Rnordman

To say inbound marketing is a burgeoning market could be an understatement. With the help of partnership-focused analytics tools, more people are trading their fulltime jobs -- willingly or by necessity -- to channel their inner Don Draper and pair his marketing savvy with the 21st century.

The challenge is that when you’re an inbound marketing team of one (or even just a handful of people), you also become copywriter, designer, strategist, accountant, sales lead, editor, SEO specialist ... the list could go on for paragraphs.

So if you find yourself in the middle of an identity crisis, read on for the signs that it might be time to call on the help of an inbound marketing agency to make your marketing more streamlined, and your business life more efficient.

Sign #1: You’d rather potty-train 12 toddlers at one time than pull together a creative team.

Awful visual, right? Sourcing, interviewing, hiring and managing the efforts of several creatives is no easy task, either. Not only is paying the overhead for an in-house creative team unwieldy for some, but once you have that team, you must orchestrate their efforts so they produce what you're looking for.

If you're at a point where your business needs more headcount around creative, ask yourself these questions to determine whether it might make sense to go with an agency:

1) Can I detect branding inconsistencies? This is more than making sure the logo is aligned properly on each piece of creative. This is about image, and cohesion. For instance, does a color palette blend with a font? How about photography, white space, and ad copy?

2) Do I speak designer-ese? The beauty and the challenge of working with amazing professionals is they were educated and primed for amazing things -- hiring an in-house team will give you an inside look at a vernacular that can boggle the mind. When they deliver a piece of creative, do you know when (see above) and how to tell them what you want instead? Could you talk to them about HTML and CSS?

3) Am I capable of building systems around people? This could mean in an office, or virtually -- but those systems need to enable them get their jobs done efficiently. You can't have systems that result in projects that tend to limp across the marketing finish line.

If you've answered "no" or "not really" to many of these questions -- or even if these scenarios make you uncomfortable or totally stressed out -- it might be a good sign that outsourcing creative to an agency is a good next step. You have enough to worry about. Don't add more.

Sign #2: Your new motto is: “I can sleep when I’m dead.”

When 12-hour days sound like an easy week, there’s something awry. The whole point of joining the inbound marketing crusade (we hope!) was to rely on the very best of your abilities and strategically use them to help your company grow. If you can raise your hand to more than three of these scenarios below, it’s likely time to call on an agency for help:

• Your LinkedIn comments have sunk from insightful and engaging to “I almost read the first paragraph.”
• Business lunch? Who has time for lunches -- I’m still learning how to re-size photos.
• You’re tempted to make blogging a chore for your 11-year-old.
• Sales leads are given prime attention, between the hours of 11:30 p.m. and 1 a.m.

Do those sound familiar? If so, which ones? Let's take that last bullet -- sales leads should be given prime attention the second they're ready to be contacted by a sales representative (or yourself). If you're getting distracted from closing new business to attend to marketing matters, it might be worth outsourcing specific functions to a well-vetted inbound marketing agency.

Now, if that last bullet did sound familiar to you, ask yourself if any (or all) of the preceding bullets are also familiar. Being able to silo which tasks in particular are a time suck -- or are just not getting the attention they deserve -- will help you decide on what specifically needs to be outsourced, and to whom.

Which leads us to sign number three you might need to outsource a part of your marketing ...

Sign #3: You’ve become a jack of all trades, master of none.

There are few completely, utterly unenjoyable aspects of being an inbound marketer. Blogging? Chatting with people on Twitter? Conceiving creative email campaigns? Casting a marketing vision for your company? Fun stuff, right?

The problem is, the more of these tasks you take on, the more your time and talents get stretched thinner and thinner. To figure out what you’d like to master, go through these exercises to see whether it's time to give some of your daily tasks over to an agency:

1) Think back. What made me most excited about inbound marketing when I first learned about it? How often do I get to do [insert awesome inbound marketing task here]?

2) Start a list of grunts. I’ve told friends prepping to build a custom home to watch what gathers dust in their current house -- and design that space/closet/room out of the home they’re going to build. Use your grunt list the same way, and prioritize what you’d gladly hand off to someone else.

3) Join a local professional marketing group (like a HUG, if you're a HubSpot user) and/or come to INBOUND 2013. No, HubSpot did not pay me to write that ;-) When I’m down in the dumps or my grunt list has jumped to a new Excel tab, I know it’s time for a change of scenery and/or I need to spend time with people who are passionate about the marketing things I love, too. That energy is catchier than twerking.

(You’re thinking about twerking now, aren’t you?)

What do all these signs come down to? Growth and sales suffer when you’re doing too much, whether inside or outside your skill set. Leads are likely falling through the cracks and into your competitors’ arms. If more of the experiences in this article were familiar than unfamiliar, dip your toes into some inbound marketing agency research. You might find it helps you shorten your grunt list, letting you spend time on the things you do best that help you grow the business.

Correcting grammatical glips since 1994, Amanda is TMR Direct's content manager who makes the world go ’round with Excel spreadsheets and red pens. She loves writing and hiking, but not at the same time. Connect with her here.

Image credit: bgottsab

With over 400 million users worldwide, there’s a pretty big chance many of the subscribers on your email list are reading your newsletters in Gmail.

Just like it’s a good idea to optimize your emails for people reading them on mobile devices, optimizing your emails for specific clients can help you stand out in the inbox. Readable emails that display the way you design them makes your marketing much more effective.

With the new tabs in Gmail inboxes, it’s more important than ever to make your emails attractive. Let’s talk about how to tailor your emails to make a better experience for those subscribers.

Finding Out Who’s on Gmail

Before you start optimizing your campaign, you need to know if your Gmail subscribers are in the majority. It’s easy to find that out.

Go to your recent broadcasts in your AWeber account and open the most recent message you sent. This brings up the analytics for that message. Click on the “Domains” tab to view a pie chart breakdown of the web domains your subscribers are using:

Are a significant percentage of your subscribers using Gmail? Then it’s time to optimize your campaign for those subscribers.

Creating Gmail-Friendly Emails

Gmail has some special features you can easily take advantage of to get your emails delivered to the inbox and opened more frequently.

Inbox Tabs

Gmail’s new inbox tabs automatically organize users’ inboxes into categories each Gmail user chooses from a selection of five: Primary, Updates, Social, Promotions and Forums. Emails are sorted into those categories based on keywords and past interactions.

According to feedback from some of our readers, subscribers who read your emails regularly may see them under their Primary tab, which loads by default. Otherwise, your emails likely land under “Updates” or “Promotions” and may be missed if your subscribers ignore those categories.

What to do about it? Of course, the obvious answer is to create emails people want to read. But busy or distracted subscribers still may not bother to look around for your messages, so here’s another suggestion: On your thank-you page (where new subscribers land after filling out your web form), add a note to Gmail subscribers to check each tab for your confirmation email, then drag it to a tab they check regularly so they’ll see all emails they’ve requested from you. (Much easier, actually, than adding you to their address books!)

Snippets

One more feature to consider: how Gmail previews messages. As demonstrated in an earlier post, Gmail displays a “snippet” of text following the subject line to preview the first few words of the message body.

Many marketers overlook this golden opportunity to elicit an open, allowing their standard preheader text to be the first message preview a subscriber encounters:

Not very enticing, is it? Compare to this example from that uses an extra headline to tease the message content for more opens:

Check out this post for more ways to use snippet-effective previews.

Rapportive

Rapportive is an app that connects with Gmail and displays social media information about your Gmail contacts. Rapportive also integrates with your AWeber account to show which of your mailing lists your contacts are subscribed to.

When integrated with AWeber, Rapportive lets you see which mailing list a particular contact is on, whether they’ve unsubscribed, how long they’ve been subscribed for and the last message they received from you.

For marketers and business owners who have some overlap between their professional and personal communications, Rapportive is a helpful tool for painting a fuller picture of your subscribers as you communicate.

How Many of Your Subscribers Use Gmail?

Will you optimize your campaign in light of the recent news? Or is your campaign already improved for Gmail? Have you seen better results using these tools and techniques?

First a shameless plug for marketer to join us tomorrow, Wednesday August 14, from 9am to 2pm for the Keys to Content Marketing Success virtual summit. There are four webinars throughout the day so come when you can but please come. Free hugs to attendees. (I reserve the right to refuse service to anybody).

• Also, I participated in an interview with Matt Heinz on content marketing the other day. Check it out because I pretty much got my inspiration for this post from one of my answers.
• Check out Mike Damphousse’s post the Five Content Marketing Mistakes – it features speakers from the Keys to Content Marketing Success virtual summit.

Ok, so I have three simple rules for successful b2b content marketing. My hope is that you can read this post in 63 seconds or less. Here they are:

1. No one wants to listen to you talk about yourself

Well, not no one. People that want to hear you talk about yourself will ask to do so and you should present that opportunity to them. Don’t get confused…you still get to market your products to people. Just remember, that isn’t content marketing. Content marketing is  the practice of providing the buyer with information they want, when they want it. Step one is understanding what the buyer wants; and step two is giving it to them regularly. That is the very simple formula that will inspire them to come back for more. And I can make a bet with you that the information they want is about them not you. (80-90% of the time).

2. They know when you are pretending to not talk about yourself but you really are

“There is a way to word it where the reader doesn’t know they are being sold.” — VP of Marketing two years ago in a conversation on content marketing.

“No there isn’t. You are either helping or selling — Choose one.” — My answer.

Your buyers aren’t stupid. You aren’t selling timeshares. (Editor’s note: I did this once. I cold-called people to offer them a “free” trip to Tahoe. What they didn’t know was to get the trip, they had to listen to a sales pitch.) Again, focus on delivering real value regularly and you will win. No tricks, no bait and switch. That is content marketing.

3. Content marketing is a platform that supports the entire revenue machine

Content marketing is the foundation for your social media, inbound marketing, demand generation, selling, and customer retention strategies. It’s not just writing blog posts or writing whitepapers. Everything you do across the entire revenue machine is supported by content. Like any business process, you will want to have the following things in a place:

• Strategy — Define your buyers and how they buy. Then decide how your organization will approach these buyers.
• People — Dedicate a full-time team or resource to the content marketing process. This team interfaces with and delivers content to it’s constituents across the revenue machine from marketing through sales
• Process — Develop a process to create quality content on a regular basis.
• Technology — Use technology to make your processes more efficient

Time! Did you read this in one minute or less?

Don’t forget The Keys to Content Marketing Success virtual summit - Wednesday August 14, from 9am to 2pm for the

Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic and a co-founder of Topo. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter

 

Photo by Andrew King

As part of our new Digital Marketing Research Center, we’re launching a new blog series dedicated to the findings from our monthly reports. In the spirit of MarketingSherpa’s “Chart of the Day” we’re...

We live in a time of memes and one-hit wonders. In most cases, what’s trending one moment will be an afterthought in a matter of days. Most CMOs and marketers who understand that fact strive to create both relevant and timely content to engage with very dynamic audiences.

Understanding the interests of those audiences is incredibly valuable data. Ultimately, it will shape how brands create content and effectively market to them better.

The sad fact is that, despite creating billions of social data points each day—a study by the Columbia Business School and the New York American Marketing Association tells us—only 35% of marketers are collecting social content from customers, and of that, only 33% are tracking ties to customers in social media. What an incredibly huge missed opportunity.

Brands must collect and analyze social data and understand what’s relevant to their target customer. By doing this, they can gain incredible insight from threelevels of data.

Social Customer Data: A Breakdown

Brands should look at social customer data through three levels: high-, mid-, and individual-level data. Each of the three lenses can bring into focus different insights that can used to make marketing more effective.

1. High-Level Data

The broadest view of social connections, high-level data points will uncover who is actually interacting with brands in social in aggregate. Learning the high-level facts about the social connections across multiple presences (possibly hundreds for a global brand) offers insight for categories like gender, state, city, and age.

Tools like Facebook Insights provide data about who fans are, where they live, how old they are, etc. Social media monitoring will help brands engage in active and passive listening to gather feedback from their customers. Being able to know these data points for a variety of social channels helps understand what segments of an overall customer base are tied to social media, helping brands create content that can be effectively repurposed across channels. It also helps guide where content creation and community response resources should be focused and how to tailor the message to the sub-segments of audience that are connected to social spaces.

2. Mid-Level Data

A hybrid of high-level data and individual-level data that relates to each person’s interests and social activity, mid-level data is arguably the most fascinating of the three data sets.

When broad, high-level filters get paired with more specific pieces of data, things start to get even more interesting. Being able to segment social customer data means unlocking insights about them that wouldn’t otherwise be revealed.

By pairing general, high- and specific, individual-level data, brands can conduct social segmentation that answers questions like…

• How many married women subscribe to a YouTube channel?
• How many fans follow Grumpy Cat on Twitter or Boo on Facebook?
• How many users under 30 in California Like a brand’s Facebook Page and follow the company on Twitter?

While these filter combinations will each provide insights, brands should also compare social customer findings with other marketing data sets to see how they match up. Are the target segments they’re shooting for as a brand reflect who is actually connected to them in social media? Just as social listening can illuminate new demographics that are attracted to a brand, pulling this insight from their database of existing connections is possible, too. Plus, knowing more about social audiences will help shape content calendars, social ad strategies, and long-term goals.

3. Individual-Level Data

By taking a microscope to their data, brands will find each of their social connections—the customers who they’re aiming to reach one by one to develop relationships and strengthen a connection via social. Capturing profile information and interaction history for each social connection creates a go-to resource for getting to know customers.

For community management teams, individual-level data is invaluable when interacting with people one-on-one in social media. Knowing about each customer makes subsequent interactions richer and helps identify brand advocates. It helps everyone on social response teams view each customer for who each person is personally—making interactions more authentic and personalized. These “social profiles” will prove to be invaluable as they uncover characteristics about audiences that ultimately inform a smarter marketing behavior.

Dive in deeper to mid-level segments to learn more about how teams are interacting with members of that group. For instance, a snack brand may view individual profiles of this segment: mothers living in New York who Like them on Facebook and have indicated they like a particular flavor over another, which has been included as a field in a newsletter sign-up form. Spotting subtle trends early and supplementing with social media monitoring efforts will help stay ahead of the game.

By viewing data through these three lenses, brands savvy marketers can gain an upper hand on the 65% of marketers who have yet to see the value.

As services like Airbnb, Rent the Runway and Zipcar become more prevalent, the ripple effects could be intense, say market strategists at ConvergEx Group.

In America, home ownership is losing ground to the rental cohort, and new internet-based services like Airbnb, Rent the Runway, Zipcar, and TaskRabbit--just to name a few--have enabled the rise of the "renting and sharing economy."

Now, "rent" is becoming the new "own," according to market strategists at ConvergEx Group, who warn that the ripple effects of such a trend could be "catastrophic."

"Americans of every demographic are flocking to services like Airbnb, Taskrabbit, and Bag Borrow or Steal for one overwhelming reason: Renting and sharing allow us to live the life we want without spending beyond our means," the strategists write in a note to clients. "Not all of it is intentional, mind you: Low cash flow (or none at all) is most certainly driving many customers to rent rather than buy. But it’s also becoming quite trendy; consumers are either unwilling or unable to afford big-ticket purchases--whether it be a house for $500,000 or a new dress for $500."

The strategists point to projections that suggest the "sharing" and "rental" economies will generate $3.5 billion in revenue in 2013, and grow to as big as $110 billion over the next few years.

What's to blame? A few main effects are at play here, according to the ConvergEx team: (1) the bursting of the housing bubble and the attendant rise in personal bankruptcies; (2) lower disposable incomes as wage growth in America remains elusive; and (3) the introduction of new apps and websites in the past few years that enable more renting and sharing opportunities.

"The potential impacts of renting/leasing as a long-term trend, though, are worrisome: Renting and sharing could lead to lower home sales (and, subsequently lower home values and net worths), as well as lower auto and retail sales," write the strategists.

"The ripple effects could also be catastrophic: Adjusting to a consumer who does not necessarily buy, but rather rents, would necessitate a shift in production, sales, and even employment structures. Everything interesting in economics happens at the margin, so if the nth consumer chooses to rent an apartment instead of buying a house or making do with a car-share program instead of purchasing a new vehicle, then demand for new houses and cars drops."

For the ConvergEx team, even more worrying than the rise of renting and sharing at the expense of ownership are the underlying reasons driving consumers to rent and share more.

"The crisis-sparked renting and sharing economy could have an effect similar to that of the Depression, in which the consumer psyche is morphed to constantly imagine a worst-case-scenario," they write. "The recent recession, arguably, could be fostering a generation of 'renters' and 'sharers' (as opposed to 'savers') who are wary of potentially risky investment vehicles or financial instruments. Recent urbanization trends in the U.S. population could be the first signal of this: Cities are the hubs of the renting and sharing economy, after all."

That's why the behavior of the Millennials--the generation often parametrized as having been born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s--will be key to watch.

"As it stands, the rental economy will probably prosper for a bit longer as this cohort pays back student loans and finds higher-paying jobs," say the ConvergEx strategists. "But as they approach their 30s and beyond, it’s not overly optimistic to expect them to make the big-ticket purchases they couldn’t before. Some will be renters for life, of course, but many will come to appreciate the value of owning: Taking out a mortgage for a home typically results in lower monthly payments than rent, for example."

The share of renters in the American economy has risen to 35% from 31% before the housing crisis.

The data are clearly reflected in search data: Americans are Googling "house for rent" more than ever before.

A similar trend can be seen in searches for "car lease." According to ConvergEx, leases accounted for 27.5% of all new car purchases in 2013, up from 10.9% in 2009.

Meanwhile, traffic to Airbnb.com, a service that matches those renting out parts of their home, typically on a short-term basis, has soared.

The same can be said for the website of Zipcar, a service that offers flexible, short-term car rentals.

This post originally appeared on Business Insider.

I had the great opportunity to join our partners at Kapost to speak to over 200 B2B Marketers in Boston recently on the importance of content. What I heard from many at the event after my presentation on Using Content in the Middle of the Funnel was, “You just told our story.  We have content, but we are not using it effectively to take the Buyer past initial engagement.”  During my speech I asked the question, “Who has an effective lead nurturing stage in place as part of their Demand Generation program?”  The response? Crickets. Not a single hand was raised out of a room of 200 very smart and passionate B2B marketers.

The issue in most organizations is not the lack of content that exists, but utilizing it correctly.  According to Forrester, less than 5% of organizations state that every one of their prospect interactions is orchestrated.  If prospect engagement is not strategically orchestrated, then marketers cannot expect to utilize content effectively and will continue to struggle with effective lead nurturing.

The result?  A poor interaction between Buyers and Sellers.  Buyers are looking to forge partnerships with their vendors and engage in relevant content, while vendors are selling to Buyers before they are ready. This is what is leading to increased dissatisfaction through the buying process.

Until marketers begin taking a strategic, versus tactical, approach to their Demand Generation, this trend will continue.  Buyers do not buy in a tactical, siloed approach, yet as marketers, this is how campaigns are often structured.  Our content is delivered to them in parts, like a bad story that jumps from one scene to the next without an appropriate lead-in or segue.  If this broken process is going to change, a few things need to happen:

-          We must take an organizational approach to messaging our Buyers

A lot has been stated that marketing and sales must come together to work on aligning around the Buyer.  Agreed!  However, it is more than just marketing and sales.  It should also include, customer support/service, product marketing, product management and partners.  In addition, the customers themselves should be looked to as a resource for gaining key insights into their challenges and pain points.

-          Must take a strategic and rational approach to Demand Generation

Demand Generation is a perpetual process that spans the Engagement, Nurture and Conversion stage of a prospects buying lifecycle.  However, in many organizations this is approached very tactically with email campaigns, or one-off events.  Again, the Buyer does not buy tactically and our Demand Generation programs should not be developed in a tactical manner.  Until marketing organizations take a strategic approach to their Demand Generation and align their content to their Buyer’s unique purchase stages, we will continue to miss the mark and have very little revenue to show for it.

Getting the most from your content is not about how much content you are able to produce.  It is about developing the right content that aligns to your Buyer(s) and their purchase process.  The only way this is possible is by adopting a strategic mindset and moving away from the tactical.

Want to learn more? Download a copy of my presentation!

Rumor has it, email is dead. It seems that each time a new technology is introduced, people claim it will kill our reliance on email. Sure companies have access to social media, direct mail, and TV opportunities for communicating their message, yet email marketing is still the quickest and most direct way to reach the customer.

So reports of emails death seem greatly exaggerated. In fact, email is actually the preferred method of communication. 94% of Americans 12 years or older who are active online say they use email regularly. 58% of adults check email first thing in the am. And email has even been deemed the favorite mode of communication reported by millennials.

Clearly email isn’t dead. It’s evolving. And the strategies that marketers use are changing with it.

Want to learn more about how email is evolving?

Brought to you by Email Marketing Software from Marketo

Where communities, public-facing knowledge bases and other forms of self-service used to be more of a “nice to have” rather than a must-have; these channels have become among the most preferred avenues for customer service. Despite this trend, I talk to companies all the time that still drag their feet on making investments in these channels. While they understand the inherent value at a high level (deflecting tickets from the call center), they’re seeking proof — in dollars and cents.

Recently, I decided it was time to respond to these objections — “show them the money” as it were. So, I devised a formula that companies can use to literally calculate the value of the service they provide through these channels, relative to what it would have cost had these customers called or emailed a customer service representative. This includes customers that are helped by reading an article, finding a solution in FAQs, or asking a question and receiving a response from the community. After much thought (and interviews with seven experts), here’s what I came up with:

Depending on what self-service vendor you use, the “c” variable might be number of “likes” or “thumb ups” that an article receives, rather than votes for “this article helped me.” If your system uses a “star rating” method for user engagement, measure the quantity of articles with high ratings (three or more stars on a five-star scale, for example). The “.10” in the blue bracket accounts for the percent of page views that resolve a customer issue on average (on the conservative end). The remaining site visitors are likely browsing articles, doing research, or ultimately calling support.

Now, I don’t mean to assume with this formula that self-service doesn’t provide value to companies in other ways — feedback for product development, for example, or providing another platform for marketing material. I just wanted to draw a direct line between these channels and the value they provide to the customer service organization, which is essentially crowdsourcing your customer service.

Creating this kind of value isn’t just a matter of making these channels available. In the same way you apply KPIs in call centers, self-service channels require constant measurement to identify opportunities for improvement. Each of the variables in my formula are calculated using a performance measure. “Average percent of issues resolved by customers, rather than employees,” for example, should ideally be more heavily weighted to customers. Also, the number of issues that receive “this article helped me votes,” should tell you which articles are the most popular. Both of these findings are valuable for helping take actions that improve the overall customer experience.

• What KPIs do you use to monitor and improve your self-service channels?
• How else do you measure the value of your self-service channels?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

A thoughtful commenter recently started a comment with, “The essence of selling………..”

I didn’t completely agree with the comment, but it got me to thinking about the “essence of selling.” I’m not sure I have a great answer, but let me think out loud.

• Is it building relationships? Relationships are important in selling, but is that the essence of it–is that why we sell? I have relationships with lots of people who I never want to sell anything to.
• Is it helping the customer? We want to be helpful, we want customers to like us, but we aren’t a charity or a social service organization (Even charities sell —though they call it something different).
• Is it solving a problem, providing solutions for our customers? Our customers engage us because they have a problem they want to solve, something they want to do. They think we can help them do it.
• Is it creating value for the customer? To be successful for the customer and with the customer, we have to create value. Without great value, the customer has no reason to change or no reason to select us.
• Is it providing insight for customers? We want to educate the customers, present them new ideas, help identify new opportunities, show them how they can improve. But most of all, we want to focus our insight on things in which we can specifically help the customer. All the rest is pleasant conversation.
• Is it demonstrating our knowledge, expertise? Is it demonstrating the superiority of our solution? We do have to demonstrate our knowledge, expertise, and capabilities to build confidence that we can, in fact solve the customers’ problems and help them achieve their goals. Without connecting these to what we can do for the customer it is either bragging or peddling—both of which are fairly useless.
• Is it becoming the trusted partner of our customers? Certainly, we want customers to trust us–they won’t work with us, they won’t see us if they don’t.
• Is it about helping our customers buy, facilitating their buying process, helping the reach a decision–hopefully selecting us? Our customers don’t know how to buy, we can help them in this process, we often underestimate the value we create by doing so. The toughest part about buying is not the vendor selection, but in aligning everyone on the buying team and figuring out what it is you want to do, why you are doing it, and what outcomes you want to create.
• Is it about engaging our customers in thoughtful discussions about their business? We wouldn’t think about anything else. Customers don’t want to hear our pitches, they want to talk about their businesses, their goals, their problems, and what they can do about it.

There are probably a lot more things. These things are all critical to being successful in selling.

But it seems to me the essence of selling is producing revenue for the companies/organizations we work for.

Somehow it seems crass to be that direct, but that is the essence. It’s something we can never lose sight of. It’s something we shouldn’t be ashamed of, or afraid to declare to our customers.

Doing all the things I’ve listed above are meaningless if they aren’t oriented to producing revenue (money) for our companies.

Don’t get me wrong–building relationships is great–just for the value of the relationship itself. Solving problems is challenging and fun. Providing insight is ego gratifying and helpful. Each are useful and valuable things. There are lots of people who do these things who do not sell. As sales people we have to do all these thing in order to sell–to get people to decide to spend their money on us.

Sometimes, I think many of us lose sight of this. We build and maintain the relationship in hopes that someday, maybe, the customer might want to buy something. We want to keep engaging the customers in discussions–as long as they keep seeing us, maybe someday they will give us an order. We’re continually providing ideas, the freshest insight, hoping that one day, the customer will whip out a PO.

But the essence of selling is producing revenue for our companies. We have to do all these things, but we do them purposefully. We do them for the goal of getting the customer to buy, to generate revenue for our company. Anything else is just a waste of our time, our company resources, and the customers’ time. They don’t want necessarily want relationships, they don’t want to have pleasant conversation. They want to achieve their goals, solve their problems, improve their businesses (so they produce money).

It seems obvious, but sometimes, I think we need to remind ourselves. We confuse what we must do to be successful with the essence of selling.

Ever been in a shop looking at the most recent iPhone or the newest DVD release and wondered if it’s cheaper somewhere else?

I recently discussed showrooming on a panel session at IMRG Connect and more than half of the audience admitted that they’d done it. 

Although the media is hailing showrooming as the latest blow to the already struggling high street, it’s been around for years. In the past consumers would visit several shops to see which one offered the best deal, later comparing prices online at home. 

Nowadays, smartphone technology is making price comparison easier and more immediate. Shoppers are now examining products in store and simultaneously looking for cheaper prices on their phones without the slightest hint of embarrassment.

What does this mean for retailers?

 “Thank you for shopping with Amazon” read a sign in the window of Jessops as it brought in the administrators. 

Sad but true and showrooming has also been blamed for the demise of HMV and Comet. In a world where price is everything, some high street stores – particularly independent retailers – are struggling. 

Most people don’t purposefully go showrooming,  it’s usually a reaction to unavailable stock, bad customer service or extortionate prices.

Any shopper experiencing these kinds of problems will look elsewhere. 

While low stock is often unavoidable, retailers need to make sure they still close the sale by directing consumers to their online store by providing a QR code or in-store access to an online catalogue where they can order items. 

The purchase journey needs to be simple and convenient or consumers will go elsewhere.

Long live the high street

It might sound hopeless but according to a survey by RSR Research, less than 50% of retailers are responding to showrooming. Clearly not everyone is concerned. 

Shopping is still a national pastime and plenty of shoppers prefer to buy from bricks and mortar stores, as it’s easier to receive advice, claim refunds etc. if you deal with people face-to-face.

According to Econsultancy's Christmas 2012 report, 21% of UK and 26% of US shoppers had used their mobiles for price comparison and checking reviews: 

Did you use a mobile while shopping in stores to check prices and reviews? 

I don’t think the humble store will become extinct, but it will change. Some stores are already evolving, looking for new ways to entice people to visit their high street store instead of a website.

Fight back!

As ever, personalisation is crucial. Shoppers need a reason to visit a store, so retailers should offer consistency, exceptional customer service and something unavailable online, such as personal shoppers or consultations.

Specialist shops such as Runners Need already do this. You have your gait and running style measured by an expert, who then recommends the ideal pair of trainers for your feet. This consultation takes almost an hour, so most consumers buy the recommended trainers in-store, even though they might be cheaper online. 

Apple focuses on customer service rather than sales. Shoppers can explore the products, ask questions and be advised on their ideal product. They can also book an appointment with the Genius Bar if they have any problems.

Judging by the queues outside Apple stores for new product releases, they’re clearly doing something right. 

Extreme = idiotic 

With the media denouncing showrooming as bad practice and a movement which will destroy the high street, several retailers are turning to extremities to try and extinguish the trend.

One shop in Australia even started charging customers a browsing fee, refundable with any in-store purchase. This might sound extreme, but stores are losing business to online retailers and need to find a way to cover their costs. 

Other stores, especially in the US, have even blocked networks so that customers are unable to browse competitor sites to compare prices and created bar codes that cannot be scanned by smartphones.

While this is likely to reduce the chances of showrooming, it’s also going to really irritate shoppers.

Showrooming = multichannel opportunity 

There’s not really a lot anyone can do about showrooming – it’s not illegal and people are always going to compare prices. Retailers need to accept this, embrace showrooming and use it to their advantage. 

Some stores offer free Wi-Fi and encourage customers to compare product prices. If there is little or no price difference, most people will opt for convenience and buy from the store they’re in so they can take the product home there and then.

John Lewis claims to be ‘never knowingly undersold’ and other stores are beginning to price match online retailers such as Amazon.

Keep shoppers happy by providing excellent customer service, in-store offers and loyalty schemes. But you need to make sure you’re being competitive with your prices, because that’s really what it all comes down to.

So if you’re charging significantly more than your competitors for no good reason, then you deserve to lose out.

Print media was once king, but sales of newspapers and other physical publications have receded sharply in the face of the wealth of options offered by the Internet. It has all been one way traffic to this point, with people invariably switching away from print media to adopt digital media as their new ruler. However, Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, recently surprised a great many people by personally purchasing The Washington Post, an august newspaper most famous for breaking the Watergate scandal. Could this be a sign that there is life left in print yet? Or is this...

Read the full article: Print Vs. Digital: What Is The Future For News? [You Told Us]

Did you ever get an email and really wondered where it came from? Who sent it? How could they have known who you are? Surprisingly a lot of that information can be from from the email header, or by using info from the email header to do some detective work. The header is a part of the email message that most people never even see. It contains a lot of data that seems like gobbledygook to the average computer user, so as email use became a daily tool in everyone’s life, email clients started to hide this information out of...

Read the full article: What Can You Learn From An Email Header (Metadata)?

Have you ever wondered what makes a Facebook Page great? Do you wonder sometimes why anyone might want to like your Page? What can you offer them, really? Recently, a MakeUseOf reader wanting to create a great Facebook Page asked a great question: Why Do People Like Facebook Pages? There are a lot of great reasons for liking Pages, and even more reasons to like a great Page. Today we’ll take you through them. Brand Loyalty Sometimes users will like your Page simply because they like your brand and products. They don’t care whether your Page is any good — they...

Read the full article: Why Do People Like Facebook Pages? Make Yours Likable Too [Weekly Facebook Tips]

When you hear the term “video sharing website,” what comes to mind? There’s the most obvious choice that 99% of us will think: YouTube. And then there are the half dozen other video sharing websites that sit under the looming shadow that YouTube casts: Dailymotion, Vimeo, Metacafe, etc. But there’s one video site that doesn’t receive the recognition it deserves and it’s called Blip. In his roundup, Dave included Blip as one of five video site alternatives to YouTube. Why would you want an alternative to YouTube? For one, YouTube is a property of Google and you’ll need to find...

Read the full article: Share Your Video Series On Blip And Make Money While You’re At It

B2B tech buyers are increasingly influenced by social, mobile, and video content when making purchasing decisions.

 

Each step of your sales process requires you to perform at the highest level of professionalism. Just like a premier athlete, a warrior going into battle or a Navy Seal in training. To perform at your best it is likely you will need sales tools designed to:

• Help you collect the right data to use in your analysis
• Assist your prospect in understanding the financial impact you provide
• Drive the sales opportunity forward while positioning you ahead of your competition

Sales tools designed to help you win opportunities are a crucial part of the sales process. Regardless of the stage the buyer is in, there are tools designed to help you stay ahead of the competition and provide a financial analysis your buyer will not only appreciate but expect.

For example, during discovery you need to ask a series of questions that drive two outcomes: First to gather critical information that you can use to assess the prospects issues, pains and goals and determine the financial impact you will have on their business.  Second, to provide your prospect with the information they need to determine whether they want to work with you to resolve the issues, pains and goals you have uncovered during your discovery process. This “give and take” is a key part of the buyer’s process, and using a sales tool for discovery differentiates you, provides a consistent data gathering method, and delivers a vehicle for key output to help your buyer understand your approach to a resolution, financial impact, and a foundation for building a solid Business Case.

I am getting ahead of myself. Sales tools designed to help you win opportunities must be custom to your business and custom to the stage in the sales process. Don’t believe it when a vendor approaches you with a set of tools that can be used regardless of what you sell. There is no way my questions during discovery would be the same if I sold healthcare software versus selling financial services software.

Next, you need to utilize different tools for each stage of your sales process. For example, to perform a degree of fit, or qualification analysis I would use a questionnaire that simply asked questions to determine whether we had a solution that aligns with the issues identified by simple questions about their business and problems they may face. These questions are very different from the questions I would ask during a discovery phase. Qualification questions do not necessarily need to include financial based answers. A qualification is likely going to be answered by a yes or no response.

On the other hand, to perform a discovery, I would ask questions that identify pain from the standpoint of cost. For example, I would ask questions that would enable me to capture current cost of the problem, extrapolate that cost over a three year period, and then determine a solution where our value is monetized. The discovery phase of the buyer’s process is about identifying specific issues where we are able to capture cost and determine value, whereas the qualification phase is about simply determining the degree of fit we may or may not have.

As you move through the buyer’s process additional tools are required. For example, you need to provide your buyer with a Business Case. The Business Case is typically used during the due diligence phase of the buyer’s process. The Business Case must contain an Executive Overview that explains the issues, pains and goals your prospect has shared with you. Next, provide an explanation to your approach to resolving the issues discussed, and of course provide a financial analysis that includes current and on-going cost of status quo, value estimates and financial metrics like payback period, ROI, Net Present Value (NPV), or Internal Rate of Return (IRR).

Keep in mind without the proper sales tools to help drive a sale forward, and align your solution with the buyers issues you’ve identified, your strategy is one of speculation. You can’t possibly know where you stand in the buyers mind.

Sales tools like discovery questionnaire’s, degree of fit analysis tools, ROI or Value Estimation tools, and a solid Business Case are only a few of the sales tools that will help you differentiate yourself from the competition.

In addition, these sales tools will help your prospect better understand how capable you are of delivering a solution that will resolve their issues and demonstrate financial impact in terms the C-Suite will not only appreciate but expect from a world class organization like yours.

I have identified only a few of the sales tools necessary to be successful in a complex B2B sale. Just like when we send our soldiers to war we arm them with the very best tools to succeed, be sure you are arming your sales force with the tools they need to succeed.

 

 

Michael Nick is the Author of 3 best selling business books and numerous research and white papers. He is available for keynote addresses, webcasts or seminars for your sales team. After 15 years of building ROI, TCO and Risk Assessment tools, Michael has led ROI Selling into the Cloud. Check out our Cloud brochure for more information. You can contact Michael at 262.338.1851 or visit www.roi4sales.com .

 

Stop Press: The appropriate use of sales tools is just one of the many topics that Jonathan Farrington will be discussing during his upcoming webinar on Thursday  at 1:00 pm Eastern (6:00 pm GMT)

The Characteristics of Top Inside Sales Pros

Recent exhaustive surveys suggest that only 5% of professional salespeople reach and remain at the highest level, which we call ‘Level 3’.  A further 15% attain ‘Level 2’ status, but the majority – i.e. a massive 80% – remain at ‘Level 1’ in terms of potential achievement.

Most salesmen and women manage to advance from Level 1 to Level 2 fairly easily, but unfortunately, many find breaking through that final glass ceiling extremely difficult

So what are the secrets of achieving Level 3 supremacy? Can anyone become a Level 3 player?

In this fast paced and highly interactive presentation, Jonathan Farrington will provide you with your very own route map to Level 3 success, based on his unique experience of personally coaching more than 100.000 frontline sales professionals and their managers.

Still some places left, but do hurry. Investing 45 minutes this week, could revolutionize the way you work and determine your future success.

REGISTER NOW

 

Without a doubt, salespeople are competitive. While teams benefit from hiring strong individual reps, many are beginning to focus on metric driven motivation and reward. Once you learn how to implement these tools within your culture and CRM, you’re a step ahead of the competition. But it’s not easy.

Luckily, we got an expert to share his knowledge with us.

As CEO of LevelEleven, Bob Marsh develops tools to help keep salespeople motivated and focused on what matters to their teams. With a range of topics, from culture to meeting styles, he shares experiences you’re sure to be able to use to boost your sales team.

You can check out Bob’s full video below:

In Outcomes by Design – Hunter vs. Farmer Sales Compensation Plans we discussed the basics of sales compensation for the different roles, but a more fundamental question is who is more valuable to a company, hunters or farmers?

Among your sales force, how you structure compensation plans for hunters and farmers has never been straightforward and simple. You have to incentivize across the staff, eliminate complacency, reward initiative, and make sure the structure makes equitable sense.

Hunters and farmers have different views of the landscape. Hunters are accustomed to dealing with risk, are invigorated by the need to close deals, and are genuinely willing to accept a lower base pay for the promise of higher commission rates and of bonuses for meeting sales quotas.

Farmers are – wait for it – more sedentary. They’ll typically settle for lower compensation packages in exchange for stable income. They tend to be less aggressive in acquiring new business, but they are important for a company’s ability to retain its customers.

The question is, are these jobs of equal importance and, in turn, should they be compensated equally? The answers are yes and absolutely not.

We live in a the land of opportunity, and everyone should be afforded an equal opportunity for success. But opportunity is not the same thing as guarantee – you give people the tools and you let them put things together as best they can.

It’s the same with sales force compensation plans.

Successful companies align incentive with goals. Higher risk means higher compensation so when it comes to hunter compensation we typically see a lower base pay/higher commission. Starting out, this split is usually around 50/50%.

For farmers, a split that’s 70/30% is reasonable. Retaining customers is key, but you want to retain the incentive for adding new business.

Let’s be honest, hunters on average are compensated more than farmers – and that’s how it should be. They incur the most risk, they bring in the lion’s share of new business, they greatly increase the company’s revenue, and they do the most to undermine the confidence of competitors. Fortunately.

To your success!

With more and more sales reps using their mobile devices during sales calls, CSOs and CMOs have been scrambling to find ways to capitalize on the trend. Read the full article at MarketingProfs

For those CEO's who don't consider themselves natural-born salespeople, here are 6 steps for becoming a more effective communicator and persuader.

I recently read Dean Minuto's, The One-Page Sales Coach. It's a great read and should be on the bookshelf of any CEO who needs to sell but doen't necessarily think of themselves as being a traditional sales person. I connected with Dean recently and asked him to share some sales tips that are particularly relevant to CEOs. Here they are:

Not every CEO is a "born salesman or saleswoman". But every CEO needs to be able to influence and to persuade. In fact, recent research indicates that regardless of their title, American employees spend almost half of their work hours trying to do just that. Who do you need a "yes" from in the coming month or quarter? Would you like to get to "yes" faster and more often? Here's my six point checklist to guide you:

1. Make a Difference

• Explain to your "target" what will be different in their world after they say "yes" to you. Make it clear why choosing you will produce a different result than doing nothing. (In 90 percent of cases the choice isn't between you and a competitor, it is a choice between you and the status quo.) As I say in my book, "Success in selling is not about making a commission; Success in selling is about making a difference."
  

2. Make it Simple

• Make your message so simple that my 14-year-old daughter would understand it. Better yet, make it so she would say, "Cool! Tell me more." You should also be able to convey your message in one minute or less. Remember the ancient wisdom, "A picture is worth a thousand words." Tell your story with an illustration, cocktail napkin diagram, or at the whiteboard. It makes a difference.

3. Make it Believable

• Your belief in the outcomes you describe can be felt--selling has been defined as "a transfer of emotion". Make sure you are absolutely positive in what you are presenting. In transferring your belief, it also helps to show examples and share case studies of those companies who have been successful in the past by being customers of yours.

4. Make it Attractive

• As a CEO, you need to help your buyer see that your offer has lower risk and is easier to implement. For this reason, you are always looking for commitments and motion. As such, you should for ask for small commitments to get the person moving. Remember, a thing in motion tends to stay in motion.

5. Make it Personal

• How quickly can you demonstrate the "What's In It For Me?" The measure of the personal value will come in the form of time, money and risk. You have to connect what you are offering to how they are measuring one or more of those three things

6. Make it Happen

• As Dr. Stephen Covey advised, "Start with the end in mind." Have a clear goal for next steps with the person you are working with. Identify the obstacles that person will face before committing to those next steps and then work to remove them.

These six simple steps can turn you into a more effective communicator and persuader as a CEO even if you have not spent your life developing sales skills.

If you want to learn more about the model and ideas, then check out the new and revised edition of Dean's book "The One-Page Sales Coach: Get to YES Faster" on Amazon.com click here:"One-Page Sales Coach" by Dean Minuto.

Let’s assume you know the main elements of what it takes to sell your product. You understand the core qualities that go into being a great sales leader but need to touch up on some of the basics. Instead of signing up for sales 101, we’ve broken down some of the most basic yet often forgotten tips and tricks as it relates to selling.

It’s easy to get away from the basics because they seem so simple. Here are a 10 tried and tested sales tips that you may have forgotten about:

1. Ask for Warm Introductions & Referrals

One of the hardest things for a sales professional is getting the right people to listen to you. Cold-calling is difficult and according to our recent study, it shows no signs of getting better moving forward. Instead of wasting your time focusing on irrelevant leads, focus on quality by encouraging referrals and warm introductions.

2. Use Social Media for Prospecting

We all know the most popular channels for prospecting on social media but a few channels that are often overlooked are things like Quora and Slideshare. Both of these networks are filled with industry expertise sharing their thoughts and ideas on topics where your prospects could be spending their time.

3. Build Expertise Through Association

For years, sales professionals built their reputation by joining different associations and groups as if they were a badge of honour. Today, memberships aren’t enough to stand out as an industry expert and professionals must take their efforts a step further. One approach is to associate yourself with people who are experts and building relationships with them.

4. Show Expertise By Sharing Relevant Content

We live in the information age. Make an effort to ensure that the information you share on social media is relevant to your target audience and relevant to your industry. If you’re working in healthcare, you want your clients to believe that you’re not only a trustworthy sales professional but also someone who understands the healthcare industry.

5. Ask The Right Questions

It’s not an interrogation if you do it right. Asking the right questions can be the difference between delivering a solution that the client wants and completely missing the mark and your lead going to the competition. You need to have a sincere desire to understand your prospects problems and have an itch to try and fix them.

6. Create Quality Sales Kits

Earlier this year we talked about what you could find in our Sales Kits. A sales kit is just as valuable today as it was ten years ago if not more important recognizing that content can be forwarded and shared with an entire office in the matter of seconds. You want to ensure that the PDFs you send to your potential leads are well designed and effectively communicate your value proposition. The fact that these documents could make their way around an office should be enough to value putting in an effort to make them sharp.

7. ADRE: Make An Effort to Connect

The concept of ADRE is simple: Acts of Deliberate Relationship Enhancement. Make deliberate acts that improve and enhance your ongoing relationships with everyone from clients, past employers and current partners. Relationships are the foundation in which business is built on so developing these relationships will help you in the long-term.

8. Cut Back on the “Professionalism”

Instead of trying to be “professional” – Try to be respectful and true to yourself. A true leader embraces their own style of leadership and allows their skills in business do the talking for them. Instead of trying to be professional all the time, focus on the people you work with and building a relationship with them. In doing so, you will understand them better and be more likely to deliver the value they are looking for.

9. Keep Track of Connections

One of the easiest ways to “feel” productive is to go through the motions of sending around a handful of emails into the dark hole of a leads inbox. Instead of shooting emails into the dark, keep track of your connections and use social media and platforms like Introhive to better understand who can provide you with a warm introduction. People trust people. If you keep track of your connections along with their connections, it’s easier to be introduced.

10. Quality over Quantity in Business Cards

I couldn’t count how many times I’ve been given a business card before even telling someone what I do for a living. For some reason, sales professionals feel the need to shove business cards down the throats of everyone and anyone they meet at an event. Instead of taking this approach to networking you should get to know the people you meet and determine whether or not it’s worth exchanging information. Sometimes it’s just not worth the paper your info is printed on.

To help connect the dots between tweets and in-store purchases, Twitter turned to Datalogix, to test the impact of organic and promoted tweets for 35 brands.

Is social media stressing you out? It doesn’t have to.

Close your eyes and hold your breath because if you really want to generate more leads for less, you’ll have to dive into the deep end of social media marketing. But there’s no need to worry, once you’ve dipped your toes in you’ll be swimming across the digital channel in no time.

However, social media is big and it’s growing – take Twitter, it has over 200 million active users and over 130,000 people sign up for an account each day.

With numbers like that swimming around, it can be difficult to know where or even how to start using social media to generate leads.

Step 1: Let’s Go Back to the Beginning

The first thing to understand is that to get social media working for you, all you really need is time. However sending out a daily Lolcat won’t win your IT solutions company many (if any) new leads, so go back to the drawing board and think about your customers, who they are and what they want and use that information to build your marketing personas.

These personas represent your ideal clients, and should include information such as:

• Age group

• Role in the company

• Specific job frustrations

• Specific business goals

• Specific business pains

Your personas will give your social media edge, they’ll keep you focused on what your customers need and want. Knowledge is power, and by doing your research you’ll be able to provide the right content to the right person, in the right place and at the right time. Now that you have this in mind, don’t do anything without applying this detailed insight.

Step 2: Sign-up for Social Media Accounts

You understand your prospects and you know where they hang out, so your next step is to create accounts / profiles for yourself and your business on the social media sites your prospects frequent.

These could include Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. If you don’t have the time to manage numerous social profiles, focus on a select few – you can always expand later.

Step 3: Start Listening and Stop Selling

Find out what other people in your industry are doing and talking about. If you can, find out what the experts are doing – the ‘thought-leaders’ – and see what topics are popular amongst them.

Listening is a key part of any social marketing campaign – it’ll help you refine your personas, make sure you’ve really fine tuned their business needs and frustrations, and understood how you can provide a solution.

Step 4: Talk the Talk

If you’ve done your research and understand just what your prospects are looking for, then start talking. There are a number of ways to start, you could engage in Twitter conversations, start a discussion in a LinkedIn group, or even participate in Q & A sessions.

However the most important thing to remember is that we’re moving away from push marketing, cold calling doesn’t work and talking about your products and services will not attract potential clients. Sounds crazy right? Instead focus on pull marketing, make your clients want to visit your website. How do you do that? Well that’s where step 5 comes in.

Step 5: Pull Them Closer, Don’t Push Them Away

Content, the love child of marketers and copywriters across the land. Content marketing is the creation, promotion and sharing of high quality content for the purpose of driving website visitors, developing business leads and increasing brand awareness.

To really crack social marketing, you must distribute lots of content, and not just any old content. Only high quality, fresh and relevant content will do.

Content can exist as any of the following things:

• Tweets using Twitter

• Blog posts using Blogger or WordPress

• Infographics shared on LinkedIn

• White papers and resources ready to download from your website

So is it worth it?

Simply put, yes. Diving into the deep end of social media marketing takes time and a little thought, but that’s it. For new and established businesses the digital landscape opens up a whole new world of possibilities. By developing and implementing a smart and flexible social media strategy you will transform your business and prove that social networks can deliver lead generation.

To find out more about how to use social networks to grow your business and develop business leads, read How to Generate Lead From Social Media eGuide.

Use the summer slowdown to revamp your lead management system. Here are five tips to get you started.

B2B marketers with quality content can generate more leads by using customer surveys, clear conversion paths and social conversion.

So you’ve got content that really speaks to your buyer persona. You’ve mapped the content to the sales funnel so that the right content is delivered at the right time. Now what?

This is where the content marketing rubber meets the road. It’s lead generation time!

Despite all the lead generation tricks and tactics, the most important factor for increasing landing page conversion rates is quality content.

Countless testing has determined that the most important variable in landing page conversion rates is the value of the content that he person is going to get by filling out a form.

So in addition to producing quality content, what else can you do to boost the conversion effectiveness of your content? Here are three tips:

Conduct Content Surveys – Reach out to your blog subscribers, content downloaders, webinar attendees, etc. With a brief survey, find out how your content measures up.

Is your content meeting their needs? Helping them do their jobs better? Is the content better than your competitors? In short, do they see you as a better, more reliable, more trustworthy resource than your competitors?

Build Clear Conversion Paths – Set the right expectations all the way through so that your prospects can buy in to your content and become a lead.

For instance, let’s say you have a blog post about titanium widgets, one of your keywords. At the end of that post, you include a call-to-action (CTA) about a free eBook, “What To Look For When Sourcing Titanium Widgets.” The CTA shows the cover of the eBook.

Once a visitor clicks on the CTA, they are taken to a landing page that has the same title as the CTA and the same visual of the ebook. That consistency is very important to lead conversion (but not always done).

Use Social Conversion – Sure, your own content plays a vital role in conversions. But the content that others create can also be very effective. Leveraging that user-generated content is social conversion.

Social conversion is the combination of social proof and strong ties.

Strong ties are about meaningful interactions over a period of time.

The social proof part of the equation involves minimizing confusion and making people feel safe. Humans are skeptical and find safety in numbers. Internet surfers are no different and are in a state of perpetual consternation.

That’s why you see things like Facebook widgets on sites so that people can see there are lots of others who know, like and trust the company. It’s like seeing a long line outside a night club which indicates the club might be popular.

Testimonials on a website help with this social proof. However, since people are skeptical, they are on the lookout for fake testimonials. You’ve probably seen fake testimonials: they don’t include a last name, a home town or a link.

Instead, smart content marketers are embedding tweets from happy customers that underscore that the testimonials are real. What’s more, prospects can even reach out on Twitter to contact the happy customers to ask questions.

What do you think? Please join the conversation below. And if you found this helpful, please consider sharing it with your network.

photo credit: Douglas Pimentel via photopin cc

So you've done the preliminary research on a prospect and they look like they could be a company you could really help. Next step? Get them on the phone.

There will be times when you get a prospect on the phone and talking on your first try. More often than not, however, you have to try very hard to stand out from the rest of the people interrupting their day. How do you break through inbox clutter and the black-hole that is voicemail? And how do you toe that fine line between persistence, and harassment?

Before you reach out to a prospect, have a goal in mind. You want to connect with the right person, add value from the get-go, and begin to understand the prospect’s challenges and goals. Keep this in mind as you decide how to present yourself, prepare questions to ask, and think through information you want to share. Now, here's how you can toe that fine line between persistence and harassment.

First, Decide Between Email and Phone Communication

Whether you choose to first reach out to a prospect via email or the phone is up to you and your sales organization. Some salespeople start with an email; others prefer to just get on the line and talk. There are pros and cons to both approaches. Let's start with the "shooting over an email" approach, though.

Shooting Over an Email

Email is visual, allowing time for a prospect to think through what you’re saying. It can be bookmarked, tied to a label like “follow up later,” and forwarded along if the prospect feels like someone else in the company would be a better fit to talk to you.

But think about how many emails you get in your inbox each day. How many of those do you actually read? Any messages from someone you can't immediately identify is probably going to get a quick subject-line glance followed by a trip either to the archives, or the trash. Chances are that you're not going to get a response from your first email -- inbox clutter is all too common, so be ready to send multiple emails if you use this approach.

Picking Up the Phone

A call can grab a prospect’s ear more quickly and immediately establish you as a human, versus a spam-bot. If you're comfortable jumping to a phone conversation, you could get to the coveted connect stage sooner, and get a follow-up call on the books.

However, you should also always be prepared to leave a voicemail -- your prospect won’t be near his or her phone at all times. And even if you do leave a voicemail, it doesn't mean it'll be heard, or receive a response. Often, voicemails go in one ear and out the other. This is, of course, the downside to the phone method of communication.

The best solution to getting in touch with your prospects, then, is to use phone and email as a complement to one another. One popular method (if you're looking for one) is Jeff Hoffman's BASHO Sequence -- it follows a series of four voicemail/email touches, starting with introductory, to persistent, and then, if the prospect hasn't responded after the first three attempts, to a break-up.

Now, It's Time to Grab a Prospect's Attention

Whether you choose email or phone, your message should be concise and attention grabbing -- with something that's tailored to what they actually need. Try to get three components in every message:

1. First, why you are contacting the prospect, which focuses on him or her.
2. Second, why you are contacting them now, which ties in to your company.
3. Third, you should ask for something you want that is easy and quick to complete, such as a short pre-scheduled call at a specified time, or to be referred to a person you'd like to speak with within their organization.

So if you're on a sales team at, say, a content creation agency, your sales team might open with:

“I noticed you’ve been posting a lot of great content to your blog. I also see that you downloaded our ebook on lead generation, but don't have any calls-to-action on those great blog posts of yours. Would you be interested in discussing how you could increase leads from your blog by doing it a bit differently? I have times available at 8AM and 1:30PM tomorrow, or 9AM or 3PM on Friday.”

In a few sentences, you’ve let a prospect know that you’ve done your homework, that you have something of value that can help with a problem he or she is facing, and that your intention is to not talk at them but rather, start a conversation with them.

Then, immediately follow up with an email letting the prospect know that you left them a message, what it was about, and an open-ended question to encourage further conversation. Be personable. Avoid mentioning what you’re trying to sell -- it’s about the prospect, and nothing will turn him or her off faster than you leaving a sales-pitch in the inbox or voicemail.

Then, Be Persistent ... For a While

If you don’t get a response from your first voicemail/email combo, wait at least 48 hours and reach out again, this time repositioning the value you're offering slightly differently.

Start with a quick reminder that you reached out before, mentioned that you had checked out their company's ebook/recent blog post/new product, and had suggestions for helping them better achieve their goals. End the message with another open invitation to connect.

Still no response? Wait another 48 hours and then reach out again. The third message should reiterate that you've tried twice before (but not in an irritated tone, of course), and offer a bit more information. Let the prospect know you've been trying to reach them, and outline the value you could provide in a bit more detail. In your follow-up email, send one or two relevant materials from your own company's content, such as a long-form content resource or recent blog article that addresses a challenge that you think they might be experiencing. Make it clear that you're available to speak about their goals and that you have expertise in specific areas that matter to them.

Know When It's Time to Break Up

After the third attempt, you may want to consider sending a “break-up” email. You're letting the prospect know that you've tried to get in touch with them, and that since this might not be the best time to connect for them, you don't want to bother them if there's no fit.

In other words, use the break-up email as a way to remind the prospect one last time that you've been trying to get in touch. Ironically, this is the email that gets the highest response rate for many of the sales people I spoke to when researching this post.

Why?

Prospects are busy and they often do want to talk to you -- they were just busy when they read your initial emails and listened to your voicemails. But, those messages left a positive impression and they are interested in speaking with you about how you can help them. They were relying on you, like every other salesperson, to keep trying to get in front of them.

Remember, There Are Other Ways to Connect With Prospects!

Phone and email are often the default methods for connection with new prospects -- they're direct, and they work. But there are other ways to get in touch with prospects that allow you to be persistent, yet still unworried about crossing over into being too persistent. Here's what you can consider if you're interested in pursuing some other tactics:

1) Get social.

There are several ways you can get into the peripheral vision of a prospect if he or she isn't responding to your voicemails and emails. Interacting on social media also allows salespeople to build up little bits of rapport to nudge a prospect towards speaking with you. 

2) Get a referral.

Sometimes, you'll never get a prospect to pick up the phone or respond to email. They might not be social media users, either. Many salespeople do generate big business based on referrals. When working target accounts, smart salespeople are willing to talk to anyone to find out about the goals, challenges, and priorities of those accounts. Talking to that company's salespeople is often the best way to learn about how the internal company works -- they're easier to reach, and often open books about how their organization works, who does what, and who doesn't do a very good job. Often, salespeople have a lot of influence in an organization, too, so a referral or introduction from them is often well received when it's made.

3) Work the company, not the prospect.

Depending on how complex your sale is, multiple people at your target account might be involved in the buying decision. Reaching out to all of the influencers and decision makers involved through prospecting not only increases your connect rate with a target account; it also increases your eventual close rate.

In Sharon Drew Morgan's book Dirty Little Secrets: Why Buyers Can't Buy and Sellers Can't Sell, she talks about the importance of understanding the change management processes required before sales can happen, and how to become the facilitator of that process right from the first conversation. Before you can start that process, you must map out your target account's org chart and attempt to connect by prospecting multiple stakeholders. The more relationships you can build, the better chances you have of connecting and helping them understand how you can help them. 

4) Stay unemotional about it. It's a numbers game.

There's a whole slew of reasons why salespeople aren't able to connect to prospects. Some prospects are eager to talk; some will never pick up the phone. Salespeople often give up too soon or blow their chances of connecting by not taking the right approach. Some salespeople also have a serious fear of rejection which makes it hard for them to just pick up the phone over and over again. Regardless, it's the salesperson's responsibility to be pleasantly persistent with the right amount of prospects.

Reach out, and make it clear that you are here to provide value. And also understand when to back off. Most importantly, pick up the phone enough times to call enough prospects. Every salesperson has a quota -- work backwards to figure out how many prospects you need to call in order to hit that quota. Do the math. Calculate the number of connects you need to close a sale, and then multiple that by the number of sales you need to make. 

Are you in Sales? How do you balance persistence with ... well ... too much persistence? Share your advice in the comments.

Image credit: francisco.j.gonzalez

Too many sales reps rely on their customers to coach them through the sales cycle.

However, we need to learn to be the coach. A book that’s bringing sales strategies to the next level is The Challenger Sale.  Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson suggestively describe how salespeople can fit into 5 different categories: the Relationship Builder, the Reactive Problem Solver, the Hard Worker, the Lone Wolf and the Challenger. 

Which category would you guess the top performing salespeople fall within?

Well, based upon the title of the book, you may have went with the educated guess of the Challenger. 

Steve Jobs was a challenger.  He was a guy that revolutionized the way we look at CEOs and leaders in general.  These are people who bring completely new insights to the table and aren’t afraid to challenge others’ ways of thinking in an effort to get them out of their comfort zone.  They understand that when others leave their comfort zone they can do great things and push actions onward.

While this trait may not be inherent in most people, it’s a style that customers are responding well to according to a detailed corollary study in the book. The Challenger takes on a unique teaching advocate role in a manner that makes prospects visualize how much better things could be in response to the Challenger’s thought-provoking questions and suggestions.

The theory is that all too often, the other categories of salespeople enter with too much information about their solutions and their company, whereas the Challengers hone in on the concepts and insights that will save or make money.  Do you allow a prospect to convince themselves that they have no interest or do you proactively challenge their way of thinking?  This isn’t customer service in the restaurant, where the motto is “The customer’s always right.”  This is sales in the technology industry where new ways of doing things travel down a free-flowing highway of innovation.

So it’s OK for customers to not always be right, because they tend to go with what they know and what they’re comfortable with.  It’s up to you as a coach to open their eyes into insights you believe they should be aware of.  Coincidentally enough, the authors of this book find that customers want this type of guidance and expertise.

As you delve back into your conversations, think about what you can do to provide more worthwhile insights in conversations with your prospects. Challenge yourself to challenge your customers’ responses and objections.

As my first company, AnyLuckyDay, grew in popularity as a sweepstakes promotion service, the most common question we received from businesses was, “how many sales will this sweepstakes bring me?”

The most important thing to understand about running a sweepstakes for your brand is that sales should not be the primary focus. However, sweepstakes present brands with a fantastic opportunity to build and develop a strong relationship with people who can turn into loyal and knowledgeable future customers.

Here are actionable steps that you can take to boost sales in the long run using sweepstakes:

Step 1: Segment your sweepstakes leads

You’re going to want to segment your new leads into an entirely separate list to begin your customer development. I recommend using an email service that allows you to split your email list into segments—we use Mailchimp.

You should not be combining your new sweepstakes leads with your current email list right off the bat; otherwise you’re going to end up with a ton of unsubscribers and potential spam complaints. Your new leads need to be nurtured and treated with care. These people entered your giveaway to win a prize from you, so don’t hit them with an unrelated marketing email to kick things off.

The first email that you send out to your new leads should be related to the sweepstakes they’ve entered.

What do you include in this first email?

1. List who the winners are
2. Provide some fun or interesting details about the sweepstakes
3. Possibly include some information about future sweepstakes that you plan to hold.

This type of email will help you establish a relationship with your new leads. They will remember who your company is and what it is that they had entered to win.

Step 2: Offer a discount or coupon to boost sales

Your email announcing the winner shouldn’t be a dead end for your new subscribers. This is a chance to re-engage with them and kindle a relationship.

The last thing you want to happen is have someone unsubscribe from your list once they find out they didn’t win. To help keep subscribers and steer them back to your website, you can offer a discount or coupon for the item you were giving away in the sweepstakes.

For example, if you were giving away a jewelry set, offer them 25% off the set for a limited time. If you were giving away a gift certificate to your store, offer new customers a percentage or dollar amount off their entire order, and maybe even free shipping.

Here is a template that you can use when emailing your list for the first time:

Hi there!

Thanks for entering the [sweepstakes title here], we received over [number of entries]!

Congratulations to: [winner names], for being our lucky winners.

You weren’t one of the lucky winners this time around, but don’t worry… we’ll be running many more giveaways soon, and we’ll notify you via email the moment they start.

We don’t want to leave you empty-handed, so as a token of our appreciation, we have a special gift just for you!

[insert coupon or discount code, linking to a landing page where they can use it]

[-OR-]

[insert image of a gift, linking to a landing page with a coupon]

Your gift will expire in 72 hours, so be sure to open it!

Until next time,
[name, company]

Step 3: Make it feel exclusive

You want to keep your new leads engaged with your brand, so you want to make them feel like members of an exclusive club. Send your segmented list emails with promotions or offers tailored to them based off the giveaway they entered. Mention in your emails that these are exclusive offers just for them.

Additionally, you can invite them to test out brand new features or give them special access to unreleased products, subscriber areas, etc. Providing these users with the benefit of exclusivity will help turn them into a loyal customer.

Step 4: Provide an exclusive offer during the sweepstakes

Be creative with this one!

Let’s say your sweepstakes ends in a few days and you want to try and snag a few sales before it ends. Gather your list of entrants and shoot off an email providing them with an exclusive offer to purchase the prize or a similar product before the sweepstakes ends. Mention that if they end up winning the giveaway, their purchase will be fully refunded. Remember, the more creative your are with this, and the more exclusive you make it, the better the response will be.

Here is another scenario you can use: let’s say you’re giving away a set of hair care products valued at $85 and there will be 2 winners.

Email all the entrants to say that you’re running a special sale on the giveaway prize. For 24 hours only, they can get the hair care set for $50. If they purchase, they also get free shipping. If they end up winning the sweepstakes, they’ll win $125 in credit for themselves and a friend.

Play around with it and come up with different scenarios that will work for your business and your ideal customer.

Step 5: Provide a coupon right on the giveaway page

There’s no better way to generate sales than to provide a coupon or discount right on the actual sweepstakes page. Once a user enters, you can provide them with a discount code to use on your website.

With ViralSweep, you can do this easily by entering the discount code and the URL that you want them to visit.

Step 6: Tighten your sales funnel

If you’re looking to boost sales with sweepstakes, you should focus your sales funnel around whatever it is that you are selling. Instead of directing people to your homepage to make a purchase, send them to the exact product page or set up a landing page for the product.

The more clear your message and call to actions are (i.e.: “get this product now for 40% off!”), the easier it will be for you to increase your sales. Don’t send them to your homepage and force them to find what it is they want to purchase; make it easy for them to buy and you’ll generate more happy customers.

Things to avoid, or what not to do

If you’re planning to boost your sales with a sweepstakes, there are a few things you’ll want to avoid.

Requiring a purchase to enter

When you require someone to make a purchase in order to enter your sweepstakes, you are riding a fine line with the sweepstakes laws.

You may immediately think that requiring a purchase will skyrocket your sales, but in reality, requiring a purchase will turn your sweepstakes into a lottery, and you can run into a bunch of legal issues. There are ways around it, but we suggest you consult with your legal team before considering running a promotion that requires a purchase to enter.

Spamming your new leads

You just doubled the size of your email list thanks to your sweepstakes, great! Toss them in with your current subscribers and start sending them marketing emails, right? They entered your sweepstakes; of course they want to learn more about our business.

WRONG.

The last thing you want to do is start spamming your new leads with your general marketing messages. You need to segment your list and send emails that are relevant to the topic of your sweepstakes. Slowly but surely you will be able to introduce them to new content once they earn your trust. You want to provide value to your customers before asking for the sale.

Conclusion

While getting sales from your sweepstakes should not be your number one goal, there are definitely steps you can take to generate sales during and after your giveaway.

Remember:

• Segment your leads and introduce them to your marketing slowly
• Make the experience feel exclusive for your new potential customers
• Provide value via discounts, coupons, or content
• Tighten your sales funnel by guiding sweepstakes traffic to a specific location

If done right, you can maximize your sales potential of your sweepstakes. Remember: measure your key metrics to discover where there is room for improvement on your next sweepstakes.

This post was originally published on ViralSweep

Back in the early 90’s, before the advent of social, I worked for an amazingly successful sales executive named Chuck. Chuck was in the sunset of his sales career, and was doing everything he could to pass his knowledge to the “new guard”. The young “whippersnapper” with the slick tongue and all of this “newfangled technology,” such as a pager and a huge cell phone.

Chuck jumped right off the movie set of Glengarry Glen Ross, and would have fit right in with the cast based upon his personality. He was a crusty old guy with an uncanny knack for opening the most difficult of doors and closing deals I never thought possible.

Look for the Hook!

One of the most impactful things Chuck taught me, and lived by, was to “look for the hook” when I spoke to a prospect or new customer. If you have been in sales long enough, you have probably heard this saying, but it’s a very important area of focus, and will never go away.

Essentially, when you “look for the hook”, you are getting to know someone. What is your commonality? Do you both have children the same age? Do you have the same alma mater? Is there a favorite sports team? This allows you to focus on building a relationship with the person and building trust. Seems like a pretty simple concept, but proficiency in this area is what sets a good salesperson from a great salesperson.

Prior to the advent of social media, you were constrained to a phone call, and preferably a face to face meeting in order to “look for the hook”. Get in the office – pictures of kids. BINGO! Talk on the phone, prospect is headed to basketball game. BINGO!

You Must Not Ignore the New Social Hook!

Why am I going old school with this post? Im not. “Look for the hook” is still very much in style. We as sales professionals are at such an advantage with social that it blows my mind when I train a sales team and people in the room aren’t fully embracing social.

In fact, when I meet with sales leadership teams to help them along the path of social adoption, my recommendation for folks on their team that won’t adopt a solid social sales strategy is to let them go and look for someone that will.

If you are reading this post, then you are probably at least on one social network, or your boss sent it to you. If your boss sent it to you, I would suggest highly that you take my advice and start getting involved.

Still Don’t Believe Me?

If you don’t believe me, give me your top five client primary contacts. I will know more about them, their history, and their background within five days than you will know in one year. Don’t get me wrong, a face to face wins all day long, but my prep and ability to “look for the hook” within the social ecosystem will win every time.

I will walk into the meeting knowing their background, experience, where they went to school, and potentially what movies they like. I’ll know how many children they have and what they like to eat. I’ll likely even know their political affiliation and where they go on vacation.

You can call it creepy, lack of privacy, whatever you want, but it’s the world we live in. I will know the hot buttons, pitfalls, and areas to drive conversation while you are still trying to figure out how to spell their last name. I win.

People Still Buy From People

You see, sales are all about relationships. My initial research and ability to connect with these individuals isn’t a ploy or tactic to simply sell to them. It is to get to KNOW them. To care about them. To understand their challenges and victories. The end result is closing business to support my family and make them more successful, but that is a byproduct of my good relationship and the effort I put in.

Everyone knows relationships take work. Is an understanding and management of your social media profiles work? Yep. Are you willing to put in the extra work to close more business? If so, get connected.

• Start by updating your LinkedIn profile to 100% completion. Then join some LinkedIn groups and participate in them!
• Find a couple of your favorite clients that you already have commonality with and connect with them on Facebook. Learn about their family and be willing to be 100% transparent.
• Check out Twitter. Setup an account and start to understand the ecosystem. There are tons of great tools out there like #Getrealchat and other communities to get you plugged in.

By the way, this approach also works internally. Do you want to have a better relationship with your legal and finance team? Connect with them on social media. Support them and their family/interests with your feedback and friendship. I promise your deals will run much smoother through the process if you do.

Good luck, now get off your butt and go “look for the hook!”

What Do You Say?

Do you agree with me? Are you using social media as a hook to deeper relationships and more sales? If not, what is holding you back?