This just in!

The Chartered Institute of Marketing has released a report which suggests marketing professionals are failing to keep up with technology innovations. 

The report finds that proficiency in analytics and data has fallen the most, declining from 35% to a score of 29%.

The results are based off a benchmarking test of digital marketing skills, taken by over 7000 marketers in 2018, 2020 and 2021. 

With the fast paced growth of marketing technologies and social media platforms the range of skills and knowledge base of marketers continues to expand. 

The question is: How will traditional educational marketing institutions deal with the speed of these innovations?  

There is concern that graduates and professionals wills experience major skill gaps in upcoming years. Furlough aims to bridge this gap by providing you with up to date information. 

In this week's issue: 

• This or That?
• How Denck Innovations Plans To Flush Away Your Problems...
• Why Your New Website Isn't Getting Any Traffic
• How To Do Client Outreach The Right Way
• Destination Luxury: How To Revive A Brand
• Last Week's Best Bits

💎 Join Furlough on Discord 💎

This Or That?

We've been thinking...

What exactly is Furlough? Is it a community? An educational platform? A coworking space?

There's so much that defines us that it's hard to sum our platform up with one word.

So we took a vote.

In last weeks team meeting we debated on whether to define Furlough as a "community" or an "ecosystem."

Let's dig into the pros and cons...

Community

• Easy entry point to understand.
• It's only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what we offer.
• Community could be seen as a buzzword.

Ecosystem

• A clearer explanation that the Furlough platform is more than a social space for shared interests.
• Ecosystem could make the barrier to entry more difficult for passers by who could potentially become members.

The votes were a mixed bag. Ultimately there could only be one winner...

Ecosystem. 

But here's the thing, just because we assume something will work doesn't mean it will. 

When we switched to "Furlough Ecosystem" we saw the lowest number of new members join the Discord. 

This could mean that we were right to assume that "Ecosystem" made the barrier of entry more difficult for non members. 

Data doesn't lie. 

In the end we decided to drop "Furlough Ecosystem" to "Furlough."

With all the different aspects that make up our platform, what word do you think encompases it all? 

Tell us in the suggestions channel.

How Denck Innovations Plans To Flush Away Your Problems...

Where do you come up with your best ideas?

Is it in the morning after your first coffee? Is it during your afternoon workout? Or does your subconscious mind start mixing and matching ideas when you're on the toilet?

The team at Denck Innovations developed the next evolution of the toilet seat, just after their morning coffee (if you know what I mean).

They are providing an odorless toilet experience straight from the heart of Belgium.

I want you to imagine you were at a restaurant and that Caesar salad you just indulged upon went right through you.

You immediately exit the table and dash to that swanky restroom.

Aprés your glorious #2, there is zero smell. You now return to the table as if nothing ever happened. Nobody will ever know the trouble you just went through.

This is definitely an idea we can all get behind but there are a few things we need to address about this startup company.

From a business standpoint:

• They haven't gotten any products to market yet
• They have a bottleneck with fulfillment when it comes to supplying commercial spaces
• But they have the cash flow to invest into making this product work

From a marketing standpoint:

• They don't have a target demographic (only going off data from their own employees)
• They have no marketing channels setup
• They need to test the product in small batches to gain some feedback from the public

This is such an exciting time for Denck as they have many improvements to make & as a team of inventors we're confident they'll make it happen.

On a side note, the Startup Booster Sessions are growing by the numbers week by week and we couldn't be more excited to have so many people take interest in this event.

Just another reason why growth through collaboration can be such a powerful asset.

This week we're going to be taking a dive into Threely (a blockchain SaaS startup that brings a new take on personalization to the Web 3.0 space)

Join us in the #Furlounge this Tuesday @ 2 pm for some high-level marketing insights!

If you're a brand looking to get your startup boosted, then send a message to one of the community managers in the Furlough discord to join the waitlist (Spots are LIMITED).

Why Your New Website Isn't Getting Any Traffic

So you've just launched your new website. The site looks great but you slowly begin to lose faith when you look at your analytics. 

Low traffic.

Don't worry, it's more common than you think. 

Have you heard of "The Sandbox Effect?" 

This refers to a rumored filter that stops new websites from ranking on Google. Sort of like a probation period, it doesn't matter how good your site is, when you're on probation you won't rank no matter what you do. This can last for up to 6 months. 

Even though The Sandbox Effect hasn't officially been confirmed, many SEO professionals fully believe in it's existence. Sounds elusive right?

So what can you do about it?

1. Check for indexing issues

If search engines can't access important pages on your site, this will negatively affect your efforts. Check out WebSite Auditor to see a complete report of the technical issues present on your site. 

2. Optimise UX

Google doesn't just care about content quality. The engine also cares about measuring user experience. If your users can't access your content quality and easily interact with your site, you will get penalised. 

To see how well you're doing in this regard, take a look at your Google Search Console. You'll find two reports in your Enrichments tab: Core Web Vitals and Mobile Usability. 

3. Join business directories

Does your website stand alone? Or is it part of the wider web? 

Increase your chances to rank highly by joining relevant and well known directories like Google My Business.  

4. Create content pillars

With so much competition online you need to set yourself apart. 

A great way to demonstrate authority is by creating high quality content that sticks to a specific niche. Instead of jumping around just focus on one thing. Cover it from as many points as possible. 

Top tip: Find less competitive angles to write on through keyword research. This will help you build authority faster. 

On another note:

A huge shoutout and thank you to Eli and Blake for hosting a fantastic SEO Workshop! 

How To Do Client Outreach The Right Way

How to approach relationships [Lead Outreach and Relationship Management]

• Hosted by Ophir, Gensen, and Eric

This weeks highlights:

How do you reach out to prospective clients? How do you do outreach?

• Reach out to the business owner or manager directly, be mindful of who you’re speaking with and speak their language. For example, when talking with a business owner you’d want to focus on ROI, timelines, and projections, NOT brand positioning or conversion, you could save that for the head of marketing. 
• Focus on pitching the phone call, not the service. 
• Do your research before you reach out. Are they doing something really well that you admire? Do they have a weakness you know you can deliver on? Your first sentence should be positive communication and then second you should be able to show them a clear cut way of how you can bring them/their business value. 

You’ve secured the phone call, now what?

• You want to be digging into a discussion about the problems the client is facing, and make it clear you can provide the solutions. Dissect the problems and break it down to the core. Do you think you are actually able to provide value? Or is the client shopping around to agency hop for the best deal?
• People remember two things: the peaks (best/worst moments, engaging) and the ends. You want to ensure you are engaging the prospective client whether that's through an emotional, or visceral response. You want to keep it positive, and finish positive. 

Following up after the call 

• You want to ensure you are thanking them for their time, and discuss next steps or a follow up call and see where their head is at. 
• Whoever summarizes the meeting, dominates the agenda. The summary of the call is crucial to showing the client you can be trusted, that you can communicate what is important to them in a meaningful way, and speaks to how you can work with them. This can hopefully be the shift from prospect to client. 

How do you approach pricing?

• If you are just starting out, this can take some experimentation in terms of figuring out your own value. You want to position yourself as a premium option. You could also offer a guarantee that whatever they invest in you, they’ll make 5x ROI on or their money back. The guarantee can help with retention and shows you believe in the company, tying back into building trust in the relationship. 
• Be confident, stand your ground, set your price, and then finally: the power of silence. Do not say anything. Leave it to the client to make the next move. 
• A tool in the toolkit is a performance based fee structure --- invokes a succeed together and fail together kind of mentality and opens the door for you to become a contributor rather than just a service provider. Again, this ties back into building trust in your business relationships. 

How to revive a dead lead?

• Say you connected with someone 6 months ago, for whatever reason it didn’t work out but you left the door open to reconnect. Do some research, see if they’ve had any wins since you last spoke. Maybe they’ve made changes to their site, maybe they’ve had an article posted about them. Be curious. Reach out to see how they’re doing, mention that you’ve seen the article about them and you’d love to chat about it sometime, make it about them. 

TIP #1 --- business decisions are ultimately being made by people. Being able to connect on a personal level with your business relationships is key to establishing a baseline of trust between one another. Be authentic, build your network, create connections, showcase your personality, and connect with people on a personal level. 

TIP #2 --- people respond well to curiosity. By putting the client in a position to educate you you are respecting the fact that this person has as much to offer you and you have to offer them. By letting them teach you or tell you a story, this is an impactful way to engage and for them to feel as if you have a personal connection.  

TIP #3 --- the power email. Not for the faint of heart, but if you feel like you’re getting ghosted by a potential client start a new email off with “have you given up on this?” as the title of the email. You will either get a response of “oh my god no no, I’ve been really busy, I’m still interested” OR you’ll receive “you know, actually I don’t think this opportunity is for me”. Either way, you are no longer in flux, you’ve either put some gas on the fire to get things going again, or you’re able to move on. 
Tip #3 is from the book Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, a book on the art of negotiation related to sales. A recommended read from one of our community members and one of the hosts for this session, Gensen Gisborne. 

We encourage you to come out and get this wisdom first hand at our weekly Mastermind sessions!

Stay curious, build trust. 

Destination Luxury: How To Revive A Brand

Have you ever wondered what it's like to revive a brand that's been on the sidelines for a few years?

Last week we got the opportunity to explore this amazing media company called Destination Luxury.

The goal of this company was to grow completely through organic traffic on Facebook & Instagram (back when the platform's organic reach was insane) and become the most progressive luxury media brand in the world.

This iconic group grew to over 285,000 fans on Facebook with a monthly reach of 10-15 million users all interested in a luxurious lifestyle.

We'll let you imagine the types of industry connections they had (because they've probably been there, and done that).

But like we mentioned they've been parked on the back-burner for a few years now.

And the team at Furlough is lucky enough to bring this powerhouse back to life.

Here are a few things we're going to be doing:

1. Reworking the website to make it more user-friendly
2. Developing the proper channels for monetization
3. Building out their marketing channels to reclaim their throne as the most progressive luxury media brand in the world

If you haven't already noticed, this is going to be a HUGE project.

We're opening the floor here to the community if you think you've got a really great idea to take Destination Luxury to the next level.

Until then, come check out this week's Brand Audit Session featuring Winden (a banking solution specific to digital marketers).

Join us in the #Furlounge this Thursday @ 2 pm to listen in on some high-value insights!

If you're a brand looking to get your 2022 action plan, then send a message to one of the community managers in the Furlough discord to join the waitlist (Spots are LIMITED).

Last Weeks Best Bits

Get ready to experience last weeks best bits from our community:

CONTENT-MARKETING: Boost your blog post in 5-minutes.
EMAIL-MARKETING: Try out these A/B testing variables to measure your successful marketing campaign
SOCIAL-MEDIA: Declutter the Twitter web experience
TOOLS: Schedule and analyze your social content performance
COPYWRITING: Harry Dry’s next Masterpiece; Copywriting Examples. A curated examples of the best copywriting examples in the market.

Have a great week and we hope to see you in our Mastermind today at 12PM EST!