I try not to make snap judgments.  But I do.  And apparently so do a lot of other people.  Research studies have found that we make several major decisions about another person in those first few seconds.  Decisions like: Is this person trustworthy?  Successful?  Competent?   In sales, this can affect everything from how a customer […]

drawing by hugh macleod at gaping void 
I spent many years of my professional life advising small and medium sized businesses. My main advice to them over the years was: have iterative conversations with customers and colleagues about what you and they care about, and how things could be made better, and act on them. As I explained in my book Finding the Sweet Spot, (yes, sadly, it’s now out of print) organizations that routinely do that are much more successful and resilient workplaces, and much more fun places to work.

Since retiring, I’ve often found that, in dealings with corporations and government organizations, my professional advice on how to improve products and services has been filed away by the poor underlings responsible for “customer support” or, worse, “customer engagement”. Not because they weren’t excellent ideas, but because the people I spoke/wrote to weren’t high up enough in the hierarchy to get anyone to listen to them. They were generally either new hires or specialists, without the ability to see how the idea would work, and not empowered to forward it on to anyone who could.

This has entrenched my realization that hierarchy is the enemy of learning, and that almost all the brilliant ideas that could be instituted in organizations in both the private and public sector never get heard by the people who have the knowledge to appreciate it and the capacity to implement it. In other words, the best ideas never see the light of day.

The stupidity that created and sustained such hierarchical systems probably stems back to the origins of human organization and even human language. There is considerable evidence that our ‘modern’ abstract languages date back to when humans first settled in one place and required organization to get large-scale work done: agriculture, military/defence, and later industrial processes of all kinds. Just to show how recent this is, anthropologists tell us that we’ve been making art three times longer than we’ve been using abstract languages.

Abstract languages were essentially invented to enable instructions to be passed down from the top of the hierarchy, and evidence of compliance passed back up. Our languages are inherently patriarchal: there is little nuance in our vocabulary, and few words that are without top-down agricultural, industrial or military value. (A read of all but the very best music lyrics and poetry demonstrates that. We have, for example, only one word for love.) It is excruciatingly difficult to contort our language into something that can convey feelings, passion, anything long-term — or anything but the simplest and most obvious changes to the way we do things.

In my work as an innovation consultant, I dealt with the double challenge of (1) managers and workers incapable of seeing how things might be done better differently, and (2) language that, except through the use of stories, made it extremely difficult to persuade or show how things could be improved. So the default is stasis, and the larger the organization grows and the more complex its hierarchy becomes, the more risk averse everyone becomes and the more difficult any kind of positive change becomes.

This is not anyone’s fault. It’s the system, stupid. (Though the system doesn’t actually exist.) We’re all doing our best, and non-hierarchical systems, at least in the current capitalistic economy and competitive social zeitgeist, just can’t survive at any scale. Small is beautiful, and bigger is almost always worse, but in our current industrial society even the most horribly ineffective large organizations will crush small effective ones (except those in niches too narrow for the larger companies to bother with), because the big guys have the money and power to out-advertise, out-produce, price-starve and buy out the smaller ones. Every business they buy and close is a write-off against the massive profits oligopoly guarantees them. And the religion of neoliberalism dictates that even the provision of public goods and services be centralized and made hierarchical for “efficiencies” and “economies of scale” (neither of which actually occurs), and, failing that, “privitized” (under the authority of even larger and less democratic hierarchies). That’s how the system works.

This is true not only in every consumer and industrial sector but in public sectors as well. Ever tried to institute a brilliant new idea in a school or medical organization? These are staffed and run mostly by bright, well-intentioned people, but these people are totally incapable of innovation — they haven’t been given the right opportunity to become creative or imaginative — and are, right up to the level at which they’re beholden to outside political forces, disempowered to institute anything new except on a pilot basis (pilots are good PR and offer the pretence of innovativeness without actually requiring any enduring change), and they haven’t the skills to do so anyway.

I’ve witnessed organizations whose executives knew the choice they faced was radical innovation or extinction. None of them still exists.

There are workarounds that enable front-line people, even in very large organizations, to make significant changes that are valuable to customers, without being sacked or disciplined for violating company polices and procedures that prevent good customer service from being offered. But this is exhausting, and the (mostly young) people who walk that line for a few years get worn out and quit to do work that doesn’t require lying to and disobeying the boss in order to do their job well. Sad to say, many of them face the same dilemma in every job they take, and often end up running their own small niche businesses instead, just so they can look at themselves in the mirror without shame.

As I describe in my book, these small niche enterprises don’t need hierarchy to function and are highly adaptive and (need to be) highly innovative. Everyone in them is listening carefully to customers and colleagues for ideas, and empowered to implement them. Their scale is small enough that they can change quickly. They never have to say to a customer “I’m sorry I don’t have the authority to do that”, and are never forced to shrug off possibly brilliant customer ideas because they haven’t the knowledge, skill or authority to do anything with them.

Over the last few years I’ve offered (based on my own sad customer experiences) excellent ideas to two provincial crown corporations, two of the national telcos, two large financial institutions, and three large educational institutions. They weren’t pie-in-the-sky ideas, but specific, step-by-step detailed process improvement ideas. In half of the cases it took me a half day on the phone to even identify someone willing to field my suggestions. In half of those cases, I gave up — they simply aren’t interested in interaction with customers at all, and see customers as a nuisance and distraction and hire (often offshored or outsourced) junior staff specifically to block customers from talking to anyone further up the hierarchy. None of my suggestions was seen by anyone with the authority to act on it, and mostly I got “thank you” emails telling me that they appreciated my comments while making it clear they didn’t understand them.

The only solace is knowing that these people really are doing their best with the impossible work situation they are stuck in, and that hierarchies of every kind will collapse when the military-industrial-corporatist economy that gave rise to them falls apart. That won’t take long now that real (not the fake ones governments report) inflation and unemployment numbers, massive and soaring corporate, government and personal debt levels, and artificially suppressed interest rates have reached utterly unsustainable levels. No wonder the execs are all buying up land in isolated areas to escape to. They somehow think they’ll be able to support themselves there without cheap, obedient hired workers to do all the essential work for them.

So I’m saying (probably no surprise) that it’s a waste of time trying to reform large hierarchical organizations (private, governments, education, health care included). They’ll be gone soon, bankrupt, and we have more important things to do. Most of those things entail relearning the lost art of community-building, so that, while none of us can be personally self-sufficient, innovative and resilient, our communities together just might.

At the moment, most of us are too indebted to the existing systems (financially, psychologically, and with our scarce time) to even consider anything else. But as the systems get worse (and don’t believe the fools at the NYT and your local politicians citing GDP growth as proof the economy is healthy), the organizations you now think you owe your career, your time, and your mortgage to will start to disappear, and you’ll have both the time and the need to relearn about community self-sufficiency. In most neighbourhoods, there is no cohesiveness and no local essential resources with which to build community, so those communities will eventually become ghost towns; you might want to find viable neighbourhoods that can survive as communities after economic collapse, and consider moving there and taking your loved ones with you. There aren’t many, and once you’re there you’ll start to learn how important community is and what some communities have already started to do.

Once reality sets in, and the problem of a collapsed economy is compounded by unaffordable energy and worsening climate crises, it’s going to be tough for everyone for a few decades or even a few centuries. Talk to those who lived through the Great Depression and you’ll get a taste, except this one isn’t going to end in anyone’s lifetime. Once we’re through it the small remaining human population will likely thrive, though in ways we don’t measure and probably can’t imagine.

In the meantime, when you get frustrated with hierarchy, appreciate that no one is to blame for it, and that it’s unreformable, and do your best to work around it. That’s good practice for the decades ahead. Instead of trying to help these bloated bureaucracies learn how they could do and be better, help those in your community learn what you can do, together, to thrive without the bureaucracies that, for a little while longer, we have to put up with.

Data is powerful. Companies that use data to send smarter campaigns outperform their competitors by 85% in sales growth, according to research from McKinsey.

In the world of email marketing, data gives marketers the power to personalize emails that drive conversions and ROI.

While most marketers know the value of data, collecting and using it can be challenging. Between complicated data collection programs, siloed information, and sporadic automation practices, putting data to good use is hard.

Fortunately, by selecting a modern email service provider (ESP), you can gain access to a host of tools that turn customer information into actionable intel. Ready to learn how? Here are five ways you can use data to send more relevant emails.

1. Encourage subscribers to use a preference center.

You need to know your subscribers in order to deliver relevant emails. You need to know their likes, dislikes, birthdays—you name it. The more information you have, the better.

So, how do you go about collecting information? Data collection is an ongoing process, but you can start by setting up a preference center.

An email preference center is designed to help you learn more about subscribers so that you can provide them with the content they want. You can ask questions, encourage subscribers to select the kind of content they’re interested in, and get basic demographic information like age, location, and gender.

Subscribers love preference centers because they let them control the messages they receive, while companies love them because they result in a ton of rich data.

Flight Centre uses a preference center as a core part of their email marketing strategy. The travel company learns everything from the subscriber’s birthday to their most-used airport.

Using the information collected, Flight Centre can send more relevant emails. For example, if a subscriber signed up for the Club Red newsletter and prefers to fly out of Ottawa, they’d receive the following message.

Flight Centre can use the information from the preference center to segment contacts by travel preferences, send deals based on the airport of choice, or curate a newsletter full of travel itineraries based on a subscriber’s age. The options are endless, and it’s all possible thanks to a data-collecting preference center.

2. Dynamically change content to fit subscribers’ interests.

When you have data on your subscribers, it’s much easier to send relevant, valuable emails that they’ll open and click. But, crafting relevant messages can be time-consuming. Enter dynamic content. With dynamic content, you can change an aspect of an email based on recipient.

For example, if you’re hosting a fall clothing sale, you can entice customers to come to your store by showcasing some items on sale. It would be most relevant if the women on your list got pictures of women’s styles while the men saw their own styles, right?

Rather than segmenting your list and creating two separate emails, you create one email and use dynamic content instead. The images and content in the email will dynamically change based on the gender of the subscriber.

For example, Adidas uses dynamic content to send relevant styles based on gender.

3. Send emails based on important milestones.

The more relevant your emails are, the stronger the connection you make with subscribers.

One of the best ways to build a relationship with a subscriber is to celebrate milestones with them. Milestones include a birthday, anniversary, or even a purchase anniversary.

For example, on a subscriber’s birthday, you can send a special promotion. When a subscriber reaches one year as a member, you can send an email celebrating this milestone.

Mom365, a company focusing on newborn photography and parenting tips, sent a personalized offer to a subscriber for her daughter’s birthday. The subject line was hyper-personal, including both the mom’s name (Lisa) and the daughter’s name (Adalyn) and a special offer.

This email couldn’t be any more relevant to the subscriber. It’s a special offer designed to celebrate a milestone.

4. Change your cadence based on email activity.

A lot of email marketing relevancy is based on customer data, but it’s not the only kind of data you can use. You can also track a subscriber’s email activity. If a subscriber opens an email or clicks a link, these actions can fuel your email marketing decisions.

For instance, Personal Creations sent a promotional offer to its VIP segment. Then, based on email activity, the company sent a follow-up email.

If a subscriber opened the first email, a second email was sent giving those subscribers additional time to take advantage of the offer.

Using email automation, the company can set up an automated journey, so when a subscriber opens the first email marketing campaign it automatically triggers the second email to send the next morning.

5. A/B test different aspects of your campaign.

When you create an email campaign, you make a lot of decisions. You pick a layout, craft a message, select a color scheme, add images, create a call to action (CTA), hyperlink text, draft a subject line – the list goes on.

How do you know if the series of choices you made resonates with subscribers? Data to the rescue (again).

You can create different versions of your email and send them to two small test groups. The idea is to see which email gets better response rates and let that data dictate which email is ultimately sent to your subscribers.

You can test nearly everything. Here’s a quick glimpse of things you can test:

• Subject line wording or length
• Personalized features vs. non-personalized features
• Images
• CTA buttons vs. hyperlinks
• Layout
• Copy
• Tone

Campaign Monitor makes it easy to A/B test your email marketing campaigns. Simply create two versions of your email in the campaign builder and we’ll send the emails to two subsets of your list for you. We’ll gather the results and send the email with the highest open rate to the rest of your contacts.

It’s another great way to use data to send smarter, more relevant emails.

If you need a little help with testing, we’ve got you covered. Check out our A/B testing guide that can help you integrate testing into your strategy.

Wrap up

Email marketing isn’t about blasting messages to every contact on your list anymore. Today’s email marketer is smarter. Today’s email marketer relies on data collection and strategic decisions to send the most relevant, successful emails possible.

A Brief Guide About Competitive Analysis

A Brief Guide About Competitive Analysis

Mayur Kshirsagar

2018-08-30T14:00:57+02:00 2018-09-21T06:53:45+00:00

In this article, I will introduce the subject of competitive analysis, which is basically a method to determine how well your competitors are performing. My aim is to introduce the subject to those of you who are new to the concept. It should be useful if you are new to product design, UX, interaction or digital design, or if you have experience in these fields but have not performed a competitive analysis before.

No prior knowledge of the topic is needed because I’ll be explaining what the term means and how to perform a competitive analysis as we go. I am assuming some basic knowledge of the design process and UX research, but I’ll provide plenty of practical examples and reference links to help with any terms and concepts you might be unfamiliar with.

Note: If you are a beginner in UX and interaction design, it would be good to know the basics of the design process and to know what is UX research (and the methods used for UX research) before diving into the article’s main topic. Please read the next section carefully because I’ve added reference links to help you get started.

Recommended reading: Standing Out From The Crowd: Improving Your Mobile App With Competitive Analysis

Competitive Analysis, Service Design Cycle, Five-Stages Design Process

If you are a UX designer, then you might be aware of the service design cycle. This cycle contains four stages: discover, explore, test and listen. Each one of these stages has multiple research methods, and competitive analysis is part of the exploration. Susan Farrell has very helpfully distinguished different UX research methods and activities that can be performed for your project. (You can check this detailed segregation in her “UX Research Cheat Sheet”.)

The image below shows the four steps and the most commonly used methods in these steps.

If you are new to this concept, you might first ask, “What is service design?” Shahrzad Samadzadeh explains it very well in her article, “So, Like, What Is Service Design?.”

Note: You can also learn more about service design in Sarah Gibbons’s article, “Service Design 101.”

Often, UX designers follow the five-stages design process in their projects:

1. empathize,
2. define,
3. ideate,
4. prototype,
5. test.

Please don’t confuse the five-stages design process with the service design cycle. Basically, they serve the same purpose in the design thinking process, but are explained in different styles. Here is a brief explanation of what these five stages contain:

• Empathize
  This stage involves gaining a clear understanding of the problem you are trying to solve from the user’s point of view.
• Define
  This stage involves defining the correct statement for the problem you are trying to solve, using the knowledge you gained in the first stage.
• Ideate
  In this stage, you can generate different solution ideas for the problem.
• Prototype
  Basically, a prototype is an attempt to give your solution some form so that it can be explained to others. For digital products, a prototype could be a wireframe set created using pen and paper or using a tool such as Balsamiq or Sketch, or it could be a visual design prototype created using a tool such as Sketch, Figma, Adobe XD or InVision.
• Test
  Testing involves validating and evaluating all of your solutions with the users.

You can perform UX research at any stage. Many articles and books are available for you to learn more about this design process. “Five Stages in the Design Thinking Process” by Rikke Dam and Teo Siang is one of my favorite articles on the topic.

According to Nielsen Norman Group’s “User Experience Careers” survey report, 61% of UX professionals prefer to do the competitive analysis for their projects. But what exactly is competitive analysis? In simple language, competitive analysis is nothing but a method to determine how your competitors are performing, what they are offering and how well they are doing it.

Sometimes, competitive analysis is referred as competitive usability evaluation.

Why Should You Do A Competitive Analysis?

There are many reasons to do a competitive analysis, but I think the most important reason is that it helps us to understand the rights and wrongs of our own product or service.

Using competitive analysis, you can make decisions based on knowledge of what is currently working well for your users, rather than based on guesses or intuition. In doing competitive analysis, you can also identify risks in your product or service and use those insights to add value to it.

Recently, I was working on a project in which I did a competitive analysis of a feature (collaborative meeting note-taking) that a client wanted to introduce in their web app. Note-taking is not exactly a new or highly innovative thing, so the biggest challenge I was facing was to make this functionality simpler and easier to handle, because the product I was working on was in the very early stages of development. The feature, in a nutshell, was to create a simple text document where some interactive action items could be added.

Because a ton of apps are out there that allow you to create simple text documents, I decided to do a competitive analysis for this functionality. (I’ll explain this process in more detail later in the section “Five Easy Steps to Do a Competitive Analysis”.)

How To Find The Right Competitors?

Basically, there are two types of competitors: direct and indirect. As a UX designer, your role is to study the designs of these competitors.

Jaime Levy gives very good definitions of direct and indirect competitors in her book UX Strategy. You can learn more about competitive analysis (and types of competitors) in chapter 4 of the book, “Conducting Competitive Research”.

Direct competitors are the ones who offer the same, or a very similar, set of features to your current or future customers, which means they are solving a similar problem to the one you are trying to solve, for a customer base that you are targeting as well.

Indirect competitors are the ones who offers a similar set of features but to a different customer segment; or, they target your exact customer base without offering the exact same set of features, which means indirect competitors are solving the same problem but for a different customer base, or are solving the same problem but offer a different solution.

You can search for these types of competitors online (by doing a simple web search), or you can directly ask your current and potential customers what they are using already. You can also look for your direct and indirect competitors on websites such as Crunchbase and Product Hunt, and you can search for them in the Google Play and the iOS App Store.

Five Easy Steps To Do A Competitive Analysis

You can perform a competitive analysis for your existing or new product using the following five-step process.

1. Define And Understand The Goals

Defining and understanding the goal is an integral part of any UX research process. You must define an accurate goal (or set of goals) for your research; otherwise, there is a chance you’ll get the wrong outcome.

Draft all of your goals right before starting your process. When defining your goals, consider the following questions: Why are you doing this competitive analysis? What kind of outcome do you expect? Will this analysis affect UX decisions?

Remember: When setting up goals for any kind of UX research, be as specific as possible.

I mentioned earlier that I recently performed a competitive analysis for a collaborative meeting note-taking feature, to be introduced in the app that I was developing for a client. The goals for my research were very general because innumerable apps all provide this type of functionality, and the product I was working on was in the very early stages of development.

Even though your research goals might be simple, make them as specific as possible, and write them all down. Writing down your goals will help you stay on the right track.

The goals for my analysis were more like questions for which I was trying to find the answers. Here is the list of goals I set for this research:

• Which apps do users prefer for note-taking? And why do they prefer them?
  Goal: To find out the user’s behavior with these apps, their preferences and their comfort zone.
• What is the working mechanism of these apps?
  Goal: To find how out competitors’ apps work, so that we can identify their pros and cons.
• What are the “star” features of these apps?
  Goal: To identify functionalities that we were trying to introduce as well, to see whether they already exist and, if they exist, how exactly they were implemented.
• How comfortable does a user feel when using these apps?
  Goal: To identify user loyalty and engagement in the apps of our competitors.
• How does collaborative editing work in these competitive apps?
  Goal: To identify how collaborative-editing functionality works and to study its technical aspects.
• What is the visual structure and user interface of these apps?
  Goal: To check the visual look and feel of the apps (user interface and interaction).

2. Find The Right Competitors

After setting the goals, go on a search and make a list of both direct and indirect competitors. It’s not necessary to analyze all of the competitors you find. The number is completely up to you. Some people suggest analyzing at least two to four competitors, while others suggest five to ten or more.

Finding the right competitors for my research wasn’t a hard task because I already knew many apps that provided similar features, but I still did a quick search on Google, and the results were a bit surprising — surprising because most of the apps I knew turned out to be more like indirect competitors to the app I was working on; and later, after a bit more searching, I also found the apps that were our direct competitors.

Putting each competitor in the right list is a very important part of competitive analysis because the features and functionality in your competitors’ apps are based on exactly what users of those apps want. Let’s assume you put one indirect competitor, XYZ, under the “direct competitors” list and start doing your analysis. While doing the research, you might find some impressive feature in XYZ’s app and decide to add a similar feature in your own app; then, later it turns out that the feature you added is not useful for the users you are targeting. You might end up wasting a lot of energy, time and money building something that is not at all useful. So, be careful when sorting your competitors.

For my research, the competitors were as follows:

• Direct competitors br>Quip, Cisco Spark Meeting Notes, Workboard, Lucid Meeting, Less Meeting, MeetingSense, Minute-it, etc.
  • All of the apps above provide the same type of functionality, which we were trying to introduce for almost the same type of user base.
• Indirect competitors br>Evernote, Google Keep, Google Docs, Microsoft Word, Microsoft OneNote and other traditional note-taking apps and pen-paper note-taking methods.
  • The user base for all of the above is not exactly different from the user base we were targeting, but most of the users we were targeting were using these apps because they were unaware of the more convenient ways to take meeting notes.

3. Make A Competitive Analysis Matrix

A competitive analysis matrix is not complex, just a simple spreadsheet. You can use Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, Apple Numbers or any other tool you are comfortable with.

First, divide all competitors you’ve found into two groups (direct and indirect) and put them in a spreadsheet. Jamie Levy suggests making the following columns:

1. competitor’s name,
2. URL,
3. login credentials,
4. purpose,
5. year founded.

I would recommend digging a bit deeper and adding a few more columns, such as for “unique features”, “pros and cons”, etc. It would help to summarize your analysis. It’s not necessary to set your columns exactly as mentioned above. You can modify the columns to your own research goals and needs.

For my analysis, I created only four columns. My competitive analysis matrix looked as follows:

• Competitor name br>In this column, I put the names of all of the competitors.
• URL br>These are website links or app download links for these competitors.
• Features/comments br>In this column, I put all of my comments, some ”star” features I needed to focus on, and the pros and cons of the competitor. I color-coded the cells so that later I (or anyone viewing the matrix) could easily identify the difference between them. For example, I used light yellow for features, light purple for comments, green for pros and red for cons.
• Screenshots/video links br>In this column, I put all of the screenshots and videos related to the features and comments mentioned in the third column. This way, it became very easy and quick to understand what a particular comment or feature was all about.

4. Write A Summary And An Analysis

Once you are done with the analysis matrix spreadsheet, move on and create a summary of your findings. Be as specific as possible, and try to answer all of your questions while setting up a goal or during the overall process.

This will help you and your team members and stakeholders make the right design and UX decisions. This summary will also help you find new design and UX opportunities in the product you’re building.

In writing the summary and the presentation for the competitive analysis that I did for this collaborative note-taking app, the competitive analysis matrix helped me a lot. I drafted a document with all of the high-level takeaways from this analysis and answered all of the questions that were set as goals. For the presentation, I shared the document with the client, which helped both the client and me to finalize the features, the flows and the end requirements for the product.

5. Presentation

The last step of your competitive analysis is the presentation. It’s not a typical slideshow presentation — rather, just share all of the data and information you collected throughout the process with your teammates, stakeholders and/or clients.

Getting feedback from everywhere you can and being open to this feedback is a very important part of the designer’s workflow. So, share all of your finding with your teammates, stakeholders and clients, and ask for their opinion. You might find some missing points in your analysis or discover something new and exciting from someone’s feedback.

Conclusion

We live in a data-driven world, and we should build products, services and apps based on data, rather than our intuition (or guesswork).

As UX designers, we should go out there and collect as much data as possible before building a real product. This data will help us to create a solid product that users will want to use, rather than a product we want or imagine. These kinds of products are more likely to succeed in the market. Competitive analysis is one of the ways to get this data and to create a user-friendly product.

Finally, no matter what kind of product you are building or research you are conducting, always try to put yourself in the users’ shoes every now and then. This way, you will be able to identify the users’ struggles and ultimately deliver a better solution.

I hope this article has helped you plan and make your first competitive analysis for your next project!

Further Reading

If you want to become a better UX, interaction, visual (UI) or product designer, there are a lot of sources from which you can learn — articles, books, online courses. I often check the following few: Smashing Magazine, InVision blog, Interaction Design Foundation, NN Group and UX Mastery. These websites have a very good collection of articles on the topics of UI and UX design and UX research.

Here are some additional resources:

• “Chapter 4: Conducting Competitive Research”, UX Strategy, Jaime Levy
• “User Research Cheat Sheet”, Susan Farrell, Nielsen Norman Group
• “Competitive Usability Evaluations: Learning from Your Competition”, Amy Schade, Nielsen Norman Group
• “How to Do a UX Competitor Analysis: A Step by Step Guide”, Steven Douglas, Usability Geek
• “How to Check Out the Competition”, Sarah Khan, UX Booth
• “A Designer’s Guide to Competitor Research”, Dan Lachapelle, Wayfair
• “A Product Designer’s Guide to Competitive Analysis”, Chandan Mishra, Toptal

Account managers and salespeople work together closely, but the two jobs are very different. The distinction between these roles can get blurry, so I'm answering all your questions about account managers, salespeople, how the two teams should work together, and where they differ below.

Sales vs. Account Management: 5 FAQs

1. What is account management?

Account management is a client-facing, post-sale role. Account managers typically work with a dedicated group of clients for the length of the time the client stays with the company to help achieve the client’s goals and represent their company in non-support customer interactions.

Account managers are also tasked with growing these accounts through upsells, keeping quality of work high so clients want to renew/expand contracts, creating case studies, and advising clients on long-term growth strategies.

For example, an account manager at an ad agency would be responsible for understanding the client’s short- and long-term needs.

Project managers, creative teams, strategy teams, and media teams would work on the execution and rollout of specific campaigns, but it’s the account manager’s job to understand how the campaign fits into the client’s long-term strategy and high-level goals.

Account managers are also the client’s day-to-day point of contact. While the client’s questions and plans may touch multiple teams, the account manager is responsible for filtering communication from and to the client.

But account managers don’t just work at services-based businesses like agencies or law firms.

Even if you sell a physical product (or software), any employee who works with a dedicated group of clients to implement new projects and assists in determining strategy or long-term goals to keep your customer base happy is performing account management duties.

2. Where do account executives (salespeople) fit in?

Salespeople are the ones responsible for sourcing leads or following up with inbound ones, then bringing the business in. Once a deal has closed, salespeople will brief account managers on their new customers’ goals and transition out of the relationship.

But the two roles aren’t always separate. At smaller companies, these roles may be combined -- usually, it’s larger businesses and agencies that can afford to split up new business and account management roles.

3. So is account management just customer service?

No. Customer service representatives typically deal with one-off issues, and serve a general customer base rather than being dedicated to a specific group of clients.

4. How should account managers and salespeople work together?

Account management and salespeople need to have open lines of communication.

When you hand off a new client to their account manager, it’s your responsibility to communicate their goals, plans, and challenges -- basically, a debrief on everything you’ve gathered during the sales process so your account manager can hit the ground running to help the client achieve their goals.

After handoff, account managers should let salespeople know when there are upsell opportunities or potential for new business.

Depending on who’s responsible or eligible to make the sale, account managers should broach the conversation and work with sales to bring the new deal in, or close the deal themselves.

5. Why is there a split between account management and sales?

There’s a reason there’s always been a strict Chinese wall between the publishing and editorial sides of newspapers: Journalists are supposed to report the truth, and involving them in ad buys or sponsorships creates the perception of bias, even if nothing unbecoming has happened.

If your account manager has a quota on his head, it’s harder to trust that upsell recommendations or suggestions for new projects are in the client’s interest.

However, the functions also require two different skillsets. It’s difficult for one person to prospect and close well while also successfully maintaining a customer base.

So, splitting these client-facing duties into two separate roles helps salespeople focus on bringing in new business and account managers on nurturing a growing customer base -- which benefits both your new business numbers and retention rates.

In some situations, account managers are also responsible for nurturing customers to the point of an upsell, and will then bring in a salesperson to handle the financial transaction.

Negotiation in Sales is About Perspective

Negotiating in sales is one of the most fundamental aspects of selling. Every sales professional will spend the majority of his/her career negotiating with either their customers, employees, and even themselves. Getting other people to see things from your perspective while listening to their point of view in an equally respective manner is a key aspect of acquiring new customers, retaining profit, and building meaningful relationships in business. It can also be the most frustrating. Negotiation is an art form that requires working with someone or groups with different views in order to create a mutually beneficial agreement.

Negotiators should think about how to develop strategies that will help both sides to get more of what they want. Don’t look at negotiation in sales as a competitive, win-lose battle where you inevitably cave into bad deals in order to avoid conflict. When negotiating in sales, you can achieve better results by keeping these 4 key principles in mind:

Separate Your Relationship from The Problem

Remember that your counterparts are human beings and not just another sale. They have their own feelings, opinions, values, and backgrounds that influence what they say during the negotiation.

To solve this problem, imagine the situation from their perspective. When you are negotiating with someone who is firm in their position, ask them how things are working out for them. This allows you to gauge their point of view more clearly and can help you avoid resorting to blaming tactics during the negotiation process.

Prioritize Interests

Often times negotiations begin with both parties coming out strong with their positions which leads to a deadlock. This can be difficult to get out of because you are left with little room to negotiate. A better stance to take would be to ask questions about their interests and what motivates their position. You can ask them why a particular stance is important to them or probe them for more details.

Prioritizing interests gives you a chance to share your own which can open up more opportunities to explore each other’s problems allowing you to create a solution that benefits both parties.

Manage Your Emotions

Allow yourself and your counterpart to be honest with any strong emotions you feel during the negotiation process. Give ample time for them to honestly speak their mind. Emotions get in the way of looking at the problem for what it is. Taking turns to express your feelings without interrupting lets you listen better to what is being said and can prevent arguments from getting out of hand.

Make Your Counterpart Feel Appreciated

Expressing appreciation can help to open up your counterparts during the negotiation process. Understanding where others are coming from and highlighting key points in what they are trying to communicate shows that you are listening. It also shows that you respect what they are saying and where they are coming from.

Stay Calm and Relaxed

It is imperative when negotiating in sales that you remain calm and relaxed. You want to inspire their emotions and control yours. Remember to think about objectives over objections. Over time the experience you gain from negotiating in sales will allow you to incorporate a unique style and flair but keep these 4 key principles of negotiation in mind on your next deal!

 

Any marketing professional will tell you creativity is an indispensable ingredient of a great campaign or a memorable ad. When work is truly creative, it engages consumers in unique and emotive ways, which is how brands secure mindshare and convert new customers. But creativity is a means to an end – not an end in and of itself.

All brands are ultimately trying to drive ROI and get as much penetration as possible with their marketing strategies, and this means creativity has to be guided by a rigorous analysis of outcomes. Even the most creative ad in the world won’t be worth much to a company if it doesn’t drive exposure and sales.

With the increasing availability of data on everything from online attribution to consumer behavior, the pressure on marketers to demonstrate the effectiveness of their campaigns has never been stronger. That’s why all marketers should remember a few key strategies for developing a strong business-minded marketing culture and getting brands as much as possible for their money.

Starting with the “why” and the “how”

There are plenty of people in the world who do creative work for its own sake – we call them artists. While there’s certainly no shortage of artistic talent involved in many successful marketing campaigns, the “why” that underpins a marketer’s work is very different from the “why” behind a work of art.

For example, let’s say you’re trying to launch a digital advertising campaign that will require a substantial proportion of a company’s budget. If you don’t have a detailed explanation for why management should agree to such a large spend, don’t expect to get very far.

Perhaps the company’s share of voice is unacceptably low among its top competitors. Maybe it has high conversion rates but limited reach at the top of the funnel (which would indicate that the product is solid but general awareness is subpar – a frustrating problem that marketers should be particularly well-positioned to solve). The company might be off track to hit its sales goals by the end of the year.

Whatever the problem, marketers should be able to demonstrate why a campaign deserves the investment they’re asking for and how the campaign will deliver tangible results. Outcomes matter more than anything, and it’s a marketer’s responsibility to deliver them.

Developing customer-centric campaigns

Marketing professionals can’t do their jobs if they don’t understand what specific challenges companies face (as well as the unique advantages that will help them address these challenges). Companies have never had more data about consumers, market trends, and the return on their advertising dollars and marketers need access to all of this information. That’s why transparency and open communication are vital to the development of powerful marketing campaigns.

Just as marketers have to be well-acquainted with the unique circumstances of the brands they represent, the brands themselves should have a comprehensive understanding of the customers they’re trying to reach.

Account-based marketing (ABM) is one of the best ways to ensure that you’re building campaigns around the individual needs of companies and the customers they serve. Instead of marketing to a wide range of potential leads, companies that use ABM target specific accounts and provide them with highly personalized services. In essence, it makes the experience more “human.” This gives marketers an opportunity to develop highly focused messaging that concentrates on the markets most likely to yield the best outcomes. Why waste time marketing to people who aren’t receptive to your brand’s message?

According to a 2017 study conducted by SiriusDecisions, ABM leads to more closed deals, larger average deal sizes, and greater C-level engagement than other forms of marketing. Moreover, 57 percent of companies that use ABM also reported “greater or significantly greater sourced pipeline and sourced revenue.” If you’re a marketer, it’s difficult to think of a more promising indicator than that.

Setting goals and tracking outcomes

Companies are increasingly conscious of how they’re spending their advertising dollars, which is why marketers should set measurable goals and expect to be held responsible for whether they’re achieved. As the 2017 Gartner CMO Spend Survey noted: “It’s time to assume accountability for business performance and show that marketing can grow the business while making hard choices.”

According to the survey, marketing budgets fell from 12.1 percent of revenue in 2016 to 11.3 percent last year ‒ a sign that companies expect marketers to deliver on projections they’ve already made before receiving another influx of cash. But instead of regarding this as a threat, marketers should use it as an opportunity to focus on outcomes that will improve the bottom line and demonstrate the value of what they do. Without clearly-defined goals and a way to meticulously track whether they’re met, how will you know which elements of your strategy are working? How will you know which ones need to be adjusted?

The establishment and pursuit of precise goals aren’t just good for the company as a whole – it’s also healthy for the morale of your marketing team. When you have a clear definition of success, you have something concrete to work toward, and you can take pride in achieving what you set out to achieve. Yes, goals allow companies to hold marketers accountable, but they also serve as inducements that can make employees more productive.

The Gartner survey reports that analytics received the largest share of companies’ marketing budgets in 2017-2018 (9.2 percent), despite the fact that it was in fourth place the year prior. It’s clear that companies have made improved outcomes a top priority, and marketers need to do the same. I have one simple rule when it comes to the work I do for my clients: I treat their money as if it’s my own. With that rule as a guide, it’s clear that business-minded marketing is the only way to go.

This is one of the hardest things to do in Sales in my experience. You have a good relationship with someone below the Power Line who is telling you what you want to hear and being just nice enough for you to stay with them even though you know they can’t get the deal done for you. They will never be able to say yes, but they can definitely say no and ruin the whole deal if you piss them off by going over their head to the real decision maker. Unfortunately there is no great solution to this one.

However, I’ve come across a few things that have worked for me from time to time that I thought would be helpful to share.

Starting high

This is the most obvious and isn’t helpful once you’re below the Power Line but I thought I would add it to reinforce the importance of starting your prospecting efforts at the highest levels and getting referred down. If you prospect into the C level without trying to sell them and ask for a referral down to someone else you have an open door to go back if you get stuck below in the future. Also, after getting referred down and having the conversation with the person at a lower level you can inform them you will be following up with the executive who originally referred you as a courtesy to keep them updated on the conversation.

Leveraging your manager

This is my least favorite approach but I’ve seen it be effective from time to time. At a certain stage of the sales process you have your manager or VP reach out to theirs and you stay at the level of the person you are connected with. You tell your contact this is part of your process and once a deal reaches a certain stage or size you’re VP automatically gets involved. It allows you to remain in decent standing with your contact since you’re not the one who went over their head and you can ‘blame’ your VP. The main issue with this approach is that it immediately diminishes your value and takes you out of the driver’s seat for the deal. If the deal continues to move forward your manager or VP will need to be a major part of it which isn’t ideal for anyone.

Leading the process instead of following it

I like this approach. Instead of asking to be introduced to Power you tell them you’re going to reach out and why. This takes a certain amount of confidence and you need to present it the right way but it works well with someone who isn’t used to making decisions. You rely on your process and position yourself as the expert. You actually can tell them (or at least have the mentality of) “I sell this every day and I see where people make good decisions and where they waste a lot of time. When the process goes well, this is what happens….which is why it’s so important to get your executives on board now.” Again, you need a good reason why you need to engage with the executives and make sure that once you’re there you won’t waste their time but it does work if delivered properly.

Having a different reason

This necessitates doing additional research on the account even when you’re working through the sales process with the person below the Power Line. You need to find a different reason to reach out to the executives that is outside the conversation you’re having with the person you’re dealing with. For example, if you can find a quote from a CxO where they talk about something from a strategic standpoint you can reach out to them and say something like “I’ve been working with John to address some of your (tactical needs in specific area) and he has been a pleasure to deal with. As I learn more about your business I noticed where you recently said (“quote”) which is why I wanted to reach out to you directly to find some time on your calendar.” This way, if the e-mail gets back to John, at least you tried to make him look good and you have plausible deniability about the different reason for reaching out.

Asking questions they don’t know the answers to

This one is my favorite. I wrote a post a while ago about creating urgency and how the main way to do this is by aligning with the top business/executive priorities. If we can’t tie our solutions to one of the top 3 priorities the CEO sets at the beginning of the year then it’s going to be really hard to sell, create urgency or do anything else for that matter. This is why it’s so important to find out what they are and make sure we can align our solution to them. With this, I like asking question to people below the Power Line about the executive priorities and how what we are talking about aligns with them and how they are going to measure the impact/ROI. If it’s a public company I can find out what these priorities are beforehand and angle my questions to get clarity around them. If it’s a private company then I ask questions trying to uncover them and the details around how they are executing on them. Usually people below the Power Line can’t really give me a lot of insight or detail around the priorities and how the solution we are discussing align or how to measure the impact. This opens the door to ask for the intro to someone who can give more insight. The reasoning or justification is simple. You can tell the person you’re dealing with that you need this information to figure out the impact because if you can’t then it will most likely be a waste of both of your time going through the sales process together even if you both agree the solution makes sense. If you can’t align with the priorities then eventually when the solution gets bubbled up to the top for sign off the likelihood of it getting trumped by something else that has more of a direct impact on the priorities is pretty high. This approach also shows the person you’re dealing with the type of intelligent questions and reasoning you will use if they do introduce you to Power which may make them more open to doing so.

Again, there’s no great way to go over someone’s head without pissing them off but hopefully some of these ideas will help the next time you find yourself in that situation. Good luck and happy selling.

Make it Happen!

The post Going Over Someone’s Head Without Pissing Them Off appeared first on JBarrows.

You and I both know one of the key reasons salespeople don’t hit their quota is because they don’t have enough deals in the funnel. They work the ones they have like crazy at the end of the quarter but if they are not ready to close they don’t hit the number. If they had more deals to work, they would have a higher probability of making quota. They need more qualified leads.

Whose job is it to generate leads? Some say it’s marketing that should be generating qualified leads for salespeople. Some say salespeople should generate their own leads. I say it’s both. We need sales and marketing alignment to generate qualified leads so that salespeople can focus on their highest payoff activity – closing deals.

With proper process and training, marketing and sales can work in tandem to get interested buyers to identify themselves.

Running a prospecting campaign should be a joint effort. Even if your salespeople are left to do this on their own, they can be very effective if they follow my process.

Prospecting does not Equal Cold Calling

My feeling is that cold calling is inefficient, ineffective and mostly a waste of everyone’s time because it is done so poorly. Making 100 calls a day to set 1 appointment really isn’t efficient or appealing.

Beyond that:

• How many of you like to receive cold calls?
• How many of you make a purchase from a cold call?
• How many of your salespeople enjoy cold calling and are really good at it?

Let’s take the ‘cold’ out of calling. Let’s make the work easier.

Calling can work well if it is done as part of a campaign and you have the right value proposition for each type of buyer you are calling. So, how do you build an effective prospecting campaign?

Effective Prospecting Campaigns

Effective prospecting campaigns have to be more than picking up the phone and trying to reach the person on the list. If they are not well planned, it becomes a pure numbers game. The more numbers dialed, the more likely you are to find someone who will buy. There are companies who will do this dialing for you like Connect and Sell and if you want to do it this way, I recommend them.

Personally, I don’t want to make 100 calls to get 10 live answers to find 1 person I can have a conversation with. I want to make 10 high-quality contacts, have great conversations with them, and get 5 or more sales.

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A prospecting campaign is very similar to a resume, in that a good resume gets you an interview (not the job) with someone who can hire you. A good prospecting campaign gets you an appointment with someone who is qualified to buy from…
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I have been very successful using the method below for my company and my clients.

To be successful, the sales managers need to teach their salespeople to execute this process as well as monitor, encourage and reward the behaviors necessary for the process to work. Where possible, the sales leaders will plan with marketing to work in tandem.

6 Steps to Success

Each salesperson should follow these steps. If marketing and sales can align, this works even better.

NOTE: Make a timeline and calendar of all the action items needed to complete the campaign. Design the entire campaign before executing.

Step 1: Identify the Targets

Each salesperson will identify about 10 companies at a time as targets. These should be companies that would be “ideal” as customers. Work these 10 for about a quarter. (Numbers will vary depending on your situation).

Step 2: Research the Targets

Decide who will research the companies. Google, check the website, social media, annual report, recent articles, and trade journals.

Watch for trigger events (hiring, awards, partnerships etc).

Call one of their salespeople, ask a few questions and ask for their marketing materials.

You are looking for information to confirm that the company or division is a good target. You are also looking for the right people and you are looking for conversation starters.

If your marketing department or sales development reps can help with this, you are in luck.

Step 3: Find the People

Find the names of 5 – 8 people in each company who are most likely to be interested in your solution and at a level that they can make the decision or influence the decision.

To do this, first, check the team page of the website. Use Google and look for them on social media. Use tools like DiscoverOrg to find names, titles and contact information. Nimble is another great tool for finding info. You can use the Nimble Widget to get emails, addresses and phone numbers. If all else fails, call the main number at the corporate office and ask for what you need. All they can say is “no” but be prepared to be transferred to the person you ask for.

LinkedIn is a great place to find names and emails as well as learn about your prospects. If you have LinkedIn Navigator, it’s even easier.

Step 4: Plan the Campaign

Plan a multi-touch, multi-platform campaign. We’ve all heard that it can take up to 12 touches for a prospect to respond and that most responses come between touch 6 and 8 and many salespeople give up after 2.

I don’t know if that is true, but I do know that people are busy, just like you and me. They have so much stimulus coming at them.

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You have to break through the noise. The only way to do that is to be relevant, add value and insights and be persistent.
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Determine where you are in the sales process before starting your campaign so that you can plan appropriate messaging, the place to deliver the message and the way you will deliver (in person, written, audio, video).

Are you prospecting a current client? A past client? Are they on a list from a trade show and have shown some interest? Are they on a list and probably have never heard of you?

Use Everything You’ve Got

Any combination of direct mail, email, social media, text, video, audio, fax (yes, fax does still work in some industries), voicemail, webinar, event, trade show, phone, face-to-face visit, advertising or PR can be utilized. This is where sales and marketing alignment becomes critical.

Be sure all of the touches are received by the prospect within a compacted period. Twelve touches in 12 days – too much. Twelve touches in 12 weeks, reasonable, but maybe 8 weeks is better.

Every touch must add value and give the person something to think about to get them interested in your offering but not sell.

You are building awareness and developing interest. It’s the beginning of your relationship and you want to build in a strong way. Show them you care about them, not just selling your product.

Call to Action

All written touches must include a call to action. That can be to watch a video, click a link to an article, respond to a question or survey that has value to them and after a few touches, you can directly ask if they’d like to get on a call. Sometimes in an email, I use, “P.S. if you’d like to jump on a call to discuss, let me know.”

When you see them in person you can discuss next steps. If you send a video, you can suggest for them to take an action.

All the Buyers

All potential buyers identified should be in the campaign. If you are lucky, you will create a buzz and they will talk to each other about the content or message you have sent.

Step 5: Plan the Message

The message matters. For each type of buyer or persona, you need a clear message. Since you are going to make up to 8 to 12 touches, prepare a variety of messages that will matter to them and content that provides value. Prepare all of that in advance. Your messages need to be about the prospect and their concerns. Prepare messages that provide insights.

Plan Written Messages

Write out the messaging for the emails, social posts and private LinkedIn messages. Be sure the messages are engaging.

Plan Meetings

Before you pick up the phone or see someone in person, write out a call plan. Whether it is a scheduled meeting or the first call after a series of emails and social touches, prepare a plan.

Develop a list of 4 – 6 well-thought-out questions that will get the prospect talking and allow you to learn if they are qualified.

List a few pieces of information to deliver and match those to the prospect’s needs. Be prepared so you don’t do a data dump.

Think about what you are willing to commit to as a next step, and what commitment you would like from the prospect as a result of the call.

This planning will make the call go smoothly and advanced the sale or let you know quickly that it is not something to pursue.

Plan Voicemails

If making calls, plan the voicemail you will leave. Write down exactly what you will say. Be sure it is impactful. Practice so that when you deliver, it is done with enthusiasm in your voice and a clear, concise message that grabs interest.

Step 6: Plan the Follow-Up

Plan the follow-up. This is so important. If you do all this work and get someone interested – then what?

Be sure that whatever you promise to deliver as a result of the campaign, you execute with excellence. The face-to-face visit, phone appointment, demo, fulfillment package should all be done in a professional and timely manner.

In Conclusion

Remember, a prospecting campaign should result in an appointment with the person or people who are most likely to purchase what you are selling. Your prospecting efforts should peak their interest enough that they schedule an appointment with you face-to-face, by Skype or video conference or on the phone.

I’d love to hear your stories about prospecting and motivating salespeople to prospect. Please leave a comment.

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Want your next prospecting campaign to have great results, schedule a Perfect Your Prospecting Campaign call today!

The post Desperate for Leads? Keep Your Funnel Flowing appeared first on Alice Heiman, LLC.

We, as a generation and mankind recently outlined a critical milestone in our progress. Not too long ago, a robot was awarded the citizenship of a country. Bots and automation have broken the shackles of our imagination and have become a part of our reality. While we are still far away from realizing what we have managed to sell in science fiction movies, we are closer than ever. Robots and automation have, until now, allowed machines to act and work like humans. However, inching closer to the robots of tomorrow, we are enabling these inherently non-living beings to think like us.

Instead of imparting our actions to them along with our flaws and biases, we are giving robots the ability to think for themselves- just as we do, learn from their surroundings, and act on the basis of experience. It is getting hard to discriminate between a human and intelligent bots already!

Businesses of today want to leverage automation- whether in its most minimal form or in its entirety. For enterprises, automation means-

• Making processes efficient.
• Saving the workforce for decision making and other tasks still not in the ambit of robots.
• Reducing the costs of operation.
• Minimizing manual errors and faults.

By bundling automation in a software solution, we are enabling organizations to be empowered with this technology of tomorrow. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is that quiet murmur that has now become a scream.

According to IoT Agenda, Robotic process automation (RPA) is the use of software with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML)capabilities to handle high-volume, repetitive tasks that typically needed humans to perform.

With RPA, organizations can leverage quick-to-deploy, cost-efficient tools to infuse efficiency and intelligence to their processes- thereby significantly impacting their profits and revenue.

Robotic Process Automation as the Driver of Enterprise Transformation

Enterprises all around the world have always dwelled on this – “There’s got to be a better way!”

In reality, only the enterprises who have continually put up this thought in their meetings, in front of their leaders have been able to gear themselves up for transforming their processes. To better their operational efficiencies, businesses look for newer ways to do the same thing ones that would save time and operational costs.

Robotic Process Automation is their answer. Across the manufacturing industry, for instance, there have been several examples of leveraging automation to replace manual labor, making processes swift and seamless.

Only now, all other industries are now looking to grab this technology and make the most of it. While using an ERP solution is the first step towards automating processes, many enterprises are left with “more to be done” to reach their optimum operational levels.

Business process automation allows these businesses to –

• Save on humongous transformation investments while still achieving efficiency
• Grow as an organization without having to spend proportionally
• Derive maximum value from partners and outsourced processes
• Support innovation without having to pay heavily for testing new ideas

These systems can mimic any human behavior and help organizations automate the monotonous and daily routines — thus, effectively freeing up their workforce for most critical tasks. These automated processes could be switching back and forth between applications, logging into software solutions, moving files and folders, copying and pasting data, extracting data from forms and documents and managing it, filling in forms, etc.

Processes that have a traceable pattern and can be taught to a machine via a set of instructions are the typical processes to automate through RPA.

Enterprise-grade automation is where RPA systems are easily and quickly deployed, and with automation installed in an organization, businesses kick-in digital transformation and bring about significant changes in their efficiencies.

Robotic Process Automation vs. Traditional Automation

The difference between traditional automation and Robotic Process Automation is more than a hairline (contrary to what we imagined). With traditional automation, you could make a machine do any task, any step of the operational process.

RPA, on the other hand, is a form of automation that sticks to the front-end of your system and carries out tasks without having to move to the back-end for anything.

• RPA bots work at the level of the UI and interact with systems just as a human would
• RPA is system agnostic which means that they can work across application types
• Robotic Process Automation enables businesses to take action quickly as they mimic the role of an agent
• RPA is scalable and can be easily integrated with existing systems
• RPA can be implemented promptly as opposed to traditional automation systems

When it comes to deciding whether a traditional automation system or Robotic Process Automation would be the right choice for you, RPA, in most cases, is seen as a precursor to a full-fledged automation system.

RPA is when a more personalized experience is needed to automate a process that is complicated and requires access to a host of other applications. Scenario-based tasks are also preferably automated using RPA.

When asked if RPA could render traditional automation obsolete, Parikshit Kalra, SVP, Solutions and Capabilities at HGS, drew a comparison between a shovel and an excavator. When the task at hand can be handled with a shovel, you don’t need an excavator.

Traditional automation still has applications that are better off with the technology. Traditional automation systems are a huge benefit when, for instance, you want to move a large quantity of data between systems. RPA only works at the speed of the UI, but traditional automation systems can outsmart an RPA system in this regard.

Needless to say, traditional automation is here to stay.

RPA Adoption — The HOW

A lot of work can be automated using RPA in businesses spanning most industries. However, some chunk of these processes may need human intervention for decision making, reasoning, and/or judgment. The task of an RPA engineer, here, would be to assess the complete business process and draw the boundary of RPA, segregating it from the bits where a human would need to act.

Also, RPA cannot deal with exceptional scenarios in the working of a software system. This is another area where an RPA system would require human intervention. But, for everything else, Robotic Process Automation is the key to introducing efficiency into any enterprise.

As a matter of fact, an RPA engineer can look at all these exceptions, create rules within the RPA system and empowering it to handle more and more tasks. In an interview for McKinsey, Leslie Willcocks, professor of work, technology, and globalization at the London School of Economics’ Department of Management, was asked about the several considerations businesses need to make to adopt Robotic Process Automation.

The RPA thought leader outlined the following –

• Strategy — While automation can be used for saving costs, when employed along with a plan, it can be better. At a broader strategic implementation, automation can yield more benefits.

• Management — To launch an RPA system, the C-suite executives must be involved, and the project should be handed over to a competent project manager.

• Process — Picking the right set of processes to automate is the key to enabling better productivity and operational efficiency. The processes selected must be stable, mature, optimized, repetitive, and rule-based process.

• Change Management — Another critical role of leaders in inculcating RPA within their existing systems is to propagate the change through the entire enterprise. Anything new attracts resistance from within an organization. It is, therefore, imperative to minimize that and make sure that everyone is on the same page when it comes to adopting the change.

• Infrastructure — Businesses often develop an entire infrastructure around RPA. What starts as a single process automation experiment turns into a center of excellence with qualified engineers and robot specialists who assess requirements and deploy RPA systems throughout the organization regularly.

With this, it is fair to conclude that Robotic Process Automation planning is a task in itself. But, how do you differentiate whether an IT solution or a Robotic Process Automation system is the right choice for you?

According to Leslie, it is essential to analyze the process and the need for automation. As companies begin to look carefully, they will find some processes are better implemented with a traditional IT solution, and some others would function better with an RPA solution.

When a quick and easily deployable system is the need of the hour, RPA is the choice to make. It is advisable and desirable to take the IT department onboard sooner rather than later, as they are often in denial of RPA and its benefits.

Why Your Business Needs RPA

Small and medium businesses, in particular, would benefit from the technology as in these businesses, a handful of people handle myriad of issues, including lowering operational costs, bringing new business, retaining existing business, improving workforce productivity, enhancing the quality of products and services, etc.

These businesses are in a better position to reap the following benefits from Robotic Process Automation-

• Improving workforce productivity and headcount flexibility
• Detecting revenue leakages from the organization
• Reducing service costs significantly
• Improving the accuracy of data and its processing speed with reduction in manual errors
• Employees are left with the time and energy to focus on activities around decision making, strategizing, etc.
• A laser-sharp focus on the front office as the back office gets automated
• Ease of documentation of the business processes
• Faster service with bots working at lightning speed

All businesses need an operational boost and want to optimize their processes. Back-end menial tasks hold a considerable chunk of your operational efficiency. Once these tasks are entirely or partly automated, your workforce can focus on the more essential ones, thus, skyrocketing your productivity as an organization.

As processes get streamlined and automated in any business landscape, customer service gets better, and customers feel it in their experience with a business. Robotic Process Automation, when applied strategically to any business, helps expand into higher avenues of efficiency!

According to a report by Forrester, the Enterprise Robotic Process Automation market is expected to reach over $2.9 billion by 2023, while Statista believes the industry will be worth $4.9 billion by just 2021. This massive growth rate of RPA is due to its inexpensive implementation costs and massive ROIs. Consequently, the adoption of the technology will surge.

The potential savings for companies that deploy RPA stand between $5 trillion to $7 trillion, by 2025 (based on studies conducted at Hadoop). Hadoop also estimated that, by 2025, RPA software will be performing tasks with an output level that will be equivalent to 140 mn full-time employees.

At this rate, it is fairly evident that RPA adoption will be universal in no time. If you happen to be an enterprise looking to streamline and automate processes, the time to act is now.

Originally published on Medium.

Social selling is part activity and part reputation. If you're writing insightful comments on your prospects' blogs, responding to their posts, and liking their shared content, you've got the activity bit down pat. But if your LinkedIn profile is three jobs behind and features a headshot you took at your undergrad career fair, you probably have more work to do before you can call yourself a social seller.

If you'd like to start a LinkedIn social selling initiative in earnest, you should begin by revamping your profile. Just as you're finding prospects on LinkedIn and learning more about them, they're looking at your profile to judge if they'd like to do business with you. Don't ruin great messaging and positive interactions with an outdated, sparse, or mistake-riddled LinkedIn profile.

So what should your LinkedIn profile look like? In social selling, you want your LinkedIn profile to be about your buyer's achievements and how you enabled them, instead of about you and your achievements. To show you exactly how to do that, I put together an infographic that breaks down the ideal social selling LinkedIn profile, section by section.

More of a visual learner? Skip straight to the infographic here.

1. Use a professional profile photo.

Profiles with pictures are 14 times more likely to be viewed on LinkedIn. As one of the easiest parts of the profile that you can customize, aim to add a photo first and foremost. Your photo should feel professional without being stiff. A picture of you at your desk, in the office, or a simple friendly headshot will make your profile warm and inviting. Remember to choose a current, high-resolution photo that makes your buyer feel confident in trusting you with their business.

2. Add a value proposition to your headline.

Don't just write your title. Answer two questions: Who do you help and how do you help them? Craft your headline to be a mini value proposition packed with verbs and active language.

For example: "I've helped 200+ B2B companies save over $2 million through outsourcing solutions."

The bonus in this example is the amount of money the person has helped save companies. It speaks to a pain point that just about every B2B professional has — high costs. This headline piques curiosity, and even if the LinkedIn user doesn't align exactly with your value prop, they'll probably stick around just to see how you deliver on your promise.

3. Leverage your cover photo.

Did you know you can customize your Linkedin cover photo? This simple feature on the professional network can make your profile stand out from the rest. Rather than keeping the generic blue gradient cover photo on your profile, consider adding a logo, project snippet, tagline, or even a family photo. The point of the cover photo is twofold: to share who you are at a glance and keep the reader scrolling down your profile.

In the example below, Linda Calvin, JD, Vice President, School of IT at Ivy Tech uses her cover photo to communicate her brand. "Find Your Fierce" is her personal tagline. It clues the visitor into what else they'll find on her profile, including posts about women's empowerment, professional development, and diversity conversations.

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4. Be strategic with your LinkedIn Activity.

If you know your connections on LinkedIn could see your activity, what might you do differently? Well, that's actually the case. The Activity section on your LinkedIn profile reveals your most recent comments, likes, and shared content across the platform along with a snippet of what you said.

This part of your profile can be an authentic way of showing the type of sales professional you are. Are you offering advice or support to your connections? Recommending the products you sell to potential customers? Congratulating a friend on a promotion? All of this and more can be found in your LinkedIn Activity, so be strategic about what content you engage with and how often you engage with it.

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3. Include your contact information.

Although LinkedIn is a great platform to communicate with leads and prospects, you probably aren't spending all day on the site waiting for InMail. That's why it's important to list your email address, phone number, Twitter handle, and blog or company website.

As a salesperson, you have to make it easy for prospects to get in touch with you and that means being present in more than one place.

4. Add keywords to your summary.

Craft a summary around three paragraphs composed of three or fewer sentences each. As you're writing, make sure to include keywords your buyers might search for. Here's how to break down your summary:

• First paragraph: Reiterate your purpose from your headline
• Second paragraph: Get more specific about your work, the projects you've taken on, the results you've driven, and the companies you've worked with. Elaborate on how you've achieved the mission statement set out in your header.
• Third paragraph: Include a clear call-to-action that communicates why and how a buyer should get in touch with you.

For example:

I'm passionate about helping business leaders adopt strategic outsourcing to make their businesses and workforces healthier and more productive.

Through a customized company productivity assessment, I identify areas of opportunity where outsourcing could dramatically impact results. For example, I helped implement an outsourcing program at [Company name] that resulted in a 25% cost reduction and a 30% increase in productivity.

I'm dedicated to partnering with leaders to discover if and how outsourcing can benefit their businesses. Contact me anytime at emma@outsourcingsolutions.com, or call me at 555-123-4567.

5. Display visual content in your summary.

Display two to four pieces of visual content in your LinkedIn summary. Post eye-catching pieces that will be helpful to your buyer. Content like tips sheets, infographics, and recent data work well to get people interested. To take this to the next level, add links to the content that have UTM parameters so you can see just how many people are consuming what you're sharing.

For example, you might add a blog post announcing your company's win of an industry award for "Most Satisfied Customers" and a case study from a big-name client.

6. Provide detail in your experience section.

This section most closely resembles a resume, but you should still keep your prospects in mind as you're filling it out. List your professional positions and titles and include a few sentences to summarize your role at each job.

It's also important to bullet three to five major job duties under each role's paragraph. Mention your quota attainment but keep the spotlight on the results you helped clients achieve along with the methods and tactics you used.

For example:

Sales Representative

Outsourcing Solutions

July 2013 - Present

I work with B2B executives to implement innovative outsourcing programs that drive results. While I've worked with companies of all sizes and verticals, my focus is on the manufacturing industry.

• I help clients identify outsourcing opportunities.
• I work alongside the support team to ensure proper program implementation.
• I consistently achieve 100-150% of quota.

7. List honors and awards you've received.

Sure, bragging on social media gets a bad rap, but the most important product a salesperson sells is themselves. You want your prospects to know that you're capable of getting them the results they're looking for, and honors, accolades, and awards are the best marketing tools for the job.

You'll want to be delicate in the way you go about this part of your profile. Avoid arrogant and boastful language. Instead, opt for a humble approach that centers your achievements around the client.

Here's an example of how you might list an award on your profile:

Rookie of the Year, 2018: I was named Outsourcing Solutions' rookie sales rep of the year for driving outstanding results for clients and my exceptional social selling presence.

8. Add your degrees, online courses, and certifications.

Where you work and the groups you're in aren't the only filters LinkedIn uses to structure your network into first, second, and third-degree connections. Education and certificates can be used to show who you share commonalities with as well.

Include formal degrees like an associate's or a bachelor's degree as well as certificates from accredited schools and reputable companies in the Education and Licenses & certifications sections of your profile. These additions to your LinkedIn profile can help you start conversations with prospects and lend credibility to your experience as a sales professional.

1. Keep your profile up-to-date.

Don't forget to refresh your LinkedIn profile. If you recently received a promotion or gained a new skill or certification, make sure you update your profile with this new information.

This works because you can opt to share this update with your LinkedIn following which sends your profile through the algorithm. People can also share your accomplishment with others who might need your help.

2. Ask for a recommendation.

You can't write your own recommendations, but you can request them. Tapping a coworker you've worked with for six months for a recommendation is a good idea, but an even better idea is to send them one first and request one back.

While a glowing review from your boss or colleague is great, one from a client is even better. Their testimony will drive up your credibility with other buyers and provide you with a valuable reference.

3. Customize your URL to www.linkedin.com/yourname.

Customize your URL to www.linkedin.com/yourname for easy searching, linking, and printing on business cards. If you have a common name, insert your middle initial or a number to set yourself apart. This URL will be much more memorable than a string of unrelated characters that someone would easily forget.

4. Follow people in your industry.

Are you following leaders in your industry? Keep up with individuals who post thought-provoking content and follow topics that are relevant to you.

This will help you stay on top of industry trends, and it will give you talking points when you send your next InMail message to a prospect. Plus, the list of people, companies, and topics you follow can be added to the interest section of your profile.

5. Share articles and blog posts you've written.

Blog articles and other external content perform well on LinkedIn, so don't miss an opportunity to share those with your professional audience. You can share any articles from a third-party site in a post. The best part is that later on, you can add these posts to your Featured section where they'll be highlighted indefinitely.

6. Remove jargon from your profile.

Avoid using buzzwords or jargon in your profile. Not only do they tend to be overused, but they also make your profile more difficult to read. Remember, people like to buy from people they like, so limit the use of internal lingo that excludes the customer and speak their language instead.

Are you unsure if your profile is jargon-free? Take a look at these buzzword and jargon phrases salespeople should avoid.

7. Use hashtags in posts to expand your reach.

Improving your profile relies not only on what you do to it but how others perceive it. To get more people to see your profile, you'll need to expand your reach with hashtags. These short phrases do more than enhance key points in your post. They signal to the LinkedIn community that your post is relevant to a particular topic and that people who are interested in that topic should take a look.

Best practice says to use about three to five hashtags for your LinkedIn post and ensure they're all relevant to the topic. And remember, stay consistent. Growing your audience to improve your LinkedIn profile won't happen overnight. Over time, LinkedIn users who follow the hashtags you use will become familiar with your content and want to engage with it.

8. Add popular posts to your Featured section.

Did you have a LinkedIn article that got above-average engagement? Perhaps your team just published a big sales resource that you want to showcase? Whether it's a post, external scheduling link, or even multi-media content to drive leads, you can use the Featured section of your LinkedIn profile to display it. This section works similarly to a carousel where users can scroll or tap through each piece of content and see what you have to offer.

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LinkedIn for Business Development

1. Use LinkedIn for prospecting.

LinkedIn is a valuable tool for prospecting. See who's commenting on your prospect's posts, and look at the people who have interacted with your posts. People who interact with your prospects and customers might be a good fit for your product.

2. Join groups.

Show buyers you care about what they do by joining the groups you know they're in and engaging with those groups in meaningful ways.

Look for groups related to your industry or area of expertise. Share content and interact with group members. It's a great way to build connections with new people.

3. Engage with others.

Did one of your connections post an interesting piece of content? Add a comment and start a discussion. This will strengthen your relationships and help you gain more visibility on LinkedIn. The more you put yourself out there, the more likely new connections will reach out to you.

4. Post on a regular basis.

Make sure you post regularly. This could be in the form of a status update or a LinkedIn article. Don't forget to share content (e.g., articles and videos) related to your industry. You can even include a call-to-action to attract people to a content download, eBook, or white paper from your company.

5. Send customized invitations to new connections.

Build your network with quantity and quality in mind. Send customized invitations to anyone you've interacted with, either in person or online. It's alright to request someone you've never met, but make sure to personalize the invitation with a reason you'd like to connect that's relevant to them.

For example:

Hello, Paul. I also work in the outsourcing industry and have admired your work in the Denver area. I'd love to connect here.

Thanks, Emma

Click image to enlarge:

Invest time in your LinkedIn presence and see if you're able to source more leads with your new-and-improved profile. Perfecting your LinkedIn profile is crucial in the sales profession — especially if you're a social seller.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in December 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

In this week’s blog post on lead management, we’re going to take a deep look at lead processing and routing, stage 4 of lead process management. Lead processing is the flow by which a lead enters your system and becomes “known” to your marketing automation process (MAP), following it through MAP and CRM until it is closed/won. Lead processing is how a lead is processed through your technology.

Lead routing is the automated process by which we assign system qualified leads to the right sales person (by geography, product sales and so on). Automating lead routing ensures that the prospect is followed up with in a timely manner by the right person.

The value of lead processing and routing for Sales is they receive high quality leads in a timely manner, giving them higher conversion rates and improving first call quality. For Marketing, the value is found in the automation, timeliness, efficiency, and effectiveness of lead processing and routing. They will be able to nurture leads that sales will want to follow up on, and they will have higher conversion rates from SRL to Opportunity. Marketing’s productivity will increase as will their ability to transparently track their output.

Executives will find value in the predictability of lead processing and routing. It is a management point, a business lever they can use to improve team performance. Through an effective lead processing and routing system, the C-Suite will see improved revenue and greater efficiency from Marketing and Sales.

Lead processing is important because it clearly defines what will happen when a qualified lead comes in. When it comes to sourcing leads, lead processing helps Marketing understand which lead sources are better than others. And Lead processing ensures a fluid process by which leads are passed over to Sales and (if necessary) back to Marketing for more nurturing.

In some businesses, lead routing is “round robin” to distribute leads fairly to all salespeople, but in all cases, the point of current, up-to-date lead routing is to ensure that the right person gets the lead and the lead doesn’t get the “run around.”

In some cases, with inbound for example, you can route a lead directly to a specific salesperson based on their demonstrated interest, cutting down on time to meaningful dialogue. If you have high turnover, auto-routing can be difficult to keep up-to-date. However, not doing so can result in very poor customer experience.

If necessary, you can put “stop gaps” in place in the distribution of leads to slow down the routing process (for example, a manager receives all of the leads and then distributes them). However, not having a fast-track option prevents truly hot leads from getting straight to Sales.

As you are building your lead management process, an important question to ask at this stage is, “What are the characteristics of world-class lead processing and routing?”

Lead processing and routing need to be documented. The documentation should include all technology systems that contribute data to the contact and the account. Ideally, all the technologies used in this process are integrated, ensuring the process happens faster.

Lead processing begins with the source of the lead. Consider this: what are your best lead sources? They could come from your social platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook), webcasts, organic or paid searches, your website, customer referrals, tradeshows, campaigns and/or third-party placements. Wherever they come from, they should be given a specific naming convention. For example, a lead source from a tradeshow could be named “2018_TradeShowName_LeadManagementProduct.”

The above graphic demonstrates the life of a lead in your automated system. Note the moments when a lead is looped back into Marketing for nurturing. This entire process and all of the technologies involved should be documented so that everyone (Sales and Marketing) understands the lifecycle of a lead.

Here is a roadmap to developing your lead processing and routing management process.

1. Map your current lead flow by lead source and look for inefficiencies in the following five areas (remember to collaborate with Sales!):
   • Use of technology
   • The actual route of the lead
   • Who does what to the lead along each stage of the route
   • How long the lead stays in each stage
   • Data/intelligence being passed with the leads
2. Once you have gathered this information, begin to modify your current lead processing to wipe out inefficiencies. Again, remember to collaborate with Sales!
3. Work with sales to understand and determine the rules for routing the lead to the appropriate salesperson.
4. Ensure the technology supports optimal lead processing and optimal lead routing.
5. Ensure the SLA supports the goals and required actions for lead processing and routing.

Throughout the planning and development phase, and especially as you enact your revamped lead processing and routing plan, it is important to maintain open communication between Marketing and Sales. If Marketing and Sales are both clearly educated on the new process, buy-in will be easy, and adoption will be quick.

Minimize (or altogether eliminate) manual routing steps. This will help if there is a high turnover rate in Sales (which makes it difficult to keep auto-routing rules up-to-date). Also, create a feedback loop that is quick and easy to use so that Sales can easily share data with Marketing.

Finally, establish a service level agreement (SLA) with timelines. Having an SLA in place will help hold people accountable for processing, and establishing timelines ensures timely follow up on leads.

We’ll talk more about service level agreements when we take a more in-depth look at Stage 6 of the lead management process. Next week, we’ll look at Stage 5 optimizing prospect/customer scoring for automation. For now, head over to our resource center for more information on lead management.

It is one thing to be busy and quite another to be productive. These two ideas are mostly diametrically opposed. When you are busy, you are working on many things, often things with different and disjointed outcomes. The many and varied things that make you busy are not often what moves the needle when it comes to producing big outcomes. When you are productive, you focus on producing a single outcome—and one that will produce a real impact.

The implications of this idea are that some activities are worth far more than others, and productivity is not a measurement of how much work you do but instead a quantifying of progress made towards something that makes produces an important result.

Do More of This

Opportunity Creation: If you are in sales, then creating opportunities is one of the highest value activities in which you might invest your time and energy. Creating new opportunities, be them in your existing clients or your prospects, is a prerequisite for winning new business. Prospecting, in all its many forms, is the activity that leads to opportunities.

Nurturing Relationships: One of the activities that enables opportunity creation is the nurturing of the relationships in such a way—and over a period of time—that it is easy and natural for the prospects you are pursuing to engage with you. You need to be known as a value creator and someone who can help your dream client move their business forward.

Neither of these two activities produces results right away, nor do they tend create any sense of urgency.

Sales Calls – Meetings: There are not too many activities in which you might invest your time that exceed the value of face-to-face sales calls (or video face to video face, or ear-to-ear, if that is your approach). The progress you make towards creating and winning opportunities occurs during sales calls (an idea that sounds simple, but is of-ten ignored, with many believing email can accomplish more than the evidence shows to be true).

There are activities that are necessary and sometimes even important that might keep you busy without producing or even contributing to the results for which you are being measured, judged, and compensated.

Do Less of This

Email: As it goes for time wasters, email reigns supreme as the world dominating and undefeated champion. Most of what shows up in your inbox is “for your information,” a request for information, or a notification of some change to something. While it’s true that there are also communications from your clients and your prospects, the number of time wasters vastly outnumbers important client communications. Email will keep you busy, if you let it.

Transactions, Not Outcomes: In sales, you are accountable for the outcomes you sell your clients. If you promised them a certain result, you must ensure they produce that result. You also have other results that you never explicitly promised, but that are inferred. You didn’t promise a correct invoice, but you owe your client a proper bill, which does not in any way indicate that you should retype that invoice. You also never said anything about tracking down missing order, even though it is to be expected that someone on your team should help your client find their orders. You are responsible for making sure these things happen, but you are not responsible for actually doing this work.

If you are in your inbox and chasing down lost orders, who is creating opportunities, nurturing your future clients, and making sales calls? Surely not your operations, customer service, or accounting departments. While important, these activities make little to impact on your results.

If you are not busy and still not productive, then I have a strong—and well-informed opinion—as to why this may be true.

Severely Limit This

The Internet and the Small Screen of Infinite Distractions: In the entire history of human beings, there has never been anything as distracting as the Internet, least of all anything that has been enabled by a tiny device with more power over human behavior than Kings and Governments. It chimes, your head bows in obedience to its command. It keeps you busy while eliminating any chance to be productive.

No matter what you decide to do, if you want to produce results, you have to invest a disproportionate amount of time and energy in those few things that produce your most important desired outcomes, stripping time and energy from things that, while keeping you busy, do nothing to move you closer to your goals.

The post Assessing the Value of Specific Sales Activities appeared first on The Sales Blog.

Today, email is not just about promoting your brand offerings. It is about giving your subscribers and customers a personalized and relevant experience and creating accessible emails to reach out to each and everyone, including people with disabilities.

The email address is an asset that needs to be used thoughtfully. Gone are the days of batch-and-blast emailing; email marketing is about delivering value to the subscriber.

While email personalization is about sending the most relevant emails to your subscribers at the most suitable time, account-based marketing (ABM) focuses on targeting the most relevant audience to market your brand. Email is one of the most powerful marketing channels, and by combining personalized emails with ABM strategy, you will be able to boost engagement and get the desired results.

In this blog, we’ll take you through the ways to build a successful ABM strategy by incorporating personalization into your email campaigns and its benefits.

Why Should You Use ABM for Your Email Campaigns?

ABM focuses on creating and executing highly-targeted and customized campaigns to address the needs of each individual set of accounts and their decision makers. Email marketing, when aligned with ABM, can help garner better results. Using ABM in your email campaigns will help you to understand each target account’s priorities and needs, and add value to their business.

Here are the benefits of implementing an ABM strategy in your email campaigns:

Targeted Approach

ABM targets specific groups of accounts that share similar business needs, challenges, and firm demographics. Therefore, instead of marketing to a large group of people, it markets to a specific list of prospects. This helps in determining whom to address while creating email campaigns for a particular B2B business.

Relevant and Appealing Emails

Since the target group is fixed, marketers can create relevant content that appeals to each of them. This helps in creating specific and appealing emails that have higher chances of engagement than generic emails. Personalized and targeted email campaigns improve click-through rates and conversions of your email marketing campaigns.

Easy Tracking of Metrics

Since ABM campaigns help to send relevant content that focuses on the quality rather than quantity, there is less data that needs to be tracked. It is therefore much easier to measure metrics and performance for ABM campaigns as compared to regular campaigns.

Improved ROI

ABM targets the biggest and most superior groups of accounts with personalized content that is most likely to drive conversions. It is, therefore, the most popular campaign that delivers the highest return on investment for any B2B business.

Aligned Sales and Marketing

ABM involves an equal contribution from both marketing and sales. It includes targeting specific accounts, engaging them, and generating revenue from them. For this, the marketing team needs to work closely with the sales team to make the campaign successful.

Steps to Build Personalized Emails for a Successful ABM Campaign

Your marketing automation platform can help you in creating and executing your personalized email campaigns.

Here are the steps to build a successful ABM campaign with personalized emails:

Step #1: Identify Your Target Accounts

The first and most fundamental step to create an ABM strategy is to identify the target accounts, determine their relevance and importance, and link them to your organizational goals. You should have a clear idea of what type of customers you need for your business. Build a list out of your most relevant target accounts and study the anatomy of each of them. Find out the key decision makers in the organization and build a strategy to approach them.

Step #2: Collect All Necessary Data

The more data you have of your customers/target accounts, the more efficiently you will be able to personalize messages. Collect data such as their business needs, interests, their role in the organization, the type of products or services they are looking for, and other personal information to deploy personalization in the emails that you send them.

Step #3: Segment the List

Once you have identified your target accounts, it is time to segment them into various groups to send specific messages. Segmentation is a vital part to create personalized and targeted campaigns. Segment the accounts based on their role, gender, business needs, and interests. This will help you in crafting only relevant content and targeting them to the right audience.

After putting efforts to identify relevant prospects, the last thing you want is to provide them with the same email experience as everyone else on your list. Creating personalized emails will provide your target accounts a unique experience, engaging and converting them into leads and customers.

Step #4: Create Personalized Content for Specific Target Accounts

To craft personalized content for your emails, you need to determine the key pain points of your target accounts and address their problems and demands. Send newsletters, blog posts, infographics, whitepapers, or any other form of content that will help your prospects in addressing their specific business challenges and needs. Track their behavior on your website and send automated emails based on their actions.

Here’s How Email Personalization Is Set up in Marketo

Step #5: Promote the Content on the Right Channels

Once you have created the right content, it is time to channelize and send it efficiently. Choose the right medium to send your message. All businesses are not active on all mediums. For example, social media and traditional advertising might not be suitable channels for the CEO of a company; an email would be the right medium to communicate with them. The distribution time is also an important factor to consider. You need to figure out what channels and time are best suited to get the desired results out of your ABM campaign.

Step #6: Analyze Data and Metrics

Analyzing the performance of your campaign is as important as running it. By studying the metrics, you will get insights into which content worked in engaging your target accounts and which one needs tweaking. As you begin to learn what content engages your target group, you will be able to refine your content to get better results. The data will help you in making the desired changes and guide you in improving the overall success of the campaign.

Benefits of Combining ABM and Email Personalization

Creating relevant and personalized content that addresses the specific needs and challenges of your target accounts is the most vital tactic of an ABM campaign. More so, combining personalization with ABM in emails yields the following benefits:

Deliver a Personalized Experience

When your business goals and target accounts are predetermined, it is easier to strike the right chord. By tracking the behavior and interest of the decision makers at each of your target accounts, you will be able to provide them a personalized experience. This will increase the chances of turning them into customers.

Accelerate the Buyer’s Journey

Personalized, contextual, and relevant email content increases the chances of conversion. When your target accounts receive content that speaks directly to them and addresses their challenges, they are more likely to use your products and services. When they receive suitable solutions for their problems, they will advance faster in the buyer’s journey.

Get Insights into Individual Customer Data

When you have a limited and more targeted set of people to address, the tracking is more accurate. You will be able to have a detailed analysis of your email campaign and insights into each individual customer/prospect’s data. This will help you in further making changes and optimizing your campaign strategy or content.

Wrapping Up

ABM is a powerful marketing method which when combined with email personalization will yield you great success in your business. Use this deadly combination in your email campaigns to stay focused on the right business goals and get maximum conversions.

The post Incorporating Email Personalization in Your ABM Strategy to Boost Engagement appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

Copyright law is something that people associate with movies and that warning that comes on that warns people that those deviants engaging in video pirating will be found and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

That’s not the type of copyright that is actually most likely to affect businesses who want to create marketing videos, however, and unlike those who make a hobby out of pirating movies, businesses who violate copyright laws are likely to be found and held financially responsible.

Most businesses, especially when they first get started, are actually completely obvious to this. Others don’t care, thinking they won’t get caught or that it won’t matter. Both situations can land the business in a world of hurt, so it’s important to stay on the right side of copyright law.

In this post, we’re going to take a look at the most common violations of copyright in marketing videos, and how you can safely create content without breaking any of the rules and landing yourself in hot water.

What Happens if I Break a Copyright Law?

While it’s easy to think “what are the odds of someone actually finding out,” think again. There is software out there to automatically search for copyright violations.

I’ve also manually found content that’s been ripped off of me, including screenshots of social media I’d taken for blog posts, or entire blog posts all together. One of my client’s assistants was even stealing the custom-made graphic featured images from another one of my clients until I recognized it and shut it down (and left said first client). The internet is so big, but the niches we belong to are a lot smaller than you’d think.

It’s also important to note that people are a lot more likely to come over businesses than individuals because it’s easier to prove that the businesses are getting value out of the content, and it’s assumed there is more money there, too.

So long story short: you’ll get a cease and desist, but by then, they may also want compensation for the content you’ve already been using. If Facebook, YouTube, or another social site catches it (especially in ads), they might suspend your accounts altogether.

The Most Common Violations in Copyright in Marketing Videos

If there’s a copyright law out there, you can almost guarantee that someone has broken it, but there are some that are easily violated more often than others in the marketing world.

These are the 4 most common violations that happen in terms of copyright in marketing videos.

1. Using Music You Don’t Have a Right To

A lot of businesses don’t realize that you need to have rights to a song before you use it in your marketing content– you can’t just upload the latest T-swift tune to your video and hope it flies.

Want to use music in your videos? You can either:

• Create your own or hire someone to create it for you
• Purchase the rights to use a song in your content
• Find copyright-free music

2. Using Pictures You Don’t Have a Right To

This one might get even more people; they’ll use a stock photo as their video thumbnail, or as part of the video itself, but they never obtained rights to actually use that image.

There are sites that have “free-for-any-type-of-use” pictures available, including Pixabay and Unsplash. Just play it safe, though, and run the images through a reverse Google search to make sure that these images haven’t been stolen from somewhere else– I actually had it happen once because I didn’t know that could happen, and ended up eating a $250 fee.

3. Using Pop Culture Clips You Don’t Have a Right To

It’s easy to think that short snippets of clips from Game of Thrones or even American Idol are ok to use, but those big name companies own the rights to all video content from them.

Instead, it’s better to allude to the clips instead of using them outright.

4. Not Understanding Commercial Licenses

This is a big one. If you look at sites like Shutterstock, you’ll see that there are different plans and different types of licenses. These licenses vary in cost, but don’t just cheap out and hope you’re good; these licenses change in costs aren’t superficial, and they actually dictate how you can use the images.

Certain licenses will allow you to use the images or music or whatever it is you’re purchasing in marketing videos, including ad campaigns; others won’t. You need to look specifically for commercial licenses, and read them to make sure that your intended use of the content is covered.

I Need Marketing Videos, I’m On a Budget & Don’t Want To Worry About Copyright: What Do I Do?

Most small businesses and brands don’t have the kind of money needed to hire agencies to create individualized video content for them, especially at scale. This is how they’ll sometimes end up violating copyright laws in the first place.

Instead of shelling out thousands for just one single video, it’s best for small and medium businesses to use a tool that allows them to create their own personalized videos at scale.

Shakr was created to fill this need. All of our stock photos and the music in our library are free for businesses to use for commercial and advertising purposes unless otherwise noted, so you don’t have to understand complicated licenses or terms of service. You can use both in addition to adding your own custom images and video clips to our templates.

Final Thoughts

Copyright law is serious business, and it’s not something that you want to mess around with. Always err on the side of caution, and never use anything that you don’t know you have the rights to. This typically means using only content that you’ve created, and/or relying on tools which have truly-free-for-commercial-use stock photos and music libraries available for users.

The biggest threat to Canada’s economic expansion lies within its own borders, even as President Donald Trump pushes protectionism from abroad.

The home-grown news is that the Canadian economy is closer to overheating than faltering on the back of the trade uncertainty, forcing the Bank of Canada to respond with higher interest rates.

Statistics Canada is expected to report Thursday that growth accelerated to an annualized 3 per cent in the second-quarter, the fastest pace in a year. That should offset a weaker start to 2018 and puts the expansion on track for a gain of more than 2 per cent for the whole year after 2017’s strong 3.1 per cent advance.

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Such robust demand is exposing how little spare capacity the economy has. Companies are running up against production constraints and labour shortages, while an inflation rate of 3 per cent is the highest in the Group of Seven.

“Trade uncertainty is on everyone’s mind but demand is strong and so for a number of our clients labour is a bigger issue, and it includes both finding qualified skilled labour as well as upward pressure on labour rates,” Royal Bank of Canada Chief Financial Officer Rod Bolger said in a telephone interview last week.

Evidence Abounds

The evidence of tightening is everywhere: the unemployment rate is sitting at four-decade lows; pay raises are picking up; and companies are reporting increasing number of job vacancies. Job listings show businesses giving thousands of dollars in signing bonuses to hairstylists and mechanics.

At the same time, Canada now relies entirely on immigrants to grow its workforce as the population ages. According to Statistics Canada, the number of landed immigrants in the labor force in July was up by 164,000 over the previous 12 months, and down 72,000 for people born in Canada.

Economists including those at the Bank of Canada estimate the nation’s economy can’t grow more than 2 per cent before inflation kicks in. Which is why the big question for financial markets right now is not how fast the expansion runs, but how quickly rates rise and by how much.

“Just about every firm I talk to is talking about labour shortages,” said Jean-Francois Perrault, chief economist at Bank of Nova Scotia. “The labour issue is a dominant issue facing businesses right now.”

To be sure a breakthrough on trade would help ease some of those capacity constraints. While companies can’t do much about demographics, they can find ways around labour shortages by buying more equipment and adopting new technologies. More certainty on trade should bolster their confidence and willingness to invest, and make them willing to offer higher wages to draw more people into the labour force.

No one though is expecting another investment renaissance in Canada that could change the overall growth trend, partly because companies are wary of overextending themselves in an economy that’s slowing down.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s willingness to increase immigration will help, but this too is increasingly becoming a politically contentious issue. More immigrants are also no panacea, since evidence suggests they may be less productive than the workers they replace.

All this may leave companies struggling to keep up with demand in the future, potentially fuelling inflationary pressures.

Investors see near-certain odds that by October, the Bank of Canada will raise borrowing costs for a fifth time since the hiking cycle began in July 2017, with as many as two additional increases by mid-2019.

The central bank’s own models say it’s behind the curve on normalizing borrowing costs from historically low levels, but Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz has stuck to a gradual path in the belief there’s still some slack in the labour force, particularly among youth and women, that could be drawn in with lower rates.

Economists also don’t unanimously agree that supply is the major bottleneck in advanced economies like Canada. It may be that companies aren’t investing in capacity because demand is being weighed down by other things like unequal distribution of wealth or a debt overhang. If demand is the problem, rate hikes may not be the solution.

But the Bank of Canada’s options are limited, given its prime mandate is to tackle inflation, not structural problems such as income inequality or production constraints. And with inflation already a full percentage point above the 2 per cent target, Poloz’s patience is being tested.

With assistance from Doug Alexander

Bloomberg.com

Life hacks are a dime a dozen these days.

• Wake up before dawn
• Be selective in the content you consume
• If someone’s feet are pointed away from you, then they want the conversation to end.
• Spend 80% of your time on the headline
• Etc. Etc.

While the authors of these articles may mean well, the result is a collection of tactics with limited usefulness.

In business, the overall strategy is way more important than the individual tactic. They allow you to test and experiment with a framework that’s always pushing you closer to your goals.

In this post, we’re going to look at the life hack that makes most of the other ones obsolete.

Lessons from a billionaire

Charlie Munger is half the dynamic duo that runs Berkshire Hathaway – one of the most successful investment firms in the world.

His strengths don’t come from focusing on macroeconomics and investment trends. They lie in a different area.

Bill Gates described Charlie Munger as:

“Truly the broadest thinker I have ever encountered. From business principles to the economic principles to the design of student dormitories to the design of a catamaran he has no equal… Our longest correspondence was a detailed discussion on the mating habits of naked mole rats and what the human species might learn from them.”

Not many people can talk about the mating habits of naked mole rats.

That’s not the point.

Munger’s success comes from his ability to absorb, categorize, and utilize a vast amount of information in his daily life.

He has become an expert in many disciplines.

In his words:

“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time – none. Zero.”

Munger is the antithesis of focused expertise. Instead, he’s an expert generalist.

Malcolm Gladwell popularized the 10,000-hour rule which states:

It takes 10,000 hours of focused effort to become an expert at a given skill.

In our current society, expertise and focus are highly regarded.

People would rather work with the expert financial writer than the general writer. We’d rather pay for the person who specializes in solving our particular problem than the person who specializes in solving all problems.

We’ll even pay more when an expert has endorsed a product or service.

In certain fields, deep expertise is not only welcome but required.

A quantum physicist needs to be adept at what they do. The same can be said of a cardiovascular surgeon.

It’s different for business success

When you’re at the head of an organization or even a department within an organization, your technical abilities aren’t as important.

You might be a killer developer or marketer, but there’s more to it than that. You have to manage people, resources, and priorities. You’re in charge of coming up with far-reaching initiatives, predicting market shifts, and staying in front of the competition.

A cardiovascular surgeon in the hospital doesn’t need to worry about that. Their only job is to make sure the operation is successful. The interplay of different forces in the market is irrelevant to that goal.

The same can be said of a dentist or a developer. They just need to keep a narrow skill set sharp.

If you took the same approach to business, you’d close your doors in a year. The landscape is always changing, competition springs up, and best practices change.

The only way to stay relevant and cutting edge is to become adept in many fields. When you read, understand, and utilize all the information at your disposal, you’re able to draw novel connections.

Galileo is a famous polymath that made strides in both physics and astronomy. He was so successful because he had a different perspective earned through understanding different fields and how they work together.

Munger constantly fills his mind with new information across diverse subjects and creates mental models of the world. With those mental models, he’s able to understand, diagnose, and handle situations in a way no one else would.

When you adopt a learning mindset, you see problems in a different light, create solutions no one else thinks of, and outperform everyone in your space.

Why?

Because you have more opportunities to connect the dots.

How to know everything

You can’t know everything there is to know about even the narrowest subject. You can know enough to be proficient and draw connections between seemingly unrelated areas.

You aim to master and collect expertise in multiple disciplines, industries, skills, and topics then use that information to recognize patterns and bring the best solution to light.

People who’re proficient in multiple areas:

• Can make better decisions
• Create accurate predictions in their industry and beyond
• Build strong and varied networks

Charlie Munger has published a lot of his ideas in Poor Charlies Almanac which I recommend you read. Instead of that, there are some steps you can follow to become an expert in diverse fields.

Your goal is to be among the top 20 -25% – not the top 1%.

The creator of the comic series Dilbert, Scott Adams has a refreshing perspective.

If you want an average successful life, it doesn’t take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:

1. Become the best at one specific thing.
2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things.

The first strategy is difficult to the point of near impossibility. Few people will ever play in the NBA or make a platinum album. I don’t recommend anyone even try.

The second strategy is fairly easy. Everyone has at least a few areas in which they could be in the top 25% with some effort. In my case, I can draw better than most people, but I’m hardly an artist. And I’m not any funnier than the average standup comedian who never makes it big, but I’m funnier than most people. The magic is that few people can draw well and write jokes. It’s the combination of the two that makes what I do so rare. And when you add in my business background, suddenly I had a topic that few cartoonists could hope to understand without living it.

You don’t need to be the best in every field you have an interest in. You just need to be good enough to have a deep understanding of how things work, the models they use, and the most important information.

In other words, you become pretty good at what you do, and people can recognize that expertise.

2. Choose three areas.

The strength of an expert generalist comes through understanding how disciplines interact with each other.

Elon Musk uses programming, existential philosophy, and reading to bring his ambitious projects to life while Marissa Mayer uses management, computer science, and linguistics to get an edge. Charlie Munger uses mental modeling, reading, and deep reflection to master a variety of disciplines and dominate the business world.

The key is to combine a hard skill like computer science with a soft skill like reading, and a perspective (way of looking at the world) like humanities to arrive at expert generalist status.

These are the people known as triple threats. You can even go on to become a quadruple threat, but it’s when you’re great at three things that people begin to notice.

What three skills could you combine?

Conclusion

The world moves faster than any single person, and there’s always more to learn. You have two options:

1. Move with the times
2. Get left behind

I’m sure you’re not interested in the second option at all.

To stay relevant and move with the times, you have to develop a large range of skills, a unique perspective, and a way to connect different disciplines.

An average life with average results is easy to achieve. It takes deliberate effort to become an expert generalist. It’s not impossible. All you have to do is decide.

Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels

Starting a new business is tough, and it’s important for entrepreneurs to regularly evaluate the financial health of their company, especially during its first few years. One way to do this is by looking at working capital.

Working capital and working capital ratio provide a way to evaluate whether or not a business can pay off its short-term debts.

But, formulas and ratios can be overwhelming. So, let’s unpack the meaning of working capital and explore what it’s used for.

Working Capital

Working capital is a way for businesses to see if they have the ability to pay off their current liabilities. What are current liabilities? Well, they're a business’ debts that must be paid within one year. Common examples include:

• Accounts payable
• Short-term loans
• Sales taxes payable
• Income taxes payable
• Payroll taxes payable
• Interest payable
• Accrued expenses

These debts are paid using current assets which are usually cash or assets that turn into cash within one year. Current assets include:

• Cash
• Accounts receivable
• Inventory
• Prepaid expenses
• Investments or cash equivalents (i.e., treasury bonds, publicly traded stock, mutual funds, etc.) that can be easily liquidated

The amount of working capital a business has indicates business liquidity. And how liquid you are demonstrates your ability to convert assets into cash to pay liabilities and debts.

Defining these terms gives us a clearer picture of working capital and how to use it. So, what is it, exactly?

Working Capital Definition

Working capital is the dollar amount left over after current liabilities are subtracted from current assets. It’s used to determine if a business has enough assets to pay debts due in one year.

The working capital formula is used to calculate the money available to pay these short-term debts.

If there are excess current assets, the additional resources can be spent on day-to-day operations. This is a great sign for the business and might indicate some flexibility in the use of your resources.

Net Working Capital

Net working capital and working capital can be used interchangeably. The formula for net working capital is:

Net Working Capital = Current Assets - Current Liabilities

The net working capital formula is used to determine a business’ ability to pay its’ short-term financial obligations. Positive net working capital indicates there are enough current assets to cover current liabilities when they’re due.

Let’s say a small business has $50,000 in current assets and $20,000 in current liabilities. Its net working capital is $30,000. Once net working capital is calculated, the business owner can take a deeper look at assets and liabilities to determine if any operational adjustments or improvements are needed.

Operating Working Capital

Operating working capital is a variation of working capital. The main differences are operating working capital is calculated differently and fewer current assets are used. It’s calculated using the following formula:

Operating Working Capital = Current Assets (Accounts Receivable + Inventory Value) - Current Liabilities (Accounts Payable)

Rather than looking at all current assets, operating working capital looks specifically at accounts receivable and inventory value. This calculation provides a current snapshot of performance and financial health.

Working Capital Ratio

The working capital ratio -- or current ratio -- is used to calculate a business’ ability to pay its current assets with its current liabilities. It’s also a great measure of overall operational health.

Below are ranges used to evaluate a working capital ratio:

• < 1.0: Negative working capital that demonstrates potential liquidity problems
• 1.2 and 2.0: Good working capital ratio
• > 2.0: Working capital that might indicate excess assets that could be used to generate more revenue

When using the working capital ratio, there are some important factors to keep in mind. Inventory is a current asset that can be difficult to liquidate in the short term. The ratio might be misleading if the business’ current assets are primarily inventory.

If a business is drawing funds from a line of credit, the ratio might appear lower than expected. Why? When a business uses a line of credit, it’s common for cash balances to be low. Funds are typically replenished when it’s time to pay for liabilities.

In this case, the working capital ratio might reflect negative working capital. Don’t be alarmed. With a business line of credit, it’s unlikely your business will have difficulty paying liabilities.

Managing working capital is important for building and maintaining positive relationships with suppliers and lenders. It provides an overview of your business’ financial health, and it’s an excellent indicator of when adjustments in resources and operations should be made.

One of my favorite things about being self-employed is having more freedom and flexibility. I’ve realized that there is quite a difference in being self-employed and being a business owner and I feel like I’m stuck in between.

When you’re self-employed, you generally work as a sole proprietor or independent contractor. You do most of the work by yourself while as a business owner, you hire a team of contractors or employees and delegate tasks.

Whether you consider yourself a business owner or someone who’s self-employed doesn’t matter as much as how you make your money does.

Working for yourself provides a variety of freedoms and choices, but you have to change your mindset from employee to boss. This also means changing how you get paid.

Most times, employees get paid for their time while business owners get paid based on results. Here’s why you might want to choose the latter.

It’s What the Rich People Do

According to the book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind written by T. Harv Eker, rich people separate themselves from the average Joe by choosing to get paid based on results they’re able to produce and not just the time they put in.

Rich people usually have a business and earn an income from their profits. Their income isn’t always directly tied to how much work they put in. Instead, it’s tied to commissions or percentages of revenue.

This may sound different or risky to some but it’s worked for tons of current millionaires so they have to be doing something right.

Your Income Becomes Unlimited

Getting paid based on results can lead you to make way more money than people who are paid based on time. When you think about it, time is a limited resource. There are only so many hours in a day. So if you are paid based on the numbers of hours you work, your income will be extremely limited.

If you start getting paid based on the results you’re able to generate, all you have to do is perform and make as much money as you want.

This is how some business owners are able to make 5 or 6-figures in one month. If they were paid based on time, they’d have to have a super high rate just to earn that much money.

But when you’re adding value and getting results for your clients and customers you’re improving their lives and also they’re cash flow so they’re able to pay you more in less time.

It’s More Sustainable

Believe it or not, getting paid based on results can be more sustainable than getting paid based on your time. Sure, your income may fluctuate if you earn commissions or have a high or low sales month. However, your income will depend on your value and not your time.

If you’re just exchanging time for money, clients can easily drop your service and hire someone else. If you are providing them with a ton of value and getting them results, it makes it harder for them to give up working with you.

Would you want to stop working with someone who’s making you a lot of money?

Work Less

Finally, one of the biggest perks of getting paid based on results and not time is that you can work less and still make more money. Since time is a valuable resource we can’t get back, it’s important to free up as much time as possible while still being productive.

If you’re getting paid hourly or salary, it’s nearly impossible to work fewer hours and still make enough money.

If you’re good at what you do and can set your business up to get paid based on results, you can become more efficient to get those results for clients and customers while working fewer hours.

What could you do with the extra time you’d gain from switching the payment structure of your business?

Branding Strategy Insider helps marketing oriented leaders and professionals like you build strong brands. BSI readers know, we regularly answer questions from marketers everywhere. Today we hear from Heather, a customer insights and innovation manager from Dallas, Texas who has this question about transformational innovation:

“I’m excited about the innovation pipeline we are building out, but I’m concerned that we’re not thinking big enough. What is your advice for not just creating another version of what we have now, but rather changing the way the game is being played?”

That’s a good question Heather, and you’re hitting on an issue nearly all organizations struggle with at some point.

For many, innovation is product-oriented. This means that innovation efforts almost always result in a shiny new offering that we can see and touch, like new menu offerings or next-generation car models. But many of these new products are unlikely to material change a company’s growth trajectory: Nielsen estimates that for every 100 new fast-moving consumer good products launched, 85 fail in the marketplace.

The kind of innovation that we usually think of when we think of “innovation” is just the tip of the iceberg. Underneath the visible surface of your business, there are enormous opportunities for operational innovation that can have profound and lasting impacts on the bottom line. That’s right—it is quite possible to create novel solutions for customers that also cut costs for you. We call these kinds of innovations “costovations.”

Costovations are bold, disciplined ideas that revolutionize parts of the business where the spotlight of innovation doesn’t often shine. Take Starbucks’ Mobile Order & Pay program, for instance, which commuters love because it cuts the time they spend waiting in line. For Starbucks, the upside is even greater: mobile ordering reduces staffing need at the register, freeing up baristas to make drinks—the real money-making part of the business. The result is stores that are more productive, accepting more orders per minute than they could previously.

Low-cost innovations are all around us. You could also look to Bridge International Academies, which makes private education in emerging markets affordable by centralizing school operations and curriculum development in regional headquarters. And then there’s Atlassian, the $5 billion Australian enterprise software company that has so perfected the art of self-service that it that has no sales department at all.

There are three key things to keep in mind as you bring costovation into your organization:

• Be prepared to defy the assumptions that your industry makes about how business should be run. If you see the market in the same way that your competitors do, they you will solve problems in the same way too.
• Commit to a having a singular focus. You need to get comfortable knowing that you can’t deliver anything and everything. Being forced to choose doesn’t have to be a bad thing—it could even become your strategic differentiator.
• Push yourself to innovate on the inside of your business, not just the visible exterior of it.

To help get you started, we’ve listed twenty costovation strategies below. They are organized by functional area of the business, which we find to be a helpful, methodical approach to an otherwise expansive mandate.

Innovating The Offering Itself

1. Simplify your product. Which features truly matter, and which ones don’t?
2. Constantly scan for new technology that can enable you to excel in totally new ways—and at lower costs. Also keep an eye out for new applications of familiar technologies in different industries and contexts.
3. Take your customers behind the scenes. Letting them participate in operational processes may actually enrich the customer experience.
4. Explore the platform business model. Let others contribute to and share in your growth.

Innovating How You MAKE The Offering

5. Facilitate a network of transactions, instead of focusing on just the goods.
6. Leverage external innovation to lower the costs and risks around new product development.
7. Delay customization later in the manufacturing process.
8. Use modularization to speed up build time.
9. Rethink waste. Create new uses for it, incorporate it back into your product, or have it stand out as an offering on its own.
10. Staff people where they matter most. Technology may have shifted where that place is.

Innovating How You MOVE The Offering

11. Sell straight to the customer. Vertically integrate your business to bypass middlemen.
12. Look closely at last-mile delivery—typically the costliest step in a parcel’s journey. Are you treating that special function any differently?

Innovating How You SELL The Offering

13. Don’t underestimate the power of self-service. Some products can sell themselves.
14. Tap into people’s desires to help others. Inspire customers to become your customer-service agents.
15. Unbundle your pricing, isolating the most expensive parts of the business or customer experience. Have customers elect to cut those costs for themselves.
16. Explore the possibilities for asking for payment upfront to declutter your sales channels and lower inventory.
17. Question the way your industry views real estate. How can location, number of stores, or store size be an opportunity for innovation?

Innovating With Your Ecosystem Partners

18. Share costs in your supply chain if you have extra capacity (e.g., in transportation or warehousing).
19. Match up with organizations that have “opposite” or complementing supply chains (e.g., seasonality).
20. Treat your suppliers like customers. Grow your accounts by helping your value chain become more productive.

Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Steve Wunker and Jennifer Law. You can find much more on these concepts in their new book Costovation.

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There is a strategy behind the order in which I am writing and publishing books, and I want to share my reasoning here.

Book 1: The Foundation – The Only Sales Guide

My first book, The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need, has a provocative titled and an equally attention-seeking, red cover. The working title of this book before Portfolio entered the picture was 17 Elements. The book is really what might be described as a competency model, covering the mindset and skill sets necessary to succeed in sales. Even though I had already developed the content for the second and third books, this book had to come first because without the character traits and skills of an effective salesperson, nothing beyond this content would be as useful as if you had spent time developing these things.

Without self-discipline, optimism, caring, competitiveness, persistence, resourcefulness, initiative, communication, and accountability, selling is a difficult—if not a seemingly impossible—endeavor. If you don’t know how to gain commitments, prospect, present, diagnose, negotiate, develop your business acumen, manage change, and lead people to a better future, you will struggle.

Book 2: The Heart of Consultative Selling – The Lost Art

However, when you are someone worth buying from, then you can progress to the ideas in The Lost Art of Closing: Winning the Ten Commitments That Drive Sales. This title frightens people. They mistakenly judge this book not by its cover, but by its title, concluding that this approach is something that Blake from Glengarry Glenn Ross might teach salespeople. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Lost Art of Closing is a super consultative framework for gaining the 10 commitments your clients almost certainly need to make to move from a current start to a better future state—and commitments that position you to win their business and guide them on their journey.

The commitments include Time (prospecting), Explore (why change), change (do I need to do this now) collaborate (what changes and how), consensus (organizational and executive support), invest (equal to the outcomes), review (something they can yes to), resolve concerns (address anything that prevents moving forward) decide (the ask), and execute (accountability for results).

Book 3: Competing and Winning – Eat Their Lunch

Without this book, it would be difficult to execute what shows up in book number three, Eat Their Lunch: Winning Customers Away from Your Competition. Eat Their Lunch is a book about competitive displacements, or said more plainly, taking clients away from your competitors.

A lot of people mistakenly believe competition is about what their competitors. They believe that it is about their irrational pricing or their empty promises or dirty tactics. The truth of the matter is that none of these things have anything to do with competition because there is nothing you can do about how your competitors decide to play the game.

Competition is about how you differentiate yourself and your company by creating greater value—and in this case, enough to cause your prospective client to remove your competition and hire you. Creating a new opportunity that causes your dream client to remove their current partner is not easy. You are going to need to bring your best effort if you want to succeed. Eat Their Lunch provides the strategy for creating greater value, capturing mind share, prospecting in a professional way that creates an opportunity for a displacement, and building consensus within your dream client’s company.

You can’t get Eat Their Lunch until October 16th, but you can preorder it now. If you do, save your receipt for the bonuses will announce here later.

The post My Books and Your Path to Modern Consultative Selling appeared first on The Sales Blog.

This article outlines the results of a B2B Buyer Experience survey by TimeTrade.

Make no mistake: we live in a digital world. For many of us, that’s also the primary channel through which we make an increasing number of purchases.

Industry research consistently shows that buyers want the same easy experience they now routinely enjoy in their private life.

Related: 5 Painful Mistakes That Are Crippling Your Customer’s Buying Experience

Given these trends, it can be easy to draw the conclusion that buyers no longer need or want a “human” touch when making a purchase. In the world of B2B sales, the conventional thinking has become especially stark.

A number of industry pundits have even gone so far as to presage “the death of the B2B salesman.”

At TimeTrade, we wanted to move beyond the rhetoric and take a more quantitative approach to understand what today’s buyers want from seller organizations.

B2B Buyer Experience Survey Outline

• What are the common challenges surface within the B2B buyer experience?
• How and when do buyers want to engage with providers of goods and services, and are there unique preferences for B2B vs. B2C purchase scenarios?
• When it’s available, what is the potential impact of offering easy scheduling of 1:1 appointments between buyers and the businesses they may buy from?

For this specific survey we spoke to more than 300 B2B buyers, representing a cross-section of goods and services, company sizes and vertical markets.

The bottom-line? B2B buyers reported a significant need for improved engagement with seller companies. Buyers are specifically looking for ways that make it easy for them to connect and interact with a knowledgeable resource prior to making a purchase.

Now let’s break it down and look at the data in more detail:

1. Your Buyers are Knocking. Is Anybody Home?
2. Still Thinking B2B vs. B2C? It’s Time for H2H: Human to Human Selling
3. How Does Interacting with “Knowledgeable” Employees Influence Purchasing?
4. Top 3 Key Takeaways

Your Buyers are Knocking. Is Anybody Home?

First, the bad news. Could you imagine a potential customer visiting your web site and saying, “Sell to me!,” only to slip through the cracks without ever receiving a response?

In 2018, this is the experience of an overwhelming number of B2B buyers.

In fact, 84% of surveyed professional buyers reported that they “Always” or “Frequently” do not receive responses to their questions related to a purchase.

Post-sale, the numbers were equally stark. 76% of buyers reported that they “Always” or “Frequently” do not receive a response when making support or service-related inquiries after a purchase.

Given the growing importance of customer experience in today’s market, as well as the increased complexity of many B2B sales cycles, these numbers are a significant red flag.

How much are companies leaving on the table when these pre-sale questions go unanswered? What’s the impact on customer loyalty when service levels fall below buyers’ expectations?

Still Thinking B2B vs. B2C? It’s Time for H2H: Human to Human Selling

The case for live meetings

Clearly, companies should work to close this costly gap with professional buyers. One solution: make buying easier by offering the option of setting live appointments, either virtually or in-person.  
When asked about the value of live meetings:

88% of B2B buyers, on average, said it’s important to have live meetings or appointments with a company they may buy from.

These numbers increase significantly for buyers of technology (92%), and banking or financial services products (96%), categories which are often more complicated in scope, level of risk and potential cost.

Further, 90% of B2B buyers reported that the availability of live appointment setting made a company easier to buy from. And 91% agreed that they would like it to be easier to schedule meetings with companies when making purchases for work.

Related: Quit Preaching — 6 Ways To Actually Be Human In Sales

Ease of working with companies that are willing to book appointments

But as the saying goes, “if you build it, will they come”?

92% of buyers said yes, reporting a high likelihood to schedule appointments with a seller if the option were available. Given that the majority of salespeople are looking for easier engagement opportunities with prospective customers, making appointment scheduling easy for both parties seems a winning proposition.

Likelihood to schedule appointments if offered by a company you may buy from

Despite the perceived positive benefits of appointment setting, these numbers would imply that most buyers are finding it difficult to realize this level of live engagement. When we asked this question explicitly in our survey, a majority of B2B buyers agreed that they find it hard to schedule time to speak with a sales or customer service representative.

Difficulty scheduling meetings or reaching a company representative

These numbers become even more prescriptive when viewed in the context of other communication options, and the buyer’s stage in the decision process.

83% cited scheduling a pre-arranged phone or virtual appointment as their favorite channel versus online chat, email, phone, or a physical, in-person appointment.

Communication channel preferences when purchasing for business

Clearly making investments in appointment scheduling solutions has its rewards – both in terms of customer satisfaction and potential lifetime value.

• But what about the quality of those interactions?
• Are all meetings and appointments created equal?

Our data indicate that responsiveness and ease of engagement are only part of the picture for B2B buyers.

How Does Interacting with “Knowledgeable” Employees Influence Purchasing?

B2B buyer respondents clearly told us that it’s not just about connecting with anyone in an organization.

It’s about connecting with the right someone who is informed and can address their specific needs.

94% of B2B buyers agreed that they tend to buy more from a company when they have live interactions with a “knowledgeable” employee.

One way that many B2B selling organizations are showcasing their level of expertise is the hosting of physical events for customers and prospects. This includes programs like in-person workshops and classes.

TimeTrade’s survey data shows that these types of forums are not only valued by B2B buyers, they can also be a valuable purchase incentive.

79% of buyers said it was important to be able to attend events and classes to learn more about a product or service prior to a purchase.

So what should smart sales teams do to take advantage of these findings?

• B2B sellers must recognize that not all buyers are alike, nor will they have the same decision-making styles. This should encourage smart companies to offer omnichannel engagement opportunities that allow customers to connect with any number of knowledgeable company resources.
• Companies that value customer engagement should consider adopting meeting scheduling strategies that ensure easy, frictionless connections, and feedback loops. This results in interactions that match customer needs with the right resources.
• Salespeople may want to follow the example of their counterparts in the B2C world. Consider the potential upside of in-person workshops and classes for business buyers. The availability of live meetings for educational purposes can be a powerful channel for ongoing customer engagement.

Top 3 Key Takeaways

• For B2B marketers and sellers, the power of an authentic, human connection is not to be underestimated. Buyers still want and need to engage with informed, insightful salespeople.
• The bad news? B2B organizations have some significant work to do to win buyers’ dollars and long-term loyalty.
• As one of most desired engagement options for B2B buyers, easy-access appointment scheduling can deliver benefits on both sides of the purchase equation. It clearly supports the always-on experience buyers now enjoy in their consumer life.

The post 3 Facts About B2B Buyer Experience You’re Probably Ignoring appeared first on Sales Hacker.

Even experienced sales reps can get a little cold calling anxiety. And yet, phone acumen is ironically, paradoxically more valuable than ever.

The reasons for this are manifold. Phone conversations reduce the need for travel and face-to-face meetings early in the selling process. It’s an ever-more global economy which has increasing reliance on Skype, VoIP, and web conferencing tools. And the workplace is multi-generational. An intermingling of the Baby Boomers who are more familiar with phone usage and the following generations, who are increasingly more comfortable with digital forms of expressions (email, SMS, etc).

So, like it or not, the phone is here to stay. Smugly ringing off all the bells sounding its imminent demise. But what if the thought of the phone sends you into a panic attack? Or simply makes you really uncomfortable and nervous?

There’s ways to slay that cold calling anxiety demon. And we’ll discuss some below, after delving into precisely *why* phone anxiety is a thing.

The Inside Scoop from Clinical Psychology: Why We Have Phone Anxiety

It turns out, phone anxiety is a natural phenomenon for a lot of people, across all categories of humanity. It’s also an aspect of social anxiety disorder, which affects 15 million people in the US. As Alison Papadakis, clinical psychology professor at John Hopkins University, notes, “All we have is the voice, so that can be a bit nerve-wracking for people.” Nonverbal clues gone = anxiety spike.

And unlike written communication, where we have both a time buffer and deletion before sending options, real-time conversations demand more immediate responses.

And once something is said, there’s no delete button to act as if it never happened. It’s a paradigm shift from how we often operate these days, so it can be stressful. Psychologist Lindsay Scharfstein adds that, “What they’re (phone anxiety sufferers) typically afraid of is the evaluation or judgment that may happen… on a phone.”

Jeremy Jamieson, a University of Rochester psychology professor, observes that inexperience also plays a major role, and that millennials in particular often don’t understand the structure and segmentation of a phone call. It’s analogous to your grandparents not understanding the meanings of emoji. But again, phone anxiety reaches all ages and classes of people, and aren’t limited to millennials.

Editor’s Note

Justin is about to go into his awesome insights on cold calling anxiety. Before this, I wanted to share with you a “why” you need to cure the fear. When we are afraid, we seek things that can help. One of these things is…the script. Some can do these scripts very well and see results. But others — not so much.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a tweet showcasing the correlation between cold calling nerves and scripts:

Take a look at this image from Aircall:

More than half of the people you talk to love it when you don’t read from a prepared message. That’s a pretty big deal. And to get off the script — you have to be comfortable in your own skin.

Now, back to helping you conquer that phone anxiety.

Ways to Slay the Cold Calling Anxiety Dragon

Now that we have a general idea as to the reasons behind phone call anxiety, we have the theoretical framework for understanding why the following actionable solutions work. They either provide structure or get you in the right mindset.

1 Use a flexible framework.

Many sales reps and teams use call frameworks as a guide to conversations with prospects and customers. Using a framework is helpful, and should be practiced with others in role-play situations, until it sounds organic.

The best call frameworks are designed to extract specific information and are geared towards discovering the 4 Ps of prospects – Problems, Positioning, People, and Process.

• Problems

The crux of every sales effort in this brave new economy is solving customers’ problems. In order to do that, you need to know what problems your prospect is facing and how your company’s offering addresses those concerns. This should be your first priority, because if you don’t know what you’re solving, you’re wasting everyone’s time (including your own).

• Positioning

Once you’ve identified problems, it’s time to position your product as a viable solution if it actually can be one (emphasized because it’s really important that it’s true. Remember, in sales today, it’s about building relationships and trust, not getting a sale).

• People

Often in sales, there’re multiple people who will be a factor in the purchase – especially in the B2B world. Therefore, you should find out during the sales call who these other stakeholders are, and who literally signs off on any final deal.

• Process

Find out as much as you can about how the prospect’s buying process operates. When do they finalize which proposals they’ll hear? What are the steps involved in evaluation and what approximate timespan is involved?

The better you can understand their process, the better you and the rest of the sales team can plan your strategy.

2 Dive into it.

When sales calls give you dread and you find yourself lollygagging, making excuses to procrastinate, sometimes you just have to force yourself to delve in. Obviously you’ll want to make sure you’ve prepared your research and talk track, but once that’s done, plunging in can get you into the working rhythm once the initial discomfort is out of the way.

3Be curious about other people.

Alexa Fischer, whom you might know from one-off episodes of NCIS, JAG, and Lie to Me, is a motivational speaker and career coach. Her advice is to worry not about being clever or sounding smart, but to be curious about others. This is an especially useful trait to cultivate, because in sales, you spend a lot of time finding out about customers, their situations, and needs – and curiosity helps you in those objectives.

To cultivate this, shift your thinking from paranoia about the call to curiosity about what you’ll learn from the person you’re calling. This removes the self-absorbing and sometimes self-defeating focus from your own performance to a prospect or customer-focused approach. And really, this is what you want to do anyway – make sales customer-centric.

Another avenue to enhanced curiosity is to work on honing your sense of mindful living. There’re tons of resources out there, including free ones, on how to do that, so we won’t talk about them here. The key point: Mindful living makes you observe the world around you, reviving the sense of wonder and inquisitiveness you probably had as a kid, but lost along the way – great things to rediscover to make your sales calls easier.

4Develop your social skills.

Susan Cain gave a TED Talk a few years ago about the power of introverts. In the lecture, she points out that introversion vs extroversion isn’t about social ability. Instead, it’s about the source of your stimulation and energy – being around others for extroverts, having alone time for introverts.

Therefore, you can develop the necessary social skills. Start small – talk to the person next to you in line at the coffee shop or the grocery store. Call your close friend who also has phone anxiety and practice together.

Even if these encounters don’t go glowingly, remember that it’s a process of skill acquisition. That takes time. Insert all kinds of clichés about taking it day by day or ten thousand-mile journeys beginning with a first step – it’s all true in this case.

5 Review your sales calls.

This might be as horrifying as making calls for some of you. But one of the best ways to improve is to listen to recordings of your previous calls – especially with someone more experienced, like your sales manager. Break down the call into its components and see where you did well, and where you need to improve.

This close reading, or perhaps better said, screening, requires you to play close attention to the fine details of your phone interactions. It’s also great for monitoring your progress (“Hey, I sound a lot more confident at the start than I did two weeks ago!”) and locating the spot areas that require the most work.

Yes, it’s awkward. Yes, many people hate the sound of their own voice (primarily because the voice in our head is different from what others hear). But through time and exposure, we can become used to our own voices and more comfortable listening to recordings so that we can discuss ways to improve our sales calls and phone skills.

6 Know your elevator pitch like you know your hometown.

Sales reps’ ability to close begins with knowing the ins and outs, the very minutia of what they’re selling. After all, if you don’t know it intimately, how can you expect your prospects and clients to do so?

More to the point, know not only the intricacies of your offerings but understand how those details apply to solving problems your prospects and clients have. With this information, you can develop a short, 30 seconds maximum elevator pitch.

Why does this matter? It gives you the basic framework for how to highlight your company’s product/service to potential customers – including how your solution resolves an issue they’re having.

7 Reframe your thinking to one of helping, not intrusion.

Many people with phone anxiety are also empathetic and caring. They know what it’s like to be intruded upon by an annoying telemarketer or salesperson, and so have a tendency to think of themselves as that irritating individual who is interrupting a busy prospect’s day. That type of thinking permeates the atmosphere of the conversation, and the person you’re calling picks up on that negative energy.

No surprise at all when they reject you then, is it? They’re just picking up what you’re putting down. But if you shift your thinking from intrusion to assistance, you can change that energy and be more confident in sales calls.

Remember

The marketplace these days dictates that buyers want their sales reps to be trusted advisors – not just order takers. Put yourself in that mindset. You know your offering and how it solves problems for your customers, so you’re not being a pest. You’re helping them alleviate an issue that’s been bothering them far more than you ever think you could.

Framing your thinking to one of helping prospects and customers not only makes for more positive energy. It also reduces the stress and pressure on you. You’re, of course, trying to qualify or convert them. If your primary focus is one of advising, it’s a much less stressful experience for both you and whoever you’re calling. After all, if they reject you, that’s cool. They just opted not to take your advice right now.

Phone anxiety is a common problem, with a variety of logical causes. But there’re also plenty of ways to reduce, and eventually vanquish entirely that fear. Just follow these guidelines, and you’ll be cheerfully chatting away to customers and prospects, converting and closing with your advisor-first stance.

Will getting a marketing automation certification help advance your career? Will you make more money? Promoted faster? What is the quickest way to get certified? I’ll answer these questions and more in this blog post.

Supply and Demand

Are recruiters and hiring managers looking for certified marketing automation experts?

Marketing automation certifications are among the premier skill qualifications in the MarTech industry. This certification showcases marketers who demonstrate in-depth knowledge and skills with a marketing automation platform. Exams are usually proctored (no cheating!) and are sufficiently challenging to even the savviest of technology marketers around the world. Experts are commonly required to renew their certification on a regular basis to ensure a high standard among experts.

In an era where more than 6,829 MarTech platforms proliferate the landscape, talent agencies are forced to search for top talent in a space where the demand far outpaces the supply. “When we find a candidate who is certified in marketing automation, we are thrilled,” says Stefana Valentino, who manages a recruitment team for FRG Technology Recruitment. “Not only does it mean they are proficient working within the platform, but it usually means they are involved in the ecosystem and community.”

Hiring managers are also starting to look at certification as a key differentiator when choosing the candidate to contact. Many claim to have “marketing automation experience,” but certification sets you apart. Increasingly, marketers are expected not only be strategic but to roll up their sleeves and build complex marketing programs.

Taking Control of Your Career

Certification doesn’t just showcase your competency in a leading marketing automation platform. It also gives some insight into the kind of marketing professional you are. “It’s great to see marketers with marketing automation certification” comments the lead hiring manager at a high-growth software company. “I like to see someone who invests in learning and who enjoys the challenge of testing his or her skills on a daily basis.”

Challenging yourself to learn new concepts and powerful marketing automation techniques demonstrate your willingness to take control of your career path. While many can learn and pick up skills on the job, it is the marketer who studies her profession and continues to improve that will be far ahead of the crowd.

Not to mention—hard work pays dividends. A survey conducted by MarketingOps.com set out to correlate marketing automation certification and years of experience with better compensation. You’ll be happy to know that marketing automation experience DOES boost your earning potential as reported by MarketingOps.com.

Certification Matters at Every Stage of Your Career

I tell marketing leaders who are asking about certification: “CMOs should have allocated budget for certifications and training.” Some benefits are obvious—others not so much. A team of highly-capable marketing automation users can bring forth unique perspectives, work with agility, and can be more focused on details. You can complete more work in less time and operate in a more efficient manner with addition marketing automation experts.

From a recruitment perspective, Stefana puts forward “we encourage clients to pay for certification, as it’s important for an organization to invest in their employees’ education, as it will undoubtedly help the organization grow and evolve their marketing automation efforts.”

From an executive viewpoint, studying for certification helps leaders fully grasp the core areas of excellence in marketing automation. This also makes them much more relatable and informed when guiding marketing operations.

Set the Goal

If you are looking at getting a marketing automation certification, I recommend giving yourself at least six months. This can be challenging if working with a marketing automation platform is only part of your job description. Set up quick sessions with internal and external experts to find out how they use marketing automation. Keep in mind that your mission should be to drive business results for your company, and to use marketing automation to overcome obstacles and accelerate better financial outcomes.

During this six-month period, study the recommended guides and best practices, and continuously evaluate and improve your marketing programs and campaigns. A healthy mix of academic study and hands-on field application will lead you on the right path to mastery.

Beyond Certification

When you finally have a coveted marketing automation certification under your belt, the time certainly merits celebration! However, you should think of this as only the beginning of your marketing automation journey. The best and highest paid marketing professionals are always learning, connecting, and innovating. This would be the perfect time to network and compare notes with internal and external colleagues. Seek out local user groups, meetups, online user forums, or connect with experts and thought leaders.

Are you certified in marketing automation or considering it? Let’s keep the conversation going in the comments.

The post The True Value of Becoming a Certified Marketing Automation Expert appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

Please join our survey on Pricing Innovations.

The table below presents, from the perspective of Boston Consulting Group, Fast Company and Forbes, the top ten most innovative companies in 2018. Of note, Amazon appears in all three while half of the firms appear in 2 out of the 3 lists.

Let’s focus on the leader. As Jeff Bezo’s speaks about "It is Always Day One,"  he mentions four key principals that underlies everything done at Amazon:

• Customer Obsession – “Customers will always be discontent… and they will always be pulling you along.”
• Eagerness to Invent (Love to Pioneer) – “Need to have something that is differentiated unique and something that customers would like that we kind of leading with.”
• Long-term Thinking – “Willing to take some time and be patient with our business initiatives”
• Operational Excellence – “Know how you have high standards and do things right.”

In this post, I concentrate on the elements of customer obsession and eagerness to invent. It is the relationship of these elements that transform a mere invention into an innovation, an innovation that matters. Innovations are only successful when they create value—and, value creation should always begin with customer value.  

What is customer obsession?
At Amazon, customer obsession means starting with the customer and working backward. Work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Leaders pay attention to competitors, but they obsess over customers. Bezos articulates it as such, if you are in front of your competitor, it’s hard to stay motivated by referencing your competitors whereas customers are always wanting more. No matter how far ahead of your competitors, you are still chasing your customers. Customers are leading and pulling you forward.

To be customer obsessed, we need to know our customers’ needs and wants, better if we can anticipate these, better yet is our ability to provide a vision that exceeds our customer’s imagination.

What about the eagerness to invent?
Bezos terms eagerness to invent as the love to pioneer. He mentions that every time Amazon has tried to do something in a “me too” fashion, they have failed. He goes on to relate the importance of having something that is unique and differentiated but couples this clause with “that customers are going to like and that we’re leading with.” 

Pioneering implies being first, it implies being in the lead. Amazon’s principles page describes its principles around invent and simplify as “Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by ‘not invented here’. As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.”

Bringing together customer obsession and eagerness to invent is what fuels differentiation. Differentiation enables operational excellence and long-term sustained success. Doing this well requires making choices and being focused.

Where to start?
Understand Value

If you have read our posts before, you will know that you have to begin by understanding value from the perspective of your customer. Research and validate emotional and economic value drivers for all market participants. Understanding and quantifying the economic and emotional value your customers experience allows you to focus your marketing and positioning efforts on those customers that will provide you with the greatest long-term value.  This provides insight on where your outward (customer) focus should be. In turn, these then inform where your inward (offer development and operations) focus should be—which inventions you should invest in to create value (and transform into innovations).

Bear in mind that value is specific to your customer. Peter Fader describes customer centricity in his book, Customer Centricity: Focus on the Right Customers for Strategic Advantage, as "a strategy that aligns a company's development and delivery of its products and services with the current and future needs of a select set of customers in order to maximize their long-term financial value to the firm." Interestingly, he mentions in this order that Amazon, IBM, Harrahs, Tesco and Netflix (3 of these firms are recognized for innovation) are companies that execute on customer centricity. Customer centricity acknowledges that: not all customers are equal; businesses need to identify those that matter; there is a willingness to invest more to deliver to those customers what they want. Doing this creates a lucrative, more profitable future.

Segment the Market and Target Customers
Find segments that get value in the same value and buy in the same way. Developing market segmentations based on emotional and economic value drivers, buying processes and other differentiation axes that emerge bottom-up from your customer data has proven effective for our customers as they continue to understand how to build differentiation.

Customer data to design, collect and analyze include:

• Interview data
• Survey data (we develop custom designed surveys to uncover economic and emotional value drivers)
• Social media data
• Usage data (including measures of engagement and predictive engagement)
• CRM (customer relationship management) data
• Invoicing data

Look for patterns in sentiment and buying behaviour so that you can target segments that get the most value (and have the highest lifetime customer value) with reasonable CAC (Customer Acquisition Costs).

Monetize the Value
To do this you’ll need to design a pricing model. Identify all of the value metrics (the measures of how users get value). Use these to design the pricing metric (how users are charged) and the pricing architecture. Pricing is where all of your critical marketing decisions come together. Buyers and sellers can disagree on many things, but at the end of the day, they have to agree on price.

Set and Monitor Prices and Performance
Set prices to optimize for company goals (market share, revenue, profit, cashflow). Establish a monitoring system to ensure continuous improvement.

The Value of Innovation
Ibbaka is committed to driving the value of innovation. Please share your views on this topic by participating in our survey.  We aim to provoke thinking about your innovation, how it is valued and measured, and how this impacts your pricing strategies. 

Thank you for your participation.

Why can’t I sell? When was the last time you asked yourself that question?

There is way too much turnover in the sales profession, and I think it stems from one thing — false expectations of what others can do for you.

The excuses run rampant, from “Marketing isn’t doing their job” to “I’ve never been trained” to “my boss is an idiot.” The list of excuses never ends.  It’s time to take ownership and realize the answer to the question “why can’t I sell” resides in you, not somebody else.

Only you can motivate yourself. Stop blaming your boss. Check out this 34-second video:

Quit blaming others and start taking control. Here are 10 things you can do now that will impact how you sell:

1. Accept 100% responsibility for your attitude. Nobody can change your attitude, only you can.  Similarly, nobody else, including your boss, can motivate you. That’s your job. Only you can motivate you.

2. Stop blaming your boss for what you believe he or she is doing wrong to you. Who cares! It’s what you do that matters, not what your boss does or doesn’t do.

3. Build a list of all the ways you’ve helped your customers. You’re much more effective as a salesperson then you realize you are. You’ve just chosen to focus on the negative. Focus instead on the positive things you’ve done.

4. Other people will only impact you negatively if you choose to let them. There’s a reason why negative people hang out with negative people.

5. Be 100% focused on how you help your customers and how they will benefit from buying from you, rather than the physical product or service you sell.

6. View life not from a mindset of scarcity, but rather from a mindset of abundance. When we look at life as having unlimited opportunities and an abundance of everything, it is amazing how many more opportunities we will see.

7. Realize you have the greatest customers any salesperson could ever ask for. If you view your customers as being great, it’s amazing how better your results will be. The mindset you take toward your customers will impact the relationship you have with them.

8. Start each day by being thankful and appreciative to have the opportunity to meet with others.

9. Focus first on helping others, including your prospects and customers. When you view your customers as being more important than making your sales quota, it will be amazing how much easier it is to make your sales quota.

10. Never allow yourself to have an “if/then” attitude. This is one where you believe every problem you’re having can be fixed by, “If I do this, then I’ll do that.”  The only thing this type of attitude can do for you is allow you to create cheap excuses and a tendency to place blame on others.

Sales is not a job. It’s not even a profession. It’s a lifestyle and it starts from within.

And don’t forget that a coach can help you excel in your sales career! Invest in yourself by checking out my coaching program today!

Copyright 2018, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog. Mark Hunter is the author of High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results

Content Marketing World 2018 will be here before you know it. The largest content marketing conference in the world brings together an incredible cornucopia of talent, curiosity, knowledge and aspirations for success. Marketers from all over the world come to Cleveland, Ohio for this event of epic proportions.

Readers of our blog know we have a long history with the conference starting at the beginning with 8 years of speaking and attending plus 6 years of partnering with Content Marketing Institute to develop speaker/influencer content marketing campaigns, aka “conference ebooks”, to help promote the event.

Another tradition that has recently been imitated but hardly duplicated, is something we started several years ago: sort through the 200 or more speakers and publish a ranked list of content marketing experts according to their social influence.

List Methodology: For this list we use the Traackr influencer marketing platform to filter the content marketing experts who are speaking at the current year’s Content Marketing World conference using a number of criteria including the relevance of the individuals to the topic, the degree to which their networks engage, and the size of their networks. Online data is pulled from blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, SlideShare, Flickr and several other platforms.

Of course the topic in question is: “content marketing”. Everyone included on this list is a) a speaker at CMWorld 2018, b) ranked in the top 50 for “content marketing” according to relevance, resonance, reach and audience metrics.

People always thank me for including them in these lists and there’s no thanks to be given other than to the people who worked hard sharing useful content about content marketing to their social channels, in blogs, in videos and online in general.

Thanks goes to ALL of the people who are actively sharing knowledge about content marketing by engaging and helping others with opinions, insights and expertise on the social web. This list is just the beginning of understanding all of the top experts and influencers around the topic of content marketing.

In this year’s list there are many familiar faces and some that are new. I hope you find new and inspiring content marketing experts to follow through the rest of this year and into 2019.

50 Content Marketing Influencers Speaking at CMWorld 2018

BIG congratulations to Erika Heald for the top spot and to the other 3 women in the top spots: Pam Didner, Carla Johnson and Kelly Hungerford.

Congrats AGAIN to Ann Handley for being the Most Engaging Content Marketing Influencer out of this year’s group of speakers, based on Traackr’s analysis.

Erika Heald @SFerika
Marketing Consultant, Erika Heald Consulting
Presenting: Your Lack of Social Media Guidelines is Killing Your Employee Brand Advocacy

Pam Didner @PamDidner
B2B Marketing Consultant & Speaker, Relentless Pursuit
Presenting: 5 Creative Ways Marketers Can Enable Their Sales Teams
Presenting: Create A Scalable Global Content Marketing Strategy in 7 Steps

Carla Johnson @CarlaJohnson
Chief Innovator, Type A Communications
Presenting: The Innovation Factory

Kelly Hungerford @KDHungerford
Digital Strategy & Marketing Operations Consultant, Sunstar Europe SA
Presenting: Transforming Teams: How to Transition Traditional Marketers into Content Marketers

Michael Brenner @BrennerMichael
CEO, Marketing Insider Group
Presenting: How to Create a Documented Content Marketing Strategy, Start Showing Your Content Marketing ROI Today

Lee Odden @leeodden
CEO, TopRank Marketing
Presenting: Rocket Science Simplified: How to Optimize, Socialize and Publicize B2B Content
Presenting: The Confluence Equation: How Content and Influencers Drive B2B Marketing Success

Ian Cleary @IanCleary
Founder, OutreachPlus & RazorSocial
Presenting: A Content Promotion Framework with Actionable Tips to Optimize Results from your Content Marketing
Presenting: Content Optimization and Distribution Strategies

Michael Gass @michaelgass
Owner, Fuel Lines Business Development, LLC
Presenting: Agency Workshop: A New Approach to New Business,

Heidi Cohen @heidicohen
Chief Content Officer, Actionable Marketing Guide
Presenting: The Secret 3 Steps For Content Amplification And Distribution Success

Christopher Penn @cspenn
Co-Founder and Chief Innovator, BrainTrust Insights
Presenting: How To Use AI To Boost Your Content Marketing Impact
Presenting: How to Use Artificial Intelligence to Build and Optimize Content

Bernie Borges @bernieborges
Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Vengreso
Presenting: 3 LinkedIn Content Marketing Strategies that will Drive Visibility, Credibility and Traffic

Andrew Pickering @AndrewAndPete
Pete Gartland @AndrewAndPete
Co-Founders, Andrew and Pete
Presenting: The Competitive Edge: How to Create a Unique Content Spin in a World of Copycats

Melanie Deziel @mdeziel
Founder, StoryFuel
Presenting: Think Like A Journalist: The 5 Keys To Compelling Content

John Jantsch @ducttape
President, Duct Tape Marketing
Presenting: How to Grow a Highly Profitable Agency Without Adding Overhead

Robert Rose @Robert_Rose
Chief Troublemaker, The Content Advisory
Presenting: Welcome to Content Marketing World 2018

Andrew Davis @DrewDavisHere
Keynote Speaker & Best-selling Author, Monumental Shift
Presenting: Video Marketing Makeover – Transforming boring case studies and testimonials into stories that inspire action
Presenting: Curiosity Factor: The psychological phenomenon creative content marketers employ to earn and own attention in a noisy world

Viveka Von Rosen @LinkedInExpert
Co-founder & Chief Visibility Officer, Vengreso
Presenting: 3 LinkedIn Content Marketing Strategies that will Drive Visibility, Credibility and Traffic

Douglas Burdett @MarketingBook
Host, The Marketing Book Podcast
Presenting: Industrial Manufacturing Lab: Applying Content Marketing Best Practices to the Challenging Audience of Engineers

Andy Crestodina @crestodina
Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Orbit Media Studios
Presenting: Complete Search Optimization: SEO Master Class, Content Strategy and SEO for B2B Lead Generation

Matt Heinz @HeinzMarketing
President, Heinz Marketing Inc
Presenting: Sales Content That Sells: A Proven Approach To Sales Enablement Success

Ann Handley @MarketingProfs
Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs
Presenting: An Important Keynote by Ann Handley, The Long Tales: How Longform Content Beats Snaps, Tweets & Chatbots All Day Every Day

Jay Baer @jaybaer
Founder, Convince & Convert
Presenting: Talk Triggers: How Killer Content Creates Conversation and Clones Customers

Jesper Laursen @jesperlaursen
Founder and CEO, Native Advertising Institute
Presenting: 5 killer cases: how to grow your audience with native advertising

Cathy McPhillips @cmcphillips
Vice President of Marketing, Content Marketing Institute
Presenting: Getting the Most From CMWorld 2018

Joe Lazauskas @JoeLazauskas
Head of Content Strategy, Executive Editor, Contently
Presenting: Stories for the Win: The Hidden Neuroscience of Content Marketing
Presenting: Why Great Stories Make Our Brains Want to Buy

John Hall @johnhall
Keynote Speaker, www.johnhallspeaking.com
Presenting: Influencer Marketing and PR Workshop
Presenting: Relationship Building That’s Vital to Make Your Content Marketing Thrive

Berrak Sarikaya @BerrakBiz
Sr. Social Media Manager, Yesler
Presenting: Lean Content Marketing for Startups

Stephan Spencer @sspencer
Founder, Science of SEO
Presenting: The Most Common SEO Mistakes in Demand Generation Campaigns

Michele Linn @michelelinn
Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Mantis Research
Presenting: The Unsung Hero of Content Marketing: Original Research

Drew McLellan @DrewMcLellan
Top Dog, Agency Management Institute
Presenting: The Agency Edge 2018: When, What — and Why — Clients Outsource to Agencies

Mitch Joel @mitchjoel
Founder, Six Pixels Group
Presenting: The Long Tales: How Longform Content Beats Snaps, Tweets & Chatbots All Day Every Day

Cassio Politi @tractoBR
Consultor de content marketing, Comunique-se Group
Presenting: How to Hold an Online Event that Generates Real Results

Andrea Fryrear @AndreaFryrear
President and Lead Trainer, AgileSherpas
Presenting: Going with the Flow: Adapting Scrum Practices for Marketing

Garrett Moon @garrett_moon
CEO & Co-Founder, CoSchedule
Presenting: Got Leads? How To Find Your Content Core And Actually Drive Revenue From Content

Paul Roetzer @paulroetzer
CEO, PR 20/20
Presenting: How to Get Started with Artificial Intelligence in Content Marketing

Jay Acunzo @jayacunzo
Founder, Unthinkable Media
Presenting: Break the Wheel: Stories and Ideas for Being Better than Best Practices

Juntae DeLane @JuntaeDeLane
Sr. Digital Brand Manager, University of Southern California
Presenting: Digital Brand Building: Optimizing Content for Engagements, Search, and Reviews

Kathy Klotz-Guest @kathyklotzguest
Ms. Chief Officer, Keeping it Human
Presenting: Yes And! Turn Your Culture (OR CONTENT TEAM) into a Fresh-Idea Startup

Peg Sieren Miller @PegMiller
Senior Director, Growth Marketing, Xactly Corp
Presenting: You Did a Content Inventory, Now What? How to Find the Hidden Gems Within Your Content Audit

Albert Jan Huisman @AJHuisman
Founder, Y Content
Presenting: How to Turn Highly Billable Professionals into Extremely Productive Content Marketing Rock Stars that get Bottom-Line Results
Presenting: The Content Marketing Diamond Model for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs

Maureen Jann @SuperDeluxeMo
Managing Director, SuperDeluxe Marketing
Presenting: Bringing Home the Bacon: Cultivating Thought Leaders to Break Down Trust Barriers with Prospects
Presenting: The Content Marketing Diamond Model for Small Businesses and Entrepreneurs

Stephanie Stahl @EditorStahl
General Manager, Content Marketing Institute, UBM
Presenting: Welcome to Content Marketing World 2018

Ahava Leibtag @ahaval
President, Aha Media Group
Presenting: The Top 7 Writing Secrets of Hit-Making Songwriters”, CMWorld Cleveland Clinic Health Summit

Shafqat Islam @shafqatislam
Cofounder & CEO, NewsCred
Presenting: The other side of performance – operational efficiency: How to build, measure, and optimize high-performing teams that deliver high-performing content

Doug Kessler @dougkessler
Creative Director & Co-Founder, Velocity Partners
Presenting: The elephant in a nutshell: We need to talk about metaphors in marketing.

Zontee Hou @ZonteeHou
President and Founder, Media Volery LLC
Presenting: Let’s Chat: How Messaging Apps, Chatbots, and Voice Assistants Will Impact Your Business in the Next 3-5 Years

Tim Washer @timwasher
Keynote Speaker, Event Emcee, PowerPoint Comedian, Ridiculous Media
Presenting: CMWorld Chatter

Tamsen Webster @tamadear
Founder and Chief Message Strategist, Find The Red Thread
Presenting: How to Make Your Ideas Irresistible

Leslie Carruthers @TheSearchGuru
President and Founder, The Search Guru
Presenting: A-Z Conversion tracking issues for B2B and how to solve them.
Presenting: Retail & eCommerce Lab

Amanda Todorovich @amandatodo
Senior Director, Content & Creative Services, Cleveland Clinic
Presenting: Building a “Media Company” inside a Marketing Department
Presenting: CMWorld Cleveland Clinic Health Summit

Now it’s your turn. As with any lists, there are many people that I would love to see included that were not. I’m sure you’re thinking the same thing (Joe Pulizzi for example). If the person that influences YOU most isn’t on this list, please share their name and Twitter handle in the comments.

In the spirit of content marketing and in sharing our own expertise, I’ve assembled a list of our top 10 posts about content marketing from the past 12 months:

• 50 Women Who Are Top Content Marketing Influencers & Speakers – Lee Odden
• Content Marketing Evolution: Major Content Marketing Trends – Josh Nite
• 5 Outdated Content Marketing Tactics (And What to Do Instead) – Josh Nite
• 3 Unusual Content Marketing Approaches That Actually Work – Nick Nelson
• Content Conversations: Top Content Marketing Lessons Learned – Ashley Zeckman
• 5 Tips for Better Data-Informed Content Marketing – Anne Leuman
• 5 Reasons Why B2B Content Marketing Works (and Why It Doesn’t) – Anne Leuman
• How to Prove the Value of Content Marketing to Your CMO in 3 Easy Steps – Anne Leuman
• The Ultimate Guide to Conquering Content Marketing – Ashley Zeckman
• 32 B2B Content Marketing Case Studies – Lee Odden

The Ultimate Guide to Conquering Content Marketing that we developed in partnership with CMI and CMWorld is a great example of influencer driven content. This approach has been successful enough for Content Marketing Institute that they’ve run the program over 6 years.

If you would like to learn more about how to create successful influencer content collaborations, you’re in luck! Both Ashley Zeckman and I will be presenting at Content Marketing World on the topic. Here are more details:

September 5th – 1:45pm – 2:30pm
Solo Presentation with Lee Odden
The Confluence Equation: How Content and Influencers Drive B2B Marketing Success

September 6th – 12:05pm – 12:50pm
Solo Presentation with Ashley Zeckman
Influencer Marketing is only for B2C Brands (& Other Lies Your Parents Told You)

Along with our TopRank Marketing teammates Jane, Nick and Annie, we hope to see you at the Content Marketing World conference. Check out what we’re looking forward to most at CMWorld and be sure to follow us on Twitter at @toprank for real time updates during the conference and this blog for liveblogging coverage of select presentations.

 

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© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2018. | The Original List: 50 Content Marketing Influencers and Experts to Follow into 2019 | https://www.toprankblog.com

The post The Original List: 50 Content Marketing Influencers and Experts to Follow into 2019 appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

Whether you’re a large business or small, trying to refocus a floundering company or a startup finding your footing, no matter the industry you’re in, you’ll soon discover that you’re going to need one thing above all else to make sales—leads.

If you can’t generate leads, you can’t make sales. It’s that simple!

Thankfully, there are proven tips and tricks for lead generation that can help you quickly reap a return on your investment. It all starts with the sales funnel.

However, once you have those leads, you’re going to need to nurture them in order to see results. Leads left to lie where they are will only expire and, sadly, go on to some other company’s sales funnel.

Avoiding this can be easy, but it can also be a lot of work, and a lot of work that most brands don’t want to put out. With the right methods, however, you can greatly see an increase in attracting potential buyers to your sales funnel and converting them from leads to sales.

So what’s the sales funnel?

Good question. If you’re relatively new to the world of sales, you’ll come across this word, often referred to as the prospecting funnel. Sometimes, it’s simply referenced as the AIDA funnel (using an acronym for the four simple stages a consumer undergoes therein— awareness, interest, decision, and action).

It can seem like an odd concept, but it’s an important one to understand.

Think of your business as a giant funnel. Potential customers are at the very top of the wide-open mouth, while your sales are at the itty bitty end.

The sales funnel helps you to weed through the good and bad leads; the ones who make it all the way to the bottom are your customers.

At the top of the funnel are all the people who know you, but you don’t really know them. They may have just happened to come across your brand online, or they’ve read about you somewhere. No more, no less.

As they descend downwards, they become a named prospect, but not really a sales-worthy lead. They haven’t engaged with you, but maybe they’ve signed up for an email list, or something similar.

Moving down the sales funnel

Then, it’s time for them to get engaged. At this point, they’re still creeping downward, slowly but surely. This person is in some kind of conversation with you, and their information is in the database.

Next, they’re a target. They’ve engaged with you and you’ve determined that they’re a qualified lead.

So, yes, at this point, they are indeed a lead. It’s time to stop trying to market to this individual, and instead, try to sell them on something.

Almost at the end of the sales funnel, the lead becomes an opportunity, as a salesperson in your company is genuinely going after them, building a relationship and trying to get that sale.

That lead hovers over the very bottom of the funnel until they finally drop—and become that customer you’ve been craving. It’s a long process, but a necessary one.

To make it a little bit easier on yourself, you can group all of this into three different areas of the sales funnel. The top is all about generating leads, the middle is about nurturing those leads, and the bottom is about converting those leads into sales. If each is done correctly, then a lead will proceed easily to the next level.

So where to start?

Before you can begin nurturing, you have to start with generating. This is as easy or as hard as you make it. It’s all about collecting information from prospective clients and customers, so you can determine if they’re a good fit for you.

You can generate leads from a variety of sources, but make sure that those sources make good sense for your particular business.

Also, keep in mind that these top-of-the-funnel leads that you’re generating aren’t going to be buyers in the very first stages of their shopping process. This means that some of them—actually, most of them—won’t buy at all.

Keeping the focus on your brand

The main idea through this stage is to increase interest in your brand, and to keep folks interested, so that when it’s time for them to move on down the sales funnel, they’re ready for that stage.

There are a few things you can do to keep them aware of your brand, without overwhelming them too much.

• Make sure that your website, social media and online presence as a whole is comprehensive and impressive.
• Be sure that your branding is consistent throughout, and that you’re selling one key message across all platforms, so as to not confuse your potential consumers.
• Differentiate yourself from other brands from the start. Why should consumers choose you over another?
• Engage brands and influencers through any possible partnerships, to show potential consumers that you’re someone they want to follow and trust. (This is an excellent way to fill your sales funnel quickly, as you gain an audience already built by a similar, yet non-competing brand.)

Then what?

Once you actually have your leads, no matter where you’ve sourced them, from a partnership, social media or wherever, it’s time to nurture them. This means that you show them the proper amount of attention to keep them moving further down the sales funnel.

One lead nurturing theory that’s being growing in popularity is about individualization. Every consumer is different, and approaching them differently will help you to gain momentum. However, it’s usually not possible to design a unique marketing approach for every lead.

Enter segmentation

That is why segmentation can be very handy. Not only will segmenting leads allow you to tailor your marketing efforts, but it will also help you to discover which groups of leads are most likely to buy into your brand.

Throughout the nurturing stage, you’ll want to continue to track every effort and every segmentation. Measure how and when you’re successful, to further decide what works best for your company.

Want to know more specifics for nurturing your leads? Like, what kind of marketing should you really be testing on your segmented groups?

Time for Great Content

Content marketing and email marketing are both highly effective options you can use for nurturing leads.

Content marketing incorporates a lot of written content that’s both useful and educational to your potential customer, and it also pushes your brand in a non-sales-y way. According to the Direct Marketing Association, featured articles increases the ROI by a whooping 62%!

When it comes to email marketing, you’ll want to follow some nurturing guidelines. Make sure that you’re both relevant and trustworthy in your efforts, and that you have an actual strategic plan.

Don’t just send out a bunch of emails because you can. There must be a reason and a purpose.

Just like you generate leads through your social media, you can also do a fair bit of your lead nurturing on social media. Match your social media content to what your segments are talking about, or what they are interests in.

Whatever you do, always remember that to properly move a lead through the sales funnel, you’ll have to really work for it. This is more than just one touch and you’re done.

In fact, many prospects undergo 10 or more touches during their entire time in the sales funnel.

Mix up your touches and remember that you must try and try again. Use a multitude of media, from email campaigns, to direct mail, to white papers, to blogs, to social media and beyond.

Then, always make sure that you follow up, and that you’re personal about it!

When do I pass them on?

While you should be keeping the entire sales funnel journey in mind when nurturing your top of funnel leads, you’ll also want to recognize when your leads are ready to go to sales, and when they’ve been nurtured enough by marketing to be a successful score for the entire company.

Too often, marketing and sales teams work against each other, rather than with one another, always blaming the other for failures.

If a great prospect doesn’t buy, the sales team says it’s because the marketing team didn’t properly qualify the lead, while the marketing team says the sales team blew it.

Your sales and marketing teams should be working together to make the pass, so that those healthy, nurtured leads continue down the sales funnel and out.

Before passing leads between these two groups in your company, make sure that marketing and sales teams know what to expect of one another and that they’re communicating effectively.

Ensure that the marketing team is providing all necessary information to sales and that sales has set proper expectations for marketing.