Rnordman

You’ve written an article. It’s good, but it’s not delivering any results.

Despite targeting a seemingly easy keyword, the content is nowhere near page one in Google search results.

I was in the same spot a little bit ago after writing a lengthy article on “trade marketing,” a broad subject area with lots of searches. I created the content to fill a gap I observed in my research – nothing existed that was all encompassing on the topic.

Every content marketing box was clicked – research a topic, source a valuable keyword, write an informative article, optimize for search, and promote the piece.

My site – and the content – refused to budge in the search rankings.

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Every #contentmarketing box was clicked, but the content refused to budge in search rankings. @SplashCopy #SEO
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Three months later, it was time to do some investigating. I followed a three-step process, and discovered that searchers didn’t want an ultimate guide. The evidence indicated that they wanted something else – so that’s what I gave them.

If you are having the same trouble – good content without great search results – take these three steps and see what happens.

Pre-step: Access Google Search Console and add your website domain to connect.

Step 1: Find your search analytics

When you open Search Console, go to Search Traffic, then select Search Analytics from the drop-down menu:

Now you can see the data around how often your site appears in Google search results. Make sure all the check boxes – clicks, impressions, CTR, and position – are ticked at the top of the page.

TIP: To learn what search words result in rankings (and visits) for your site, filter by search query.

Step 2: Look at the information under the graph

Next, analyze the relationship between the number of search impressions for your site and the corresponding click-through rate.

In other words, when your site shows up in search results, how many people are motivated to click and go to that page?

As you can deduce, if your site displays for a keyword but isn’t getting clicks, the issue could be with the content – topic angles, headlines, descriptions.

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If your site displays for a keyword but isn’t getting clicks, the issue could be the content. @SplashCopy #SEO
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By contrast, if you’re getting a lot of clicks, you know you’ve done a good job with your content.

To identify which landing pages receive the search traffic, click on the keyword query.

Here’s what I saw for keywords around the subject of trade marketing:

In exploring the landing pages for those keywords, I learned that my original content – the ultimate guide for trade marketing – wasn’t relevant to searchers of “trade marketing.” However, it was relevant to people searching for “trade marketing strategies,” “trade marketing examples,” and “trade marketing plan.” Those terms had click-through rates above 25%.

These results told me that the search audience was more interested in the strategy and example sides of the topic. And though much of the original content was highly relevant to the search term “trade marketing,” it was framed in a way that put an unnecessary barrier to engagement. In short, people weren’t using my content in the way I had intended.

Step 3: Change your meta title, meta description and headline accordingly

Knowing that search audiences don’t see your content as relevant – even though it is – indicates an opportunity for you to make a few changes.

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Knowing search audiences don’t see your #content as relevant indicates an opp to make changes. @SplashCopy #SEO
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In my trade marketing example, I changed my meta title and meta description to:

The original meta description read:

Need trade marketing help? Discover the history of trade marketing, why it’s important and which techniques are working today.

The headline of the article was changed to:

The original title simply read:

The ultimate guide to trade marketing

As you can see, this piece of content is different from an ultimate guide – though it’s almost the same content, now it refers to strategies and examples.

It’s a much better fit for my intended audience because it hits their pain points more accurately and visibly – the copy calls out trade marketing strategies and examples.

Results

You can use Google Search Console to monitor the effect of your changes against search results.

In my example, the piece rose to the second position on page one for “trade marketing” and has garnered clicks in droves.

OK, so what have we learned?

I’ve always said a good content marketer must be a detective too. From understanding what your audience members want to how they consume their content, the more information you have, the greater your chance for success. Investigating your search audience is a critical component of that overall understanding.

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Investigating your search audience is a critical component of overall understanding, says @SplashCopy. #SEO
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Achieving SEO and content marketing success is a logical process. Google doesn’t care about which website has the longest articles, the most back-links, or the most social shares. It cares about what content provides the most value to searchers – and if Google focuses on what people use content for, shouldn’t you?

With this three-step process, you not only can craft a more effective headline, meta title, and meta description with what searchers want, you can also better align your content with what your readers need.

If you want more daily tips, trends, and insight to improve your content marketing, subscribe to the free CMI newsletter. Prefer a weekly version? You also can subscribe to that version.

Cover image by Wilfred Iven via StockSnap

Please note: All tools included in our blog posts are suggested by authors, not the CMI editorial team. No one post can provide all relevant tools in the space. Feel free to include additional tools in the comments (from your company or ones that you have used).

The post How to Find Out Why Google Hates Your Content (And Steps to Fix It) appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

There comes a time in the life of every entrepreneur when your business is no longer enjoyable. If you are a serial entrepreneur, growing businesses only to sell them for profit is a way of life. No matter what your reason is, selling your business can be overwhelming to a first-timer. In this article, we will take a look at a few points you must consider while selling your business.

Setting the right valuation

Arriving at the right valuation for your business can be quite tricky. This is especially true since revenues and profits do not always reveal the complete picture about a business. A WordPress blog making $5000 profit each month off ad revenue may demand the same valuation as a SaaS business making the same kind of monthly profit

However, the assets owned by the business are completely different. In this example, the SaaS business may have proprietary software that could have taken several thousand dollars to build. The value of this asset must be accounted for while valuing the property. Also, a SaaS model brings recurring income to the business and is a lot more sustainable than a blog making money off ads. It is important to account for the value of these assets while arriving at the right selling price. You may want to hire a professional business broker, accountant, or financier to help you in arriving at the right valuation.

Giving the buyer a reason to buy

Building the best business in town is not always the ideal strategy if you are looking to eventually sell your equity. A prospective buyer not only looks at your financial metrics while evaluating your business, but is also interested to know your customer acquisition and retention strategies. They do this because fixing such gaps in your system could help the buyer turn your business around and make a profit. In other words, having gaps in your execution is not a bad thing when you are looking to sell your business. Position your business as the second or third best in your industry for maximum leverage during the selling process.

Find the Right Platform to Sell

Finding the right platform to sell your business is as important as setting the right valuation. There are two reasons to do this. Firstly, you need to be seen among industry insiders who are knowledgeable about your business. A relative newbie to your industry may not really understand the significance of your product or may not have sufficient incentive to bid high. A buyer who already has significant assets in your industry may be capable of driving traffic from these assets to your property, and would therefore be ready to bid high on your property. The second reason you must find the right platform is because the sale price of your website in an auction model is determined by the quality of your peers. Low interest among bidders disincentivizes an interested buyer from bidding high.

A site like Flippa, for instance, is popular among sellers looking to make a quick buck. Consequently, even a modestly legitimate business is likely to enjoy good bids. Similarly, if you own an eCommerce store, you must look at putting your site for sale on a platform like Shopify Exchange – this attracts fellow eCommerce entrepreneurs who are more likely to understand your business.

Craft a post-exit strategy

What is your role in the strategy and operations of your business after it has been sold? Do you intend to serve as a mentor to the buyer? Will you still own equity and a board position? The sale price should reflect such demands from the buyer. In addition to this, you must also take other factors like the insistence on a non-compete clause in the sales agreement or the offer of equity in the parent organization in lieu of cash into account. There is an opportunity cost with each of these demands and the sale price must reflect these factors.

Selling a business is never going to be easy. There is always a buyers’ or sellers’ regret at the end of a transaction. The pointers above should help you to arrive at the most scientifically accurate valuation for your business and should help ensure a smooth selling process.

Looking to increase your sales success? Stop thinking so much about your product, and instead consider your solution.

 

At first glance, your company’s product and solution may seem like fraternal — if not identical — twins, but a closer examination will show you otherwise. Clients aren’t really looking for a product. Rather, they just want to solve their most pressing issues by any means necessary.

 

Coming to terms with this fact is only the first step in becoming a truly customer-centric sales team, but it’s nonetheless critical. After that, you’ll begin to help customers bring to light and understand their most difficult problems — and how your company is the most obvious solution.

 

Looking Through a New Lens

 

Solution-oriented selling relies on getting to know your customers on a deeper level. You’ll do less product promotion and spend more time looking for ways to help. Reframing your offering from a one-size-fits-all product to a just-for-you solution fosters lasting relationships with clients, who will view you as a trusted partner they can’t live without.

 

It’s more than a sales tactic; it’s creating an unparalleled customer experience. You can show clients that you get their problems and you’re going to help them remedy those problems. This customer-centric approach gives you an advantage over competitors and tells a compelling story about your company.

 

I have a sales rep on my team who models this method to great success. Not only does he work to show clients that he understands their problems, but he also helps them identify additional issues they may not have noticed. Going a step further, he works with them to anticipate future issues and to minimize the challenges of implementing a new solution. His approach helps to position our company, FIS Global, as a provider of lasting solutions, not simply a short-term Band-Aid.

 

That’s not to say that client-focused selling is the sole responsibility of one salesperson — or even just the sales team. It requires companywide buy-in. Making this shift can be tricky, especially if your company has traditionally focused heavily on the product. But every department benefits from seeing through the customer’s eyes. Here are three steps you can implement to rally everyone around this method.

 

1. Encourage Education

 

Traditionally, sales teams have been reluctant to overeducate prospective clients for fear that they’ll use that newly acquired knowledge to shop around. However, the results may be just the opposite. Research shows that educating your prospects can actually give you a leg up. The more educated customers are, the more likely they are to trust your product.

 

You need to take on an active teaching role, positioning yourself as a trusted comrade in a potential client’s quest for a solution. Use channels such as blogs, social media, video, etc., to establish and showcase your extensive knowledge on your targets’ pain points. This solidifies your relationship with potential customers and positions you to introduce your product into the conversation.

 

2. Huddle the Troops to Share Customer Intelligence

 

Companies will have a much easier time selling solutions if internal silos and communication barriers are eliminated. Selling is a companywide effort, after all. Every teammate’s work rolls up into sales as each strives to create value for customers. Even those who don’t work with clients are still contributing to the mission.

 

Salespeople have valuable client insights that the rest of your colleagues can use. Alternately, there’s data about your clients in accounting, customer service, legal, and more. When departments are free to share, you can cull that data and reveal the story behind it. That helps sales anticipate future trends and connect with prospective customers. If a company promotes an open dynamic and provides sales the resources it needs, salespeople will be better-equipped to give customers the solutions they need.

 

3. Embrace Smarketing

 

To truly become a solutions-oriented company, sales and marketing need to work in perfect harmony. Salespeople can and should bring customers’ views directly to marketing, which will allow marketing to better tell the story of your company’s solution.

 

This, in turn, makes selling easier for the sales team. Appointing a liaison between the departments creates a better flow of information. Facilitate an exchange of ideas and manage feedback so the rising tide can lift all boats.

 

When your entire company sees the world from the client’s perspective, every aspect of the business falls in line with customers’ needs — and that’s just the solution they’re looking for.

 

Sona Jepsen is the global head of sales enablement at Fidelity National Information Services (FIS). Her team empowers FIS’s global sales teams with sales content, strategic insights, and world-class learning and development opportunities.

It’s time to put the customer back into the conversation. The greatest resource a seller has in winning new business is an honest dialogue. Engage the process as a team. Call upon these core tenets of consultative selling in every buyer interaction.

Come Prepared

Sellers need to come prepared. Effective selling begins before the conversation starts. Seek out resources to learn more about the key drivers behind the customer’s business as well as the decision makers and their process. Interactions with the customer are valuable, so be sure to tackle the easy questions on your own before meeting the customer.

Foster Openness

Foster openness through dialogue that allows the buyer to feel less guarded about their insights on what they need in a solution. This exchange primes the seller to effectively position value later. All things being equal, the ability of a seller to tightly demonstrate relevance to a specific customer issue or opportunity (rather than simply an industry-wide one) will always be more compelling.

Check In

Successful sellers rely on periodic feedback from the customer. This “checking in” ensures that the customer is involved in the conversation. Feedback will reveal if the seller has offered any ideas that are incongruous to the customer’s perspective. Knowing these objections is critical before making recommendations that involve the product at hand.

Build Momentum

By creating a dialogue, asking questions, and eliciting feedback, sellers will be well prepared to ask for the sale. Often, several decision makers are involved. Therefore, sellers need to propose specific next steps to continue the momentum. It’s the seller’s job to help build consensus among stakeholders.

Establish Trust

Finally, sellers can continue to build their credibility by delivering on their commitments. When a buyer sees a seller’s actions as consistent with what they say, they establish Knowledge-based Trust. This is a critical outcome according to an independent study commissioned by SAP in which respondents revealed “trust” as the most important factor when purchasing products. Keep the customer engaged by making routine follow ups. These touch-points keep the customer locked into the various ways your solution connects to their problem.

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To learn more about how to elevate your consultative selling approach to be competitive in the modern sales environment join us for a complimentary webinar, Adjusting Your Consultative Selling Approach to Engage The Modern Buyer, on August 8 at 3:00 PM EST, or download the White Paper: Elevate Your Consultative Selling Approach to Compete Today.

The post The Core Tenets of Consultative Selling appeared first on Richardson Sales Training & Enablement Blog.

There are a hundred questions to ask yourself before you start a business, but there’s one that turns more people away than any other:

What if I fail?

It’s a scary question, for sure. But legitimate. Most businesses do fail. But it’s not quite as bad as some sources say. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a new business has about an 80% of making it in the first year, and about a 50/50 chance of making it to its fifth year.

80% is fairly good odds… unless your retirement and your family home is on the line. Which is why most people are cautious. It may be why you’re still on the fence.

But what about failing?

What actually would happen…. if you failed?

This is easier to answer than most of us want to admit. We just don’t like the answer. If you fail, you’ll probably:

• Be broke, or nearly broke, or in debt (this is tough, but it won’t kill you).
• Be exhausted and emotionally, possibly physically drained (this also sucks, and is not great for your health, but also won’t kill you).
• Be far wiser than you are now.
• Have a slew of skills, experience, and know-how that you don’t have now.

Two of those are not so fun. The other two… well maybe they aren’t fun, but they’re valuable. They have market value. A good failure may well teach you more than you learned in college. So if you do fail, and you end up back in the interview chair, you’ll be a more impressive candidate.

But enough worst case scenarios, okay?

What if you could avoid failure?

Now that you know failure won’t kill you, what if you could take some concrete actions and make some flexible plans that would drastically reduce your likelihood of crashing?

Sound like a good use of time? Sound like a smart thing to do before you borrow tends of thousands of dollars or cash out your 401K, and put months, possibly years of sweat equity into your fragile business idea?

Thought so. So this is what you’re gonna do:

1. Understand that just because you’re good at what you do doesn’t mean you’ll be good at running a business.

This is the #1 rude awakening for most new business owners. They think that because they were a superstar … accountant, masseuse, writer, attorney – whatever – that they should just be able to go run their own shop.

The reality is that running a business requires it’s own set of skills. Those skills are very different than the skills you’ve honed becoming a superstar professional.

Succeeding with your business will require you to get good at those new skills – or you’ll both need to get good at outsourcing those parts of your business and you’ll need to have enough cash on hand to outsource those tasks. And when you’re first starting out, cash can be really tight.

So what’s the way around this? Any one of these three tactics will work, but trying all of them is even better:

• Get some training. There are thousands of online courses, communities and resources to learn from. Start spending at least one night a week learning the different aspects of your business – everything from legal and taxes to marketing and client management.
• Use your current job as a training ground. If you’re employed at a company that does what you want to do, try to get moved around to different departments, or at least to understand what your co-workers are doing in those departments.
• Find great resources. Start beating the bushes to find the help you need. At the very least, you’ll probably need to find a great CPA, bookkeeper and designer. According to the WASP 2017 “State of Small Business Report” and the WASP 2017 “Small Business Report – Accounting”those are the most common functions for small businesses to outsource.

2. Not knowing what the market really wants.

This may be the most painful type of failure to see. Everything else for the launch works beautifully. Your business model was a homerun on paper. Your fancy business plan proved your success.

But the rollout turns out differently.

You now have a nice shiny new business, with thousands of dollars or equipment… and no one cares.

But you can never really know until you try, right?

Baloney. Anybody who’s been in business knows that you do market testing – rigorous market testing – before you invest a dime. So before you, say, launch a dog bakery, rent a dog bakery cart. Lease a table at the local farmer’s market, and see if you can sell dog cookies there.

In other words, don’t just research your market. Test it. Really test it. Understand its culture. Learn how to speak its language.

Neither of those are lofty, empty words, by the way. Every market has its own culture. You can deviate from it a bit by differentiating yourself, but break conventions too badly and you’re sunk.

There are many upsides to doing this. The best one isn’t just avoiding failure. Good market testing often reveals opportunities you would never, ever see otherwise. For instance, who could have known that the doggie biscuits would kinda fall flat, but that the doggie raw food would fly off the shelves – with a 30% profit margin?

The real secret here, of course, is to know your market. The better you know your market, the less of risk you’re taking.

Knowing a market takes time. And while a full-scale bakery might be your dream, if you start with just a cart (instead of a store) you might still have your retirement savings five years from now.

3. Get the financing – or build the cash flow – you’ll need.

This is probably the second most common reason new businesses go under: cash flow. Even if they can get enough financing to start, they often overspend setting up their business, and underestimate how long it will take to see a profit.

That’s a bad combination.

Here’s the most obvious way around this problem: Spend as little as humanly possible when you first launch your business. For example, if you don’t have clients in your office, DO NOT invest in new furniture. Hit up Goodwill instead.

Then figure out how many months, realistically, it will take you to break even and have an operating cash flow. Then save up enough money to operate for twice as many months.

Like the point before, doing this may delay your launch. And also like the point before, doing this – even if it delays your launch – could save you from failure and debt.

Conclusion

Don’t fear starting a business. You don’t have to be among the ones that fail. But you do have to prepare better than the average entrepreneur does. A lot better.

• Be sure you have the skills or the resources to run all aspects of your business – not just the parts you’re good at.
• Don’t just research your market. Test it. Prove your business can work – with real customers – before you invest too heavily. In other words, start small. Fail fast. Pivot accordingly.
• Be a pessimist when you plan what it will cost to start your business, and how much you’ll make. Even if this means you have to wait a few more months (or even another year) before you launch.

What do you think?

Did you ever start a business that failed? Or one that succeeded? What do you wish you had done differently? Leave a comment and tell us.

If it’s true that celebrity Selena Gomez earns 550,000 Dollars per Instagram post and beauty influencer Huda Kattan demands 18,000, influencer marketing must be a costly business for companies, wouldn’t it? Even though different factors impact the pricing of influencers, we are asked “How much shall I pay exactly?” ever so often. So here it is, the ultimate influencer pricing formula!

We already talked about different factors which impact the pricing of influencers in our last blog post. There are hard factors as well as soft factors. While the hard factors are defined by precise numbers, the soft factors have to be evaluated for each individual case.

Soft Factors

Brand Fit & Authenticity

This factor itself includes the brand environment of an influencer. A high-class fashion brand should aim for influencers who position themselves in a high-class brand environment instead of working with low-price brands. A good brand fit supports the authenticity of an influencer which reflects on the promoted brand as well.

Similar to the brand environment, the engaged influencers are an aspect which impacts this soft factor. If a fashion influencer surrounds herself with other successful influencers with a great reputation in this sector, the value of the influencer will increase and so will her worth for brands.

Content Quality

The content quality is another soft factor and has to be evaluated for each case individually. It all comes down to how valuable a content piece is for the brand.

Content pieces of @fashiioncarpet

If a campaign mainly focuses on the reach of influencers, the content quality might be a secondary factor. Thus, the value of a content piece for a brand depends on the campaign objectives.

Hard Factors

Media Value Per Post

The media value per post is an indicator of how valuable the activities of an Instagram channel are. This metric is calculated with the help of Instagram’s CPM of approximately 5$.

Audience Quality

The better the audience, the better the influencer! An active and engaged audience is essential for influencers and influencer marketing campaigns. There is no point in creating content for dead-end users and companies would not want to pay for inactive followers who do not even see the campaign posts in their feeds, let alone express interest in the brand or the products displayed.

Target Group Accuracy

An active and engaged audience is great, but it is completely useless if it is not the right audience. Target group accuracy is key! For brands, it is important to reach those users which live in the countries the brand’s products are sold in.

Additionally, the gender split should be taken into account. Not every female influencer has a majority of female followers.

The content above of influencer @deborah_tmz illustrates this fact. Her target group analysis reveals that 81% of her followers are men. So, would you invest in cooperating with this influencer if you wanted to reach a female audience?

The Influencer Pricing Formula

Let’s start the calculation. Our influencer pricing formula takes all factors mentioned above into consideration.

Media Value per Post, in $
Audience Quality, in %
Target Group Accuracy, in %
Brand Fit, on a scale from 0.5 to 1.5
Content Value, based on quality from $50 to $1,000

We’ll illustrate this formula using two female influencers with similar reach as examples.

Both Caro and Deborah are German influencers with a reach of 1.1 million followers each. Nonetheless, their pricing will vary depending on different factors.

Let’s say the fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger would want to work with both influencers for the worldwide launch of a new female clothing line. We’ll calculate the expenses with the help of the influencer pricing formula.

This is how Tommy Hilfiger could calculate Caro’s pricing:

Media Value per Post	$5,689
Audience Quality	84%
Target Group Accuracy	88.7% (female followers)
Brand Fit	1.5
Content Value	$300
Price	$6,680

Calculation: 5,689 x 0,84 x 0,89 x 1.5 + 300 = $6,680

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And here is Deborah’s pricing for Tommy Hilfiger:

Media Value per Post	$5,031
Audience Quality	63%
Target Group Accuracy	19.7% (female followers)
Brand Fit	0.75
Content Value	$100
Price	$552

Calculation: 5,031 x 0,63 x 0,19 x 0.75 + 100 = $552

Caro Daur is a fashion influencer with a brand environment which includes Dolce & Gabbana, Chanel, Louis Vuitton and Dior. Thus, it can be assumed that her brand fit for a fashion brand like Tommy Hilfiger is very good and her content quality is of high value for the brand. Her good audience quality and a high percentage of female followers add to the price of approximately 6,680 Dollars.

Deborah, on the other hand, is engaged in the fitness sector rather than in fashion. Her brand fit for a fashion brand like Tommy Hilfiger is low which decreases her content value for the brand. Additionally, Deborah has a rather low amount of female followers and a mediocre audience quality. Thus, with 553 Dollars, Deborah’s pricing is significantly lower than Caro’s regarding a cooperation with Tommy Hilfiger.

But do these prices apply to every single cooperation?

The influencer marketing experts of Foodspring frequently cooperate with influencers to promote their fitness foods. Will their potential expenses for a campaign with Caro and Deborah be similar to those of Tommy Hilfiger?

Here comes Caro’s pricing for Foodspring:

Media Value per Post	$5,689
Audience Quality	84%
Target Group Accuracy	40.8% (German followers)
Brand Fit	0.5
Content Value	$100
Price	$1,080

Calculation: 5,689 x 0,84 x 0,41 x 0.5 + 100 = $1,080

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And this is Foodspring’s pricing for Deborah:

Media Value per Post	$5,031
Audience Quality	63%
Target Group Accuracy	29.9% (German followers)
Brand Fit	1.5
Content Value	$300
Price	$1,726

Calculation: 5,031 x 0,63 x 0,3 x 1.5 + 300 = $1,726

Deborah is a fitness enthusiast and works with fitness brands frequently. She keeps her followers updated on her fitness routine and her diet and enjoys a high level of authenticity in the fitness sector. For Foodspring, her brand fit is significantly higher than it is for a fashion brand like Tommy Hilfiger. And since Foodspring aims at female as well as male customers, her high amount of male followers does not impact her pricing negatively in this case. Thus, she would be able to charge a higher price for a fitness-related cooperation.

Caro Daur is a fitness fan in her spare time. She could be a possible addition to the influencer portfolio of Foodspring. Nonetheless, she is rather involved in the fashion industry which lowers her brand fit for Foodspring. Caro’s audience mainly follows her because of her fashion expertise. Her authenticity for fitness-related topics is significantly lower – her pricing is impacted by this fact.

The Takeaway

This influencer pricing formula takes all necessary metrics into account. Nonetheless, the soft factors have to be evaluated by each brand and for each cooperation individually. Two influencer channels might look similar at first glance and have the same follower number, but an in-depth analysis might reveal that the channels strongly differ regarding audience quality and target group fit.

Followers	Like Follower Ratio	Audience Quality	Price Tommy Hilfiger	Price Foodspring
Caro Daur	1,162,052	3.4%	84%	$6,680	$1,080
Deborah_tmz	1,102,617	1.6%	63%	$552	$1,726

Keep in mind that factors like long-term relations between influencers and brands impact the pricing as well and are not included in the formula.Also, each influencer has a different value for each individual brand as we see with the fashion brand Tommy Hilfiger and the fitness food brand Foodspring. It is no surprise that a fashion influencer like Caro Daur can charge a higher price for collaborating with a fashion brand than a fitness influencer can for the same cooperation. For a cooperation with a fitness brand, Deborah’s pricing, on the other hand, is significantly higher due to her better brand fit.

Thus, this influencer pricing formula is not a fixed pricing system but serves as a means of orientation for marketers. Of course, the final price for a cooperation has to be negotiated with the influencer or management and can differ from the result of our calculation. Marketers should aim for a lower value than the calculated one to get the best deal.

All data calculated with InfluencerDB.

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Published originally on InfluencerDB | Influencer Marketing For Professionals

From 50 to 550,000 Dollars per Post, we have seen it all: Small influencers who charge next to nothing for a whole bunch of posts and celebs asking for jaw-dropping amounts of money for one single Instagram picture. Some demands seem just downright audacious, but are they justified? Let’s break down how to price an influencer!

These three factors have to be taken into consideration when negotiating with influencers or their agencies.

1. CHANNEL METRICS

Generally, there are qualitative and quantitative factors which impact the pricing. Influencer metrics have to be considered, of course. These metrics include far more than just the reach of an influencer.

The engagement rates of a channel are an important indicator of the followers’ activity levels and involvement towards an influencer and their content.

The general activity of followers also impacts the audience quality. Active and engaged followers who follow only as much content as they can consume are highly valuable, which increases the value of the influencer as well.

Example of good audience quality of an influencer Example of bad audience quality of an influencer

But of course, the best audience quality is invaluable if the wrong audience is addressed! A good target group fit is essential.

If you launch a product for the French market which targets women, the influencer should ideally reach a majority of French female followers.

Example of good target group fit for French female followers

Example of bad target group fit for French female followers

2. PRESTIGE AND AUTHENTICITY

We all know that celebrity influencers can charge skyrocketing prices for their postings. So apparently there seems to be a difference in the wages of star influencers compared to regular influencers. But even within the girl next door sector, the prices vary.

Authenticity is the keyword here. A makeup artist who promotes beauty products enjoys maximum credibility and a fashion influencer frequently working with high-class fashion brands conveys expertise in this field.

How to price an influencer also depends on the standing of an influencer in his or her scene.

If an influencer attracts other influencers and brands on a regular level, the influencer’s prestige in the influencer sector is high and the influencer’s value increases.

Brand and influencer environment of Chiara Ferragni

3. CONTENT QUALITY

Visual platforms like Instagram live on the concept of pretty pictures, so last but definitely not least, the content quality of a channel flows into the pricing of an influencer. High-quality pictures require maximum effort and need to be compensated accordingly.

Instagram channel of Julie Sarinana

Keep in mind: Influencers are perfect content producers! One of their greatest assets is that they do not simply serve as a testimonial for a brand, but also produce the content for the cooperations themselves.

Thus, companies even save money and get the full package by working with content-producing influencers.

THE TAKEAWAY

Relevant metrics, prestige and content quality flow into the consideration of how to price an influencer, but in the end, various more factors might impact the salary. Oftentimes, marketers can get a better deal for several postings rather than a single one and also for content pieces which include a posting, an Instagram or Snapchat story and a blog post.

Additionally, the prestige of the brand might impact the pricing: High-fashion brands are immensely valuable for influencers regarding their own status and the influencers are excited to be part of a campaign with the brand.

Also, a promising long-term cooperation with a high-class brand and being invited to exclusive brand events like product launches can certainly affect the price negotiation.

_____________________________

Published originally on InfluencerDB | Influencer Marketing For Professionals

Cold email campaigns are one of the most effective ways a company can begin sales conversations that drive new revenue.

That said, too many businesses fail to recognize that sending cold emails is a bit like playing with fire—it’s easy to hit “send” too soon and get burned. Send out an error-ridden or confusing message and put your reputation at risk. Email an unqualified lead and find yourself caught in a spam filter. Blast a campaign from the wrong email platform and watch your IP address get blacklisted.

Every week, businesses large and small burn sales leads on easily avoidable mistakes. Take note of these common outbound-email errors if you don’t want to fall victim to them:

1. Sending a bulk email campaign without testing

Too often, companies try to scale their cold email campaigns without first understanding what works and what doesn’t. Outbound-email campaigns should be rolled out in incrementally larger batches. Why risk burning an entire list of potential leads with emails that won’t convert? Instead of blasting on a large scale, test your emails on a smaller sample at each stage to see what works. Refine, revise, and test again.

2. Emailing above the decision maker

There are a number of so-called sales gurus who will tell you to always go straight to the top and get referred down to the decision maker. But why waste time on unnecessary steps?

Sure, you probably don’t want to speak with every entry-level rep at the company, but it’s also a waste of time to ask the CEO about, say, who you should pitch your job-application-tracking software to. Rather than aiming for the biggest title, reach out to the most relevant decision maker—the head of human resources, in this case. This is especially important when selling into larger organizations.

3. Chasing the wrong leads

Just because someone responds to your emails or takes your meeting doesn’t mean you’re making progress toward closing a deal. Talking to the wrong people—like gatekeepers or buyers without budget—is a waste of everyone’s time. By better qualifying your leads up front, you can make sure you’re speaking with someone who has the interest and the decision-making power to purchase your product or service.

4. Embracing automation too soon

There are tons of amazing sales tools out there, but even they won’t make you or your company bulletproof against basic human error. In fact, where mistakes exist in your campaign strategy (such as missing campaign details or product-market mismatches), an efficient tool will only make you fail faster.

Don’t just subscribe to expensive platforms that try to automate everything. Instead, make sure you’re selling your product to people who are open to buying it. Build your campaigns around real sales conversations and apply the knowledge you’ve gained from past closed deals.

5. Sending emails one by one

Having your sales team manually send emails one at a time is a drain on resources, and there’s no reason that interesting, personalized emails can’t be produced on a larger scale. Where you’ve had success with one-off emails, try to “reverse-engineer” them into email templates you can send out in bulk. Not only will you save on human resources, you’ll also have a more concrete sense of how your individual email campaigns are performing.

6. Sending lazy or untargeted emails

Don’t use impersonal, canned email templates. What may have worked five years ago will now be easily recognized as overplayed and underwhelming. If you want to get responses, you have to write for a specific buyer persona, targeting your messaging and personalizing your cold emails with custom inserts.

7. Forgetting to proofread your emails

Error-ridden sales emails will instantly kill your credibility. Before sending, reread your emails aloud to check for obvious spelling and grammar mistakes. Never send a mail merge without first test-emailing it to yourself to make sure all merge tags work correctly and that the formatting doesn’t look weird.

8. Failing to pre-screen your data

Nothing scares a potential customer away faster than referring to their company—or them—by the wrong name. A company’s legal name may be listed as “Eastman Kodak Company,” for instance, but if you called them that in an email—instead of simply “Kodak”—you’d give your message away as a poorly-screened mail merge.

Don’t ruin the personalized impact of your carefully worded email. Check and clean the contact info on your mailing list before sending out a campaign, especially if the list is built with software or purchased outright.

9. Overlooking gaps in your data

There’s nothing better than a highly personalized email template, but you need to be sure that you actually have the personal information your email includes.

Let’s say you write a mail merge template that references a company’s client with {!Client}, but you don’t have that information accounted for in your list database. The minute you send, your email template will be revealed. Sure, it’s not the most damaging error, but it definitely defeats the time you spent personalizing your campaign. And you’ll look, not to mention feel, foolish.

To avoid this, have a backup at hand for any customized fields. For the example above, you could include code that would substitute the words “your client” wherever there’s data missing in your list database. That way, you can keep personalizing without putting your campaigns at risk.

10. Sending boring follow-up emails

Sending a series of bland and boring emails that repeat the same things over and over does not qualify as following up. In fact, it’s a surefire way to get your emails marked as spam. If you want to send follow-up emails that get results, make sure you add unique value and new information to each email you address.

11. Giving up too soon

Thirty-three percent of all responses come from emails five through eight in an eight-touch campaign. In other words, don’t give up if the first one doesn’t get a response. Unless you’ve already had contact with your prospective customer, you should plan on sending the full eight emails. Persistence pays off when you have the courage to keep at it.

12. Hitting a dead end… and still going

Yes, persistence pays off, but you don’t want to become an obnoxious e-stalker. If your target hasn’t responded after eight emails, or if they ask you not to contact them again, it’s okay to throw in the towel. Shift your attention to new prospects, and don’t forget to apply what you’ve learned when you next reach out.

Do you have other questions about best practices for cold emails or outbound sales? If so, just write them in the comments below, and I’ll try to answer the best I can (if they’re complicated, I might just turn them into another article!).

The post Your Sales Pipeline Could Be Suffering If You’re Making Any of These 12 Email Mistakes appeared first on Salesfolk.

According to Certain’s Event Marketing Benchmark Report, over half of B2B marketers spend 25% or more of their budget on in-person events. Whether a large conference, regional seminar, or intimate dinner, events take a lot of resources from both the marketing and sales teams to pull off.

With that much invested, it’s critical that event leads convert to measurable sales pipeline. However, unlike digital programs in which leads flow smoothly through measurable nurture stages and into sales’ hands, events create a messy, manual data problem from start to finish. And this problem can’t be solved without a high level of participation from the sales team itself.

Below are some tricks we’ve found help keep marketing and sales in lock-step surrounding events, regardless of how much wine is consumed. If you’re left wanting more tips at the end of this post, consider checking out this webinar.

Trick 1: Getting the Right Prospects & Customers Invited

As marketers, we can build and segment lists all we want based on the data in our CRM or MAP. But when it comes down to which prospects or customers we really want in the room, particularly for intimate events, sales’ input is critical. Designing a process for collecting this info, however, can be daunting. It must be easy for them to:

• Locate the registration page
• Add people to the invite or RSVP list
• See who has already registered
• Know which invitations bounced or failed to deliver

All within the platform they use the most.

We’ve successfully managed these tasks using Salesforce Campaigns and personalized, automated HubSpot emails. If a rep adds a person to the campaign, an email invite is automatically sent to that person using the rep’s contact information as the sender. We update their campaign status when the email is received (or if it bounces) and when the person registers, providing sales the information they need right in that one view. Most CRM and MA platforms will offer a similar setup.

Trick 2: Tracking Sales Meetings Outside the Main Event

Despite how perfectly planned and glamorous the main event is, the one-off meetings scheduled around the event are often what really moves the needle forward. At Integrate we think it’s important to consider these meetings as part of the overall event investment, as they likely wouldn’t have happened otherwise. That also means we need a reliable way to track these meetings – which are often spontaneous.

After trying for 6 months to get sales to send us a list of meetings post-event, our coordinator Hannah came up with a plan that’s been working for us pretty well: Anytime a salesperson schedules a meeting around an event, they copy her on the calendar invite. If they have a spontaneous one, she gets BCC-ed on the follow up. She treats these like notifications and logs the people into the right tracking campaign on the fly.

Is it messy? Probably will be for a larger team, but its quite manageable for us. Is there a better software solution out there? Probably. But we tracked 19x more meetings with this method than previous efforts, so we’ll probably stick with it for a bit longer.

Trick 3: Ensuring Lead Velocity & High Quality Leads

Have you heard the adage “All it takes is one bad lead and sales will never trust you again”? While maybe not 100 percent true, it’s still a good thing to keep in the back of your mind when you’re working to get these event leads over to the sales team. In fact, even before letting the leads into my database, I check:

• Are there duplicates? Better get rid of those first.
• Is the data valid? Scrub any typos or fake email addresses.
• Is the data complete? If you’re missing key fields, you’ll need a trusted partner to append the data.
• Do the leads match your persona criteria? Don’t fill your database up with people who just wanted the free swag.

Here at Integrate, we use our own software to handle this automatically in minutes. But if you’re faced with doing this manually, here’s a Lead Integrity Checklist to help you out.

Once your data is perfect, you’ll want to get it routed to the right sales reps ASAP, and make sure they see it. We use a combination of LeanData’s Lead2Account mapping and routing tools plus automated email alerts to do this instantly, but there are several other tools or processes that can achieve the same.

Trick 4: Personalized Follow-Up

In a perfect world, the sales team would be able to follow up with every single lead within 48 hours of the event. But unless you have a really robust BDR team (or an AI solution), this isn’t reality. So it’s important for marketing to have a plan to supplement follow-up. Our approach at Integrate is to follow up with everyone who makes it into our database via some level of a nurture program – unless sales specifically ops them out of marketing communications.

The temptation here is to send a “Thanks for coming” type communication, which can work fine for your intimate events, but gets absolutely buried in a pile of similar communications following a tradeshow. Instead, plan a meaningful nurture path that’s appropriately tailored to the individual’s persona and lifecycle stage, geared at moving them down the funnel. With some guidance from Leslie at Iron Mountain, we recently revamped our nurture setup so it was easy to drop people directly into an existing path that was right for them.

For your priority prospects, consider branching out from just email follow-up programs. Post-event can be a powerful time for display targeting. Even better: work with your sales reps to plan a high-impact direct mail campaign.

Trick 5: Determining Event ROI & Sharing Results

Whenever we dig into attribution at Integrate, we start with the mindset: “It’s not about credit, it’s about getting better.” This keeps everyone focused on one goal: generating revenue. It also enables us to have candid conversation between marketing and sales about what worked and what didn’t without wasting time pointing fingers.

Marketing starts by looking at attribution from all the different views and a couple different models, and mashing them all together for the best picture we can show. Then we gather anecdotal and tangential information from the on-site team. If there’s a drastic contrast between the attribution data and the general vibe, we dig in:

• Did we miss some key opportunities that should’ve been attributed?
• Did we have good conversations, but with the wrong people?
• Did we forge strong partner or existing customer relationships, despite not creating new opportunities?

Usually this uncovers a combination of the above, so we can go back and fix the attribution, create a new plan to reach the decision-makers, or evaluate against more appropriate success metrics. There’s no doubt in my mind that if we made this about getting credit, sales would be no help in this evaluation process.

If you’d like more ideas about ways to make the most of your event leads, I’m hosting a webinar on August 23^rd with Emily Wingrove from Synthio and Frances McCutchon from PFL. We’ll be sharing the proven practices, automation tools and specialized data we use to get better sales pipeline results out of event investments. Register here.

The primary goal of a sales team is, of course, sales. Achieving that may be straightforward for small organizations with a clear, single sales channel. However, complex businesses with many sales channels can benefit from a more inclusive approach. A successful multichannel strategy engages marketing, distribution, and finance teams, among others. It may also spend equal amounts of time managing direct and indirect sales teams. This integrated approach can increase profits, but it can also increase management challenges. To reach the ultimate goal of more sales, managers should have a solid understanding of sales channel marketing and its many components.

Sales Channel Marketing Responsibilities

As noted above, a myopic focus on sales may not lead to more sales, especially in a large, interconnected channel sales strategy. An effective strategy identifies the best use of marketing and sales resources to increase collaboration and minimize conflict. To achieve those broad goals, a sales channel management strategy should align the efforts of in-house and external teams.

The Roles of Marketing, Sales, and Distribution

So what is channel marketing? What role does it have in a sales channel strategy? A channel marketing strategy supports a sales team by building awareness for a product and helping prepare a potential customer for interaction with a sales team member.

A channel marketing strategy may help prospects simply know a product exists. For well-known products, it may continue to keep a brand top-of-mind or reaffirm its core differentiators. During long sales cycles, a marketing team may deliver a continuous set of messages to potential clients to help prospects “warm up” for the sales team.

Historically, the distinction between the marketing and sales departments—the former responsible for leads, the latter for sales—has led to conflicts. When profits sag, marketers tend to claim that sales staff are failing to close quality leads. For its part, members of the sales team tend to argue that the leads are poor quality.

This potential source of conflict can quickly undermine an effort to develop a functional multi-channel strategy, which depends on deep collaboration. The need for collaboration may extend beyond the marketing and sales teams to include distribution partners as well. While the marketing and sales channels must deliver sales, the distribution channel must fulfill those obligations.

A dysfunctional distribution component can severely inhibit a business’s ability to deliver a product or service to customers. Thus, all three channels must work together to build a sustainable multi-channel strategy that promises customers persuasive benefits and delivers those benefits consistently.

Direct Sales, Indirect Sales, and Channel Conflict

Even within sales, there are important distinctions. Direct sales refer to those sales made by sales staff within the company. Indirect sales are those handled by third-party partners. This distinction has two primary implications:

1. Sales channel marketing should support direct and indirect sales.

A channel marketing strategy may need to influence more than just end-of-line customers. It may also need to influence the partners that are part of an indirect sales strategy. After all, partners are interested in working with companies that will help them make money, too.

A complete sales channel marketing strategy may help consumers understand a product’s benefit and also help channel partners understand the profitability of selling that product. These demands on channel marketers often require a large team to develop targeted messaging for each party.

2. Sales channel managers should seek to reduce conflict.

With multiple sales channels, customers may have a choice: buying directly from the company, through a wholesaler, or at the retail level. Companies seek to develop these channels to give customers increased access and choice, which may lead to greater overall sales.

However, this choice also raises the potential for conflict. Internal and external sales teams may compete for the same customer, which can lead to confusion and frustration. Successful channel sales managers monitor sales team responsibilities closely to minimize conflict throughout all sales channels.

Further Cross-Departmental Collaboration

A collaborative process may not end with sales, marketing, and distribution. Ultimately, a sales manager or VP of sales reports back to the CEO. During those conversations, the most important metric may not be the raw number of sales but rather the profitability of those sales.

To develop a profitable channel sales strategy, managers may need to work with a business’s finance department to determine the expense-to-revenue ratio for various channels. Beyond identifying the most lucrative channels, this knowledge can help forecast staffing needs and ensure a growing sales team stays within the bounds of company profitability.

Increased integration may concern managers accustomed to working more independently. Still, the demands of a multichannel strategy continue to offer benefits to those who increase collaboration within an organization as well as with outside partners.

How to Manage Sales Channel Marketing Effectively

The many responsibilities of managing sales and marketing channels offer opportunities for continual improvement. These are the keys to developing and sustaining a successful strategy.

Conduct Thorough Background Research

At the start of a new or expanded channel strategy, managers should ask three key questions:

1. Who is the buyer?

In many cases, the answer will include multiple buyers. Those buyers may be consumers, wholesalers, retailers, or others. As part of an initial research phase, all potential buyers should be included, even if some are later dropped from the strategy. Assessing the full landscape for all potential buyers provides managers with an initial understanding of the full potential of a multi-channel strategy.

2. Where can they be reached?

By identifying the potential places of influence, managers can begin to develop a sales channel marketing strategy to reach prospective customers. Those customers may yield a diverse list of marketing opportunities that include business publications and trade shows, as well as traditional direct-to-consumer channels like television or radio.

3. How can they be reached?

This final question begins to assess the feasibility of reaching the target audiences. By understanding the potential cost of reaching certain consumers—such as developing, producing, and distributing a television advertisement—managers may begin to realize which channels will have the highest expenses. This advance information can help shift a marketing and sales strategy toward the most profitable avenues.

Take Advantage of Technology

Some sales staff or managers may be wary of adopting new technology. However, the use of a customer relationship management (CRM) system or partner relationship management (PRM) system has significant benefits for channel management:

Sales forecasting. To accurately forecast sales, managers need a steady stream of historical and contemporary sales data. A CRM or PRM allows sales staff to score leads based on the likelihood of a sale and the potential value of that sale. That information, in turn, can be combined to generate sales forecasts. By monitoring the accuracy of these forecasts, managers can help sales team members adopt better lead-scoring practices to improve the forecast’s accuracy.

Channel analysis. In a multi-channel strategy, managers benefit by learning more about the value of each channel. A CRM or PRM can segment lead and sales data by channel. In addition to helping identify valuable channels, the real-time information may help shift resources for maximum impact. For example, a sudden growth in wholesale customer leads may justify an increased investment in an email marketing campaign that targets their needs.

Combined analytics. Both a CRM and PRM combine data from marketing and sales teams. The assessment of sales data may influence the content of marketing materials. Similarly, the inclusion of marketing information can help sales representatives learn about a prospect’s past interactions before the sales conversation begins. The continual interchange of information between the teams can help create a more seamless experience for prospects.

The Demands and Benefits of Channel Marketing and Sales

The multichannel approach outlined in this article engages many components of a business simultaneously. A marketing team must generate leads from multiple customer types, and a sales team must work with inside and outside partners to form profitable relationships. Then, a business’s distribution must fulfill the promises made by the sales and marketing departments. Finally, all components are evaluated for their contributions to the business goals set forth by the C-Suite.

The development of a successful channel marketing and sales strategy can be fraught with challenges. Managers who are hesitant to increase collaboration and share data openly may struggle to overcome some of these common issues. Successful managers, on the other hand, benefit from remaining open to new internal and external partnerships, and to the deployment of the technology that supports them.

At the start of 2017, politics dominated investors’ minds. Elections in major core euro zone nations including the Netherlands, France and Germany posed a large amount of risk, as anti-European sentiment was gaining traction. Across the pond, things were very different, as Republicans took control of both the White House and Congress after years of divided governments.

But as the year rolled on, the political risk in Europe declined as elections played out favourably for markets, while problems in the U.S. heated up with President Donald Trump’s administration setting a new bar for dysfunction in Washington.

The Senate’s recent rejection of a proposal to repeal and replace Obamacare makes it very unlikely that Trump will be able to achieve any sort of tax reform in 2017. Yet U.S. equity markets continue to reach fresh record highs.

“To the extent that markets were expecting another fiscal boost from the Republicans delivering on tax cuts, that will be a disappointment, and you might see some weakness in the market,” said Dennis Mitchell, senior portfolio manager at Sprott Asset Management.

He runs the Sprott Focused Global Dividend Class, a go-anywhere portfolio that targets companies with strong returns on invested capital, strong recurring cash flow, irreplaceable assets, and little debt.

‘Inflection point’

“From our standpoint, we’re at a bit of an inflection point that might resolve itself very shortly,” Mitchell added, noting the optics of U.S. earnings per share (EPS) growth normalizing is another thing to be concerned about.

While EPS have recovered nicely from the recession (year-over-year declines) experienced at this time last year, those quarters are now being lapped. Mitchell highlighted the fact that EPS growth for S&P 500 companies was nearly 15 per cent in the first quarter. That compared with a long-term average since 1980 of about six per cent.

“When you’re doing 2.5 times the long-term average, you know that is not sustainable,” Mitchell said. “We don’t think EPS will turn negative, but the perception that EPS growth is moderating or falling — and companies are less profitable — gets investors anxious.”

The portfolio manager believes that could create a buying opportunity in the near future, keeping in mind that the potential for meaningful fiscal stimulus hasn’t disappeared, but is instead delayed. He noted that Sprott has double-digit cash weightings in several portfolios in anticipation of such a pullback.

“Companies have the ability to grow their EPS, and some can still be found at discounted multiples,” Mitchell said. “So longer term, we’re not overly concerned about markets as a whole.”

Shift

The Sprott Focused Global Dividend Class has benefited from Mitchell’s shift in favour of European equities (over U.S. stocks) earlier in 2017. However, since U.S. equities have done so well, the fund’s allocation to the U.S. hasn’t declined all that much.

One example of a fund holding that just keeps going up, even as Mitchell trimmed his core position (while selling other U.S. financials completely), is J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. (JPM/NYSE).

“It has a fortress balance sheet, a solid loan book, a global footprint, and a very strong franchise, along with tailwinds on the back of anticipated fiscal stimulus,” he said. “We exited some of the other positions because we think the thesis played out, and now our return risk is skewed in an unfavourable way. They went from being relatively cheap to fairly valued in a short period of time.”

Cineworld Group Plc (CINE/LON) has been another strong performer in the portfolio this year. The company owns and operates the largest chain of movie theatres across the U.K., and has a meaningful footprint in Eastern Europe.

Mitchell noted that Cineworld has benefited from a strong film slate this year, but it is also going to benefit from next year’s offerings, which should be even stronger with the next movie in Star Wars franchise and a couple of Marvel movies.

The company recently completed an acquisition that will provide more scale in Eastern Europe, where it will apply its own internal standards that will drive some economies of scale.

“The natural momentum of attendance being driven by the film slate leads to higher ticket prices, and then higher food and beverage spend,” Mitchell said. “If there isn’t a similar increase in the operating costs of a business, then that leads to margin expansion and cash flow growth.”

Alphabet Inc.

The portfolio manager also highlighted the fund’s position in Google parent Alphabet Inc. (GOOG/Nasdaq), whose primary business revolves around search and is therefore really simple to understand.

Mitchell noted that outside of China, Google has roughly 65 per cent market share, and a business model that has been tested.

“Microsoft had the competitive advantage of being able to roll Bing – their competing product with Google – into Windows and Microsoft office,” he said. “They almost had unlimited capital, and still weren’t able to put a meaningful dent into Google’s business and market share.”

“This is one of those dominant global franchises that seems to get better and better every year,” Mitchell added.

While popular tech stocks like Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Netflix Inc. have come under some pressure lately because they’ve worked so well, he believes this provides an opportunity to build the fund’s position in Alphabet.

You have to stand out, there’s just no way around out. Being a part of the crowd – a crowd that is growing by the day – simply isn’t an option. Everyone in sales, especially those grinding away on the prospecting side, know this. I mean, without being different in some way, how is your email going stand out from the hundreds of others filling up your prospect’s inbox?

The post Standing out From The Crowd: How Using GIFs in Email Prospecting helped Andrew Gazdecki’s Team Get a 300% Increase in Cold Email Response Rates appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

I moved back to India in January 2016 as the country manager and head of product to start creating and localizing products for professionals and students in India. In nine months, the team and I worked feverishly to launch three products that continue to deliver immense value to our 42 million (and growing) members in India. More importantly, they also have the potential to scale globally. Which is why I am excited that today, we are launching one of these products, LinkedIn Lite (mobile web...

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Amazon has every single retailer in the US on notice.

The Jeff Bezos-led juggernaut is armed with a war chest of cash and it hasn't been shy about throwing its weight around in the past couple months, disrupting every industry in sight.

Its $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods threw the whole grocery industry into disarray, while Blue Apron's battered IPO price ended up as collateral damage. Its newly-announced partnership with Nike sent the likes of Dick's Sporting Goods and Under Armour tumbling. Heck, even the payments industry is facing a major, Amazon-led shake-up.

But there are still a few bright spots, says RBC Capital Markets — companies whose existing business models have created a natural insulation from Amazon, as well as those that have been quick to adapt.

Here are four such corporations highlighted by RBC in a recent client note:

CarMax

Ticker: KMX

Total return year-to-date: 2.8%

Rationale: "We believe KMX provides true scarcity value with solid comp momentum and a business model that will be difficult for Amazon or others to disintermediate."

Source: RBC Capital Markets

Walmart

Ticker: WMT

Total return year-to-date: 17%

Rationale: "We believe Walmart will ultimately be one of the best positioned retailers over the long-term due to its existing size, scale and technological improvements."

Source: RBC Capital Markets

Best Buy

Ticker: BBY

Total return year-to-date: 40%

Rationale: "Best Buy has already weathered the worst of the 'Amazon storm' through price matching and substantial in-store/online improvements, and has now been steadily gaining market share ... Best Buy has fought back against Amazon better than most."

Source: RBC Capital Markets

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

In order of publication date, these are ten books the staff at 800-CEO-READ will be digging deeper into in August.

Fully Alive: Using the Lessons of the Amazon to Live Your Mission in Business and Life by Tyler Gage, Atria Books

Fully Alive tells the story of an astoundingly successful young entrepreneur’s immersion in Amazonian indigenous spirituality, its life-changing impact on him, and how he integrated the lessons he learned to build a successful, socially responsible company, live a purposeful life, and make a difference in the world.

Building a start-up is like being thrust into the middle of the Amazon rainforest: living every day on the edge of your comfort zone, vulnerable to the unexpected challenges constantly being thrown your way, and constantly shifting to meet daily demands and do everything and anything you can to survive, let alone thrive.

Vulnerable, raw, and deeply transparent, Fully Alive reveals powerful tools and lessons that can teach all of us how to grow toward and beyond our personal edges, no matter our circumstances.

Tyler Gage shares his spiritual adventures and the business savvy that helped him create RUNA, a pioneering organization that weaves together the seemingly divergent worlds of Amazonian traditions and modern business, demonstrating how we can dig deeper to bring greater meaning and purpose to our personal and professional pursuits.

From suburban youth to immersion in the Amazon to entrepreneurial success, Tyler's journey clearly shows that passion and opportunity can be found in the most unexpected places. Captivated by a rare Amazonian tea leaf called guayusa that had never been commercially produced, Tyler started RUNA to partner with the indigenous people of Ecuador to share its energy and its message with the world.

Using the spiritual teachings, lessons, and healing traditions of the Amazon as his guide, Tyler built RUNA from a scrappy start-up into a thriving, multimillion-dollar company that has become one of the fastest-growing beverage companies in the United States. With the help of investors such as Channing Tatum, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Olivia Wilde, RUNA has created a sustainable source of income for more than 3,000 farming families in Ecuador who sustainably grow guayusa in the rainforest. Simultaneously, RUNA has built a rapidly scaling nonprofit organization that is working to create a new future for trade in the Amazon based on respectful exchange and healing, not exploitation and greed.

The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek by Howard Markel, Pantheon

“What’s more American than Corn Flakes?” —Bing Crosby

From the much admired medical historian (“Markel shows just how compelling the medical history can be”—Andrea Barrett) and author of An Anatomy of Addiction (“Absorbing, vivid”—Sherwin Nuland, The New York Times Book Review, front page)—the story of America’s empire builders: John and Will Kellogg.

John Harvey Kellogg was one of America’s most beloved physicians; a best-selling author, lecturer, and health-magazine publisher; founder of the Battle Creek Sanitarium; and patron saint of the pursuit of wellness. His youngest brother, Will, was the founder of the Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, which revolutionized the mass production of food and what we eat for breakfast.

In The Kelloggs, Howard Markel tells the sweeping saga of these two extraordinary men, whose lifelong competition and enmity toward one another changed America’s notion of health and wellness from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, and who helped change the course of American medicine, nutrition, wellness, and diet.

The Kelloggs were of Puritan stock, a family that came to the shores of New England in the mid-seventeenth century, that became one of the biggest in the county, and then renounced it all for the religious calling of Ellen Harmon White, a self-proclaimed prophetess, and James White, whose new Seventh-day Adventist theology was based on Christian principles and sound body, mind, and hygiene rules—Ellen called it “health reform.”

The Whites groomed the young John Kellogg for a central role in the Seventh-day Adventist Church and sent him to America’s finest Medical College. Kellogg’s main medical focus—and America’s number one malady: indigestion (Walt Whitman described it as “the great American evil”).

Markel gives us the life and times of the Kellogg brothers of Battle Creek: Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and his world-famous Battle Creek Sanitarium medical center, spa, and grand hotel attracted thousands actively pursuing health and well-being. Among the guests: Mary Todd Lincoln, Amelia Earhart, Booker T. Washington, Johnny Weissmuller, Dale Carnegie, Sojourner Truth, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and George Bernard Shaw. And the presidents he advised: Taft, Harding, Hoover, and Roosevelt, with first lady Eleanor. The brothers Kellogg experimented on malt, wheat, and corn meal, and, tinkering with special ovens and toasting devices, came up with a ready-to-eat, easily digested cereal they called Corn Flakes.

As Markel chronicles the Kelloggs’ fascinating, Magnificent Ambersons–like ascent into the pantheon of American industrialists, we see the cast changes in American social mores that took shape in diet, health, medicine, philanthropy, and food manufacturing during seven decades—changing the lives of millions and helping to shape our industrial age.

Steam Titans: Cunard, Collins, and the Epic Battle for Commerce on the North Atlantic by William M. Fowler Jr., Bloomsbury USA

The story of the epic contest between shipping magnates Samuel Cunard and Edward Collins—between Great Britain and America—for commercial dominance on the North Atlantic.

Between 1815 and the American Civil War, the steam engine transformed the Atlantic into a pulsating highway over which steamships traveled with astounding regularity, cutting by two thirds the transit time across the Atlantic. Great Britain and America were each other’s best customer: American raw materials flowed eastward, while goods, capital, people, and technology crossed the Atlantic westward. This story of economic expansion is dramatic in its own right, but it also gave rise to the extraordinarily intense competition between Samuel Cunard and Edward Knight Collins. Scions of rival shipping lines—one in New York, the other in Liverpool—for more than a decade they vied for control of the globe’s most lucrative trade route and the vast wealth their ships could deliver. The stakes were high, and high-risk; they used all the tools of technology, finance, and politics to cope with the inevitable, sometimes crushing perils of the sea.

Chronicling the dramatic shift from sail to steam, tracing the paths of ships, information, and money, master historian William M. Fowler brings to life the spectacle of this generation-long struggle for supremacy, during which New York rose to take her place among the greatest ports and cities of the world. It was the opening act in the drama of economic globalization that is still unfolding today.

Warner Bros: The Making of an American Movie Studio by David Thomson, Yale University Press

Behind the scenes at the legendary Warner Brothers film studio, where four immigrant brothers transformed themselves into the moguls and masters of American fantasy.

Warner Bros charts the rise of an unpromising film studio from its shaky beginnings in the early twentieth century through its ascent to the pinnacle of Hollywood influence and popularity. The Warner Brothers—Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack—arrived in America as unschooled Jewish immigrants, yet they founded a studio that became the smartest, toughest, and most radical in all of Hollywood.

David Thomson provides fascinating and original interpretations of Warner Brothers pictures from the pioneering talkie The Jazz Singer through black-and-white musicals, gangster movies, and such dramatic romances as Casablanca, East of Eden, and Bonnie and Clyde. He recounts the storied exploits of the studio’s larger-than-life stars, among them Al Jolson, James Cagney, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, James Dean, Doris Day, and Bugs Bunny. The Warner brothers’ cultural impact was so profound, Thomson writes, that their studio became “one of the enterprises that helped us see there might be an American dream out there.”

The Lost Art of Closing: Winning the Ten Commitments That Drive Sales by Anthony Iannarino, Portfolio

If you want to succeed in sales, you need to know how to close. Anthony Iannarino, star sales blogger, consultant, speaker, and author of the national bestseller The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need, lays out the new rules of closing.

Closing the deal is the most crucial step in the sales process. Yet most salespeople are following outdated, incorrect, and harmful advice telling them to aggressively and forcefully go for the hard sell—or to sell so softly that they are afraid to ask for any commitments at all! They’ve heard “always be closing” and “never be closing.” But neither of those mantras are true in the complex sales landscape we have today. Closing now is all about building trust with your clients and moving them down the path of ten commitments…. all the way to the dotted line.

Iannarino argues that in a world with many competitors vying for the same clients and with clients who can do their own research, closing a sale is really about gaining commitments and doing all you can to build a relationship with your prospective client. In his rebuttal to conventional and disappointing “sales wisdom”, Iannarino will teach readers to:

• Develop deep relationships with clients by implementing closing strategies that build trust and help prospective clients understand the value of committing to move forward in the process.
• Proactively, but not aggressively, ask for commitments without guilt or embarrassment about being pushy, manipulative, or self-oriented—all things that destroy trust.

In a field rife with misperceptions about how to close a deal, Iannarino’s book will be necessary reading for all sales people—to help them streamline the sales process and win more deals, faster.

The Code of Trust: An American Counterintelligence Expert's Five Rules to Lead and Succeed by Robin Dreeke & Cameron Stauth, St. Martin's Press

The former director of the FBI’s behavioral analysis division shows readers how to use trust to achieve anything in business and in life.

Robin Dreeke is a senior agent at the FBI and an 18 year veteran of the Bureau. He was, until recently, the head of the Counterintelligence Division’s Behavioral Analysis Program where his primary mission was to thwart the efforts of foreign spies and recruit American spies. His core approach in this mission was to inspire reasonable, well-founded trust among people who could provide valuable information.

The Code of Trust is based on the system Dreeke devised, tested, and implemented during years of field work at the highest levels of national security. Applying his system first to himself, he rose up through the FBI, and then taught his system to law enforcement and military officials throughout the country. The Code of Trust has since elevated executives to leadership and changed the culture of entire companies, making them happier and more productive as morale soars.

Inspiring trust is not a trick, nor is it an arcane art. It’s an important, character-building endeavor that requires only a sincere desire to be helpful and sensitive and the ambition to be more successful at work and at home. The Code of Trust is based on 5 simple principles:

1. Suspend Your Ego
2. Be Nonjudgmental
3. Honor Reason
4. Validate Others
5. Be Generous

All a reader needs to be successful is the willingness to spend eight to ten hours learning a system that took Robin Dreeke almost a lifetime to create.

Total Focus: Make Better Decisions Under Pressure by Brandon Webb, John David Mann, Portfolio

A former Navy SEAL sniper turned media CEO and New York Times bestselling author teaches business leaders how to make the best decisions under pressure.

Webb learned all about performing while experiencing heart-pounding stress during his four deployments as a Navy SEAL sniper in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Africa. After returning to civilian life, he started his first business venture—and failed miserably. He realized that his big mistake was neglecting to apply what he already knew about focus under pressure. By drawing on the lessons of his SEAL training and early business struggles, Webb went on to build a second business, a media network called Hurricane, which today has an audience of millions and a valuation close to $100 million.

Now Webb deconstructs the decision-making DNA of the most effective snipers, and shows you how to develop the same mental acuity in civilian life. His stories range from his own experiences to those of other Special Operations warriors and great entrepreneurs, like Solomon Choi of 16 Handles, Matt Meeker of BarkBox, and Betsy Morgan of The Huffington Post and TheBlaze. They illustrate seven hard-won principles of decision-making:

Laser focus is not the same thing as tunnel vision. You need total situational awareness to stay out of danger and adapt to changing circumstances.

Once the first shot is fired, nothing goes according to plan anyway, so don’t get stuck in the trap of over-analysis. The key is to act decisively and adapt on the fly.

Instead of avoiding difficult experiences, “embrace the suck” and understand that pain is temporary and learning is priceless. Facing challenging obstacles forces you to develop the skills you need to achieve your goals.

By following in the path of a generation of legendary snipers, you’ll find the clarity of mind you need to make key decisions and accomplish your mission, whatever it takes.

Big Money Thinks Small: Biases, Blind Spots, and Smarter Investing by Joel Tillinghast, Columbia University Press

Investors are tempted daily with misinformation. They make lucky bets that breed false confidence, and their high-stakes gambles can take an emotional toll. How can anyone stay focused in such a volatile profession?

In Big Money Thinks Small, veteran fund manager Joel Tillinghast urges investors to act cautiously and follow five primary steps to successful investing: (1) know yourself; (2) make decisions based on your own knowledge; (3) select trustworthy and capable colleagues and collaborators; (4) avoid businesses that seem destined to fail; and (5) always search for bargains. Patience and methodical planning will pay far greater dividends than rash, bold investments. Through sensible instruction, Tillinghast teaches readers how to ask the right questions in any investing situation and think objectively and generatively about portfolio management.

3D Team Leadership: A New Approach for Complex Teams by Bradley L. Kirkman & T. Brad Harris, Stanford Business Books

To create a fuller portrait of team behavior, this book introduces an innovative, "3-D" framework that takes into account the individuals who make up a team, the subgroups that form within and between teams, and the team as a whole. Delivering practical guidance rooted in scholarship, this is a thoughtful and straightforward guide.

Many organizations believe that high-functioning teams hold the key to breakthrough thinking, superior customer service, and high-quality products. But, all too often, leaders and managers fail to support teams so that they can deliver on their promises. For instance, many leaders ask for teamwork, but only reward and evaluate individual performance; focus on the group at the expense of individual members; or leave team members to sort out their differences, leading to the formation of unhealthy cliques.

In 3D Team Leadership, Bradley L. Kirkman and T. Brad Harris present a dynamic new model for maximizing team performance. Previous books have treated teams as groups of people working interdependently, an approach that overlooks two crucial components: the individuals who make up the team and the subgroups that form within and between teams. To create a fuller portrait of team behavior, Kirkman and Harris propose an innovative "3D" framework that takes into account all three factors. Drawing on their own research, best-in-class studies, and extensive consulting, they show leaders how to properly diagnose the state of their teams, hone in on the element that needs attention, and seamlessly shift focus among the three components of teamwork as time goes on. Delivering practical guidance rooted in scholarship, 3D Team Leadership is a thoughtful and straightforward guide for the complex challenge of teaming today. 

The Power of Onlyness: Make Your Wild Ideas Mighty Enough to Dent the World by Nilofer Merchant, Viking

A leading business strategist explains how to identify your passion, use social media to find others who share a common purpose, and act together to bring about change

Most of us long to make a dent in the universe, to leave a world that’s different and better than the one we’re born into. Until now the only way to pursue this goal systematically was by joining an institution - a big company, the military, the church - and rise in the ranks. But today we’re living at the leading edge of an entirely new era when ordinary people can, by using social technologies, connect with others to achieve extraordinary things without the backing of powerful people and organizations.

In Onlyness, Nilofer Merchant, a respected thought leader in business and entrepreneurship who won the Thinkers 50 Award in 2013 as someone who will “strongly influence the way managers manage and lead organizations going into the future,” offers a guidebook for making a difference. It shows how to embrace what makes you and your particular passion truly unique, tap into that passion, find and enlist allies, and get real results by guiding and galvanizing a crowd of like-minded peers. It explains how to make the crucial leap from “me” to “us,” how to avoid starting a movement where everyone feels good but nothing actually happens, and how to get things done in people-powered collaborations that create lasting change.

Filled with accounts of ordinary people that exploited the possibilities of this new era, Onlyness demonstrates how the power of one can be tapped into to enlist the power of many. People like Ryan Andresen, a teenager who came out as gay and swayed the Boy Scouts of America to include “different” kids like him. Or Kimberly Bryant, who established Black Girls Code to provide young and pre-teen girls of color opportunities to learn in-demand skills in technology and computer programming; or Jamie Heywood, who began Patients Like Me as a web community which is now a home for 350,000 users to report their experiences of 2,400 different conditions. These change agents had to blaze their own trails because they possessed no map, and their stories illuminate a path for the rest of us.

Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy by Tim Harford, Riverhead Books

An unexpected history of the world economy seen through the 50 inventions that shaped it most profoundly, by the bestselling author of The Undercover Economist and Messy.

Who thought up paper money? Why was the horse collar as important to progress as the steam engine? How did the humble spreadsheet turn the world of finance upside down? Fifty Inventions That Shaped the Modern Economy paints an epic picture of economic change in an intimate way by telling the stories of the tools and ideas that had far-reaching and unexpected consequences. From the simple coin to Bitcoin, from the canal lock to the jumbo jet, author and economist Tim Harford recounts each invention’s own curious, surprising, and memorable story.

Step by step, readers will start to understand where we are now, how we got here, and where we might go next. Hidden connections will be laid bare: How the bar code undermined family corner stores. Why the gramophone widened inequality. How barbed wire shaped America. In the process, Harford introduces to readers the characters who developed some of these inventions, profited from them, and were ruined by them. He traces the economic principles that helped explain their transformative effects. And he shows what lessons readers can learn to make wise use of with future inventions. The result is a wise and witty book of history, economics, and bigraphy.

Startups face an interesting dilemma when it comes to public relations tactics. They need attention in order to grow their audience and increase brand awareness. But how can they become known when they are forced to compete with larger, more established businesses?

It’s a David and Goliath story.

The Goliaths of the world — mega-corporations with the name and checkbook to match — often effortlessly receive an elite level of media attention. On the flip side, the Davids of the business world — entrepreneurial startups with tight budgets and no name recognition — struggle to compete for media attention, and often fall through the cracks.

So how do you as a startup break through the noise and grab a journalist’s full attention? Just like David with no more than five small stones and an unassuming slingshot, you use your own unique set of tactics.

Modern tactics like PR storytelling and using boutique PR firms can help.

Startups often times have to compete with other larger, more established businesses

Don’t Go It Alone

When budgeting for their startup, many entrepreneurs mistakenly view PR professionals and boutique PR firms as a frivolous expense. They assume, “It can’t be that hard. We can do it ourselves.”

First a word of caution. PR has its own cadence. Unless a startup has its story and product or service securely buttoned up, don’t think PR.

Why do we caution you against this?

Because we’ve seen it go south all too quickly. The worst thing you can do is go out prematurely and receive negative press. It’s like getting gum on your shoes. Once it sticks, it’s very hard to get off. For a long time, your startup will be saddled with negative images.

Once you’re ready, that’s another story. Then you want to get out the microphone to tell your story. And a boutique PR firm can help you get there without breaking the bank.

The following are 10 must-know tactics that will make you unbeatable against your Goliath business competitors.

10 Public Relations Tactics That Will Rock Your Startup

1. Identify Your Goals/Define Your Message

Goals will get your PR on the right track while a lack of goals will ensure your PR goes nowhere. Goals might include:

• Increase qualified website visitors
• Attract new customers
• Build brand awareness
• Establish thought leadership

Once you have clearly outlined your goals, build a coherent and accessible message. What do you want people to remember about your business? Why should anyone care? What’s your key selling point that makes what you’re doing ia shoe-in for prospects? .

2. Choose a Newsworthy Subject

With the amount of competition among startups and larger businesses for media coverage, it can seem daunting to get noticed. How can you stand out? With a knockout pitch message that sets you apart.

Choose topics that are considered newsworthy to your audience. This could be your startup launch, or the launch of a new product or service. Other newsworthy topics to consider incude:

• Executive hire
• New funding
• New location
• Company milestone

Since you are a startup, it will be difficult to compete with other larger companies — imagine your release going out as the same time as an announcement from Apple! So don’t try. Choose release times that won’t get you steamrolled.

 

3. Implement PR Storytelling

Storytelling has the power to connect you to your audience on an emotional level. And emotion can be a powerful force. You can use this emotional connection to engage a journalist.

Storytelling begins even before you choose your pitch topic. You should choose one that naturally produces an engaging story. Think about it from the point of view of a journalist — what would their audience want to read?

Once you have your topic in mind, create an outline. Writing an outline allows you to see whether your points will capture a reporter or blogger’s interest. Anticipate questions and holes within your pitch — then fill the holes.

Storytelling has the power to connect you to your audience on an emotional level

4. Don’t Take Shortcuts

There are no shortcuts when it comes to startup PR. You are a new company, with a relatively unknown team. Getting press attention as a startup requires persistence and creativity.

Don’t take the easy route of blasting emails to every journalist whose contact information you can fine. Do your research, and approach every pitch with intelligence and strategy.

On that note…

5. Get to Know Your Audience

Journalists get upwards of 100 pitches a day — especially if they work somewhere like The New York Times or Wall Street Journal. This means they don’t mess around. If something is off about your pitch — you send a batch email or your story doesn’t apply to their beat — it will be deleted in a nano second.

Do thorough research before you pitch. Make sure your pitch fits into reporters’ beats. Read their past stories and get a feel for what interests them. Mention these within your pitch if appropriate — the fact that you did your research can differentiate you.

Right from the beginning, provide context to the journalist. Why did you choose him or her specifically? Why is the pitch important to the writer’s audience?

6. Be Considerate

As we mentioned, , journalists are busier than ever, and need you to get to the point quickly. Avoid long-winded introductions that may lose your reader. Be specific about the who, what, when, where, and how of the pitch. Why is it important to the journalist to consider your pitch? Why is it pertinent now and wasn’t 6 months ago?

Avoid bland language — you want to connect with the journalist and stir them to action with a colorful pitch that stands out.

Remember, this process isn’t about you. Your role is to help the journalist — so seek ways to genuinely provide value. What stories do they want? What is their beat? What makes your pitch advantageous to them?

7. Stay Fresh

Many times you can compensate for your company’s lack of size with ingenuity — a regular David-and-Goliath maneuver.

Offer a fresh perspective on your story. Look for alternatives that will give you a leg up on competing stories. This is your opportunity to think out of the box, and appeal to journalists and bloggers in a different way than usual.

One way to offer a fresh perspective is to do your own research study. That provides original data no one else has and may pique a journalist’s interest. Helpful hint: When you’re creating your survey, think about what will appeal to a journalist, not only the survey respondent or your company. Try to ask questions that will get contrarian responses — something no one would assume would be the case.

8. Use Bullet Points and White Space

Large blocks of text will overwhelm a journalist — any reader, for that matter — and might tempt someone to delete your pitch before reading it fully. Avoid this by breaking up text into bullet points and smaller paragraphs that are easy to digest.

Remember, bullets and white space can be your best friend.

9. Avoid Industry Jargon

The last thing you want to do is lose the journalist who receives your pitch. If journalists don’t understand the fundamentals of your pitch, they won’t ask twice. Your pitch will simply be discarded.

Avoid this fate by writing a pitch that anyone would understand. Ask someone outside of the industry (perhaps a family member or friend) to read over your pitch before you send it to anyone. If there is any misunderstandings or wandering attention spans, take your pitch back to the drawing board.

10. Choose a Boutique PR Firm That Can Help

If you don’t have a PR background, then maneuvering the ups and downs of public relations will be a little rocky. A boutique PR firm can offer the expertise to help you to learn the playing field, and score media opportunities without breaking the bank. A boutique PR agency will provide senior level attention and flexilbity, which larger agencies, given their structure, can’t afford to provide.

What a Model Pitch Looks Like

Let’s take a moment and look at all of these tactics in action. The following is an actual pitch concerning recent research conducted by a financial services startup. It tot the attention of journalis who received it.

Hi [Insert name of journalist/blogger],

A major survey released today captures sentiments and investment behavior of a wide swath of affluent investors and financial advisers – with a significant paradox.

Key findings of the XX Survey include:

• Serious, growing economic concerns, despite a positive outlook based on President Trump’s policy agenda
• Evidence of the surge in robo investing
• Investors’ rising confidence in managing their own portfolios

The survey, by X, drew responses from nearly 5,700 people, who collectively influence hundreds of billions of dollars in assets. Almost 25% of the individual investors responding have more than $1 million in investable assets (besides real estate), and half of the asset management firms represented manage more than $1 billion in assets.

Please see the release below (which links to a related report), and let me know if you’d like to interview an XX expert on the findings and what they mean.

Key Points to Remember…

• Clearly identify your PR goals, and use these to identify what journalists you will pitch to and about what.
• Choose a story that is newsworthy and relevant to a journalist’s beat and interests.
• Avoid complicated industry jargon that will just lose your audience and end in a deleted pitch.
• Utilize the expertise of a boutique PR firm that knows how to amplify your story and get you the media attention you deserve.

Remember, just because you may feel like the under-dog when it comes to media attention doesn’t mean it’s hopeless. Use these public relations tactics to amplify your PR efforts and get real results.

We are opening a LinkedIn Group on Pricing the Internet of Things. Why do this? There are many excellent LinkedIn groups on pricing. The Professional Pricing Society has a particularly good one and we are active on it. There is also a good group Internet of Things Strategy and Innovation. So why another LinkedIn Group?

The Internet of Things is going to change how we price many industrial solutions and products. It is going to do this by:

Providing detailed data about all aspects of use. This data can be used to build value models and to find new pricing metrics that better track actual value.

Enabling new pricing models. The pricing revolution that washed through B2B software with the adoption of SaaS and subscription models will have an even bigger impact with the Internet of Things.

Driving a shift to composed pricing. Most Internet of Things solutions will be bundles. 

 

 

See more in the post, Pricing the Internet of Things: The Path to Composed Pricing - A conversation with Andy Timm and Joe Biron

By building a community of people who are concerned with business models, revenue models and pricing models for the Internet of Things we hope to contribute to the creation of commercially viable solutions that create value for all involved.

Who should join this group? Well, basically anyone innovating on the Internet of Things, especially if they are accountable for commercial success. This includes

• Product Managers
• Chief Revenue Officers
• Chief Financial Officers
• Pricing Experts
• Innovation Consultants

Our goals for the group are to develop best practices and drive innovation on pricing Internet of Things offers especially for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). At the same time, we hope to build a community of people who can share ideas and develop personal and business relationships that will mature over the coming years. We are entering a period of great change and our networks of collaborators will be of great value.

We are also kicking off an open survey on Creating Value for the Internet of Things. Please take this survey and share it widely.

We look forward to seeing you on the LinkedIn Group on Pricing the Internet of Things.

Apply to join here.

Your B2B content marketing strategy plays a powerful role in a buyer’s journey. We’ve known for years that it helps to build brand awareness and overall trust in a company. But new research shows that a strong B2B content strategy goes beyond simple information; it influences audiences.

Content Marketing Institute and SmartBrief joined forces and recently released a study that reveals the impact of a content strategy on the purchasing process. This survey includes the views of 1,200 individuals who are involved in the purchase process within their companies. In essence, it represents the views of the modern buyer.

A buyer’s psyche is a mysterious thing. For example, why do buyers choose one company over another? Why do they choose to purchase at this time and not another?

While there are still parts of the purchase process that remain a mystery, this new research gives us insight into some of the process. If used correctly, it can help you to better connect with potential buyers and boost your sales.

A strong B2B content strategy goes beyond simple information; it influences audiences.

Let’s look at 4 insights we gain from this new research, and how you can put that to work within your B2B PR and content strategy.

4 Important Tips for Using Your B2B Content Marketing Strategy to Get More Buyers

1. Speak to Needs and Pain Points

When asked what kind of content they looked for during the decision-making process, 62% noted a preference for content that spoke to their specific needs or pain points. Therefore, your content strategy should revolve around these types of questions:

• What specific questions does your sales department receive from potential buyers? Turn these questions into content that speaks directly to the needs of your audience.

• What problems does your audience experience? Answer them with individual blogs, infographics, or videos. Use your knowledge and expertise to delve into each problem and offer specific solutions.

This kind of content creates a unique connection with your audience. People know they can turn to you with their specific questions and problems — and eventually, their purchase.

2. Focus on Education — Not Promotion

Today’s audience is flooded with self-promotional advertisements and gimmicks. Many are tired of it. Therefore, it makes sense that 43% of those surveyed noted a preference for content that was educational rather than promotional in nature.

Your content is not the place to promote your company as the solution — especially for those in the beginning stages of the buyer’s journey. Instead, look for ways to educate your audience. You might provide blog or video content about the problems propsects face, the availabe solutions and how to choose the right solution.

This process may seem counterproductive, but it serves an important purpose. It fosters brand awareness and builds strong trust in your company that may lead to a purchase decision.

3. Use Original Research

When asked what kind of content directly influences their purchase decisions, 74% said original research — second only to peer recommendations (80%).

Many shy away from original research because of the extensive work involved — but all of that work offers a major pay off in the long run. After all, it is something unique that no one else offers. And research has the potential to set you apart as an industry authority, establish thought leadership, and build confidence in your brand.

Consider dedicating part of your resources solely to original research. Look at programs like SurveyMonkey that can make research a simple process. Do some digging around to see what research is available in your industry, and then look for areas where you can fill in the gaps. Make your research distinctive and applicable within your industry.

4. Make It Easy to Share Content via Email

You want your audience to share your content with their fellow colleagues — this scores major brownie points for peer recommendations. Although much focus has been placed on social media sharing, research shows that you may want to modify your tactics.

According to the study, 82% of readers like to share content via email with their colleagues, while fewer than 5% share it via LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter!

Bottom line? All of your content should be easy to share via email. Otherwise, you will miss out on a key means for peer recommendations.

Key Points to Remember…

• Create content that speaks directly to the needs of your audience, and be specific about the problems that they face.
• Skip self-promotional content and focus on educational content that builds brand awareness and trust.
• Dedicate resources to the creation of original research that your audience will seek out for answers.
• Make your content easy-to-share via email to promote discussion of it among colleagues, customers and prospects.

Your B2B content marketing strategy holds the power to influence many B2B buyers to look to your company as their sought-after solution. This result is yours if your B2B content strategy evolves with the times.

These days there’s no question that great content is a foundational element of any marketing strategy—especially in B2B. In fact, according to Content Marketing Institute’s (CMI) 2017 benchmarking report, 89% of B2B marketers use content marketing to “attract and retain a clearly defined audience—and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” And thanks to yet another insightful report from CMI—the latter objective is our focus today. Last week, CMI and SmartBrief released their How Content Influences the Purchasing Process report, featuring data and insights collected from 1,200 SmartBrief subscribers. The aim of the report was to dig into the minds of those who are actually consuming content, and uncover what types of content are most influential, how decision-makers perceive vendor content, and more. From a marketer’s perspective, the findings both reinforce and redefine how marketers should be crafting their B2B content marketing strategies. Below I share five key statistics from the report, and some associated takeaways that can help you both bolster and boost your content efforts to drive action by decision makers.

#1 - 81% say they generally conduct research before bringing a vendor in.

Marketers know that the modern buyer’s journey is becoming increasingly self-directed. After all, this shift is arguably what drove the emergence of content marketing in the first place. So, it’s no surprise that CMI and SmartBrief’s report revealed that an overwhelming majority of decision-makers are conducting their own research before making contact with a vendor. The big takeaway: Simply put, decision-makers want to be educated. Thanks to the rise of the internet, social media and mobile technologies, buyers are more empowered than ever to take things into their own hands. As a result, marketers need to double-down on their efforts to guide people through the purchasing process by creating content for each stage of the sales funnel. For the TopRank Marketing team, this means leveraging the Attract, Engage, Convert model, as well as an integrated mix of tactics, to craft customer-centric content that’s easy to find, consume and share. [bctt tweet="Simply put, decision-makers want to be educated. #B2B #contentmarketing @cmicontent" username="toprank"]

#2 - 40% say credibility trumps the source of information.

Since decision-makers are often taking research into their own hands, it stands to reason that they’re consuming information from a variety of sources. According to the report, 66% of respondents admitted to using sources other than vendors to initially collect information. But perhaps one of the most interesting revelations was that 40% say the information source isn’t a big concern. In the end, they just want good, credible information. The big takeaway: As long as the content is credible, the source doesn’t matter. While an organization’s owned channels may never be a one-stop-shop for all prospects’ needs, the report encourages vendors to ensure their websites are up-to-date. In addition, since your prospects will likely come into contact with your brand in a variety of ways, marketers can take the lead on evaluating how their brand is being presented across all channels (i.e. printed materials, social media, third-party review sites, in-person events, etc.) to ensure consistency and build credibility. [bctt tweet="When it comes to gathering info for purchasing decisions, #content credibility > source. @cmicontent" username="toprank"]

#3 - 62% say they want content that speaks to their specific needs and pain points.

As marketers, it’s our job to dig deep to understand who our audience is, the challenges they face and the questions they’re asking. But perhaps we’re falling a little short in this area. According to the report, the No. 1 most important quality for content during the purchasing process is that is speaks to the specific needs or pain points of the decision-maker. Product or service specifications, and educational rather than promotional, came in at No. 2 and No. 3 respectively. The big takeaway: Give the people what they want by delivering best-answer content that is tailored to specific niches, scenarios, pain points or questions your prospects/customers are asking. But where do you start? From my perspective, your first stop should absolutely be your sales team. These folks are in the trenches every day and can give you detailed insights on customer characteristics (i.e. job title, company name, company size, etc.), as well as the challenges they’re looking to solve. Then conduct keyword topic research, and analyze your website and social data to learn more about how your prospects are searching and how they’re engaging with your existing content. [bctt tweet="Give the people what they want: best-answer #content tailored to specific niches. #B2B #contentmarketing" username="toprank"]

#4 - Just 21% rank blog posts as influential in their purchasing decisions.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, CMI and SmartBrief found that 80% of decision-makers ranked peer recommendations as their No. 1 purchasing influencer. But the No. 2 spot went to original research, with 74% of respondents rating it as influential. Furthermore, many of the most “traditional” content marketing tactics such as eBooks (33%), blogs and articles (21%)  and email newsletters (21%) landed toward the bottom. The big takeaway: It’s time to expand your content mix. To revisit CMI’s 2017 benchmark survey, social media content (83%), blogs (80%) and email newsletters (77%) were ranked as the top three most-used content marketing tactics. But as stated above, these are less influential in purchasing decisions. So, if you want to really connect with decision-makers, it’s probably time to step up with more robust and engaging content offerings such as webinars, on-demand product demos and—if you have the bandwidth and budget—original research. Now, this doesn’t mean you should completely abandon blogs or email marketing. Every organization’s content mix will be different depending on the industry and business objectives. Take stock of what you’re doing, and use the data and insights you have to draw some conclusions about what is and isn’t working. This will help you make decisions on where to ramp up your efforts, and where you can start dabbling with different content types. [bctt tweet="Based on @cmicontent research, it may be time to expand your #contentmarketing mix." username="toprank"]

#5 - Just 5% say they share information with colleagues on social media.

Generally speaking, purchasing decisions are a group effort. But how are decision-makers communicating with one another? According to the report, the vast majority (82%) of decision-makers are sharing content via email with other colleagues. The next most popular channels are conference calls (64%) or through a shared document or folder (36%)—with social channels coming in at 5% or less. The big takeaway: Social sharing metrics don’t give you the full engagement picture, so don’t fret if your shares are looking a little low. From my perspective, the bottom line here is the more you tap into the unique content needs and pain points of your audience, the better chance your content has at making an impression on all decision-makers. [bctt tweet="#B2B decision-makers are sharing #content via email - not #social. @cmicontent" username="toprank"]

Want to Read the Full Report?

Get access to the free report here. Are you surprised by any of the findings in the report? Tell us in the comments section below.

The post New Report: 5 Statistics You Need to Know on How Content Influences Purchases appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.

How Writing for the Stages of Awareness Will Convert More Readers into Paying Customers written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Tell a two-year-old the value of getting good grades in school.

Go ahead. Try it.

If you don’t have a two-year-old handy, let me tell you that you’re wasting your time trying.

But you know that.

So why do we write copy that immediately gives an answer to a problem your reader may not even know they had? And then wonder why your landing page isn’t converting or your emails aren’t being read?

So many of my clients tell me they have a valuable service or product, but they just don’t know how to explain it to people. To let their readers know how incredible the features are. Or how superior their service is.

Then they try to jam all of this really important information and a CONTACT US NOW call to action above the fold. Or they detail every, single technical feature of their product in the first few sentences of a dense email.

What they don’t know is that they’re giving the wrong message at the wrong time. When you do this, you’ll get the same reaction from your reader as you would from the two-year-old. It will go completely over their head and then they’re gone. The two-year-old to his toys or stuffing peas up his nose, and the reader to another website or deleting your email.

So how do you know what the right message and the right time are?

Well, luckily for you this is far easier to figure out than how to communicate with a two-year-old. Or get peas out of nostrils. (Take my word on this.)

And once you understand, you’ll not only get through to your readers, they’ll also hang around and ask for more.

Get your readers’ attention with the right message. At the right time.

Let’s say you sell running shoes. Now, is it going to be easier selling running shoes to an avid runner who knows the value of a good shoe or to someone who has always run barefoot?

Obviously, it will be easier to sell to the person who already runs in good shoes. And the way you sell your shoes to the runners on either extreme will look very different.

They are at different stages of awareness. So, let’s look at what those are.

• Unaware or low aware – This would be the barefoot runner. She may not have any idea that running shoes exist.
• Pain aware – This would be a runner who has always run barefoot, he’s tired of stepping on pebbles, but doesn’t know of an alternative.
• Solution aware – This would be a runner who runs barefoot, and is aware that running shoes exist, but isn’t convinced he should try them.
• Product aware – This is a runner who wears shoes. She understands that shoes are important, but perhaps thinks all shoes are the same.
• Aware – This runner appreciates great shoes, buys them regularly, but may not have tried yours yet.

Okay. Now that you know the stages of awareness, let me show you how different stages will require a different message at a different time.

The unaware runner who is happily running barefoot is not ready for a landing page or website that opens with a picture of a shoe and a “buy now” call to action. You should never lead with the product or service for people in the unaware or pain aware stages. They just aren’t ready yet, and you’ll lose their attention immediately.

So, what should you lead with for these folks?

A good start would be to open with a problem they’re having or bringing up a problem they may have in the future. The unaware runner might respond to a headline that lets her know that running barefoot could cause foot injuries by stepping on something sharp or possibly about future injuries caused by lack of foot support.

The pain aware runner who is tired of stepping on pebbles would, not surprisingly, respond to a headline that says, “Tired of stepping on pebbles?” If you lead with the shoe and the call to action, they don’t yet know that the shoe will help them solve this pain. And if you’re not telling them something they want to hear, then buh bye.

Yeah, but I’m not a mind reader

So now you’re probably wondering how the heck you know what stage of awareness your readers are in.

The good news is that you don’t need a crystal ball to figure this out. You’ll only need to do a bit of research.

Some of the ways you can determine the stages of awareness:

• Spend time in forums where your audience hangs out. If it’s runners you want as your customers, find out what questions they ask about shoes.
• Survey your readers. Ask them why they signed up for your email, what brought them to your landing page or how many pairs of shoes they buy in a year.
• Read reviews on your competitors’ sites. See what their customers have to complain about or what they love.
• Talk to your customers. Yes, actually speak to real, live people. This is the very best way to find out how they feel and what their pains are.

Spending a bit of time doing some research will help you understand your customers and the people you want to be your customers.

And you may have a combination of customers with some in one stage compared with others in a different stage. This can be overcome with landing pages or emails written for each stage. You’ll lose attention (and money) sending unaware readers to a landing page made for people who are aware.

Close that sale

Creating messages that are specific to your readers’ stage of awareness is crucial in closing deals. If you haven’t satisfied their need or solved their pain, then they don’t know they need you.

But now you know how to avoid this. You know how to make sure you’re giving your reader what they need. And when you do you have the chance to not only grab their attention but to keep it too.

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About the Author

Lisa Pierson will show you the crucial elements to include in your copy to build deeper, more meaningful relationships with your clients and customers in Sell with Substance.

The sales process is really your process for making money. This is real information you can use to get real money. All sales start with a process. How many of you have a sales process that you use? The process must be simple and short; it must be duplicable, fit all personality types, and fit all scenarios. The bottom line is that the best sales process is what works. Keep it simple, honest, and never disagree. If you can’t advertise and promote how you sell, don’t do it. Here are some different parts to a sales process you can possibly use to get you on the right track:

1. Greet—To greet means to address with an expression of kind wishes upon meeting or upon arrival. It’s about trying to make people feel welcome. This is the first purpose of greeting a customer, but it’s also your first chance to make a great impression on them. What you say and how you say it will set the tone for the rest of the deal. You need to nail the greeting. Those first seconds of meeting a customer, those first moments, can never be changed.

Use a firm handshake, not a dead-fish handshake.

Wear a name badge because people will forget your name. Make eye contact, be present, listen for their name, and pay attention to their name. Duplicate their name because you will use it over and over again. Don’t be offended by brush-offs. 

After making a customer feel welcome, you want to put them at ease so they start dropping their guard. You want to get on a common ground and differentiate yourself from others. You also want to differentiate from any experience they’ve had in the past with your product or service. Anyone can say, “Hi, my name’s Grant.” After that, if you can’t build trust, you’re not going to put them at ease, and you’re going to struggle to get on common ground. If you don’t differentiate yourself, you’ll never control the process. So the greeting is to welcome, make yourself known, put people at ease, differentiate yourself, and grab control of the process.

2. Qualify— The person that controls the sale is not the person asking the questions but the person that gets answers to their questions! Far too often a salesperson will go down a path of determining a client's needs and never get an answer. You must get your questions answered even when the customer appears closed off and resistant to providing information. 

 

Here are some bad questions: “What is your budget?” First off, most people have no clue and secondly, when they give you an answer it will always start your discovery process with you chasing a number that is unachievable. As a buyer, my budget is determined once my problem is solved. More often than not, I exceed my desired budget range by many times. 

“Are you the final decision-maker?” This causes people to think that if they are not then you are not interested in them and many will answer this question “yes,” even when it's not the case. That’s because the question challenges the person’s ego. “When are you thinking of buying?” The customer translates this to mean that you are only concerned with yourself and your commission. 

“What would it take for you to do business with me today?” The ultimate stereotypical salesman question that even the sales person hates to ask. If you want to be more effective and increase your closing ratio you have to ask great, professional questions that demonstrate that you care and get the answers to those questions.

3. Present— Your presentation of your product or service is where you build value and desire for ownership. This is where you have to paint the picture of ownership and create the "must have this" because they love your solution or because they are certain it will solve problems for them. The presentation of your product or service should handle every concern, build value and motivate your prospect to ownership.

You need to tailor the presentation to your prospect's dominant buying motives.

If you give a standard, one-size-fits-all presentation, hoping that something you say will be relevant and hit a hot button, chances are your prospect won't be listening. If you are giving a standard presentation, you are leaving it up to your prospect to work out what is relevant and most prospects simply can't be bothered. Assume that 20% of your product will sell 100% of it; find out what the 20% is and hammer it home.

4. Propose— In companies that hire me to provide them with training, increasing the number of proposals written is always one of the top priorities. The more deals that get to a proposal, the more deals you will win, PERIOD. In companies that hire me to provide them with training, increasing the number of proposals written is always one of the top priorities. The more deals that get to a proposal, the more deals you will win.

Many people suggest not presenting all buyers with figures, but I believe that if you do not present them, you can never come to an agreement. Our goal is that 100% of those prospects that we come into contact with are presented a proposal and in many cases multiple proposals on different products or packages.

People cannot make a decision if they do not have the information.

My company did a mystery shop with a Fortune 500 company and found that customers were only being made a proposal 37% of the time. That means that 63% of the time, the company never had a chance at the business! 

5. Close— The diminishing production numbers for salespeople starts with the inability to close the sale. This is the harsh, cold, stark reality; when you don’t close, you lose. Train Multiple and Creative Closes Easy sales go down easy, but the rest of them require extra effort and persistence. If you only have 3 or 4 closes to use on the resistant buyer, you cannot stay in the transaction long enough to close.

Closing the customer is like taking a trip: you are limited by the amount of gas you have in the tank. The close is where the salesperson gets paid. You don’t get paid to call people and sell; you get paid to close. 

Remember, a good sales process will help you become a millionaire. A bad sales process will put you out of business. Today only I'm offering a killer deal on my Selling Basics package. Before becoming a master in anything, you have to get the basics down. I want to show you strategies to become a professional, success rituals that will help you control your time, and teach you all about the most important sale there is. 

Be great,

GC

 

 

To motivate, manage, and reward B2B salespeople, many companies use sales incentive plans that link large commissions or bonuses to individual results metrics, such as territory quota achievement. As digital channels continue to reduce and redefine salespeople’s role in customer buying, these traditional sales incentive plans are becoming less effective at driving sales outcomes.

The right sales incentive plan creates a double win. Salespeople win because they are rewarded for their hard work and good performance. The company wins through a better-motivated sales team that produces short-term results and is more likely to achieve company goals.

For a sales incentive plan to produce this double win, there are two necessary conditions:

• Salespeople must have a large impact on sales results by focusing on activities that add value and directly influence customer buying decisions.
• The company must have the ability to measure individual results by separating out each salesperson’s contribution and determining how much an individual’s actions affect the outcome.

Today’s multichannel world increasingly challenges both of these conditions.

Before the proliferation of digital information and buying channels, buyers usually relied on field salespeople’s help and expertise when purchasing. Salespeople “owned” relationships with customers, and had considerable impact on purchase decisions. This made it easy to measure individual sales results. In many cases, incentives linked to sales performance were an effective way to motivate and reward individual salespeople.

Today digital channels make buyers more informed, connected, and socially influenced. Buyers no longer view salespeople as their primary connection to companies they want to do business with. For simple product purchases such as office supplies, many buyers are self-sufficient. They get information online and purchase through websites supported by inside sales and service. Field salespeople no longer have impact on buying decisions. The first necessary condition is no longer true.

For complex solution purchases such as customized manufacturing equipment, buyers usually rely on a combination of digital channels and salespeople. The internet allows buyers to easily gather preliminary information about solution alternatives. But when solutions are complex and expensive, digital channels are usually not enough. Buyers want to collaborate with salespeople to reduce uncertainty. Often, they want input from multiple salespeople and technical specialists from the solution provider, in addition to help from digital channels. Salespeople have impact on purchase decisions. But because that impact is shared with multiple sales roles and digital channels, the company’s ability to measure impact and attribute it to a specific salesperson is limited. The second necessary condition is no longer true.

More and more selling situations today are failing to meet one or both necessary conditions for traditional sales incentives to work. Multiple influences on buying reduce individual salespeople’s impact and the ability to measure it. This blurs the connection between individual effort, results, and incentive pay in the minds of salespeople. Incentives become fuzzy and are no longer effective at rewarding and motivating individuals.

New Sales Management and Culture

Companies can no longer rely on large, individual, short-term sales incentives as a primary means of managing salespeople. Instead, they must change their sales compensation plans while emphasizing other ways to direct salespeople and shape sales culture.

Sales leaders must change compensation plans to look more like management bonus plans, designed to encourage people to work together to make the company and its customers more competitive and prosperous in the long run. Changes include:

• Changing the metrics for determining incentive pay. Instead of short-term individual results (for example, quarterly territory sales), the metrics that determine pay should reflect annual company and team performance, along with individual effort contributing to team results (for example, going above and beyond to meet with key decision makers or to engage product specialists to help customers).
• Shifting the pay mix more toward salary. Companies should also provide a smaller (but still reasonable) incentive opportunity for salespeople.

In addition to changing sales compensation, sales leaders and managers must take a more active role in managing salespeople. This involves changes such as:

• Deploying new sales team structures. They must work alongside other channels (internet, inside sales) to meet customer needs.
• Hiring salespeople with new capabilities. In addition to having solution sales skills, they should be comfortable using digital communication (email, video calls, social media) with customers, appreciate the value of analytics for enhancing the sales process, and be able to orchestrate customer buying across multiple channels.
• Using performance management, coaching, training, and sales data and tools. Guide salespeople instead of relying on incentives as a primary means of controlling sales activity.
• Establishing a new sales culture. It should be focused on teamwork and customer success.

Incentives are embedded in the culture of many sales forces, and changing that culture may be difficult. Yet change is necessary for companies to affect sales force behavior and drive results in today’s multichannel sales environment.

There’s a few things that almost all landing pages have in common.

1. They’re trying to get users to take a specific action
2. You need to convince many users to take this action
3. Many of these users will be unfamiliar with the brand, product, or service

If you only have a few seconds to convince users to not only stay on the landing page, but to convert, it only makes sense to use video. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of really, really awful landing page videos out in the world. They come across like spam, they’re badly made, and they never really get to the point.

Fortunately, there’s a way around this. To create high-converting landing page videos, you just need two things: a simple formula to create the content within them, and video editing software to make them. And here at Shakr, we can help you with both.

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Why Use Landing Page Videos?

Landing page videos allow you to convey a big chunk of information to users quickly and succinctly, without them feeling overwhelmed by seeing blocks of text on the page. The people in the video (or even just a voice narration) can also introduce a personal, humanized element, increasing user trust and rapport.

Landing page videos work, at least when they’re done well. Research has shown that using videos on landing pages can increase conversions by 86%, and that 4 out 5 customers find demo videos to be helpful. Need one more reason? Landing pages with videos have a 53% higher chance of showing up on the first page of Google’s search results.

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The Foolproof Landing Page Video Formula

First, before you dive in, focus in on the objective of your landing page. Is it to increase sales of a product, or a subscription? Do you want users to sign-up for a contest? What are you trying to accomplish? This will shape the landing page as you create it.

This foolproof formula for creating landing page videos is shockingly simple. It can also be applied to all types of landing page videos, from animated explainer videos to the I’m-casually-talking-to-you-while-I-drive-my-car videos that were all the rage in the marketing world a few years back.

Ready? Here it is:

1. Explain The Customer’s Problem

Describe the problem, and its biggest pain points, quickly but in detail. “Spent too much money on weight loss products that don’t work and have questionable health effects?” is a great opening line for a different weight-loss strategy. It gets the problems across quickly and stresses specific pain points, setting you to swoop in with a solution.

You can add some additional information here, if you’re going for a long video, meant to educate customers and offer value. An example of this would include “In fact, doctors say that most crash diets are more damaging to the heart than not dieting at all.” Vegalash does this in the example below.

2. Introduce Your Product As the Solution

Bet you didn’t see that coming! (Just kidding.) As soon as you’ve addressed the problem your product or service solves, it’s the perfect time to say “we can help with that!” Start by simply introducing your product—making sure it mention its name at this moment—, and then explaining specific ways your product is the solution. “So crash diets and supplements do more harm than good, but our daily detox tea is safe and effective! Manny’s Weight-Shedders Detox Tea is FDA approved…”

The example below from Page cloud’s landing page is fantastic: as soon as it completely addresses the problem (but quickly), it immediately sets up its product as the ideal solution.

3. Use Specific Feature-Benefit Statements

This is your chance to really sell customers on whatever action you want them to take. These should be simple, specific concepts (even in the case of a complex product) designed to make your product more desirable while simultaneously overcoming objections. List the feature that your product offers and then explain why that feature matters to them.

The video example below from Salesforce does this flawlessly. They list features like “it’s updated in real time” that leads to benefits like “anyone who is following the opportunity will know what’s going on when.” (Yes, I paraphrased.)

4. Bring On the Data

Whatever kind of support you have for your argument, throw it out there. Whether that’s case studies, clinical trials, research to back up your claims, or even customer testimonials, use them to your advantage. Some videos, like the one below, are made up entirely of customer testimonials, but I’ve found them to be more effective when incorporated into this formula.

5. Hit the CTA Hard

When it all comes down to it, the entire video was all one big lead up to this moment. Heck, the whole landing page is a lead up to this moment.

At the end of your video, you need to spend the last chunk of time entirely devoted to the CTA. The CTA should be clear and direct, and it should be easy for users to follow. “Scroll down under the video, and click on the ‘Subscribe Now’ button to get started with your free 90-day trial!” If you have a few seconds to spare, you can add a positive note to close the video out, like “We can’t wait to see you on the other side” or “We can’t wait to hear how much you love it.”

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Final Thoughts

Landing page videos are overwhelmingly effective when they can hit every objection, question, and pain point customers need you to address. Our foolproof landing page video formula is meant to address every single one of these obstacles, leaving nothing out. This will help you increase conversions, no matter what it is that you’re trying to get users to do or buy.

An Interview with Ian Addison From GetLinkedInHelp.com

Because we find that sales and marketing leaders focus on lead generation instead of demand generation and full funnel marketing, I have interviewed our resident Challenger social selling expert – Ian Addison – on how more LinkedIn leads can be bad for your organization. Ian Addison, now the Managing Director of GetLinkedInHelp.com’s supply chain services and logistics technology division, played a major role in the challenger sale transformation in organizations like UPS and Schneider.

Question from Kristina Jaramillo: Why Do You Say That Organizations Should Shift Their LinkedIn Marketing and Social Selling Focus from Lead Gen to Demand Gen?

Almost every sales organization I speak with says they are coordinating with either their internal marketing team or exploring outsourced marketing groups in order to drive more leads. The position I take in this conversation is a bold one: Yes, we need a lead gen process in place but too much focus on lead gen will destroy your revenue performance as leads do not represent an opportunity.

Question from Kristina Jaramillo: What Do You Mean That a Lead Does Not Represent Opportunity?

The terms lead, prospect and opportunity are used interchangeably by many businesses, although in practice they represent three unique aspects of a potential client. These aspects need to be understood in order to support full funnel marketing and end-to-end sales pipeline success.

1) A lead is an unqualified potential client. In logistics, this exists where we’ve identified a contact at a business that moves physical goods, however, they may not be a fit for our key shipping lanes, tech solutions or business model.

2) A prospect is a sales-qualified potential client. A lead becomes a prospect when the sales person can identify a differentiated value proposition.

3) An opportunity is a self-qualified potential client. A prospect becomes an opportunity when the client lets loose their grip of the ‘status quo,’ and has become willing to have a conversation on how to close gaps.

Question from Kristina Jaramillo: Do You Have an Example That Shows That a Lead Does Not Represent an Opportunity?

I witnessed not one but two large supply chain networks relentlessly pursue Niagara Bottling for managed services and sole provider opportunities. They knew that Niagara had some 200 logistics people on staff, and yet they would target the company and invest sales and other subject matter expertise week over week, month over month, only to come out the other end with not a single new dollar in revenue.

Because Niagara had a staff of more than 200 logistics operations people, instead of supporting the organization with technology and expertise, the supply chain networks would be replacing Niagara employees. There’s no way that they would get buy-in at all levels. Also by nature of the low-margin product, they simply weren’t going to shell out for a premium transportation service. This was a great ‘lead’ but not a great ‘prospect’ because the customer had tons of volume but other characteristics of their business would prevent them from making a change.

An opportunity did not exist, though the conversations kept rolling to see if the service price would come down below market. As CEB has reflected in studies, 70% of customers have no intent to buy, though will continue to absorb the sales person time.

Question from Kristina Jaramillo: But How Does Focusing on LinkedIn Lead Gen Hurt Revenue Performance?

Generally speaking, 90% of the market is ‘not’ looking, ready, or even willing to consider buying now. Only 10% of our potential prospects are actual prospects, meaning 90% of them are just leads and would ‘stay’ as leads. But what about the entire middle-ground? What about the 60% that could be prospects but have yet to identify a need and therefore have no demand or appetite for change?

Because sales teams are so focused on leads and “getting the sales call” they’re going for volume because they know finding the3% that are open to buying now and the 7% that is open to buying but not looking is like finding a needle in the haystack. Because they’re playing a volume game, they’re only being relevant at the company and industry levels instead of at the rank and personal levels, which is what is necessary to inspire change. We have a tendency to simply throw out messages and hope something sticks. That’s why many sales teams still have the old-school 10% mindset…1 out of 10 leads will convert to a prospect, 1 out of 10 prospects will convert to an opportunity, and 1 out of 10 opportunities will convert to revenue. Lead gen is a broken process since we’re all still chasing the same 10% of the market.

Let’s simplify and say the close rate is 10%. For every 10 conversations, one turns into a relationship that ultimately generates revenue. If I throw more leads to the sales team, the close rate will remain unchanged. Before, they had to work through 10 leads to get 1 clean opportunity. Now they’ll have to work through 20 to get to 2. Or 30 to get to 3. The end ratio of 10:1 close rate remains entirely unchanged.

But how do I ensure the right ‘mix’? What happens if I get them out of order, and now the sales team has to chew through 45 to find 1? Maybe the next 5 opportunities would ALL pull through, but we don’t have time to get to them because we’re stuck working those first 45. Do you see how focusing on lead gen without any demand gen in place can hurt revenue performance?

Question from Kristina Jaramillo: What Can Sales and Marketing Teams Expect By Leveraging LinkedIn Demand Gen with LinkedIn Lead Gen?

LinkedIn demand gen which incorporates challenger educational selling, account based marketing, and nurturing practices, focuses on relevancy to the 60% of the market that is in status quo or wrongfully believe that they don’t need your solution. This market isn’t available to those focusing just on lead gen as they need a relationship based on relevant value. They need you to identify gaps in technology, systems, processes etc. and help them see a new path to the value that they deserve.

Because there is a focus on creating a relationship based on “relevant” value and real commercial insight that leads back to your organization’s competitive advantage, you can expect a 40% to 70% increased chance of closing when the lead becomes an opportunity. You’d be cutting your sales cycle time in half. Then, because you’ve shown them a new path to value instead of tossing solutions over the fence, you can achieve 40% more share of wallet from your clients.

Final Thoughts from Kristina Jaramillo…

Most companies have recognized the gap between leads and revenue and they’re looking for ways to blend sales and marketing to drive revenue performance. Although they’re often still using marketing to fill the ‘top’ of the funnel rather than focusing on the middle and bottom of the funnel that brings prospects closer to a deal! Inside the “Beyond the Lead” LinkedIn community, you’ll find discussions on how you can use LinkedIn and social content to drive change, demand and revenues instead of just leads and interest.

Click here to join the “Beyond the Lead” LinkedIn community.

Didn’t meet your number last quarter? Things are probably not great for you right now. Your boss may have you on a performance plan. Your cash flow might be strained. And the voices in your head are definitely doing their best to keep you distracted and full of self-doubt.

Fear isn’t a great ingredient for a roaring comeback. Instead, take positive steps to get back to meeting or even exceeding your quarterly sales goal.

Read the tips below. Learn from them. And then get back to crushing your numbers like you know you can.

1) View Bad Months as Character-Building

In sales, everyone’s responsible for a number. Whether you missed last quarter’s number by a hair, or are lagging behind by a mile, it matters and it’s a problem.

When you’re in a sales slump, don’t waste time on excuses. Instead, use this time to get better, both personally and professionally. Have a particularly rough day at the office? Use it as an exercise in how to not take work frustration home to your family or roommate.

Manager attached at your hip to make sure you don’t miss two quarterly quotas in a row? Use this as a time to show them how adaptable and hardworking you are. Once you emerge from your slump, you’ll be a stronger salesperson for it -- and you won’t have alienated your friends and coworkers.

2) List the Quarter’s Wins and Losses

Tally up the wins and losses you experienced last quarter. For example, maybe you closed a high-profile account or won business away from a competitor. Chances are, you did more right than you remember. Obviously you also had some missteps, so be honest about addressing those.

Next, share your list with a close colleague, mentor, or coach and ask for feedback. They’ll be able to look at your list and identify areas where they can offer training or advice.

It’s also a good idea to dissect the accounts you did close. Did you approach those in a different way? What common characteristics did they share? How did you demonstrate value? Reviewing these closed-won accounts will allow you to think strategically about why they were a success. It’s also a great way to remind yourself you have the skills it takes to succeed at your job.

3) Turn to a Mentor

If you don’t have a mentor, now is the right time to find one. Ask your boss if they can connect you to anyone internally or externally who might specialize in your sales vertical or region.

Choose someone who’s been in the sales profession longer or has a track record of success. They’ll be able to offer you an outside, unbiased opinion of your work.

Once you’ve shared your list of quarterly wins and losses, your mentor can identify some “tells.” Together, you can craft a new plan of attack for meeting your goals and becoming a stronger salesperson.

4) Work Smarter and Harder

We often hear “Work smarter, not harder.” But when you’re not meeting your quota, you’ve got to do both. While it’s important to relax and take care of yourself (more on that below), it’s also important to hustle hard.

First, frame your situation using a simple formula like the MINTO Pyramid Principle structure. If you’re setting up a plan for meeting your number this quarter, it might look something like this:

Situation: I didn’t meet my number last quarter. It’s really important I hit my quota this quarter.

Complication: I don’t have many opportunities in my pipeline right now.

Question: Can I grow pipeline and get more leads to convert so that I meet my quarterly quota?

Answer: Yes. I make X number of calls per month. Out of those calls, only Y number of calls turn into demos. Out of those demos, historical data shows that only Z number turn into closed-won business.

Given these numbers, I can use a little simple math to work backward and calculate how many additional phone calls I need to close the right amount of business.

With this framework, you’ve clearly defined the problem and outlined a data-fueled approach to solving it. Your boss can provide feedback on your MINTO, and it gives you both a plan to stick to and monitor.

It’s also important to build in a buffer and take a look at outside factors that might affect the number of calls you need to make in a given month. Is January typically a hard month to get people on the phone? Adjust the amount of calls you make that month, or plan to increase the number of people you get on the phone before Jan. 1.

5) Replace Negative Self Talk

You know what I’m talking about. You miss your number and your thought process goes something like this: “Oh man, my manager is probably going to put me on a performance plan. I can already tell I’m going to struggle meeting my number this month. I’m definitely going to get fired. How am I going to pay bills? What’s my family going to do … ”

This is serious stuff. But dwelling on it isn’t going to make you better at selling. Instead, focus on what you can control, and take steps to write a more positive ending for your sales quarter.

That instantly turns your negative self-talk into something positive and actionable like this: “My boss put me on a performance plan because she wants me to succeed. I am going to work as hard as I can to meet my numbers by doing X, Y, and Z. I’m also going to be honest with my family and friends, so that I’m not going through this alone.”

6) Give Yourself Time to Relax

Whether it’s an hour or a day, your body will perform better if you give yourself time to shut down, recharge, and think about something other than work. Take a 15-minute walk outside your building, spend Saturday golfing with friends, or call it a night at a reasonable hour and have dinner with your family.

Staying focused is crucial to getting a hold on your number, but you can’t do that if you’re burned out, or worse, making yourself mentally or physically sick from your efforts. Give yourself time to unplug and be prepared to work hard when you get back.

7) Accept Tough Talk From Your Boss

When you don’t meet your number, it reflects poorly on both of you and on the bottom line of the company. Be prepared for some critique and frustration from your manager.

If you truly feel your quota is unrealistic, tell your boss (and be prepared to back it up with objective data, like how deeply penetrated your territory is or how many new accounts you’d have to sign). But more likely, you didn’t meet your number for reasons within your control. Now you have to answer for this.

Don’t be defensive. Take responsibility for not meeting your quota, and tell your boss you’re ready to work hard and put together a solid strategy for moving forward. This will go over much better than making excuses, trying to defend yourself, or outright contradicting your manager.

8) Conduct Call Reviews

If you and your manager aren’t meeting on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to listen to recordings of your phone calls and demos, ask if you can schedule a recurring time to do so. But don’t stop there -- until you’re back on track, you need all the help you can get. Ask a top-performing rep on your team and/or your mentor to listen to a recording with you as well.

Ask for brutal honesty and you’ll likely get it. It’s also a smart idea to shadow other salespeople or sit in other salespeople’s call reviews, if they’re open to that. Is there a colleague who crushes it every quarter? Make it a point to catch their call review and find out what they’re doing right. It’s also beneficial to ask this person to sit in on one of your call reviews. That way, you can get their perspective on your work as well.

Bad sales quarters are part of being in the business. They can be rough, soul-bearing periods of time. But they can also make you better, both personally and professionally. Don’t sugar coat your sales slump, but don’t give up on yourself either. Move forward positively and remember why you love what you do.

When you are one of the first 10 business development reps at a startup, processes and policies are likely few and far between. The lack of bureaucracy is probably one of the reasons why you joined the team. That said, I am willing to bet you don’t have adequate sales ops nor training resources to support you. It is critical then for you to learn ways to effectively self-manage early in your career and in the company’s development so you and the company can achieve your full potential

Below are guidelines you can follow to create a daily email report to show management your progress and to ensure your results are in line with their expectations.

But first, why is this even important?

Before we talk about how to create a performance report to your manager, let’s make sure we are on the same page on why doing so is important. Below are just a few reasons why it’s worth taking 5 minutes at the end of your day to report out on your results:

1. Personal accountability: You can’t improve what you can’t measure. Reporting out on your results cultivates a personal responsibility to acknowledge your impact each day and will drive you to continuously improve those results.

2. Senior level visibility: There’s no doubt about it, visibility is important for career development. If you are a part of a fast growing company, one downside of employee growth can be decreasing interactions with senior management. Providing a quick and clear recap of your impact at your boss’s fingertips makes it that much easier for your results to get communicated upwards.

3. Build your resume: Knowing your impact and activity metrics inside and out will not only behoove you at your current organization, but also at your future career. You never know when your next formal (or informal) interview will be – being able to confidently rattle off your impact will benefit you.

Report Guidelines

Create a simple report to email your manager daily with your KPIs. Use the same format daily so it is easy for your manager to digest. We recommend including trailing 5 business days to showcase trends. Use this as a starting point, and collect feedback from your manager on how to improve it!

Results

Call outs to Include

Be sure to include insights on trends that are out of the ordinary. This can include successes, impediments you want to put on your manager’s radar or areas where you need their help. Remember to keep this section simple and short – no more than 3 bullets. Highlight any information that requires action from them and in no time you’ll be moving up the sales career ladder.

What comes next?

Are you a part of a team that is building the outbound lead pipeline for the first time? If so, check out our free eBook: Get More Customers! How to Build an Outbound B2B Lead Generation Team that Drives Sales, which provides a detailed overview of B2B lead generation and how to create an effective B2B lead generation machine.

Download this free eBook and learn how to:

• Understand what outbound lead generation is and why it’s important
• Recognize the components of a successful outbound generation implementation
• Build an effective and sustainable compensation plan
• Improve your outbound approach and process
• Explore the various technologies available to sales managers and how to utilize them effectively to manage the outbound lead generation process

The post Sample Daily Report to Your Manager appeared first on OpenView Labs.

Amplifinity, a leader in referral program software, today announced the publication of a new data report on partner referral programs, The State of Business Partner Referral Programs – Annual Report.

The State of Business Partner Referral Programs – Annual Report, is the first report of its kind to provide detailed insight into the success of partner referral programs. The data is aggregated from partner referral programs run on the Amplifinity platform.

This first annual report sets an industry benchmark for partner referral behavior, how partners are making referrals and the corresponding conversion rates. Reward types and amounts were also analyzed as well as the impact of sales involvement in driving partner recruitment and referrals.

An interesting data point for channel marketers is the average partner referral conversion rate from lead to deal of 31%. This is a drastic increase over the partner lead industry average of 0.48% and the referral industry average of 3.63% according to a study done by Salesforce’s Implisit.

But this didn’t surprise Trisha Winter, CMO of Amplifinity, “It is actually quite reasonable to me that partner referrals taking place on the Amplifinity platform resulted in such a higher conversion rate than the partner lead industry average. When companies have the ability to enable partners with target buyer information while automating referral tracking, communications, and incentive fulfillment it’s easy to see how partner referral volume and quality would sky rocket compared to ad hoc partner leads.”

Kathy Contreras, Research Director for Channel Strategies at SiriusDecisions commented, “Partner referral programs can be used in any industry and offer a way to motivate and reward partners for identifying and registering new leads. This type of partnership [referral partners] provides the opportunity to align with organizations that have strong relationships with a supplier’s target buyers, but are not interested in or qualified to resell the supplier’s offerings (e.g. suppliers that provide collaborative solutions, systems integrators, consultants, influencers, etc).”

Another promising data point was the impact of sales involvement on the conversion rate of partner referral leads. Partner referral leads from programs with sales involvement showed an increase from the overall average referral to deal conversion rate to a 41% success rate.

“It was encouraging to see the data supports the concept that channel professionals already know – personalized engagement of partners and their leads improves conversion,” says Winter. “Channel marketing can drive some activity, but sales is in a perfect position to both recruit and engage partners to make referrals. This concept also can be linked to why social media was the second most used referral method but had no success according to the data.”

As the first annual report, Winter believes it will be used widely to understand new opportunities to achieve growth objectives in an ever changing market and as a benchmark for companies already running partner referral programs. “The partner ecosystem is undergoing a shift to a largely SaaS based offering, which is especially impacting the technology and telecom space. Along with this there is a need in every industry to scale partner operations, prove reseller productivity and fit, and grow leads from non-reseller partners. I’m glad that Amplifinity can provide this benchmarking partner referral data. It will be interesting to see how other partner focused companies align and respond to it.”

To get more insight, download the full analysis, The State of Business Partner Referral Programs – Annual Report.

When people hop online to research a product they are interested in buying, they are often met with an overwhelming, and sometimes confusing, amount of information. All that information can make it difficult for a brand to get their product or service in front of a potential customer. It’s a competitive space but the reward for winning a customer’s first purchase can be huge. Numerous studies have shown that if a brand or company can get their product or service to a customer first, that customer tends to be loyal towards that particular brand for a lifetime.

One of the ways brands are helping to get their name in front of the eyes of customers is through loyalty programs and word-of-mouth marketing. In the online space, this kind of word-of-mouth marketing comes via influencers and their highly engaged audiences. This tends to create customers that frequently engage with your brand and who are more more likely to share their passion about your product or service with the people they know. The rise of influencer marketing gives brands an online social presence and, as such, has helped brands get their names to the customers they care about the most.

Yet most brands think that the only way to drive sales with influencer marketing is to work with those individuals who have massive social media followings; celebrities, social media icons, etc. But the rise of micro-influencers and their small, dedicated followings has changed things considerably.

While a micro-influencer does not have the larger social media following of a traditional influencer, they tend to have an extremely engaged and trusting audience. And because of their smaller audience, micro-influencers tend to offer their influence for some free products or services. Where traditional influencers like celebrities or social media icons tend to charge high rate for their influence, micro-influencers are a lot more cost-effective. This not only allows your brand to target a very specific, highly-engaged audience, but also to do so at a much lower cost.

FLIP THE FUNNEL OF INFLUENCE

It’s perhaps best to think of the benefits of a micro-influencer compared to a traditional influencer in terms of a funnel. Traditional influencers create a funnel of influence that has a wide top and a narrow bottom, whereas a micro-influencer creates the reverse. The traditional influencer will provide you with a tremendous amount of leads, and slowly filter those down to some sales. A social media icon with a large following will share your brand with his/her following, regardless of whether or not the majority of their audience may be interested in it. This can create a few problems. While your brand did get a ton of exposure and you did make a few sales, you also potentially annoyed or irritated a lot of people who did not want to see your product or service on their feed. This kind of sales and marketing outreach may associate your brand with a negative experience––something no brand wants. But when you flip the funnel of influence, the exact opposite tends to happen.

The idea is pretty simple, but the application can be quite complex. You need to find a micro-influencer with a highly engaged, small audience who will vouch and promote your product or service to their followers. While not as many eyeballs will see your brand, those people that are shown your product or service will be much more likely to make a purchase, as they tend to interact and engage more with the micro-influencer as opposed to a traditional influencer. As the followers of that micro-influencer make their purchase, they will (hopefully) share their love of your brand with their own followers. As more and more people see your brand, your web of influence will grow, albeit with an audience that is engaged and loves your product right from the get-go. This is how effective micro-influencer marketing works. Here’s a guide to help you successfully navigate through your influencer marketing campaign.

FIND THE RIGHT INFLUENCER, CREATE LOYALTY

The most important step in micro-influencer marketing is finding influencers whose interests and audience engagement align with those of your product or service. Likewise, you want to find an influencer who is willing to create positive social experience with your brand. Generally, micro-influencers will require that they test your product or service out before sharing it with their audience, and their followers know this. This is why a micro-influencer’s endorsement can be so influential with their following, regardless of its size.

And this is the essence of why micro-influencer marketing so effective. The loyalty that those followers have for the influencer that promotes your product will be automatically transferred to your brand. Building a strong foundation of customer loyalty can be one of those difficult things for a brand to do, but with a micro-influencer marketing, your company can build that loyalty right from the first impression. It’s a much more organic way for your brand to expand its influence and its proven to work.

While the traditional influencer model and funnel of influence has great potential for sales and exposure, the end result can sometimes be not what you expected, whether it be a negative online reaction or a mismatched audience. Finding the right micro-influencer with an engaged audience can be demonstrably more effective and can create results that last.