March 13, 2023

Give your employees a life-changing tool. Books.

A house without books is like a room without windows, said Horace Mann – a renowned American educational reformer from the mid-1800s. At SocioSquares, we’d like to offer our version of this quote for today’s fast moving digital world. A workplace without books is like a mobile without access to the internet.

Being a learning focused organization, we introduced an activity during the pandemic era to not only enable our remote-working employees to upgrade their knowledge but to also find a forum to socially interact. The SocioSquares Book Reading Club. The agenda was simple. Every week, enlisted members would gather in an online room to share their views about a book that’s set as a common read. While initially, the club got people to increase their interest and commitment to reading books, eventually the weekly exercise began unfolding benefits that no one had even imagined possible.

Take the story of Nimmi, the head of HR at our digital agency and a key driving force behind the club. She discovered the concept of writing goals in one of the reading sessions. A learning that got her setting goals regularly and even achieving them within the set timeframes, and this includes finally owning that home that she always dreamed about. Another reading session led her to try thinking positive at all times, a practice that enabled her to defuse tense work situations on quite a few occasions, which invariably would have led to conflicts. She also ingrained the importance of forming habits and started a routine of walking which she has been able to upgrade to cycling and eventually, exercising. There’s also a lot more that she has the book club to thank for. She found a community of co-workers who shared interests that were similar to hers. She found a space where employees could bond freely over experiences and even share solutions for problems that went beyond the scope of the workplace. She found a platform that encouraged her to finetune her abilities to communicate and express. To sum up, she found a world that enriched her in some distinct way, every time she stepped in.

In a world that’s all about change, books hold the power to catalyze some of the most significant changes in every sphere of our life. At SocioSquares, we have only just begun introducing our employees to the life-changing power of the written word. If you’re an organization that’s always looking for ways to bring out the best in your employees while also helping them better their own daily lives, try the tool we’re recommending. Try starting your own book reading club.

January 10, 2023

How to stay on track to your goals this 2023

The start of a new year is not too different from the start of a marathon. A lot of people and businesses set out with oodles of enthusiasm and a rush of wild energy. Soon enough, both end up running out of steam and lagging behind other better-planned runners or businesses.

An experienced marathoner himself, Gaurav (Rav) Mendiratta (Founder, SocioSquares) understands the perils of getting into both, a challenging new year and a marathon without following the right process and finding the right people.

The right process. In a marathon, this will enable you to set and alter your pace in a way that ensures you keep moving forward without burning out earlier on. In business, this will help you move towards your goals without having to stop, slow down or go off track for reasons that could have been avoided.

The right people. Who you run with makes a difference to how well you run; choose a group that’s fast from the get-go and you increase your chances of an early burn out. Choose a group that begins slow and picks up the pace at all the right times, and you stand your best chance of not only making it to the finish line but also setting your personal best along the way. Likewise, in business, the people you surround yourself with play a role in determining how smoothly your business progresses toward its goals. Choose people with the right skills and experience and you’ll find yourself maintaining a steady momentum, on the path to success.

So how do you get your business to the finish line this 2023? At SocioSquares, we believe the answer lies in making business processes more efficient and functional teams more aptly skilled to ensure excellence in the services delivered. It’s a strategy we believe will prove helpful in getting your business to your goals. May you have a successful year ahead.

January 5, 2023

Attract success with your thoughts, this 2023

If you’ve ever tried hearing your echo when amidst mountains, the universe kind of works on a somewhat similar theory. It hears your strongest thoughts and desires and then bounces it back in the form of happenings or circumstances that make these thoughts and desires manifest in reality. Rhonda Byrne’s Law of Attraction sums up the universe’s working style perfectly in her global bestseller ‘The Secret’. In short, your thoughts attract the people, developments and events that happen in your day to day.

Our Founder had a recent experience that corroborates the theory of a ‘listening universe’. It was a week when Gaurav (Rav) Mendiratta had one thing foremost on his mind. 2 new leads that would lead to 2 new client meetings in order for his business’ growth plan to stay on track. There must have been quite some decibel power in Rav’s wish because the universe definitely heard and certainly responded. He landed up with exactly 2 – not 1, 3 or 4 but 2 leads in his next business networking meeting. That too, without going out of his way to get them; the opportunities simply came to him.

This might be a great thought for businesses to begin their new year with. If the universe can indeed align future events in sync with our thoughts, then why not resolve to harbor thoughts and aspirations that are positive and progressive all through 2023? Think about where you want to be, think about how big or successful you want to get, think about how you want customers to perceive you, think about how you want to stand out, and so on. Use the law of attraction to not just think about visions and goals but to make them happen.

December 28, 2022

How to get 100 reviews in 3 months

Customer reviews can impact your business’ fortunes in more ways than you can imagine. According to a recent Zendesk survey, a whopping 90% stated that their decision to buy was influenced by positive online reviews. Indeed, this is a world where the reputation of your brand is shaped by the customers who interact with it. Which brings us to an all important question. Is your business generating a steady stream of positive reviews? If yes, that’s great. If not, then here’s a blog with 6 tips that will help you increase the quantity of your reviews in less time than you imagine.

1 Give your business maximum online visibility

The first step to increasing your customer reviews is to increase your visibility across platforms. Make sure your business profile is added on to sites that are visited most by customers looking for reviews. Some of the sites that you could upload your business profile on include Yelp, Angie’s List, Google, Trustpilot, LinkedIn, to name a few.

2 Request customers to share their experiences

A happy customer will most likely want to share their experience with your business with the community out there. All you need to do, to turn this enthusiasm into an invaluable business growth tool, is ask them to leave a review. Timing is important when seeking reviews, and the best time to ask for feedback is right after the customer transacts with your business. Make it a point to not get too intrusive or pushy when requesting for reviews.

3 Show customers the path to leaving reviews

Guide customers to the platform where you’d like them to leave feedback about your business, and you’ll further increase your chances of landing good, solid reviews. So when you’re asking contented customers for their feedback in-person, over a call or via email, make sure to share the link that will directly take them to the review platforms where you want customers to leave reviews.

4 Give customers a good reason to leave reviews

Your customers might have a million other things on their minds and therefore, may sometimes need to be ‘enticed’ into giving a timely review. Some of the ways you can make it rewarding for customers to share genuine reviews is by offering special discounts to regular review contributors or by holding contests where you offer giveaways to a limited number of customers who share their feedback about your business.

5 Appreciate customers who share reviews

A great way to ensure existing customers continue to share reviews and new customers follow suit, is to appreciate every customer who leaves their feedback on a review site. Replying to reviews tells customers their opinions matter and are taken seriously by your business. Throwing in an occasional ‘discount code’ might be a great way to express your gratitude to customers, who take time out from their hectic schedules to help your business grow in a fast and hectic world.

6 Integrate review collection in your marketing plan

Your business can not only maintain but even increase the flow of reviews, provided you make review collection a regular business practice. Make your customer-facing staff aware of the significance of reviews and the necessity of doing regular and timely follow-ups. A great way to get your staff kicked up about obtaining customer reviews is to create a recognition program that identifies and rewards employees who are rated highly and consistently by customers.

Look for tools to automate your review collection process

Maintaining a regular stream of customer reviews takes considerable time, effort and resources. The good news is, you can automate the entire process of review collection and updation and focus your time and energies where they’re really needed – in growing your business. How? With tools like Propel – an advanced review engine you can rely on to get and manage bulk reviews from diverse platforms, all at one place. In fact, you’ll also experience other advantages like knowing who’s checking your reviews, how many customers reading your reviews are reaching out to you and so on. If you find this interesting and would like to more, visit propel.ly

A proven partner for integrated digital marketing solutions

We hope the tips mentioned here will help you land more reviews without the trouble and the wait. If you’re looking for a digital marketing agency to partner with for integrated and customized solutions for your business, reach out to us at SocioSquares. We’re a digital marketing agency with over 11 years of experience in guiding small and medium sized businesses to their growth goals in a way that’s cost-effective and fast. Call us at +1 215 253 5622 or write to us at SUPPORT@SOCIOSQUARES.COM and we’ll develop a customized strategy to help your business gain 100 reviews in 30 days.

December 7, 2022

How to keep stress from escalating in virtual workplace environment

Stress has always been a side-effect of pursuing ambitions and chasing goals in a relentlessly fast and competitive world. The impact of stress at work could range from mild signs like forgetfulness and occasional irritation to more severe manifestations like anxiety, depression and withdrawal from interactions and responsibilities. It was at a time when organizations had barely gotten round to addressing stress issues within their environments that a new catastrophe struck. Covid. With lockdowns and restrictions on even the smallest and simplest of freedoms, this unprecedented phase elevated an already existing problem to even more devastating proportions.

Like the world, at SocioSquares we too were impacted by the Covid phase. In fact, we continued being impacted even after the world around us slowly started getting back to their physical work environments. Because we’re primarily a virtual workplace, we had no choice but to keep our employees operating in a virtual space. Unlike other employees, our employees couldn’t get back to brainstorming with colleagues in conference rooms, enjoy chats in the pantry or sit across in person with HR staff or department heads to share their concerns or problems. With nowhere to go except Zoom meeting rooms, the stress in our employees was palpable, and we realized something had to be done, and fast.

This is when we introduced the activity of virtual stress tests for all our employees on a weekly basis. Every week in a collective virtual session, each of our employees would be invited to anonymously answer a simple question on their screens “How stressful has your week been?” At the start of this exercise, we discovered close to one-third of our employees were falling within the severely stressed category. We took immediate measures in the form of initiating counseling sessions with our HR staff and/or department heads. These sessions helped us understand an overstressed employee’s problem which enabled us to provide stress alleviating solutions in the form of reduced workloads, altered responsibility profiles, extra team support, sanctioned work breaks, and so on. With ongoing problem identification and resolution over the next few months, we were able to bring down the population in the severely stressed category to 0. And it has remained so since, although we do end up with an entrant or two in this category occasionally. However, we are now quickly able to defuse an overstressed employee and mitigate them to a stress category that is healthier and definitely more manageable.

Stress is perhaps the greatest productivity killer at most workplaces. At SocioSquares, we believe though stress is unavoidable in a severely competitive world, it can be controlled and prevented from damaging an organization’s fabric. Early detection and remedy of stress is key to cultivating a workplace that employees like being at, and where they are more favorably inclined to collaborate, learn, perform, grow and lead.

November 30, 2022

How to Build a Successful Newsletter Without a Massive Database

Any good cost effective approach to marketing must include newsletters. Learning to make a newsletter can be helpful for contractors. Newsletter Marketing can help drive traffic to website and establish enduring connections with customers, regardless of whether you run small businesses or a large e-commerce operation.

A successful marketing newsletter can ensure small businesses generate quality leads, webinar signups, and product sales. However, newsletters are only successful if they are skillfully planned and carried out. Given that the typical email is read for at most eight seconds, it is critical to understand how to increase the engagement of your newsletter. Keep reading to learn the following five tips to help you build massive database, generate quality leads, and drive traffic to website.

Five tips to help you build massive database, generate quality leads and drive traffic to your website:

1. Make it Short and Simple

Keep the content basic and simple so your readers can immediately comprehend the newsletter’s purpose after opening it. Your newsletter needs to be concise, real, and practical to engage readers. The readability of captivating newsletters is largely dependent on their simplicity. Contractors can also engage readers by writing concisely and straightforwardly.

2. Focus on Adding Value

Knowing your readers will allow you to understand what their needs are. To create content that is relevant to the target audience, try to gain a solid understanding of their interests and the issues that are important to them. The secret is to offer free information that matters to your audience which will consequently drive traffic to the website and generate quality leads. Give enough that they see you as their go-to expert and trusted advisor.

3. Be Creative with the Headlines

Creating creative headlines is a cost effective approach way to drive traffic to website. If the newsletter’s headline is smart and pertinent, your readers are more likely to open it and you are likely to generate quality leads. Contractors should get to know their subscribers better by using witty and interesting subject lines for each newsletter you send.

4. Keep it Trendy

You should relate your content to familiar topics depending on the newsletter’s purpose. As contractors giving your comments on the newest trends might be a cost effective approach to get your company into the conversation and drive traffic to website.

5. Incorporate Feedback

Making newsletters a two-way communication tool instead of just a one-way one is a cost effective approach. Request reader feedback, then include it in the newsletter, or add polls and share the findings. By utilizing the information from your audience, you enable them to take an active role in creating the newsletter, increasing the likelihood that they will be interested, allowing you to drive traffic to website, generate quality leads and build massive database.

As contactors or business persons, a key cost effective approach of the overall marketing plan should be producing quality newsletters. Using the five suggestions above, you may be able to build massive database, generate quality leads, and drive traffic to website.

October 31, 2022

The Right Person In The Right Seat

There is a popular old story about a repair technician and we experienced a 2022 version of it in the software world.

Here is how the original story about the repair technician goes:

One day in a factory, the main machine has a malfunction and stops working. No worker or supervisor is able to figure out the issue or find a solution. They call the technician on staff and he is not able to get it to work either. The Supervisor then tells the Factory Owner, “I know a brilliant technician who should be able to get the machine working.” The expert technician is called who comes in, studies the malfunction for a few minutes and then takes out his hammer; he taps a particular part of the machine twice with the hammer and the machine almost magically starts working.

October 20, 2022

7 BIGGEST MISTAKES EVERY CONTRACTOR NEEDS TO AVOID

Every contractor aspires to have their business show up at the top of the local pack. While you may be putting your head and those of others (external experts whom you get working for you) in chalking out and putting SEO optimization strategies to work, you also need to keep an eye out for mistakes that could throw water on your ambitious plans. How? You may be committing the commonest of SEO mistakes without even realizing it and then wondering why your strategies are not translating into better results with Google. Here are the 7 biggest mistakes made by contractors which you need to avoid if you are to see your business grow.

September 23, 2022

How contractors can use full funnel audience strategy to increase leads by 4X

The Marketing Funnel. Is this just another buzzword on the digital block? Rest assured, it’s nothing of the sort. A marketing funnel is an invaluable tool that will enable you to see lead conversions or buying customers not as a stroke of good fortune, but as the result of a structured process. It helps you understand the customer journey – from being aware of needs and problems to being ready to buy a relevant product or service, and respond with appropriate measures along every step of the way. It also helps you maximize the chances of the generated leads moving forward rather than slipping away. This blog will help you understand the stages of a Marketing Funnel and ways to use it to land up to 4X leads.

The Marketing Funnel: An Overview

Think of it as a series of stages, designed to do more than just get you customers. It’s a business model that will enable your business to gain maximum value from your customers in terms of purchases, loyalty, feedback, goodwill and even recommendations. Here’s what the funnel looks like:

Awareness
Consideration
Conversion
Loyalty
Advocacy

The Marketing Funnel: Stages to sustainable success

Every step of the buying cycle plays a crucial role in your business journey towards the ultimate goal – a contented customer who keeps coming back to you. Here’s a step-wise breakdown of the stages of a marketing funnel and how you can optimize your business performance at each stage.

Stage 1: Awareness

Marketing theorists will call this the first step of the marketing funnel. Consumer psychologists on the other hand, will consider this your point of entry into the customer’s mind and life. This is the stage where customers looking for solutions – that come in the purview of your business, will need to be ‘introduced’ to your business.

Ways to create awareness:

Create posts on social media that highlight your unique expertise with respect to the needs of the customers you’re looking to target
Invest in paid ads that allow you to inform/enlighten your targeted customers about how you can help them with your products or services.
Create a landing page that provides relevant information to visiting customers

Stage 2: Consideration

The customer is now aware of your business. But there’s still a long way to go before awareness turns into action. Customers will seek out and compare multiple businesses before they zero down on the best option for their unique needs or problems. Your task now is to further build on your customers’ interest and give them reasons to choose you over competing businesses.

Ways to get a customer to consider you:

Use higher-intent keywords that resonate with customers who show an intent to buy
Post detailed information on how your expertise helps customers solves their unique needs, via blogs or articles
Develop an email marketing campaign to capture and nurture leads
Give customers a more in-depth understanding of your business by sharing comparisons between your business and the competition
Run surveys to know more about how your customers think and also let them know that their preferences and opinions matter. Ask questions relating to what they’re looking for, how they got to know about you, what they’re hoping to see on your website, what concerns they have and so on.

Stage 3: Conversion

You got your customers to notice you. Next, you got them interested in knowing more about your business; you even went ahead to establish trust with your intent to know more about them and serve them better. Here on, you need to get your customers to stop reading, looking around and considering and instead, start clicking, ordering and buying. This is where you convert them from visiting customers to buying customers.

Ways to convert your prospects:

Create campaigns targeting sign-ups and account creations
Provide trials or demos for customers to experience your product or service
Share positive customer reviews and testimonials to clear away any trace of uncertainty in the customer’s mind
If you find customers reaching the stage where you expect them to convert and they don’t, send emails to gently prod them about the reason or reasons for them to delay a buy
Simplify navigation across your landing page and reduce loading times
Include a Call To Action at strategic places on the website
Use exit pop-ups to retain customers

Stage 4: Loyalty

For a successful, forward-thinking business, matters don’t end with a customer coming your way in the conversion stage. In fact, this is an opportunity for your business to create a sustaining relationship with the customer that prevents them from ‘converting’ at other businesses in the long run. In other words, this is the stage where you endeavor to shape the loyal customer, a customer who will continue to make their purchases from you.

Ways to build and maintain customer loyalty:

Build an efficient CRM platform to track and respond to customers’ queries, issues and suggestions
Make your customers feel valued with regular incentives, discounts and rewards
Create upselling / cross-selling campaigns that upgrade your customers to higher value or performance across your range of products or services

Stage 5: Advocacy

If there’s anything more delightful than a customer who repeatedly buys from you, it’s a customer who speaks well about you to their friends, family and colleagues and nudges them to buy or order from your business. This is the stage where you evolve loyal customers into willing advocates of your business. This is the ultimate reward or pay-off of all the effort, expense and patience that you’ve put into the marketing funnel.

Ways to create happy business advocates:

Upload and update positive customer reviews on your website and review platforms to instill confidence in your existing customers
Invite your customers to share their positive experiences with your business
Give incentives to existing customers to make referrals or recommendations

Rely on SocioSquares to create a winning Marketing Funnel for your business

The marketing funnel is not a magic spell that will help your business gain lead conversions overnight. It is a strategic and accountable tool that will guide your business to its ultimate goal – acquiring and retaining customers in a cycle that’s scalable and sustainable. Done right, a marketing funnel will enable your business to capture leads at every stage of the funnel and take them forward towards purchase. We trust this detailed article will help you create and reap the benefits of your own marketing funnel. If you’d like to know more or would like an expert in this domain to create one for you, reach out to SocioSquares.

We’re a digital marketing agency with over 11 years of experience in helping small businesses and start-ups generate higher leads with the right digital marketing strategies. If you’re a business in the domain of dentistry, home improvement, oil and propane delivery, speech and occupational therapy, coffee e-commerce, pet healthcare or any other, call us and we’ll help you develop a marketing funnel that will enable you to land up to 4X leads in a shorter timeframe and at a lower cost to your business.

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