Stephen King Thinking Blog

A digital strategy is more than just creating a website. For marketing and sales purposes, a website needs to do two things really well.

1) Draw traffic to itself with compelling content that’s so awesome (and relevant to your target prospects) that people will share it and Google will recognize it as authoritative so you rank high on SEO results. I categorize the factors that make compelling content into four areas: relevancy of content, technical proficiency, search keyword proficiency, and social reach.

2) Convert traffic to an ongoing relationship (newsletter sign-up, social follow / like, sales lead, sales close). Otherwise known as “engaging the visitor,” I frequently ask my clients “Where’s the Buy button?”

I know there’s LOTS more nuts and bolts to it — hopefully if you keep these two primary goals in mind, it’ll make it easy to understand what to spend your time and $$$ on when revamping your web presence.

‘Nuff said.

  … (Read More)

Acquire new customers, retain existing ones and increase $$$ per customer. Does this sound like magic? It’s not. It’s science — predictive analytics to be exact.

With two new partner announcements from the U.K. and Australia, Dr. Bob’s new book “TCE” that outlines the scientific approach that our technology at TCELab supports and good progress on our CLAP (Customer Loyalty Analytics Platform) architecture, TCELab is rocking it. And, we’re ready to rock it for you.

Click here to find out more about the CRD on the TCELab site.

TCELab is a global leader in applying predictive analytics to customer loyalty and big data. The CRD is one of several survey, audit, and linkage  analysis services TCELab offers. Ultimately, it’s about truly UNDERSTANDING your big data … and havi … (Read More)

At the A100 AGM last week, we had a chance to take stock in the progress made in the local Alberta tech community. The A100 (www.theA100.org) is “a collective of Alberta’s successful tech executives and entrepreneurs.” Everyone in the association has been involved in some type of business exit and are dedicated to helping Alberta’s next generation of tech startups thrive globally. We are 58 members … (Read More)

As EDS said in their 2000 video, the internet is like herding cats. “Our website sucks,” is an oft-heard phrase at dinner parties. I’m always tickled at the variety of answers I get when I ask “Why does it suck?”  EDS made that statement 13 years ago so there’s obviously significantly more cats in them thar hills.

Some think the suckage of their website is because of the graphics. Some think it’s because there’s no Facebook icon. Some think it’s because it doesn’t deliver leads. Or, the copy doesn’t reflect what the company really does. There’s no traffic. The logo is not right. The blog isn’t read. The email campaigns don’t work. Your Twitter and LinkedIn followers are low numbers, and haven’t been growing. No one starts the free trial. The colours are wrong.

The Web Sales Funnel

I’ve been doing a lot of work answering this question myself for a variety of companies, and there’s good reason for confusion about website excellence. It’s because it’s confusing. I try to … (Read More)

In the SaaS Sales Funnel, people emerge from the murky ooze of the interwebs, start hanging out on your website, and then at some point start giving you their hard-earned cash and become your customer. How do you build your business in a customer-centric way so you’ve got good, happy, paying customers that keep paying for many months and years? This is a lot more complicated than it sounds — there are a lot of moving parts in a SaaS company, which I described the SaaS Sales Funnel in this blog post awhile back: http://stephdokin.com/the-abcs-of-the-saas-sales-funnel-graphic/

With gratuitis use of Dr. Bob E Hayes’s Customer Loyalty science and gfx (thanks!) …

Three ways companies make money

There are three ways a company can make money: 1) Gett … (Read More)

Over the last two weekends, while most were at home enjoying the Superbowl and the Grammys, the tech community in Calgary came together for what is known as a “hackathon” in pursuit of having some digital fun, doing some serious networking and kickstarting the next big thing.

A hackathon is an event in which computer programmers and others in the field of software development, like graphic designers, interface designers, marketers and project managers collaborate intensively on software projects. And, intense it was! Over the two weekends, a total of 17 teams came together.

For what it’s like to be on a team, check out Jason Zeller’s post titled “10 Lessons Learned from My Adventure at Startup Weekend” on TechVibes: http://www.techvibes.com/blog/lessons-learned-startup-weekend-2013-02-12

I was honoured to be a judge at both events and I can tell you that it was far from easy … (Read More)

OnAPage is focused on un-complicating and demystifying technology with go-to-market education that can fit “on a page.”  I couldn’t be happier to announce OnAPage in Calgary with my pals Cale White and Paula Blackmore-White, my co-founders of our educational workshop company. Different from traditional seminars where the lecture is long forgotten or the notes are in the garbage before the participants actually get anything done back at their business, OnAPage workshops focus on experiential learning, strategy AND hands-on doing. With the philosophy of “get ‘er done”, participants may leave with notes but they absolutely will leave with it DONE. No homework or take home bullet points here, just built websites, social media strategies created and implemented, and cloud resources set up and actually being used.

Register at OnAPage[/b … (Read More)

“Old school” marketing tactics like magazine advertising can be the forgotten bastard once-loved cousins of the more favoured and newer internet outbound & inbound marketing techniques, but it doesn’t have to always be that way, especially in B2B verticals. It’s good to always rethink, and sometimes, especially in B2B professional vertical industries like accounting, they can be a tried and trusted way to reach potential customers.

I’ve been working with Cameron Peters and the team at Trilogy Software through the company’s genesis and go-to-market launches. Hot on the heels of last tax season’s DoxCycle introduction, we announced TaxCycle in April, 2012. Fast forward to beginning of January 2013 as they just recently released TaxCycle T1 Professional Tax Software for Canadian Tax Accountants and Preparers for the first time: (Read More)

In 1996, Bill Gates predicted “Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting.”

“Content is King,” has become the battle cry of a generation of inbound marketers, content publishers, graphic designers and social media gurus. Mr. Gates was wicked right when he said that in 1996. I went searching for his famous article the other day, and it inspired me so wanted to share. Interestingly, Microsoft has taken it down from their archives on their site, but I found it nonetheless. The entire article is below.

As a marketer, I love content. Clever content by companies to market their wares can entertain, educate, and engage. It helps to close sales. It helps to define customer relationships. So, in terms of inbound marketing, content IS king.

But the content to which Bill Gates refers isn’t king. Those that make the content STILL don’t make as much as the broadcasters. Let me explain.

It’s been 17 years since Bill … (Read More)

The CRD Voice of Customer key driver analysis survey product from TCELab helps your SaaS company both accelerate business and focus resources. TCELab is standing at the cross roads of Big Data and Customer Loyalty. The CRD (with key driver analysis) and it’s brother, “Linkage Analysis” are both part of the predictive analytics required to use customer data to as the key to “crossing the chasm” for technology firms, especially SaaS (Software as a Service). One of our 9 products, the CRD: Customer Relationship Diagnostic is a Voice of Customer (VOC) survey that measures 3 dimensions of Customer Loyalty to determine the key drivers that create brand fans & drives growth. The CRD is particularly well to SaaS Software companies due to the monthly nature of the customer loyalty battle.

We get asked about the CRD so much, and the web pages, infosheets and .PDFs don’t see … (Read More)

Canada’s new anti-spam law (CASL) is a step in the right direction towards balancing corporate needs for online marketing and individual privacy.

CASL is part of an overall CRTC 2012-2015 plan to modernize Canada’s communication systems. In addition to the new anti-spam legislation, it includes reviews of radio policy, public alert systems, mandatory telemarketing fees and a whole bunch of other stuff. It’s expected that CASL will go into effect mid-2013 when Bill-C28 is passed into law. There are a lot of nuances to CASL – here’s the official Government of Canada website: http://fightspam.gc.ca.

There are some guidelines in … (Read More)

The U.S. government recently released a Big Data set for Patient Experience (PX) for public and private health care facilities throughout the U.S. PX is collected by a survey known as HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems).  At TCELab, we’re interested in all sorts of Big Data; how you can build customer experience metrics that link to operational metrics providing predictive analytics for sustained revenue growth. This health care Big Data set is RICH in insights, if you know where to look.

Want to engage TCELab to figure out some of your Big Data?Email me: stephen@tcelab.com.Head on over to the TCELab website for more info abou … (Read More)

The importance of website excellence and SEO for local professionals such as accountants cannot be overstated. People find you or your competitors on the first two pages of Google search results, and if they can find you online, they will quickly make a decision to pursue an interview or dismiss you based on the quality of your web properties.

I’ve recently gone through an experience where I needed to quickly find a CPA/Lawyer combination in the State of New Hampshire. I did a Google search for many combinations “CPA Accountant New Hampshire” and the results were like a big hairy ball of listings — so I thought it would make a good blog post as to what accountants can do to be found online. The thoughts around local SEO applies to all professional businesses, not just accountants, so read on.

As I waded through the search results on the first one or two pages of Google results, essentially 12 accounting firms bubbled up. I checked out their websites; one did not have a website, … (Read More)

As a marketer that helps business reach consumers (B2C) and other businesses (B2B), we’ve seen the use of SMS messaging proliferate worldwide. SMS is particularly effective when the mobile user is actually eagerly anticipating something from you; such as a special coupon, or their login credentials for a new mobile app you introduced.

If the SMS message gets there, that is.

When you press “Send” with a text message, you’ll get a message that says “SMS Text Message Sent.” Notice that you never ever get “SMS Text Message Delivered.” That’s because no one knows for sure!

As easy as it is to send a text message, the systems, technical and political differences between carriers and countries around the world means that SMS messages don’t always get there immediately (latency). Sometimes, they don’t even show up at all! Sometimes the URL’s are stripped. Sometimes the messages don’t show up in their entirety.

A survey of attendees at Mobile World Congress and CTIA’ … (Read More)

The cheese in the maze has been moved. Hell, some CMO types aren’t even in the right maze anymore. These 7 questions should net you a CMO that has some mojo. CMO’s these days need a more diverse set of skills than five years ago. CMO’s need to be able to set smart strategic direction that includes social, mobile, content and digital expansion of their marketing teams. While at the same time, reduce internal costs and use more technical and marketing automation.

In my consulting, I’ve been helping companies create social and digital go-to-market strategies and then putting together teams to reflect the tactical execution of the strategies. As we start building and recruiting great teams around customer centric, data driven leadership, I thought … “what would I ask a CMO if I was hiring them?”

Not all CMO’s are created equal.

The New World Order means a lot more hands-on work in the cloud, so … (Read More)

If you’re in the SaaS business, think ABC. “Always Be Closing,” is the infamous sales motivation line from Alec Baldwin’s in from the movie “Glengarry Glenross.”  Everyone who sells things needs to see this vido clip.

Everything we do in a company is about selling. We all know that, right? Expenses such as improvements to service is ultimately about helping to ensure customers stay loyal so they don’t exit to the competitors. Employees are given 4 days off a year to do charity work because it makes them happy, and happy employees make happy customers who tell other people about your company. Understanding how customer loyalty and employee loyal … (Read More)

I had the special treat of going with my niece and her 9 lady entourage to a local Wedding trade show. Needless to say, between the tiny tastes of chocolate and the runway models, I had some time on my hands — so I got to thinking about the trade show industry, and how mobile technology is surely, and slowly, creeping into the sales process. It can be a missed opportunity. My guess was that 99% of the brides and grooms had smartphones, yet less than 10% of the booths sported a mobile QR code! For those that didn’t have a QR code anywhere in their booth, it was a wasted opportunity to engage potential clients and persist the relationship beyond the trade show —  For those that had a QR code … well, some of them had very engaging offers. Others? FAIL.

Enjoy my quick look at “9 Ways To Screw Up QR Codes at Trade Shows [Infographic]” — hope it helps for your next face-to-face event. Here’s a .PDF version: (Read More)

I recently attended a Material Insight event, hosted by VC and author Guy Kawasaki with a panel from noted success stories in Calgary. It’s premise: Calgary-based tech companies including VoodooPC, (Read More)