LionShark Digital Marketing Blog

This Year, Practice Gratitude

1/1/2022

I’d like to depart from my usual blog topics to talk to you about something more important: thankfulness.

Around the holidays I’m always reminded of how important gratitude is but this year being thankful seems more important than ever.

As a society we have been surrounded by fear and worry and panic for the better part of a year and a half now. We’ve become accustomed to hearing negative information from every news source and information platform. Mental health issues are at an all-time high. People have lost loved ones and a sense of connection to their communities. Finances are strained and the economy is uncertain.

There’s a lot to be sad about and worried about.

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How to Develop a Content Strategy in a World Without Trust

11/22/2021

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develop a content strategy in a world without trust

If there’s one thing that’s clear to me right now it’s that we’ve lost trust. Our confidence in what we’re hearing and seeing has been shaken across all facets of our lives.

We’re dealing with stressors such as:

Constantly changing and conflicting information
Opinions and emotions passing as facts
Shortages of everything from products to labor
Widening divisions across socio-economic, political, racial, and geographic lines
General market uncertainty

The result is a loss of trust across the board, personally and professionally. This chasm that has opened poses a serious problem for your strategic content strategy because without a foundation of trust, your content will fail. Whether the goal is brand awareness, new sales, upselling, customer retention, recruiting, or anything else, your content needs to be trusted. Without trustworthiness and believability, content simply cannot succeed.

Find out how to develop a content strategy these days:

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Understanding Customer Attrition

8/19/2021

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Like many parents this year, we were evaluating various options for our child’s schooling. We filled out all the forms (so many forms!) and successfully got him registered at two different schools while we waited to see how their administrators would approach this school year. Earlier this month we made our decision about where we were going to send him, so we needed to unenroll him from one school. We called to ask how to go about doing that. The receptionist simply replied, “Okay, he’s been unenrolled. Was there anything else you needed?”

That was it.

She didn’t ask where we were sending him or why we chose another school over theirs. She didn’t offer to keep us on an email list in an effort to recruit us back when he was a little older. Nothing. She just said goodbye.

It felt so wrong. A relationship that should have lasted 6 years was cut short with a quick phone call and the lady on the other end of the line just accepted it cheerfully. It was like breaking up with someone and them just saying, “Alrighty then” and walking away without giving it a second thought. And I lamented to my husband that a business would never handle losing a customer that way.
But as I thought about it some more, it dawned on me that that is exactly what some businesses do… too many businesses.

We’ve all had experiences where the organizations we’ve done business with just let us slip away as customers. This kind of experience is forgettable at best and alienating at worst. Simply put, when a company lets its customers leave without trying to save them, it can permanently destroy any chance at a future relationship. Additionally, letting customers leave without trying to understand why they’re leaving and where they’re going wastes a wonderful opportunity to improve.

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Why Business-Supported Content Will Always Reign Supreme

6/23/2021

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Why Business-Supported Content Will Always Reign Supreme

In the wake of the pandemic blogs, news outlets, and podcasts have been flooded with resources on how to help businesses bounce back. At this point there’s a seemingly endless stream of advice on how to overcome any business barrier that your company may still be facing – reduced sales volume, cash shortages, diminished profitability, employee turnover, customer turnover, increased fraud risk, tightened lending, regulatory restrictions, and so on. No matter what ails you, there is a heap of business content ready to jump in and fix your problems.

And the predominant perspective across all these resources is that there is one solution that will pull you out of your post-pandemic slump – one path to overcoming. Experts and brands may disagree on what this path is exactly, but this content seems to be skewed towards the notion that there is a one-size-fits-all approach to remerging from the pandemic a winner in your industry. And this knowledge is being treated like a golden ticket to success – simply having access to it is enough to magically pull you up and get you on track for greatness. There is very little supporting this content strategically.

And as a purveyor of content, I get it. There’s really no sense in producing content that admits it’s fallible. But content that tries to be too much ends up standing alone, which poses a real problem.

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How to Write Product Descriptions that Drive Sales

5/4/2021

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how to write product descriptions that drive sales

With the dramatic rise in online shopping over the last year, consumers’ expectations have increased related to their ecommerce shopping experiences as well. They now expect a wide variety of products with various options to suit their needs, fast free shipping, and 24/7 customer support.

Shopping online is no longer viewed as an alternative option to shopping in-store. For the first time in history, shopping online is now the standard and in-person is seen as the alternative to shopping online. And while this may seem like a matter of semantics, it’s not. The way that we buy and sell has been permanently altered. The result is that shoppers now expect not only the same shopping experience that they once had in-store, but a better one to boot.

The rapid evolution of online shopping over the last year has raised the bar for ecommerce retailers, requiring that they provide timely, accurate, helpful, and actionable product information to inform purchase decisions. Product descriptions are the main vehicle to conveying this critical information to buyers, making them critically important.

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Does your Marketing Strategy Cut through the Pandemic Brain Fog?

3/25/2021

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Marketing Strategy vs the Pandemic Brain Fog

How’s your brain right now?

Is your thinking a little bit fuzzy? Do you find that you’re forgetting things more frequently than usual? Are you having some trouble concentrating? Is your motivation in a bit of a slump?

You’re not alone.

According to a Fast Company article from earlier this month, the pandemic may be inhibiting our ability to make every day decisions. A psychology professor at the University of Texas explains that the driving force behind this foggy phenomenon is mental stress. He says, “Stress decreases our working memory capacity, so we have fewer cognitive resources to wrap our heads around all the different options, even for things that are relatively inconsequential.”

It’s no coincidence that these are also symptoms of depression. A Harvard Medical School publication further elaborates on these psychological symptoms in saying, “Depression can actually change your ability to think. It can impair your attention and memory, as well as your information processing and decision-making skills. It can also lower your cognitive flexibility (the ability to adapt your goals and strategies to changing situations) and executive functioning (the ability to take all the steps to get something done).”

In the wake of COVID we have faced new stressors personally and professionally and depression is on the rise as well. Combined they create a perfect storm in your brain.

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Are Remote Employees Preventing Themselves from Doing Great Work?

2/1/2021

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Are Remote Employees Preventing Themselves from Doing Great Work

There are an endless number of studies that indicate that remote workers are more productive and happier working from home – some reporting rates as high as 94% of those surveyed claiming to “as productive” or “more productive” than working in the office. Furthermore, data shows that they also work more hours and have higher job satisfaction. Erin Nelson summarizes this perspective when she says, “Remote workers demonstrated a productivity boost because they eliminated distractions like commuting into the office, changing their work hours to fit their schedules, and worrying about being late. Remote workers found it easier to concentrate at home.”

And while that’s (apparently) the majority opinion, we’ve seen firsthand how VERY untrue that is for a large segment of remote workers – workers with children who are at home with them. Just ask Aaron Blank. His recent article “Dear Working America, Please be Kind to Working Parents Right Now” sheds some light on how the rest of the workforce is struggling right now.

But children are not the only distractions at home – there’s also pets, partners, laundry, and ourselves.

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I’m Never Doing That Again – Personal Outsourcing for Business Owners

1/4/2021

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personal outsourcing for business owners

So much has been written about the benefits of outsourcing, what businesses should outsource, and how outsourcing is on the rise, but personal outsourcing is talked about far less.

Why don’t we hear much about personal outsourcing? Probably because it’s generally considered taboo to talk about your personal finances with colleagues and friends.

However, while it might be a difficult topic to broach, I think there’s merit in doing so because without talking about where we get professional help, we aid in perpetuating the misconception that business owners can do everything.

I’ve seen this “do everything myself” approach first-hand as a business owner, especially now that I have kids. And by seen it, I mean I do this far too often.

I first started my business in 2014 before we had any children. In its infancy I had a little bit of trouble taking it seriously because I was just working from my home office alone during the day, and that wasn’t nearly as common then as it is now. Initially I didn’t have enough work to fill a whole day, so I would work for a few hours and then do things around the house.

In the days since I’ve gotten far busier and added two kids into the mix. I routinely pull 17-hour days between taking care of our kids and doing client work (frequently managing both simultaneously). However, I haven’t taken anything off my plate.

Why? I just thought that’s what small business owners did.

And then the pandemic hit. COVID disrupted life as usual, and I started to hear anecdotes from fellow business owners about how they were trying to adapt to life where they had to balance housework and work-work now that their cleaning service had to suspend operations, or that they needed a friend to stop by with a mower because their landscaping company was behind and couldn’t do their lawn. These last few months have made me realize that most people aren’t trying to do it all – they’re just not telling anyone that they’re not doing it all.

So, as we start a new year, I’m not going to resolve to do anything else. Instead, I’m going to resolve not to do some things, and you should too!

What should you give up in 2021?

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Replacing Human Interaction with Ecommerce Retailers in 2021

12/2/2020

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ecommerce replaces social interaction in 2021

In 2020 everything went virtual – even our social lives. We’re nine months in and we continue to be physically distanced from other people. And, if we’re being honest, we’re emotionally distanced right now as well.

This emotional distance really became apparent to me this week when one of my clients asked me to change out an email signature bio in the template we use. I was supposed to remove Man #1’s name and headshot and replace it with Man #2’s name and headshot. Keep in mind, I don’t know either of these employees. Nonetheless, I was a little sad to see Man #1’s picture removed. He had such a genuine smile and every time I created an email for this client, I got to see his sweet-looking face eagerly smiling back at me. Now, Man #2 is also smiling in his headshot also, but his smile feels different and foreign to me. I had formed a strange pretend connection with this Man #1 because I saw his face every time I read one of his company’s emails.

What does that say about this year?

Okay, maybe I’m just going crazy. But I would be willing to bet that I’m not alone. I haven’t hugged someone who isn’t a family member in 9 months. I have missed my long-time best friend’s entire first pregnancy (which is my first chance to be an aunt) despite her moving much closer to me in March. I rarely see my other best friend who lives within walking distance of my home because we don’t get together for impromptu meals anymore. But my story isn’t unique – most people are lacking social interaction these days.

Transactional data shows that people are filling this emotional void with media, alcohol, and online shopping. The dramatic rise in online shopping is especially interesting to analyze because it crosses all consumer segments. Businesses seem to be replacing personal interaction during the ongoing pandemic shutdowns. If you’re an ecommerce retailer, this is a trend you simply can’t ignore.

As people are hurting for social interaction, how can you meet that need to sustain ecommerce revenue?

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Does Your B2C Company Measure Up to Our Preschool?

11/2/2020

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Imagine your favorite store, your favorite restaurant, and your favorite tech brand. Now combine them. That’s how I feel about our son’s preschool. I absolutely love it. I can’t express enough how much I adore the school and the teachers and the curriculum. No matter what the day or week has been like, I still get excited about taking him to school. Then after I drop him off, I eagerly anticipate what he’s going to tell me about his day. And I get all giddy when I think about my daughter going there next year as well.

And while I certainly get the warm fuzzies as a Mama when I think about my oldest kiddo learning and making friends, the marketer in me also understands that this preschool is absolutely killing it from a business perspective. So, what can your company learn about consumer satisfaction, staffing, and product offerings from a preschool? Let’s dive in!

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<<Previous

This Year, Practice Gratitude

How to Develop a Content Strategy in a World Without Trust

Understanding Customer Attrition

Why Business-Supported Content Will Always Reign Supreme

How to Write Product Descriptions that Drive Sales

Does your Marketing Strategy Cut through the Pandemic Brain Fog?

Are Remote Employees Preventing Themselves from Doing Great Work?

I’m Never Doing That Again – Personal Outsourcing for Business Owners

Replacing Human Interaction with Ecommerce Retailers in 2021

Does Your B2C Company Measure Up to Our Preschool?

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