The stakes are high for marketers today to adapt and scale their operations. Trends like the hybrid work shift and the looming metaverse have cemented our digital reality while workforce and customer demands continue to escalate and create new challenges. As a result, it’s never been more perplexing for CMOs to manage and grow their organizations effectively.

Yet, many do not realize there is one overlooked issue that’s seriously costing their organizations—one that, if addressed, could significantly enhance their business: poor communication.

That’s what new research by Grammarly and The Harris Poll found. The “State of Business Communication” survey of business leaders and knowledge workers reveals that poor workplace communication is a pervasive problem burdening businesses and employees alike. In fact, the study estimates a $1.2 trillion annual loss among U.S. businesses due to poor communication—or approximately $12,506 per employee every year.

The findings are especially relevant for communications-heavy teams like marketing as they engage with each other, buyers, and customers across new digital touchpoints and channels. And while the cost alone is staggering, the findings go much deeper—illuminating the far-ranging impacts of ineffective communication today and the need to fundamentally rethink productivity and engagement in the workplace.

Let’s take a closer look at what the research reveals and the implications for marketers to succeed in the next era.

Boost productivity and profitability with effective communication

Effective communication across teams, customers, and prospects is essential as workplace demands evolve. Nearly all business leaders surveyed (93%) acknowledge that effective communication is the backbone of their business. From emails to documents to pings, employees report spending almost 20 hours a week (19.93) on written communication alone—or half of the typical 40-hour workweek. 

At the same time, the research suggests poor communication is rampant in the workplace—with direct effects on business results. Nearly three in four business leaders (72%) say their team struggled with communicating effectively over the last year. Moreover, they estimate teams lose the equivalent of nearly an entire workday each week (7.47) due to poor communication issues such as resolving unclear communications or following up on asks.

That’s up to a fifth of employees’ time that they could reclaim with better communication. The consequences of not addressing the issue are significant: Over nine in 10 business leaders say poor communication impacts productivity, morale, and growth, citing impacts such as increased costs, missed or extended deadlines, and reputational erosion. One in five leaders even reported losing business or deals due to poor communication.

As CMOs look to scale, overcoming the impact of poor communication is pivotal to achieving growth and profitability.

Deliver an exceptional employee experience with better communication

Beyond the direct cost benefits, the indirect advantages of improving communication are just as critical to business success.

In particular, leaders have a new urgency to improve the employee experience as record numbers of workers continue leaving their jobs. The Grammarly and Harris Poll data shows most business leaders (57%) cited employee satisfaction and retention as a top priority this year, even ahead of team productivity and customer satisfaction.

But the findings also reveal links between poor communication and employee morale and turnover. The majority of employees (86%) experience communication issues at work, and they report increased stress as the top impact. Those experiencing miscommunications multiple times a day are more likely to feel stressed. Leaders reporting higher employee retention are also more likely to have better communication.

Any breakdowns in the communication process slow down and frustrate employees, with domino effects on productivity, engagement, and the customer experience. As workforce needs continue to evolve, improving communication with greater clarity and empathy and nurturing confidence among employees are imperative.

Harness new tools to underpin the digital workplace

Nearly two years into the shift to remote and hybrid work, teams still don’t have the tools they need for success in a digital environment. Despite all the time they spend communicating, the research shows leaders (88%) and employees (63%) alike wish they had better tools to communicate effectively.

In particular, written communication takes up much of employees’ day-to-day. Over half (57%) say they communicate in a written format most of the time, and email remains the most popular and preferred method, ahead of virtual video meetings and text-based chat. Teams may also be interacting more than leaders even know: They estimate their teams spend 29% of their time collaborating with others when employees say it’s nearly half their time (49%).

A more dispersed workplace creates more opportunities for misunderstanding, and CMOs must rethink technology investments to equip teams to stay in sync and productive. AI and automated technologies are available that can help augment and optimize teams’ communication in all the places they’re already working. Platform-agnostic solutions, like AI communication assistance from Grammarly Business, integrate into existing systems and channels to enhance the quality and efficiency of communication across the board.

By revisiting lagging technology, CMOs can recapture the time lost to poor communication while delivering more impactful engagement with customers and employees.

The bottom line

Now more than ever, effective communication is the linchpin of organizations that can determine their performance. CMOs can no longer afford to ignore the cost of poor communication—those that invest in building better practices, bridging communication gaps at every level, and empowering teams with the right tools will see their businesses reach new heights.

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The “State of Business Communication” report is based on a survey conducted online by The Harris Poll in October 2021 among 1,001 knowledge workers and 251 business leaders in the U.S.

For complete methodology and more findings on the high cost and business impact of poor workplace communication, download the report, “The State of Business Communication: The Backbone of Business Is Broken,” and visit www.grammarly.com/business. 

This article was written by Dorian Stone, head of organizations revenue, Grammarly.

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Lead generation helps loan officers to find new clients. While your marketing and customer service should be designed to bring in more leads, don’t forget about the power of positive customer testimonials. 

Potential clients trust the opinions of established customers more than marketing. Almost all potential clients will search for testimonials and online reviews before they do business with a company. This is especially true in the world of financing. After all, many homebuyers rely on lenders to help them make the largest purchase of their lives.

In this guide, we’ll discuss some of the best ways to use testimonials to get new leads for your brokerage. 

Build Customer Rapport

Everything begins with positive customer relationships. Start by asking your long-time customers or ones who consistently express positive feedback to give feedback. 

You can even gather feedback and reviews from newer clients. However, it’s essential to develop and build rapport with your customers before you ask them for a review. Once you’ve earned their trust by delivering consistent, high-quality service, it will be incredibly easy to ask for feedback. 

When customers rely on your services and trust your company above competitors, they will be eager to tell family and friends about you. With this information in hand, you can move on to the next step: Spreading the word.

Sharing Testimonials to Get New Leads

More than half of all homebuyers say they would contact a brokerage based on reviews posted by previous customers. If you’re not already using social proof to boost your marketing efforts, it’s time to start. 

Loan officers should make it easy for new leads to view and access feedback from established clients. You can publish this feedback on your website and social media channels. 

In addition to formal reviews and testimonials, your digital marketing should highlight positive results and experiences with your clients over the years. One simple way to do this is to share pictures taken with clients at their closings. Post these pictures on your social media accounts with a note of congratulations and make sure to tag the buyer and their agent in your post!

If possible, select a featured customer success story that will appeal to your target audience. For example, if you want to work with more VA buyers, you can share feedback from a veteran you’ve helped recently. Want to target first-time homebuyers? Share a story from someone with a unique first-time experience.

The Right Tools Can Help

Positive online testimonials work like a lead generation engine. They can boost your advertising efforts! Leads keep mortgage brokerages in business. Every positive customer experience should result in a great review and a few new leads. 

With a powerful mortgage brokerage CRM, you can request feedback, share testimonials, develop ad campaigns, and more. Want to learn how to publish testimonials to improve your marketing efforts? Curious what a high-quality CRM can do for your business? Contact the team at BNTouch to schedule a free demo today.

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Google has begun rolling out the page experience update for desktop web pages and desktop search, a Google spokesperson has confirmed with Search Engine Land. This update will slowly roll out over the next several weeks and be completed by the end of March 2022.

Google did tell us that the desktop version of the page experience update would begin this month and now Google has confirmed it has begun rolling out.

Page experience update for desktop. This update will include all the current signals of the mobile version of the page experience update, outside of the page needing to be mobile-friendly. Google said all of the page experience factors for mobile will be included with the exception of the mobile-friendliness requirement, which is kind of obvious. Here is a chart Google designed showing the specific factors:

What is page experience? Google has a detailed developer document on the page experience criteria but in short, these metrics aim to understand how a user will perceive the experience of a specific web page: considerations such as whether the page loads quickly, if it’s mobile-friendly, runs on HTTPS, the presence of intrusive ads and if content jumps around as the page loads.

Page experience is made up of several existing Google search ranking factors, including the mobile-friendly update, Page Speed Update, the HTTPS ranking boost, the intrusive interstitials penalty, safe browsing penalty, while refining metrics around speed and usability. These refinements are under what Google calls Core Web Vitals. Please note, Google dropped the safe browsing factor last year from the page experience update.

Search Console tools. Google has released updated page experience reports for desktop a few months ago. You can learn more about that report over here.

Don’t expect drastic changes. Google said with this rollout and this new Google update, do not expect drastic changes. “While this update is designed to highlight pages that offer great user experiences, page experience remains one of many factors our systems take into account… Given this, sites generally should not expect drastic changes,” said Google. We expect the same to be true for the desktop rollout.

Why we care. While, I do not believe this page experience update will be a significant update where you will see tons of sites see their rankings drastically change, those working towards improving their page experience have been primarily focused on their mobile pages.

I would not expect major ranking shifts from this rollout and in fact, if you do see ranking shifts today or tomorrow, I would highly doubt it is related to this update.

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Auto-apply recommendations in Microsoft Advertising are now out of beta and generally available, the company announced Monday. By default, advertisers are opted into all five of the platform’s recommendation types (more on that below).

Why we care. Microsoft Advertising first launched this feature in beta in March 2021 and now it’s widely available, which means it can potentially help more advertisers save time when creating ads or optimizing their campaigns.

While opting into auto-apply recommendations won’t increase your budgets, it’s still authorizing the platform to make changes on your behalf, without your involvement. Advertisers should assess whether that’s acceptable for them and opt out if it’s not.

Five types of recommendations. Microsoft Advertising currently offers the following auto-apply recommendation types:

• Create Expanded Text Ads.
• Create Responsive Search Ads.
• Create multimedia ads.
• Remove negative keywords conflicts.
• Fix conversion goal setting issue.

Advertisers are opted into all five recommendation types by default; opting in does not increase budgets.

View scheduled recommendations. Recommendations that will automatically apply are viewable in the “Scheduled to auto-apply” section of the Recommendations page.

The cards in this section provide a short description of the potential issue, the date the recommendation will be automatically applied, and advertisers can also view the recommendation from this card.

Email notifications can be enabled for recommendations by switching on the “Ad performance optimization” email preference for all account managers. Recommendations are automatically applied seven days after the email notification is sent.

Reference recommendation history. Advertisers have two ways to keep tabs on applied recommendations:

• The Change history page – Select “Recommendations auto apply” in the Change history page to show changes made by auto-apply recommendations within a given timeframe.
• The clock icon – Click on the clock icon that appears in the top-right corner of the Recommendations pages to view your applied recommendations history. Select the “Auto applied” tab to see the auto-apply history for the previous 30 days.

Opt out. Advertisers can opt out at any time by navigating to the auto-apply recommendation control center (the thunderbolt icon on the top-right side of the Recommendations page, shown below).

From there, uncheck each recommendation type that you don’t want to automatically apply. Note: These recommendations can still be manually applied in the future.

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Online retailers can now add an optional short title to identify their products in Google Merchant Center.

The new [short_title] attribute differs from the existing [title] attribute in that the short title should be concise and is intended to show in “browsy experiences,” like Discovery campaigns and Shopping ads on Gmail.

Why we care. Full product titles often get truncated in the “browsy” contexts Google has mentioned, which means that users may not be seeing all the relevant information from your ad. Short titles provide merchants with an alternate, concise way to identify their products, which could help to improve clickthrough rates.

Short title requirements. While Google allows 1–150 characters for this field, it recommends using between 5 and 65 characters. Google also advises that merchants:

• Use a relevant, concise short title that clearly describes their product.
• Ensure that the short title describes the product on the landing page.
• Use professional and grammatically correct language.
• Avoid foreign languages unless they’re well understood (e.g., “sushi”).
• Avoid using capital letters for emphasis.
• Avoid including promotional text (i.e., prices, sales dates, your business’ name, etc).
• Don’t add extra white spaces.

Best practices for short titles. As mentioned above, Google recommends limiting your short titles to 65 characters or less — this is because users typically only see the first 65 characters of a short title (depending on their screen size). 

You should also highlight the most important details by placing them towards the front, since users don’t always read the entire title. And, adding a brand name is a good idea if it helps differentiate the product — this can be important when you sell similar products across brands.

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