There’s one email feature that can prevent your email from going straight to your recipient’s “Junk” folder. That tool is an email subject line, and it’s one of the most important parts of your sales email.

Your open rate, click rate, and CTA conversions depend on your sales email subject line. Sure sounds like a lot of responsibility for 60 characters, doesn’t it? Don’t fret. Once you understand what makes a great subject line, you’ll crank them out effortlessly and see your open rates soar.

But first, what makes a good subject line?

With sales email subject lines, a little creativity goes a long way.

After all, sparking your prospect's curiosity is often the simplest and most effective way to get them to open your email — and once they've done that, you can win a response by writing a relevant, timely email.

But hitting on a good subject line isn't easy. Plus, what was fresh and inventive eight months ago will make your buyer's eyes roll back in their head today. So I talked to a few salespeople to learn the subject lines they were having success with.

Use the following tips knowing that they've been tried, tested, and verified to work by reps around the world.

1. Keep it brief.

The ideal length of an email subject line varies between mobile, desktop, and tablet devices, so keep this in mind as you craft the perfect one-liner for your sales email. On average, the maximum subject line is about 60 characters long before it gets cut off by the email provider. Campaign Monitor recommends a subject line of 41 characters so that each word appears on desktop, mobile, and tablet devices.

2. Personalize it.

Personalizing the subject line to include the prospect’s name is always a smart way to go. In fact, Campaign Monitor found that 74% of marketers claim to enjoy an average 20% increase in revenue when personalizing emails. People want to hear from, talk to, and buy from other people, not from big brands and companies.

Rather than sending your sales emails from a generic address like sales@imtryingtosellyousomething.com, use your personal email address or an alias that includes your first name to give your message a more human appearance.

3. Make it interesting.

I know. We’ve all been taught not to judge a book by its cover, but sales email subject lines don’t count. (Sorry, mom.) If you followed our tips on creating the best cold sales email, we don’t doubt that the content of your emails will have your prospects doing backflips to book calls with you. But before they get to the masterpiece of an email, they’ve got to make it through the subject line first.

Making the subject line interesting could mean a number of things, so use this list to find an angle that you think your prospect might care about.

• A recent news story in their industry
• A new statistic about their industry
• A question about a project they just started or finished
• An ask for their help

The key to each of these angles is this: they’re all about the prospect. You’ll have plenty of time to pitch your product in the body of the email and on future calls. The primary goal of your subject line is to get the prospect to click, read more, and decide if they’re interested enough to respond or take action.

4. Offer value.

Does your company offer a product or service that the prospect has been looking for on social media? Do you have a promotion that could free up your prospect’s budget for other activities? Can you help the prospect reach their goals faster? All of these options offer value to the prospective customer and are enticing angles to include in your subject line.

5. Create urgency.

Time sensitivity is a common filter that many of us use to prioritize our inboxes, so it’s understandable that our prospects operate their inboxes the same way. Even if your prospect isn’t particularly interested in making a purchase right now, there’s still some benefit in knowing that they could miss out if they don’t at least see what the limited-time-only promotion is. Creating urgency, where appropriate, is a tried-and-true tactic to get your emails opened and read, but don’t rely on this all the time. You could risk annoying your prospect with constant urgent requests.

6. Avoid clickbait.

Along the same lines of annoying your prospect, avoid creating email subject lines that can’t live up to the actual email, product, or service itself. Insinuating urgency, value, or importance where there isn’t any can leave a bad taste in your prospect’s mouth at best, and lead to your domain being marked as spam at worst. For an added layer of assurance, cross-check your subject line against our ultimate list of spam trigger words to avoid.

7. Include keywords.

Keywords are another way prospects filter and organize their inboxes. Including specific keywords in your email can help yours make it into a folder the prospect will review later. There’s no magic way to know what filters and rules your prospects have set up, but with some creative thinking and A/B testing, you can deduce what words affect your open rates better than others.

The Best Sales Email Subject Lines

Read through them all or use the index below to jump to the subject lines you need now.

• Cold Email Subject Lines
• Follow-Up Email Subject Lines
• Best Email Subject Lines After No Response
• Email Subject Line Examples for Meeting Requests

Imagine opening your mail app and seeing only the name, time, and date an email landed in your inbox. How would you prioritize what to open first?

It wouldn’t be easy, that’s for sure. Your prospects are constantly prioritizing their email inbox, even setting up filters and rules to organize their messages in order to respond to important and urgent notes as efficiently as they can.

You might be thinking that your cold sales email won’t make the prospect’s priority email list. With the following cold email subject lines, however, you can pique just the right amount of curiosity and get that prospect to open up your email.

1. "Question about [goal]"

What's your question? They'll have to open your email to find out.

2. "[Mutual connection] recommended I get in touch"

Few things are more powerful than referrals. If you share an acquaintance with your prospect, be sure to put that person's name in your email subject line. The more your prospect trusts your referrer, the more compelling your email will be.

Smart reps know that referrals are as good as gold in sales. According to NoMoreColdCalling.com, referred prospects have a whopping 50% close rate. If you've been introduced to a prospect by someone they trust, make it clear in the subject line that it's a referral.

3. "Hi [name], [question]?"

Questions provoke answers. Emails with question subject lines provoke opens and replies. Incorporating their name makes the email more personal, which will help it stand out in their inbox.

According to sales trainer Jeff Hoffman, approaching prospects like a curious student instead of a knowledgeable expert boosts engagement. Posing a question in your subject line asking for the prospect's help paves the way for a conversation — the point of a prospecting email.

4. "Did you get what you were looking for?"

Use this one to follow up with an inbound lead or a website visitor. They're clearly looking for help with a challenge — ask how you can be of service.

5. [the e.e. cummings subject line]

Most people incorporate capitalization when they draft emails (although some go a little CrAzY). With this in mind, an all-lowercase subject line will stand out.

6. "Hoping to help"

Have you heard? The age of Always Be Closing is dead; the best salespeople today adhere to ABH (Always Be Helping). Put this sentiment front and center — prospects will appreciate your candor as well as your willingness to be of service.

7. "A [benefit] for [prospect's company]"

Here are some examples of what this might look like in practice:

• A new HR strategy for Business Inc.
• A savings of $25k for ABC Corp.
• An all-time revenue record for Organization Y

The specificity of the benefit and the personalized subject line will hook your buyer. Plus, just like the prospect's own name, buyers are also partial to the name of their company. When in doubt, personalize.

8. "X tips/ideas for [pain point]"

People love numbered lists (hence, the rise of the listicle). Insert a number into your subject line to drive interest.

9. "Idea for [topic the prospect cares about]"

A free idea? Sure, I'll take it. *click*

10. "10x [prospect's company]'s traction in 10 minutes"

Throwing out some buzzy numbers can generate some immediate interest.

11. "I found you through [referral name]"

Again, don't underestimate the power of mentioning referrals in a subject line. It immediately establishes a connection with the prospect and increases their investment in responding to you.

12. "We have [insert fact] in common ..."

Spend five minutes looking through your contact's LinkedIn or Facebook accounts. I bet you can find at least one thing you have in common — even if it's just that you've both been photographed eating spaghetti. Be careful; don’t mention something too personal or something they clearly want to keep private, or it will come off as creepy. Pick something that the prospect made publicly known on their social profiles.

13. "So nice to meet you, [Prospect]!"

Whether they downloaded a piece of content or visited your pricing page, let your prospect know you've noticed their interest and are happy to finally touch base.

14. "Feeling [insert emotion]? Let me help"

Tap into current events in your prospect's industry. Targeting marketers during the busy weeks before Black Friday? Try "Feeling stressed? Let me help." Then share how your product or service can lighten their load.

15. "Hoping you can help."

People generally want to help other people. If you're reaching out to someone for the first time, ask, "I'd like to learn more about your marketing conference schedule this year. Would you be able to connect me with the right person to speak with?"

16. “This is a sales email”

You’d be surprised how far honesty and transparency will take you. By opening with the primary reason for your email, you’ll break down the wall your prospect has up when they’re being sold something. By taking the elephant out of the room, you can use the body of your email to get your point across.

17. "Your yearly [X] target"

Everyone is held to a number, whether they're a writer and editor like me (blog traffic!) or a CIO (achieving SLAs!). So pair "your" with any goal or problem the prospect might be experiencing, and you've got a hyper-relevant email subject line.

18. "[Situation] at [Company]"

For example, "Sales Training at Business Inc." or "HR Services at Organization Y." Whatever it is that you sell, connect it with the company you're prospecting into for a subject line one-two punch.

19. "Who is in charge of X at [company]?"

Seeking an introduction to the right contact at the buyer's organization? There's nothing like getting right to your point in the subject line of the message.

20. "Have you tried [restaurant in prospect's town]?"

The salesperson who suggested this said it has an insanely high open rate. And I'm not surprised; if I got an email asking whether I'd visited Waypoint — one of the best seafood places in Cambridge, in my opinion — I'd click so fast I'd break the sound barrier.

To use this line, do a little digging to discover A) where the prospect's company is located and B) one of the top-rated restaurants in that area. And you don't have to pretend you've gone there. Inside the email, say something like, "If I ever visit [location], should I go? Does it deserve the hype?"

With this line, you'll start a rapport-building conversation, show you did your homework, and make the prospect feel like a local expert in one fell swoop.

21. "So, you speak sign language?"

That's an example of a tidbit you can easily learn from someone's bio, personal website, LinkedIn profile, or Twitter account. Personalizing your email subject line — even if it has nothing to do with the purpose of your outreach — will earn you lots of opens.

According to Ali Powell, a former principal account executive at HubSpot, the secret to writing a phenomenal sales email subject line is to make it something about them. Mention something that couldn't apply to anyone else.

22. "Will cut to the chase"

This subject line manages to be both intriguing and matter-of-fact at the same time. Your reader instantly thinks, "Cut to the chase about what?"

According to curiosity-drive theory, people find uncertainty unsettling. Conversely, clearing up areas of uncertainty is mentally satisfying. According to the salesperson who uses this one, it's a big winner.

23. "Might be off-base here, but ..."

What could it be? The prospect will have to open your email to find out.

Similar to "Will cut to the chase," this subject line plays on the buyer's curiosity. If they don't click, they'll never learn what you're potentially wrong about.

24. "If you're struggling with [common pain point], you're not alone"

As a salesperson, you have a bird's eye view of your prospect's industry. They only know their own organization. That means what might feel like a unique problem to them may actually be an incredibly wide-spread challenge. You can use your broader perspective in three ways:

• Grab their attention with this subject line
• Demonstrate your credibility
• Reassure them you may have some answers

Also, who likes to be alone? Thanks to the bandwagon effect, the mere fact that other people have done or are doing something is often enough to sway opinions and drive action.

25. "Can I make your life 20% easier?"

This eye-catching subject line is a good option if your solution makes your customers more efficient, accurate, or productive. Combined with a personalized email, this opener helps you immediately focus on value.

26. "[Name], saw you're focused on [goal]"

Pack a one-two punch with this subject line. Not only are you using your recipient's name, but you're referring to an opportunity or objective that's on their mind right now.

(Wondering how to identify that opportunity or objective in the first place? It helps if your marketing automation software tells you which webpages on your site they've visited or content they've downloaded. For example, if they just read three blog posts about Google Ads, it's safe to say they care about getting started with or improving their paid advertising results.)

Not only has research shown that people respond positively to hearing their names, the phenomenon of implicit egotism holds that our name-based preferences extend to the cities we choose to live in and what occupations we pursue.

27. "Will I see you at [event]?"

If you know your prospect will be at the same event as you — either from the attendance list or social media — go with this friendly question.

Even if your prospect doesn't respond to your email, your name and the event will be linked in their mind. That means they're likelier to wander over to your booth and check out your demo while exploring the floor. And if they do respond? You can schedule a conversation. Boom.

28. "Can I help?"

The age of Always Be Closing is dead — to be successful, salespeople must practice Always Be Helping. Use this subject line to tell the buyer you're eager to add value.

Plus, as soon as your prospect sees this in her inbox, they’ll wonder, "Help with what?" There's only one way to find out ... Reading your email.

29. "Tired of salespeople who never give up?"

The rep who passed along this subject line said that in the body of her email, she writes:

Yep, me too. That's why I promise I won't keep contacting you if you're not interested. :)

Just let me know if you're [seeing, dealing with] any of these three things, which my customers in X [industry, role] often are:

- Issue #1

- Issue #2

- Issue #3

This subject line works because honesty is appealing — from the outset of your relationship, you're showing your prospect you're a straight-shooter. This approach also lets you empathize with them (let's face it, we are all tired of overly aggressive salespeople). It's unique and memorable.

30. "[Name] suggested I reach out"

Referral sales expert Bill Cates notes that salespeople who get referred to new prospects "borrow trust" from the referral source.

This means that instead of coming in cold, the relationship between the rep and the prospect automatically becomes warmer thanks to the relationship between the referred prospect and the referral source. This subject line effectively uses that connection to your advantage.

31. "Contacting you at [Referral]'s suggestion"

This is a slightly more formal version of other referral subject lines on this list. Use it if you're emailing someone in a less casual industry; for example, I'd suggest this subject line for a finance professional or higher-ranking employee.

All the salespeople who recommended this subject line passed on the same warning — if you didn't get a referral, don't use this line! It's not worth the risk of your prospect asking your fake referrer, "Hey, did you tell so-and-so they should talk to me?" If that happens, you'll look bad to everyone involved.

32. "[Referral name]"

This is another one from Ali Powell's arsenal. "Just put the full name of the person in the subject line and nothing else. I promise this works!" she writes. For example: "Jane Smith" or "John Doe."

The simple "referral name" subject line draws on the power of referrals without providing details. But there's another reason it works — in a sea of emails labeled with verbs and adjectives, a person's name (and one the recipient knows well) stands out.

33. "[Referral name] loves us & thought you might, too"

Follow up with your happiest customers and use this subject line to set the tone for your communication. As an extra bonus, include a personalized testimony from the referrer in the email or have them introduce you via email.

A referral with no context is just a referral, but one that leads with how happy the referrer is stands out — especially if you can snag an email introduction from your referrer.

34. "Fellow [University] grad here!"

This is less of a referral and more of a referring connection. Draw upon a similar hometown, state, or alma mater for instant rapport building.

This subject line works because people love to feel connected to one another. Calling upon a similarity with your prospect forges an instant bond and can lead to easier rapport and a few extra minutes of their attention.

1. "Our next steps"

Use this subject line to follow up after a first connection or to re-engage a prospect gone quiet.

2. "X options to get started"

Pop in a few bullet points about how to kick off your relationship in the body text (a content offer, a phone call, an upgrade opportunity for current customers, etc.), and you're good to go.

3. "You are not alone."

This subject line hits home on two fronts:

• It's intriguing.
• It's human.

If you know the prospect is struggling with a difficult challenge, share stories of how others overcame a similar hurdle.

4. "10 mins — [date]?"

Short, easy, and to the point. If you can mirror this sentiment in the body of your sales emails, the replies will be flying your way.

5. "A 3-step plan for your busy week"

You know the pain points of your ideal customer, so bullet those pain points in the email body and provide short, actionable tips on how they can overcome those challenges over the coming week.

6. "[Prospect], I thought you might like these blogs"

Include their name in the subject line, and fill the email body with content you know they need. This is a great way to test disengaged or completely unresponsive prospects for signs of life.

7. "Here's that info I promised you"

Always end your call or previous prospect communication with several next steps and follow-up topics. This gives each side direction — and also gives you a reason to follow up.

8. "I'd love your feedback on that meeting"

If you just gave a demo or led a meeting with a prospect's colleagues, it's a good idea to stay top of mind and immediately ask if you can answer any questions. This also helps gauge how things went and understand what the next steps should be.

9. “I had this idea since we last spoke”

This subject line does two things:

• Encourages them to recall your conversation
• Sparks interest in what your idea might be

This interest may earn you an email open.

10. “I thought about what you said”

This subject line functions similar to the previous one but with an added edge: They may now be curious if you’ve addressed a concern or objective, giving them more leverage. If they believe they now have an advantage, they may be more willing to hear you out.

11. “Don’t tell my boss”

Leverage a little scandal to pique their interest and make them feel that your message is a secret just for them.

12. “What would it take?”

A rhetorical question that trails off (What would it take to what, exactly?) can open a dialogue and perhaps even compel them to reply.

13. “Here’s what I’ll do”

Some peoples’ love language is “Acts of Service,” so engage the law of reciprocity by offering something in hopes of winning their favor. The mystery of what you’re offering and the promise of getting something will prompt them to open the email.

14. "Talk on [day] at [1:45]?"

The person who came up with this subject line gave me a bonus tip: "Asking for an appointment on the :45 feels less demanding than one that begins on the hour or half hour — because it suggests you're only going to need 15 minutes of the prospect's time."

15. “[Prospect], I loved your post on [website/publication name]”

Who doesn’t like compliments? Do a bit of research on your prospect. If they’ve written an article or shared an insight on LinkedIn you found interesting, let them know. It gives you a good opener for contacting them and also demonstrates that you appreciate their expertise.

16. “Hi [Prospect], we met at [event]”

This prompt is great for connecting post networking event. It’s to the point, but most importantly, reminds the recipient who you are and why you’re contacting them.

17. “Still undecided? This might help”

Have you already reached out about your product or service and haven’t heard back yet? Use this subject line to help persuade your prospect to purchase. Go back to the prospect’s pain points and think about how your product fixes them. Did you roll out a new feature or are you now offering a discout for them to try? Once you have your new angle, include it in your email message to persuade them to convert.

18. “Try [product/service] for free”

Sometimes you need to gain someone’s trust before they’ll try your product. One way to do that is removing the risk of them trying your prodect. Leading wiith a free trial offer in the subject line gives the recipient a reason to open your note because it explicity states the benefit to them.

1. "Do not open this email"

If you've ever spent time with a toddler, you know that telling someone not to do something tends to prompt that very behavior. This concept also works on adults. Reverse psychology for the win!

2. "Should I stay or should I go?"

If you haven't heard from a prospect in a while, pull out this subject line and pair it with a cleverly crafted breakup email.

3. "Know this about [topic of interest]?"

Offering a helpful tip or statistic about a subject the prospect is interested in establishes your credibility and gets the conversation flowing.

4. "Where is the love?"

If your prospect has fallen off the face of the earth, use this subject line to poke fun at the situation and put a smile on their face.

5. "Permission to close your file?"

This breakup email subject line puts the onus on the prospect to move forward. Whether or not they respond, you'll know where they stand.

6. "Feeling blue? Like baby pandas?"

Come on. Who doesn't like baby pandas? This subject line will get your prospect to open your message — where they'll find an adorable video of pandas playing or a GIF of a sneezing baby panda (pick your poison).

7. "If you change your mind about partnering with [your company]"

Break up radio silence by putting the ball squarely back in a quiet prospect's court.

8. "'I love everything in this email!'"

Use this quote in your subject line and people will have trouble not opening it. In the body of the email, poke fun at its overstatement with a line like, "OK, so my boss said that, but..."

9. "3 weekend ideas for you"

Trying to reengage a high-value prospect? Research a few things to do in their city this weekend and hit send.

10. "Am I assuming correctly?"

If a prospect just isn't responding to your emails, send them a quick note saying, "Usually when I don't hear back, it means this isn't a priority for your company at the moment. Am I correct in assuming this?"

11. "HBO Go password?"

If a prospect simply isn't responsive to traditional outreach, shake things up with a funny email subject line. You might just earn a second look.

12. “Wait, are you ghosting me?”

I received this bold and hilarious subject line from a sales rep earlier this year and it is one of my favorites. It may not work in every industry, but it certainly got my attention, made me open the email, and gave me a chuckle.

13. “Reaching out once more (LMK either way)”

This is a good option to use for your last attempt to connect with a prospect. While they still may decline your services, it encourages them to respond regardless.

1. "15 minutes this week?"

We've all got an extra 15 minutes, right? If you're simply trying to connect with a prospect for the first time or restart a stalled relationship, this low-commitment subject line can be an easy way for your prospect to re-engage.

2. "Requesting a meeting on [Day]"

Use this subject line when your prospect is expecting a meeting request from you. It's best for follow-up correspondence when you've already worked out the details offline.

3. "Time for a quick touch base?"

This is another low-pressure way to engage new prospects or reconnect with stalled ones. You should have had some interaction with them so that your request doesn't come completely out of left field or as if you're trying to trick them into meeting with you.

4. "Meeting invite: [Date]"

This subject line leaves out the purpose or content of the meeting to encourage your prospect to open your email for the details.

5. "[Company name] + [Company name]: [Date]"

If you are sending a formal meeting request to a prospect, use this subject line. It's respectful, concise, and purposeful. It works well when setting up meetings with C-suite or enterprise clients.

More Email Subject Lines That Get Opened

Thirsty for more? We’ve curated 70+ more email subject lines you can quickly read through and repurpose for your sales efforts.

Psst — looking for both marketing and sales subject lines? Download 100 more email subject lines that our team loved from both marketers and salespeople. 

Featured Resource: 100 Marketing & Sales Email Subject Lines

Download 100 free email subject lines to get inspiration for your next email. 

Catchy Email Subject Lines for Sales

Chances are, your prospect is scanning their inbox as quickly as possible. With these catchy email subject lines, you might be able to re-engage their attention even if they scrolled past your email. Give them some food for thought with the following examples.

1. Hey [name], have you heard about this?
2. Unlock [benefit] for [prospect's company]
3. X secrets to conquer [pain point]
4. Spark an idea for [topic the prospect cares about]
5. 10 minutes to revolutionize [prospect's company]'s growth
6. [Referral name] led me to you
7. Achieve your yearly X target with us
8. May seem off-base, but hear us out…
9. Will we see you at [event]?
10. X proven strategies to crush your competition
11. Join the ranks of satisfied customers who love us
12. Exciting new strategies for [company name]'s [department]
13. Big companies deserve the benefits of [your service/product]
14. Could you use one of these?
15. X ways our software can transform your life
16. A foolproof plan for your busy week
17. Delivering on my promise — here's the info you need
18. Since we last spoke, I had this brilliant idea
19. Try [product/service] for free — no strings attached
20. The secret weapon you've been waiting for

Professional Email Subject Lines

Sometimes, a simple, professional email subject line is what you need. Don’t rock the boat too much with the below examples, which you can use for inspiration as you draft your sales emails. Hint: You can even use these internally with your team.

1. Request for your expert opinion, [Name]
2. Let's discuss your strategic goals
3. Follow-up on our recent conversation
4. [Your Company] Updates and Insights
5. Invitation to our exclusive event/webinar
6. How can we assist you further, [Name]?
7. Seeking your input on [specific topic]
8. Introducing our latest offering
9. Insights and trends in [industry]
10. Your success is our priority
11. Let's align our [gaols/strategies/efforts] for growth
12. Important update regarding our partnership
13. Best practices for [specific goal]
14. Action required: Response needed by [date]
15. Join our webinar for insider insights
16. Your opinion matters — quick survey inside
17. Exclusive deal just for you
18. Transform your X strategy with these tips
19. Connect with industry experts
20. Ready to tackle your X challenges?

Email Subject lines for Reaching Out

Reaching out to a prospect for the first time can feel daunting — especially if the process isn’t automated with sales software. The below subject lines will do the trick when you need to reach out to prospects for the very first time.

Keep in mind that some of these should be sent when and if a prospect has shown some interest in your company or product. Some subject lines, however, could be used for ice cold emails.

1. [prospect's company] x [your company]
2. Let's connect and discuss X goal
3. Impressed by your [achievement/project]
4. Reaching out to explore a potential collaboration
5. Your industry expertise caught my attention
6. Can we help you overcome [specific challenge]?
7. Try [product/service] for free — no strings attached
8. Quick question for you, [name]
9. Reaching out to discuss a potential partnership
10. Ready to supercharge your [task your prospect cares about]?
11. Unlock the secrets to successful [specific goal]
12. Introducing our newest feature [prospect's company] will love
13. Curious about your thoughts on [specific idea]
14. One solution for [prospect’s challenge]
15. Discover new opportunities for growth with [your company]
16. Introducing our AI-powered solution for [prospect's challenge]
17. Here to help, [Name]
18. Get started on improving [prospect’s challenge]
19. Your [achievement/project] speaks volumes — let's chat
20.  [Mutual connection] wants you to check this out

Attention Grabbing Subject Lines for Sales Emails

Grabbing your prospect’s attention is an art. You’ll need to create a sense of urgency, speak to a specific pain point, or tantalize them with a favorable outcome. The subject lines below are a good fit for SaaS salespeople or any salesperson who needs a prospect to finally bite.

1. Don't let your [product] trial expire
2. Wondering if you got my last mail
3. Want some more time? It’s on us
4. Now it’s personal — [product’s] biggest leap yet
5. Your new competitive advantage
6. [Task your prospect cares about] smarter, not harder
7. The future of [prospect's industry] starts here
8. Conquer [specific challenge]
9. Discover the power of [your product/service]
10. How we can triple your ROI in just 30 days
11. Say goodbye to [pain point]
12. The future of [task or industry] is here — are you ready?
13. Don't let outdated X tactics hold you back
14. The ultimate X playbook for unprecedented results
15. Discover the power to achieve X
16. Say goodbye to average and hello to exceptional
17. Supercharge your [task your prospect cares about] with [product/service]
18. Helping [prospect’s company type, i.e. startups/enterprises] with [common issue] — could your company benefit?
19. A foolproof plan for your busy week
20. Still unsure? Let's see if this can help

Your Guide to Writing the Best Sales Email Subject Lines

Even though email subject lines are short, they carry a lot of weight when it comes to the success of your sales emails. The best email subject lines are creative, compelling, and informative without giving too much away. A good subject line that piques interest is the difference between a prospect opening or ignoring an email. To see the most success in your email subject line, be flexible, always test, and get creative for the best results.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure to learn more about how we use AI.

 

Ongoing advancements in data science and computing power create new opportunities for sales leaders to glean insights to increase sales effectiveness. Turning “big data” into useful and actionable data, however, has been an obstacle faced by many businesses, creating a gap between data availability and data usefulness.

In a study done by Lattice Engines, 4 in 5 said they feel somewhat (57.4%) or very (24.3%) challenged by the amount of data available. Even more worrisome, about 9 in 10 feel that their company has missed opportunities due to sales representatives not being able to leverage all the information available to them.

So how can your organization best use "big data" to increase sales effectiveness? It starts with creating a process for collecting and consolidating data. By developing clear goals and processes around data collection, you can enable sales teams to be proactive and deliberate in gathering and inputting relevant information -- a key challenge all sales organizations face when working with CRM.

The big data boom also requires sales leaders to lean on tools and people that can help transform the data into actionable insights. When 89% of salespeople report missing opportunities because of information overload, ensuring the data that is collected is actually analyzed and translated into clear insights is crucial to improving sales results.

Furthermore, in the TCS 2013 Global Trends Study, two of the top five challenges cited by organizations were related to the analysis and actionability of the data. To transform data into action, some organizations are hiring analysts that are able to make meaningful interpretations of the data and reports coming out of their analytics tools. With more sophisticated software that allows you to grow better pipelines through segmentation and targeting, these hires will be key to help you more intelligently align resources for greater growth.

As seen in the chart from the TCS Study, some of those actionable insights that provide the most value include being able to 1) identify customers that have the most value or potential value, 2) identify cross-selling opportunities, and 3) determine optimal sales approaches.

These are just a few areas where developing a more sophisticated understanding of your customers through big data can impact sales effectiveness, but it carries impact across many other dimensions, too:

1. Better pipelines and prospecting of leads
2. Increased sales productivity (more time spent selling, less time spent researching)
3. Increased revenue through better optimized cross-selling
4. More customized messaging and pricing
5. More accurate forecasting
6. More efficient organizational design through strategic sizing and structuring of sales territories

While the big data benefits seem clear, the organizational and intellectual obstacles remain. Solutions to organizational obstacles wil become more clear through more commitment to initiatives that cultivate collaboration and data sharing internally -- collecting meaningful data, rigorous analyses, developing trained teams to adhere to collection and analysis processes, and team-wide buy-in to invest in data-driven processes.

According to recent CEB, now Gartner, research, most sales professionals struggle to sell to the modern buyer. They’re eager to help -- to a fault.

Star performers, meanwhile, sell prescriptively. The difference is huge.

In an effort to stand out and meet customers’ rising needs, responsive sellers provide customers more information and additional options to consider and compare, preferably as quickly as possible.

Prescriptive sellers, on the other hand, provide customers with less information and fewer options. Their primary strategy isn’t “give the customer what they want,” but “simplify the customer’s buying burden” -- by carefully guiding customers along a complex purchase journey they would struggle to navigate on their own.

Prescriptive sellers’ message to customers isn’t, “Tell me what you need and I’ll deliver it to you.” It is, “Let me take you by the hand and show you what you need to successfully complete this purchase.”

Why does that difference matter so much? Because today’s “empowered” customers are actually overwhelmed -- by too much information, too many options, and too many people.

And our research indicates that suppliers adopting a prescriptive sales approach significantly increase purchase ease by as much as 86%. Purchase ease, in turn, boosts a supplier’s likelihood to win a high-quality sale (where the customer buys the bigger solution at the higher premium) by more than 60%. Effectively, prescriptive sellers cut through informational clutter, align competing priorities, and resolve conflicting perspectives to help buyers achieve a clear, common vision of what and how to buy.

So what exactly is a “prescriptive” sales approach? We define “prescription” as:

A credible and influential set of “do this”/”don’t do that” recommendations, provided to customers across the purchase process, deliberately intended to ease the customer’s movement toward purchase.

These recommendations are believable, objective advice on: Which information matters most? Which options are most valuable? Which stakeholder questions/concerns could most likely stall the purchase? And, how should we address those questions and concerns most effectively?

It’s the kind of insight and experience customers typically don’t have -- despite their independent research -- because they’re often buying that solution for the very first time. Meanwhile, it’s exactly the kind of advice supplier sales reps are best positioned to provide, as they’ve seen other customers struggle in similar ways.

If we think about the customer’s entire buying journey, from the initial definition of a problem worth addressing in the first place, through the identification of the most viable solution, to the ultimate selection of the best possible supplier, there are all sorts of points along that journey where customers are likely to struggle. And every one of those points is an opportunity for sales reps to proactively provide guidance.

For example, rather than waiting for the customer to tell you late in the purchase process that Procurement has unexpectedly gotten involved and is now slowing things down, a prescriptive seller might say very early in the purchase process something like this:

“We often find in similar deals that Procurement inevitably gets involved at the last minute, and when they do, they typically have a lot of questions. To make things easier, we’d suggest pulling them in earlier and providing them these specific answers to the following three questions.”

That kind of guidance specifically solves one of the biggest challenges in B2B buying: Anticipating and addressing internal roadblocks. Yet, as one head of sales so memorably put it, “Our reps are almost always Takers on that kind of thing, not Makers.”

In other words, we wait for the customer to identify a buying challenge or need and then tell us exactly what they think they have to do to address it. At that point, we bend over backwards to deliver the fix. But we do very little to flag the issue in advance and provide a solution before customers even recognize it’s a problem.

So how can salespeople adopt a more prescriptive approach? Across the board, virtually every customer identified a prescriptive supplier as consistently being “one step ahead” and anticipating buying challenges before they arise. To do that, sellers will need to do three things:

1. Map out the customer buying journey: Which steps does a customer move through from Problem Definition, to Solution Identification, to Supplier Selection? Which questions do they commonly ask? What information do they typically need? At what point do various stakeholders get involved? Which questions are they likely to ask?
2. Pinpoint challenges and hurdles: Proactively identify “what’s hard” about each of those questions. Where are customers likely to get hung up? What’s likely to confuse them? Which options are likely to distract them? Which stakeholder questions are likely to undermine progress? These are the buying obstacles we’ll need to proactively clear away for customers in order to smooth their progress toward an actual purchase.
3. Identify tactical solutions: Craft strategies for helping customers overcome these roadblocks. What specific information, guidance, tools, and advice can we give them to help them anticipate these obstacles and get past them as easily as possible?

In my next post, we’ll dig in there, with a closer look at some very tactical ways we can identify customer purchase roadblocks and deliver prescriptive guidance. We’ve discovered there are a wide range of “channels” -- well beyond a sales-led conversation -- we can use to provide prescriptive guidance.

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer always wanted to own a sports team. Ultimately, he bought the LA Clippers for $2 billion, out-bidding numerous other groups that wanted the NBA team, including Oprah and Oracle's Larry Ellison.

Ballmer revealed the negotiating tricks he used to beat out everyone else in Business Insider's podcast, "Success! How I Did It," They can be applied to most major deals, whether you're bidding on a house, or a sports team.

1. Do your research and learn the landscape.

One of the first things Ballmer did when he retired from Microsoft in 2014 was meet with the commissioners of the NBA and NFL. At first, no teams seemed to be on the market.

"It turned out the most difficult thing was actually figuring out how to get involved in the process," Ballmer said. "I had looked at the Milwaukee Bucks; they didn't want to sell to me. I had asked the commissioner who I should get to know. There was nothing that seemed like it was going to sell."

But soon, the LA Clippers became an option after tapes of then-owner Donald Sterling making racist comments became public. Ballmer was ready to pounce.

2. Find a mutual connection to introduce you to the seller

Ballmer had never met the Sterlings, but it dawned on him that he knew Disney CEO Michael Eisner, and the Eisners had a Clippers box right next to the Sterlings. He asked for an introduction, and was quickly given Shelly Sterling's contact information. 

"[Eisner] called me on a Saturday morning, 7 o’clock," Ballmer said. "He says, 'Call Shelly Sterling right now at this number, she'll be available.'"

3. Make the seller get to know you so the deal feels more personal

Ballmer spent a day with Shelly Sterling and came prepared with a bank statement to prove he could afford the team. At first, she had no idea who Ballmer was. By the end, she liked him better than any of the other bidders, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time of the Clippers sale.

Ballmer met with Shelly Sterling's lawyer that same evening to make sure he was prepared to bid a proper amount.

4. Make your bid as hassle-free as possible, and don't try to nickel and dime 

Ballmer says the fact that he was a sole bidder for the team rather part of a group (like in Oprah's case) proved to be an advantage. Given the "legal wrangling" the Sterlings had to endure regarding the scandal, Sterling's lawyers thought Ballmer would be more likely to stick through the process as a stand-alone.

Additionally, Ballmer was upfront about how much he was willing to pay. He didn't want to drastically overpay, but he didn't want to nickel and dime the Sterlings either.

"I had told them, 'This is what I'd like to pay, this is the maximum I'd pay and, oh by the way, you have to understand, I don't want to look stupid in front of my wife for being a guy who dramatically overpays,'" Ballmer said. "But I laid it out there, I wasn't trying to be some tough, get the last 3%, 5% out of the deal, I just wanted to own the team."

Below, check out the full episode with Ballmer explaining how he is enjoying his retirement, or keep scrolling for a transcript detailing his realized goal of buying a sports team.

Subscribe to "Success! How I Did It" on Acast or iTunes. Check out previous episodes with:

• Box founder and CEO Aaron Levie
• Robinhood founder and CEO Vlad Tenev
• ClassPass founder Payal Kadakia
• DropBox founder and CEO Drew Houston

Here's the part of the interview where he describes how he was able to buy the LA Clippers: 

Shontell: It sounds like the life that all of us hope to eventually have. One of those steps that I wanted to talk about more in depth is the Clippers. It was not easy for you to own the team and, like you said, you met with the commissioners and they were like, "Eh, there's not much available." Then all of a sudden, this Donald Sterling scandal happens where there was this tape of him coming out saying these racist things and he got eventually pushed out and there was this opportunity to buy the Clippers but you were not the only bidder. Oprah was interested and Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle was interested. What did you do to eventually be able to own the team? What were your negotiating tricks? I hear you buttered up Mrs. Sterling quite well. How did that work?

Ballmer: Well, it turned out the most difficult thing was actually figuring out how to get involved in the process. I didn't know Shelly Sterling, nobody was quite sure who was selling the business. I was talking to the commissioner, but things were very vague because, while they had banned Donald, Shelly and Donald hadn't stepped up to agree to sell the business and then she eventually gets involved. There was no obvious banker to talk to, but I knew Michael Eisner from Disney for a number of years and a lightbulb went off.

The Eisners have had season tickets to Clipper games for years, right next to the Sterlings. So Michael Eisner made an introduction for me to Shelly Sterling. He called me on a Saturday morning, 7 o’clock. He says, "Call Shelly Sterling right now at this number, she'll be available for your call." She said, "Well, what's your number?" Then she said, "Ah, it's OK, why don't you come see me?" So I went down, had a meeting with Shelly. I actually brought my brokerage statement, I never ended up showing her but a friend of mine had said, in some businesses, they want to see whether you can really afford the asset. I got through that without actually showing her the brokerage statement.

And then I met with her lawyer again later that evening and the process was really to try to ensure that I bid an appropriate amount of money. What I learned later, the fact that I was a sole bidder was of importance because her lawyers knew she was going to go through a set of legal wrangling with her husband over this, and they wanted a buyer who they could count on to stay with them through the process and they were worried about groups of buyers being tougher to do that with.

So I know there were at least three other bidders, two others who got bids in. There was a local Angeleno, there was a group that did include David Geffen and Oprah, and at least rumored, there was a group from the Mideast. I knew what my walkaway price was. I had actually told her lawyer, I wasn't a great negotiator. I had told them, "This is what I'd like to pay, this is the maximum I'd pay and, oh by the way, you have to understand, I don't want to look stupid in front of my wife for being a guy who dramatically overpays." But I, I laid it out there, I wasn't trying to be some tough, get the last 3%, 5% out of the deal, I just wanted to own the team.

Shontell: Of course.

Ballmer: And that was my negotiating approach. And then I had to hold on for the ride as the Sterlings went through their legal wrangling about whether Donald was competent to participate in the management of their trust.

Shontell: I remember that. And also, at the time, it sounded like you structured it like a venture-capital deal where you had a valuation on the team, and what you were willing to pay. No one had bought a team for $2 billion within the NBA before, but now it seems like you set the bar and other teams would be that valuable at this point.

Ballmer: Yeah, I think the thing people miss is in a business sense you'd say, it's not sort of a fluid market. Assets are limited, figuring out what the price is in that kind of calcified market is hard to do, and particularly in LA. LA and New York are different places. No matter what else is going on, buying land is more expensive in LA, and buying basketball teams is more expensive in LA. The baseball team the Dodgers had sold for about $2.1 billion, but they also had a lot of parking and they owned their stadium, so what was the right price for the basketball team? I knew exactly what the right price was: whatever the other bidders were willing to pay, plus some percentage.

SEE ALSO: Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer reveals how he became the world's happiest retired billionaire

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Mount Everest is not the tallest mountain in the world

In 2004, as the VP of marketing for a technology company in Atlanta, I bought my first marketing automation system. However, as a VP of sales for many years, I was more excited about the impact on sales than I was for marketing. I saw the power of this technology and what it could mean to sales. The world was changing; sales was no longer in charge of anything as prospects and clients were one click away from a discussion with our competition.

I am absolutely astonished that more chief sales officers (CSOs) today are not only onboard, but screaming and demanding for marketing to step up as a revenue partner. Many studies point to the significant benefits of such a partnership.

According to Wheelhouse Advisors, B-to-B organizations with tightly aligned sales and marketing operations achieve 24% faster three-year revenue growth and 27% faster three-year profit growth. They also enjoy 36% higher customer retention rates and 38% higher sales win rates.

How can marketing leaders make this case to the chief of sales? Here are three steps to ensure more productive sales and marketing alignment that your CSO will embrace.

1. Take the Initiative

The marketing team has to bite the bullet and take the initiative to align to the business. Begin with understanding the business strategies and key initiatives and align around those. If your company seeks to grow quickly through the acquisition of net new companies, make that your focus.

Also marketing needs to take the initiative to align with sales, as they are not going to approach you. You need to learn all about sales and what they experience daily. You need to understand their lingo, and you need to understand their pressures. Who is making quota and who is not? What kind of deals are they closing? And you need to go on sales calls, listen to sales calls, participate in sales meetings and participate in sales training.

I know marketing leaders who require that marketing do a three-month rotation in sales before they join the marketing team. I also know marketing leaders who make sure their marketing team sits as close to sales as possible.

2. Use Data to Align Around the Customer Journey

Aligning around the customer journey is the ultimate action item to achieve alignment with sales. However, it can also be the most difficult, especially if you have a strong sales culture in your organization. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked into an organization and marketing and sales have completely different ideas about who is the customer and what their journey is.

Source: Wheelhouse Advisors

If you can work with sales to jointly define the customer and the customer journey, you will immediately take a giant leap forward in creating better alignment. This is not an exercise to be done based on gut feeling and qualitative responses. Use the data available to you to develop the customer profiles and journeys.

3. Align Goals and Compensation

Aligning on goals and compensation drives behavior and helps marketing emerge as an outcome department. If the sales team is focused on net new logos, you focus on net new logos. If the sales team is focused on selling a new product, you focus on selling a new product. If sales reorganizes around major account selling, you reorganize around major account selling. Think account-based marketing. Not only will marketing behavior change, but sales behavior will change in response to your new actions.

Source: Wheelhouse Advisors

In 2004 when I launched my first marketing automation system, I changed the compensation plan for my entire marketing team. Fifty percent of their variable compensation was tied to conversion of marketing-qualified leads to opportunity. I had an immediate change in behavior and accelerated marketing becoming part of one unified revenue team. It really works.

Ask Yourself What the CSO Would Do

Above all, put yourself in the shoes of the CSO. Day in and day out she walks around with a target on her back—a revenue target. The pressure is immense and the entire company has visibility into how well she is doing in accomplishing that number. Talk about stress. Be compassionate to your CSO’s reality and proactively take the steps outlined in this post. In so doing, your CSO will begin considering you an ally and begin to trust you as a dependable revenue partner.

Automation is bang on trend at the moment, nearly everyone is talking about it! So what exactly is email automation and how can it be beneficial to your business?

Email automation is one of the most powerful tools available to marketers. It includes the creation and setup of workflows, which are designed to send engaging emails at specific dates and times of a customer’s lifecycle. This helps marketers to nurture and convert potential leads into actual customers.

Just some of the benefits include:

Increase of brand awareness
With relevant, well timed emails being sent to your contacts, your brand, products and services will be stuck in the back of their mind.

Saving time
Having automated workflows able to send multiple campaigns 24/7 is a massive time saver. Once a workflow is set up and running, emails can be sending throughout the day leaving you time to carry out other tasks.

Nurturing leads
Sending relevant emails containing useful information encourages contacts to brush up on their knowledge about your business, services or products. Later on down the line, if they are contacted by your sales team they will have an idea about your company and may be more open-minded when approached.

Sending relevant emails to recipients
Email campaigns will be sent to the right people at the right time with the right message. Having relevant content will encourage more clicks and in return create more conversions.

Campaigns are planned well
Being able to see a workflow in front of you will encourage you to plan more meticulously. Having a workflow and all its stages will open your eyes to more opportunities and will benefit your overall marketing strategy.

Can be personalised
Automated emails and personalisation go hand in hand. Combined they allow you to tailor your emails and send unique content to individuals, creating a more personal and relatable customer experience.

Errors are reduced
Compared to individual emails being sent to new leads, workflows can be created well in advance with ease before going live. This gives you the peace of mind and time to check for any errors before they go out to your audience.

Saving money
The size of your sales team can be reduced as instead of cold calling all the time looking for potential leads, information from automated workflows allows an insight into known interested and engaged users.

Lead scoring is an effective tool in the marketing and sales process, yet many companies are not using it.

By scoring prospective customers, you can develop more effective targeting strategies to maximize conversion rates.

Learn about the basics of lead scoring to increase the efficiency of your lead generation tactics.

What Is Lead Scoring?

In marketing and sales, lead scoring involves ranking leads based on sales-readiness.

Leads showing more interest in making a sale are ranked high, while those keeping their distance are given a lower ranking. Lead scoring can help determine which prospects need more nurturing.

How to Use Lead Scoring

Using lead scoring effectively can cause your average lead qualification rate to nearly double according to a study by Aberdeen Research. By analyzing information from different points of contact, you can organize leads according to their likelihood to make a purchase.

There are several different buying signals:

• Site searches
• Email clicks and opens
• Page views
• Link clicks
• Downloads
• Video views

Once you have gathered the necessary data, you can implement a scoring system to prospect more effectively.

Successful lead scoring involves department cooperation, data integration and comprehensive lead inclusion.

Sales and Marketing Cooperation

The most effective use of lead scoring is to integrate it into both sales and marketing strategies.

It is marketing’s job to reel in prospective leads.

Through lead scoring, those leads can be ranked to identify which are ready to move to sales. The cooperation of sales and marketing is essential for a smooth transition.

Integrate with Behaviors and Demographics

Lead scoring should be used in combination with other customer information.

Every customer interaction is an opportunity to collect data that can help determine intent. Assign a score to each individual attribute, such as location, point of contact and online search history.

You may need to adjust your scoring methods as you discover more about your leads and the effectiveness of marketing strategies.

Avoid Cherry-Picking

Companies should avoid picking out the highest ranked leads and leaving the rest behind. This is a good way to lose potential customers.

As mentioned above, your scoring methods may not always be completely accurate.

Every lead should be treated with equal importance, but sales strategies may differ based on scoring.

The Benefits of Lead Scoring

Properly executed lead scoring can have great benefits for your company.

The metrics most businesses care about the most, such as conversion rate, return on investment and efficiency can all see a growth spurt after the implementation of lead scoring techniques.

Increase Conversion Rate

The main goal of all leads is to turn them into sales.

A study by Kentico shows that 38% of businesses see higher conversion rates from lead scoring.

Lead scoring can help you target the leads closest to making a purchase and analyze their buying signals to determine how they are influenced.

Boost Marketing ROI

Businesses also want to see they are getting something back for the resources spent on marketing plans.

When lead scoring is incorporated into a marketing strategy, it can boost lead generation ROI by as much as 77%.

Optimize Marketing Efficiency

Lead scoring can help companies determine exactly where a lead is on the sales funnel.

Sales representatives can direct their attention to those with higher rankings and marketing teams can focus on strategies to pull the lower ranking leads up. Less time will be wasted on marketing to those ready to buy or selling to those who have not been properly nurtured.

Using lead scoring is an effective way to target leads and strategize efficiently.

Collect the necessary data from points of contact to score leads appropriately and use best practices for results that will guide you to success. Soon after, you will start to reap the benefits.

The way customers approach new purchases is changing and companies using traditional methods of adding more sales reps or overlay sales to increase sales may no longer be effective or practical. Selling the way your customers want while also scaling the sales organization to drive revenue and growth is challenging. Successful sales leaders are rethinking ways to optimize their current sales force and sales enablement is addressing that challenge.

But is implementing a sales enablement function the answer? Clearly it is no longer just for early adopters and enterprise level sales, and it has become much more mainstream. However, there may still be hesitation in your organization about when and if this initiative will really pay off. Investing in sales enablement is usually not a matter of if, but when. Here are five tell-tale signs that your organization is ready to make the investment with sales enablement .

1. The increased marketing budget isn’t significantly improving sales.

More conferences, leads and content don’t automatically translate to revenue. If there is a disconnect between marketing and any resulting sales – meaning the leads are not the right kind and/or the sellers are not ready to position, qualify and manage the selling conversation – the extra budget might as well be washed down the drain. Sales enablement helps align sales and marketing functions so that sellers are empowered with the content and training needed to convert more leads to customers.

2. Your reps are not spending enough hours in the week selling.

One of the only variables that can be controlled in sales is time. The goal of any organization should be to maximize the time sellers spend selling – that is, talking with prospects and customers. Any time sellers are not working on selling tasks is a forfeiture of revenue. Reducing non-selling tasks and increasing efficiency is a key priority for a sales enablement manager – this includes assessment and measurement of all non-selling tasks to see which ones can be eliminated, automated and/or delegated.

3. The majority of new reps have trouble ramping to first dollar and quota.

Each new hire is a big investment. Without an effective onboarding and ramp program, it takes companies longer to reach the ROI on each hire. A sales enablement manager takes the lead in creating a consistent sales onboarding and training experience that is rigorous and data driven. He/she aligns the product marketing, sales skills training, process and measurement to ensure your new hires ramp as fast as possible and/or you are able to spot the ones who won’t in advance.

4. Your sales team is selling more on price than value.

Is your average revenue per contract flat and/or decreasing? As competition mounts and/or products mature in market, it’s not uncommon for products to start to be perceived as commoditized. Sales enablement can help to offset this perception by ensuring better cross-team collaboration – helping the marketing team get balanced input from the field to improve messaging, insights and differentiation. By helping the sales organization up-level value selling skills through training. And, ensuring data is being captured so management has the insight it needs to make smart decisions and continuously improve.

5. Your organization has aggressive growth goals.

Your organization is growing fast and/or has high growth goals. It’s looking to the sales organization to increase revenue via additional sales hires and/or increase quotas per rep. Either tactic without a sales enablement strategy is an inefficient use of capital likely to produce disappointing results. Sales enablement is the connection or glue to align marketing, sales and training – to ensure teams are well aligned and supported to achieve such improvements.

It is easy to resist change – especially when things are running relatively smoothly. However, the art in business is knowing when to move forward to new technology or new ideas – before something breaks or you’ve already lost your market edge. The most successful leaders are always eyeing the future and actively looking to stay ahead of the competition with better ways of doing things. Whether your organization has just one or all five of these signs, sales enablement in some form is the way of the future.

The post 5 Signs Your Organization is Ready for Sales Enablement Now appeared first on OpenView Labs.

The average morning commute in the US is just shy of 30 minutes.

That's no fun if you spend it in rush-hour traffic, but it's a good time to try out a new podcast, especially one that upends the way you see and think about the world.

From business to history to psychology, here are some of the most mind-expanding podcasts that you can gobble up in a half-hour or less.

SEE ALSO: 8 podcasts that will change how you think about human behavior

Hidden Brain

In Hidden Brain, host Shankar Vedantam guides listeners through their own cognitive missteps, biases, and blind spots. 

He reveals the many hard-to-see ways our decision making and judgment are influenced by various forces, such as our built-in fear of losing money and our tendency to romanticize the past.

There's a lot we don't know about the human brain, but Vedantam illuminates the fascinating things we do know — but probably don't notice.

Happier with Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin has written extensively on happiness — both her own and others' — and distills many of the big concepts in her weekly podcast, which she co-hosts with her sister, Elizabeth Craft.

Many of the episodes center around cultivating happiness through the building of good habits (and the avoidance of bad ones).

Though happiness can seem elusive for many people, the co-hosts present it as something well within reach.

Arming the Donkeys

Duke University behavioral economist Dan Ariely is an expert in human irrationality. 

In Arming the Donkeys, he sits down with authors, researchers, and fellow social scientists to discuss the many ways humans seem to violate their own self-interest through behavior.

That can mean overpaying for certain goods, feeling bad when you should be feeling good, and generally misunderstanding the world around you.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Productivity is the defining word of the modern workplace.

It’s nearly impossible to read any business-focused blog and not come across an article on yet another productivity “hack”. Pop into your nearest bookstore and you’ll find rows upon rows of books promising to improve your productivity.

Yet, actual workplace productivity keeps going down year-on-year.

What gives? Are the usual culprits – social media and poor discipline – to blame? Or is there something else at play here?

In this article, I’ll dig beyond the superficial “hacks” into the fundamental reasons for productivity and procrastination.

You’ll learn:

• The psychology of productivity
• The relationship between willpower and productivity
• Why multitasking is a myth
• How making decisions affects your productivity
• How to use psychological effects and biases to improve productivity

Understanding Your Brain

Poor productivity is seldom the result of laziness, at least not in creative workers and entrepreneurs.

Rather, the underlying causes of poor productivity are often associated with how, where and why we work.

Understanding the psychological basis of productivity, therefore, can help you improve productivity as well.

Below, I’ll share a few critical concepts that determine your work habits and productivity.

Willpower is a Finite Resource

To a society obsessed with quick fixes and hacks, “willpower” sounds like an anachronistic, Victorian-era word. It feels strangely mystical – an undefinable quality that’s hard to find and even harder to acquire.

Yet, nothing affects your productivity more than this “dated” concept.

There has been a resurgence of late in the study of willpower and “ego depletion”, led by psychologist Roy F. Baumeister.

In Baumeister’s most well-known experiment, a group of test subjects was asked to choose between radishes and chocolates before attempting a difficult puzzle.

Subjects who forced themselves to choose radishes – that is, exercised their willpower – quit substantially faster than those who chose chocolates.

Baumeister found similar results across several experiments and test subjects.

In another experiment, test subjects were divided into two rooms and asked to solve a puzzle. The scent of freshly baked cookies was channeled into one of the two rooms.

The experiment found that test participants who had to fight off the temptation of the cookies gave up far earlier on the puzzle than subjects in the other room.

The conclusion from these cookies-and-radishes experiments was the same: willpower is a finite resource.

You start each day with a limited supply. Each decision you make or temptation you resist depletes your willpower (a term Baumeister called “ego depletion”).

This is the reason why you feel indecisive and indolent after 8-10 hours of work. It’s not just that your body is exhausted – your willpower is spent as well.

Luckily, willpower, like other muscles, can be trained. It can also be channeled and managed to help you get the most from your day.

I’ll show you how to tap into this hidden strength later.

The takeaway: Willpower is finite. Conserve it so you can use it for decisions and actions that truly matter.

Making Decisions Exhausts Your Energy

Mark Zuckerberg has a net worth of over $60 billion.

Yet, it’s hard to find a picture of him where he is not dressed in his trademark gray outfit.

Besides the branding benefits (picture Steve Jobs in anything other than a black sweater and blue jeans), there is a major reason why Mark Zuckerberg and thousands of ultra-successful people wear the same outfits:

Decision fatigue.

As Barrack Obama says about his sartorial choices:

“You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits,” [Obama] said. “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”

Ergo, making decisions is mentally taxing.

A particularly illuminating study on decision fatigue comes from an analysis of a parole board’s decisions.

After studying 1,100 decisions over a year, the researchers found prisoners who appeared early in the morning had their parole approved in 70% of the cases.

Prisoners who appeared late in the evening, however, had only 10% parole approval rates.

The decisions had less to do with the prisoners’ crimes, race, age or religion. Rather, it was highly related to how many other decisions the parole board had taken in the day. The parole board’s members were more likely to consult others and think through a decision early in morning.

By the late evening, their willpower was exhausted and they were likely to make a quick decision. Hence, the low approval rates.

I’ll show you how to use decision fatigue to your advantage later.

The takeaway: Every decision you make has an energy cost. The more you can minimize decision making, the better decisions you’ll make.

Multitasking is a Myth

The human brain is incapable of multitasking.

Writing in PsychologyToday, Matthew MacKinnon, MD notes:

“Science has consistently shown that the human brain can only sustain attention on one item at a time…our overestimation of our attentional capacity stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of multitasking and of the human attentional system as a whole.”

Yet, the belief that you can multitask effectively holds strong, much to the ruination of your productivity.

According to a landmark study in cognitive function and multitasking, the human brain goes through two stages when switching between tasks:

• Goal shifting:
• Rule activation:

Because the brain has to move between these two stages rapidly in multitasking, it takes a toll on your cognitive ability. This is called “switching cost”.

The more different the two tasks, the higher this cognitive cost since the brain has to shift goals and activate an entirely new set of rules.

The takeaway: Outside of a rare few people, multitasking is cognitively impossible for the brain. It makes you less focused and more likely to fail.

Don’t multi-task, unless the tasks are extremely closely related.

Procrastination is a Coping Mechanism

Procrastination is an age old human problem. No less a genius than Leonardo Da Vinci was known as a chronic procrastinator.

Procrastination is usually dismissed as a time management issue. There is even the assumption that procrastinators are lazy or unmotivated.

Yet, procrastinators are often happy to work, just not on the problems that actually matter.

When you dig deeper into the root cause of procrastination, you realize that procrastination is less an issue of self-regulation than it is of emotion regulation.

In an academic study of high-school students, it was found that the perceived threat or harm of a task was highly correlated to procrastination.In another study, procrastination was tied to students’ self-perception and self-esteem. Students who believed they were going to succeed were more likely to attack a task than students who felt they were going to fail. As psychologist Tim Pychyl notes:

“Psychologists see procrastination as a misplaced coping mechanism, as an emotion-focused coping strategy”

Ergo, you put off plans and difficult tasks not because you are lazy, but because you are scared of the complexity or the end results of the task.

If you’ve ever decided to arrange your closet or mow the lawn instead of writing a blog post or making a marketing plan, you already know how this feels.

The takeaway: Before you use time management tactics to change your procrastinating habits, solve the emotional foundation of procrastination.

5 Strategies to Become More Productive

Once you understand the psychological factors affecting your productivity, you can also take steps to manage them.

Below, I’ll share my top five strategies to use to improve your productivity:

1. Focus on Energy Management, Not Time Management

As Baumeister’s research reveals, your willpower is a function of your energy levels. The less energy you have, the more prominent is the “ego depletion” effect.

This is the reason why you are more likely to indulge or disengage when your energy levels are low.

To counter this ego depletion effect, focus on managing your energy through the day, not your time. You will find that when you have more energy, you are also able to channel it better to tasks that truly demand your attention.

For instance, when 106 employees at Wachovia bank took part in an experiment focusing on energy management, they reported a 20% gain in a KPI. 68% also reported a positive influence on their relationships with customers and colleagues.

How you manage your energy is subjective. However, the following can help:

• Take frequent breaks: One study concluded that the optimal work-break time was 52 minutes of work followed by a 17-minute break. Use a customized Pomodoro timer to manage your work and breaks.
• Sleep more: Research shows that sleeping a minimum of 7+ hours a day improves everything from memory to athletic performance. Even taking 60-90 minute naps during the day has similar effects.
• Take more vacations to rejuvenate energy levels. In one study of its employees, Ernst & Young found that for each additional 10 hours of vacation time, employee performance ratings improved 8 percent.
• Manage what you eat. Baumeister’s research shows that a simple sugar snack can help replenish energy levels and improve willpower.

And as always, exercise. Regardless of the situation, exercise improves focus, memory and energy.

2. Manage and Manipulate Your Willpower

While the connection between willpower and energy holds true, a whole new body of research has given us a more nuanced understanding on willpower.

For example, Michael Inzlicht’s research at the University of Toronto shows that willpower is like an emotion. That is, it can be manipulated and managed.

Just as your emotional state can be contoured by your self-talk, your willpower, too, can be shaped by self-affirmation. Simply telling yourself that you will reward yourself with, say, a cup of ice cream, can help you push through a difficult task (even if the reward doesn’t actually materialize).

Another landmark study in willpower management comes from a Columbia University professor, Walter Mischel.

Mischel’s now-famous “marshmallow” experiment led to the development of the “hot and cold” framework for explaining willpower. In this framework, the “cold” system is cognitive and rational. The “hot” system is emotional and irrational.

When willpower fails, the presence of a “hot” stimuli leads to people acting on an impulse. In the absence of such a stimuli, however, the “cold” system gets time to rejuvenate and take control.

Mischel’s research ultimately concluded that if you can manage environmental stimulus, you can also manage willpower. That is, the fewer “hot” stimuli you have around you, the less likely you are to fail.

Here’s what you can conclude from these two studies:

• The suggestion of a reward – real or imagined – can compel willpower rejuvenation.
• By reducing the number of distractions around you, you can manage your willpower better.

3. Regulate Decision Making

The more decisions you have to make, the more you deplete your willpower.

To avoid decision fatigue, create a system where the majority of your decisions are either automated or set to a “safe” default.

For example, instead of buying multiple cereal boxes and choosing between them each morning, buy a single cereal variant. This then becomes your “default” breakfast choice, removing the need for decision making.

Similarly, you can create a system where your decisions are automated based on fixed parameters. For example, instead of manually deciding which emails to archive, you can use IFTTT to automatically save emails that contain a particular keyword(s).

Other examples include using a meal service for lunch, setting up automated alarm systems, etc.

The key is to minimize the number of trivial decisions you make. By carefully controlling your available choices, you can ensure that you conserve energy for decisions that truly matter.

4. Use Psychological Effects to Your Advantage

An easy way to start any project is this:

Just start.

As simple as it sounds, there is a psychological effect behind this piece of advice: the Zeigarnik Effect.

According to this effect, we are hardwired to not leave things unfinished. Once we invest time and energy into a project, we feel compelled to finish it.

This is one of several ways you can improve productivity by taking advantage of our innate psychological biases.

Another example is the three-dimensional theory of attribution.

This theory states that how we explain our behavior determines our future behavior. In an experiment, students who blamed external factors for their poor scores were more likely to score poorly in future tests.

However, students who took the blame on internal factors (lack of studying, poor time management during the test, etc.) showed better results in the future.

The conclusion: if you want more self-control, accept the blame for the loss of self-control. The more you externalize the blame, the more likely you are to repeat it.

Another effect you should be aware of is the Expectancy Theory.

According to this theory, how energized you feel about a task depends on its expected rewards vs. the effort required to achieve it.

While you can’t change the rewards of a task, you can change the perceived effort to achieve it.

By breaking down a complex task into various smaller, more achievable parts, you can trick your brain into perceiving the task as easier than it is. A smaller task also reduces friction in starting, making you more likely to stick until it is finished.

5. Control Your Work Environment

There is a massive body of research showing how your work environment affects your productivity.

There are some factors of your environment beyond your control (you can’t choose between open vs. closed offices in most companies, for instance).

However, by carefully managing a few simple things, you can improve productivity drastically:

• Reduce the resistance to start by leaving your most important documents, applications and tools in a “ready state”. For instance, if you are writing an article, leave the laptop open on the document before you go to bed at night.
• Work in a public environment where you are being monitored. The Hawthorne effect states that people are more productive when they are being observed. If you are working alone, try doing it in a coffee shop or co-working space.
• Tracking productivity also helps improve productivity. Use a tool like RescueTime to automatically track your activities. Compare your productivity over time to detect gaps and areas of improvements. You can try these tools to improve productivity as well.
• Listen to music that improves productivity, mostly ambient sounds and simple, repeating motifs. Look up “homework edit” on YouTube or use tools like Noisli. Music is particularly effective at making repetitive tasks more enjoyable.
• Lastly, don’t multitask, unless the tasks are a) simple, b) repetitive, and c) closely related.

For creative managers, McKinsey’s article on creating a state of “flow” is particularly pertinent. By carefully managing the quality (IQ), emotional energy (EQ) and desired output (MQ) of a team, you can induce a state of “flow” that’s associated with higher productivity.

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Productivity is a common concern for most businesses, managers and creative individuals. Yet, the path to achieve it often feels confusing, if not impossible to navigate.

The solution to this problem is to first understand the underlying causes of poor productivity, and to then take steps to address them.

A thorough understanding of your brain and its motivations are particularly helpful in this regard. As you saw above, willpower, ego depletion, decision fatigue, etc. all affect your productivity.

You can mitigate these issues by:

• Controlling your work environment to create a more productive office setup.
• Using psychological effects such as the three-dimensional theory of attribution, Expectancy theory and Zeigarnik effect to “cheat” your way to productivity.
• Automate decision making to minimize decision fatigue.
• Focus on managing your energy levels throughout the day instead of managing your time.
• Control your willpower by using rewards and managing distracting stimuli around you.

269 Billion Emails

Ugh! Email. The minute you’ve cleaned up your inbox and finally feel like you’ve got a handle on it, another message comes in demanding your time and attention. It’s impossible for most of us to focus with all that email sitting there. We wonder if there is a big order, a client canceling or another important message. But 90% of it is not urgent, and we dig through all that email instead of completing our priority items first.

Don’t get me wrong; email can be a very useful tool. But, it can also take over your day and keep you from the most important job you have, generating revenue. — making sales or helping your team make them.

Email isn’t going away so you need to take charge of your inbox. According to The Radicati Group, a market research firm, 269 billion emails are sent per day. To get control of my inbox, I use these tips that I’m about to share with you.

Get Control of Your Inbox

1. Send Less

One of the best ways to get less email is to send less email! Simple. Yes, and it works. Think about each email you send and ask yourself some questions:

• Do you really need to send it?
• Who needs to receive it?
• Could you serve yourself and others better by picking up the phone, skyping or could this be a quick IM (Instant Message) conversation?

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One of the best ways to get less email is to send less email!
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2. Prioritize

Stop letting email dictate the order of completing your tasks. Learn to prioritize. I see that most people run their day by their email. They look at their inbox and start with the email that is on top, often the newest email. This is not necessarily the most important email. It’s much better to look at the older email first—the ones that have been waiting longer. DO go through your email and prioritize the tasks. DON’T do them as they appear. You may have some hours of cleanup to get to a point where this system will work.

Unfortunately, we have trained our customers and prospects to expect an instant response. They think something is wrong if they don’t receive a reply within minutes. No salesperson should be sitting at their desk replying to emails unless that is the only way they get orders. If you are out selling, it will be a couple of hours before you can check your email. Re-train your clients and set reasonable expectations for returning emails. No instant replies. If they need something urgently, tell them the best alternative way to reach you or someone at your office who can tend to their concern immediately.

What To Do With All That Email

Do it, delete it or delegate it. Hey, it sounds simple, but it works! The first thing you need to do is block time each day to work on email. I do it about three times a day. Each morning I review my day and then check email quickly to see if there is anything that will change my priorities. I check right before or right after lunch and I check at the end of my day. Of course, sometimes I have so much email I have to spend several hours after work to get it organized. Here’s how I do it.

Do it.

If it is something that can be done in 5 minutes or less, I do it.

Delete it.

If I have done it, then most of the time I can delete it. Many of the items I can scan quickly and see that they are junk, a newsletter or something I don’t need. So, deleting is the best action.

Delegate it.

Three types of delegation fall into this category.

1. Delegate it to my own calendar to do at a later date. If I do that, I also file it in the appropriate folder and drag it on to my calendar, so it is easy to find when I need it.
2. Delegate it to another person with specific instructions about what needs to be done by when. If I do that, I use a method that reminds me to follow up to be sure it was completed.
3. Delegate it to a folder or a file for safe keeping. Sometimes no action is required, but it is something important that I may need access to again, like a signed agreement from a client. I put it in the appropriate email folder or save the attachment to the appropriate file.

End Result

Your inbox is empty by the end of the day, or nearly empty. Emails fly in at any time, so you will have a few that pop in at the end of the day that will wait until morning. You’ll feel more at ease because you have done your priority items and you know what is lurking in your email. Instead of your email ruling you, you have rules for your email. Don’t forget to consider sending less as a way to receive less, it works. Freeing up your time to sell is a priority. I know that these methods work because I use them and I teach my clients to use them, and it makes a significant difference.

One Last Thing

Turn off all of the email notifications. Don’t let them float on the bottom of your screen. Don’t allow any noises to be made when a new email arrives. Same goes for your phone. Turn email notifications off. And download the infographic below to help you take back control of your inbox!

If you would like to train your team on this and other time management strategies for sales, click here to set a time to talk with me.

The post These Email Hacks Will Make You Cry Tears Of Joy appeared first on Alice Heiman, LLC.

Social media management and monitoring aren’t just about posting and replying. Social media is a growing, deeper science. Companies don’t drive leads or make money by curating three relevant posts a week. If they did, we wouldn’t be writing this blog! If you’re a social media specialist or marketing manager, your job description is much more robust than simply posting and replying on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. You’ve probably worked with your team to deliver a social media strategy to increase followers, drive engagement and develop a strong interest in your service or product. Part of that strategy should also include selecting the best social media management tool. Whether you’re part of a team or working solo, a powerful social media tool can help drive results by boosting your productivity. In this article we’ll explain what features are important and how to make the most of your tool.

Where to Start

Our best advice is to be selective when searching for the best tool. There are plenty to choose from but it is important to choose a tool that makes sense for your needs. There are several key features that should be included in all social media management tools.

Social Media Monitoring and Listening

Social listening enables social media specialists to track and review the social buzz around your brand, industry or competition. By listening in, you can look for trends in moods and behaviors while also looking for opportunities to promote your product.

Analytics and Reporting

Your social media tool should allow you to export reports on the data that has been collected. Look for quick reporting and analytics to share with your team or clients. Use reporting to make intelligent, informed decisions about your social media strategy.

Engagement

Social engagement is key to successful relationships with your followers and potential customers. A great social media tool should make it easy for you to identify opportunities and to respond quickly.

Social Channel Integration

At the least, your social media management tool should allow you to integrate with the major social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram as well as updates from the news.

Social Post Scheduling

Social post scheduling is a must-have! Scheduling posts ahead of time can help you focus on engagement and creative content generation instead of manual posting.

Alerts

Alerts may be helpful in the instance of an emergency or a sudden influx of mentions. Being notified of events such as these will certainly help your team to respond and resolve customer service issues promptly.

How to Pick Your Social Media Management Tool

Here are a few examples that may help you consider what tools/features make the most sense for your social media needs.

Imagine you’re an independent social media specialist in the US. You have 3 clients that pay to have your help with content creation, social media marketing and management. One of your clients has built an incredible service that is gaining popularity in the US but also in Germany. You’re now challenged to keep up with local American competition AND German companies in the same competitive space.

It seems like this consultant’s top need-to-have features in a social media management tool are:

1. Social post scheduling
2. Competitive brand listening
3. Multi-lingual support

How about another example? Let’s pretend you’re part of a travel company focused on fitness retreats. Your team is looking for fitness influencers to test out and promote your trips. You’re going to need to know who’s writing about fitness and travel and what hashtags they are using. It’s also important for you to be able to attach images to all of your social media posts. You’re doing some testing regarding seasonality of your content marketing so you want to easily compare your previous campaigns and generate reports to share with your team.

Top features this company might look for in a social media software are:

1. Identify and follow influencers
2. Hashtag and author analysis
3. Social media post scheduling with media
4. Social media analytics and reporting

Using Key Tool Features

Use features such as social media monitoring to improve your social media marketing strategy. Listen to other brands and to the buzz relating to your industry product. Analyze the hashtags and popular influencers to help guide decisions about content and promotion. Look for tools that include the ability to analyze this data across multiple platform sources and in different languages. Automation is also becoming a key component of social media management. We believe that live engagement and posting is important but scheduled posts make sharing already curated content and material easy.

How Much Should You Spend

The cost of most social media management tools ultimately depend on the features you’re looking for and the size of your team. Most tools have a free version with limited features and a small quantity of users that can log in. You can expect to spend $10-$50/month for most small team tools. Larger teams needing larger solutions can expect to pay a few hundred a month. Another feature to consider when comparing pricing plans is the amount of technical support you’ll receive.

How to Find the Best Tools

There are hundreds of social media tools out there. As the science of social media continues to evolve, so will the tools!

The Need for B2B Prospect Research

The more you can personalize your communications with B2B prospects, the greater your competitive advantage. Because of this, marketers and salespeople are scrambling to learn more about their prospects than ever before, including everything from firmographics to insights on individual personalities.

To communicate in a way that’s relevant, you need to dig deep to understand:

• The market in which target accounts operate
• Company growth, profitability and strategies
• Buying team structure and key players
• Your business’s connections to the account. Has anyone in your organization interacted with the account in the past? Do you have any links to them based on education, employment history, interests or group memberships?
• Which accounts are sending signals online or offline that they intend to buy?
• How can I best communicate with prospects based on their personalities?

But how can you do the research efficiently and effectively?

B2B Prospect Research Can Be Time Consuming

According to CSO Insights, prospect research already eats up the equivalent of one day a week for salespeople. While the research builds a foundation for success, you’d likely prefer them to be investing their time engaging with prospects.
So how can your reps find the information they need more rapidly? Here are five sources they should check out. Some are tried and true resources with tips to make them more useful. Others are new tools about which you may not have heard.

1. Look in the Right Places on Company Websites

   What should you look for on a company’s website? Obviously, you want to gain insights on what the company offers and their market. Often, however, the changes that are occurring within an organization provide your opening to talk with their associates and find out how you can help them.

   Look at their press releases and, if they have them, annual reports. You may learn about strategies and new initiatives, such as partnerships and product introductions, for which you can provide support.

2. Use Advanced Techniques for Google Searches

   Today, turning to Google for information is almost as natural as breathing. But are your reps using Google in the most efficient way? There are advanced search techniques that provide shortcuts to the information you need.

   For example, you can go to news.google.com, and type in the name of the company you’re researching to find out all the latest news about them. Or expand your search to the industry in which they operate to find out challenges and opportunities faced in the market.

   Another technique is the Boolean search, using the commands AND and OR. If your business helps prevent system downtime and Southwest Airlines is a target account, you might want to see information related to Southwest and downtime. If so, type “Southwest AND downtime” into the search function. You’ll get a more focused list of articles than if you just typed in “Southwest downtime.”

3. Leverage LinkedIn

   Another go-to resource for B2B research is LinkedIn. You can go to LinkedIn, do an advanced search and find associates in relevant departments of companies at your target accounts. Pull up individual profiles to learn about their backgrounds and roles. Also, look at the company profile page to see their latest updates, areas of specialization, the number of employees and more. You can even explore their job listings to see if any openings align with your company’s offering — if they have a gap internally, they may be open to having another company help fill the need.

4. Do Personality Profiles with Crystal

   Want to get up close and personal? Pair LinkedIn with Crystal. It’s a platform that gives you personality insights, helping you communicate with prospects in the most convincing language and style for them.

   After you install Crystal, go to LinkedIn, click on “Personality,” and it will tell you how to win someone’s trust, and how to speak to or email them. You can even paste in a sample of an individual’s writing and ask for a personality analysis. It may tell you something like “This person is cheerful, sincere and open, which makes them relatable and easy to talk to. They are not driven by a sense of urgency but value relationships over ambition and methodically plan before diving into action.” Then it provides advice on building relationships and communicating with the person. This little tool is not only useful, but it’s also fun to use.

5. Navigate Twitter with Socedo

   Navigating Twitter to find prospects sometimes seems like trying to beat a path through the jungle. Think of Socedo as your guide. In their search function, you can enter job titles, location and keywords that are likely to be in your prospect’s profile and tweets. Then Socedo uses user-generated “intent data,” showing an interest in a topic and serves up leads that meet your criteria. You can follow them, and if they follow you back, Socedo sends a direct message through Twitter. If you like, you can include a link to your website or a landing page.

   Also, Socedo now integrates with some of the leading marketing automation platforms, including Marketo, Salesforce, Eloqua and HubSpot. Each contact you bring into your Marketing Automation or CRM system from Socedo comes with up to 50 data points — demographic and firmographic information. You can also match up data currently in your marketing automation system to individuals’ profiles to monitor their interest on the main topics that signal intent.

For more rapid and robust B2B prospect research, your reps can learn to use traditional resources more efficiently, such as websites, Google and LinkedIn. Also, if they couple these information sources with new automated tools, their data will be richer and their outreach will likely be more successful.

Howard Marks, billionaire investor and founder of Oaktree Capital Management is adamant about his stance on cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, Ether and others: “They’re not real.”

Marks reiterated this three times to clients Wednesday in his latest Oaktree memo.

“I’d guess these things have arisen from the intersection of (a) doubts about financial security — including the value of national currencies — that grew out of the financial crisis an (b) the comfort felt by millennials regarding all things virtual,” writes Marks. “But they’re not real.”

Marks has clearly done his homework. The 22-page letter is full of research notes and quotes from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and others about blockchain-based currencies. But he’s still unconvinced that they hold any long-term promise.

“Some people are eager to speculate on digital currency for profit,” he writes. “Others want to put a little money into these to-date-profitable phenomena rather than run the risk of missing out. But they’re not real!”

It all comes down to optimism, says Marks. As soon as our current bull market takes a nosedive, bitcoin and ether speculators could take a big hit.

“They’re likely to keep working as long as optimism is present,” writes Marks. “But their performance in bad times is far from dependable. What will happen to Bitcoin’s price and liquidity in a crisis if people decide they’d rather hold dollars (or gold)?”

Marks isn’t the only old-school Wall Street player to be skeptical of digital currencies. Major banks like Morgan Stanley have recognized bitcoin’s use as a value-holding asset, but are hesitant to call it a true currency.

For people like Marks, Bitcoin has a steep learning curve. It’s not as simple as traditional fiat currency, with notes backed by a central bank and transferred through clearinghouses. Instead, bitcoin utilizes a blockchain, which can instantly credit and debit ledgers of parties involved in a transaction.

It looks like Marks has some more reading to do to catch up.

“Nobody has been able to make sense to me of these currencies,” he writes.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Harvard Business School professor explains the most important problem we have in finance today and how to fix it

If a picture is worth a thousand words, an emoji is worth at least 140. These little icons allow users to convey complex ideas and emotions quickly and accurately. They have become a language of their own. And if you can’t speak that language, you’re missing a prime opportunity to engage with your audience.

As of 2015, about half of all Instagram captions and comments included at least one emoji. And Emogi found that 92 percent of the world’s online population uses them to communicate. Whether they’re commenting or captioning, people love to express themselves with something a bit more exciting than words.

Understanding why consumers have adopted this new language so quickly can give your marketing efforts a competitive edge.

What Makes Emojis So Appealing?

People use emojis for two reasons. First, they allow users to communicate thoughts and feelings quickly. Why type, “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” when a thumbs-up will do? Emojis provide a shared language that reduces the time it takes to communicate.

Second, emojis can communicate complex feelings that would otherwise be impossible outside of face-to-face conversations. Ever try to convey sarcasm in a text message? As a social species, we are better able to grasp the complexities of language when we have a visual reference such as a winky-eyed, tongue-out face to guide us.

This boils down to one thing: Emojis make otherwise lifeless words more personal. If you’re seeking to break away from the noise of competing campaigns, emojis give you the opportunity to engage with audiences on a deeper level. And when you have an effective influencer campaign, you’ll be able to use emojis to see into the minds of consumers like never before.

What Emojis Mean for Marketers

Emojis hold real business value for a few reasons. For one thing, they represent an important indicator of consumer sentiment. Companies would be wise to pay attention to the nature of consumer-to-consumer conversations surrounding their brands—particularly how emojis are used in those conversations. They can then use that information to assess their online strengths and shortcomings.

At my company, theAmplify, we were able to gather data with our mobile platform, Reach, and saw that consumers use emojis more authentically with influencers than with brands. This means that when you partner with the right influencers—ones who can genuinely communicate with the proper audiences—you can measure the emoji exchange between influencers and consumers to gain insight into the perception of your brand. It’s valuable information that you can use to optimize future influencer programs or use on other marketing channels.

Brands can also use emojis to communicate directly with consumers, building trust and affinity in the process. According to a study by Appboy, brands that use emojis are considered more relatable and trustworthy. Of course, that doesn’t mean more emojis automatically equal more success, especially when they come directly from the brand. To get the most out of emojis, you need to have a deft touch.

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Brands that use emojis are considered more relatable and trustworthy.
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Getting More by Saying Less

You must develop a strategy before you start throwing winks and hearts around. These tips will help you master the art of the emoji without coming off as insincere or out of touch.

1. Learn to speak the dialect.

Just because everyone uses emojis doesn’t mean every demographic uses them in the same way. Getting a kissy face from Grandma isn’t the same as getting one from your significant other.

To understand which emojis to use, you must first understand how your specific audience communicates. Measure the top emojis, which categories they fall under, and in what context they tend to appear. If you have data on which emojis consumers tend to use when talking about your brand, even better.

During campaigns, split emoji usage by product vertical in addition to traditional demographics. Someone interested in travel isn’t necessarily interested in buying a new car. The subtleties of your campaigns and the emojis within them should reflect those key differences.

2. Send a clear message.

No one wants to hire a translator to decipher your emoji code. In 2015, Chevrolet created an emoji-only press release. Although it was a fun idea in theory, the company knew it needed to release a translated version for readers to truly understand its message. Sure, emojis are ubiquitous, but using them in the wrong context can confuse, frustrate, or even offend consumers. Remember: Not all recipients will interpret an emoji the same way you do.

Clear, succinct communication is best. In many cases, emojis can help you achieve this. Just don’t become so caught up with the idea of using them that you forget the purpose of your content. Include them in posts on social media sites, blogs, and other informal platforms, but do not mistake cartoon faces for complete sentences.

3. Have fun with it.

Emojis are supposed to be fun, and your consumers will respond to them if you’re creative.

Bud Light had the right idea when it created an American flag out of emojis to celebrate Independence Day in 2014. The post generated more than 138,000 retweets, engaging the audience and enhancing the brand’s larger campaign of patriotism without coming off as hokey.

Take inspiration from pop culture, current events, and memes. Look at previous campaigns, and think about areas in which emojis could have enhanced your message. See what other brands are doing, and figure out what separates the successful from the confusing. Then, develop best practices from your findings.

Chances are you already use emojis in your personal life. Emojis enhance casual conversations in ways that words can’t, and if you learn to use them properly, they can provide a whole new world of marketing opportunities for your brand.

Don’t shun emojis because they seem childish or because you think you don’t understand them. Every brand can capitalize on the communication advantages emojis offer. Follow the strategies outlined above, and do your research on effective methods of emoji communication. You will bring new life to your marketing campaigns in the process.

Get a weekly dose of the trends and insights you need to keep you ON top, from Jay Baer at Convince & Convert. Sign up for the Convince & Convert ON email newsletter.

I always hate to start a post with a disclaimer or an apology. This post may seem like I’m bashing the sales enablement function and sales enablement professionals. Taken in its most broad context, it’s a critical function. Sales enablement professionals have a tough and important job. Many of the most important initiatives focused on improving sales performance come through sales enablement.

Additionally, initiatives like those of the Sales Enablement Society are critical in driving learning among sales enablement professionals, and the ability to standardize practice and increase the value sales enablement professionals and the function provide within the sales function.

But……..

I’m increasingly concerned about some of the things I hear and read about sales enablement. Perhaps it’s not the discussions themselves, but it’s what’s absent in the discussion.

Yes, sales enablement has a role to help sales people sell better, maximizing revenue per rep.

Yes, sales enablement has to provide training, tools, systems, programs, content, onboarding, to help the rep at every phase of their development.

What’s missing in the conversation is that sales enablement isn’t alone in this mission. Every function in the sales organization has the mission of helping the front line seller sell better, to perform at the highest levels possible, to maximize the revenue each sales person produces.

Every person in the sales organization that is not a front line seller has the mission of serving those front line sellers so they can be better and sell more.

Front line management’s sole responsibility is to maximize the performance of each person on their team.

Senior sales management has the responsibility of maximizing overall sales organizational performance in executing the company’s strategies.

Sales operations has the responsibility of identifying and removing roadblocks to sales effectiveness.

HR has the responsibility of helping make sure the right talent is on board, that managers and others in the organization are doing everything possible to retain and develop that talent to achieve their full potential in the organization, both in the short term and long term.

It doesn’t stop with the sales organization itself, marketing, product management, customer service, finance, even manufacturing and development all have roles in helping sales people sell more–better. (Though some of this is indirect)

It’s the absence of this recognition in many of the discussions around sales enablement that, in fact, diminishes the impact and effectiveness of sales enablement.

For example, I recently read a very good and impassioned article on the role of sales enablement. There was no mention of any other part of the organization. More alarming, there was no mention of the Front Line Sales Manager. The impression, perhaps unintentional, was that it is sales enablement, alone, that would drive the performance of the sales people.

Even more alarming is an emerging trend for sales enablement organizations to take over sales coaching. The intent is good, it’s a clear reaction to sales managers not coaching or doing it ineffectively. But the solution to that is not displacing this responsibility from sales management, but to teach, train, and enable them to do their jobs.

Stealing a phrase from another author, “it takes a village” to drive sales performance. It is not sales enablement alone that will drive sales performance. It’s the focused, collaborative efforts of everyone sitting behind the front line sellers that will drive sales performance.

Perhaps, I’m being a little nit picky. But the sales enablement function is too important to front line sellers and to the organization to isolate itself from the rest of the team driven by the same mission. In many cases, sales enablement professionals are fighting for a seat at the sales executive’s table–and they should be there.

The way we do this (and I’m including myself as a sales enablement practitioner, if not a professional), is by being more inclusive in the way we present ourselves and in the actual implementation of our strategies and programs. To recognize that sales enablement, alone, cannot achieve this goal. Perhaps, even to provide leadership in dragging others into the development and execution of their strategies/programs (for example front line sales management.

Fortunately, I’ve had the opportunity to work with some great sales enablement organizations and leaders. They recognized their real mission is to catalyze the entire organization around driving sales performance, not viewing it as a sales enablement only function. They set the model of sales enablement performance excellence for all others.

I know that is the intent of great sales enablement professionals, yet the absence of this in the conversations we have does not serve us, what we want to achieve, or our “customers” which are the front line sellers and the rest of the organization.

16 Essential Tools for Digital Marketers in SMEs written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Like any good craftsman, a digital marketer needs tools to perform to the best of his abilities each day.

Through the years working in marketing, I’ve tried and tested a lot of tools. Some bad, some good and a very few extraordinary. I’ll focus on the latter group today and hope this essential selection will help you do things better, quicker and more efficiently.

A digital marketer these days wears many hats: some of us are content marketers, others focus solely on SEO, but some marketers, especially in SMEs and startups, they do it all. That’s why I’ve chosen tools to help you at every aspect of a digital marketer’s job.

We’ll start with content marketing tools, going from content creation to the SEO optimization of that content, followed by e-mail and social media marketing tools.

Don’t write more content, write better content.

2 million blog posts are being published every single day.

So during the time, it took you to read up to here, about 1000 new blog posts saw the light. Unfortunately, 99% of them will never get to shine.

Why?

Because they don’t add value or stand out.

Of course, standing out is easier said than done. Luckily, there are a few things you can do to turn the odds in your favor.

The first thing you should do is find something to write about. But not just anything, I see a lot of content marketers that have an idea and immediately start writing.

I believe there’s something else you should do first.

Research.

In this day and age, there’s so much data available. So getting an estimate of the potential success of your article BEFORE you write it is a must.

Here are the tools you need to do it:

1. Feedly (Free)

In Feedly, you can follow all your favorite blogs in one space. No need to go visit them all one by one.

It’s pretty straightforward to set up a profile, add some interesting blogs you’re probably already reading and start spotting popular topics. It’s not as difficult as it sounds. Thanks to their popularity metric. (Check out the number column between publisher and title.)

Feedly has a paid plan with a bunch of extra features, but I’ve managed just fine with the free version.

2. Buzzsumo (Paid)

This tool does a little bit more than just show topic popularity. It will tell how many backlinks an article has and more importantly, where they came from.

Awesome for link building. Because guess who makes a great audience to reach out to for link building?

People who have already shared similar content, that’s who.

Buzzsumo offers a free 14-day trial, after that, you’ll need a paid plan. It’s not the cheapest at 99$ per month. If link building is not your top priority, you might want to give this one a pass.

3. Keyword Planner (Free)

Both Feedly and Buzzsumo are great to discover popular topics. But for more in-depth analysis we use Google’s Keyword Planner.

This free Google Adwords tool is developed to discover additional keywords to advertise on, but I also use it to give me a nice idea about the search volumes for the topics I found with Feedly or Buzzsumo. Just type the keywords and it will tell you the average monthly searches and the level of competition. Using these insights will give you an idea of the potential audience for your topic.

PRO TIP: When doing keyword analysis for SMEs we suggest focussing on medium to long tail keywords. They might have less traffic, but there will be less competition and it will be easier to rank higher in Google’s search results page. (SERPs)

4. MOZ (Paid)

A great tool with a ton of features. The main features relevant to us are those which offer an estimated monthly search volume, a keyword competition indicator in Google SERPs and a variety of SEO features to optimize your website on- and off-page. You get a lot of bang for your buck, but at 99$ per month, it’s not the cheapest.

Now we’re all set to start writing about that amazing topic you just discovered. Here are some great tools to help you with the writing process.

5. Grammarly (Free)

Nothing is more embarrassing than a typo.

Enter Grammarly. This free Chrome extension will filter out any mistakes straight away. Which comes in handy when you’re working directly in WordPress or preparing the final version to go live on your site.

With the paid version you can detect more advanced mistakes, but, especially for native speakers, the free version is quite sufficient.

Once it’s written, it’s time to add some flavor to your article. There are many ways to go about it: Librestock, Unsplash, and Giphy are all great resources to find free images and GIFs and spice up your piece.

But if you want a little bit more personality I suggest Canva.

6. Canva (Free)

This intuitive tool will allow you to create your own designs, whether it’s for your article, social media or just to do some basic photo editing.

It has a free version, but for professional use, I suggest the paid version. At 12.95$ a month. It really is a bargain.

Whether you don’t have the time to write one yourself, or you want it written in a specific language, you can always let someone else do the heavy lifting for you. Consider outsourcing the job with these platforms:

7. Upwork (Paid)

Most people in the start-up or freelance world will be familiar with this one: Upwork. Still, I often encounter SMEs who could benefit hugely from this platform, without even knowing it.

Whether it’s for content marketing or web design, you’ll find the best-cheapest-fastest (pick two) man for the job. From experience, I know you can get a fully SEO optimized 800-word article in perfect English for 50$.

8. Fiverr (Paid)

A very similar and often cheaper, but in my experience also less qualitative platform is Fiverr.

In my opinion, it’s more suitable for easy, repetitive tasks, such as email collection or image creation. Most tasks cost 5$, hence the name Fiverr.

9. HARO (Free)

HARO, short for Help A Reporter Out is free and can be used in two different ways.

You can use it to contribute to other articles and become more known in your niche.

Or you can use it to get experts’ thoughts on your topic. It’s an easy way to crowdsource your article.

It’s a free platform, unfortunately, the return isn’t always there.

10. One-Click Quiz Maker (Free)

Content doesn’t necessarily have to be an article. Did you know theNew York Times most shared piece of content of 2013 was a quiz?

But you’re not familiar with making quizzes?

That’s where the One-Click Quiz Maker comes in.

From time to time it’s interesting to shake things up and do something different. And different doesn’t have to mean hard! Simply put in any topic you want to create a quiz about and the tool does the rest.

11. Yoast (Free)

This WordPress plugin is an absolute must for digital marketers. It will tell you immediately how SEO optimized your article is. And, more importantly, it will tell you what to do to improve it.

Topic: check

Copy: check

Images: check

SEO optimized: check

Now that your masterpiece is ready, it’s time to move on to the final part.

Oh, you didn’t think writing it was enough, did you? Just letting it sit there and hoping traffic will come is doomed to fail.

Time to get your piece in front of as many (relevant) eyeballs!

This last set of tools will help you do just that.

Email marketing tools every marketer should use.

12. Mailshake (Paid)

Turn your email marketing into a machine with Mailshake. This awesome tool allows you to set up, schedule and follow up your cold outreach campaigns, metrics to evaluate your campaigns included.

This email tool will set you back 9$/month per user, which makes it a great addition to your list of SME marketing tools.

13. Mailchimp (Paid)

Probably one of the most well-known tools on this list.

Everyone starts small. But with the right resources, you can execute big plans. MailChimp’s features are powerful, but at a price point that works for anyone. You know your business. They’ll help you grow it with their email marketing tool.

The cost varies on the size of your mailing list, if you have less than 2,000 subscribers, you can send up to 12,000 emails for free. I’m not sure on the formula, but to give you an idea: my mailing list has a little over 10K subs, and I pay about 120$/month.

14. Hunter (Free)

Just surf to any website, press the hunter extension icon, and it will scan the site for emails with the same domain and give you a list.

15. Rapportive (Free)

Rapportive, on the other hand, will enrich that email address with information from Linkedin. Very handy in B2B communication to evaluate possible leads.

These two chrome extensions will help you find and verify email addresses. And they go well together like Batman and Robin.

16. Buffer (Paid)

Another well-known tool. This social media marketing tool allows you to easily schedule and create your posts across all social media channels.

Especially for SMEs with a limited budget to spend on social media, Buffer is a great tool to manage all your social media channels on one platform. Create all your posts in one go and you can forget about social media for the week. And at 102$ a year it’s very competitively priced.

Now it’s your turn

That’s it, folks! I personally use these tools on a weekly basis and recommend every single one of them. Depending on your business needs, your mileage may vary, but I’m confident there’s at least one tool that will be valuable to your marketing.

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About the Author

Nigel Lindemann works as a digital marketer at Survey Anyplace.

Selling to prospects who are already interested in your product is straightforward.

They're what we call “hand-raisers” which means they’ve done preliminary research and decided your business has a solution. However, starting a relationship with someone who's never heard of you or isn't actively looking to solve a relevant challenge is tough.

It's not impossible. With the skills, empathy, and a plan, you’ll be able to find the prospects who have a need for the products you have to offer. I use the following five techniques to kick things off with these kinds of buyers.

1. Sell the dream.

Not everybody you’re selling to will be interested in your product, but they’re always interested in themselves. Creating a vision of what the prospect's life might be like when they purchase your product is a great place to start.

Think about Nike’s catchphrase, "Just do it," or Burger King’s "Have it your way." These phrases don’t tell you what they sell. They tell you what you can do with the things they sell.

When I call on a VP of Sales at a Fortune 500 company to sell her my firm’s services, I certainly don’t lead with, "Hi! I’m Jeff from Boston, and I sell sales training and consulting products. I’d like to introduce my services. Is this a good time?"

Yawn. That isn’t interesting to her (or me!) and it certainly doesn’t make her curious to find out more. Instead, I do this. As soon as she picks up the phone, I say, "Hi. I got you live on my first dial, and when you hire me, I'll teach your sales reps how to do the exact same thing."

Now, I have her attention. You’ll notice I didn’t even introduce myself or describe my services. Instead, I’ve managed to gain her attention and plant the first seed of curiosity. Only after she's interested, will I then take the time to introduce myself and my services. Now that she’s actually listening, of course.

If you sell copywriting services, you might look for errors on your prospect's website and email them with the corrections, adding, "As your copywriter, I'd ensure your site was 100% typo-free at all times."

If you provide leadership training, you might say, "It looks like you've been hiring a lot of middle managers lately. That often occurs when internal candidates aren't being properly developed. What would it be like to have an 80% internal promotion rate?"

2. Pique their curiosity.

Once you've gotten your prospect to agree to another call, your goal is to keep their attention. I use this strategy to do just that.

At the beginning of the meeting, I'll say, "Before I forget, I want to ask you something related to our last conversation. Let's get into the agenda now, but will you remind me?"

They'll say, "Sure, no problem."

At the end of the call, they'll either ask, "Hey, what was that thing you wanted to talk to me about?", or they won't mention it.

If it's the former, I know they're engaged and present. I've also managed to create a little intrigue. If it's the latter, I know they don't really care (and I should either try a different approach or move on).

Wondering what to bring up? I usually ask something I actually want to know that's too short to include in the agenda, such as, "What percentage of your revenue comes from channel sales versus direct?"

3. Use past successes (not failures) as your guide.

I’ve always found it far more instructive to focus on what went well and try to replicate specific successes, rather than to dwell on mistakes. Our minds often behave like a search engine, displaying the results that reflect your query.

For example, if you Google "don’t show me fast-food restaurants" you are bound to get a massive list of fast-food restaurants. Coincidentally, if you only focus on how things haven’t worked in the past, then that's probably all you will ever see.

The good news is that the same rule applies if you focus on the things that have already worked. One way to reinforce that mindset is to reach out to your current customers and ask about the things that got them interested in your offering.

Look for trends in their responses and then reuse those successful approaches with future prospects. Who knows, they might say, "Hey, that’s not why I took your meeting, I took it for this reason."

The best answers for how to sell can usually be found from the people you have already closed.

4. Enlist your prospect as a teacher.

One of the fastest ways to earn engagement and interest is to understand the fact that your prospect wants to be respected and heard. Learn the opinion of the person you’re speaking with and take that opinion seriously.

Think of it this way; we’d all generally agree we don’t talk to strangers. But if a stranger approaches you on the street and asks for help, you’ll probably help them.

We’re wired to help others, so use that to your advantage when speaking with prospects. If you’re having trouble getting your prospect’s IT director on board, say, "We’ve got to have IT on board for this deal to close. How would you approach this person? What roadblocks do you foresee?"

Use the information they give you to close the deal.

5. Create a sense of urgency.

While we would never encourage you to use scare tactics to make the sale, creating a sense of urgency with prospects who are on the fence about your offer can be a helpful approach.

Here are some ways you can create urgency to get your prospect to invest in your offer:

• Offer a short-term discount or incentive: Whether you provide a lower price for prospects who purchase by a specific end date or include a bonus offer by a specific date, these offers can create a sense of urgency by rewarding decisive action with even greater value.
• Emphasize the immediate benefit of your product: You should have a solid understanding of the problem your prospect is trying to solve. Create a sense of urgency by emphasizing how the purchase of your product can provide an immediate solution or relief to their problem.
• Communicate scarcity: Knowing your offer is limited or only available for a short time can create a sense of urgency for buyers. Whether you are selling a product that is limited-edition, or are selling a service that is only available to a specific number of customers, communicating these parameters during the sales process can entice buyers to make their purchase immediately.

6. Sell your key consumer benefit.

The key consumer benefit — or KCB for short — is the primary benefit that a feature within your product provides to the customer. Now, this isn’t a free pass to rattle off all the features of your product and ask your prospect to buy it. The KCB needs to be communicated from the perspective of “benefit first.”

Here’s what that looks like:

“Your sales team needs help closing their deals faster to keep their pipelines healthy.

67% of sales managers agree that a sales hub software helps reps close deals three times faster than reps who don’t use software.

We know this affects your bottom line, so we’ve developed software that lets you optimize and track that progress in real-time. What types of decisions would you make if you had this kind of data?”

Notice the way this idea is structured? Instead of mentioning the problem first, I explain the need and justify it with something we can both agree on. Then, I set up the feature with some data to build credibility and authority around my product.

Finally, I empathize with the prospect by referencing their bottom line, and I briefly mentioned the product I sell. I finished the statement by asking an open-ended question that invites the prospect to imagine themselves benefitting from the product.

7. Be biased about your product.

I see far too many reps pretending to be unbiased in an effort to sound "credible." The buyer, who is both educated and experienced, expects sales reps to be biased. In fact, nothing you say will make a customer forget that ultimately, your job is to get them to buy your product.

So, stop pretending. If anything, do the opposite: Believe that your service is simply the best.

Your buyer is sophisticated. They understand the use of hyperbole. Embrace the fact that you’re excited about your offering and that you’d love to share your point of view.

When you tell prospects your product is "the best on the market" or that your customer’s sales team "will be blowing out their numbers after working with us," you aren’t having an academic discussion relying on data to defend your conclusion — you’re sharing your opinion. Customers trust those opinions that are authentic and genuine, not merely impartial.

8. Be transparent about your product’s capabilities.

Along the same lines of being biased about your product, you want to be transparent about it, too. Sometimes, that means admitting when your product doesn’t do something exactly the way the client would prefer.

For example, a client wants to know exactly how many leads have been moved to opportunities on a minute-by-minute basis. The software you sell syncs about once an hour. It’s important to be transparent and note that your product doesn’t sync that quickly. However, you don’t have to mention it in the negative. You can always share helpful solutions to issues like this.

Perhaps your product supports integrations with other systems that can sync a bit faster. By reframing product limitations with creative solutions, you can become a helpful resource to your prospect and build trust with them as a result.

9. Be a valuable resource.

Picture this. You’re in the market for a new mattress, and the sales rep at one of the mattress companies you are considering provides stellar service. Not only do they actively listen to your concerns with your current mattress and understand what you’re looking for in your next purchase, they’re able to confidently speak to how their product is the perfect fit for you.

They have been able to get you an answer to every question you asked, and they’ve even shared some valuable content about sleep health, and how their mattress can help you get the best sleep of your life.

This rep has gone above and beyond for you before you even became a customer so just imagine how attentive they will be once you are onboard.

During the sales process, how you treat a prospect while they are still considering your product gives them a glimpse into what life as your customer could look like. If you serve as a resource before they buy, you’re building trust with your prospect that is valuable in the long run.

10. Find common ground.

Your prospects want to find a connection with you, even if it doesn’t seem that way at first. Give them what they want by doing your research beforehand. Find something you have in common, and if you can’t make it your mission to find common ground in the first couple of minutes on your call.

The primary common ground with prospects who are interested in the solution you offer is just that — your product! Leverage this in your initial conversation with the prospect to see why they were interested in speaking with you. You’ll likely uncover a lot more information when they know you have something in common.

11. Make the decision convenient.

When tasks are inconvenient or complicated to complete, we’re less likely to do them. That’s one reason why businesses like Uber, Instacart, and Amazon are so ingrained into our lives.

Consider your prospect’s situation. As a sales rep trying to close a deal, your contract is likely not at the top of their list of things to complete. Making the decision easier for them could be the defining factor.

Perhaps you just need a simple “Yes!” in an email. Giving them a few bullet points that highlight the contract can be the difference between the deal closing in five minutes vs. five days.

Make it known that you understand that they have a busy schedule and you can augment the process to be more convenient. They’ll definitely appreciate the thoughtfulness.

12. Keep the conversation going.

If you don’t succeed in making the sale the first time you pitch, don’t be discouraged. By using the tricks above, you likely have built a level of trust with the prospect that is invaluable. The "no" could very well be a "not right now". Keep the door open with this prospect in case they change their mind, or are a better fit for a different offering. Here are a few ways you can keep in touch with your prospect:

• Connect on social media: If you had a great conversation with a prospect, ask to connect on social media. Seeing what content your prospect shares will give you insight into what products they are using and how they feel about them. Not only that, when they see the content you share, it will keep your conversation and product top-of-mind.
• Ask for feedback: If your prospect is open to providing feedback about your product and sales approach, take them up on it. This feedback provides useful information about how you could improve your sales process in the future and allows you to stay in touch with the prospect longer, which can be helpful for winning them over at a later date or with a different offer.

Attract Customers Online With These Strategies

Not being in person or on the phone poses a unique challenge for sellers as it's more challenging to make a personal connection to help persuade potential customers to buy. Attract customers online with our tips.

1. Provide them with social proof.

Remember when you were younger and your parents harped on the importance of drinking water, saving money, and eating a balanced breakfast? Now, think about how many podcasts and thought leaders you follow that say the same. You listen now, don't you?

No matter how many times you say something, people want to hear it from another source. This has little to do with logic and more to do with bias. People already have their minds made up after a brief encounter with you, your product, or the brand you represent. You can expand their perspective and gain their trust through social proof.

This can be done through highlighting user reviews, articles mentioning your product, or simply other influencers using your product and praising it online.

Example

When Tori Dunlap, founder of financial education platform Her First 100K, was featured in Glamour, she made sure to share it across her social channels.

Image Source

When potential customers see that your product or service has been vetted and approved by an outside source, it adds credibility to your brand. The boost in popularity may also help convince them to buy.

2. Drive more traffic to your site.

Customers can’t make purchases if they can’t find your site, so making sure your site is Google-friendly is a must. Utilize search engine optimization (SEO) for an organic traffic boost.

Your brand should have a market niche you can target with content tailored to your audience. Each topic you write about should include related keywords you can use to help your article rank higher in Google’s search results. Once users click on your blog, make it easy for them to find your products using a well-placed call-to-action (CTA).

Leverage your social media channels to increase engagement and drive more visitors to your site. Share your articles and other valuable content with your target audience. It’s important to note that organic traffic is not a quick fix, but more of a long-term traffic strategy.

For a quicker jolt of traffic, you can consider paid advertising platforms like Google Ads, Meta for Business, or TikTok for Business. Due to the added expense, going the paid traffic route may not be the best option for small businesses. However, if you have a dedicated marketing budget, paid advertising is a useful tool to have at your disposal.

3. Harness the power of email marketing.

Another method online businesses use to attract and retain customers is email marketing. Once you’ve reeled in users to your site with your amazing content, use a CTA to entice them to sign up for your email list or newsletter. This way you can market to them when they’re not on your site and keep your brand top of mind.

Example

UK-based design firm HE Creative sent the marketing email above giving me a heads up regarding their new offerings and limited free shippping. In addition to design services, they have a shop with apparel, accessories, posters, and children’s books with a punk rock aesthetic.

Sending a targeted email showcasing your new products is a great way to reengage customers. I hadn’t shopped with them in a few months, but I definitely browsed their shop after receiving the email.

4. Offer an introductory discount for new customers.

Discounts can be a useful tool when trying to attract new customers. It’s not uncommon to see eCommerce businesses offering a discount of 10% to 20% off first purchases.

Example

Women’s clothing brand NGO Bolingo utilized this tactic on their site by using the discount offer in a CTA.

Image Source

Incentivizing potential customers with a discount is a great way to encourage people to take immediate action and make a purchase.

How to Sell More Products

What’s better than making a sale? Making even more sales. Here are our tips to help you boost sales.

1. Tap into your existing customers.

While it may be tempting to focus your efforts on attracting new customers, chances are your business is already sitting on a goldmine of existing customers. That’s right, your existing customers are more valuable than new ones. In fact, repeat customers spend more on each purchase than new, or first-time buyers.

Introduce them to your new products or retarget them with an email marketing campaign.

2. Introduce a referral program.

Another way to utilize your existing customers is to implement a referral program. Word of mouth is an incredibly valuable marketing strategy and there’s no better way to attract new customers than having current ones vouch for your product or service.

Encourage your existing, happy customers to share their experiences with their colleagues, friends, and associates. As an incentive for bringing in new business, you can offer them a discount or additional services for each referral they bring in.

3. Analyze competitors to see where you can add value.

Do you have competitors selling similar products or services? If so, it’s worth taking stock of what they offer and their marketing strategies. Compare pricing, products, services, and look at their customer reviews. If there is an area where they are falling short, you can capitalize on it by solving for the customer and providing more value.

For example, if you sell product management software, maybe you have an edge over your competitors because your platform has built-in analytics. Whatever your strengths over your competitors are, play them up.

4. Consider using abandoned cart software.

For online sellers, abandoned carts come along with the territory, but you do have options for encouraging customers to complete their purchases. Abandoned cart software is a tool that can help you figure out why customers are leaving your site before completing purchases and can also help you convert them to get more sales.

Plugins like HubSpot for WooCommerce can easily be installed on your eCommerce site, and include features like real-time customer reporting, recovery email templates, customizable coupon codes, and email collection.

Make Your Product Irresistible to Prospects

We’ve touched on a few different ways to sell your products and services to people who are ready to make a decision. The common thread that ties these tactics together is customer empathy. By appealing to your prospect for help, you’ll satisfy their desire to be heard and earn their interest in helping you close the deal — simply by asking for it.

This article was originally published in March 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Three Big Trends Business Leaders Must Embrace

Gerhard Gshwandtner is the Founder and CEO of Selling Power Magazine, the leading media property that provides senior sales managers with high-quality content. Selling Power Magazine delivers content through print, audio, video, webinars, and sales leadership conferences designed to help sales leaders create a more efficient and effective sales organization on their journey to sales 3.0.

Originally from Austria, Gerhard worked with a French multi-national company training their 1,600 salespeople before moving to the U.S. and starting his own business. In 1981 he morphed that business into Selling Power Magazine. Gerhard established The Sales 3.0 Conference in 2007 to help sales leaders integrate people, process, and technology. A year and a half ago he created the workshop Peak Performance Mindset. 50 trainers have already been certified, and 5,000 people have gone through the training. On this episode, Gerhard opens up about the three biggest trends in business all leaders must understand.

3 Major Trends in Modern Business

1. The Waves of Change

The sales profession has changed over the years. Gerhard says, “The changes have gone from ripples to big waves.” Sellers no longer have the advantage – buyers do, and as each new wave crashes, it washes out what has worked in the past.

Gerhard mentions that productivity is elusive and our minds are easily distracted. We’re living in the now culture and need to focus more on the present moment. He referenced the acronym WIN – What’s Important Now – to help people distinguish between trivia and treasure. When you’re in the present moment, you listen better and can spot more opportunities.

Each generation has their own culture and language requiring different methods of communication and engagement. For example, millennials want to understand the higher meaning of the company they work for, not just the monthly Profit and Loss statement. Gerhard says the older generations should attempt to understand their values.

2. Sales 3.0

Before jumping into Sales 3.0, let’s look at Sales 1. 0 and 2.0 first. Sales 1.0 involved face to face interactions. Salespeople with the best presentations closed the most deals. Sales 2.0 incorporated CRM systems, social media, mobile, big data and cloud. New technologies required the sales professional to become a better listener, much of it happening through online channels.

Gerhard says Sales 3.0 enables salespeople to be more efficient. Software powered by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other cognitive computing tools are directing salespeople and managers on how to be more productive. SAP’s Digital Board Room is an excellent example of Sales 3.0 in action. Executives can instantly receive responses to questions that would typically entail a delayed response from staffers.

Digital transformation is happening everywhere, and Gerhard says that those who resist will become roadkill – they’ll become obsolete. He postulates that 50% of Fortune 500 companies will be gone in ten years due to the influx of innovative companies that are disrupting every industry. According to Michael Dell, the rate of innovation is ten times what it was only three years ago.

Leaders should embrace digital transformation to help their salespeople to learn faster. Taking advantage of the technologies will provide your team with actionable insights. Gerhard recommends conducting your own research to strategize for the future. You can find information and studies from McKinsey & Company, Gartner, Altimeter Group and thought leaders on YouTube.

3. Adaptation, innovation, and integration

To be successful in the chaotic business environment of today, review the business perspective and personal perspective. A business perspective questions the following:

• People: How can I adapt my employees to new realities of selling?
• Process: How well are the processes integrated with my people?
• Technology: How well is technology integrated with processes and the actions of my people?

A personal perspective includes three factors that lead to personal success:

• Mindset: Keep growth in mind, embrace change and the available tools.
• Skillset: You must do better than the best to be the best, and constantly be looking for ways to improve how you do things.
• Toolset: Exploit technology and quit wasting time on technologies you aren’t using.

Gerhard says there needs to be more integration to help people grow. People aren’t changing from sharing ideas and thoughts with them. Their self-limiting beliefs hold them back, and leaders should work to help them replace those with self-empowering beliefs so they can reach their full potential.

Gerhard closed the podcast with this question for you to ponder – “technology is constantly getting better, what are you doing to get better?”

 

By Tibor Shanto – tibor.shanto@sellbetter.ca 

Proactive Prospecting Summer – Part 4

In this part of the Proactive Prospecting Summer series, we look at improving how we communicate early in the call.  Clear concise communication is key to sales, especially in the pressure packed first few seconds of an unscheduled prospecting call, yes, a cold call. Yet it is interesting how many sellers fail to effectively communicate the simplest concepts at this crucial stage of the sale.

Try this experiment, if you are a manager or team leader, next time you have team together in a room, or call, ask them to respond to the following question: “What do you sell?” If you need to set it up, tell them the setting is a trade show and the person asking the question could be a viable prospect, so the answer counts. After a few minutes, you can start capturing their answers.

Go ahead, try it now, we’ll be here, I gotta check my e-mail anyways.

Good, you’re back, gave it a go? Here are the types of answers I get when I do this with teams:

“I sell…

Software
Hardware
Copiers
Transportation services
Marketing Automation
CRM
Recruiting
IT Integration
Engineering

Occasionally I hear:

“We sell solutions”, but when I ask them to elaborate, they do not go to the problem they “solve” (as in solution), they revert to product.

Others will offer up “efficiencies”, a top 5 “Sales Empty Calorie Word”. While it sounds cool, it means nothing to a prospect who has heard a thousand times before. If you don’t shape it in some way that they can visualize in their business, words like efficiency, productivity, solutions, work-flow, and others are devoid of meaning, and can in fact hurt you in a prospecting call.

I recently worked with a leading telco provider, and in doing this and a related exercise answering the question “why do people buy from you and your company?”. The Alpha rep in the group offered up, “We sell productivity, that’s why people buy from us, we make them more productive.” I said “great, give me an example.” Still confident, he fired by “we make them productive through the efficiencies we bring”. I asked for an example of the efficiencies their clients realise, here is what I got “We increase efficiencies for them by making them more productive.” “In what way?” I asked, and it literally circled like that for five minutes. How long do you think a prospect will give him on an unsolicited and unscheduled call (or e-mail, or InMail)? Exactly.

If you look at the list above, it is all correct, but it really relates to what your company “manufactures” or “produces”, or from the buyers point of view, it is literally the “deliverables”, the stuff that will be in the boxes when it arrives on “location”. But buyers are more interested in the impact the “deliverables” will have on their business. Buyers, especially economical buyers, set out to achieve business results, the “deliverables” are just a means to an end, and for most economical buyers (not the implementers, or the people who get to “push the buttons” every day, the means are a distant third to the outcome.

Many cold callers try to explain what they do at the top of the call, and then wonder why “there is no interest”. Likely because that is not what the buyer was thinking about at the time they called. But if you move to defining things in a way that aligns with the outcomes they are looking for, that are similar to what you current clients are already achieving. So go ask them what is different in their world vis-à-vis their goals, issues, risk, reputation, cost structures, market share, anything other than something that sounds like a deliverable.

As a seller, you need to translate the question “What do you sell?” to “What are they looking to achieve?” The answer has to be driven by the outcomes they are looking for. How will their world be different after they buy from you? That’s what you sell.

You can drill down on this exercise, and make it more specific to your business by exploring the on-demand version of the Proactive Prospecting Program on Sales Gravy University.

The post What Do You Sell? appeared first on Renbor Sales Solutions Inc..

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The digital TV streaming market added 3 million subscribers in just two years, but this growth does not offset the effects of cord cutting, according to Bloomberg.

Roughly 6 million consumers have quit pay TV since 2010, and over half of those have done so in the past two years, according to The Diffusion Group.

Moreover, nearly 460,000 consumers cut the cord in the first quarter of this year alone, compared to the 6,000 that did in Q1 2016. Traditional pay TV business experienced its worst Q1 in terms of subscriber losses ever, according to MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett. Here’s what’s important to keep in mind in light of these figures:

• The costs of cord cutting are greater than digital TV service revenue. This is because digital TV services typically are priced at about $30-$40 per month, while traditional cable packages cost about $100. While some cord cutters are captured by digital streaming services, media companies will lose over $13 billion in revenue over the next 10 years, according to Barclays cited by Bloomberg.
• And cord cutters are projected to continually outpace online TV subscribers additions. Thirty-one million households will cut the cord over the next 10 years, and roughly 55% will be captured by online TV streaming services, per Barclays. This is particularly troubling for TV networks, as the data indicates they may only be able to recoup, at best, only half of cord-cutting subscribers.
• This also means media buyers need to ensure the data used to inform ad purchasing decisions reflect digital audiences. As consumers shift their viewing preferences from the traditional TV setting to digital streaming platforms, brands and advertisers should ensure TV ratings data counts digital views as well. Ratings companies have already taken a step towards this — Nielsen recently incorporated YouTube TV and Hulu TV viewership into its ratings, and so did comScore. 

The latest proof of the continuing trend of accelerated cord cutting can be seen in AT&T’s Q2 pay-TV results. The telecom lost a record 351,000 subscribers to DirecTV and IPTV traditional video services — overshadowing its addition of 152,000 DirecTV Now customers.

BI Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on the death of the set-top box that:

• Breaks down the FCC’s proposal to unlock the set-top box.
• Explores the impact the proposal has on major stakeholders.
• Forecasts the rental set-top box revenue for select pay-TV providers.
• Discusses opportunities the proposal presents for native tech companies.

To get the full report, subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and more than 250 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. » Learn More Now

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Is having a great product the only requirement to run a successful business? For most companies, the answer is no. Why? Because generating sales requires potential customers to understand that a product exists, what it does, and why it’s better than a competitor’s offering.

The responsibility to communicate that information rests on the shoulders of the marketing and sales teams. Typically, marketing has a predominant role at the beginning of a potential sale. For example, a marketing team may develop a new radio campaign to help spread awareness about a product launch. A sales team works to finalize a deal by communicating directly with leads and addressing their concerns.

Another advantage sales and marketing teams exploit is collaboration. Rather than operating as independent units, strong information and idea sharing between the teams can help improve results and create a seamless experience for prospective buyers.

Here’s a comprehensive overview of the meaning, responsibilities, and techniques of each segment.

Defining Sales and Marketing

Sales include “operations and activities involved in promoting and selling goods or services.”

Marketing includes “the process or technique of promoting, selling, and distributing a product or service.”

These statements highlight two aspects of the sales and marketing relationship:

1. The responsibilities of each group are closely linked.
2. Marketing has a vital role in supporting sales.

In practice, the marketing department tends to bear responsibility for raising awareness about a product and generating high-quality leads for a sales team. A “marketing-qualified lead” is a lead that meets certain criteria set forth by a marketing department. A “sales-qualified lead” adds to the initial stipulations set forth by marketing to help find the highest value prospects.

At times, a sales department may complain that marketing leads do not meet the standard set forth by the sales team. However, the potential for conflict also represents an opportunity for collaboration. The more effectively the two teams can share ideas, the better aligned their definitions are likely to be.

Sales and Marketing Responsibilities

While sometimes grouped separately, sales and marketing functions overlap. Those businesses that recognize the critical areas of overlap may get more value out of their teams by combining efforts. After all, both sales and marketing have the same end goal: increasing sales.

Sales Responsibilities

Follow up. A key sales function is following up with the leads generated by a marketing department. Successful businesses usually develop a structured handoff process so that each marketing-qualified lead receives appropriate and timely follow-up from a sales team member.

Relationship building. The era of the “hard sell” continues to fade. Modern sales focus on relationship building to help create trust between a buyer and seller. Effective salespersons can understand the needs of the buyer and develop a persuasive—but not pushy—message to help differentiate the company’s product.

Closing. Most salespersons are judged by their ability to turn leads into customers. While some may envision a face-to-face meeting and handshake as the close of a sale, many businesses also close sales online or over the phone. This can broaden the responsibilities of closing a sale to more employees.

Retention. Sales and marketing have responsibility for improving client retention. By checking in with an existing client, a sales team member can help demonstrate an interest in long-term client success, not just a one-time sale. The ongoing effort to build strong relationships can help improve retention and lead to “upsells”—additional sales beyond the initial purchase.

Marketing Responsibilities

Awareness. An effort to build awareness of a product or service is the first step in the sales process. A successful awareness-building effort may help a prospect recognize a brand or product name or may ensure a company makes the shortlist for purchasing consideration.

Engagement. Engagement efforts build on an initial awareness campaign to deepen a consumer’s connection to a company or product. Marketing materials aimed at engagement may be longer (e.g. a whitepaper or video) compared to a more superficial awareness piece (e.g. direct mailer or radio advertisement).

Conversion. A conversion is the critical transition of a potential customer from an anonymous person to a known lead. For marketing teams, a conversion may be the completion of a web form, the instigation of a web chat, or a phone call to a customer service line.

Retention. Even after a purchase, a marketing team can help a business grow its repeat customers. The retention function of marketing helps maintain awareness and engagement after a sale. This may include email newsletters or invitations to webinars that help a consumer get more value from a product. The retention function of marketing is especially critical for subscription services.

The Role of Technology

Today’s technology has a key role in sales and marketing. It also has a role in facilitating collaboration between the two business units.

A prominent example of sales and marketing technology is the customer relationship management (CRM) system. A CRM serves as a single resource will all client information. This information can help sales teams better understand how a customer became a lead. For instance, a CRM may contain information about the source of a lead, such as a trade show or online ad.

From a marketing perspective, a CRM can help track leads throughout the sales cycle. This information can provide valuable feedback to marketing teams about which marketing channels generate the most sales-qualified leads, actual sales, or longest client retention.

Sales and Marketing Techniques

How do sales and marketing teams achieve their goals? The tactics vary based on the industry and company culture. They have also changed over time.

These are some of the common sales and marketing techniques that form the core of each practice.

Sales Techniques

Limiting the opportunity. The idea of a “limited-time offer” is common in retail, but creating a sense of scarcity is a tactic used in many industries. A limited opportunity may be limited by time (e.g. an offer good for this month only) or availability (e.g. the last pickup on the lot).

Focusing on pain points. An effective salesperson can frame the benefits of a product or service regarding the needs of a client. This means understanding the day-to-day challenges a client faces and focusing on how a product can solve those issues. An emphasis on pain points can also help build a relationship by showing a salesperson’s interest in a customer’s problem.

Making the assumptive close. The assumptive close is a sales technique that changes a request for a “yes” into a “no.” For instance, rather than asking, “Do you want to try this service?”, a salesperson may instead ask, “When would you like us to schedule the installation?”

Marketing Techniques

Outbound marketing. Outbound marketing represents traditional “push” marketing. This includes television advertisements, direct mail flyers, and cold calling. Outbound marketing tactics often are effective at generating broad awareness among a demographic. However, some modern marketing strategies question the ability of outbound marketing to develop the persuasive, personal marketing messages that build lasting company–customer relationships.

Inbound marketing. Inbound marketing shifts marketing efforts from “push” to “pull.” The core idea behind inbound marketing is to draw potential customers in by creating marketing materials that help consumers. For example, an investment firm may offer a free webinar on retirement planning. Inbound marketing tends to focus first on providing a consumer with something valuable, rather than maintaining an inward focus on delivering a company message.

Technology can help sales and marketing teams:

1. Identify the most successful tactics.
2. Make it easier for teams to align best practices.

The analytics provided by a CRM can help identify each touchpoint throughout the marketing and sales process that is critical to a sale. That information, in turn, can provide a data-backed rationale for adjusting the techniques employed in each process.

Further, the modern CRM and supporting technologies may make it easier for sales and marketing teams to implement the techniques that work best. This could include automating the distribution of marketing materials or streamlining the handoff process between teams.

Technology such as computer telephony integration (CTI) can even help teams handle “unplanned” handoffs, like when a prospect calls a customer service line instead of their dedicated sales representative. CTI integration can help manage real-time access to customer data in a CRM and route calls efficiently to the most qualified representative.

How to Improve a Sales and Marketing Department

The effort to improve a sales and marketing department is ongoing. However, it begins with an understanding of the role of each service so that a business can establish clear and reasonable goals.

From there, the development of each department depends on the identification of the right tactics, which vary based on how a business prefers to interact with its customers.

Along the way, technology can help organize the process and make it more efficient. It can also play a role in improving information sharing between the two departments, which may help each reach their shared goals of more sales and a thriving business.

Hooray! You’ve recently launched several marketing campaigns that have done an excellent job generating leads. But, you can’t totally celebrate because these efforts haven’t turned into real business opportunities yet. Leads are coming through the door and you’re nurturing them with content, but they aren’t moving. You have a bottleneck. Something is stopping these leads from moving along in their journey to purchasing from you, but what is it? Before we explore the root of the problem, let’s do a quick review of the buyer’s journey.

The buyer’s journey is the hypothetical process a potential customer goes through to get to a point of sale. In the content marketing world, we use this hypothetical journey to build content and points of interaction that facilitate each stage of the journey, thus bringing the prospect closer and closer to buying. Below is a graph of the typical buyer’s journey:

If you’ve done all the work of mapping content to the buyer’s journey, created campaigns to fill it, and aren’t seeing leads turn into real opportunities, you likely have a bottleneck in this journey. The first step in identifying the bottleneck is to ask yourself this question:

Where in the journey are leads getting stuck or disengaging?

By asking this question, you can get a sense of where in the buyer’s journey you have a bottleneck. Understanding where this is happening will often reveal the problem. For example, if leads are entering the funnel early in the buyer’s journey but don’t take any further action after their first conversion, you may not have the right follow-up in place. Even worse, you may have technical issues like a broken download link that cause them to lose trust in you. On the other hand, you may discover that leads come to a halt after several weeks of email nurturing that seems to have great performance until the last couple of emails that pitch a demo. In this case, you might not have copy that effectively communicates your value proposition, among other issues. The point of these examples is to illustrate that you have to understand where and why bottlenecks are happening to resolve them. Beyond that, here are some of the most common bottlenecks in moving leads through the buyer’s journey and what you can do about them:

You Don’t Understand Your Buyer’s Journey

If you skip critical steps in the process of developing a buyer’s journey such as persona interviews, it will be nearly impossible to remove the bottleneck. You may be using the wrong content to attract buyers, but you may also be using the wrong content to push leads to the next stage in the buyer’s journey. If you do your homework, you will usually ace the test. Just keep that in mind.

The Buyer’s Not Ready

One of the most common bottlenecks or reasons leads get stuck in their journey is simply that they aren’t ready to move further along. You may have done an excellent job in content creation to get them to get them download it, but a download doesn’t mean the lead is ready to sign on the dotted line. The buyer’s journey and the content you develop for it will help to move that lead along, but there are times when that lead might not be ready to buy today, tomorrow, or possibly ever. There will always be leads who enter the funnel who aren’t ready to buy, don’t have the decision-making power to buy, or might have more pressing issues. The possibilities for leads not being ready are numerous, but that doesn’t mean it’s hopeless. You can do something about it.

First of all, you can simply ask a lead why they haven’t bought from you yet. Use a survey, a form, or just a quick email to determine why the lead isn’t ready. Doing this not only helps you to overcome objections, but it also reveals tools or content you can develop to remove bottlenecks.

Second, when leads aren’t ready to purchase because they don’t have a pressing need or project or the budget to purchase at the time they first interact with you, it’s okay. You should still stay on their radar until they are ready—focus less on pushing them to the decision stage of the buyer’s journey and more on engaging them until they want to or can buy from you. With the not-ready leads, you should be serving up insightful and interesting content that has nothing to do with your product. Follow the example of nurturing campaigns from companies like CoSchedule or Wordstream, which rarely send promotional email and focus mostly on informational reads, not like companies that send so much promotional email that the “engaging” content they do send is lost. If the lead isn’t ready to buy, keep their attention by providing value with the content you provide them so that they turn to you first when they are ready.

A Long Sales Cycle

Another common bottleneck in the buyer’s journey is a lengthy sales cycle. In most B2B sales, a long sales cycle can’t be avoided; however, a long sales cycle can be a problematic bottleneck if your content and nurturing campaigns have failed to account for it. As an example, let’s say your company has an average sales cycle of six months, but your email nurturing campaigns only last a month. It’s no doubt that leads will be stuck wherever you left them hanging. Your buyer’s journey, content, and nurturing campaigns to support it all should account for your sales cycle’s length. Even companies with extremely long sales cycles can successfully plan their buyer’s journey and nurturing to avoid bottlenecks. For example, the company Starshot found that 25 percent of their closed deals in a three-year period came from leads that had been nurtured for an average of 36 months, with most of those deals being among their biggest sources of revenue. When it comes to long sales cycles and nurturing those leads, you should take the advice of Dory and “just keep swimming.” To determine the best length of nurturing for your buying cycle, it takes ongoing testing, but as a good rule of thumb, nurturing campaigns should be at least as long as your average sales cycle. If you are new to digital or inbound marketing, your nurturing campaigns should be longer than your average sales cycle because an inbound sales cycle is likely longer because the leads are entering at the earlier stages of the buyer’s journey.

The Medium

Along the buyer’s journey, your leads will need various kinds of content to help them further understand their problem (or opportunity), evaluate options, and make a final decision. This means you have to create content in the format best suited for moving a lead through the buyer’s journey. If you create e-book after e-book but really your leads need something simple and easy to use like a calculator to compare costs, you are using the wrong medium and causing a bottleneck. You can avoid this problem by completely understanding your buyer personas and the problems, solutions, and tools they need to make a final decision.

Other than the format of your content that fills your buyer’s journey, you also need to use more than one medium to distribute that content and reach your buyers throughout their journey. It’s not enough to send them a sequence of emails and hope they respond. You also have to engage with them through other means such as social media, digital remarketing, or display campaigns, or at a conference.

Not only is it important to use multiple forms of distribution and content formats because your leads may have tuned you out on one channel, but it is also important because psychologically they will become more engaged when interacting with your company through multiple mediums. For example, video content engages the visual and auditory senses, thus enhancing the chance that they remember you.

Your Buyer Isn’t in the Journey

As mentioned earlier, there are times when the lead entering your system doesn’t have purchasing power. They seem to be entering the journey, but they aren’t raising their hand because it isn’t up to them to make a purchase decision. Does this mean you should abandon them? Absolutely not—because these people may one day be your advocates when Mr. Decision Maker calls upon his team for suggestions. Or, he or she may become the decision maker at that company someday. Nurture these leads but understand that there will inevitably be a bottleneck there.

Your Product or Service Is the Bottleneck

Even some of the world’s greatest aspirations end up failing because they can’t be validated by the buyer. Google Glass seemed like a great concept, but even this product ended up flopping. The reality is that 90 percent of startups fail and even well established companies can end up failing after decades of success. Although I’ve painted a pretty daunting picture, my point is that your product or service may not meet the needs of your leads. It’s also possible that it does, but you haven’t effectively gotten that point across to them. You might be neglecting to share important information like social proof that your product really does solve their needs. You might also be sending the lead conflicting messages about your product. Even worse, however, is if your product actually is terrible and people talk about it. Although you can remove a bottleneck because of poor reputation, it takes a ton of effort and cleanup to convince leads to move through the buyer’s journey. This bottleneck is easy to spot, however, because the company will usually be struggling to close revenue with other sales channels besides inbound leads

Identifying bottlenecks all starts with that simple question, “Where in the journey are leads getting stuck or disengaging?” With this information, you can remove the obstacles and get leads moving to the next stage of the buyer’s journey.

A CRM system is more than data storage. While 94% of sales leaders use their CRM for contact management, there are numerous other benefits to a CRM. Are you taking advantage of every function your CRM is capable of?

With the seven ideas below, learn how you can maximize the use of your CRM as a time-saving, team-building, motivational system.

1) Jumpstart your day with a virtual to-do list.

A CRM allows you to manage your time and streamline your day. Sales reps are busy people: Prospects to call, meetings to book, and deals to close. It’s impossible -- or, at the least, inconvenient -- to keep track of everything you need to do using a list or glancing at your calendar throughout the day.

Instead, set up your tasks in your CRM (here’s how to do it in the free HubSpot CRM). Gather up a list of tasks that you need to crank through, label them accordingly, and then jump from one to the next without wasting time or energy on to-do lists or guesswork.

2) Stay organized with virtual notes.

Ever use sticky notes or scrap paper to jot down ideas and reminders? Ditch them in favor of your CRM.

A CRM system is not just a place for customer information. Instead, you can use your CRM to assign tasks to yourself and store notes on contact, company, and deal records. This way, all of your to-dos and thoughts will live in one place.

Time is of the essence in the sales world. Nobody has time to dig around through piles of scrap paper before running to a meeting or to find the right sticky note when on a call with a buyer. Put everything in one place to help yourself develop an organization system and natural cadence to your day.

3) Find money you’re leaving on the table.

You certainly can (and should) use a CRM system that automatically populates lead, social, and web data to gain insight into the leads you’re currently working. However, take your communication efforts a step further by also using the system to identify prospects who might need more nurturing.

Using search queries or filters within your CRM, sort prospects and customers based on the last time they were contacted. This will give you an idea of who hasn’t heard from you in a while.

Then, do some research to determine who would welcome a friendly follow-up. Perhaps a prospect’s recent social media post on a trigger event catches your eye, or maybe a customer from a few years back is now restructuring their team and could use your services again. Use this knowledge to send a quick email and perhaps set up a time to reconnect.

Running a query like this consistently will make sure you are on top of your contact database, re-engaging with contacts regularly. A potential client that you’ve overlooked the past few months could be hiding in plain sight.

4) Learn from losses and spot trends.

Losing deals can be discouraging. However, you can use your CRM to learn from those losses and find ways to win in the future.

When moving a deal into the closed/loss stage, record the reason for the loss. Then, review all the touchpoints associated with the deal in your CRM. What did your communication with the stakeholders look like? In what ways did you fall short, and how could you have done better?

Ensuring that you record and analyze the reasons behind losses will not only help you hone your selling skills, but will also give you the opportunity to coordinate with other departments to prevent similar losses in the future. For example, maybe you’re losing a large number of deals to a certain competitor. Sales enablement content from Marketing on this player can arm you with the right responses to position your offering more effectively against theirs.

Additionally, pay close attention to the engagement and connect data in your CRM. Are a large percentage of your contacts failing to engage with your emails? That could be a sign that you’re not targeting the right people, or not in the right way. Also, take the time to listen to recorded calls in your CRM and reflect on the prospects’ interest levels during that initial connection. Were they truly eager to learn more … or were they dying to get off the phone? Use this information to tweak your approach.

5) Motivate with metrics.

A CRM system also plays a role in team motivation. Whether you are a sales rep yourself or managing a sales team, seeing evidence of hard work goes a long way to boost morale.

Take advantage of reporting capabilities your CRM offers in the way of measuring productivity. Keeping track of the number of calls, meetings booked, and other productivity metrics will help you or your team stay on track of the day-to-day tasks as well as reach measurable activity goals.

Pair those reports with key revenue metrics, such as open and closed deal information per rep, to spot any correlation between activity and results. When reps can see all the calls and meetings they’re booking and then glance at their closed and open deals, they get a boost of confidence and clearly see how their productivity is leading to revenue.

6) Strengthen team communication.

Rather than sending emails filled with client, deal, or other sales-related information back and forth to teammates, have your CRM do the talking for you. Your teammates most likely have an overflowing inbox; they don’t have time to read a block of text in an email detailing recent engagements with prospects -- even if it’s essential information.

Instead, send your coworkers or direct reports links to different areas of your CRM such as contact, company, and deal records. That way, they can quickly jump to the record that needs their attention and efficiently skim the stored notes and recent engagements. (Pro tip: if you’re using the HubSpot CRM, use an @mention to leave a note for a colleague on a CRM record; an email will be sent right to their inbox.)

7) Increase transparency with reports.

You spend time and energy putting meaningful information in your CRM, and it’s not always easy. Of the 6,000 respondents in HubSpot’s 2017 State of Inbound, 23% cited entering data as their biggest challenge when operating their CRM. Instead of searching for that information (or never looking at it), take full advantage of your CRM’s reporting features to translate your data into meaningful visuals the entire team can reference.

Create reports regarding closed deals, rep activity, funnel stage, and any other metric you would like to draw attention to. With easy-to-access reports, all team members are on the same page as far as where performance is excelling versus what areas need improvement.

Some custom reports you can create using data from your HubSpot CRM and HubSpot’s Reporting Add-on:

• Companies closed per month: Track the number of companies that became customers in a given month or over time.

• Productivity: Gather all your CRM engagements into one place where you can filter by rep and by date to get an idea of how much activity the team is performing, as well as how often they’re using the system.

• Deal funnel reports: A deal funnel report can give you an idea of how deals are moving through the stages of your pipeline -- and can help you identify sticking points.

Whether you are looking for your first CRM or are already using one for your day-to-day sales activities, with the seven tips above, you can transform your CRM from a simple database to a system where you can strengthen your sales team, grow your revenue, and build stronger client relations.

In what ways do you get the most out of your CRM system? Share your thoughts in the comments.

If you have been doing social media marketing long enough, you will notice that digital marketing evolves – and continues to do so. One thing that is notable is that there are B2B companies that are winning it, and there are those that aren’t.

Of the B2B companies that are winning it, these are the ones that have a well-documented strategy including social media (see objection #2). And having clear social media KPI metrics is part of that.

This article on measuring social media strategy has the following key sections:

1. My Road Trip Analogy
2. The Truth About Social Media Metrics
3. Why Measure Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
4. What is Your Social Media Goal
5. Social Media KPI Metrics, the KPIs
6. Matching Goal to social media KPIs
7. Where the Rubber Meets the Road: An Example (The How-To)
8. The Immeasurable Must-Haves

My Road Trip Analogy

I would compare gauging the success of your social media marketing plan to a road trip.

Who does not want to have a relaxing road trip as the goal?

Often when traveling, where we go is in correlation to how much money we have, and how much we are willing to spend. Also, time is a determinant of whether it is a stay-cation or a long haul overseas.

Then after the fact, we, try to gauge our overall satisfaction about the trip.

Now.

Can your measure how relaxed you are?

Of course not!

The Truth About Social Media Metrics

Your social media marketing strategy is much easier to measure than THAT (road trip satisfaction).

NOT everything is measurable in social media, but there are social media metrics that you can use to connect what you are doing to your business goal/s.

Thus, just because your business cannot measure EVERYTHING does not mean that you should just put measuring on the back burner.

Aside from the fact that it is easy to measure social media efforts, there are many tools nowadays that offer insights about your social media efforts. Some of these are free, and some are not.

Besides, it is really FUN tracking data.

Why measure your social media marketing strategy

It’s the benefits.

We like to do something with benefits, right?

Here are some benefits of measuring what you are doing in social media:

1. To translate data into useful information. When you measure your social media strategy and tactics, there is no use speculating about whether your desired audience is responding to your posts.
2. Social metrics can help refine your social media strategy. Every click, every share, every like and even the non-response of your fans tell a story – about your strategy.
3. To create predictive models for your company. Once you start benchmarking your social metrics, you will be able to spot trends and patterns that are critical to growing your business. It shows you which tactics are worth repeating and which one you should change, if not, put to rest.
4. It provides insights about the best contents to create. This is important for content marketers, not necessarily the curators, but the creators, in particular.
5. The metrics can help you decide how best to use each platform. With social metrics in hand, you will soon realize that your audience in one platform consumes your owned media differently. As an example, that means that your tactics for Facebook may have to be different from Instagram.
6. Helps you understand consumer behavior. Measuring what you are doing gives you insight to what is relevant to your audience, what they like to talk about, where they are from and what they use when consuming your media, and more!
7. Saves YOU time and money. For businesses strapped for time and money (who doesn’t?), you wouldn’t want to waste valuable resources on efforts that do not add value to your business goal, right?

To be able to be effective at what you are measuring, it is essential that you have your social media goal figured out FIRST.

So…..

What is Your Social Media Goal

A social media goal answers this question: ” Why are you using social media?”

I see businesses get bogged down by figuring out what social media platform to use. Remember social media is just a tool. The pot does not decide what you are cooking; know what you are going to cook first. The tool shows up in the latter part of your decision-making process, not in the beginning.

Here are ten ways that businesses (we know) use social media:

1. Increase brand awareness
2. Initiate conversation with your customers
3. Generate interactions using owned or shared media
4. Enhance customer support
5. Assemble a group of loyal advocates
6. Spur product development
7. Grow website referral traffic to key web pages
8. Get more potential leads
9. Hire employees
10. Research/Survey

Do you have the goal figured out? Great!

Write it down and remind yourself and your team about it – OFTEN.

Why? So we remember not to chase the unicorn.

Determining what outcome you want from social media can help the next step which is determining the social media KPI metrics you may need to measure.

Social Media Metrics, the KPIs

For small businesses, identifying a KPI is a simple process.

For big companies though, this can be a complicated process, sales people have different KPIs; so does marketing, or customer service, and your CEO who holds the checkbook.

What is essential here is that you have metrics that you all agree that you will use as the yardstick to measure your success in social media.

I am telling you now there is a plethora of metrics that you can track.

Wait…KPI, whhhhhattt?

What is a KPI? It stands for key performance indicator. It is as plain as that. It is a metric that is, ideally, pre-determined by you and your team that will help all of you decide later if your social media efforts contribute to accomplishing your business goal.

Some call it the success metric. I like calling it “your happy metric.”

Matching your Business Goal to Your Social Media Marketing KPI

It is not that difficult to identify KPIs for each goal, IMHO. The challenging part is determining which ones your team would be happy to use as your KPI because there are way too many metrics.

Why not measure MORE social media KPI metrics?

Often the more the KPIs, the more social media tactics [read: work] you may need to do!

Soooooo, got MORE time – and MORE money? Go for it.

Note, by the way, that some of these social media KPIs in each goal/category below could overlap, so it is essential that you have this defined and written soo you and and your team are all on the same page.

Here are the examples:

Goal: Improve Brand Awareness
Potential KPIs

• Fans/Followers
• Site Visits through Social Media
• Shares/Reshares
• Mentions
• Inbound Links/Trackbacks
• User Generated Contents
• Likes
• Link Clicks
• Hides
• Ratings
• Check-ins
• Brand Sentiment
• Influencer Score
• …and more

Goal: Increase Engagement
Potential KPIs

• Comments
• Likes
• Shares (Repins, Regrams, Retweets)
• Engagement Rate
• Contest Entries
• Bounce Rate
• Time Spent on Site
• Replies
• Video Views
• Referral Traffic
• …and more

Goal: Increase Leads
Potential KPIs

• Downloads
• Registrations
• Email Sign-ups
• Website Conversions
• Inquiries
• Trackbacks
• Cost per Acquisition
• Blog Subscribers
• Group Membership
• …and more

Goal: Customer Service and Satisfaction
Potential KPIs

• Drop in customer service cost
• Inquiries
• Customer Service Response Time
• Traffic to relevant FAQ sites
• Customer Reviews
• …and more

Goal: PR
Potential KPIs

• Mentions
• Retweets
• …and more

Goal: Grow Sales
Potential KPIs

• Website Conversions
• Tickets Purchased
• Event Attendance
• Product Purchase
• Number of Redeemed Coupons
• …and more

The key? Identify the ones that are critical to your organization’s mission.

Say you have already identified your goal and your metrics, what’s next?

When the business goal and KPIs are clear, that will help you understand why you post the way you do, why you need to engage with this or that company, and why “post YYZ is better than posting ABC.” Those are tactics.

A social-media-KPIs-metrics-printable version is available in PDF if you want a copy. (No email-gate, promise!).

Your KPIs contribute in determining the tactics to implement and assess, and also the tools you need.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road: The How-To Example

Your social media tactics evolve out of your goals, not the channels. It starts at the heart of your business. It starts BEFORE you jump in the social media stream and join the conversation.

Here’s a basic example of how to identify and measure your social media efforts:

Goal: Grow Ticket Sales

Potential KPIs:

• Check which media is bringing traffic to your site
• Check if there’s a spike in the number of NEW visitors
• Check purchases web conversions
• Check how long people visited the site
• Check bounce rate

Tactics: What you will do to sell tickets

• Ad campaigns – how many would you test?
• Claimed coupon codes
• Email blasts (how many)
• Social media posts – timing, media type and how many
• Monitor ad cost
• Blog about the campaign
• Hashtag to use, if necessary
• …..Add as many tactics that you want to do

Tools: Free Social Media Metrics Tools

• Twitter Analytics
• Pinterest Analytics
• Facebook Pixel and Insights
• Google Analytics
• Spreadsheet, or record-tool of your choice

Gather and interpret data into information that makes sense to everyone in your company.Click To Tweet

Evaluate what you are/were doing.

Adjust/refine tactics. Not. The. Goal!

Repeat.

The Immeasurable Must-Haves When Analyzing Social Media Data

1. Patience. It can take time gathering data. You also need time to spot and determine trends that are specific to your business. You need patience for that. You cannot rush success.
2. Fortitude. I know you will need this. I have been doing social media for almost a decade, and I am aware that some [of your] social media tactics will work and some will fail. Yes, some WILL FAIL.
3. A goal with a strategy that is inclusive of a measurable path to save you time and money. The goal is the “True North” for your marketing strategy – blogging, speaking networking, podcasting, content creation and everything you are doing to “market” your product or service. Your marketing, no matter the form, points back to it.

The Social Media Success, and Failure

Social media platform is just ANOTHER tool. Just like the phone, the computer, the chair, and other tools around you. And yeah, also, just like THAT pot of plant in the office that can help with productivity (I read THAT elsewhere).

If (insert a social media platform here) does not work, it is not that social platform’s fault.

The onus to figure out if you are winning or losing social media with your efforts is on you, the social media strategist. Social media works!

Conclusion

Simply collecting data without applying common sense information, and without taking action are efforts in futility. Harness the social media metrics that you track for your growth and success.

You’ve done it. You’ve finally got a marketing program that works! Your phone is ringing, your inbox is full, and maybe you’re even seeing more new faces in your store. But while traffic is up, business isn’t booming like you’d expect it to be. What gives?

Like the old adage, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Your marketing can bring you leads, but it typically can’t close business by itself. Once leads contact you and express interest, it’s up to you.

Whether you’ve got a lead response strategy in place or not, it’s always a good idea to take a second look at how you and your team handle incoming leads and make sure you’ve got game. Here are some tips and tricks you can start using today.

Strike While the Iron is HOT

You probably didn’t hear it here first. But lead response time should be fast. How fast? Lightning fast. One study concluded that the best time to respond to a lead is within five minutes of the first contact. If you don’t follow up within that five-minute window, you may miss out on closing that lead.

There are two primary reasons for this:

1. They could already be seeking out your competitors. People expect to find information when they are looking for it, not after. Remember, if you don’t answer the phone when they call, finding your competition is as easy as scrolling to the next business listing in their search engine results.
2. When someone contacts you, they’re likely ready to buy or gosh-darn-close. Your best chance of closing that prospect is at the moment when they have already decided to call you, are ready to talk, and have their questions fresh in mind. If you miss that moment, they could have moved on to their next task, forgotten their questions, or even be less ready to make a decision.

How can you speed up your lead response time?

• One-man-store? Have calls and voicemails forwarded to your mobile.
• Are you staffed? If you find that a lot of phone calls are being missed because there aren’t enough hands on deck, consider hiring someone to man the phones. Or, consider adding live chat to your website so you have a way to collect information and provide helpful answers to questions that come in through chat.
• Do you have a lot of email inquiries? Create a unique email address for all of these queries and make sure this inbox is checked several times an hour by you or your team. Or, automate the process with lead management software.

Follow Up (More Than Once)

You’ve made a call – maybe you talked to the lead, maybe you didn’t. You sent an email – they responded or maybe they didn’t. What is your next step? Your sales process should include a clearly defined follow up loop. Follow up diligently and often. Even if you don’t reach them the first try, by the sixth attempt there is an average 90% chance of making contact.

Understand your sales cycle – how long does it take for someone to make a purchase in your industry? 30 minutes? One week? 30 days? Until that time is up they are still “warm” leads and are further along your sales funnel than any non-leads. So, it is well worth an investment of your time to check back in until they tell you they are not interested. Here is a good place to start:

Here is a good place to start:

1. If they didn’t answer when you called back, try again before the end of the day.
2. Be sure to contact them the following day.
3. Then give them some space, but don’t let a full week go by before reaching out again. They may not be “in the moment” right now, but if they haven’t made a purchase decision yet you can bet they will be very soon.
4. After this point, weekly or even bi-weekly should be sufficient enough. The more personal the follow-up, the more memorable it will be.

Some of this follow up you can automate with email messages. But it is also important to reach out by phone if that is the prospect’s preferred method of contact.

Nurture Your Leads

The path to purchase is well established. For consumers it begins with identifying a need, doing research, evaluating alternatives, and then making a decision. With the internet at their fingertips, the research and evaluation phases have dramatically shortened the amount of time it requires to do this research while also providing them with more and more options. During this window, there are opportunities for you to engage with them after initial contact. If you are not nurturing your leads, they will likely pick your competition.

So how can you nurture leads?

• Make sure they are aware of any sales or special events. Use this as an excuse to call them as you are following up!
• Give them the opportunity to opt-in to email marketing.
• Use retargeting to bring prospects back after they’ve visited your page.

This is Just the Beginning

Once you’ve considered and even tried some or all of these tactics, remember the job is not done! Every business and every sales cycle is unique and different, and consumer trends and behaviors are constantly changing. It takes some elbow grease and a willingness to try new things to figure out what works or what could work better. Make it a point to revisit your lead management process quarterly, and make sure you have the tools to measure the changes you’ve made.

Marketing is an ever changing paradigm of content promotion for the purpose of brand awareness and product sales. Far before the internet was around, print media advertisers were setting the foundation of what would later become a billion dollar industry with the rise of telecommunications and later the online marketplace.

However, today we are seeing a shift towards inbound marketing. It could be argued that social media marketers are setting the foundations for the new-age advertising that is to come in the next few decades.

While some are scared that we would be blasted with advertisements everywhere we look and others are worried about the implications of VR (virtual reality) and AR (augmented reality) marketing, we tend to be hopeful.

In fact, just by looking at the Twitterverse, you will be able to note the first steps we take as a community towards humane advertising and brands humanizing marketing. And it’s no wonder that Twitter is a great example for this.

People visit Facebook to check on their relatives and friends. They visit Instagram to check out cool photos and videos. But they visit Twitter to primarily engage with the latest news, trends and entertainment.

Yes, YouTube is regarded as the new media platform, but the Twitterverse is the place people visit to directly engage with what’s happening in the world around them. And with the U.S. President using the platform constantly, things tend to be looking up for Twitter.

With that in mind, and with so many brands misappropriating what the platform is all about, we decided to spend some time and gather some interesting insights on the best social media marketing strategies that brands could use to step up their Twitter game.

How to Tweet

Tweeting is as easy as writing a few lines of text and clicking a button. Yet, most brands tend to misuse the platform all the time.

Striving to achieve the highest followers numbers, some brands disregard engagement rates due to the notion that not every tweet is successful. And this is true. Even some of the best brands on Twitter have low levels of engagement on most of their posts.

Nevertheless, this notion often leads brands to completely disregard the notion of humanizing content and the core purpose behind Twitter as a platform.

Lead a Community, Build a Following

When pushing their marketing campaigns on Twitter, some brands tend to think that it is all about the numbers and the brand awareness. Yet, the best proven strategy for tweeting is to instead focus on building a following first.

Yes, the ultimate goal is promotion, but don’t push only promotional Tweets. Take Diageo News PLC., for example. Having a pretty strong social media marketing campaign, they primarily use Twitter to promote their product or other promotional material, instead of trying to build a following. With over 32K followers, they rarely receive more than 10 retweets. In fact, their engagement is extremely low.

What could the brand do?

Instead, Diageo could focus on what their audience likes. Delivering content that entices the audience and further leading a community and building a following around the product is the right step forward.

Everything should be tested as the numbers will ultimately show the results. The company could focus on gaining an audience through the promotion of content that beer lovers would engage with. We believe that is the right step forward.

Create Specific Content Designed to be Used on Twitter

Some Social Media Marketers do the mistake of utilizing the same content strategy across all different social platforms. While this might often save time and effort, it is not always the best choice.

In the Twitterverse, for example, short humoristic posts and pictures, as well as roasting humor might help humanize a brand. At the same time, a roast on Facebook might do the exact opposite to the point that it damages the brand.

Make sure that you are aware of what type of content your audience is after, but don’t forget the platform you are on. Take Simon for example. A clothing destination with a brand based on fashion, beauty and lifestyle, you’d think that they’d have it pretty easy on Twitter.

After all, the beauty industry is perfect for all types of social media. Yet, Simon posts photos as if Twitter was Instagram. Instead of choosing a variety of posts based on what the platform is all about, they only post promotional photos of models, photography sessions and their clothing collection.

What could the brand do to improve?

For starters, they should try to spread out their photography posts and include a better variety of tweets. Another great thing would be to focus on better interaction with their audience.

Acknowledge the hotness of the summer and the beauty of the upcoming autumn with more than a photo of your newest clothing collection. Instead, try to show your human side. What are your staff up to? How are you doing today? Any comments on favorite day of the week?

These might sound silly at first, but consider what makes you and your audience human and cash in on that instead of constantly promoting your collection with the same type of posts.

Stop with the Constant ‘Re-Tweets’ and Focus on Original Content

One huge mistake some brands do in their attempt to quickly gain Twitter followers without having to push with a stronger social media campaign is to retweet. While retweeting relevant content is not a mistake, when it becomes your primary way to push your brand on Twitter, it is.

Having more retweets than original tweets not only serves to dehumanize your brand, but it also damages your growth rate. Take Dixons Carphone PLC. for example. For the past couple of years their strategy on Twitter has been to retweet and so far they only have around 6,5K followers. While this is not necessarily a bad number, their growth rate is abysmal and their engagement rate is simply non-existent.

What could the brand do?

Sending a few original tweets per day and lowering the percentage of retweets so that original tweets are the primary tweeting source is the best way to go forward.

Of course, there is a lot they can do to improve their overall social media strategy, but starting from there should be the right step forward.

Use Brand Humanizing Elements to your Advantage

Speaking of humanizing a brand, this is exactly what you should try to achieve with your Twitter posts. Social media is at the forefront of inbound marketing and people are known to respond better to companies that utilize such strategies to their advantage.

There is a vast number of ways you can humanize your brand on Twitter. Some are based on what industry you are in, others are common inbound marketing tactics, while third are down to sheer logic.

For example, you can humanize your brand by placing the attention towards your employees. Another way would be to humorously or not acknowledge the struggles people experience in your industry. Learning from your audience and interacting with them on a human level is also a step in the right direction.

But this is not what most brands do. Especially corporations. Take the London Stock Exchange Group PLC, for example. Granted, it’s pretty rough to humanize a brand in the financial sector, but they could nonetheless try to present better content based on what their audience is after.

What’s more, they could further interact with their audience. Overlooking the fact that the brand also has some retweeting issues, the LSE Group primarily use Twitter to share the latest developments and news related to their own brand.

What could the brand do?

To humanize their Tweets, the LSE Group could try to fit in some more diverse content that shows that even though they are financial experts they are human too. We understand quite well that they are proud of their 1000 companies to inspire Britain from their millions of posts and retweets of ‘thank you’ tweets.

But, what if instead of the dozens of similar Tweets, they posted a simple one stating ‘don’t thank us for featuring you, we thank you for inspiring Britain,’ it certainly sounds quite more human to us.

Using Twitter Statistics to Your Advantage

Quantity and quality of your tweets can have a vast impact on your overall social media strategy.

You should make sure to plan out your content, review the results and improve to achieve the ultimate results.

Here at Locowise, we can help you out not only by giving you tips and advice on your social media marketing strategy for Twitter, but also by providing you with the latest statistics.

We’re giving you an extremely detailed overview of each one of your posts, with report and audit building options, alongside analysis on the perfect time to Tweet, which type of posts perform the best, how to boost your engagement and more.

We also give you insights on your competitors. We also have stats on other networks. Learn more on what Locowise is all about here and make sure to give it a try by signing up for our 7 day free trial.

A few years ago, we were in a meeting with a consumer goods company talking about the way Trader Joe’s laid out its product displays. The conversation quickly turned into an assault on how inefficient the design was and how it was violating a number of product display rules that the rest of the industry had learned years ago. For example, the open freezers—while inviting—allowed cold air to escape. And shelves above those open freezers tended to offer nonfrozen goods from completely different product categories. But while the freezer design may have been inefficient and costly, and the organization scheme may have been atypical, the increasing popularity of Trader Joe’s (along with its private label products) was undeniably cutting into the company’s sales at an alarming rate. And there was nothing to suggest that the trend would change anytime soon.

Companies that fail to challenge the established views of what their industries sell and how they operate miss valuable opportunities and leave themselves vulnerable to potential disruptors. Look at the interior design industry, which has long catered to wealthy clients and priced itself too high for the average new homeowner. Interior designers fight tooth and nail for those clients. And then there’s Décor Aid, a New York–based start-up we’ve worked with that focuses on bringing interior design services to customers who have, until now, been completely ignored by the industry. Décor Aid has used Jobs to be Done principles to understand what jobs people are trying to get done when they move into a new home, apartment, or office, regardless of whether those customers currently consume design services or could reasonably afford what’s being offered today. By establishing partnerships with dealers of attractive modern furniture and creating proprietary technology that simplifies and strips cost out of the design process, Décor Aid has been able to undercut the prices of traditional interior design firms, quickly capturing market share from incumbents and attracting customers who used to rely on DIY alternatives. In addition to the traditional design markets of attending to an entire home, the company also targets jobs that were previously unaddressed by the industry, such as refreshing a room or preparing a home for a major event.

Focusing too narrowly on traditional competitors also leads companies to become complacent. They focus narrowly on innovations that sustain the business on its current path, further increasing the likelihood that they’ll miss new potential. A few years back, Kraft noticed that it had fallen victim to this kind of complacency. In 2011, the company decided to turn things around with the launch of MiO, a water flavor enhancer that enabled consumers to create their own personal types of water. This was followed by MiO Energy and MiO Fit in the next two years. Prior to launching MiO, Kraft hadn’t created a new category since DiGiorno frozen pizza (now owned by Nestlé) in 1995. Its last new beverage brand was Crystal Light (launched in 1988).3 Kraft was rewarded for its efforts to stave off stagnation: MiO reached $100 million in sales in its first year.

An Alternate View Of Competition

Looking through a Jobs-based lens provides a different view. Competitors can be any offerings that satisfy the same jobs. Importantly, this means that in different contexts, the field of competitors changes.

To see what we mean, let’s think about footwear. What is the competition for a pair of Nike sneakers? If the job is defined as providing comfortable foot support for runners, the competition may well be sneakers from New Balance or Brooks. But what about the people who are trying to accomplish emotional jobs when they buy a pair of sneakers? If the job is expressing individualism, for example, the competition could be a bumper sticker or a radical change in hairstyle. If the job is projecting status, the competition could be a watch. Nike recognizes that its core customers have more jobs than just those of comfort and support in footwear. Nike also recognizes that every time a customer satisfies one of those emotional jobs by visiting the hair salon or buying an expensive watch that customer has less incentive (and less extra cash) to buy a new pair of sneakers. That is why Nike has moved beyond traditional tactics—such as associating athletes with its products—to find new ways to satisfy emotional jobs for customers. NIKEiD, for example, allows customers to design custom shoes by choosing the style, materials, and colors of the shoes. The tagline for the new venture? “Express your identity.”

Businesses that take a broad view of competition not only differentiate their products within the market but also broaden the overall market by bringing in spending that traditionally belonged to other industries.

Competing Against Nonconsumption

Closely related to the topic of competition is the idea of nonconsumption. As consultants, we often hear of organizations that claim to be the first or only ones doing something. Our first reaction is skepticism. Many of these organizations fall into one of three groups.

The first group is the business that defines what it is doing so narrowly that it creates the superficial appearance of nonconsumption. This type of business does not lack competitors; it has simply put on blinders. A business that operates only on Tuesdays and sells only children’s DVDs may be able to claim that it is the only business of its kind, but it still competes with movie retailers, toy stores, playgrounds, and other businesses that satisfy jobs related to entertaining children. Look at the experience of Digital Equipment Corporation, a business that dominated the disappearing industry of minicomputers in the 1990s. As recently as the mid-nineties, it was defining its market segments in terms such as “workstations that cost $6,000–$10,000,” even while customers were shifting in droves to the cheaper and more flexible PCs. The company was bought by a PC maker.

The second group is the business that is doing something truly unique in its market but does not recognize that the concept has already been tried elsewhere. This group reminds us of the importance of learning by analogy. We can gain valuable insights by looking at how other organizations have solved product design challenges or satisfied similar jobs in other markets.

For example, micro apartments are becoming a popular way to increase affordable urban housing in the United States, especially as people stay single longer, but the concept is hardly considered new in high-population-density locations throughout China and Japan. Companies that are launching new offerings in their markets can often reduce their risks by looking first to similar concepts in other markets.

The third group consists of those with actually new ideas, often as the result of a new or emerging technology. Areas of true nonconsumption can present attractive opportunities for growth, but they can also pose significant risks. Organizations exploring truly new ideas need to identify the reasons for nonconsumption and measure their ability to overcome those factors. When Microsoft launched its WebTV (later MSN TV) in the late 1990s to provide Internet access on televisions, it was by no means pursuing a bad idea. Today’s most successful companies have come out with products that are variations on that same theme: Apple TV; Google Chromecast; Amazon Fire TV; smart TVs by electronics leaders such as Samsung, Panasonic, and LG. But it failed for a number of jobs-related reasons, including the fact that it could satisfy no jobs particularly well. Large high-definition TVs weren’t around in the late 1990s, and the average tube TV did little to improve the browsing experience. At the same time, dial-up Internet was still the norm, so the experience was painfully slow and unreliable. Today, companies are succeeding in this arena because there is sufficient infrastructure (including bigger TVs, faster Internet, and more Internet content) to satisfy the entertainment and information-seeking jobs that consumers have. Even great ideas may be dependent on underlying infrastructure, behaviors, and other preconditions that need to change prior to mainstream uptake.

Stacking Up Against Competitors

Don’t get us wrong. While we see far too many organizations ignoring asymmetric competitors and other threats, we are not suggesting that you ignore your traditional competitors as well! Too much of writing about strategy and innovation focuses on responding to the usual suspects, but it would be foolish not to pay them close attention. One reason we leave competition to the final part of the Jobs Atlas is so that your examination of rivals will be well informed by the other aspects of the Atlas. You’ll be able to assess the full-range competitors, including ones that you wouldn’t have prioritized had you begun your work with a typical competitive analysis.

There are three principal factors to consider in your competitive assessment:

First, what are your relative advantages in delivering against key jobs and success criteria? Procter & Gamble likes to call this the Right to Win. Do you have advantages in proprietary technology, complementary offerings, brand perceptions, customer access, distribution and alliances, or cost structure? If rivals have some advantages, how will you render them moot?

Next, what is your relative flexibility to adjust plans? Plenty of large incumbents have been upended by new market entrants (not just start-ups) because the behemoths have been unable to adjust course quickly enough. In our experience, far too many entrants worry about an industry Goliath knocking them off quickly. Outside some fields where that’s the modus operandi, such as fashion, the incumbents generally will take a while to notice something different and take longer to do something about it—and even longer to do that something well. This creates an advantage in fast-moving fields, although not everywhere. Some markets will take a much longer time to gestate, so your flexibility isn’t as vital.

Finally, what will be rivals’ impact on marketplace perceptions? Competitors may be slow to respond effectively, but they can still cause problems. They can price their subpar offerings at rock-bottom levels to force your pricing down as well. Equally, they can resort to the time-honored strategy of sowing FUD—fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Innovations struggle when customers perceive risks in adopting a new solution, even if those risks are unfounded. Industry Goliaths can be quite effective in spreading FUD throughout the marketplace. It’s frustrating, and it slows innovation, but it works. Figure out how you will respond.

Marketing Beyond Your Core Competition

Darren Coleman, a UK-based expert in brand marketing, recently shared a number of stories about organizations—from banks to real estate sellers to consumer goods companies—that have used Jobs-based strategies to differentiate and grow their brands. His experience spans Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. One example that stuck out was a prestigious racquets and lifestyle club in the United Kingdom. After engaging in some qualitative research with existing members, the club came to an interesting realization. Upon asking these members what jobs they were trying to get done in their first weeks and months, the club noticed that the answer of “play tennis or squash” was actually showing up much lower on the list than expected.

On one end of the spectrum, members talked about jobs related to staying fit and healthy or enhancing their overall well-being. On the other end of the spectrum, however, a surprising number of members talked about how they joined the club as a way of meeting people. Some were looking for business-oriented networking opportunities. Others were simply looking to meet new friends. Armed with this new knowledge, the club focused on delivering experiences that were specifically designed to satisfy those jobs.

It used its newly created Jobs-oriented experiences to focus its customer segmentation efforts, attract new members, and upsell on its memberships. Furthermore, these efforts helped the club attract premium-brand partners that wanted to expose their brands to the club’s high-net-worth membership base. Collectively, these efforts were able to boost the club’s financial performance.

Looking at what the industry is selling—or at how things have always been done—may offer some helpful insights, but it’s not the key ingredient for innovation. Organizations need to recognize that they are not simply selling products or services; they are selling ways to get jobs done. Taking a Jobs-based point of view and truly understanding what your customers are trying to get done in their lives increases the number of ways in which you can satisfy your customers, and it lets you do so in ways that set you apart from the competition.

Keep These Points In Mind:

• Taking a traditional view of competition—looking simply at what your direct competitors are doing—can limit your long-term prospects. It’s important to challenge established views of what an industry sells or how it operates.
• Adopting a Jobs-based lens can create a broader view of competition, illuminating more avenues for growth and sharpening your view of where potential disruptors might appear. This approach can also help ensure that your brand staves off complacency and remains fresh as the world evolves.
• Areas of nonconsumption—those areas in which your competitors are not already playing—can offer substantial potential but not without some degree of risk. Thoughtful planning can help you understand what those risks might look like before you overinvest.
• While a broader industry view is essential, that’s not an excuse to ignore traditional competitors. Your Jobs-based insights should prove valuable as you evaluate how your own advantages can set you apart and develop plans for remaining flexible as your industry changes.
• Remember that even though industry incumbents may be slow to change, they’re still an important force with the ability to impact your expectations related to product quality, price, and functionality.

More of this approach is featured in my new book JOBS TO BE DONE: A Roadmap for Customer-Centered Innovation.

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