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In part three of my series, “Your Sales Culture Is Killing You,” I may have taken this to a literal extreme, as I discuss something that affects each human being on this planet; death. So, what does death have to do with sales and sales leadership? Everything.

With the insatiable drive to achieve aggressive results and the obsession over what’s next, every company needs to start focusing on the biggest miss of all; the very thing that will determine your success and your failure. The Present.

Managers are wired to be the Chief Problem Solver, fix things and consequently, approach practically every situation looking to offer a quick solution. They are conditioned to focus on their sales targets, look for what’s wrong and provide directive feedback.

Unfortunately, this very mindset comes at a great cost. If you are focused on the problem, the result or what’s next, then you are not focused on what’s now. And what is happening now? Your people, your process, your actions and your choices.

When delivering my leadership development and management coach training program, here’s a story I share that illustrates this point and the importance of engaging in the moment.

Not to be morbid but death is a part of life. Unfortunately, I’ve been to my share of funerals. Maybe you have too. And wherever I travel, wherever I go, regardless of where you are from or what religion you practice, at some point during a funeral, friends and family members will talk about the person who passed.

When this happens, every human being has two general reactions.

Especially if it’s an elderly person who died, your first reaction might be similar to this. “Wow, I didn’t realize what an impact this person had made on others. I had no idea how much this person achieved in their life.”

The second reaction is more commonplace. That is, you start thinking about your own life. You begin to reflect on your mortality. When this happens, you experience a physical as well as an emotional reaction. There’s a tightening in your chest. You’re pulse quickens. You notice your breathing becoming slightly irregular. Your heart feels heavier than it normally does.

At first, there are a few tears, then you begin to sob. Initially, you may find your behavior surprising, even uncomfortable; for it may not be the typical way you behave. But then, you experience a sense of relief. You’re acknowledging and reflecting upon something that’s been growing inside you, taking up space. This internal conflict that many successful people struggle with. The eternal battle between honoring your core values, your priorities and your life, with the unyielding obsession to win and achieve more. Your competitive nature consumes you and engulfs your time, while simultaneously challenging your integrity; the very thing which makes you authentically complete, puts your life in balance, and tells you whether or not you’re being true to yourself.

You reflect further, “Am I making the right choices? Am I making too many personal sacrifices in order to get ahead in my career or make more money? Have I given up too much of my life for what I perceive to be a means to an end? Am I doing what I want to be doing? Am I relentlessly driven by the right reasons and the right goals and if so, at what cost? Am I truly happy?”

As you experience this normal emotional reaction, you notice that your tears are not only for the grief stricken family who just lost a loved one or for the person who passed, but for yourself.

Immediately, you look back upon your life; where you were, where you are today and where you may be going. For a moment, you are covered by a blanket of regret, of things you wish you did, things you wish you did more of, and things you wish you didn’t do.

But then, you realize something.  You realize that you can change things. That you are in control of your life. That the game is far from over. And so,  you start thinking about what you need to change that would make your life more fulfilling, more worthwhile, more meaningful. You think;

“Life is too short.  I need to spend more time with my family and my friends.  I need to spend more quality time with my kids.  I need to take better care of myself, and the people in my life who I love.  I need to do more of the things that bring me joy; that inspire and fulfill me. I’ve got to stop working so hard. Life is so fragile. There’s no dress rehearsal. I need to make the most of it now. I need to put my priorities in perspective.  I need to focus on my core values and what matters most. I need to change. Life is way too precious.“

For that defining and intimately honest moment during the funeral, your mind is quiet.

The stars are aligned.

You have clarity.

Your priorities are in check.

You’re clear about your values.

You appreciate that life is so fragile, so precious. You acknowledge that life is a blessing.

You know what you need to do to start treating every day, every moment like the gift that it is.

You feel connected, partially in a spiritual sense, to yourself, to others. This self reflection provides you with an invaluable perspective, as you place a higher value on your time and how you invest your time, than you ever did before.

Everything makes sense. You’re finally at peace. You feel fully present and engaged in the moment.

Then, you leave the funeral, and your phone rings or you get the next text – and you’re right back to living in the future, focused on what you need to do next; the next project, deadline, sale.

The defining moment you experienced, that sense of clarity is gone and you’re consumed with ‘reality;’ the pressures and challenges of the day that pull you away from peace, that pull you away from being present.

That sparkle of brilliance; that insight; that glimmer of a moment in time which you felt was perfect the way it was. Gone.

But don’t lose hope. Ironically, it’s a lifelong journey to be to be fully present and focus on what’s now. It takes a conscious effort to be mindful of the goals, fears, pressures or situations that pull us back into the past or propel us into the future and take us away from what’s really important.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that living in the present means that you have to abandon your goals or your vision. Having a clear outcome in mind and achieving measurable, worthwhile results is still important! However, we need to balance both, so be mindful of the two conflicting truths that co-exist simultaneously. Be mindful of the future, while engaged in the moment.

Unless it’s through the eyes of a child, living in the present moment is challenging. We are all challenged to be present every day, especially when so much is being thrown at us. There are so many priorities competing for our limited time, dragging us in different directions.

Yet, instead of looking at life through the lens of a child, where everything is new and exciting and every situation is a conduit to growth and learning, we become hardened by our experiences. We use our experiences to define us. We form our own truths that we fall in love with and forget we need to continually challenge them to see if they still serve us best. We take our past experiences and project them into the future, assuming our prior experiences are an indication of what will happen.

What’s missing? The present.

Let’s be real. Your daily pressures, responsibilities and challenges aren’t going away. Your business objectives and aggressive sales targets are a reality. There will always be something in front of you that can pull you into the future, distract you from the present and your priorities and take your eye off what you really value.

Yes, we are all victim of our own culture. I’m not referring to where you live or your geographic culture but your result driven company culture. This environment forces you to focus on and live in the future and the sad part is, it’s costing you your life.

However, now you have a choice. And I’m not suggesting that you can control the outcome or you’re able to choose how things will turn out. I am saying that you are always at choice around how you respond to each person, challenge and situation.

I’ve been fortunate to live by a universal law that determines the quality of your life. That is, it’s not the events in your life but how you choose to respond to them that defines who you are and creates the quality of your life. It’s our greatest power and greatest secret. Our power to choose. Have you truly tapped into it?

So, how has this story affected you? What can you learn from this? How effective are you at living in the present and being fully engaged in what is happening now while balancing what is happening next?

Being present is something we have to work on every day and we will continually be tested throughout our lives to see if we actually got the lesson. I vote to get the lesson now, before it’s too late.

Now, it’s up to you. What choice are you going to make today?

Photo Credit: familymwr

Need lots of ideas right now? Here's how to get them.

The ability to generate good ideas is perhaps one of the most valuable assets in business. But what if you're feeling uninspired or blocked?

First, you need to understand everyone has the ability to be creative. It's not a special gift only certain people--brilliant marketers, improv actors, serial entrepreneurs, and the like--possess. But if that's the case, how do you turn creativity on when you need it?

According to HBR.org, a team of researchers led by Sophie Ellwood at the University of Sydney recently found evidence that incubation--taking a break from a problem to focus on something unrelated--can increase creativity.

The researchers split 90 psychology students into three groups and tasked them with listing as many alternative uses for a piece of paper as possible.

The first group generated ideas for four minutes straight. The second group was interrupted after two minutes and told to generate synonyms for words (another creativity-related task) and then given another two minutes to come up with alternative uses for paper. The researchers also interrupted the third group after two minutes but asked students to take the Myers-Briggs test, something unrelated to creativity or the original task, and then gave the students two more minutes to get back to listing odd uses for paper.

The third group--the one given time for incubation--hatched the most ideas, an average of 9.8. The second group averaged 7.6 ideas, while the first group came up with an average of only 6.9 ideas. In short, the numbers show an incubation period--even a short one--can increase creativity.

"Taking a break from the problem and focusing on something else entirely gives the mind some time to release its fixation on the same solutions and let the old pathways fade from memory," writes David Burkus, assistant professor of management at Oral Roberts University. "Then, when you return to the original problem, your mind is more open to new possibilities--eureka moments."

It's a strategy that works outside of research, as well. One chief creative officer I recently interviewed says getting out of the office and walking around Manhattan helps him make new associations. The idea for his hugely successful company actually came from an old-fashioned 24-frame lenticular--one that uses a sequence of images to create an animation--he found in a store in 1997 during one such walkabout.

Playing with children's toys is another variant of incubation that works well for a lot of folks. "I'm not the least bit self-conscious about my toy collection," writes research psychologist Keith Sawyer. "If you walk into just about any supercreative company, you'll find toys all over the place."

Cultivating mindfulness is yet another way to step away from a problem and return to it later better able to spawn good solutions. Book author and corporate consultant Michael Gelb helps business people foster creativity by training them to appreciate beauty and do things such as listen to music, admire art, thoughtfully taste wine or chocolate, as well as write poetry.

It's a matter of paying close attention to what's happening right now. Not only can it help you be more creative, it's the key to enjoying life, he says.

In India, it’s crabs in a bucket — the one who tries to escape is pulled down by his compatriots. In Australia, it’s tall poppies — and the tallest one gets its head whacked off. In Japan, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. Almost every culture has its own metaphor about what happens to people who are judged by their peers to be overreaching.

In the U.S., known for its embrace of assertive self-confidence, it’s a different story, however. Personal branding is seen as a positive way to differentiate oneself in the American workplace. But for foreign professionals who grew up with a vastly different set of cultural mores and who now need to succeed in the United States or other contexts where personal branding is important, this can be quite a difficult adjustment.

In our travels as professors and speakers, we’ve often heard the same refrain. “I understand that personal branding is important,” executives and managers often tell us. “But I just can’t bring myself to do it!” It’s no wonder. Andy’s research has indicated that personal branding, or self-promotion, is one of six major areas of cultural difference that cause discomfort for people around the world. One Indian manager in Andy’s research, for example, compared personal branding to “committing a sin” — perhaps an extreme reaction, but still indicative of how hard it can be to do personal branding, especially if you come from a country like China or India or Korea where modesty, composure, and self-control are more culturally valued characteristics than the ability to toot your own horn.

But the benefits of personal branding — including taking control of how you’re perceived by others, and making them understand the unique contribution you can make — are vast. So how can foreign professionals reconcile their values with personal branding? Here are a few points to keep in mind.

Rebrand the act of personal rebranding. Particularly if you grew up in a culture that emphasizes humility and modesty, the idea of drawing attention to yourself — especially to tout your accomplishments — may seem distasteful. However, a key way to mitigate these feelings is to “rebrand” the very act of personal branding itself. For example, instead of thinking of it as blatant self-promotion, think about who else, besides you, can benefit from your efforts. For example, university professors who write books end up promoting their university in the process.  And if you’re viewed as a sought-after expert in your field, clients will often hire your company just so they have access to your skills.

Authenticity matters. Part of the reason personal branding raises so many hackles is its association with salesmanship — the idea that you’re packaging yourself to appear attractive to “buyers,” and may be willing to sacrifice your true self to do so. But that’s not what personal branding is.  On the contrary, what we’re talking about is thoughtful, honest self-assessment, which many people genuinely believe in. If you have a clear picture of how you can contribute and make others aware of it, you’re actually taking a stand against being a finger-to-the-wind glad-hander. You’re demonstrating enough honesty and authenticity to be clear on where you excel, where you don’t, and the real value you can offer others. Being authentic is also a way to honor those who have helped you become who you are — your bosses and mentors, or even your teachers and parents. By thinking about personal branding as honoring the time and effort they put into your development, it can make the act itself feel more legitimate.

Strike a compromise with yourself. Although you may come from a culture that shuns self-promotion, chances are, there’s some part of you that sees the benefits.  So, strike a compromise with yourself and find a way to do personal branding that works for you.  In our work, we’ve seen a variety of different ways that professionals who were initially uncomfortable with the idea have ended up embracing personal branding by making a few simple adjustments and customizing or personalizing their approach. Andy recently met a young professional from Nepal who was very uncomfortable branding herself and her personal achievements in the U.S., since she came from a culture that emphasized the group over the individual. Her solution was to actually blend and combine these two perspectives.  She would emphasize her individual accomplishments but only in the context of what the group as a whole was able to achieve — and in the end, this blended solution was successful enough for her to find a job.

The adjustments go both ways: when Dorie visited Asia on a recent speaking tour, she had to reprogram some of her American habits. Stateside, she accepts compliments with a simple, appreciative “thank you” — any self-deprecating remarks (“oh, it wasn’t actually that good”) would be viewed as insulting the person making the compliment and indicative of a serious lack of self-esteem. In Asia, however, the mitigating remark is a closely-watched sign that determines whether or not you’re perceived as a jerk. It pains her to tamp down the self-confidence that’s so prized in American culture, but she makes a point to try.

Some people reject personal branding out of hand because they believe it conflicts with their most cherished values. But by keeping the principles above in mind — and reframing what it means to self-promote — you can ensure you maintain your integrity but still get noticed for all that you do.

This post has been sitting in my editing queue for a month. Then read a great article on telling stories from Harvard Business Review - Storytelling that moves people. First thing in my head — Don’t post your own version. Well, you can see I over-ruled myself. BTW, please read the HBR article, it’s really great and without a doubt better than mine.

First, let me tell you a story (yes, I have to tell a story in a post about stories – what do you expect?) One of my good friends is one of the best technology sales people I know. From the time we started in the business 15 years ago, he was unbelievable. His secret: He is a storyteller. He explains the company via relevant customer stories, he overcomes objections via stories, you name it. Sit in a room with him and he will have you utterly engaged. Remember, it’s not just the story. The storyteller knows the audience and can deliver a story that tugs at their emotions. They laugh, they cry. He is now a successful sales leader who just started a new role. The company he works for is moving into the enterprise space. Bigger deals, different selling, etc. The message is getting there, but not formalized. He walked into a room of executives and told them the story of one of their other customers just like them. He gave the background of the organization, the situation, and even described the executives. The executives in the room were hooked as they realized that this company is just like theirs. He presented their challenges and made them sound daunting and monumental. Then he told them how they worked together to solve the issues. (Love this — great sales stories always show how the vendor works with the protagonist to solve the story). He then delivered the punchline — success. Not just ROI and numbers, but anecdotally how his customer protagonists felt and how they become internal heroes. The moral of this story — he got another huge deal.

Since I don’t consider myself a great sales person, I try to watch and observe the best in action. Interestingly, I am working with another VP of Sales who is exactly the same as the person I described above except he takes it a step further. He uses stories in every conversation. For example, I noticed he uses stories to help people know that he understands what they are talking about. I made a recommendation to him. He replies with: “I get it, I have seen this before at company X. We were faced with x…” It really made me realize something I knew before, stories might be the most powerful weapon available to sales (and marketing).

Oh yes, I mentioned marketing too. (On my last couple sales posts, my content marketing muse Ardath Albee will remind me that my sales recommendation goes for marketing as well.) In this “case” (no pun intended), marketing is extremely relevant because for all the entertainment value marketers have pored into their demand generation content, they continue to make case “studies” aka really boring customer content. It’s actually interesting, because we believe the buyer is consumed with the bottom line, the metrics, but the why, how, and who are just as critical. Anyone can say a number. If you have a lighthouse account, don’t just tell me: “We delivered 300% ROI for Lighthouse Account A”…tell me the story…where they were before, during, and after…then give me the punchline.

Sales people tell me all the time “I need case studies”. Of course you do…but you will be even more impactful if you can tell it to the right buyer at the right time. The same people that say: “I need case studies” are the people that just send over a marketing-centric document with big words and no meaning. Don’t get me wrong, case studies provide validation which is critical, but it is even more critical is to build trust and credibility with the buyer and to prove that you and your organization can help them. And stories are often the best way to do this. A story will undoubtedly have more impact than all the dry mumbo-jumbo from your script pitch or bullet points and will certainly have more impact than a dry marketing document.

The keys to a great customer case story:

1. The protagonist

Remember, every great great story has a protagonist. Here is the problem for most organizations, they think they are the protagonist. That is wrong. The protagonist is the buyer and you are the enabler. You want the listener to imagine themselves in the shoes of the protagonist. Think about it: Most compelling stories about someone who the reader/viewer can relate to, respects, or aspires to be (think Superman). The protagonist faces adversity, challenges or insurmountable odds and is ultimately able to overcome them. The audience can’t stop reading/watching/listening as a result.

2. The challenge or obstacle

I look back at my favorite stories and my protagonist faced insurmountable odds and found a way to solve it. These are my favorite stories. People give you money if you solve pain. If you identify the pain in your conversation with the buyer, you have the potential to help them understand your value by presenting a story with a similar protagonist with a similar challenge.

3. The journey

Tell the story of HOW they solved it. We all know it took more than just your solution — it took people, process, strategy, and technology. We also know it wasn’t easy. If you tell a story that is “they loaded us in and snapped their fingers and voila”. That’s not a good story. There was struggle and the buyer know it. The HBR story even mentions an antagonist — love that. If you are story is all rainbows and unicorns, you won’t be believable.

4. The hard-fought victory

Remember, if you are selling you are in the business of making heroes. When you tell the story, the protagonist overcome these odds, and solved this problem.

5. The impact

Now you can deliver the impact. Here is how ROI numbers are delivered today: “Dear prospect, I’d love to have a conversation with how we saved <Company X> $3 million in revenue”. At TOPO, we mystery shop sales people. I listen to sales calls all day. I call it the “impact-less ROI mention”. Can you see me here? Imagine, delivering  a story with real impact where you bring your prospect into your story, let them follow along, and then deliver the punchline. I’m sold just writing this. It is also important to mention the impact for the protagonist. Things like being promoted to the VP or winning employee of the year are part of the impact of working with you.

Once you become adept at delivering a customer story, you start to see the possibilities: Value prop validation, objection handling, feature explanations, etc. The transition is easy: “Let me give you an example relevant to your business…” Deliver stories and you will prove to your buyers that you understand them, their business and have the experience and track record to help make them your next protagonist.

A note to the sales leader: When training reps, customer case stories are critical to your reps. Instead of a product-marketing heavy product training, provide case stories and run exercises to train reps and how and when to deliver them.

Now, go.

Photo by CatNipStudio
Craig Rosenberg is the Funnelholic and a co-founder of Topo. He loves sales, marketing, and things that drive revenue. Follow him on Google+ or Twitter

When you strike out on a web design project it’s easy to get buried. New jQuery plugins, CSS3 animations, icon font libraries are all begging to be put to use. On top of that you have UX to consider and information architecture to map.

Web design or re-design projects are perfect opportunities to optimize your visitor’s experience. But all too often a new design is dropped on top of existing architecture and doesn’t address what buyers look for in B2B websites.

And what do B2B buyers look for? Well, a recent survey has shed light on just that question. KoMarketing Associates and Diana Huff conducted the survey which was completed by 175 C-level, company leadership, director & consultant roles. The results offer some clarity on what’s really important and what’s really not.

Succinctly answer the question “What do you do?”

Hopefully you have a good idea about who you serve and what your product does. Answering “What do you do?” in as few words as possible helps your visitors “get it” without thinking.

Here are some examples

• Software for recruiting agencies
• Sales & marketing software for small business
• Operations management for ecommerce
• Branding. Web. UI.

Credibility content

Establishing credibility, quickly, helps visitors make a decision. And according to the survey certain content is required for visitors to make a purchasing decision.

Here are the top 5

• Pricing
• Technical support info
• Case studies, articles, white papers or blog posts
• Shipping info
• Testimonials

The point of this content is to arm the buyer with the right information for their research process. It’s well documented that modern buyers complete 70% of the sales cycle before sales is even contacted. This means that questions that were answered by salespeople in the past, need to be answered by your site.

In my experience, adding client stories ranks high in user testing. Visitors want to see others who have the same problems and understand why they chose your solution over a competitor. Cataloging client stories is also a good way to stay in contact with current customers and understand how your product impacts their day-to-day work lives.

Make it easy to get in touch

In a surprising revelation, email (81%) was selected as the preferred method of contacting vendors. Phone (58%) was second followed by online forms (39%). For a contact page, I can see this making sense. On the main contact page you’ll want to include a general, monitored email address, phone number and a simple contact form.

I do think the question is being interpreted differently than intended however. Most SaaS companies have an online demo that requires a form submit. Of course you want to make it possible to email or call from that page, but the obvious thing to do is fill out the form.

Why? Because structured lead data makes sense for CRM & marketing automation. Autoresponders can be sent, alerts triggered and campaigns started. For the business it makes sense, for the user it’s possible to contact us with a form, email or call.

Speaking of forms…
Ask enough, but not too much. Form length is a big factor in conversion. Sure, it’s nice to have the address, country, zip, revenue, date of birth etc… but don’t ask if it isn’t necessary.

Try dropping the phone number too. 60% of survey respondents didn’t like giving a phone number on online forms. My assumption is that phone calls are seen as future annoyances and interruptions, while an email can be returned or ignored at the visitor’s convenience.

Don’t hide the price

Isn’t it annoying when you’re shopping for a car and they hide it? The thought is that the prospect will need to contact a salesperson before getting the price.

Remember earlier when I said that 70% of the buying cycle was done before a salesperson was contacted? Pricing is a big part of the research process and not making it available could get you dropped from the potential vendors list.

Don’t be annoying

Please, please, please don’t autoplay video, throw a popup form, have a virtual person guide me through the site or have seizure inducing flashing backgrounds.

Seriously, please!

Shutterstock

The wind-up of Sears Canada’s flagship store in downtown Toronto was a sorry sight. Deal-hunters roamed the cavernous and half-empty building in search of deep discounts on everything from watches to washing machines. Even the dented fixtures were sold off at cut-rate prices—all while an army of suddenly unemployed mannequins looked on.

Over the next two years, the tired, three-level department store will be overhauled in preparation for the arrival of Nordstrom, a U.S. retailer that serves a decidedly higher-end crowd. Meanwhile, at the other end of Toronto’s Eaton Centre, a new Saks Fifth Avenue store will open inside the old Hudson’s Bay building, whose U.S. parent bought the luxury retailer for US$2.9 billion last year.

The mall’s changing face, where $2,000 handbags threaten to crowd out affordable housewares, reflects Canada’s increasingly well-to-do image. Nordstrom stores are slated for Calgary, Vancouver and Ottawa, while as many as seven Saks are slated for Canadian cities. Brynn Winegard, a Toronto-based marketing consultant, says the shift stems from Canadians’ growing preference for “prestige shopping,” the act of buying one’s socks and underwear at Wal-Mart and then splurging on a $400 pair of jeans from Holt Renfrew.

The aspirational attitude extends far beyond Canadians’ wardrobes. Luxury vehicles are now the fastest growing segment of the Canadian auto market, which had a record year in 2013. Nearly 70 per cent of Canadian households own their own home, which is about four percentage points higher than in the U.S. and about the same as in America before the crash. For households maintained by someone age 25 and under, the home ownership rate in Canada is a lofty 24 per cent, compared to 15 per cent in the U.S. That’s even more astounding given Canadians in that age group face an unemployment rate twice the national average of seven per cent. Moreover, our houses are fancier than ever thanks to a decade-long housing boom that, due to the soaring popularity of condominiums, reset expectations of urban living to include gourmet kitchens and luxurious amenities like juice bars and splash pools.

We’ve got so much stuff, we’re paying others to hold it for us. Canada now boasts the biggest self-storage industry in the world outside of the United States—an achievement worthy of our very own Storage Wars Canada TV franchise, which debuted last August. All that, and more than 2,000 people managed to scrounge up $40 each to attend a grilled cheese sandwich festival last month (and then had the audacity to complain on Twitter that they hadn’t gotten their money’s worth).

It’s conspicuous consumption of the sort normally associated with free-spending Americans, not practical-minded Canadians. And it’s not being fuelled by growing paycheques so much as by the wallets of maxed-out credit cards. While a recent Statistics Canada study found Canadian families’ median net worth rose nearly 45 per cent, to $243,800, over the past nine years, when adjusted for inflation, the gains have been almost entirely on paper thanks to recovering pension portfolios and skyrocketing home prices. At the same time, Canadians carry close to $1.7 trillion in consumer and mortgage debt—$1 trillion more than in 2003. In other words, there’s growing evidence to suggest we merely feel richer than we used to, thanks to the wealth effect of soaring house prices, and are using a ready supply of cheap money to pursue an affluent lifestyle.

There’s certainly evidence Canadians, even more than Americans, see their homes as ATMs from which they can draw for spending money. At the end of 2013, according to the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, Canadians had borrowed $225 billion through home-equity lines of credit (HELOCs)—a figure that doesn’t even include loans from credit unions and other lenders. That’s just less than half the US$500 billion Americans owe in HELOC debt. But America is a far larger economy. Down there, HELOCs amount to 2.9 per cent of GDP, and only reached five per cent at the peak of the U.S. housing bubble. In Canada, though, that figure is 14 per cent, and is up from 12 per cent in 2012, showing that even though Canada’s economy has grown, the pace at which homeowners tapped their properties for cash grew even faster.

Banks and other mortgage lenders point to default ratios that are less than one per cent as evidence everything is okay. The same goes for figures that show the pace of debt accumulation among households has slowed, rising 4.6 per cent last year, compared to nearly 10 per cent in 2011. But, as the U.S. experience showed, default rates can suddenly skyrocket if the economy falters, and Canadians’ already considerable debt load could be difficult for individual families to manage if interest rates were to rise. Some believe the entire economy could suffer. Eric Lascelles, the chief economist at RBC Global Asset Management, points to the $65 billion gap between what Canadians consumed and what they produced last year (including net flows of money) as evidence the country is collectively living beyond its means. “Canada now runs a pretty meaty current account deficit, just about the biggest we’ve seen going back the past few decades,” he says. “It’s ominously similar to the one we sported in the early 1990s, which was one of the things that demanded such aggressive consolidation at the federal government level and required people to really get down to business.” Not only is it unsustainable, but the cost of servicing that debt as interest rates rise threatens to suck money from more productive areas of the economy, he says.

Once lauded for self-restraint and a sober approach to finances, Canada’s spendthrift ways suggest we haven’t learned all that much from the U.S. experience leading up to the crash. We now risk undermining the very qualities that saved us from economic calamity in the first place.

Whether they can afford it or not, the responsibility for growing the Canadian economy has come to rest uncomfortably on the shoulders of shoppers. Household spending in Canada now accounts for 56 per cent of GDP, according to Statistics Canada. While that still pales in comparison to the consumer-driven U.S., where households contribute to 69 per cent of GDP, it’s still well above the roughly 51 per cent average Canada maintained for the past three decades.

The heavy reliance on consumer spending for GDP growth can partially be blamed on businesses not pulling their traditional weight. Before he left to head the Bank of England, former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney in 2012 urged Canadian firms to start spending their cash hoards, which he dubbed “dead money.” Canadian companies, Carney said, were being overly cautious and needed to start reinvesting in their businesses in order to take advantage of the global recovery. Two years later, however, some on Bay Street blame Carney for the conundrum, suggesting he allowed the dollar to become overvalued. By keeping interest rates low, he kept the housing market booming, all the while adopting a hawkish tone that fuelled the dollar’s rise. “In effect, monetary and exchange rate policy traded off more condos for fewer factories, and we see the signposts of that in recent data trends,” wrote CIBC chief economist Avery Shenfield in a recent report.

Regardless of who is to blame, the fact consumers continue to spend at heightened levels is worrying. Household spending on goods and services grew by 2.2 per cent in 2013, slightly faster than the economy as a whole. Perhaps shoppers bought in to the foreign accolades about our sound banks and vast resources. Or maybe it was because the once-soaring loonie made us feel richer when shopping online, or going on vacation—according to the World Tourism Organization, Canadians now rank third in international travel spending when measured on a per capita basis, spending $1,007 each and putting us just behind Germany and Australia.

Either way, the trend is set to continue: “Retail sales have been surprisingly robust, especially in light of modest job gains, lacklustre wage growth and slowing household credit growth,” the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said in its 2014-15 outlook.

Steven Scott has had a front row seat to Canadians’ changing behaviour. The CEO of Access Storage says the company has more than doubled the number of self-storage facilities it operates in Canada to 50 locations in just the last five years. Ranging in size from 25 to 300 sq. feet, the lockers are used to shelter everything from old furniture to barely used fitness machines. Scott says most customers come looking for extra space during a big move or renovation, but end up keeping their belongings there much longer than they originally plan—either because they’re lazy or because they end up buying more things and can’t bring themselves to part with their old stuff. With costs for a 50 sq.-foot locker ranging from $99 to $135 a month, depending on the location, that means a good chunk of the population is shelling out as much as $1,620 a year just to house their unused desktop computers and camping gear. That would go a long to help pay off the $27,300 in non-mortgage debt that credit-monitoring agency TransUnion says is currently owed by the average Canadian—a figure that’s up 43 per cent from six years ago. Or to buy a new car, which is far more likely these days.

A key factor driving such uncharacteristic profligacy is that we are a lot more comfortable with debt than we used to be. The country’s debt-to-income ratio already sits at close to a record 164 per cent, or $1.64 for every dollar of after-tax income. A slight decline in the ratio last week, from 164.2 to 163.97 drew cheers from economists, yet it remains the highest rate in the G7 and among the highest for developed nations as a whole. By contrast, 10 years ago, Canadians owed closer to one dollar for each buck available to spend.

As is the case with any addict, it’s easy to point to someone with a bigger problem. For Canadian consumers, that’s historically been our American counterparts. However, a December report by TD Economics found that Canadians have significantly narrowed the consumer spending gap between the two countries since the recession, with Canadians shelling out about $17,000 per year each on average, compared to $17,900 in the U.S. When it comes to debt, as measured relative to disposable incomes, Canadians still have a way to go before they reach the levels hit by American households prior to the crash. After adjusting for discrepancies in the way the two countries gather figures, TD Bank estimated last year the Canadian debt-to-income ratio stands at around 156, compared to 177 in the U.S. in 2007. Then again, the adjusted ratio in Canada that year was just 131, showing again just how fast its risen in recent years. Meanwhile, it’s the Americans who’ve found frugality in the intervening years—the debt-to-income ratio in the States has fallen to 152.

It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that American retailers see Canada, in the words of one analyst, as “a 51st state.” In addition to Nordstrom and Saks, a long list of U.S. stores have announced plans to occupy Canadian malls and shopping centres in recent years. New arrivals include: Brooks Brothers, J-Crew, Ann Taylor, Kate Spade New York. Even Target, which suffered $1 billion in losses due to its first year in Canada, still plans to operate 133 locations here by the end of this year, up from 124 now. Not to be outdone, Wal-Mart recently announced a $500-million expansion in Canada to boost the number of stores to 395 next year, up from 389 today.

Car purchases, fuelled by cheap loans amortized over up to eight years, are another spending category that has roared ahead. TD found Canadians spent slightly more than Americans on vehicles in 2012 on a per capita basis, although that’s mostly because cars, trucks and SUVs generally cost more in Canada than they do in the U.S. Even so, there’s no denying that Canadian dealerships are moving more than their fair share of metal. Carmakers sold 1.7 million vehicles in this country in 2013, an all-time high, while gains by luxury carmakers like BMW and Mercedes-Benz outstripped those south of the border. “The boomers are retiring in record numbers and they’re treating themselves to a luxury vehicle,” says industry analyst Dennis DesRosiers.

Nowhere is Canadian profligacy more evident than in the real estate market. In Toronto, for example, frenzied buyers recently drove up the price of a semi-detached house full of fluorescent lighting and old linoleum tile to more than $1 million. “This is shocking,” wrote one commenter on a popular real estate blog. “I’m thinking now is the time to put [my house] on the market and move to somewhere more affordable . . . like Malibu.” A few weeks earlier, a similar-sized house in a formerly industrial neighbourhood made headlines when it drew 33 offers and sold for nearly $850,000—$200,000 over asking. In Vancouver, meanwhile, home sales rose 30 per cent in January and the benchmark price for a detached house was just shy of $1 million. For homes on the city’s west side, the price more than doubles. Across Canada, the Teranet-National Bank Composite House Price Index showed the price of a single-family home rose nearly half a percentage point last month from December, the largest gain in five months.

To many observers, though, the boom in condos is fast becoming the most dangerous asset bubble. Toronto’s skyline is festooned with cranes as developers erect towers as fast as construction workers can build them. With names like Chaz and Yonge+Rich, the tiny, cookie-cutter units are marketed as the key to a hip lifestyle. But critics have raised concerns about heavy-handed sales tactics—most units can be had with as little as a five per cent down payment, and even that can be financed in some cases (one enterprising Vancouver developer is offering to let prospective buyers trade in their cars). CIBC deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal recently estimated that there were as many as 1,000 too many units being built every year in both Toronto and Vancouver, creating fears of a glut.

The spending doesn’t stop once home buyers have been handed the keys, either. Buoyed by the popularity of TV shows like Holmes on Homes and Property Brothers, Canadians have boosted their spending on renovations and other home improvements by an average of seven per cent per year since 2003, according to another TD report last fall. Even though economists predict the pace will slow over the next few years as the housing market loses steam, the bank still expects home-renovation spending to amount to $45 billion in 2015, about double what it was in 2005.

How much is too much? Consumer confidence—and the spending it fuels—is key to determining whether an economy thrives or falls into recession. On the other hand, if spending isn’t underpinned by companies investing and adding jobs, there’s a risk the whole enterprise will crash down. Although many economists expect the Canadian economy to finally receive a boost this year from the U.S. recovery, so far there has been disturbingly little evidence of increased demand for Canadian exports—even with a US90-cent loonie that should make Canadian goods more competitive. At the same, the employment picture in Canada remains unclear at best. The country shed 7,000 jobs in February. Last year employers added roughly half the number of monthly jobs they did in the previous year.

As for that widening current account deficit, the real issue isn’t that it exists, but what’s causing it. Current account deficits are common among developed nations and occur when the value of goods and services they import exceed the value of goods and services they export. It’s also impacted by flows of money across borders, including interest and dividends paid out on investments, as well as transfers like foreign aid. Where deficits become worrisome is when the gaps are persistent and growing over time, suggesting an uncompetitive economy.

Ailish Campbell, the vice-president of policy and international and fiscal issues for the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, recently advised those fretting about Canada’s trade deficits to remember that they are offset in the current account by “positive and significant capital inflows, which feed the long-term growth of the Canadian economy.” In other words, we should feel good about the fact foreigners are effectively lending Canada money that can be used to fund future growth. For example: factory owners who borrow to buy new technology and machinery to modernize their operations. Where countries run into trouble, by contrast, is when that foreign capital is simply being used to fund high levels of consumer consumption, as was the case in Greece prior to the debt crisis.

Canada, of course, isn’t Greece. But all that debt-fuelled spending could still have undesirable effects on the economy just the same. At the moment, interest rates are low and Canadian households don’t have trouble making their monthly payments. But that will change when interest rates inevitably begin to rise, particularly if they’re not accompanied by corresponding increases in wages. Indeed, that was the conclusion of an unreleased report prepared for the federal government and obtained by Canadian Press. It found wages for middle-income workers had stagnated between 1993 and 2007, making the middle class “increasingly vulnerable to financial shocks.” Many in the middle class, it warned, are “mortgaging their future to sustain their current consumption.”

In effect, Canada’s economy is now running on borrowed time. While much of the rest of the world is now positioned for growth after going through a painful period of deleveraging—housing foreclosures, shuttered banks, bankrupted companies and belt-tightening consumers—Canadians will be forced to look on from the sidelines while they nurse a collective hangover brought on by a debt-fuelled party that went on for several years.

“I view high debt as both a friction and vulnerability,” RBC’s Lascelles says. “The friction is that Canadians will be spending money on servicing debt that could otherwise be spent on goods and services. It’s money squandered, in a sense.” Meanwhile, it leaves Canadian households exposed to a financial crisis, he adds. They will still have those onerous interest payments to make, but “they will be grappling with very high debt loads relative to diminished incomes—perhaps amid falling asset [house] prices.” In addition, Lascelles says Canadians will likely soon begin to feel poorer than we actually are as a cheap loonie makes online shopping from U.S. websites and foreign travel more expensive.

None of it sounds like much fun, but it’s a fitting outcome for a once-modest but hard-working country that came to think of itself as a world-beater: all those hewers of wood and drawers of water who deluded themselves into thinking it was reasonable to wear $400 jeans.

The post Living beyond our means appeared first on Macleans.ca.

Your persona is the role you play in life.

It’s the way you act, what you believe in, what you say, what you like/don’t like, how you go about things … I could go on, but you get the idea. As a brand marketer, you need to know as much as you can about these attributes among your target customers. Creating buyer personas will help you gain a thorough understanding of your audience’s roles and help you frame your brand engagement strategy.

The image below from Altimeter Group shows the steps your customers take during and following their decision-making process, as well as the many factors that impact each step. Your job is to improve their journey so much that they become customers and evangelists for your products. Buyer personas take a deep dive into what motivates them and the problems they’re trying to solve, enabling you understand how to add value to their lives and convince them to buy from you.

per·so·na

noun \pər-ˈsō-nə, -ˌnä\: the way you behave, talk, etc., with other people that causes them to see you as a particular kind of person : the image or personality that a person presents to other people

Good personas get behind demographics

Buyer personas are examples of real buyers who make or influence decisions about your products and services — avatars you create based on direct interviews with as many of them as possible. Personas aren’t people, but they should feel like people with desires, challenges, goals, and personal lives, because all of these factor into decision making.

You must put yourself in your visitors’ shoes and empathize with their goals so you have a clear understanding of their intent. When crafted well, the people who emerge from this exercise should feel real and three-dimensional to you to the extent that you know what they look like and how they view the world. This knowledge will enable you to evaluate your content with an eye toward engaging with them and help you identify the gaps in your content marketing strategy.

Elements of a buyer persona profile

Developing buyer personas: Who to interview

This first step in the process of building comprehensive buyer profiles is to interview people who have recently bought your products, those who bought from competitors, and those who elected to not make a purchase at all. These users have just gone through the buying process and can offer specifics about how they evaluated your product and others in the space. You’ll also learn about their attitudes — positive and negative — about your products and those of your competitors. They can tell you about the means they used to make their decision and the resources they tapped for research.

Talk with your sales team about interviewing people they’ve recently moved through the sales funnel and those who ended up not buying from you. Although they may be reticent about putting you in touch with these folks, win/loss dialoguing is the fastest and easiest way to uncover the essential aspects of your audience.

Interviews should take 30 minutes to an hour — this should provide ample time to gather the data you need. Another approach is to create surveys that can be administered online, which enables your targets to answer your questions at their leisure. Although practical, the information you receive from surveys won’t be as robust as that which you glean from face-to-face conversation.

Be sure to incent/motivate people to take part in your research. Small gifts or discounts are great for this. Set their expectations by describing how long it will take and what you’re trying to accomplish, and affirm that all of the information they provide will be confidential.

Researching buyer personas: Questions to ask

Now that you’ve selected people to interview, choose the most relevant questions below —and add some of your own — to gather buyer persona data. Remember to ask “why” a lot to get as much clarification as possible. It’s also important to ask questions that are specific to your products/services and brands: What do you think of [my product]? Is it your responsibility to research and evaluate solutions like this?

Personal

• Please describe yourself (age, marital status, children)
• What’s your educational background?
• Tell me about your career path — how did you get to where you are today?
• What are some of your favorite products and brands?
• Do you prefer to communicate in person, by phone, or via email?

Role

• What is your job title/role?
• How did you get where you are?
• What does a typical day look like for you?
• Who do you report to?
• What skills do you use on the job?

Goals

• What are your responsibilities?
• What are your goals?
• What does success look like to you?
• How do you measure your success/progress toward your goals?

Challenges

• What are your biggest challenges in life and work?
• What do you need to be happy and successful?

Information sources

• How much time do you spend online?
• Do you use a tablet or smartphone to access the Internet?
• Which blogs, websites, and publications do you regularly read?
• Do you use social media? What is your favorite network?
• Do you use a smartphone and/or tablet to access the Internet?
• Do you prefer learning via webinars and videos or is longer-form content, e.g. ebooks, better?

Shopping habits

• How do you get news about products and services?
• How do you research products and services online?
• Do you trust online reviews?
• Tell me about a recent purchase — what was your evaluation process?
• What provoked you to look for a solution like this?
• What process or criteria did you use to narrow your options?
• How did our product stack up against the competition?

Now that you’ve researched buyer personas by conducting interviews, it’s time to put the data you’ve gathered to work and turn it into actionable insights. In my next post on this topic, I’ll discuss how to assemble the who, what, where, how, and why into a useful format that will inform your content marketing gap analysis.

“Let’s make a SlideShare!” is becoming a common refrain for brands across the globe. Especially those in the B2B space.

It’s easy to see why. SlideShare experienced impressive growth in 2013, and it hasn’t slowed since. With surging popularity and preferred status on LinkedIn, brands showcased as “Featured” or “Most Popular” on the site have gained exposure to a host of new prospects and consumers. But all too often, brands’ SlideShares fall short.

Here’s what you have to do to effectively lure in leads and makes people hungry for more.

1. Finding a SlideShare-friendly topic

According to HubSpot writer Ginny Soskey, people are ultimately drawn to slices of shareable information instead of bloated chunks of text. “Quotes and stats are bite-sized,” she says, “Making them super easy to fit within the character limits of certain social platforms, and they help position the person who shared it as smart.”

One way to follow this strategy is to appeal to general interests. For example, mobile-app platform Kinvey selected a hackathon as their topic of choice for a slideshow, instead of exploring something more complicated and hyper-specific like the nuances of a programming language. Hackathons are relevant to developers, potential organizers, sponsors, and event coordinators, so Kinvey’s presentation appealed to a broader audience. Even if only one part of your audience will be potential leads, drawing in people indirectly related to sales will be crucial for generating future buzz.

If you have no idea where to begin, start with a story you’re already comfortable telling. “We’ll start writing a piece for the blog and realize a SlideShare could be an excellent addition,” says Soskey.

Marketo senior manager of content marketing Dayna Rothman seconds the idea of using existing material: “I usually base a SlideShare presentation off of a larger content piece to repurpose the content and tell a slightly different story. Some people like to read ebooks, and others like to view slide decks.” Rather than diving right into the design of a SlideShare presentation, start with a general outline that can simply be a point-form structure with three or four takeaways. The key is to make the takeaways direct and actionable.

2. The devil is in the details

The difference between good and bad SlideShare presentations comes down to vital design details that can be easily overlooked. “In addition to including our standard webinar decks in our SlideShare strategy, we also create highly customized and visual stories designed for SlideShare specifically,” Rothman says. “We find that these decks are the most likely to get featured.”

The opening slide must be punchy and well-designed, since it serves as the visual headline for the entire presentation. Rothman advises not to overdo it: “Don’t put too much on your title slide, both text and images, or you will immediately turn people off.” At Marketo, every presentation gets a second opinion. Rothman lets multiple colleagues examine the design before completion.

Wordiness is also a deal-breaker. In 2013, the average SlideShare slide contained 29 words. Achievers, a workplace software company, limits each slide to 15 words.

Lastly, ensure you have a “catcher’s mitt” for presentations. Achievers only released their decks after they had five SlideShares ready to go, so anyone checking out the company’s profile could view a substantial amount of content. And according to social media manager Katie Paterson, the strategy produced a 247 percent increase in social media leads in just the first quarter after launching.

3. One-click social sharing

“One of my favorite SlideShare features is its ability to have clickable links after the first three slides,” says Soskey. “We definitely take advantage of that feature to increase social sharing — we’ll add Twitter share links on slides with punchy soundbites.”

Hubspot eliminates as much clutter as possible so viewers will be more likely to share content. Much like how Amazon removes barriers for shoppers with one-click ordering, Soskey enables readers to share HubSpot SlideShare presentations on Twitter with one-click linking. You can use tools such as Click to Tweet to set up easy social sharing.

Closing thoughts

On SlideShare, your task is simple, but not easy: pick a wide-reaching topic, follow design patterns and details, and make social sharing easier. This new distribution channel is a great place to build an audience — a virtual space where consumers and prospective clients congregate to read new ideas and find interesting stories to share. Brands may be used to text, but thanks to the benefits of SlideShare, they’re starting to see the big picture.

What’s the deal with the Content Strategist? It’s something we created at Contently because we believe in a world where marketing is helpful, and businesses grow by telling stories that people love. Take advantage of our tools and talent and come build that world with us.

Two hundred million active Twitter users send 400 million tweets per day. Six-hundred-thousand pieces of content are shared on Facebook each minute. Seventy-two hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. 

The ever-growing streams of social media data hold the secrets you need to reach and engage your customers. Yet, according to a Harvard Business Review study, only 12 percent of companies using social media content believe they are using it effectively.

To date, social media analytics focused on the content of posts — the actual text of a tweet, for example — to measure consumer opinion. While sentiment analysis is important, companies also need to dig deeper into the data to glean actionable insight.

Whether companies are trying to engage better with customers, improve brand awareness, or boost lead generation, intelligent social media analysis is critical. And to get there, companies are increasingly embracing a new approach: investigative analytics.

Evolved analytics: Asking iterative, open-ended questions

Data analysis is no longer just the domain of the CIO and the IT department. Data-driven decision-making is the realm of marketing, sales, and business development — and anyone else who has a stake in the organization’s and customers’ success.

However, traditional analytic tools don’t let users interrogate fast-moving, highly diverse types of high-volume social data. As data connections and dependencies grow exponentially, it’s no longer possible to capture actionable information in a rigid set of KPIs and canned reports. To manage content, brand and customer engagement in a social world, companies should consider performing richer, real-time data analysis — with (it’s true) far fewer resources.

Enter investigative analytics, where users ask a series of quickly changing, iterative questions to figure out why something did or did not happen, and determine how to optimize a particular outcome. Compared to traditional analytics, which lack flexibility because they are tied to rigid KPIs and reports, investigative analytics yield insight into questions that haven’t even been dreamed of yet.

For example, traditional analytics may help companies answer a question like, “How many leather handbags did we sell via Pinterest last week?” Investigative analytics ask more meaningful questions, combining social media with other data points (e.g., campaign information, click-throughs, conversions, etc.), to enable more flexible data interrogation.

An investigative analytics series of questions may follow a path like this:

• “Where are we getting the most sales conversions on leather handbags?” The answer: 25 specific Pinterest boards provide the most leads.
• “Is there a particular product-marketing image those 25 Pinterest boards are using?” (e.g., Is it a static image with lots of white space, or a woman modeling it at a chichi restaurant? Is it black or vibrant red?)
• “Are we selling to a younger demographic when a specific color bag is pictured?“
• “Is there a common conversion thread for consumers who paused a video ad but then resumed play? Did they convert better or worse than those who never paused the video?“
• “Do more targeted consumers convert from a mobile device?” If yes, figure out how to optimize the campaign for mobile users.

This open-ended process of investigative analytics allows anybody looking at the data to constantly evolve the questions they ask and query data in real time, regardless of data volume. As a result, companies can figure out how to develop customized campaigns that deploy the right messages via the most receptive channels. Not only will they be able to increase efficiency of campaigns and how they target consumers with content, but they also will uncover up-sell targets and inform product development road maps as consumer preferences are revealed.

Navigating investigative analytics

Following are key considerations to put investigative analytics into action:

• Embrace “frictionless inquiry:” Investigative analytics are all about frictionless inquiry, where the path between the question and answer is void of rigid structure. Frictionless inquiry depends on ad hoc query capabilities and simple analytic tool administration. So, when you reach the aha moment, you’ll have all the information you need to ask the next question or dig deeper into data without having to call IT or the help desk to create a new query.

• Define, but don’t limit your universe of data points: The lines between web, social media, and advertising analytics are blurring as these modalities become more and more interdependent. To uncover and respond to consumer insights, it’s critical to analyze when and where a consumer said something, what else he was talking about, and what he did as a result. This correlation between engagement and conversion requires attention to a slew of data: demographic background; geospatial and time tracking; which social network and device was used; who opened a video, who paused it, who resumed watching after the pause. While it’s important to determine the data points you can mine, it’s equally important to always add and refine.

• Ask why, not what: Gone are the days of simply knowing what happened in a campaign. Today, you can — and need to — know why: patterns of behavior or insights to capitalize (either in the moment or in the future). With investigative analytics there are no wrong questions. Instead, by letting the results of your ad hoc queries drive the next question, you’ll be asking the right ones. 

• Take advantage of trending topics: To benefit from trending topics, it’s essential to extract intelligence — whether it’s A/B split testing or consumer likes and dislikes — from social networks as soon as it’s generated in real time. Can we increase engagement if we push out another tweet two hours after it posts? Five hours after? Five days after? Insights gleaned through investigative analytics help you take immediate action to optimize social engagement and drive further traffic and revenue.

• Don’t ignore historical data: Take advantage of real-time data, but don’t forget the past. For example, it’s important to know if, historically, you’ve been successful with pushing a contest out on Facebook on Wednesdays followed by successive tweets on Friday so that you can replicate your success. Year-over-year trends are also important when planning for annual events, such as Black Friday shopping.

By harvesting the massive amounts of social media data with the power of investigative analytics, businesses will be able to determine exactly what people want, when they want it, and through what social network — which results in true competitive advantage.

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

In sales, it’s easy to become laser-focused on chasing down leads, making more calls, and hitting monthly performance goals without doing much on a day-to-day basis to achieve long-term growth.

To really boost your bottom line, your team should be taking advantage of sales tools that are always working in the background to generate leads and make instant connections with more potential customers. That’s where content comes in. 

“Content marketing” probably sounds like a task reserved for your marketing people, but when used correctly, it can be a valuable sales tool. Creating quality content can help bolster your company’s credibility, improve customer relationships, boost conversion rates, and more. 

Here’s why you should make content a key part of your sales strategy — and how you can get started:

1. Content Leads to Credibility

Let’s be honest: Sometimes, salespeople are written off as pretty talking heads who are just there to convince people to buy something. They get a bad rap when customers think they’re just trying to move the needle without really caring about how the product or service meets their specific needs. 

Showing that your salespeople truly understand your product and how it addresses a customer’s pain points helps command respect and nurture relationships that go beyond a transaction. If your sales team demonstrates real knowledge past the pitch and can lead the conversation as an industry expert, customers will be more interested in what they have to say.

2. It Creates an Easy First Point of Contact

An article written by someone on your sales team can lead potential customers to your website and motivate them to buy. At my company, we routinely get calls from people who found an article written by one of our sales team members and were motivated to pick up the phone that same day.

3. Content Warms Up the Convention Floor

 Getting content published online is a great way to get the conversation going when your sales team attends conferences, industry tradeshows, or networking events. When our sales team goes on the road, at least a handful of people have already heard of us, which speeds up the networking process and makes it easier to form connections with potential clients. 

4. Content Is Customer-Ready Sales Collateral

Back at the office, your content can be used to nurture leads, answer questions, and close sales. Being armed with a diverse range of articles specifically created to address clients’ pain points and objections and answer questions is great for easing doubts or removing barriers when emailing back and forth. Often, showcasing your expertise can make the difference in closing a sale while simultaneously reinforcing your credibility.

5. Content Gives You Marketing Material

Once you’ve created content, there are a variety of ways you can use it. You may choose to promote your content on LinkedIn or syndicate it using a service like Outbrain or Taboola. The more avenues you have to get your content in front of potential customers, the more people will come in contact with your company, and the more qualified leads you’ll have in the pipeline.

How to Get Buy-in from Your Team 

Your sales team has the know-how behind the content, but making the time to write and get content published is the real issue. Here are some tips to get your team going:

1. Ramp up rewards. Getting your company an author byline is like free advertising, so it follows that your sales team deserves some sort of incentive for producing content. Whether it’s a performance-based bonus or a non-monetary reward (like time off or recognition), it’s important to demonstrate the value of content for your company.
2. Pave the way to publication. Help your team identify target publications — specifically, those that are accepting guest posts directed toward your target market. Use your company’s relationships to build connections with publications you’re interested in to lower the barriers for your team.
3. Allocate writing time. Sales jobs are often fast-paced and time-consuming, so it’s crucial to give your team time to produce content without having to worry about making commission or meeting other performance-based incentives. Remember, content is a form of marketing; even if your employees aren’t spending as much time on the proverbial sales floor, the time they spend writing is just as valuable — or arguably more so — for generating and nurturing leads.

With high-quality content published by your sales team, you’ll demonstrate a thorough understanding of your product or service and build your company’s reputation as an industry leader. You’ll be able to attract leads, warm up the room before networking events, and address any concerns a prospect may have. Ultimately, content marketing is a huge arena for business growth, and published content is one of the best tools your sales team can use to gain a competitive edge.

The term “content marketing strategy” has evolved over the past few years. Now a full-on strategy involves totally customized communication efforts through channels like social media, email, press releases, and yes, your blog.

Why You Need a Content Marketing Strategy

If you’ve been subsisting on your blog content alone to get you in front of more potential customers, you’ve probably been disappointed with the results. Sure, great content on your blog does drive traffic to you, but it’s often not enough to bring the number of leads you need to convert. If you convert just 3% of your leads (an acceptable industry standard), you’ll need hundreds or even thousands of leads coming in to really boost sales.

Leads come from multiple places. That’s why you need a content management strategy that encompasses more than just your blog. The more places you connect with people through content, the more leads will funnel in.

Quality Over Quantity

While yes, you do want more leads, you also want them to be quality leads. After all, ten thousand unqualified leads with a .05% conversion rate isn’t as good as a thousand really qualified leads with a conversion rate of 50%. It’s an exaggerated example, but you get my point.

How do you get quality? You zero in on your audience. Don’t speak to a mass of a thousand people; speak to each person individually (more or less). Understand what they’re interested in, and tailor your content to them.

Leveraging Segmentation

The closer you can get to what each individual lead wants, the higher you can convert. That means your landing page should speak to her. Your emails. Your content. Everything.

A brief word on SEO: we keep hearing conflicting things about search engine optimization and what Google won’t move up in the search results. But if you focus on those keywords that your segment is interested in when you write your web copy, they’ll find you through search.

An Example

Let’s say you sell women’s clothing. You have landing pages for:

• Shoes
• Athletic gear
• Dresses
• Purses and accessories

If you optimize the keywords on each landing page, only those leads who are interested in that particular category of women’s clothing will click on that page. That keeps away those leads who would be interested in other types of women’s clothing, and helps you get really specific in your messaging.

Carry that one step further. On that page, visitors can sign up to get special offers in that category only. Those people that sign up for emails on the Shoes landing page won’t get emails about dresses or anything else. Again, this increases conversion.

And then, maybe you include a few shoe-related blog posts on the sidebar of that page. You’re keeping your messaging laser-focused on shoes so you keep a visitor’s attention.

Let’s keep going. Next, you’ll send segmented emails to your different market segments. If you’re already using Customer Relationship Management software, try to find one that integrates with an email marketing platform, like Insightly CRM for email marketing. That way, you can integrate the data you glean from emails, such as when a customer clicks on a particular link or makes a purchase. Storing this information in your CRM can provide you with future opportunities to deliver content specific to what that customer really wants.

Pay attention to that data, and use it to your benefit. Your customers’ behaviors can help you shape future content and email campaigns, and further solidify your content marketing strategy.

A lot of people are hanging a lot of hope on content marketing to change their business fortunes.

For those of you not up to speed with current marketing jargon, content marketing (as the name suggests) uses engaging content to attract potential customers to your business. Although not exclusively an online marketing channel, content marketing (sometimes referred to as inbound marketing or thought leadership marketing) is perfectly suited to web-based marketing mediums including blogs, social media, online video (YouTube), email marketing, eBooks, webinars, etc.

BTW – for a detailed visualization of what content marketing is, check out The Periodic Table of Content Marketing, courtesy of eConsultancy, below:

I, for the record, am fully sold on content marketing and adopt many content-led strategies every single day to drive engagement between prospects and the iContact and Vocus brands. I consider the leads generated by content marketing to be better than virtually any other type of marketing we do. Content marketing starts conversations that create opportunities, which, very often, turn into sales.

This sounds like great news for marketers but might be a little worrying to the salespeople out there.

Will content marketing kill the need to hire a sales team?

Probably not.

Some businesses are built on very little more than great inbound marketing and a good transactional website. But for most of us, who perhaps market or sell more complex products that cannot easily be sold via an e-commerce system, inbound marketing can only take things so far.

Leads generated by content marketing are hot. But due to the sheer scale of content available today, they can lose their heat quickly. That is why I believe that one of the most important components of a truly successful content marketing strategy is a fully briefed sales team.

Leads should be followed up in a timely manner. That means getting on the phone and starting a conversation that expands on the content a prospect has engaged with. It doesn’t mean pitching. At least, not yet.

I believe great content marketing should always address a specific problem. A good salesperson who has researched the content before making a call should be able to question a prospect and clearly identify his or her specific areas of need before turning the conversation around to sales. Don’t think pitch, think consultation.

And what about all those leads that are not quite hot enough to close just yet? Well, content marketing provides a great strategy to keep those prospects warm and keep the conversation going via email marketing and social media.

A great B2B lead nurturing program is one that moves leads from initial inbound marketing programs through to sales. This requires a strong strategy, engaging content, discipline, creativity and a strong analytics program that can utilize your automated marketing system. Most importantly, a truly great lead nurturing program quickly and accurately identifies when it is time to move a lead to your sales force, when to keep it in the nurture program and when to release it completely. Traditionally, standard BANT criteria are set up based on either past experience/data or requirements from the Sales group. Smart marketers also will use implicit scoring that tracks the individual’s engagement through the buyer’s journey and move them to Sales after a predetermined amount of engagement. This is all based solely on the individual contact’s information and behavior.

But what about the behavior of the company the prospect is representing? Today’s savvy marketer will need to take that into account as well. Predictive analytics now allows you to score your leads beyond typical BANT and engagement scores at an individual lead level. Using a predictive score that incorporates data from both account level and contact level will help classify your lead in the funnel immediately and more accurately.

Why Account-Based Data Is Useful

While your contact is telling you a great deal about what he/she is searching for, companies also exhibit behavior that indicates purchase intent. Firmographic data is the basis for indicating if your lead is the right industry profile or size, as well as additional information that may tell you simple time frames around need. But what about the account-level buying signals such as hiring patterns, growth trends, government contracts, patent filings, technology usage and other ongoing changes at the company? These account-level activities are often the earliest buying signals, possibly preceding contact-level activities by weeks or months.

How to Use Account-Based Information

• First, you need to track your contact’s company’s buying signals, as well as the ongoing business and technology changes. Lattice (www.lattice-engines.com) has a great system that uses the power of the cloud to track account-level data from a multitude of data sources and digital footprints. Then, simply connect it to your contact information (registration information, digital engagement implicit scores, etc.), using your automated marketing or CRM platform.
• Next, you need to generate a model comparing this data to a set of your previous leads that converted into quality customers. Remember, this current customer information needs to include account-level information as well. This analysis will show you the set of conditions that precede customer purchase. You’ll then use this model to score your incoming and current prospects based on what intelligence you learned from the analysis.

Now you have a blended score based on both account- and contact-level information.

Testing the Model

This score will allow you to more accurately determine where the lead is in the buyer’s journey. In some cases, the contact’s limited initial lead information, combined with the company-level indicators, is enough to drive directly to a sales call. Other times, lead nurturing is required. But how can you be sure which is needed? Test this new model. Take a portion of your incoming leads and run them through your model. Then, assign those leads based on their scores. Take the remaining leads and assign them as you normally would (BAU). Track all the leads closely using analytic platforms or your automated marketing platform/Sales CRM. After a period of time, depending upon your sales cycle, do a comparison analysis and see which methodology is driving more efficient sales.

There are many more uses for predictive modeling to accelerate leads through the funnel. Account-based data inclusion is one that tops the list and can provide huge lifts in sales and decreases in cost per sale.

Let’s face it: B2B marketing and public relations doesn’t always have the same allure as its shinier consumer counterparts. It has its own unique challenges – which is not to discredit B2C industries because they certainly come with their own difficulties as well. But on the B2B side of the house, it’s not always easy to find the key to success when it comes to content and social media. How can you stand out and keep people coming back for more? And how can you use your content to drive sales?

Just because your brand or clients fall within the B2B space, it doesn’t mean you should avoid churning out regular content and establishing a solid presence on social media. In fact, it means the complete opposite. The buying process doesn’t always happen in a matter of a day; it can happen weeks and months after the first touchpoint between buyer and vendor. During that process, you need to be creating content that gives your audience a reason to keep paying attention and ultimately decide to make a purchase. A recent survey from KoMarketing Associates found that white papers, articles and blog posts were tied for 2nd when it came to ‘must have’ collateral B2B buyers want on a vendor website – second only to pricing and tied with technical support details.

This is further proof that there are plenty of opportunities to grow your B2B business using content marketing. Here are three pieces of advice to help step up your content game.

Know Your Audience. This should be common sense by now, but it can’t go unsaid. Before you create any sort of content, it’s important to know whom you’re creating it for. From the get-go, you should know who your core audiences are – the active or potential buyers of your product or service, including the industry they work in and the level at which decisions are made at within their company. Dig beyond that. Find out where your audiences live in their digital lives: is it LinkedIn? Twitter? Do they read particular trade magazines or websites? There is a ton of data out there that has been sliced and diced to show different demographics and their social networks of choice. If you already have an established social media presence, use tools like Google Analytics to see which networks drive the most traffic to your website. This will clue you in to where your audience has their eyes and ears open.

Create Value.  B2B content does not have to be boring. At the end of the day B2B marketing has one major thing in common with B2C: you’re marketing to people. A business isn’t making a B2B purchasing decision, a person is. And those people don’t want to read bland, boring content. They want something compelling, interesting and valuable. Arm them with content that leaves them with a new piece of knowledge they can take with them into their daily lives. This will keep them interested in coming back to see what else you have to say.

As you create content, limit yourself from being too self-promotional. Find ways to convey what you do through stories and useful information. Let’s use ourselves — SHIFT — as an example. As we develop our content strategy, we look to incorporate original research, data and advice focused on the industry, not solely ourselves. Hence, you find types of posts like the one you’re reading this very second and why you’ll see us sharing relevant industry news on our social channels. No one wants a friend that only talks about themself; that’s true in business too. Convince your audience that you’re smart at what you do. That will help lead to what you want in the first place: sales.

If you’re struggling to come up with ideas, stop for a minute, take a deep breath and put yourself in the shoes of your audience. What would you want to read if you were in their position? This is one way to think about what topics to focus on within your content.

Promote and promote some more. Once you’ve created your content, you can maximize its reach by promoting it across various channels. This ties back to our first point which was knowing where your audience spends time online. At the very least, you should be sharing your posts, white papers, webinars, etc., on your social channels. This is completely free and gives you another way to get in front of your audience. If you’re in an industry where most decision makers spend time on LinkedIn, you can place focus on promoting your content there and sponsoring posts to reach your target audience, including new prospects who might not know about you yet. On Twitter and Facebook, you now have the option to target custom audiences, such as customers and prospects already on your email lists. This means your latest eBook can get in front of people who know about you but haven’t converted yet. Remember to check your Google Analytics data to see where your audience is coming from and spend time promoting on those channels.

At the end of the day, your goals as marketers and PR pros include generating awareness and creating leads. Just because it doesn’t fit in your brand to hand out free burritos to your first 100 retweets doesn’t mean you can’t become a fan favorite among your own audience. Consider the tips we listed above and build out a strategy that works for you.

Social selling is generating all the buzz so far in 2014. You can’t stop hearing about it but you haven’t jumped on board yet. But you’re here, so I know you’re thinking about it.

To be blunt, it’s time to develop your social selling strategy and start reeling in the profits. After all, everyone else is already doing it. If you want to see more revenue, more referrals, more leads, and deeper customer relationships, then you need to adopt a social selling strategy.

Before you get started, ask yourself these three questions:

1. What Are We Looking To Accomplish?

Before you jump in head first, think carefully about what you want to accomplish with your social selling strategy. Keep in mind that this might require a shift in the way your team thinks about sales. While you might already have sales goals developed, social selling goals look a bit different and serve a different purpose.

Social selling requires you to think about the connections your making with people in addition to the numbers your hitting each month.

Establishing your goals is key to social selling success. You need to understand why you’re doing it and what you want to get out of it before you participate in it.

Create clear goals, for example:

• To generate new leads
• To increase traffic to the website
• To deepen relationships with current customers, increase loyalty
• To connect with social influencers to build credibility and widen your network
• To increase referrals

These goals will guide your approach to social selling and set the tone for your strategy.

2. How Active Is Our Team On Social Media?

The popularity and use of social media has reached incredible levels.

Consider some of these numbers:

• There are 231.7 million monthly active Twitter users. Only about half of these users are tweeting, the rest are reading content.
• A branded Vine video is four times more likely to be seen than a regular branded video.
• Last year, 95% of Facebook users logged into their account every day.

Social media is not just for pictures and casual conversations anymore. It’s way more than that. Consider that 78% of sales people who use social selling outsell those who don’t.

It’s not just important for you embrace these tools; it’s crucial. The good news is that it’s not too late to start, but you need to move quickly. Technology and social trends change by the minute. Don’t let this opportunity pass you by.

That being said, if you (or members of your team) are currently active on social media, keep going! You’re already on your way to growing your sales funnel.

3. What Technology Is Right For You?

Finally, you should spend some time thinking about the technology that best suits your needs and goals. Technologies continue to change and advance at an incredible rate making it challenging to know which ones are right for you.

Really, it’s when we have the full suite of tools that we’re best able to understand our sales landscape and how to best succeed within it.

We can help. Introhive gives companies an enterprise-wide view of their relationships with customers and prospects. This helps companies make data driven decisions and actions to improve the sales process from end to end, from planning to selling, to retaining.

As you think about what social selling looks like for your company, be sure to consider what tactics, goals, and technologies will help you drive success and bring your sales strategy back to life.

Most sales professionals have relied for too long on Marketing to provide leads.  In addition they complain the leads are unqualified and a waste of time.  The irony is that most sales professionals are not producing their own opportunities.  All you have to do is open CRM and pull up the pipeline dashboard.  Inspect how many opportunities exist in the pipeline.  Sales Managers, there is a way to teach reps to get better leads.

As a small business, you are out to provide a unique customer experience that will keep bringing back customers to your business. Banking on this is the fact that a great reputation does a lot for your business. In this digital age where a majority of consumers turns to online review sites and social networks during their purchase decision-making process, it is important for your business to maintain a great reputation.

More important is that you as the owner and the personality at the core of your business’ brand also maintain a great reputation.

Online customer reviews can instill confidence in customers and spur more business, or they can be your downfall if not properly managed. The following tidbits will come in handy for your business and also for your personal brand as you interact with and strive to maintain a positive reputation with your customers.

Critics are everywhere

At least one of every two online customers has written an online review, and a large majority of those who do share with their families and friends. They also share reviews they read with the same parties. Simply put, offer valued and good customer experiences, and you can ignite positive word of mouth.

More than 80% of consumers today base their purchasing decisions on a positive review. If five other people liked product A and spoke highly of it, chances are a potential customer will take the recommendations seriously, and most probably try out the product for themselves.

Just as a positive review will spur a potential customer to purchase a product/service, so will a negative review turn them off. 4 out of 5 consumers will reverse their purchase decisions should they come across negative opinions about the business. And almost 60% of online consumers look for reviews regarding a business before transacting with it.

As a small business owner, you have to be prepared for both positive and negative reviews. Your local customer base will be your most visible critics, so aim to provide the best experience possible, and good word-of-mouth will do the rest for you.

Handling negative feedback

It reflects negatively on your business brand and your brand as the owner if an issue goes unresolved. When you come across a negative review on a review site or hear it from a customer, take action. Take control of the issue and respond appropriately. This will mean either a quick remedial response, or a measured approach that allows you to gather all the facts and respond later, but in detail. And, even a response of acknowledging their concern and listening or keeping them posted of action steps that you’re taking to address their concern are more valued and positive than silence.

Keep your responses simple. Most of the time, a negative review is simply a customer trying to get your attention to an issue or problem. Don’t complicate things by being too technical. A defensive attitude won’t help either.

Lastly, while many might be inclined to delete any (and all) negative reviews, don’t do it. Leave such reviews up for other customers to see how you handled the situation, as your solution might even help someone else with a similar problem.

More importantly, for your personal brand, it’s social proof of your listening and competence skills.

Encouraging positive reviews

You don’t want to be putting out fires all the time. Other times, a proactive approach to online reviews is best. Social media has made interacting with your customers much easier. So why not reach out to your loyal customers and request them to leave positive comments about the service they received at your business?

If you have website, make it easy for customers to leave reviews, such as having space at the bottom of their order to leave a comment and a personal thank you to the person that assisted them.

The value of a good reputation

A good reputation is of high value to your small business, as it leads to positive word-of-mouth marketing that translates to more sales and revenue. It’s been shown that positive online reviews can increase sales by more than 70%.

How about your personal brand?

As the daughter of an Air Force officer, I learned as a rebellious teenager that if I caused trouble or got into trouble then not only would I be reprimanded but my father would be reprimanded by his commanding officer.

In business, it’s much the same way. Your small business is your “baby”. When there’s difficulty or trouble in your business and it’s handled poorly or ignored, it will reflect on you. You will get to reap the repercussions and in the whole scheme of things your personal brand will suffer, too.

For your personal brand, it will be the difference between the opportunity to do business with someone or not even being aware of opportunities.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that trade shows are irrelevant simply because so much marketing now takes place through email and over the Internet. They still accomplish a lot of business, so if you know how to work trade shows, they will reward you. Part of your success comes from simply showing up, but once you get there, you better get ready to work for it.

Make a List of Realistic Goals

Image via Flickr by Christmas w/a K

Preparing for your trade show takeover begins long before the event itself takes place. As soon as you’re aware of a show you want to attend, start setting goals for yourself. More importantly, make sure they’re realistic. If you set your sights too high and don’t meet the numbers you’ve set for yourself, you’ll feel like a failure. That can negatively affect your showmanship at other trade shows.

Think first about what you want to do. Are you interested in pulling in prospects, turning those leads into sure sales, or introducing people to a new invention, product, or service? The goals you set for yourself depend on these wants. You might achieve more success by demonstrating your product a certain amount of times, or by booking appointments with a specific number of existing customers.

Keep Growing Your Ideas

Image via Flickr by Vancouver Film School

You know the saying: go hard or go home. You can never get complacent at your trade show displays. Just because your last booth was successful doesn’t mean you should show up with the same display. Invest in a new trade show display booth. Make it bigger, better, more dynamic, and more colorful.

Don’t keep your goals the same either. Always strive to do more and to improve. Work on your sales pitches, your demonstrations, and your follow-up techniques. Offer better swag. Use better technology.

Choose Your Shows Wisely

Image via Flickr by ThinkGeoEnergy

Don’t feel like you need to attend every single trade show that comes your way. Once they’re announced, take a look at each show. Ask yourself some key questions:

• What sorts of consumers typically attend?
• Who are your competitors?
• Have you succeeded at this trade show before?

If it’s not your niche, don’t go. Spend your time preparing for a different show that will serve you better. As far as competition goes, it’s up to you to decide whether you want to go up against dozens of competitors or infiltrate a trade show where your niche doesn’t have as much representation.

Networking vs. Mining for Prospects

Image via Flickr by Maryland GovPics

Networking with former and existing customers is just as important as pulling in new prospects. Divide your time wisely, keeping in mind that you’ll impress your existing buyers by proving that you’re still interested in them. It’s not a bad idea to have someone devoted to selling to new prospects and turning them into sales, while someone else converses sincerely with the attendees who have already given you their business.

If you want to leave the trade show exhibit feeling like a success, you have to do more than your competitors. Make your customers and prospects feel loved, impress them, and show them that your innovations never stop.

Before making any purchases, buyers are doing most of their research online. They compare your company with the competition and may have made their decision without ever talking to a human. By the year 2020, customers will manage 85% of this traditional sales relationship without even talking to a person. We know that how you present your story to that buying audience is vital in getting the right information to your buyer and helping them in that decision making process. If we know they are doing their research online, make it easy for them to decide by bringing the right information to the right people while they are in the buying process research mode.

But what if your website is just a virtual brochure of what your company does?

It’s pretty enough and showcases your company well. You hired a photographer and copywriter to make everything professional and well presented. That’s enough right? But somehow your website isn’t working for you. Your sales line isn’t ringing (and you put it at the top of the site- that should be enough…right?) It’s all there but sales are down and you’re feeling like something is broken.

What’s missing?

It’s your connection with the audience where you ask them to do more than peruse the pages and bounce when they decide they are done reviewing what you offer. I see sites like these regularly, in fact, we all do. You look through the site, but there is nothing more to offer. You aren’t reaching out to me and giving me an opportunity to do anything but give you a call. This is a major assumption many companies make: that once I see your website, I’m ready to buy. You’re missing out on a large part of the sales process that I am going through when I’m looking through your information.

Let’s take a step back and talk about inbound websites.

Here in the world of inbound marketing, having a well-designed and well thought out website is like having a skilled sales person on your team. It’s more than just a brochure of what your company does and it goes beyond describing your products or services. And assuming everyone coming to your website is ready to call you is a mistake.

A well-executed website tells your company story but it also will generate leads and start the sales process. Using Calls to Action (CTAs) will take your website from being a static brochure (with professionally done photos and copy) to a rocking lead generator that is worth its weight in gold.

Calls to Action, or what I like to think of as “another reason for someone not to leave your website,” are the hooks that will keep your audience reading on your website and engaging with your content and offers. A well placed CTA will give you more opportunity to educate your audience and bring them down the sales funnel. Additionally, when you give your website visitors more options than just contacting you, you provide them with other opportunities to keep the sales research going before they make their decision. These other opportunities can also keep your visitors reading about the good things you do, will help continue the relationship, and get them to be on your team rather than the competition.

What’s even better is that a Call to Action gives you the opportunity to provide targeted opportunities to your audience. CTAs give you an opportunity to convert site visitors into leads (which you can then nurture with emails and additional content offers). They suggest other materials for your buyer to read and direct them to things that are relevant to their sale research. And did I mention, they have to provide their information to read your additional content? This is a win win! They get to keep learning and you have the opportunity to reach out and add them to your lead nurturing emails.

So now the brochure style website is replaced by an interactive, targeted website that gets your audience where they need to go. To learn more about why your website might not be performing, check out my blog about having too much content on your site and about having bad user experience.

Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk via Compfight cc

Image by Karen Sandler.

This is the fourth installment of a five part series for sales professionals who want to get the most out of HootSuite for social selling. To simplify your social selling workflow, download the new HootSuite guide, Social Selling Action Plan: Closing the Loop From Relationships to Revenue.

Download Now

In previous installments of this series, we’ve explored how to use HootSuite to create a compelling online presence, listen to your industry, and observe real time buying signals from your prospects. Now, let’s look at how you can reach out and engage prospects.

Turn Cold Calls into Warm Calls

The first thing to keep in mind is that social media isn’t an appropriate place for sales pitches. Your objectives for social engagement should be to gain a better understanding of your prospects, initiate dialogues, and build relationships that can open up new connections to decision makers.

Social media is also just one tool in your toolbox. The key is to work it into an overall communication strategy in a methodical way. With a few non-interruptive communications on social media, you can establish a precedent for a personalized email or a phone call. Your prospects will actually recognize your name, and will have vetted you by checking out your social profiles (which are already optimized for viewing by customers, right?). Instead of consigning your email to the trash bin or hanging up on your phone call, they’ll be far more likely to give you a warm reception.

Gain a 360 Degree View of Your Prospects

Today’s buyers expect you to do your homework, not just about their company, but about them as individuals. You’ve got to know the professional concerns that keep them up at night. And it doesn’t hurt to know where they went to college, their favorite sports team, or their most passionate hobby. Researching your prospects on social media can give you that critical combination of substantive business knowledge and personal insight.

The most effective way to understand your prospects is to integrate multiple sources of intelligence for a rounded, real time view. That means being present wherever they are on social media: LinkedIn, Twitter, Slideshare, Google+, Pinterest, and anywhere else you can find them. When you make new contacts, make sure to look for them on other channels for a comprehensive view. Be aware that Facebook is a highly personal network for most people, so err on the side of caution here.

Push Intelligence from Social Media into CRM

There should be no artificial barrier between your “social selling” activities and the rest of your sales process. This is especially true when it comes to relationship management. The leads you generate from social media and the insights you gain about your potential customers must be captured and integrated into your CRM records.

You can save time and streamline your lead generation from social media by connecting HootSuite with your CRM system, such as Salesforce or SugarCRM. CRM integrations in the HootSuite App Directory allow you to gather personal and contextual information from social media profiles, then push it to new or existing lead records in your CRM, directly from the HootSuite dashboard. This will give you a rounded view of your leads that you can access at any point during your sales process.

Sales teams can quickly identify and create Leads within SugarCRM from a social media profile within the HootSuite dashboard.

Social Engagement Methods

There are numerous ways to initiate contact with your prospects on social media. All of them depend on effective monitoring practices — to find out how to monitor your prospects with HootSuite, read our previous installments: Listen to What Your Industry is Saying and Observe Prospect Buying Signals

Retweet or share their content. This not only lets your prospects know that you’re listening to them, but demonstrates that you think their thoughts are valuable enough to share with others. Not all shares are meant to be taken as endorsements, but most of the time that’s exactly what they are. It feels good to get retweeted, reblogged, or repinned. If you’re sharing somebody’s blog post on social media, make sure to tag them or @mention them so they know that you’ve done so:

#Social #Selling Action Plan, Part 3: Observe Prospect #Buying #Signals http://t.co/WHrHJDJgI5 @MattFoulger

— Colabo (@Colaboinc) March 20, 2014

Don’t overdo it. Retweeting everything your prospect says is just creepy. Too many retweets or shares will also clog up the timelines of the people who follow you, and there’s no point in alienating your larger community just to get the attention of one prospect. Liking or favoriting your prospects’ posts is a lower-key way to keep yourself on their radar. Again, there’s no need to overdo it. Pick the updates that you find most relevant and show where have you have common interests with your prospects.

Reply to or comment on their posts. This is a more substantial form of engagement, and probably the most important. By replying to your prospects’ tweets and posts, you can demonstrate your expertise and willingness to help. Be on the look-out for questions, which are open invitations for you to engage. Remember, you can filter your Twitter search and Twitter list streams in HootSuite for tweets that contain the “?” symbol.

Content for social media success

Micro content, I keep hearing this term and thought it’d be useful to explore what it means; why content marketing is evolving and diversifying and what the practical applications of micro content are for marketing.

Essentially, micro content is as it sounds – short form content. Typically low cost, high value content appropriate to social channels. To all intents and purpose it’s social media content.

It’s not that detailed articles or long form, rich content are any less important, it’s simply a case of being relevant to the social media platform in question, and accessible to an ever detached consumer who’s on the move with a low attention span for your brand.

Social and mobile are leading the change

As the world shifts towards mobile devices, and accessing information via social networks on a mobile, micro content becomes a more important and practical form of communicating with customers and prospects. Reading large amounts of text on the mobile just isn’t practical. This is the consumer’s reality now, the rise of short messages through Twitter and Whatsapp, as well visual messages such through Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat. Social media, and so content marketing, has to move with consumer behaviour. The sooner you integrate this into your content marketing strategy, the better, as there are predictions that between 60–80% of your web traffic will come via mobile platforms in only a few years from now

6 ideas for implementing a micro content strategy

This post isn’t about what social platforms are best for you, here we’re interested in how to integrate micro content into a wider content marketing strategy, the platforms just change the type of  content (text, images, video), and how it’s shared, maybe even the under-lying nature, no matter – the principal remains the same.

The principal is around what you can do in 15 mins a day to keep in front of your prospects or customers, to be a part of their daily conversation. The commercial output is creating inbound links from social channels and driving traffic, leads and (we hope) business.

1. Targeted: As ever, who you’re targeting remains the most important question. Social media requires that you make it about “me”, not your shiny new sales message. So knowing who I am (a vague sense of demographics is not good enough) is critical, think about beliefs, behaviours and motivations. These are key to tee up number 2.
2. Authentically helpful: Whoever your audience is, think ‘serve’… what can you do for them? Serving might be educating, entertaining in some way, inspiring or connecting. The point here is huge but simple. It’s about them.
3. Focus on useful, concise information: Using your target audience wants and/or needs make your micro content short enough and often enough to become a part of your audience’s daily routine. Think, tips, updates, quotes, news headlines, horoscopes and sports scores. Less is more. And – make sure that the key phrases relevant to your natural search programme are designed into text used in micro content, especially link text.
4. Think repeatable-social-mobile: How can you build a schedule that enables the delivery of bite-size, snackable information, content that’s fun, easy and cheap to run, that works on the small screen for your moving, information hungry audience. Develop themes of content to open up areas for brain-storming the detail. The more consistent, the lower the cost and ease of repetition.
5. Curate: Often the best micro content is your short form review or share of somebody else’s stuff that might be useful to your audience, and it doesn’t get more social than that. That enables your appeal and reach to grow naturally through a trusted network.
6. Call to action: Social media is business. What are you drawing your prospects to do? It’s not that every tweet, vine, Facebook status update or Instagram requires a link back or offer, it really doesn’t and mustn’t, but once in a while deliver the ask. And always make your profile useful to translate who your are and what you do so that the inquisitive can easily learn more and visit your website.

Social media, or micro content, marketing is all about designing ways to keep your brand in front of your prospects and customers, by building trust credibility.

Winston and I had a great time speaking and working with about 25 B2B companies recently, where we gave them the lowdown on how to use their websites to get found early in the sales process, generate more leads, and reach an international audience. There was an incredible level of audience participation in the workshop part of the day, and someone asked me how they could reuse older content to enhance their lead generation efforts.

Content creation is a huge time commitment for small marketing teams. Marketers in one-person “teams” are strapped for time as it is, and consistently creating new, relevant, well-developed content is an insurmountable challenge.

That said, I wanted to offer up a few ways that your company can re-use older content to continue to build your B2B lead generation efforts. Try these.

1. Maintain a social media calendar and repost

The life of a social media post is incredibly short – just an hour or two in some cases, a few days in others. One way we get more mileage out of content we’ve already written or curated is to find a new way to refer to the article and post it again. You can even keep a social media calendar so you don’t post the same content more than once in a week.

Many blog posts, for example, have 3-5 main points. You can repost links to a blog post several times. The first time, you may simply state the title of the post. Then, weeks later, you can repost the same message with one of the key points of the article. Here’s an example from our Twitter feed:

Reason #7 your website doesn't generate leads: Your website is all about you (not your customer). 9 more here: http://t.co/MGRa2oRlBc

— Rick Whittington (@rickwhittington) March 19, 2014

2. Put content into a new format

Did you write a potential customer a detailed email or assemble several resources for them as they researched your product or service? Remove the names and edit the email for your blog, and you’ve got a new blog post for your website.

You may also give presentations to trade groups, and you can take the Powerpoint deck, place it on Slideshare and write a recap for your blog.

3. Email newsletters

Just because you post a blog post on your website doesn’t mean that all of your visitors or even your email list saw the post. You might want to send out a blog recap monthly, or even include a popular past blog post in your email marketing campaign.

4. Link blog posts on your “product” or “service” pages

Pages on your website that talk about your products or services might not be as relevant to early-stage buyers as you might think. Including links to blog posts or other resources that pertain to the product or service page they’re on will help engage them and get them back on track when it comes to their research. It can also help them further engage with your company and see you as an industry leader.

5. Content curation

You’re probably keeping up with the events, trends and happenings in your industry. During your reading, you might want to bookmark articles (or post to Evernote) and organize them into topics. Once you’ve organized them into topics, you can write a paragraph summarizing each link, an introduction, and you have an industry bulletin you can post to your blog, email to subscribers, and post to social media.

We understand the challenge of creating new content for your B2B company. If you’d like some help thinking through how you might supplement your efforts with help from an expert, or just would like a more strategic take on how your company uses content to generate awareness and leads, please let me know.

Would you rather buy from a brand with fragmented messaging, or one with consistent communications? Chances are, the mixed messaging from the first option won’t even make much of an impression. Aberdeen Research has discovered that 65% of best-of-class marketers work to integrate their communications, compared with just 51% of their peers as a whole. Without consistent, clear messaging in your content marketing, your company will struggle to win the hearts of prospects or turn your customers into a tribe.

The average organization today is using 12 different content marketing tactics, which range from social media to eBooks. Even with the myriad of technology available today, integrating your content across channels isn’t easy. However, it’s absolutely worth your effort. Bloomsberg’s Steve McKee refers to fragmented messaging as “public enemy No. 1 in today’s marketing environment.” A consistent content marketing strategy will allow you to make an impression on today’s distracted consumers.

What is Integrated Content Marketing?

The idea of integration entered business vocabulary in the late 1980’s, when an advertising journal described the practice as “well-coordinated use of different promotional methods that are intended to reinforce each other.” Today, thought leader Ann Handley writes that it’s crucial to “tell [your] story consistently across every channel and platform,” or you run the risk of committing random acts of content. A well-integrated content marketing strategy today requires well-defined messaging, adaption to the context of each platform you use, and unified goals to measure the efficacy of your program as a whole.

Define Your Unique Message

Who are you? If you haven’t taken the time to clearly define your brand identity, you’ll struggle to create a comprehensive content marketing strategy. McKee recommends beginning with a “powerful, unifying strategy, and compelling voice for your brand.” This should go deeper than simply picking out your colors or tagline. What is your values, personality, and voice that transcends platforms? How will this messaging be adopted to different mediums you’ll be using to create content, and what at the core will remain the same? Integration is much harder than blasting a single message across a variety of platforms, but it’s absolutely the first place to start.

To learn more, we recommend Why Branding Matters in 2014.

Consider the Context of Your Channels

In order for your content marketing strategy to have the best impact possible, you’ve got to consider and understand the context of the channels you’re using. Understand how your ideal customers engage with various social media networks, blogs, email, and other platforms where you’ll be communicating. According to leading guru Gary Vaynerchuk, successfully cutting through the noise in today’s world is accomplished by “telling stories native to the platform.” While your brand’s ideal customer may fit a single profile, there’s a good chance they interact with LinkedIn for professional gain and blogs for product research. Match your story to the context accordingly.

Unite Your Channels

Uniting your content marketing strategy across channels is about much more than getting your marketing team and contractors on the same page with project management software; though that’s certainly a good start. As Don Peppers points out, you should “incorporate an individual customer’s own perspective.” Your content marketing strategy is going to be infinitely more effective if you’re able to take a few steps back, and consider how your customers feel as they’re getting to know your brand.

A company without a well-integrated content marketing strategy might invest solely in flashy campaigns or increasing their engagement on single platforms. A better-designed program will include content that’s tailored to every stage of the buyers journey, that’s focused on education and value. Every piece of content you produce will be exceptional, but also consistent with your brand, and designed to contribute to your organization’s larger goals. Your marketing messages on email, the web, and any other channel you’re using are consistent with your brand, but tailored to the context of where you’re communicating.

Continually Improve

Perhaps the most important component of an integrated content marketing strategy is a commitment to continual improvement. Consumer behavior is rapidly-changing in the digital age, and it’s crucial to continually refine your knowledge of the context of the platforms you’re using, and adopt new channels that match your ideal customer’s research habits.

Have you integrated your content marketing strategy? What do you think are the most important benefits of this approach?

Above: Usage of the #twitterisblockedinturkey hashtag according to Trendsmap

Image Credit: Trendsmap

After banning Twitter last night, the actions of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have failed spectacularly.

Immediately following Turkey’s ban, Twitter issued an SMS workaround. Then, ”#TwitterisblockedinTurkey” became a globally trending topic on Twitter. Into the night, usage of Google’s free DNS service exploded to circumvent the blockage of Twitter’s domain. Now, social media analysis firms Brandwatch and We Are Social report that Turkish tweets last night and this morning are up by a massive 138 percent.

The following graph, provided by Brandwatch, shows the rise in tweets from 2 A.M. to 12 P.M. (Turkish CET).

Turkish users collectively tweeted 2.5 million times since the ban went into effect, potentially “setting new records for Twitter use in the country,” according to a different study reported by the Guardian.

Fanning the flames, usage of virtual private networks (VPNs) in Turkey appears to be up significantly. ZenMate, for example — a security and privacy extension for Google Chrome — reports it saw “25,000 visitors from Turkey to the Chrome store in the last 12 hours.” Similarly, VPN provider Hotspot Shield saw an uptick in usage on iOS, and is now the top Android app in the Google Play store in Turkey.

Studies such as the above serve only as rough guidelines and are limited by sample size. Collectively, however, the reports make for strong evidence that Erdogan has failed to enact an effective country-wide ban on Twitter.

Well that’s backfiring. The whole world is watching, Turkey. #TwitterisblockedinTurkey pic.twitter.com/mexOESV7Qd

— Occupy Wall Street (@OccupyWallStNYC) March 21, 2014

Following our original report last night, the Turkish Embassy in Washington D.C. and Turkey’s Office of the Prime Minister have yet to respond to VentureBeat’s request for comment.

Twitter is blocked in Turkey. On the streets of Istanbul, the action against censorship is graffiti DNS addresses. pic.twitter.com/XcsfN7lJvS

— Utku Can (@utku) March 21, 2014

I’m a heavy LinkedIn user, and like many of my ilk — recruiters, marketers, job seekers — I’m quick to jump to search for people-finding. That’s because exploring a social network, connection-by-connection, is beyond tedious. All but poorly-connected users will have millions in their networks, within 2 or 3 links, and manual exploration simply doesn’t scale. (Cutting connections isn’t the answer; it destroys a network’s value, which grows steeply with the number of participants according to the network effect.) Further, you can’t explore what you can’t see. Because many individuals hide their connection lists, a connection-surfer won’t see entire branches of her network. So I — and you — use search.

Unfortunately, for all the professional social platform’s data-science mojo, elements of LinkedIn search are disappointingly weak. I’ll illustrate those elements and describe how LinkedIn can better help users discover business value in their connections.

The State of Search on LinkedIn

The search user interface gold standard is a simple text-entry box, and LinkedIn obliges, with the added possibility of using a drop-down to focus search on People, Jobs, Companies, Groups, Universities, Articles, and Inbox. (That latter label is strange, given that “Inbox” search searches all your messages. And by the way, I’m using the Web interface although my points apply even more to the mobile app, which, as is typical, offers reduced capabilities.) Or click on Advanced and get this window:

And here we see the weakness. LinkedIn offers People Search, fine if you’re looking for individuals, identified by particular attributes, by particular facet values. LinkedIn does not offer search that exploits its essential identity; LinkedIn does not offer Network Search.

Your Networks, Via Your Connections

I’ll explain what I mean by “network search” by showing that the data is there, in LinkedIn. Consider a LinkedIn search results screen, mine:

(Actually, this screen represents a null search; it’s the start of a listing of my connections.)

We have faceted navigation — the ability to filter on values of characteristics including distance of connection (1st, 2nd, Group) and physical location — and we can see network attributes, in particular, the number of connections I share with each individual.

I don’t have a clue how LinkedIn did the ranking here, despite the (fairly opaque) explanation the company provides. For instance, of the seven individuals you see displayed, I’ve met only two in person, and only one of them more than once, Howard Dresner. Howard and I share 138 connections; that our networks so significantly overlap is a strong indicator of profile similarity, his and mine. Yet the top-of-the-list individual and I share only eight connections, I’ve never met him in person, and I’ve interacted with his company on only one occasion. How did he get to be top ranked for me?

We’re in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t situation. If the answer to this apparently anomalous ranking is that it’s an unordered list, not a ranking, then the question is, Why not? And if the answer is that LinkedIn is applying a ranking algorithm that makes sense only to the company’s engineers but not to a user like me, then the questions are, WTF? and Why can’t I have the ranking my way?

I want to be able to order hits by descending number of shared connections. I can’t, and that’s because, again, LinkedIn offers only People Search when I also want Network Search.

It’s a Network, Not Just a Set of Nodes

LinkedIn hosts social networks. In social networks, the number of short connections between two individuals in the graph is a good indicator of similarity, of shared interests. But I don’t want only to rank search hits by number of connections. I want to use other interesting network properties in my searches. LinkedIn gets the concepts; they just don’t let me use them. What concepts? Clusters, or subnets if you will. Take a look at my LinkedIn InMap:

Each colored node-set represents individuals who share a certain affinity with me, based on network structure. LinkedIn says, “We use information about how people in your network are connected to you and each other to create your personalized map. Groups like colleagues, people you went at school with, or friends are separated into color-coded clusters, as people within these groups are also interconnected with each other.”

Network Search would allow me to limit searches to members of particular clusters and their connections. In my case, that would mean I could restrict search to my BI & data warehousing connections (the azure cluster toward the top of my InMap) or my market research connections (pea green toward the lower right) or my European information retrieval and text analytics connections (reddish, lower left), in order to improve results relevance. What I’m asking is for LinkedIn to support a new, dynamic search facet.

Relevance is key, and leads me to my final topic, recommendations, which I’d characterize as a passive form of search.

When Will They Ever Learn?

I won’t accept a connection request from a recruiter or sales person whom I haven’t actually interacted with, nor from a student who doesn’t have any non-academic accomplishments that are professionally relevant to me, nor a request from a non-professional contact such as a community member. I follow this rule because I use LinkedIn almost exclusively for professional networking, and mixing in these (literal) outliers would make it much more difficult for me to correctly target my outreach efforts.

So who does LinkedIn recommend, as People You May Know? Check ‘em out, in the image at the right. Nothing personal, but they are not people I will be connecting to, and LinkedIn should have known that.

One of them works professionally in an area related to mine, although not closely. A second shares one connection with me and lives near my community, with no professional connection however, and a third is three links away from me with our only similarity being that she also lives near my community.

I do, occasionally take LinkedIn connection recommendations, but never for people like these, and I have ignored many connection requests from people similar to them. I have done many, many LinkedIn searches, on terms such as “sentiment analysis” and “customer experience,” but never on terms that would turn up these people.

If LinkedIn did a bit of behavior mining — my search, profile viewing, and connection requests initiated or accepted — the platform’s People You May Know recommendations would be far more accurate. Machine learning could do the job; not a small task given the number and diversity of LinkedIn users, but then you don’t have to mine every user’s actions in order to come up with predictive recommendation models that would surely out-perform what’s in place now.

My Search for Relevance

I have high expectations for LinkedIn. I know that the company has great data-mining and information-retrieval capabilities, but also I pay them quite a bit. (I’ve been a Premium user on and off; I downgrade, to save money, for stretches when I’m not going to be using the platform extensively.)

So consider this article a challenge from a faithful user. Help me do my job better. Factor network characteristics and user behaviors into searches, and help me in my search for relevance.

Related Stories

• How To Analyze Your Competitors Using Social Data
• Where Is Marketing And Where Is It Headed?
• Knowing Your Audience Is Key To Any Marketing Success

Two hundred million active Twitter users send 400 million tweets per day. Six-hundred-thousand pieces of content are shared on Facebook each minute. Seventy-two hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. 

The ever-growing streams of social media data hold the secrets you need to reach and engage your customers. Yet, according to a Harvard Business Review study, only 12 percent of companies using social media content believe they are using it effectively.

To date, social media analytics focused on the content of posts — the actual text of a tweet, for example — to measure consumer opinion. While sentiment analysis is important, companies also need to dig deeper into the data to glean actionable insight.

Whether companies are trying to engage better with customers, improve brand awareness, or boost lead generation, intelligent social media analysis is critical. And to get there, companies are increasingly embracing a new approach: investigative analytics.

Evolved analytics: Asking iterative, open-ended questions

Data analysis is no longer just the domain of the CIO and the IT department. Data-driven decision-making is the realm of marketing, sales, and business development — and anyone else who has a stake in the organization’s and customers’ success.

However, traditional analytic tools don’t let users interrogate fast-moving, highly diverse types of high-volume social data. As data connections and dependencies grow exponentially, it’s no longer possible to capture actionable information in a rigid set of KPIs and canned reports. To manage content, brand and customer engagement in a social world, companies should consider performing richer, real-time data analysis — with (it’s true) far fewer resources.

Enter investigative analytics, where users ask a series of quickly changing, iterative questions to figure out why something did or did not happen, and determine how to optimize a particular outcome. Compared to traditional analytics, which lack flexibility because they are tied to rigid KPIs and reports, investigative analytics yield insight into questions that haven’t even been dreamed of yet.

For example, traditional analytics may help companies answer a question like, “How many leather handbags did we sell via Pinterest last week?” Investigative analytics ask more meaningful questions, combining social media with other data points (e.g., campaign information, click-throughs, conversions, etc.), to enable more flexible data interrogation.

An investigative analytics series of questions may follow a path like this:

• “Where are we getting the most sales conversions on leather handbags?” The answer: 25 specific Pinterest boards provide the most leads.
• “Is there a particular product-marketing image those 25 Pinterest boards are using?” (e.g., Is it a static image with lots of white space, or a woman modeling it at a chichi restaurant? Is it black or vibrant red?)
• “Are we selling to a younger demographic when a specific color bag is pictured?“
• “Is there a common conversion thread for consumers who paused a video ad but then resumed play? Did they convert better or worse than those who never paused the video?“
• “Do more targeted consumers convert from a mobile device?” If yes, figure out how to optimize the campaign for mobile users.

This open-ended process of investigative analytics allows anybody looking at the data to constantly evolve the questions they ask and query data in real time, regardless of data volume. As a result, companies can figure out how to develop customized campaigns that deploy the right messages via the most receptive channels. Not only will they be able to increase efficiency of campaigns and how they target consumers with content, but they also will uncover up-sell targets and inform product development road maps as consumer preferences are revealed.

Navigating investigative analytics

Following are key considerations to put investigative analytics into action:

• Embrace “frictionless inquiry:” Investigative analytics are all about frictionless inquiry, where the path between the question and answer is void of rigid structure. Frictionless inquiry depends on ad hoc query capabilities and simple analytic tool administration. So, when you reach the aha moment, you’ll have all the information you need to ask the next question or dig deeper into data without having to call IT or the help desk to create a new query.

• Define, but don’t limit your universe of data points: The lines between web, social media, and advertising analytics are blurring as these modalities become more and more interdependent. To uncover and respond to consumer insights, it’s critical to analyze when and where a consumer said something, what else he was talking about, and what he did as a result. This correlation between engagement and conversion requires attention to a slew of data: demographic background; geospatial and time tracking; which social network and device was used; who opened a video, who paused it, who resumed watching after the pause. While it’s important to determine the data points you can mine, it’s equally important to always add and refine.

• Ask why, not what: Gone are the days of simply knowing what happened in a campaign. Today, you can — and need to — know why: patterns of behavior or insights to capitalize (either in the moment or in the future). With investigative analytics there are no wrong questions. Instead, by letting the results of your ad hoc queries drive the next question, you’ll be asking the right ones. 

• Take advantage of trending topics: To benefit from trending topics, it’s essential to extract intelligence — whether it’s A/B split testing or consumer likes and dislikes — from social networks as soon as it’s generated in real time. Can we increase engagement if we push out another tweet two hours after it posts? Five hours after? Five days after? Insights gleaned through investigative analytics help you take immediate action to optimize social engagement and drive further traffic and revenue.

• Don’t ignore historical data: Take advantage of real-time data, but don’t forget the past. For example, it’s important to know if, historically, you’ve been successful with pushing a contest out on Facebook on Wednesdays followed by successive tweets on Friday so that you can replicate your success. Year-over-year trends are also important when planning for annual events, such as Black Friday shopping.

By harvesting the massive amounts of social media data with the power of investigative analytics, businesses will be able to determine exactly what people want, when they want it, and through what social network — which results in true competitive advantage.

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

I was thinking this week, how does blogging actually generate leads? For instance, are the leads that come from blogs not just learners and are not ready to buy or even be known as a lead? Is it not about the fact that you are producing thought provoking and compelling content consistently and that makes you stand out from your competitors – differentiating you – that is generating you leads? This is nurturng your leads with blogs.

Is your content marketing goal about building a brand or generating leads (or both)?

Businesses that don’t tend to their online identities risk appearing isolated and disconnected from their audiences. Your brand is how others see you, not how you see yourself. Everyone has a brand, and the instantly recognisable brands are the most influential.

When I am talking about content marketing, the specific aspect I refer to is blogging. As often we use our different types of content to disseminate infographics, videos, how to guides, webinars, etc. and businesses share these blogs through social media to attracts a wider audience..

A blog is a great way to connect more deeply with your existing or would-be customers, build a community around your business, give a human personality and ‘voice’ to an organisation, evolve your business and relationships in sometimes unexpected or surprising ways, and yes, drive sales.

Essentially, blogging is a means to not only inform and build your brand and an engaged readership, but also generate leads and drive sales.

How does blogging generate leads?

It creates a readership

This is the traditional goal of blogging as a publishing medium, that is, to establish a readership or a community of avid content digesters. This is something we see a lot of in B2B blogging and the emergence of “thought leaders” and industry influencers such as Seth Godin, Mashable, dotRising, MozBlog, etc. This readerships likely to spread the word and share your content.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

This is really where blogging comes into its own as part of the inbound marketing machine. Through blogging we can create fresh content with regularity, rich in keywords and phrases that we want to get found for on Google, Bing and other search engines.

It’s becoming harder to artificially influence Google through keyword research and manipulation, as Google strives to create a more natural, more human ranking algorithm that serves the user’s purpose, not those of companies trying to get found.

Social media

One of the great things about being social with your content, is it presents you with very usable data about what your most popular content really is. Then, you can continue to craft new blog posts around these same topic areas, feeding your audience with what they want. Social media networks can be a tremendous source of traffic for your website and thus a tremendous source of new leads for your business, so it’s important to pay attention to these metrics every step of the way.

Putting it All Together for Maximum Lead Generation

How does this all fit together to get more leads and drive sales? It’s all about directing users down our sales funnels and thinking of blogs in terms of the larger inbound picture.

A business blog with a direct readership can easily influence sales through recommendations, relevant call to actions, lead nurturing and onwards links.

Find out what is missing in your inbound marketing strategy. Download the guide today and kick start your marketing strategy.

Author: Julie Ritchie

If you’ve been paying attention to the digital marketing landscape lately, you may have noticed the rising popularity of partner ecosystems – LaunchPoint, Marketo’s partner ecosystem, just celebrated its first birthday. From event marketing to user management to marketing automation, new ecosystems are cropping up all over the tech landscape. But what are partner ecosystems, and how do they help marketers do their jobs?

What’s a Partner Ecosystem?

If you’re wondering what a partner ecosystem is, you aren’t alone – every partner ecosystem is different, and it can be difficult to define. At the most basic level, a partner ecosystem is a system of record that displays all of the partnerships a company has created. A partner ecosystem takes a different incarnation at every company because each one reflects the needs of a different set of customers. It may have reviews, it may be an app store, it may show a mix of application and service partners, and it may incorporate a developer community.

In creating these partner ecosystems, digital marketing companies are following in the footsteps of the most successful tech producers today. The iPhone, the Android, Facebook, and Amazon.com are all leaders in their market, and all four have wildly successful partner ecosystems. This isn’t a coincidence. A partner ecosystem extends a company’s digital footprint and amplifies its market share, giving the associated company an undeniable competitive edge. Note that the BlackBerry and Myspace were once dominant players in their respective markets, but they were unable to compete in the long run – this was at least partially due to their lack of complementary products and applications.

Why are Partner Ecosystems Important in the Digital Marketing Landscape?

Across industries, marketers have bigger, more important jobs than ever before. Marketing is no longer seen as a cost center, but as a department that is capable of and responsible for driving revenue. To help marketers with these increased capabilities and responsibilities, the sheer number of digital marketing applications is growing. Emerging categories like big data, mobile marketing, video marketing, and content marketing are empowering marketers to do more. Partner ecosystems help your customers make sense of a multitude of emerging applications.

There are two ways to leverage partner ecosystems: you can join another company’s ecosystem, or you can build your own. Either way, you’ll show your customers all of the solutions and applications that complement your technology, which highlights the value of your product. Your prospects and customers have extremely high expectations of what your marketing can do, and when you associate with a partner ecosystem, it allows them to evaluate your compatibility with other solutions in a more streamlined way. To stay competitive, marketers need to present and co-sell their solution alongside a variety of complementary solutions.

How to Take Advantage of a Partner Ecosystem

You don’t have to develop a partner ecosystem from the ground up in order to experience the benefits. You can start by  evaluating the landscape you’re a part of, identifying which solutions are complementary,  and finding out which of those companies are investing in a partner ecosystem. Reach out to these companies, establish a relationship, and create a listing in their ecosystem. A listing may be as simple as a logo and paragraph description about your company, or it may be as in-depth as a dedicated landing page. Either way, it’s a great first step toward co-marketing and co-selling, lending you credibility in the eyes of your customers and prospects.

So what next? Here’s how to support your new listing:

1. Keep your listing up to date. Think of this content as an extension of your own website, and keep it updated with the same frequency and accuracy.
2. Create a “Set Up Guide.” If you have an integration with your partner’s solution, document the steps to implement that integration in a “Set Up Guide.” This is the type of information that marketing technologists love to get their hands on, because they want to understand the benefits and integration process before they invest.
3. Promote your partnership. Issue a press release announcing the partnership and the availability of an integration. This content benefits industry watchers (such as influencers and analysts) as well as customers and prospects.
4. Do a case study. Identify joint customers and document a joint case study. A joint case study will bring an integration to life because it tells the story of how using the solutions together will unlock value for a customer.
5. Expand the partnership. Participate in your partner’s events. Whether it’s a webinar or a customer summit, events remain the biggest opportunity to get leads from a partner ecosystem. In preparation for the event, you can use the first four items to educate your sales team on the joint value proposition.

These ideas are just the foundation for leaning into your partner’s ecosystem. Use this as a starting point, and be creative in how you  engage with your partner’s. There’s nothing a partner loves more than enthusiasm for reaching its customer base.

Do you have a favorite pair of solutions that complement each other?  Or a pair of solutions you wish would integrate more fully? If your company is part of a partner ecosystem, or has one of its own, what benefits have you seen? Let us know in the comments below.

How to Lean into a Partner Ecosystem was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

Welcome to our new E-Commerce Insider newsletter, a morning email with the top news and analysis on the e-commerce industry, produced by BI Intelligence. 

Click here to sign up for E-Commerce Insights today, and receive it every morning in your inbox. 

E-COMMERCE LEADS VC-BACKED EXITS: Among the more than 450 venture-backed exits in the technology sector last year, 16% were e-commerce companies (more than any other industry). Advertising, sales and marketing companies accounted for the second-most VC-backed deals (14%), followed by database management, storage and document management (10%), and social media (8%).

The fact that there has been so much deal activity in the e-commerce industry demonstrates the maturity of the online retail market. In other words, some e-commerce companies have grown so large that they are now publicly traded, while others are being acquired by larger companies or investors who think they can make a profit from e-commerce. Both exit scenarios are an indicator of how bullish investors and market participants are on the fast-growing e-commerce industry. 

One of the largest exits last year was when Zulily, a daily deals site that caters to mothers, went public at a $2.6 billion valuation. Some analysts called the exit a "watershed moment" for e-commerce. Zulily's market cap as of yesterday was $7.4 billion. We expect the flurry of deal activity occurring in e-commerce to continue in 2014. For example, China-based e-commerce giant Alibaba plans to go public this year in the U.S. (CB Insights) 

MOBILE 'CLIENTELING': When talking about mobile commerce, many retailers focus on showrooming — when consumers browse in-store but shop online — or vice-versa. However, a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers explores how mobile is revolutionizing "clienteling," an industry buzz word for personalized in-store shopping. The idea is that if retailers are storing customer data — such as past purchases — in the cloud, then sales associates could tap those insights on a smartphone and/or tablet while assisting a person in-store. In practice, mobile clienteling could transform sales associates from acting as information providers to trusted advisors. (PricewaterhouseCoopers)

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Today's shopper is looking for a richer, more personalized retail experience, and one that brings intelligence from their past interaction history, comprehensive information about products, and inventory availability." — PwC's Director of Retail Consulting, Ian Kahn. 

WELCOME, E-COMMERCE INSIDERS: This is our new newsletter covering all things e-commerce. Please email csmith@businessinsider.com with news and tips. Click here to sign up for E-Commerce Insights today, and receive it every morning in your inbox. 

E-COMMERCE DISRUPTS CHINESE SUPERMARKETS: Multinational supermarkets slowed their bricks-and-mortar expansion into China's mainland, and say a greater number of Chinese consumers are going online to purchase groceries. Benefitting from this trend are China's e-commerce players, such as Alibaba, which increased fresh produce sales by 195% last year. 

We know that in the U.S., food and groceries are among the least purchased items online, but in China, a rash of livestock- and produce-contamination scares have stoked health fears. Some online grocers in China are selling organic produce shipped straight from the farm. 

"I think people [in China] are willing to pay a higher premium [for online groceries] than in the West. In other markets, like the UK, food e-commerce is about convenience. Here [in China], there's going to be a higher quality and safety premium," said McKinsey Consultant Chen Yougang in an interview with Reuters last year. (Want China Times) 

MAJORITY OF CANADIANS SHOP INTERNATIONALLY: Approximately 68% of Canadians shop on websites operated by international retailers, according to a new report from L2 Think Tank. This means a significant portion of online retail dollars are flowing across Canada's border. L2 theorizes that subpar shopping experiences, limited product selection, and weak shipping infrastructure in Canada is driving consumers to shop online internationally. This trend signals that Canada's retail market is ripe for disruption, and more locally-based players could benefit. Amazon already operates a Canadian site. (L2 Think Tank) 

ZAPPOS PILOTS SOCIAL COMMERCE PROGRAM: Online clothing and shoes retailer Zappos is piloting a program on Instagram called "Next OOTD," which stands for "Next Outfit Of The Day." The program is a play on the popular hashtag #OOTD, which has been tagged on more than 23 million images on Instagram. When people upload a self-portrait (or, selfie) to Instagram appended with the hashtag #nextootd, Zappos will send them a "personalized shopping recommendation." Zappos, a company that prides itself on its customer focus, clearly sees social media as one avenue for personalized service. "It could be the future of our business," said Director of Zappos Labs Will Young. At launch, one Zappos employee will be recommending personalized outfits, but Young said it could grow to a "50-person team" eventually. (Fashionista) 

BELGIUM E-COMMERCE: Online retail sales in Belgium increased 26% last year to $2.6 billion. What's more, 90% of business owners in the country said they expect online sales to grow further in 2014. Although the size of Belgium's retail sector pales in comparison to other markets around the globe, it is another positive indicator of e-commerce growth in Europe. (Euro E-Commerce News)

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Three In Four Merchants Plan To Have A Mobile Shopping App By The End Of The Year

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Alibaba's Chinese E-Commerce Sites Quadrupled Sales Volume On Their Platforms In Three Years

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The Web Will Influence More Than Half Of All US Retail Sales This Year

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Social media, paired with great content and smart SEO is an important part of being successful online. And by “successful” I mean appearing high in search results, driving targeted traffic to your website, and doing things like driving leads and sales. All with a goal of, you know, selling more stuff to more people. Which is pretty much what we all want, isn’t it? Okay, now that we agree on that, let’s move on.

In the past, link building has been one of the ways SEO professionals endeavored to send signals to Google that your website was credible, which then impacted how favorably your site appeared in search. The shortest possible explanation is that SEOs worked their magic to get other websites to link to your site – sometimes good magic, sometimes not so good magic. But, as these things go, people gamed the heck out of that and Google responded by changing its algorithm and most things about link building changed. Overnight.

Content + Smart SEO + Social Media

That’s the formula. Content + Smart SEO + Social Media is what it takes today to leverage the web for business purposes. And what never ceases to amaze me is how often we find these things siloed within an organization – no matter the size. I had lunch yesterday with someone who has one team doing his SEO work, one team doing his content development for a corporate blog and one team doing social media community management. And they are not connected – in any way. I didn’t scream (out loud, anyway), but I wanted to. But that’s not really all that unusual. And it actually tells me a lot about those three vendors. If it hasn’t occurred to them that the best results will be produced when all those things are connected – social, SEO and content — well, this individual is working with the wrong people. And with people who don’t have the best interests of him and his company in mind.

Why Social Signals Matter

Social signals are important, and they’re becoming increasingly more so. We base our purchasing decisions on what we find online about a product or service we want to buy or a brand we want to buy from, and we ask our friends what they think about that brand, product or service. Equally as important, social signals show Google how the boatloads of content that is created and shared online is being read, shared, liked, etc. across the web – and those signals are a great indicator of trust and credibility. For instance, if I’m searching for information using the keyword phrase “the importance of a social media policy,” Then Google serves up the following results:

As you can see Paul Chaney, Social Media Today and Marketing Land all come up as reliable sources of information on that search. When I look further, I notice that Paul Chaney, the very first result, is somebody that more than 6,000 people have placed in their Google+ circles. To me, that’s an initial indicator of credibility. I don’t know Paul, and of course you can’t take everything you find online at face value, but a quick check of his company’s corporate website and look at the Google+ page of the person you’re stalking will help verify your source fairly quickly and easily. It also tells me that Paul is someone I’d like to know because we think a lot alike. And, of course both Social Media Today and Marketing Land, are well-respected industry publications and a place I wouldn’t hesitate to go for more information on a topic like this.

Social Signals Are the Fruits of Your Social Networking Labors

Social signals are like thumbs up, or positive reviews, and for people active in the online space and in social media channels, this is one of the rewards for making time to build networks and participate. So, as you’re using social media marketing as part of your integrated marketing strategy, think about the role social signals might play. If you don’t have a legitimately developed strong network, how can you distribute or promote your blog content? How can you get attention (or help) when you want or need it? What good is what you’re doing in the social media space if all you’re doing is a formulaic posting of random content three times daily to Facebook, twice to Twitter and once to LinkedIn? Or even worse, posting concurrently to all sites using what you think is the “easy” button but which those of us who actually do this stuff for a living know is really the “I’m lazy and you’re stupid” button.

Social Media Networks Enhance Your Online Presence Overall

The adage “build your networks before you need them” has never been more accurate than it is today. When I speak at conferences, I often refer to some research Bredin did in 2013 specific to small business owners. Their data showed that small business owners often turn to social media channels to learn about products and services – which isn’t at all surprising. What surprises audiences, however, is that Bredin’s research showed that 20% of SMBs turn to LinkedIn for information, 19% to Facebook or Google+, 18% to YouTube and 15% to Twitter. So my point here is whether you’re a large business or a small one, customers likely behave in the same way. And if you’re putting all your social networking eggs in the Facebook basket, or in any one specific social network to the exclusion of the others, you’re likely missing out on a significant portion of your potential customer base.

We all have different preferences, especially when it comes to social networks. So building a robust presence for you and your brand, on the social networks that make sense given your audience just makes sense. And when it comes to how you appear online, as a brand, as a company, as a seller of anything, the more you’re doing in social media channels, the more you’re engaging with and interacting with your customers and prospects, the more it’s likely to impact how you appear in search.

Social Media Drives Traffic

We run across great blogs all the time that don’t have any readers. And that’s often because the brand is mailing it in when it comes to the social media space. A corporate blog without a social media presence to support it — pretty much doomed to fail. But when you get it – when you “feed” your social media channels with great content and good conversations, when you use social media to build relationships, serve your customers and prospects and make yourself useful to them, it works. And one of the ways you can typically see that working is that you’ll notice your social media sites driving traffic to your website. Some of that traffic will come and go quickly, and if you’re doing it right, some of that traffic will hang around awhile and check you out. And even better, they’ll remember what it is you’re selling they’re in the mood to buy – or they’ll send their friends your way.

So the next time someone comes around wanting to talk with you about SEO services or content marketing services or social media services, ask them some questions about how (or if) one impacts the other. You’ll be able to tell by their responses how knowledgeable they are and you’ll maybe even be able to save yourself some headaches and some money by realizing that it all works together. Content marketing, a strong social media presence and smart SEO. It’s how you win when it comes to leveraging the web to build and grow your business.

Other resources on this topic:

Level 343: Things to Consider When Picking an SEO Firm 
Search Engine Land: 50 Percent of Companies Struggling With SEO Aren’t Integrating Social Media 
Search Engine Land: SEO and Social Media Alignment [Presentation]
Search Engine Journal: SEO After Hummingbird, Panda and Penguin: How Link Building and Content Marketing Are Really Changing

Photo Credit to Lee Odden and TopRank Blog toprankonlinemarketing via Compfight cc