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04 Feb 00:35

7 time-saving hacks that will free up hours in your schedule

by Rob Ludacer and Chris Weller

Does it feel like there's never enough hours in the day? Everyone's looking for ways to find free time in their lives for a little R&R. Here are 7 tips to help you get there.

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04 Feb 00:35

3 Website Hacks to Radically Improve Your Conversion Rates 

by Rohan Ayyar

3 Website Hacks to Radically Improve Your Conversion Rates

Is your website getting good traffic but not converting the way you want? Effectively guiding visitors down the conversion funnel is no easy task and there is no magic formula to success.

Ecommerce is a trillion-dollar industry. In the United States alone, online sales are expected to reach $523 billion by 2020.

This could mean a number of things for consumers. For ecommerce business owners, it means that optimizing their online platform needs to be a top priority, if it isn’t already. The problem, however, is that competition is tougher than ever.

There is no shortage of online shopping outlets and consumers have no problem bouncing from platform to platform to find the best options. With an infinite number of choices literally at their fingertips, it is essential to go above and beyond to meet the wants and needs of visitors in as many ways as possible.

Let me start by saying that in most cases, a website just needs a few small tweaks to boost conversion rates, as opposed to a full revamp. Regardless of what adjustments need to be made, it is always wise to look before you leap. Planned and methodical A/B testing helps you see which tactics and strategies lead to good results and which ones should be set aside or improved upon. Optimizing your website should be a constant work in progress.

Without further ado, let’s take a look at three website hacks you can use to completely alter your ecommerce platform and bring conversion rates up.

1. Showcase relatable content

When a website displays stellar content, everyone wins. Generally speaking, marketing fluff – website copy or blog posts full of jargon, buzzwords and rehashed advice – doesn’t work nearly as well as it did a few years ago.

Consumers like viewing brand material that captivates them on a level they can relate to. Therefore, a good content strategy should be on every ecommerce business owner’s radar. An Aberdeen Group report titled “Crossing the Chaos” revealed that companies that prioritized content marketing increased their website conversion rates by more than 5 times.

There are many approaches to take at the drawing board with your content strategy. However, the bottom line in all your efforts should be to produce material that tells a story and provides a strong degree of value to the reader.

Looking to the future, marketing to millennials is going to be a very important task. This generation’s spending power is expected to exceed $200 billion in 2017. When it comes to buying patterns, user-generate content (UGC) has proven to be extremely effective. In fact, a joint study conducted by Ipsos, Crowdtap and the Social Media Advertising Consortium found that UGC is 20% more influential than any other type of media when influencing purchases among this age group.

One of the best types of UGC to showcase on your website are reviews. Showcasing reviews and previous customer experiences have the power to give your brand credibility from a third party – this is what comes closest to magic that increases sales.

Here is an example from Keurig’s website:

Showcase Relatable Content for improve your conversion rate

Showcase Relatable Content for improve your conversion rate 2

Keurig decided to implement customer reviews as a central theme of their website. They ran contests and sent newsletters to incentivize and encourage customers to review their products and leave comments. The results were huge. Keurig saw a 125% increase in conversion rates from visitors who interacted with these testimonials.

Compelling UGC need by no means be restricted to just reviews. Boosting conversion rates all start with the ability to keep visitors on your site. And the best content ideas don’t start with doing; they start with listening. A great strategy is to monitor social media to get an impression of your target audience and their opinions, questions, and concerns. Tools like Mention and Brandwatch are awesome for keeping tabs on what others are saying about you, your competitors, or your industry in general.

With such insights, you will get a good sense of what type of audiences, personas and segments you need to create and display content for.

GoPro is one of the best examples of how to showcase stellar content. The “Watch” channel on their website is a platform in which the customers themselves can share their life’s most memorable experiences, captured on – what else – a GoPro camera.

Go Pro for improve your conversion rate

The reason GoPro is so effective with their content is because it delves deeper into the concept of owning a video camera. This being that people don’t buy cameras just to capture the highlights of their lives, they buy them to share these experiences.

When a visitor goes on the GoPro website, they are exposed to a countless number of breathtaking customer experiences and are encouraged to create their own.

This genius form of content marketing provides so much more than just a customer experience. GoPro provides a vehicle for customers to create their own experiences with the product, and a community to share it.

For perspective, there are over 6,000 GoPro tagged videos uploaded to YouTube every day.

Of course, content creation is far from a one-size-fits-all entity. Each industry has its own audiences with their own concerns and desires. The best way to stick to a successful content strategy is to produce two-way material that aims to educate, promote, and tell a powerful story that gives the viewer a clear-defined takeaway. Don’t be afraid to get creative and experiment. You never know when you might strike gold.

2. Speed up your site

The average human attention span is at an all-time low: it currently stands at about 8 seconds.

With this in mind, everything on a web property – be it a website or an app – needs to run smoothly, and more importantly, fast. When Google returns its search rankings, website speed is a huge factor, so you need to do absolutely everything you can to stay in the reckoning.

Additionally, if you happen to sell something online, potential buyers will turn away in droves if your website is slow.

Speed Up Your Site for improve your conversion rate

Image Source

A fast website is the key to keeping visitors around to guide them down the conversion funnel. Get this:

Speed Up Your Site for improve your conversion rate2

Image Source

There are many factors that contribute to slow loading times. If you’ve tried all the small adjustments such as compressing code and images, shortening forms, or getting rid of unnecessary plugins, chances are, your web host is the problem.

When a user interacts with your website, there is a request to connect to the server in which the platform is hosted. The truth of the matter is that not all hosting services are created equal.

If your site is slow due to your host, more than likely, all the other aspects of that platform such as storage and tech support are subpar as well. If this is your situation, don’t waste time on fighting your provider – there are innumerable alternative options. Just be sure that you use a compatible hosting provider based on your CMS or scripting framework. For instance, if you used WordPress to build your website, start by looking into the fastest WordPress hosting services.

A good user experience (UX) is the foundation of any online ecommerce store, media publication, or forum. A fast website leads to good UX, and a good UX leads to more and quicker conversions.

3. Make your CTA buttons work harder

Whether you’re an online retailer, SaaS tool vendor or individual professional service provider, your call to action is the most important element of your landing page. Regardless of where the user is coming from and what information they are presented with, in the end, their focus needs to be on the CTA button. It should be so obviously placed that the user can identify it with a single glance.

Believe it or not, there a lot of psychological factors that go into a CTA button. In fact, CTA buttons are the most split-tested aspect of an ecommerce website. They make up around 30% of all tests.

Color is perhaps one of the most important factors that results in clicks. While there is no set-in-stone rule to coloring your CTA buttons, it should stick out prominently in contrast to the background layout. Preferably, it is a color that is not used anywhere on the rest of the page.

In this experiment conducted by Dmix, red and green CTA buttons were tested. The results saw that the red button received an increased conversion rate of 34%, in contrast to popular perception that “green” equates to “go.”

Make Your CTA Buttons Work Harder for improve your conversion rate

The text on a CTA also has a big impact on garnering conversions. Most importantly, the text needs to answer the key question of “Why should the user click this?”

Look at the button as a standalone object without the context of the rest of the site. Does it still make sense? It needs to be sharp and simple with a clearly communicated outcome.

“Read My Secrets For Free” instead of “Download”

“Start Your Job Search” instead of “Register”

“Save $200 On Retail Price” instead of “Buy”

Here is an example from iMPACT. This was their original CTA:

impact for improve your conversion rate

This was their new one:

impact for improve your conversion rate3

By changing the copy from “Free Download” to a more personal approach, their website’s conversion rate saw a 78.5% increase. Adding a personal touch can do wonders.

Placement plays a huge factor as well. In addition to being obvious at first glance, trying different spots on your page is definitely something that should be thoroughly tested. Try every place, including the header, sidebars, center, and below the fold.

Ecommerce, social networks, media, and content consumption are all changing. And so are users and customers. Testing and optimizing your CTA buttons will likely be a never-ending project.

Over to you

As a business owner with a website, increasing your conversion rates will be one of your top priorities for the rest of your life. You should always be testing to improve. Keeping tabs on your analytics and identifying more avenues to test and optimize needs to be a daily task in this process.

Remember, there are endless options for online consumers; they are prone to switch loyalties before you can snap your fingers. The trick lies in drawing them to your website and providing a UX that keeps them interested, informed and engaged. Good luck!

04 Feb 00:34

How to Start ABM and Create a Custom Scoring for Account Selection

by Kerry Ok

hitting your abm target accounts

Auth0 is an authentication-as-a-service startup with the mission of delivering zero-friction authentication, authorization, and modern identity for custom applications. Traditionally the company has focused on inbound marketing with great success achieving five figure new trials each month, ranking in the top 3K US websites per Alexa rankings, and growing at 300% YOY. So why did Auth0 invest in Account Based Marketing?

Auth0 wanted to complement their successful inbound programs with a strong ABM program. The company made a few attempts at outbound marketing without a methodology for account selection and were predictably unsuccessful. We took those lessons to heart and decided that ABM was needed. The inbound programs mainly focused on developers, so for the ABM outbound program the company shifted focus to non-developer titles from the enterprise landscape.

Auth0 has an offering that does well for enterprise clients, but relying on an exclusive end-user-up strategy is slower and less effective in outbound for large accounts. Account selection was critical as we did not want to spam companies without a strong need for Auth0. We wanted to ensure our targets would see and gain immediate value from a modern identity solution.

Auth0 Account Selection

Historical data was not as relevant for the new outbound initiatives, instead, we used our core differentiators and value propositions as a guide and created a research plan to find targets best aligned to benefit from the Auth0 feature-set and value drivers. This would not only increase a company’s propensity to buy Auth0, but also their likelihood of gaining immediate value from the solution.

Auth0 created a use case specific scoring model to find their target accounts. In the B2B use case, for example, we looked at all possible B2B prospects with over 2,500 employees. We then narrowed the prospects by geography, targeting HQs in their enterprise sales team territories. This gave us a list of approximately 900 companies. At this point, thorough research was required.

We hired a research temp, who studied the websites of the 900 companies. Auth0 provides a modern identity platform for custom applications so understanding the identity and login portals of the 900 prospects was core to the research. The outcome of this research would allow us to eliminate B2B companies that would not benefit as much from our solution (those without login portals as well as B2B companies that were not developing custom software). Additionally, we would be able to assign “portal scores” to the remaining companies. Portal scores looked at criteria such as companies using traditional username and password authentication as well companies that utilized multiple login portals and naturally prospects that met these criteria scored higher.

The research resulted in 403 prospect companies scored based on their current authentication practices and projected needs. But this wasn’t enough. Auth0 wanted to make sure the companies not only had a need, but also a desire to change and to use a 3rd party service to handle authentication and authorization. Additional research was required.

Auth0 expanded on their research and scoring methods to further rank and prioritize the 403 companies. The following scoring matrix was developed:

Auth0 Account Ranking

This multi-layer scoring system allowed Auth0 to rank the 403 target companies. Higher priority was given to companies that met the product need/fit while the remaining prospects were weighed lower. Once the ranking was established, Auth0 better understood the likelihood of need and interest of their prospects. This gave us the ability to tier the target accounts into two tiers.

Tier 1, which comprised 88 out of the 403 companies, would likely gain the most value from Auth0 and be most interested in the solution. The ABM programs would be more relevant and better received for these companies. Tier 2 accounts, comprised of the remaining 315 companies, would be nurtured at a lower intensity, allowed them to “raise their hand” if interested in our solution.

Engaging meaningfully with the highest propensity targets is key to successful outbound ABM. We did not want to waste time and money spamming companies who had little to no need or interest in our product.

With the research, ranking, and tier association complete, Auth0 can now focus on the top 20 targets (out of the 88 Tier 1 companies identified,) each quarter with high intensity and highly customized ABM programs. The remaining companies in both Tier 1 and Tier 2 are still nurtured but with less high-touch and high-cost activities.

Moving forward, Auth0 was able to repurpose the research from account selection to easily create detailed PDF dossiers on Tier 1 companies including portal screenshots, industry reports, and security data for the sales team. Additionally, the research was applied to content personalization, including messaging, landing pages, and direct mail campaigns for the Tier 1 accounts. Each quarter, Auth0 adjusts the scoring model and weights to better reflect results and goals from lessons learned and the ABM cycle repeats.

Summary

ABM account selection can be overwhelming for companies starting ABM, especially if they don’t have a large number of historical sales data to use for predictive analysis as was the case for Auth0. If this applies to your organization, start with a specific use case and your differentiators and values. This will allow you to build a data-rich model and help you identify prospective companies to target. It may require significant work upfront, but the research can be repurposed in many ways.

The most important goal of account selection should always be to find the targets with the highest need and interest for your solution. Stay tuned for more posts regarding ABM and lessons learned from Auth0.

04 Feb 00:32

24 ways to influence even the most resistant people

by Richard Feloni and Diana Yukari

Crystal ball

Seduction — persuading a person to yield to your advances — isn't used only in the pursuit of a love interest.

Influencing others is how we get jobs and promotions, win negotiations, sell products, and gain notoriety.

In "The Art of Seduction," popular author Robert Greene explores the ruthless tactics of some of history's greatest seducers, from Cleopatra to Casanova.

We've summarized Greene's 24 rules of seduction below.

SEE ALSO: 14 habits of the most likable people

1. Choose the right victim.

Your target should be someone "for whom you can fill a void," Greene says. Don't try to get the most out of those who are too eager to please you, because they are usually looking to get something in return; instead, find those who give subtle hints, like shyness in your presence, that they are open to your influence.



2. Create a false sense of security — approach indirectly.

If you want to initiate a relationship with someone who would be of value to you, you risk forcing them to raise their guard if you approach them and immediately ask for something. Before making a proposal, reach out to them via a third party, or develop a neutral or friendly relationship before making it about business.



3. Send mixed signals.

Once you've got someone hooked, give yourself an air of mystery to keep that person's interest. Don't reveal too much about your background or your intentions.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider
04 Feb 00:31

Top 21 Out-of-The-Box Tools for Effective Content Development

by Jessica Freeman

Content marketing is a popular online promotion strategy which encompasses several different activities. You are educating your audience, offering value through content, and then proceeding to convert your audience into customers. It’s a way of reaching more people that are not really interested in buying something. With the help of your content, brand awareness increases and the chance of a purchase increases.

This strategy is only effective – obviously – if it can provide a positive ROI and an overall satisfying success rate. If it takes too much time, even if you’re not necessarily wasting money in the process, it’s not worth it. In order to improve your chances of performing a successful content marketing campaign, you must take advantage of all available resources. Presently, there are hundreds of content marketing and writing tools that could make your life easier. We have only selected the best out of the best.

construction-work-carpenter-tools-app

What Sort of Content You Should Create

If you have a great piece of content you are really proud of but nobody reads it, it’s pretty much useless. In order to make your content more relevant, check out these tools and resources:

BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is a brilliant tool which will help you identify trending topics in your niche, as well all the key influencers worth following. All you have to do is enter a keyword or phrase you want to research, and it will provide you with a list of most popular links containing your keyword. Their popularity is calculated based on the total number of shares they have received across all major social platforms: Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, and Twitter. If it all seems a bit complicated, it really isn’t, because all that data displayed graphically inside BuzzSumo’s intuitive interface.

Google Trends

Even though you may have heard of Google Trends, you have probably avoided using it. This is a mistake, as Google is one of the biggest online platforms that gathers an enormous amount of analytics and statistics. The best thing about Google Trends is that it’s not only free, but you can use it right away, without even having to register. Google Trends tells you how a particular keyword or topic has trended over time. You can also limit the analysis to a particular geographic region, or view the changes in popularity with animated maps.

Quora & Reddit

Quora and Reddit are probably the best two places online if you are looking for high-quality, in-depth answers to any question. It’s surprising that most content marketers have failed to see their value as keyword research tools. Because all of the content on Quora and Reddit is generated by users, they have already done your keyword research for you. All you have to do is take advantage of that and create trending content containing phrases your audience would use.

Atomic Writer

AtomicWriter comes in three different varieties: as a web app you can access through your browser, Chrome extension, and as plugin for your WordPress account. This tool helps you make your content more relevant and accessible to your audience. The way it does this is by providing suggestions on how to structure and format your writing so that fits your audience’s skill level, which you can choose using a convenient color-coded slider. You can also make use of its Atomic Insight features, which gathers traffic and shares data about your posts.

CoSchedule Headline Analyzer

The percentage varies, depending on which study you consult, but around 80% of the people that come across your article will never venture past the actual headline. There can be many reasons for this, but it may be because your headline is problematic. But, that can be remedied with CoSchedule Headline Analyzer. Simply paste your headline into the app and let it do its magic. You will not only receive a score on a scale of 0 to 100, which indicates how well your headline might fare, but also suggestions on how to improve its impact on your audience.

Title Case

Another useful tool which can help you improve the quality of your headlines, albeit in a different way. Title Case is especially good if you’re publishing articles on a consistent basis. The app’s role is to craft your title’s letters and words in such a way that it looks neat and professional. And your work can only look professional if it is consistent, among other things. The app analyzes your titles and allows you to convert your titles to upper case, lower case, and almost a dozen other conversions.

Canva

One of the best things you can do for your content is to enhance it with some killer visuals. This can be tricky if you are not a designer, or if you can’t afford hiring one. Fortunately, you can solve that by using Canva, which allows you to gain access to a huge selection of beautifully designed templates, which you can use for social media cover images, posters, slideshows, infographics, or just about anything else you can think of. And it’s so easy to use.

Piktochart

Infographics are all the rage because they are capable of displaying a large amount of information in a visually appealing and easily digestible form. And it’s also one of the easiest ways to engage your audience and get them to share your content. Piktochart provides you with access to a whole bunch of different infographics templates and layouts, crafted by professionals, so that you can create your own amazing infographics. Also comes with an entire library of design elements, shapes, fonts, and images.

Evernote

Even though Evernote was primarily designed as an efficient note-taking application, it can also be used to come up with better content. Because it can be accessed from any platform, you will be able to capture your ideas at any moment, provided that you have your smartphone with you. Also, you can save your online research and pages which you will rely on later. It’s better than bookmarking, because you can add notes to your research. Finally, it features an integrated text editor, allowing you to write down entire chunks of text which will serve as a basis for your next post.

Word2CleanHTML

Writing your posts inside a word processor of your choice, instead of doing the same in your content management system (WordPress, for example), is usually the right way to go because you have more formatting options. The problem is that some of that formatting might result in a weird-looking text in CMS. With Word2CleanHTML, you can simply paste your draft, and let the app do its thing, after which your text will look neat and tidy in your CMS.

wood-architect-table-work-app

How You Should Write It

There are also plenty of tools out there which allow you to polish your work, and at the same time, improve your writing chops. Make use of the following writing tools:

Grammarly

If you’re truly serious about content marketing, you need to understand that no one enjoys reading a poor quality text. Perfect grammar and spelling are two of the most important requirements that must be present in a writer’s content. Grammarly app searches through your text, finds the mistakes, and it provides good suggestions for fixing the errors. It’s free, and you can add it to your word processor, use their online platform, or add it to your browser’s extensions.

Cliché Finder

Your readers definitely enjoy consuming valuable and unique content. If your content contains clichés, it’s just going to blend in with all the other content out there that is bland and generic. Cliché Finder is a tool which purpose is to find clichés within your text and help you come up with a different, more original way of conveying your ideas. This way, you can make sure that you’re not filling your content with irrelevant expressions and concepts.

HemingwayApp

HemingwayApp is useful for any type of writer. As a reader, you expect to encounter easy-to-understand and easy-to-digest content. This app offers a “readability score” which is rated from 1 to 10. If you’re above 7, it means that you must modify your sentences to make them more readable. The tool gives all the suggestions and marks the problematic sentences and paragraphs.

Thesaurus

If you’re tired of using the same words over and over again, take advantage of Thesaurus. This online platform is just like a dictionary, only that it offers so many synonyms and suggestions for alternative word usage. Definitely useful for any content marketing campaign and writing activity!

UK vs US Spelling

When you’re planning your content strategy, you must take into consideration who you’re writing for. In case you’re writing for a US demographic, and you’re a UK native, you must find the differences and change your style according to your audience’s needs. This tool helps you find the most common mistakes that UK/US writers make, and provides relevant suggestions on how to improve upon them.

HelpMeWrite

As the name suggests, HelpMeWrite is useful for writers that are struggling to come up with new content. Instead of brainstorming on your own, let the community help you with ideas. You can simply share your ideas with your community and also with your target audience, and find out what people are interested in at the moment.

Reedsy

Reedsy is an awesome community which connects writers like you with editors, publishers, designers, and also marketers. In case you’re only writing your content but have issues with other aspects, I’d suggest joining Reedsy community. Things will become way easier the moment you have all the necessary resources for an effective content marketing campaign.

pexels-photo-29596-app

How to Be More Productive

Finally, there is the issue of productivity. Content marketing is time-consuming, and if you’re at least little prone to procrastination, you can easily get in trouble, However, the following tools might help you with that:

Stayfocusd

Stayfocusd is a browser plugin which acts as a guardian of your time. It pushes away distractions by blocking access to them. For example, it can limit or fully block your access to social media channels. It’s quite flexible as well. Take a look through their examples page to see what it can do for you.

The Most Dangerous Writing App

This app is probably the most destructive writing app out there. The concept is simple. First, you set a specific timeframe in which you want to write without pause. When you stop typing, the text changes its color, letting you know that in a few seconds, everything’s going to be deleted. If you stop writing for too long, you’ll lose all of your text and will have to start again. I’d only recommend this to fast writers!

Focus Writer

Focus Writer is a distraction-free writing environment application. Some writers need to have no distractions at all when they’re in the writing process. If you’re one of these writers, this software should be really useful for your activity. The app has a hide-away option (more like an interface) which you can access by moving your cursor to the edges of your screen. It’s available for most of the operating systems.

Zen Pen

Zen Pen is another distraction-free writing tool. The interface’s color is pure white, and its objective is to help writers stay sharp and focused on the task at hand. The software can be accessed online, so you only need a PC and an internet connection. It’s free to use.

Conclusion

Smart businessmen understand the importance of their time; therefore, they are doing everything possible in order to leverage it. I believe that this is truly essential for anyone, including you! If you’re a content marketer, a writer, a businessman, or even an employee, you should start thinking this way. Start taking advantage of these tools and you’ll see your productivity skyrocket.

04 Feb 00:31

21 Common Mistakes on Twitter to Avoid

by Veronika Baranovska

Mistakes happen. And with no edit button, Twitter easily lends itself to human error. The best way to fix something is to prevent it going bad in the first place, so we compiled a list of common mistakes on Twitter that you should avoid making.

Before you proceed just a note of reassurance: all of us have done these things in the past and lots of us still do today, but we would be much better off without them.

Twitter mistakes to avoid, especially as marketers

#1 Link out in every post.

If you find yourself constantly linking out in tweets, you are doing it wrong. Schedule tweets in advance with images, participate in fun national holidays, reply to mentions, go live with video and create polls to mix it up.

#2 Make any spelling, grammar or punctuation mistakes.

Companies have no excuse for bad grammar or spelling. Spell-check and schedule your content in advance. Remember, each blog post can be tweeted multiple times as long as you change the headline and images.

#3 Insult others or leave negative comments.

Social media is the wrong domain for this and it should be avoided at all costs. All negative feedback received should be handled with extra care by your company’s support team.

#4 Burst-tweeting.

Tweeting multiple posts when you’re at the computer or phone and then falling into silence for a day or two. Instead, spread posts out evenly to have a higher chance of reaching more audiences – your favorite social media management tool can help with that.

#5 Complain about your job or company.

This goes to everyone who has a personal or business account on Twitter – never complain about your company or job role on social media. This never ends well.

#6 Use #too #many #hashtags.

Avoid sounding too promotional and making your tweets look messy, especially when it doesn’t add value. According to best practices for Twitter, you shouldn’t use more than two hashtags per post. It’s also best to research the hashtags before you use them.

#7 Over promote your products.

Stick with the 80/20 rule of marketing – share 80% that will add value and only 20% of that which is promotional. Keep product plugging to a minimum and find ways to tell your story rather than going in for a hard sell.

#8 Constantly retweet others.

Sharing too much can be an issue. Don’t blindly retweet every message you see – read the article, share your comment in relation to it. Take the time check the link in the tweet and share your favorite bit from the article or video in your own.

#9 Get carried away with automated retweets.

Don’t be a bot and retweet the messages you haven’t seen or read, but don’t be discouraged either. Automated retweets are incredibly useful for hashtag competitions and developments in niche topics.

#10 Go off-topic.

You might love cats and dogs, but posts of that nature have nothing to do with your company’s Twitter feed (unless you’re a pet shop or a charity that finds homes for animals).

Follow your favorite companies and influencers to always have great quality content to share. If you have a bigger budget, find a social media tool with a content library that has content suggestions on all the topics you might need.

#11 Use boring auto-welcome messages.

Automated welcome messages are frowned upon, but only because they’re usually overly promotional, repetitive and impersonal. Create messages with a purpose, e.g. to introduce your blog or share a part of your company story.

Sendible’s social media automation tool lets you create welcome messages, randomize them and send them either as a public tweet or a direct message, so you can mix things up.

#12 Get involved in sensitive topics.

Political and religious beliefs are sensitive subjects to discuss on Twitter. So make sure to avoid them when possible, especially when they have to relation to you, your country or business.

#13 Interrupt a Twitter chat to try to sell something.

Be respectful towards others and don’t just jump into conversations to make a sale. Social listening is all about giving advice, not directing customers to product pages. With Sendible, you can use keyword searches to reach out to Twitter users that have expressed an interest in a product, company.

#14 DON’T CAPITALIZE YOUR TWEETS!

Enough said?

#15 Share trivial information.

Thing is, everyone is too busy doing their own thing so you need content that will cut through the noise. Offer something they can’t find on other networks or by solely visiting your website. Think about providing value first, self-promotion second.

#16 Take all the credit.

If you found a great source or piece of content – always make sure to credit it to the right person or source. Retweet the best messages and tag the original creators.

#17 Be inconsistent.

Your followers on Twitter have followed you because they’re interested in what you do and they expect the same quality of tweets throughout. Never disappoint them.

#18 Automatically follow everyone who follows you.

According to Twitter, 23 million of its active users are actually bots, so be mindful of those who follow you without engaging with any of your content. Make sure that the accounts you do decide to follow make sense as prospects, industry influencers or are your customers.

#19 Automatically share images from other networks.

There may be a big temptation to simply blast one Instagram photo and automatically share it on Twitter and Facebook, but don’t. Take the time to post a unique post with different copy for Twitter. Besides, since recent Twitter changes, images don’t even count towards the character limit.

#20 Jump between tones of voice.

Your company should have one tone of voice, so make sure it’s consistent throughout your profile, tweets and branding. It’s equally as important to follow through with your strategy and keep your buyer persona in mind. To help you keep track of all of that, why not download our Social Media Health Check – it will save you heaps of time.

#21 Lie.

There may be a temptation to over-emphasise how well things are going. Avoid being overly promotional of your own success and make sure it’s always authentic.

To sum it all up – be truthful, provide value and don’t over promote your brand. Mastering Twitter for business can be difficult as a marketer, but with knowledge of the best practices and what you should avoid, the task should get that bit lighter!

04 Feb 00:29

Millennials Getting Into Tech: There Has Never Been A Better Time

by Simon Davies

millennial tech

The number of professionals under 30 transitioning from their current field into a tech job is on the rise. Millennials, who change jobs every two years or less, are among those anticipated to have relatively good potential for up-skilling, redeployment and productivity enhancement through technology as the future of work matures. It’s predicted job opportunities will be exceptional for tech job seekers, along with the ability to expand skills and earn more.

This reality is examined in a report by the World Economic Forum entitled The Future Of Jobs, which explores how jobs in the tech industry will change up to the year 2020. According its estimates, 65% of children starting school today will ultimately end up working in job types that don’t yet exist.

Across the board, two emerging job types stand out due to the frequency and consistency with which they might be applied across diverse industries and geographies.

The first is the role of the specialised sales representative, as tech industries become more skilled in commercialising and explaining their new offerings to clients or consumers. The second is the role of data analyst, which companies hope to help them make sense of and derive insights from the mass of data generated by new technologies.

“Tech isn’t for everyone, but tech is probably the single greatest opportunity that exists for millennials today,” says Mark Smukler, alumni of the General Assembly. “There’s still a large shortage of technical expertise across most industry verticals and a career in tech can be one of the most rewarding jobs in many ways.”

One notable field with a wealth of opportunity is SAP. Put as simply as possible, SAP involves using live databases to record, update and share the activities of different departments within a given company, meaning these departments can keep each other updated without having to communicate directly.

The expertise needed to work in SAP is quite specific, but careers are not at all niche. As specialist SAP recruiters Eursap show, the SAP spectrum covers many fields, but most professionals work as consultants, advising large companies on how best to implement any new SAP software, and generally how best to use SAP to their advantage. There is now a high value on professionals who can interact with, understand, and translate technical work in different contexts.

Further, even industries that have traditionally not been related to tech are moving to employ technical staff, hoping to thrive with cutting edge tools. In a recent article published by Tech Republic, jobs in network administration and cybersecurity also topped the list of jobs most in-demand going into 2017.

It follows notable demand for security and networking professionals right now, with business leaders are seeking talent with those specialised skills to help drive business security in an age of increasing cyber crime. In fact, McAfee estimates that the likely annual cost to the global economy from cybercrime is more than US$400 billion, that’s more than the national income of most countries. It’s no wonder job postings in the cybersecurity field have gone up 74% over the past five years.

Governments around the world are taking notice of the potential gains. The UK is prepared to boost the cyber sector with a £22 billion investment, and Second World War code-breaking site Bletchley Park is set to become the UK’s first cyber-security school.

Tech jobs not only offer comparably high starting salaries, they also present a clear path into the future. Millennials have experience in an uncertain economy, and know better than any generation how quickly things change. Harnessing multiple skills can make for multiple opportunities. For millennials eyeing up a career change to tech, there has never been a better time to make the leap.

04 Feb 00:29

The Top 10 Priorities for Sales Leaders in 2020 (and How to Achieve Them) [Infographic]

by afrost@hubspot.com (Aja Frost)

As we creep closer to the end of the year, it’s natural for sales leaders to reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and to map out their priorities for the year ahead.  

But what are the matters that are most important to them?

The RAIN Group Center for Sales Research asked 423 sales, enablement, and company leaders to find out. 

What bubbled to the top was fascinating. As sales researchers and analysts, it helps us to see not only what has changed over the year but also what’s changing right now and where the industry is going.

This infographic shares the top 10 sales priorities of sales leaders in the next 12 months.

top sales priorities

What are your 2020 goals? Take time to consider them before jumping to your next project or deal. It's important to take stock of where you've been and where you're headed. Give yourself that courtesy and watch your career grow.

04 Feb 00:29

Competency Content: The Missing Asset of Many Content Marketing Strategies

by Cameron Conaway

competency content strategy

I’ve long had a problem with the traditional marketing funnel. It isn’t so much a problem with the fundamental mechanics it has come to represent as it is a problem with the metaphor itself.

For starters, it assumes the force of gravity. Which always makes me think we as marketers are helped by some inherent force pushing down on our “leads,” rather than them entering the funnel through their own volition. Unraveling that one is for another day. Suffice it to say, the funnel doesn’t seem real to me, and often misses some key assets—especially as it relates to content marketing.

So as a coffee snob that enjoys meditatively making pour overs each day, let’s make it a bit more real and focus specifically on what I’ve come to see as one of the most commonly overlooked stages in the content development process: Competency content.

What Is Competency Content?

Competency content is content that helps a potential customer understand the need for and value of your product before you mention your product or compare it to others.

As such, competency content sits directly after truly top of funnel discovery content and directly before consideration content. In this sense, it’s the type of content that goes beyond generic “what is” content but stops short of entering the realm of “here’s what” product-mentioning content.

competency content strategy

For discovery content, we’re talking about content (such as blog posts) that draw readers to your site. I say “readers” because that’s the best way to group what they are when they arrive. Some are certainly more likely to be interested in your product or service, but there’s a good chance they landed on your post because they think it can provide an answer to their question.

For example, thousands of readers per month do a Google search for “KPI” or “key performance indicator” simply to educate themselves. The vast majority of those readers land on a few of the informative resources my team has created.

The vast majority, also, have no intention of trialing our product. They simply came to read and learn, and we’re happy to provide such value.

From there, however, many content marketing strategies either lose patience or perhaps unknowingly skip developing competency content and jump right to consideration content.

For consideration content, we’re talking about case studies and demo video content. We’re even talking about overt “how to” content that shows readers how your product works or how it can solve their problem.

In our example, this would be like making the leap—and somewhat naively hoping our readers will make the leap—from “key performance indicator” all the way to “here’s how our business dashboard software lets you track them.”

Competency content serves as a bridge. Sure, most readers may not choose to cross that bridge. But we’re all far more likely to cross a busy highway if there’s a bridge to help us do it.

Creating Competency Content

The nature of competency content of course depends on many variables, but let’s say we’re in the business of selling old-school pour over coffee makers.

Perhaps for our discovery content we’re doing quite well in search engine results for “what is coffee?” Our articles tell the history of coffee, showcasing beautiful stories from coffee’s believed origin in Ethiopia all the way to the modern hipster coffee shops of today. They are of great value to a wide variety of readers.

Rather than jumping directly to “here’s why our pour over coffee maker is better than our competitor’s” or even “here’s how our pour over coffee maker makes a great cup”—the lens of competency content allows us to build bridges such as:

  1. Coffee is still made in its purest, richest form in many regions of Ethiopia. Here’s the process.
  2. The mechanization of making coffee has led to a dilution of its flavor and, in many cases, a reduction of its natural health benefits. Here’s the science behind why.
  3. True coffee connoisseurs know that the calming process of making coffee is inextricably linked to their enjoyment of drinking coffee.

These articles, depending on how our site was designed, would not need to mention our product. Their job would simply be to raise the competency level of our readers to a point where they would see why our product is valuable in the first place.

Many may stumble onto our site through discovery content, and already know why our product is valuable. That’s entirely fine. These readers are more likely to give us a try. Competency content in this case could reinforce their knowledge and provide the gentle nudge they need to purchase our product.

There’s a good chance, as they’ve trusted and been educated by our content, that we’ll have an advantage when/if they begin their comparative research.

04 Feb 00:28

9 Must-Know Tips for Engaging Readers with Powerful Headlines

by Jenny Traster

Headline Writing Tips

Although all of the content published on web articles and blog posts should be engaging, the most often overlooked first step in getting readers interested is by using headlines. Approximately 80% of readers will take a glance at your headlines, but only 20% of them will actually click on the article to read the rest. In just a few words, you have the power to make your content sound interesting—to “hook” your reader. Or, you have the ability to push them away. This means that, even though there are fewer words, most content writers probably need to spend more time thinking about their headlines than they actually do. It’s not a waste of time. It’s a way to get the browser to become a reader. So when it comes to headlines, let’s look at what constitutes the difference between whether potential readers will Click It or Skip It. Here are some headline writing tips that can turn your browsers into readers:

Don’t Use Your Working Title.

Usually, your first thought about an article will fall more along the lines of functional rather than catchy. Your working title should almost never be your final title, unless you happened to be struck with a rare moment of instant brilliance. What might start out as “Ways to Write Good Headlines” might turn into “Proven Formula: Use Headlines to Convert Browsers into Readers—Every Time”.

Create Interest by Asking Questions.

Your blog or website visitors have questions. If your headline indicates that you have answers to the same questions they are asking, then you’re likely to turn that into readership.

Example: Are You Losing Conversions Because of Lazy Headlines?

Offer Immediate Value.

Do’s and Don’ts are a great way to engage readers by identifying the take-away from the start. Create a sense of urgency because readers who are looking for actionable items want to know exactly what to do or what to avoid. Make sure items are easy to scan so the reader can brush past the ones that are already being practiced, while searching for a nugget to act on.

Example: 7 Deadly Pitfalls to Avoid When Writing Headlines

Generate Curiosity.

A headline is bait to show the reader that they want to know more. This one can be tricky because it is important to earn a reader’s trust without making them feel duped. This means that you must actually tell them something in your article that is not common knowledge or, at the very least, give them a super-fresh spin on a topic. Otherwise it will feel like a bait-and-switch and you’ll not be considered a trusted resource in the future.

Example: 8 Lies the Medical Industry Has Been Telling You

Tantalize with Lists and Numbers.

Today’s readers are often looking for a quick read that will be broken down into actions, rather than having to weed through giant paragraphs of prose. Headlines that include numbers of tips or lists ensure the reader that the content will be easily browse-able to find something useful.

Example: 17 Must-Know Headline Tips for Turning Browsers into Readers

Appeal to Reader Desires.

Understanding what you reader wants allows you to dangle that carrot in front of them to earn a click. The concept is pretty simple. You offer something they want in your headline, they reward you with a click. And (hopefully) the relationship develops from there.

Example: 11 Simple Steps to Building a No-Fail Inbound Marketing Plan

Fix Problems.

If you can find out what causes your readers to lose sleep, then offer ways to fix it—you’ll be their hero! Consider what solutions you may have for someone who is searching for answer in the middle of the night. Write your headlines to address that issue.

Example: How to Travel Overseas Confidently and Without Fear

Appeal to Emotions.

Although this should be practiced carefully as to not become manipulative or over-dramatic, the emotions of pleasure and pain may be helpful in drawing in readers. Headlines may be used to evoke caution by steering clear of a problem, or encouraging by offering something the reader wants.

Example: Top 10 Reasons Businesses Fail in the First Year

Make Promises for Success.

Even if it is just a small success like saving a few minutes of time or making a recipe taste a bit better, offering a “prize” makes the reader feel like the time spent on the article will be worth it if.

Example: How to Save $100 per Month without Changing Your Life

Grabbing a reader’s attention with valuable titles has the power to turn your website from something passable to something meaningful, memorable—and ultimately more profitable!

04 Feb 00:28

Making Emails More Useful: Content Marketing

by Mike Parry

Previously I looked at making emails more useful for your subscribers in order to improve engagement through relevance and targeting. But you can become even more useful through content marketing.

Sending helpful, informative, or entertaining information can help retain customers and increase customer lifetime value, which helps your bottom line. B2B companies have been using content marketing in emails for a while, this blog is an example as a summary will end up in our email newsletter. B2C emails have some catching up to do and should look to move away from the common layout of blocks of products available to buy.

Paradoxically, despite a plethora of tracking tools and modelling algorithms, customer lifetime value is increasingly difficult to nail down. As consumers, our brand loyalty will only stretch so far as we are bombarded from every angle with deals and offers for competing brands and products.

Improve your customer loyalty and the customer lifetime value becomes easier to calculate. It’s still true that it costs more to acquire new customers than it does to sell to existing ones and using content in your emails can go a long way to building loyalty. It’s the ability to maintain reader trust while still profiting off of the product that you’re pushing to these readers.

The long and the short of it

“But emails should be clean, clear and simple with an obvious call to action” I hear you cry. This depends on what you’re trying to achieve. A sales-led email often works well using this approach but, if you think about it, whether we’re reading something that has appeal in an email, on a website, in an app or social media shouldn’t matter – it is still useful, engaging content and it makes us feel good about the brand.

Good content makes us feel good about a brand

According to marketing research company Demand Metric, 80 percent of customers they surveyed appreciated learning about a company through custom content, 57 percent read some form of content marketing at least once per month and 82 percent felt more positive about a company after reading it. Get it right and you should see conversion rates increase through repeat business.

So, how should you use content in your emails? Being useful, informative or entertaining is the key. Content marketing works best when it useful and relevant information, or is entertaining, even amusing. Nike are good at this, spending millions of dollars creating a range of content for multiple channels, tying digital and offline content together seamlessly with live events and sports stars.

Very few of us have Nike’s budget to generate this type of content but we can repurpose what we have. Fashion brands are creating ‘look books’ offering a theme or lifestyle for their clothing which helps bring it to life.

Tell me more

Hotel and travel brands could do a lot better here, most emails I receive are images of places and prices. Adding content about the location, history and things to do in the area helps build an enticing picture in our minds and gives us more reason to book. ‘But this content is on our website’ I hear you say. That’s great but if the email isn’t appealing enough I may not go to your site and see it. 10 pictures of pretty hotels or stunning beaches with a duration and price causes us to just scroll. Four locations with complimentary images and well written copy adds another dimension and makes us pause to read more.

Once you start you need to keep it going. Create a constant stream of content so your subscribers look forward to receiving your emails. Content marketing is a long-term strategy and can take time to begin to show results and there will be testing and learning during the early stages to see what approach produces the best results.

Make communication a two way street by building in interactivity using customer reviews, social media posts and shares. Make it easy for your subscribers to get closer to your brand through surveys and review invites.

For many of us, content marketing isn’t easy. Having enough good stuff to say becomes a constant challenge. It requires planning and a budget. You’ll need to create an editorial calendar and put resources in place to build a content library, ideally working a quarter in advance.

Content marketing strategy

So is it all worthwhile? Only time will tell but it’s already working for those brands that do it well. The use of content marketing is on the rise so we should at least investigate what can be incorporated into our email marketing communications to keep our subscribers engaged and coming back to buy more of our products and services.

04 Feb 00:24

To Outsource or to Not Outsource – Now That is a Question

by Guest Post

To Outsource or to Not Outsource – Now That is a Question written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing

Content marketing has experienced a clear and sharp increase in popularity over the last few years and who can be surprised when content marketing costs roughly 62% less than traditional marketing and generates almost three times more leads? Not only is it cost effective, but content marketing also provides a wealth of benefits such as increased traffic to your website, establishes authority and visibility to search engines and can convert web visitors into valuable leads.

Not only that but according to studies conducted by the CIM suggest that more than 80% of B2B marketers and 70% of B2C marketers used content marketing for their online businesses last year. We know executing content marketing might seem a little daunting at first, especially if you’re unclear of your starting point but it’s well worth the effort.

Here are some considerations to help you decide the best way to build and manage your content program:

Outsource or DIY?

Okay, so let’s face it, this question really boils down to, how much time or money do you have and what your marketing objectives are. If your marketing objectives are to generate leads by implementing a content marketing program, and you feel confident creating and managing this program yourself then you would probably consider the DIY option more seriously.

By doing this, you’ll have complete control of the content that is created and the quality that is created too. The knowledge that you possess of your business is extremely valuable to your content marketing – it’s the foundations that will keep your reader coming back for more. External content suppliers may find this difficult to replicate this knowledge due to their inexperience in your specific industry.

Creating content yourself will not only mean that you will have complete control of not only the quality but the quantity too. This will enable you to create a content schedule that works around your business calendar. For example, if your business trade is really quiet in January you could write perhaps 4 or 5 blogs compared to a really busy trading month when you only have the time to write 2 or 3 blogs. It’s all about your time management.

Although, bear in mind that if you are heavily involved in the workings of the business, you may need to schedule extra time for content creation. If not, this could stunt your lead generation if you reply 100% on content marketing to bring these leads to your site.

Time is the only real expense you’ll have to shell out if you choose to write your own content, which might not seem a lot but can be precious if you’re a start-up business. This is because creating content is a calculated and strategic process that includes not only writing but:

Topic creation

  • Formation of strategy; including keyword strategy to return keyword driven content
  • Writing – the first draft
  • Reviewing
  • Editing
  • Writing second, third, sometimes even fourth drafts
  • Publishing
  • Optimising for search engines

These things may seem daunting at first, but there are plenty of free resources available to help you with these elements of a content marketing program. Time is precious, but spend a few hours researching and understanding these aspects and you’ll save yourself time in the long-run.

If your business objective is to scale up your company, your team, and your content marketing then you may need to consider investing more to outsource your content and ensure consistency of marketing campaigns at a larger volume.

Outsourcing your business’ content to either a marketing agency or a professional writer may seem expensive but it offers other benefits such as your content being of a high-quality, optimized for search engines and created with a keyword strategy in mind.

Outsourcing would also free up the excess time to be invested in other areas of your business, adhering to your business objective of scaling up your business. This will leave you more time to focus on business growth and generate the maximum amount of ROI possible.

Whether you choose to outsource to a professional writer or create your own content, you may want to consider hiring an additional member of staff in-house, such as a marketing assistant. For some, this could be considered the best of both worlds as marketing assistants not only have experience with editing and directing content creation but will also have the fundamental knowledge of digital marketing including:

SEO skills – can ensure your content has a strategic viewpoint to get it found online increasing your organic website traffic

Data monitoring & analysis – they will be able to access and monitor how your content marketing is performing and tailor your content schedule accordingly

Audience expertise – in-house marketing assistants in time will be able to understand your business’ industry and therefore will be able to provide detailed knowledge to your content

Social media capabilities – will ensure that your great content is shared socially to the highest standard

In addition to these important digital marketing skills, an in-house marketing assistant will be able to work with you to become a curator, creator, and editor of your content. Hiring an in-house marketing assistant has many benefits, although take into consideration the true cost of hiring staff before you take the plunge.

There are so many benefits for creating your own content, outsourcing it to a professional writer or agency and hiring someone in-house but you must ensure that whichever method you decide that it is the best fit for you and your business. There is no right answer to determining whether you should outsource only whether it helps your reach your business goals and objectives.

 


About the Author

Richard is the director and co–founder of Angelfish Marketing, a Cheltenham based digital marketing agency specialising in inbound marketing for B2B SME’s.  With over 15 years experience in sales, marketing and research, Richard helps brands and agencies get ahead of the competition. You can connect with Richard on Linked In. 

04 Feb 00:24

Tips and Tactics for Crushing your 2017 Sales Goals

by Jami DeLoe

The beginning of the year is the perfect time to refresh, reevaluate, and remind your team about the importance of focusing on their sales goals.

Optimism and motivation are at their highest, new goals are being established, and with the right approaches and coaching, sales reps can crush sales quotas and increase your company’s bottom line.

How can you ensure your team’s success in 2017? Employ the following tips and tactics to help your team excel this year.

#1 – Know Your Buyer Persona

To capitalize on sales, it’s crucial to understand who your ideal customers are and how to recognize them when prospecting. Take some time with your team to create your company’s buyer persona – a general representation of your ideal customer. Buyer personas are created via interviews, research, and surveys of your company’s target audience. Work with your team to narrow down the key indicators of your buyer persona by analyzing customers, prospects, and those outside of your sales pipeline who align with your target audience.

This may be a time-consuming task, but it will be time well spent in the long run. Knowing what your buyer persona is (and is not) will help with marketing, sales, service, and everything involved with attaining new customers and keeping the ones you have.

#2 – Spend Time Prospecting

It isn’t often that business just falls into your lap. So, once you have identified your team’s buyer persona, time must be spent on prospecting to find new customers. There are many effective ways to prospect for customers. The following are just a few:

  • Set aside time each day. Prospecting needs to be consistent. It isn’t an activity that is only for times when business is slow; it should be a daily task. Setting a designated time each day to work on prospecting will create a healthy sales habit for your reps. Use that time to reach out to prospects and create new business.
  • Use social media. You have to have a presence online, and social media is the way to go. If you your company is B2B, make sure that your team members are on LinkedIn, and if you are B2C, a presence on Facebook and Twitter is crucial.
  • Communicate great content. Increase credibility and trust by sending prospects useful and applicable content. People are more likely to do business with you when they see you as an expert in the industry. Sending great content shows them that you understand their business and you can help them grow.
  • Ask for referrals. Chances are good that when you have satisfied customers they will be happy to refer others to you. But you have to ask. Take time to identify customers with whom you have already closed deals and ask them who they know that might also benefit from your product.  
  • Follow-up. Not every prospect is ready to buy immediately. Don’t let valuable prospects slip through the cracks by not following up.

Reset your sales team’s habits to #crush2017
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#3 – Create the Right Metrics

One of the most important aspects of sales success is having accurate and measurable data that allows your team to repeat what works and improve what doesn’t. Make sure that you are using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution that provides you with the capability to create the metrics that are right for your team. When you have the right metrics in place, you will be able to create repeatable activities, stay on target with sales goals, and forecast sales more accurately.

#4 – Rally Your Team

A motivated team is a successful team. When you are the sales leader, it’s your job to rally your team, motivating and creating an environment of excitement and productivity, and making sure that your objectives are clear and communicated. Here’s how to do that:

  • Ask for input. The easiest way to make your team feel like a team is to ask for their feedback and suggestions. When they feel like they have a say in things, you will have their buy-in and they will perform better. Hold weekly roundtables rather than sales meetings – discussions rather than lectures.  
  • Change things up. Do something unexpected. Create games and healthy competitions without prior notice. Take a few minutes in the middle of the day to show motivational videos. Bring in treats or coffee mid-afternoon.
  • Allow autonomy. When your sales reps feel empowered they will be more productive and motivated. Give them the tools they need to be successful, but allow them the autonomy to use them to reach your objectives in their own way. Only micro-manage when it’s absolutely necessary.

#5 – Recognize Success

Never fail to recognize the success of your team members. It will not only motivate them, but it will create an environment of positivity, which is much more conducive to selling. Consider whether you have shown enough appreciation for your team. If not, do it sooner rather than later. The best two ways to show appreciation are to offer incentives and to express gratitude.

  • Incentivize. Sales is about numbers and money. When you offer reps rewards – monetary or otherwise – it’s motivating and it tells them that they are appreciated and valued by you and your organization.
  • Express gratitude. Don’t think that incentives are enough. If you want your team to perform well, they need to feel appreciated. Be sure that you express gratitude for jobs well-done verbally or in writing so they know that they are valued team members. While monetary compensation is a great incentive, you’ll find that a heart-felt thank you might just mean even more.

Make 2017 Your Best Year for Sales

Crushing sales goals doesn’t have to be difficult. When you use these tips and tactics you will have a team that is motivated, productive, and happy – the perfect combination for a winning year.


Work toward your 2017 goals by connecting with hundreds of other sales professionals at the 2017 Revenue Summit in San Francisco! Join us on March 7 & 8 for two days of speakers, networking, sharing best practices, and enjoying some fun on the side! Click below to register!

The post Tips and Tactics for Crushing your 2017 Sales Goals appeared first on Sales Hacker.

04 Feb 00:17

When Value Exceeds Price...

by Grant Cardone
You will get haters when you run any business, but if people complain about your prices, it’s because you are not showing enough value. Dropping your prices should be the last thing you do to be competitive. Your margins are probably already tight enough and the last thing you want to do is engage in price wars. Using price as your selling point is an indication that you need to get back to developing what makes your product a unique proposition.

For any product or service, there is only one business that's the cheapest. While your buyers may shop the lowest price, it is value that they really want. When value exceeds price, price is no longer the issue. I’ll show you an example of this where we had a customer recently complain about my prices on Facebook, so this was how I handled it:
I support the USA and if that means some of my products have to be more expensive, then so be it. When value exceeds price, then price is no longer an issue.

Go visit another country for a couple of weeks and you will appreciate all the comforts and freedoms that are so accessible, prevalent, and normal in this country. While it seems popular to criticize what America does wrong, I would love to see more people stand up and defend all that America does right! This is not to suggest I am unaware of the number of things we can do better, but all the complaining, the problems, and the challenges do not change the fact that this is the United States of America. I see the positivity in the future, a land of true opportunity.

I make real estate acquisitions knowing that, regardless of today's problems, America is a great investment for the long-run. My brother's friend visited from Portugal and bought property because he saw so much value here. An Australian businessman flew in to meet me at my home, and I asked him why he was shopping for real estate in America and he said, "It's America!" That's enough reason alone!

Americans might pick you apart for the price you charge, but remember that this happens in every business unless you are the lowest cost provider—which you don’t want to be. Showcase the value your offer brings, and when you do that well enough, price complaints go away no matter what country you live in.

Now I have one request to ask you today. Make an investment to come to the sunny state of Florida and attend the biggest entrepreneurial business conference of all-time this upcoming March. 10XGrowthCon is 3 days with over 20 experts, entrepreneurs and business executives in 40 sessions detailing exact strategies and tactics being used to dominate the market.

These experts charge as much as $10,000/hr to consult people on their business growth strategies, and now you can get access to every session, live Q&A, unparalleled networking opportunities and priceless information for a fraction of what a consulting fee would run you. This is an exclusive event, seating is very limited, and this event will sell out. Do not miss this once in a lifetime chance to accelerate your path towards your business and financial goals.

Get your Executive Level Access right now and I will give you 1 FREE entry into our Super Bowl pool where you can win $10,000 cash this weekend.



No matter who wins—Falcons or Patriots—you can have a huge win by coming to this conference and giving yourself the chance to network with over 2,000 other successful people in attendance. Act now and reserve your ticket.

Isn’t America great?!

GC
04 Feb 00:14

4 Email Prospecting Techniques the Best Salespeople Use

by mpici@hubspot.com (Michael Pici)

outreach-email-sales-197231-edited.jpg

Email can be an extraordinarily effective prospecting tool. Most prospects check their inboxes throughout the day, so you’re engaging them where they’re already spending time.

Another benefit to emails: If you craft them strategically, buyers should only need a minute or two to read and respond. They can quickly move on to other work.

However, no matter how many advantages this prospecting channel has, your results will always reflect your technique. You can’t simply blast prospects with generic, salesy messages and expect your calendar to fill up with meetings.

For more tips on email prospecting, check out the Get Sh*t Done Show -- a video series by salespeople, for salespeople.

If you want high response rates, implement the following four email prospecting techniques the most successful salespeople use.

4 Successful Outreach Email Techniques

1) Include a Visual

Some of the most successful messages my salespeople send include a GIF, meme, or picture. There are three reasons:

  1. A visual says a thousand words. Emphasizing or reinforcing your message with a visual usually means you can write less -- and brevity has a big impact on your response rate.
  2. A visual is eye-catching. You’ll simultaneously grab your prospect’s attention and differentiate your email from the all-text emails in their inbox.
  3. A visual humanizes you. The buyer will see you as a regular person rather than a personality-less sales robot.

Wondering how to incorporate visuals into your email templates? Try these ideas:

  • Reference a popular movie quote or plotline and add a visual of the character or appropriate scene.
  • Tie in your content to a well-known pop culture phenomenon and use a relevant meme.
  • Find a GIF or picture your prospect will like based on their social media posts.

Of course, visuals aren’t appropriate for every industry or buyer persona. If you’re reaching out to the senior executive of a financial company, you might want to send a traditional email. If you’re contacting a marketing manager who frequently tweets his favorite GIFs, on the other hand, using a GIF will earn you major points.

2) Measure Results -- and Iterate Accordingly

I recently had lunch with someone who’d just started her first sales job at a local startup.

“Some of my prospecting emails do really well, but some flop,” she said. “Do you have any suggestions?”

When I asked what her high-performing and low-performing templates had in common, the salesperson admitted she didn’t know.

Tracking open and response rates is a good first step. However, you can’t improve your results if you don’t act on this data. This salesperson -- and every other sales professional using email to prospect -- needs to periodically and systematically review her emails and ask:

  • What do my highest- and lowest-performing email subject lines have in common?
  • What are the average lengths of my highest- and lowest-performing emails, respectively?
  • What are their various CTAs?
  • Am I having more success with some buyer personas than others?
  • Am I using specific language across my highest-performing emails? My lowest?

Once you know what’s working -- and what’s turning prospects off -- adapt your emails appropriately.

3) Make It Easy on Prospects

The easier it is for your prospects to read and reply to your emails, the likelier they are to do so. This concept seems obvious, but I frequently see prospecting messages that are:

  • Excessively long
  • Confusing
  • Open-ended

There’s a simple three-step prescription.

First, cap your emails at six sentences. You shouldn’t require any more if you’re sticking to one concept per message.

Second, focus your email. Provide a single tip or describe a single concept and ask one question or suggest one action step. This ensures your message doesn’t overwhelm or confuse the buyer.

Third, make the next step extremely clear. Should the prospect answer your question? Book a meeting on your calendar? An explicit direction helps them act quickly and effortlessly.

4) Find Something Noteworthy to Comment On

Many salespeople leverage commonalities with their prospects to build rapport. While this technique can be effective, it’s also relatively transparent. Some buyers don't want to talk about their favorite basketball team or home state, since these topics are irrelevant to the deal.

I suggest instead looking for a notable achievement, skill, project, or other detail along these lines. Praise your prospect or ask a related question. Not only will you boost their ego, but you’ll show them you’ve done your research while staying professional.

It can also sound less creepy to say, “I saw the recording of your autonomous cars presentation. What are your thoughts on Tesla’s strategy?” than, “I’m also a huge fan of the wings at Petey’s BBQ!”

Your prospects’ LinkedIn profiles are a valuable source of this type of detail. You may also find great conversation starters on their blogs, personal websites, company “About” pages, external bios, and/or social media pages.

Use these four email prospecting techniques, and watch your response rates skyrocket.

Are there any great strategies you rely on? Let me know in the comments!

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04 Feb 00:13

7 Great Sales Quotes from this Year’s Rainmaker 17 Speakers

by Matt Wesson

It’s almost here. SalesLoft’s annual Sales Engagement Conference. Rainmaker ’17. Tickets are selling fast, the hotel block is filling up and, most importantly, the lineup of speakers is starting to get STACKED.

While sales reps come to Rainmaker each year for a number of reasons, the one we hear most often is to learn. The modern sales professional needs to constantly be learning and evolving to succeed. And with the list of day-to-day responsibilities for sales professionals only growing longer, finding time to learn can be a real challenge. That’s why we do everything we can to make sure that every minute of Rainmaker is packed with valuable insight from industry thought leaders and pioneers.

In their recent eBook, one of our favorite partners, Gong, compiled insights from the industry’s leading minds and one thing that stuck out to me as I was reading it was how many of them will be speaking at the conference.

So I thought I’d pull together a few of the best to give you a preview of what’s to come at Rainmaker on March 1st!

“People buy from people; they don’t buy from the perfect pitch, script, or canned demo. The more real and transparent you are with them the more real and transparent they will be with you.” -John BarrowsClick To Tweet
“When you make how you sell as important as what you sell, your sales team will become the ultimate differentiator.” -Jacco VanderkooijClick To Tweet
“Those reps that make the buyer feel like they are the most important person in the world and that they passionately believe they can help them - are the ones that succeed.” -Craig RosenbergClick To Tweet
“Now that we have made ourselves more efficient, people are finally realizing that is only 30% of the battle. The other 70% of the battle happens in the conversations.” -Richard HarrisClick To Tweet
“Of all the sales organizations we study, the top-performing teams have a fanatical obsession with the buyer.” -Kristina McMillanClick To Tweet
“It’s time to stop acting like a cheesy salesperson and act like a business person.” -Emmanuelle SkalaClick To Tweet
“Start with: I realize I’m an Interruption. Enjoy the fact that 95% of the prospects will chuckle and let you give your 30 second pitch” -Chad BurmeisterClick To Tweet

That’s just a small taste of the 100+ page ebook and the stacked list of speakers we have lined up for Rainmaker this year. Don’t miss out and book your tickets today!


rainmaker-CTA

The post 7 Great Sales Quotes from this Year’s Rainmaker 17 Speakers appeared first on SalesLoft.

04 Feb 00:12

Post-Purchase Emails: How to Boost Retention and LTV

by Danny Wong

A common mistake ecommerce store owners make is accepting the sale as the end-goal. It is easy for brands to think in such a transactional way; looking beyond each purchase can prove challenging.

A 2014 survey by Econsultancy revealed, “Just 42% of companies are able to measure customer lifetime value.” Though the remaining 58% understand the importance of customer loyalty and retention, they may find it difficult to execute and analyze customer happiness and conversion campaigns.

For a business to thrive, it must provide customers with long-term value that translates into repeat purchases and, thus, increases the customer’s lifetime value to the company.

And that is where carefully crafted post-purchase emails come in.

The ROI of Post-Purchase Emails

Post-purchase emails should have a primary goal of improving the customer experience, whether it’s an order confirmation email to give shoppers peace of mind, a product information email to educate users on how to extract the most value out of their purchase or a replenishment reminder that gently encourages repeat purchases.

Of course, an incidental benefit from well-designed post-purchase emails is a boost to customer satisfaction and sales.

The Research Says…

Research from customer experience firm Medallia published in the Harvard Business Review states, “Customers who had the best past experiences spend 140% more compared to those who had the poorest past experience.”

And follow-up emails help facilitate positive brand sentiment which, in turn, leads to more sales.

Broad data about email marketing reinforces the fact that it is an effective and powerful medium for customer engagement. The Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) 2015 National client email report tells, “Email has an average ROI of $38 for each $1 spent.”

In one case study, retention marketing software firm Windsor Circle shared how much one of its clients benefitted from strategic post-purchase emails.

CoffeeForLess made over $500,000 in 6 months from data-driven lifecycle marketing powered by Windsor Circle. These emails had 66% higher open rates and 125% higher click rates compared to their average rates for the same time period.

Here’s the data…

Windsor Circle

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Using a mixture of product recommendations emails, replenishment reminders, win-back campaigns, and reward offers, CoffeeForLess added more than half a million dollars to its nearly $19 million in sales.

Now, think about how you too can benefit from implementing a thoughtful post-purchase marketing strategy.

The Impact of Different Types of Follow-up Messaging

On January 3rd, 2017, MailChimp updated its email marketing benchmarks page after analyzing billions of monthly email sends across its user base of 14 million accounts. Under the ecommerce category, MailChimp reported an average open rate of 16.71% and an average click rate of 2.34%.

Last year, email marketing software provider GetResponse published its State of Email Marketing Report which shared similar results: with retail and ecommerce grouped together, the analysis revealed an average 16.78% open rate and a 3.07% click rate.

GetResponseImage Source

In IBM Marketing Cloud’s 2016 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study we also see comparable stats. Among retail and ecommerce emails, the survey found an average open rate of 20.5% and a 3.5% click rate.

IBM Marketing Cloud

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Of course, when we delve deeper into the impact of post-purchase emails, we see significantly higher engagement. This month at Conversio, we analyzed 12.1 million follow-up emails and 24.5 million digital receipts ecommerce stores sent through our all-in-one marketing dashboard during the full 2016 calendar year.

Overall, we noted:

  • An average 40.5% open rate, a 6.4% click rate and a 0.7% conversion rate across all follow-up emails.
  • 
An average 65.0% open rate, a 10.4% click rate and a 1.4% conversion rate across all digital receipts.

Here, we see that follow-up emails are twice as likely to be opened and clicked than the average ecommerce marketing email. Digital receipts have an open and click rate more than three times the average ecommerce email send.

Beyond the Typical…

Below, we explore how ecommerce marketers can leverage four under-utilized types of post-purchase correspondence to boost customer happiness and conversions.

Since most store owners already invest heavily in optimizing emails that include discounts, customer referral prompts and product feedback requests, we will skip over those here to focus more on post-purchase emails brands should add to their arsenal.

1. Digital Receipts & Order Confirmation Messages

When a shopper converts into a customer, the first email they expect from you is their order confirmation. Therefore, it is no surprise that we see so much engagement with the average receipt.

However, most stores squander this opportunity by plainly listing what the customer purchased, how much it cost and when they can expect to receive it.

At the National Retail Federation’s 2014 annual expo, Jack Dorsey, CEO of payments processor Square, asked the audience:

What if we see the receipt more as a publishing medium — a product unto itself that people actually want to take home, that they want to engage with, be fully interactive with?

What can we build into this canvas that’s actually valuable, that’s independent of the product you just sold? What can you give in this communication channel, this publishing medium, that people want to engage with?

All of you [store owners] give these receipts out by the thousands if not millions every single day — how do you make them viable unto themselves?

The answer, of course, takes into consideration the context of the purchase (a holiday sale, a gift for another recipient, an everyday item), the customer’s order history with your store and data you have gathered from other shoppers regarding their buying behaviors.

Five of the most engaging elements you can include within your receipts are:

  1. A unique discount code to facilitate repeat purchases.
  2. 
Recommendations for other products your customer may like.
  3. Incentives and prompts for your referral program.
  4. Social sharing buttons that either encourage customers to connect with you on their favorite channels or share their shopping experience with their friends.
  5. 
A request for customer feedback.

In fact, when we at Conversio compared plain receipts against those with any of the features above, we saw:

  • Receipts without any additional marketing assets had a 61.7% open rate, a 5.1% click rate and a 0.1% conversion rate.
  • Including just one of the five elements above (a discount code, product recommendations, a refer-a-friend prompt, social sharing elements, or a feedback request), on average, meant receipts saw up to a 14.6% increase in open rate, a 64.7% increase in click rate and a 2200% increase in conversion rate.

The revenue implications of a strategically crafted receipt are huge too.

Receipt

When Food To Live, a family-run business that sells healthy, organic snacks and foods, decided to redesign and optimize its digital receipts, its receipts began driving an additional $12 in new revenue per send.

2. Product Education & FAQs

In 2015, OrderDynamics, a developer of omnichannel order management systems, commissioned advisory firm IHL Group to conduct a study that quantified the cost of product returns for retailers. Globally, the report estimates returns cost brands $642.6 billion a year.

Although returns may be free for many shoppers online, they are expensive for the stores receiving them. Data from Marketing Alternatives, Inc. states, “Returned items [cost] $12 a piece notwithstanding the cost of shipping, repair of damaged products and repackaging.”

And for some stores, returns have an even bigger impact on already-thin margins. Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, wrote in an article for Harvard Business Review, “Our returns run high — more than a third of our gross revenue.”

Reducing the Cost of Returns

While Hsieh accepts his company’s high return rate as a necessary expense in delivering consumer happiness, other ecommerce brands can still strategically curb the cost of returns through product education and frequently asked questions (FAQs) in post-purchase emails.

FAQs

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WooCommerce’s Nicole Kohler recommends proactively sharing information customers may need to answer questions that arise after they complete their purchase. Kohler says:

You could put a mini FAQ right in your [marketing emails] to answer your [customers’] most common questions.

If you don’t want to take up that much space, you could simply link to your FAQ or customer support page where all of these questions are addressed.

This enables stores to turn what would otherwise be a negative purchasing experience into a positive one.

By sending information that helps your buyers better understand how to extract the most value from their order and lists all of its different use cases, you remove obstacles that may hinder their success with your product.

3. Product Recommendations & Cross-Sell Emails

In 2013, management consultancy McKinsey & Company estimated that Amazon generated 35% of its revenue from its on-site and email product recommendations. That year, the company earned $74.45 billion in sales.

We Miss You

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When JP Mangalindan of Fortune interviewed an Amazon employee about the company’s cross-selling strategy, he discovered that the secret was in the mega-store’s emails to customers.

Mangalindan reported, “The conversion rate and efficiency of [product recommendations] emails are ‘very high,’ significantly more effective than on-site recommendations.”

The psychology behind this makes sense; when ecommerce marketers use data to understand how past purchases can predict future orders, they can surface relevant product suggestions customers may actually enjoy. Consequently, of course, stores increase their revenues.

Quantifying the Impact

Research from Experian’s 2010 transactional email report helps quantify the potential impact of including product recommendations in emails to cross-sell inventory. Results from the whitepaper claim, “Transactional emails that include cross-sell items have 20% higher transaction rates than those without.”

Recommendations

When we dug into our data, we found that follow-up emails featuring product recommendations sent through the Conversio platform in 2016 had a 100% higher conversion rate than emails without product recommendations.

Rather than take the hard-sell approach of emailing your shoppers a unique promocode, this can be a subtle way of prompting repeat purchases and improving a customer’s lifetime value.

4. Replenishment Reminders

Many products have a predictable consumption cycle, whether it is staple items on your weekly grocery list or a tube of your favorite toothpaste every three months. And for savvy marketers, this is where the replenishment email comes in.

Ecommerce marketing expert Jimmy Daly explains:

A replenishment email is one that simply reminds people to re-order items when they run out. Replenishment emails are designed to drive recurring revenue. They are [a] perfect example of behavioral email marketing.

Dog food is a great example. When a customer buys dog food, take note of how much they bought and when they bought it. Then, send them an email reminder when it’s time to order again.

This strategy rocks because you know the customer has a need. You even know when they need it. It’s a pain point that’s easy to relieve. If you sell products that can be re-ordered, you are crazy not to send this email.

Recognizing that many of its customers would want to purchase its seasonal products each year, gardening supplies store Harrod Horticultural decided to implement replenishment email reminders.

Replenishment

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A case study by customer-driven marketing firm Adestra details:

To do this, Harrod Horticultural focused on customers who had purchased a product exactly a year before, and created an automated recurring campaign simply asking whether they wish to re-order the product in question. To begin with, they focused on products like fleeces, mulch, rock dust, mud balls and slug nematodes.

Thanks to the slug nematodes email, Harrod Horticultural have seen a fantastic 50% increase in sales year-over-year of the product Nemaslug. In April, this email received an outstanding click-to-sale rate of 47%, and has become their best performing conversion campaign based on purchase history. With a 45% open rate, these emails aren’t just about short-term revenue, but ‘front of mind’ selling and engaging content, that their customers find welcoming and relevant.

When beauty company Annmarie Gianni Skin Care partnered with Windsor Circle, the marketers behind the brand were finally able to send customers replenishment reminders backed by data science.

Data-Backed Replenishment

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Windsor Circle’s case study of Annmarie Gianni Skin Care’s success reads:

Annmarie Gianni Skin Care has set up more than 70 automators based on criteria such as purchase history, product recommendations, next predicted order date, etc. For instance, they trigger replenishment emails for customers who have purchased a certain product more than three times and have a predicted order date, based on an algorithm that looks for patterns in a customer’s buying behavior.

Beauty products are ripe for replenishment, because these items often need to be purchased on a recurring basis. The replenishment campaigns, along with all of their automated emails, have been very successful for Annmarie Gianni. In fact, these messages have an overall average open rate of 56% and 14% click rate. Additionally, the automated emails have made Annmarie Gianni Skin Care more than $1.8 million since they’ve been enacted.

Although consumers have begun to adopt weekly and monthly subscription services, many shoppers have not yet signed up for automatic delivery and purchase of products that are only consumed quarterly or annually.

Therefore, brands that sell items which need less frequent replenishment should issue scheduled email reminders.

Conclusion

The sale does not end as soon as your customer completes checkout.

Successful ecommerce marketers know that at this point their work is just beginning if they want to enhance engagement and foster brand loyalty from their post-purchase correspondence.

Start by applying these four strategies…

  1. Redesign your receipts to include marketing information and components that encourage repeat purchases, highlight your referral program, prompt social sharing, or facilitate product reviews.
  2. Educate your customers about how to make the most of their purchase, which can maximize customer happiness and minimize product returns.
  3. 
Send customers emails featuring products they may want to buy, based on their past purchases and items other customers like.
  4. Use replenishment reminders that hit your customer’s inbox at a time when they have a clear and demonstrated need.

With these additions to your marketing strategy, you may see an increase in both customer satisfaction and overall revenue.

04 Feb 00:12

What’s New or What’s Right?

by Anthony Iannarino

We love fads. We love to love the new thing. We want to know what comes next.

For a lot of people, sales is a fashion business. You always need something new to sell. Because something has garnered enough attention to make it a fad does not mean that it is worth your time or attention. Because something is new says nothing about its effectiveness, nor does it say anything about what is right for you and your organization.

Everybody’s Talking Bout the New Kid In Town

At one point in time, the CRM was the only thing standing between sales organizations and the new revenue they needed. The ability to track relationships and forecast deals was what had been missing and, once installed, better results were certain to follow. For many companies, improved visibility did nothing to improve their sales force’s effectiveness. It did, perhaps, bring an awareness to that issue.

Not that many years ago, social selling was presented as the answer to what was ailing sales organizations. The reason they were opportunity-starved had nothing to do with a lack of effort or a lack of effectiveness. Instead, buyers had changed so much that no prospecting method except social selling could reach these transformed and enlightened buyers. Yet, these same opportunity-starved companies remained in a state of constant of never-ending starvation.

Now comes account-based sales as the tag-along little brother of account-based marketing, soon to be replaced by another fad that will fade just as quickly and be replaced by the next.

Until Somebody New Comes Along

If a CRM system is what your organization needs, then you should invest in a CRM. If your sales force can produce content the likes of which the world has never seen—and your dream clients live on the social channels—then a social approach might make perfect sense. If account-based selling is the answer to “what do we need to do to improve our results,” then that’s exactly what you should do.

But what’s new is not better than what’s right. Before you go chasing some new fad, take a deeper look at what you really need to produce better sales results. Would more prospecting generate more qualified opportunities than a different approach would? Would consistent coaching and development help you grow salespeople who could sit across from their dream client and speak to them as a peer? Would a solid adherence to the fundamentals do more to improve your win rates than measuring those win rates in a new CRM?

“What’s right” doesn’t make the same promise as some shiny new idea. It only promises the hard work that produces the results you really need.

The post What’s New or What’s Right? appeared first on The Sales Blog.

04 Feb 00:11

How to Become a Trusted Advisor in Sales

by Tom Cates

trusted-advisor-718839-edited.jpg

When I go to McDonald’s and order a Big Mac, I don’t get a business card from the cashier. And that’s fine. 

Why? Because I don’t go to McDonald’s for the people. I go for the product and the brand. I like Big Macs, and I know what I’m going to get from a McDonald’s: Fast service, cheap price, and a quick meal.

But for many other businesses and industries, the people do matter. Think of professional services. Would you be upset if a different consultant than the one you’ve worked with for months showed up one day, or are all consultants exactly the same? Or a more personal example -- would you allow anyone at all from a certain salon to cut your hair, or do you make appointments with a specific hairdresser? I’m guessing in both circumstances, the particular person you work with trumps the brands they’re associated with.

B2B sales is another realm in which the people are important. Of course buyers are influenced by brand and product perception, but the salesperson they deal with has a significant bearing on what, when, and why they buy. With this in mind, it behooves salespeople to strengthen their relationships with prospects and customers -- to move from a transactional facilitator (fine, but average) to a trusted advisor (differentiated and valuable).  

How Important Is Being a Trusted Advisor?

“Trusted advisor” is a buzzword in sales today, so you might be skeptical about whether a salesperson achieving this status has any real impact on your bottom line. 

I can tell you with confidence that it does. Over the past few years, my company has studied what it means to be seen as a trusted advisor. The research has revealed six key dimensions of a B2B customer relationship. This prompted us to look at some clients, measure their customer relationships in these six areas, and compare the results against business performance year over year. 

The numbers proved being a trusted advisor is more valuable in terms of revenue than you might think. Eighty-two percent of customers who did not renew their annual contracts with an insurance company either had an antagonistic or transactional relationship with the provider. Customers who had a transactional relationship with the representatives at an IT VAR gave the company 14% of their available business on average, but the percentage jumped to 47% if they perceived the VAR’s salespeople to be trusted advisors. That’s a 33% difference that can be attributed solely to relationship strength!

What Is a Trusted Advisor?

We find the six dimensions of a trusted advisor are generally developed in order -- in other words, #1 is established before #6.

  1. Integrity. The prospect perceives you to be reliable, dependable, and trustworthy.
  2. Competency. The prospect believes that you and your product/service can deliver. Your company is perceived to have the tools, processes, and people in place to make good on promises. 
  3. Recognition. The prospect feels that you treat them as an individual instead of a number.  
  4. Proactivity. The prospect believes you are actively looking out for their best interest and that they aren’t going to encounter any unexpected surprises with your product/service.
  5. Savvy. The prospect feels that you understand the issues they care about.
  6. Chemistry. The prospect enjoys working with you and thinks your communication “clicks.”

But here’s the catch with these dimensions: They’re pillars, not behaviors. Go tell a sales rep to “demonstrate integrity” or “create chemistry” on a call today. I bet they’ll have an awfully confused look on their face.

Also, keep in mind that all of these dimensions hinge on the prospect’s perceptions. You might think you’re the savviest salesperson in the world, but if your clients don’t agree, then you have some work to do.  

How to Become a Trusted Advisor in Sales

That said, here are some suggestions for actions and behaviors that can move you closer to trusted advisor status.

One of the best ways to show integrity is to take notes -- it works in every industry. It tells prospects they can count on you to remember their words and execute.

Demonstrate competency by providing testimony from a third party that vouches for you. The format will vary from industry to industry, but examples include case studies, references, ratings, warranties, and certifications.

Show recognition by carefully noting something your prospect says and following up on it later. For instance, if your contact mentioned a large project the last time you spoke, bring it up during your next call. A simple question like “How’d that initiative work out?” will do the trick.

To prove you're proactive, stay informed on your prospect’s industry and bring major changes to their attention before they reach out to you. For instance, the sales team at a health insurer should closely monitor new state guidelines and regularly offer to sit down with their prospects to sort out how the policy changes will affect them.

At Brookeside, we use a framework called “inside, outside, who, and how” to teach savvy. Find out the answers to these four questions, and you’re on your way:

  • What’s going on inside the company?
  • What’s happening with notable parties outside the company -- competitors, suppliers, etc.?
  • Who do the buyers you’re working with report to, and/or who are the influencers in the company?
  • How does this company “keep score” metrics-wise, and how do you help them in what they do?

Exhibit chemistry by being friendly and clear, understanding your prospects’ nonverbal cues, and mirroring them.

What traits do you think trusted advisors embody? 

Editor's note: This post was originally published in August 2014 and has been updated for comprehensivenss and accuracy.

HubSpot CRM

04 Feb 00:01

Survey of 1,000 SaaS Executives Reveals Major Blind Spot Around Pricing

by Kyle Poyar

As companies hit milestones in their growth, they naturally bring on functional experts to help optimize their businesses. Experts have seen it all before and can quickly recognize patterns and work more productively than generalists. They get the job done right the first time. What’s more is that functional experts who own a few specific areas can be held accountable when their metrics don’t move up and to the right – there’s only one throat to choke so to speak.

HubSpot and InsightSquared very deliberately hired such experts as they were growing their teams from 0 to 100. Among a SaaS startup’s first 100 hires, there should be seven or more department executives (Product, Finance, Marketing, Sales and so forth).

Jason Lemkin of SaaStr also notes that SaaS companies should bring on functional leads to build out important capabilities around outbound lead gen (BDR/SDR), sales operations, demand gen, field marketing, product marketing, content marketing and more.

There’s one key gap both in Lemkin’s advice and the above org chart. There’s not one resource in either of these models to specifically own pricing. Consequently, all too often pricing becomes an ad hoc, gut decision, and fails to get the dedicated attention, research and testing required for its optimization. SaaS companies make thoughtful, data-driven decisions on so many facets of their business. Why is pricing such a blind spot?

According to a recent OpenView survey of more than 1,000 SaaS executives across different stages of growth, we found that among expansion stage SaaS companies (1-$20M ARR), 55% say they have nobody in their company who handles pricing as part of their job description. For the remaining 45%, pricing tends to be a small piece of someone’s responsibilities, rather than a dedicated focus area. Growth stage companies (>$20M ARR) fare somewhat better, but still have significant room for improvement. Even at this stage of growth, 37% of companies fail to hire a specific resource to handle pricing and only 26% say they have a packaging/pricing manager on staff.

Our survey results show that companies that fail to hire a specific pricing resource rarely conduct market research on customer value and pricing, nor do they A/B test pricing changes. These types of analyses reveal a company’s price-value position in the market and whether there’s an opportunity to increase prices, which drives a far higher profit improvement than any other initiative. Put simply, companies without dedicated pricing resources are literally losing money because of it.

With so few folks actually working on pricing, you might suspect that companies don’t think pricing is worth the attention of management. But the opposite is true. More than two-thirds of expansion stage companies say that CEOs or company leadership ultimately own pricing and make pricing decisions.

SaaS CEOs are blindly making decisions on a topic that is fundamentally important to their long-term success without the subject matter expertise required to succeed. It’s high time to put someone in charge of pricing. But when you finally make that move, what attributes should you look for in a new hire and where should they sit within your organization?

What to Look for in Your First Pricing Lead

Value-based pricing sits at the nexus of the customer, competition and costs. A great pricing lead needs to have a handle on each of these. First, and most importantly, they need a relentless focus on the customer. They should be insatiably curious about customer needs, common pain points, different segments in the market, how the buying process works and how the value proposition resonates. Understanding the competition and costs are both teachable skills, and a qualified candidate needs only the aptitude to get up to speed on both rather than specific in-depth knowledge.

Since pricing touches on so many different parts of an organization, a great candidate will be a relationship builder and a strong communicator. Look for someone who’s willing to spend a week sitting with the Sales team or going on ride-alongs with customers to fully grasp how pricing works “on the ground.” Meanwhile, make sure that person has credibility with the Product team and is passionate about the product roadmap. Ideally, pricing will come to have a strong influence on the roadmap since it collects the richest set of data on what customers need and value.

Let’s not forget that your pricing lead should also be analytically savvy and comfortable with both qualitative and quantitative techniques. For instance, they should be able to jump into your Salesforce and billing data to unearth opportunities as well as design surveys to extract pricing insights from your customers.

Where Pricing Should Fit in Your Organization

There is no widely accepted wisdom around where pricing belongs, and I’ve seen it roll up to Marketing, Product, Sales, Finance and Operations. In many organizations, it becomes a part of Product Marketing, which similarly rolls up into different departments depending on the company. Here’s what to consider for your company.

Do you have someone in charge of pricing? Where do they sit in your company? Let us know in the comments, we’d love to hear from you!

The post Survey of 1,000 SaaS Executives Reveals Major Blind Spot Around Pricing appeared first on OpenView Labs.

04 Feb 00:00

What We Learned from 300 Content Marketers

by Louis Foong

When you think about marketing, what’s the first thing that comes into your head? Brochures? Print ads? Billboards?

What about blogging?

Content marketing, which includes things like blogging and infographics, is a hot trend in digital marketing and with good reason: it costs 62% less than traditional marketing and can generate up to 3x as many leads. Most marketing agencies (84%) predict content marketing will be even more important in the future. This infographic from CopyPress is based on interviews with 300 content creators, including in-house marketers, agencies, and freelancers. So what do they think about this rapidly growing industry? Let’s take a look and see!

While marketers may recognize this growing trend, that doesn’t mean that their clients do.

  • 58% of agency employees didn’t think that their clients knew about content marketing
  • Only 5% saw their clients as very knowledgeable about it
  • 82% created 1-10 pieces of content per month – only 10% created over 50 pieces per month

When asked to break down the types of content created for clients, agencies reported creating:

  • blog posts (92%)
  • web copy (70%)
  • static infographics (30%)
  • interactive media or videos (45%)
  • illustrations (16%)

33% of agencies reported that their biggest challenge in content creation was understanding and matching client expectations and 15% cited scaling production to be their biggest obstacle to overcome.

When it comes to in-house marketers, we see roughly the same trends:

  • 74% said their companies had 1-4 content marketers on staff; only 17% had over 10
  • 39% didn’t think that the company’s efforts were very effective
  • 20% of companies spend less on $5000 on content marketing annually and 22% spent between $5000-$15000
  • 60% said content marketing was smaller than other channels
  • Only 13% published content multiple times per day (43% did it weekly and 35% daily)
  • 65% of the respondents wanted to publish more and only 22% were satisfied with how often they posted

While companies aren’t investing in content marketing, they do crave the results it brings:

  • 35% wanted better search rankings and visibility
  • 43% wanted to increase their revenue and sales
  • 13% wanted higher volumes of repeat traffic and to build a loyal community

91% of these companies created their blog posts in-house and 50% created their own product descriptions.

So what about freelancers? Where do they fit in?

  • 64% of freelancers work full-time
  • 40% work between 21-40 hours per week and 14% work over 40 hours per week
  • 67% made under $20,000 as a freelancer last year and 6% earned more than $90,000
  • 23% have been in the field for 3-5 years and 24% have over 10 years of experience
  • 13% have a high-school diploma or GED, 78% have a college degree, and 28% have at least a master’s degree
  • 60% of respondents have a personal blog or website

Freelancers on average tend to be a little more limited in the types of content they create: 94% produce written content (only 4% create infographics or other visual content.)

Hopefully, this infographic gave you a little motivation to put content marketing on your radar for 2017 – or to think about increasing your budget if you’re already onboard!

What do you think is the biggest opportunity in content marketing today? Let me know in the comments!

The Content Marketing Ecosystem Infographic

03 Feb 23:57

What is an Inside Sales Manager?

by Patrick Hogan

Maybe you’ve taken on the responsibility of an inside sales manager – perhaps by default, without really clarifying the professional implications of the title.

Because – hey – it is a big deal.

An inside sales manager manages a team of highly trained sales professionals. Inside sales representatives have been credited for the growth of industries that sell high-ticket items. B2Bs, B2Cs, SaaS and a variety of technology industry players have routinely transacted using the phone, email and the internet. This is in contrast with the traditional outside sales representative or the less-expert telemarketer.

An inside sales representative is a highly knowledgable sales professional who sells remotely, often optimizing the use of current online technologies for remote demos, product presentations and other sales functions.

As the inside sales manager, you lead this team of professionals. And, in a way, it is assumed that you know inside sales, inside and out.

What is Inside Sales?

Simply put, inside sales is remote sales. It has gone by other names, such as ‘virtual sales’ and ‘sales in the cloud.’ It is principally the opposite of outside sales, which is sales done face-to-face. It is also vehemently different from telemarketing. (As in, inside sales reps will passionately bite your head off if you make the mistake of attaching ‘tele’ to what they do….)

And, with the current numbers, it looks like inside sales is where sales, in general, is converging into.

A lead management study by InsideSales.com found that the field of inside sales has outgrown outside sales since 2000. The number of inside sales jobs has exceeded outside sales jobs by about 7%.

Even those in outside sales are spending more and more time inside in order to communicate better and regularly with their prospects. Arguably too, telemarketing jobs have become more competitive, encouraging telemarketers to veer outside of their scripts towards having more personalized conversations with their leads.

Thus, there is truth in a comment by Bob Perkins, Founder and CEO of The American Association of Inside Sales Professionals. According to him, “Inside sales is just… sales.”

The Growth of Inside Sales

Telemarketing began in the 1950s through DialAmerica Marketing, Inc., the first company that focused on sales and services via the phone. However, within a few decades, business needs became more complex. The products for selling also became more specialized and high-value.

By the 1980s, attempts were made to distinguish telemarketing from the high-touch and skilled practices of ‘inside sales.’ After all, an inside sales representative won’t ever blast-call a list of names – people often caught at bad times and who allowed only seconds worth of conversation. No, an inside sales representative’s calls were nuanced and well-researched. And, the skills required to close deals were often more expert and specific.

There was also a need to separate inside sales representatives from those who dealt with clients face-to-face in the 1990s. Back then, the traditional model of outside sales was still prevalent. Inside sales played second fiddle.

Somehow, this changed as the channels of communications improved. From the telephones and fax machines of decades ago, email started to seep in during the mid-90s. By 2000 onwards, remote connectivity through Wi-Fi and the like, as well as technologies that allowed remote demos, presentations and any time/ anywhere access, put more sales people inside, and less on the road.

In fact, a lead management study by MIT credited the evolution of inside sale to two major changes in business:

  • The way we did business shifted from traditional hours to one that was more open. Work was done and deals were reached off the usual hours.
  • Technology changed, allowing for improved remote conversations with your prospects.

The Tools of the Trade: Technology that Helps An Inside Sales Manager and His Team

As an inside sales manager, you understand the degree of engagement a typical representative has with their prospects. They will be in contact with their lead several times, through a variety of channels. Sales are almost always never closed on the first contact.

In this way, advanced online technologies have become indispensable tools of the trade – so much that these have been referred to as “power tools.”

The power tools include:

  • internet technology
  • computer telephony integration (CTI) systems
  • CRM (customer relationship management) systems
  • web conferencing
  • email and chat
  • social media
  • smartphones

Mobile telephony and call routing via CTI, for instance, make an inside sales manager and your team of inside sales representatives more accessible to your prospects. You can take calls anywhere, at practically any time. There is no so-called office hours when it comes to doing business.

Email too has been a dream for many sales people. Instead of drafting pages upon pages for a presentation, and then heading to your lead’s office, you can just email them a link to a presentation that’s been uploaded online. Through web conferencing, you can talk more specifically about your prospect’s needs and respond to their questions in real time.

The possibilities are limitless. It’s only a matter of empowering your team of inside sales representatives with training and the right tools. As an inside sales manager, this is your ultimate responsibility.

Requisite Skills on a Good Inside Sales Representative

Of course, not everyone is cut out to be an inside sales representative. As an inside sales manager, you should be able to cultivate these requisite skills in your team, in order to transform the so-so inside sales rep into a great one!

Pre-Call Research Skills
Research is necessary when you want to grab the attention of your prospect. Remember that these people have daily agendas to attend to. Your rep’s call isn’t one of them. So, if you are to engage through it, do research first.

ExecVision Chief Revenue Officer, Steve Richard, pushes for the 3×3 research strategy. Here, you need to spend three minutes in order to find out three things about your lead. Do this before picking up the phone or establishing contact. Use this information to connect with your prospect.

Social media, especially LinkedIn, comes in handy in this aspect. Likewise, have your team of sales rep visit the prospective company’s website and do a Google search about them.

While this lowers the number of calls that your team makes each day, it can increased their conversion rate.

Engaging Sales Questioning
Once you have your foot in the door, make it a point to find out more about your prospect. Ask questions. The more you know, the more specific you can be when it comes to addressing their needs. Plus, asking questions is a good way to break the ice.

Often times, inside sales representatives ask about their lead’s pain points. They try to create a need by highlighting a troublesome aspect of the business. This may work sometimes but not always.

It can be worthwhile to consider an alternative approach suggested by Jeffrey Gitomer in his 21.5 Unbreakable Laws of Selling book. Here, he wants you to try asking questions that make the prospect smile, instead of recalling a pain point. When your prospect thinks of the benefits (instead of the negatives), it creates a sense of value. They become more open; and closing the deal may be easier.

Online Presentation Skills
The presentation challenges faced by an inside sales representative are different from those faced by traditional sales people. In the past, presentations were mostly in person and you can try to read the reactions of your audience while in their presence. You don’t have the same luxury when it comes to inside sales.

You won’t have body language and nonverbal cues to read. Instead, you have the language of the internet to rely on.

These are some notable behaviors that help your team assess their prospect’s interest:

  • Email, presentation and proposal click/opening rate
  • Slide analytics on viewing time and popular slides.
  • Website visits and popular pages

Sense of Immediacy
Your team’s sense of immediacy can make or break a deal. So, act fast and return those calls!

Don’t take those inbound calls for granted. Sure, a call from a lead already hints at their level of interest. But, there is the fact that you have competitors. A call to you can also mean a call to them. You can make an impact by responding faster.

So, call fast… but don’t sell right away. Use the opportunity to build a relationship with your prospect. Sales talk can come later.

Persistence
When at first you don’t succeed, call and call again – don’t give up on a good lead! Studies have been made about this and they say that you should make at least five calls per good lead. Within those five calls, you can ideally close the deal. Or, at the very least, you have begun a business relationship with a person who might eventually buy.

Keep track of these relationships through technologies, such as CRM and CTI systems. Persistence pays eventually, as long as you choose the right leads to be persistent with.

A Love for Advancing Technology
Telecommunications technologies and social media channels change at the blink of an eye. One minute, you are networking through Friendster. The next minute, you’re on Facebook and LinkedIn. Another minute, you’re on your Blackberry. The next minute, everyone else is on iPhone and Samsung.

So, expect changes and updates to your favorite web conferencing, chat, and email tools. New players will come in to change the game. Rest assured, this is for your own good too!

Discipline and Dedication
Being an inside sales manager, you have to remember that your work is both an art and a science. There are nuances that you need to learn. Once you have mastered these, you can make reliable assessments of your prospects. This can help you decide on your team’s next steps. There is creativity to it to. Your approach varies, according to the position, location, requirements and other details about your prospect. You can’t ever rely on just one approach.

Thus, it is important to instill some discipline within you and your team. Take time to learn the ins and outs of the business first. Once you’re an expert in the field, that’s when you sell most effectively.

03 Feb 23:57

93.2% of Sales Reps Are More Productive When They Do This…

by Justin McGill

sales software

The big 93.2% percentage hook has your attention? Want the elixir for increasing sales productivity? Its…drum roll…big reveal… Use Sales Software!

Okay, so maybe you were expecting something you had never heard of before, a buzzword that you stumbled upon that would change your world forever? Seriously, it’s sales software… but let’s dive into some specifics.

Easy Riders

This is how it is going to revolutionize, revamp and renovate your modus operandi. In other words make your life a whole lot easier by increasing sales productivity –

“Easy like a Sunday Morning” (Lionel Richie)

  • It will free you from the shackles of manual data entry. And just like Tom Petty you’ll be “free, free fallin, yeah.”
  • You won’t have to keep updating the status of each deal in the pipeline. Can you see the gift of many hours being handed to you on a silver sales automation platter?
  • You can put away your data cleaning brooms and brushes secure in the knowledge that there will be no incorrect or duplicated data anymore.

Don’t you love a great statistic that sums up your challenges and hardships in a perfect number? This one is 35%. It’s the percentage of time available to sales people to actually sell their product. You already know this figure – it’s encoded in your cells.

Time Is On My Side – Yes It Is!

You intrinsically know that you never seem to have enough time to actually do your job. Right?

An insightful survey, from CSO, revealed this figure that describes your dissatisfaction to the T. But the antidote is staring you in the face. Sales automation will have you singing Leonard Cohens ‘Hallelujah” chorus.

If you’re looking for sales automation software options to improve sales productivity then check out this LeadFuze list of top sales automation software for 2017.

Rubbing the lamp

When you feed your manual processes to the automation genie you get 5 wishes answered:

  • You can go back to your real job of selling
  • You can spend a whole lot more time prospecting
  • You can focus on lead generation again
  • You can actually nurture your leads
  • And voila you can close more sales

You have made it through the Ninja warrior minefield of cumbersome tasks and confusing info and have become a true sales hero.

“Life at any time can become difficult: life at any time can become easy. It all depends upon how one adjusts oneself to life.” ~Morarji Desai

Time to get personal

Your customers are going to love you. You will see your popularity rise by 77.5% through customer satisfaction when you’ve got sales software in your pocket. The whole customer journey has become easier.

When you can deliver personalized customer service you catapult ahead of all competition.

You might be up against the big retailers like Walmart and Amazon but if you can offer superior customer experience you’ll be Jack cutting down their giant beanstalks.

The new competitive differentiator is personalized customer service. With more time on your hands you can offer a first class, unforgettable interaction.

Who is getting it very wrong?

Currently, less than a tenth (9.5%) of sales people think that consumers are looking for personalized customer service.

What? Why are their heads buried in the sand?

“I think goals should never be easy, they should force you to work, even if they are uncomfortable at the time.” ~Michael Phelps

Your sales software is stalking your customer – from a respectable distance. It’s your private investigator Jessica Jones or Mike Hammer (depending on your generational TV proclivity).

The findings are in and reveal:

  • How your customer has interacted with you across all touch points
  • The research they carried out on your website (they were doing their own reconnaissance)
  • If they followed you on social media before heading into your retail store.

You now know exactly what they have been up to…

Holding Them In The Palm of Your Hand

You have this information available to you stored in one place ready to jump to attention.

You can quickly call up the findings from wherever you are and on any device so your interaction with your customer is personalized and specific.

It’s like you’re reading their minds and can offer them exactly what they want.

The customer doesn’t end up running away from having to fill out a series of forms that require filling in the same info again and again over all of your different channels over and over and over and over and over again.

Small Business Lead Generation Laundry List

What software features are going to give your small business a boost?

For lead generation you have to start with having all of your customer information in one place. Email, social media, customer service solutions must be integrated with your sales management software to get the big beautiful picture.

“Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy.” ~Lao Tzu

We go together like rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong

You want to get together and collaborate with your team as well as the other departments like marketing and customer service so you’re all in tune. No lead will be left behind if information is shared timeously.

No lead will be left behind if information is shared timeously.

Socializing or Selling?

It is the dawning of the age of…social selling. The world is only a few taps, swipes or clicks away.

Everyone is on their mobile devices and that is where you will find, connect and engage with customers, prospects, clients, colleagues and employees.

In this vast sea of speaking you have to establish trust and authenticity in order to build relationships and start a real dialogue.

Did you know: Social networking takes up nearly a quarter of all time spent online?

You can’t afford not to be actively implementing your social selling strategy.

It where you are going to be selling your ideas, secure any funding, establish your company’s credibility, recruit great talent and win customers.

Your social networking is going to reach more than 75% of global internet users.

I don’t know if I am engaged in social selling at the moment?

You are if you are connecting and communicating with your target audience on any level on any social media platform – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.

If it’s for business development you’re social selling.

If it’s for brand promotion it’s social selling. If you’re online and on a platform you’re on it!!

Slow Socialites

Only 15% of sales people are strutting their stuff. The rest are languishing in old, lost traditions of what they are used to doing and so a huge opportunity is walking out the door.

It’s not a hard sell platform – you have to tread lightly and not stand on their foot in the middle of the sales waltz.

Softly, gently get to know them before you launch into the tango!

Interact across channels and nurture leads politely. Steer your dance partner elegantly around the social selling ballroom.

Getting To Know All About You

Do your research.

Know absolutely everything you can about the target company and the key role players before you start wooing on social media.

Find out the best channel for your opening line.

If their last tweet was a year ago there’s no point in striking up a conversation there. Maybe they spend more time on LinkedIn and you will have a better chance at catching their attention.

For B2B sales teams you have to be even more cautious about not coming across too strong like cheap, overpowering cologne.

Facebook might not be your friend with the B2B gang – rely on your research to lead the way.

You want to enable your sales team to be an unstoppable force, but that is only possible if you equip them with the right gear – sales software.

Without it they are using canoes, competing against powerboats and are not going to make inroads into the online ocean teeming with the catch of the day specials.

03 Feb 23:54

7 Things That Influence Every Sales Email Strategy

by Heather R. Morgan

varieties-of-apple

Writing a successful sales email requires a careful consideration of options and variables, rather than a one-size-fits all approach. No matter who your audience is, or what you’re selling, the most important aspect of a cold email is figuring out how to instantly connect with the reader. Great sales emails aren’t about casting a broad net; they’re about angling for a very specific and valuable fish.

Before you actually sit down to start writing your cold email, it’s essential to understand your audience. Your whole approach must be tailored to your recipients if you want your email to stand out from the rest of the inbox chatter.

Once you have defined your audience, and identified the best sales strategy to use, the actual composition process is relatively easy. You plug the right information and appeals into the right places and get busy developing leads. Take these steps to build a stronger connection with the readers of your next cold email.

1. Articulate Your Value Propositions

What is it about your product or service that actually makes it worth paying for? Do you have a unique, killer feature? Is it easier to use? Does it cost less, or offer more than the competitors? The answers to these questions might seem obvious to you, but more than one brand has fallen by the wayside because they misunderstood or failed to articulate their own appeal. Once you understand what truly makes your offerings valuable, you can accentuate those qualities in your cold emails.

2. Discover Your Customer’s Pain Points

B2B deals are rarely closed on impulse. Any enterprise that is willing to invest in a product/service needs to be convinced it can deliver something significant in return. That means the value propositions you’re highlighting must help relieve your customers’ real pain points. Figure out what problems you can actually solve; not just the flashiest features of your product. That way you can position yourself in your cold email as having an invaluable solution that can improve the way your prospective customers do business.

3. Analyze the Marketplace

You have to be both honest and realistic about the position of your own company. If you are trailblazing and have little competition, you should use your copy to educate and inform your readers rather than play up your innovative ambitions. Because your offering is likely to be unfamiliar, readers will have a hard time understanding your value if you don’t connect the dots for them, and offer tangible use cases and results. Conversely, if you operate in a heavily competitive and commoditized market, you need to use your copy to assert what makes you distinct and valuable to all those other options. The more competition you have, the more you should consider going the extra mile to use additional personalization, along with other ways that will make your emails even more targeted so that you can stand out above all the noise.

4. Calibrate Your Timing

Timing affects not just when you send out your email, but also the tone and language you use. If seasonal factors impact when a product will be available or how much it will cost, that information can lend the email a sense of natural urgency. Conversely, having the wrong timing, like when your prospective customers are already out of budget, or thinking about other more important things, can also make your message sound irrelevant. If you’re going to try to create a sense of urgency in your cold emails, you need to make sure that it seems credible and beneficial to the reader, or else they’ll feel pressured and skeptical of your claims.

5. Determine How Educated Your Audience is

Since you are reaching out to an audience that has never previously expressed interest, it’s fair to assume they don’t know much about what you do. Figuring out how much they actually do or do not know is essential. If you neglect to offer explanations and illustrations, you’re likely to leave your audience bewildered. On the other hand, offering your audience overly obvious information can make it feel like you’re ‘talking down’ to them or wasting their time. Locate their level of education and respect it.

6. Evaluate the Familiarity Level

Cold emails are unfamiliar by their very nature. You have to overcome this familiarity in order to get a response and start a conversation. While some companies have the luxury of already having a well-known brand with a positive reputation, many people sending cold emails will be much less known to their audience. However, you should never use your brand in a self-promotional or arrogant way, or else you will come off as obnoxious and condescending. Even if you work at a popular company, resist the urge to use internal marketing jargon or tout all your awards and popular features, and instead focus on adding social proof to your emails.

7. Visualize the Buyer Persona

This ubiquitous marketing exercise is especially important when writing cold emails. It’s never enough to simply write for a generalized reader; you have to write emails for a real person. Knowing the demographic of your audience, their personality, and the issues singular to their work is essential to writing a good email. A fully fleshed-out buyer persona can even help you anticipate the mood of your reader when your email arrives in their inbox.

The work you put in before you start writing is your best asset. Crafting the perfect message is a lot easier after you already know which pain points and benefits to focus on, along with which keywords and indicators to incept inside your email. And since your message was so carefully targeted, it has a much better chance of getting attention and action.

Pick the right cold email tactic and you have the key to open any door.

How do you go about choosing your sales email strategies? Let me know and I will try to work your insights and experience into a future article.

03 Feb 23:51

The Great Big List of 23 Types of B2B Marketing Campaigns, by Funnel Stage

by Jordan Con

Need ideas on how to generate high quality demand and turn prospects into customers? You’ve come to the right place. Here is a list of 23 types of B2B marketing campaigns, as well as descriptions of when they are typically appropriate to use.

The list is broken down by stage of the funnel. In line with the pipeline marketing concept, we believe that marketing campaigns can and should have an impact at each stage of the funnel — all optimized for generating revenue.

*Our eight favorites (out of 23) — if this list becomes too overwhelming, look for the asterisk to skip to the types of B2B marketing campaigns that we think are most effective and interesting.

23-b2b-marketing-campaigns.png

Top-of-the-funnel campaigns:

Top of the funnel marketing campaigns are intended to bring anonymous visitors to your website and to convert them into leads by having them fill out a form. This could be a “contact us” form or a form to download gated content, such as an ebook.

Brand campaign

Digital brand campaigns are about creating brand name recognition. These types of campaigns are typically targeted using standard paid media targeting options: demographics and psychographics ,which includes interests and skills.

Gated education content asset campaign

Campaigns centered around an educational content asset, like an ebook or whitepaper or webinar, attract audiences because of their informational relevance. For example, an ebook full of best practices for account-based marketers would be of interest to B2B marketers looking to start or improve their ABM strategy.

A campaign built around an educational piece of content could consist of emails, display ads, social ads, and more and should point to a dedicated landing page where the content can be downloaded.

Ungated education content asset campaign

On the other hand, B2B marketers can also promote ungated educational content assets, like blog posts. While immediate conversion rates will of course be lower than for gated campaigns, providing ungated content builds trust and goodwill, ideally leading to a lead conversion down the road. Read more about ungated educational campaigns.

Research asset campaign*

Professionals often look to outside research to discover and validate new ideas. If your organization has a unique dataset, a great way to provide value to your audience is to publish interesting findings using your dataset that might help them do their job better. Publishing and promoting valuable research is an effective way to make a positive early impression and establish your brand as a trusted thought leader.

Research assets can be promoted through a multitude of channels, and should point to a dedicated landing page where the research can be read or downloaded.

Industry/Market building campaign

Marketers is new or confusing industries can also attract new audiences by building up and educating audiences on the industry. At Bizible, for example, we see benefits when B2B marketing attribution as an industry grows.

An example of an industry building campaign could be coordinated search ads and display ads that go to a landing page with industry information — what it is, why it’s important, etc.

Event registration campaign

Industry events are another place where audiences discover new products. Whether it’s holding your own event, being a sponsor at an event, or just speaking at an event, B2B marketers can fill the top of the funnel by drawing attention to event programs that involve their company.

This could mean applying for speaking slots at industry events and then promoting that session through email or social media. It could mean hosting a lounge or party outside of the event and inviting event attendees to it. There are a lot of different ways your brand can get exposure, whether you are an official sponsor or not.

Field marketing/road show campaign*

Similarly, field marketing or road show campaigns are a great way to engage audiences face-to-face. Typically, these are smaller, more focused events that take place in multiple locales. Promote these events by geo-filtering your email list, if possible, and reach out with personalized messaging and take advantage of geo-targeting options on paid media to only show ads to people near the location of the event. Additionally, a great way to drive better attendance is to work with local partners to co-promote each specific event. Read more about field marketing campaigns.

Partner/Alliance campaign*

Creating symbiotic relationships with other non-competing brands that share a similar audience are a great way for companies to build audiences. Between social validation and sharing of brand value, working with partners (or groups of partners) builds credibility with new prospects.

There are a number of ways to partner with other companies, from webinars centered around a shared topic of interest or a shared customer, to co-authored ebooks to swapping guest blog posts. The success of partner campaigns is largely dependent on your relationship with other companies in your space and creativity in working together.

Community building campaign

Social media is a great platform for building a community around your solution or industry. Community building marketing campaigns can be dedicated chats (planned 30 minutes or an hour where interested people can ask and answer relevant questions) or in-person meetups.

These create positive engagements at the top of the funnel, all of which improve conversion rates later down the funnel.

Compete campaign

Compete campaigns are popular search marketing campaigns (typically) where brands target a competitor’s name as the keyword to promote a landing page that shows a comparison between their product and a competitor’s product.

Compete campaigns are a way to interrupt a prospect’s path on a competitor’s funnel and get them into the top of your funnel.

Visual/Infographic asset campaign

An alternative to a text-based blog post or an ebook or research report is to create an infographic or visual asset to convey educational concepts or statistics. These visuals can be promoted via an email campaign and on social media.

Contest/Sweepstakes campaign

Asking people to give contact information through filling out a form isn’t a small ask. While most of the time marketers do this through offering valuable content like a research report, an alternative is to hold a contest or sweepstakes where the incentive is a prize (ideally a relevant item or experience).

Traditional media campaign (TV, print, out-of-home)

Even though we are in a digital age, it’s still not out of the question to utilize traditional media to build awareness. For B2B organizations that have a large pool of potential customers, a traditional media campaign may be an effective route to take. While it tends to require more investment than a digital campaign and has targeting limitations, it can be an effective way to reach a large audience with a simple message.

Middle-of-the-funnel campaigns:

Middle of the funnel campaigns encourage re-engagement and nurture prospects down the funnel. Prospects in the middle of the funnel are interested in your product, but may not be ready to commit to a demo with a sales representative.

Additionally, at the middle of the funnel, marketers often have a lot more knowledge of who the prospect is, what company they work for, as well as persona-specific needs. Middle of the funnel B2B marketing campaigns should leverage this knowledge to provide even more relevant experiences.

Content education asset campaign

Content education assets are great centerpieces for middle of the funnel campaigns, too! At this stage, however, they should be more specific across some dimension, like persona or product.

For example at Bizible we use our ebook, Marketing Attribution 101, as one of our top-of-the-funnel content asset. At the middle of the funnel, we have The CMO’s Guide to B2B Marketing Attribution, which is persona specific, and Components of a Smart Attribution Solution, which is more product specific, among other pieces of content.

Again, the campaign built around these pieces of content should include promotion and organic sharing on email, social, display, etc.

Persona-based campaign*

Because you now have more knowledge of who you are trying to engage, B2B marketers can use persona-based campaigns to hone in on the specific pain points that each persona faces that can be solved with their solution. A great way to execute these campaigns is to build lists using your marketing automation or CRM (whichever collects job titles/personas), and use them for targeting (email, social, etc. — whichever channels allow list uploads).

For example, a persona-based campaign may be an email campaign to the CMO that comes from your CMO or CEO — an executive-to-executive communication.

Retargeting campaign

Retargeting campaigns are an effective way to reach people who have already shown intent by visiting your website (or specific pages on your website). Many B2B companies opt to retarget visitors with either brand messages or a demo request. However, a more advanced retargeting campaign uses different ads depending on the page that was visited. If a visitor looked at the home page, it may suffice to show a brand message; if a visitor looked at blog posts, it may be good to show an ad for an ebook; if a visitor looked at the pricing page, it may be appropriate to show a demo request.

Again, with increased knowledge of the visitor, B2B marketers can create sophisticated and more effective retargeting marketing campaigns.

Lost lead re-engagement campaign

Often, B2B companies will have large lists of leads who dropped out at the lead stage or were part of closed-lost opportunities. Marketers can run re-engagement campaigns at these lost leads with new product updates or features that may re-spark their interest.

This type of campaign is typically run through email, but it can also use channels with list upload capabilities.

Direct mail brand campaign*

Direct mail has made a comeback with the increasing popularity of account-based marketing strategies. Direct mail allows marketers to differentiate with personalization and a tangible experience.

A direct mail campaign at this stage of the funnel may look something like sending contacts a physical book or other content asset to nurture them. Or if you know that several contacts within an account are engaged, but a key persona isn’t, you could send them a special gift to create a positive experience and engage them in the deal.

Customer marketing campaign

A customer marketing campaign entails encouraging your happiest customers to share their experiences with prospects looking for third-party verification. An informal version of this could be making introductions via email, while a more formal version could include creating a panel of customers who are happy to share their experience.

In exchange for their participation, customers involved in the campaign could receive referral fees, early access to product updates, or just the knowledge that they are spreading the word about a good product.

Bottom-of-the-funnel campaigns:

Bottom of the funnel campaigns are designed to close deals. Prospects at this stage should be well-versed in both the benefits and costs of your product, but may be getting pushback from their bosses or the decision-maker may be stalling.

Demo ad campaign

A demo ad campaign is the fundamental bottom of the funnel marketing campaign. At the bottom of the funnel, the marketing and sales team should have rich knowledge of the account and should be able to use that to create a compelling demo offer.

These campaigns should be targeted at accounts that are a good fit, have multiple contacts engaged, and have recently shown interest. A demo ad campaign can be run across a number of channels, including email, phone calls, social, and display.

Case study campaign*

For a less direct approach at the bottom of the funnel, B2B marketers can send case studies to prospects who face similar pain points. Case studies prove the value of your solution in a clear and concrete way that the prospect should be able to understand.

While these campaigns can span a number of channels, they are typically most effective via email.

Customer marketing campaign

Customers are also great references at the bottom of the funnel. For prospects who aren’t quite able to make a decision, introducing them to a customer for a live case study of sorts is a powerful and compelling play at the bottom of the funnel.

Direct mail demo campaign*

Direct mail can also be an effective tool at the bottom of the funnel. At this stage, where a deal is closer to being sealed or a demo with the decision-maker is on the line, a compelling offer may tip the balance.

For example, we’ve tested giving gift cards in exchange for completing a demo. Several years ago, Apptio offered iPads in exchange for demos with the C-suite. For this type of campaign to be profitable, the gift must correspond with your deal size — the bigger your deal size, the more impressive your gift can be.

03 Feb 23:50

Provide True Business Value and Win More Telecom Sales

by Barbara McKinney

Provide True Business Value and Win More Telecom Sales

For sustainable competitive edge, businesses should focus on their competitors. But if they want to provide real business value and win more telecom sales, they must concentrate on their customers. By providing great customer experience, it’s easier to attract potential leads and increase conversion rates. And since all products as well as services provide customers with benefits, they will pay any amount to enjoy that advantage.

Economic Value

Customers consider the economic value of any product or service in order to take full advantage of the money they spend. Therefore, businesses need to provide better value in every price they offer. In addition, businesses are a “value delivery” system that emphasizes on clear value propositions so that the targeted market will be well served. And a corresponding price-value model and market strategy can produce long term results.

How to Develop an Ideal Value Proposition

There are managers who use ready-made value propositions which are provided to them. An example of this is the technological advance that occurs under their supervision. However, many other managers need to depend on more strategic and systematic methods. So the initial step in developing a value proposition is to determine which factors will benefit the customers and how to price them. Of course, pricing usually depend on the quality of goods or services.

Prioritize What the Customers Need

When formulating a marketing strategy, focusing on competitors only comes second to customers. Understanding the needs and demands of the targeted customers should always be the first thing to consider. Hence, it’s important to fundamentally rethink the products or services and how to sort out the business model that can design, build, and market them. And only after the strategy is formulated can the business add value for their customers.

Creating More Telecom Sales

Enterprise IT networking is done by creating new opportunities that can enhance the revenue stream of telecom services. Using RFPs, however, aid in positioning their services while focusing on CIO language. By improving network complexity as well as networked applications, tight corporate budget and remote backup site are importantly needed to implement strategies.

The secret formula in getting new customers is to provide higher value products that they exactly need. This will lead to healthy relationships and long term patronization. The following are important areas to consider in creating valuable offers and telecom sales:

  • Concentrate on the scalability and availability structure used when transporting services.
  • Focus on SLA (service level agreement) offerings and put emphasis on the ability to give uninterrupted service.
  • Integrate design and expertise altogether to get better outcomes.

All these areas help in providing customers the insights they need to know in order to get more value on the services offered. With the ideal value proposition, customers can easily distinguish one business from another when it comes to choosing the best telecom services or products available in the market today. One big challenge is the ability to add better value and more options for customers to benefit from.

03 Feb 23:49

The Fast (and Easy) Way to Find Top Prospects on LinkedIn

by John Nemo

LinkedIn’s new desktop rollout just opened up a great avenue to find (and win) new business on the platform.

As the world’s largest social network for professionals, LinkedIn is a virtual treasure trove of data.

And, in the midst of rolling out its new desktop interface, LinkedIn recently announced some enhancements to its internal search engine that will open up new ways to find your ideal prospects on the platform.

LinkedIn = Google For Professionals

With nearly 500 million professionals in 200 countries, along with millions of additional data points on jobs, companies, industry news, personal blogs and more, you can think of LinkedIn like Google for professionals.

When used correctly, you can leverage LinkedIn’s advanced search features to create hyper-targeted, hyper-specific lists of the exact clients, customers or investors you want to connect with and use that data to build a personal relationship quickly.

Prospecting with Search

Here’s what you need to know most about how to utilize the new, revamped LinkedIn Search to find your sales leads and ideal prospects on the network.

The key is searching for your prospects using the “job title” filter that is available when you dive into LinkedIn’s internal search engine.

For example, if you want to sell your product or service to CEOs, you’d filter your LinkedIn search results by “CEO.”

In addition, you can further refine your LinkedIn searches by industry or geographical location.

Say you want to target professionals with the job title CEO, and you specifically want to target CEOs in the healthcare industry, ideally in Chicago and New York.

With LinkedIn’s advanced search filters, you can do exactly that!

Client-Facing is Key

You’ll want to combine this prospecting strategy with creating what I call a “client-facing” LinkedIn profile — one that quickly, simply and accurately demonstrates to your target audiences how you help them achieve their goals or desired outcomes.

Build Trust with Search

Also, before you hit your prospect over the head with a sales pitch, you’ll want to break the ice with some digital small talk.

Because LinkedIn shares with you where a prospect lives and works, along with where he or she went to school, you have plenty of easy ways to spark a conversation.

You can watch the video below to see how the new LinkedIn Search looks in action.

Get Advanced!

Once you do a general search, the key is to use the Advanced Search filters/features that you’ll see popping up on the right-hand side of the screen with your search results – something shown in the demo video from LinkedIn that’s included with this post.

Filter your prospects by location, job title and so on, and that way you’re able to instantly create some context for a personalized conversation.

When you leverage LinkedIn’s revamped search features to hyper-personalize your prospecting, and then use those same data points to personalize your engagement efforts on the platform, it becomes far easier to quickly build (and scale) the type of 1-on-1 relationships that lead to sales.

03 Feb 23:48

Turbo Charge Your Social Media Strategy With 10 Easy Tips

by Swapnil Bhagwat

A business can accrue innumerable advantages from social media campaigns, right from positioning to conversion. However, how to conduct social media marketing is the million-dollar question that many businesses face. Some of the other questions that hover in the mind are: What about the negative comments on social media? How to manage online reputation? How to attain brand visibility and position a company? Which social media channel to concentrate on?

While the list of such questions can be infinite, these are the primary issues that need to be addressed along with plans to turbo charge your social media strategy, which are discussed in the tips below.

1. A social media plan is mandatory

Quite often, many brands are noticed to create content and circulate it in all the social media channels. The strange part is, few are observed to post the same content in all available social networks. Instead of going in an unorganized way, first of all, the objectives should be determined along with the target audience. This is a crucial factor in social media communication as different channels entice different kinds of audience. While some may be used for branding, others are used for conversion.

Thus, a plan is absolutely necessary to cull out effective strategies that would follow. It’s most likely that your objectives for different social media platforms would be different. If so, the content that you develop for the audience should also be different, as it would serve different purposes. The best practice is to break the goals into different components for each platform and device a plan for each of them. The different components to consider would include:

  • Selecting social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram)
  • Persona of audiences
  • Objectives for each platform
  • Type of content and structure
  • Tone of communication

This channel plan has to be executed with the right kind of content in due consultation with the analytics and considering the persona of the audience. After a careful judgment of the tastes and preferences of the audiences, a strategy should be developed and experimented in consultation with the results of the analytics.

2. Stay focused on a specific social channel

It’s quite unlikely that your prospective customers are scattered across all social media channels unless your company is a big brand. Therefore, it is imperative to know which of the social media channels is populated with the most number of your customers and prospects at the planning stage itself. Delving deep into their preferences and tastes through a vivid analysis of their persona is more important than focusing on too many channels. The focus should be on the audience of a particular channel and the analytics reviewed on a periodic basis to weigh the differences in the response. The online presence in this channel should be carried on in a way which ensures that you are bringing value to the prospects.

It is important to avoid posting direct sales pitch and be a bit creative instead. Once you identify the social media channel that is most populated with your prospects, building trust, credibility, and reliability is the first step. The trust should be built in such a way that you are regarded as the thought leader and the audience asks for advice and counsel that would be helpful for them. Once the trust is built, the posts of the products can be pitched in slowly, with constant interaction. This kind of attention can only accentuate brand visibility and help the metrics to reach the targeted goals.

3. Constant supply of valuable content

A constant presence on social media with a regular supply of valuable content is the key to increased engagement of prospects that brings success. Once trust and credibility are built, posting useful content according to the preferences of the audience is something that would act as a fuel to the fire. Posting the same kind of content, again and again, should not be bored the audience. Use a calendar for posting content on all social channels.

The constant interaction with the customers and listening to them would help you decide on the type of content that they prefer. Listening to customers’ conversations would give you enough hints about what kind of content they are looking for. As the content library goes on building, the schedule for posting it should be regularly updated with the type of content assets that you want to release.

55-of-marketers-chose-facebook

4. Become a useful resource hub

Blogs, videos, e-books, whitepapers, and infographics should be posted in a way that you are considered as the resource hub, by the audience. This can help your brand to establish itself as the credible source. If the content is crafted smartly and positioned properly then the chances of circulation on platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat would be more. It will also help for lead generation as the prospects can be redirected to the newsletter or demo sign up page.

Thus, social media can be used as a channel for converting visitors and increasing traffic to your website as well. This would also enable you to gather useful data. The delivered content should be designed carefully so that it educates, inspires, and entertains the audience and they refer to your page for resources. This is a novel way of getting the links forwarded to friends and colleagues. This can also help in increasing the subscriber list of your newsletters and content as well. Although this seems to be a viable proposition with promising results, this kind of credibility can only be built with time, perseverance, and patience coupled with constant vigil and monitoring.

5. Change the content formats

After a considerable period of time, when there are enough resources in the library, it’s wise to reuse the social content with innovation. For instance, the written content that had a considerable number of viewers and readers can be converted into a video or an infographic. These types of videos can be posted on the official YouTube channel with links to other social media networks. This can increase the engagement and grow traffic to your website as well.

Changing the formats of the content does not mean converting into videos alone. It can be anything. For instance, if you have written on a particular subject for a long time and there are a considerable number of articles and resources, it can be converted into an e-book and used for marketing purposes on social media as well. Fragments of the articles published earlier can also be used and converting them into questionnaires or infographics can prove to be a great idea. This type of variation engages the audience more and allows you to increase the interaction with them surging the reach and maximizing the full potential of your content.

6. Use visual content to attract the audience

Visual content is shared more as it’s entertaining and takes lesser time to comprehend the underlying message. Efforts should be put in, to plan how the visual content would drive traffic to your website. Instead of promoting your brand, the video should address the pain points and depict any problem in a humorous way. This would increase the sharing of the video with other people increasing brand visibility and reach. Linking such videos of short duration to your website from your Instagram or YouTube account to a page where there are more resources is a great idea to drive traffic to your site. This would create a gateway to the valuable content you produce and optimize its potential.

Sharing visual content, videos, and infographics are imperative for social media marketing. Research has found out that content that is visual in nature has a higher impact on social media ROI. For example, a research done by Twitter revealed that photographs and pictures are retweeted more than texts. Social media posts with videos are retweeted 28% more as per the same research conducted by them. Another study by ‘Chute and Digiday’ also revealed the same inference who found that content which is visual in nature perform 4.4 times better than the textual content. According to the study, graphic designs, original illustrations, and user-generated visual content are the ones that perform the best on social media.

74-of-social-media-marketers

7. Analysis is the key

Posting rich content and not measuring the impact of it is a mistake that hinders in deriving the full potential of the content and can have an impact on the social media ROI. Curating content is important as few types of content can perform better on some social networks compared to others. Curation of content by the social network is important which helps you understand the impact of the content. This data can be highly helpful in increasing the effectiveness of your content curation as it can be published on other networks based on the kind of audiences you have. This would improve the chances of success and increase reach and engagement surging the ROI higher up.

Filtering the content by type can also be of great help in recirculating the materials for higher reach. Filtering can also be done by the time period which would help you to find the most popular ones in the last 24 hours or three days. It can again be reused to optimize the reach and engagement. Such efforts help in rapid branding and reaching a large number of people in the shortest possible time.

8. Host events periodically

You can form a group or a community dealing with the problems and issues that your business addresses on the social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn. This would help you in hosting private events to educate the users along with the brand awareness. Many businesses have been immensely benefitted and increased engagement levels with hangouts with experts from the field. On initiating your events within a private group, the members of the group receive an invitation or a notification for participation. This can be a great way to increase reach to the right audience.

9. Post comments and increase interaction

Read the blogs, posts, and comments of other people that are relevant to your business and comment on them regularly. This would help in getting ideas about the blog posts that you would write providing you a fair idea about people’s preferences. Practices such as sharing opinions, likes, and posting comments on the blogs and videos are an invaluable way of being visible. The proper comments and expert advice on social channels can make your visible. Also, there are chances that users would start recognizing your name and it cab be helpful from the point of positioning yourself and the business.

Another benefit of frequent interaction is, by this, the social media audience can be converted into qualified leads. A special care has to be taken in commenting, as the timeline is important. If you happen to receive any negative comments or feedback, address or reply it in a humble and professional way. This would help you gain trust among your followers.

10. Encourage content sharing with free resources

When someone likes your content, they can be encouraged to share the post with a free e-book or any other useful content assets in a tactful way. Give the audience freebies if they share the content. In this way, you can increase the reach quite a few times more than you would usually reach. The catch here is your potential customers or the prospects may not perceive the marketing techniques you deploy or see all of your communication but a strategic marketing plan backed with intelligent and witty communication can boost the chances of brand visibility.

A bonus tip

Time management is a great challenge that the entrepreneurs and small business owners face. That’s precisely the reason why analytics are important so that you can prioritize the tasks and allot specific time for each task and complete it within schedule. You may be spending a lot of time on Facebook and LinkedIn whereas the results that you get may not be satisfactory. The time spent has to be matched with the analytics and evaluated so that the time and effort on the social media channels can be optimized. Remember, social media is just one of the pillars of digital marketing and few other key areas like SEO, email or blog marketing require your attention as well. So, tracking the time in terms of the results would take you a long way in optimizing the returns and reaching your goals in the shortest possible time.

03 Feb 23:48

How the New Linkedin Impacts Different User Types

by Kurt Shaver

How the New Linkedin Impacts Different User Types

By now, about 50% of LinkedIn users have had their desktop interface switched over to the new mobile-inspired design. If it hasn’t, it’s expected to happen by the end of February. Here’s how to tell which one you have now. In the Old design, the primary navigation buttons were Home, Profile, My Network, Learning, Jobs, and Interests. They appeared on the upper left of the screen. In the New design, the primary navigation buttons are Home, My Network, Jobs, Messages, Notifications, and Me. They appear on the upper right of the screen.

LinkedIn is making these changes so the desktop (browser) version matches the look and functionality of the mobile design. That means they are simplifying the desktop features, which means many popular features are disappearing. Here are a few of the features to kiss goodbye in the free version of LinkedIn.

Not all of these features are disappearing altogether. Some, like Advanced Search, Tags, and Notes, are simply being moved above the pay wall. That means you’ll need to purchase the premium Sales Navigator version of LinkedIn to continue using these powerful prospecting features.

So, how do these changes affect you? It depends on what kind of LinkedIn user you are:

1. Low-Level User: Approximately 23% of LinkedIn’s nearly 500M members are what they call Monthly Active Users. In other words, they log in at least once a month. If you’re in the other 77%, then chances are they changes will not affect you very much because you don’t use LinkedIn that much. It would be like the impact on me from changing rules for the game of cricket. I don’t play or watch cricket so I’m not going to notice.

2. Average User: These are the people who will notice the most change. More than likely, they’re using the free LinkedIn or a lower level premium version like Business Plus or Premium Career. Many of the most popular features used by salespeople, including Advanced Search, will soon be available exclusive in Sales Navigator. These users will need to step up to the $79.99/mo. Sales Navigator or give up the capabilities they been using to find new prospects.

3. Advanced Users: Since most advanced users are using either Sales Navigator (sales) or Recruiter (hiring), they won’t be impacted much. Sure, both these products are separate from the core LinkedIn so advanced users will see the changes, but most of them will quickly adapt since it’s just features moving around rather than disappearing.

If you’re a low-level user ready to learn how to use LinkedIn or you’re an average user wondering how to adapt your LinkedIn usage to keep leads flowing, then join me for the first public Social Selling Boot Camp of 2017.

02 Feb 17:26

How to Establish a Meaningful Lead Definition

by dan.mcdade@pointclear.com (Dan McDade)

How to Establish a Lead Definition

Walk out of your office and ask the first three marketers and the first three sales executives you encounter one question:

What constitutes a lead?

I suspect that you will get 6 almost entirely different answers to this essential, strategic question.

Before technology came into play things were bad enough. With technology it is now possible to get more poor quality leads to sales faster than ever before. Most of them are a waste or wasted.

Watch this brief video to learn how to establish a lead definition.

Generally speaking, companies define their market too broadly, resulting in wasted time and effort applied to too many prospects. Are we marketing to IT decision makers in the F100? Or are we looking for IT security execs at enterprise-level healthcare organizations? Knowing the difference lets us engage the “real” leads in a meaningful and far more efficient manner. In one case recently a client sent us 4,200 prospects. The total addressable market was 804 and they were missing over half of those targets.

Frequently, the definition of a lead is not shared by marketing and sales (or even within marketing or sales). If there is no agreement on a good lead definition, there will continue to be infighting between organizations, and waste. Is a good lead only one where a decision will be made in the next quarter? Or do we recognize the value of relationship development on longer-term leads? Must we talk to the CEO, or is this a decision that the CEO will have no role in? You always want to sell high, but there is no sense in selling too high.

While most companies say they sell a solution, not a product or service, the message around what that offering is (made up of a product, price and delivery mechanism) is more likely than not described differently by every marketing and sales executive in the organization. Do we provide staffing, or are we a HR services firm? Are we a niche vendor, consultant, or service aggregator? All involved need to agree and have the ability to articulate who we are, what we do, and why we’re better and different consistently and concisely.

Finally, the alphabet soup of lead qualifying criteria such as BANT and ANUM are not the solution to the problem. For most high dollar, strategic selling, BANT and ANUM disqualify companies based on the lack of timeframe and/or budget – a huge mistake that will allow more agile competitors to get in early, solidly position themselves while you are waiting around and too late to have any shot at competing. For more, take sixty seconds and watch the video.

 

Comments please! Let me know if you want to explore solutions to this problem for your company.