Rnordman

The concept of mindfulness in business is not new, but in this age of complexity it can’t be over-emphasized that we need more of it. Especially in social media, taking the time to actively notice what’s going on before engaging can lead to a more focused, enlightening and productive experience for everyone.

When you take time to really listen you’re gifted with new perspective on what’s happening around you. What your customers want. What your business and your family needs. What YOU need. You’re also more open to adapting your current beliefs by taking the perspective of others into consideration before you make decisions. This is a trait of many respected leaders. Thought leaders listen first and act thoughtfully and with more than average insight.

How does mindfulness manifest in a social business?
With a little focused attention you’ll quickly see the benefits.

• Better awareness of the needs of your market
• Seeing changes in the marketplace more quickly
• Responding to issues within your company or customer feedback online before things get out of hand
• Develop deeper relationships
• Greater awareness of what generates positive reactions to what you post online
• The ability to be generous with your knowledge and praise for others’

Doesn’t all this being mindful take too much energy?
Rather than an energy suck, being mindful can help you be more responsive and sensitive to what’s going on around you and spend less time reacting on auto pilot (and then repairing the damage). Instead of letting the cacophony of social media and business matters drive you, take control of what you allow to be important.

Knee jerk reactions to a flame war on Twitter are not going to make things better. Taking a moment to step back for perspective, creating a little space between your emotions and the keyboard can make a huge difference in how your business is perceived by others. Trust me, taking back negative comments posted in the heat of a flame war is going to be much harder than taking a breath, looking at things with a fresh perspective and responding mindfully.

I love this talk from Loic Le Meur at Wisdom 2.0. He says the more technology we have, the more we interact on social networks, get emails and text messages, the more we need to slow down. I agree wholeheartedly.

It’s about people, not numbers
So much of what we see businesses doing on social media these days is about building fans, follows, connections and leads. How many times do we have to tell you that being a social business is about relationships and not numbers? I want a brand to see me as a person, not fan #23,406,204.

Pure Matter’s Bryan Kramer says: “As our businesses become more complex, it’s up to all of us to work harder at humanizing our approach in everything we do. “ As social businesses interact more on a human level we can interact more naturally and listen to each other our own inner voices. Business people who practice mindful business and learn to listen and connect with those around them create deeper and stronger relationships. Mindfulness should be at the core of your strategy for a social business.

Demand Generation is one of the most critical components of B2B Marketing. And yet, demand generation skills are rare in B2B Marketers.

Marketing must be more than trade shows, logo colors and full-page ads. Marketing must drive sales for the business.

This post is the latest from my former colleague and demand generation partner Rob Krekstein. Rob is the Senior Director of Global Lead Generation at enterprise technology company Ventyx. Rob knows how to turn marketing investment into marketing ROI.

The Critical Ingredients Of Effective Demand Generation

The critical ingredient to growing your business is to ensure consistency and growth in your sales pipeline. Consistency and growth is derived through innovative lead generation programs and processes.

This article reviews some of those best practices which provide a recipe for you to create a repeatable and predictable revenue generator.

Specialize Your Teams, To Enhance Focus and Productivity

I believe in dividing up lead generation roles into four basic functions or themes:

1. “Inbound” Lead Qualification: They qualify marketing leads coming inbound through the website or Contact Me Phone #. The sources of these leads are marketing programs, search engine marketing, or organic word-of-mouth.
2. “Outbound” Prospecting: This function prospects into lists of target accounts to develop new sales opportunities. The Accounts can be a mixture of Prospect or Customer (for a new product). This is a team dedicated to creating and qualifying new sales opportunities that are passed to Account Executives to close.
3. “Account Executives” are quota-carrying reps who close deals. This Team is best split by Inside Sales (lower revenue deals, Volume Velocity Markets) and Field Sales (High Revenue Deals, On Site visits). This Team is comprised of High Powered “Closers” that Manage pipeline and accelerate to Close.
4. “Account Managers”: Client deployment and success, ongoing client management, and renewals. This is key for you to Protect your current Revenue streams as well as provide additional Customer References. A well taken Care of Customer is a happy customer

Emails Work, But Only If Created Correctly

In over 20 Years of Lead Generation, I have found that if you follow these hints Emails Do Work (9+% Conversion)

• No Sales Pitch: This is the most common mistake today, “Do you have these Challenges?….”, “Let us help you solve this problem…”, “ Our Product can do this for you…” These Emails are boring, they sound like the other 15 he received that day and will not generate you a response, especially from the C Suite. This is like meeting someone for a first date and leaning in for the kiss before you say “Hello”. Be patient !
• Be Specific: Keep the Email Short and Sweet. You have roughly 5-8 Seconds to grab someone’s attention and Paragraphs clearly have the opposite effect. Use strong simple statements.
• Referrals are the Key: Especially if you target the C-Suite You should be asking for one thing, A “Referral” to the correct person within the Company. The most difficult thing in Prospecting is finding the correct person to speak to, so let your Email do it for you. The trick here is to be specific enough about who you need to speak to but not selling your product or service

Be Certain Your Sales Process is Pulling Your Prospects Not Pushing

Sales People need to be Patient, move at the Prospects pace not yours:

Sales Stages: Critical to have a fully developed Sales Process with Milestones. Analyze your Data to understand the typical Sales cycle and Benchmarks, Discussion, Demo, On Site, Contracts etc..

Be Flexible: Remember no two deals are alike so you have to be able to move as the Prospect wants. Some like to move slower than others so you need to be adaptable to that. Never tell the Prospect the Next Step, ask Him or Her, what they would like next. Prospects prefer to feel like they are in control.

Conclusion

You MUST specialize your Teams. If you can’t specialize today, make a plan on how and when you can. You don’t need to be a huge company to be specialized.

Emails can be powerful and VERY Cost Effective. This is a low cost high yield Marketing Tactic, utilize it. Be sure that your emails are Succinct and Follow Best Practices. Put yourself in the recipient’s shoes, would you answer it ?

Pull your Prospects along. Train your closers to be patient. They should be working several Opportunities simultaneously so there is no need to panic. Let the Prospect feel in control.

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Duh! I should have used social selling! That quote is close to a Homer Simpson quote, but it is truly inspired by his friend and most unlikely Springfield salesman, Gil Gunderson!

Today’s sales person is being replaced by the self-educating customer using content and input they find on social media networks and via search. Some are becoming as useful as a highway toll collector. Unless, they figure out how to get ahead of the buying journey!

I Should Have Used Social Selling | Gil Gunderson’s Guide To Social Sales from Gerry Moran

Gil Gunderson needs to consider social-selling techniques before he’s going to make quota or written out of the Simpsons’ storyline! Here are ten lessons he would recommend.

10 Social Selling Lessons From Gill Gunderson

• 82% B2B decision-makers think sales reps are unprepared. Listen for sales triggers, conversation starters and customer connectors with social media to be more prepared and set a better first impression.

• 50% of identified sales leads are not ready to buy. Make sure you cultivate them with great content with your Twitter feed, LinkedIn updates and Group messages.

• 49.5% of LinkedIn users have an incomplete profile. Improve your social media profile’s curbside before you try to sell yourself as an expert to your customer.

• Today’s sales process requires 22% more time than five years ago. Don’t start using social selling on the last day of the quarter to make your sales-quota today!

• 90% of CEOs do not respond to cold calls or emails. Connect with customers on Twitter, in LinkedIn Groups and on blogs BEFORE you cold-call them; then it won’t be so cold!

• 75% of customers use social media as part of their buying process. You are not connecting on the customer’s terms if you don’t know how to tweet, ‘LinkIn’ or blog, then learn!

• 78% of salespeople use social media to outsell their peers. Quit breaking your back and use social to listen for social sales triggers, fine-tune your profile, build your reputation to connect with customers to successfully compete.

• 89% begin their buying process with a search engine. Make it easier to get found by your customers with social media and content.

• 57% of the buying process is done online. Use social selling techniques to connect with your customers before they walk in the door.

• 98% of sales reps with 5000+ LinkedIn connections achieve quota. Start to establish yourself as an expert in your field and increase the size of your network!

Do you have a social selling lesson to share? If so, then please note it below! Or contact me directly at MarketingThink.com or on Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+.

I can hear ol’ Gil say to his sales manager as he is trying to avoid receiving the wrath of his sales manager for not attaining quota “C’mon, help ol’ Gil out here.” If Gil only used some social selling techniques, then he’d be on top of the world, or at least Springfield.

I’ve been in the marketing and sales world for nearly 25 years, and have worked with hundreds of marketers. No matter their backgrounds (e.g., enterprise vs. startup, B2B vs. B2C, etc.), marketers most often ask me, “Why isn’t my demand generation more effective?” In my experience, the simple answer is “focus on your buyer.” In fact, most marketers will eventually admit:

• They don’t know their buyer well enough.
• They don’t understand the buying process well enough.
• They don’t have a content framework for communicating with the buyer.

But here’s the thing: Most of the companies I interact with know they need to improve in these areas. What they don’t know is how to do it. 

I won’t get into all the reasons why it’s important to know your buyers, define your customers’ buying process, or ensure your content meets their needs. (There’s plenty of research to support those points.) Instead I’ll share practical tips to help with the how. Whether you’re a novice marketer who doesn’t know where to start, or a seasoned marketer looking for an edge to boost effectiveness, these practical tips should be of help.

The entire process is organized into three distinct sub-processes:

1. Develop a buyer persona.
2. Define the buying process.
3. Develop a content framework.

1. Develop a buyer persona (i.e., know your buyer)

• Gather marketing and sales together: This will be a working session or workshop where equal representation from both marketing and sales is present. If marketing seeks to develop the personas alone, the result will be skewed. Having both groups share their unique insights on the customer creates a more holistic view.
• Determine buying groups: Through dialogue, brainstorming, and whiteboarding, determine the buying groups for your products and services. These are target groups that decide or influence the buying decision. Try to stay away from titles (e.g., VP, or Manager) and focus more on functions, such as technical buyer, user, designer, etc.
• Define information categories: Once you determine the buying groups, define which categories of information are important to know with regard to the group’s buying behavior. Sample information categories might be personal background, daily activities, role in the company, challenges, preferred sources for industry news, etc. At this stage, you’re only defining those categories — not filling in the answers.
• Create a matrix: Put together a matrix of the buying groups and information categories, with buying groups across the X-axis and the information categories down the Y-axis.
• Fill in the matrix: Use a bulleted list to determine the three to five descriptors for each buying group’s information category. For example, if the buying group is facility management, and the information category is daily activity, you might list:

o   Monitor operational efficiency.

o   Manage staff.

o   Mange vendor relationships.

o   Create and maintain budget.

• Validate: After completing the matrix, validate it with customers and other staff. This can be done via phone call or small group presentation. If it’s available, use secondary research to validate results.

2. Define the buying process

• Gather marketing and sales together: This second working session is separate from the one to develop the buyer persona.
• Whiteboard an initial buying process draft: Through conversation, create an initial buying process map — a simple flow chart that identifies the specific decisions or steps the buyer goes through.Start by asking, “What triggers a buyer to start looking for our solution?” Once you determine that, then ask, “What does the buyer do/think next?” Keep asking follow-on questions until you’ve plotted out the steps the buyer takes through post-purchase.For some groups, working backwards is more effective. For example, start with the statement, “They bought ‘X’ from our company.” Then ask, “What did they do just before buying?” (e.g., Before making a purchase, they justified their decision. So, justification becomes the step before purchase). Keep working backwards in this fashion until you define the trigger step that started the process.
• Support/revise your map with research: It’s important to verify the buying process with objective research. Methods such as in-depth interviews and focus groups work well to determine the buyer mindset through the buying cycle. These should be conducted among prospects and customers. If you have the resources to use an outside research firm, make sure it understands the concepts of buyer insight for demand generation.
• Confirm: After revising the draft based on research, confirm the results by asking internal stakeholders (e.g., sales, business development, product marketing, etc.) and customers to review and validate it. This can be done via phone call or small group presentation.

3. Develop a content framework

• Gather marketing and sales together: This will be yet another working session. (Are you sensing a theme here?)
• Create a matrix: Build a matrix using the buyer personas and buying process map. List buying process stages across the X-axis and buyer personas down the Y-axis.
• Fill in the matrix: As you did with the buyer personas, use bullet points to list the answers to questions for each persona in each stage, such as:

○     What questions is the buyer asking at this stage?

○     What answers should we provide to those questions?

○     What is the best medium for delivering the answers?

○     What behavior do we want our answers to elicit?

• Validate: After completing the matrix, validate it with customers and other staff. This can be done via phone call or small group presentation. If possible, use available secondary research to validate as well.

Depending on the size of your organization, completing the entire process will take approximately one to three months — a considerable investment of time, not only for the marketing organization but also for internal stakeholders and customers.

I’m often asked, “This is a lot of ‘thinking work.’ Is it really worth it?” The answer is a resounding “Yes.” One of the major missteps marketers make with demand generation is they implement tactics with no strategic support. They spend time and money executing programs they hope or think will work. I always counsel to “plan the work then work the plan.” Research shows doing so leads to double-digit revenue growth. And who wouldn’t want that? 

This article originally appeared in the April 2014 issue of Chief Content Officer. Sign up to receive your free subscription to our quarterly magazine. 

Cover image via Bigstock

Think about every lead magnet you ever signed up for.

Of all of those free ebooks, courses & discount codes, how many of those companies did you ever actually become a customer of?

How many of them do you still buy from?

I don’t know about you, but judging by my own inbox, what happens after I hand over my email address is just… disappointing.

The example above is from a startup that promised to offer a smarter collaborative experience on Twitter.

From November 26th until today there have been a total of eight messages. Eight.

Two were discounts, two were “exciting news”, one was the initial invitation & one was the welcome message.

None of which actually told me how to use the product or invited me to any sort of training.

Here was the welcome email:

Not even a link to bring me back into the product…

Unfortunately, I never logged back into the product, and I hate to admit it, but I also kind of forgot they existed until today when the CEO sent me an email offering 2 free months.

But it was never “free months” that kept me from using the software.

It was the combination of my busy schedule & the thought of wasting another trial period fumbling my way through learning the software without ever seeing results.

Had there been some kind of onboarding/nurturing/education program, who knows how different that might be.

It’s not just this company though, searching through all of the messages in my inbox that say “please confirm your subscription”, I see a graveyard of missed opportunities.

This shortsightedness has been fueled by an online marketing culture that celebrates tapping into traffic sources like oil wells until they are no longer profitable.

This disproportionate emphasis on getting more leads has forced customer acquisition efforts to burn money & time unnecessarily, while simultaneously turning the Internet into a game where advertisers say “Look at me” and regular people try to avoid being sold to at all costs.

With all that effort you spent trying to get my attention, why drop the ball when I finally say “ok, whaddaya got?”

Imagine my relief when I learned that this neglect isn’t limited to just my inbox.

Demand Gen’s 2013 lead generation benchmark report found that 53% of marketers are focusing on getting more leads rather improving the quality of the leads they already have. Funnily enough, according to Gleanster, between 30-50% of leads are qualified but not yet ready to buy.

Demand Gen’s report also found that 65% of marketers have marketing automation tools in place. But that doesn’t mean they know how to make the most of them, does it?

Nope, this was made very clear in MarketingSherpa’s 2012 report that shows 65% of companies do not have a lead nurturing program in place.

Given the research, you would think more companies would at least balance their acquisition efforts with some kind of email onboarding program.

Don’t Forget About Me After I Give You My Email Address.

Just so I’m clear, when I’m talking about “Email Onboarding”, I’m not talking about newsletters or batch & blast messaging that asks me to read your latest blog post.

What I’m talking about is creating a narrative in the inbox that – best case scenario – seamlessly transitions me from “lead” to “customer” and “customer” to “evangelist” by acknowledging how I interact with the stuff you send me and adjusting itself accordingly, made possible by trigger & behavioral based email rules.

For example, lets say you sell landing page software & I’m a registered lead, but not yet a paying customer.

However, I was just checking out the “landing page optimization guide” you published earlier this year.

Instead of doing nothing, like normal, you might send me an email that says:

The idea would be to have an email program that combines behavioral triggers and “activation” messages to get me interacting with you, that way I get in the habit of opening your messages and buying from you almost instinctually.

This is the stuff that back in 2012, over 75% of marketers said they weren’t doing.

You’d think more marketers would want to create narratives in the inbox, considering that 60.34% of the tech savvy audience of Lifehacker says they have their email open all the time.

According to Forrester, companies that have a lead nurturing program in place, enjoy 50% more sales ready leads at 30% lower cost.

In the 2012 ExactTaget Channel Preference survey, it was revealed that not only was email was the most preferred channel for marketing communication but that preference actually increased by 5% between 2008 and 2012.

It’s also interesting to note that email decreased by 21% for personal communication during that same period.

Given that research seems to indicate email being the preferred channel for receiving marketing-y type communication, let’s look at what goes into building an email onboarding program that converts.

How Long Should Email Onboarding Last?

Well, ideally your email communication would last for the entire customer lifecycle. But where does it matter most?

To answer this question, I looked at the world of banking because banking institutions have long adopted the notion that their customers are never really “closed”.

In a research report by Oracle, it was found that on average, the first 90 days of the customer lifecycle are the most volatile. Apparently, this is when banking customers are most likely to churn & up to 30% of customers are susceptible to competitive offers.

What they also found was that when personalized marketing automation was used within the first 10 days, sending messages informed by website browsing behavior and stated preferences, there was a 6-to-1 return on results.

Contrasted with the 3-to-1 results delivered by 30 day followup messages, it’s clear that frequent & early contact with new customers is a necessity.

Reading that reminded me of two things:

1. The Hook Model by Nir Eyal
2. That it takes a minimum of 21 days for people to form new habits

The Hook model, in case you’re unfamiliar, is a framework that was observed & codified by researcher Nir Eyal, based on how the world’s most successful software companies engage & retain users.

By designing a series of Triggers & Rewards, users are encouraged to take actions based around interacting with the brand.

With each successful cycle, the investment with the brand deepens, prompting the next cycle, encouraging the user to have a deeper investment in the company.

For someone who just subscribed to your blog this might look like:

1. Sign up for free ebook that promises to help solve a problem (internal trigger)
2. Get a prompt in the inbox to download ebook (external trigger)
3. They click on link to read the ebook (action)
4. They read the ebook & get new ideas but don’t know what to do next (reward)
5. And 2 days later they’re invited to comment on a discussion with their peers (investment)

Given that a typical month has 21 working days which is coincidentally the minimum amount of time it takes for people to form new habits, using the Hook Cycle as an overarching framework for each lifecycle goal becomes very convenient.

Structuring Your Onboarding Series

To reiterate, the point of this onboarding series is not to send the same follow-up sequence to everyone who subscribes, but to find your lead segments early & send them personalized content based on the actions they’re taking.

By marrying those actions to the appropriate, behavior based “Hook Cycle” for that segment, you can design messaging that attempts to move each lead type into their next level of investment.

To make this easier to visualize, imagine you first have 3 main segments for your leads.

• Team Awesome – People who open, click & interact with everything
• Team Average – People who open & click, but at pretty standard rates
• Team Meh – They didn’t even look at the free thing you sent, why are they on your list?

For example, members of Team Awesome really love your lead gen material. They’ve taken every action you’ve asked and their behavior suggests they can’t get enough. They’re also periodically looking at pages that indicate buying motivation.

Gearing their Hook Cycles to send material that improves their knowledge of the problem & how your product solves it, can prime them to become paying customers much sooner than those in Team Average.

Once they become paying customers, the next Hook Cycle might be geared toward product mastery. And the Hook Cycle after might be focused on getting them to be a source of referrals.

Meanwhile, members of Team Average who periodically open lead gen material & never visit “purchase intent” pages, their Hook Cycle might be focused on solving the problem (the hard way) without using your product, in order to help understand and feel the need for your product.

In the background, you might also use email retargeting to reinforce your messaging & try to move them into the Team Awesome segment.

Welcoming New Leads & Customers

When initiating the Hook Cycle in the welcome campaign – the goal is to reward the user for the action they just took.

If done right, this helps you to quickly identify your segments and gather qualitative research within those segments to better inform future messaging across all areas of the customer lifecycle.

For example, GrooveHQ redesigned it’s welcome series so that it’s first message – sent by the CEO – focused only on being welcoming. Apparently, getting a message from the CEO was reward enough, as it received a 41% response rate & trial customers would let Groove know why they chose the product.

(This feedback loop would prove to be very valuable in future redesigns of the homepage)

While this email technically is not “lead gen”, what happens next in Groove’s email onboarding sequence is exactly what we’ve been talking about all along.

3 days after receiving the “Welcome” email, if the subscriber has set up a new mailbox, they’ll receive a message like this:

But if they haven’t set up a mailbox, they’ll get a message that looks like this:

Notice how the emails are different based on which behaviors the subscriber has taken?

“In our 14-day sequence that, for most users, includes six total emails, we have 22 different messages that go out based on user behavior.”

Taking a step back, the structure for the early part of a campaign like this might look something like this:

In just three emails into the sequence, it’s easier to see just exactly who will be in Team Awesome, Team Average & Team Meh.

Now, it is important to note, when you’re using personalized & behavioral based messaging it does not have to be restricted to time. One email can trigger another, and like quantum physics, packets of possibilities might exist within the accumulated within the user behavior.

In fact, using these methods is exactly how music teaching program Hearandplay.com was able increase their customer lifetime value by 416% in just 14 months.

It’s a little extra work, but doesn’t it seem like it would be so much more valuable?

Tools Of The Trade

To execute something like this, there are two routes you could take depending on where your business is.

1. A Full Featured CRM & Marketing Automation Service

Companies like Eloqua, Infusionsoft, Hubspot (enterprise), or Marketo will allow you to create these kinds of triggered based campaigns & have their own lead scoring system that will notify you of “hot” leads.

(All companies links point to the companies pricing page)

2. Something More Affordable Solution Like Vero

While you’ll sacrifice features like automatic lead scoring or landing page builders, Vero’s pricing starts at $99/month and will allow you to send 25,000 emails to up to 12,500 subscribers.

Contrasted with Infusionsoft’s $379/month (and mandatory $1,999 Kickstart fee) and 10,000 contact limit, or Hubspot’s 10,000 contact limit at $2,400/month, Vero’s $99/month base plan is priced very nicely.

Conclusion

Dedicating more time to the people who actually opt in to hear from you & personalizing their experience goes a long way in them forming a bond with your company, making them an extremely valuable customers & advocates.

While it may be extra work to deliver the experience, it won’t just make you more profitable, it makes it look like you’re not actually marketing when you’re marketing. Smart, right?

Personal Footnote – Not just for SaaS

About 10 years ago, I worked third shift at a gas station. To show just how clever I was, I ordered a tee-shirt that said in big block letters “F*CK SLEEP” across the chest.

I was proud of this purchase, so I was really counting down the 4-6 weeks for its arrival.

When that oversized manilla envelope came in, I tore into it like it contained the last shirt I would ever wear. To my surprise, in addition to the shirt there were a ton of stickers, a really well designed thank you card & a coupon code for my next purchase.

The day AFTER the package arrived, I received an email from the company with the subject line “Enjoy the extra goodies?” and it invited me to take a look at their other snarky items that would only cost me $5-$10 if I used my coupon. I was hooked.

Unfortunately the founders ended up selling the business, and the next owners didn’t pay nearly enough attention to the process.

But shouldn’t it say something that 10 years later I remember practically every part of the experience of buying a freaking tee-shirt?

featured image

A franchisor seeks out franchisees to increase market share. A franchisee wants to participate in the economic growth and learn from industry leaders. The two work harmoniously together to achieve a mutual goal of generating revenue. Match made in heaven!

Seems simple enough, right? Wrong. The relationship between the two is far more complex and must be continually nurtured to ensure both parties gain from working together. Franchisors and franchisees must understand and appreciate the other’s role in the partnership, acknowledge codependency, and strike a balance between independence and synergistic cooperation. Easier said than done.

To create a stronger, more sustainable relationship, franchisors and franchisees should continually ask themselves “What have I done for them lately?” and ask each other “What have you done for me lately?” Once processes and solutions are in place to provide answers to these questions, the two parties can start to meet each other’s expectations quickly and efficiently. Here are some tips on creating sweet franchise music together:

Track Everything

When the franchisor wants to improve operations at one or several locations, he or she must collect appropriate data at the national and local levels to determine what marketing strategies work and which fail. When launching a new campaign, there should be tracking processes in place to monitor lead generation and accurately source new business to specific marketing tactics and dollars spent.When marketing automation and analytics solutions such as call tracking are adopted, franchisors can measure the impact and efficacy of national and local marketing at a variety of levels. This data will provide key insight to help optimize the campaigns and increase the value of marketing dollars spent.

With tracking technologies, franchisors enjoy more profitable marketing efforts that increase the value of the franchise as a whole, while managing multiple channels simultaneously. Franchisees benefit locally from national marketing best practices and dollars that are properly allocated. The data supports both parties by enabling clearer, more effective campaigns at national and local levels.

Geolocation

Franchisors and franchisees both understand the importance of engaging a local market. Franchisors must make sure all franchisees are performing well, and make adjustments for locations with low revenues. Marketing solutions should be adopted to effectively collect new leads and direct them to appropriate franchisees based on location.

Furthermore, lead generation and other conversion metrics should be monitored per location to identify where marketing strategies need adjustments.Technologies that enable phone or other leads to locate a franchise location nearby accelerate a prospect’s journey through the sales cycle. Marketing technologies like a store locator can direct a phone call, for example, to the closest franchise location to the caller while providing alternative locales to empower the customer and increase convenience. A franchisor can ensure leads are funneled to the right franchise while franchisees benefit from stronger, higher-quality prospects.

Lead Management

Sending a phone call to the right franchise is only one component of effective lead delivery. Franchisors should also have a virtual call center in place that gathers all leads coming in at the national level, scores the quality of the lead, and checks in on franchisee customer service performance. All from the same platform? You bet!Utilizing multi-criteria measurement and reporting technologies, franchisors can collect information from each lead and determine how best to service questions or concerns. The more information gathered on the lead, the easier it is for franchisees to provide satisfactory service and close a sale. Low quality leads can be easily filtered out of the system, allowing for franchisees to spend time and resources on customers with the highest potential for purchase.

In addition, technologies that help franchisors monitor franchisee activity and conversion performance will help heighten standards and expectations nationally and locally. If the franchisor starts monitoring calls, for example, the customer service practices of franchisees can be tested.

Franchisors can record calls for training or quality assurance, and implement changes when performance starts to slip at specific locations. Franchisees can benefit from more accurate training tools to accelerate the launch process. When a franchisee is found to be outperform the rest, franchisors can reward them as well!

Robust Reporting

The leads have been tracked, campaigns have been monitored, management has been optimized…now what? The data collected throughout the sales cycle and marketing campaigns offers a plethora of key insights for current and future initiatives. When marketing data is integrated with other technologies, such as CRMs or Google Analytics, information can be compared, trends can be identified, and data-driven strategies can be implemented in real-time.

When managing multiple locations, franchisors must have accurate, timely calculations on return on marketing investment and sales conversions. With multi-criteria measurement, reporting, and integration tools, franchisors can determine the value of advertisements and initiatives. They can manage marketing more effectively moving forward to increase revenue while reducing spend. Franchisees also benefit from optimized local marketing and sales efforts derived from statistical analysis. When national campaigns prove strong and profitable, franchisees can implement the tactics to scale at the local level.

With the adoption of marketing strategies and solutions, franchisors and franchisees can create more effective relationships as well as expand operations and attract other franchisees. Marketing automation and analytics technologies simplify the measurement, management, and reporting processes that support data-driven strategies and accurate ROI findings. Translating the numbers into actionable insight at the national and local levels enhance franchise performance while strengthening franchisor and franchisee relationships. What more could you ask for?

Industry jargon tends to get muddled or skewed over time. Expressions get confused, concepts misconstrued and phrases take on multiple, often amorphous meanings. In the sales and marketing arena, two of the most misunderstood and interchanged terms are sales enablement and sales asset management.

So what’s the real deal with these jargon juggernauts?

Sales enablement involves all sales assets, but asset management does not cover all of enablement. In other words: Sales enablement includes, but is not limited to, sales asset management.

To really get a firm hold on these concepts, let’s shake free from abstract ambiguities and “title terminology” to zero in on the tangible distinctions:

Sales Enablement
Getting the right information into the hands of the right sales reps – at the right time, in the right place and in the right format – to stimulate valuable, ongoing conversations with buyers for exceptional buying experiences, thereby optimizing sales success and marketing ROI.

Sales Assets
The tools, information and practices used by a sales team to move a sales opportunity forward.

Think of your assets as your arsenals, and your enablement as the knowledge, training, skills and testing mechanisms to use these weapons effectively. Without sales enablement, you’re firing marketing content and sales tactics aimlessly – no strategy for precision targeting, no instruction for discerning execution.

Your sales assets are your arsenals.

These tools, information and practices help you win battles:

• Detailed buyer insight helps the marketing department create relevant, pain-centric content and helps the sales team attract, nurture and convert leads into legitimate sales opportunities.
• Precision-targeted marketing content that reps actually want to use stems from sales and marketing alignment and spurs crisp differentiation for potent B2B buyer engagement.
• Coaching tips, subject matter expert (SME) input, relevant research and thought leadership enable reps to connect with buying teams, establish trust, earn respect, inform and educate, assure key decision makers and drive consensus, pulling off that “content triple threat” (comfort, compel and challenge) that seams together the entire buying process.
• Personalization tools help reps give the particular, highly leveraged B2B buyer that exceptional experience he demands, expects and deserves.

Sales and marketing technology propels the troops forward:

• A CONTENT MANAGEMENT LIBRARY empowers sales reps with access to an entire collection of slides for easy presentation construction, plus content recommendations based on buyer persona/buying stage and detailed sales analytics on how prospects are responding to materials – all in one place.
• PRESENTATION MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE allows reps to build hyper-personalized, precision-targeted multimedia displays on the fly, not to mention streamline their efforts via auto-update cascading, full-text search, systems/process integration and brand/compliance control. Textured, interactive B2B sales presentations become simple and seamless.
• A SALES PORTAL enables reps to meet with prospects or clients, share content and execute presentations in a singular, secure hub. It keeps all the content, coaching and insight at reps’ fingertips to keep them at ease and their buyers pleased.
• CONTENT MARKETING SOFTWARE, including lead nurturing tools and other personalized communication and messaging automation, help to keep your leads primed and your company top of mind.
• VIRTUAL AND CLOUD CAPABILITIES promote a nimble defense and proactive offense of responsive mobile sales reps who are always up to date, in the loop and on the ball.

Your sales enablement commands the campaign.

Sales enablement is what wins the war, marshaling your sales assets into one cohesive, calculated and cogent sales process.

“Sales enablement is a strategic, ongoing process that equips all client-facing employees with the ability to consistently and systematically have a valuable conversation with the right set of customer stakeholders at each stage of the customer’s problem-solving life cycle to optimize the return of investment of the selling system.”
– Forrester Research

Zoom in on that part about “all client-facing employees.” This means that sales enablement isn’t just about “sales.” It also encompasses everyone and everything that has a hand in sales success:

1. All Marketing Tactics
   Buyer persona creation and marketing content generation set the stage for the sales team.
2. All Sales And Marketing Alignment Efforts
   A “content sales strategy” connects the right information to the right people, using persona profiles and buying stages to direct timing and formatting decisions.
3. All Sales Presentations And Points Of Contact
   Swapping out uninspired, off-the-shelf “solution selling” for a value-driven insight sales approach furnishes content that comforts, compels and challenges at each stage of the sales cycle.
4. All Follow-Up And Long-Term Communication
   This means not dropping the ball on lead nurturing, especially for those hesitant buyers and dormant leads who just need a little extra time and attention to get on board.
5. All Sales Analytics And Automation Tools
   Sales enablement is a science that uses evidence for process improvement and technology for information movement.

Don’t let fiery sales assets rush the front without that uniformed, even-tempered and methodical sales enablement to keep your troops in line.

For small brands, social media success can be hit or miss. And when the rules of engagement keep changing, it’s easy to get trapped in today’s humongous marketing web. But before you throw in the towel on social marketing, remember that it’s not the channel that’s broken, it’s your approach. More than half of small brands feel their social media efforts are not paying off. And it’s easy to understand why. They’re doing it wrong.

While some brands may simply lack the tools to measure the effectiveness of social media, many are still engaging in frivolous online activities that do little to move the brand needle.
Below are five ways small brands are undermining their social media efforts:

1. Not measuring social media effectively. Before social media can be measured effectively, small brands need to understand what they’re measuring. Discontinuing efforts because sales have not increased since launching a brand’s social media efforts is entirely shortsighted. The campaign could in fact be creating armies of brand ambassadors and reaching potential customers in markets that are off the radar of brand marketing leaders. The problem is that marketers are not actively reaching out to these targets. Why? Because they really don’t know who or where they are.
2. Too busy making noise instead of building value. If you knew that only 10 percent of all of your social media efforts resulted in solid customer leads, wouldn’t you tweak your strategy to focus the remaining 90 percent on the very tactics that made the 10 percent a success? It seems obvious. Yet, some brands think that blindly firing content from multiple social media platforms is just the right thing to do. So, it’s not about working harder, it’s about working smarter with more relevant content that builds value.
3. Not managing brand engagement. As internal and external brand engagement becomes commonplace, the threat of scattered social media efforts can actually cause brand erosion. Employees, customers, stakeholders, family and friends all have roles to play in driving consumer behavior through social media. But it’s up to brand leaders to convert those engaged contacts into brand ambassadors.
4. Limiting efforts to certain social marketing channels. Tweeting and sharing are not the only ways to reach your target audience through social media. I recently asked a company if it had a social media strategy. The response was: “Yes, we have a Facebook page.” Of course having a page is not a strategy. But there are hundreds of real marketing social strategies that can be implemented using channels like search engines, review sites, video/image platforms, and others.
5. Failing to make personal connections. Some marketers are so bent on selling that they fail to connect with their target audience. Instead of building rapport, some brands actually create walls. For example, a company is launching a new product through social media. But instead of communicating what the product means for the consumer, the company addresses what it means for the company. And the more this message gets communicated, the more distance is created between the potential consumer and the brand.

When a bicyclist loses her balance after a few pedal strokes, it would be ludicrous to blame it solely on the road. And social media is no different. Sure there will be bumps along the way, but a successful ride starts with a thoughtful approach.

Are you losing touch with prospects who are not ready to buy, but might buy from you in the future? Automated lead nurturing will help you keep in touch.

The B2B buying process has changed forever. Prospects are spending more time on the web doing research about your company’s products and services. They are getting information from their peers and third parties.

And to complicate things, most studies show that buyers now are really only engaging with sales representatives in about the last third of their purchasing process.

According to Brian Carroll, author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, up to 95% of qualified prospects on your Website are there to research and are not yet ready to talk with a sales rep, but as many as 70% will eventually buy from you or one of your competitors.

That’s why lead nurturing is now more important than ever. Lead nurturing is the process of building relationships with qualified prospects regardless of when they will buy, with the goal of earning their business when they are ready.

Here’s what you don’t want to do with your leads who are not ready to buy:

• Send them a newsletter about your company on an irregular basis.
• Call your leads every few weeks to “check in” and ask if they’re ready to buy.
• Email your entire database with information about your company’s products and services regardless of the prospect’s interests or needs.
• Ignore them.

So instead of generating a lead, tossing it to Sales and moving on, now you have to synchronize your marketing throughout the buying process and give prospects the information they seek, and just when it’s most helpful to them.

Lead nurturing, when done correctly, can pay big dividends. According to Forrester, CSO Insights, Marketo and others, companies that excel at lead nurturing:

• Generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost per lead.
• Reduce the percent of marketing-generated leads ignored by sales (from as high as 80% to as low as 25%)
• Raise closings on marketing-generated leads (7% points higher) and reduce “no decisions” (6% points lower).
• Have more sales representatives make quota (9% higher) and decrease (by 10%) the ramp up time for new reps.

What’s more, anecdotal evidence suggests that nurtured leads tend to buy more, need less discounting and buy faster than non-nurtured leads.

Fortunately, lead nurturing can be automated.

Here’s how: based on what your Sales and Marketing teams agree is a “sales-ready” lead, you offer content to your prospect that is mapped to their buying journey. Then, using marketing automation software, you provide the right content to them based on cues, timing and other information about the lead’s history.

There are two primary types of lead nurturing campaigns that can help you get started generating more and better quality leads:

Incoming Leads Campaigns

It all starts when a prospect fills out a form on a landing page. You don’t want to ask for any more information than is necessary, or your landing page conversions will go down.

However, you do want to capture enough information to begin to do some preliminary lead scoring to determine the likelihood and speed at which they might buy from you. For instance, you might be able to put the lead in one of a few different buckets such as “hot,” “warm,” or “cold.”

Depending on the sorting method you have, you can then determine which leads are “sales ready” and which should be further nurtured.

For those leads that need further nurturing, you’ll then want to plan additional, automated messages based on what they initially downloaded and how much time has elapsed.

But most important, using your marketing automation software through which the automated lead nurturing is facilitated, you’ll want to set up additional actions to be triggered based on the prospect’s additional interactions with you (i.e. their “digital body language”).

For instance, did they download additional information from your site? Which information? How soon? How many other pages did they visit? Which ones?

What’s more, using progressive profiling available in most marketing automation software, each time the prospect fills out another form, you can stop asking for the same information. Instead, you can start to ask additional, new information. Over time, you’ll build a more granular profile of each lead that can be further refined in your lead nurturing.

Stay In Touch Campaigns

Don’t give up on leads not ready to buy right away. Put them in a longer-term campaign to keep in touch. Remember that most of your leads will buy, they just won’t buy right away.

This is where lead nurturing can really pay off because so many companies chase the “hot” leads and give up quickly on the “warm” and “cold” leads.

For a stay in touch campaign, focus on 1) buyer roles, 2) buying stages, 3) content, and 4) timing:

Buyer Roles – In a B2B sale, even for a small company, there are usually several people involved in the decision process. These roles could include the end user, procurement, finance, management and other influencers. Each one of them has different information needs at different times. Based on the information you have provided, you should give them content tailored to their role.

Buying Stages – Remember that good lead nurturing provides the right content at the right time. There are traditionally four stages: Awareness (identify a need), Consideration (determine possible solutions), Research (evaluate solutions), and Purchase. Remember that the buying stages are non-linear and that prospects can move chaotically backwards and forward.

Content – This is crucial in lead nurturing since it can act as a sales rep stand-in when the prospect is not yet sales ready. The two most important factors in content development are the previous two: Buyer Roles and Buying Stages. Prospects find content targeted to their role much more valuable than generic content. And the content prospects find relevant can change dramatically as they move through the buying process. Remember to make the content valuable, not self-promotional.

Timing – In successful lead nurturing (and comedy), it’s all about the timing. The timing for every company and category will be different. But as a general rule, contacting a prospect more than once a week is too much and less than once a month is not enough. One trick is to ask your prospects how often they’d like to be contacted and with what information.

If you are new to or have not started automated lead nurturing, the process can seem overwhelming and confusing. Don’t let it be. The most important thing is to just get started, keep it simple and make continuous refinements.

One of my favorite bloggers is Paul Castain, who produces excellent content for the Sales Playbook website. Paul’s column this week, “A Deceptive Post About Cold Calling,” discussed important activities that can either replace or enhance cold calling.

Here are a few of the statistics Castain points out:

• 67% of the buyer’s journey is now done online (SeriusDecisions). This number ranges as high as 80% in some industries.
• There are now 2.7 billion social networking accounts worldwide and that number is expected to grow to 4.3 billion by 2016 (Radicati Group).
• YouTube receives over 1 billion visitors each month and those visitors watch over 6 billion hours of video.
• There are about 181 million blogs (AC Nielsen).

I’ve included many similar statistics in my blog posts and articles about pull marketing and the point is always the same – it is much harder to sell anything to people who do not know you. You need to capture their attention before you capture their money. To do this you need to meet them in a place they like to hang out and where they are more receptive. More often than not, the best place to meet them is in cyberspace and not the other end of a telephone line.

As the above graphic illustrates, there is a four-part process that people go through before they conduct commerce with you. First you attract them, then you educate them, then you engage with them, and only then do you transact business. This four-part process can happen in a few minutes or it can happen over months or years, but it usually happens in this precise order.

I once heard a seminar speaker describe the process in an interesting way. He said that if you are a young man interested in getting married, you don’t meet a young woman at a dance and blurt out, “Will you marry me?” There is a process that, if conducted properly, will get you to the end result, and it is wise not to try and skip the intervening steps or you will not make the sale or end up with the wrong partner. Likewise with marketing and sales.

The reason to establish yourself through social media and pull marketing is not to avoid personal selling but rather to lay the groundwork that makes selling easier. It is not an either/or proposition. Regardless of how good you are at pull marketing and social media methods, you will probably have to do some old fashioned push marketing – perhaps even some telephone selling. But isn’t it much easier to do so when the prospect already knows who you are – when you have a share of their eyeballs before you ask for a share of their wallet?

One other thing smart marketers and sales reps understand: The best way to capture eyeball share (and eventually wallet share) is to approach your social media and pull marketing efforts with a spirit of “What can I offer the marketplace?” and not “What can I get from the marketplace?”

Imagine the following scenario. You are an aspiring author. You have an idea for a story but you just don’t know how to make the most of it. How can you get into the mindset of writing a novel? What pitfalls should you try to avoid as you progress? What obstacles are likely to be the most difficult to overcome? You hear that there are very experienced authors who have been successful with their works. Finally, one day you gather up your courage and approach one of these gurus. You ask all of your questions and hope, pleadingly, for a helpful answer. The response you get is,

“Write something epic.”

This sounds like the punchline to a terrible joke, but in point of fact, if you are a marketer just beginning your professional life, you can encounter exactly this kind of experience when looking for information on how to make your company’s content marketing effective. You probably have a lot of questions. What is the best way to appeal to your existing and potential customers? How can you make sure your content is converting leads to sales? Are the leads you are getting via your content qualified in some way? How much time should you invest in a content marketing strategy?

Your first step might be to use Google to find out what other marketers are offering in terms of advice. What you might be shocked to discover is how many well-established, well-respected people in the online world suggest, in regard to content marketing, that you write “epic content.” Some blog posts even promise to tell you how to write epic content.

You might find this hard to believe, so here are a few examples.

“How to Create Epic Content” – Demian Farnworth for Copyblogger

Key take-aways – You are trying to write a masterpiece, your post needs to be super long, crush the competition with your epic content

“Cutting the Crap: Real Advice for Creating Epic Content” – Francisco Rosales, Social Mouths

Key take-aways – Be edgy/controversial, piggy-back on current events, use a theme to write your post around

“The 6 Principles of Epic Content Marketing” – Joe Pulizzi, Content Marketing Institute

Key take-aways – Fill a need, find your voice, should be devoid of sales speak

Refresher course – What does “Epic” mean?

When you look up the word “epic” you find the following:

1.noting or pertaining to a long poetic composition, usually centered upon a hero, in which a series ofgreat achievements or events is narrated in elevated style: Homer’s Iliad is an epic poem.

2.resembling or suggesting such poetry: an epic novel on the founding of the country.

3.heroic; majestic; impressively great: the epic events of the war.

4.of unusually great size or extent: a crime wave of epic proportions.

5.Slang. spectacular; very impressive; awesome: Their burgers and fries are epic!

Is this really the kind of content you want or need for your company blog, white paper, or webinar? Can you afford the time investment necessary to create content that is “epic,” especially if that content needs to be devoid of sales speak?

This is not making a lot of sense.

Advice that might be slightly more useful

Rather than suggesting that you write “epic” content, which either means that your content should be actually epic or that you should write content that is good (a no-brainer in our opinion) here are some things you might want to strive for instead:

• Write content that will matter to your customers and potential customers: It is important to remember that a lot of the blogs you read about content marketing are written by people who either make their money off their blogs via advertising or affiliate marketing or who make their money talking about marketing to other marketers. That is not you. As much as we all want massive traffic for our blog posts, the more important thing is that you get the RIGHT traffic. That means that being “edgy” or controversial or newsjacking probably is not the best strategy for you. Write about the types of things your customers often ask about for starters, then go from there.

• Write content that your desired audience will have time to read: A couple of the posts we linked to above suggest that “epic content” means a post that is 2,000 words long. That takes a long time to write, but are any of your contacts likely to sit down and read a post that long, especially if it is not an area of interest for them? That is not terribly likely.

• Don’t shy away completely from mentioning your brand/product/service: Let’s say the ideal happens and your post gets shared beyond your direct community. Would a stranger to your blog post know what your company does? If what your company does is not easy to ascertain, how will your content actually help your company grow?

Advising companies to write good content is like advising companies to make good products. If you are going to put out a representation of your company, of course it be good, epic, totally rad, peachy, divine, and otherwise awesome. That’s easy. The concept of “content marketing” has been around long enough now that it’s time to dig a little deeper. What can that “epic” content do for your company? How do you find the time to create it? How do you measure the ROI of your efforts?

In other words, it’s time to get real.

Image Credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/epicbeer/2854340861 via Creative Commons

Best Practices for Curating, Creating and Circulating Your Content

Your website is the central arena to market your business online. The content created on your website, especially within your blog has become the best way to market your business within the online ecosystem.

Whether you are a small business, or a large corporation, or even if your blog IS your business, the content you create is the most effective way to meet your company’s inbound marketing goals.

If you want to increase traffic to your website, you are going to need good content.

If you want to boost awareness of your brand, you’ll need some quality content.

If it is more leads or customer loyalty and trust you are looking for – guess what? CONTENT.

However, with an estimated 150M blogs out there on the internet, trying to stand out can feel a bit like you are the needle, the web is the haystack, and your potential customer is somewhere on the farm trying to get to you.

Then there is the thought of:

• Generating fresh ideas
• Curating a backlog of content ready to be written about
• Actually writing high quality articles and blogs
• Which tactics to use to get your content noticed

If you are a small- or medium-sized business with a need to wrap your head around creating content for business, then read on.

GENERATING CONTENT FOR YOUR BLOG

As a small business owner, you know about your product or service. It’s why you started your business in the first place.

Since you have so much knowledge, why not write about it?

The first rule in blog writing is to write what you know about.

You are comfortable with the subject matter surrounding your product. You know pretty much everything there is to know about it from manufacturing, to shipping, to warehousing to the sales process.

All of these product characteristics make great content for blogs.

The same holds true is you are offering a service.

The main idea with generating content is to know who you are writing to and to solve their problem with your articles.

So how do you go about getting all this great content?

8 TRIED AND TRUE METHODS FOR CREATING THE CONTENT YOUR AUDIENCE WANTS

1. Read the articles and blogs of industry peers and experts – There are probably some in your inbox right now. There are plenty more out on the internet or in the circles you have created online.
2. Create a Monthly Feature – Tara Alemany, an expert writer for Business to Community reveals that creating a weekly or monthly feature is a great way in inspire content, as well as anticipation from your readers. Focus on what you know, create a Product Preview Monday that highlights a specific aspect of your product or service and keep it up. It might take some time, but you could be surprised at how readers come to anticipate the information you are providing.
3. Strike Up a Conversation – Use sites like LinkedIn or Quora to ask questions about topics you are thinking about writing on. These tools will allow to you perform research, ask industry experts or just take a poll on just about any topic. They are also invaluable for inspiring your writing ideas and answering questions your readers want to know.
4. Subscribe to Lists – Alemany also suggests adding lists to your Twitter or Facebook feed. These lists contain the posts of industry trendsetters and can generate topic ideas based on the keywords you choose.
5. Use the Visuals that Others Have Posted – Infographics, slideshares and other types of visuals are are highly shareable and with permission or proper attribution can be retrofitted to fit your blog. Just add a new introduction with your own thoughts about how it fits your reader and you’ve got a new blog. Readers love graphics of any kind.
6. Blog Smorgasbord – While you are reading the blog posts and infographics from other sites, make a note of which ones really stand out to you. Every month or so, put out an article on the Top 10 (or so) Blog Posts relating to your industry. You can also use infographics or blogs with lots of statistics to further segment the types of posts you are highlighting.
7. Curation Station – Keep a file of your favorite articles and posts. A good way to organize the file is by topic. When you have enough information and inspiration to write something new, pull out the file, pick your stories and begin writing.
8. Still having trouble figuring out what to write about? – Here is the Ultimate Guide to Content Guides that evaluates the latest content eBooks, articles and blogs out there.

Finding interesting material to write and post about isn’t really that hard, it just takes a little research and organization.

Now that you have an idea of what to write about, how are you going to make it STAND OUT?

4 KILLER WAYS TO CREATE CONTENT THAT STANDS OUT

Aside from just regurgitating old content with a few words of your own, how can you develop quality content that your readers need?

1. Solve Your Reader’s Problem – First and foremost in blog writing, you have a product to sell that is going to solve your customer’s problem. Make sure you answer reader questions and speak to their pain-points. Blogs that begin with a headline like “How to…” are a great attraction nearly every time. In fact, most of your blog posts should be answers to your readers’ problems.
2. Disrupt and Distract – Every once in a while, it is good to throw a curve ball at your potential customers. Pick a topic that is a bit controversial, that you know a bit about and write a blog about it. You would be amazed at the engagement and shares you might get.
3. Develop Top 10 Lists – Your list can have any number of bullet points in it. For some reason, a “number” and one or two galvanizing words in the headline makes the list a go-to for many blog writers. Listing between 5 and 15 points works best. Make sure the list reads logically (for example – from most to least, or step-by-step). If you have a top numbered list, then ensure that your bullets have numbers – just like the list title.
4. Diversify – There is more than one way to create content. The blog isn’t the only way to get your product information and your industry knowledge out there. Although the blog is the main way that you communicate and engage with your audience, there are other ways as well.

CONTENT DISTRIBUTION TACTICS THAT PERFORM

Standing out in the veritable bull rush of blog content available to your reader is imperative to the success of your website.

When you have your content ideas as well as different ways to write it, then consider the many ways you can leverage your blog to get more readership.

Here are some of the most popular content distribution ideas to circulate your fabulous content:

The eBook

No, it doesn’t have to be as long as a novel, or even a short story. In fact, your eBook can even be visually based. An eBook is a great marketing tool for providing your website visitors with the interesting and question answering information they crave. Get more email list subscribers as your offer your new eBook as an incentive for signing up.

Make sure your eBook:

• Provides value to the reader
• Is visually stunning – farm it out if you have to
• Is easily digestible information; with short sentences, bullet points, stats and quotes

Here is an example of a great eBook:

Videos

The video remains the number one best way to engage and attract your audience. In an article recently written by Sarah Quinn for Business to Community, she stated that “a one minute video is worth 1.8 billion words.”

Videos are easy to remember.

Wondering what type of video to create for your business?

A short explanation of your product or service is a good way to start.

It can be animated, or recorded on your computer screen with music and good stock photography.

Keep your audience and the problems that your product or service can solve for them in mind when creating your first video.

Infographics

What a great way to get a point across quickly using a well-designed picture that tells a story.

Use statistics and numbers, as well research you have done in order to make sure your infographic utilizes the latest information available.

Also, invite people to share your infographic.

There are plenty of great infographics out there to draw inspiration from.

Buzzsumo keeps tabs on the top infographics out there on a daily basis.

In addition, Canva is a great place to create your first infographic.

Here is an excellent infographic on the evolution of the logo. It is an interesting look at how companies have changed their branding strategies over the years as well as a look into how the top brands have changed as buyers have evolved over the decades.

Infographic by Ashley O’Connor

Slideshare

Get a SlideShare account and begin creating your own interesting and relevant content with this useful tool.

According to Quinn it is “actually the world’s largest content marketing platform”.

The site is easy to use. Readers can click through page by page, and you can easily upload documents, visuals and videos.

This popular method for distributing content can raise your brand awareness and create credibility for you as a leader in your industry.

Social Media Outlets

A listing of great distribution channels can’t go without mentioning the use of social media.

Social Media remains the perfect way to exhibit your brand, its personality and all of your content.

In addition, it is a perfect outlet for engaging with and getting to know your target audience.

Knowing which platform is best for your target audience is important, the types of content that the channel users prefer, as well as the best times to post are all important aspects to gaining some traction with your social media presence.

Email

Sending an email to a reader to has signed up to receive it is still the most powerful marketing tool you have; these people want to hear from you.

Again, the content should be useful and include industry information and not just a sales pitch for your product or service.

When it comes to what information you put into your email you can include:

• Past Blogs
• Offers including eBooks or White Papers
• Contests
• Invitations to Events You are Hosting
• Competitions like photo contests

In order to assemble your email list, make sure that you have a place for visitors to your website to sign up right on your homepage, as well as on other landing pages on your site.

Once you begin getting more and more subscribers to your email list, you can also begin segmenting your subscribers into lists like:

• Current Customers
• Potential Leads
• Qualified Leads

When it comes to distribution, your business has many ways to make sure your content is being seen and interacted with by your potential customer.

The content that you create and distribute for your website can be an exciting and valuable way to connect with potential customers, in addition to a fabulous way to increase your website’s visibility.

Learning to generate the right kind of content, for the right buyer at the right time is a learning process that requires patience and lots of tenacity, in addition to a willingness to take a look at your results through data.

Also, making sure that you distribute your content across the best channels for your business is the best way to ensure that your brand is being seen by and engaged with in the most beneficial way possible.

Photo Credit – FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Have you and your business maximized the potential of the Facebook platform with a Facebook Landing Page?

This article will discuss why a Facebook Landing Page is becoming increasingly essential, how to create a Facebook Landing Page and give you the 5 essential parts of an optimized landing page.

Let’s get started!

How to Create a Facebook Landing Page

Facebook Landing Pages are currently only available through a 3rd party provider, but they’re well-worth the investment.

Any Post or Facebook Ad will result in higher end conversion rates if users are sent to a Facebook Landing Page before they’re sent off-platform.

Why?

Because Facebook users scare easily. They don’t like being directed to your website without being aware of it. Even if they are interested in your product or service they’ll bounce simply because they weren’t necessarily expecting to be sent off the platform.

Landing Page tabs are also incredibly valuable for their ability to generate Facebook Fans and increase your brand profile on the platform. But James, (you ask) how do they do that?

Well, hypothetical reader, they do it through the power of a Like Gate.

What’s a Like-Gate?

Like-Gates require Facebook users to Like your page in order to continue down your sales funnel. They’re often associated with campaigns and contests, but can just as easily be used for lead generation and more.

A Like-gate is usually a simple image with text telling users who have not yet Liked your Facebook Page that they need to do so in order to access the contest, entry or valuable piece of content you’re offering on your Facebook Landing Page.

They’re awesome because they incentivize Liking your Facebook Page but they do so completely within Facebook’s guidelines, and (so long as your prize or valuable content is business related) they get you Facebook Fans who are genuinely interested in your business.

The 5 Parts of an Awesome Facebook Landing Page

1. A Clear Value Proposition or Unique Selling Point (USP)

No matter where you’re generating traffic for your landing page, your page needs to communicate value in order to drive traffic. You have to convince visitors that engagement and conversion on your page is worth it.

USP or Value Prop best practices are:

• Dollar values – clearly showing what a page visitor stands to gain from engagement
• Percentage signs – showing the value of your discount
• Exciting words – consider “Free”, “Win”, “Getaway”
• Exclusivity – Create a time constraint using “this week only” or “Facebook-exclusive”

Here’s an example from Costco’s Facebook Landing Page:

This USP has it all for me: exclusivity in both “Online-Only” and the subheader “valid through…” as well as a dollar amount and large font that contrasts with the page’s color scheme to draw the eye and keep it there until value is communicated. Awesome job, Costco.

And here’s a poor example of a USP or value prop (from Nescafe’s “product” Facebook landing page:

While the message itself isn’t that bad, the font blends into the background far too much or many visitors to quickly and easily see it.

Not only should value be quickly communicated with a sexy USP or value prop with dollar values or percentage symbols, but that communication needs to be clearly delivered – something Nescafe has missed in this example.

2. An Eye-Catching Image

Your Facebook Landing Page needs an image that grabs the eye and keeps it there long enough for your USP or value prop (above) to do their work.

The image is usually the first thing that the eye falls upon when a Facebook user arrives on your landing page. An unappealing image or no image at all will cause a user to bounce far more quickly than a bad USP.

To a large extent, the effect of an image is subconscious. People respond positively to seeing other people – especially people who they can relate to. Models, studies show, can actually impact negatively on a landing page’s conversion rates.

People also respond subconsciously to color: blue and green are calming, red is exciting (actually increases the heart rate), and black, white and grey are sophisticated. Keep these general rules of thumb in mind when choosing your Facebook Landing Page image.

Here’s an example from Salesforce’s Facebook Landing Page:

This image works well with their value proposition (“win… a getaway”). People see a rising airplane and understand a symbol of ‘escape’. The red and white against a clean blue sky is also visually appealing in terms of color. Kudos, Salesforce.

3. A CTA they Want to Click

Your Facebook Landing Page’s CTA needs to stand out from the rest of the page. I’m talking contrasting color, size, text, and an eye-catching button.

Encapsulation (the act of putting a button or border around something) is hugely important in landing page optimization.

Here’s a great example from Salesforce:

Note the difference between the link to “Terms and Conditions” and the CTA button “Lift Off”. While both are links, the encapsulation, color contrast, and intriguing language encourage a click-through far more on the CTA than the other.

I also like Salesforce’s choice of language. “Lift Off” is a bit different and far more exciting than the typical “enter here” or “submit”. While this is definitely a detail many marketers might think would be inconsequential, I’d wager a week’s salary that changing this text to “submit” would actually decrease conversion rates by as much as 15%.

Here’s a poor example from Lowe’s Home Improvement:

“Sign Up” on the right side is this landing page’s CTA – encouraging Facebook users to register to receive offers, how-tos and tips via email (standard lead gen). While they have employed encapsulation, the CTA button still doesn’t stand out enough from the rest of the page for a visitor to obviously see it, know what the page’s “Ask” is, and engage with it.

This is especially true because there is actually another button (“Ask Lowe’s”) below the page’s CTA, and, though I haven’t shown it here, this will also be reducing conversions on the page.

It’s important to your Facebook landing page’s success that you only focus on a single “ask”, otherwise you’ll dilute your page’s end results.

4. An Entry-Form that Doesn’t Make them Bounce

Entry-form optimization can be the most finicky part of the whole Facebook Landing Page business. It’s essential to your business’ lead generation campaign that you get enough information out of Facebook users that you can efficiently and successfully nurture that lead toward a sale. However, it’s also essential that you don’t ask too much of your possible leads that they bounce without completing the form.

This little entry-form dance is based around how much a lead’s information is worth to them, and how much value you’re providing.

If all you’re offering is a chance to enter to win a contest, I recommend asking for nothing more than an email address (you can always get more information out of them later).

However, if you’ve created a Facebook Landing Page promoting an email-gated ebook, you’re offering a little more value (at least up front). This means you can ask for a little more in return, say, a zipcode or company name – something that allows you to segment more successfully in communication down the line.

Here’s an example from Sony’s email subscription form:

I’d be interested to see the effect that removing the “zip code” request would have on this page’s conversion rates. Given that all Facebook users are getting from Sony is ‘email updates’ (something more and more internet users are recognizing is code for promotional emails), I think removing the location “ask” would actually decrease bounce rates.

I’d also be interested to see what effect changing the CTA button copy would have. “Submit” is a bit aggressive. I’d test “Get the Scoop” instead and change the subheader copy to “sign up for Sony email updates today!”

5. The Fine Print

When running any online promotion or generating lead information from Facebook, you need to provide traffic with the essential fine print or they’ll bounce. Before they give you an email address, you need to make it clear that you don’t sell or rent personal information.

You also need to give the small-print of your promotion. How will you choose the winner? How do they submit or enter? How long is the contest and is there a deadline for entry?

While this stuff won’t necessarily be read by every visitor to your Facebook Landing Page, there are those few Facebook users who do care about this kind of thing. Those few will refuse to enter (even if they’re interested in your content, prize, or product), simply because you’ve neglected to assuage their fears with a few small lines of text.

Here’s an example from TravelBIG’s Facebook Landing Page:

One More Thing: Match Up your Facebook Landing Page with your Ad and Website

Cohesion and repetition are the fundamental pillars of a working promotional campaign. When spanning multiple platforms (blog, website, social, etc), it’s essential that people know they’re still within your company’s online world.

• Match the color scheme of your Facebook Ad with the colors of your Facebook Landing Page and corresponding website page.
• Keep your value proposition or USP the same
• Make sure your images match up: not necessarily the same image, but definitely in the same vein or style
• Keep your tone consistent: If your landing page tone is excited, or even humorous, don’t switch to serious and professional when the visitor gets to your website landing page. This can subconsciously affect the chance of a internet user’s conversion.

Conclusion

Hopefully that’s given you a solid base for creating your own Facebook Landing Pages.

Remember that not all providers will be able to show you your page’s conversion details, so shop around before deciding on the right tool for you or your business.

By James Scherer

When you are approaching a prospective client, you have a 1/3 chance for getting the sale. Why? Either of you have the opportunity to say, “No thank you.”

Entrepreneurs dream of becoming known and having requests pour in. Over the years, as people see you in action and determined to succeed, those very requests start to flow. The requests are slow at first, but then it seems as if a floodgate opens with too many requests. Diplomatically handling all of these becomes another dilemma.

Sometimes the requests are not beneficial for you but to the benefit of the requestors. While it is important to help as many as you can willingly without receiving anything in return, there is a fine line between doing this and knowing when your time is being infringed upon. Be of the mindset to review each request to see if it fits within your guidelines such as time allotment for delivery.

Prior to accepting, put qualifiers on the request such as, “I will be happy to help but in a month’s time due to a hectic schedule.” Should anything sound unreasonable, question it and, if required, decline the opportunity. Consistency of principles is key to building your personal brand.

On the other side of the table, and prior to all meetings, come to terms with understanding why your client might potentially say “no”. Where are your weakest spots, and how may you position them to be seen as strengths?

Repositioning is a sales technique that lends greater insight as to why you work the way you do as well as backing up the facts with examples of success stories. Have your favorite stories in mind in anticipation of your meeting. Keep stories to a maximum of two minutes.

Probe with questions as to what the other party’s experience has been. Learn why doubt is heard upon you being questioned. It’s essential to swiftly and eloquently address concern. Be of the mindset to stand your ground.

The strategy of showcasing your weaknesses applies to competing for business. In client meetings, when prospective clients ask why you don’t offer a specific product as your competitors do, ask why it is believed that component is necessary. Most likely it isn’t. Now you are free to state why you don’t offer it, and able to present the option you do offer that others do not.

Next, discuss why you work the way you do, and benefits derived for all. As long as you are building the relationship every step of the way, you will find the unique you converts objections into the initial sale.

Allow everyone to be heard. It is a disaster when one person deems himself the leader and begins to pontificate. While in meetings, you may be with the CEO, however, do your best to get opinions, or at the very least, consensus from other attendees. Doing this demonstrates your leadership capabilities.

Standing your ground while building relationships will not only help you obtain the sale, but will lead to repeat business, referrals and testimonials – the definition of the Smooth Sale!

I just finished reading a great post from Noah Kagan on OkDork that analyzed why content goes viral – the article provides 10 tips to help increase the chances of a post being shared. It has a lot of fantastic material that I wholeheartedly agree with. However no matter how many of these “ingredients” you use in your post, you won’t be able to go viral unless you hook people in and the best way to do that is by making sure you come up with a catchy, curiosity-inducing headline.

A great headline can be the difference between 1,000 views and 100,000 views. It can also be the difference that gets visitors to read your blog post at all, since on average eight out of 10 people will only skim the headline before moving on.

So how do you decrease that percentage and increase the number of people who read the full post? It’s all in the headline, and even the best article in the world won’t have any traction without a great headline at the top to hook visitors and get them reading more (and then hopefully by incorporating some of the points in the article on OkDork, you’ll be able to get your article to go viral).

Here are a few keys to writing a great headline that engages readers and boosts clicks:

Come Up with More Than One

Viral content website Upworthy comes up with 25 headlines for each post before it is published. Upworthy does this because each of those headlines is tested, and the title that performs the best is the one that’s kept. Now, you don’t have to write 25 headlines, but you don’t have to keep the first one you come up with either. You only need to think of a few, and then follow this simple formula for refining and choosing the final title.

This is also a worthwhile practice if you plan to repurpose your content, like in an email newsletter or in a future tweet. With a new headline, it’s not so obvious that you’re sharing a blog post you wrote previously, and it increases the odds you will be able to engage those in your audience who may have missed it the first time, or who weren’t intrigued by the previous title. Upworthy actually did this with an already-viral video, hoping to make it go viral again. “Zach Wahls speaks about family,” worked the first time, but not as well as “Two Lesbians Raised a Baby And This Is What They Got.” The second headline, a new headline, meant another 20 million views.

Specificity is Your Friend

Hopefully you already understand the importance of specificity in a headline, but there are so many ways to be specific it can be hard to summarize. It’s usually more helpful to see headlines that aren’t specific — so you know how not to do it. Here are three real headlines from published blogs that fail the specificity test:

• Come in First in the First State of Delaware
• Relax! A National Answering Service Has You Covered…
• How We Do the Small Things

Specificity is crucial because a specific headline answers questions readers have about the article before they invest time reading it. Readers need to feel confident that they will be interested by what they read before they decide to start reading a post. These example headlines create more questions than answers i.e. what am I coming first in? What is this national answering service covering? What are these small things and why do they matter if they’re small? Since the reader doesn’t know the answers, they also can’t be sure that the posts will provide information they need or care about, and that will cause them to move on without reading the posts.

If the reader wants to come in first in chess, and the example article is about coming in first in business, then this article is not a good fit for the reader. But the reader doesn’t know that from the headline, and they most likely will not risk wasting time reading a blog post that may not apply to them. Vague blog post titles leave the reader confused, and confused readers leave your website and don’t read your posts.

Don’t Be Cute

Its fun to be clever and to play with words, but the headline isn’t the place to be cute. First of all, search engine algorithms don’t understand cute because users don’t type in word play as keywords. Second of all, you risk confusing the reader, and confused readers don’t stay to read the rest of your blog post. Below is an example of a headline that tried to be clever and failed:

“The State Of The Birds, Ravens’ Injury Update”

Some might understand that the article is an injury report for the Baltimore Ravens, but the word choice opens up the possibility that this could be an article about injured ravens in the nearby park. “The state of the birds” is not a key phrase someone would type into a search bar if they were looking for a Baltimore Ravens’ injury report, and an ornithologist who wants to know “the state of the birds” doesn’t care about the football team.

It’s okay to be cute sometimes, such as in social media, in a photo caption, or in an email. In these cases, the entirety of the content is presented at once. The reader has the complete message in front of them to understand the cleverness. Plus with email and social media, you are writing to subscribers for your content, which means they already know what themes you write about, so they have the background to better understand the plays on words. With a blog headline, however, if a new reader doesn’t catch the word play then they also won’t catch the meaning of your article and will leave confused instead of reading further.

Leverage Curiosity

Essentially, readers will click your headline because they want to know more. You’ve piqued their curiosity. Therefore, a great headline should leverage curiosity by revealing what the reader will learn from the blog post without telling them exactly how it will happen, and there are several ways to do this. You can do this by asking a leading question as your headline, such as “Is your company using this proven tactic for generating more referrals?” You can also leverage curiosity with an off-the-wall, wacky headline, like “I’m Completely Humiliated by Yoga.” Or, you can be a bit bolder and stir controversy, which always gets readers interested. A great recent example of a controversial headline is “Inside the Fox News lie machine: I fact-checked Hannity on Obamacare.” All three of these headlines tell the reader what they are offering, but are mysterious enough to get the reader to click and to read the rest of the story.

Overall, the headline is the most important part of the blog post. It’s what readers see first. It’s what shows up in the search results. Without a good one, the rest of the post might as well not exist because no one will get far enough read it. Although there are many wrong ways to write a headline, there are also many ways they can succeed, which is why it’s so tricky to come up with a great one. There isn’t a magic formula for getting 20 million views, but this post gives you the inspiration to experiment so that you can find what voice works for your brand to increase the click-through rates for your articles.

According to Ed Papazian, president of Media Dynamics, a consulting/publishing company, the average online video ad was double the price of a national TV commercial in 2013. He estimates that last year, an average online video ad was priced at $20 to $23 for the cost per thousand viewers (CPM). In comparison, a 30-second television commercial had a $9 to $10 CPM.

The top price for video advertising, says Papazian, comes with “targeted video” online that has an average CPM of $32.75. Untargeted video buys, on the other hand, are much more comparable to TV spots, with a CPM of around $9.

So why the disparity then, between online video and traditional television advertising? Below, we’ll discuss three reasons why we believe online video merits its hefty price tag.

1. Highly sought-after target markets are moving online

An increasing number of young Americans are cutting the cord, opting out of pay TV services. A new study from Experian Marketing Services found that 12.4% of households where an adult under the age of 35 lives are cord-cutters. That number jumps to 24.3% when you factor in young adult households with either a Netflix or Hulu account. Similarly, YuMe and IPG Media Lab noted in a report that the decline of TV usage is highest among millennials.

Younger consumers are moving away from traditional television viewing and shifting their focus to online content. comScore’s “Digital Future in Focus” report notes that 85 million daily viewers are consuming online video, with millennials spending 48% more time with online video than the average viewer. Video ads account for 5.7% of total viewing time.

“Young people and Millennials are increasingly difficult to reach via traditional media, but they are the most engaged viewers of online video…,” claims comScore.

Not only are millennials the most engaged viewers, but they are also the heaviest viewers of all types of video content. (YuMe)

According to Barkley, the 80 million U.S. millennials (born between 1977 and 1995) represent 25% of the country’s population and $200 billion in annual spending power.

To truly reach these valued customers through their preferred media channels, brands are going to have to invest in targeted video advertising which comes at a higher price—a price that is further justified by the points below.

2. Online video ads are more effective than TV commercials

In terms of Nielsen effectiveness metrics (general recall, brand recall, message recall and ad likeability), online video ads have a higher impact than TV ads.

As displayed in the graph above, short form video ads (up to 24 minutes) and video ads in full episode players outperform their TV counterparts. Additionally, viewers are receptive to video ads, choosing to watch them for an average of 20 seconds with an 87% completion rate. To see a breakdown of the results, feel free to check out the complete study from IAB.

Not only do viewers find online video ads more effective, but a majority of ad executives (75% of respondents from a BrightRoll study) believe that they are equally or more effective than television ads at reaching audiences.

3. Online video ads see higher engagement

In a comment responding to the MediaPost article about how online ads out-price TV spots, Justin Farrell from Conversant Media, formerly ValueClick Media, noted that when it comes to television ads, we have to take “into account how many people are changing the channel during commercials, leaving the room during commercials, DVR’ing and fast forwarding through commercials, using their tablet’s during commercials, muting the TV during commercials.”

Engagement with TV spots isn’t an easy thing to measure, especially when you consider all of the ways we distract ourselves while watching traditional television. A May 2011 report from YuMe and IPG Media Lab found that people tend to be far less distracted from online video ads than TV commercials. To compare, 27.1% of respondents noted that nothing distracts them while they watch video online, while only 6% of TV viewers said the same.

Additionally, the study found that people pay more attention to online video ads.

“A web user is less apt to turn his attention elsewhere for 15-30 seconds, than is a TV viewer, who knows to expect 3 minutes or more of ads at a time,” stated another commenter on the MediaPost article, Steve Burris, perfectly summing up the issue.

Furthermore, a majority of marketing professionals (58%) thought that video ads performed better than TV ads in terms of achieving engagement goals. Only 15% said engagement was worse for digital video ads.

We understand that there are many other elements that factor into designating channels for marketing campaigns. However, if you consider these statistics at their most basic level, it’s easy to understand the cost disparity between online video ads and television spots.

“Houston, we have a problem.”

I’ve heard this many times and it still gets a little snicker. It’s not even a standard response for astronauts. It’s just a famous movie phrase that didn’t so much deviate from what happened during the original Apollo 13 mission.

Speaking of which though, why is it that this line is so memorable but not the many times you’ve pointed out software problems during your lead generation campaign?

It’s a standard routine to ask about a prospect’s current satisfaction with their ERP software. That means occasionally spotting holes or identifying technical problems. There are not that many alternatives in beating the competition that way.

So suppose that’s how you usually get in touch with prospects and qualify them for sales appointments. You speak with one and ask them a few questions. Some of them may have even initiated the contact instead of you and have started giving you their complaints.

What’s the standard, tech response to all that? Do you tell them that there’s an issue with Database A or they need recode Server B? Do you suggest they replace Warehouse C with your new cloud-based X?

What if I told you that sort of response could actually be your problem?

You’ve probably read a hundred times about how people just hate tech jargon. Here’s one more situation where it’s inappropriate: saying a prospect has a problem.

It’s not that hard! You know there’s a problem! Do you have to explain it? Not always. In fact, you can just save your breath. As with any issue with tech jargon, your prospects would rather know they have on in the first place rather than why they have it. Take a step back and think:

• Who’s providing the solution? – You. Why would you market your own ERP tools if you strongly believe they’re a better solution than what a prospect currently has? If a prospect is desperate enough for a better solution, don’t waste time explaining their problems. Just say something’s wrong and you’re there already holding the answer.
• Who has the knowledge for the solution? – Again, it’s you. You’re selling something that can fix the problem. Why bother with the details? Really. Why? There’s not much room for information overload in the lead generation process. A prospect has all the symptoms. Your salespeople have all the answers. Send the prospect over already!
• Who is responsible for the solution? – Providing comes with the responsibility that things really do go well. If there are bumps on the road, don’t waste your new customer’s time by explaining what that is. You either assure them all is well or even make the extra effort that these bumps don’t unsettle their trust in your solution.

We all know tech jargon tends to be a major turn off. Don’t make it worse when it starts keeping a prospect from seeing a solution. Spare them the details, tell them something is in fact wrong, and you’re there to fix it.

Today’s sales teams are overburdened with the information they need in order to be successful. In an ever-evolving marketplace, buyers have evolved – but sales teams haven’t. The result is sales enablement and operations teams create more content and provide more information to sales teams who just don’t have time to sort through it all.

Customers want experts who can continually offer ideas, insights and information to address their biggest problems. They want forward-thinking guidance on how to stay on top of their game. By creating agile selling teams, sales leaders can make their teams faster at learning about new clients, better at meeting their customer needs, and stronger at locking in new business.

But how do sales leaders help new hires quickly gain the depth of knowledge required to be an invaluable resource? How do they shorten sales rep onboarding time so that new hires are up-to-date on the industry trends that could be impacting their customer’s business?

The key is in agile selling.

As Jill Konrath presented at our recent Connect conference, agile selling is learning how to quickly assimilate new information in a selling situation and pick up and adapt new sales skills to execute effectively. To do this, reps need to adapt to a learning sequence where they prioritize new information when presented with a new selling situation.

For example, if there is a new market a company wants to break into, they know to learn the major players first, then read specific publications to get to know major issues, then look for companies with specific characteristics, then the contacts, then determine when to reach out and how. They are learning to master one piece of information at a time, and should continue to do so for a set time every day.

There are sales execution solutions today that help organizations support agile selling. Qvidian’s Sales Playbooks help organizations do just that. They provide information to reps in context of their situation, at just the right time. Not overwhelm them with the volume of information accessible. In doing so, reps consume just what they need when they need it and free up their minds to think about and solve customer problems. Customers are expecting more value to be added in the sales experience. But by burdening reps with too much information, it clutters their mind rendering them unable to think creatively for customers.

If reps aren’t able to add value for customers, they will lose the deal. Reinforcing the agile selling reduces the risk of salespeople being unprepared when they engage a customer. Sales execution solutions can help organizations adapt to this ongoing process so that studying, growing and adjusting becomes a regular part of everyday business.

If you want to target your potential audience in the best possible way, you need to know them as well as possible (without getting creepy). You need to know their hopes, fears, dreams, favourite animal… okay, maybe not quite that far, but you need to know as much as you can find out. More than anything else, you need to know why they’re your target audience, why they would be interested in your product, and what they expect from you.

Targeting everything to a specific individual is going to be too complicated. People are all different, after all. What you need to do is strike the right balance between a tailored, focused approach and one that’s too broad. Enter ‘personas’ – broader groups differentiated by age, income, budget, approach, or all of the above, into which your audience members fall. Define your main personas and you can then target them in a simpler, but effective, way. You can have as many as you want – or just one – but three is generally a solid number.

Personas are useful because they let you tailor your approach. They’re also useful because they really get you thinking about your audience and what they need. What makes them tick? What are their concerns? They give you a better understanding of your dream buyers, but also of your own business and how people see you. Your persona-building can be informed by market research, customer feedback, and social media, and with these tools you can form detailed, knowledgeable models of your target audience and existing customers alike.

As an example, I decided to come up with three different personas for Business 2 Community itself. I’d like to point out first that these personas are completely made-up, not based on actual data, and don’t make up the entirety of the Business 2 Community audience – it’s a hypothetical exercise to explain how it’s done!

The Thought Leader

Name: David
Age: 35-50
Role: MD at a successful and innovative tech startup.
Attitude: Wants to share his hard-won marketing wizardry and techniques for the greater good, and also wants to network with other thought leaders. Feels it is important to keep at the forefront of marketing and social media developments.
Influenced by: Technology magazines such as Wired, other thought leaders on Twitter, CEOs of major companies, popular marketing blogs, and mainstream media.
Overview: David was an early evangelist of social media and SEO, enthusiastically learning more back when people hadn’t quite caught on. Now he’s an expert and has applied this knowledge to great effect at his own company. He’s a big believer in using the web to network and connect – an enthusiastic guest blogger with an extremely impressive Twitter following, his tips and knowledge are invaluable to many.
How can you target your content at him? Readers such as David are focused on more advanced articles, rather than beginners’ guides. They’re interested in opinion pieces from peers and experts, especially if these opinions are a bit controversial.

The Ambitious Account Manager

Name: Lucy
Age: Late twenties
Role: Senior account manager at a digital agency.
Attitude: Believes social and SEO are the future, and wants to teach herself more about this in order to progress – very ambitious.
Influenced by: Leading industry blogs, the marketing press, mainstream newspapers, and follows thought leaders on Twitter.
Overview: Lucy has worked at this agency for four years, and is eager to progress further. By taking the initiative to learn more about SEO and social media, and how best to implement it, she hopes to improve the performance of her clients’ accounts and to impress the company directors.
How can you target your content at her? Readers such as Lucy will be interested in new and innovative ways to use their existing social media skills, and quick round-ups of the latest movements in the marketing world.

The Determined Small Business Owner

Name: Darren
Age: 40
Role: Owns a small, new, IT company.
Attitude: Just left his old company to start his own, and eager to take a structured approach to marketing it.
Influenced by: Technology press and blogs; leading marketing, SEO and social media blogs; mainstream newspapers; tech news on Twitter
Overview: Darren recently decided to follow his dream and set up shop alone. His several years experience in business taught him about the importance of good marketing, but it wasn’t his department at the time – however, he wants to learn. As he’s at the beginning of his venture, money is tight, so he’s teaching himself.
How can you target your content at him? Readers such as Darren will be interested in learning everything – they’ll probably have an understanding of marketing principles, but they won’t be experts. Beginner’s guides and cheat-sheets to more general SEO will be most useful.

These are just examples – but they show how turning statistics and data into actual relatable personas, similar to people you’ll have met in real life, can help you get inside the motivations of your audiences and tailor your content to their needs. It’s a simple exercise that pays dividends. Give it a whirl today – what have you got to lose?

There Are No Deals is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

You really aren’t looking for “a deal.” A “deal” means you gave dramatically less than was necessary to acquire what you really wanted.

Products: Any product that is selling for less than it once sold for isn’t a bargain. The demand for–or the value of–that product has declined to the point where the new lower price represents the actual value. You may still want the product, but you will be paying what it’s worth now.

Service: You really aren’t looking for bargains when it comes to buying a service. You don’t want a discount dry cleaner if you want to look crisp. You don’t want a discount hair salon or barbershop either. The lower the price, the lower the value created. If there were more value being created, the service would cost more. If you want care, it comes with a price.

Solutions: In the world of B2B sales, some people want a bargain when they buy a solution. They want to discount the product or service so they can get a “deal.” But the money that comes out in the way of discounts also can’t be invested in improving the service or improving the products that make up that solution. It also means there is less money to invest in the people who deliver the solution. Buyers end up with less value than they might otherwise have had would they not have sought a “deal.”

Hiring: The last thing you want when you hire is a deal. You don’t want to pay someone less than they are worth. Trying to pay less than you need to only ensures that you hire someone who isn’t capable of delivering all of the outcomes you need. You might fill the seat for less money than you could have spent, but you won’t realize the benefit of that bargain. You will get the value that you paid for, and if an employee exceeds your expectations, you will quickly pay them more or lose them.

Some people are proud to have paid less. Some people buy things they don’t need only because it was a “deal.” In all things, you get what you pay for.

You’re probably all-too-familiar with this stat: 55-80% of new products flop, depending on how generously you’re willing to define success. And according to CSO Insights’ 2014 Sales Performance Optimization Study, nearly half of B2B sales leaders feel that their teams “need improvement” in effectively introducing new products to the market.

So how can you overcome this ‘failure to launch’ phenomenon?

It comes down to avoiding three key product launch mistakes:

1. Turning your launch into product training versus enabling selling stories

The bulk of most B2B product kickoffs and training focus too much on precisely the wrong information: all the cool, dazzling new features. You treat your launches like they are product training, but product knowledge won’t drive decisions. Before your salespeople earn the right to talk about your cool new solution, they must first be able to give your customers a reason to think about changing the way they are doing things today.

Your alternative: Launch your product to your salespeople with the same message you expect them to deliver to your customers. First, tell them a powerful story that helps them show customers which business objectives are at risk if they stick with the status quo and what unforeseen or undervalued changes in their environment are threatening their desired outcomes. In other words, first give them a Why Change story.

Once you’ve convinced customers of the urgency to move from status quo, your salespeople have earned the right to prove Why You are the best alternative. They need a follow-up story that speaks specifically to how you solve the identified problems in a unique or advantaged way.

2. Expecting the sales team to seek out marketing messaging and tools after the launch

Most marketing organizations now set up extensive web portals and microsites to support their new product launches. Here’s the problem: most salespeople won’t search out those sites after the event, and if they do get there, they are overwhelmed with the amount of content and limited amount of context for how to use it. It’s a prescription for low adoption of your marketing tools, fading momentum for your new product, and poor first-year sales results.

Your alternative: Stop trying to drag your salespeople to your portal or microsite. Instead push the new story to them in engaging, chunky bites of content and best-practice story delivery examples. Make sure it works the way they work, and how they work, by serving up this information on their mobile devices. And, don’t rely on just one push, make sure to provide compelling, fun, educational reinforcement videos on key storytelling skills for several weeks to keep your launch top of mind.

3. Not engaging your first-line managers to coach their teams in support of the new product launch

Most B2B marketers focus their efforts on outbound launch communications (to drive customer awareness and leads) and tools to help the sales team sell the new product. They treat sales managers as part of the sales team, expecting them to figure out how to support the new product after the initial launch. Unfortunately, managers are often busier and more distracted than their sales teams. Your product launch is just another (new) item on their “to do” lists…one that probably won’t make it to the top. At the same time, your sales managers are your first line of defense in ensuring the adoption and consistent delivery of your new message. You can’t afford to overlook them.

Your alternative: Provide coaching resources specifically targeted at your managers to make it easy for them to host a local “stand and present” event to reinforce your new product messaging. Help them communicate their support for your new product and create opportunities for their team to try on your new message in front of the internal team, instead of your customers.

Your company invests too much time and money in developing your new products to risk a weak launch to your sales team. You owe it to yourself to learn more. Interested? Watch this video:

Sources:

1. Product Development Institute (PDI) and American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) product development benchmarking study 
2. Considerations for a Successful B2B Product Launch

What do you think is one of the biggest mistakes that sales teams make? Not coming up with the right solutions for prospects? Sure, that’s definitely a sign of a weak sales rep, but it’s not the oversight that wreaks the most crippling havoc on effective B2B sales enablement.

The biggest mistake sales reps make is not following up with “dormant” sales leads. This surprises most B2B companies because they assume that dormant leads don’t have much value: They’re not ready to buy, so why waste your reps’ time on them? But failing to follow up with dormant leads gets you out of the running to double your revenue.

That’s right: Paying attention to those people in the pipeline who aren’t ready to buy right at that time – keeping your company visible and relevant to reluctant buyers with hyper-personalized, hyper-helpful content – has the potential to double your revenue.

Interested? We thought so.

Seduce the 75%. 

Countless marketing/sales research firms, publications and thought leaders in the B2B industry, including Eloqua, RainToday.com and SiriusDecisions, report the disastrous effects that lack of lead follow up has on both marketing and sales ROI.

75% of the leads that don’t show solidified buying interest at the present time will go on to buy related services within the next 24 months.

They’re visiting your website and doing research on your industry’s products and services, but they’re just not ready to buy – not yet, anyway.

So while these leads may be dormant now, they have full potential for revival into primed leads (and, ultimately, satisfied buyers) when the time is right. This is why you must motivate your sales reps to pay attention to those dormant leads. They must keep your company in mind and in sight – because within 24 months, that now-primed lead is ready to buy… and you want your company to be the one they think of and go to first.

Kindle the fire with lead nurturing campaigns.
According to the GfK Roper Public Affairs And Media, 80% of B2B decision makers prefer to get company information in a series of targeted, “bite-sized” articles rather than in one intrusive advertisement. So a winning dormant lead nurturing campaign does just that: sending out helpful articles and quick-fix tip sheets every two to three weeks.

These nibbles of information eventually get those soon-to-be-revived leads craving the real meal (i.e., the real deal) from your company. Your sales reps are keeping your company in sight and in mind, but they’re not turning off those dormant leads with intrusive hard sells (i.e., “content harpoons”) or overwhelming emails that just get labeled as spam and then relegated to the trash folder.

So why is it the sales rep’s job?

Your marketing team’s experience with leads is broader and less intimate, and they may not have the intricate knowledge or less-obvious details to know which ones are qualified. So while it’s their job to produce leads for your sales people, it’s not their job to keep the dormant leads warmed up.

Your sales reps are closest to your leads. They know them best as people, not just as potential buyers. This close relationship gives them the upper hand in converting dormant leads into primed leads because they’re able to target and segment their messaging and offers, using powerful tools for campaign automation, on a more personalized level.

But they can’t work alone.Don’t get the wrong idea: Dormant lead nurturing is not a one-sales-(wo)man job. How does your sales team come up with content to guide leads along the buying process? They work with marketing.

You like numbers? Here are some winners.

• Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads.
  [Source: The Annuitas Group]

• Nurtured leads produce, on average, a 20% increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads.
  [Source: DemandGen Report]
• Companies with mature lead generation and management practices have a 9.3% higher sales quota achievement rate.
  [Source: CSO Insights]
• At companies without lead nurturing, sometimes things are so bad that NO “won” opportunities are derived from older leads, whereas at companies that excel at lead nurturing, as many as 1/2 (50%) of the “won” opportunities and associated revenue come from older, nurtured leads.
  [Source: Definitive Guide to Lead Nurturing, Marketo (2009)]
• Companies that automate lead management see a 10% or greater increase in revenue in 6-9 months.
  [Source: Gartner Research]
• Lead nurturing emails get 4-10 times the response rate compared to standalone email blasts.
  [Source: SilverPop / DemandGen Report]

• 79% of marketing leads never convert into sales. Lack of lead nurturing is the common cause of this poor performance.
  [Source: MarketingSherpa]

Your company cannot afford to undervalue its dormant leads. Make it known to your sales team: Giving up on leads that don’t get them immediate gratification is simply unacceptable.

If you want to survive in the B2B market, you can’t sweep dormant sales leads under the rug.

Your blog is a very important piece of your inbound marketing strategy, as it serves as a gateway to your product or service. The goal of your blog is to turn your readers into leads and then eventually convert those leads into sales and revenue. Can you learn anything from the blogs of your competition? It is always a good idea to read other blogs as it gives you a good indication of what topics your readers are interested in based on social shares and comment interaction. There are other bits of information that you can gather from other blogs, and we will discuss them below.

Discover What Kind of Content Your Audience is Engaging With

By simply reading other blogs you can quickly identify the type of content that is most popular within your industry by looking at the number of social shares and comments each piece receives. Content with a lot of social interaction means that people are talking about it, and is a strong indicator that the particular content works well.

If your blog is about “red widgets” and another blog about “red widgets” has a very strong social following and their posts receive a lot of shares and comments then there is a very good chance that the same audience will be interested in your content. Pinpoint what is working and figure out ways to make it better.

Uncover Successful Blog Strategies in Your Market

Reading other blogs within your industry will give you a very good idea of what kind of strategy works well and what strategies aren’t as effective. Some things you will want to look for include the frequency of updates, what blogs are showing up in organic search, and what type of content is well received.

Update Frequency: Every industry is different in terms of how often you will need to update your blog with new content. Some will update multiple times daily while some will be on a weekly schedule. See what is currently working for some competitors and evaluate the strategy. Don’t be afraid to test and try different update frequencies to see how your audience reacts.

Organic Results: Take note of any blogs that are constantly showing up high in the organic search results. This is a good indication that the content is high quality and receiving a lot of social love and other websites are linking to it. These are blogs that you should be reading on a regular basis.

Successful Content: Reading other blogs will help you identify the types of content that is working the best. How-to guides, eBooks, case studies, infographics, and videos are all popular types of content, so take the time to identify what kind of content your audience responds well to.

Find Link Building Strategies You Might be Missing

With some simple reverse engineering you can find out what websites are linking to a particular blog. This can help identify some golden link building opportunities. Take note of what type of content some of the high authority websites are linking to. Create a list of these websites and then when you produce some high quality content that you believe they might be interested in simply reach out to them.

It is important that you create something that is current and something that provides value that hasn’t been shared before. This will increase your chances of websites linking to it. Do not send a generic copy/paste email to every website contact you can get your hands on. Be selective and only approach websites that have strong link metrics. A simple email explaining that you just published a piece of content that you believe would be of interest to them (along with a link to the content) is sufficient. Over time this will result in many of the websites regularly visiting your blog and linking to your future content.

Reading additional blogs in your industry can provide you with the information above, but it can also help you stay sharp and it will often spark some great ideas for new blog posts. Using the tips above can help you create a better blog for your visitors and achieve what you are after: traffic, leads, sales, and revenue. Continue to try new things and listen to your readers in order to determine what works and what doesn’t.

Change is good, change is healthy, change is refreshing; change is often, inevitable. So do we need to revisit the universal definition of a lead in the world of sales and marketing? Has this changed? Does it need to change in light of the transformation impacted by digital and social marketing? Let’s discuss this…

Here’s What HAS Changed with B2B Lead Generation:

• Building volume at the top of the funnel is easier. Marketers now have multiple ways, both online and offline, to drive traffic to their websites, blogs, social profiles, as well as physical stores.

• BUT, you now have multiple funnels! As marketers realize the importance of distinguishing between buyer personas, there is more than one sales funnel you need to fill, filter your leads through and manage in order to drive conversions.

• Buyers are actively researching information they seek. While this is good reason and a great opportunity to relay this information in interesting ways, most buyers are also tuning out because of all the ‘noise’.

• Business is now personal. Social media allows organizations to make their brands very interesting and uniquely personal for prospects and customers. To reiterate, however, what I’ve said previously, there is a fine line between trying to engage buyers through social media and turning them off with your “24/7, in-my-face” social chatter.

• Marketing automation is widely acceptable, even sought after. In this digital age where we talk to our devices more than we talk to people around us, automation is no longer such a hard sell. Without a doubt, marketing automation has its limitations and common reasons for failure. Marketing automation vendors only have to prove that their product has better features and functions at a more attractive price point than their competitor, and companies want it. The buyer, on the other hand, has reached the point of fatigue from being bombarded by automated interactions with CRM and social software rather than a real person. For example, imagine a customer posting on a company’s Facebook page to vent frustration with a product or service and within seconds, the company responds with an utterly banal comment, “Thank you for your comment. We will get back to you shortly.” No! That customer is not interested in waiting for you to get back. As a matter of fact, that customer may just about be done with your company and would be further antagonized with your trite response. The customer wants a live person to resolve the issue, and that is not something your marketing automation can do.

• Reporting and measurement mechanisms and metrics have evolved. This can be a good thing; provided you have a 360° view of your lead generation process. Most organizations don’t and as a result, too much time and resources are expended on meaningless metrics. Instead of measuring lead quality, the focus strays to building volume and lead quantity. Big Data is not necessarily big insights until and unless the component of predictive analytics is built in, allowing your company to understand buyer behaviour and address stages of the buying cycle with this ‘intelligence’.

Here’s What HAS NOT Changed with B2B Lead Generation:

The 5 criteria that universally define a true lead.

1. Right company or demographic – Matches the profile of the organizations or people that are already your best customers
2. Right person – A decision maker, champion, influencer or at least someone whose recommendations are valued
3. Real pain point – There is clear indication that prospect has a need for your product or service and is interested to know more
4. Time to purchase – The buying decision is in the near future and prospect has budgeted for the purchase
5. Willingness to engage – Prospect is ready and willing to receive further sales interaction

This is the foundation that time after time, year over year – WORKS.

Do your sales people find it worthwhile to follow up on the leads provided by marketing? What steps have you taken to unite sales and marketing? How has B2B lead generation changed within your organization over the last 12 months or so? 

Image credit: Shutterstock

In the latter part of the 19^th century John Wanamaker, the father of modern advertising, is reputed to have said “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” Imagine you could demonstrate and manage the impact of marketing on revenue? Imagine you knew which half of your budget was well spent?

For a B2B company with sales cycles of more than six months this may still not be easy. Notice we are not talking about a labor of Sisyphus, pursuing marketing ROI on a single marketing initiative.

Measuring the impact of marketing means being able to attribute revenues back to all marketing initiatives that helped accelerate and earn that revenue. Another alternative, tracking marketing lead sources, which is similar to “first touch attribution” and while easily implemented, is not a substitute for recording 100% of the marketing interactions with contacts during their buying journey.

To successfully attribute marketing to revenue requires marketers:

1. Record all contact interactions with marketing initiatives.

2. Associate known contacts with opportunities in your CRM.

3. Weight the valued marketing interactions fairly.

In the past ten years there have been several developments on the marketing technology front that aid us in overcoming these challenges. Marketing automation records prospect interactions with marketing initiatives.

Since Wanamaker’s time we have been able to record the cost of our marketing outreach. The problem was we didn’t know which half of it was being effective unless they placed the order immediately because we could not see nor measure their interaction with our marketing initiatives.

In an age dominated by Digital Marketing,measuring and recording the prospect responses with Marketing Automation opens the door to demonstrating incremental movements in the buying cycle as a result of each marketing interaction.

A second important technology needed to overcome challenge #2 listed above is the Business Intelligence (BI) platform. For the most part, firms and sales people associate opportunities with accounts, and rarely attach contacts to the opportunity. In the majority of B2B sales five or more contacts may be associated with the purchase process and buying decision, yet only one or none of the contacts are listed on the opportunity.

The result is that the recorded marketing interactions with the 5+contacts are not directly associated with the opportunity or revenue. Enter the BI system. Connect it to your Marketing automation and your CRM platforms, give it some business rules for making the associations between contacts and opportunities, and you have overcome the second challenge.

Now you have arrived at challenge #3. Do you give equal weight to all marketing interactions with all contacts associated with the account, for all time prior to the opportunity closing? Probably not. You will probably need to weight the value of the interactions based on their recency and type. For example, you may choose to discount all website visits prior to 3 months before the opportunity was created, and you may choose to weight a webinar attendance five times greater than a Slideshare viewing.

In summary, your steps to getting started on Marketing Attribution include the following:

1. Integrate your marketing automation system and CRM to leverage the campaign object in the CRM when recording prospect behaviors. This will at least give you some basic reporting and show you some of the gaps.

2. Document and refine your lead management process so that pipeline reports on leads (not just opportunities) can accurately record marketing’s efforts.

3. Deploy a cloud based BI system that has pre-built connectors to your MA and CRM.

4. Define your business rules, configure your reports.

5. Train your staff to leverage reports in making better decisions every day and add measured KPIs into their variable compensation plans.

The knowledge, skills, processes and technologies are finally here to help all the John Wanamakers in the marketing world redirect the wasted marketing budget into initiatives that help sales people sell more. What are you waiting for?

Are you launching a new business? Starting a start-up? Introducing an amazing new product?

Before you jump right in and start selling your new product, business, service and more, you need to start to generate a buzz within your niche market. If you can get build excitement with your key customer influencers – you’re well on your way to success. One of the best and most cost-effective ways to do this is through online marketing. And the heart of your online marketing campaign is your pre-launch landing page.

A “coming soon” landing page can start to build anticipation, generate leads with your potential customers and create a successful future launch.

Here’s 3 “coming soon” landing page templates critiqued with tips – so you can make your small business launch a profitable one!

#1 Pre-launch Landing Page Template: Simple, sleek and intriguing

Taasky is a tech start-up that now makes a task managing app for iPhones. Prior to launching themselves a few months ago, they generated buzz through online marketing. They were hugely successful, and now have thousands of customers around the globe. Their clever marketing strategy included a email lead generating landing page.

What I like:

Overall, I like this landing page design. Maybe it’s the product that appeals to my geeky “to do list” type personality, but I emotionally appreciate this simple pre-launch page. (And I’m likely one of their target markets.) Here’s a few elements that make this page work:

The simple design – This design is clear of too many distractions. It visually tells what the product does and has minimal text to overwhelm the visitor. The simple branded header gives contrasting colours without taking away from the prominent “Send” button.

Whitespace – A key element in simple design is whitespace. This pre-launch landing page has enough whitespace to put the visitor at ease, and frees up the eye. The intent is clear, without clutter.

Clear, contrasting CTA – The CTA of inputting your email and clicking is clear. Great use of contrasting colours (red on grey) within a colour scheme.

Consumer centric CTA – They think of their customer in their CTA copy, by using the pronoun “me” (as in “Email me when it is ready”).

Link to Press Kit – I like the unobtrusive link to their press kit. It gives you, the consumer, both the feel like you’re important enough to get an exclusive pre-media look at the app, and it sleekly gives the opportunity to get more information (without cluttering the conversion landing page).

Image that tells a thousand words – Great use of imagery, with a iPhone showing how the product will work. For any iPhone user, this can create desire. The task they chose to use “Buy a new toothbrush” is common and super relatable to appeal to a wider market.

Creates intrigue – The landing page doesn’t give everything away. It shows enough of the product to create desire, but leaves the viewer with motivation to be the first to get it, or at least learn more.

What I’d change or test:

Every good landing page needs A/B testing. A few tweaks to a page, or even a complete redesign can increase conversion results, and generate tons more interest in your own product pre-launch. I like this particular landing page for it’s clean design, but there are a few tests I’d still run to optimize consumer motivation.

Colours – I’d test out the background colour. I get that grey is a colour of business and organizing. But I’d test out (sorry) another shade of grey, or even clean hue of yellow. I’d stick to colours that invoke a clean and simple emotional feel.

CTA wording – They could make the CTA button a little more inviting. Instead of “Send” I’d test out words like “Organize me” or “Keep me in the know”.

Exclusivity – As a pre-launch marketing campaign to their new product, I’d like to feel more special for being the first in line to try this new innovation. I’d test out additional tag lines like: “Be the first. Easy and simple to use task manager” or “Coming soon. A new way to organize your life. Sign up for updates now.”

List of benefits – They could try testing the inclusion of a list of three benefits. It may distract from the overall look and feel and simple appeal, but it could also tell a little bit more about the product, and how it’s going to make my life so much better.

#2 Pre-Opening Landing Page Template: Good marketing idea, but where’s the CTA?

Definite Studio Fitness is a new small business. They’re a local fitness centre, offering a variety of classes. They opened a few months ago to some success. They did have an online marketing strategy, but as we’ll see a better landing page would have given them more success.

What I like:

From a marketing perspective, I like what Define Fitness is trying to accomplish with this page. They are building anticipation for their new location opening by pre-marketing it, and offering discounts for upcoming classes. However, the implementation of their online marketing campaign is, well, abysmal. There are a few things I do like about their pre-launch landing page:

Marketing promotion campaign – I love that this fitness studio is giving customers a discount to pre-register for class passes. They even identify specific target markets like “New Moms” and “Brides to Be”.

The clean design – The page is nice and simple. It clearly tells the purpose of the landing page. The title of the page is clearly “Opening Soon Promotion”.

Skimmable content – The landing page content is written with short sentences and short paragraphs. Their viewers might be more inclined to read the page, and feel connected because it’s not too wordy. Customers can skim the page, and even read it on their phone. However, there are many changes they should make to enhance this marketing page, such as the use of bullet points and visuals.

What I’d change or test:

There’s a LOT I would change about this landing page. There are so many opportunities missed on this page to: generate leads, get immediate sales, deepen the reach to targeted markets and more. I’d say this fitness studio understands marketing and how to launch a location opening. They just don’t know how to do it using online marketing and landing page templates.

There’s no Action to take on the page – This page is terrible because a viewer cannot immediately take the requested action. With no clear CTA button, this landing page is kind of – useless.

The message of the page is to tells people that they can use a promotion code when they are checking out. But there’s not even a link directly to the check out landing page. A customer has to be so motivated that they’ll copy the promotion code, search for the gym’s checkout page, select a class pass option, start the checkout process, and then paste the code to get a discount. Uh, you’ve just lost a ton of potential customers.

They should set up a distinct opening soon promotion landing page, with a clear (and clickable) call-to-action. Use contrasting colours to make that CTA stand out, and link it directly to a specific and unique promotional discount landing page. Use a coupon code as they have. Use a simple online coupon creator that’s visually appealing, and takes one click (and an email) to get the coupon. By making it super easy to get the discount. They’d generate a lot more interest -and immediate sales.

No visuals – Show me the benefits! Show me why I’d be interested! Today’s online marketing is about grabbing your viewers attention and holding it long enough for them to convert with you. Show visuals of a new mom having tons of fun and getting back into shape. Show visuals of a happy bride to be working out. Show visuals of the new studio. Show me something to get me hooked!

No Address – Show the location address of the new studio. People need to know this information before they sign up. The local address will attract more people in their neighborhood – who will be the customers at the gym.

Make unique pages for each targeted market – Ok, this might be a slightly advanced tactic for a company like this, who clearly want to be marketing online but just don’t know how. But, they could easily make a few unique landing pages to target each of their specified demographics. Why? They could then market to each group specifically to show the benefits of their membership. They could then use highly targeted Facebook Ads or Google Adwords to drive that niche market to their locally based landing page.

It’s marketing – the more personally you can connect with your customer, the more likely they’ll convert.

It’s easy to make a great landing page when you use a customizable landing page builder.

I could go on, such as:

• Making the CTA button clear and simple.
• Highlighting the dates of the studio opening.
• Invoking a sense of urgency by making the promotion end date more visual.
• Using more colours to make the promotion look exciting.
• Listing out the benefits of a membership.
• Having an easy way to collect emails – so the gym can keep in touch with prospects through email automation campaigns.

#3 Opening Soon Landing Page Template: Keep it visual and generate leads

Adenbrook homes is real estate development company in Brisbane Australia. They created a website landing page to pre-market their homes and generate immediate sales.

What I like:

The concept of pre-marketing and pre-sales in real estate is nothing new. It’s a common practice to start generating cash flow to a developer/ realtor’s budget – and start to create a buzz about the amazing new real estate properties for sale. This development company is using a landing page on their website as part of their marketing mix.

Visually appealing – On first glance, the visitor can see exactly what the page is about. The page shows a visual of the house exterior. The image has a text overlay clearly stating that it is a “Brand New Display” and that it is “opening soon”.

Contrasting branded colours – Both the “opening soon at Augustine Heights” and the “Orion display” button are contrasted to stand out. It also happens to be in their brand logo colours.

Clean navigation bar – The top menu bar is easy to navigate. Once a visitor has landed on this promotional page, it’s easy for them to check out the company website to get to know more about them and develop trust.

What I’d change or test:

This landing page could be improved to be much more exciting, generate leads and increase the pre-sale line up.

No Lead Generation – In real estate, you’re selling one of the largest purchases of a customer’s lifetime. It takes nurturing, trust building and lots of informative communication. They could have generated tons of email leads by including a lead generating form. The form could be short, with just the requirement of the interested buyer’s name and email. Use trusting, no commitment type benefits for signing up, such as “Be the first in line”, “You’ll be the first to know about upcoming properties available” or “Sign up for our pre-sale membership list”.

Give a prospect the feeling of exclusivity. Show scarcity in your real estate offerings. Get leads and start an email automation campaign to keep generating buzz to create a buying frenzy.

More visuals to show the lifestyle – The visuals are alright on this page. But, they could generate a lot more excitement by showing the inside of this designer show home. Make the viewer fall in love with the house’s unique selling features by showing them on the pre-sale landing page.

List of benefits – The landing page tells that this house is an “Orion” design. That’s a great benefit, I’m sure. But, they need to translate what this means for potential homebuyers. Is it an award winning design? What are the features that make this design so great and livable? What’s so great about the suburbs? If these homes are marketed to a young family – list the outdoor space and open concept kitchen (for example). If these homes are marketed to investors – list the potential for rental income and property value increase.

Give the location – Ah, isn’t that “location, location, location” thing a real estate expression? They could extend the page below the fold (though I rarely recommend this), to show a map of the housing development location. Express the benefits of the area in that typical real estate way – you know “close to schools, great community, growing suburbs, etc.”. Show the location with pictures of parks, coffee shops, and so on.

Conclusion

Your pre-launch landing page is the hub of your online marketing campaign. Optimize your “coming soon” page to generate leads and begin to send out those much needed lead nurturing email automations.

Have you launched a new business? Promoted a new product? Or started your own start-up? What buzz generating tactics did you use? How many landing pages do you have on your business website? Do you use a landing page builder with marketing automation options?

Written by Krista Bunskoek @ Wishpond

Updated Social Media Stats and Snacks

We took a look at the latest statistics on the top social media outlets. There were a couple of things that were surprising. Some of the information didn’t shock us at all. And some of it was just down right delicious.

AN OVERVIEW

As a business owner you want more visits to your website.

When someone clicks on your social media link and spends some time online looking at your article or video, the social media source they jumped from gets some credibility for the amount of time the visitor stays on your link.

When it comes to where people spend their time when they click on a link, YouTube wins by a landslide, but there are also some social media platforms like StumbleUpon, Reddit and Pinterest who are making the race a little uncomfortable for LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

When it comes to having your potential customers consuming your content, which platforms are you going make an effort on?

The social media outlets you choose make a difference.

Your audience doesn’t hang out everywhere.

You can find some of your audience all of the time.

You can find all of your audience some of the time.

Where are you going to spend your time?

In addition, we wanted to know where the brands were spending their time across social media.

Although it remains difficult to make a splash on Facebook without paying for advertising, most Brands still continue to have a presence there.

Key Take-Away: It still takes some research before you jump into the social media system. There are many platforms out there that are worthy to be on. Finding out where your audience is first, and then creating your plan is fundamental to making an inbound marketing program work.

SO, WHAT WORKS BEST?

In terms of getting leads and driving more traffic to your business website email is still the best marketing method.

Ecommerce Quarterly reports that conversions rates for email remain at the top of the charts for conversion rates.

In a Zuberance Report, it was found that more recommendations are made through email than any other social media source.

Key Take-Away: If you want your delighted customers to share your business posts, or if you want more conversions in your sales funnel, email is still the way to go for your social media dollar.

FACEBOOK IS STILL ON TOP – IN SPITE OF ITSELF

There have been lots of changes at Facebook lately.

Since the social media giant went public on May 18, 2012 there has been a steady press downward on business pages in feeds.

The pain has been felt by companies trying make a mark on Facebook.

With organic appearances in feeds going down to less than 2%, it would seem that Facebook is going to make businesses advertise on Facebook whether they like it or not.

However, some businesses are still experiencing some success.

According to a study made by Searchmetrics on Google Ranking Factors, Facebook shares have the greatest influence on Google search rankings in the United States.

Key Take-Away: Larger brands, who have a long-established presence on Facebook, can leverage their “likes” and “shares” to gain ranking and more visibility, but a small- to medium-sized business is going to have to resort other means.

Facebook, being the publicly-traded company they’ve become is trying to get you to advertise. It is time to get clever.

ARE YOU PLUSSING? OR ARE YOU STILL NONPLUSSED?

Google+ still remains a bit of a black sheep in the social media universe.

As in real life, the wooly network seems to be misunderstood.

More and more brands, though, are getting on board the platform.

If anything they hear, it means good things for their search rankings.

Not only that, the numbers show it makes good sense to the big guys.

Forrester Research also came out with a study earlier this year that says Google+ generates the same amount of engagement per follower as the same posts do on Facebook.

Key Take-Away: Google+ may seem a little confusing to gain a foothold on. Give it a try and see what a different type of network it is and how pleased you will be at the increase in your rankings when you start engaging followers there.

I HASH, THEREFORE I AM

Twitter is still holding strong as the social network for what is trending.

In March 2014 the social media bird sort of accidently announced that it may or may not be eliminating the hashtag as a means of relating topics across the platform.

Without the tried to true means of connecting subject matter across the platform, businesses remain skeptical about how they might engage potential customers in the aftermath.

Still, the hashtag remains the way to engage on Twitter.

Buddy Media reports that tweets with one or two hashtags get 21% higher engagement from Twitter users than tweets with three or more hashtags.

94% of the Top 100 Brands remain on Twitter as well.

One other big factor about Twitter is that more users share from Twitter than any other social media platform.

The time of day you post on any network has an effect on engagement.

According to Buddy Media, when you post during busy hours (8AM-7PM) your Tweets are more likely to get noticed.

Our Buddies also say that Tweets with less than 100 characters get maximum exposure on Twitter.

Key Take-Away: Begin thinking about ways to connect with users that don’t contain a hashtag and don’t think that Twitter is going to throw away their “Trend Status King” crown so easily. Tweet during business hours with content less than 120 characters.

THERE’S NO BUSINESS FOR B2B BUSINESS LIKE LINKEDIN

If you are a B2B Marketer, there is no place better to be on social media than LinkedIn.

47% of B2B businesses are actively using LinkedIn to connect with peers in the marketplace according to Inside View.

With more than 50% of LinkedIn users actively engaged on the site every week, and 53% of them a part of ten or more groups, Wayne Breitbarth’s Blog surmises what any smart business person would – as a business, a presence there is necessary.

HERE’S YER SNACK

Pinterest, the visual network for foodies everywhere, is THE network to post on if your content is food related according to Citigroup Global Markets.

Pinterest also remains a visually dominated platform like Instagram.

The fashion industry and brands with highly absorbing visual content use Pinterest very well.

Key Take-Away: Pinterest takes a little more work. If you don’t want to put time into graphics and visuals, don’t both. If you do it well, however, the results can be remarkable. Let’s eat.

The Social Media Ecosystem remains a viable way to find your potential customer, as well as make your mark as a brand. Staying on top of the latest statistics and trends is a great way to figure out where to put your inbound marketing dollars.

What do you think of Google+? How about Twitter and the threat of no hashtags? Leave a comment or two.

Or, you can give us a call. We love social media. And snacks.

You can also check out our Social Media Tune-Up here:

 Thanks to Factbrowser for all of your interesting facts and statistics.

The sales presentation: It’s the catalyst to sales success. Transforming leads into prospects, molding prospects into clients or customers, the presentation is a converting machine … or at least it should be. If you’re not putting every ounce of effort into your sales presentations, every drop of innovation you’re able to get your hands on, then you need to rethink your sales approach.

Sales presentations aren’t what they used to be.

They’re not the face of your company.
So ditch the dolled-up slides.

They’re not your reps’ song and dance.
This isn’t a spectacle for starry-eyed buyers.

It’s a tough crowd out there.
Today’s buyers demand the real deal. They demand an experience.

This blog post highlights two ineffective approaches to sales presentations that we like to call the funhouse farce and demonstrations from Planet Average.

The funhouse is closed. 

Too many companies are stuck in the glory days, when sales reps stole the show by baiting, bribing and barking at buyers. Still hiding behind smoke, mirrors and sideshows, they do anything to distract from value-vacant solution selling and mundane monologues. In their minds, it’s still their amusement park: “Bedazzled buyers, step right up!”

Reality check: Today’s buyer is too smart for tricks, too savvy to fall for the jazzed-up pitch. With information in spades and your competition on the other line, today’s B2B buyer demands a lot more from your sales team than he used to.

He’s tough to please.
Tough, but not impossible.

Planet Average is evacuating fast.

The average presentation – a PowerPoint of templated slides, perhaps with a chart or graph thrown in – is already considered archaic by today’s savvy buyers. The buyer demands, expects and deserves more from your sales presentations.

If your reps’ presentations are boring, you’re done; a disengaged buyer checks out with a vengeance. If you really want to make an impression – earning the affinity, trust and esteem of your buyers – you’ve got to exit the average orbit. No more solution selling or passive pitches from uninspired sales reps. Get serious about your company’s wow factor and transform blasé sales presentations into textured, multisensory buyer experiences.
THE TOOLS

The right presentation management software has the tools you need to set up and drill down on that exceptional experience for your buyers:

• Interactive charts and graphs that don’t just tell, but show
• Articles, reports, case studies and other eyelid-lifting, conviction-shifting content that buyers can’t get with a simple online search
• Videos and voice-annotated messages to tap into all of your buyers’ brain regions and comprehension pathways
• Personalized notes (written or voice) to clinch that customization factor and leverage your reps’ unique conversational skills

THE ACCESS
Make your presentation easily accessible to your sales team and your clients/prospects.

• Use a sales portal to organize, store and share sales materials and marketing content, as well as deliver sales presentations in a singular, secure meeting place between rep and buyer.
• Provide unlimited, transparent access to your team and your clients/prospects – anytime and from anywhere, including mobile devices.
• Empower your sales reps with the ability to build new presentations on the fly, making them more nimble and enterprising in their sales enablement efforts.
• Set up a presentation library, granting your team access to an entire collection of slides for quick drag-and-drop presentation construction.

Still selling the funhouse? Or stuck on Planet Average? Swap the smoke and mirrors for sales and marketing technology that propels your presentations into hyper-personalized, ultra-potent orbit. It’s time to give your buyers that exceptional, sales-enabling experience.

In your search for a lead generation partner, you might notice that prices dramatically vary from one vendor to the other. While you might be tempted to go for the cheapest option – or worse, fall for pay-per-lead pricing (–link–) – it is important you understand why quality lead generation firms are more expensive.

Outsourcing lead generation is about a lot more than merely getting leads. It is about full cycle sales. When hiring a lead generation partner, you are in fact investing in resources that will contribute to generating the pipeline growth you are seeking. These resources include:

• Dedicated Sales Team

Some lead generation companies will assign to your account part-time reps that are simultaneously working for different accounts. Others will have reps selected and trained specifically for your program, which they’ll be working full-time. Which option would you rather pick?

• Training

Every solution is unique and can be sometimes quite complex. Therefore, it is crucial the sales firm you outsource to disposes of skilled trainers and coaches that work alongside sales reps. The quality of a lead generation company’s training program will determine how quickly and accurately they will be able to sell your brand, products and/or services.

The training program should ensure the outsourced sales team is able to speak to your competition, have meaningful conversations about the business of the prospect and be technically versed on your product. In the best case scenario, the outsourced sales team becomes an extension of your company, providing seamless integration between their lead outreach and follow-up from your sales teams.

• Comprehensive Analysis and Reporting

If your lead generation partner is truly an extension of your own sales team, their operations will be fully transparent. A quality lead generation firm will create customized dashboards for your account so you can have continuous access to the metrics related to your program.

• Portable Pipeline

Even after your contract ends, all the insight gained by your lead generation partner regarding your pipeline is not lost. Indeed, even after your contract ends, you will still have access to all the data related to your program: lead contact details, lead activity, results against forecast and overall performance. You will be able to speak clearly to how they impacted pipeline.

Now, can you foresee the cost your organization would accrue if they were to acquire these resources to conduct lead generation in-house?

Note that to fully exploit these resources and enable your lead generation partner to deliver maximum results, you’ll have to be as much of a partner to them as they are to you. Learn about your role as a sales outsourcer in our next blog post.

Photo by Meena Kadri

In our interactions with prospective clients, we have noticed that one of the main concerns B2B professionals have about outsourced lead generation is the lack of guarantee. In the search for ways to provide a guarantee to clients, majority of lead generation companies have adopted a pay-per-lead model: the client is billed based on the number of leads delivered by the outsourced sales reps. This model helps ease client concerns such as:

1. Our solution is complex for us to outsource and we are not sure how well an outsourced sales team can sell it.
2. Even though you may have called into our vertical we need to be assured of the number of leads the outsourced team will generate for us.

Since you, the client, only pay for the number of leads you are delivered, the risk on your investment is consequentially decreased – or so it seems.

In this model, the key issue is that you are challenging the lead generation company on a quantitative level only. From their perspective, the more leads they hand over to you, the closer they are to meeting your expectations. The focus on quantity becomes the number of leads and takes away from time that should be devoted to lead qualifiers such as:

• Accurate titles of valid decision makers
• Capture of accurate business triggers within the prospect’s business and most importantly
• Relevant conversations notes that state the lead sent over is definitely interested in your company and product versus your competitors

This means that they would have to provide you with leads that generate qualified opportunities and pipeline for your sales teams to follow-up on and close, notot just a ton of leads. They have to be invested in the long –term business development of your company.

When outsourcing lead generation/sales, you are not merely hiring people to make sales calls on your behalf; you are buying resources and processes. You are not solely buying warmed up leads, you are partnering up to construct a pipeline and grow your business. Your lead generation partner should be as invested in your business just as you are.

Think about the cost if you chose to insource your lead generation versus outsource. That is an expensive endeavor that requires internal buy-in, more budget and overhead than outsourcing itself, and may take months to get off the ground.

Outsourcing lead generation/sales can be quite an investment and naturally, B2B organizations are looking for ways to decrease risk while maximizing return.

How do you find a partner and not a mere vendor? These questions are answered in our next blog post. Read now.