Problem:  Casey had made a presentation to a large shipyard that had been awarded the contract to build one of the Navy’s newest amphibious ships.  This was an important deal for his company, a seven-figure sale over the next two years.  Casey knew that he was the front-runner and, if the company did not accept his proposal, another six months would be wasted because the engineering drawings would have to be revised.  He knew that this presented an unacceptable situation for the shipyard.  Nevertheless, the buyer was stalling him on making a decision.  Casey had tried everything to get them to make a move, but to no avail.  And to make matters worse, he was getting the feeling that if he continued to be assertive in pushing for a decision, he might hurt the rapport that he’d worked so hard to establish.  Have you ever been in this position?

Analysis:  Why decisions aren’t made more quickly is anybody’s guess.  The circumstances can certainly vary in every situation.  This much is known:  buyers have their own timetable and it isn’t always in sync with the seller’s.  Perhaps the buyer had misled Casey about when a decision would be made or maybe some internal issues had delayed their ability to make a decision.  But in this case, Casey felt his buyer was simply playing games.

Solution:  At our suggestion, Casey went to the buyer and said the following: “Paul, I’ve got a problem and I need your help.  As you know, you and I have worked very hard on this proposal over the last six months.  But for whatever reason, we’re apparently not close to getting a decision.  I’m getting an unbelievable amount of pressure from my company president to get this deal closed.  In fact, he said that I can’t afford to spend any more time on this project and has asked me to pull the proposal off the table if we can’t get a decision in a week.  I don’t know what problems that might cause for you, but I thought you should know my limitations.”

Casey got his buyer to move.

Sound familiar?  “Good cop, bad cop” is a tactic you’ve seen used in every police television show when they’re interrogating a suspect.  Why?  Because real police use it and it works.

It is a way for you to raise an unpleasant issue without hurting rapport between you and your prospect.  If the deal is real, they will make a move to keep it going.  If it is not, they will let you kill your proposal which in turn gives you an opportunity to figure out why it died.  Can you think of any situations when you could use “good cop, bad cop”?

Good Selling!!

As technology and globalized business models continue to deliver efficiencies and new opportunities, every sector will face disruptive pricing that in effect re-costs what the market would otherwise pay. Many of those movements will naturally be downward; others will lift the entry point. Amazon has effectively reframed the cost of books; Samsung and others are resetting the cost of owning a tablet; Tesla has redefined what an electric car is and also the cost of owning one.

But in response to competitor moves, so many brands make pricing changes without making changes to the brand at the same time. They simply react. As a result, their brand either ‘loses value’ or  ‘becomes more expensive’ for no good reason – or at least none that the consumer can see. By simply shifting what Tim Smith has referred to as the “value exchange” without repositioning the premise by which they compete, these brands have in fact deteriorated both: there is less sense of value; and there is therefore less sense of exchange. Consumers are either getting more or less value than they were getting – for no reason that has been clearly articulated to them.

Rebranding your price is a useful strategy for brands who find themselves needing to adjust their pricing in competitive landscapes and who have the ability to improve, adjust or diversify their offering quickly so that brand, value and pricing align. It works because it effectively links what you’re asking with what you’re offering and what your consumers value.

If you are going to price up, you will of course need to use what you have access to in terms of innovations and value-adds to make the purchase feel more valuable. Or if pricing down, look for ways to actively make your brand more attractive to more people. Because as Seth Godin so rightly points out, “Every great brand (even those with low prices) is known for something other than how cheap they are.” 

If you have many competitors who charge more than you and you either can’t, or don’t want to, change your pricing, what can you do to position your brand as one that democratizes what you offer? Unless you position yourself this way, there’s a very good chance you will simply be seen as the “cheap” option. If you have competitors ranged out at lower price points, what can you add to the sense of who you are as a brand to position yourselves as deservedly premium? And how can you turn price into the validation of the value that your premium brand delivers?

MacDonald’s it seems is facing this very issue at the moment. They continue to offer, and to brand themselves, as a the purveyor of $1 meals, but increasingly their menu reflects higher ticket items. And that’s affecting their bottom line as the gap between what people expect to pay and what they are being asked to pay widens. As John Gordon comments in the article, “If you encourage and kind of seed the notion that you can come in for a couple bucks and get some food – and then you can’t do that anymore – there’s bound to be a reaction.” At some stage, it strikes me, that MacDonald’s will need to make the decision as to whether they are still (and can afford to remain) a frugal diners’ brand.

One of my favorite strategies when a brand is hemmed in price-wise is to reverse the question. Instead of asking “What should the product…cost?”, the question changes to, “What should the cost…product?” In other words, set a desired price point and then literally build your offer (and your repositioned brand) around that. It’s a great question to throw at a development team. “We have competitors at $1.38 – $1.57 and other competitors at $2.10 – 2.30. So what does a $1.72 version of what we offer look like? …

“And what kind of a brand does that make us now?”

Sponsored By: Resonate. Reach audiences based on why they choose brands.

Sponsored By: The Brand Positioning Workshop, the Brand Storytelling Workshop Series and Brand Strategy and Customer Co-Creation Workshops

There has been no shortage of posts and articles regarding the onslaught of content in all areas of marketing. Yes, everyone’s a publisher … we are all competing for attention with the Googles and LinkedIns of the world. But what’s on my mind is this: Are we, as content marketers, creative enough with our stories and our distribution options? Do we do the same things our competitors are doing? Are we just trying to tell the same story incrementally better? Shouldn’t we look to carve out something new?

Don’t compete

Peter Theil, co-founder of PayPal (with Elon Musk) and Facebook’s first outside investor, believes that most businesses copy other businesses, and thus fail. “Figure out something that nobody else is doing and look to create a monopoly in some area that’s been underdeveloped,” he says. “Find a problem nobody else is solving.” Yes, Theil is specifically talking about entrepreneurs, but the same goes for content marketers. We need to get more creative. We need to truly focus on our niche audiences and provide hyper-targeted and relevant content. We also need to rethink our distribution. Here are some ideas I jotted down that may help you.

Rethink podcasts and books

In our latest content marketing research, we looked at the gap between what effective marketers do compared to ineffective marketers. The biggest surprise to me came in two nontraditional packages. Effective content marketers are seeing amazing results in both podcasts and printed books. Of course, these two are not at the top of marketers’ usage list (for B2B companies, 30 percent leverage books while just 22 percent leverage podcasts.) I smell an opportunity here to get in before the rush.

Kick a few platforms to the curb

In our just-released B2C research, the average company creates content for six (yes, six) different social media sites. How can an enterprise dominate a content marketing niche by focusing on so many channels? I don’t believe this can be done effectively. Dump the underperformers. Initially, the thought for enterprises was to have a presence on all social platforms. I believe this is bad advice. It’s more important for us to develop amazing content that our consumers will share on their platform of choice than to develop content for a specific platform (some social experts are gasping as I write this.) Focus is king in content marketing. If you are not a leader on a particular platform where your audience is, it’s time to adjust the strategy. Double down on what works.

Print is hot

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but print is cool again. Marketers who look to cut through the clutter are finding sanctuary in print. For example, I had no idea what or who Chango was until I received this amazing magazine, The Programmatic Mind. I would never have come across any of Chango’s content online. But they got my attention with this well-designed and extremely relevant print magazine around programmatic advertising, an issue that is becoming increasingly important in the native advertising space. But don’t take my word for it. Our survey results reflect print’s value too. This was the first year in a long time when the use of print magazines did not go down. Some marketers are obviously paying attention.

M&A is real

We have our examples from the past. Adorama, the photography supply store, bought the photography enthusiast JPG magazine. L’Oreal purchased Makeup.com. These are outliers, but content M&A activity is on its way to becoming trendy. Just recently, I’ve had discussions with two CMOs of Fortune 1000 companies who are actively looking to purchase media properties where they can associate themselves with active subscriber bases. Where are your customers hanging out on the web? Yes, we have a choice to build the content factory, but we also have the choice to purchase it. I smell BIG opportunity.

For more great insight from Joe Pulizzi about how to advance your content marketing, read Epic Content Marketing: How to Tell a Different Story, Break through the Clutter, & Win More Customers by Marketing Less.

Cover image by Free Stock Photos.biz by CDC/Amanda Mills from Public Health Image Library via pixaby.com

The post 4 Ways to Break the Insanity of Content Marketing Competition appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

Photos are not just worth a thousand words – they are worth unlimited engagement. Photos are proving to be one of your most powerful weapons on social media for boosting customer interaction and cementing brand identity. More and more businesses are taking hold of this trend.

As Social Media Examiner reports, photos make up nearly ¾ of Facebook content. Additionally, photos are the most engaging form of content on Facebook. Most content gets a 4% interaction rate, but photos get 87%!

Credit : Socialbakers

This graphic also demonstrates that the data is resoundingly clear: photos are ruling the web. So how can you optimize your photos so they have the best chance of getting responses from your audience?

Learn to harness Pinterest

Pinterest is one of your biggest assets when it comes to using graphics powerfully on social media. Create a strategic plan for how your boards will align with your users, and use Pinterest to create a total graphic guide to a lifestyle that matches that of your user. Don’t simply advertise products – use Pinterest to appeal to your users so that they want to visit your Pinterest for amusement, information, or great lifestyle tips.

Prioritize quality over quantity

Spamming your users with low-quality images will annoy them, not entice them. Think about how many times a day they are exposed to photos and advertisements, and ask yourself how you can make yours stand out.

High-quality photos with unique filters have a much higher impact than snapshots. Every image you post should be outstanding to draw the viewers’ eyes to your photo above the others. Photo editing programs like VSCO Cam for mobile or Picktorial for desktop can help you edit the photos into beautiful works of art in seconds and easily upload straight to social media.

Look at the difference between the two photos below.

Before:

 After:

Which photo would you be more likely to look at or click on? A simple edit by Picktorial completely transforms the way the same photo is interpreted, and this means big things for engagement.

Invest time in your making your photos beautiful, because just a bit of effort can make all the difference. There’s no use in optimizing other aspects of your social media visual campaign if you aren’t showing off the best photos.

Remember it’s not all about the photo

The text that accompanies photos also plays a significant part in encouraging shares. The Pinterest business page advises that, “Positive, aspirational messages resonate” and using descriptions that describe a pins value are better than straight explanations. For example, instead of saying, “This shirt is on sale!” describe how the shirt fits perfectly with the new fall fashion trends. When it comes to sharing on Twitter, entice the reader by giving a snippet of a preview that encourages them to click and continue learning more. On Facebook, asking questions and seeking responses from users generates positive engagement.

Don’t forget to #Hashtag

No one will see your photo if you don’t optimize it to be found. Search for relevant keywords and post graphics that relate, and of course, don’t forget to hashtag! After you have perfected the photo and copy for your visual, it would be a shame if none of your target audience ever sees it.

Make dynamic graphics

Using photos on social media is about more than simply pinning a pic or posting a photo. Your social media strategy should look at photos as part of a complete graphic design campaign. When it comes to wording, consider how you can use text within the graphic itself. Canva is an incredible program for designing graphics with text overlays, such as posters, invitations, infographics, and more. The templates can give you a professional image with a great call-to-action in seconds.

Remember sharing others’ graphics can also benefit you

Sharing is caring. Share your users’ photos or other photos that fit in with your marketing strategy to gain extra engagement. Simply posting your own photos and never responding to those of your audience makes you a media generator, not a media communicator. Additionally, sometimes your campaign doesn’t have the time or resources to invest in original photos every time, but sharing the graphics of others with the necessary credit makes it easy for you to keep up a steady stream of visuals from a variety of sources.

Hopefully these tips help you optimize your photos on social media and improve your strategy so you can grab on to the great engagement possibilities that come from using visuals on these channels. Let us know if you have any tips or feedback on how you optimize your photos!

The message comes in a variety of neatly packed phrases: “fail fast,” “failure is a gift,” “embrace failure.” What is this hype all about, and why is failure so in right now? Failure is nodded to as a key stepping stone in the path toward success by thought leaders and business professionals alike. As the award winning author J.K Rowling puts it, “it is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well have not lived at all – in which case you fail by default.” Highlighting failures is even trending in several well known advertising campaigns. In this article we will dig into what embracing failure really means, how to effectively use it, and when it gets excessive.

The background

Despite its recent popularity, the concept of embracing failure is nothing new. Testimonials by historical failures including Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and the more recent Donald Trump have been present and circulating for decades. The recent re-emergence of the failure trend could be attributed to several economic adaptions. The addition of evolving technology enables any person with a smartphone to share their personal failures at the touch of a button. In the current economy, taking both small and large business venture is an action of high risk, and high risk has high potential to result in high failures or extreme successes. Regardless of the turnout, failure and success stories both serve as learning examples for future risk-takers. Thus thrusting us into a spin of sharing our stories using them as learning tools, and as motivators to potential risk takers.

Why failure works in marketing

We are only human and we live in a world where we can’t always get things correct directly out of the gates, regardless of how hard we try and how careful we are. Being imperfect specimens, we like to know that we aren’t alone in our failures. In fact, respected individuals who endure failures with grace are perceived by the general public as competent, and are in turn more liked and accepted. Psychologists refer to this concept as the Pratfall effect. In a sense, sharing failures can be humanizing and beneficial to a brand.

Making it work for marketing

If failure generates prestige for brands and people, why aren’t we all confessing our defeats from the rooftops? The answer is this – a good failure campaign has three main characteristics:

• A modest tone
• An example of failure that became a learning experience or step toward success
• A long enough time after the failure that the mishap doesn’t effect the brand’s reputation currently

A prime example of good failure marketing is illustrated in the 2007 commercial that Nike aired on the failures of Michael Jordan.

Domino’s newest “Failure is an Option” commercial also takes an effective and humble stab at the approach when they highlight their failed concept of a cookie pizza in 2007.

Where do we draw the line?

Learning from mistakes and taking risks are no doubt two great concepts that come from the ‘failure is good’ approach. However, the overuse of embracing failure raises threats toward turning the concept into a cliché. There is a fine line between useful failures and labeling every slip up as a learning and growing experience. I’m sure we can all think back to a impulsive decision that we’ve made knowing better that resulted in a poor outcome. For example, taking the risk to drive to work when your gaslight has already been illuminated from the day before and running out of fuel somewhere in the middle of the road. Not all failures are lessons learned; some just come as a result of poor and hasty decision-making. The two types of failure must be distinguished to preserve the value of the lesson.

The post Focus on These 4 Steps to Harness the Addictive Power of Email (And Turn Your Traffic Into Business) appeared first on Copyblogger.

In writing my new book, Digital Relevance, I spent a lot of time thinking about how a digital approach changes a lot of things, including the opportunity we have to become more relevant to our audiences.An obvious line of thought, given the title of the book, right?But here's the thing. Most marketers have gotten so tied around the axle about wanting their content to perform from an audience perspective that they've not given much thought to how it can perform as an inquiry to improve that very relevance and engagement that they're after.The big question to answer is: What is my content designed to help me - as a marketer - learn about those who engage with it?What I see mostly is the assumptive stuff based on format, such as:If the audience engages with an ROI calculator or views a demo they're late stageIf they complete a form they may be a "lead"If they attend a webinar they're in the evaluation stageBut, how do you know? Because someone said so? Hmm.We need to be better than this. We need to develop a rousing curiosity about what our audiences are interested in and what engaging with a specific piece of content could mean to them.Based on the information in the content, not the packaging.Content must be designed to have mutual value. It must deliver something your audience cares about AND it must deliver an answer to a line of inquiry that can help you improve relevance in a way that leads to additional engagement.Part of the issue with this is that, as marketers, we're conditioned to think in a perspective based on one-to-many rather than one-to-one. I'm not saying that we yet have the tools or skills to excel at the latter, but I do think we have a huge opportunity to move in that direction. We may as well start now, because that's what's coming.Think about nurturing for a moment. The point of nurturing is to create continuous engagement based on enticing prospects to take steps toward purchase over the course of their buying process.This doesn't mean sending out an email with a link to your latest blog post every two weeks.It means unfolding a story that creates curiosity and anticipation for what's next in the journey to solve the problem on their plates - aligned to their perspective (persona).So what can you learn if you design your content both to serve prospects and as an inquiry?Start simply by considering how the dots can be connected to reveal insights you can act upon to find improvements.For exmaple, if they read A, what's the propensity for them to read B? Or do more of them skip right to F? If they do skip to F then perhaps your content is out of order for how the problem presents to them. Perhaps a change to the way you connect your storyline would improve response and next steps.As another example, let's get to the meat of the content. Let's say someone reads a content article about determining whether to build or buy the solution to a problem and they share the content with their colleagues. What can you learn? Obviously, if you're selling the "built" version, the slant of the content would be toward that choice.So could you discern that the person who forwarded the content is trying to convince others involved in the decision that buying is the better option? Or, is that too much of a leap and maybe the group is still wrestling to answer that internal question? If you have a "see also" about how to make that choice and the person also clicks to read that, you may have an answer.But, more importantly, what you also learn is where they are in the buying process. They're still considering whether or not to move forward with buying as a means to solve their problem. Until that question is answered, they won't move forward. They are early stage. Does that tell you how to move forward with engaging them? It should.However, if you're only looking at the format or the number of content assets they've engaged with, you really have no idea about what stage they're in or what they truly care about. The content of the content is what can tell you. If you design it in pursuit of inquiry. The way in which you connect the content about a topic together can also tell you which way they're leaning.What does your content and the way you share it help you to learn about your audience? 

Google’s Long-Awaited Penguin Update Finally Rolls Out; So How Do You Avoid Being Impacted?

Over the weekend, Google confirmed the release of Penguin 3.0, an update that SEOs have been anticipating for more than a year.

In fact, Barry Schwartz dubbed this update “one of the most anticipated…in Google’s history” in an article on Search Engine Land.

Though not actually an update to signals or a change to its algorithm, Penguin is more of a refresh, a slightly disappointing announcement to those SEOs who have been expectantly waiting for a major update for 12 long months. According to Google, Penguin as a “refresh” is a re-release of its algorithm to release sites that have fixed previous errors and demote sites that were not previously affected by algorithm changes.

What Is Penguin 3.0?

The Penguin algorithm is designed to filter spam and promote positive link-building techniques, as opposed to those sites that purchase links or use link networks as a means of improving search engine results. Since its inception in April 2012 with Penguin 1.0, Google has aimed to identify and demote sites with spammy or otherwise bad links. Penguin analyzes at a site’s backlink profile and may demote a site it deems to have a profile.

A timeline of previous Penguin releases, courtesy of Search Engine Land:

Who Does Penguin 3.0 Affect?

Unlike the recent updates to its Panda algorithm, which grades content and language, Penguin does not take language into account. Because it primarily reviews links, which are not language specific, Penguin is not limited to rollout by country as has been the case with previous updates. The refresh has been rolling out worldwide since Saturday morning.

Thus far, it is reported that Penguin 3.0 is affecting less than 1 percent of English queries. While no clear results on the impact of Penguin 3.0 are available, most sites are seeing no change. However, some initial reports have shown either sharp increases or sharp decreases caused by Penguin.

What To Do If Penguin 3.0 Affects Your Site?

It may be difficult for you to determine right away if you have been hit by Penguin 3.0. You may not see an update or impact immediately. However, if you have viable links and high-quality content, your chances of escaping impact are good.

As Kelsey Jones, Managing Editor over at Search Engine Journal said, “Amazing content is Google update-proof.” Instead of trying to outsmart the algorithm updates, continue to focus on creating valuable content for your readers.

If you do think you are susceptible to the Penguin 3.0 updates, here are a few steps you can take to protect your site:

1. Remove exact match and keyword-rich anchor text Penguin targets links. Therefore, anchor text links are vulnerable to being demoted by Penguin. At one time, anchor text links that contained short- and longtail keyword phrases were applauded. Now, these are not only losing clout but are being demoted as well. To protect yourself against Penguin, avoid optimizing anchor text at all.
2. Control backlinks to your site Again, because Penguin is focused on maintaining the integrity of links, it is critical that the backlinks to your site are from relevant and reputable places. If you are able to control who is linking to your site, only allow backlinks from sites with equal or higher domain authority than your own. This will add value to your site and reduce the amount of spam.
3. Be wary of guest blogging networks Google has been working to demote sites with content of little value. With the recent Panda update, sites using content farms are penalized. With Penguin, the value of content is protected by disavowing links from guest blogging networks, such as MyGuestBlog. If you are using these types of networks, remove links to these sites within your content or add nofollow links to control link quality.
4. Always audit your content The primary way to ensure your site can escape the ever-changing updates to Google’s preferences is to continuously audit your existing site content. Auditing your content for value, as well as monitoring blog posts for spammy comments and removing spam promptly, will help you remain cognizant of your website’s performance in light of algorithm updates, refreshes and new releases.

As with most Google updates, it may take some time to realize the real impact of Penguin 3.0. For now, monitoring your site’s performance and adjusting accordingly will help keep you ahead of the game in terms of search engine rankings. And while you may or may not see specific results related to Penguin by auditing your content, you will be doing yourself and your customers a favor by continuing to provide rich, high-quality content that is valuable to your readers. And, ultimately, that’s what it should be about anyway.

Understanding the pros and cons of Retina screens in email design

Children of the (higher) resolution – Every time I see an article or advert about Apple’s Retina Display, I have to force myself not to dismiss it as marketing guff and consider the relevancy. Let me explain.

As an email designer, devices with a Retina display are a pain. When I open an email I have lovingly crafted they make my pin-sharp graphics look a touch blurry, and that’s guaranteed to upset any designer.

In this article I look specifically at email design for retina displays, register for the free webinar with my colleague Darren for more insight on mobile design for Email.

What is a retina screen or display?

First it’s important to understand what a ‘Retina’ screen is. First and foremost, the name is just an Apple marketing term – Samsung, Sony, HTC, in fact all smartphone manufacturers are now producing devices with high PPI (Pixels per inch) displays.

Any screen with a pixel density high enough that under normal viewing conditions the individual pixels cannot be distinguished is essentially ‘Retina’, although it should be noted that Apple’s Retina devices handle images differently to any other high PPI device.

In a nutshell, the PPI value is determined by the resolution of the screen and its physical size. The ‘normal viewing conditions’ also vary between devices and their use. I want to explore these details in more depth in my next post.

What happens if you don’t design your emails for retina screens?

Scalable graphics, photos and text look super sharp on these screens. Unfortunately, images created at the smallest possible size with mobile devices and data connections in mind don’t look quite as sharp as they should. In fact, Apple Retina displays in particular have a particular way of handling and displaying graphics that ironically make ‘normal’ graphics look worse than any other high PPI screen, where the slightly fuzzy edges are barely noticeable.

The current workaround is a @media query – a line of code that tells devices with certain parameters to do different things. In this case, telling devices with a pixel ratio of 1.5 or greater (with a few other rules specified to cover different devices) to display an image double normal size.

@media (min–moz-device-pixel-ratio: 1.5),

(-o-min-device-pixel-ratio: 3/2),

(-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 1.5),

(min-device-pixel-ratio: 1.5),

(min-resolution: 144dpi),

(min-resolution: 1.5dppx) {

/*Show alternative double size image*/

}

This provides another image double the size for high PPI displays, ensuring everything looks as it should. Sadly due to limitations of the @media query code, it also means that every device that responds to the @media query itself (which includes all mobile devices) downloads the bigger image as well as the normal one. For an email with say 5 images, this is a 10 image download, 5 of which are double the size of the others. That’s a much longer load time, and could very easily be the difference between opening and ignoring an email.

But the fact is high PPI ‘Retina’ screens are becoming the norm on smartphones and tablets. Why? As technology improves and brands seek to distinguish themselves from their competitors they increase the number of pixels while the physical sizes stay the same, all in the name of sharper text and images.

Load times are so important that they’re still the overriding factor, but if you had a super whizzy message to give that would really benefit from it (say an iPhone app targeted at iPhone customers) then the extra wait might be worth it. As always, it’s down to your target audience.

Image/Source Copyright:NewZapp

We all know that the only constant in today’s world is change. The big warning for businesses today is, of course, “innovate or die,” and planning for change is critical to executing initiatives as efficiently as possible — not only to maintain bottom line revenue, but continuously demonstrate value for your customers.

Organizational change — which can be triggered by things like new trends, insightful data, and internal conversations — should be executed with the goal of improvement in mind, and for the sake of enhancing worth for customers and stakeholders. In order to foster an environment that can deal with change effectively, you need to take a good, hard look at your company culture. Have you created an environment that can innovate and execute? Do your stakeholders feel like they have a say in what changes should be made? Are they participating in conversations regarding change?

Innovation is dependent on a certain type of culture to be successful. Here are 5 ways you can foster an innovative culture in your company.

1. Encourage Collaboration and Transparency

Successful companies constantly encourage collaboration within the organization, and they regularly provide stakeholders with the tools they need to work together creatively and effectively. Collaboration, along with innovation, should be a fundamental practice in any company, and should be consistently integrated into the everyday activities of stakeholders.

Another important element of an innovative culture is openness. Participants need to feel comfortable with sharing and being transparent, but they also need to feel like they aren’t being judged or shut down. Transparency promotes better ideation and stronger teamwork.

2. Actively Seek Out Stakeholders

Asking stakeholders to think of suggestions to improve the company, its products, services, or practices is an excellent way to solidify a collaborative, innovative culture. Keep them involved even as you develop a game plan and establish processes around those ideas. Ask them to share their thoughts and success stories on increasing productivity, incorporating customer feedback into products and services, or anything else that could provide valuable insight. Ingrain this as a part of the inner workings of the company, rather than a sporadic, one-off exercise.

3. Break Down Barriers to Success

Critical business and process information needs to be available to all project participants, which means that knowledge silos need to be broken down. This allows you to cut costs, reduce lead time, facilitate team work, boost collaboration, and improve productivity across the board. It will also help your team track the progress and chronology of idea implementation, as well as address and resolve issues more quickly.

4. Translate Ideas Into Action

Having great ideas, or asking for other people to come up with them, is not an appropriate or specific enough tactic. It’s necessary to have clear-cut policies on how ideas are evaluated, selected, and implemented. This may require setting up an official innovation team — a critical component in business today — with a full-time innovation manager who can coordinate the process, along with part-time counterparts selected from your existing employee base to follow through with implementation.

5. Use an Innovation Platform

Using an innovation platform to manage the innovation program makes everything exponentially easier for every stakeholder. It provides a clear view into ideas that are moving forward, the timelines for executing on those ideas, which ideas are succeeding, which ideas have the most potential with a bit of revision, and so on. However, it is still important to keep other lines of communication open, via purposeful in-person meetings and email, simply because additional conversations are often needed to supplement ideas in the pipeline.

Before you start making big changes in your organization, make absolutely sure that your company culture is equipped to handle it.

What other tips do you have for fostering an innovative culture in your business? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

The most effective leaders I’ve known or studied all share a common trait: they were unwilling to settle for the existing state of affairs. They believed with all their heart that what we focus on can become reality.

In my quarter-century of military service, I’ve been afforded the rare privilege of leading in a broad array of environments: commanding a 500-person special operations expeditionary air refueling group in the Middle East after 9/11; guiding a 7,000-person military community through a dramatic mission transformation in North Dakota; and leading men and women from 14 NATO nations in building a sustainable, independent Afghan Air Force in an active war zone—something that had never previously been attempted.

I know how daunting it can be to lead dedicated professionals to undertake complex endeavors, and I’ve lived the reality of trying to bring positive change to large, bureaucratic organizations. Here are four principles I’ve learned that can help you enhance your leadership while concurrently bringing out the best in those around you.

Principle 1: Craft your vision in pencil, not ink.

It is a well-accepted role of leaders to focus on the future and pursue the possibility it holds. In other words, leading entails being a visionary—confidently looking ahead and ascertaining how best to transform your current reality into your desired future. One of the most significant errors I see leaders make is developing their vision in isolation and then expecting people to accept it at face value. When leaders do this, they violate one of the most important truths of promoting change: our words create our worlds. How we choose to describe and discuss what we are doing and where we are going is important, but what moves people to sustainable, self-motivated action is understanding the why behind the vision. That vision can only be fully realized if leaders involve others in the process of creating it.

Ultimately, what makes a vision come to life isn’t people understanding it, but people choosing to own it. Making inclusivity a priority will increase ownership, enhance motivation, improve information sharing, and result in leaders making wiser, more informed choices.

Principle 2: Believe no job is too small or insignificant for anyone, especially you.

For those of us who have served in uniform, getting dirty, sleeping in tents, leading marches in the mud, or spending hours rehearsing a mission comes with the territory. As a commander, you don’t get a pass because you have the highest rank. In fact, you should be ready to be the first to face hardship and the last to benefit from success. If your team is cold, wet, hungry, and sleepless, you should be, too. You should be prepared to eat last, own failure, and generously share triumphs. This others-centered approach to leading will build deep trust and enduring respect, and reinforce that you don’t expect anyone on your team to do anything you wouldn’t do yourself.

Ego tempts many leaders toward self-aggrandizement—the higher their rank, the more pronounced the pull. Choose to direct your effort and attention toward what you can give rather than what you can receive. Demonstrate humility, not superiority. Model for others the selfless attitudes and behaviors you desire to see in them.

Principle 3: Remember that leaders should be generalists, not specialists.

Nobody can be an expert in everything, but the greater your scope of responsibility as a leader, the more you need to learn about what you are demanding of your people. Just like the best sports coaches, who invest countless hours in understanding every position on the field, effective leaders develop a keen sense of how the organization’s various roles, functions, systems, people, and processes contribute to achieving its desired goals. You may be a specialist at one thing, but knowing what others around you do—and how and why they do it—is vital not only to attaining your desired outcomes, but also to realizing your individual and collective potential.

Don’t allow yourself to become stale or small-minded. Make it a personal priority to know more about what is going on around you. If you spent the bulk of your career working in sales, accept a stretch assignment in business development or talent management. You will likely be pleasantly surprised at how this broader, richer view of what’s happening in your organization will enlarge your perspective, enhance your appreciation, and elevate your sense of personal satisfaction.

Principle 4: Recognize that every interaction is an opportunity to equip, engage, empower, and inspire those around you.

The world of physics has a principle: “Every contact leaves a trace.” What this means for leaders is that every interaction with someone—verbal, written, or even through non-verbal mannerisms—makes an impression. Effective leaders understand that every interaction is a potentially powerful means of nurturing a relationship, eliminating an obstruction to progress, or reinforcing trust. Determine to leave a trace that leaves those around you better for knowing you.

Do your part to seed an environment where everyone is compelled by your example. Adopt a walk-the-floor policy instead of an open-door policy. Visit with people in their space. Don’t make them come to yours.

Military work is risky, pressured, and ever-changing. Yet the principles military leaders use to lead effectively are the same skills companies need today to prevail in a climate of increasing uncertainty and accelerating complexity. It is up to each individual leader to choose to put these lessons to work.

 

When we want to stock our kitchen, our family shops at three different grocery stores. We visit one store for seafood and organics, another for the kind of tortellini my son likes, and another for our favorite brand of salsa.

High maintenance? Probably. We want what we want. But at times it’s exhausting. It’s more stops of the car and more items on the to-do list – and more time out of the day.

That’s why one-stop shopping has become such a marketing buzzword. We’re all looking for every opportunity to cut steps in our daily lives, while still getting what we need.

The business world is no different. If you’re a copywriter, your clients are busy business owners and marketing folks who are looking for time-savers.

Copywriters can help. Consider how you can deliver one-stop shopping for your clients. That doesn't necessarily mean writing all the marketing materials they need. After all, some of us bring expertise in specific niches (i.e. case studies).

Instead, consider handling more of the process for your clients. For example, I help many of my clients with design and project management. Adding these aspects means I take care of pretty much the entire project and deliver a ready-to-use marketing piece.

Want to be more of a one-stop shop copywriter? Here’s your playbook:

Add Design Services
Most clients publish case studies on their websites AND need an attractive PDF version for printing and distributing via email.

Even large clients or those with in-house designers may need occasional outside help. Clients who choose to engage my help with design fall into two categories:

•    Organizations that have designers they work with – in house or contractors – but choose to have me coordinate the entire project to keep things simple.
•    Organizations without designers that appreciate not having to find yet another vendor.

Some tips…

Find the right designer – Maybe you have writing AND design skills. If so, awesome. You’re already a one-stop shop. If not, partner with a designer. Choose a designer with work samples that match the type of clients you have. Some have a more whimsical, illustrative look while others are more corporate. A tech company would likely want a different look than a wellness coach. Consider working with a couple of designers to fit the various clients you have.

Ask about turnaround time – What’s the designer’s typical turnaround time? You want to ensure that the person is responsive when you need them. Also, have them let you know whenever they’re going to be out of the office so you can plan for that.

Ask about files – One of my clients likes to have copies of the InDesign (or other) files just in case they want to make changes themselves in the future or change vendors.

Equip the designer – Get your client’s logo, typefaces, color schemes and preferences to the designer, along with other sample marketing materials or the client’s website URL so that the designer can match the look of the client’s other materials.

Create a template – Engage the designer to create the template for case studies (or other collateral), and then to place each case study into the template. I price these separately: a one-time fee for template creation and then each layout.

Proof designs – Review layouts to ensure typos have not crept in.

Send one bill – Create a single invoice for writing and design. Add a little mark-up over what you pay the designer to account for your time in guiding the designer and shuttling versions back and forth.

Add Project Management
With multiple interviews and customer review cycles, case study projects demand more project management than other types of writing assignments. Save your clients all that legwork by handling the pieces.

For case studies, add the following to your writing and editing:
•    Schedule and conduct all interviews
•    Record interviews and provide transcripts (if requested)
•    Manage review and signoff with the featured customer
•    Collect graphics such as logos and photos

When you deliver writing, design and project management, it means fewer invoices for clients to process, fewer emails and fewer tasks on their lists. Also, by boosting your value to them, you can charge higher fees as you become the preferred, one-stop provider.

The post Case Study Copywriters: Juggle More for Your Clients appeared first on Stories That Sell.

Ann Handley and content marketing go together like peanut butter and jelly: You really can’t have one without the other.

As Chief Content Officer for MarketingProfs, a best-selling author of Content Rules (co-written with C.C. Chapman) and the recently published Everybody Writes, as well as a seasoned marketing speaker, Ann has proven to be one of the best in content marketing today.

In this conversation that took place during Content Marketing World 2014, Todd Wheatland sat down with Ann to get to know a bit more about the woman behind the online persona.  Entrepreneur, writer, marketer, mom, and dog lover, Ann gives us not only a glimpse into her working routine, but also shares a bit of her vulnerable side.

What may surprise you

• Ann is obsessed with dogs and has had up to four dogs at one time. Abby, her 10-year old Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, is the only family member allowed to reside in her tiny house.

• You read that correctly. Ann had a tiny house built in her backyard. This is her office, her workspace, and her home away from home. Though only 30 seconds away from the family home, it’s a world away when it comes to her ability to separate work from her family routines.

• Writing is actually very hard for Ann. Her latest book Everybody Writes is her first solo book and, in her words, “it was like birthing a Volkswagen.”

• Ann was the first person to take on the title Chief Content Officer.

Ann’s pivot

Ann has been a pioneer in content marketing, so it’s hard to believe there was a time when she was not writing, speaking and training as a leader in our industry. After graduating from college, Ann started working at a business newspaper, specifically a banking newspaper. Covering banking, real estate, and mortgage was really not for Ann.

In 1997, Ann turned her side business as a freelancer into ClickZ, one of the first websites that was a source of information for how to do business online. She sold ClickZ in 2000 and shortly thereafter joined CEO Allen Weiss at MarketingProfs.

Writing as a cornerstone of content is missing in the conversation

With her latest book, Ann wants to fill what she believes is a gap in the content marketing industry. In a time where tools are being developed to assist in the creation and amplification of content, there is a lack of emphasis on the actual art of creating and writing this content.

The conversation I think we need to have as marketers, not just content marketers, but as marketers, is how to really value the words that we’re using and the stories that we’re telling.

Listen to Todd’s full interview with Ann Handley here:

Check out all the fantastic CMW sessions available through our Video on Demand portal, including Ann’s presentation: Sorry Did You Say Something? The Future of Content is Writing.

How do I subscribe?

 

The post The Pivot: From Banking Journalism to Content Marketing appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

Feast or famine is defined as a situation in which something is always either extremely abundant or in extremely short supply. In this case, that something is sales leads. Do you often have times when your team is so busy that you can barely manage it all? Are they followed by times when your team is frantically making calls in the hopes of drumming up new business?

If you answered yes, you are a victim of feast or famine. Admitting it is the first step. Now, let’s focus on how you can get off this seemingly never ending treadmill and positon your sales team to always have a steady flow of leads coming in the door.

Be Proactive

Most sales teams who find themselves on the feast or famine treadmill are reactive. When they receive a new lead, they nurture it, taking it through the sales cycle, closing the deal. But then they wait for the next lead and if the next lead doesn’t come, the famine begins. If you allow your sales team to get too comfortable at feast time, they neglect building their sales pipeline and when the easy leads dry up, they find themselves in panic mode.

Successful sales teams mitigate the risk of going into famine by always being proactive when it comes to leads. They don’t just sit back and wait for the marketing team to provide them; they go out and get them by making calls, attending networking events and developing their own presence as a subject matter expert on social media. It’s when you already have an abundance of leads coming in the door that you must not rest on your laurels but still have that hustle mentality to keep bringing in more.

Identify Your Ideal Output

It’s key for sales managers to identify the ideal level of output the sales team is capable of consistently producing. To do this, take a recent six month period where business was steady. Total the gross sales of that period and then divide it by 126 (the number of workdays in a six-month period). This will provide a daily and weekly output for your team to strive for. It can also serve as a warning, alerting you that your team is underperforming, allowing you to make necessary changes before the end of the quarter when it’s too late to make an impact on your sales numbers.

Forecasting is Your Friend

Take your daily and weekly sales capacity and apply it to the schedule. For example, a sales team who can comfortably close 50 deals per week might aim to schedule no less than 10 sales calls per day (preferably more to account for those that don’t close quickly). By forecasting, the sales rep knows when to walk away from a dead-end deal and when to focus on filling their schedule in a week that may have unused capacity. Forecasting gives you the ability to see what is happening with your sales team in time to change direction if necessary.

The secret to ending the cycle of feast or famine is to never stop growing your pipeline. Never stop looking for the next opportunity, no matter how busy you are now. Always remember that famine could be waiting for you just around the corner.

Why Focus On the Top of the Funnel is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

There is no middle of the funnel or bottom of the funnel without the top of the sales funnel. Most of the challenges that sales organizations have in making their number stem from the fact that they are weak at the top of the funnel. It’s not that they aren’t good salespeople, that they don’t have a good process, or that they lack the right methodologies. Most of the time what holds them back is not having enough opportunities (although I know there are exceptions, and I’ve seen some organizations with too many opportunities to effectively pursue them all).

The problems you experience in the middle of the funnel usually fall into one of two categories. The first class is non-opportunities. These are the “deals” that aren’t really opportunities at all. Maybe you mistake receptivity for a real compelling event that could cause your dream client to move. This problem is easily resolved; you push these non-opportunities down to target because they are really still leads. The second group is stalled opportunities. These opportunities are usually missing some of the commitments necessary to move them forward. These problems can be resolved, albeit not easily, with good coaching and big conversations with your dream clients.

The end of the funnel problems are usually around capturing value (or negotiating price) or dealing with legal issues and such. These issues can be difficult, but they’re normally easier to deal with than stalled deals.

But top of the funnel problems are far more pernicious. Without new opportunities coming into the funnel, you don’t have enough opportunities to make your number. So you’re reluctant to move non-opportunities back to targets; you feel that you can’t afford to. You can’t afford to to have a stuck deal because doing so means you miss your number. You get desperate about stalled deals. At the end of the funnel, you cave on price because you can’t afford to much back.

Think about how a funnel works. If you feed it in dribs and drabs you get dribs and drabs out of the other end. But if you keep a nice steady stream pouring into the funnel, you get a nice steady stream out of the skinny end.

Worry first—and most—about the top of the sales funnel.

Practical content marketing and profiling techniques to identify senior decision makers

Senior decision makers are increasingly reluctant to hand over their contact details when exploring potential solutions. You may have noticed how busy managers often omit their phone numbers from their email sigs! At the same time, the explosion in content marketing with the availability of detailed information online in a range of formats has enabled those seeking to use your products or services to carry out extensive research on you independently without booking a demo.

There is now little need to book a demo, take a trial or speak to a salesperson when so much content exists online to inform their decision.

Whilst these prospects are carrying out their due diligence research at distance, others who are at a much earlier stage of the buying cycle are seeking content that will inform and educate them.

Whitepapers, videos, thought-leadership pieces and research are standard fare in any inbound content marketing plan and can be very effective at driving traffic to your website, but putting barriers in place to access this content can be premature in two respects.

• Firstly, across the whole B2B site, less than 5%  of website visitors will volunteer their contact details in exchange for access to the content - although it's higher on individual landing pages of course [see these B2B Conversion rate examples].
• Secondly, those looking at this content are not always ready for the sales follow up that you would attempt through capturing their details.

In fact, just 27% of B2B leads are sales ready when they first divulge their contact details (Marketing Sherpa). For the majority of contacts you acquire in these circumstances, there is a lot more lead nurturing to be done.

If you’re treating the download of a whitepaper as a buying signal, you may find your sales efforts a little premature.

However, having their details at this early stage does enable you to monitor their behaviour. For all of those who would not divulge their contact details in any circumstances, marketing automation and tracking technologies can help you identify them nonetheless and add them to Lead Nurture programmes.

By using a variety of techniques to identify and nurture companies visiting your website from an early stage, you are then able to communicate more effectively as their interest becomes more serious.

Signals for the advanced buying stage

The online behaviours of those at a more advanced buying stage are different. They are doing due diligence and looking at different types of content from those who are merely researching the topics that your content covers. Case studies, pricing, specifications and brochure downloads tend to be more reliable indicators of buying behaviour. Why would someone be interested in a case study if they had no interest in buying?

Although they are doing this at distance, we can still track these behaviours. Case studies are seldom behind a registration wall, hence the value in having identified them earlier in the process. We can track company and contact activity from initial visit, right through to purchase. We can also see how, depending on business size, different people in a company become involved in the process as they progress through the purchase funnel.

At the point a contact demonstrates some form of genuine interest, the nature of your marketing should change. Content designed to convey your proposition more clearly will work better in these circumstances. There comes a point where blog posts and other light touch content is not sufficient to help progress these leads.

Prospects will be more receptive to in depth content, but you should also attempt to give them opportunities to make contact and help you qualify their interest further. This is where interactive content types come into play; seminars and webinars, surveys and solution wizards (calculators, assessment tools).

This content should help them develop their understanding of your proposition, but also help you to better understand them.

Five killer B2B profile attributes

Your understanding of prospects should be structured in such a way that you can then segment and target future communications.

• 1. Location - Are they located in an area that you serve? Does distance have a bearing on your approach or who approaches them?
• 2. Size - The requirements of an enterprise are seldom the same as an SME. How does your proposition differ to certain sizes of organisation? What differences are there likely to be in the sales process? More due diligence? More stakeholders? More time?
• 3. Industry - Likewise, different industries will have their own challenges. There may also be structural and legislative differences which have a bearing on your approach.

The first three killer attributes or values relate to the organisations you are targeting. Sometimes referred to as firmographic data. The latter two are contact centric; demographic. It is important to consider the implications of having multiple contacts to engage from a single company that you are targeting and how their role and seniority may dictate differences in your approach.

• 4. Role - Different departments will be interested in different aspects of what you can provide. Are there differences in the business benefits? Who will be interested in the technical aspects? Is there a compliance or legal requirement?Here's a simple example of how we can use technology to tailor content by role:
• 5. Seniority - Who will ultimately sign off on contracts or purchase orders? Are you able to deal with them directly or with their team? What relationships will you need to nurture and at what level?

To effectively communicate, you must better understand your prospect intimately.

Salespeople are used to contending with this variety and adjusting their behaviour and their pitch accordingly, but in marketing, we have to set out our stall in advance and try to guide leads along their own journey.

Everyone’s Different

Predicting the path from first time visitor to sales qualifiable lead is never something that we can map out fully. There are too many variables:

• Different timelines
• Different requirements
• Different stakeholders
• Different budgets!

The focus should be on progress rather than precision. Lead Score helps us to track cumulative behaviour. Different leads may consume different content, but their engagement with different types of content can give us a clear idea of their readiness for sales engagement.

A sudden jump in Lead Score due to multiple sessions from multiple contacts within an organisation is often a sign that your solution has been pitched internally. Other stakeholders in the decision making process will conduct their own desk research into the suggestions of their peers and seek the relevant assurances that their colleagues have done their due diligence properly.

It may be that those who visited your website and divulged their details at an earlier stage are not the ultimate decision maker, but researching solutions on their behalf.

As senior contacts become involved, they may be looking for answers more quickly than their colleagues who you have nurtured over time. Executive summaries, video testimonials and other forms of content that convey the key selling points succinctly are best deployed in these circumstances.

The larger the organisation, the more complex the vendor selection process and in recognition of the shift in the point of sales engagement, you should mine your sales literature for more content that can be deployed in a targeted marketing capacity.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction

The quality of your content and your ability to deliver the right message at the right time to the right contact will define the success or failure of any lead nurture strategy.

In devising your strategy, you should match trackable actions to content delivery, but in the latter stages, also draw upon the Five Killer Values to ensure relevancy.

Also consider what you would do both in the positive and the negative. Your follow up to downloading a whitepaper may be to invite them to attend a webinar. What happens if they don’t attend? Some actions or inaction will qualify them out, but others need either perseverance or a variation in approach.

Other times, your calls to action may not appeal to certain types of contact. Senior decision makers may appreciate a more direct approach if it saves them time.

Avoid your own content cul-de-sacs too. Some specific actions warrant a specific response. Others will be more generic. This is where Lead Score can help you to make sense of a variety of actions and respond appropriately.

Businesses with established lead nurturing programs generate 50% more sales ready leads at a lower cost (Forrester Research). Historically, marketing has handled the 'one to many', whilst sales look after the 'one to one'.

Using Marketing Automation to nurture leads requires marketing and sales to work more closely, getting more and more targeted until such time as only a one to one approach is appropriate.

Did you pay for your wedding cake on your one year anniversary? Did you put the down payment on your car after your first oil change? Ridiculous, right?

Then why do companies pay after the date of hire for inside sales candidate referrals?

There is definitely a talent crunch for SDR and ISR candidates. I’m seeing referral rewards of $500, $1000 and even $2000 for a single hire. That’s a big payoff, but the long odds encourage little effort. (Note: I’m talking about getting more referrals from your network - not from current employees.)

Many companies pay out after the candidate has been hired and working for 30, 60, or even 90 days. That length of time doesn’t incent immediate action and leads to little or no referral efforts.

Here’s a better idea: pay on valid applications submitted

Think of your referral process in the same way you would qualified appointment setting.

If an SDR sets a meeting that meets the proper criteria, they’ve done their job whether or not the deal ever closes. Their job is to put sales reps in front of qualified prospects. When generating referrals, the goal is the same: put qualified candidates in front of hiring managers.

Let’s say you are willing to pay a $2000 reward per hire. Assume you’ve done the math and you know that you need 25 applicants to find 1 hire.

Your reward per valid referral would be $80 in either cash or a gift card upon acceptance of resume. Instant gratification rules!

The fine print

1. You have to know what you’re looking for
   You need concrete, realistic and documented experience, and skill requirements. It has to be 100% clear what makes a candidate either qualified or not.
2. It has to be easy (for the referrer!)
   Give them a personal link to share, a way for the candidate to enter who referred them, and instant feedback on an applicant being accepted. That is how you’ll scale from 1 to n+1 referrals per person.
   
3. You need to be able to turn off the tap
   You need a big red button to let your referral pool know when you are no longer accepting candidates. Also consider adding a deadline or counter ticking down to zero. Scarcitydrives action.
4. Treat this like a marketing campaign
   Equip your network to message their own LinkedIn networks. Give them templates to use, “I heard about a great opportunity and here are the 3 reasons I think you are good fit……”, etc.

Obviously this isn’t a one-and-done cure for hiring ills.

The job description still needs to sell the role. The company still needs to be exciting and full of promise. The process still needs to be fun (or at least not soul-sucking). If you have open reqs to fill, give this a try.

What say you? How are you generating candidate referrals from your network?
 
 

 

What is the most common resource that’s always in short supply? The answer, of course, is time. This applies not only to your time, but to your team’s. It’s the one organizational resource that is neither expandable nor renewable. Therefore, making sure that time is spent in ways that will have the biggest impact is a critical determinant of organizational success.

Unfortunately, many managers don’t think about time as a finite resource in the same way that they consider the limitations of headcount and budget. Therefore they don’t hesitate to give their teams more assignments without taking any away. The consequence of this is that their people work longer hours – and it’s often not clear what’s actually important and what can wait. This cascades through the ranks so that almost everyone feels overstressed and overworked. As one senior executive sadly said to me, “There is no time in the year anymore when things quiet down.”

But steps can be taken by managers to overcome this dynamic and better leverage organizational time. The first is to sharpen their vision of what their unit needs to do better in the next year or two, so that the priorities are clear. The second step is to free up time to move towards that vision by consolidating, eliminating, or streamlining current activities. The third step is to reallocate the newly liberated capacity to short-term experiments that will help them learn how to get to the vision quicker and with greater impact.

Let’s look at the Americas Field Marketing organization for Cisco Systems, as an example of this three-step process. For two years, this nearly 130-person unit had worked hard to drive customer relevance, generate demand, and increase loyalty in partnership with its sales teams across North, South and Central America. They had organized tradeshows, delivered direct marketing, generated leads, and provided useful customer insights – the basics of a successful marketing organization.

During this time, however, Cisco’s customers were beginning to purchase and use technology in new ways. Increasingly, tech-savvy business managers, instead of just IT professionals, were making buying decisions; user-generated applications were being added on top of the basic technology; cloud computing was becoming prominent; and digital media was becoming a key influence in deciding which technologies to purchase. Customers were self-educating and researching buying decisions in new ways – not just with a sales person.

In the face of this new reality, the marketing leadership team realized that many of their traditional face-to-face activities were no longer sufficient. So at an offsite, they began to develop a vision for Marketing 2.0 – with a focus on data analytics, cloud marketing, more targeted use of Cisco.com, 3^rd party websites, and social media, and better identification of organizational buyers – all in support of generating better leads (and better tools to build customer relationships) for the Cisco sales teams.

While all of this was very exciting, the reality was that there were no new resources to dedicate to this work. Sales was still dependent on them to do the traditional marketing activities. As a result, the Americas Field Marketing leadership team shaped “capacity creation” projects to get the current work done with fewer resources or less time. This allowed them to redeploy time to new initiatives.

For example, one project was to consolidate similar types of marketing support across several sales groups. Another was to identify low payoff events and stop supporting them. In addition, the marketing team was encouraged to avoid low priority requests from sales. For activities with no demonstrable impact, they were told to answer with a polite “no,” followed by suggestions for more impactful options.

With extra time available, the leadership team commissioned several new pilots that would move the marketing organization towards vision 2.0. To make sure that the pilots wouldn’t become time sinks and would actually get finished, each one was designed to be narrowly focused on a particular aspect of the new vision, involve a limited number of people, and to be completed in 100 days or less. One of these “rapid results” projects was aimed at learning how to take advantage of data analytics. It achieved its goal of integrating digital behavioral data about customers in one country in order to increase their engagement by 20% in 60 days. Another successful project focused on increasing the collaboration between sales and marketing in one market to improve lead conversion rates by 16% in 100 days.

Naturally, this kind of transformation is not a one-time effort, but rather an ongoing process that needs to be continually refreshed and refocused. In the case of the marketing group, the leadership team now considers the portfolio of capacity creation and rapid results projects every quarter, as they move toward their Vision 2.0, so that they can continue to learn, build on what works and what does not, and make adjustments.

There also are skill challenges involved in pulling this off. At Cisco, for example, it became clear that some people did not necessarily have the skills needed for the new kinds of marketing work. So the marketing leadership team had to figure out how to create a more dynamic staffing model for their work through a combination of training, new hires, temporary assignments, and natural attrition.

New initiatives are necessary to move an organization forward. But without a conscious ongoing strategy for managing the time involved, the chances of success may be limited and short-lived.

Planning for business growth is hard to do. Actually growing your business is even more difficult. How do successful companies navigate one of the most challenging junctures of business?  John Oechsle, president and CEO of Swiftpage, which was recently named the number three fastest growing company in Denver, has some growth-related tips for entrepreneurs.

DO plan for growth from the conception of the idea for a business.  Ask yourself all the important questions.  At what run rate can you handle more products, create an online sales site, or move into a building? All of these questions need to be considered prior to starting a business and there should be points in the plan where you can choose a new path for growth. Once this plan is in place, work on different scenarios for next steps based on demand and client response.   DO NOT delay plans for growth until after you have your business up and running.

DO hire employees that value company growth.   Employees can and should make a huge impact on a company’s growth plans.  Choosing the right employees means that you can lead without the feeling that you have to handle everything.  In order to grow, you want to put together a team of employees that want to be part of your growth.  Establishing a class-A team will allow you to rest comfortably knowing that your customers are being serviced by employees who care.  It is important that they are part of your long term growth plan and that they are invested in your growth.  It feels more like a movement than a job when everyone is on board and growth is a shared goal. DO NOT be callous with your employees.

DO keep up with current trends and social media.    Keeping up with the “Social Jones’” has never been more important.  You should take note of successful campaigns and trending marketing techniques. This is the social media era and it is one to take advantage of, for it is saving businesses a substantial amount of advertising dollars.  Not only is social media budget-friendly, but you can also manage it in-house.  Blog or post something interesting on your profiles at least once a week. Consider posting an article you read, a thought-provoking question, or a new resource you have developed. Post items that add value to your followers, and they will begin to see you as a valuable source of information.  DO NOT be inconsistent with your social outreach.  It is important to keep on top of your posts and more importantly, your replies to customer comments and questions.

DO ask for referrals – A 2014 Gallop poll found that 21 percent of small business owners reported attracting customers, targeting business opportunities and finding new business as their top challenges.  Natural business growth comes from referrals, and your most satisfied customers will often serve as willing advocates for your company. Ask your favorite customers for social referrals.  DO NOT underestimate the power of word-of mouth.

DO keep organized with all customers – past, present and future – Addresses, phone numbers, job titles, status, emails and other important contact information change.  It is imperative that the contact information you keep on file for your customers is frequently verified and updated.  An inability to properly manage your customer contact information will undoubtedly translate to losing business when you find yourself unable to connect with them and meet their needs.  This also goes for past customers, who are often excellent candidates to target for a future return, and other leads, who could one day be your customers.  DO NOT assume that customers will contact you if there is a change to their information.

DO keep your finger on the pulse of what customers will want tomorrow – You should always stay one step ahead of your customers.  This can be accomplished with good customer communication, close observation of current trends and patterns in your industry and continuous research.  Listen to your customers and the feedback they offer you.  Keep your team working to improve products and systems before customers realize improvement is necessary or even possible.  DO NOT plateau with the quality of your offerings and never stop working to understand what your customers will need next.

Use of “Pareto Thinking” is highly relevant and important when applied to sales people. For example, 20% of a sales person’s activities will create 80% of sales achieved, which has enormous consequences on how to optimize and manage lead generation activities.

Generating leads is of course, an important sales activity that plants the seeds of growth for sustainable business development. A lead is purely a name that you could refer to as a SUSPECT because their potential to buy is unknown.

Before you can qualify leads to determine whether they have the money, authority and desire to buy your products/services you need to generate them!

When deciding upon which lead generation methods work best for you and your organization, it helps to have clarity on the type of customers that you’d like to attract. This means creating an “Ideal Customer Profile” that can begin to provide direction to your lead generation activities.

The following questions will stimulate your thinking when it comes to developing an Ideal Customer Profile:

– What size of organization would you prefer to deal with?

– Typically, how many people will they employ?

– What market sector(s) do these organizations operate within?

– Who specifically will be buying your products/services and what are their titles?

– Where geographically would you like these organizations to be located?

– What does your organization offer that is unique?

– What types of organizations will be attracted by this uniqueness?

– What do your best customers possess that you would like to replicate in others?

– Which of your existing customers were the easiest and quickest to convert?

– What similarities do these customers possess?

– Are there any specific criteria that prospective organizations should have in place, so that your products/services can be optimized?

Having a well-defined profile of your “ideal customer” can prove to be invaluable when determining which methods to use for lead generation, and improves the effectiveness of marketing initiatives.

You may also discover that the process for asking for referrals becomes easier and generates a better response, because you are providing the person with a tighter specification of what you are looking for – this concentrates their thinking towards the direction you have defined.

A focused and targeted list of keywords helps you attract an audience of qualified prospects and avoid wasting ad dollars on unproductive clicks from your AdWords campaigns.

To help you develop a group of qualified keywords, I’ve suggested three tools you should use:

1. Keyword Planner. This free tool is accessible in your AdWords account.

There are a few ways you can use Keyword Planner to generate targeted keywords:

• Insert the landing page in the Landing Page section. Enter the landing page of the offering you’re advertising in the Landing Page section and let Keyword Planner crawl the page and generate relevant terms based on the content of the webpage.For example, if  you’re Coastal Contacts, you can enter http://www.clearlycontacts.ca/ray-ban-2140-887-96-matte-blue-50?rsView=1 in the Landing Page section, click Get Ideas, and let the tool crawl the page and suggest relevant keywords.

  

  

  

  Once Keyword Planner has generated keywords, assess whether these keywords are relevant to your campaign based on their alignment with your offering. If they are, keep track of them in a Excel document and include them in your campaign.

  
  (Include targeted keywords in the Keyword Box in the search campaign)

• Enter the product type of your offering in the Product or Service section. For example, if you’re a health product retailer and are promoting your vitamin pills, enter the keywords “vitamin pills” in the Product or Service section. This will let Keyword Planner suggest suitable keywords based on your product or service category.

  Once Keyword Planner has generated relevant keywords, check the keywords and include suitable terms in your search campaign – as aforementioned.

  

  

• Select the proper product category. Under the Your Product Category, choose the product category your offering is under. For example, if you sell sports equipment, you can select the Sports Equipment Rental Services category.

  Once you’ve selected a suitable product category and clicked on Get Ideas, Keyword Planner will generate relevant terms based on the product category you’ve chosen. Again, examine the suitability of the keywords and include qualified ones in your search campaign.

  

2. Google Trends. This is a free tools used to determine the search volume of targeted keywords. For instance, you can enter the keyword “organic coffee” to see the global search volume of the keyword.

If you notice that there’s an increase in search volume for the keyword, include it in your search campaign because more users are performing searches using those keywords.

In addition to determining the global search volume of targeted keywords, you can identify the search volume of keywords in specific geographical regions and generate related keywords.

For example, if you’re a Vancouver organic food retailer, you can use Google Trends to find out the search volume for “organic coffee” in British Columbia.

To do so, click on Locations on the left-hand side and select a specific geographic location.

Once you’ve done so, Google Trends will display the search volume of the targeted keyword in that area and suggest related terms.

If the keyword and its related terms are facing an upward trend in search volume, include them in your search campaign.

3. Keyword Spy. This tool is used to determine which keywords your competitors are using.

To use Keyword Spy, enter your competitor’s URL in the search box and specify a country. For example, if you’re a Vancouver electronics store, entering the URL of a competing electronic store such as http://www.soundroom.ca/ in the search box and select “Canada.”

Once you’ve discovered keywords your competitors are biding, you can either bid directly against your competitors or leverage these terms to generate potential keywords of your own.

You can conduct this research on various competitors to expand the list of targeted keywords.

AdWords is an effective advertising tool because it helps you attract qualified visitors since your ads only appear when a user enters targeted keywords in the search box. However, you can only generate qualified traffic if your keywords are relevant and aligned with the products or services you offer.

By using the three tools above, you can develop a comprehensive list of suitable keywords by discovering keywords your competitors are biding, trendy terms on Google Trends, or keywords related to your targeted terms.

There’s a lot of noise in the digital age. Distractions abound between phones, tablets, computers and all the texts, Tweets, and push alerts that beg for our attention.

This technological noise can make it difficult to get your message through during the training process. Lecturing for two hours while trainees furiously scribble notes is not going to get the job done these days. Studies show that trainees only hear and process half of what trainers say to begin with. Combine that with the fact that everyone has different styles and paces of learning, and the training process suddenly seems daunting. So how can you alter training to help trainees understand information and retain it for the long haul?

Use technology to your advantage. Rather than letting it be a distraction, integrate it into the training process to enhance and improve learning. Engage your tech-savvy trainees on familiar ground where they’re used to quickly processing digital information.

The key is to utilize the right tools and strike the right balance between traditional and digital learning. Platforms such as Evernote and Genius Scan allow trainees to access their notes and documents wherever they go, syncing them between computers, phones, and tablets. Badgeville adds a little good-natured competition to the learning process, applying gaming elements that track progress and results.

Check out this infographic from Mimeo for a look at some innovative ways to improve training. Whether you need tips on blended learning or you want to find the perfect tools to enhance training, this great infographic will get the wheels turning.

Three days after IBM reported yet another disappointing quarter, its stock is still in a downward spiral, and people are piling on to criticize the company.

That's because this was 10 quarters in a row of declining revenue, with every business unit shrinking.

Outspoken billionaire investor Mark Cuban told CNBC on Wednesday that he would "absolutely not invest in IBM".

"IBM is no longer a tech company," Cuban told CNBC. "They have no vision. What they've evolved into is a company that does [arbitrage] on acquisitions. It's stock buybacks. Who is IBM anymore?"

In the past, when you thought of  computers or software services, you thought of "Big Blue," Cuban said.

"But today, they specialize in financial engineering. They're no longer a tech company, they are an amalgamation of different companies that they are trying to arb[itrage] on Wall Street, and I'm not a fan of that at all," he says.

That's not entirely fair. IBM's "financial engineering" was an attempt to deliver on a promise to achieve $20 earnings per share by 2015, a promise that was made by CEO Ginni Rometty's predecessor Sam Palmisano. If Rometty had succeeded in doing that, even during this period of declining revenue, she might have been hailed a genius.

But she didn't. And on Monday, she told investors IBM was abandoning that promise.

And now, Rometty is left with no clear, articulated turnaround strategy.

IBM's revenues are declining because there's a big shift going on in the way companies are buying tech. Instead of buying their own software and hardware for their own data centers, then hiring expensive consultants to stitch it all together, they are renting that technology, which is often hosted elsewhere. That's called "cloud computing."

All the big tech firms are shifting from the old way of selling stuff to this new way with varying degrees of success: SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Dell, HP and IBM are all getting into the cloud.

IBM actually has game in all the new growth areas: This includes cloud computing, big data/analytics, and mobile computing.

IBM under Rometty, meanwhile, has been able to accomplish the following:

• Bought SoftLayer and is building a global network of 40 cloud data centers on five continents. 
• Launched Watson as a cloud service, a sophisticated big data technology.
• Signed a landmark agreement with Apple to sell iPads and mobile apps to the enterprise, the fruits of which we expect to start seeing next month.
• Is signing cloud agreements with other cloud players such as SAP and Microsoft.

But Rometty needs to make it clear that it will take time to shift IBM into growth mode again. And whatever she promises next time around, she needs to deliver.

IBM sent CNBC this statement in response to Cuban: "IBM will accelerate our growth strategy, creating a dedicated cloud business and specialized units to serve industries and professions being transformed by data and analytics. IBM will also continue to return money to shareholders, in addition to maintaining our commitment to R&D and to invest in our business. It is all part of our commitment to delivering higher value to our clients."

We reached out to IBM for further comment.

SEE ALSO: IBM's Ginni Rometty Just Confessed To A Huge Failure — And It Might Be The Best Thing For The Company

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Social scoring and ROI are two hot topics for marketers, and right now they’re largely separate considerations. But what if you could know which people were truly influential in terms of driving revenue for your brand?

Instead of guessing based on follower counts or shares, what if you could dig deep into customer data and predict which customers would drive more spending through social media? Marketers have been wondering about this for years. In his 2012 book Return on Influence, Mark Schaefer predicted that companies would seek to assign dollar values to influencers.

Even then, Schaefer saw influence as having a direct and measurable impact on the bottom line. “As companies begin to connect the dots between online influence and offline activities, real dollar values can be placed on customers and the demonstrated impact of their influence.”

The Crowded Landscape

The options abound for enterprises interested in a predictive analytics tool: with so many vendors in the space, it’s easy to find comprehensive articles like this one that compare the features and limitations of each possibility.

Major players like IBM, Dell and Oracle are facing increased competition from start-ups claiming to have cracked the code for measuring and predicting social influence on revenue.

Newcomer Ninja Metrics, for instance, superimposes purchase data over a customer’s social graph. Their algorithm purportedly enables companies to see who influences whom, and specifically how much money people spend as a result of their influential friends’ purchases.

Blue Yonder, another contender, has a team of scientists powering its software, which pairs predictive analytics with automation to create “automated, high-performance forecasts for buying behavior.” If that sounds like a risky proposition, that’s because it is. Given the wildly variable nature of consumer psychology and behavior, any solution offering full automation must be carefully scrutinized.

Although automation in this area may be fraught with risk, predictive modeling does provide some potentially powerful data. Armed with accurate predictions of consumer behavior, companies could drive customer acquisition and retention, increase consumer spending, and reduce churn. But any tool is of questionable benefit unless its predictions can be tested against actual results.

How does it work?

By examining spending correlations between users, predictive analytics software determines who drives others to make purchases. Depending on the tool, companies can parse the data extremely fine to figure out exactly how much revenue users bring in because of their social interactions.

Using analytics, it may be possible to adjust the lifetime value of existing customers upward (or downward) based on the amount of money they bring in above and beyond their own spending.

But according to Dmitri Williams, CEO of Ninja Metrics, the classic big spenders (or “whales”) aren’t necessarily the same people who drive social spending.

“Classic whales may spend for enjoyment or conspicuous consumption,” explains Williams. “That’s different from people who are extremely tied in with their friends, and spend money to enjoy their company. “

With “social whales,” spending is about the relationship. “They don’t necessarily wind up spending a lot for that,” says Williams, “but they cause a lot of people to join them and share in the experience with them: there’s a very different sociology to the spending pattern.”

Is this really new?

Start-ups often tout their analytics and modeling tools as revolutionary, but predictive modeling has been around for 15 years or more, according to Burke Powers, a senior managing consultant and practice lead for the IBM Business Analytics Solution Services team.

“It’s the same idea as when ice cream parlors used to give coupons to cheerleaders,” says Powers. “The cheerleaders had the social influence to bring their friends in, turn the parlor into a cool place, and drive business. Predictive modeling uses the same process, only now it’s online.”

Businesses have long tried to use social influence to drive sales, and they’ve never had more data at their disposal. “The impact of social influence on selling has been widely studied,” says Powers. “Marketers can compile full psychological profiles, do product profiling, create complex, actionable clusters of data—all this data can be added to the social graph and used to predict customer behavior, so the technology is there.”

Social Scoring vs. Quantifiable Influence

In order to drive actual revenue, predictive modeling and influence measurement would need to go well beyond social scoring services like Klout, Kred and PeerIndex.

“[These services] assume influence,’” Williams observes, “based on who’s being retweeted the most. But that’s not anything you can really prove. As a scientist, you can’t publish that.”

The key, according to Williams, is to think about the friendships themselves, rather than the relationship between the brand and the customer. “People enjoy products and services together,” he explains, “so what’s really important is their relationship: if you can reinforce that, you can sell more.”

The question, as Powers sees it, is less about identifying “social whales,” and more about determining what kind of influence these people have. Can they influence others to come to a business (and stay)? Use a product or game? Influence them to buy? And how can companies channel influence into sales? Without the ability to act on this insight, companies are unlikely to see the value, according to Powers.

Can you measure influence?

Theoretically, predictive analytics could revolutionize marketing.

Marketers could target “social whales” based on quantifiable, provable influence, identify which key users are at risk to stop using the product or service, and test the impact of win-back messaging, marketing campaigns, coupons and other tactics all the way through to the individual spend.

So why don’t more companies use predictive modeling? Because it has the potential to be creepy if used without thinking about how customers will react, explains Powers.

“The technology exists, but many companies are still coming to terms with the complexity and working out how to implement in a customer-friendly way,” he says.

Essentially, with enough data, it’s possible to predict influence, but you might creep out the influencers or those being influenced. Powers’s prediction: “There are going to be a lot of mistakes made before best practices are well understood.”

The mystery of “which 50% of your marketing works” could finally be solved, but can businesses effectively use this knowledge without being ham-fisted about it?

What do you think? Can you measure influence to such a granular degree, and is it worth the cost of collecting the data you’d need to power this type of algorithm?

The content promotion strategy decision tree below stemmed from clients, fellow marketers and industry influencers repeatedly asking us the same question: How do I promote my content?

Content promotion is the process that elevates an asset from just another page indexed by search engines to an asset that boosts search rankings, earns media coverage, attracts appropriate consumers and resonates with the right audience.

Many content marketers have been trying to understand the data gathering, analysis and resulting strategy that determine how, when and where content should be promoted. At DigitalRelevance we get asked about the content promotion process all the time. Using the knowledge and experience gleaned from years of client work, we are pleased to bring you the long-awaited answer to this question with the Content Promotion Strategy Decision Tree below.

Most successful content depends on a promotion strategy that is unique to not only the content, but also the target audience who will likely find value in that content. Most brands can no longer create content and just assume it will get the visibility required to drive appropriate business results. Competition to attract your target audience is too high to depend upon the content alone.

Successful content should include a strategy that considers the audience, where the content will live, who will find value in the content and how the content will be promoted to achieve these goals.

As you walk through the decision tree and arrive at your ideal promotion strategy, refer to the Content Promotion Ecosystem for more information about the tools and services that can help streamline execution.

Owned Promotion Strategy

Fully utilize owned channels such as email marketing and social media to promote the content to your existing audiences. When using email as a channel, make sure to parse your database to only target those in the target persona the owned media was intended for.

Consider creating supporting owned content such as blogs posts, videos or infographics that highlight the value of the original content. This can help increase its visibility and overall impact.

Earned Promotion Strategy

Develop a highly-targeted list of journalists and niche bloggers to pitch your content to. Use tools such as Cision, GroupHigh, Meltwater or others to help identify them. Additionally, utilize tools such as HARO or Seek or Shout to make interested journalists aware of your content and give them the opportunity to share it.

Depending on the content created and the relevant industries, identify where your target audience spends their time online. It may be social channels such as Google+ or LinkedIn, it may be forums or online communities, or it could be Inc.com, Forbes or Entrepreneur. Spend time immersing yourself in the communities and media outlets to make outreach efforts and pitches as relevant, and therefore valuable, as possible.

Paid Promotion Strategy

Focus a portion of your paid budgets on content discovery platforms like StumbleUpon, Taboola, Outbrain, Adblade, Zemanta or another similar content amplification platform. Sponsored social media posts work for promoting blog posts and advanced content, too. More options include advertorials (sponsored articles) on popular or niche online publications, press releases and third-party email newsletters.

Specialty content like mobile aps, widgets, videos, webinars and slide decks have specialty amplification networks built exclusively for them. Good research will help you build confidence in your chosen paid promotion channels.

Shared Promotion Strategy

In addition to media identification and distribution tools, get savvy with Twitter lists and blogrolls to find influencers who share similar content or interact in comparable communities. BuzzSumo is also helpful at identifying the top sharers of relevant content. Use the free version of this tool to build a robust list of influencers to pitch.

Once target influencers are identified, look at their past projects or by-lines. Spend your time identifying and sharing your owned media with key thought leaders who can reach your target audiences through social media.

Whether you’re planning to promote content you’ve already created or initiating a new content marketing campaign, this infographic will help tailor your next content promotion strategy.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been called the next Industrial Revolution — it will impact the way all businesses, governments, and consumers interact with the physical world.

For more than two years, BI Intelligence has closely tracked the growth of the IoT. Specifically, we've analyzed how the IoT ecosystem enables entities (i.e. consumers, businesses, and governments) to connect to, and control, their IoT devices in 16 environments, including manufacturing, the connected home, transportation, and agriculture. 

In a new report from BI Intelligence, we discuss all of the components of the IoT ecosystem, including its devices, analytics, networks, security, market share, and market size. We also provide estimates and forecasts on the burgeoning IoT market, including device growth, amount invested, and potential return on investment. 

Here are some key points from the report: 

• In total, we forecast there will be 34 billion devices connected to the internet by 2020, up from 10 billion in 2015. IoT devices will account for 24 billion, while traditional computing devices (e.g. smartphones, tablets, smartwatches, etc.) will comprise 10 billion.
• Nearly $6 trillion will be spent on IoT solutions over the next five years.
• Businesses will be the top adopter of IoT solutions. They see three ways the IoT can improve their bottom line by 1) lowering operating costs; 2) increasing productivity; and 3) expanding to new markets or developing new product offerings.
• Governments are focused on increasing productivity, decreasing costs, and improving their citizens’ quality of life. We forecast they will be the second-largest adopters of IoT ecosystems.
• Consumers will lag behind businesses and governments in IoT adoption. Still, they will purchase a massive number of devices and invest a significant amount of money in IoT ecosystems.

In full, the report:

• Distills the technological complexities of the Internet of Things into a single ecosystem
• Explains the benefits and shortcomings of many networks, including mesh (e.g. ZigBee, Z-Wave, etc.), cellular (e.g. 3G/4G, Sigfox, etc.), and internet networks (e.g. Wi-Fi, Ethernet, etc.)
• Discusses analytics systems, including edge analytics, cloud analytics, and more
• Examines IoT security best practices
• Details the four IoT market drivers and four IoT market barriers
• Forecasts IoT investment by six layers: connectivity, security, data storage, system integration, device hardware, and application development
• Analyzes how the IoT ecosystem is being using in a number of industries
• Defines Internet of Things terminology within a glossary

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >> Learn More Now
   
2. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now

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What’s one key thing you need to succeed in a niche market?

Focus.

Selling a niche product is an exciting challenge for those who know how to tackle it. You’re not simply hawking to a general audience; you’ve got something you know is special — something a highly select group of people want.

But getting that special product in front of those people and convincing them to buy it requires a laser approach to all aspects of the sales strategy.

Here are five areas in which you’ll need to get hyper-focused for niche sales success:

1. Research

Operating in a niche market means you’re starting with a limited number of buyers, so you need to get to know them intimately.

Do your homework on your customers: Who are they? What are their demographics? What are their buying power and buying cycle? The better your research, the better equipped you’ll be to meet their unique needs.

Consider Toyota’s Lexus line of luxury cars, for example. Toyota’s research found an untapped market in the U.S. for luxury cars. So Toyota designed a line of quality cars designed to communicate that though owners could afford any car, they were smart enough to choose one that was lower-priced and had excellent customer service. The line filled this unmet market need, and the car line found success.

Be clear on your product features so you can show potential customers that you understand their niche. They need to know exactly what you’re offering — the value proposition, the price point, everything. If you’re not selling from a place of authority, customers in these specific market segments will sniff you out.

Once you establish yourself in your niche and understand the market, you’ll see new sales opportunities emerge.

2. Marketing

When you’re selling to a limited consumer base, you need to ensure higher product margins. Once you’ve figured out who your potential customers are, it’s time to form a genuine, mutually rewarding relationship with them — otherwise known as “resonance marketing.”

Essentially, you have to show potential customers that you share in their values and that you’d like to help them by selling them your product.

A good niche marketing strategy achieves this in three ways. It’s based on a clear message that reinforces your brand identity, it tells consumers what differentiates you from the competition, and it tells potential customers that you’re more relatable than the competition.

Creating this type of marketing plan requires an in-depth understanding of your competitors, so have your team analyze other companies’ ads, marketing materials, and online strategies. Distinguish your brand and product, and you’ll establish authority in your niche. Building content through social media, blogs, and industry whitepapers is another great way to establish authority and increase brand visibility.

3. Testing

Because you’re marketing to a small, specific crowd, it’s important to make sure you’re getting the product and message just right.

Do this through promotional offers that will provide valuable information about customer response but won’t break the bank to execute. For example, give customers access to a free webinar or sample newsletter as a way to test their reactions to your product.

When you do launch, always be analyzing the results of different sales channels. Knowing which strategies bring the best returns is the key to refining your sales and marketing strategies and making sure they’re in line with your customers’ buying preferences.

Always be matching your results to your goals.

4. Feedback and Testimonials

Nothing is more important to your success than customer feedback. You may think you’ve nailed it in a specific market, but lackluster consumer response will tell you otherwise.

The product you initially offer may change significantly through the years based on customer feedback. In my company, we pivot certain aspects based on what we learn through surveys and customer calls.

Be sure to capitalize on positive testimonials, too. If someone is raving about your product or service, get it in writing. Ninety percent of people are influenced by online reviews, so be sure to incorporate positive testimonials in your company website and marketing materials.

Actually, the most common place to read a positive review is on Facebook, with 44 percent of consumers saying they often find positive information on the social network. Encourage your satisfied customers to leave positive feedback on relevant forums and social media pages.

5. Press

You can work a unique product to your advantage by playing it up to the media, angling for coverage through human-interest stories, or by the sheer novelty of what you’re selling.

Journalistic attention is a great way to gain free exposure. Have your communications team send out press releases to build media attention around the company. Customer testimonials can also come in handy here. If you can get those happy faces some screen time, people will likely take notice of what you’re selling.

You’ve been told since you were a kid that being different is a good thing, and that adage certainly applies to niche businesses. The more specific you get in your research and offerings, the greater chance you have of success. Focus on the key areas of product research, development, and marketing, and you’ll be able to create a winning sales strategy that makes you a leader in your market.