One of the biggest challenges every Customer Success Executive faces is how to align the organization with the customer base.
Proper alignment will result in an efficient, scalable and cost effective Customer Success organization. In addition it will allow you to better understand your customer needs as you develop the services the Customer Success organization will deliver.
Let’s start with how to segment the customer base. There are a few approaches to segmentation including revenue size, demographic and industry. One method I believe is important is to segment by revenue size (Annual Recurring Revenue or ARR). The reason I prefer this method is it enables you to align services, including pricing models, deliverables and cost against annual revenue.
With your customer base segmented successfully, it’s time to perform a deep dive into how to align the Customer Success organization with your customer base. At this point you should have already defined the success criteria for your customer segments that should include, but not be limited to, meeting their business objectives with your product and high levels of product adoption and customer satisfaction. You will also require definition of the work effort (workflows) to support this effort.
The workflows should then be aligned with your customer segments, meaning you have identified what is required for success for each segment. In addition, you will be able to identify the different levels of experience required from your Customer Success staff.
You’ll soon discover that the high revenue accounts will require a higher level of skills and more time and effort than the lower revenue accounts. So if you look at this from a cost standpoint it makes sense, you are bringing in more revenue per customer to justify the higher cost of a Customer Success Manager (CSM) and less revenue to justify the costs of a Customer Success Associate/Advocate (CSA). Your Customer ratio to a CSM or CSA will also vary greatly. I would expect to see a higher number of Customers to a CSA compared to a CSM.
The next step? Implement automation, possible using SaaS CRM systems, to increase the ratio.
How have you segmented your customers?
CEOs are in a better position to close a deal: they have a lot of experience, a deep industry background, they have more decision making power and a better understanding of the overall business. But one of the main reasons why CEOs are often brought in to seal a deal is just magical branding bullshit:
The CEO has a high status, and everybody likes to deal with high status people. That aura of importance can make a real difference in how people perceive you and your offer.
The good news is, you don't actually need to be a CEO to benefit from this effect.
Here's a simple hack to sell more CEO-like, without pretending to be something you're not: shorten your sales conversations.
Simply open your sales call as follows: "Hey John, I'm super excited about the call today. I want to be respectful of your time, and I have another call in exactly thirty minutes. I think that's going to be plenty of time for us to accomplish everything we need, so let's get down to it. Let's talk about the objections and the questions that you guys have, and really move this forward."
Simple as that, but it sets the tone for the entire dialogue.
If you go into your sales conversations as if time is not an issue, you'll create the impression that you're weak and unimportant, and that your time has no value. Yet, some sales reps believe they should engage in long small talk. Why is that?
Some prospects keeps on talking and talking about everything under the sun. Many sales people will just let the person speak, lending them their ear - secretly hoping this will create enough goodwill and sympathy to help them close the deal. Wrong. Interrupt them to bring the conversation back on track - that will only make them respect you more.
Here's what you say: "Hey John, let me interrupt you real quick, John, I respect your time immensely, I know that we only have another ten minutes on this call, I want to make sure that we cover all the important things. I know that we said that A, B and C is really crucial to you. Is there anything we're missing? Let's make sure that we cover every little point to make sure that we're really going to deliver the biggest value, and make this a tremendously successful deal for you. So let's focus, what are the core things that are really important to do?"
You're being polite, but determined. Use friendly strength to take charge of the conversation, and give it a clear direction. Prospects appreciate that, especially if you make it all about them.
Long-winded conversations where you talk about everything between heaven and earth really defeat the purpose of sales. If you're not creating value for the buyer and your own company, you're just wasting time.
Whether you're an entry-level sales rep or VP of sales - be the CEO of your sales conversations.
Are you a retailer kept up by cart abandonment nightmares?
We’ve all done it. Clicked through pages and pages of merchandise, added various items to the cart and simply never made it to checkout.
It’s like we turned our backs and never looked back. Metaphorically, of course. But as a retailer, that’s the last thing you want.
Combat cart abandonment and increase conversion rates with the following tips and tricks.
While all retailers scatter images throughout their web stores, many underestimate the power of video. Placing a video on your homepage introducing your brand, while also advertising your products, gives your store personality and depth.
Cater your welcome video to your target market and it could help convince consumers to take a look through your catalog.
Retailers can make specific videos for their best sellers or trending products in efforts to get them further into the limelight.
Video allows for the product to come to life, showing consumers the product’s various uses and benefits. This could be the final nudge a customer needs to make the purchase.
Seeing that viewers are 64%-85% more likely to buy after watching a product video, this is an investment retailers shouldn’t pass up.
Retailers could also add certain geo-targeted attributes into their store to increase conversion rates.
Walmart has recently started to do this by allowing consumers to see localized deals and specials offered at stores nearby. Although you don’t have to mimic this exactly, follow in the footsteps of this major retailer and add your own spin on it.
You can do this by addressing current weather or upcoming local events that consumers might need to shop for. It could be a friendly reminder for necessities they may have forgotten.
Trying to go international? Add a widget into your store that tells customers right off the bat if you ship to their state or country.
These features make for more personalized shopping and a better customer service experience. You could also compare prices of the biggest competitors, near or far, in-store or online. Include an automated pricing strategy in order to monitor your competitive landscape and price efficiently.
Have you ever gone through pages and pages of an online store, packed your cart, and accidentally closed the tab?
Whatever it was, you didn’t complete checkout, not yet anyways. And when you finally did decide to return, the little number next to the cart said: (0). Frustrating isn’t it?
Consumers think so, too. Solve this problem by implementing a persistent shopping cart. It won't empty when the page is closed and can keep items in the cart for as many days as specified.
So how many days is best? The longer the better. Keeping the items in the cart could remind returning customers of an item they wanted or needed, but simply overlooked, reigniting interest.
Your products’ pages are the strongest weapon in your arsenal. They could make or break a purchase and be the one element that persuades a consumer to splurge on a long sought after good.
While all products could have product videos, the odds of that are unlikely. So utilize images to the best of your ability by keeping them crisp and clear.
Feature images at various angles and even include stills of people using the product. This makes the product more realistic, helping the shopper get ideas of how they could use it.
Accompany these photos with two product descriptions. While both should be informative and enticing, they should differ in length and style.
Use bullet points for shoppers in hurry, who only want to know the most important attributes and one in sentence form for those who have more time and need to build more confidence in order to purchase.
The most important thing to keep in mind is that, prices should always be present and easy to find on your product pages. Consumers don’t like to feel tricked, so be transparent with your price.
If needed, make a note of shipping and handling fees, because if they are included too late and buyers don’t like what they see, they could end up leaving their cart hanging.
Competition is getting more intense and retailers cannot afford to lose any more potential carts. Using videos, persistent carts and more could help build loyal customers and brand value.
What are other ways for retailers to fight cart abandonment?
Contributing Writer: Amanda Lin
Content marketers, I think you’re forgetting something. Something kind of big.
When you’re creating a new content marketing campaign, you take into account a wide variety of content types. Blog posts, infographics, eBooks, and a multitude of others are usually at the top of your mind as viable options. But you’re missing out on an amazing avenue: mobile applications.
Yes, mobile apps are content, too. While it’s fairly obvious that developing a mobile application is far more labor (and cost) intensive than creating a run-of-the-mill blog post, the potential return on investment is much larger than said blog post and many other content forms.
However, to achieve that big fat ROI, you must consider how you’re going to acquire and increase installs. It’s similar to promoting any other piece of content, in that you want to put your mobile app in front of a relevant audience.
How do you make sure that’s plausible? The best approach is like a fork: two-pronged. However, your budget will greatly dictate if you carry out one or both of the tactics listed below.
The overarching goal as you first launch should be to acquire the most profitable users to expand your marketing budget. In order to accomplish this, you need to get installs without breaking the bank on advertising. Enter Facebook and Twitter.
Facebook was the first to roll out mobile app advertisements, and Twitter followed suit. On Facebook’s platform, all you need to do is copy and paste your app’s app store URL into the Ads Create Tool, and of course, add a link to your Facebook page. Twitter’s platform is quite similar, giving advertisers options to target based on gender and mobile platform, among other things.
Again, the best aspect of both avenues is their relatively low cost, which is perfect for tight budgets.
After your app concept is proven, you have a user base and you’re generating revenue from the app, it’s time to graduate to more impactful methods that require larger budgets. The best way to do this is to massively expand your reach through app recommendation platforms.
Why are app recommendation platforms so effective? App recommendation firms, like youAPPi, have built a massive network of mobile publishers (mobile websites, blogs, and apps) who are ready and waiting to recommend your app to their audience. And that’s not all these firms are offering up; youAPPi even has “smartAPP” technology that matches your mobile app with individual users based on their content consumption habits.
What does this mean for you and your mobile app? It means better quality installs, higher usage rates, and increase lifetime value than those acquired via the first approach mentioned above.
Whether you choose Prong One, Prong Two, or both- you’re taking major strides in sticking a fork into this often-overlooked content type. Even better, you’re on the road to increased ROI.
Last week, Samsung took on the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. However, instead of the company’s CEO dumping water over his head and pledging to donate, the Samsung Galaxy S5 received the icy bath and then challenged the iPhone 5S, HTC’s One M8 and the Lumia 930.
The ad has people crying foul. Many condemn the brand for taking advantage of a disease to sell products. Others say the ad is all in good fun. What it is truly lacking, though, is the human element.
Brands have been distancing themselves from the corporate images they once embraced. Instead, companies are looking to relate with consumers on a real, emotional level by emphasizing community and storytelling in marketing materials.
“It all comes as part of a movement on behalf of many brands to be seen not big corporate behemoths, but as companies that value their customers as individuals rather than cogs,” said author Rupal Parekh in an Ad Age article.
This is exactly why people didn’t blame Microsoft for exploiting the popular challenge when Bill Gates accepted it (see below).
You probably didn’t notice, but this video also includes product placement. Have viewers decried the ad as a branding play? Nope. Bill Gates isn’t dumping ice water over a product to show off its water resistant feature—he took on the challenge as an individual, and challenged other influential individuals to do the same.
Samsung is receiving backlash because it failed to bring a human element to a cause and challenge that are inherently human. Jack Talbott, a commenter on a related Adweek article, has a similar view on the issue:
“By using a product in place of say their CEO holding the product, Samsung has created a marketing and promotional video for their product using light of a very serious health awareness campaign. The phone challenges others phones, so in essence making it a 100% marketing piece, not a charity video.
If the CEO were holding this product, it would be tongue and cheek. If they were to challenge other CEO’s of say Apple or Google, it would be tongue and cheek, thus using subtle marketing techniques to promote your product indirectly,” he said.
Obviously, everyone will have their own opinion about the ad and as the saying goes, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. However, there are ways to flaunt a smartphone’s features that don’t alienate audiences. This controversy could have been avoided if Samsung had kept a human element at the core of its marketing efforts.
The concept is clever, but it missed the mark. Audiences will always respond more positively to humanized marketing. Brands must ensure that each and every marketing material is designed to form deeper connections with consumers on a fundamental, human level, because this is what will drive the best results for digital marketing campaigns.
Everyone has a unique personal brand.
When it comes to defining your personal brand, it’s important to be very careful in what you say when describing yourself. Words are incredibly powerful and can be interpreted in a number of different ways when misused.
To protect your reputation and your brand, it’s absolutely necessary you avoid using words that can hurt your credibility. As you think about your personal brand, here are 10 words you should never use when defining your personal brand:
1. “Queen, king, guru, social butterfly, or ninja”
When you call yourself a “social media queen” or “networking guru,” you damage your credibility. Many professionals think it’s clever to include these in their Twitter bios or LinkedIn summaries, however, it’s only harming your credibility.
2. “Go-getter”
If you’re an ambitious person, there’s no need to tell the world you’re a “go-getter.” In this case, your actions should be speaking louder than your words. Employers should be able to determine from your resume or portfolio whether you’re a “go-getter” or not.
3. “Expert”
Although you should be positioning yourself as an expert in your field, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to call yourself an “expert.” Especially if you’ve only been working in your industry for five years or less, you still have a lot of time before you truly become an expert.
4. “Open-minded”
Open-minded people don’t have to tell the world they’re open to new ideas. They simply listen to others and allow people to have their opinions.
5. “Exceptional” or the “best of the best”
It’s good to be confident about your personal brand, but you don’t want your confidence to come off as arrogance. This type of attitude will push people away from getting to know who you are as a person.
6. “Humble” or “generous”
These are both adjectives that don’t need to be included in your brand because you should be living them out by example. If you consider yourself a humble or generous person, then people will be able to infer from your actions that you’re a kind and giving person.
7. “Thought leader”
Over the last year, “thought leadership” has become a buzzword in the online world. While thought leadership is valuable, you become a thought leader by having a genuine online presence and creating content of value; not telling people you’re a “thought leader.”
8. “Innovative”
This is another word that is overused in resumes, cover letters, and personal brands. Although you might be an innovative thinker, you’ll be more impressive if you share your innovative ideas and projects with others than simply telling them you’re “innovative.”
9. “Funny”
If you want your sense of humor to be an element of your brand, then you must let this part of your personality shine through your words and actions.
10. “All-star”
Again, confidence is important; however you don’t want to get ahead of yourself. It’s okay for others to think you’re an “all-star” in your field, but you don’t need to make it your title.
What are some words you think are important to eliminate from personal brands?
Over the past few years, there’s been a lot of hype about the Internet of Things (IoT) and its massive potential to change how we live, work and conduct business. From wearable devices to smart appliances that share information via sensors, it seems every company is embarking on a bold Internet of Things strategy. In fact, nearly three-fourths of enterprises believe IoT solutions will create new business opportunities and bolster their existing offerings. By 2020, the IoT will produce an estimated 50 billion connected devices and IoT solutions will generate $7.1 trillion. Yet the current reality paints a much different picture: Most of the IoT use cases today are focused on cost reduction and efficiency – and only 13 percent of IoT use cases between 2009 and 2013 targeted revenue growth or innovation.
So, how will companies drive future revenue growth from the Internet of Things?
While we are early in the IoT, many compelling use-cases are emerging across various industries. Many of these use cases create new ways to drive growth and profitability from existing customers. How? The Internet of Things simply represents another “smart” endpoint to better understand customer behavior, value sentiments and product consumption.
Today, with the rise of the cloud and big data, we are now able to collect and aggregate more information about customers than ever before. By also having a real-time, context-aware data feed from multiple product sources over time, companies will rapidly continue to shift how they do business with customers.
Ultimately, the IoT will change how companies bring new “value” to products and services, engage their customers and drive future growth strategies. To make this shift, companies need to take a different approach – think differently – and focus on service instead of product. Here are two primary ways the IoT will help companies drive growth from their customers – with some specific use cases.
1.) Moving from Products to Outcomes
Combined with the cloud, the Internet of Things is already changing business models and related product offerings. One of the biggest shifts has been the move from selling discrete products with attached services to now selling complete “outcomes” or Outcomes as a Service (OaaS). Think of OaaS as simply a product wrapped in a service-based SLA or goal.
One great example of OaaS is a leading commercial air-conditioning company that’s leveraging usage analytics and the IoT to charge for and deliver outcome based air-conditioning based on specific energy consumption targets and temperature SLAs — selling an air conditioning unit and hoping the customer obtains the desired experience are now days gone by. Other examples can include preventative maintenance services by anticipating wear-and-tear of a device, or product education services based upon usage and adoption patterns.
The healthcare and medical device industries are also key verticals that stand to benefit tremendously from the IoT. Today, a number of medical device companies are developing connectivity to improve communications between health care providers and patients, while also providing real time monitoring of patient health through bedside diagnostics.
The list of new business models enabled by the IoT is endless – asset sharing, verticalization, advanced telematics and connected cars, home automation, and so on. Net-net: With new insight into how customers are using a product or service – combined with other data sources in the cloud – businesses have new ways to deliver value to customers and monetize solutions.
2.) Deepening Customer Relationships
The Internet of Things becomes a new frontier for CRM – bolstering traditional sales acquisition and customer support approaches. The IoT places greater emphases on ensuring customers derive ongoing value from a product or service across the customer lifecycle (onboarding, adoption, renewals and expansion) to minimize churn and create customers for life. The initial sale initiated by CRM now becomes the starting point for the IoT across the customer lifecycle.
By connecting-the-dots and aggregating data from IoT with other valuable customer data in the cloud, companies can better engage customers. Here are some use cases for how the IoT can be leveraged to drive deeper customer relationships and loyalty:
What’s next for the IoT in today’s enterprise?
While the IoT holds broad appeal across every enterprise – it’s effect on how companies manage their customer relationships will be priceless. Ultimately, the IoT will help companies create more sustained value moving from a one-time “initial sale” focus to an ongoing relationship with customers. The specific effects will be felt in how companies go-to-market and leverage their CRM systems and other data to understand and engage existing customers. If your business is based upon customer-centricity, it’s time to incorporate IoT into your long-term strategy — your viability may depend on it.
How will your company leverage the IoT to better engage your existing customers? How will you integrate IoT processes and information into your front office systems to deliver a more compelling experience?
As you might know, I’ve mostly been stepping back this summer from the day to day and at the moment am sitting on a sunny beach chair lost in thought. At one point I was wondering why I’m not very good at doing mind maps.
Kind of random, but that’s what happens when your monkey mind breaks out and starts running all over the zoo.
Something that’s always on my mind is what makes a video useful, and these two completely random topics are about to combine into one very practical way for you to choose your video topics…even if you’re an expert at mind maps.
Here’s why you need to know this. If you’ve ever looked for help in solving a problem by searching YouTube, you will have noticed that most of the videos there are…well…kinda useless.
Why is this?
The reason is that the topics are not written for video…and they’re much too broad.
If you are a trusted advisor, this is a horrid thing to have happen to you. After all, your leverage is based on your ability to communicate your value far and wide.
But don’t worry. Making useless videos does not have to be your fate. In fact, after you read this and apply it, your videos are likely to be so interesting that they’ll be the ones people say a little prayer of thanks for!
Best of all, you can do it in a few short simple steps.
Here’s how.
Let’s take a nice ridiculously broad subject area to begin; say arts in the classroom. Where do you start to create any kind of a video topic out of this?
Let’s relate it to something you got very good at back in high school.
Think of your subject area as a term paper and your search for a topic as the outline for the term paper. Hey, don’t worry. Just follow along and this will all make sense shortly.
The phrase “Arts in the Classroom” would be the name of the paper.
Let’s just randomly start with Choosing an Art Form.
Arts in the Classroom
I. Choosing an Art Form
II. Connecting to a content area
Next down might be visual arts, music, dance and drama. Let’s leave off our Roman numeral II for the rest of this example. Here’s what that might look like.
Arts in the Classroom
I. Choosing an Art Form
a. Drama
b. Music
c. Visual Arts
d. Dance
Now we simply choose one of the above. Let’s take drama for our example. Under drama could be the following:
Applying to instructional area
Drama skills
How to set up a class to integrate drama
How a classroom teacher could integrate drama vs. a teaching artist’s method
Now we get this:
Arts in the Classroom
I. Choosing an Art Form
a. Drama
i. Applying to instructional area
ii. Teaching Drama skills
iii. Setting up a class to integrate drama
iv. How to work with a teaching artist
b. Music
c. Visual Arts
d. Dance
Let’s go a little deeper by choosing how to set up a class to integrate drama.
Here we might get the following subjects:
The physical setup of the class
The sequence of activities
Follow up and assessment
And here’s what that looks like:
Arts in the Classroom
I. Choosing an Art Form
a. Drama
i. Applying to instructional area
ii. Teaching Drama skills
iii. Setting up a class to integrate drama
1. The physical setup of the class
2. The sequence of activities
3. Follow up and assessment
iv. How to work with a teaching artist
b. Music
c. Visual Arts
d. Dance
Now we go one more level down. Don’t worry. This is the level at which you will find your topic.
Let’s take the physical setup of the class as our example.
(1) the set up of a classroom.
(2) the setup of a multipurpose room
(3) the setup on a stage in an auditorium.
So let’s review. We’ve gone from the very amorphous “arts in the classroom” to “the physical set up of classroom, multipurpose room and stage”.
I. Choosing an Art Form
a. Drama
i. Applying to instructional area
ii. Teaching Drama skills
iii. Setting up a class to integrate drama
1. The physical setup of the class
(1) the set up of a classroom.
(2) the setup of a multipurpose room
(3) the setup on a stage in an auditorium.
2. The sequence of activities
3. Follow up and assessment
iv. How to work with a teaching artist
b. Music
c. Visual Arts
d. Dance
That’s five levels deep under our main topic, but because we used an outline we got there in just a couple of minutes! No stress, no strain, no writer’s block…
The Magic Number
Notice also we have three parts to this video. Three is a magic number, as it’s easy to remember while providing a lot of value to the viewer.
So what makes this particular topic video-friendly?
You can visualize it
Always a benefit in a video. For instance, can’t you just see someone moving chairs around into a semi-circle, adding floor plans, talking about function and safety along the way?
You can remember it
It’s long enough to cover the subject and short enough to be interesting, what some refer to as the “miniskirt rule.”
You can do it
Finally, it provides immediately actionable advice to the viewer, which casts the person who made that video in a golden glow of appreciation.
By the way, notice how I had only 3 benefits listed above? I could have chosen more, but you’re more likely to remember three.
So here’s a challenge. (hey, Labor Day means summer’s officially over anyway)
What are you going to write your next video about? Do a quick outline, then list your topic below. I bet you’ll inspire someone to think about their topics in a more actionable way.
Imagine that you arrived at your local movie theater this weekend to see a show and the options featured were “The Final Destination,” “Inglorious Basterds,” and “District 9.”
If none of those movies sound familiar to you from recent buzz, that’s because they topped the box office charts in 2009—the year Brian Halligan and I released the first edition of Inbound Marketing: How To Get Found Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs.
It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years since the 1st edition of Inbound Marketing came out. It’s even harder to believe that we didn’t create the 2nd edition sooner. (In our defense, we’ve been busy building HubSpot, which keeps us pretty busy. And that was before HubSpot filed to go public).
But, I’m thrilled to announce that today marks the release of the 2nd edition of Inbound Marketing.
A lot has changed in the world of inbound marketing in the past 5 years. For one thing, the adoption of the term itself. Here’s how search traffic for the term has grown since 2009.
Some of you might be wondering: Why come up with the term “inbound marketing” anyways? Didn’t the world have enough marketing terms already? Was a new term necessary?
I have wondered that a lot—back then, and even now. When we first coined the term inbound marketing (this was 8 years ago, three years before we published the first book), we were looking for a way to describe the set of marketing activities that we considered organic and empathetic.
The activities themselves existed long before we ever came along. Savvy marketers had being doing SEO, social media, blogging—all the things that were the opposite of pushing messages out to people that they didn’t want.
But as it turns out, there really wasn’t a term to capture that collection of activities. So we made one up and start calling those activities “inbound marketing.” (If I had liked acronyms, we might have called it something like “Human Centric Marketing.”)
I’m biased, but I think giving this approach a name has helped spread an idea that is worth spreading.
But that was then. In the (admittedly adapted) words of Ferris Bueller: “Marketing moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around every once in awhile, you could miss it.”
From new social networks to publishing channels, there are more opportunities today than ever to meaningfully attract and engage your customers.
It’s easy for any of us to sit back and pat ourselves on the back for the tactics and techniques that worked for us five years ago, but that’s a mistake. What worked for your website or social media channels five years ago may no longer be effective today. Now more than ever, companies need to always be measuring and optimizing what works in their marketing efforts.
Below are the five biggest changes in inbound marketing since 2009, and how to adapt your strategies to make the most of them.
Facebook has a staggering 839 million daily active users (as of June 2014), which is great news for marketers. The bad news is that it’s getting progressively harder to reach Facebook’s audience organically. Ogilvy analyzed more than 100 brand pages and observed organic reach for content published on brand Facebook changes dipping from 49% to just 6% between October 2013 and February 2014.
Does this mean you should forego Facebook altogether? Certainly not: the potential the Facebook audience represents is simply too great.
Instead, experiment with the type and timing of content that breaks through the clutter for your audience. The macro trend of diminishing organic reach should inform your strategy, but not discourage you from the importance of Facebook as a channel. As a marketer, I would double down on visual content for Facebook and invest heavily in measuring what works and what doesn’t: a potential audience of more than one billion people worldwide is worth the time and effort.
If a cat has nine lives, Google+ has had ten. Truly, it’s hard to think of a social network whose death has been more exaggerated or whose success has been more prematurely lauded. Regardless of Google+’s overall adoption as a social network, I wouldn’t ignore it. Why? Hint: It has something to do with the characters before the “+” (namely, the G-O-O-G-L-E).
When we wrote the first book, Google+ didn’t even exist, but since the network launched in 2011, there have already been a significant number of ups and downs in its reach, impact, and reputation.
When it comes to Google+, I recommend taking advantage of low-hanging fruit by creating a Google+ business page and connecting it to your local page (Google Maps listing) to augment your organization’s SEO value. Photos and text currently get the most “+1s” on Google+:
But a recent feature update allows businesses to import Google+ videos to YouTube, which may lead to an increase in the quality and quantity of video engagement on your business page.
Marketers watch Google’s search algorithm like the rest of us watch the weather. The latest algorithm change, Hummingbird, is most well-known for having infused higher importance on comprehensive questions and associated context (versus solving for individual words), while the roll-out of “in-depth articles” has created a brand new category of content results that goes well beyond click-bait.
Though SEO has changed considerably over the last five years, my recommendation for businesses as it relates to search remains the same. Don’t solve for search engine algorithms; solve for humans instead. The way to make Google happy, and get improved rankings is to figure out how to make searchers happy (hint: high quality, relevant content + a great user experience).
Back then, I wrote about the perils of “black hat” SEO tactics that try to trick Google’s algorithms. I argued that they could be dangerous. Now, they’re not just dangerous — they can be potentially toxic and deadly. They’re definitely misguided.
My advice then is the same as it is now: Avoid tricks. They’re just not worth it. Instead of spending calories trying to outsmart the Google algorithm, spend that same energy working with it and delivering value to the end user. That’s a sustainable strategy.
On a related note, I think one of the most underappreciated skills in SEO is design. The reason is simple: Great design makes humans happy.
Everybody is shifting more resources to inbound marketing, so demand has been skyrocketing. But supply is not growing fast enough.
In 2013, IDC predicted that half of marketing hires would be technical in nature. But as my friend Scott Brinker @chiefmartec) is very quick to point out on his blog, that prediction assumes that supply matches demand, which is simply not the case. What Brinker calls “the triple threat” (individuals with marketing, management, and technical skills) has become a rare and valuable find.
This is exceptional news for inbound marketers: effective ones can write their own ticket to work in roles and projects that truly interest them. But for businesses looking to radically shift their approach, the people they need to help power that transformation are in high demand and short supply.
The massive proliferation of marketing technology across every industry segment, geography, and company size has fundamentally transformed how companies value marketing talent. In addition to creating huge opportunities for talented marketers, it’s also created room for a new kind of marketing agency.
Specifically, companies used to hire agencies to create their ads and to run their public relations strategy. Now, more companies than ever are looking to agencies to help fill their existing skills gap, developing and delivering marketing technology solutions ranging from web redesign to content creation to marketing automation management to marketing and sales SLAs.
Whether you’re an agency or a marketer, the market today rewards people who fit the DARC profile:
If your skill set doesn’t match those criteria, it’s time to update your resume. If your job profiles don’t actively seek and reward people based on those core requirements; it’s time to update your marketer wish lists.
By the way, this inefficiency in the market (great teams not being able to find the great marketers that are out there) is partly why the http://inbound.org community exists. (It’s free). It has 34,000 members already, and some of the best content and people on inbound marketing that you’ll find anywhere. You should check it out.
Marketers have always known that a picture is worth a thousand words, but now there are social networks predicated solely on this notion. The visual trend is impossible to ignore.
When we wrote the first edition of the book, Pinterest and Instagram hadn’t even launched yet (both companies launched their official products in 2010). Now, with Pinterest growing in importance for both engagement and search, Instagram as part of the Facebook portfolio, and SlideShare a critical component of LinkedIn’s content strategy, social networks are upping the ante on photo and video content, and brands and businesses must follow suit.
Five years ago, publishing content on the web was a surefire way to attract and engage your customers. Now, the popularity of inbound marketing combined with dwindling consumer attention spans means you can no longer just create content and hope it resonates with your customer, you need to be significantly more remarkable than your competitors in your efforts to educate, inspire, or entertain your customers.
One of the best ways to stand out from the pack is with highly visual and aesthetically pleasing content, both of which are rewarded handily on channels like Pinterest and Instagram.
The biggest misconception about visual content is that is has to be expensive: Canva, Visage, your iPhone, and even PowerPoint can all be great levers for creating inexpensive but beautiful visual content, so there’s no excuse not to experiment with more photo or video in your marketing efforts.
The last five years have flown by, and the adoption of inbound marketing has been humbling to watch unfold. So, what’s next?
Frankly, I don’t know. But five years from now, whatever we end up calling this enlightened form of marketing, I fully expect that those marketers will win out in the long term over those that are continuing to blast people with messages they didn’t ask for.
Oh, and in the meantime, if you or a friend are just getting started with inbound marketing, I recommend the 2nd edition of inbound marketing (yes, I’m biased). You can buy it in paperback or Kindle at http://inboundbook.com. If you don’t find it useful, I’ll personally refund you the $20.
If you don’t have time to read the book, glance through the slidedeck below. It’s a summary of some of the ideas in the book, presented in a visual style (see point 5 above).
What are the biggest changes you’ve noticed in your time in marketing, and what do you see on the horizon? I’d love to hear your insights in the comments. And if you have any questions about the book, the slide deck or inbound marketing in general, I’ll be hopping into answer.
Image credit: oskay
Social media presents tremendous opportunity for us to connect with people across the globe like we could never do before.
The power is at our fingertips to ignite relationships and business results. With this power also comes much responsibility and associated risk.
Ever heard of the OPC? Note, it’s not to be confused with the song, OPP, even though if you have ever attended one of my workshops you have likely not only heard the song but danced to it!
The OPC = other people’s content and other people’s community.
Tapping into the OPC can be a huge turbo boost to zoom your brand, business results and both personal and professional relationships.
However, tapping into the OPC requires as much art as it does science. This is because at the heartbeat of social media, business and life is people. People are the heartbeat of business. People are the heartbeat of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Communities create markets, but only after you make the first investment in the human beings within. You must be willing to share yourself, share your knowledge and give without expectation of anything in return.
People who learn to do this in an authentic way can zoom straight past their competition with powerful relationships, extended reach, and multiple communities and people sitting on the edge of their seats to learn from the content they provide.
In this episode of the Social Zoom Factor I explain how you can tap into the power of the OPC starting today. I share 10 golden rules to ensure you achieve the greatest results possible when engaging and participating in communities.
Episode Highlights
The cost of running the Canada Pension Plan is three times higher than figures released by its investment board suggest, according to a report by the Fraser Institute.
Released Tuesday, the report comes at a time of speculation on the adequacy of mandatory-contribution pension plans, as the Ontario government recently announced plans to roll out its own province-wide plan.
But as the Fraser Institute’s report reveals, the costs associated with such plans can prove difficult to pinpoint.
Hundreds of millions of dollars in consultancy fees, federal government management and transaction fees are not accounted for in the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) report on the 2012-13 fiscal year, according to the institute.
“Contrary to claims of proponents of an expanded CPP, or provincial pension plan in Ontario, many of the costs of large, government-managed pension plans like CPP are hidden. A full examination of all costs shows that CPP is not as low-cost as they want you to believe,” says the report’s author, Philip Cross.
He details a number of expenses absent from previous CPPIB figures that would push the total operating expenses to about $2-billion. That’s in stark contrast to the investment board’s published operating expenses of $490-million for the 2012-13 fiscal year.
The disparity can be traced to the varying definitions of expenses, as outlined in previous CPPIB reports. The investment board calculates its cost based solely on operational expenses. The Fraser Institute’s report, however, includes fees that comprise more than twice the operating budget.
While the investment board noted nearly half-a-billion dollars in expenses for that year, it omitted a number of fees paid to external consultants in managing the plan’s surplus funds, fees incurred as a result of moving equity among investments, as well as the cost of federal oversight, which account for $1.4-billion of the total cost of the plan. When factored in, these expenses put the cost of the CPP at $2- billion, according to the institute’s report.
Broken down further, this includes $782-million for external management fees and $177-million for transactional fees. Costs associated with the federal government’s work, which includes collection of contributions, payment of benefits and distribution of surplus funds to the investment board, which total more than $500-million, are also absent.
The investment board, prior to 2006, embraced a more passive investment strategy, with a focus on traditional stocks and bonds. But with an eye to Baby Boomers’ nearing retirement, and fearing a strain on current investment models, the investment board began to pursue a more aggressive strategy, putting surplus funds into investments in infrastructure and real estate.
Though the mandate of the board — to “maximize returns without undue risk of loss” — remained unchanged, the investments are more complex, and thus may require more consultation. But Mr. Cross said these costs should be factored into the investment board’s reports.
“These investments can be difficult to value, so I can understand why they would want to hire consultants,” he said. “But they should be setting the standard for [accountability in] the industry.”
National Post
Today’s guest post is from June Gunter, Ed. D. and CEO of TeachingHorse, LLC.
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I am the Co-Founder and CEO of TeachingHorse, LLC. TeachingHorse provides leadership development and coaching through experiential learning with horses. Working with horses, people learn how to build trusting relationships, practice authenticity, and remain calm and confident in the face of uncertainty.
Several of my clients are on the path of becoming trusted advisors. Their work with horses has been a great way for them to practice developing intimacy and reducing their self-orientation.
Most of the clients I work with do not have issues with credibility or reliability. They are skilled experts with long track records of success – but they are staring squarely at a new reality. The complexity of the issues they are being asked to address is unprecedented. The information available to them is unreliable and changes quickly. The demand for innovation means that previous performance and expertise are only the equivalent of an entry fee and will no longer win the race.
It is the capacity to create trusting relationships that is often the defining factor in selection of both leaders and advisors.
So what do horses have to teach leaders about being trusted advisors? To begin with, horses don’t care if you have an RN, MBA, MD or have CEO after your name. Horses will never ask you if you have reputation for being dependable or reliable. So we can just take credibility and reliability out of the equation for now.
For horses to place their trust in leaders, they must know four things about them.
It all starts with saying “Hello.” One of the first things we teach is how to approach a horse in a way that creates confidence. It is a process of mutual decision-making that begins with taking a step towards the horse. If they continue to look relaxed and comfortable with your presence, take another step closer. If they look anxious or unsure, stop, take a deep breath to ground yourself, and then take a small step back. This reassures the horse that you are actually paying attention to the signals they are sending, that you are willing to respect their experience and make adjustments to honor their choice. With this simple process, the horse learns that you are not a threat.
One of the horses I work with frequently is a large white draft horse named Blue. She weighs about 2000 pounds. Blue is a fabulous teacher. In one particular session I was working with a board of directors for a healthcare organization. The participant saying hello to Blue was a petite woman, maybe 5 feet tall, with no horse experience.
As she began moving closer to Blue, I could hear her say tentatively, “Hi Blue. Are we good? Can I come a bit closer?” I stopped the woman in her tracks and said, “What question do you have of Blue right now?” She replied, “Is it safe for me to take another step closer?”
My reply to her was, “As long as that is your question, neither one of you is safe. It is not Blue’s job to convince you that you are safe with her. It is your job to show Blue that she is safe with you, just as if she was a patient in your hospital.”
I could sense that what I said resonated deeply with this person. Her energy changed completely. The woman lifted her head and squared her shoulders. You could feel the conviction running through her veins. At the same time, her eyes filled with respect, appreciation and love. She looked at Blue and said, “I got you girl. You are safe with me.”
Much to her surprise, Blue lowered her head, a signal that a horse is feeling safe, and Blue took the last few steps that closed the gap between them. With the woman’s hand now placed gently and confidently on Blue’s forehead, the connection between them created a palpable hush over the entire group.
I asked the woman what changed. She said, “I did.” And she was right.
As it turns out, this person is a gifted nurse leader. She tapped into a deeply held value that can get lost in the hustle and bustle of executive life. She moved her attention from self to other with a commitment to earn trust.
In the face of uncertainty, fear takes over when too much of our attention is on the self. Turn your attention to those you are leading or serving with a clear intention to act in their best interests. Trust will grow.
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For more information about leadership development with horses contact June Gunter at junegunter@teachinghorse.com.
Earlier this year, eMarketer published a new estimate of the amount of time US adults (ages 18+) spend with various types of media. Like many media analysts, eMarketer estimates that the amount of time spent with mobile media is growing more rapidly than all other forms of media consumption, while the consumption of print media continues to decline precipitously.
eMarketer also estimated the amount of advertising spending per hour of time spent with each type of media, and the table below contains some of the eMarketer estimates. As the table shows, eMarketer is projecting that this year, advertisers will spend 7 cents for every hour a US adult spends consuming mobile media, but more than 10 times that amount (83 cents) for every hour spent consuming print media (magazines and newspapers).
eMarketer isn’t the only analyst to make this kind of consumption vs. spending comparison. In the 2013 edition of her widely-acclaimed annual presentation on Internet trends, Mary Meeker also compared the time spent consuming various types of media with advertising spending. The table below shows the data she presented, and her statistics also reveal significant disconnects between the time spent with print and mobile, and the amount of advertising spending devoted to those channels.
So, what’s the point of these comparisons? The argument made by some is that advertising and marketing spending should reflect media consumption patterns. If you buy into this argument, then the above data would indicate that companies are over-investing in print advertising and under-investing in mobile advertising.
Understanding media consumption patterns is obviously important for effective marketing, but marketers shouldn’t rely too much on high-level media consumption data for three reasons.
First, broad consumption patterns usually aren’t specific enough to provide effective guidance for an individual company. As an enterprise marketer, what you really need to know is how the prospective buyers in your target market consume media. For example, Mary Meeker’s data says that US adults spend only 6% of their total media consumption time on print media, but prospective buyers in your target market may spend considerably more of their time with print.
Second, the consumption data discussed above is restrictive. It only compares advertising spending to media consumption time. Numerous research studies have shown that spending on digital marketing has grown explosively over the past several years. Therefore, if the above data included all marketing spending, the comparisons would look substantially different.
Finally, the time people spend with a particular type of media isn’t necessarily indicative of how effective that channel will be as a marketing tool. For example, many younger B2B buyers may spend a considerable amount of time using mobile devices for a variety of reasons, but that may not be the primary way they access business-related information. The fallacy is to assume that personal communications preferences and marketing communications preferences are identical.
The 2012 Channel Preferences Survey by ExactTarget found that personal communications habits are not a good indicator for marketers who are looking for the best way to communicate with potential buyers. As the authors of the survey report wrote, “The lesson here for marketers is that just because consumers embrace a channel for personal communications doesn’t mean that they want to receive direct marketing messages from your brand via that channel.” To improve the effectiveness of your marketing, you need to understand how your prospective buyers prefer to receive marketing messages.
The bottom line? Media consumption patterns are interesting, and they can be somewhat useful. But you need to know more to make sound marketing decisions.
This is the first in a four-part series that will run this week.
If you are like most folks, you were away for at least part of the summer, took as many long weekends as you could, and worked fewer hours on the days you actually did work. As part of getting the work done, you deleted as many emails as you could where a reply wasn't required and visited fewer websites and blogs.
That means you misssed a lot of what we were discussing this summer. This series will catch you up in a hurry.
Four days, four categories, with related articles. Easy.
Day 1 - The Social Selling Articles
You don't have to know a thing about social selling. Just go to Google Images and type in social selling or click this link and you'll see just what an industry it has become. While it does provide a myriad of new ways to connect with potential buyers and customers, most who are providing the tips, steps, methods, tools and opinions are selling those very services that support the existance of a social selling industry. Take it all with a grain of salt and review these articles first.
Getting Emotional at Dunkin Donuts, and Over Social Selling
Top 10 Reasons Why Inbound Cannot Replace Sales (includes video)
Leads are Making Salespeople Lazier Than Old Golden Retrievers
One Thing Missing from The New Way of Selling - Part 2
This is the One Thing Missing from the New Way of Selling - Part 1 (includes video)
These articles were very popular, very polarizing and should cause you to think. Read them, enjoy them, and add your opinions where appropriate. We would love to hear what you think!
(c) Copyright 2014 Dave Kurlan
Hey kids, want to shoot your leads right to the bottom of the funnel just like that? Tired of whiny sales people who don’t know how to close? And what about the mess and expense of those darn client events? Well put that behind you and mix up a big ol’ batch of content batter. But wait, there’s more. If you order today we’ll throw in the Infographic-a-matic for free. That’s right, for free. Why, that’s a $27 saving just for ordering your Easy Bake Content Machine today.
Just in case you are thinking the Slap Chop folks are moving in on your sweet B2B gig, this notion of the content machine isn’t new. Marketo, Hubspot and Eloqua have been making noises about them for years. The idea is pretty compelling. If we accept that content is key to marketing and sales, and we want to sell lots and lots of stuff then it follows that we need lots and lots of content, and a quick, cost-effective way to crank it out like Play-Doh through a star-shaped extruder. There is no shortage of people like me and companies like those willing to take your money in exchange for a bunch of words and some pretty pictures. Some of it will probably be pretty darn good, much of it will look like it was baked with a 40-watt bulb.
It’s also going to be pretty darn expensive. Way more expensive than you think. It turns out that Content is taking its status as King pretty seriously and quietly helping itself to some pretty stiff levies. These are the hidden costs of content most of us forget about, or never consider in the first place.
Creation
I’m sorry, but most of the home-grown content I read is complete sh*t. I know the Internet told you to just write a bunch of random stuff down and slap on some creative commons images and it would all be groovy. But mostly it’s just awful, and the bad news is, it costs more to have someone like me come and fix it than it would to get someone like me to write it properly in the first place. It’s just how it is. If you are going to do content yourself, make sure you have a little sock drawer full of money to have someone come and fix it.
Curation
This is the one that bites many of us, including yours truly, in the lily-white behind. How could managing a bunch of stupid white papers and infographics and blog thingies possibly take so much time? I’m a marketer, damn it, not a librarian. I don’t know how to do this and if I could outsource it I would. As far as I know, there are no Curators-of-Fortune out there who will organize and manage this stuff, so my company gets to pay me to muck about trying to make sense of the content I have flung into the universe. The lesson: human beings are expensive.
Squirrel Training
So you spend weeks making beautiful content, and you actually manage to figure out how to put it on all the right platforms, write the tags, ALT text and keywords that make it popular, and now some sales guy is looking at you vacantly like you just handed him a garlic press and a brick. “Are you kidding?”, you think. “You seriously don’t know what to do with this magnificent total cost of ownership calculator?” you think. “Are you an idiot?” you think. “Do you not want to close any business in your lifetime? “ you think. You’re far too polite to say it, but you know the answers to the above questions are either yes or maybe. That means someone (let’s call them you) gets to take time out of their busy day to teach the sales team how to use the content. Also, the sales team is going to have to take time out of their busy days to be taught how to use the content. That is going to cost money because human beings (even Sales Squirrels) are expensive.
The Cost of Not Using It:
We know that sales doesn’t always use the pretty content we make for them. Can’t think why. So what does it cost when you create content that is supposed to drive sales and it doesn’t drive sales because nobody bothers to show it to customers and prospects? It’s like one of those damn trees falling over the forest. It costs however much you paid to produce it, plus the time you spent not convincing your Squirrels to use it, plus the time you spent uploading it to the Intranet, website, sales portal and LinkedIn page, plus the opportunity cost of not using it, plus the cost of asking why nobody used it, plus the lost sales that resulted from not using it. Phew. I think I need to sit down.
Infrastructure & Planning
So let’s pretend you were organized about the whole thing and created a special content microsite for your clients and a lovely sales resource Sharepoint site for your Squirrels, plus you paid someone’s cousin to do up an SEO strategy and optimize the living daylights out of the content. Now let’s pretend you didn’t quite get it right. Uh oh. Even if you did get it right, I’m willing to bet my brand new Captain Crunch pencil sharpener that you didn’t actually have a budget for all of that. So let’s pretend you mucked it up and nobody has actually seen or heard of your precious content because your website is out of support hours and your Slideshare account is lonelier than the HR department on a Friday and your Squirrels couldn’t find it on your intranet with a talking GPS . Oh, dear. Why that’s a great deal of money, now isn’t it?
Sharing
The best part about baking a yummy cake or decimating a hard-cooked egg has got to be in the selfless act of sharing it. Who could say no to egg salad? Content is just like that: it’s so much tastier when you share it! Why, there’s LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Google+ (yes, that’s still a thing), YouTube, SlideShare, blogs, online communities, websites and that guy you met on the plane who wants you to know his Candy Crush scores. Sharing is the best, isn’t it, because it’s free! Free like a butterfly; free like a guy from Microsoft who calls at 8am on Saturday; free like pregnant feral cat who just moved into your garage. Okay, so it’s not free, but it’s noble. Noble’s good, isn’t it? Well maybe, but noble costs money because noble involves human beings and human beings, say it with me, are expensive.
Let’s stop pretending that content is something that springs fully formed from our wish lists, and let’s start recognizing that it is a costly, complicated, labor- intensive tactic that mostly works, but only if we are willing to pay for it.
Without a doubt, content fuels your sales pipeline. At least it should.
Whether it’s snackable content for easy consumption, or “heavy” content for persuading peeps to buy from you, your content marketing goals should align with the sales pipeline.
Better said, your content should grow (from snackable to a full meal) as the prospect moves through the funnel.
The are three stages and seven steps to consider when creating content that will nurture prospects through your sales pipeline.
I’ll outline each of them here, with some examples of what kind of content you can create for each step.
Let’s back up and first dissect the sales pipeline.
Whether you’re a solopreneur or you have a sales team, the sales pipeline gives a step-by-step look at how your potential customers are converted into actual customers.
For example, a new opportunity may fall into your lap, so you try and figure out what they’re looking for and if they’re qualified.
If they are a good candidate for your product or service, you’d begin nurturing them, or teaching them about the benefits of your services, and how you can solve their pain points.
From there, you’d give a demo, or a proposal, and after the proposal review and consideration, you’d either win or lose the sale.
Our all-in-one CRM, Infusionsoft, has a unique and powerful way of describing the sales pipeline; they call it the Customer Lifecycle.
Here’s how they see things unfolding in the buying process:
[Image source: Infusionsoft]
According to the Customer Lifecycle, the sales pipeline has seven steps:
Simple, right?
The immediate takeaway here is that you can create content to fulfill each of those seven steps!
The way I see it, content coincides with the sales pipeline or Customer Lifecycle in three phases or stages.
So as a potential customer moves through the funnel, there are three stages — or areas — for content to be created:
At this point, the customer doesn’t know your company/brand. Your job here is to get your content seen by new and potential customers.
This can be done with these things:
Perhaps you’ve captured the interested party’s information (step #2 above), and they’re now on your marketing list.
You’re ready to gently tell them why they should choose you.
Once a person has gotten to know you, connected to your brand and brand messaging, and decided they trust you, they are in the consideration phase.
As mentioned before, they may have already given their contact info as a way to get more information.
This is where you want to nurture them (step #3).
Nurturing means educating the consumer on why/how your product or service is best suited to solve their problem.
Early consideration and awareness content can be similar, but after the lead capture, you should really focus on going deeper with your education pieces.
Try moving from snackable bites to a full meal with:
Your main goal is to show your knowledge, your work, your happy customers, and ways in which you’re a thought leader, or authority, in your industry.
Once a prospect has let you know they’re thinking about buying, you move to the next stage …
I like to think there are two parts of Decision Content: Pre-close and post-close content.
Pre-Close Content is falls under decision content because it is critical to making the sale.
Here’s what makes up Pre-Close Content:
Post-Close Content happens AFTER the sale, and targets your current customers.
Many people miss this step because they close the deal and think, “YAY! We’re done!”
But you aren’t done.
Smart and savvy business owners and salespeople want to squeeze every last drop out of what they already have — the low-hanging fruit — before they go foraging for new leads.
Post-Close Content allows you to do this with steps 5, 6, & 7 of the Sales Pipeline:
As you can see, content is the helping hand guiding your would-be and current customers even when you’re not.
To start powering your pipeline with content by:
And if you want a little more help with creating your content, we’ve got a FREE upcoming webinar on how to do just that.
Attend “6 Steps To Perfecting Your Small Business Content Strategy” absolutely free; we’ll be expanding on the sales pipeline and Customer Lifecycle, plus have four other areas for improving your content.
…if you expect it to solve all of your problems for you.
If you’ve been researching marketing automation solutions, you have likely been bombarded with messaging that would lead you to believe marketing automation is going to solve all your problems – and solve them now.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love marketing automation. I think it is a critical tool in any modern marketing department. Just don’t think that you will flip a switch and, all of a sudden, your marketing woes have vanished!
It’s far too easy to get wrapped up in the hype: “Marketing automation proves revenue contribution by marketing! Marketing is sending super-qualified leads to sales and sales now kisses the very ground the marketing department walks on!”
Marketing automation certainly allows you to achieve some lofty goals. What it doesn’t do is achieve those goals for you. No matter how good the marketing automation system, it can’t fix broken processes.
So, before you take the leap into marketing automation, do some analysis of your department and your processes:
Starting to think about some of these basic questions concerning how your business operates will put you on the right track for marketing automation success. By recognizing that marketing automation is a (powerful) tool, you can avoid the disillusionment that is sure to come when you view it as the solution to all your problems.
Asking Purposeful Questions
We all know how important it is to ask questions at trade shows. Questions are how we understand customers and gather information. It’s also how we converse with leads and qualify them. But, how often do we craft a question around our purpose for asking that question? If you’re like most of us, we don’t even think about it. Questions are a natural thing, right? Yes, it’s a natural thing, but so is breathing. But, if you want to do yoga or become a runner, you need to be more purposeful in the way that you breathe to become better at those activities. Well, the same applies to asking questions.
Want to know the different types of questions that you can ask? This guide will change the way you look at questions and help you to get more out of the conversations that you have at your trade show booth.
Note: The below is a paraphrased summary from an interview with Deb Calvert (author of the book DISCOVER Questions™) to David Wogan from QuickTapSurvey.
Start with asking yourself, what kind of information do you want to know?
1. “I want to know what matters most to a buyer”, then ask a Value Question
Do you give the same sales pitch to everyone that visits your booth? When someone approaches your booth, rather than making small talk, ask them “So, what brings you to the show?”. The response to this uncovers a buyer’s values so you can align your pitch hitting the points that the other person really cares about. This should be the first question that you ask.
2. “I want to know something factual”, then ask a Data Question
“How many events did you organize last year?” is a typical example of a data question that could be asked in a conversation at a trade show. It’s factual, provable, and objective, and can be backed up.
3. “I want to identify a buyer’s pain points”, then ask an Issue Question
The purpose of an Issue Question is to identify any concerns that the other person may experience now or in the future. There are two types:
a) Reactive Question: “Tell me more about that customer service issue that you had.”
b) Proactive Question: “As you do business with other event professionals, what are some of the pet peeves you’ve encountered?”
4. “I want to test an idea with a target audience”, then ask a Solution Question
Do you want to gauge the reaction of an idea before launching it to the masses? Then, a Solution Question is the one for you. For example: “What are your thoughts about using a professional resource to supplement your event planning efforts internally”
5. “I want to learn about the goals of a buyer”, then ask an Outcome Question
The purpose of an Outcome Question is to identify a buyer’s goals, dreams, and visions of the future. For example: “What are your main goals for 2015?”
6. “I want to know a buyer’s Plan B”, then ask a Consequence Question
Do you want to learn about what a buyer might inadvertently do wrong if their goals don’t work according to plan? A Consequence Question will help you to identify the other side to a buyer’s visions. A Consequence Question is usually asked after an Outcome Question: “What if you don’t reach that goal, then what happens?”
7. “I want a buyer to think about using my product or service”, then ask an Example Question
If you want to influence a buyer to imagine owning your product or service, then a seller can ask an example question in the form of a comparative. For example: “Give me a comparison of what you are doing now and what you wish you could be doing at your next show.”
8. “I want to understand how a buyer’s decision is made”, then ask a Rationale Question
Do you want to understand how and why a buying decision is made? A Rationale Question reveals the people who are involved in the decision making unit. For example: “What are your criteria for selecting a partner?”
Find out how to apply DISCOVER Questions™ at your trade show exhibit by downloading our e-book.
A successful sales process is a complicated series of events that ultimately pays off in the victory of a “win,” as so many closers like to call it. This end point is always the sweetest part of the process for those who sell because it represents the culmination of their struggles, and brings a feeling of accomplishment. These are feelings each of us can relate to, regardless of our profession. In the complex sale achieving this sales “victory” involves a process in which all players have a unique understanding of their positions and what they are required to do in order to win.
Many people who want to get their foot in the door in the complex sales world start in lead generation. If you have ever worked in complex sales, you know that establishing initial contact with prospects is a challenging part of the process. I believe it is the best place to start because it teaches you to leave your comfort zone. Calling a prospect for the first time is one of the crucial “make or break points” of any sales process. This call sits right in between the transfer of the complex sales process from the marketing department of an organization to the sales department.
Minding this gap and taking prospects across the threshold from being a “Market Qualified Lead” to a “Sales Ready Lead” can be a daunting task. In my work with the lead generation company memoryBlue over the past nine months, it has become apparent to me that the gap between the marketing and sales departments of organizations is sometimes quite wide. When you work in a lead generation role you have a unique view into the many issues that can exist between these two departments of an organization. I’ve found that if you mind this gap effectively, you will not only become successful at producing good quality leads for the sales teams you work with — you will also be better prepared for the rigors of a future career closing complex sales.
I define my view of the “overall sales process” in simple terms. The marketing of a product or service is the beginning. The initial outreach is the middle. And the actual sales cycle is the end. In lead generation you sit firmly in the middle of this process. Your job is to utilize the initial steps that the marketing department has taken with prospects (such as publishing white papers, hosting informational webinars, ad campaigns, etc.) and translate them into a value proposition for a prospect. This means that you are in control of ushering the prospect from the marketing department to the sales department. You have to make sure that the lead is qualified, and you have to make sure that you have generated solid interest. As such you are a critical asset — because your words will either allow the overall sales process to continue or stop it dead in its tracks.
Being in the middle of this process gives you the key opportunity to foster greater communication between the marketing and sales departments of an organization and to gain a unique perspective into the challenges that both departments face. Moreover, you sit in a position to help the two groups streamline results. Bringing these two departments closer together helps the company grow and puts you in a position to advance your career.
You should never be afraid to start a sales career in lead generation. The experience will help make you an effective sales professional in the future, and teach you the dynamics of the interplay between the sales and marketing departments of an organization. When you shift to a role closing deals, the knowledge you’ve gained will allow you to communicate more effectively with your organization’s marketing team. Ultimately, you will be a more effective sales professional because you have learned how to deal with uncomfortable situations, you have experienced the “make or break” dynamics of talking to a prospective client, and you have learned the value of communication between people in achieving a common goal.
A bold headline, right? Well this was born from a meeting I attended recently with a large channel-centric organisation. I was explaining exactly what we do, and the concepts behind our social media solution (which enables our customers to communicate through their advocaes to their prospects and consumers). This led a senior member of their team to ask me, “But can we also use social to communicate TO our partners?”
It’s a good question
Yes you can, but it’s really not the best way to do it. Apart from the rather obvious difficulties like restricted character count, there are numerous other problems. For example who are you sending your message to? Do they all have a social media account? Do they want to receive business messages through their personal accounts? Do they always check their accounts? Are you sending the right message to the right person? How do you track open rates? Click-thru rates?
There is already a better way and it’s been around for 20 years
Email is still undoubtedly the best way of communicating with your partners. I’m sure their Head of Marketing had been looking at their partner email results for the past few years and seen them steadily decline, and assumed that the type of communication (email) was to blame. I suppose this same leader looked at other types of communication like social media as a way to ‘stop the rot’ and move that partner engagement dial up, instead of down.
The unfortunate truth is that this Head of Marketing wasn’t asking the most important question first, “Are we just really bad at communicating with our partners?”
Email still works, but doing what you’ve always done won’t get you better results
As a channel marketer, I know that companies often find a successful groove, a routine if you will, and that’s where they stay. Often five years down the road they’re still doing the same emails every week, with the same message, sent in the same way, to the same people. It won’t surprise you that after a while your results are going to plateau at best, or more likely decline as time goes on.
Add to this that typically organisations don’t really know who their partners are and what they are interested in.
Finally, everybody sends too many emails. Full stop!
In my meeting, I explained all of this, to which the Head of Marketing asked, “You’re saying we need a new creative?”…No, absolutely not! Marketing starts with data, and as such your starting point should always be to ask “Am I communicating with the right people?” The next step is to see if you are communicating with the right people, at the right time, with the right message. This isn’t an alien concept to marketers, it’s called segmentation.
Segmentation and personalisation will get you results, but they are also hugely time consuming and it is unrealistic to believe you will get to the “nirvana” of all marketers – personalisation down to the single customer level – or is it?
For example, if you are a channel marketer looking to send a newsletter to a global partner audience in 3 different partner segments, in 9 languages, you are going to need to produce 27 different versions of the same newsletter. That’s a lot of work… and money!
Here’s the simple solution
Let your partners (or customers) decide exactly what they want to be informed about and exactly how often they would like to receive your news. Don’t try to guess this for them. Let them decide. Let them inform you, and use a platform that collates all of this data, and then allows you to create and tag content, and send this content to the relevant people at the right time, in a beautifully crafted HTML newsletter, which tracks Opens, Clicks and Bounce rates. Suddenly, a process which meant multiple versions, huge work-flows and opportunities for mistakes suddenly becomes streamlined.
Now I’ve seen this first hand, and I’ve seen databases go from less than 5% of the database opening partner emails to consistently over 50% open rates. I have also seen click-thru rates reach 20% from a very poor 1%.
This isn’t a case of too good to be true, it’s real, and it’s here right now. It’s that simple.
Keep social as a content amplification and syndication method
Keeping email as your primary channel communication method in turn frees up your social media channel to be used for what it really should be used for; generating leads and sales. This doesn’t mean filling up your social media networks with bland sales and marketing messages, there’s a lot more to social selling and brand awareness than that, but it does mean that you are not wasting opportunities in the biggest shop window on Earth, and using precious marketing resources on interacting with your partners on social media.
No of course I am not saying you should avoid all interactions with your partners on social media, far from it, but it should be seen as an addition to your social media efforts, and not an integral part of it.
We still have email, it still works, but you need to use it in the right way.
I launched my business on 1st June 2013. The 1st 12 months were a real learning curve for me. I had 4 clients and an optimism to make it work. I didn’t really have a business plan or long term goal, I just thought if I can make it through the 1st year, by then I’ll have some sort of stability and I can have a re-think. Here we are now at the end of the 1st quarter of year 2 and there have been some quite significant changes in my business, so I thought I’d share what I’ve learned for the benefit of anyone in a similar situation or thinking about going it alone. Here’s what the 1st year in business has taught me.
image source: Flickr
The move from salaried employment to “Company Director” was exciting and daunting in equal measure. It’s exciting to be your own boss, make your own decisions, set your own schedule, etc… The process of setting up a business is exciting; meetings with the bank, discussing your service offering, creating branding and company logo, I felt a sense of achievement in all this, I was creating something. On the flip side, responsibility has some unexpected facets. For example, sick days don’t exist when you’re the boss. When I take time off it feels like losing money. Expenses and ‘cost of business’ felt like they were coming out of my pocket, I had to learn to budget and allow a budget for things. Similarly, the temptation to spend money when you don’t have to is always nagging; I’m typing this post on the same laptop I had then, even though I’m well overdue an upgrade, just because I can’t bring myself to justify it when this one hasn’t broke yet!
At the start, I was on site with clients every day of the week. It was part of my sales pitch; I would be the closest thing to in-house as they could get without actually having to take on staff. It made sense (for them), but I had no time to look for more work. This hit home when I lost a client and found myself with a gaping hole in my bank balance for a month or 2. I spent hours hunting around for work trying to fill the gap. It shook me. After that, I made a strategic decision to give myself more time to nurture leads and protect the business from such a sudden shock happening again. It took time to work this out and meant I had to change the way I was working to accommodate less of a freelancer attitude.
What I do now is very different to how I started. Back then, I wanted to be all things to all men. I was doing bits of everything, whatever the client asked. “Hey Matt, can you manage our PPC?” They would say. “Sure,” I’d say, “no problem… and hey, no extra charge, I’ll just put in the extra hours for free.” I didn’t want to say No, I thought it would be seen as a weakness. The truth is, I don’t like Adwords, it’s not what I want to do. All I was doing by agreeing to it was over-burdening and over-working myself and letting other areas suffer. So, over time I’ve stripped out a lot of stuff I used to do, leaving just the stuff I’m good at and enjoy most. I know have a team of writers and the business is growing in the right direction.
Don’t work for free. I’ve made this mistake a few times. I’m not talking about the PPC stuff above, those guys were already paying me and just wanted a bit extra, I’m talking about entering into an arrangement on the promise of payment, then realising you’re not gonna get paid. There’s nothing more frustrating. Here’s what happened to me. On one occasion, Christmas of all times, I’d just lost a client and was in a panic. An opportunity came up to do some work but it would have to be done over the break. It was a decent amount of money so I agreed to it. I worked 30 hours while the rest of the world was on holiday and have never been paid. In retrospect I should’ve taken a deposit before starting work and walked away if it wasn’t forth-coming. I had invoiced in advance so thought the money was in the bank – that’s a false economy and it taught me a lesson. On another occasion I entered into a profit-share type arrangement where I carried out the work upfront for a portion of the spoils further down the line. The problem with this is not the concept itself, but that the client doesn’t value something they haven’t paid for. So while I beavered away to make it work the client dragged their heals on anything I asked them to do, which hampered the project so much I eventually just gave up and cut my losses.
If this last section comes across as sounding a bit bitter, it is. I hate being mugged!
Roberto Baldwin / The Next Web:
Google rebrands its enterprise business services as Google for Work — Google has cast aside the stodgy “enterprise” label that has, until now, described its business offerings in favor of a new name, Google for Work. — According to Google for Work President Amit Singh …
When Warren Buffett started his investing career, he would read 600, 750, or 1,000 pages a day.
Even now, he still spends about 80% of his day reading.
"Look, my job is essentially just corralling more and more and more facts and information, and occasionally seeing whether that leads to some action," he once said in an interview.
"We don't read other people's opinions," he says. "We want to get the facts, and then think."
To help you get into the mind of the billionaire investor, we've rounded up his book recommendations over 20 years of interviews and shareholder letters.
When Buffett was 19 years old, he picked up a copy of legendary Wall Streeter Benjamin Graham's "Intelligent Investor."
It was the one of the luckiest moments of his life, he said, because it gave him the intellectual framework for investing.
"To invest successfully over a lifetime does not require a stratospheric IQ, unusual business insights, or inside information," Buffett said. "What's needed is a sound intellectual framework for making decisions and the ability to keep emotions from corroding that framework. This book precisely and clearly prescribes the proper framework. You must provide the emotional discipline."
Buffett said that "Security Analysis," another groundbreaking work of Graham's, had given him "a road map for investing that I have now been following for 57 years."
The book's core insight: If your analysis is thorough enough, you can figure out the value of a company — and if the market knows the same.
Buffett has said that Graham was the second-most influential figure in his life, after only his father.
"Ben was this incredible teacher; I mean he was a natural," he said.
While investor Philip Fisher — who specialized in investing in innovative companies — didn't shape Buffett in quite the same way as Graham did, he still holds him in the highest regard.
"I am an eager reader of whatever Phil has to say, and I recommend him to you," Buffett said.
In "Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits," Fisher emphasizes that fixating on financial statements isn't enough — you also need to evaluate a company's management.
