With over 44 session and 74 speakers, this year’s Rainmaker was bigger than ever. Despite the size and the diversity of sessions, we heard a few common themes. Even in our increasingly automated world, each of these trends has a decidedly human focus.

1. Pay attention to what your customer really cares about

In sales, we need to remember to focus on the “why.” As salespeople, our real job is to find those one or two things our customers care about and tie our product to them in a meaningful way.

“You are losing deals over objections to parts of your product that your prospect doesn’t even care about.”Kevin Dorsey, Head of Sales Development and Enablement at ServiceTitan

By the time you’ve presented a solution, your prospect should be able to communicate to you what the ROI of your solution would be to their business.

2. Focus on your customer’s experience

While technical talent is essential, nowadays it’s not hard for rivals to implement competing features in less than 24 hours. The real differentiator is the human connection. Ultimately, sales is about helping people.

“Every company in B2B can get to the outcomes. It’s focusing on the experience that matters.”Derek Grant, VP of Commercial Sales at SalesLoft

3. Practice makes perfect

Most of us heard “practice makes perfect” from piano teachers, coaches, or parents growing up, but it still applies as an adult. More than one Rainmaker session mentioned the importance of a practice or warm-up for those in a customer-facing role.

“You don’t want to practice when you’re supposed to be performing.”Lindsey Nelson, Sales Ops Executive

Here are a few specific ideas we heard:

• Implement recurring sparring – try Fridays when demos are slow anyway.
• Make it a scheduled event for your team rather than a suggestion. If it’s not on the calendar, it won’t happen.
• Have a theme for each sparring session. For example, practice budget objections on Monday, time on Tuesday, gatekeepers on Wednesday, etc.
• Take a video of role-play sessions to observe body language.

4. In-person coaching is still relevant

In our increasingly virtual world, it’s tempting to automate everything – including training. We can’t be so focused on using technology to complete tasks that we lose the human touch. There’s no substitute for coaching and spending time with your team.

“If you don’t teach someone how to have the first meeting, all you’ve done is accelerate the suck.”Richard Harris, Owner of The Harris Consulting Group

5. Slow down

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”Ferris Bueller

No, Ferris didn’t make an appearance at Rainmaker.  He did have the right idea though.  In order to get to where we want to be, sometimes we need to take a step back. Take the time to reflect on your customer’s needs, and go out of your way to share knowledge when them when it makes sense.

When one of our attendees heard a customer and her whole family had the flu, he researched tips for families battling the flu. Rather than pushing to get on her calendar when she returned, this sales rep slowed down and listened to his customer’s needs. A flu article wasn’t relevant to the product the rep was selling, but it was relevant to her need.

If we had to choose one takeaway from Rainmaker this year, it is that the personal element is non-negotiable.  If we can rise above the noise and authentically connect with customers – internally or externally – the rest will fall into place.

The post 5 Trends in Sales, As Heard at Rainmaker appeared first on SalesLoft.

Raise prices strategically, or you’ll lose lots of clients!

In a Slack group for agency leaders, an agency owner asked for advice about how to raise prices at his agency. He wrote:

“Hey guys, I’m curious if you’ve gotten yourself into bad deals where you underpriced yourselves. I’m in at least one deal that we could easily go replace with 50% more revenue because we under priced early on. Is this a case where we just renegotiate the retainer? Work has been excellent.”

It’s hard to raise prices for existing clients—but it’s not impossible. As Director of Client Services at an agency in 2010, I raised prices 32%, losing just one retainer client. You can think of it as a form of upselling.

Here’s a case study of how I successfully raised prices 50% on my primary service—a monthly coaching retainer—in mid-2017. The key is having happy clients who see you getting them results, a strong sales pipeline, and several months to implement the transition.

Pricing strategy: Why I raised prices

Something told me I wasn’t charging enough. I started gathering data.

First, I saw competitors who charged more. Then, I observed my marketing had produced an increase in demand for my coaching services (with high close rates, which are a sign that the price is too low). I finally asked my Advisory Board for feedback—they confirmed my rates were low for the value I provided, and outlined what I’d need to do to increase prices.

Tip: The board’s recommended increase was higher than what I was originally considering. (I picked a number but didn’t share it when I requested their feedback.) Be careful you don’t bias people when you ask for feedback. But they also listed several things I’d need to change to get a bigger increase.

The clincher was when a coaching client mentioned paying a tactical freelancer 2X what he was paying me each month for strategic advice… in the context that the higher amount for tactical support wasn’t expensive.

I decided to charge more in the intake month—when there’s a lot more work for me and value for clients—and soon raised prices for future months, to reflect market value for my level of coaching.

How I framed the increase to prospects

Start by updating your public pricing. My coaching is a productized service, so I updated the prices on the website. If you’re doing primarily custom work, update your Minimum Level of Engagement instead (since you don’t have flat pricing).

There were a few on-the-fence prospects, where we’d already discussed the old pricing. I let them know I’d raised prices, but they could get the old price if they signed-on within six weeks. Did that make a difference? I don’t know, but it felt like the right thing to do.

I decided to combine the coaching price increase with the launch of my new website. That was unexpectedly helpful—I could update the prices on the dev site and reflect on how they “looked.” (They looked high, compared to old prices… but I decided to trust my gut and the data.)

The new site went live in July 2017, new pricing and all.

How I framed the increase to current clients

Now that the new pricing was public, I gave current coaching clients ~5 months’ notice (telling them in our next call that new people were paying $X, but their current pricing was locked-in ’til the end of the year).

My goal was to honor existing commitments and reward loyalty—but also so current clients wouldn’t be surprised later. Prepare to over-communicate—I reiterated the increase during conversations in future months.

I also looked for ways to increase value. For instance, I launched an Agency Resource Library—here’s a redacted copy of what that looks like. I also revamped my monthly coaching agendas, to make them easier to use for clients. I’d previously implemented other changes to improve the effectiveness of coaching.

Creating a special pre-pay bonus

As year-end approached, I created a special offer for current clients: If they pre-paid for coaching in 2018 before the end of 2017, they’d keep the old rate (dating back to late 2015) for those pre-paid months in 2018, and then they’d pay the higher monthly price after that.

Results: Clients said “yes”

Nearly everyone opted to pre-pay at least a couple months, and a couple pre-paid an entire year.

The clients who didn’t pre-pay were typically ones who weren’t maximizing their coaching support. During the process, I’d recommended they switch to on-demand support (albeit at a less-responsive SLA, since they weren’t making the same commitment).

This dropoff created slots for new coaching clients at the higher price point, which I’ve since filled.

Tax bonus for clients

As an additional bonus, pre-paying before year-end gave most clients a tax deduction that combined to create a 45% to 60% discount off the new price (depending on their marginal tax rate).

This wasn’t the first thing I led with—after all, you should only pre-pay when you’re getting value, not because you want tax savings—and I noted they should confirm with their accountant about their situation.

But I made sure to highlight the possibility (for clients with a December tax year-end), since I think about pre-pays as a way to save on taxes—but you shouldn’t assume everyone else thinks like you.

Longer-Term Results

More than half of my on-retainer coaching clients are at the higher price point, and 100% will be at the higher price point as the pre-payments end.

I recognize some people may opt to drop down to hourly on-demand help after the pre-payment ends; that’s OK, because I have a strong sales pipeline. But I’ll miss having as close a relationship with them.

I like my clients. If you don’t like as many of your clients, think about using the price increase as a way to price-out the ones you don’t enjoy helping as much (assuming you have a strategy to replace them).

During coaching sales calls, I’m seeing a somewhat lower close rate than before—in line with my 60% target, and less than the 80% I was seeing before. This confirms that I was under-charging. (If the close rate fell below 50%, I’d have over-reached on the price increase.)

Caveats

Done poorly, a dramatic price increase is a good way to frustrate your clients—and potentially lose a big chunk of revenue.

This strategy might not work as well if:

1. Your clients are generally unhappy. (In contrast, I have an extremely high Net Promoter Score.)
2. You can’t demonstrate your value. (If you can’t at least value-anchor, you’ll struggle to raise prices for current clients.)
3. You have a weak sales pipeline. (Raising prices will likely cost you current clients, so you need to be confident you can replace them.)
4. You just signed clients to new retainers. (If they just agreed to another 6-12 months, they’ll wonder why you’re suddenly bringing this up now.)
5. Everything you do is custom. (My coaching retainer is productized; consulting projects are currently 100% custom.)

What if they want you to justify the increase?

In a followup post after I shared my advice in the Slack group, the original agency owner asked if clients asked for a justification on the price increase.

No one asked me to justify the increase, but that’s partly because clients found value in working with me—and because I pre-framed it as being based on three things:

1. Increased demand.
2. New benefits within the existing services.
3. The fact that the old price was 18 months old, and would be two years old when 2018 started.

Giving several months of advance notice helped, too—it wasn’t a surprise.

Speaking of surprises, I got a few surprise price increases as my increase unfolded. They reinforced some of my choices. Let’s look at how those did and didn’t work.

Empathy: Being on the Receiving End of Price Increases

During this process, I experienced several price increases as the buyer—which gave me extra empathy for what it felt like to hear a big increase as the person paying the bill.

Although I ultimately paid the increased amounts, one increase was framed well while two increases were framed poorly.

Bad Framing: 75% increase… on a month’s notice

A couple months after I announced my price increase for new clients, a key freelancer told me she was raising her rates 75%, starting a month later. That felt really abrupt.

I said “yes” because I needed her help, but it changed how I assigned work. I started shifting some work to a lower-rate person. More recently, it led to hiring an employee to handle things at a lower hourly rate.

I don’t resent the increase—her previous rate was an especially good deal for me. She was going from below-market to market rate. But she could have made it less sudden—which affirmed my plan to give my current clients five months’ notice, along with the pre-pay option to lock in the lower rates for even longer.

It all comes down to value, right?

Bad Framing: 60% increase… due to future increased costs

A key vendor told me she was raising her prices 60%. I knew I’d been getting a special deal, although she didn’t highlight that during the increase discussion.

She framed the increase in terms of her own needs, not mine—that she was doing a certification to provide increased value, and that it would cost her more.

Sorry, but your costs aren’t my problem—don’t include that in your rationale, unless you’ve had people at the same rate for years and your costs have indeed increased.

Good: 50% increase… with a pre-pay bonus

When another freelancer shared that she was raising rates 50% in 2018—but I could keep the old rate on any pre-paid hours—I immediately said “yes”… and then pre-paid even more in late December.

Remember, it’s not just the increase—your success depends on how you frame it. And of course, that clients see you as delivering high-value work.

If clients see you as interchangeable, you’ll struggle to raise prices.

Roundup: How to raise prices for your current clients

Ready to raise prices for current clients? Answer these questions before you proceed.

1. Do our clients see us irreplaceable? If not, fix that first.
2. Are current clients happy working with us? If not, fix that first.
3. Do we have a strong sales pipeline? If not, fix that first.
4. Can we afford a 3-6 month transition period on the increase? If not, you’re going to lose a lot of clients who feel like you burned them.
5. Do you have reasonable talking points to explain the increase? Create those first.
6. Do you have someone objective to confirm whether the increase makes sense? Once you start the increase, you don’t want to stop; it will make clients question your credibility.
7. Can we offer a bonus for clients who pre-pay or otherwise extend their commitment? Can you handle a medium-term drop in revenue in exchange for the short-term increase now?

Be sure to work out your plan, get objective feedback, and prepare for the client and financial implications if things go worse—or better—than you planned.

Question: What are you wondering about before you raise your prices?

Account Based Marketing (ABM) programs rely on a foundation of solid data. Shouldn’t it worry marketers that most data cannot be tracked?

Buyers do a lot more than just open emails and visit websites. They scrawl on whiteboards and in desktop notepads. They reveal their unfiltered thoughts in Slack and in offhanded comments to colleagues. They make phone calls, post on social, search their own intranet, add calendar reminders, and simply have thoughts. These data points constitute the hidden 90 percent of the engagement iceberg that your ABM algorithm can’t detect.

But you would access it if you could, right?

Today, there’s one channel that ABM marketers can tap but aren’t: messaging apps. They’re data-rich, used by all demographics, and projected to eclipse email in total users by 2019. Messengers don’t just have a place in B2B – they’re a key data source that can help fortify your ABM data foundation.

Workplace communication is changing, fast

The consumer world is undergoing a communication renaissance, and it’s frothing over into the workplace. Many of the older generations might cringe at applying the term “renaissance” to Snapchat, but that’s exactly what it is – a cultural rebirth. Video, emojis, GIFs, and face filters have unleashed a flood of nonverbal communication into the spartan world of email.

Text alone leaves much to be desired. Every professional knows the pain of rewriting an email to ensure it won’t be misinterpreted. As one pundit joked, “Does anyone remember when LOL meant ‘laughing out loud’ and not ‘this is to indicate that this brief text isn’t hostile’?” People want clarity. They want to express themselves. More and more, they’re doing it at work.

Many of these new workforce tools look like social networking systems.
– Deloitte

“We are about to go through a massive global shift away from email as we know it and toward conversation-based system such as Slack, G Suite, Workplace by Facebook … and many more,” explains a recent Deloitte whitepaper on the workplace of the future. “Many of these new workforce tools look like social networking systems; they let workers post pictures and create groups and alerts, all within mobile-enabled platforms designed to facilitate team-based communication in ways email can’t match.”

If there’s an ABM marketer who doesn’t drool when thinking about tapping into this reservoir of rich data on buying committees, I’d like to meet them. And for some apps, you already can.

Hold on now. It’s a renaissance, not a revolution

Nothing about the rise of chat apps threatens email. Email is still king and it’s where business happens. We’ll never do away with it. This is more of a Cambrian explosion of communication options. Email is an official, company-hosted ledger where people think deeply before pressing send. Messaging apps are for quick, mobile streams of consciousness.

The big four messaging apps – the top two of which are Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp – overtook the big four social media sites in total users back in 2015. They’ll overtake email by 2019. But, they’re all complimentary. People alternate between emailing and chatting on slack. Many post their reactions to emails on WhatsApp in the form of a GIFs or bitmojis. Some would even prefer to interact with businesses on their preferred messaging app.

Open rates on Facebook Messenger are an unheard-of 90 percent.

Messaging apps are a spam-free sanctuary, and people increasingly want to hear from businesses there. Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp know this and have released a fleet of business tools so consumers and brands can connect.

Where 65% of all email is spam, messaging apps are actually opt-out by default. That means that if people seek communication from a company, they’re actually engaged and interested. This is part of why open rates on Facebook Messenger are an unheard-of 90 percent and why Twitter DMs have a 10x higher response rate than email.

Marketers who understand the messaging impulse understand that there’s an opportunity to build a B2B audience there. Demand generation teams can push out mobile content to busy commuters. Customer marketers can build advocate groups and ask for references. Content marketers can bypass inboxes and increase response rates. All marketers can reach professionals on the channels they love, and, perhaps more importantly, can track that data for ABM.

Closing the messaging app data gap

With a new audience comes a reservoir of new engagement data. 54% of B2B marketers believe that the top challenge to B2B analytics is a lack of system integration. The more marketers can pipe data from new channels like messaging apps into their CRMs and marketing systems, the more accurate their contact and account profiling becomes.

Consider a marketing team that creates an off-email audience on Facebook Messenger where prospective customers go for daily tips and tricks. Subscribers who shy away from email and feel too rushed at work to visit a website may still inhale content on Messenger. Just like the private thoughts, those prospects reveal in their desktop notepad or slack, these interactions can be highly revealing. They can be enough to move an account from unengaged to engaged.

Image Credit: Engagio. Engagement data is only as good as its sources.

Messengers are also a private, one-to-one channel with each and every prospect. Marketers are freed from the staid formality of email and can afford to show some personality. It’s not for every prospect, but for those who appreciate it and gravitate toward messengers, rich-messaging and videos offer a breath of brand-building fresh air. It’s also richer data. Emails may be able to track opens and responses, but can an email marketing system make sense of a “” response and score it accordingly?

The era of messaging will force marketers to adapt. But, it’s less of a challenge and more of an immense opportunity for those marketers who solve the riddle. When they realize that they can fortify their ABM by piping rich messaging data into their CRM and marketing systems, it isn’t a question of whether to track it. It’s one of how to track it.

Before the internet came, a business’s success depended on the people running it. The marketing team would run advertisement campaigns that would go on to sing praises of the brand on billboards, TV, Radio, magazines, and newspapers, influencing a person’s decision to buy the brand’s product or not.

A successful ad campaign meant sales would boom for the business and the marketing team will receive fat incentives, regardless of how good or bad the advertised product was. The buyers would give zero regards to the quality of promoted products and services but the hype and degree of influence the ad campaign generates.

The internet revolution changed the way we perceive a product, service or brand and a great deal of that perception is built around the concept of business reviews or, as they are better known as online reviews.

Online reviews work in the same way the average Joe in your neighborhood does. The same guy who tells everybody around how good the newly opened cake store’s cheesecakes are and, soon, the whole city goes mad over the cheesecakes.

There are thousands of such average Joes scattered over on the internet who review everything from a $1 Pen to $20 million mansion. People read those reviews before making a purchase decision. They no more fall for the hype created by shiny, deceptive ads but reviews of real people in the real world.

Making your customers write reviews

However, writing reviews is a time-consuming process. Not often customers are willing to write a business review for your brand. At times, you have to make them write one for your brand, which isn’t always easy. Review not always sing praises. They have the power to break a brand too so be cautious.

Do your Homework

Image source: www.verticalresponse.com

Many websites list local businesses and lets users rate and review them. Google, Facebook, Amazon, Yelp, Foursquare, all feature user review on their website and an average rating that runs 1-5 Stars. In addition, Manta, Yelp, Angie’s List are also popular business listing websites that attract users’ review.

Moreover, there are various websites that list businesses in a particular category. For example, Zomato only lists restaurant and is a common website and app to visit before dining at a restaurant for the first time. Alibaba, on the other side, lists only business sellers. Moreover, there might be local business listing websites more popular in your area than a famous international player. Watch for them too.

Do your research and build a presence in as many of these websites as possible before actively asking your customers to review your brand. Also, you must develop a business website.

As a rule of hand, a business, if at all seeking online reviews must be present on, at least, Google and Facebook.

Creating a Google My Business page is not at all difficult provided you have a physical address. The same goes for Facebook Page if you have an account with Facebook.

You run a diagnostic to learn where your business is listed already.

Take it easy; be humble

Before I move any further, let me clarify a few things: customers hate writing down reviews and they are under no obligation to write one for your services. It’s up to their discretion to or not to write a review. The least can do is to insist them gently a couple of times. You have to be absolutely patient while pursuing them. They are gonna refuse you a review for no reason whatsoever so keep your temper in check.

Under no condition, should you put them in a position where they feel pressured or they will run away. A humble way would be asking their phone number and text or WhatsApp them links to rate your Facebook, Google, Bing etc. pages. While texting those link, shorten the page links using Google URL Shortener.

Do not do that more than twice a month or people will mark you as spam.

Ask them

An old-school trick that never fails is to ask each customer, personally, to review their purchase, including how they can do that. Some people are going to ignore you, while a few will say yes but will never write a review. However, don’t get your hope down. Some customers are really generous and will write a review if they told you they would.

If you send promotional emails, WhatsApp, and texts to your customers, make a habit to add a link to your business pages in the content and a line “review us on Google…etc.”

If you don’t, subscribe to a mass emailing and SMS tool and start texting and emailing promotions to your customers. For WhatsApp, Facebook has recently introduced WhatsApp for Business. You should definitely enroll.

Show them Rewards

Nothing in this world comes free, your reviews don’t either. You would accuse me of instigating to bribe your customers. But, this is happening everywhere. Google itself has a tool called Google Opinion Rewards that rewards Play Store Credit for writing reviews and filling surveys.

You can provide a number of rewards—a Gift Card or Discount Coupon to every customer who writes you a review for example. You can run SMS and email campaigns to raise awareness about a rewards program and, ultimately, make more people write reviews for you. If you have good engagement and a large number of followers, Facebook and Twitter are also mediums to raise awareness about a rewards-for- review program.

Join a program

There are many digital marketing agencies that carry the aforementioned activities and tricks on a client’s behalf. Once hired, they will run incentive programs, surveys, and many other activities to make a maximum of customers to write a review on your business pages. As professionals, they can achieve your goals in a shorter time and with a higher degree of precision.

A good rating on the internet will bring you more customers even from the other side of the city. Make sure, you’re ready for the rush.

For reasons I don’t understand, the word “sales” still carries a lot of baggage. When I taught at Capital University, I would ask the students to describe salespeople. We would fill up a whiteboard with words like: “pushy,” “selfish,” “aggressive,” persuasive,” “slimy,” and “slick.” They always came up with more words than this sampling, but it’s enough for you to get the picture that they didn’t have a very positive view of sales—or salespeople.

Once we had enough words on the board, I would ask the students to raise their hand if they had a parent in sales, particularly their mother. There were always three or four students with a parent in sales, and one or two were a student’s Mother. Then I asked them why their Mother was all of these terrible things and how they could possibly live with such a monster. The students would laugh and argue that their Mom was the exact opposite of the words on the whiteboard.

There are few things worth noting here as it pertains to the word “sales” and the stereotypical salesperson that point to the disconnect of how sales is perceived and how different salespeople are from the stereotype.

Salespeople are paid for winning. They do not get paid for losing. This is unlike any other role in business, where one is paid no matter what. All of the roles in business are important and necessary, but salespeople have more skin in the game. Losing is expensive. You give up time and energy without getting anything for your effort. Which leads us to the reason salespeople are no longer the wicked brutes of yesteryear.

Because variable compensation structures allow a company to offer higher compensation to people who produce a greater result, the words that describe the stereotype would cause a salesperson to lose deals now. No one has to buy from a pushy, aggressive, high pressure, slick salesperson. These behaviors would almost invariably produce a loss in B2B sales, making them ineffective as a choice one might make were they trying to create a preference to buy from them.

There are very few salespeople who have been taught high-pressure sales tactics over the last few decades, even if there are still some who behave badly. But they are the exception, not the rule. In the future, the negative connotation will not be that a salesperson used high-pressure tactics to try to win a sale, but that they didn’t know anything and wasted their prospective client’s time.

The post Why the Negative Connotation Around Sales Is No Longer True? appeared first on The Sales Blog.

The term "account executive" can mean different things to different people. It's a sales role, yes — but it goes beyond the traditional rep duties of only selling a product or service.

Let’s discuss the background and qualifications of a successful account executive at every level. Plus, hear from Aircall’s Director of Sales for North America, Tommy Jester, on what he looks for when hiring or promoting AEs at his organization.

Simply put, account executives exist to support accounts. And these accounts should be cheaper or more valuable to grow than the cost of acquiring a new account. Let's discuss the background and qualifications of a successful account executive at every level.

How to Be An Account Executive
Junior-Level Account Executive Role
Senior-Level Account Executive Role
Account Executive Responsibilities
Account Executive Salary
Account Executive Job Description

How to Be An Account Executive

While there is no single field of study that directly leads to a career as an account executive, many candidates for this role have a bachelor's degree or higher in a subject such as business administration, communications, or marketing.

Many account executives begin their careers as account coordinators or sales reps before transitioning to an account executive role. Those who are newer to the role — or lack relevant experience — often start as junior account executives.

Lets take a closer look at the role of a junior account executive and the necessary skills to succeed:

Junior account executives typically report to a senior executive on the team. They operate as the link between the client and the company and, as such, must hone the following skills:

• Communication skills — account executives are "people" people. They're adept at kick-starting conversations (both in-person and virtually), building and nurturing relationships, and developing trust. Through experience, they learn how to ask the right questions to get feedback and improve customer satisfaction.
• Negotiation skills — AEs possess sharp negotiation skills when closing new and existing contracts. They bring a healthy dose of patience, active listening, adaptability, and persuasion to the negotiation table.
• Sales skills — since this is a sales role, it's no surprise the best AE's have strong sales skills, including pitching, social selling, public speaking, and more. Ultimately, the goal is to source information on clients, communicate with them effectively, and craft killer value propositions.

Read on to learn more about senior account executives and the steps you can take to eventually become one.

What does it take to cut it as a senior account executive? Here is a handful of key skills and requirements:

1. A proven track record of results.

For obvious reasons, you can't jump into a senior-level position without a proven track record as an account executive.

In fact, your record of hitting targets and driving numbers is the greatest indicator of your impact — according to Tommy Jester, Director of Sales at AirCall.

He told me, "The biggest impact of an AE is the simplest thing: the numbers. It's the number that each person carries at the end of the day. That number contributes to company goals, revenue goals, and pushes the company forward. What more impact can you have than that?"

2. Leadership and management skills.

Individuals in this role are often tasked with managing a team of junior and mid-level account executives. With this in mind, you should have some leadership experience, or express a willingness to participate in management training to refine your skills.

3. Analytical skills.

Senior account executives often set and track targets for their team. Because of this, you must be able to read and interpret data to gauge your team's performance and forecast suitable goals. While data analytics isn't necessarily glamorous, it's critical to pushing your team and company forward.

4. Project management skills.

Account executives at any level need the right set of soft skills to produce results. This includes resourcefulness, adaptability, empathy, and drive — to name a few.

That said, when interviewing candidates for a senior role, Jester specifically looks for those with project management skills.

"As the deals get bigger and more complex, there's going to be a lot more stakeholders that enter the picture. You really need to be a master at setting expectations upfront. This means creating action plans with customers and internal stakeholders, and having checkpoints throughout."

In other words, becoming a senior-level executive requires more juggling of expectations, timelines, and action plans. To advance into your career, look for opportunities where you can flex this skill.

Here are the five main responsibilities of an account executive:

1. Grow accounts.

How will you know when it's time to grow an account? These opportunities are often linked to compelling client events such as a company acquisition, closing a round of funding, or hiring a new executive.

It's not enough to navigate existing accounts and react when customers need you. It's also about creating opportunities. According to Jester, having empathy and curiosity is the best way to get the job done.

"Customers can smell from a mile away when you're reaching out because the renewable date is approaching. You don't want them to feel like you're only reaching out because you need something," he tells me.

He continues, "You really need to be that internal champion for your customer. You need to be authentic with your approach and how you're maintaining relationships after that initial point of sale. What are you doing behind the scenes? How are they doing? How is their experience? What are they struggling with?"

Additionally, leadership should remember to tie account executives to goals around account retention and growth.

For example, an account executive's goal might be to grow an account by 15% next year. That 15% growth is what their commission should be tied to. An account executive might be paid for new sales — but only if they've met their requisite retention goals.

Are you an Aircall customer? Click here to sign up (or get started) for free with HubSpot, or get 20% off eligible HubSpot products.

2. Eliminate competitive threats.

Account executives are in front of so many people, it's important for them to be vigilant of competitors. AE's jobs should be to ensure competitors can't call a business where they don't already have a relationship.

How do you achieve this? Part of an account executive's strategic thinking should be, “If a competitor wanted to poach this account, what would their shortest path to success look like?”

Are they working with a team you've never spoken to? Do they have an offering your company does not? If the answer to either of these questions is, “yes,” take immediate action to open a dialogue with out-of-reach teams, and work with product to build these offerings into your roadmap.

These proactive steps benefit the customer and the vendor. They're a lot of work, but this type of strategic thinking is how great AEs grow accounts and stay one step ahead of the competition.

3. Maintain customer satisfaction.

Documentation is key to success here. Whether quarterly or monthly, AEs should seek regular customer feedback on their organization is doing as a vendor. These questions shouldn't only be about what's broken and how it can be fixed. They should probe how the customer feels about the vendor on an emotional level.

Always ask for a grade. For example, “How would you grade our ability to provide strategic suggestions that contribute toward ongoing growth?” Your customer should provide a grade on a scale of A through F. As AE, your job is to ask why you were given the grade you received -- and to understand anything lower than a B is really an F.

If you're given a bad grade, resist the temptation to correct immediately. You're probably not getting a poor rating because you slipped up one time. It's important to understand how your company's performance and service has been contributing to this grade over the past weeks and months.

Then, set realistic expectations. If your customer gave you a C, don't try to get that grade up to an A+ in seven days. Instead, tell your customer, “We're scheduled for another call in X weeks. What can I do to get this grade up to a B- within that time frame?”

Your goal is to make sure your customer feels heard. Be patient, listen, and take baby steps forward.

4. Establish new accounts.

The role of an account executive goes beyond keeping current clients happy. Depending on their organizational goals and the company's sales targets, account executives are often responsible for bringing in new business as well.

Account executives use their sales knowledge and prospecting skills to attract new clients and create more business for their company. Skilled account executives are able to time the acquisition of new client accounts and projects accordingly with expiring accounts to offset dips in revenue.

If your company is having a hard time renewing client accounts or acquiring new business, bringing an account executive on board to recruit new clients can be a worthwhile option.

5. Collecting and analyzing data.

An account executive can also manage the collection and analysis of pertinent data about your industry to help your company achieve the ideal service mix and set the right growth targets.

As the account executive seeks out new clients, they should make their decisions based on sound data. Analysis can include information about client behavior and lifecycle, industry trends and growth potential for each new account. This data should inform decisions regarding your company's overall sales strategy.

How much does an account executive make?

The average salary of an account executive is $68,490 per year in the United States and $20,000 commission per year.  That said, the salary range is wide and hinges on a number of factors, including location, industry, and years of experience.

For instance, a small company may pay a junior account executive $40,000 or less, whereas a senior account executive working for a larger company in a high-paying industry — such as software and health care — could make $200,000 annually or more.

Ready to hire an account executive? Use the job description below to get started.

In addition to the job description above, here are some additional account executive responsibilities to include in the job description:

• Educate and guide prospects through the buying process
• Manage a pipeline of qualified leads to build relationships with potential customers
• Work with existing key accounts to retain and grow their business
• Secure deals with new and existing customers at or above goal
• Work cross-functionally with marketing and product teams to develop sales strategies for new and existing products

Account executives are can be a large investment for your company, but if the need is truly there, having an account executive on hand can be valuable.

Back to You

Honestly assess whether you have the customer base and team infrastructure in place to support this position. When you do, make sure your AE is curious, proactive, and strategic in their approach.

Effective sales qualification allows for well-informed, consistently successful sales — on both individual and broader organizational levels. It's central to putting salespeople in touch with prospects who will be receptive to their efforts and ultimately inclined to buy.

But standard qualification techniques aren't always enough to discern productive leads from ones who are bound to go nowhere. Sometimes, you need to think more dynamically and take a more novel approach — and in some cases, those tactics are hiding in plain sight.

To help you out, we’ve spoken to some experts for their sales qualification tips that you can use to nail down leads and close more deals.

1. Assign homework after introductory conversations.

Deanna Povec, VP of Operations at Media Junction, says that an overlooked tactic is assigning homework to leads at the end of your conversations. She says “If I send them a video or read a post, are they invested enough to take 10 minutes to look over them?”

As she says, if a lead takes the time to look over this information, it’s probably safe to say that they’re interested. They care about the potential value you can provide them, and they’re curious to see if the additional information will supplement what you’ve already shared with them.

2. Qualify the business’s needs first.

Mintis Hankerson, HubSpot's Director of Revenue Strategy, says that an overlooked sales qualification tactic is to focus on qualifying the business’ needs first. She thinks that sales representatives often focus on asking “Can you sign by x date?” when they should be asking “When do you need to see results?”

When you ask this question, the lead's response will help you understand the severity of the business need and how eager they are to obtain a solution. You can prescribe a start date and ask if the timeline is achievable, and any hesitancy will let you know that they may not be ready to commit to a solution yet.

Hankerson says “If you qualify for the business need that is leading to a purchase you ensure that the prospect has the same urgency and priority level on making a purchase to solve their business pain.”

Essentially, by giving them a set start date you’re letting them know that you’re ready to proceed with next steps. If they aren’t yet ready to buy and are still in the decision stage, you’ll likely sense uncertainty on their side or they’ll simply say “No that doesn’t work for us.”

3. Reference previous conversations.

As nice as it would be, deals aren’t usually closed after one single conversation with a lead. However, the length of your conversation cycle is actually a valuable tool for qualifying your leads.

If you reference parts of previous conversations when speaking with prospects, you can get a sense of how they’ve retained information, what has (or hasn’t) resonated with them, and whether they’ve put additional thought into your conversation. If they haven’t retained much, or display signs of not understanding your first conversation, it might be a clear indicator that they aren’t as serious as you are.

Povec says that, when she uses this strategy, the goal is to see if they can effectively regurgitate how HubSpot can help them. If they can’t do this, she says “It might be a clear indicator that they are not ready yet and it might be time to part ways.”

4. Conduct pre-research.

Pre-research is the opposite of qualification tactics like cold calling. Rather than reaching out to prospects you’ve never had contact with and don’t know anything about, it involves uncovering all possible information you can get on a specific lead before making contact.

Povec, says "Doing pre-research by asking yourself questions like ‘Does the company fit the mold of our target audience?’ If yes, I can confidently make a call and know that the conversation will be more of a discussion of how I can help their business, rather than a bit of an educational phase."

Doing this gives you a segue into a conversation with a customer and, rather than pitching to them from position zero, you already know about their business and how you can serve them.

You can make a compelling case to the prospect you’re calling, emailing, or visiting at their place of work. You already know that you have something of value to offer them — more specifically, you’re not pitching blindly.

Networking is a common strategy for acting on the information you’ve collected during pre-research. It’s a form of sales canvassing, and it typically occurs at events that salespeople attend because they know prospective customers will be there. If there’s a guest list available, obtaining this information beforehand can help you prepare for potential customer interactions.

5. Leverage social media.

Social media can likely be used by all teams within your organization, from customer service to sales. Like the tip mentioned above, working with your marketing teams can help you use social media as a means of prospecting. One of the strategies worth considering is called social listening.

Social listening is the process of monitoring your business’s social media channels, and different channels in general, for mentions of brand-related keywords, topics, or mentions of competitors.

By doing this, you can create lists of those who are actively engaging in conversations about your business — these people may be future customers. You’ve pre-qualified them as potential leads, and seeing their tweets is a form of warm outreach that gives you an understanding of who they are before you initiate further contact.

6. Ask customers about their frustrations.

Asking customers about their pain points gives valuable information about the needs they’re hoping to get addressed. Asking customers about their frustrations provides more information than just their pain points — it gives specific insight into what is frustrating them about their current solution and the challenge they’re hoping to solve.

You can think of it like this: a customer can tell you that their current pain point is a long and drawn-out marketing process that they’d like to streamline. This is great information, and you can easily position your software as an all-in-one solution. However, asking them about their frustrations may give you more insight into the specifics of what’s bothering them, rather than an overarching understanding.

When you delve deeper into their pain points and understand their frustrations, you’ll uncover the minute details of their current challenges. This makes it easier to qualify your leads and position your product as a solution to their specific, individual needs.

7. Get them to explain their history.

Every qualification conversation is the end result of some sort of sequence — a chain of events that brought a lead to you. That's why asking leads about their past actions can be a massive help. Doing so sheds light on whether they fit your buyer persona, allowing you to meet them at their stage of need.

For example, asking the question, “Have you ever tried to solve your problem before?” gives insight into how serious their pain points are and if they have a current solution in place.

If they respond to this question and say that they have never tried to address their needs before, they may be looking for solutions from other companies as well — in that case, you wouldn‘t qualify this lead as ready to buy and pitch a deal because they likely haven’t made concrete, final-stage decisions.

If that lead comes across a better solution, they might not pan out — so you wouldn't want to prioritize that relationship and possibly waste your time.

However, if a lead tells you that they have tried to address their needs before and switched between multiple different services, you get a more holistic view of their history. They’re likely in need of an immediate solution, and understanding the reasons why they’ve moved between solutions lets you know the specific attributes they’re looking for and what you’ll use to sell them on your tool.

Diversify Your Qualification Strategy

All in all, the process of qualifying leads is a pillar of successful selling. Without knowing who your customers are and if they’re even likely to buy from you, creating a thoughtfully tailored, effective sales strategy for them becomes impossible.

These tips from HubSpot experts can give insight into high-quality sales qualification tactics that will allow you to succeed in your processes and close more deals.

In our recent blog, we discussed how to write a highly personalized cold email in three simple steps.

Today, we’re sharing 7 cold email templates from our archives that you can use to generate new potential customers.

Of course, every company is different but the below email templates should be a good starting point to use irrespective of the industry.

Use hyper-personalized email to decision makers

A well-crafted personalized cold email stands out from the hundreds of generic cold emails your recipients receive each day. And there are huge chances that it will produce the results you want – a response or a meeting with the prospect.

One way to personalize emails is by looking at their website/product and finding out what’s currently wrong with their system. Once you’ve nailed the pain points, you get to be the hero and fix it.

Here’s an example of a highly personalized cold email sent from one of our salespeople.

Takeaways:

Address the right recipient: Your research should not limit to just the company but should also include finding the right recipient to contact in the organization. Make it clear why you’re reaching out to them as opposed to anyone else in their company. According to the data shared by Tucker Max on the Harvard Business Review website said that “people are far more motivated to help others when they feel uniquely qualified to do so.”

Show (not tell) the value: One great way to grab the recipient’s attention is to show them how your solution can help provide value. Get creative. Add a screenshot of their website/product or a short video that shows how they can benefit from using your product. Giving the value early in your outreach process shows that you value the lead’s time and they don’t have to hang with you in case they aren’t looking for a similar solution.

Cold email template:

Hi {recipient name},

I am reaching out to you because being the {recipient’s current role}, I was certain you would know more about the current process in place at your company for {which department}.

Like we’ve helped {your existing customer}, I felt you might be interested in improving your {the biggest challenge for the prospect}.

I did a fair amount of research on your company’s {current system} and I’m sharing a few of my thoughts here which could help you save {the benefit your product offers}:

<screenshot of their web page>

1. I noticed that {state the current problem and how it can be better}.
2. {state the current problem and how it can be better}

I’d love to share a few more ideas with you and spend more time in understanding your current process.

{recipient name}, could we spend 15 mins this week to chat about this?

Get in touch with your competitors’ customers

To grow your customer base, you also need to get in touch with your competitors’ customers. Many businesses are dissatisfied with their current solution, and if you’re able to jump in and offer your solution at the right time, then there is an opportunity for a sale.

Sending emails to your competitor’s customers can also be quite tricky. You need to craft an effective cold email that doesn’t bad mouth about the competitor or comes across as being jealous.

Here’s an example of an email we sent out to one of our competitors’ customers.

Takeaways:

Maintain a casual email tone: The tone of your cold email matters, especially when you are unfamiliar with the company and recipient. Using boring, rigid and sales-y language isn’t going to coax them to do business with you. Instead, use a casual and conversational tone to get them excited and interested in your solution.

What’s in it for them: Your email should clearly state the benefit the lead would gain by moving from your competitor. Tell them what makes you different and why should they opt for your solution. Share some materials to prove your point, but make sure you don’t come across as sales-y or too pushy.

Cold email template:

Hi {recipient’s name},

Firstly, let me state that as the {designation of the recipient} of {company’s name}, you must be getting a bunch of emails and deleting most of them just as I do.

The primary reason I am reaching out to you is to discuss your {your competitor name} environment. I assist organizations to transition over from {your competitor’s name} to {your company name} with {what benefit do they gain}.

We have added over {the number of customers} with a healthy percentage being known, trusted {their industry sector}.

I believe I could be of value to your business and would love to work with you. Are you available for a 15 minutes meeting on Friday?

Re-engage with prospects gone cold

There is nothing more frustrating to watch a once-piping hot lead going cold as ice. You know the prospects are reading your emails, they are looking at your website (thanks to CRM!), but for some reason, you can’t seem to get a response. We’ve all been there, right?

But hey, just because a promising prospect went cold on you doesn’t mean they are dead. You can always revive old opportunities by warming them up and putting them back into your sales campaigns.

Here’s an example of an email we sent out to those leads who signup but didn’t proceed with further action.

Takeaways:

Add a little bit of humor: Most people like laughing – so make them laugh! Add a meme or funny emoticons to crack them up. Adding a little bit of fun to your cold email isn’t going to hurt, and it almost always works.

Follow up till they respond: Not all cold leads are going to turn into hot customers. But as a salesperson, you need to qualify or disqualify them as soon as possible. It’s not worth spending time on leads who are never going to become your customers. For that, you need to follow up with your recipients until you get a reply, even if it’s ‘No, I’m not interested.’

Cold email template:

Hi {recipient name},

I hope you are doing great It’s been a while since we were in touch.

{recipient’s company name} had trialed with {your product name} for their {what function did they use the product for} in the past. I would love to reconnect with you and your team to better understand why you had moved away from the same

We have made some market breaking innovations since you had signed up and partnered with some big names like {customer 1} and {customer 2} too. Let’s have a quick chat sometime next week, {recipient’s name}?

I would be more than happy to show you those innovations, Monday (January 16th) at 10:00 am sounds good for you?

Use social proof to win over prospects

Just by rattling about the benefits of your product isn’t going to entice prospects to spend their precious time with you. You need to build credibility with the prospect, for them to take you seriously and consider buying from you. And one of the ways to do that is by adding social proof in your cold email.

Mention names of your well-known customers who share the same buyer’s persona, pain, and priorities. You can also mention your investors or shared LinkedIn connections to win your recipient’s trust.

Takeaways:

Keep it short and crisp: A long introduction, bragging about your company not only makes your email harder to read but also makes recipients lose interest faster. Instead get straight to the point and explain everything that you want in the first two sentences. Use simple language and short sentences so that it’s easy for prospects to scan it and understand the meat of your cold email.

Maintain an email structure: Your cold email should have a great opener, your objective, social proof and a call to action in separate paragraphs. If a paragraph exceeds more than 2-3 lines, break it up by using bullet points.

Cold email template:

Hi {recipient’s name},

My name is {salesperson’s name} and I am the {designation} for {your company name} in the {region of the prospect}. {a sentence about what your company does}

{customer 1, 2, 3} have all moved to {your product} in Q3 to help with:

1. {benefit 1}
2. {benefit 2}
3. {benefit 3}
   And much more

I would love to get on a short call with you for a quick review of your current systems and how we can help.

Send help with useful resources

When you get emails from a stranger asking for your precious time, do you oblige? Well, in most cases, we don’t. That’s the case with your recipients as well, where you are the stranger to them.

So instead of always asking for the lead’s time, share some useful resources that will help them learn more about your solution. Send some of your best blogs that they can consume and also share on their social network. If they like what they see, they will also give you a time to call.

Takeaways:

Share relevant content: These emails work because you are giving them the value even before they ask for it.

Leave communication open: In this case, you aren’t pushing for a sale or asking for their time. Instead, you are giving them an option to get in touch with you, which increases their desire to do.

Cold email template:

Hi {recipient name},

{congratulate them on their recent success}

I work with {your company name}. I would love to connect with your {person in charge of implementing the service you are selling} to understand your current processes and suggest how {your product name} can add value to {recipient’s company name}.

I am listing a few features below that might interest you,

1. {resource 1}
2. {resource 2}
3. {resource 3}

I will be looking forward to hearing from you, thanks in advance.

Create a hook with helpful information

Sharing some helpful information about the prospect’s industry not only grabs their attention but also creates a hook to introduce your solution.

Here’s an example of such an email.

Takeaways:

Use stats to get their attention: Using performance stats in your cold emails catches attention and creates an aura of authenticity. It also serves as a hook to introduce your solution.

Nail your CTA: When you end your email with “Are you free to talk next week?”, your prospects aren’t going look for a convenient date and time on their calendar to talk to you. Instead, make the decision a lot easier for them by giving them a specific date and time. It reduces the stress of having to look at the calendar and think which date would work for both of you.

Cold email template:

Hi {recipient name},

As the {title of the recipient}, I thought you might find this stat interesting.

{add a recent study about the recipient’s industry}

With this rapid growth in {recipient’s industry}, I’ve had the opportunity to work with companies like {customer 1} and {customer 2} in the {region of the recipient} by improving their {the result of using your product} with {your product name}.

{recipient name}, it would be great if we can get on a short 10-minute call on Friday at 2:00 pm?

The Generic email template

Yes, personalized emails works. But it’s also time-consuming.

Your outreach lead list not only has decision makers but also involves influencers and the ones below them. And when you send out emails to the latter group, you don’t necessarily have to hyper-personalize it.

Here’s an example of one of our generic emails.

Takeaways:

Validate yourself: When you get emails from a stranger, you want to know who is that person and why they matter to you. Any form of social proof – a famous customer, an investor, or a mutual LinkedIn connection – helps to build your credibility and trust with the prospect.

Show you have the expertise: Listing out the customers who share similar persona, pain and priorities shows that you have the expertise and builds your credibility.

Cold email template:

Hi {recipient name},

Does {recipient’s company name} have an effective {product domain} strategy for this quarter?

I work with {the recipient’s company vertical} across {recipient’s region} to implement {product domain} strategies across the organization to utilize a more automated, efficient and user-friendly {department which uses your product}. {A line about your company}

We’ve helped organizations like the {customer 1}, {customer 2}, {customer 3}, and {customer 4} consolidate tools ({the features you have to offer}) to improve {the benefit of your product for the organization}.

Do you have 5-10 minutes this week for a brief call to determine if it makes sense to talk further?

(P.S.- Here is a testimony of how we are helping {customer 5})

These 7 cold ‘situational’ email templates are a great starting point to send emails to your leads. Get creative and add your own spin to make it your own. But always remember, cold emails are most effective when they are personalized to the recipients. When you take the time to learn about your prospects and personalize your emails, you will see better results.

iStock

As we stated in our post How to Design Product Displays at Trade Shows, 78% of exhibitors attend trade shows to showcase products. Launching a new product at a trade show is the best way to maximize exposure and connect directly with consumers.

The right show, a carefully plotted marketing campaign and product-friendly exhibit will help you leverage trade shows to showcase products and increase sales.

Discover how to prepare for a product launch at your next trade show with these helpful steps!

Choose the Right Event

Not all face-to-face marketing events are created equal. Some are larger than others, some are product focused and others are geared towards networking and workshops. It is your job to find the right show to unveil your product to the world.

Finding the correct show can be tricky, especially if you are in an industry with a lot of events taking place each year. When launching a product it is best to look for an event that your core group of potential clients will likely attend. Attending an event with the most potential buyers gives your booth staff the opportunity to gather as many leads as possible.

Make sure that the selected trade show gives enough lead time for the product to be fully developed and tested. When the show hall doors open, the product and your team should be ready for demonstrations and attendee interaction.

Another helpful strategy to choose the right show is to monitor news about competitors and other big names within your industry. It may make sense to avoid launching a product at a show with many new products announcements that may overshadow your own launch. Or, it may make sense to launch where the action is, which is why it pays to research and monitor.

Product-Conscious Booth Design

Now that the brand new product is created, it will need a trade show booth home!

From start to finish, the effort that went into developing a product should go into designing an exhibit that highlights its features. Dynamic exhibits integrate products, giving attendees a first-hand experience that beats a brochure or video presentation any day.

Before jumping into booth design, consider how attendees will interact with the new product. For instance, if attendees can use your product during the show, make sure it is fully functional, taking into account any electrical power needs. If the product is display-only, sophisticated shelving or display cases can go a long way in elevating your product.

Set aside space for product demonstrations, contests and other promotional events to take place inside your booth. Plan for where your audience will stand (or provide seating!) to view the demonstration. Keep the audience’s comfort and the product’s visibility at the forefront when designing a functional space.

Additionally, add banner stands or other portable booth elements announce, promote and explain the new product. These smaller booth elements can entice passersby to inquire about a new product. Plus, these elements can be easily updated or replaced for future new product launches.

If you have an existing trade show booth that cannot meet the needs of your product launch, consider renting an exhibit. Rental exhibits are typically a third of the cost compared to what it would take to commission a new booth.

Stock photo

Pre-Show Marketing

Now that the details are falling into place, you can begin to focus on the product launch promotion.
Create a strategy to build excitement surrounding the new product in the months leading up to the show.

It can be helpful to plan each outreach effort around progress in the product development process. For example, share updates when the product is almost finished and again when it is ready to be the star of the show.

Pre-show marketing campaigns should focus on highlighting key points of your new product launch, including product features and benefits, promotional offers and more. Utilize email, social media, public relations and advertising to amplify the reach of your campaign. Reach out to industry magazines and publications with a press release that gives readers an inside perspective about your product development and promotes your brand as a thought leader.

Monitor feedback from customers, listening to their comments and concerns about your new product. Answering their questions will prepare your staff for conversations on the show floor, and help your product development team to work out any bugs before the show.

Using a Landing Page as Your Product Launch Home Base

We live in a digital age, so we all know just how crucial a role the internet plays in information gathering. If you are planning to launch a product, you will need a well-designed landing page that consumers can easily find or be directed to.

This landing page should contain as much relevant information as possible. Not necessarily about your product (you may want to keep those details a secret until launch), but rather information on release dates, what event/show you will unveil the product at and so on.

It is best practice to begin planning for your event at least three months in advance. You should also build your landing page around the same time. You want to give your landing page enough time to generate leads and build a buzz around your event. A hastily-built landing page created too close to the actual event will not only limit its time to collect leads, but it will also limit your ability to promote your event and product.

With a strong landing page comes the need for engaging and informative digital content. If you have white papers, e-books, videos, podcast or other digitally accessible content relevant to your product, make sure to have them available for your visitors on your landing page.

Additionally, this landing page can be used for updates during the event, providing an additional resource for your audience to stay informed.

How to Use Social Media to Build Excitement Leading up to a Show

In the weeks leading up to your product launch, leverage social media to build excitement around your event.

If the product is already unveiled, communicate ways that your product makes life easier for consumers, including situational product contexts, benefit-based messaging and case studies.

On the other hand, if you want to build hype for a product unveiling, give teasers and engage followers by asking them to guess about the latest product features. Do this using the event hashtag to build anticipation among followers and show attendees alike.

Additionally, post complete event details about when and where your business plans to unveil your new product. Include the show name and hashtag, as well as your booth number in all posts and demonstration or unveiling schedules.

In terms of platforms, Twitter and Facebook are the two most popular platforms for reaching consumers in real-time. Depending on your target audience, LinkedIn can also be used to connect with industry professionals that will potentially be at the show.

On all platforms, it is important to link posts to pages where followers can learn more about the new product-features and details on the product launch, such as a landing page and digital assets.

Promoting a Product Launch at the Show

The show doors open and the action begins, but your exhibit feels too quiet. Not to worry, here are few ways to drive traffic to your product launch.

Product Demonstration

Pre-show marketing has made attendees eager to learn more about your product and see how it works. Hold product demonstrations throughout the show to increase buyer interest and generate qualified leads. Incorporate thoughtful ways to engage attendees while they learn more about the features and functions of your latest product. This will help drive excitement and make your product and brand more memorable.

Giveaways, Samples & Contests

Offering free samples, free product raffles or limited time sales promotions could be the perfect way to promote your product launch at the show. Announce a contest or giveaway on social media during the event to drive traffic to your booth, and encourage winners to share about their experiences on social media page for added exposure.

Post-Show Follow Up

After everything has been packed up and the show closes, the value of connecting face-to-face with your customers remains one of the biggest trade show perks. Because you’ve spent a significant amount of time and money preparing for the show, it is important to quickly follow up with leads through combined sales and marketing efforts.

Continue to promote your product launch with photos and videos of your product in action via social channels, an updated landing page, e-blasts and more. Now that the product is launched, you can leverage these resources to help your sales team sell to wider audiences.

Remember, trade shows are a significant financial investment, so maximize the benefits by quickly converting leads into sales after the show. Timely follow-ups will reinforce connections established at the event and improve your overall return on investment.

We Can Help

For more help with the trade show planning process, download Nimlok’s Ultimate Trade Show Planning Checklist, which outlines common “to-do” items in the months leading up to and after an event. From reserving booth space to promoting your presence at the show, this checklist will help you juggle your trade show to-do list and ensure you never miss a deadline.

What is the real ROI of social selling in a global company like SAP? With social selling still being relatively new, it’s hard to tell because there are few baseline standards to compare against. But the SAP team is creating innovative ways to measure social selling. The theme of this fifth and final episode of this UpClose series is how SAP is measuring Social Selling ROI. You’ll hear from Kirsten Boileau – Global Head of Regional Engagement & Social Selling Michael Labate – Head of Program Development & Operations for Social Selling, and Arif Johari (AJ) – Global Head of Communication and, Social Selling for SAP.

SAPs 3 Pronged Approach To Assessing Social Selling ROI

So far, it’s been difficult to measure the direct ROI of social selling in most companies. The data and knowledge of how to assess social selling efforts simply haven’t existed. But at SAP, that’s no longer the case. They have determined 3 key indicators that enable them to assess the effort sales teams are making in social selling.

First, is the SSI or Social Selling Index provided through LinkedIn Sales Navigator. It enables the leaders to assess the levels of activity salespeople are engaging in on social. Second is the issue of attribution, an attempt at assessing how the salespeople are attributing their lead generation and pipeline activity to their social behaviors. And finally, SAPs leadership is considering the value metrics behind the sales pipeline and revenue, things such as conversion rates, acceleration rates, and run rates. Combined, this 3 pronged approach to measuring the ROI of social selling gives SAP a clearer picture of what’s happening.

Be sure you listen to hear how SAP is setting the standard for the measurement of social selling ROI.

Social Selling Behaviors Are The Key To Assessing Social Selling ROI

Because the way B2B buyers make purchase decision has changed – and much of that change revolves around social media or digital activity – the way sales success is measured has to change as well. Rather than assessing numbers of calls and appointments made, criteria have to be determined to show what’s happening via the connections made through social. Companies need to know whether sellers are achieving better or worse numbers when social selling behaviors are involved.

SAP is on the cutting edge of assessing social selling ROI. The company’s leadership teams are trying to understand the issue of causation between social sales behaviors and sales success, not just correlations between the two. Listen to learn more of how SAPs team is assessing the impact of social behaviors on deal size, win/close rates, and lost and discontinued leads.

An Effective Internal Communication Strategy Keeps SAPs Social Selling Success Rolling

In any sales program, success stories need to be told – especially to those key stakeholders who have a vested interest in the sales program. These might be Executives, Sales Trainers & Program Managers, or the Trainees themselves. When the training efforts and sales approaches being used are shown to be successful, everyone is motivated to be a part of the program because they can see that it’s working.

The SAP team’s internal communication strategy includes bi-monthly calls between departments where those featured in the company’s social selling success stories are publically rewarded and recognized, and where data is shared to show how sales are increasing as a result of social selling.

Good communication about the ROI of the social selling program keeps SAPs marketing and sales teams moving forward with confidence and motivation.

A New Approach To Measurement Using Social Selling Key Indices

Now that social selling has been around for a few years, successful companies need to discover better ways to measure its effectiveness. This will enable the leadership to train social selling behaviors that are proven to really work. The SAP sales teams have created their own ways of measuring social selling success through using indexes as a comparison for sales performance.

These Social Selling Key Indices give salespeople an idea of how they perform compared to the indexes in categories like sales conversions, speed to close, average deal size, and more. Those who are found to be underperforming those indexes are provided additional training and support. The sellers who are overperforming the indexes are asked to share what they are doing so others can learn, grow, and become more successful.

Featured on This Episode

• SAP
• Kirsten Boileau on Twitter: @kirstenboileau
• Kirsten Boileau on LinkedIn
• Michael Labate on Twitter: @michealnlabate
• Michael Labate on LinkedIn
• Arif Johari on Twitter: @arifjohariali
• Arif Johari on LinkedIn

Outline of This Episode

• [1:00] The means SAP uses to measure ROI of social selling
• [5:24] Reassessing the things to evaluate to get a good view of ROI on social selling
• [7:21] Measuring social selling efforts on a deeper level
• [12:40] The communication strategy for sharing the success stories internally
• [17:41] A specific approach to measurement at SAP in 2018
• [23:36] The future outlook for social selling and digital sales transformation

By Avtar Ram Singh, {grow} Contributing Columnist

A persistent marketing best practice is to niche-down and create micro-target markets. Today, I’m going to explain why that might not be a good idea.

A couple of decades ago, if you wanted to target an affluent demographic, you’d print flyers and have them snail mailed to the expensive neighborhoods in the city.

Today, with the micro-targeting possibilities that search engines and social networks offer, targeting “the rich” is considered silly and “too broad.” Since Facebook and Google offer you far more intricate targeting features, why not use them?

So we end up with situations like this:

• Target consumers aged 25-30, that live in a specific location, have engaged with your page in the last 30 days, have bought a product from you in the last 90 days, have watched two specific videos to 50% completion and have visited a particular product page in the last 7 days.
• Target consumers that have visited your product page and the pricing page in the last 7 days, have seen your product video to 75% completion, have initiated a checkout on your website but haven’t completed it, and have in the last 180 days spent at least $200 on your website.

If you’ve got the right tracking pixels and conversion events set up on your Facebook ads account, you can most definitely do this.

But just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you should.

In all likelihood, doing the above for most marketers will lead you to targeting perhaps 1,000 people in the first instance, and about 200 in the second.

The cost of targeting a granular niche audience is actually pretty high, and let’s be honest, even if you put those filters on your targeting, what does it really mean?

A Little Detail is Enough Detail

If you’re looking to target a highly engaged audience, simply targeting people that have watched a few of your videos to a significant completion rate should be enough. If you’re looking for high converting and high value audiences – targeting people with an AOV (Average Order Value) of $250-$350 from your e-commerce store is enough.

Just because specific features are available to us, doesn’t mean that we have to use them. Just because Facebook and Google allow us to do something, doesn’t mean doing so is always a good idea.

With the level of intricacy and the depth of targeting available to us, a greater danger arises. Our focus on finding micro-audiences leads us to ignore the true marvel in marketing – the content and the value being delivered to the audience.

Audience Insights vs Business Insights

I’ve always believed that micro-audiences never reveal a business insight about your product’s messaging, value proposition, consumer journey or design. If a micro-audience of 800 people converts well – the insight or learning in all likelihood – is particular to that very specific audience.

They’re audience insights, not business insights.

They’re along the lines of, “People that view multiple pieces of content to a high completion rate convert 4x better than a cold audience”. That’s actually a pretty obvious discovery, and a hypothesis that you technically shouldn’t have to test.

On the other hand, if you’re targeting a wide audience of 250,000 people – and you discover that when testing eight different messages, the click-through on a particular message and value proposition was a lot higher, you end up with an observation along the lines of, “People convert 5x better when product feature X was highlighted”.

That’s a business insight.

It adds value to more than just the marketing team in your organisation.

One could argue that you can test eight different messages across eight different audiences, and potentially come up with the same conclusion. But think about the cost of doing so in terms of time, effort, and money.

Focus on the Message, and the Value Delivered

Targeting consumers with incredible specificity is not an excuse for tardy and poorly planned communications and creative. It’s dangerous to believe that because you’re getting so specific with your audience and you know they’re interested in your product, you can get away with shoddy messaging.

You might actually end up hurting your brand more than building it. Imagine if this person — an avid consumer of your product — receives a piece of content from you that’s poorly thought out. They’ll begin to think less of your brand, and you might actually end up alienating them.

Many marketers are focused on niche-targeting and playing with very specific targeting at the expense of creative content, but your focus should be on delivering exceptionally high consumer experiences with great creative to help you stand out in a sea of sameness.

It’s always worked, and it will always work.

Don’t Throw Micro-Targeting Out the Window

I’m not dissing the ability to micro-target. I’ve used it on many campaigns over the last few years and enjoyed success in the majority of cases. Knowing when to use specific targeting however, is key.

• Micro-targeting, as much as possible, should be behaviour based.
• If you’ve just put up a post on your blog in the “tech” category, targeting people that have previously visited articles in that category on your blog and are in the top 25% in terms of “time spent” on your website is a micro-targeting execution that makes sense.
• Micro-targeting is useful to help someone complete a step in a specific journey, such as complete signing-up (if they stopped mid-way) or initiate a checkout (if they abandoned a high value basket).
• Micro-targeting can be useful to test a specific hypothesis about a particular audience and introduce a shift, such as in your low value members or passive high value members.

You get the gist.

Quite often, a fair number of tools and possibilities available to us on digital platforms are fun to tinker with, but more often than not, can end up being a distraction from the true purpose of our marketing.

Don’t let it distract you from your core proposition.

Avtar Ram Singh is the Head of Strategy at FALCON Agency, a performance-led, business results oriented marketing agency that operates in South East Asia. He’s built marketing strategies and performance frameworks for brands on global and regional levels, across a variety of industries. You can find him on LinkedIn, and Twitter.

The post Just because you can do micro-targeting doesn’t mean you should appeared first on Schaefer Marketing Solutions: We Help Businesses {grow}.

       

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For most sales professionals, “objection” is a nasty word, but it shouldn’t be. An objection signifies that the customer is thinking about your solution; they’re envisioning how it would work in their world.

Though they see a problem, that only means that they’re thinking critically about the solution, which means you have their attention. Moreover, if they’re vocalizing such a concern, they’ve provided the ultimate clue to eventually closing the sale by explaining where the roadblock is.

Effective sales professionals use this valuable information to resolve the objection.

Resolving an objection is different than overcoming one. Overcoming a sales objection often results in relinquishing terms to the customer and giving them what they want at your expense.

Examples include:

• Submitting to lower costs
• Faster implementation time
• Adding additional capabilities without increasing price

In the heat of the moment, overcoming an objection is too easy a trap. Selling is difficult, and it gets more challenging every year; therefore, rescuing the sale, even at an enormous cost, is often preferred over losing it entirely.

The mistake is thinking that only two choices exist: overcoming the objection or losing the sale.

In truth, sales professionals can pursue a third avenue by understanding the customer’s needs and concerns to resolve the objection, win the sale, and preserve its full value.

Committing to this strategy starts with an understanding of how overcoming and resolving are different.

Overcoming Sales Objections Creates Demands; Resolving Sales Objections Creates a Path to the Sale

Consider this example:

In a sales dialogue, a customer vocalizes an objection that the cost is too high. A sales professional may impulsively respond by asking, “What cost do you need?”

This response is the wrong approach.

Why?

• First, it signals a willingness on the part of the sales professional to come down in price; they’ve cracked the door, and many customers will be all too happy to open it all the way.
• Second, this question replaces one demand with another, which gets the sales professional nowhere.

Instead, a sales professional will be more successful by taking steps to understand the customer’s needs and concerns.

They could ask, “What are you comparing us to when you say that the cost is too high?”

This question is more effective than asking what cost the customer needs because it takes the customer’s generic response and attempts to clarify why they believe that the cost is too high.

With an answer to this question, a sales professional might learn that the customer thought the cost was excessive under the assumption that it had only the capabilities of similar low-cost options.

With this information, the sales professional can articulate the differentiated aspects of their solution and why they warrant a higher cost.

Overcoming Objections in Sales Leads to Defensiveness; Resolving Them Leads to Openness

Overcoming objections in sales means more than giving in. Some sales professionals attempt to overcome objections by ramming through them with a defensive posture.

In the previous example, they might respond to the customer’s price objections by defensively stating that quality carries a cost.

This position immediately turns the conversation into an adversarial exchange. A customer will take this response as a confrontational remark. Moreover, the question is leading, which, understandably, will frustrate the customer, as it’s a clear attempt to elicit a specific response.

A sales professional focused on resolving the objection will go further and explore needs.

They will follow the objection with a question about the details of what the customer needs to solve the challenge at hand. Doing so takes the conversation in a more productive direction.

The result is a conversation that keeps the sale in play.

Defensiveness only encourages the customer to walk away. If the customer has concerns about the price, it’s the sales professional’s job to understand why and illustrate the value of their solution. The reason for this approach is that quality is relative to cost.

Overcoming Objections Changes the Conversation; Resolving Them Embraces It   

Objections are uncomfortable. They often occur in face-to-face meetings; there’s nowhere to hide. As a result, sales professionals, even good ones, may instinctively change the subject.

For example, a customer might call out a missing piece from a solution, a need not addressed by the proposed plan.

This casts an uncomfortable light on the sales professional. With only moments to respond, they may resort to a question like, “When do you need to start implementation?”

There is a spot in the dialogue for this question, but it’s not here. This question unnecessarily complicates the issue and will likely dissuade the customer.

A better reaction is to take the opportunity to go further and understand why the customer needs this missing piece. Getting an answer to this question puts the sales professional on firm ground to discuss how they can meet the customer’s unaddressed concerns.

With a tangential question, like the one above, the dialogue veers off course while the customer’s question is left languishing.

Conclusion

Attempts to overcome sales objections either stop or derail the sales dialogue.

The solution is to ask more questions and understand the objection beneath the objection. Doing so requires the sales professional to have an awareness that nearly all sales dialogues surface objections and that they are not inherently bad.

Committing to this outlook helps prevent the discomfort in the moment that can easily prompt a misstep.

Click here to download Richardson’s complimentary research, “Understanding Selling Challenges in 2018”

The post The Difference between Resolving and Overcoming Sales Objections appeared first on Welcome to the Richardson Sales Blog.

TORONTO — Costco is exploring ways to deliver fresh groceries to consumers in Canada after finding early success with its new online food delivery services in the U.S.

Canada’s biggest warehouse retailer, whose grocery market share has increased substantially over the last decade along with Walmart’s, introduced online grocery delivery of non-perishables to U.S. customers last October. It also expanded a partnership for home delivery of fresh groceries with Instacart, which recently partnered with Loblaw in Canada to deliver fresh online grocery orders in Vancouver and Toronto.

“We are looking at sites from which we can fulfill fresh grocery orders,” confirmed Costco Canada spokesman Ron Damiani. “We are extremely happy with the results that we have had out of the U.S.,” he added, noting the company does not have a specific timeline in mind for the rollout.

• Loblaws customers angry about personal information requests for $25 rebate cards
• Online shopping isn’t the only thing killing Canadian malls — it’s millennials, too
• The rise of the ‘grocerant’: Grocery stores are stealing restaurant’s best ideas with ready-to-eat meals

Last week, Costco chief executive Richard Galanti told investors on the retailer’s second-quarter conference call that its foray into online grocery sales was “positive year-to-date and growing.”

Instacart delivers groceries from 441 of the retailer’s 519 U.S. warehouses and the service will be rolled out to the remaining locations by the end of 2018.

The move comes after a record year of bricks-and-mortar expansion for Costco in Canada, one of its strongest markets, and at a time when Walmart and the country’s large conventional grocers have announced or rolled out online grocery options.

All of them, industry experts say, are eyeing Amazon.com Inc.’s strategic moves with Whole Foods and their implications for traditional grocery retail.

“This shows how Amazon is affecting the entire system, including Costco,” said Sylvain Charlebois, agriculture expert and Dean of management at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

“Of all the retailers which have benefited from our car economy, Costco is at the top. But everyone is going online now, even though at the same time they are trying to increase foot traffic.”

Increasing sales and foot traffic hasn’t been a problem for Costco or Walmart in Canada. Same-store sales at Costco Canada in the second quarter ended Feb. 18 were robust, rising 8.7 per cent. Walmart Canada, meanwhile, reported Canadian same-store sales of 2.9 per-cent in the period ended Jan. 31.

While the retailers do not directly break out their food sales in Canada, their dominance is evident in the shrinking market share of Canada’s traditional grocery retailers — a drop to 75 per cent of retail food sales as of the third quarter of 2017 from 85 per cent in 2007, according to Statistics Canada.

While they debut a range of online pick-up and grocery delivery platforms, the incumbent grocers have been trying to woo more customers back through their doors by improving in-store ambience with hot takeaway meals, targeted customer offerings and cooking classes.

Costco, on the other hand, is the very definition of the “pile it high and sell it cheap” maxim used by value-driven retailers.

Online grocery delivery from Costco “is not what we expect, and it is not what the model is,” said Kevin Grier, food industry analyst based in Guelph. Ont. at Kevin Grier Market Analysis & Consulting Inc.

“We understand why the prices are so low: we expect bulk goods, we don’t expect a lot of choice and part of the bargain is that we do so much of the work. This shows that everybody is experimenting with online grocery. We are in the early days and everybody is trying to see what works.”

In the U.S., Costco has also made it clear that the move is about convenience for customers, not cost: On the area of its website that details online grocery delivery options, it notes that online prices are generally 15 per cent to 17 per cent above warehouse walk-in prices.

Galanti said that the online grocery offering seemed to be attracting new members to the warehouse club, which requires an annual subscription to shop at its stores.

Costco currently sells a selection of its general merchandise online in North America, Mexico, Korea and Taiwan. The retailer’s overall e-commerce sales in the second quarter surged 28.5 per cent year-over-year to US$1.5 billion, while overall sales for the period were US$32.28 billion.

• Email: hshaw@nationalpost.com | Twitter: HollieKShaw

Rocket launch startup Rocket Lab is moving from its initial testing phase into proper commercial operations with its next mission. The company’s past two launches, “It’s a Test” and “Still Testing” were (you guessed it) primarily tests of its Electron launch craft vehicle and launch process, but its next mission, dubbed “It’s Business Time” (kudos if you get the New Zealand connection) will ferry two Lemur-2 cube satellites to space for customer Spire Global.

The launch’s full manifest will be revealed over the net few weeks, but it’s being set in a relatively short time span compared to what it would take for other competing launch models, which is part of what Rocket Lab is bringing to market from a value proposition perspective. Rocket Lab’s Electron vehicle has a much lower payload capacity compared to something like SpaceX’s Falcon 9, but it’s more nimble as a result, with faster build times and easier launch schedule management since Rocket Lab owns and operates its own private launch complex on New Zealand’s Māhia Peninsula.

The next launch should take place sometime in “the coming weeks,” according to the startup, and the goal is then to increase the pace of its launch schedule and scale up Electron production. Rocket Lab’s goal is to build 100 Rutherford engines at its Huntington Beach, CA production facility and HQ, with each Electron equipped with 9 Rutherford’s on the first stage and one on the second designed for in-vacuum use.

Ultimately, Rocket Labs’ goal is to be able to turnaround an Electron launch at very high frequency – its private launch site is licensed for a flight every 72 hours. The company is hoping low-cost and volume can help it earn a big chunk of the micro and cubesat launch business, where other launch options can currently be cost-prohibitive and massively inconvenient.

Setting employee pay can be difficult. You need to pay employees fairly and keep them from going to competing employers. But, you also don’t want to destroy your business budget by paying employee wages you can’t afford.

Determining how to set salary for employees doesn’t have to be arbitrary. By considering many factors, you can create wages that make both you and your employees happy.

What to consider when setting employee wages

Below are eight things to consider when determining wages for your employees.

Experience

When employees have more job experience, they typically earn more pay. For example, an employee with 10 years of experience normally earns more than an employee with two years of experience.

However, you should consider how long an employee has worked in the particular position. Career changes might give a worker many years of job experience, but fewer years in a certain field. You might adjust the employee’s wages to reflect this.

Education

Employees typically earn more when they have more education. For example, an employee with a Ph.D. would earn more than an employee with a high school diploma.

You might also consider how applicable the employee’s education is to the job. If the employee has a Ph.D. in math but is working a retail sales position, the education probably isn’t related. In this case, it might not make sense to pay the employee more despite the higher level of education.

Performance

When determining employee wages, you should consider each employee’s performance and the value they provide your business. You might give increased wages to employees who go above and beyond. And if an employee brings in more revenue to your business, you might reward them with more compensation.

Location

Your business’s location might be a big factor when determining employee wages.

Some states and cities in the U.S. require a greater minimum wage than the current federal minimum wage. Be sure to check your state and local labor laws.

Even beyond minimum wage, some locations generally have increased wages. This typically correlates with increased costs of living.

Demand

Consider supply and demand when choosing employee pay. If there is a reduced supply of workers for a certain profession, then the wages for that position will go up across the board.

You might need to look at demand nationwide and in your particular region. Some jobs are more prominent in certain regions, such as technology or agricultural jobs.

Competition

You need workers to choose your business over your competitors and other companies in the area. You must remain competitive. This means you must offer wages that are at least comparable to what other businesses are paying.

Benefits

Employee benefits are an important part of the overall compensation package. One study found that 79% of employees would rather have new or additional benefits instead of a pay increase.

If your business provides low-cost employee benefits that employees prize, you may be able to offer a slightly lower wage while still making employees happy. This can be beneficial if your business can’t offer as large of wages as other businesses.

Affordability

Most importantly, you need to determine what you can afford. Don’t put your business into debt by hiring an employee or giving big wage increases.

If what you can afford is lower than what is reasonable for the market and employee happiness, consider what other value you can give employees. You might be able to offer better benefits or work conditions.

Creating wage ranges

When you determine employee wages, try to create wage ranges for each position. This is a range with a minimum and maximum amount you are willing to pay. The minimum amount in the range makes sure you give each employee a fair and reasonable wage. The maximum amount allows room for negotiating and rewarding employees for good work.

Do you want to generate more revenue from your email subscribers automatically? Email automations are one of the best things in email marketing for super-targeted, high-converting messages.

Once you set up triggered emails or series of emails, your work is done and subscribers will receive various emails based on a range of different behaviors.

Let’s take a look at automated email sequences that every e-commerce store should set up and optimize.

1. Product Browse Abandonment

Product browse abandonment emails are automated emails sent to subscribers who recently viewed specific products on your store’s website but did not make a purchase. Ideally, these contain the dynamic values for the exact product’s information within the email, with a strong call-to-action to come back and shop. It’s also appropriate to include dynamic recommended products similar to what they were previously browsing. Typically, the delay will be within 24 hours since the browse abandonment event.

2. Cart Abandonment Sequence

Nearly 60%-70% of online shopping carts are abandoned. We’ve seen shopping cart abandonment emails have open rates of 50%+ and conversion rates upwards to 30%.

With the cart abandonment sequence, the goal is to get these shoppers to come back and complete their purchase. Usually, the first cart abandonment email timed 4-6 hours post-abandonment is a good place to start. We recommend having up to three emails in this sequence as follows:

2.1 Cart Reminder

Typically, the first email in this sequence should be a simple reminder to return to the shopping cart. The message should have more of a customer-service oriented tone.

2.2 Cart Incentive

As a second touch, we’ll want to be a bit more aggressive with our messaging since they haven’t converted off of the first cart email. Here, we can introduce a discount/shipping incentive to further drive the purchase.

2.3 Cart Expiration

On the third and final email in this sequence, we’ll want to play upon a sense of urgency to move the subscriber over to becoming a customer. The messaging can be around cart and/or incentive expiration.

3. New Customer Sequence

3.1 Transactional Emails: Order & Shipping Confirmations

Transactional emails are some of the most highly opened & clicked emails in your arsenal. Therefore, they are among the first to make sure you have set up and optimized. Although pretty much all retailers send the basic transactional emails (order confirmation & shipping confirmation), many of the emails are not truly optimized.

Several notes regarding order & shipping confirmations:

• While your larger batch emails tend to have an average open rate around 20%, transactional email open rates average north of 50%.
• Customers are expecting to receive transactional emails, and will be on the lookout for them to arrive in their inbox.
• The immediate period right after purchase is a golden time to capture a repurchase, when customers are feeling the “warm & fuzzy” buzz right after a purchase.
• Including a discount to shop again: Highlight shipping-specific value-points, such as always free shipping, seamless returns, etc.

3.2 New Customer Welcome

In addition to the transactional emails sent to new customers, a separate New Customer Welcome email is very useful in engaging your new customer. Your subscriber is at an emotional high-point right after their first purchase, so use this opportunity to really show them what your store, product, and brand are about!

In terms of content, possible things to include:

• Your brand’s origin story
• Your social media accounts to engage and follow
• Customer programs they can enroll in
• An incentive on their next order
• An invitation to modify their customer profile or preferences
• Helpful product or lifestyle-related resources

Also, brands can have a lot of fun with this email, using their unique brand voice and messaging in the content.

3.3 Product Review Request

A post-purchase email requesting a product review from your recent customers is a great way to get more…well, product reviews for your site.

Time your product review email to arrive in your customer’s inbox a few days after they’ve received their product shipment. Your email should focus primarily on asking them to complete a review, although some light secondary CTA’s are viable.

3.4 Cross/Up-Sell

Depending on your product selection, there may be ample opportunities to cross/up-sell your customers after their initial purchase. Most stores want to implement automated emails specifically designed to sell complementary or upgraded products during this New Customer Sequence. Of course, the more personalized and accurate the product selection (many email platforms have dynamic product recommendations built-in), the better chance you’ll have to make another sale.

3.5 Re-order/Replenishment

If your products are consumable, a product reorder email will pack a big punch in terms of garnering repurchases. Set your product reorder triggers to go out around the estimated time that their product runs out/is running low.

In addition to a high chance that your customer will re-order that particular product, it’s also likely they will buy additional products from your site as well.

4. Repeat Customer Sequence

4.1 Thank You Email

We want to treat repeat customers a bit differently than first-time customers. Repeat customers are a high-value segment of the customer base, so we want to do a warm welcome with messaging that makes them feel particularly special. Moreover, they are more likely to become brand/product advocates and help recruit friends to purchase from us.

4.2 Referral/Loyalty/VIP Program

If your store has a referral or loyalty program, this is a good opportunity to introduce it to your repeat customers. They are more likely than the average subscriber on your list to enroll in the program and purchase more/refer you more business.

5. Birthday/Annual Event

Everybody appreciates their birthday being remembered, and your subscribers are no different. You can trigger automated emails days before your subscribers’ birthdays with a personalized messaging and perhaps a discount.

Furthermore, if your store sells products linked to an annual recurring event (such as gift-products) you can set an automatic reminder to go out on an annual basis.

6. Welcome Sequence

A welcome sequence consists of several emails focusing on “onboarding” new email subscribers. A good welcome series can help extend the contact lifetime value, prompt contacts to make the first purchase, and build brand engagement.

6.1 Welcome Introduction Email

This is the first email sent to a new subscriber. Many retailers will offer a first-time customer incentive to try to convert a non-customer into a customer. These offers usually take the form of a coupon code for first-time customers only, or some sort of shipping offer. The offer can also incorporate a deadline to drive urgency for the purchase.

6.2 Incentive Reminder

You’ll always want to send a reminder email to redeem the incentive you offered in the first welcome email. This helps convert subscribers who may have missed your first message, or who are waiting until the last minute. Using urgency and scarcity in this message is also highly recommended to drive the conversion.

6.3 Other Welcome Emails

A welcome sequence is one of the automations that can truly be customized to fit your brand and goals. So, in addition to the two core ones mentioned above, We’ve seen these sequences include many individual emails such as:

• Evergreen best-selling products
• Social proof/promotion
• Testimonial
• Top Resources

7. Exit Intent Sequence

An exit intent sequence is similar to a Welcome Sequence, except the entry point for the subscriber is when they opt-in to an exit intent popup overlay on your site. Many exit intent overlays offer some sort of incentive to join the list, so the subsequent email follow-up sequence should be geared towards delivering the incentive (discount, resource, etc) as well as reminding non-redeemers to take advantage of it.

8. Re-Engagement Series

The purpose of a re-engagement series is to attempt to “reactivate” dormant contacts on your email list before unsubscribing them from your list. A portion of contacts on any email list will eventually become “dormant”, so we’ll want to remove them from the list. However, first, we want to do a last-ditch effort to re-engage as many as we can, and only unsubscribe those who are truly dormant.

8.1 We’ve Missed You

This is the first touch-point in the series. The messaging is based around a simple check-in email stating that we have not heard from them in a while. The copy can be witty or straightforward depending on the brand voice. This email acts as a soft push for them to re-engage. The subject line should be very enticing to heighten the chance of the open.

8.2 Personalized Discount

In the second touch-point, we want to use a very sweet, personalized incentive to get the user to engage. This will need to be a better-than-normal offer to work best.

8.3 Unsubscription Notice

Last effort is either confirm subscription or to unsubscribe. Most dormant contacts will still be non-responsive, but anyone we get to click confirm or to open the email will be reactivated.

Wanna learn more about email design & timing?

We’ve run through essential e-commerce email automations. It’s quite challenging to set up all of them at once. However, once you have them, you’ll start taking advantage of the automatic revenue and customer engagement they generate!

Looking for ways to increase sales with email marketing tailored for B2C shop owners? Learn more about email design, timing, and conversion in our upcoming workshop on March 20, 2018!

How do I contribute value online?

It’s a question I consider all the time.

For so many years, I connected with prospects and customers like every sales professional. I focused on outbound calls and emails, and it worked. Until it didn’t anymore.

How effective are unscheduled phone calls today? Are voice mails getting returned? Or heard? Consider less than 24% of sales emails are even opened (TOPO). I see this play out every week. Too many salespeople, spinning their wheels, spending valuable time on low yield activities (salespeople spend just one-third of their day actually talking to prospects). This is one of the big reasons nearly 50% of salespeople don’t close forecasted deals, the lowest level in 10 years. This emerging generation of buyers might be looking for information from you, but they aren’t picking up the phone or pouring over the web links and infographics in email messages.

That means a shift for a lot of salespeople. According to Hubspot, 65% of salespeople who use social selling fill their pipeline, compared to 47% of reps who do not. Making the shift comes down to simply deciding if you want to be an elite sales performer into the future.

Share Your Knowledge

Instead of hammering people with follow-up calls and shaming emails, give them something that’s actually valuable. If you covet the trusted advisor role, you can start making the case for credibility prior to ever making a sales call.

How are you publicly sharing your expertise?

Everyone has a platform to share what they care about with the world. We are living through the ultimate leveling of the playing field. You can compete with anyone, anywhere, based on the strength of your reputation and relationships. Increasingly, you can influence them online. Where? Wherever your customers are paying attention. It’s not about “blogging”; it’s about building connections and community by being helpful. Even if you’re just retweeting someone else’s content, you’re showing that you care, you’re interested and you want to pay it forward. That simple act of participation is an act of generosity. To get there, you have to get connected.

Sharing what I care about online has completely transformed my business and my life. Writing is hard, but it’s made sales a whole lot easier. It also doesn’t matter all that much to me who reads my work. We learned a long time ago that any decent blog post related to business performance can be leveraged into the decision cycle. While most people might not care about the work we did at Culver’s or Lowe’s, any restaurant or retail organization interested in growth and customer experience is going to pay close attention to that kind of content.

A couple years ago I was working with Vanguard, and the head of institutional sales, Gerald Burke, stepped onto the stage to introduce me to the sales organization for my keynote presentation.

I was blown away. He told his team of producers that “Ryan’s one of us. He’s from Ohio. His parents were school teachers.” He went on and on. I was in the wings, wondering where he found out all of this background about me, and then I realized: the blog. Reading the blog created a stronger, more personal connection with Gerry that translated into a more intimate introduction for the audience.

I experience moments like this all the time. When you share and connect, people feel like they know you prior to ever meeting you. It’s a gift to meet a client for the first time when they already respect and value your ideas and your contribution.

Don’t Expect Too Much Too Soon

The real secret is that I’m often writing for myself. Turns out, there are a lot of other people navigating the same challenges I am around business performance, sales, leadership and personal growth. If I can address my most significant challenges, it means I can usually help someone else. Doing that consistently and improving over time might just mean that people start to pay a little attention to the work.

The sharing philosophy has helped me stay more connected to clients, colleagues, family and friends. The notion of community and importance of connection wasn’t something I ever even considered as a potential benefit of blogging when I started nine years ago, but it’s been an absolute game-changer for my business. It’s also helped me grow personally.

When you share your expertise, without the expectation of getting anything in return, you affect people’s perception of who you are, and the impact you can make on their business.

That’s valuable. And I don’t miss leaving voicemails at all.

The cartoon of business-to-business (B2B) buyers depicts gray-haired executives and purchasing agents in meetings, on the phone and lunching with their vendors. Conversations focus mainly on negotiating price and payment terms.

But along with fax machines and long golf games, these features of B2B life have all but disappeared due to the astonishing change in technology over the past two decades. Digital natives who grew up with the Internet and smartphones have transformed the way B2B buyers research purchases, qualify vendors and make purchases—changing the rules of the game for marketers and product managers.

Some 73% of 20- to 35-year-olds are involved in product or service purchase decision-making at their companies, according to a study of “millennial” buyers by Merit, with one-third reporting that they are the sole decision-maker for their department. And about half of all B2B product researchers are digital natives, a number that increases every year, according to a Google/Millward Brown digital survey of buyers. When a company needs a product or service, buyers turn first to research on their laptop or smartphone rather than immediately calling vendors or hosting meetings. More than 70% of searches start with a generic search, such as “CRM software,” rather than a search for specific brands. Contacting a salesperson occurs later in the typical purchase process, and sometimes not at all. By the time a sales rep gets involved, buyers already have a wealth of information about company reputation, product specifications and reviews of successes or failures.

This cohort identifies online search, vendors’ websites, peers and colleagues as the most important sources of information—all more important than salespeople. The youngest in this cohort have a particularly strong preference for social media as a source of information. A 2017 Forrester Research study indicates that digital natives prefer short bursts of information, often in visual formats, and they think phone calls are tedious and disruptive.

Bain & Company’s research on what consumers value shows how people benefit in multiple ways from digital technology. It reduces cost, saves time, integrates sources of information, connects, organizes, informs and provides access to previously hard-to-find data and expertise — all “elements of value” that have direct application to both consumer and B2B purchasing and product usage. (Elements of value are fundamental types value delivered by company’s offering in their most essential and discrete forms, which benefit customers in particular ways.) Digital natives have brought their consumer habits to the B2B world, and we are seeing older buyers adopt their ways, too (see our article related HBR article “The B2B Elements of Value”). This shift in behavior has several implications for B2B value propositions.

For one thing, when a salesperson eventually is invited to the table, buyers will have already formed a strong opinion about many aspects of the value expected from a vendor. Vendors’ websites thus need to provide a wealth of information on these types of value, with details on where their products have been successful. Reviews will tell the buyer how a vendor performs on many ease-of-doing-business elements long before the buyer has actual experience with that vendor. So vendors must curate their online content deliberately and constantly, and they should encourage customers who are advocates of the company to provide reviews on relevant sites. Many B2B providers lag on these activities, choosing to invest more in their salesforces than in their online presence.

Second, given that digital natives have researched the functional and reputational aspects of vendors long before they meet, it’s essential for vendors to deliver on these elements of value in ways that younger buyers expect. For example, research at Santa Clara University finds that this group respond favorably to salespeople who evoke feelings of trust, compatibility, and connectedness, in contrast to buyers 50 and older who focus more on business benefits and deliverables.

Finally, many higher-order elements touch on more subjective, inspirational types of value.  Consistent with Bain’s own analysis, the Merit study finds that fully 80% of millennial B2B buyers today (and an even higher share of the youngest millennials) feel that companies’ environmental, social and philanthropic efforts are important when considering them as vendors.

A few companies are delivering on these inspirational value elements. Dental and medical products wholesaler Henry Schein is a good example. Many companies have social responsibility programs, but too often these programs remain unknown to customers. By contrast, Henry Schein serves as a catalyst to organize its customers and industry partners to participate in philanthropic programs. These programs strengthen Henry Schein’s relationships with them and, in part, account for the company’s making Fortune’s “World’s Most Admired Companies” list for 15 consecutive years.

First impressions matter as much as ever in B2B markets. Today, though, that first look comes through websites, user forums and quick case studies, not flesh-and-blood sales pitches. The key question for a vendor: Does your online footprint communicate your chosen elements of value?

If the marketing automation (inbound and outbound) you have in place is successfully reeling in a constant flow of qualified leads, then good job! It means you are slowly on your way into building a healthy list of contacts that’s interested about your brand. But just because your email marketing software is effective it should not mean that your sales team can take it easy. You’ll also need some sales closing techniques in your arsenal.

Remember, it’s not the email marketing software that closes deals and turns them into profit — it’s the sales representatives. They are your frontliners.

Once the leads come in, they have to kick it in high gear and give their all to have any prospect sign those papers.

Closing deals need a human touch, or in most cases a push. If by any chance the humans in question need a little help in doing so, we’ve listed four good ‘ol sales closing techniques that have always served us incredibly well throughout the years.

Here are 4 sales closing techniques that can reinforce your email marketing software in turning leads into loyal customers:

Sales Closing Techniques: Talk Less, Ask More

The worst thing any sales rep can do is to be always talking about what they’re selling.

Leads are more concerned about their own issues, and sometimes they’re not even sure where exactly the issues truly lie. That’s why you should be asking probing questions about their concerns more than you should be hard-selling.

Think of how a doctor’s consultation usually goes. Ever notice how the doctor asks you series of questions about your symptoms first before prescribing a remedy?

Sales representatives can definitely learn a thing or two from their physician’s technique.

Instead of a sales pitch, probe into your prospects’ symptoms. Identify their pain points so you can determine what exactly is causing them. Only after the discovery of the source that you should point how your solutions can address them.

Asking the questions is not only integral in zeroing in on your prospects’ pain points, it also communicates to them that you genuinely care about their problems.

Asking such questions can also be a good way of understanding how you can properly slant your product to truly hit the mark. By digging deep into what your customer needs, there can be a higher chance of them hitting your product up. Of course, learning what to ask takes time so better start now.

Sales Closing Techniques: Plus Points for Opinion

Not yours, but your prospect’s. Since you’re already asking your leads questions anyway, ask for their opinions as well.

Not only does adding the phrase “in your opinion” soften the blow of a rejection, but it also shows your client that you are interested in what they think and that you respect how they feel. It is important that you make your prospect “king” in this situation.

You wouldn’t want them feeling that the conversation is just one-sided.

After your probing query and introducing your product or service, ask these kinds of questions:

• “In your opinion, will this solution solve your problem?”
• “[Summarize the prospect’s issues]. Do you feel that I have a clear grasp of your concern?”
• “Based on what you’ve told me, these are how our company can help… Do you think these solutions address your issues?”

These queries convey that you value their input. More importantly, it probes more into their concern. The more fully you can grasp their issues earlier on, the easier it is to address them and the faster it is to wrap the deal up.

It also serves as a guide that you are listening to their concerns and that you actually in helping them deal with their issues, an important note to take into consideration when trying to close a deal.

Prospects want to feel that you truly understand their concern and that you can sympathize with them. And it is with your product that you can help make their worries and concerns go away.

Sales Closing Techniques: Be Inoffensive

The Inoffensive Close also anchors on questions. But this time, you will be asking leading questions. You have to drive home the conversation, hopefully towards a closed deal.

After probing into your prospect’s problems and eventually offering a solution, softly nudge them into signing along the dotted lines of the contract with questions like these:

• At this point, do you feel that I have a good understanding of the issues you and your company are facing?
• If I’ve understood it clearly, these are the major areas that we can help you with… Is there anything I missed, or that you would want to include to that list?
• Based on our conversation, do you think I have the ability to help you solve your problems?
• Assuming the demo/presentation meets your expectation. Would you want to partner with us in solving your problems?

After exerting effort into prying what your prospect really needs, these questions prompt them to answer you directly and close the deal without being aggressive and coming off as pushy. It is also important to balance being aggressive and compassionate with your prospect. A good day is when you get them to sign and actually close the deal!

Sales Closing Techniques: Practice the 70/30

The 70/30 is an oldie but a goodie. Yes, friendliness and charisma are essential in being a sales rep.

These are some of the strong characteristics people actually look for in their sales team. But don’t mistake them with chattiness. As a general rule of thumb among salespeople, let the prospect do 70% of the talking. Minimize your chatter to 30%.

This is considered as a healthy balance between you trying to make your pitch and hearing out the actual concerns of the other party.

While you should make sure that you are the one steering the conversation (hopefully towards a close), let the prospect dominate the discussion. Take into consideration that it is their concern you are trying to address in the first place.

Additionally, always be mindful that you let the prospect finish speaking before butting in. You don’t want to turn them off by constantly butting in before they are finished explaining their side of the story.

Never underestimate the power of human connection, it is your most powerful tool.

Nowadays, a good strategy is a mix of available resources you have onhand — both offline and online ones. While email marketing software has been proven to generate leads and contribute in converting them to paying customers, it’s not the only tool at your disposal. You have, first and foremost, your sales team. After all, it is your salespeople who personally secure that sought-after signature.

Thus, on top of employing an email marketing software, maximize your sales team. Start by empowering them and sending this article their way!

In an orchestra, each musician plays a key role in making a beautiful harmony. Although individual instruments are important on their own, it’s the combination of all the instruments and how they relate to one another that makes the music powerful and creates the sound that resonates with audiences.

Like orchestras, all of the various components of a marketing program—from TV ads, emails, and display ads, to mobile apps, landing pages, and paid search—play a crucial role in delivering a delightful consumer experience. If they aren’t working harmoniously, it impacts how likely new and existing customers are to shop, buy, or even recommend a brand to others.

Yes, most marketers still think about the consumer experience in terms of individual channels and separate interactions instead of considering the end-to-end experience. This creates discordance for customers.

Delivering relevant, harmonious experiences across channels and devices isn’t easy. But it’s mission-critical if marketers are to win consumers’ business and loyalty.

So, how can marketers orchestrate optimal consumer experiences that attract new customers and keep existing customers coming back for more? Here are four key strategies:

End inefficiency, duplication, and waste
Many marketing organizations operate in product, brand, and channel silos. These teams work independently, often with their own outside agencies, and using their own set of metrics to measure engagement, conversions, revenue, and return. These siloed structures and competing agendas not only lead to inefficiency, duplication, and waste, but also create a disjointed experience for consumers.

Connect those silos using cross-functional teams. Develop, test, measure, and optimize strategies and tactics across online, mobile, and offline environments to drive a common set of success metrics. Work closely with departments such as product development, sales, customer care, and IT, to ensure synchronization across every possible interaction.

Widen your aperture
Everyone leaves behind digital footprints that paint a picture of who they are, what they like, and how they behave. Much of this data is stored in disparate systems, making it difficult for marketers to view consumers holistically, or discover the channels, devices, and tactics that are most effective for reaching, engaging, and converting them. By consolidating all this data into a centralized repository, marketers can develop a more complete, people-based view of their customers and prospects. This helps optimize segmentation, allowing for more relevant, timely, and effective messages and experiences that address each consumer’s unique needs and preferences.

Ditch last click
Last-click attribution, which some marketers still cling to, is simple but unreliable. It leads marketers to double count success metrics because multiple channels take credit for the same lead, sale, or other KPI. It also doesn’t account for the influence of prior touchpoints along the consumer journey that contributed to a desired outcome.

Orchestrating the optimal consumer experience means using a multi-touch attribution approach that accounts for today’s cross-channel, cross-device consumer journey. Multi-touch attribution eliminates duplication, assigning fractional credit to all the channels and tactics that influenced a desired action or business outcome. With a clear understanding of the touchpoints that drive performance, marketers can make smarter investment decisions that also enhance the consumer journey.

Invest in smart technology
A new generation of intelligent technology has emerged that unifies consumer attributes with multi-touch attribution, so marketers can understand performance in the context of key audiences. By breaking down functional and data silos, these platforms provide a holistic view of the consumer journey across all channels and devices, as well as a granular understanding of how different marketing and media tactics are driving desired behaviors and outcomes, whether online, offline, or both.

With such clarity, marketers can orchestrate harmonious customer experiences, optimize their budgets, and amplify business results.

It’s time for marketers to take a page from the orchestra: Focus on how all elements of the consumer experience work together to influence behavior and drive results. Like making beautiful music, only then can marketers orchestrate experiences that truly resonate with their ideal audiences.

The hype around artificial intelligence (AI) is borderline manic, and no one in tech can stop talking about it. It also has everyone pitching it as part of their product line. When it comes to worldwide adoption, AI is still new. And the monsoon of marketing and sales campaigns touting AI-driven products has made it difficult for potential buyers to decide what’s fluff and what’s impactful.

As a Salesperson, we’re often the first to demonstrate technology to individual buyers. It’s tempting to throw around terms like AI, Machine Learning, Algorithms, and Deep Learning -- after all, everyone is, right? Don’t do it. Pushing magic may get the initial sale, but it also gets a quick churn.

Start by understanding the basics

There’s a lot that can technically be considered artificial intelligence. There are also varying definitions -- but most relate to machines performing cognitive functions. Many things can fall under that definition, from very rudimentary calculations to predicting the exact millisecond a multi-billion-dollar trade should be executed to maximize revenue gain.

There’s also a whole lot of fluff (and opportunity). As a salesperson, you’ll be incredibly valuable to a buyer if you can start by helping them clear that fluff away.

Get acquainted with AI and have a solid 30,000 foot understanding of the AI landscape. I’ll give you a 200,000-foot view in this post, but I suggest digging in more elsewhere.

Artificial Intelligence: Machines performing cognitive functions

Machine Learning: A subset of AI -- self-learning algorithms that detect patterns and anomalies. They get better as they consume more data (but that improvement will eventually level off, and more data will not lead to an increase in performance). You don’t necessarily need massive computational power to do this.

Deep Learning: A subset and more advanced stage of Machine Learning. This is the true arena of big data, and most companies you’re selling to won’t be here (at least not yet) because they lack the sheer amount of data necessary to make it worthwhile.

Deep learning is also best applied to problems centering around perception and language. To keep this simple, think of the concept of machine learning -- but when it comes to deep learning, there’s no ‘ceiling’ of improvement based on data ingestion.

It continues to get better, and the only limitation is your ability to feed it more data. Here, you need massive computational power.

I would focus your time on Machine Learning — it will most likely have the quickest impact on your prospect’s business. Keep in mind, Machine Learning is a version of AI, just as Deep Learning is. Deep Learning will undoubtedly become more accessible over time, but for today, Machine Learning will likely be most impactful based on the amount of data/investment required.

Understand the business implications of Machine Learning

Machine Learning does two things: It senses and predicts. This applies to many things, such as:

• Detecting anomalies to prevent fraud
• Identifying high-level attributes to predict which leads have a higher likelihood of closing
• Discovering issues when manufacturing products
• Optimizing product distribution to meet specific market demand
• Personalizing content to specific people
• More efficiently managing just about any type of organizational risk
• Predicting churn or lifetime value of clients

This list can go on, and the whole point is to show when it comes to Machine Learning, there are few limitations to where it can have an impact. Which brings me to my next point …

Set expectations and start simple

It’s easy to promise the world to someone. It’s especially easy to promise the world when it comes to Machine Learning. Why? Because there are few limitations, and you can tell your prospects its impact will be utterly transformative -- and you wouldn’t be lying.

In theory, these algorithms offer to vastly improve current processes and align your organization for future opportunity.

In theory.

So, the question is, what’s the one thing stopping that theory from happening? Your customers’ data. If they don’t have a large amount of valuable proprietary data, then that super awesome machine learning algorithm isn’t going to have much of an impact.

Machine Learning heavily relies on clean, accurate data.

Set those expectations with your prospect. If you can help them build a foundation that will allow them to take better advantage of Machine Learning, then you’re not just pitching a product, you’re adding a ton of value to their business.

Learn your prospect’s data strategy, and build a use case around it

As a Salesperson selling Machine Learning technology, you’ll likely learn how people use that data every day. There’s probably no one better positioned to consult on data strategies than someone who has insight into how dozens of other companies do it.

Take those learnings, better understand the ins and outs of data collection, cleaning, and management, and help your prospects and clients apply that knowledge.

Understand data strategy

Quick tip: Use Kaggle to research different machine learning competitions. These competitions will help you understand what business problems people are trying to solve with data and what types of data they’re using.

Heading into calls with your prospects with a better understanding of data strategy will help you sell products that are driven by Machine Learning. You’ll be better equipped to see the different ways your product can impact their business.

Limitations will rarely fall on the end of the actual Machine Learning algorithm. Instead, it falls on the customer’s ability to supply valuable proprietary data to put into the algorithm.

So, instead of promising your prospect huge ROI from Machine Learning technology, start by understanding their resources. You might have amazing technology and an itch to pitch your highest-level products, but if your prospect doesn’t have the data, it’s all a wash.

Prospect doesn’t have a data strategy? Help them build one

Here’s the thing -- creating a data strategy shouldn’t be too hard at first. For many companies, it’s as simple as adopting a CRM and collecting basic data on your prospects and customers. You could start with engagement data, product usage data, demographic data, competitive intelligence, or transactional data.

There are plenty of free tools available that enable the collection of this data. Start by helping your prospects identify which data points will be more valuable than others in relation to what they’re trying to solve for.

Help them formulate a solid strategy by identifying data that will have a big impact on their venture into Machine Learning. And show them how that strategy will lead to your technology, giving them better results.

Refrain from promising the world, and help your prospects understand that machine learning is only as transformative as the data you can put into it. It might lead to a longer sales cycle and more educational calls, but, in the end, it will also lead to a happier customer that genuinely values not only your product but your advice as well.

This piece first appeared on Medium and was republished here with the author's permission. 

“More leads, more leads, more leads.”

When I ask marketing and sales people at technology companies about their top 3 priorities, that’s usually what they tell me.

Most of their time and most of their budget goes toward pulling more leads into the top of the sales funnel.

They’re running search engine optimization efforts and paid adword campaigns. They’re tweaking their websites to capture contact information. They’re hosting events, running email campaigns, pitching stories for publication, running social media campaigns, buying ads, sending out direct mail, and doing whatever else might work to get in front of prospective customers.

And they’re creating content – white papers, success stories, videos, press announcements, webinars, etc. – to be used in all of these campaigns.

The goal of all of this activity: Generate leads.

Lots of leads, but then prospects get stuck

If they’re planned and executed well, these activities should pull in lots of leads. And if they’re well-targeted, those leads should be legitimate prospects – people that might actually buy the solution.

But that’s just the first step in the customer acquisition process. To have any meaningful impact on the company’s success, those leads need to eventually make their way through to become paying customers.

Depending on the customer’s evaluation and purchase process, it can be a long journey from lead to qualified opportunity to paying customer. And there are plenty of places for prospects to get stuck along the way.

Some signs that prospects are stuck include:

• Low conversion from lead to opportunity and opportunity to paying customer
• High percentage of “free trialers” that don’t convert to buyers
• Lots of deals stuck at the “25 percent” likelihood stage
• An average sales cycle that keeps getting longer
• A growing number of opportunities stuck in the pipeline for more than 90 days

Why prospects get stuck

Prospects get stuck – or they fall out of the sales pipeline entirely – for a few reasons.

Sometimes the solution simply doesn’t meet the prospective customer’s needs. It’s missing essential functionality, it’s too difficult to learn and use, or it’s too expensive. For one reason or another, despite the prospect’s initial interest, the solution is a bad fit.

In other cases, the prospect buys a solution from some other vendor. They evaluated their options and selected a competitor.

But very often, neither of these things happen. Instead, the prospect does nothing at all.

They’ve not explicitly ruled out your solution, nor have they purchased from a competitor. They’ve simply made no decision at all. (See “Only urgent problems require solutions”).

Your prospect has a day job

How can that happen? A prospective customer, someone that was once eager to learn all they could about a solution, just drops out of the process.

It’s usually because they have other things to do. The person isn’t assigned full time to evaluate and buy new software for the business.

They have day jobs. They’re accountants working in Finance, recruiters working in HR, or sales managers trying to hit their quota. Or they might be property managers, school administrators, loan officers, or dentists.

The point is they’re busy and they don’t have days or weeks to dedicate to evaluating solutions. And their research is often interrupted, so they can only focus intermittently. One minute they’re carefully considering your solution, and the next minute there’s something more pressing that’s grabbed their attention.

Inertia can be your toughest competitor. Some prospects simply opt to do nothing.

Pressed for time, they often end up doing nothing.  That’s how they get stuck in the pipeline.

Stuck prospects cost time and money

The most obvious cost of these stuck prospects: lost revenue. When prospects don’t convert into customers, they’re not paying you anything.

Even if prospects do convert eventually, the delay is costly. In a subscription-based business, when prospects are stuck in the pipeline for several months that means that several months’ worth of revenue has been lost.

And to make matters even worse, prospects stuck in the pipeline actually cost money. The money paid for the lead generation programs – SEO, PPC, events, PR, website, email, etc. – is wasted. These leads cost money, but don’t make any money.

So, how do you get prospects unstuck?

It’s fairly clear that trying to live with a clogged sales pipeline isn’t an attractive option, at least if the goal is to hit critical customer, revenue, and growth targets.

To clear the bottlenecks and get prospects unstuck, a few tactics are worth trying.

Stay on the radar screen.

It’s not unusual for prospects to go radio silent. Following an initial burst of interest, they don’t answer emails, return phone calls, or make any other effort to re-engage.

But that doesn’t mean they’re not going to buy at some point. For now, at least, other priorities have gotten in the way, but they may re-engage when they’re able.

Stay in front of these prospects…but not by pestering them with “did you get my last email” notes. Instead, send along helpful educational material, invite them to webinars, keep them on your email list, or use other cost-effective ways to stay in front of them. When these prospects regain their focus and they’re ready to move ahead, your solution will be top-of-mind.

Create a sense of urgency. 

Prospective customers only have time to focus on a handful of priorities at any one time. So try to push one particular task – “evaluate this solution” – toward the top of their priority list.

Point out that every quarter, every month, every week that they try to stumble along without a new system is costing them money, losing customers, adding risk, or otherwise hurting their business.

Revise incentives.

Incentive programs that put all the focus on generating leads could actually be hurting your customer acquisition efforts. All the attention on pulling leads into the top of the funnel may mean that efforts further along in the process – converting leads into opportunities and into paying customers – don’t get the TLC they deserve.

Modifying goals and bonuses to reward marketing professionals for winning paying customers, not just generating leads, could focus their attention and effort on results that really matter.

Break through the real barriers to purchase.

Prospects stuck in the pipeline probably already have a good idea of the solution’s features. They’ve seen a demo or have even taken advantage of a free trial, but they still don’t move toward a purchase.

Why is that? It just may be that concerns about features and functionality aren’t what’s really blocking the purchase.

At this point in the evaluation process, the prospect may be more worried about “non-feature” issues: migrating to the new system, losing existing data, training users, getting the support they need, or other things that are the real reason the deal doesn’t move forward.

Offering to show more features, walk through another demo, or extend a free trial probably won’t help. Instead, talk to prospects about the proven implementation process, the easy-to-use data migration tools, the comprehensive training program, or the expert customer support team.

Guide your prospects through the entire process

Most marketing professionals will probably always be on the hook to generate leads. Pulling prospects into the top of the funnel is an essential first step in acquiring customers.

But there’s a lot more to be done. Those prospects need to be guided through the entire evaluation and purchase journey, helped past barriers and through bottlenecks all along the way. There are lots of places they can get stuck somewhere in the funnel, and success depends on getting those leads and opportunities unstuck.

The post Why Prospects Get Stuck in the Pipeline and How to Get Them Unstuck appeared first on OpenView Labs.

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Every business, no matter their history, has the same goal in mind — to make sales. Without sales, it won’t be possible for a business to grow or even to maintain itself. But, ensuring that your company is able to execute a successful sales cycle requires a strong focus on the sales tactics themselves. While there is plenty of debate regarding which sales tactics are effective and which ones are a waste of time, all companies can probably agree that certain tactics are a guarantee if done right.

Though every business may have their own approach to making sales, these sales tactics will surely work for everyone.

1) Believe in Your Product or Service

This may seem like a given, but there are many companies out there that wouldn’t use their own product. How are company leaders, then, supposed to get others to believe in their product or service, if they wouldn’t find it useful themselves? Companies need to believe in what they are selling whole-heartedly. One way to do this is by providing “proof” that it works. Highlight testimonials, show “before and after” photos, or provide your audience with evidence that they can’t deny.

2) Combine Storytelling with Facts and Statistics

Another sales tactic that demonstrates faith in what you’re selling is strong storytelling. Customers need to be able to see themselves using your product or service. And, they need to be able to relate to you as a seller. Customers know when they are being scammed. They rely on a combination of things to determine whether or not what you’re selling is worth it for them.

One way to get them on board is through storytelling. Reel your customer in, whether it’s by a video on your website, an interesting “about” story on your homepage, or community event where you share something intimate about your company’s history. If you’re able to add facts and statistics to what you’re sharing, that’s great, too, but keep in mind that people remember stories much more than the numbers themselves.

3) Never Stop Creating Goals

These days, businesses need to continue to find ways to improve themselves. Customers always respond to different approaches, whether it be an email, a social media post, or a free ebook. Whatever goal it is we have in mind — bring in more leads, make more money, or have the highest ranking on search engines — companies always need goals. By consistently creating observable and measurable goals that all employees are working toward together, companies are likely to see an increase in sales. Even the most profitable companies have to try new sales tactics through goals all the time, for instance, Amazon with their Go Stores.

4) Respect the Competition

Every good company probably is a competitor of another similar company out there. These days, it’s more likely than not that your company isn’t the only one out there offering a similar product or service. Think about ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft, dog-walking companies like Wag and Rover, or food-box companies like HelloFresh or Blue Apron. All of these companies are a unique spin on what people are used to, but aren’t really different than their competitors. Still, every person prefers one company over another, sometimes for a reason, they can’t quite explain.

Because of this, another major sales tactic that companies should practice is being respectful of the competition. Don’t talk about them poorly, don’t steal ideas from them, and don’t blatantly go after them in a way to make yourself stand out. Be nice to your competition. After all, customers would rather go with the nice guy at the end of the day.

5) Set Yourself Apart

Finally, one of the most important sales tactics involves doing something to set yourself apart. And, not just setting yourself apart from the competition we mentioned, but across the entire board. Be the first website to offer amazing refer-a-friend initiatives, or the first local business to donate profits. Do something that makes your customers say “wow,” and you’ll see that they’ll be eager to buy from you.

A reliable marketing automation software can help your business implement sales tactics quicker and allow you to visualize the results. Request a demo with The Mission Suite to learn more.

Do you sometimes feel like your sales team is counting on luck, instead of strategy and process to close deals?  

Of course, I am going to advocate for strategy and process but sometimes, yes, you get lucky and will get deals closed without it.  

If Not Luck, What’s It All About? 

It’s all about strategy and consistent tactics. Not luck.  

You can grow a company on luck and many of you got where you are today without strategy and consistency, but I wonder how much more sales growth you could have had and if you can get to the next level.

Hit Your Numbers   

If you want your team to hit their numbers at the end of each quarter, you need a strategy and a tactical plan. No more guessing and waiting for salespeople to get lucky. Put some strategy behind your tactics and drive activity that gets results.  

Cold Calling 

It’s all about the numbers. Yes, sometimes your salespeople get lucky and hit the right person the first time they pick up the phone. But, the truth is, that over the span of a quarter, hitting your numbers requires that your team has the right list, is dialing enough times, is leaving great messages that build your brand and has the right message when they do reach the right person.   

Sales Activity  

It’s all about prioritizing. If your salespeople are not prioritizing their activities properly, it will take a lot of luck for them to hit their numbers. The secret is to prioritize closing business first and prospecting second. 

The first reason to do this is the momentum and great feelings that come with closing. Use those to prospect. It’s always best to prospect when you are in a great mood.

The second reason is, without a solid stream of leads coming into the top of the funnel, they will not have enough opportunities and place too much focus on trying to close deals that are not a fit or trying to force opportunities to close that are not ready to close. So much frustration comes from not prioritizing lead generation second to closing the deal. 

Target Market   

It’s all about talking to the right people. Talking to the wrong people all day long won’t get you any closer to hitting your numbers than talking to no-one. Leadership should clearly identify the target market and develop a list of the companies they want to approach. Then sales and marketing should work together to identify the buyer personas within those target companies and plan an approach.  

Messaging 

It’s all about saying the right thing at the right time to the right people. Messaging needs to speak to specific problems buyers are having. No luck there. It’s hard to get attention these days. Develop messaging that speaks to the buyer personas most likely to be involved in the decision to buy. The message has to match the person it’s being delivered to. CFOs and CMOs don’t buy for the same reasons. Don’t let your salespeople talk about products and services. They need to tell the buyer how your product or service will make their life easier and help them hit their goals, that will get their attention. 

The Complex Sale 

It’s all about covering your bases. Sure, a salesperson might get lucky and find a buying influence who can make the decision without getting others involved. Chances are, however, that they will be better positioned to handle objections, shorten the sales cycle, improve your chance of winning the sale and getting repeat business if they are working with all the people involved in the buying decision. Next time your salesperson says, “I’m talking to this guy” stop them and ask a few questions about who else besides that ‘guy’ will make the decision and how they will all be involved in the buying process.  

Managing Leads   

It’s all about understanding your funnel. Funnel, pipeline, whatever you call it, you need to be the master of it. You should be able to pull a report that shows you: 

• All of the sales opportunities your team is working on (by rep).
• What stage each opportunity is in.
• What the next action is and on what date that action will take place. 

That is the only way you will know if there are enough opportunities moving at the right speed to hit your number. 

If there are not enough opportunities in the top of the funnel, you should be able to see that clearly and take action. If there are too many opportunities stuck, you should be able to clearly identify those and develop the right strategy for each to get it moving. 

The reason I like the term funnel is because the shape is important. Lots in the top and less moving down as you qualify opportunities. It shows you if you have the right balance. If your company’s funnel isn’t properly balanced, kissing the Blarney Stone won’t be enough to make your numbers. 

Want to get lucky? Let’s build a strategy and make a plan to make sure you do. Schedule a time to chat with us!  

The post This is Why Closing Deals is About Strategy, Not Luck appeared first on Alice Heiman, LLC.

obpia30 / Pixabay

Productivity is a hot topic for a reason – who doesn’t need more hours in the day?

Especially for business owners and executives, time comes at a high cost, and the wasted time can lead to the demise of an organization.

However, many “productivity hacks” take a lot of time to implement. Today, we wanted to focus on getting the quick wins in that will start saving you time today. Check out these 6 hacks to instantly be more productive, and start taking your time back today.

Take Control of Your Calendar

Most people realize their calendar is an asset for keeping their schedule on track. But it can also be a productivity killer, especially if you work in an environment where you are expected to share your calendar or if your colleagues can request your time by scheduling directly to your calendar. Take control of your calendar by using the technique of time blocking.

Do you know that you need a few uninterrupted hours to work on a project? Schedule it in a meeting with yourself. Then you know you’ve set aside the time you need to return phone calls, send e-mails, or plan your week.

Just Say No to Smartphone Notifications

Every sound, banner, and badge you glance at on your phone comes with the exchange of your time. Even if you don’t actively interact with the notification, the distraction can still cost you.

“Cellular phone notifications alone significantly disrupt performance on an attention-demanding task, even when participants do not directly interact with a mobile device during the task,” said researchers in a 2015 study conducted at Florida State University. The researchers found that the distractions not only cost the subjects’ time, but also resulted in more mistakes.

Turn off notifications or put your phone in do not disturb mode while you’re working. Though they won’t block notifications, you can also use focus-enhancing apps, such as Flora or Moment to help you break the tech addiction.

Don’t Be Ruled by E-mail

52% of people admit to checking their phones first thing in the morning. That can get you into work mode and have you checking your e-mail before you’ve had that all-too-important first cup of coffee.

Checking e-mail early and frequently throughout the day leaves you at risk for prioritizing the needs of others before what you’ve already planned for yourself that day. If you’re constantly responding to emergencies and putting out fires that come through in your inbox, you’ll never get to your to-do list.

Schedule time on your calendar to read and respond to e-mail. Then, your priorities remain intact, and you’re still taking time to respond to your colleagues and clients in a timely fashion.

Practice the Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro Technique can be a real life-saver if you’re prone to distraction. Named for the tomato-shaped timer used by the inventor of the technique, it amounts to this: you set a timer for 25 minutes and work consistently through that time. Once your timer goes off, it’s then time for a 5-minute rest period. Once you’ve completed 4 cycles, you take a slightly longer break, of 15-30 minutes.

This technique is extremely effective, because it balances extreme focus with the reward of a break. Don’t believe it? Give it a try when you’re done reading this article.

Keep A Written Record of Goals, Plans, and Deadlines

A good to-do-list is a thing of beauty. You should know when and how you’re planning to accomplish your tasks, otherwise, they are never going to get done. Writing it down makes your goals and deadlines more tangible and more real.

One mistake to avoid, however, is to tell others about your goals – because our brains confuse the talking about doing with the actual doing. Keeping written records is good for helping us focus, and doesn’t it feel good to cross something off the list?

Delegate

There are times when busy sales professionals have more on their plates than they could ever possibly handle. Trying to take it all on and maintain your focus on the most important things leaves you with a lot of things undone. One way to break the cycle is to recruit help.

Free up time by delegating tasks to a virtual assistant, so that you can stay focused on the tasks that you’re best at and that will bring in the most revenue. Prialto virtual assistants can take on your repeatable, time-consuming tasks without needing the extensive training of hiring your own assistant.

Try a few of these productivity hacks to get a few hours back in your week!

There are a lot of generalizations about buyers being bandied about here on the internet.  Here are some you should be aware of:

• You have no doubt read about buyers being 57 percent through their buying process before engaging with a salesperson (an idea that has been misinterpreted by frauds and phonies and charlatans).
• There is much lecturing about how much research buyers are doing before making a purchase, there being so much information available, the implication is that buyers know as much as salespeople.
• Ideas are put out, with such certainty, about what buyers value and what they resist, most of this coming from people who stand to gain from feeding you fear so they can gain financially.
• Then, there is the idea that buyers don’t accept phone calls.

This is the platonic buyer. This is a theory about buyers in general, not the buyer. Even if there is research to back up these assertions about buyers, they are not likely accurate as it pertains to any one buyer.

On average, a man is 5’10 inches tall. If you are a tailor or a retailer, you should stock suits for men of this height, that being the average and the point of greatest need—and profitability. Using this fact to make the decision as to what kind of suits to carry is to believe that a generalization is universally true.

Your buyer may not be 5’10. They may be 6’4 or 5’3. One contact within your prospective client’s company may indeed be precisely 57 percent through the process of making a complex decision they only make twice in their lifetime. Meanwhile, the rest of their team may be far behind them, maybe at, say, something less than 5 percent through that same process. I am talking about real contacts here, not the platonic kind.

Let’s assume the platonic buyer knows as much as you from surfing the internet (I know, this is difficult to imagine, but stay with me here). So, in a couple of hours of reading God knows what on the internet, your platonic buyer has gained all the insight and wisdom of someone who has worked with hundreds or thousands of clients over the course of their career? Let’s use something like Enterprise Resource Planning software as an example. The person who makes a decision to buy ERP might make that decision once or twice in their lifetime, hoping against hope that it will only be one time. How could they know what an experienced salesperson knows?

The platonic buyer doesn’t take phone calls. In real life, many buyers do take phone calls, even if it isn’t easy to trade them enough value for them to agree to a meeting. But those are two different ideas. The refusal to meet is less about the medium and much more about the value of meeting.

Don’t focus on trying to win the platonic buyer’s platonic business. Focus instead on serving the real people who work inside your dream client companies. They have very real challenges and opportunities, and they very much need your help.

The post Stop Selling to the Platonic Buyer appeared first on The Sales Blog.

Content marketing is a great way for fintech companies to grow brand awareness, bridge knowledge gaps, and generate leads. It has become a critical strategy for smart marketers to build trust and engage an audience.

Another good reason many fintech (and other) organizations are turning to content marketing? Beyond building awareness, it boosts ROI — content marketing delivers more than 3x as many leads as traditional marketing, dollar for dollar.

Growth hacks are a great way to rise above the competition on a shoestring budget. The great thing about content marketing growth hacks is that they pair shrewd marketing tricks with trust-building strategies, a sure-fire recipe for new business and great ROI.

Here are 3 fintech growth hacks you can incorporate into your content marketing strategy to improve your conversion rates:

1) Build Trust and Convey Authenticity with Video

One of the biggest challenges fintechs face is effectively conveying the value proposition of the services they offer. Boiling complex concepts down to easily digestible information is key. Video can help fintech companies engage with prospects at any stage in the buyer’s journey, but they are particularly great for brand building.

Video helps grab the attention of your audience. Video is poised to account for more than 80% of all web traffic by 2019. Why? Because it’s interesting and digestible. Also, if you think video only impacts awareness and has little bearing on actual sales, think again: Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users. Consider the following types of videos for a variety of marketing purposes:

• Explainer Videos – ideal to present a digestible version of your unique selling proposition; explains your company’s product or service and the benefits to the user
• Video Blogs (Vlogs) – great alternative to written blog entries; can be done on a variety of fintech topics as a snackable snippet of relevant topics and news
• Social Videos – great shareable assets that are shorter than traditional videos and live well on social platforms; makes sharing easy to increase reach of brand awareness
• Webinars – repurpose your live-stream webinars that people can download or view on YouTube or another video hosting platform
• Whiteboard Videos – popular format to explain an interesting topic or solution to a problem; also features a real human, which can convey authenticity and build trust
• How-To Videos – these illustrate how-to do something, whether it’s using your product or service or another neat trick you want to share with viewers.

2) Create High-Quality Content Assets for Download

Video is among the top awareness-building fintech growth hacks. But you’ll also need content to entice visitors into giving up some of their information. For B2B fintechs, lead generation is key. Effective lead generation is built on even trades: your audience gets a useful piece of content in exchange for providing their name, email address, and possibly a phone number.

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to consistently produce this type of high-quality content asset. Researching, writing, and designing white papers and ebooks is time-consuming and laborious. Without a fully-staffed content marketing department, many cobble together writings from busy executives who don’t have the bandwidth to give it their full attention. Worse yet, they abandon ship.

Don’t abandon ship.

Whether you work with a consultant or contract out this important work to an agency, get it done. Some ideas for building high-quality downloadable assets:

Create White Papers for Education

Brainstorm around a big industry problem your product addresses or solves. Create an outline that:

1. a) introduces the industry challenge
2. b) provides data and statistics to support why this challenge is a significant problem for your audience
3. c) outlines some solutions to this challenge
4. d) points out reasons your solution is the gold-standard to solving the problem

Highlight Key Data in Infographics

White papers are often dense, so adding some visual elements is a must. Since your white paper should be grounded in fact and statistics, consider turning some of those into an appealing infographic. An added bonus is that infographics are great tools for sharing content on social media. You can use the infographic to promote the ebook across channels and gain additional exposure.

Ensure Landing Pages are On Point

Every downloadable asset needs a landing page. It should include:

• A headline
• A sub-head
• Body copy
• A compelling call-to-action (CTA)

When it comes to landing pages, short and sweet is the rule. Tease out the value of your white paper in the headline and use bullets in the body copy to lay out exactly what visitors can expect within the white paper. When adding a form to the page, only ask for the essential information (name, email address, maybe a phone number). The longer the form, the greater the chances of your visitor abandoning the process. Also include a check box to opt-in to your newsletter, if you have one.

Nurture Leads

The visitor has filled out the form and downloaded the asset. All done, right? Wrong. Now that you have an email address, send these visitors a drip sequence of emails over a couple weeks. Here’s an outline of a sample sequence:

1. “Thank you for downloading. Here’s your white paper” with a link to the asset.
2. “Hope you enjoyed ‘White Paper X’. Isn’t it interesting how [specific snippet from white paper]? We recently wrote a blog on why that’s interesting [link to blog].
3. Same as above. Covers different talking point. Links to different web content.
4. Same as above. Covers different talking point. Links to different web content.
5. Same as above. Covers different talking point. Links to different web content. Includes subtle language around how [your company] helps solve the problem described
6. Same as above. Covers different talking point. Links to different web content. Includes subtle language around how [your company] helps solve the problem described. Includes case study and asks for a meeting.

There are plenty of tools that allow you to set up an automated sequence like this. Consider MailChimp, HubSpot, or SharpSpring.

The idea is to continue teasing out helpful information to this engaged audience. As you get further on in the sequence, you may consider adding in more about your company and how your solutions work. Be subtle. Be elegant. Be creative.

3) Guest Blogging

Submit blog posts for placement on complementary blogs and publications with a high domain authority. This type of outreach can present your high-quality thought leadership to new and unique audiences. In addition to expanding the reach of your content marketing, it has excellent benefits for SEO. The backlinks earned from sharing your content on high-authority sites makes you more relevant, and subsequently more findable by people searching online.

To make the most of guest blogging, follow these steps:

1. Create a list of online publications in which you’d like to have your fintech’s content featured.
2. Have an outlined prepared for your proposed article (many publications ask for this upfront)
3. Draft a pitch email that briefly outlines the article you’d like to post and the benefit to the publication for posting it (“Your readers will get unique insights into x, y, and z…)
4. Reach out to a few publications to start. See what sort of responses you get and hone your pitch as needed to make it more appealing to editors.

It may take several dozens of emails to obtain a placement. Don’t give up. Once you build a well-oiled outreach machine, you’ll have a sound method for obtaining new backlinks and presenting your best ideas to fresh audiences. While maintaining a blog on your own website is critical, guest blogging provides a way to get in front of new niches through other sites that already have a strong readership.

Fintech Growth Hacks: A Way to Get Ahead

B2B fintech investment is on the rise. In fact, a recent report by McKinsey & Co. has estimated that the size of the global payments industry is expected to grow to $2.2 trillion by 2020. Many companies are gunning for a slice of that pie, making for a crowded marketplace. The fintech growth hacks above are key ways you can stand apart from the competition.

Go beyond traditional marketing measures and engage with your audience through with content marketing as one of your fintech growth hacks. And don’t let the term “growth hack” fool you into thinking that everything will be fast and simple. Growth requires work. Use the above tips to build trust with your key audience(s) and accelerate lead generation and growth.

Social media management for multiple clients requires dedication, focus and an effortless workflow process. Both agencies and individuals often find themselves overwhelmed by the seemingly small components that make up a bigger social media marketing strategy. From tackling multiple different industries at a time, through campaign-specific goals, it’s easy to get lost in the process and find yourself burned out. However, we’re here to your rescue!

In our previous step-by-step “cheat sheet” guide, we discussed how to keep track of multiple social media profiles for multiple clients. We noted the importance of communication, the tools you use and more.

Yet, the process of the actual social media management is relatively different. That’s why this week we’ll tackle just that! Of course, the actual process varies from client to client and agency to agency. However, our piece is primarily focused on how to make the workflow as stable, seamless and as effortless as possible.

Here’s a short, but highly informative, how-to guide on streamlining the social media management for multiple client process. Let’s get started!

#1 – Get Your Teams in Order

Depending on the size of your digital marketing studio you either have multiple social media managers, designers and a bunch of marketers or only a handful of people who do virtually everything. Regardless of how big or small your agency is, to be able to streamline your process of the social media management of multiple clients, you have to get your teams in order. The segregation of the teams can be done in one of two ways.

By Social Platform

Allocate a few people for each respective platform that you are planning to offer as part of a service. Have a team that specializes in Twitter, one for Facebook and a more design-centric social media team for Instagram. This will allow your experts focus on platform-specific movements and adaptations.

By Client or Brand

If you have a bigger team or you want to diversify your experts in knowledge of the different platforms, you might want to create client and brand specific teams. This will allow your experts to dedicate themselves to specific goals and get more involved in each respective industry.

Regardless of your choice, make sure to keep your teams organized. Whether an individual expert would be focused on a specific platform or a brand, they would be able to better adapt and develop their work process over time. You might want to go for both, i.e. to have your employees be focused on multiple clients and multiple brands. However, this might put a strain on the creativity of your experts and might ultimately harm your business and social media marketing campaigns.

#2 – Allocate Team Leaders

This step might not be possible and is directly related to the current size of your company. Nevertheless, having people be responsible for each team can increase the overall productivity of your operations.

With team leaders by your side, you’ll be able to have advisors to make the big decisions and keep track of the different social media campaigns. In relation to the process of social media management for multiple clients, team leaders will be able to make decisions for different marketing campaigns, allowing you to streamline your workflow better.

How do the big digital marketing agencies operate?

While this is not exactly the case for each and every agency out there, some of the biggest names in the industry have team leaders that are directly responsible for clients, brands and marketing campaigns on social media. Often, the owner of the agency and the CEO are only responsible for the biggest clients and decisions, while account executives and team leaders communicate with clients, make deals and that much more. If you are thinking big and considering future expansion, you might as well start preparing your staff now, by allocating different roles of the individual employees in your company.

#3 – Use the Right Tools

Living in the digital age, you can’t run a business without the proper tools. This is especially true for digital marketing agencies aspiring to manage multiple clients. Make sure to do proper research and ultimately choose the tools that would best fit your business and established workflow. We’ve previously discussed some of the tools that make our work easier, so be sure to check our picks for the top 25 tools every social marketer should use.

One thing you should keep a note on is the scalability of the tool. Some tools might work great for small teams and individuals, but consider software that can handle bigger operations. Especially if you are focused on the growth of your company, make sure to use the social media marketing tools you are going to use for the campaigns of multiple clients at a time.

As easy as it might seem, switching tools in between operations is not that simple. Plus, you don’t want your team to have to constantly adapt to new tools. Thus, keep a short list of apps that can help you with the management of multiple social media clients.

#4 – Streamline the Communication and Report Process with a Client

You should also make sure that you have set clear and streamlined process for communication with a client. Regardless of the size and number of your clients, you wouldn’t want to have them requesting reports or performance updates. Instead, make sure that everything is kept on a tight schedule and have your social media reports done for multiple clients before each respective period.

Your client might not be that familiar with the measurement of the performance that goes into play on social media platforms. However, sending proper reporting with all available data shows your expertise and dedication to their project. The reporting duty might be left on the team leaders, but if you want to be more involved in the project and be secure about your own brand, make sure to check the reports before they are sent to the clients.

#5 – Have Dedicated Personnel for Finding New Leads

One huge hurdle most digital marketing agency startups need to overcome is client base growth. Finding multiple clients and keeping track of their social media management often results in filled schedules and lack of motivation for growth. In a sense, once profitable to an extent, some startups start feeling comfortable in their current space and don’t think of finding new leads unless they need to fill an empty spot in their schedule.

Instead, once your process for the social media management of multiple clients is streamlined, you will be able to focus on the growth of your company. If all hands are on deck, prepare a process for hiring new employees and expanding your office. Also, the creation of campaign-specific teams that deal with bigger marketing campaigns for brands and clients might allow you to expand your social networking and digital marketing services further.

Whatever the case might be, to expand your business you will need to hire dedicated personnel that has the sole responsibility of finding new leads. Even if you and your partners are actually the ones that are closing the deals with the clients, finding leads and potential clients is certainly not something you should take lightly.

We are not talking about a “sales” team, but rather a research-based team that helps you find potential clients and come up with different ways which you can tackle the deal based on the specific case scenario with the client of choice.

#6 – Do What Works Best for you!

Last, but not least, make sure to do what works best for you, your business and your team. Much like our other cheat sheets and guides, this one is only to serve as an inspirational and insight-driven piece that helps you see the big picture and keep your mind focused on what’s important.

Nevertheless, much like different individuals, digital marketing agencies all have their own way of doing things. That being said, your version of a streamlined social media management process for dealing with multiple clients might be extremely different than what is suggested here. Whatever the case might be, just make sure that you have clear goals and do what’s right for you, your team and your business. We wish you success!