sending final, friendly emails with incentives to interact. If these messages don’t work, senders should remove these email addresses from their contact lists once and for all.

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Web

COMMENTARY

How Do You Know You’re Ready for a Corner Office?

staff can and, in many cases, more. The best leaders know what they are good at and surround themselves with people who complement their strengths. When one is working from a place of strengths, he or she will be energized and inspired. If they are trying to be all things to all people, they may end up wasting precious energy on tasks that someone on a team could do in half the time. Great senior leaders have the confidence to delegate things outside of their strength suite.

By Alexis Robin, Co-Founder of pLink Coaching Center

HOW WELL DO I SEE THE FOREST THROUGH THE TREES?

So, you are considering a spot in the Csuite; how will you know when you are finally ready for that corner office?

Here are some good questions to ask yourself when determining if you have the potential to succeed in all that natural light.

HOW SELF-AWARE AM I? In Dan Goleman’s book “Focus,” he shares that self-awareness diminishes with promotions up the organizational ladder. Upwardly mobile professionals need to know their values, triggers, behavioral traits and reactive tendencies. The energy that managers leave behind after interacting with their team has a big impact in their ability to influence staff and encourage discretionary effort. Are managers picking up on nonverbal cues from the people around them? Are they using their intuition and emotional messages to complement their cognitive power when making difficult decisions? If prospective leaders know themselves well and are constantly working on raising their consciousness and self-awareness, they have a higher likelihood of succeeding in the C-suite.

ON A SCALE OF 1 -10, HOW COMPOSED AM I IN HIGH-STRESS SITUATIONS? The bigger the scope of responsibility, the more impactful and complex situations and decisions will become. Those with upward ambitions, should assess whether they are able to stay cool under pressure. Are they comfortable sitting at the head of the boardroom table and not having the answer to every question?

Can they receive feedback without getting defensive?

The more composed a person is, the more ready he or she will be.

WHAT STRENGTHS WILL I BRING TO THIS JOB? One of the biggest myths about being a CEO, COO or CTO is they have to know how to do everything their 40

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Having an agile mindset helps leaders shift between detailed information and strategic ideas. Ideally, they’ll be able to quickly and easily shift from a whole system perspective to a specific operational perspective and back again with grace. This will prepare them for keeping up with the fast-paced conversations in the boardroom.

HOW GOOD AM I AT SETTING BOUNDARIES? A C-suite member’s email inbox is never empty. If they are going to make time to reflect on their work, get adequate sleep, have an exercise routine and enjoy quality personal time, they must be able to set good boundaries. There will always be a meeting invite, a phone call to return, a question to answer and a project that needs attention. Potential C-suite candidates will need to break the habit of saying “yes” to everyone before moving on up.

AM I GOOD AT SHARING MY IDEAS? In Adam Grant’s book, “Originals” he dedicates an entire chapter to teach us how to share our original ideas so that people will accept them. It’s not enough to mention it once at a meeting and hope someone grabs onto it. He says, “If we want people to accept our original ideas, we need to speak up about them, then rinse and repeat.” It’s best to practice this before grabbing a seat at the table on the top floor. Chances are this practice might even garner a person an invitation to that corner office before they apply for the job.

If after going through these questions, you think you still have a lot to work on, that’s a sign that you might be more ready for executive leadership than you think. In the end, being willing to take a good hard look at yourself and own where you need development is key to serving your organization at the highest level and being a good role model for the people who report to you. You don’t have to know everything before you get the job; you just have to be willing to keep evolving and learning every time an opportunity shows up.

THE WAIT

IS OVER

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