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There are many sales organizations that are focused on ways to arm sellers in the new B2B buying process. Research from SiriusDecisions shows that nearly 70% of the buying process is done digitally. By the time these buyers speak to a salesperson, they aren’t interested in having a conversation. They’re ready for price quotes.

This buying process shift makes a lot of salespeople nervous. It shouldn’t. Think of it as a positive; they’re interested!

A more informed buyer provides an incredible opportunity to differentiate the way you do business. It also makes things more efficient, because you’re not wasting time qualifying opportunities that are never going to happen.

Maneuvering through this sales process means it’s critical that you first confirm where the buyer is in the buying process. Then, help the buyer clarify critical points of success. Specifically, the best sellers:

1. Help the buyer validate their strategy/thinking and defined requirements by adding measurable ways to determine which solution truly delivers on their requirements best.

2. Ask questions, based on their knowledge and experiences. This discovery helps buyers consider other potential critical success factors and possibly uncover additional requirements to ensure success. I call this, “adding more rows to the spreadsheet” (of requirements).

Understand, as a seller, that your strength lies in your ability to demonstrate Positive Business Intent. Positive Business Intent is made up of four components:

1. Reliability (R) – Do you do what you say you’re going to do?
2. Intimacy (I) – Can you build personal relationships with your customers?
3. Credibility (C) – Do you bring authority to what you offer?
4. Self – Orientation (S.O.) – Are you self or customer-focused?

This was one of my earliest sales lessons, and while I can’t remember who gave it to me, I am eternally grateful. It’s a simple math equation:

 R + I + C ÷ S.O. = Positive Business Intent

The first three components are what you bring to the table. Their sum total gets divided by whether you are selfishly motivated or customer motivated. That said, the most critical part of the top equation is now “Credibility.” The other two are considered “table stakes”. The best sellers are those who bring credibility through knowledge and willingness to help buyers see new “points of view” that they haven’t been able to seen on their own.

When I was selling, Positive Business Intent was always my goal with customers. I wanted my customers to know that I understood what it meant to really think about their business. There are a lot of sales managers out there, who are just happy to have the title. I wanted my customers and sales team to know I wasn’t there to hand out my official business cards, I was there to work.

Building Positive Business Intent should be a goal with every one of your customer contacts. It’s a simple concept, but it’s not always easy. There’s not a cut and dry method to achieving it. Rather, it needs to be an underlying component to how you conduct business.

Salespeople that truly command their message know how to effectively communicate their positive business intent throughout the sales process. No matter where your prospect is in the buying process, keep the conversation customer-focused. You’ll find yourself building a network of champions and repeat business.

Ingredient branding is one of the core principles of B2B marketing for those companies whose products are a component of other products. It differentiates the product offerings and establishes how they are essential to other, more familiar products. According to research conducted by Industrial Marketing Today, ingredient brands are shifting budgets and resources from traditional industrial marketing programs to inbound. While some in the C-suite were skeptical about the efficacy of content marketing to generate sales, today’s path-to-purchase overrides these concerns. The decision journey includes multiple decision-makers who want to discover new ways to do things or understand how a component will integrate into their systems. Different content types have different authority and influence at each point of the journey and each individual decision-maker has its own preferences and “go-to” places for high authority content.

Today ingredient brands need to sell their smarts; not their products. Component manufacturers need to overcome their “vender” mentality and instead create a content strategy that demonstrates their value as a visionary partner. Old school content such as product collateral, sell sheets or component catalogs and price books, still have a place on the roadmap but do little to convince the multiple decision-makers of the company’s innovation, solutions orientation or provide an experience that makes them “need” to work with a specific partner.

A recent conversation with Carlos Abler, Leader – Online Content Strategy at 3M, focused on some of the complexities faced by ingredient brands in selling to OEMs or system integrators. According to Abler, “Ingredient brands need to deepen their customer centricity to a more role-based approach. They need to holistically understand the tasks undertaken by each role that ultimately touches or influences the buying decision.”

Companies selling to OEMs, for example, need to consider multiple roles, including:

• Industrial designer, who is interested in ideas and applications
• Design engineer, who wants to know the specifications
• Process engineer, who needs to determine if the solution will work in the company’s manufacturing environment
• Compliance officer, who ensures the components are environmentally compliant in all manufacturing locations
• Program manager, who wants to find companies that can contribute to multiple projects
• Economic buyer, who negotiates terms and pricing
• Partners, who can integrate products into net new solutions

This suggests a complex sales construct with multiple cells, which needs to be reflected in the content strategy. Companies can no longer act transnationally with customers and prospects. The content strategy needs to combine thought leadership with innovative use cases that span multiple industries and sectors. The content strategy also needs to provide great evaluation and simulation tools; this type of content underscores the partnership mentality of the company vs. the transactional view of a “vender”. According to Abler, “Buyers want an ideational partner. They want to work with visionaries who can articulate and demonstrate future possibilities and share application content that demonstrates this. If the ingredient brand waits until the buyer is at the specification stage, they are too late.”

Another consideration is NDA compliance, which can prevent ingredient brands from disclosing their coolest or most innovative applications. This requires a lot of creativity to communicate their vision and ability to be a creative thought partner without disclosing actual applications.

BASF handled this issue through their long running ad campaign, which established its brand as a component that made products better. Their advertising showed multiple applications that never disclosed customer names. The campaign used arresting visuals of familiar products in engaging situations with a voice over that said things like:

“We don’t make the dress, we make it brighter”“We don’t make the motorcycle; we make it quicker.”“We don’t make the sand board; we make it lighter.”BASF. The Chemical Company.

3M positioned its innovation for the electronics industry through a video with a science fiction theme. It featured various futuristic applications such as wristbands with flexible displays, glass touchscreens and wearable technology. The video highlighted 3M’s innovation without ever showing any customer’s actual application. Yet, it appealed to designers wanting a partner who could take them to “what’s next”.

Ingredient brands also need to include “to” and “thru” content as part of the roadmap. This is important for communicating with partners and for helping with intra-role interactions. Partners need content “to” them that spells out why the ingredient brand’s applications and innovations matter to the partner’s customers. They also need “thru” content that helps with sell-through to their customer base. These dynamics also apply within a prospect company. Ingredient brands need to speak the language and address the needs of each role and help those in those roles communicate up and down the chain. This is a huge gap in many content strategies.

Huge organizational and cultural challenges exist that prevent component manufacturers and integrators from adopting this type of matrixed content strategy. Often, the corporate level has the best horizontal view of the impact it can have on industrial design across industries and organizations. Yet, the budgets for content live in the product or business level, which tends to have a more parochial view. In some instances, multiple products can compete for the same piece of business, each offering a different solution or application. These divisional or product siloes prevent the company from presenting an overarching story that tells the big “ideation” and “innovation” story. If this becomes a centralized function, they can tap the divisions or product areas for deeper, role focused content.

The resulting content strategy will reflect understanding through the lens of the customer and further refract it into the subtopics and interests of the multiple decision-makers. Ultimately, ingredient brands need to inspire design and product engineers, inform program managers and instill confidence in economic buyers. Your sales people may or may not have relationships with all decision-makers and influencers. A content strategy that offers spec sheets and price lists will leave your potential as an innovation partner undiscovered.

Originally featured on Industrial Marketer.

Many owners grow their business believing that they will simply sell it one day when they are ready and receive enough proceeds, after taxes and fees, to live out the rest of their life. What are the chances of this actually happening? Less than one in four according to business brokers nationwide. Seventy-five to eighty-five percent of all sale attempts fail. Why does this happen? There are many reasons and chief among them:

• Owners don’t have a clear plan for how they will spend their time after the sale.
• Owners cannot get what they believe their company is worth from buyers.
• The business is not attractive to buyers.
• Owners try to sell the business themselves.
• Owners realize, at the last minute, that they will not be getting enough money after taxes and fees.

Six Steps to Selling Your Business to an Outsider

We believe that planning is the most powerful way for owners to improve their chances for a successful sale to an outsider. Here are six steps that owners may follow to put together a cohesive business ownership transition plan:

Step 1 – Getting Yourself Prepared

Devote some serious time to figuring out what you want to do after you sell. This step is often overlooked by owners, which can cause seller’s remorse. Most owners have spent all their time, money, and energy on their business, and it takes time to separate the owner from the business. Gradually spending more time away from the business gives owners the time and space they need to envision themselves without their business.

Step 2 – Counting Beans

Determine how much money you need from the business sale. This step is about taking stock of what you have saved outside the business and analyzing your income and expenses to figure out what you need to “net” after taxes and fees.

Step 3 – Building a Better Box

Prepare your business for sale. Beauty is in the eye of the buyer. There are multiple drivers of business value including strong management (lack of dependence on the owner), clean financials, and increasing revenues and profits.  Don’t underestimate how long this step may take.

Step 4 – Follow the Yellow Brick Road

Identify the right buyer. Owners rarely have the reach to cast their net far and wide for the right owner. Owners should work with a business broker or investment banker with experience in their industry. Creating a “horse race” for your company is the most effective way to maximize the selling price.

Step 5 – Art of the Deal

Educate yourself on how your sale proceeds will be taxed and what advisory fees you will have to pay. Entity type and deal structure are the two biggest factors that determine the level of taxation on your transaction. Good advisors will be able to increase your net proceeds and more than pay for themselves as long as you do your part to prepare yourself and your business for sale.

Step 6 – Paint by Numbers

Before going to market, complete the five steps outlined above and pull it all together into a roadmap that you can follow to a successful sale.

At the Business Transition Academy, we offer our book as well as training for owners who want to create their own business ownership transition plan. Want a free chapter? Click below.

In the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, Alec Baldwin famously yells at his salesmen to always be closing. In the digital age, it’s not salesmen but websites that need to be closing.

Only now it’s referred to as a conversion rate. The whole point of a business website is to convince potential buyers to make a purchase.

There is an art and a science to getting your website to convert sales. There are steps and practices that you can use that will make you more likely to get the results you want.

Here are a few to get you started.

1.Experiment with different methods.

If there were tactics that always worked, everyone would know them, everyone would use them and you wouldn’t need this article. There are a lot that tend to work. There are even some tips that are case-specific may require an opposite plan of action depending on the circumstances.

Therefore, the only tip that’s truly universal is to try different methods and see what works best for your site.

Do some A/B testing where you test one version of the site with one group of potential viewers and another version with another group. Thoughtful testing is the only way to achieve better conversion over time.

2.Remember the six factors of conversion.

A website conversion rate hinges on a few factors:

• The value proposition of your goods or service;
• How relevant your good or service is to the viewer;
• How clear your message and value proposition are to the viewer;
• How much anxiety the viewer has in making the purchase;
• How distracted the viewer is from your message when using the website; and
• How much urgency the viewer feels to make a purchase.

3.Cut down on forms.

The more questions viewers have to answer to get what they want, the less likely they are to do it. Only ask the questions you absolutely need to get the sale you want.

4.Make your call to action button stand out.

You want viewers to do one thing, whether it is to make a purchase, subscribe or make some form of commitment. That means they will have to click a specific button. That button needs to stand out from the rest of the page so it is easily seen. Do whatever it takes to make sure that everyone knows where that button is.

5.Put the action button at the top of the page.

If the user has to scroll down the page to find the call to action button, you’ve committed a huge offense. The button doesn’t have to be at the top of the page, but you better be able to see it as soon as soon as the page opens.

6.Remove banner sliders.

You see them all the time. The post summaries appear at the top of the page, and they cycle through about once every five seconds.

You might think it looks cool, but like those websites with the background music in the early ’90s, it’s just distracting. People want to explore at their own pace, and this carousel of articles distracts from that. It’s better to show a list.

7.Use videos.

Video killed the website text. YouTube shows that people enjoy watching videos more than reading. Use that. Just test the video to make sure you don’t put up something that drives people away.

8.Clear headline, a ton of viewers, can’t lose.

Okay, it’s not a perfect paraphrase, but the point still stands. When you post something, whether it is a blog or a product description, make sure that the headline clearly defines the content. Viewers will appreciate it.

9.The ticking clock.

Buyers put off making purchases. However, if there is a sense of urgency, whether it is a limited-time offer or a timer ticking down the time before a product is pulled, people are more likely to make that purchase. A lack of time can be a good thing for a seller.

10.Give them your digits.

Everyone loves the idea of doing everything by email, but phone numbers convey a sense of permanence. It’s a way for customers to contact a person directly if something goes wrong, which in turn makes them more confident to make a purchase.

11.They got questions? Give them answers!

Phone calls are great, instantaneous live chat on your site is too. It allows customers to get comfortable with their purchases by getting answers to any questions they have.

12.Show off your awards.

Making a sale is about getting the customer to trust you. If you have received recognition, whether in the form of an article by a recognized publication or an award from a respected group, show it off on your site.

It allows the buyer to transfer the trust they have in those organizations to your business, which leads to sales.

13.Get security.

For customers to make a purchase online, they need to feel secure that their credit card information will be protected. Use a security seal from a recognized company like Norton’s to help people feel more comfortable making purchases.

14.Keep updating your SEO.

You can’t convert unless people come to your site. By ensuring that your SEO is up to date the people who want your services but don’t know you, will be able to find you.

15.Tell the truth, the whole truth.

Or at least get former customers to do so on your site. Make sure that those testimonials don’t sound canned or boring. Quotes like “they have great products” aren’t going to get the results you are looking for.

16.The right pictures.

You can’t just throw up any old pictures and expect them to help your case; stock photos of a few people laughing or working around a table is not going to help. Customized photos taken by you that are related directly to your product or feature your services are what you need to use.

17.The right words at the right time.

The imagery and the visuals of the site matter as it helps lead the viewers’ eyes, but at some point they are going to need details.

That can only be achieved with text. It’s not about a long description; it’s about keeping it brief but conveying the right details in the right way.

18.To click or not to click.

There is a common convention that says if someone has to click three or more times to get something, you will lose conversions, but that is not always the case. Trying to squeeze in too much information to conserve might deter conversions, so having info on multiple pages might be better in the long run. The answer is to test multiple versions and see what works best.

19.Find your voice or find my voice?

At some point, you are going to be addressing the customer directly and you’ll need to determine the type of voice you want.

Whether it be first person (make my purchase now) or second person (make your purchase now), it’s important to keep it consistent through your site. There is no best practice here; different sites work better with different voices. You’ll need to experiment to find yours.

20.Ditch the drop down.

We all know them; you click the box and a list of options magically appears. It’s not just a feature; it’s a staple of commerce sites.

However, just because its common doesn’t mean it helps. Try testing the drop-down menu page against a version of the website where a second page displays all the options with a brief description and images of all the products. You might be surprised at the increased conversions.

21.Think like a user.

You don’t just run a business; you use the Internet too. You know what annoys you and what doesn’t. Use those insights when making your first draft of a website. The site is supposed to show off the character of your business, so build the site that you want to see first.

Then, based on the feedback you get, make the needed to changes to ensure your site is easily accessible to more people.

22.Set up a measurement system.

Whether you are trying to find what works or just making sure your site still does, you need to be constantly measuring your conversion rates. The best and easiest way to do this is through Google Analytics.

By correctly setting goals and benchmarks in the Google system, you can easily see where people are clicking to make sales and where they are leaving your webpage. In short, you’ll see what works and what doesn’t.

23.Bounce Is Bad.

An easy error to make is to assume that if you can just get people to go to your site and check it out, you will get the conversions you want.

It’s the law of large numbers — if enough people see you, someone is bound to like what you are offering. High bounce rates occur when the vast majority of people who visit your site leave without doing anything.

Generally, it takes a lot of effort and resources to get people to your site. If you have a high bounce rate, it means you are wasting resources.

Take the extra time to craft a strategy that will only drive people who are predisposed to purchasing your product, and lower that bounce rate.

24.Only You.

You may think standardized pricing is the best way to go for high conversions; after all, the less time consumers have to wait, the more likely they are to buy. However, that might not always be the case.

A personalized bid based on the consumers’ specific needs might make them more inclined to buy.

This creates a belief in the viewers that your product will be better able to meet their demands, which makes it more likely they will make a purchase. This might be a tip you want to test on your site before you implement it.

25.All the Cool Kids Are Doing It.

We discussed individual testimonials earlier as a way to build trust.

This is another means of building trust, but instead of focusing on individuals, focus on the group. It’s one thing if a person says your product is great. If 250,000 people buy your product, the idea is they can’t all be wrong.

Showing off your sales totals can be a great way to build trust in consumers, leading to conversions.

26.The Longest Journey Begins with a Single Step.

This is a especially useful step if the process of completing the conversion is particularly long or difficult.

If you overwhelm consumers with too long a process, you minimize the likelihood they’ll make a purchase.

Ask them to do something small first throughout their browsing experience so when they do decide to make a purchase, they aren’t burdened with having to do dozens of things.

27.One Product Per Page.

Do not make your viewers suffer information overload. You may think that by cutting down on the number of clicks viewers have to make, you will increase conversions.

However, if they open a page with dozens of different products, their eyes may gloss over and the only click they’ll make is to get off your page. Consider giving each product its own page, but make it easy for customers to find their way there.

28.Triple Check the Content.

There is nothing more embarrassing then having a customer click on a link that takes them to the wrong place or presents unfortunate wording in a product description.

Have a number of people go over the content to make sure everything is exactly how you want it. This strategy also helps to make sure everyone reads the content in the same way and gets the same information out of it.

29.No Matter Where You Look, There Should Be a Call to Action.

Oftentimes, designers place the call to action button at the top of the webpage. The problem is, people scroll down.

So, if they want to make a purchase, they have to scroll all the way back to the top.It’s a minor annoyance, but you want to make things as easy as possible for the viewer.

When designing your site, make sure no matter where the people are on the page, they can see a call to action button or link on their screen.

30.Contrasting Images.

If you are selling a fitness program, you are probably trying to market to people who are out of shape.

So, when building your site, you want to use images that emphasize the product you are selling, not images of what your product is trying to combat — in the fitness example, you would show physically fit people.

31.Desktop vs. Mobile.

As mobile devices become an increasingly popular means to view the Internet, more sites are adapting their front-end coding to deal with small mobile screens.

However, there have been test cases where sites optimized for mobile viewing have done worse than sites designed purely for traditional monitor sizes. If you are planning on having a mobile presence (and you should), test your mobile-optimized site against a non-optimized version.

32.Less (Choice) Is More.

This is not necessarily about reducing the number of products on your page as it is about reducing the number of actions you can take on the page.

Think about Google. Instead of putting every possible question and search filter on the landing page, Google just asks what you are looking for. Once it displays those results, it offers additional options to narrow your search, making the entire process less burdensome.

33.Do Usability Tests.

There are professional firms that hire people to go through your site and narrate what they are experiencing. These tests reveal the strengths and weaknesses of your site’s user experience. Try to do at least five, and use more than one firm for testing.

34.Don’t Beg for Cash, Beg the Question.

“Is your house adequately insured?” “How are you going to pay for your child’s education?” Asking viewers a direct question helps them determine if they have any doubts or have any needs not being met.

If they do, you can then use the site to explain how your product will fix those problems. Instead of explaining why they need what you are selling, explain how you can fulfill their need, which is an easier task.

35.Shorten the Sales Process.

You need their billing information, and you need their address. If you are asking for anything else, you really have to offer a strong justification for it.

36.Free to Be You and Me.

People love free things, even if its not something they would necessarily get for themselves. That being said, make sure it is something people can use, and not some random trinket.

37.Let Them Know the Value of the Gift.

Normally, you are not supposed to tell someone the value of the gift; its the thought that counts, after all. However, by revealing how much the free gift is worth, you enhance the value of the purchase.

If you give someone a gift valued at $50 for a $50 purchase, the purchase is worth $100 in their eyes, but they only have to pay $50. This creates a sense of heightened value.

38.Anything They Can Do We Can Do Too.

It is a tactic that works in bricks-and-mortar stores as well. If you match your competitor’s price or terms, its one less reason for customers to take their business elsewhere and one more reason to convert now.

39.Check Out the Competition…and Everyone Else.

Check out other websites; they might be doing something you could use. Don’t just always be closing; always be learning.

40.Don’t Sacrifice Everything for Conversions.

You want to get the sale, but most businesses would prefer to have repeat customers.

These tactics, if abused, could get sales now but totally ruin future opportunities. Don’t sacrifice the future for conversion now.

41.Know the Rules But Be Willing to Break Them.

There are a lot of best practices, but as we have talked about before, they don’t always work.

The rules are a great place to start, but they probably don’t all work for your specific site. Don’t just assume that any best practice is your best practice.

42.Evolve.

IMDb has been around since 1989. Its first site worked and was popular, but the current incarnation probably looks nothing like the original version.

Every so often, don’t be afraid to start over with a clean slate and redesign. Just be sure to test to ensure the new version works better than the original.

Above: Clari founder and CEO Andy Byrne.

Image Credit: Clari

Clari’s goal is to know salespeople better than they know themselves.

Founded in 2012, the sales productivity startup will emerge from stealth mode on Thursday, bringing its ambitious iOS and Android app to a horde of productivity-hungry sales reps. It applies some nifty data analysis to a bunch of information sources – email, social, calendar, customer relationship management (CRM) systems — to turn smartphones into “sales weapons.”

“We know the context of the rep, their relationships, and their meetings,” Clari CEO Andy Byrne told VentureBeat. “Our algorithms will proactively surface the relevant news, insights, documents, etcetera, based on their day.”

If you have a deal in progress but haven’t communicated with your client for a week, Clari will remind you. It’ll also automate a lot of time-consuming data entry for dozens of apps, updating managers on deal progress and competitors.

“Management has a blind spot, and we’re completely eliminating that blind spot,” asserted Byrne. “Clari allows reps to know more, sell more, and update less.”

Byrne has a strong sales background. Before founding Clari, he spent seven years as the vice president of business development at e-discovery firm Clearwell, which Symantec scooped up in 2011 for $390 million. During his time there, he watched his sales reps spend huge portions of their day performing simple data entry into CRM systems. Yet despite that time investment, he had a tough time assessing how deals in the field were progressing. Alongside big macro changes in mobile, cloud, and data technologies, those issues provided the impetus for Byrne to start his new venture.

Clari has exclusive backing from Sequoia Capital, with whom Byrne has an extremely close relationship. Sequoia partner Jeff Goetz funded several of Byrne’s past ventures, and he’s convinced the firm to dump $9 million into Clari so far.

The Sequoia relationship is a huge boon for the startup, said Byrne. The startup announced $6 million in “new” financing from Sequoia today, though it actually received those funds in late 2012. It’s used the money to build up its 30-person team, which Byrne characterizes as a close-knit crew of engineers.

“If someone asks me why Sequoia, it comes down to one word: trust. … Typically you’d look to have another investor so you could have another brain at the table. But for us, with Sequoia, you don’t get access just to one partner, you get access to all of them. They roll up their sleeves and they help us puzzle through the hard questions.”

With more than 50 large enterprises customers, Clari already has some solid traction. Byrne ticks off some names: Cisco, Juniper, Box, Aruba, VMware, United Healthcare, Franklin Templeton.

The startups go-to market resembles Box’s consumerization of IT: Sales reps or managers download Clari for free, see the app’s value, and spread it to their colleagues. As it spreads virally throughout an enterprise, which Clari can see through its relationship graph, the startup monetizes by brokering enterprise deals to outfit an entire sales team with Clari.

Clari competes with apps like Tact, which acts as a mobile hub for salespeople to manage their relationships with leads and customers. But where Tact focuses more on individuals, said Byrne, Clari is more about an entire enterprise’s workflow — appealing to management and sales operations teams as well as folks in the field.

“One of the really fun surprises for us has been the amount of executives using this solution,” he said.

Clari shares some commonalities with CRM tools, business intelligence tools, and even consulting firms. But it’s not quite any one of those.

“What we’re doing for sales productivity is a really new approach that marries beautiful design with data science.”

Clari is based in Mountain View, Calif.

I spoke recently with Brian Sommer, President of Vital Analysis, a technology resource firm. He had some insights about what’s happened to sales since the recession. Almost all of it applies to Trust Matters readers, so I asked him to write it up as a guest post. So, here’s Brian.

———

The recession of 2008/2009 was a bad one.  Organizations made a number of adjustments just to survive in the times that followed. Sales departments made deep personnel cuts as they had too little business for too many salespeople to chase.

Worse, the quality of the deals the remaining sales people pursued was often terrible. Every deal was brutally competitive; deal sizes were small; profit margins were non-existent; and, prospective customers couldn’t do some deals as commercial credit was almost non-existent. It was definitely a buyers’ market (for the paltry number of buyers that were actually out there).

Sales organizations and their personnel were adaptive in those times but many of those adaptations need to be halted now as those changes were a response to a market that doesn’t exist anymore.  A couple of years ago, your firm, if typical, pursued almost any lead that came in the door.  No matter that the deal wasn’t in your firm’s wheelhouse, wasn’t strategic and came from a flighty prospect, it represented the potential for revenue.  Your firm chased a lot of cats and dogs then. This needs to stop.

Chasing Deals, and Other Sins.  Chasing bad deals isn’t the way to build a growing sustainable book of business. You need focus and you need a core set of strategic customers who work with you collaboratively. This is how you reduce sales costs, improve margins and grow your book of business with each customer. Chasing all that one-off stuff is a waste of energy and robs a firm of its future.  It’s also hard work. Building great relationships is easier and more rewarding.

Your firm may have committed other sins, too. During the recession, you probably oversaturated your existing customers with too many sales pitches, offers or entreaties just to drum up any business. No matter how many times they told you that they had no budget for anything, your sales team pursued them like a pack of wolves targeting the weakest member of a herd. It was brutal.

Unfortunately, your overzealous sales efforts have left these customers bruised and second-guessing why they ever thought of your firm as a strategic partner. They no longer like your firm like they did before the recession. Your sales efforts showed them that you valued their money and your sales more than you did their relationship. Simply put, you put your short-term financial needs ahead of their business needs and the partnership between your firms. You probably killed or severely wounded a number of these relationships.

Only now do firms realize the long-term costs that these short-sighted sales maneuvers created.  Now, firms must rediscover how to sell and sell in these new, recovering times.  Let’s hope it’s not too late for your firm. The pursuit of recession-era deals has clouded one sales organization after another and the pendulum must return to a more reasoned balance.

What must be done?

Rediscover that Customers are “Assets” not “Targets.”  Sometimes, in the heat of a sales promotion, you need to remember that there are finite limits as to what any one customer wants or needs. If you see them as assets, then you alter your behaviors and pitches to them.  If they are but a means to you hitting a sales quota this month, they’re just targets.  If a company treats me (or my firm) like a target, I see that company as a commodity supplier. I will not invest one ounce of extra effort, loyalty, etc. with that firm as they won’t reciprocate the gesture. I will invest in my partners – the businesses that value me and treat me like an asset.

Rediscover How Businesses Buy Today.  Buying has changed of late, with B2B buyers having done huge amounts of research, shortlisting, etc. via Internet resources long before your firm even knew a deal was in process. While this customer self-service activity doesn’t mean the end to relationship selling, it does mean that the way you spend the time you spend cultivating and growing your relationships is changing. Now, you have to grow relationships fast and learn how to make these last in spite of your competition putting all kinds of goodies out on the Internet that might tempt your customers away.

Rediscover that Trust Is Earned Over Time and Can’t be Rebuilt Overnight.  My commercial relationship with some firms (i.e., air carriers) has changed markedly over the last few years.  My trust in those companies was broken badly and I doubt it can ever be recovered. These firms would need a culture transfusion and/or new leadership to get my business back. At a minimum, some firms would need to replace the long-standing representative assigned to our firm as the mere sight of him/her stirs up so much animus.

You might benefit from rotating customer assignments as fatigued, weary customers might want a new face – someone who might treat them better and is genuinely interested in created a new kind of relationship.

The basics of great selling never really went away in the great recession of late. But, they, too often, got submerged beneath the dire and crushing short-term needs of that timeframe. It’s time to re-discover these basics again, while adapting them to a newer era of how selling works in an Internet fueled, omni-channel, global marketplace.

When my colleagues, Derek Edmond and Casie Gillette at KoMarketing Associates, and I first viewed responses from our inaugural 2014 B2B Web Usability Report, we weren’t surprised by some of the results. For example, we already knew and were advocating to our respective clients that B2B buyers need marketing collateral in order to make purchase decisions. And, it wasn’t a shocker that buyers don’t like filling out forms that require them to hand over lots of information.

But some of the responses did surprise us — particularly that two types of website content — content that most of us don’t even think about — play a huge role in helping B2B buyers move forward with a vendor. In fact, the lack of this type of content can cause prospective buyers to leave a website annoyed and frustrated — and without making any moves to initiate contact with a vendor.

To which content am I referring? Contact information and “About” pages. Simple stuff that all businesses include on their websites, right? Well, not exactly.

The semantic web = credibility and trust

In his book, Google Semantic Search: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques That Get Your Company More Traffic, Increase Brand Impact, and Amplify Your Online Presence, author David Amerland discusses the importance of trust and its role in helping Google determine whether to show a company’s website content in its search results — content that others have found valuable and, thus, trustworthy. On the semantic web, says Amerland, where transactions and relationships have become quite visible and transparent, the need to “closely associate your company and brand with trust and a great reputation” is of critical importance. Social media helps brands build this trust through interactions with others, as well as allowing us to propagate our content and build influence — all factors important to semantic search.

But, trust isn’t confined to social media. As our survey results show, a company’s lack of social media has minimal impact on the buying process — with only 6 percent stating it has “A Lot” of impact.

Given this data the question then becomes, if a B2B company lacks social media activity — and the trust and credibility it can help instill — how does the company build this trust in the minds of potential buyers? In other words, when a buyer comes to a vendor’s website, which elements of the website may help build enough trust or credibility that the potential buyer continues to dig deeper into the website — and ultimately contact the vendor?

To get some answers, we asked survey respondents a series of three questions: “What elements cause you to leave a website due to 1) wasting your time; 2) interrupting your train of thought; and 3) reducing a vendor’s credibility?” The answers they gave were surprising.

Contact information and building trust

Amazingly (at least to us), 55 percent of respondents overwhelmingly replied that “No Contact Information/Phone Number” reduces a vendor’s credibility, while 37 percent said a lack of contact information wastes their time.

In each case, respondents reported that a lack of contact information was so annoying, it has caused them to leave a website. That’s between one-third and one-half of potential buyers leaving — never to return! And, while marketing collateral is key with regard to establishing credibility (which is to be expected), so is contact information, with 52 percent of respondents indicating that “Thorough Contact or About Information” is key to establishing a vendor’s credibility — a percentage that surpasses even marketing collateral.

Despite this, some B2B companies make it really hard to contact them. We’ve seen companies that force people to fill out forms or make buyers hunt around for phone numbers. For example, one website I looked at placed its contact information on the standard “Contact Us” page, but the link to this page was buried — and I’m talking so buried it took me five passes over the website until I found it. Most buyers won’t go to the lengths that Dave Rigotti did — hunt a vendor down on Twitter in order to contact them. This is not just poor practice, it’s downright crazy!

Companies also leave off their physical address in their website content — a big mistake because, as the research shows, a lack of complete contact information lowers a company’s credibility in the eye of the buyer. After reading the survey data, my colleague Gordon Graham emailed me to say: “When I search all over a website and can’t find any address, I feel like a vendor is hiding something. Probably that they’re a lot smaller than they’re letting on, maybe even operating in a garage.”

One reason companies may leave off contact information — and instead force people to contact them through a one-size-fits-all form — is because it’s harder to track people when they call or email. By tying a web form to a marketing automation or CRM system, it’s easier to get names into a database and then track subsequent conversations with them.

But here’s the thing: Our findings say that the vast majority of buyers prefer to contact vendors through email (81 percent) or phone (58 percent).

More importantly, forcing potential buyers to go through a form reduces leads. When asked, “How important are the following items with regard to moving forward with a Request for Proposal/Quote?: Company Address/Contact Information, Product Pricing, Lead or Ship Times, and Product Name,” 68 percent of survey respondents indicated that they consider “Company Address and Contact Information” to be “Critically Important” with regard to moving forward with a vendor.

The reality is that buyers source vendors online. Once buyers have a short list of suppliers, they’ll send these names to a purchasing agent or will send out RFQs. If a buyer can’t find the information needed to send out an RFQ, the vendor gets scratched and the buyer moves on — with the vendor never knowing the buyer was on the website or that it was in the running. In short, buyers pre-qualify vendors and suppliers, and they do this using the website content they find.

Key takeaways for B2B content marketers:

• Remove all barriers that get in the way of people contacting your company in whatever way they choose.
• Include full contact information: Phone, email, and company address in your website content.
• Reduce clicks by including email and phone information on all pages.
• If appropriate, enable mobile “tap to call” capabilities.

“About” page content is also critical for building trust

“About” pages are an underutilized website content asset. Too often companies give these pages — team bios, company history, press rooms, etc. — short shrift or view them as being less important than “Products and Services” pages (where they feel the “real” actions take place).

These assumptions couldn’t be further from the truth. Before conducting the survey, Derek Edmond noted in a blog post, “How B2B Organizations Can Create More Effective ‘About’ Pages, that, “‘About’ or ‘Company’ section pages are part of the Top 10 most-viewed pages for 2013 year-to-date for just over two-thirds of the B2B companies to which we have analytics access. And, when reviewing ‘Behavior Flow’ reports in Google Analytics, ‘About’ pages are often at the top of the list of first interactions when visitors started on the home page and did not drop off immediately.”

Our survey data backs up these assertions. We asked survey participants which information they want to see first when arriving at a vendor website. After viewing Products and Services pages, buyers next want to see “About” information.

Types of content to include: Given the massive changes taking hold with regard to semantic search and Google’s associated social and knowledge graphs, it pays to consider the strategic importance of the website content you create for these pages — places where the company story is told and branding is reinforced. About pages can showcase a company’s media coverage (e.g., a press room), include references to trade organizations it’s involved with, and give details about its community or industry sponsorships and participation in relevant events.

There are also two key reasons that it pays to include team members’ bios, photographs, and social profile links in your “About” page website content:

1. Names associated with photographs help people connect the dots across the internet — from Gmail and search results where we now see people’s Google+ profile pictures, to blog comments and social media platforms.
2. By including social links in people’s bios, it helps Google to “connect the dots” across visitors’ networks — which again helps with the authority, reputation, and trust aspects of semantic search.

Key takeaways for B2B content marketers:

• Include information about the people behind your company.
• Illustrate team bios with photos, and include links to team members’ social media profiles.
• Consider the strategic importance of “About” pages: What will help people build trust in your company and want to move forward with you?

Do you have additional suggestions for creating website content that B2B buyers will find helpful. We’d love for you to share your thoughts in the comments below. 

Looking for more inspiration on delivering compelling website content? Read CMI’s Content Marketing Playbook: 24 Epic Ideas for Connecting with Your Customers.

Cover image via Bigstock     

Does anyone remember the movie Ground Hog Day?  Here are the cliff notes of the movie.  Phil is a grumpy, pompous weather forecaster who finds himself trapped in what science fiction refers to as a time loop while covering the ritual of ground hog day in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.  Phil quickly realizes that if he doesn’t change his ways or behavior, events will keep repeating themselves.  Hence, the name of the movie.  The movie has a happy ending and Phil changes to become a more empathetic and positive person.    

Salespeople and sales managers are caught up in their own version of Ground Hog Day. They keep using the same approach, having the same conversations, which are leading to the same outcomes.  

Here are just a few examples.      

#1:  Sales Activity:  It would be nice if all companies provided a plethora of leads.  However, the reality is many salespeople need to source their own opportunities.  Here’s where the ground hog day movie starts. The sales manager badgers, begs or threatens the salesperson to do what he is paid to do. The salesperson promises to do better, however, he doesn’t calendar block.  The result is another week where “other stuff” takes priority over prospecting.      

Sales managers can stop the bad rerun by setting and measuring key performance metrics for their sales team.  Work with each person on your team and create a business development plan that measures all activity leading to a first, exploratory phone call. Change your old, tired script of, “I hire veterans…I don’t need to set expectations.”  Veterans need metrics and measurements just as much as your rookies.  NBA or NFL coaches recruit and hire veterans all the time.  And those veterans have metrics in place that keep them at the top of their game.     

#2:  CRM System:  Salespeople, do you really need to hear another lecture from your sales manager on the importance of logging your conversations and meetings with prospects and customers?  Instead of ignoring and hoping your manager will give up, make suggestions, recommendations or ask for additional training.  

Sales managers, toughen up, and put in consequences for no entry of information into your CRM system. It’s time for you to show a new movie scene to your team. For example, if a there is no activity logged into a prospect’s account, that opportunity is up for grabs and can be reassigned to another salesperson—preferably one that is using the system!  It’s amazing how quickly salespeople adapt and change when there is a financial hit to the checkbook.      

#3:  Sales Meetings. It’s time for a big yawn on this movie scene.  The sales team comes into the meeting with their sales pipeline report. A few are on time, a few roll in late.  Roll call begins and group denial sets in.  Salespeople go over their opportunities using words like, “I think ABC company is going to do something this month.”  (How would you like to be the CFO at your company, trying to handle cash flow, with an “I think” strategy?)  

Sales managers, put on your coaching hat and make the sales pipeline reviews a training opportunity. Test the salesperson’s opportunities with basic questions such as, “What is the prospect’s pain? How much is it costing? What is the unspoken objection? What is their number one criterion for changing?” Instead of having roll call meetings, hold sales meetings where learning and earnings improve.   

Model the behavior you expect from your sales team. If you expect them to show up early to sales meetings with prospects, start your sales meetings on time. Stop penalizing the organized and prepared sales person.  

It’s time for a new movie. Put on your producer hat and create a new Oscar winner by changing your sales and sales management approach.  

Every business is looking for their next sign. That sign that makes the lightbulb go off in their head, which ultimately pushes them over the top to become the leader in their industry. Well as Bill Engvall would say “Here’s your sign.”  Is your cost per lead too high?  Do you want to stay connected with your customers better?  Is your sales cycles really long?  Are your competitors using inbound marketing?

These are all questions you want to ask yourself.  If you happen to answer yes to any of these questions, you may want to assess why you haven’t implement inbound marketing yesterday. Implementing inbound marketing can help you in all of these areas, so why haven’t you started this yet?

Cost Per Lead

What is your current strategy for collecting leads for your business? Have you calculated how much each lead costs?  In the 2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report by Hubspot, there were a few compelling data points I would like to share with you:

• Twice the amount of marketers say inbound marketing achieves below average cost per lead compared to outbound strategies

• The survey also stated that 34% of company leads come from inbound marketing tactics

• In 2013, inbound marketing delivered 54% more leads compared to outbound marketing tactics

• U.S inbound marketers save on average 13% per lead when their company spends in a surplus of $25,000 per.

• U.S. inbound marketers also save more that $14 for every new customers acquired compared to other companies relying on outbound strategies.

These stats just go to show that inbound marketing (on average) will lower your cost per lead.  Outbound marketing tactics can be very expensive and difficult, if not impossible, to measure their results. So why is inbound marketing so much more efficient? Their conversion ratio.

Inbound marketing results in much higher conversion ratios because these leads are looking for you! When you use the tactics of outbound marketing, you are just placing your advertisement in front of potential consumers and half of them may not even be qualified for your product or service.  So right away this creates a poor conversion ratio.  You may be reaching thousands of people with one advertisement, but if only one person converts, the cost for that one lead will be much higher than one collected from inbound marketing. With inbound marketing these potential customers are looking for your service which improves your conversion ratio.  These people already know they want your product/service; now they just need to be convinced by your online presence to buy from you.  You can do this by establishing yourself as the industry leader.

Building Customer Relationships

Inbound marketing is a great way enhance your current customer relationships through email campaigns. Using email campaigns, you can keep a closer connection with your current and past customers to inform them about new products or offers. Many companies lose potential up-selling opportunities because their customers don’t know about new products. So make sure they know! It is also a good idea to stay top of mind with these customers through emails. You don’t always have to offer them something or inform them of a new product. Maybe you just drop a line to make sure everything is going well with them. This connection may encourage them to buy more from you in the future or it may trigger them to buy from you at that moment.

Sales Cycle

In the past, a long sales cycle could only be completed by using a sales representative. Now with the internet, consumers can be well informed about any product or service. They can spend countless hours researching your product so make sure that information is out their. Let your website do the selling. Make sure you create blogs that establish the pain points of your customers and how your product could solve that problem. Offer unique pieces of content that does the same or gives more information on your product/service.  All this information will become helpful to potential leads when they are researching your company. So now your website is acting as the sale representative, saving you time and money because now you can place your sales reps on accounts that could possibly close sooner than later. The sooner your sales rep closes, the sooner he can be on the next lead doing the same.

If you can’t beat’em, join’em

Don’t let your competitors gain the competitive edge on you. If your competitors have implemented an inbound strategy, then obviously they see the value within your industry, so don’t fall behind.  Inbound marketing takes time to build.  It’s not a strategy you can put into place and expect results by tomorrow. It is a process. Creating premium content takes a lot of time and effort to coordinate your strategy.  Building your SEO with blog posts takes time as well. Inbound marketing is a long term strategy and if you are not in it for the long run, you may want to look elsewhere.

Why didn’t you start yesterday?

So did any of these questions make a lightbulb go off in your head? If you were looking for a sign, here it is:  Inbound marketing can help you reduce your cost per lead, shorten your sales cycle, enhance customer relationships and give you a competitive edge over your industry.  Was that enough of a sign?

My first SEO copywriting job (which is what most content marketing used to be called before “web content” was a thing) was working as a freelancer for a national British travel agency. Although the work itself amounted to little more than stuffing awkward long-tail keywords into flowery copy about tourist hotspots across the Mediterranean, it was an invaluable learning experience and set me on an exciting and rewarding career path.

Since that fateful freelance gig, I’ve written millions of words (literally) – most of them during the past three years. In that time, I’ve learned a lot about what separates the great content from the bad, how to hit deadlines on time every time, and why measuring your coffee intake in pots is a warning sign that you should probably take it easy.

In today’s post, I’m going to share three web content lessons I learned by writing 3 million words in three years – so you don’t have to.

First, Some Background

I realize that saying I wrote 3 million words in three years is a bold claim, so first I’ll explain how I arrived at this figure.

• I used to work for a “content marketing” agency (which, for the sake of professionalism, shall remain nameless).
• The web content writers had daily production quotas of around 4,000 words a day. Every. Single. Day.
• BONUS ROUND: If the average novel is between 60,000 and 80,000 words in length, I somehow managed to write the equivalent of around 36 books and survive.

Now that we have a baseline figure to work with, let’s do some math!

Now, I can hear your objections already. “Dan, you only wrote 2.8 million words in three years. Big deal.” However, as I said, this is a baseline figure; this doesn’t include any of the additional freelance or personal work I wrote during this time, which actually probably accounts for a great deal more than the 120,000 words I’m “missing.”

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get to those web content lessons I promised you!

1. Produce Less Content

If I alone managed to produce this much web content in the past three years, imagine how much is being produced all over the world, every single day. That’s right – a towering tsunami of useless, poorly-written garbage, most of which is destined to go unread, and rightly so.

Unfortunately, things are getting worse:

• According to Velocity Partners, 9 out of every 10 B2B marketers plan to produce significantly more content than they did last year.
• Mark Schaefer claims that the amount of freely available content on the web doubles every 9 to 24 months.
• Estimates from IBM suggest that 90% of all the data in the world – including all that worthless, instantly forgettable “content” – has been produced in the last two years alone.

Saying that you should produce less content when everyone else is hell-bent on making more may sound counterintuitive. However, just because you can produce ten blog posts per day doesn’t mean you should.

Good web content is valuable; you should be producing blog posts that people can’t wait to read, newsletters they check their inboxes compulsively for, or videos they simply have to watch right now.

Even large teams of skilled content producers working 24/7 can only produce so much useful, engaging content before the quality begins to diminish, or your audience becomes desensitized to your content due to the sheer volume you’re publishing. When this happens – and it will, if you insist on adhering to Herculean production schedules – your brand will be left in ruins, and your audience will forget about you.

Yes, it’s important to be consistent (by sticking to a regular posting schedule, for example), but quality and consistency is what will set your content apart from the competition. It’s better to publish one or two excellent posts per week than several crappy posts every day. Set the bar high, and meet (or exceed) it consistently.

Protip: Consider your own media consumption habits when establishing a web content production schedule. How many articles do you read every day from a single publisher? Do you read every last word, or just skim them? What types of content do you find yourself drawn to, and how frequently do your favorite sites publish them?

TL;DR – Focus on Quality, Not Quantity

Make sure that every single piece of content you create is as good as it possibly can be. This is impossible if you’re producing the equivalent of the Library of Congress every month. “Good” trumps “more” every time. Resist the temptation to bombard your audience with mediocre content – instead, deliver consistently excellent content your readers or viewers can’t live without.

2. Be Authentic

Few things ruin web content (and brands) more effectively than a lack of authenticity.

For whatever reason, many sites attempt to project an image that’s completely fictional. This isn’t big or clever – it’s stupid, and if you try and deceive your audience, they’ll hate you for it.

One mistake I see time and again is blogs trying to fake authority by using an artificially sterile voice and tone. A classic example of this is writing in the third-person in a misguided attempt to sound “official” and create the illusion (read: deception) that a business is larger than it actually is.

People want to deal with other people, not faceless corporations. This is why the term “H2H”, or “human-to-human”, has become such a hot marketing buzzword lately; B2B marketers are slowly beginning to realize that “humanizing” their web content is far more effective than using a cold, soulless voice and littering their posts with ridiculous jargon.

So, how do you write authentic content?

• Be yourself.
• Author blog posts using your actual name, not “Admin” or something equally distant.
• Write conversationally – but don’t overlook the importance of grammar.
• Use a style and tone that are suitable and appropriate for your target audience and industry.
• Back up any claims you make – don’t resort to trickery or “white lies” to promote your brand. Remember the golden rule from your creative writing classes in school – show, don’t tell.

Protip: Ask a few people you know (who don’t work in your industry) to read your content and tell you what they think. Can they “hear” your voice in the content? How does the content make them feel?

TL;DR – Authenticity is Crucial

Nothing will alienate your audience and harm your brand faster than inauthentic web content. Don’t try and be something you’re not. Don’t use overly complicated language to try and sound knowledgeable. There’s no shortage of fakers, phonies and hacks on the web – don’t be one of them.

3. Have an Actual Content Strategy

Again, this sounds obvious, but you’d be amazed how many clients I’ve worked with over the years who didn’t have the slightest idea what they wanted their content to actually accomplish. This, in turn, made it much harder to quantify their results or make suggestions for improvements.

Content strategy is a complicated topic, but you don’t need to hire a hit squad of expensive consultants to make sure your content is doing what you want it to.

Simply put, the concept of content strategy can be summed up as:

• Content – everything you have on your site (blog posts, landing pages, whitepapers, videos etc.)
• Strategy – what you want this content to accomplish (drive sales, raise brand awareness, generate leads etc.)

So what does this mean for you? Before you start writing blog posts or making videos, you should know exactly what you want your content to do for your business. I’ve lost count of the number of clients I’ve worked with whose sole objective was “to rank highly in Google News” (or some other equally vague, nebulous goal) without the slightest idea why. If you don’t know what you want your content to do, you’re doomed to fail. It’s fine if you really do want to rank in Google News, but this objective should be directly aligned with a clearly defined business goal.

Protip: To learn more about this important topic, read “Content Strategy for the Web” by Kristina Halvorson and Melissa Rach. This excellent book explains virtually everything you need to know about why content strategy is so important and how you can start doing it – all in an entertaining, informative and easily understood way (see lesson 2).

TL;DR – Have a Plan for Your Content in Place BEFORE You Start Producing It

Even if your web content is consistently excellent and authentic, it won’t do you much good if you don’t apply it to a larger content strategy. Throwing content at a site and hoping something sticks is a waste of time, money and effort. Have a predetermined goal for each and every piece of content you produce, and never lose sight of what you want it to accomplish. If your business goals change, so should your content strategy.

Well, that just about wraps it up for this post. What tips do you have for creating kick-ass content? Let us know in the comments!

A title tag is the main text that describes a web page, providing users and search engines with quick, useful information about the page. Title tags are one of the most important opportunities you have to tell search engines what a page is about, and with limited real estate, writing them effectively is a crucial component of optimizing your website.

You don't need to be a webmaster or SEO expert to get the most out of the title tags on your site. Curious if your title tags are contributing positively to your site’s rankings? Take a look through these tips for writing effective title tags to learn more!

1. Utilize relevant keywords

The first step in optimizing your site’s title tags is making sure each one includes a keyword (or multiple keywords) relevant to that page. Keywords in the title tag not only help contribute to the page ranking well for those terms, but they are also bolded in search engine results pages when they match terms from the original search. Position your target keyword as the first word or early on for maximum impact. 

Not sure what to use as a keyword? There are a lot of different options for researching the best word or phrase to target (check out these keyword research strategies from our blog and a more recent post on using Google's Keyword Planner.) If you don't have a lot of time to go through the steps for really concrete keyword research (although I'd recommend it), you can start by asking yourself “If someone were searching for this page in Google, what keyword phrase would they enter?”

2. Keep Title Tags under 70 characters

The visible portion of the title tag in search results extends to 70 characters, after which it is truncated by search engines or replaced with other text from the page. It’s recommended that you keep your titles to less than 70 characters to ensure that visitors see the full title and to avoid replacement text that may not provide the same incentive to click as a custom-written tag.

3. Be specific

Text contained in title tags appears at the top of your browser, in search results pages and on third-party websites (particularly Facebook and other social media.) Relevant, descriptive text is more likely to be clicked on.

One way you can add specificity to your titles tags is by including a location keyword. For example, you can spruce up the title tag ‘Todd’s Flight School’ by changing it to ‘Raleigh, NC Private Flight Lessons - Todd’s Flight School’

Remember, on-page SEO requires appealing to human readers and search engines at the same time. When it comes to title tags and search engines, it’s important to remember Google doesn’t laugh. A funny or clever headline that’s automatically generated as the title tag could go unrecognized by search engines and be a detriment to your blog posts’ rankings.

One of my favorite examples to illustrate this point (used in a previous post on blogging for SEO) is how the Wall Street Journal optimizes their headlines and page titles for SEO. “Video Killed the Radio Czar” is a fun play on words for readers, but the more specific page title “NPR CEO Resigns Over Hidden Video” appeals to search engines.

4. Don’t duplicate

You want to use unique titles for your various pages to ensure they describe each page individually without competing with each other for keyword relevance. Google can mistake duplicate title tags as duplicate content, which can adversely affect page rank. As tempting as it might be to just copy and paste title tags from one page or another, there’s a better way to accomplish the goal, such as using a formula.

5. Use a formula

A quick and easy way to improve the interior page title tags is to create a default title tag structure for all pages that don’t have a custom tag written. For example, the default title tag structure could be :Page Title: - :Site Title:

In that case, the default title tag for a page on the fictional Pascale’s Pies website with the headline ‘Perfect Pumpkin Pies’ would be “Perfect Pumpkin Pies - Pascale’s Pies” It's short, relevant and optimized for people searching the web for those pies. 

If you have multiple product pages on your site, you can take the formula approach one step further. An example of this would be:

:Type of shoe:, :Brand of shoe: - Running Shoe Store

This formula would be particularly useful for an ecommerce website. 

One of the most important keyword elements for search engines is your page title. It should be a short, relevant title for the post with your primary keyword somewhere in the mix, and preferably early on. If you follow these easy steps, you should have no trouble optimizing your title tags and ranking better for your targeted terms.

When you think of negotiations, you probably think of persuasive talkers. While that skill can be useful, Reddit CEO Yishan Wong believes that you're better off listening instead.

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Many business owners and marketers use marketing automation tools for their lead generation and conversion needs. Dozens of tools currently exist to help businesses generate leads, nurture leads, close leads – and a variety of marketing activities in between. The companies that use these tools report benefits such as increased leads and improved closing rates. Sounds good, right?

For the most part, using marketing automation tools makes sense, especially for those businesses with limited time and resources. These tools can make a business owner or marketer’s job easier and more efficient. For example, some businesses use them to tackle their more “mundane” aspects of lead generation and/or conversion, such as creating and sending emails. As a result, the business’ owners and/or marketers have more time to engage in more hands-on lead generation and lead nurturing activities, as well as handle any issues which may arise among their existing clients.

By design, marketing automation tools allow companies to provide added value to their potential and current clients when they are properly used. It’s important to make sure your company has a need for automation before investing in it. These are a couple of questions to think about:

How and why would my business use marketing automation tools?

Automation tools are most often used for the following activities:

• Building targeted leads lists
• Organizing, executing and managing marketing campaigns
• Measuring behavior (through metrics and other data) from emails and/or websites
• Segmenting leads

Is your business thinking about using marketing automation, but wondering how and why? Simon Harvey, Owner and Demand Generation specialist @Demodia, shares some helpful insights and advice in Quora:

i) ensure you understand your sales and marketing process and how you plan to use your MAP {marketing automation platform} to support that.

ii) know who your buyers are.

iii) as others have said one of the most beneficial parts of MAPs is their lead nurturing capability. Unfortunately here technology is not everything and you need to ensure that you have sufficient content in place that you can use to target potential buyers at their different stages of the buying process.

iv) if you followed step i) then you will already understand who your buyers are. Use that information along with the built in segmentation tools within your MAP to split contacts into different groups based on their interests, personas or other buying traits then use that to target emails and nurture them in different ways.

* Read Quote of Simon Harvey’s answer to How do you make the best use of marketing automation tools? on Quora

How do marketing automation tools work?

HubSpot provides an explanation for how using automation tools work in an “ideal” situation:

‘At its best, marketing automation is software and tactics that allow companies to buy and sell like Amazon — that is, to nurture prospects with highly personalized, useful content that helps convert prospects to customers and turn customers into delighted customers.’

A word of advice: business owners and marketers who use marketing automation tools should make sure they aren’t relying solely on the tools to do all the work. Building relationships with potential and current clients still stands as one of the most important parts of marketing. No single tool will ever replace the essential “human touch.”

Over to you

Does your business use any automation tools? If so, have they improved your business’ efficiency or provided value? I would love to hear what works for you…please feel free to leave a comment below.

You’ve decided to sell your business and you’re wondering “Is there anything I can do quickly to increase its value?  Indeed, there is.  Here are a couple of things that can dramatically increase the value of your business.

Increase your prices

Before you dismiss this advice advice as sheer folly, let me share my experiences with you.  I’ve been working with a variety of businesses in a myriad of industries for over 40 years.  My experience is that most businesses are sorely under compensated for the value they provide.  So much so that a 10% to 20% price increase is low-hanging fruit.

Why?  Because they’ve used industry pricing instead of value to guide their pricing decisions.  Plus they’ve added benefits to their offerings to make them more attractive than competitors’ offerings.  This combination of ‘competitive’ pricing and ‘added benefits’ result in the business providing much greater value than customers are paying to get.  That’s why I can be so confident saying that a 10% to 20% price increase is low-hanging fruit.

The beauty of price increases is that they fall directly to the bottom line.  There are no additional operating costs associated with a price increase which means that both your EBITDA and cash flow are going to improve by the amount of your price increase.  Since the valuation you’ll get for your business is often 3 to 7 times your EBITDA or discounted cash flow, you’ll see dramatic gains in the value of your business from a price increase.

Losing customers?

Ah, but what about the customers you’ll lose as a result of the price increase?  Won’t that have a negative impact on the value of your business?  Typically not.  Here’s why.

Customers who value what you have to offer already realize that they’re getting a sweet deal.  That won’t admit that, but they know and they’ll pay extra to:

• Be assured of the quality and service they’ve always enjoyed.
• Avoid the costs of finding alternatives to your offerings.
• Avoid the risks associated with taking on a new supplier.
• Avoid change – who among us doesn’t resist change?

The customers who are most likely to leave are price buyers.  Price buyers are the least loyal, most difficult, least profitable customers you’ll ever have.  Indeed, most of the companies I’ve worked with over the years have initially increased their bottom line by reducing their top line.  We’ve rid them of customers and lines of business that were no longer profitable.

Benefits

Raising prices prior to putting your business up for sale allows you to:

• Dramatically improve the profitability of your remaining customer base.
• Eliminate customers who have been a profit drain.
• Improve your EBITDA and cash flow.
• Take an action that will allow potential buyers to see how much your customers value what you do for them.
• Eliminate the buyer’s uncertainty about what impact a price increase would have on your customer base.

That’s a lot of benefit from a single action.

Keys

Here are the keys to a successful price increase:

• Knowing which of your customers are most profitable and what they value.
• Quantifying the value for your customer (better yet, developing questions that lead them through a calculation of the value).
• Communicating the value in ways that are meaningful for that market segment.
• Being prepared to highlight the pitfalls of changing suppliers.

If you have a loyal customer base, you’ll find that it’s rare that you’ll lose any of your customers.    Why?  Because value buyers are loyal by nature.  Price buyers are not.  If you have a loyal customer base it’s typically because you’ve done a good job targeting value buyers and avoiding price buyers.

Even if you lose some customers they’re likely to be profit drains.  There’s an old adage among CFOs that 80% of your customers produce 120% of your profits.  The remaining 20% of your customers siphon off 20% of those profits.

If you do lose a few profitable customers they’ll be your least profitable customers.  How can I be so sure?  Because it’s the price buyers who leave first.  These are the folks that have been beating you over the head on pricing for years and, no matter how sweet the deal, they’re never happy.  The profits you gain from the price increase will more than offset any profits lost from these price buyers.

Don’t overlook the quickest, easiest, most effective way to dramatically improve your company’s valuation, raise your prices.  That’s the first strategy, here’s the second.

Streamlining processes

There are inefficiencies in every business.  All organizations are an amalgam of human beings and we, human beings, are imperfect.  Inefficiencies are inevitable.  We can use this awareness to our advantage in creating additional value in your business very quickly.  Here’s an example of the potential available in streamlining processes.

In evaluating the profitability of a client’s various lines of business I discovered that the selling and back office costs were actually higher than the cost of producing the service provided.  By streamlining the sales/back office processes we were able to improve the margin on this line of business from 24.8% to 41%.  At the same time we identified the potential for a 12.5% price increase based on the income levels of the customers in his target market and the alternatives available to them.

The 12.5% price increase brings the margin to 53.5%, more than double the original margin.  And there was potential for even more savings in the actual cost of producing the service if this business owner made a slight adjustment in his marketing approach.

The beauty is that these two steps can, and should be, done simultaneously.  The work you do in identifying system inefficiencies typically uncovers often-overlooked elements of value.  Value that can be used to justify your price increases to your customers and a higher valuation on your business.  I love getting multiple benefits from the same effort, don’t you?

You’ve worked hard to create a successful business.  A couple of more steps, raising your prices and streamlining your processes, will assure that the valuation you get reflects the value you’ve created.

Image Credit: Daniel M. Silva / Shutterstock.com

It’s pretty clear that marketing automation is no longer just for tech companies. And it’s becoming obvious that it is also not just for medium and large enterprises. But I hadn’t heard of local business adopting marketing automation technologies until just today.

ReachLocal, a local-business marketing behemoth that employs 2,000 employees in 16 countries, announced today that it now has over 1,000 clients for its ReachEdge product — a very basic marketing automation-lite software-as-a-service for local businesses.

And over half of those clients are new to the company.

We’re studying marketing automation with marketing technologist Dan Freeman.
Share your data with us, and we’ll share everyone’s with you.

Above: The app ReachLocal gives to small businesses to manage and score leads

Image Credit: ReachLocal

ReachLocal, which went public in mid-2010 and currently brings in over half a billion dollars in annual revenue serving just over 24,000 local businesses, provides lead generation, web development, SEO, and other digital marketing services for its clients. Marketing automation, however, is something new the company decided to try out late last year.

“We’ve been really good at generating leads — we draw in five million leads every single month,” the company’s chief product officer, Kris Barton, told me today. “We realized, however, that we’re sending all these leads to our customers … but what happens after that? Are they converting?”

To answer that question — and to improve its customers’ odds, the company created a product it calls ReachEdge. Realizing that its target demographic doesn’t know or, frankly, have the time to care much about marketing technology, it didn’t call it the new product marketing automation. Instead, ReachLocal talked to potential customer about “smart sites.”

However, it is essentially a very simple, very limited marketing automation system.

ReachEdge consists of a custom “smart site” that is optimized for lead generation and capture — AKA inbound marketing — plus an incredibly simplified lead management and scoring system that simply asks local business owners to categorize leads as immediate or long term, and an email marketing platform with definable flows and mini-campaigns. All of which is designed to capture, nurture, and convert leads into customers.

Above: Lead scoring in ReachEdge is very simple: long-term, or immediate.

Image Credit: ReachLocal

“Our customers’ ultimate goal in life is getting more customers,” Barton says. “Businesses that nurture their leads see up to 45% more ROI … and we offer a simple, integrated system that we set up for them.”

While ReachLocal’s focus is completely local, not all local businesses make the cut. The company focuses on established local enterprises that generate between $1 million and $10 million a year — enough to know what they might be missing in the digital marketing world, and not quite enough to hire a high-calibre team to focus on it specifically.

“We don’t go after ‘one-truck-Chuck,’” Barton says.

Clearly, it’s a segment of the market that is reacting positively to marketing automation, even if they’re hearing about it under a name that includes neither marketing nor technology nor automation. That’s impressive, because even as the big enterprises adopt solutions from major players such as Adobe, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Marketo, Main Street is apparently clamoring to be let into the same private party, albeit at a much simpler and less expensive level.

“I think the general trend is that a lot of the technologies that we see start in big business trickle their way down,” Barton told me. “We see that in a lot of our business, and I think we’ll continue to see that.”

There’s clearly a segment of the market that needs this kind of product, which can be either self-service or done for you.

If most traditional marketers don’t know how to go digital, local businesses whose marketing department largely consists of 10 percent of the owner and proprietor’s evenings and weekends will likely be having even greater challenges.

ReachLocal’s product is not high-end. It’s not full-featured. It doesn’t feature even a tenth the power of a Hubspot or an Act-On. But interestingly, in spite of that — or perhaps because of that — it’s hitting a niche among doctors, dentists, mechanics, lawyers, and trades-based businesses such as roofing and carpentry.

And according to Barton, the power of marketing automation quickly becomes clear.

“Once they see it, they go ‘wow.’”

Image Credit: Sookasa

Fun fact: You can now store and share your files through Dropbox and be HIPAA compliant at the same time.

This is now possible because Sookasa, a San Mateo-based startup, is launching its compliance layer for cloud storage of files, starting with Dropbox integration.

Unlike the average Joe Smith, professionals in regulated industries such as healthcare, financial services, and even education are required to use tools compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which calls for control over who accesses files as well as the ability to audit when, where, and by whom files are opened.

Not surprisingly, Dropbox (and other similar file storage providers) are not compliant by default, so Sookasa wants to be the “transparent layer of security” for these storage solutions without taking away from their user-friendliness.

So in the case of Dropbox, a Sookasa folder shows up in your account where you can store all the files you wish to encrypt and protect, no extra fuss.

“What prompted us to do this is that cloud services are … becoming very popular in the workplace and even industries like healthcare and finance,” Sookasa cofounder and chief executive Asaf Cidon told VentureBeat in an interview.

Sookasa is taking advantage of two current trends: the shift to the cloud and the flexibility it offers, and the shift away from the personal computer (i.e. the move to mobile and multiple devices), Accel partner and Sookasa investor Sameer Gandhi told VentureBeat.

“It really changes the entire security and compliance landscape” he said. “And for those companies to be able to take advantage of cloud and mobile, there needs to be [security] compliance.”

Device loss and the “scattering of files by cloud services” are also huge problems in these highly-regulated industries, according to the company. Having the ability to remotely wipe access to files and protect a company from privacy breach liability when that happens is a huge advantage.

No one has all the ‘keys’ to open the files

But one of the most interesting things about this company is its current independence and its status as a security software provider.

“I think a lot of customers actually want a third-party [security] provider,” explained Cidon.

Privacy-sensitive companies often worry about storage providers having access to their files, so keeping the storage provider and encryption providers separate actually helps alleviate that concern for customers and protect storage companies from privacy breach liability, he explained.

Moreover, Cidon believes this historic trend also means that Dropbox and others won’t be coming up with competing solutions and that Sookasa has a long and independent future as a company.

“I think that the fact that we remove liability is a pretty compelling argument against acquisition,” he said.

Cidon also pointed out that after Salesforce acquired encryption service Navajo in 2011, Salesforce customers apparently continued to use third-party providers — acquisition “just doesn’t seem to work from a business standpoint.”

But of course, there is not much preventing other companies for attempting to create a similar service (despite the complexity of the technology and Sookasa’s patents), so only time will tell if the company will become the leader as the market expands.

Luckily, Sookasa also just picked up $5 million from investors including Accel Partners, First Round Capital, and SV Angel, and it previously raised $1.6 million in seed investment in 2013.

Sookasa’s founding team includes a former Israeli Intelligence commander and former employees from the likes of Google, IBM, and Cisco. Accel’s Sameer Gandhi is joining the company’s board, and he ha previously led early investments in Dropbox and security software-provider Sourcefire.

Yesterday I posted this video from The Wolf of Wall Street.

In the post, I suggested that there was actually some good stuff to learn from this sales call. It’s a pretty cheesy call. He’s lying, he’s manipulating the buyer, he’s overbearing and he cares very little for wether or not his buyer actually makes money. So, yeah it’s not  ”good” sales. But, in this traditional, used car salesman, cheesy pitch are some intriguing lessons.

Lesson 1: It’s not about you, it’s about them

Don’t make it about you, make it about them. DiCaprio starts the call by anchoring the buyer in the fact that HE sent in a card and HE wanted to know more about penny stocks that; “had HUGE upside potential with very little downside risk.”  By doing this he’s able to position himself as a consultant NOT as a sales person, almost as if he’s doing they buyer a favor.  DiCaprio wastes no time taking the role of consultant and the holder of valuable information the client asked for. He positions it as the buyers call, not his.

In the real sales world that’s our job. It’s not about us, it’s about our clients and their needs. It’s our job to position ourselves as consultants or harbingers of quality information and killer solutions. If we make it about us, we aren’t doing our job and DiCaprio got to that part right away. He was quick to point out the buyer asked to be contacted.

Lesson 2: Create Urgency

It took DiCaprio just seconds to drive home the point that this was an fleeting opportunity that needed to be acted on immediately. He was quick to point out that Aerotyne International was on the cusp of “imminent patent approval.”  Yup, this opportunity is about to go and you don’t want to miss it.

In the real world fabricating urgency is just plain stupid, BUT finding real, tangible urgency, that’s another story. Great sales people are very good at identifying urgency buyers may not see or miss. They are able to highlight real, valid opportunity costs to waiting. They are able to demonstrate real first mover advantages when they exist. Killer sales people have noses like truffle pigs when it comes to digging out real, measurable, demonstrable urgency.

DiCaprio created a tremendous sense of urgency and maintained it through the entire call. Urgency matters.

Lesson 3: What’s the Future State?

Nothing is sold without a vision AND acceptance of a future state, change. Inherent in sales is a willingness or desire to move from the current state to a future state and DiCaprio’s pitch wasted no time making sure the buyer had  a solid vision of how his life could change, what his future would hold, if he made this decision. He could stand to make “upwards of $60,000.” Not to miss a gimme, DiCaprio was quick to validate the buyers observation that he COULD pay off his mortgage with that kind of money. DiCaprio anchors him in the vision of a paid off home, debt free life. This future state in contrast with the current state is critical in selling.

In the real world, anchoring customers in what they get, how their world will change is critical. In the real world of selling helping clients see how their world will improve, how they can increase revenue, be more competitive, save money, win market share, reduce costs, etc is where the win is.  It’s not in the features or the products, but what the products deliver. The greater value the future state a product or service can provide, the greater the probability the buyer will buy. You want make more sales, create bigger and better change.

Paying off your mortgage, that’s big change.

Lesson 4: Credibility

We knew DiCaprio was full of shit and so did he. Because he knew that, he tried to fabricate as much credibility as possible. He mentions his analysts, he mentions patents pending, he even cops to the fact that he “loses” deals once in a while — so few losers however. With little to work with, DiCaprio does his best to weave in as much credibility building as he can. He understands the importance of trust and comfort when it comes to the sale. He does such a good job, the buyer is actually thanking HIM at the end of the call. The buyer is thanking him with exuberance.

In the real world of sales, credibility is everything. With credibility comes trust. However,  unlike the sleazy, lying approach DiCaprio takes, killer sales people build credibility through knowledge and expertise. The key to gaining credibility in the real world of selling is to be know more than your clients. It’s to know what’s happening in the industry. It’s to know how your solution impacts your clients business. It’s being aware of the trends, the alternatives and more. In the real world of selling credibility is earned by being your clients go to person when they need to solve a problem and actually solving them.

Cred is key to selling and DiCaprio knew it, established it, and maintained throughout the call.

Lesson 5: Passion and Conviction

Listen to DiCaprio’s voice as he sells this man on Aerotyne. Look at his face. The passion and conviction are undeniable. Listen for his inflection. He softens his voice at the right time, then raises his voice to create excitement at just the right time. You can’t help believe that DiCaprio, for the fleeting moments he’s talking, believes what he’s saying. The passion and conviction for the Aerotyne opportunity can be felt in his words, his body language and his tone. It’s infectious.

Yeah, yeah, I know, he’s a con. But in the real world of sales if you don’t believe what you’re selling, if you don’t have conviction for your offer or solution, you’re fucked. Just today, I was working with a client on a big channel push and we were going over the presentation. It lacked conviction and authority and we fixed it. We knew there was no way the channel partner was going to get behind the new initiative if we didn’t demonstrate conviction for it too.

Conviction and passion are the grease to a good sale and DiCaprio greased his way into a $4000 dollar sale.

No doubt! DiCaprio conned this poor guy out of $4o00. What he did and how he did it was unscrupulous. So, before anyone gets their panties in a wad, I’m not condoning how he sold. What I am doing condoning is the underlying methods of how he sold. They were good. DiCaprio understood what it took to influence someone and he executed to a tee.

As a sales person, are you this good?  Do you incorporate all 5 of these lessons into your sale? You should, you just might get a few more deals.

I loved this scene, it was one of my favorites. It offered sales people so much, if they were looking. Do you/did you see it?

Oh  yeah, there is on more lesson.

Lesson 6: Don’t be sleazy!

Nuff said!

New content marketing research by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council reveals insight-hungry business buyers are increasingly reliant on trusted third-party information to make more educated decisions.

The research, conducted in partnership with NetLine, surveyed the online content sourcing and sharing behaviors of 352 business buyers worldwide. It found that content downloaded from trusted sources on the Internet was essential to pre-sales discovery, qualification and selection of vendors.

Furthermore, the study shows that the most influential types of content across both the awareness and evaluation phases of the buying journey are third-party validated research reports and studies. (Hence the article here!)

It also showed that the sourcing, sharing and consumption of content occurred mostly among three types of informally structured buying groups within enterprise organizations. These three sharing circles are actually led by organizations where content radiates from the execution or mid-level of the organization outward, informing both senior and junior/functional roles to gain alignment over vendor selection.

The 3 primary “content sharing circles” include:

• From the middle out (35%): Content sourcing and purchase decisions are driven by tactically focused executives, but senior management is informed about how and why key decisions were made.
• From the bottom up (30%): Junior or mid-level managers source primary content and share upstream to members of senior management, who then make the final purchase decision.
• From the top down (29%): Senior management consumes content, sending information downstream for product identification and final purchase and execution.

Additional Key Findings From the Research

1. Objectivity Trumps Push Messaging Every Time: Buyers are seeking thought leadership from third parties but still expect facts and data-driven insights from vendors to help make critical vendor selection decisions.
2. The top 5 most sought-after types of content include: Comprehensive industry/category surveys and studies (52%), Technical details about products and solutions (44%), Analyst reviews or recommendations (43%), Expert-originated content with supporting facts and research (35%), and Content published by third-party sources (35%).
3. Buyers Want to Get Smarter, and Not Just Smarter About You. Buyers use content to Identify best practices and best-of-breed solutions (51%), to determine where competitive differentiation can be achieved (50%) and to set the strategic agenda understand needs and prioritize (42%)
4. Content Impacts a Lifetime…Customer Lifetime Value, That Is: Content plays a pivotal role in add-on buying decisions or supplemental purchases following the initial contract. A majority (86 percent) frequently or sometimes use digital content to identify complementary or add-on products while just 12 percent rarely undertake further content sourcing. This third-party content is also frequently or sometimes used by 92 percent of buyers to maintain a vendor relationship or advocate the use of the vendor’s products or services.

To download the complimentary report, please visit www.contentROIcenter.org.

The way you talk about your product is your customer’s introduction to its value.

If you want to succeed, you need to paint the right picture for your prospects. Don’t lose a deal based on sloppy interactions.

There are five words that can help you articulate yourself like the sales champion you are:

Benefits (not Specifications)

Explain exactly how your service will benefit a customer by focusing on the big picture.

Rather than listing specs X, Y, and Z, extrapolate on what these features will accomplish and how they will help the prospect. For example:

SalesLoft is the simplest way to build accurate and targeted lists of leads on the internet. You’ll be able to spend more time talking to customers and less time prospecting with the ultimate outreach tool.

is better than…

SalesLoft helps you find phone numbers and emails that can help build lists of prospects. It also has an option to look up members of groups to find their contact information.

While both explain the product, the first is much more valuable because it’s more holistic.

Value (not Price)

Price should never be a valid objection to any sales call.

Your job as a sales professional is to demonstrate the value your product has, showing how it far outweighs the price. Therefore, your conversations should be value centric.

It’s easier and more effective to convince the customer of your value early on, because it will take price completely out of the picture.

You (not I)

The product is for them, not you.

If you want to delight your customer, focus on them. Instead of talking about yourself, talk to them about how they’ll save time and energy with the investment in your product.

Say something simple, like:

You will be able to spend twice as much time calling and emailing your best prospects.

It’s clear, it’s understandable, and it demonstrates value.

Talking about yourself in the first person only convolutes the benefits to them. Make it all about the customer.

Process (not Specifications)

Rhythm and cadence play a huge role in any business.

In sales, you’ve got to target the context in which your product is going to be used. Your conversations with clients should focus highly on when and how your product is going to be used, not simply the explicit functions. Dig down into the process that your prospect would be using your tools and speak to it.

Objectives (Theirs, not Yours)

As a sales organization, it’s always important to determine your customer’s objectives. If you can help them tackle their business goals, your value increases exponentially.

Ask questions like:

What are your revenue goals next quarter and how are you going to get there? What happens if X occurs? What about Y? Who is responsible for that and what happens if it is not achieved? What is it worth to the company?

If you can help your prospect meet these goals, you’ll close the deal then and there.

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What are your most important sales vocabulary words?

Return over time (R.O.T) is a better measurement of marketing success than Return on Investment (R.O.I). Though most of us do not hear much about R.O.T., it is actually much better than ROI especially in internet and social media marketing where there are statistics to measure.

Why R.O.I is not a Good Indicator of Marketing Success

Credits: Marketoonist.com

First, let’s us see why R.O.I is not a good indicator of marketing success.

Most business owners treat marketing as an investment expense. Many think that the more money they invest, the better their sales will be. The less money they invest, the poorer the sales will be. This is not true at all. Marketing cannot be treated like an investment project.

Marketing is a very subjective skill like music. Different company’s marketers may use the same marketing or branding platform as their competitors but the result may be different. Customers may buy eventually from a competitor even if the company had spent millions of dollars more than the competitor.

Till now, there is still no clear indication of whether marketing contributes to the company’s return on investment. The effectiveness of individual marketing strategies is often blurred by the term R.O.I.

Company A may invest one million dollars on TV advertising last year. Their last year sales volume was two million dollars. However, this does not mean that there is a 100% increase in sales; so, the R.O.I on marketing for Company A should be 100% too! It does not make sense as the sales volume may be the result of other marketing strategies or the customers may be buying the products due to the recommendation from their friends.

Because of this R.O.I thingy, many marketers continue to convince their management to invest on non-effective mass marketing strategies such as prints, TVs and radios, just because there are some sales for the company.

Many big brands today still make the mistakes by believing that R.O.I is everything for them. They continue to spend massive amount of advertising dollars with the reasons of better R.O.I.

Definition of Return Over Time

Return Over Time (R.O.T) is a new term coined by me. Return here does not mean sales and profits, it means the number of leads, prospects, call in, online enquiries and social media leads generated from each of your individual marketing strategy.

The bigger the value of the company’s R.O.T, the better the particular marketing strategy will be. The lower the value of the company’s R.O.T, the less effective the particular marketing strategy is to the company.

Why Return Over Time is a Better Measurement of Marketing Success?

Companies can focus more of their marketing budget on strategies that have higher Return Over Time. (R.O.T); whereas they can scrap away those marketing strategies with lower R.O.T. Low R.O.T may also mean that the particular marketer that manages the strategy may not be the right person to handle the project.

By better allocation of the marketing strategies and limited budget, the company can therefore saves more and gets more. In this way, the marketer can have the extra time and money to spend on more branding strategies to further grow the brand to the next level.

Return over time (R.O.T) also gives the marketers the indication to change marketing strategies when the time comes. This is because any marketing strategy in the world cannot be consistently successful. There will be changes over time. The brands that once dominated their industry through TV advertising, may not be able to do so today. Hence, if the R.O.T for a particular marketing strategy starts to fall, the marketer will then have to relook on the strategy again.

In Summary,

Return over time (R.O.T.) helps the company to determine whether they have engaged a good marketer that knows how to make use of clever marketing strategies to grow the company’s branding; or whether they have engaged a bad marketer who knows how to wiggle his or her way through under the pretense of getting better return on investment (R.O.I) for the company.

Credits: themetapicture.com

When it comes to producing content, A/E/C firms typically have no shortage. Project profiles, proposal boilerplate, SOQs, brochures, e-newsletters and press releases are usually in great abundance. But how engaging is your content? Does it cause your audience to stop and read?

Content marketing represents a huge opportunity for A/E/C marketers to differentiate their firms and stand out from the crowded marketplace. But an effective content marketing program requires producing the right kind of content. Content that is engaging, helpful and ultimately worthy of your audience’s time.

So what are some ways A/E/C firms can produce the right kind of content that engages their prospects, clients and partners? Here are 3 guiding principles to consider.

1. Focus on your audience

This might seem completely obvious, but it’s a principle that is often ignored. Just consider the marketing materials of a typical A/E/C firm and they’re likely to be very company focused. But in today’s digital world, where your audience is crunched for time and gets bombarded by marketing messages practically all day long, you’ve got to make your content valuable to them. Which means that you have to view content creation through their lens—not your firm’s.

Stop selling
Focusing on your audience means your A/E/C firm’s marketing needs to stop selling. This might seem counterintuitive, especially to principals and business development staff focused on bringing in the next big win. There is a time and a place for selling, but clients are not going to stop what their doing and read an email that’s just a sales pitch! They’re not going to subscribe to your blog and come back time and time again because they enjoy reading about your latest project win.

Start sharing
So before you publish any piece of content­—whether a proposal, email, blog post or newsletter—you should ask yourself, “What’s in it for the audience?” Remember, content marketing is all about adding value to the lives of your audience by sharing helpful information that informs, educates and guides—instead of simply pitching your services. So you should consider how your content could serve the needs and interests of your audience, answer their questions, solve problems and just be really helpful.

2. Be relevant and timely

The A/E/C industry constantly faces changes of various kinds. Whether legislative regulatory, technological or everything in-between, there are always issues that your clients, prospects and teaming partners need to be made aware of and educated about. This could be the impact that recent legislation will have on land development, changes in stormwater regulations, the latest requirements for LEED certification or changes in best practices due to advancements in software and technology. Whatever the case may be for your firm, you should aim to create content that is timely and relevant to your audience.

Right person, right message, right time
If a client is unsure how the latest regulations are going to affect their project, wouldn’t they love to find the answer in your email or blog post? And what about prospects and leads? Every prospective client seeks out as much information as they can to inform their decision-making process and also vet potential firms. Part of being relevant and timely means you meet your audience where they are in the customer lifecycle and provide content that is relevant to them in that particular stage.

3. Quality over quantity

The third and final principal is that when it comes to content, quality will always trump quantity. Your goal isn’t to simply create lots of content and most A/E/C firms already have no shortage of content. The goal of every A/E/C firm should be to create remarkable, magnetic content that engages your audience and accomplishes a defined purpose. And quality content­—content that stands out from the competition, resonates with prospects and clients and is deserving of your audience’s valuable time—requires a significant effort of time, planning and resources to create.

Avoid temptation
The kind of content that’s going to move the needle for your A/E/C firm can’t be thrown together or copied and pasted, so don’t sacrifice quality for the sake of quantity. Even if your firm has adopted a customer-centric approach to your content, it’s easy for company-focused content to creep back in, especially when quantity is needed. But in the end, pushing out content that lacks quality, whether in substance or style, will not produce the desired results and will only hurt your efforts in the long run.

Content is everything in marketing! It’s the “guts” of your proposals, website, emails, blog, newsletter and basically every form of marketing communications. So getting your content right is absolutely paramount. The right kind of content can be a game changer for your A/E/C firm and by following these three guiding principles, your firm will be headed in the right direction.

The Lure of Pay for Performance

It sounds so attractive to pay appointment setting companies fees based on the number of appointments they set up for you. It seems there’s no risk, and would appear to make it simple to compare one teleservices company to another. It comes down the dollars and cents you pay for each appointment.

Quantity Not Quality

But is that really true?

You might be getting quantity, but what about quality? When you pay by the appointment, appointment setting companies are motivated to give you as many appointments as possible. In turn, they are likely paying incentives to their agents based on the number of appointments they set. So the natural inclination for agents is to blur the edges of the definition of a “qualified” appointment.

The Hidden Costs

Once you have the appointments set up, your field sales people have to prepare for an appointment, travel there, and meet with the “prospect.” What if the appointment is not qualified? They may be interested in your solution, but do they have the authority to buy it? The budget? If the appointment does not meet all the criteria for a qualified lead, your sales people end up wasting their time on sub-par leads.

Alternatively, sales people figure out almost immediately that some of the leads are not qualified, and take one of two routes. They either waste time digging through piles of leads trying to qualify them. Or, more likely, try a few appointments that don’t work out, and discard the rest.

It’s not good for converting sales, boosting morale, or the bottom line.

Focus is on Quality with a Fixed-Rate Campaign

The alternative is to pay by the project, also known as fixed-rate, based daily or monthly rate. As long as you clearly set objectives up front, this usually provides a better ROI because the appointment setting company can focus on quality leads. In addition, they approach your project with a long-term perspective. This means they’ll be more likely to:

• Seek out and capture accurate data that will help produce results in future campaigns.
• Nurture leads until they are warmed up and ready for a sales call. On the other hand the agent who is paid for the appointment will likely pass along marginal leads because they want to get paid now.

If you’re new to outsourcing appointment-setting, you may be concerned about paying for a service when you don’t know the results you’re going to achieve. So how do you do your due diligence and alleviate your concerns? Here’s what you need to find out:

• The education and experience of their agents. The more experienced and educated, the more likely they’ll be able to have smooth, free-flowing conversations with the decision-makers you want to reach.
• How they go about training agents on your products, industry and markets? The more in-depth the training, the more likely they are to be successful.
• Does the company dedicate a team of agents to your campaign only, or will they be working on several projects at the same time? You want agents to focus on your campaign alone and present themselves as part of your company. Essentially, they become an extension of your organization.
• Do the agents use scripts? When agents are inexperienced, untrained and/or working for several clients simultaneously, it’s harder to let them loose on the phones without the crutch of a script. If a company’s agents are unscripted, just working from an outline of topics, you can rest assured that they are confident in promoting your company.
• Do their agents talk the language of your target audience fluently? If you have global market coverage, look for a teleservices company whose agents have the breadth of languages you need for your campaigns.
• Who are their clients? If the appointment setting company works with best of breed companies, they are most likely producing exceptional results. And, if you want to know for sure, just ask for a few references.
• Can you start with a pilot project? This is an excellent way to gauge the results you are likely to achieve working with a particular appointment setting company.

For information about how 3D2B can help you call +1 718-709-0900 or +39 06 978 446 60 (EMEA).

Are you tired of the childish bickering and finger pointing between Sales and Marketing? Here’s how to make peace between the two and boost revenues.

In the popular book, “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus” the Author John Gray explains that men and women have fundamentally different psychological differences exemplified by the book’s title: that men and women are from distinct planets.

In many B2B companies, similar divisions can exist between Sales and Marketing. For instance, sales people will complain about poor quality leads generated by marketing. Conversely, the marketing people will complain about Sales’ weak follow up, if at all, of the leads.

Sales sometimes thinks of Marketing as irrelevant party planners. While Marketing can view Sales as lazy and incompetent.

Either way you look at it, it is not good for the bottom line.

Here’s why: In a 2010 study by the Aberdeen Group, companies with strong sales and marketing alignment achieved 20% annual revenue growth.

So how can you get Sales and Marketing on the same sheet of music? It all comes down to goals. Once you have an agreement on goals, the marketing pipeline and sales quota become two ends of the same stick.

Here are the five steps to achieving “Smarketing,” where Sales and Marketing lay down arms, join forces and achieve greater revenue growth (and become co-recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize For Sales and Marketing Alignment):

1. Talk About Money

Sales and marketing need to talk about revenue, specifically. For marketing to do this, some math will be required, working backwards from sales:

1. What is your company or division’s revenue goal?
2. What is your average deal size (current revenue/current customers)?
3. How many customers do you need? (revenue goal/average deal size)?
4. What is your lead to conversion rate (current customers/current leads)?
5. Calculate the number of leads needed (customers needed/average lead to customer)

With these questions answered, marketing is already much closer to having a goal that is tied to sales. But wait, there’s more.

Marketing and Sales need to agree on the characteristics of a sales ready lead. It will boil down to a combination of “fit” and “interest.”

If there is a fit but low interest, Marketing needs to nurture the lead. If there is a fit and interest, Sales needs to follow up quickly.

Unfortunately, only 45% of businesses have established a company-wide definition of a sales-ready lead, according to a study by MarketingSherpa.

This is also a crucial time to form a clearer understanding of and agreement on your ideal customer or buyer persona.

Once sales and marketing have zeroed in on defining a sales ready lead, the hand off can improve dramatically.

Then, Marketing needs to define the different stages of the funnel (website visit, lead, marketing qualified lead, sales qualified lead, opportunity, sale).

Finally, Marketing and Sales must agree, definitively, on who owns which part of the sales funnel. Also, make sure both sides understand that the buyer’s journey is not linear, but increasingly erratic.

2. Close The Loop

Closed-loop reporting, that is. If Marketing is throwing leads to Sales and doesn’t find out what happens to the leads, stop the madness. The system is broken.

Two critical tools are needed to make this happen:

• Marketing automation software (e.g. HubSpot, Marketo)
• CRM (customer relationship management) software (e.g. Salesforce, Nimble)

By reporting in a closed loop, marketing is able to send more information to sales (such as additional lead intelligence), and sales is able to provide feedback and sales activity reports to marketing.

Some of the things that marketing should be looking at via closed loop reporting include customers by marketing source and conversion assists.

3. Get An SLA

Sort of like a marriage license, Sales and Marketing need to have a signed service level agreement (SLA). An SLA is a written definition of what marketing and sales agree to do for each other.

For instance, marketing would agree to provide a specific number of quality leads within a given time in order for sales to reach their quota. Conversely, sales will agree to a certain speed and depth of lead follow up that makes business sense.

4. Talk to Each Other

Marketing and sales need to have weekly meetings. At these meetings marketing should update sales on campaign activity and plans and product updates. If marketing and sales sit together at work, it boosts communication dramatically. Give it a try, you’ll be surprised how much it helps.

5. More Data, Less Drama

This goes back to Marketing and Sales bickering and finger pointing (“marketing’s leads suck” and “sales isn’t following up on the leads”).

Instead, use data that is frequent, public and transparent. Marketing needs to have an always-on dashboard with website traffic and leads. It needs to be reviewed every day.

Additionally, the leads should be tracked by source and by campaign. The number of marketing qualified leads should be tracked on the dashboard, too. Similarly, with closed loop reporting, all the sales activity should be visible and analyzed.

Your turn: What challenges do you have getting sales and marketing aligned?

Matix and funnel graphics courtesy of HubSpot

If you want to increase your sales, you need to get more qualified leads. Well optimized, highly targeted landing pages are one of the most effective methods of generating authentic leads for your business.

But what marketing campaigns increase traffic to your page and drive conversions?

Do you use:

• Coupons
• Exclusive Memberships
• Ebooks
• Crowdsourcing tactics

Here’s 21 awesome ideas to ramp up landing page conversions for your small business.

Note: All of these landing pages were created using Wishpond’s easy to use Landing Page Builder.

1. Offer a Free Demo of Your Product or Services

Generate leads by giving away a free, personalized demonstration of what your product offers. Get potential customers to sign up on your free demo landing page, discuss and show how your service will benefit them, and keep in touch with your buttered up leads.

2. Give More Information About Your Services

If a live demo is not getting you the leads you need, make an information sheet about your services or product. Give a teaser about the booklet benefits to your potential customers, to entice more sign ups.

On your landing page, give a clear call to action, and let your prospects know that there’s no obligation to buy from you. You’ll get more leads that way, by making a less high-pressure sales pitch.

3. Offer Exclusive Membership for Discounts

Create a membership package for your best customers. Use a great landing page for signing up. Give incentives like exclusive deals, behind the scenes videos of your business, and being the first to know about your new products or other information.

4. Make a Newsletter Sign Up

Keep in touch with your new leads by offering them a regular, free newsletter update. Make it enticing by giving away exclusive deals and discounts too!

5. Give a Free Trial

Free trials are a great way to drum up business, by letting people play with your product or service for a while. They’re also a fantastic method of collecting qualified leads.

Work with your marketing, sales and finance team to determine what service of product is best to give away for a free trial. Set a finite time frame for your offer. Make an email-gated landing page for the free trial (it could be your home page). Promote your trial with online ads. Get people trying out your product, and keep in touch with them through email automation and ongoing direct, personal email messages.

6. Make it Easy to Request a Free Quote

Give your customers the opportunity to get a free quote for your services. Whether you are a moving company, a tailor or even a B2B, you may have specialized, personalized services that have different pricing.

Make an easy, inviting landing page, showing the benefits your service offers. Get leads to follow up with potential new customers.

7. Make Free How-To Guides

Want to educate your market and be seen as the helpful knowledgeable business leader? Write a number of free how-to guides related to your product or service. Give them away for free on your website through an email-gated landing page.

Once a potential customer has signed up and downloaded your free guide, follow up with an optimized email automation campaign.

8. Offer a Free Product Catalog

Do you have an online product catalog? Make it easy to download on your site. Generate leads by giving it away for free, in exchange for an email and other basic contact information.

9. Give Free Daily Tips

Show that you are the business that knows about your industry. Give away free daily tips related to your market.

Your tips could be:

• A few simple, yet inspiring sentences related to your product and lifestyle.
• Longer blog articles, with good practical tips on how to use your product (or related products)

Create a landing page with a clear Call-to-Action, contrasting colors, and relevant visuals. Make it easy and enticing for people to sign up. You get emails for future lead conversion.

10. Host a Webinar

Webinars are an engaging way to attract customers who are genuinely interested in your industry related topics. They also show your customers how knowledgeable you are about your products or services, and that you’re willing to share your expertise for free.

Host a webinar (or a series of them) to engage with your market, build relationships, and get qualified email leads.

Check out how to increase your webinar attendance with these landing page tips.

Wishpond hosts weekly webinars, by the way!

11. Email-Gate Pre-recorded Webinars

When you make a live webinar, record it. Use it again, as a free resource for potential clients and customers. Make a series of them, on one particular theme to make a learning tool for your related industry.

Make a landing page on your website to email-gate your awesome teachings.

12. Give Away Free Ebooks

Does your business make a lot of good, comprehensive content for your blog? Take 5-10 related how-to articles and turn them into a valuable ebook for your customers. Then set up an email-gated landing page on your website to give your resource away for free.

Free ebooks are a common marketing tactic for B2B’s. B2C’s can use them too. I’ve seen, for example, a chocolate brilliantly use email gated ebooks to give away free recipe books (using their product of course!).

You attract people who are genuine prospects, and you gain trust by sharing your knowledge with them.

13. Write Whitepapers

If you’re marketing to businesses, speak the language of business. Develop whitepapers (or a series of them) with pertinent information regarding your industry. Make them relevant, current, value-adding and easy to skim.

Show your company knows their stuff. Gain great prospects by email-gating your reports on your website. Use a landing page with a clear call-to-action and great visuals.

14. Create a How-to Hub

Take your themed pre-recorded webinars, ebooks, whitepapers and other content a step further. Develop themed content including webinars, infographics, how-to videos, online quizzes and more.

Setup a page on your website to host your rich resources. Email-gated it with an optimized landing page (and ask for additional information such as name, how they found your page, or what they’re biggest consumer problem is).

You again create trust and show that your business is an industry leader. You get leads, and could become the go-to hub too.

15. Earn Rewards for Referring Friends

Setup a referral program, to get customers to spread the word about you. Give discounts to people who can bring in, say 5 new customers. Reward them with progressively deeper discounts for any additional new clients.

Use an email-gated landing page attached to a great CRM. You get to keep in touch with passionate customers.

16. Offer Coupons

In retail, there’s nothing so enticing to a buyer than a great deal. Give away coupons through your website (or Facebook Page). Attract new and returning customers to your website and generate qualified leads. By using coupons related to your business products, you’ll only get people who want what you’ve got.

Email gate your coupon landing page, and you have your customers’ contact information. Use an email automation campaign to connect with your interested customer immediately. Stay in touch with weekly deals or other emails about your business.

You can gain immediate sales, too.

17. Run a Sweepstakes

Who doesn’t like to win? Host a sweepstakes on your website. Make the entry email-gated, so that you collect participant leads.

Be sure your prize is related to your business product or services, so you’ll get interested leads. Don’t give away an iPad if you’re in the auto repair business, for example. People will just enter for a chance to win your unrelated prize – not because they’re interested in your services.

18. Crowdsource a New Product Name

Your customers want to engage with you these days. Let them!

Crowdsource a name for a new product you’ve developed. This is a brilliant marketing tactic to spread the word about your new offering. You engage your customers and give them a personal connection. They’re more likely to tell their friends about you – and buy your product when it’s available.

Set up a vote contest or an essay contest on your website. Email-gate it to generate new leads, too.

19. Crowdsource Product Development Input

Take a “Name a New Product” contest a step further. Engage customer and potential customers by crowdsourcing input into a new product you’re developing or manufacturing.

For example, let’s say you design or make upscale umbrellas. Give your customers input into what design you’ll manufacture next. Choose 3-10 design options, create a vote contest on your website with the design options. Let your customers vote on their favourite design.

You get vested consumers and lots of great leads.

20. Crowdsource a Book Cover

If you’re writing a book, get your customers involved and interested in your written masterpiece – even before it’s published. Get your interested market involved by “owning” the choice of your next book cover. Start marketing your book, and gain fans with a vested interest in seeing your book succeed.

Set up a lead generating landing page, and ask your prospects to choose from 2 or 3 book covers. Use the cover that gets the most votes. Use your new email leads to build relationships through email automation. Develop interested prospects into your own word-or-mouth marketing team – and sell your new book.

21. Crowdsource a Product Label

Similar to choosing a book cover, get your prospects to choose a label for a product.

Let’s say you have a winery, for example, and you’re relabeling a line of wine. Get your customers involved, by crowdsourcing it. Create a photo contest, and have people make a new label for you. Use the submissions to then get people to vote on their favourite new design.

Use a lead generating landing page to gather new prospects who are interested in your products. Setup email automation campaigns to nurture customers, and keep your brand top of mind as you prepare to launch your new product.

Conclusion

Generating good, qualified leads for your business doesn’t have to be hard. Implement a smart marketing strategy with customer-centric landing pages. Give your consumer content, coupons and product related incentives to get authentic leads and increase sales.

What marketing tactics do you use to increase conversions and gain qualified leads from your landing pages? What’s been successful for you?

After Kuno Creative Content Director Brianne Rush predicted a rise in content leadership this year, I couldn’t help but wonder—if 93 percent of B2B companies were using content marketing in 2013 and no one was leading the charge, how were they be able to do it effectively and understand the value of their efforts?

While content marketing is now a well-known industry term, “most business owners and marketers have no playbook to do [it] properly,” says Joe Pulizzi, founder at Content Marketing Institute.

More and more businesses are recognizing the need for content leaders to guide the execution and strategy for their content initiatives—from Chief Content Officers to Directors and VPs to cross-channel communications managers. If your business is one of them, there’s plenty to consider as you prepare to fill the role. Here’s a job description to get you started, courtesy of Pulizzi.

But beyond the core responsibilities and desired skills, I wanted to explore what it really takes to be a content leader. And who better to ask than content leaders from a few B2B companies! I asked five content leaders from companies in a variety of industries, including the world’s very first Chief Content Officer, to share their thoughts on content leadership, what to look for in a content leader and considerations for your organization as you grow your content marketing practice and look for a content leader to guide the way.

First, let’s meet the content leaders who were kind enough to explore this topic with me:

Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer, MarketingProfs: Ann speaks and writes about how you can rethink the way your business markets. As the first-ever Chief Content Officer, Ann guides content efforts for MarketingProfs, a training and education company with the largest community of marketers in its category.

Dave Wolpert, Chief Content Officer, Sales Engine International: Dave leads the content strategy and execution for Sales Engine International, a B2B demand generation company.

Dana Larson, Chief Content Officer, EXTRACTABLE: Dana oversees user experience and content strategies for EXTRACTABLE, a user experience agency. She works to connect users to the content they care about to drive more traffic, engagement and conversions.

Brendan Cournoyer, Director of Content Marketing, Brainshark: Brendan manages the content marketing practice for Brainshark, a company that enables organizations to improve productivity with cloud-based business presentation solutions for sales, marketing and training.

Christina Nordquist, Marketing & Communication Associate Manager, Annese & Associates, Inc.: Christina heads up content strategy for Annese & Associates, Inc., an IT company based in upstate New York. There, Christina leads all communications-related initiatives, spanning the realms of content marketing, public relations, social media, blogging and SEO.

In your opinion, what’s one of the top traits every content leader needs and why?

Handley: Of the 11 traits I outline in “How to Hire a Chief Content Officer: 11 Key Traits,” amateur passion is the trait I look for, even with seasoned professionals. “Passion” is one of those words that’s overused and often meaningless, but I mean it quite literally. As we wrote in Content Rules: “Look for people who are already online and creating content, even as amateurs. (Fun fact: the root of amateur is the Latin word for love.)”

“Key to me is this: Do they LOVE content? Would they be creating it and publishing it and sharing in conversations even if they didn’t get paid for it?” — Handley

Larson: A content leader needs to be strategic, which is having the ability to understand the strategy that will advance the clients’ business goals and how to reach a target audience. This also requires the ability to be creatively strategic in the ways you might want to reach a target audience. This doesn’t just mean being a great writer or designer—it’s also about coming up with ways to meet challenges creatively and being able to hold back and understand what is in the realm of possibilities.

Wolpert: The best CCOs are good writers and editors and have an eye for design and videography. This enables them to hire the right people, evaluate their output and provide relevant creative direction to content development efforts. A CCO should also know how to tell a compelling story through multiple media. In the B2B space, a lot of that storytelling involves linking customer problems to solutions and benefits.

What is your main goal as a Chief Content Officer or content leader?

Wolpert: My overarching mission is to create compelling content that converts our clients’ prospects into buyers. A secondary objective is to continuously improve the process by which we create content for our clients. We’re constantly finding innovative ways to gain richer insights about our clients and their target customers, and then use those insights to produce better content, faster and less expensively.

Handley: To wage a war on content mediocrity.

Cournoyer: I believe it’s everyone’s job to enable your sales force to sell better and content plays a significant role in that. That has to be your ultimate goal, and I think that can get lost in the shuffle when you get bogged down in the manoosh of blogging and tweeting and that sort of stuff. Everything you’re doing in some way or form is designed to enable your sales team to sell better.

What advice would you share with a new content leader?

Wolpert: Don’t stop innovating. The content marketing landscape is fluid. What worked yesterday might not work well tomorrow. So keep trying new things. Use small, controlled, low-risk experiments—for instance, mixing up the format of a white paper, or the style of a video or infographic—to learn quickly whether those approaches will be fruitful. If you get a good result, keep doing that, or maybe try a variant of it. If not, stop and try something else.

Larson: Prioritize quality over quantity. Give value to your content so you can make a case for growing your content practice. If you can measure content’s effectiveness, you can better grow your team and resources for creating more quality content.

Nordquist: Inspiration is everywhere, from an article you’ve read in the Wall Street Journal to a tweet one of your followers posted, to a flyer you see pinned to a bulletin board. As a content officer you need to be at the forefront of the conversation and then find a way to add value to it in a context that is relevant to your specific audience.

Cournoyer: Make sure you have an actual vision in place. This is why we’re developing this role. This is why we’re investing in content. These are the things that we want to do better. This is our goal. Figure out how your content initiatives are going to fit into the overall sales and marketing organization and use analytics to identify the successes and failures of your content efforts and improve going forward.

Content marketing isn’t a one-person job! How do you build a winning content marketing team?

Wolpert: Look for people who truly love their craft, not those who just want a job and happen to have some decent content development skills. It’s also important to look for people who can get into the heads of your target audience so that they create content that resonates with the intended recipient.

Handley: I covered the various roles here. And I added a beautiful drawing for illustration purposes…

A Simple Content Marketing Org Chart from Ann Handley

What does success look like for you as a content leader?

Wolpert: Like any CCO, I want to create content that delights clients and customers with its quality. But the real test of any content asset we produce is whether it helps bring in new business for our clients. Ultimately, if it does that, our efforts were successful.

Handley: I want our readers and followers and audience to enjoy our content more, and I want us to maybe even feel a little proud of it. This requires a subtle but key shift in all of us: To overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and weakness and, perhaps, fear to refocus on the words we use as the most important piece of who we are (and who our companies are) online.

You’ve just heard from some of the experts, but what other questions do you have about building content leadership into your organization? Contact us or post your questions in the comments below. 

Photo credit: kenteegardin 

So you started implementing inbound marketing. Maybe you created an editorial calendar, started posting some blogs, and ran a paid ad or two. You’re seeing a boost in traffic and leads, your sales people are keeping a consistently filled pipeline, and your CEO seems happier, even on the dreaded Mondays.

Here’s the thing, implementing inbound marketing and getting these results is great but I hope you have a strategy created behind it otherwise you will experience growing pains. Here are 2 of the biggest growing pains you can experience.

The wrong kind of traffic and leads are coming in

Isn’t it great to see your metrics increasing from month to month? It can be kind of addicting and you can keep doing the things you’re doing, putting more money into your ads, creating more of the same content, etc. But first, you need to make sure that the people behind those numbers are the people you really want so that you aren’t wasting your money.

Let’s say you run a primarily women’s hair salon and you keep running paid ads and blogging about crew cuts which is attracting men. Sure, your numbers keep going up and more people will be coming to your site but not the stylish women you want to drop $150-$200 on a root touch up and trim. But if you had a strategy implemented behind the paid ads and planned out who you were going to go after things might be going differently.

The thing about inbound marketing is sometimes higher numbers doesn’t always mean you’re doing it right. Looking at the analytics and figuring out your ROI is a huge priority to understand if it’s working right.

You’re passing off unqualified leads to the sales department

Maybe the kind of traffic coming in is actually the kind of people you want to become customers. Great! So pass them right along to your sales team right? Well, depending on your sales cycle that might now be the best idea at all.

The beauty of inbound is the ability to automate processes and nurture leads that way until they’re absolutely ready. In some instances it might make sense for your business to speak with a lead as soon as they come in, but in most scenarios a business can help the sales team waste less time by nurturing a lead.

If you strategize a lead nurturing system you can send emails giving prospects what they want, when they want, how they want. And by the time your prospects are done looking through all this information THEN it will be time to pass these QUALIFIED leads off to the sales department.

Takeaway

Growing pains are common and can be found in most growing businesses. But you can avoid these 2 types of growing pains if you just implement a strategy!

What makes B2B content effective? Understanding ways to match content with the sales process is just as critical as ensuring content quality. Gaining this understanding requires content marketers to master three concepts that mirror the way an enterprise sales process typically works: Organizations will struggle to get the most out of leads unless they possess compelling thought-leadership content, easily digestible teaser content, and the ability to consume prospect feedback. 

Let’s assume your content is well written and does a good job of explaining how your offerings solve problems and provide tangible business benefits. Now imagine a picture of a traditional sales funnel: wide at the top (where you find the new leads), narrower in the middle (where consideration occurs), and narrowest at the bottom (where deals begin to close).

Each of these phases should trigger the delivery of corresponding B2B content and the deployment of certain actions to support that content. It may be helpful to think of the sales funnel as being shaped like a megaphone: Imagine the bottom of the funnel as a mouthpiece where thought leadership content is spoken — and then grows and changes in tone and volume as it resonates outward to increasingly larger audiences.

For example, tweets, teasers, and abstracts could represent the shorter-form content needed for the top end of the megaphone — B2B content that is created to hook increasingly distracted audiences and draw them into your content stream. Multiple tweets on a topic might lead to a full paragraph of discussion; paragraphs could lead to having enough fodder for a full blog post, and blog posts can lead to a longer series of articles that then feeds the creation of a thought leadership-driven white paper.

To see how the ideal process would work, let’s examine the importance of three key concepts that are essential to B2B content success: thought leadership, teaser content, and analyzing content-triggered audience feedback.

B2B content must correspond to the classic sales funnel (click for larger view).

1. Thought leadership 

Residing at the end of the sales funnel is thought leadership. Idea-rich and highly authoritative, your company’s unique voice rewards audience engagement and inspires return visits.

Found in your densest content, such as white papers and bylined articles, thought leadership is truly useful and hard to fake. To produce it, you must enlist the content creation efforts of genuine subject-matter experts who are in tune with the challenges that real customers face — and equipped with thoughtful opinions about how to address those challenges.

That kind of expertise is rarer than it should be, but prospects and customers appreciate it when they find it. The caveat: B2B decision makers are demanding audiences. Thought leadership content aimed at these audiences cannot read, look, or smell anything like a sales pitch or marketing presentation. Repurpose fluff or the latest PR talking points, and your words will get tossed or ignored outright.

Thought leadership requires three critical components.

We recommend focusing on three crucial qualities that characterize quality thought-leadership content — and the discussions it contains:

• Expert: Your ideas must be genuine and deliver real value — not irrelevant or phony advice, and definitely not arrogance masquerading as expertise. Imagine you have the critical, cynical eye of a professional journalist, and use those same sensibilities to evaluate the value of each idea you come up with.
• Original: Your ideas must be uniquely yours and reflect the timely perspective your brand has on the industry, marketplace, or other topic at hand.
• Comprehensive: Thought leadership has to cover all the bases, frankly and honestly. You know those questions your sales team is hoping won’t get asked? Your prospects will inevitably ask them, so don’t just ignore their concerns. Tackle them head-on. 

Finally, if you have more than five ideas in a given thought-leadership piece, you’ve probably got more than one piece on your hands. Think about how you can break up these ideas into more digestible pieces of information appropriately for your audience.

2. Easily digestible “teaser” content

At the opening of the funnel, we find prospects that need social content before migrating to the big ideas in your thought-leadership content. As your audience moves through the megaphone/funnel toward these big ideas, you need to draw them in gently. Consider content marketing as akin to seduction: Few will be attracted, at the onset, to every last detail you provide in your content. Rather, attraction starts with capturing attention and then holding it before you move on to enticing the audience members through their curiosity and, finally, guiding their interest in the direction you desire.

For example, the tweets and teasers that correspond with the outer ring of the sales funnel hook an increasingly distracted audience into your content stream. These short, concise bursts of content both pique interest and refine the audience — weeding out those who don’t fit your buyer personas and ensuring that the leads who progress toward your thought-leadership content are ready, willing, and even eager to consume it.

Once hooked, the next step is to engage them with increasingly meaningful thoughts and ideas, represented in our infographic by the term “posts.” A post typically focuses on a single topic and covers it in a single chunk. If best practices suggest that an article or white paper consists of three to five main ideas, each of those ideas could be described, stand-alone, in a single post. 

Packaging teaser content for delivery: So what is the best way to package teaser content for optimum delivery and impact? It’s really a matter of individual judgment based on two criteria: audience preference and subject matter relevance. The marketer’s job is to determine the best fit for each specific idea based on what you know about the point you’re trying to make — as well as what you know about your audience’s attitudes, behaviors, and existing preferences — and then test the possible options to see what works best.

Start with these two tips: 

• Recognize that form follows function: For example, an abstract of a technical white paper might be best delivered as a short blog post, while high concepts in the same paper may be easier for a novice to grasp through infographics.

• Diversify, but optimize: The more delivery methods you have in play, the more prospects you will likely lure into your funnel. Once you have some feedback and are able to gain a better feel for what works and what doesn’t, you can then prioritize the content you create, as well as decide on the best delivery channels.

One last piece of advice: Tweets and teasers are the newspaper headlines of the 21st century. Give yourself a gut check before posting any content: Ask yourself if you, as a consumer, would take the time to click through the teaser content you’ve created for any given post.

3. Analyzing feedback: Listening and engaging

B2B content matching the sales funnel should be the catalyst for a feedback loop.

Once you begin engaging your audience with deeper thoughts and ideas, you’ll inevitably get feedback — along with potential new leads. As your reach extends, expect plenty of questions and opinions — both supportive and not. But even if some of the response you receive is not favorable, remember that nearly all feedback has value, and can serve as a testament to the success of your messaging — or guide you toward necessary improvements. 

Digest the feedback: The level and intensity of your feedback serve as measuring sticks with which to gauge the effectiveness of your brand-building and relationship-building abilities — two important objectives of your content marketing efforts. But how can you get the most out of this feedback?

• Listen to your audience reactions: Engaging your audience, immersing them in your thought-leadership content, and listening to their feedback will help improve the quality of future content and enhance your messaging over the long term.
• More comments and discussion mean further opt-ins into your sales funnel and broader interest in your message: By offering true thought-leadership content at the base of your megaphone that passes the decision-maker “giggle” test, you can boost the odds that your audience will walk away with a favorable impression of your company and your offerings, and even shape purchase requirements based on your best thinking.
• Remember that feedback can be a two-way conversation: Comments from prospects and customers offer valuable insight into positioning your brand or delivering your product or service, and can inspire new thought-leadership topics and content. Ultimately, responding to these interests will likely draw more prospects into your social funnel. Be sure to embrace the feedback (positive or negative) and modify your approach as appropriate.

A closing thought: It all comes full circle. While long-term social success is marked by increased sales, a positive reputation, and satisfied customers, effective B2B social content starts and ends with thought leadership. Each phase of our megaphone can help you find and deliver an audience receptive to your unique voice. The resulting social engagement can refine that voice, strengthen your future content, and expand your audience base.

For more great ideas, insights, and examples for advancing your B2B content marketing to greater levels of success, read Epic Content Marketing, by Joe Pulizzi. 

Cover image via Bigstock