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SPOKANE, Wash. – The solar panels that Idaho inventor Scott Brusaw has built aren’t meant for rooftops. They are meant for roads, driveways, parking lots, bike trails and, eventually, highways.

Brusaw, an electrical engineer, says the hexagon-shaped panels can withstand the wear and tear that comes from inclement weather and vehicles, big and small, to generate electricity.

“We need to rebuild our infrastructure,” said Brusaw, the head of Solar Roadways, based in Sandpoint, Idaho, about 90 miles northeast of Spokane, Washington. His idea contains “something for everyone to like.”

“Environmentalists like it,” he said. “Climate change deniers like it because it creates jobs.”

While the idea may sound outlandish to some, it has already got $850,000 in seed money from the federal government, raised more than $2 million on a crowd-funding website and received celebrity praise.

Solar Roadways is part of a larger movement that seeks to integrate renewable energy technology — including wind, geothermal and hydro power — seamlessly into society.

The Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group based in Washington, D.C., described companies like Solar Roadways as “niche markets” in the booming alternative energy industry.

“They represent the type of creative innovation that addresses design and energy, while showcasing the diversity of solar applications,” said Tom Kimbis, a vice-president of the association.

Brusaw said that in addition to producing energy, the solar panels can melt away snow and ice, and display warning messages or traffic lines with LED lights.

There are skeptics, who wonder about the durability of the panels, which are covered by knobby, tempered glass, and how they would perform in severe weather or were covered with dirt.

“It seems like something reasonable and something that is going to be very expensive,” said Lamar Evans of the National Renewable Energy Association in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Another problem would be how to store the electricity that could be generated, Evans said.

The Brusaws have produced no estimates of how much the solar panels would cost, so the financial realities of their vision remain an unknown.

To demonstrate the concept, the company has created a small parking lot at its headquarters, using 108 solar panels. Vehicles have been driven onto the space, without damaging the panels, he said.

“We’ll start off small with driveways and walkways,” he said.

His wife Julie came up with the idea after watching “An Inconvenient Truth,” the global warming movie featuring former Vice-President Al Gore, Brusaw said.

She remembered that Scott had long talked about the concept of electric roads.

The U.S. Federal Highway Administration gave the Brusaws $850,000 to develop Solar Roadways over the past few years, and build the prototype parking lot.

This year, they turned to the Indiegogo crowd-funding site to raise additional money and move to the next phase. Launched on Earth Day, the campaign got off to a discouraging start, Brusaw said.

Donations trickled in slowly, but two factors helped spread the company’s vision: a viral YouTube video and celebrity mentions in social media. The video has more than 14 million views.

The floodgates opened when actor George Takei of “Star Trek” fame and the TV show “MythBusters” mentioned the company. They received donations from more than 45,000 people in 50 countries.

The money will enable the company to hire staff and begin production of more panels, Brusaw said.

“Once we’ve perfected everything, our ultimate goal will be highways,” he said.

The post Idaho inventor pushes solar panels not for roofs, but for driveways, sidewalks, highways appeared first on Canadian Business.

EDMONTON – A study out of Montreal is showing Alberta is the home to about one-third of billion-dollar companies in Canada.

Pierre Cleroux of the Business Development Bank of Canada says he believes it isn’t just about where the resources are.

He says some of the growth is in energy, but other contributing sectors include transportation, telecommunications, real estate and the service industry.

He says many people in Alberta have the talent and ability to grow business.

Four of the 52 billion-dollar firms in Alberta are located in Edmonton.

Ontario is the leading province with 55 billion-dollar firms.

(CHED)

The post Study says Alberta has one-third of Canada’s billion-dollar firms appeared first on Canadian Business.

Social media is the best opportunity today for businesses to build brand loyalty and influence perception among their target audiences. Americans on average spend more than 3 hours a day on social networks, which rivals almost every other activity including television. Furthermore, it’s not just about having a social network presence, it’s about making that presence useful to consumers. Thirty-two percent of consumers have “broken up” with a brand on social media because the accounts were used for marketing purposes and didn’t provide the necessary value.

Each social network brings a unique value proposition to brands. While every social network allows brands to communicate directly with consumers while reinforcing brand messaging, each network’s platform allows the brands to do so with slightly different audiences in unique ways. For brands to effectively use social media to build loyalty from wide ranging audiences, they must use multiple platforms simultaneously.

Facebook: Facebook’s platform is perfect for brands that want to influence large audiences while still interacting with consumers one-on-one. Facebook’s platform allows brands to easily offer exclusive deals to users who have “liked” the brand’s page. DoubleTree by Hilton is just one of many brands that entice consumers to click like by promising exclusive deals. Brands that follow through on this type of promise and continually offer new exclusive information or discounts to users who like, share or comment on posts, will build a loyal following that engages consistently.

Social media users today demand that brands use social networks as more than just additional advertising platforms; rather, they demand engagement, exclusive deals and relevant content. Therefore, another tactic to build loyalty through Facebook is to foster relationships with fans, even going as far as hosting discussions with multiple Facebook fans at once. Brands can do this by asking for the opinions of fans, responding swiftly to any concerns a customer is having (like Taco Bell regularly does, as seen to the left) and using the information gleaned from online conversations to influence actions outside of Facebook.

 

Twitter: Twitter’s uniqueness comes from its 140 character limit, forcing brands to be concise with their message. But what Twitter may lack in post length, it makes up for in the ability to interact with consumers quickly. Airlines are one industry that has have taken full advantage of the power of Twitter, using it to respond swiftly to the myriad of questions and complaints that come in daily. For example, the team behind British Airways will follow up for customers who say they can’t get a response through other means.

This type of personal attention, when done consistently, builds trust and loyalty with a brand because the customer feels like the brand cares enough to fix issues when presented with them. Sometimes simply listening to mentions and saying thank you is enough to make that Twitter user feel valued, an important step in building a relationship and generating increased loyalty.

YouTube: With its video focused content, YouTube is the perfect place for brands to develop brand loyalty through openness and transparency. One example is McDonald’s, which when faced with allegations of “pink slime” being an ingredient in its chicken nuggets, decided to open the doors and allow everyone to see how the fast food product is made. Consumers instinctively trust brands that pull back the curtain and don’t act like there are secrets being hidden. By giving consumers an inside view of the production process, McDonald’s told consumers that it was worth trusting.

Another option brands can use to build loyalty via YouTube is to create informational content that consumers will find useful. For example, Kohl’s uses YouTube as a way to educate consumers about how to use its makeup products. Kohl’s has created and published several videos giving step by step instructions on how to create different looks using makeup only found at the retailer. These “how-to” videos will also show up prominently in Google’s search results, helping integrate a brand’s social media strategy with its search engine optimization goals.

Conclusion

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube offer brands the opportunity to build a loyal brand following. The overreaching key to social media success is having a policy that includes quick, accurate and informative engagement with followers in real time. As a brand’s social media following gains steam, each piece of engagement, be it a share, comment, retweet or like, can help spread the brand’s message organically. With each social media success, the power of a brand’s social media presence can grow both in size and scope, making investments into social media profiles a must for any business.

We may not be experiencing a “mobile app crisis.” But there’s no doubt that among small businesses, there’s a serious mobile app deficit out there. While no one has done an exhaustive survey—small businesses still don’t get the attention they deserve—I agree with a recent Forbes contributor that the “vast majority” of small businesses don’t have a mobile app. After all, a study last year found that more than half of them don’t even have a website.

With the universal move to mobile—and considering all the profound, competitive challenges SMBs face—it’s hard to understand why so many smart and aggressive entrepreneurs are acting against their best interests by staying on the mobile sidelines.

What’s the reason for this? I believe a combination of sheer misunderstanding and psychological barriers produced this sorry state of affairs. (Actually, isn’t that the reason behind most of mankind’s problems?)

After spending some time talking to small business owners and reviewing social media sentiment and comments on blogs, I’ve identified five of the most pervasive myths that are getting in the way of broader SMB adoption of mobile apps. While we don’t expect to change the world with this one post (unless Justin Bieber decides to retweet it, perhaps), one has to start somewhere.

Myth #1: “A mobile app? Yeah, like I can code something. I can barely remember my zip code.”

It’s true that a few years ago, at the beginning of the mobile revolution, it wasn’t easy to create a mobile app. Sadly, too many small businesses are still trapped in that false assumption.

I can understand why. Those of you who are busy building your businesses don’t have time to keep up with tech trends, so you may not realize how simple do-it-yourself (DIY) mobile app-creation has become.

DIY platforms, like Como and others, are built for small businesspeople without computer science degrees. Como actually turns out more than 4,500 mobile apps every day.

Myth #2: “Why do I need an app? I know it’s cool and trendy, but my customers know where to find me.”

They may know where to find you, but that doesn’t mean they will find you. Awareness doesn’t mean your brand is forefront in your customers’ mind. Say you’re a pizza restaurant, or a nail salon, or a liquor store. Your customers are familiar with you, but that doesn’t mean they’re totally loyal. They may walk by a competitor, or discover a new option by searching online, or they may get a coupon or offer from a service like Groupon or Living Social.

That happens millions of times every day. Small businesses lose valuable customers because they’re not top of mind. I recently read a piece that included a term I quite like, describing what every small business must do: get into their “customers’ app cognition silo.”

Your customers are looking at their smartphones dozens of times a day. Don’t you want to be there? Enter that cognition silo! Your small business will benefit, I assure you.

Myth #3: “I’m already on Facebook and Twitter. Isn’t that enough?”

No, not really. First of all, it’s dangerous to assume that your customers are paying attention to your updates all the time. Of course, it is important to be there, but that’s not enough. In fact, a mobile app actually amplifies the value of your social channels, because it connects them in one seamless experience for your customers. For example, you can use your Facebook page to encourage downloads of your app, and your app can in turn push consumers to your Facebook page.

Every business—whether it’s a local vet or Wal-Mart—needs to cultivate and nourish their existing customers, and expand their business at the same time. It’s an irrevocable truth. And a mobile app does both.

Myth #4: “What can I deliver through an app, other than my location and phone number?”

Ah, that’s where the magic lies. You’d be amazed what you can accomplish with today’s mobile apps using DIY app-makers like Como. You can set up a reservation or booking system, deliver coupons, generate a QR code, share photos, announce specials, and so much more. It’s a whole mobile business operating system.

Myth #5: “I’m too busy to update an app.”

Are you? We don’t think so. The best mobile apps are designed so you can keep it fresh and lively every day, in just a few minutes. Updating your content and offerings needs to be an everyday habit—like turning on the lights or throwing out the trash—but those updates can be delivered seamlessly to your customers, so when you update your website or Facebook, your app also updates automatically. In fact, it takes far less time to make sure that your customers have an updated app on their smartphones than it does to complain about business being slower than you’d like.

Those are the rational arguments against stepping into App World. But there’s also a psychological barrier. Change is always difficult. We want to believe things will be the same tomorrow as they are today, even when all evidence points to the contrary. As a small business owner, you need to look reality in the eye, and triumph over it.

Another emotional hurdle? Many small business owners feel resigned to the fact that technology is a force that enables big businesses to compete, but that doesn’t truly empower the SMB. Nothing could be further from the truth. Technology is the great leveler; it’s a digital slingshot that gives David ammunition against Goliath. You’re fortunate to live in an era when the gap between big and small businesses—in terms of the tools available to them—has never been smaller.

A small business app can be every bit as powerful, effective, and flexible as an app that a Fortune 500 company can build. So seize the moment! Don’t stand in the way of your own success. That would be simply, well… appsurd.

Public sector organisations are under increasing pressure to improve the quality and delivery of their customer service as customer expectations grow, despite facing financial cuts.

According to a new report from the Institute of Customer Service, a ‘shared vision’ is needed if improvements are to be successful and for the UK public sector to achieve its ambitious goal of being viewed as a world leader.

The key conclusions of the report include:

• Rising customer expectations and demands need to be met, but financial pressure poses significant challenges for public sector organisations.
• Leaders across the public sector say that improving customer service is a central strategic objective, but this needs to be done in such a way that it improves customer outcomes while also reducing inefficiencies.
• Investing in customer service strategy is seen as key to continuing to meet rising customer expectations in a sustainable, world-class way.

Jo Causon, CEO Institute of Customer Service; said:

“We have entered a critical period of change for the public sector. In a context of economic pressures and rising demand, many organisations in the public face painful choices about how to maintain levels and quality of service, as well as plan for future requirements.”

The public sector is one the lowest performing sectors in the Institute’s bi-yearly UK Customer Satisfaction Index, with listening to customer insights being identified as a key area to focus on for improvement. This is especially important when you consider that 28% of customers, who experience a problem when dealing with a public sector organisation, don’t report it as a complaint, primarily due to feeling that it wouldn’t make any difference.

So what can the public sector learn from the private sector?

In a tough economic and competitive market, businesses in the private sector are using their customer service as a key competitive differentiator. Offering customers a consistent multi-channel customer service is now key to winning and retaining customers, giving businesses an incentive to improve standards.

Key areas for development:

• Consistency – joining-up department silos: Breaking down information and customer service silos between departments, agencies and existing partnerships in the public sector is key to providing a consistent customer experience. A centralised and shared knowledge management solution will ensure that the same information is given to customers across all contact channels, helping to improve satisfaction rates.

• Lower costs and raise efficiency: During financial cuts, the pressure to reduce any additional expenditure or to show a return on any investment is a real challenge. Investment in the right online customer service technology however can result in significant cost savings, reducing inbound customer contact and improving contact centre efficiency.

• Customer insight: Customer complaints and feedback provide vital insight into areas for improvement. Offering customers and staff on the frontline dealing with customer complaints a mechanism to suggest improvement, and regularly analysing this information, enables organisations to optimise their service offering, helping towards meeting regulatory guidelines. Showing you have acted and responded to feedback lets the customer and team members know you are listening to them and that they are of value rather than a hindrance.

Whilst public sector budgets are lowering, customer’s expectations for instant, 24/7 customer service are rising and the ability to provide a cost effective service across multiple channels has never been more crucial.

On July 8, a giant school of Northern Anchovies invaded La Jolla, California. The school of fish was 50 feet wide and 325 feet long, Scripps Professor David Checkley told LiveScience.

Scientists have not seen a flock of the fish this big in the area for over 30 years, according to a press release. The fish are the big dark bands in the ocean in the images below.

The anchovies usually prefer cooler water away from shore. So it was surprising when they showed up near the coast, especially considering that the water hit 74 degrees F that day according to LiveScience.

The coastal appearance could be due to ocean cooling in the Pacific from a natural phenomena known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, according to Live Science.

Swimmers went out to greet the massive fish swarm, which Checkley thinks could contain anywhere from one million to 100 million fish.

The sea lions also paid their respects, but not for long. The fish swam north by Tuesday night.

Regardless, everyone seemed to be having a good time.

Except for this guy:

Here's a video from Scripps:

SEE ALSO: 10 Insane Things That Happen When A Diver Descends 400 Feet On A Single Breath

Join the conversation about this story »

Web writers are increasingly expected to learn multimedia production. Read about these classic artists who worked in more than one medium and apply their learnings to your writing. Artists who excel in multiple media demonstrate that creativity and genius transcend the limitations of medium. Those who can illustrate, design, direct, and compose–in addition to writing–show that creativity isn’t confined to a single mode of production. Web writers are increasingly encouraged to produce multimedia content, highlighting the demand for creative versatility. Despite current demand, cross-genre production isn’t a new phenomenon. Read on to learn more about four great multi-genre artists and the inspiration they offer contemporary writers.

Writers Who Picked up a Paintbrush

Kurt Vonnegut: Writer, Doodler Kurt Vonnegut, the celebrated writer of highly respected novels Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions (among others), was also a prolific doodler. Many of his doodles were featured in his books, punctuating his laugh-out-loud-funny, absurd novels with bits of visual comic relief. Vonnegut developed as a more serious visual artist later in life. In 1983, he headlined a one-man show at the Margo Feiden Galleries, Ltd. in Greenwich Village. As part of a promotional series spotlighting American artists in 1995, he designed an advertisement for Absolut Vodka. Vonnegut summed up his thoughts on the value of creative pursuits in 2005′s A Man Without a Country, writing, “The arts…are a very human way of making life more bearable.” The next time you face a bout of writer’s block, keep these thoughtful words in mind.

Self Portrait, Kurt Vonnegut, 1993

Henry Miller’s Prolific Watercolor Paintings Henry Miller, who seduced critics and the public alike with his controversial novel Tropic of Cancer, was also an accomplished painter. During the course of his lifetime, Miller produced more than 2,000 watercolor paintings. What’s more, Miller demonstrated that practice and devotion to one’s craft can be equally as effective as formal education. As a writer and painter alike, Miller was self-taught; he received only one semester of college education. Writers, take heed: though Miller was skilled at writing and visual art, he prioritized the former. In his work schedule from 1932-33, Miller imparts the advice to “Write first and always.” He then adds that “[p]ainting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.”

The Procession, Henry Miller, 1973

Visual Artists Who Sat in the Director’s Chair

Julian Schnabel: Multi-Genre Extraordinaire Julian Schnabel is perhaps most famous for his Neo-expressionist paintings. During the late 1970s and early 80s, his plate paintings–large works featuring shards of dinnerware–drew critical acclaim. What some people don’t know is that Schnabel is a noted creator in other fields, including screenwriting/directing, architecture, and even writing. In the 1990s, Schnabel found success as a screenwriter and film. His debut film, the biopic Basquiat, centered on friend and fellow Neo-expressionist Jean-Michel Basquiat. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was nominated for four Oscars in 2007. Schnabel’s work confirms that success in one field doesn’t inhibit equal success in another. Another lesson we can learn from this artist? It’s never too late to broaden your creative skill set. The Diving Bell was released when Schnabel was 56 years old.

Basquiat, 1996

Andy Warhol’s Lesser-Known Directing Career For many, Andy Warhol is inextricably linked to a Campbell’s soup can–and understandably so. The legendary visual artist gained notoriety for his paintings and silkscreens of consumer goods and famous faces. Though most people would recognize Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup, few are familiar with his artistic range. Early in his career, Warhol made a living as an illustrator; among his oldest works are shoe advertisements and album-cover art. Later in the 1960s, Warhol produced experimental films with his cohorts at the infamous Factory in New York. Inspired by James Joyce’s Ulysses, he offered up the cleverly and mischievously titled A Novel. Always in the process of making something new, Warhol didn’t believe in idleness. “Don’t think about making art, just get it done,” he is known to have said. “Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” Wise words, indeed.

The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, 1976

These versatile creators remind us that artists needn’t be confined to a singular formal path. Harness your creativity in one field and apply it to another–as these four artists demonstrate, versatility is one path to success.

In newsrooms, several qualities are sought after: Obviously, the ability to write well and accurately. And after that, the ability to write both quickly and concisely becomes hugely important. Quickly matters, because the nature of news is that it’s of-the-moment, and journalists who can create content at a rapid pace enable their organization to lead the conversation. Concisely matters because, in writing, shorter is better. Always. Ask Hemingway.

As a marketing organization, you should be looking for the same qualities in content creators – the ability to be compelling, be accurate, and to do so efficiently.

And yet, most organizations that are pursuing content strategies are disincentivizing those hallmarks of quality content creation. They’re paying for it the wrong way, incentivizing writers in all the wrong ways.

Typically, organizations pay for content in one of the following three ways… none of which is very logical:

By the hour. This is the traditional way in which consulting services have been sold and purchased. The theory is that the more time the consultant spends on the client’s behalf, the more value is delivered. We know this is ludicrous. Time does not equal value. In fact, it is precisely the wrong incentive in a ever faster marketplace. Customers and prospects are looking for information now; delivering it a week from now is very often worthless, and certainly not worth more.  Very simply, charging by the hour misaligns the goals of the provider and the client. A content creator being paid by the hour is incentivized to take a longer time; not to make it better, but simply to spend more time. Why would you ever hire someone who is less efficient?

By the word. Long form content has been making a comeback, and that’s good. However, just because a story or blog post is longer doesn’t make it better. In fact, shorter is better on a mobile device. Check that, shorter is always better when it comes to content. You know that movie you went to this past weekend that was half an hour too long? That’s what I’m talking about.

By the story. Simply paying X dollars per story is more logical than the first two common ways of buying content, but it is limiting. Is the goal of your content strategy really to write 200 blog posts this year? Is that the metric you’re tracking? I didn’t think so.  At Scribewise, we begin a client relationship by trying to figure out the amount of content to be produced – typically, we default to the number of stories. However, we don’t stop there. Because sometimes the strategy will call for fewer stories, or whitepapers, infographics or videos instead of articles. If our clients wanted to pay us X dollars per story, we’re disincentivized from stepping back and thinking strategically about the best content delivery vehicle for them.

When hiring content creators, brands need to figure out who is going to deliver the highest value. When you look up at the end of the year, who will have produced the best content that did the most for your business? Identifying this person or agency isn’t easy, but that’s why you make the big bucks.

Look, at some point we’re going to have to trust each other. You can’t be trying to squeeze every last word of content out of us, and we can’t be trying to squeeze every last penny out of your marketing budget. Figuring out a reasonable budget should be a shared exercise, focused on the anticipated value the content will bring.

Easy? No. Smarter? Yes.

Image courtesy of Guyspeed.com.

Having trouble making a  focused move away from thinking of LinkedIn as an online resume to using LinkedIn as a major B2B social sales tool?

Well salespeople, Art Sobczak has just stepped into the ring, jumped in your corner, and created a fantastic free resource to get you on your way to selling with LinkedIn. He has joined the growing chorus declaring LinkedIn as the primary prospecting tool.

Art reached out to Crystal Thies, the LinkedIn Ninja (and a great adviser and trainer we’ve worked with in the past) to create a two-pronged approach that really makes the content stand out from other social sales training resources:

1. First, Crystal takes viewers along an in-depth ride through what makes a great salesperson on LinkedIn: from the most important elements of your profile to the inner workings of LinkedIn’s search functions and the most effective engagement methods.
2. That would be valuable enough, but then Art comes in and takes it one step further, demonstrating effective email and phone outreach techniques that build off your new-found effectiveness on LinkedIn. With that step, Art and Crystal put together a uniquely comprehensive social sales and prospecting resource that demands your attention.

I got a sneak peek at the content last week and ran over to LinkedIn and made some changes! And their ideas are already helping in my own outreach on LinkedIn. This is a great resource, salespeople. Head over to their LinkedIn for Sales Success site and sign up to be notified of the publish date.

When those videos come your way, I guarantee that you will elevate your knowledge of LinkedIn overnight. Here are my favorite takeaways:

1. Your Profile Needs to Talk to the Right People. The first step to using LinkedIn as a sales tool is to get away from the resume-focus. A few changes to key areas of your profile set you up as a resource instead of a job hunter. Art and Crystal’s tutorials about profile headline, summary, experience, and other sections are definitely THE foundation for social sales success on LinkedIn.
2. You SEO Your Website, So Do It On LinkedIn! SEO is an important part of being found by people outside your 1^st-and 2^nd-degree connections. Crystal keeps things focused, realistic, and avoids that awful “keyword jamming” SEO stuff that threatens to turn your profile into a bunch of gobbledygook nonsense. They show some great examples here.
3. The Advanced People Search Function is HUGE. This video is probably the single most valuable training video on LinkedIn prospecting out there. Not only do you get under the hood of LinkedIn’s search function, but Art and Crystal also set you up with an automated lead-generating system using LinkedIn’s built-in search updates function. This one element of Prospecting 2.0 is a big part of what sets apart effective salespeople.
4. This Isn’t Facebook’s Newsfeed. Facebook’s clogged newsfeed has given the feature a bad name, but LinkedIn’s turns out to be worth a lot to salespeople. I learned some cool stuff about effective engagement from this part of the video series.
5. Pair Your LinkedIn Efforts with Quality Outreach by Phone. Art puts another nail in the coffin of all that “the phone is dead” nonsense out there by showing how your efforts on LinkedIn can really pump up the value of your calls. If I were stuck on an island with only one piece of smart sales advice, I would pick Art’s “Possible Value Proposition.”

 

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For more on inside sales strategies and trends, subscribe to the RSS Feed for this blog and sign up for our Email Newsletter. If you need weekly injections of inspiration and motivation, sign up for the Smart Selling Motivational Texts. Follow me on Twitter, connect on LinkedIn, and join the conversation on Inside Sales 2.0 Trends Talk LinkedIn Group. If you want epic inside sales training for teams and managers, contact TeleSmart.

photo credit: clasesdeperiodismo via photopin cc

The post Art Makes Sense out of your LinkedIn Sales Life appeared first on TeleSmart Communications.

Email marketing makes it incredibly easy for the advertising departments of small businesses to reach a wider, more receptive audience. While usage of email marketing by firms is growing, it’s still not used tremendously widely amongst smaller businesses. In order to best illustrate the effectiveness of this particular marketing tool, this article will take you through the most important facets of email marketing.

Be direct

First and foremost, email marketing provides a direct line of communication to current as well as prospective customers and clients. It’s important that you make the most of this line of communication, to ensure that the information you are providing them with is specifically useful to them. As obvious as it sounds, taking a scattergun approach to email marketing will just consign your advertising campaign straight into the junk folders of its less than impressed recipients.

The key to catching, then holding the interest of recipients, is to personalise emails as much as possible. Small touches, like addressing your emails to the specific recipient in question, go a long way to reeling in the interest of potential customers, demonstrating that you’ve actually given more than a passing interest to them as an individual.

Mailing Manager, an email marketing firm, has proposed ideas on how to take this one step further. For example, according to the organisation, you could attend trade conferences and conventions to determine which aspects specifically appeal to your consumers. Alternatively, you could use social media to gauge and evaluate the interests of customers.

Of course, richer personalised content is also required to get your email marketing campaign going. Combining market research with email marketing allows you to direct a unique campaign at a specific demographic. To take a general example, if your research found that 15-25 year old males, a demographic that your small business is very keen to tap, weren’t connecting with your brand, you could construct an email marketing campaign tailored specifically to the tastes of that demographic, enticing them to bring their custom to you.

Get a reaction

Another obvious sounding point, but one that once again demands reiteration: once you have spoken directly to a key demographic, about a subject or product relevant to them, you need to convert that good will into action.

A good way to go about this is to draw attention to a particularly relevant sale or event; or introduce a new, desirable product to them directly. Make use of your market research and ability to directly reach potential clients to really drive them to action.

To take this approach one step further, you can further incentivise potential or current customers by providing them with exclusive offers, or even free gifts. There’s a lot to be said for the adage ‘’you’ve got to spend money to make money’’, and this is no more true than for email marketing in a small business. Never underestimate the value of customer goodwill and positive word of mouth.

Manage and measure

Things can potentially get a bit more difficult when it comes to measuring results and managing multiple campaigns. You could go to the effort of making a bespoke email marketing client for your small business; but that seems like a comparative waste of time when measured against the cost of buying a commercial email marketing client, or utilising the services of an email marketing management company.

In either case, you’ll reap the rewards of their superior experience, and the effectiveness of their tried and tested methodology. Email marketing software will allow you to quickly add new contacts to your pool of potential or current customer lists, which in turn allows you to quickly and easily target a particular group or demographic for each email marketing campaign.

Good email marketing software or services will also allow you to easily manage and quantify the fruits of your labour; the available toolset should allow you to measure how many recipients of a campaign opened the email, clicked through links or otherwise interacted with your campaign. The takeaway point is that email marketing software and services allow for easier analysis and operation of your campaigns, making your efforts more focussed and effective.

Google is unsure how to apply “very vague and subjective tests” to the more than 70,000 removal requests that have landed on its doorstep in the wake of a recent court ruling, according to the company’s chief legal officer, David Drummond.

In a Guardian article titled “We need to talk about the right to be forgotten,” Drummond sheds new light on a controversial legal process that lets EU citizens order Google to remove search listings they dislike. Drummond described who is coming out of the woodwork to demand takedowns, and the dilemma Google faces:

former politicians wanting posts removed that criticise their policies in office; serious, violent criminals asking for articles about their crimes to be deleted; bad reviews for professionals like architects and teachers; comments that people have written themselves (and now regret). In each case someone wants the information hidden, while others might argue that it should be out in the open.

According to Drummond, the scale and subtlety of the process means that Google is now reviewing each removal request on an individual basis. Under the terms of the European Court of Justice’s court ruling in May, Europeans have a right to delete search results that are “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive” — but the court provided little guidance as to what exactly that means. And while there’s a “journalistic exception,” search engines like Google can’t invoke it.

“It’s a bit like saying the book can stay in the library but cannot be included in the library’s card catalogue,” according to Drummond, who notes that the requests so far cover more than a quarter of a million web pages.

While stating that Google disagrees with the court ruling, Drummond adds that it’s “hard not to empathise with some of the requests that we’ve seen,” citing requests from an innocent man to remove stories about a crime, and one from a mother requesting the removal of links to stories about her abused daughter.

It’s perhaps significant that Drummond chose the Guardian to publish his piece. Last week, Google removed Guardian stories about a dishonest referee from its search results, which led some to suggest that the company was deliberately drumming up controversy to call attention to the problems with the court ruling (it has since restored the articles).

Related research and analysis from Gigaom Research:
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• Why going “green” matters for high-performance computing
• Who to watch in the growing European cloud market
• How the customer experience can help businesses build applications

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One-Third Of Advisors Want To Buy Another Practice In The Next Five Years (Wealth Management)

In the next five years, there will be plenty of buyers for financial advisor practices. According to a Financial Services Institute survey, 29% of advisors are looking to buy in the next few years, compared to 15% who are looking to sell. In the six to ten years, those numbers change to 24% and 29%, respectively.

"David Grau Sr., founder of FP Transitions and author of 'Succession Planning for Financial Advisors: Building an Enduring Business', suggests there are probably even more buyers to sellers out there than the survey shows. For example, a fee-based practice in Boston bringing in $250,000 in income and 70 percent recurring revenue would get between 50 to 70 interested buyers in less than a week," Diana Britton wrote in Wealth Management.

"Despite the high ratio of buyers to sellers, practices are not going to go to the highest bidder, Grau said. Instead, sellers look for buyers who are as good or better than they are but are twice the size. They then look at best geography and lastly, price and terms of the deal."

How To Use Dynasty Trusts To Protect Your Assets (Wall Street Journal)

Dynasty trusts were once used to ensure estate-tax exemption in case of a client's passing, but they have lost favor more recently, writes Scott Leonard founder of Navigoe LLC in a WSJ column. Dynasty trusts are also very useful in asset protection. "If a client dies, and their children who are the beneficiaries of the trust lose a lawsuit, the trust cannot be forced to pay. If a surviving spouse remarries and tries to disinherit the beneficiaries, the trust prevents that, too," Leonard said.

He said dynasty trusts also protect against legal loopholes and changes made to the estate-tax exemption. "It's an emotional, time consuming process," he writes. "A lot of times, clients don't want to set up the trust in a way that makes it seem like they are ruling from the grave. However, dynasty trusts can be written with a great deal of flexibility to ensure that future beneficiaries have substantial control over the trust provisions."

SEC Will Vote On Requirements For Prime Money Funds To Float Share Price Value (Bloomberg)

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is planning to impose new requirements for money-market mutual funds. These new rules are to prevent runs similar to those in during the 2008 financial crisis. The SEC is expected to vote on July 23.

"The plan would require prime institutional funds to float the value of their share price, traditionally set at a stable $1, which makes them a popular place to park cash. It also would require funds to impose a 1 percent fee on redemptions and permit them to temporarily suspend withdrawals when liquidity drops below required levels," Dave Michaels from Bloomberg reported.

"The plan is intended to make money funds, which manage $2.5 trillion in assets for retail investors and corporations, less vulnerable to investors fleeing funds during a crisis. The rule wouldn’t apply to retail funds or those that predominantly invest in U.S. government and municipal securities."

Schwab Study Finds RIA Firms Are Growing In Revenue And Strategy (Financial Planning)

According to the Schwab Advisor Services' annual RIA Benchmarking Study, median RIA firms' assets under management are growing at an annual rate of 12.8%. Firm revenues are growing at 13.6%. The study showed that RIAs are also focused on strategic management.

"On one critical front, succession planning, it found that 49% of RIA firms have a formal plan in place -- up from 44% last year. And 61% firms have executed a strategic plan, compared with 52% of firms last year. Many owners of larger RIA firms are also hiring professional management to run the day-to-day operations of the firm. According to the study, 47% of firms with over $1 billion in AUM have a chief operating officer," according to Andrew Pavia at Financial Planning. "The most popular growth strategy, cited by 80% of RIA firms in the study, is using referrals -- with 41% of firms relying on client referrals and 39% turning to business referrals."

The Two Problems With Trying to "Fed-Proof" Your Portfolio (BlackRock)

Investors have been preparing their portfolios for rising interest rates since the Federal Reserve's tapering announcement in May 2013, BlackRock's Del Stafford said. However, this "Fed-Proof"ing approach is leading to some unaccounted risks.

"There are two main problems with the new allocation," Stafford said.

1. "It increases correlation to stocks. One of the most important aspects of fixed-income investing is that it helps diversify the portfolio from the behavior of equities. But this is not true for all bonds. The returns of a high yield index, such as the Markit iBoxx USD Liquid High Yield Index, have a correlation of 0.74 when compared to the Russell 3000 Index—even a 15% percent high-yield allocation will increase the original portfolio’s correlation to 0.42. This is a considerable jump from where it was before—zero on a historical basis."

2. "It increases sensitivity to credit spreads. Investors adding high-yield bonds expose themselves to greater credit risk—that is, the chance that spreads will change between securities and their reference points (like Treasuries). The 15% addition of high yield to the portfolio leads to almost a four-fold increase, from -0.41 to -1.60, in sensitivity to credit spreads, increasing the risk that the investor could lose money."

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GUEST POST

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Every advertiser should add mobile to their marketing mix – period. Mobile increases the overall performance of campaigns across all channels. In a recent study, we found that consumers who see ads in multiple channels convert 24 percent more often than those who see them in one channel.

The cross-channel impact of mobile speaks to how critical it is to approach mobile as an integrated part of a broader marketing campaign, not just as an isolated channel. But many marketers dive into mobile with too much focus on mobile-specific tactics, such as the ability to target users in very specific locations through hyper-local targeting. Often this hyper-local approach can do campaigns a disservice, deteriorating the intended results.

Goals – not technology – should drive your strategy

When planning mobile campaigns, many marketers get excited about the possibilities for targeting based on the inherently “on the go” nature of the devices. Yes, it is possible to target consumers right when they are near your store or are in a vicinity that indicates a particular state of mind. But just because you can target using proximity to create relevance doesn’t mean that you should. What are the goals of your campaign? Is there a location-based call to action in the ad you are delivering?

Mobile is tantalizing for marketers precisely because individuals are always within reach of these devices. But as with any targeting, there is always a tradeoff between specificity and reach. If your mobile campaign is essentially about general acquisition, you’re probably better off going broad rather than zeroing in with a geofence. A smarter approach might be to leverage the traditional location targeting that may be in place in other channels – by country, state, city, etc. – instead of taking it down to the granular level of geofencing. Similarly, if the creative assets you are delivering are intended for a wide audience and are not tailored to a specific location, there’s not much value in geofencing. In that case, you are much better off focusing on who your audience is rather than where they are.

Define your range

When you do need to reach your audience in a precise location, you need to define what exactly you mean by precise. Whether you are a national reseller trying to drive people to a local distributor or a brand running a regional campaign or tapping into a local fan base, carefully defining the size of your geotargeting radius is critical. Once again, this is the tradeoff between reach and specificity. How close to your location is too narrow to capture enough audience? How far is too far away for your audience to take the intended action?

Let location inform content

Once you’ve defined the range of a campaign, incorporating precise location into the creative of a campaign can be a powerful way to make ads more actionable and relevant. Mobile users are task oriented and typically want to complete mobile activities quickly, so tailoring creative based on location can deliver helpful content. For example, include the option to tap a map to find the nearest store, or click to highlight the nearest location and store hours from a web list.

Think location AND…

Often the best use of geotargeting comes in combination with something else, from site visit data for retargeting to dayparting. Combining location with context and daypart allows you to deliver highly relevant messages to the right person at the right time and in the right place. For example, a marketer can create a segment for in-market car buyers that consist of consumers within the proximity of auto dealers in Los Angeles, between the hours of 10am to 5pm, and that have recently accessed auto-oriented sites or apps. By layering the different data sources on top of a geotargeted campaign, you can interact specifically with consumers that have already signaled their intent in multiple ways. Mobile can be an excellent tool for broad acquisition, and combining these layers of additional data allows marketers to then drive targets deeper into the sales funnel.

Mobile doesn’t always mean “on the go”

As we all know from our own use of mobile devices, targeting a consumer on mobile does not necessarily mean targeting them when they are moving around town. Tablet use, for example, spikes during the hours when people are typically at home. By combining dayparting with geotargeting, retailers can tailor their mobile campaigns to hit the right tone with their audience. For example, if a retailer is having a big sale at a local location soon, they can target users that are browsing on their phone or tablet while relaxing on the couch in the evening. They might leverage location by adding a call to action to find the hours of a local store, or segmenting their ads based on local seasons and weather – targeting winter coats to the northeast and milder attire in the south, for example – or promoting tropical destinations to snow-bound customers. It’s not just that they are nearby that makes them a good target, it’s also the current mindset.

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes

One of the quickest ways to evaluate if a geotargeting mobile campaign is the right approach is a simple “gut check.” If you were that consumer, what would it take for you to see and act on an ad? If you are out running errands, what are the chances you are even going to be doing something on your phone that would allow you to see that ad? Are you at home relaxing or trying to get somewhere in a hurry?

Mobile devices have provided tremendous opportunities to engage with consumers in new and innovative ways. Taking advantage of mobile-specific capabilities such as hyper-local targeting as an integrated part of a broader marketing campaign, marketers can run successful mobile campaigns and drive results in all channels.

Maureen Little is SVP of business development at Turn. 

 

 

It has been talked about time and time again – the world of marketing has changed fundamentally in recent years. It is safe to say that if a marketer from the pre-internet era took a time machine to the present, he or she would have no idea what marketers are doing. Apart from not knowing what a computer is or how it is used, social media and digital marketing in general would be totally foreign to them.

Even the most “modern” marketer often struggles to keep up with the blistering pace of change in our field. New platforms, software, channels, and tactics are popping up everyday; it can be a huge challenge to fully embrace them and figure out the best way they can be leveraged for marketing purposes.

As human beings, we automate processes everyday. Our own nervous system – e.g., the Autonomic Nervous System, completely automates our breathing, heartbeat, and other functions of our bodies. You could say that automation is in our DNA.

“Automation” tends to have a negative connotation in the marketing world – there is a fear that too much automation will make our jobs obsolete, or turn marketing into a soulless job where everything is done by machines. In the extreme form, people worry about automation eventually creating machines that are too smart, can think on their own, and will take over the world (à la Terminator).

No, Skynet isn’t coming to get you with its automated marketing software. Tools like Marketo provide valuable features that marketers absolutely need. The tasks that programs like Marketo offer are literally impossible for a marketing team to do on its own – there isn’t enough time in the day! The truth is, we need these marketing automation tools; without them we would have an extremely difficult time ensuring that the right marketing content reaches the right people at the right time.

But what about social media?

Given the name “SOCIAL media,” one might think that automation is incongruous. However, this is not entirely the case. Automation doesn’t necessarily mean that you carry out a “set it and forget strategy” – at least not for all aspects of social media. In reality, there are aspects of social media that have to be automated, or else you will not be able to apply the necessary resources to be sufficiently active in all your social communities.

It’s important to understand that social media marketing should not be completely automated. Social media has become the great equalizer, a platform where people from all over the world can communicate with each other in a way that has never been possible before. That kind of person-to-person communication, and the emotional aspects of it, can never be automated. And, even if it was possible to automate it, I would never do it.

So what does social media automation really mean? I am glad you asked.

It is not about putting out computer generated posts that have no relevance, nor is it about setting automatic responses based on certain keywords – these practices can often seem spammy.

And, in fact, they are.

Social media automation is about the ability to identify content that is relevant to your community and schedule it out in advance. It is about taking limited resources and maximizing the effectiveness of their efforts. Most of all, it is about establishing yourself and your company as a valuable source of information and a purveyor of engaging conversation on your social channels.

Why You Should Automate

Some companies have a marketing team of 20 people, while some (like us) have a marketing team of two. For the latter, it is crucial that each person on the team apply his or her limited resources in the most efficient way possible. Often times, failing to do so can lead to poor performance in certain areas of your marketing mix. For this reason, automation plays an incredibly important part in many marketing teams’ strategy – including ours.

Automating marketing tasks will increase the effectiveness of your marketing activities exponentially; it will allow you to identify the best kind of content and distribute it to the right place and the right people. Automation will give you the extra horsepower you need to really catapult your company’s marketing to the next level.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+, and other platforms are all important channels for marketers to leverage. However, logging in to each one, writing posts (numerous times a day), checking messages, engaging in conversations, and measuring results can be tedious and time consuming. Automation allows you to forgo the minutia involved in social media marketing, allowing you to focus on what really matters.

What Should be Automated

Please remember that not all aspects of social media management should be automated – in fact, most should not. However, the tasks that should be automated are highly important, and by automating them you are significantly increasing the potential success of your social activities.

Scheduling Posts

Go big or go home. This is an important mantra for the modern digital marketer when it comes to social media. Having a large social presence takes time, resources, and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. Many companies make the mistake of not putting enough effort into social – tweeting once a day, posting to Facebook every few days, and LinkedIn a few times a week. In all honestly, you might as well not be on social media at all, given that this strategy is a waste of time.

In our experience, a company should publish at least 10 tweets and 1-2 Facebook Company Page updates per day. Additionally, employees in the company need to be highly active in LinkedIn Groups – not just one Group, but as many as possible. Publishing social posts on a large-scale, especially across various platforms and different times, can be difficult to nearly impossible. That is why automating these activities with the help of third party platforms is a necessity.

Platforms like Oktopost let you create a slew of social posts in advance, save them, and then schedule them out over a long period of time. This can be done for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and LinkedIn Discussion Groups.

Curating Content

The strategy of content curation establishes you and your social channels as a source of valuable information, which will keep prospects coming back. Additionally, it helps you develop thought leadership, and encourages readers to associate your shared content with your company. The most significant benefit of thought leadership is that when it comes time to make a buying decision, your target buyers will immediately think of your company as the best choice.

This practice can be extremely time consuming. Scouring the web manually, finding content, going back into your social channels, and copying and pasting the link can take up valuable time and resources. Automating the content curation process should be done in a way that doesn’t detract from the authenticity of your shares. That is to say, setting up an automatic posting of everything that comes through an RSS feed is not an effective content curation strategy.

Having a third party platform that helps bring valuable content – which has been chosen based on how effective it will be in bringing clicks and conversions, as well as having the ability to easily share this content and schedule it out in advance, is a priceless resource.

Automating content curation should be done in a way where content is manually chosen and then sent to a queue to be published during scheduled time range – this can be done by reviewing to a list of suggested content at the beginning of your workday and simply choosing said content and adding it to your queue. When doing this, make sure to not just use the title of the article you are sharing as the social content within your post. Instead, add your own unique message to it and enrich the content consumption experience.

What Should NOT be Automated

Engagement

Social media is supposed to be…. well, social! Therefore, it is important that real engagement take place on your social channels. Various platforms, no matter how technologically advanced their algorithms are, will never be able to mimic the genuine conversations that two humans can have. When such conversations are automated, it’s extremely easy for the other party to realize they are not speaking with another human being, but rather a computer.

Social Selling

Social selling refers to leveraging platforms such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and LinkedIn to forge connections with and gain insight on qualified prospects, while increasing brand awareness at large. Social selling enables companies to discover relevant sales opportunities, observe and understand prospects’ needs from up close, and promote brand reputation by distributing valuable and helpful content.

As with engagement, social selling should be social. If a prospect receives a message in their inbox that is clearly automated, the likelihood that they will respond positively is very low. There is no way to send an automated message like this without seeming spammy; therefore, all social selling should be done manually.

Outreach

Whether it is a result of social listening, keeping up to date with relevant writers, or identifying thought leaders, outreach is an excellent way to increase awareness. However, journalists in particular are sensitive to these types of emails. Even if the email is manually written, but done so in an impersonal way, you are not likely to get any sort of response. Even more so, setting automated responses and outreach programs will bear you no fruit. In fact, it will have the opposite effect – your outreach targets will see you as a spammer.

Creating Posts

What we now call “traditional marketing” consists of print advertising, branded magazines, catalogs, and direct selling. The modern-day marketer has adopted a completely digital strategy that deviates from these methods and focuses almost exclusively on digital content.

The “new” marketing content consists of eBooks, white papers, blog posts, and webinars – and the Internet is considered the primary conduit for its distribution. Moreover, the social age has turned social media into a strategic channel for content distribution.

Following this logic, social message creation also entails the same steps as traditional content creation. Namely, when creating the content for your social posts, you must follow the same rules as creating other types of content. Just as you wouldn’t automate the creation of content for a blog post, automating the creation of content for social posts will significantly detract from its effectiveness.

Marketing automation is an integral part of any part of modern marketing mix for any industry. Since there is so many tasks required of marketers these days, automation tools must be used in order to fully maximize all marketing channels. Given the risks of automation being perceived as spam, it’s important to only automate certain aspects of your marketing strategy. Sometimes, a human touch is still required.

About two years ago I wrote a blog post on Why BANT No longer applies for B2B Lead Qualification.  I was recently reminded of this post in a conversation and upon reviewing it, am more convinced than ever that this holds true. Given the environment in which we live as B2B Marketers, BANT  (Budget, Authority, Need and Timing) is not a trustworthy indicator of the qualification status of the leads.

In addition to the reasons I stated back in 2012, let me add a few more to those who still may have an issue with striking BANT from their lead qualification process.

1. BANT is not Aligned to a Buying Process

“I am in the sales accepted stage of my buying process” said no B2B buyer ever!  Yet organizations who use BANT as part of their qualifications stages use this at a certain funnel or waterfall stage as a way to determine if the lead should be passed on.  Truth is, the B2B buying process is hardly linear and trying to use BANT at a defined stage of an internal sales process runs contrary to the buyers approach.  Consider the following insight from the Demand Gen Report B2B Buyer Survey:

• 58% of buyers spent more time researching their purchase
• 51% spent more time conducted a detailed ROI analysis this year than last
• 41% of B2B buyers wait longer to initiate contact with vendors

So where does an organizations BANT qualification fit into that buying process? It doesn’t.

1. BANT Does Not Account for Buying Committees  

The approach to BANT qualification focuses on an individual not a buying committee – yes, I am aware that one of the questions is authority, but rarely will a B2B buyer provide the list of people who are on the buying committee and pave the way to the key decision maker(s) – this will happen once they have a good working relationship with sales.

Corporate Executive Board (CEB) has reported that there are now more than five people involved in a buying process and the Demand Gen Report study referenced previously has shown that 34% of companies have more people involved in the purchase process than last year.  Each one of these people have a different view of the purchase process and insert themselves at different times in the process.  BANT qualification does not account for this as it is focused on an individual not a committee of buyers

3.  BANT Does Not Support a Perpetual Demand Generation Approach 

When organizations think about Demand Generation they need to begin to think in terms of building a perpetual program as opposed to tactical campaigns.  As discussed on this blog previously, most B2B organizations are still in the practice of a campaign led – point in time – tactical approach to marketing.  This is where BANT is used most often, because you have that one time (insert email campaign to promote a white paper here) to capture that prospect, get their information, and call them in the hopes to qualify them to pass to sales.

However, when building a strategic perpetual program that aligns content to the discrete stages in the buying process and provides a “what’s next” pattern that Engages, Nurtures and Converts the buyer according to their purchase path. There is no room for BANT as that becomes the job of sales, not marketing.

When you plan your demand strategically and map the content to the buyers buying process, you are then able to qualify them more accurately and progressively as a dialogue has developed between vendor and buyer.  This approach not only takes into account the demographics of the buyers, but also their behavior – how they are engaging with your demand generation content.  This approach provides a more comprehensive view of the buyer(s) and allows reps to have a more substantial and fluid conversation.

Figure 1 – ANNUITAS Progressive Profiling – Qualification Example

 

One of the key objectives of demand generation is to provide quality leads to sales. However, trying to do the job of sales during this process is a fool’s errand and does not align to the buyer.  If you are using BANT as part of the lead qualification process, it is time to re-think this approaches the buyers of today are far too sophisticated for those antiquated methods of qualification.

Author: Carlos Hidalgo @cahidalgo CEO and Principal, ANNUITAS 

 

At Compile, like most companies these days, we prefer an open office where engineering, sales and operations sit side-by-side. As a result, I am now spending a lot of time with developers (they will helpfully point out that this keeps me grounded in reality!).

In some ways it’s the classic yin and yang: methodical programmer versus instinctive marketer. But moving beyond the stereotypes, it seems to me that sales and marketing has evolved from a “gut-driven” discipline to a more “data-driven” science.

Whether it’s A/B testing your outreach, measuring lead conversion or tracking prospects, everything we do can be tracked and measured. So even though I’ll not admit it in front of the developers, there’s a lot we can learn from engineering. For instance, the concept of GIGO or garbage in, garbage out. This is a central tenant in computer science which says that a machine is only as good as the data you put in — the smartest computer will spit out nonsensical output if you feed it nonsensical input.

It’s the same with your sales pipeline. Your organization may have a great sales machine and well-defined processes, but if you feed your team bad leads, your conversions will be low. Besides losing revenue by tying up your sales team, poor leads demotivate even the most efficient and dedicated reps. And no amount of process or people optimization can undo the damage of a bad lead.

Leads that result in a sale

That’s where we come in. Compile delivers only those leads where a prospect has a clear need for your product or solution area. These aren’t static email ids and phone numbers; leads identified by Compile represent live opportunities. Each lead includes relevant background information, allowing you to tailor your product pitch to the customer’s specific problem. So how can you integrate Compile’s lead stream into your sales work flow? It’s a simple 3-step process. Assume you are responsible for demand generation at FIFA Network Security, a technology vendor that builds I.T. security products. You want to target customers that are interested in protecting their networks from security breaches and malicious attacks.

Step 1: Map your prospect profile

When you first sign-up for the service, we ask for details on your target customers.

• Are you interested in a particular segment, e.g. federal government, higher education, or perhaps the Global 2000?
• Are you focusing on organizations of a certain size?
• What are the keywords that best describe your product?

For FIFA Security keywords such as “cyber security”, “data breach”, “firewall” might be appropriate.Using this information, we tune our lead engine to your specific requirements and deliver a regular stream of opportunities.

A typical opportunity identified by Compile is shown below.

Step 2: Integrate with your sales workflow

The lead stream that is routed to your sales reps can be consumed in a variety of ways. You can access the leads using our sales intelligence dashboard, get notified by email alerts and/or directly incorporate Compile into your sales workflow by integrating it with your CRM or marketing automation tool. The choice is yours and we have all the tools to make it seamless and easy.

Step 3: Tailor your outreach

Finally, even the freshest, juiciest leads need good salesmanship to convert. Our experience, validated by our customers’ experience, is that prospects react positively to a product pitch that is tailored to their specific pain-point. So whether leaving a voicemail or connecting live, take 30 seconds to review the excerpt provided with each lead. Now, when you speak with or email the prospect, you can let them know upfront that: •

• You are calling based on your knowledge of their specific need and situation, not just working through a list of names.
• You know who you are calling.
• Your company is a leader in solving the prospect’s issue and you’d like an opportunity to share more information.

Convincing someone to buy your product isn’t easy, especially when you are competing in a crowded space. But you can improve your odds by:

1. Identifying your prospects early
2. Reaching the decision makers
3. Appearing relevant and genuine

And that’s where we can help.

Bio: Shailesh Chitnis (@shaileshchitnis) is responsible for marketing at Compile, a lead generation service that uses text analytics to identify prospects early.

Studies keep confirming that email marketing is an effective way to reach prospects and deepen relationships with current customers.  So —- why do some email marketing campaigns fall flat and others create wonderful ROI?  Let’s look at some of the statistics found in Slideshare presentation from NewsCred.com called “50 Stats You Need to Know About Content Marketing”.

While the article is about content marketing in general, many of the observations apply directly to your email marketing efforts.

Useful Content

When asked by the research team, 90% of consumers found that custom content was useful to their buying decision.  The buyers want to be educated and informed before they make any purchase.  Sending an email with a link to useful content develops a deeper trust level in their minds.  In fact, 70% prefer to get to know your company from articles – rather than from your advertising.  The believe (78%) that an organization that provides custom content is interested in building a good relationship with them.

SEO and ROI

Smart companies post content on their website or blog and then point their emails to their site with a hyperlink.  53% of them report that it is the single most effective SEO tactic in their marketing arsenal.  They also report that marketing with useful content costs 62% less than traditional marketing.  In terms of ROI, they report that content generates three times as many leads as traditional marketing.

Open Rates

No matter how many times you edit to refine the content of your email, it is a waste of time unless the email is opened.

Think about the emails in your own inbox. Which ones are always opened?  The ones you get from friends and family are the first ones to be read, right?  What can you send people that they consider friendly and not promotional?

Emotional connection is the key to getting your emails read.  While you can’t imitate the connection a person has with family and friends completely, you can learn from those relationships.  The content of your emails creates an image of you as friend or foe.  Are you sending them emails with the obvious purpose to sell something?  Or do your emails offer something highly valuable to them?

Relationships run their course and will often fizzle out over time.  This is true with friendships and with your relationship with your email subscribers.  Target your emails to a person and stop thinking of them as a subscriber only.

Unsubscribes

It can be disheartening to work so hard to develop an email list and then be hit with unsubscribe requests.  If the email recipient prefers to learn about a company via email, why do they decide to leave your list?  Here is a quick list offered by eZanga:

1. Email overload is sited as the most common reason
2. Poor subject lines
3. They are bored with your content
4. Content is irrelevant to them
5. They were never a good lead for you
6. Things have changed
7. Another company markets better
8. Email doesn’t display correctly

The goal is to make your email marketing become more useful over time.  When the recipients find value in the emails you send, it can be the strongest effort you make to earn new business.

Your business blog can be a very valuable marketing outlet when it is set up and utilized correctly. Many business owners create great content and post it to their blog expecting it to just automatically translate into a flood of visitors and sales. You could have the best content on the web, but if your blog content isn’t presented to your audience in the right manner they are not going to be excited or interested in what you have to say.

Let’s discuss three common mistakes most business blogs make, and what you can do to make sure you avoid these blog-killing mistakes.

1. Your Publishing Schedule Lacks Consistency

Take a look at some of your favorite blogs that you read on a regular basis. Do they constantly have new content each time you visit them? What if you visited your favorite blogs a few times only to find no new content. Would you continue to visit the website? Probably not, because there isn’t a consistent publishing schedule. Instead, you would probably find a new outlet for your information that is updated on a consistent basis.

Before you say that you don’t have time to produce content or have trouble thinking of topics to blog about check out these blog content ideas and content suggestions. Call on your employees to produce content on a weekly or monthly basis. This is a great way to source great content topics.

Stay on schedule: You need to pick a publishing schedule for your business blog and stick to it. In order to accomplish this you need to set aside a specific time slot each week and dedicate that time 100% to your blog. Don’t make excuses or put it off. If you break your schedule just once you are proving that your business blog is not important.

Keep a list of fresh ideas: You will think of ideas all the time for your business blog, so make sure that you have a place to write down these ideas. This creates a huge idea pool that you can pull form when it comes time to write your blog content. Use a notepad, a whiteboard, or even a notebook app on your mobile or tablet device. Just make sure you have a place to quickly write down your thoughts.

Don’t be afraid to stir up controversy: Often times the most popular and most shared content will be your most controversial pieces. Blog posts that spark discussion and hit on touchy subject matters will often attract the most responses, and this is great for traffic and social sharing. Many business owners don’t want to blog about touchy subject matters.

2. Your Business Blog Lacks Simple Social Sharing Options

Every piece of content that you create needs to be easily shareable. Consumers spend a large percentage of their free time on social media, so it presents you with a great opportunity to connect if your content is shared across the popular social networks.

Not only will highly visible social sharing buttons help to spark shares, but if your content is good and receives a lot of share the total number of shares will also help to encourage others to share it. Most people are very easy to influence, so if they see that a blog post has hundreds of shares they immediately assume that it is valuable information that should be shared. Often times many visitors will share first and then read second simply because they were influenced by the large number of shares the content has already received.

There are so many different social sharing plug-ins and easy to install code to select from, and many of them are highly customizable, allowing you to create social share buttons that match the look and feel of your blog.

3. Your Business Blog is an Eyesore

Now, this goes beyond just having a boring or ugly blog design. A bad design will kill your business blog before it even has a chance to take off, and publishing posts that are not formatted for the reader are going to hurt you even more.

Include images: It is a good idea to include at least one image per blog post, and also use images whenever you are trying to really drive a point home. Graphs, charts, infographics, etc are all a great way to enhance your blog posts. Images also are a great way to break up long blocks of text.

Format your blog posts for the reader: Make you blog posts very easy to read, breaking up your content into several small paragraphs and pieces of information, while utilizing heading text and bullet points to make the content simple to digest. Large blocks of boring text aren’t fun to read and can quickly cause your readers to bounce off your website.

Make sure your blog is easy to navigate: The goal of your business blog is to convert your readers into leads and sales. Someone reading one of your blog posts should be able to easily access all of your website pages. utilize your sidebar for opt-in offers and make sure your main menu is accessible from your blog posts. Make it easy for your readers to contact you.

A business blog can help your brand grow, so make sure that you aren’t making these three common mistakes. Set up and operate your blog correctly to get the most out of your published content.

The post 3 Common Business Blog Mistakes You Need to Avoid appeared first on Market Domination Media

Every B2B company wants to increase leads. You also want to increase the number of quality leads that come to you, right? Marketing without a plan just won’t cut it anymore. Not having a clearly-defined lead management process decreases your marketing ROI, creates more leaks in your sales funnel, and puts your relationship with leads and customers on shaky ground.

To be successful, you need a lead management plan that wins you more sales, plain and simple.

To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld in an episode of his sitcom, “You know how to get the lead, you just don’t know how to hold the lead.”

Image credit: NBC/Columbia/Castle Rock Entertainment

Through a formalized Lead Management process, you’ll create more educated buyers, understand their needs better, and ultimately win more sales. Here are four lead management practices that will help.

1. Add value to the market

From a plain marketing perspective, that means producing content that is useful to your target market. The cliche not producing content for content’s sake is very apt here. Each piece of content should talk about obstacles your market faces, and solutions to problems they deal with every day. Share informative case studies, articles, and blog posts with them produced by you and other marketers you respect. Plan your marketing program around this notion of being helpful and adding value, and you’ll start to see the effects in your leads.

2. Recycle your leads

This doesn’t mean taking leads who aren’t ready to buy and dumping them back at the beginning of your marketing cycle. It means having different marketing tracks for different types of leads: ones that are ready to buy, ones that are interested but not ready, and those who are just sniffing around for more information. That’s just a general list of lead types, your market might be different. The point is, understanding the types of leads you have will dictate the content you send them. Based on their needs, either Marketing or Sales needs to take up the baton and start working with them. The content each team uses for them will be different. Appropriate content for the appropriate lead at the appropriate time.

3. Listen to your leads

B2B buyers want to deal with people they know, like, & trust. Which means building a relationship with them as they move through your sales/buying pipeline. Just like any relationship, you’ve got to understand what they want. Do that by listening to them. Learn more about their needs and obstacles, and then tailor your content to those topics. How do you do that? By monitoring your website clicks and searches, keep track of social media shares, find out about phone calls to Customer Support and Sales, etc. And that’s just the online listening. Engage with them at conferences and events you participate in. Sit in on webinars and sales presentations. There are so many ways to listen to your leads. How are you doing it?

4. Play well with others

Sure, this may be obvious when talking about external contacts, but what about internal ones? Is Sales and Marketing collaborating efficiently? Or at all? Having the right processes and procedures in place to let your internal groups work together and collaborate well can work wonders for your Lead Management program. For example, understanding how your organization hands off leads to Sales can help shape your marketing program. Knowing if Customer Support passes on popular questions to Marketing to address in future content is important. Think about creating a Lead Management Working Group with members from all the groups that do it is a good idea. There employees can share information, strategies, and processes.

Your turn

What Lead Management activities do you use for success? I’d love to hear about it.

Develop your brand’s reputation through thought leadership by adopting a PR-driven inbound marketing strategy.

Everyone wants to be a thought leader these days. What was once an off the cuff phrase – coined twenty years ago – has evolved into a strategic ambition. Thought leaders are those deemed to be exceptional in their field, people who lead the way and set the agenda. It’s traditionally a title that’s awarded, rather than pursued.

But by taking a public relations consultancy driven approach to growing your reputation with inbound marketing, you can grow your brand’s reputation for thought leadership. You can then reap the rewards of being positioned at the cutting edge of your industry.

What is thought leadership status?

People become known as ‘leaders’ because of what they say and do. They are respected for standing up for their convictions and for setting the bar. They are people that others look to for inspiration and, when needed, to step up and lead the charge.

But you can’t be a leader if no one is following you. That’s why the ‘thought’ part is just as important. In thought leadership terms, you have to have something of value to say if you want to have followers. You have to take a stand for what you believe in, to challenge the status quo and to offer answers that cut through the malaise. To do this successfully you need to be able to express your message with style and conviction.

Thought leadership isn’t a vague title anymore. It’s now quantifiable

Whether it’s in business, politics or culture, identifying the current thought leaders is a modern day obsession. You’ve got Time’s Person of the Year, Forbes’ World’s Most Powerful People List and the Thinkers50 website all vying to define the movers and shakers in their fields and why they are people with influence that others look to for sage advice.

The fascination with thought leadership and identifying the icons of ideas, has spread to the online world. Tools like Klout and Kred can be used to identify who are the bloggers, Tweeters and social sharers with the most influence. You can use these tools to gauge your brand’s own level of influence and how much work needs to be done before you can claim thought leadership status.

Thought leadership can offer rich rewards for your reputation and profit margin

The halo of authority that comes from thought leadership can work wonders in enhancing your brand, reputation and legitimacy. It creates the perception of being at the cutting edge, of being the go-to expert for new ideas and fresh perspectives on overcoming modern challenges. You become known as the company with ideas on taking the steps forward which have others stumped. This leads to attracting more customers, business opportunities and a boost to your bottom line as a result.

But to gain these benefits, you first have to be able to spread your brand’s ideas and underlying message to your marketplace. This requires acting like a public relations consultancy in promoting inspiring and valuable content with your name attached.

How to achieve thought leadership with inbound marketing

As mentioned, thought leadership status can be pursued by adopting an inbound marketing strategy. The first step is to identify what your guiding principles and message is going to be. Rather than add your voice to the hubbub, take a stand and break out of the echo chamber. Publish compelling insights and arguments that address industry challenges and offer solutions where others are scratching their heads.

Then adopt a public relations consultancy approach to targeting your messages at bloggers, journalists and existing thought leaders with large followings and influence, as well as all the relevant forums and media networks. After throwing your messages out like a net you can then reel people into your website to get subscribed to your inbound marketing machine. This will then feed them a steady flow of content that informs, educates and reinforces your eligibility for thought leadership status.

Key takeaways

• Thought leadership is a title that can be pursued, rather than merely aspired for.
• With an inbound marketing strategy you can spread your reputation and reach.
• Having a ‘thought’ worth sharing is vital if you want to be seen as a ‘leader’.
• Use PR promotion tactics to promote your thoughts and ideas.
• Target your messages at key influencers, forums and networks to get them spread and to reel people back to your website for more.
• Setup your inbound marketing machine ready to convert visitors into subscribers, leads and sales.

So, what next?

Add credibility to your thought leader status by getting your brand story heard in the guide: How to tell your brand story in the changing media environment

 

This article was first published on the Tomorrow People blog.

Chrome: When you collaborate on a project, you may need to have documents approved by other team members. Workflows is an add-on for Google Docs that brings this feature to Google's online office suite.

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Canada’s companies have been prime targets for ambitious foreign firms in recent years — witness Mexican baker Grupo Bimbo’s $1.8 billion offer for Canada Bread, or Mattel’s move to compete with LEGO via a $460 million bid for Mega Brands.But Canuck firms have actually bought more than they’ve sold in the past decade, according to M&A International.

Between 2004 and 2013, Canadians acquired 4,787 foreign-owned businesses, against 3,544 domestic firms flogged to outsiders. The net M&A gap is particularly high in the last five years:

High-profile corporate battles over the likes of Rona and Allergan may create the impression that Canadian companies are under siege from a horde of ravenous foreign conglomerates. But Canadian firms are clearly holding their own, and Howard E. Johnson, president of M&A International, said the perception gap is caused in part by the media. “When there is a takeover of a major Canadian company, it tends to hit the front pages of the news, as opposed to the acquisition by a Canadian company of a foreign entity, which tends to be more in the business section of the news,” he noted.

Canadian firms have shown a marked preference for stuff over services — over 25% of acquisitions in the past decade has been in the raw materials sector:

Johnson believes the rebounding U.S. economy and continuing globalization will mean a continued acquisitive frenzy from Canadian firms, with banks and pension plans showing renewed appetite for overseas opportunities. And 2014 could be a banner year for company buying:

Much of the recent M&A activity has involved retailers and consumer products, but the experts are now seeing activity shift back to the resource sector. For years, mining and energy companies have been cutting costs and retrenching; lately investors have been asking where their growth is going to come from, says Paul Knight, vice-chairman at Barclays Investment Bank.

READ: Why 2014 could be the year of M&A for Canadian investors »

Canadian governments have been criticized for having a protectionist attitude about domestic companies and for fuzzy regulation structures that confuse prospective foreign investors. How true that is depends on your frame of reference, Johnson suggested.

“We tend to use the United States as a barometer, based on our proximity and the amount of business we do there,” he said. “I think certainly Quebec in particular has been quite adamant about the protection of its home-grown companies, and a lot of this does get politically driven. Whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing for a company to get taken over depends on the fact-specific circumstances.”

READ: Is Canada closed to foreign investment? »

And who is doing the buying may be just as important as what is being bought: a survey by the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada last month found that Canadians prefer their state-owned acquirers to come from traditional trading partners and allies.

READ: Here are the countries Canadians wouldn’t trust to take over our businessess »

Corporate deals are at their highest level since the recession, and Canadian companies will continue to look to emerging markets to fuel their growth. Expect to see the maple leaf flying from a few more corporate headquarters in the coming months.

The post When it comes to foreign mergers, Canadians buy way more companies than they sell appeared first on Canadian Business.

In Part 1, I looked at what could be behind Facebook’s acquisition of WhatsApp and subsequent purchase of Oculus Rift. How are these seemingly different acquisitions related? There is no question that both Facebook and Google are in a race to build the next-generation computing/communications platform (after mobile) and the battle lines are being drawn between the over-the-top (OTT) players and telecommunications companies. After all, both Facebook and Google count on telcos to deliver services to their customer base. How will the WhatsApp and Oculus Rift acquisitions shape Facebook and impact the rest of the market including Google and mobile? Facebook did not pay $19 billion for WhatsApp simply because it’s an SMS replacement, a Skype and Twitter competitor, because it could grow its international subscriber base, or could attract customers among the coveted millennial demographic – although these reasons are icing on the cake. Facebook’s WhatsApp acquisition was a shot across the bow to telcos: we will be masters of our own destiny and not be reliant on you to reach our customers. With the addition of voice calling to WhatsApp, this puts even more pressure on mobile providers who are already feeling the heat from WhatsApp, which has cost them billions in lost SMS revenue. Now, they have to worry about an even bigger impact on their bread and butter voice business if that follows a similar pricing pressure trajectory. With an already 450 million strong WhatsApp subscriber base added to Facebook’s own customer base, Facebook has the ideal launch pad for the next-generation communications platform provided by Oculous Rift. While Facebook and Google have similar business (new subscribers and advertising revenue) and personal (secure a place in the history books) motivation that is driving both companies overall strategy, their approach is quite different.

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Susan Cain’s book “Quiet” has provided wonderful insight to me, because I am an introvert. Cain’s core premise is that western culture overvalues extroverts and under-utilizes introverts. Introverts prefer less stimulation and quiet concentration. We listen more than we talk, think before we speak, and focus on relationships. Introverts focus on the meaning of events around us, while extroverts focus on the events themselves.

If I had to bet, the best marketers of tomorrow will likely be far more introverted than the average marketer is today. I would even argue that marketing needs more introverts—people who will spend more time listening than talking, reflecting deeply on meaning, and building fewer, deeper relationships.

Three fundamental trends will drive this.

First, as power continues to shift to the consumer, listening becomes a more valuable asset. Consumers have more products, brands, and retailers to choose from than ever. Pricing is much more transparent. And it is far easier to complain and talk back to brands, thanks to social media. According to Nielsen, nearly half of U.S. consumers use social media for that purpose. How leaders react to feedback is now paramount. The authors of a 2010 HBR article shared two test situations with introverted or extroverted leaders and tested how they reacted to proactive suggestions from employees.  The introverted leaders performed much more strongly and yielded better business results—14% higher profits and 28% higher productivity in the two test situations. In a world where consumers are increasingly proactive, introverted marketers may have the edge.

Second, advertising will continue to shift from advertiser monologues to dialogues–and even reverse monologues—as highly engaged consumers showcase their creativity and love for certain brands. Since introverts listen more than extroverts, it makes sense that introverted marketers will be more willing to loosen their control of their brands and listen to consumers for inspiration. As Cain recently noted, “An extrovert can quite unwittingly get so excited about things that they’re putting their own stamp on things and other people’s ideas may not bubble up to the surface.”

Finally, superconsumers—the top 10% of highly engaged consumers who can drive 50% of category profit—will continue to increase in importance and determine which brands win and which don’t. Superconsumers have always been important, but finding them is easier than ever via traditional marketing, digital marketing, and geographic/local marketing. This creates more time to engage in a deeper conversation with a few key consumers, something that introverts by nature prefer. Reflecting on fewer, deeper discussions increases the likelihood of uncovering emotional and life aspirational insights—the ones that create real pricing power.

Time will tell if I am right. But the more I’ve considered Cain’s praise for introverts, the more I’ve realized that during my career, some of the best marketers I’ve worked with have been introverts. One marketing vice president at a former client launched a new product quietly in a few select markets that came up as a result of quiet reflection as he listened to superconsumers, retailers, and his R&D staff. It grew to nearly $100 million in sales with minimal advertising support. This marketer eventually left the corporate world because he couldn’t stand the pontificating, posturing, and politics that are sometimes required in corporate America—behaviors that are probably due to the prevalence of extroverts in that world. He’s now a happy, thriving, and self-employed options trader—a profession that better suits his personality.

I also know of a crew of very talented marketers with a strong track record of success who left traditional marketing jobs for new roles within retail. They’ve found it to be an introvert’s paradise. They spend more time launching new brands and products than lobbying for resources. They spend more time listening and responding to their shoppers’ and consumers’ feedback about their new products in real time than telling them about the products in the first place. One of the telltale signs of success is that they built a $300 million new brand in a fraction of the time it would have taken elsewhere.

Of course, the conclusion is not that extroverts can’t be great marketers or that all introvert marketers will succeed. But hopefully the marketing departments of corporate America will become increasingly introvert-friendly. Introverts have traits that will be even more valuable for success in tomorrow’s world—and I, for one, am tired of seeing them leave marketing.

Empower Your Field Technicians with Information and Feedback

The face of field service has changed drastically from the traditional model. Once upon a time, when a company received a service call, a receptionist scheduled the field technician who arrived within an agreed upon window of time, fixed the problem, and moved on to the next job. This technician retained a remarkable depth of knowledge for a specific product line and could fix almost any problem on the spot.

But those days are behind us. Today, service delivery is managed on a global scale. Technology is complex and changing rapidly. Highly skilled technicians may be sent around the world. Customers have become accustomed to immediate solutions with 24/7service. And competition is such that costs must be watched and trimmed at every possible turn.

Highly successful field service organizations utilize upgraded technology and tools, sophisticated scheduling techniques, mobile information sources, high-level training strategies, and methods of communication unheard of just a decade ago. They gather information at all levels of customer interaction, using it not only to resolve technical issues, but to proactively forecast and allocate resources, evaluate the efficacy of their processes, and intercept possible service issues.

Information and Teamwork: Two Keys to Success

 

It has been said that it takes a village to raise a child. The same could be said about delivering quality field service to today’s customer! Information, along with insight and feedback provided by an extended family of team members, is necessary to maintain a well-oiled fleet of field technicians. Based on a recent study by the Aberdeen Group, here are some recommendations:

Ÿ The Mobile Technician: On-site mobile devices help technicians navigate the constantly changing landscape while on the go and out in the field. A wealth of “shared knowledge” and training is available via social networking sites and blogs. Up-to-the-minute reports on recalls, warranties, patches, regulations, work instructions and other solutions can be posted as they arise. One example of cutting edge technology is the prospect of using smart glasses , such as Google Glass. Field technicians may someday use them to quickly communicate with dispatch from anywhere, video chat to receive instruction from company experts, and have hands-free access to information while diagnosing and repairing a complex problem.

Ÿ Two-way Communication: Technicians in the field can also gather valuable data for “the team”. Is there an issue that engineering, design, sales or other technicians should know about? Additionally, real-time data provide useful metrics regarding the time and resources needed for each service resolution. Parts can be tracked immediately and seamlessly. The front office can use this information to communicate promptly and accurately with the customer regarding job status, completion forecasts, invoicing, etc.

Ÿ Listen to the Machine: Most equipment now provides maintenance data and can even warn of a possible failure. Technicians can and should have access to as much information as possible, prior to their visit, so that an issue can be resolved more swiftly. Top field service companies also tap into this data to proactively schedule preventative maintenance calls.

Ÿ Knowledge Transfer: Legacy among the workforce is vital, as well as money in the bank. Don’t assume that managers have all the answers. Develop processes whereby legacy experience is shared from technician to technician and region to region in order to build on the valuable body of wisdom acquired by those on the front line.

The Value of Insight and Feedback

Information gathered from service calls can be used to forecast service demand and allocate resources. It can also be used to analyze and improve processes. Top performing field service companies are constantly checking the success of their processes against metrics data provided from the field. By using data and feedback that is readily available, they can track the success of resource allocation forecasting, rate of “first-time fix” events, and customer satisfaction responses. This allows mangers to tailor training programs that specifically meet the needs of the field team while improving customer satisfaction.

In the previous post we discussed how to segment your customer base for lifetime value (CLV). In our fourth and final post of this lifetime value series, we’ll provide some recommendations for optimizing for CLV.

Once you have identified audience segments, you’ll want to investigate things like:

• Where are these people? What marketing channels do they cross?
• What messaging or value propositions are relevant to this segment?
• What are different ways that you can reach a customer within a particular segment?

The idea of optimizing for CLV is to achieve increasing profits from your existing customer base, or find new high-value customers.

Be channel agnostic when looking for marketing opportunities

When asking these questions, it’s useful to take a channel agnostic approach to your thinking. Instead of relying on data from one specific channel, you’ll want to incorporate data signals across different marketing channels like search intent, behavioral data, and audience characteristics, in addition to your own data, in order to paint a detailed picture of your high value segments and develop strategies to increase your customer CLV.

Once you have a good understanding of your high-value customers, you can start developing strategies to drive higher CLV. A few potential scenarios follow below:

Scenario 1 – Find new high CLV customers

A financial company could improve its acquisition efforts by refocusing its spend towards an acquisition channel that has proven to attract high CLV customers. Alternatively, it could also expand its reach by leveraging 2^nd and 3^rd party data to create look-alike audiences for additional targeting opportunities.

Scenario 2 – Reduce customer churn

An insurance company creates an audience segment for current customers with contracts expiring within the next 30 days in order to run a search retargeting campaign that ensures the brand has top that the brand is well represented when the user conduct relevant searches.

Scenario 3 – Increase repurchase rates

An online clothing retailer rolling out a new seasonal line could remarket its product ads on Facebook to customers who haven’t bought from the company within the past 6 months.

Scenario 4 – Cross-promote or upsell to potential customers

A home improvement retailer could look for opportunities to cross-sell to potential customers who’ve recently shown interest in home loans. Alternatively, the retailer could promote upsell opportunities to sell kitchen upgrades to customers who’ve recently indicated interest in or purchased a new appliance.

The possibilities are numerous. By taking basic customer lifetime value information, developing useful segments, and connecting that information with the customer data that you’ve collected or have access to, you can open up a number of new, interesting ways to make smarter marketing decisions and increase profits.

I recently had a really interesting chat with a former New-York customer service representative I met through Twitter. You can read the customer service and CSR stories she gathers at @RealCSRStories (I rarely tell people to follow someone but she really deserves some attention. So go ahead and click here to follow!).

I really like her vision of customer service and how she is trying hard to change it for better. The main idea that came out of our conversation was that too little attention is given to customer service representatives.

A lot of articles focus on how to make customers happy, but very few actually give the floor to customer service representatives. In fact most companies focus on customers and decide to ignore front line employees’ voice.

Why write about things companies don’t want to hear right?

Well that’s were I think many blog writers go wrong. There is nothing more engaging and powerful than a true story told by front line employees themselves.

So I decided to dedicate today’s article to a customer service representative’s story on how 90% of call centers fail at offering consistent customer service.

“How can you provide service consistency in an unstable call center environment?”

This question perfectly sums up the problem we discussed!

If you want consistent customer service, you first have to provide a stable work environment to your front line employees. This might sound obvious but most call centers still offer very unstable work conditions.

The issue of forever changing schedules

Constantly changing work hours are very common in call centers. This is a requirement of the industry, especially when service is delivered 24/7. Unfortunately, it makes it really hard for employees to have a long term vision for their job.

How can you plan a carreer when you don’t know what next week will look like?

Irregular work schedules can be handled well on the long term under the condition that employee still know what to expect. This means planning in advance to allow your employees to build a long-term vision.

You can for example plan regular shifts and have people working the night shift every 3 weeks. Their schedule will change but they will know what to expect. You also know that the holiday period is busier, so get organized in advanced!

Planning is the least you can do for employees if you want them to stay. Announcing a schedule 1 week in advance forces them to constantly live in the unknown. This causes causes a lot of stress for employees along with sleep issues. 80% of employees working irregular hours have trouble sleeping.

And what about planning your life outside of work?

Most of us have obligations planned a long time in advance. Divorced couples with shared custody for example can’t change their schedule last minute. Employees can’t have a regular group activity outside of work and many even struggle with having a fulfilling social life.

As John Zalusky, head of the office of wages and industrial relations at the AFL-CIO in Washington, points out that „After a while, your friends lose contact with you. There’s a higher incidence of divorces and juvenile delinquency”.

You are asking employees that have no consistency in their work or personal life to provide consistent service. It’s not only mission impossible, it’s a cruel thing to request from your employees.

The impact of a high turn-over

Turn-over costs your company a lot of money. It can cost you up to 1/3 of the yearly salary of the new employee.

But did you ever consider the effect it had on your employees?

Starting a new job is not easy. Any situation where you have to get to know new people isn’t easy. Imagine finally getting to know your colleagues only to find out that half of them plan to leave in the next few months. The process then starts all over again and you have to get to know and get used to working with new people.

The problem came up during our discussion and here’s what turnover looked like on a daily basis:

Consultant A “Where’s Mike today?”

Consultant B “I don’t know, he probably left”

Consultants didn’t even bother to tell their colleagues they were leaving. Apparently many of them even left for few days, then came black as if nothing happened.

Stop hiring numbers and start looking for skilled workers

Here’s how the recruiting process works in most call centers: “Can you legally work in this country? How many hours are you available? Ok you’re hired”

When you start hiring everyone who walks through your door, you just send out the message that the job doesn’t require any skills. How do you want your employees to feel valued in these conditions!

The call center environment is soul crushing, especially for people who have real social skills. In other words skills that are necessary to deal with customers. Why are call centers developing a work environment that will drive the most qualified employees away? Because they think it is cheaper, but mainly because it is easier.

It is not always cheaper to hire non-skilled workers on minimum wage. They end up costing you more in training and half of them would probably never be good at the job anyway. But is it easier? Yes. It’s always a lot easier to post a job ad and just decide you can hire any applicant that’s ready to start working now. It’s also easier to think “short-term” than to start planning “long-term”.

What could happen if you started treating customer service representatives as people?

Less employees would leave, therefore paving the way for a more consistent work environment. More stability for your workers would then allow them to offer more consistency to your customers. Yes, it’s that simple.

This article explains that workplaces where employees are the most engaged see a 2X higher customer loyalty.

Studies also found that a disengaged employee costs an organization approximately $3,400 for every $10,000 in annual salary.

And you know what drives engagement? (It’s not only about the money!) According to this article. The heart and soul of engagement is ownership. Employees have to feel like they are part of the company’s success. Not only YOUR success but their success as being part of the group. For that you need to keep your workers updated on what’s going on in your organization and most importantly you have to listen to what they have to say.

I’m not talking about going around and giving away one or two empty compliments like “Keep up the good job”, “Congrats on handling this call”. I’m talking about meeting with your employees and listening to their feedback. AND implementing some of the best ideas they have. Make them feel like they are contributing to their own success.

You can’t expect consistent customer service if you keep your employees in the dark

How can you expect your customer service employees to deliver good service if they are the last to know what’s going on in your company?

This is a very common mistake most companies make. They imagine that handing out a script will be provide the necessary knowledge to employees about their company. The problem is your company changes and a script can quickly become outdated.

An article came up recently featuring 2 posts by Amazon call center employees. The complaint was mainly about their rating system that’s unfair and seems to be designed to push them away. However there was also this very interesting part about how the new policy was implemented without them knowing:

This happens in thousands of call centers, a new policy is implemented without employees being notified. Therefore leaving them in the dark not really knowing how to act or what to say.

Inform front line employees about what’s going on in the rest of the company

It’s an excellent way to drive engagement but also a good way to make sure they know about your product. They are the ones talking to customers everyday, you have to give them the tools to WOW customers.

Consistent service isn’t about making sure everyone reads from the exact same script. It’s about pushing everyone towards excellence. An employee who’s proud of its company will always be better at selling a product that one who doesn’t care.

The key to consistent customer service excellence

Stop thinking about your customers and take a second to think about how you could provide consistency to your employees:

- have schedules rotating shifts (make sure people know what schedule to expect)

- listen to your employees and value their feedback

- aim for excellence not consistent but average service

- treat your customer service reps like people if you want them to do the same with customers

 

Now it’s your turn to shine! Share your own call center or customer service story with us in the comments.

And don’t forget to share the article. Customer service representatives deserve more attention!

Convincing consumers to download your mobile app is difficult — but losing their engagement with that app is easy. Research from Flurry shows that after downloading any given app, 25% of people will use it only once, and over half of all users will stop using the app after three months.

If a mobile app is part of your marketing mix, it’s critical to establish a strong path to conversion — one that users will adopt within the first few weeks. Users who do not engage with your app quickly are likely to uninstall and forget you forever.

Here are five ways to turn your app installers into power users and purchasers.

1. Build Trust to Onboard Effectively

New mobile users need to understand the value of your app — why is it a must-have? Make a great first impression with an informative splash page (an extra screen that pops up the first time a user opens your app). Use this prime real estate to guide the customer through your app’s top features, and to demonstrate the value of opting into push notifications.

Pro tip: On iOS, you are only allowed to officially ask for push permissions once. Don’t waste your only shot by asking for push permissions in a splash page. Instead, start with an informal ask, and only prompt them to the official permission page if they answer “YES.”

New users should also be motivated to create an account within your app. A Kahuna cohort analysis determined that users who have accounts are more likely to stay engaged, and have a higher lifetime value. Accounts also streamline the check-out process and greatly increases their likelihood to make a purchase. To encourage registration, use push or in-app messaging to remind your users of the benefits.

Pro tip: Send an informative notification that highlights the advantages of registering. For example: “Did you know that members have access to exclusive mobile deals? Create an account today!” Include a link to a ‘Sign Up / In with Facebook’ page within your app.

2. Provide Value to Encourage Engagement

Cultivate user engagement and retention by sending marketing messages with relevant, valuable content. Personalized recommendations, based on ‘last brand viewed’ or ‘most recent purchase’, provide value to your users and warm them to your mobile app experience. The key is to target specific segments of users and to incorporate personalization.

Generic push notifications are the junk mail of the mobile world, and do more harm than good. You never want your users to think, “I bet 10,000 other people got this exact same message.”

Pro tip: Use demographics combined with behavior to segment your audience. For example, you might send this push message to females who are between the ages of 18 and 24, live in California, and have recently viewed the ‘shorts’ category on your website or on your mobile app: “Hey ! It’s shorts season in , check out these styles from !”

3. Inspire Urgency to Drive Mobile Conversion

Once your users are engaged with your brand on mobile, it is time to start encouraging them to make a purchase. Research shows that 48% of users worldwide list mobile as a key media for impacting purchasing decisions (according to Mobile Marketing Watch). Develop a robust cart abandonment strategy that incorporates real-time customer behavior across channels (i.e. if a customer adds an item to their cart on desktop, mobile web, or through your app), and leverages push and in-app messaging to encourage immediate conversion. Make sure to customize your marketing message for each user by referencing the specific item waiting for them in the cart.

Pro tip: Test out several different versions of push message copy to see which one generates the most purchases. Low inventory alerts like this are especially effective: “Low inventory on ! Get yours today before they’re gone!” Just make sure any incentive message you send is true – mobile customers can sniff out a cheap marketing ploy a mile away.

4. Offer Social Proof to Cultivate Brand Loyalty

Encourage your customers to share on social – this is a great way to transform your customers into brand advocates, and to generate network effect organic user growth. Consider a VIP campaign or special promotion message to encourage your top mobile customers to spread the word to their friends.

Pro tip: Send a push message to your top purchasers: “Super excited about your new ? Let your friends know on Facebook and get 10% off your next purchase!” Not only does this expose your brand to new business, but it encourages repeat purchases from those top customers.

With a strong understanding of your users’ preferences and browsing patterns, it is easy to encourage them to purchase additional items when browsing. In-app messages are a great ways to communicate with your customers when your brand is already on their mind. But use in-app messaging wisely and sparingly — every in-app message you display takes away from your actual application. An in-app message is a pop-up message, and we have all seen these abused on the web.

Pro tip: Use in-app messaging to incentivize those active within your app to make an additional purchase. For example: “Hey , thought you might like these new arrivals from as well.”

5. Find the Right Rhythm to Retain Users

As you continue to engage with your mobile customers, prevent over-messaging by tailoring your push strategy to accommodate each user’s unique time of day preference and message frequency tolerance.

Pro tip: Track the number of app uninstalls as compared to the mobile revenue resulting from each message you send — so you can be sure your push messages are not annoying your users and you are comfortable with the complete ROI picture.

Key Takeaways

Making sure your app delights and engages your users is a high-stakes game. Today’s mobile shoppers are solidifying their app preferences, and your mobile communications must be strategic and personalized to win their allegiance. The reward is well worth it: making the cut brings with it a level of word-of-mouth marketing that will cause your organic app installs to skyrocket. Identify and optimize your customer’s path to engagement and purchasing, and ensure your app comes out on top in mobile commerce — the future of online shopping.

“Everyone talks about building a relationship with your customer. I think you build one with your employees first,” says newly appointed Senior Vice President of Retail at Apple Angela Ahrendts.

The more you invest in terms of genuine listening, sharing and engagement, the more likely it is that your relationships will thrive. This has always been true for personal relationships, and more so than ever, for the relationships businesses have with their customers, and particularly with employees.

The 2013 “State of the Global Workplace Report” from Gallup highlights that only 13% of employees are engaged at work. To find out which companies are best at engaging employees, we partnered with Brian Solis, Principal at Altimeter Group, to create a list of the most Socially Engaged Companies by using data of employee engagement on LinkedIn*.

Discover the full list and research conclusions here:

Investing in relationships through social media pays dividends

1. Top socially engaged companies empower their employees to be brand ambassadors

The most socially engaged companies leverage their core values to empower employees to be brand ambassadors. It all begins with authentic, meaningful engagement and content:

• 54% of engaged employees read content by their company through social media
• 40% cite their company’s social media communication as the source for keeping informed on important news
• 38% are more likely to share relevant company content with coworkers and customers when the company shares content in social media.

We also found that within socially engaged companies 50% of executives are more likely to encourage employee use of professional social media. And leaders lead by example – 52% of executives are more likely to actively create and share content.

2. Employees are more engaged and optimistic at top socially engaged companies

Employees of top socially engaged companies are far more optimistic than those of other companies we interviewed: 52% versus 41%. Additionally, 20% of employees are more likely to feel inspired based on how companies use social media to engage with them.

We also learned that social engagement builds pride among teams. 15% of those who are socially engaged are more likely to feel proud about the leadership of their company.

Socially engaged employees are not just connected to those in their own department, they also expand their networks to include other employees, customers, and prospects. 59% use social media to build relationships within the company.

3. Social media engagement contributes to competitive advantage

In addition to amplified engagement, pride, and communication, relationship economics play a notable role in building competitive advantage. From attracting top talent to closing sales deals, socially engaged companies are distancing themselves from conventional companies in their industries.

In a day and time when desirable talent is a precious commodity, socially engaged companies are prospering by holding on to coveted employees and winning over talented prospects. We learned that 20% of socially engaged companies are more likely to retain talent. More so, 58% are more likely to “feel LinkedIn has allowed their company to attract great new talent.”

Of course, we can’t discuss social without bringing out the inevitable question of return on investment (ROI). If you measure ROI by sales leads, we discovered that 57% of employees at socially engaged companies are more likely to “feel LinkedIn has allowed them to get more sales leads.”

Beyond the bottom line

As Brian Solis summarizes in his LinkedIn Influencer post:“When companies invest in relationships with customers, employees, prospects and partners, they reap benefits measured in competitiveness, profitability, loyalty, and advocacy. Beyond the bottom line, organizations also evolve into truly social businesses, where technology becomes an enabler for something of greater purpose, improved communication, connections, and collaboration between people.”

So what are you waiting for?

We designed a playbook specifically for top executives to enable deeper engagement with your customers, employees and peers on LinkedIn. Inspired and validated by the profiles of the most successful leaders on LinkedIn, the Executive Playbook outlines 12 key steps to empower you in your transition into professional social media. Download the Executive Playbook today.

*Methodology

LinkedIn and Altimeter Group conducted an online survey of two employee groups about their participation on the platform: a “target” (N=1,460) and a “control” (N=1,378) group. The target group respondents were from the top 100 most socially engaged companies on LinkedIn. The control group respondents were from the general user base of employees whose companies are on LinkedIn. Only companies with more than 1,000 employees were surveyed.

The Socially Engaged Companies were defined as those companies with the highest combined scores of Talent Brand Index, Content Marketing Index, Social Selling Index, and Employee Engagement on LinkedIn.