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As the scientific community recognizes four new elements on the scientific periodic table, it seemed fitting for revenue-focused B2B marketers to join the club with our own chart. The Periodic Table of Marketing Attribution displays the key components necessary for a fully functional, data-driven attribution strategy.

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While chemists in the scientific community anxiously await the final completion of the seventh row on the periodic chart, data scientists and revenue-focused marketers can show off their exclusive periodic table of 63 elements — signed, sealed, and delivered to you personally by your resident attribution experts.

The following infographic takes each section of elements and explains how they  apply to the process of B2B marketing attribution tactics.

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SECTION #1: ATTRIBUTION MODELING

Attribution is the process of attributing revenue to specific marketing activities that contributed to the conversion of those customers. It can track keywords, campaigns, content, display ads, events (and more) and follow a customer through their interactions with all of those marketing touches. After they become a customer, an attribution model will assign revenue credit to those touches in a specific manner, depending on the model.

Single-touch models only assign credit to one source. Multi-touch models assign revenue credit to multiple touchpoints along the marketing funnel. And, full-path B2B marketing attribution models assign credit to all influential touchpoints from the beginning to the end of a customer’s journey.

SECTION #2: MARKETING CHANNELS

The marketing channels included in the periodic table are those that can specifically be tracked through a B2B marketing attribution program —

• Website
• Direct traffic
• Blog
• Offer download
• Syndication
• Social Media
• Twitter
• Linkedin
• Facebook
• Organic Search
• AdWords
• Google display network
• Bing Ads
• Retargeting
• Email
• Newsletter
• Outbound calling
• Live chat
• Partners
• Referral traffic

All of these sources of leads, opportunities, and customers can be specifically tracked directly to revenue in order to see which channels (or which activities within the channels) are generating the most revenue. B2B marketing attribution strategy is gearing up to be one of the most influential components of a martech stack — because it measures the effectiveness of the entire strategy on a granular level.

SECTION #3: MARKETING ACTIVITIES

The activity elements listed in this portion of the periodic table refer to marketing initiatives that can directly create touchpoints within an attribution program. Each one can serve as a conversion point within the marketing and sales funnel, and each one can be assigned revenue credit in order to gauge how well the respective initiative contributes to the bottom line. From email nurturing and online content, to events and webinars, B2B marketing attribution measures all types of marketing activities, whether they’re online or offline.

SECTION #4: CHANNEL MAPPING

How does an attribution program actually map each touchpoint to its respective channel? How does a conversion point get assigned revenue credit? These elements display the different components used to map touchpoints to their channels and organize them in a way that can be easily sorted through and reported on by a B2B marketer.

The most common ways this is done is through API integrations, cookies, and UTM parameters, which collectively work together to gather tracking data and push that information into the CRM. After that occurs, an attribution program will take it the rest of the way and sort, organize, and process that data into neat dashboards and spiffy reports that allow marketers to easily understand the effectiveness of their marketing.

SECTION #5: ATTRIBUTION METRICS

These elements are a short list of the types of advanced and specialized attribution metrics that a B2B attribution software program can generate. These types of metrics aren’t available through any other type of martech program, because they rely on highly granular and incredibly accurate data. Metrics such as leads by websource, opportunities by channel, and revenue by keyword will help marketers know which channels are making them the most money and how to optimize in order to generate a greater level of ROI.

We used to make cold calls because we had to. Back in the day, it was the only way (besides referrals and leads from advertisements) to find new business. Of course, there was also something called the phone book and, when somebody called in, it paid to count the number of alphabetical listings before yours […]

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If Cold Calling is Dead, It’s Because There’s Little Need for It by Craig Jamieson -Maximize Social Business

The best idea in the world won’t set the world on fire unless it’s shared in just the right way. Too many people let smart ideas and good products fall to the wayside because they falsely believe that if they build it, people will come. You wouldn’t expect to see lines forming at your door if you opened a store that sells down jackets and snow boots along a desert highway in the middle of July. However, setting up a kiosk that sells fur-lined boots and hats in a cozy ski lodge just might create a line full of eager buyers. The same basic logic applies to B2B marketing. Far too many people are opening coat stores in the desert instead of taking their products directly to the ski lodge. The simple truth is that how we share is as important as what we share these days. Successful marketing is actually just successful storytelling. A confident marketer knows how to jump in and narrate every twist and turn of a great story. While many people assume that advertising to other businesses involves less creativity than marketing to the general public or niche markets, B2B marketing actually requires its own specific type of storytelling. If you’re looking to craft a B2B marketing strategy, you need three things:

• Credibility as a storyteller
• The ability to make your clients see themselves as part of your story
• The ability to write new chapters in response to the demands of your clients

You might be wondering how to achieve those goals using practical steps. Here are the five things every B2B company needs to focus on if they plan to create a relevant story that people will want to hear.

1. Know Your Customer

One of the things that entrepreneurs have the hardest time wrapping their heads around is the fact that an amazing product won’t automatically generate buzz or revenue. In fact, many programs and products that are meant to solve a problem or optimize a process will go largely unnoticed and unused by the majority of the general public. However, for the small segment of small businesses and corporations that actually needs that product, the potential for buzz can be huge. The trick is to focus your energy on spreading awareness about your product or service to the right segment of the population. In fact, one could go as far as to say that any marketing dollars spent on informing people who don’t need to know about your product is actually wasted money. Before you construct a marketing strategy, it is important to know the answers to the following questions:

• Who needs to know about my product?
• Where can I go to reach the people who need to know about my product?

2. Be Clever and Do it Right

Business to business marketing doesn’t have to be all business. Sometimes it’s okay to use humor to draw clients in. The Nielsen Global Survey of Trust in Advertising recently conducted a poll that included the responses of 29,000 people in 58 countries. The results of the poll showed that almost half of all global respondents were in agreement that ads that contained humor resonated the most with them above all else. When tastefully done, humor can make a brand appear more relatable. Humor can be especially powerful when it is used to market a tech product that is usually thought of as being dull. Cisco is a company that’s known for artfully crafting humorous campaigns that take the dry nature of computer components makes them funny. For instance, Cisco ran a campaign that marketed its $80,000 ASR 9000 router as the perfect Valentine’s Day gift. The ad went on to be shared on the social media sites and blogs for many months.

3. Be Mobile Friendly

If you are directing clients and potential clients to a website that isn’t compatible with mobile devices, you’re way behind in the game. While investing in a cutting-edge platform that makes it easy for clients to interact directly with your brand is ideal, having a site that displays clearly on small screens is the bare minimum you should be able to pull off. More and more B2B companies are using mobile apps that provide service tools and methods for data collection. If you provide a digital solution or product that can be downloaded or accessed virtually, having a user-friendly website is one of the most important things you can do. Increasing the amount of interaction clients can have with you from their mobile devices without needing to be on a desktop computer increases the likelihood that you will become a part of their workflow and routine.

4. Protect Your Reputation

In the world of B2B business, news travels quickly. A vendor can earn a negative reputation pretty quickly if they don’t go above and beyond to meet a client’s expectations. What’s at risk if you don’t focus on meeting the needs of your clients? Not only will you risk being blacklisted within the various departments of the company you’ve just disappointed, but you’ll also risk negative chatter about your service throughout the industry you serve.

5. Find the Influencers

Successful B2B marketers know how to find the popular kids. Just like the way certain people could set trends in high school, there are department heads and taste makers in the corporate environment who can help to make a product or service rise to the top. These are the people you want to reach out to and offer free or discounted versions of your product to. You can network with these people in a receptive environment by attending industry conferences or seeking them out in LinkedIn groups.

Building a great product is just the first step to success. A tight B2B marketing strategy that gets your message to the right people using the right channels is the way to become a recognized name in your industry.

New salespeople seem to love to talk about price. They compare one product with another on the basis of cost, they go on about the discounts they can give, and they try to outsell the competition with claims of lower price.

But all that talking about price focuses your prospect’s attention on it, even if they weren’t overly concerned with cost at the beginning of the sales call.  Interestingly, studies show that the typical salesperson is a lot more concerned about price than is the typical customer.

Smart salespeople handle price as if it were a minor consideration. Of course, when the prospect makes it an issue, they deal with it effectively. But even then, they try to minimize its importance.

Follow these three tips on your next sales call to minimize the importance of price while still maintaining a healthy margin.

1) Focus on benefits, not features or price.

The best way to convey to your prospect that your product is the most appropriate solution to their problem (regardless of price) is to focus all your attention on the benefits. Never assume that a prospect fully understands the benefit of a feature -- always point it out and expand on it. The more benefits you apply to the prospect’s needs or wants, the more often you’re able to show them what’s in it for them if they choose to partner with you.

2) Build value and then work to deliver it.

When you create value in the eyes of your buyer, the product or service you’re offering becomes more desirable, and price becomes less important. By establishing value early on, you can actually make a higher price work for you as a competitive advantage. Sensible buyers realize that with most purchases, you get what you pay for, and when you do present your price, it can make a statement about the quality of your product.

Use the sales call as an opportunity to pinpoint exactly what the prospect considers valuable in a solution, and adjust your offerings to meet that criteria. Price becomes less of an issue when a prospect sees that their problem will be solved.

3) Present your price confidently -- and stick to it.

Success in sales will be driven by two essential factors: margin and volume. In order to maintain your profit margin, it’s necessary to present your price with confidence and stand firm on it. And to deal with price-cutting attempts, you’ll need to get comfortable responding to the phrase “your price is too high.” Try following up with these replies:

• “Let me tell you why our price is where it is.” At this point, repeat each of the benefits your product provides and the emotional costs your prospect will save by partnering with you.
• “Let me explain how each of the things we’ve discussed will help you.” Expand on the benefits they’ll receive and the emotional relief you’ll provide them.
• “We can work to give you a better price. But to do that, we’ll have to remove some of the components we’ve discussed. Which would you like to eliminate?” Your prospect will likely not want to remove or reduce any of the benefits you’ve provided. When you use this as your last option, you’d be surprised at how often a prospect will find a way to make the price work.

By focusing less on price and more on the value you are able to provide your prospect, you can keep your buyer’s attention on what they’re ultimately concerned with -- finding the right solution. After that, it’s just details. 

Last Tuesday, I had two interesting meetings.

In the morning, a salesperson pitched me on their sales compensation software. The salesperson, as expected, showed up with their 20-slide generic pitch deck, filled with their company mission statement, case studies, feature set, and pricing.

It was the worst meeting of the week. All the information he showed me I had already consumed on their website. The salesperson had no insight into my interests, despite the fact that I had visited the company’s website many times, read many blog articles, and downloaded one of their ebooks.

In the afternoon, I visited my doctor. Going into the discussion, she knew that I had gained four pounds over the last year. She knew that I had been in the emergency room three months prior for an injury to my back. She knew that my grandfather passed away from colon cancer 10 years ago.

Our conversation was not about elevator pitches on the latest and greatest drugs on the market. Instead, she had questions about my context. I took her questions very seriously. I trusted her. I gave her honest answers. When she prescribed a new medication, I did not question it. I did not ask to think about it. I did not ask for 20% off. She clearly understood me, had my best interests in mind, and was trying to help me out.

In these two stories, the desires of the patient and the prospect (me) were the same. I simply wanted assistance with a problem I was having. However, the approach of the doctor and the salesperson were remarkably different. While the salesperson failed to add any real value to the buyer experience, the doctor personalized the experience to me. She was fully equipped with my context, and as such, she had my trust and had a far more successful outcome.

Think about your sales team for a moment and compare their approach to the two examples above. Does your sales team approach discussions with prospects more like the salesperson or more like the doctor? How do you want your sales team to approach the discussion?

The modern buyer is far more empowered than they were 20 years ago. Twenty years ago, buyers had to rely on salespeople to gather the product information necessary to make a smart purchase. We did not like the experience, but we had to do it.

Today, thanks to the Internet, all that information is available to us at our fingertips. We still don’t like dealing with salespeople. But the great news is -- we don’t have to deal with salespeople anymore.

What does this say for the future of sales? Salespeople need to take a more modern approach to selling. They need to add value to the buying journey. They need to understand the context of the buyer and put that context at the forefront of the sales process, not their company’s value proposition. Salespeople need to be experts in their domain, to the point that prospects reach out to them for advice.

Selling needs to be less like a prospect/salesperson relationship and more like a doctor/patient relationship.

Here are three tactics on how to transform your sales team to align with the modern buyer (much like how doctors align with their patients).

Train salespeople to help them experience the day-to-day job of their target buyer.

Every salesperson at HubSpot goes through 30 days of training. The training does not teach new hires sales scripts to memorize or the top 10 objections to expect in the funnel. Instead, the majority of the training puts our salespeople in the day-to-day life of the buyer they will eventually sell to. Each salesperson builds their own website, publishes their own blog, generates a following in social media, ranks their site in Google, tests landing pages, runs an email campaign, and designs a lead nurturing flow all using the HubSpot software. Sales hires feel the challenges of our target customer because they live through them.

By the time new sales hires make their first prospecting calls, they know more about inbound marketing, blogging, and social media than 90% of the prospects on whom they are calling. They can genuinely understand these prospective buyers. They can genuinely advise them. They can genuinely help them.

Adopt sales tools that help your sales team help the buyer (not the sales leader).

Most sales software was built for the sales leader. It helped the leader to run forecasts, review pipeline, and get better visibility into the funnel. But, it created a ton of work for the salesperson. It took them away from focusing on the customer.

First and foremost, sales software should help the salesperson help the customer -- not help the salesperson help the sales leader. If you do the former, the latter will follow naturally. Effective sales software should provide salespeople with the full context of the buyer at their fingertips, just like the buyer has information about the salesperson’s company at their fingertips. Has the prospect visited the website lately? What pages have they visited? What blog articles have they read? Has anyone in my network emailed anyone at their company? Is there recent news about the organization? What is the company talking about in social media? This context helps the salesperson deliver the experience that my doctor delivered. It modernizes the sales process. 

Get context about your prospects by downloading HubSpot's free CRM.

Enable salespeople to be sought out as thought leaders in their industry.

Many companies today are writing blog articles and participating in social media to position their brands as experts in their field. Individual salespeople have this same opportunity. I challenge salespeople to take time away from less fruitful efforts like cold calling or Chamber of Commerce meetings and reallocate it to participating online where their prospects are actively conversing. Find the blogs your prospects read. Read those blogs. Comment on those blogs. Find the LinkedIn groups your prospects converse in. Answer their questions in these forums. Find the thought leaders on Twitter your prospects follow. Follow those same thought leaders. Retweet their messages. Write a guest blog on their company’s blog.

Salespeople have the opportunity to position themselves as thought leaders, and to be sought out by prospects for advice, in the same way I sought out my doctor for advice.

Author: Chris Gillespie

And how does that make you feel?…

This ain’t your grandmother’s psychotherapy. Despite all of his cultural preeminence, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud is now completely outdated and out of favor. Our favorite father of modern psychology has been sidelined, with almost all of his theories disproven by science. So what’s the appeal of Freud and why do we still think of him when it comes to psychology? It’s because we associate him with having supernatural insights into how people think. And who doesn’t want the power to influence people? In the context of any business, this potentially means more sales.

It’s no secret that people make a purchase based on their feelings. Haven’t you heard the saying that retail therapy is cheaper than a psychiatrist? While the path to purchase may start with an unmet need, your customers will only purchase when they feel that they’re making a good decision. That’s right, people don’t buy the best solution, they buy the one they feel the best about. You can draft the most logical argument on earth (looking at you, salespeople writing long-winded essay-style emails) and still lose a deal. It’s no wonder then that a primer on basic psychology can supercharge your sales. Here are the five most important psychology principles for you to know:

1. Social Proof

Social proof is the idea that we look to others to make our decisions. In essence, we’re social animals and we feel more comfortable moving with the entire herd. This is precisely the reason that companies list the logos of their customers prominently on their website. In a way, it says “No need to worry, others have purchased from us and are happy with their decision. We’re a safe bet.”

Leverage social proof in sales:

Do your homework: Before approaching a company or client, draw up a list of your customers that look just like them. This requires a good understanding of their business model or your efforts will surely backfire. For instance, pitching an investment banker the same as you would a personal banker will discredit you right from the get-go (speaking from experience). They may even ask you directly, “Who else in our industry do you work with?” and this is your time to shine. Rattle off some examples and direct them toward relevant case studies.

Use third-party stories: A common mistake is telling people how you’ll help them rather than showing them. Avoid talking in ambiguous, passive voice about potential benefits. Instead, talk concrete terms about real results already driven for companies like theirs. Try the time tested phrase “XYZ company, who you might be familiar with, was able to realize a 10x increase in marketing revenue.” Or if you’re selling to consumers, post some customer testimonials and reviews on your site. This gives people something solid they can sink their teeth into, erasing their concerns whether or not your product or solution will work because it already has.

2. Rule of Reciprocation

People are compelled to return favors, even you don’t ask for them. It’s just common courtesy, right? Our society thrives off of cooperation—we’ve grown up with the instinct to return favors. In fact, it even pains us not to be able to return the favor. Have you ever been frustrated with someone who won’t let you pay the dinner bill as a thank you? Or been offended by someone who refused a gift? I’ve seen sparks fly at otherwise sanguine holiday family gatherings because someone feels indebted but isn’t allowed to pay. We, as humans, feel a psychological anguish to relieve that burden of owing someone, and we’re likely to return oversized gifts to be free of it.

Start reciprocating:

Do favors for people: The magic is in getting people to realize that you’re doing them a favor and it’s not part of your everyday job. Otherwise, people will assume that everything you do for them is standard. Be refreshingly honest and let them know the sorts of hoops that you have to jump to get them what they need. Phrases like, “Just so you’re aware, this is going to take a conversation with my boss…” Make it easy to break that news and drive it home that you think they’re valuable. If you do this well, you’ll find yourself following up on fewer extraneous demands, and clients will feel more gratitude for the attention given. They’ll also feel compelled to respond in kind, which will trigger additional willingness to work together.

Cookies for contracts: On the last day of a month, I once had a tray of freshly baked cookies delivered to a prospect who was holding a contract. There were enough cookies to share with the entire office, and that convinced them to walk across the hall and ask for a signature from their boss that I would not have gotten otherwise. The secret? The power of the rule of reciprocity (and freshly baked cookies).

3. The Contrast Principle

This is the underlying secret to many negotiations: value is completely relative. If I tell you this gold watch is $200, you may think that’s on the pricey side. However, if I tell you the gold watch is $1250, but I can let it go for only $250, you’ll feel that you got an exceptional deal. And chances are, you will be okay with paying more than the $200 you had budgeted. In fact, studies show that you’ll be happier with that purchase and more likely to purchase again. Hence, the reason that all negotiators inflate their initial demands is so that they can end up with what they want and still seem reasonable.

Retail companies do this all the time and it’s been proven to increase the average sales price by 20%. Jewelry stores place oversized “aspirational” pieces up front and let you settle for something that costs less. Men’s suit stores “talk the top of the line” by showing you the most expensive suit, then a less expensive one, and suddenly, albeit pricey, the herringbone pattern suit seems like a good idea. The applications are endless.

Get started on the right foot:

Start high: When you share the price of your product or service with a customer, don’t be afraid to tell them your full list price and let it sink in. Give them time to react before alluding to cheaper options that you can explore with them. Any sales professional that starts out with a discount has committed a grave error: they’ve negotiated with themselves. And in my experience, not only do clients not fully appreciate the up-front discount, but it encourages them to ask for more. So why make your life harder? Allow them to go through the motions and work you down so that by the time they reach the number you wanted to begin with, you’re both satisfied with the result.

4. Authority Principle

People instill automatic trust in things that seem official. Have you ever noticed that you’re being followed by a police car and tensed up, driving exactly the speed limit until you got to a stoplight and realized it was just someone’s Crown Victoria? This is the sort of obedience that authority compels. And people identify authority in many different ways—titles, uniforms, written signs, and more.

One commonly overlooked form of authority is by putting something in writing. I once had a curious customer who wanted every little detail of how our product worked with their existing systems. After countless hours of back and forth explanation, I finally asked our marketing team put the exact explanation into letterhead and published it on our website. The result? Immediately, the credibility issue was solved because no,w the same words, albeit identical, were coming from an authoritative figure. And with no further explanation needed, they purchased.

Take charge:

Bolster your credibility by putting it in writing: When your marketing materials and one-pagers confirm what you’re telling prospects, you’ll have the backing of authority through the power of the written word. If you find yourself forging into new markets and verticals, team up with your marketing team to create whitepapers and blogposts that you can reference.

Bring in your boss: Sometimes, people just want to know that they’re being taken care of by someone with authority. By simply bringing your boss into the conversation to give the same guarantees you would have given, you’ll ease their concerns.

5. Scarcity Principle

We value things more highly when they are scarce or may become so. Examples of this are prevalent in society. In his book Influence, psychologist Robert Cialdini shares a tale about how a specific type of laundry detergent was outlawed in parts of Florida and, suddenly, the neighboring counties saw a skyrocketing use of that detergent. What’s more compelling, users there saw a spike in satisfaction with the laundry detergent and attributed all sorts of wonderful restorative properties to it. Crazy? Hardly. If you’ve ever been told as a kid not to touch something, you know that your desire to do so only increases. And this is what’s happening every day in business, when “limited quantities” of things are advertised as “going fast.” Have you ever see in an online store “4 left in stock” above an item you want? This isn’t a helpful indicator, it’s a sales tactic at work. And it works.

Apply the scarcity principle:

Create urgency with deadlines: There are different deadlines—ones like contract expirations and product launches or ones that your business cycle or model imposes (end of year pricing, start date availability, unusual contract terms, etc.). Focus on the most impact full ones and help clients understand that they can only benefit by acting now because the deal won’t be around forever.

Psychology can empower you with deep insights to woo your prospects. While these may not be superhuman ones, these are certainly effective and time-tested heuristics that can help you persuade already interested buyers down the path of a sale. What are some other psychology principles that are relevant in sales? Share them in the comments below!

 

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5 Psychology Tips for Salespeople That Would Have Made Freud Buy was posted at Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership. | http://blog.marketo.com

The post 5 Psychology Tips for Salespeople That Would Have Made Freud Buy appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

Manufacturer Strongwell Corporation transformed its email marketing and alignment through marketing automation — so much so that it was able to pull a $30,000 project into the Sales funnel after its improved email nurture campaign was put in place. In the case study below, see how the team integrated the automation system and worked closely with the Sales team to qualify leads, and then nurture them with a drip campaign.

QuotaFactory’s Prospect Relationship Management (PRM) platform is the data management, prospecting plan, automated dialing, and sales development workflow technology that your sales development team needs. A PRM assists sales development professionals in the qualification or disqualification of your target accounts and/or MQLs to generate fully qualified leads for your sales team to close.

Though a PRM offers a multitude of significant benefits to you and your team, we thought we’d break down the three most critical in our newest guide, Why Your Sales Process Needs a PRM which can be downloaded below:

1. PRM Cuts Down on Time Inefficiencies

According to a study by Docurated, 79% of sales and marketing executives believe that improving sales productivity is a critical driver to hit new targets and increase net new revenue.

Through enhanced sales productivity, sales teams improve their chances of obtaining and even exceeding quota.

That’s why our PRM provides access to proven automated dialing methods, real-time business intelligence and contact data, and highly organized and automated workflows.

2. PRM Makes Effective Use of Sales and Marketing Budgets

Huffington Post claims that investments for sales acceleration technologies now exceeds $1.2 billion. With this kind of money being spent on sales technology and masses speaking to the needs of it, you may find your team struggling to learn, adapt to, and effectively utilize up to 8 different tools all claiming to make prospecting easier.

PRM combines all of the necessary technology into one platform. You can simultaneously minimize the costs of your CRM storage charges and data all while improving the sales development function.

3. PRM Maximizes Sales Efforts

Your CRM should be used to manage current customers and qualified opportunities that will likely convert in the future. Your PRM should be utilized to house target accounts that have yet to be qualified in or out for your sales team. By keeping these two very different activities separate – account nurturing and prospecting, and prospecting qualified opportunities – your leads tab no longer becomes a catch-all for all levels of qualified (and unqualified) leads. Now, you can organize, maximize, and more accurately report on your sales efforts.

Download our latest eBook, Why Your Sales Process Needs a PRM, to learn how our Prospect Relationship Management platform can supplement your sales development efforts to increase time efficiency, improve sales and marketing budgets, and create an optimal sales process.

We used to make cold calls because we had to. Back in the day, it was the only way (besides referrals and leads from advertisements) to find new business. Of course, there was also something called the phone book and, when somebody called in, it paid to count the number of alphabetical listings before yours […]

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If Cold Calling is Dead, It’s Because There’s Little Need for It by Craig Jamieson -Maximize Social Business

   

How does your business find sales leads? A billboard on a major highway? An ad that airs during a TV show that your target audience might never see?

What if there was a way to make sure you were getting the right marketing content to the people who would benefit from it the most?

“Tell us more,” you say? Well, we’re talking about inbound marketing, a strategy based around the idea of letting your customers – and potential customers – find you.

The Salesforce blog recently listed six ways inbound marketing can generate more qualified leads for your business. Here’s that list, along with some input of our own.

1. It Engages Your Customers Before They Know They’re Your Customers

“Inbound marketing, when done well, meets your customers where they want to be,” writes Stuart Leung of Salesforce.

With inbound marketing, the content you create is designed to line up with what your customers are interested in at various stages of the buyer’s journey:

• Awareness, in which your leads have a problem they need to solve.
• Consideration, in which they’ve begun to look for someone to solve the problem.
• Decision, in which they’ve settled on a company to handle their problem.

Because you’re giving them information that’s interesting/important to them, they’ll be more likely to download your offers, and thus turn over their information to your sales team.

2. Keep Track Of Your Leads With A CRM

CRM stands for a customer relationship management system, which will help you maintain your list of leads. A CRM will help you determine who your best prospects are, and give you more insight into their backgrounds. The more detailed and accurate your information is, the more you’ll show your prospects that you’ve taken the time to learn about them.

3. Use Your Blog To Solve Problems

In the first section, we talked about the stages of the buyer’s journey. Your blog is an excellent place to attract people who are in the first stage. They have problems related to your industry. You have your blog, where you can publish posts on how to solve those problems.

For example: Let’s say you’re a company that manufactures supplies for doctors’ offices. You could write a blog post about 10 ways to make a medical practice more efficient. It helps your potential customers solve a problem and establishes you as an authority in your field.

4. A picture Is Worth 1,000 Words, And A Video Is Worth 1,000 Pictures

That’s not a real statistic, but we’re using it to underline the importance of visual content, especially visual content in the form of video.

We’ve made this point before and we’ll likely make it again: Video marketing is part of inbound marketing, and video is expected to become the dominant form of internet traffic in the next few years.

Video is naturally engaging, and that’s vital in a time where people are overwhelmed by information. By presenting content in video form, you’re giving prospects and customers something that’s easy to digest.

That doesn’t mean there’s no place for still imagery in your marketing strategy. On social media, posts using photos or infographics tend to get more shares than ones that just feature words. And speaking of social media…

5. Social Media Isn’t Just For Business-To-Consumer Companies

Anyone who uses Facebook and Twitter long enough will see ads targeted to them. But there’s a third social media platform business-to-business companies think about when trying to attract leads.

We’re talking about LinkedIn. As Salesforce’s Leung puts it: “Because LinkedIn is a professional social network, users aren’t turned off by business-related marketing on their feed. The mindset and expectations of the user is entirely different when compared to consumer-focused networks and that’s a good thing when it comes to B2B leads.”

6. Inbound Marketing Needs To Be Continuous

You may have a solid inbound marketing strategy, but you can’t rest on your laurels. Finding and nurturing leads takes time, so you’ll need to keep creating content that attracts leads at every step of the journey, while also enticing people just starting on their buyer’s journey.

If you’re ready to launch your inbound campaign but still have questions on how to begin, get in touch with IQnection. Our marketing experts can help you populate your website and social media feeds with the type of content that will keep customers and soon-to-be customers coming back.

The music of British rockers Motorhead and its inimitable frontman, the late (great) Lemmy Kilmister, might not be to everyone’s taste, but few would disagree with the fact that rock ’n’ roll lost a true original with Lemmy’s passing on December 28, 2015.

As a fan of the band (and rock music in general) I believe we as email marketers can learn a lot from Lemmy’s approach to business and life in general.

No Sleep ’Til Email Engagement – 5 Things Email Marketers Can Learn from Motorhead

1. A Solid Work Ethic: Motorhead didn’t believe in taking it easy. While the band’s contemporaries took extended hiatuses between albums and tours, Motorhead just got on with business. Over its 40-year career, the band toured extensively for at least seven months of the year before setting aside another two months for recording. Make no mistake, the most successful email marketers are the ones who work the hardest to plan, execute and follow up on campaigns. As an email marketer, you should never find yourself with nothing to do.
2. Putting People First: Motorhead believed in looking after its fans. Lemmy never refused to give an autograph and the band would even provide dressing rooms at venues for its “super fans” who would follow them on tour. The band members understood if they looked after their fans, the fans would look after them. Email marketing is all about maintaining a solid relationship with the people on your list. Take the time to get to know your subscribers, give them what they want (with targeted and relevant offers) and they’ll stick with you.
3. Solid Branding: Motorhead never changed its style of music or attire to suit current (and rapidly changing) fashions. While this might have infuriated many record label bosses, it certainly endeared Motorhead to an army of fans who stuck with the band through thick and thin. Your email campaigns need to be “heard” above all the noise of the inbox Solid branding in terms of your email templates and landing pages is a vital first step on the road to email marketing success.
4. Collaboration: Motorhead and Lemmy collaborated with numerous artists ranging from British heavy metal stalwarts Girlschool and underground shock rocker Wendy O. Williams all the way through stadium fillers like Metallica and the Foo Fighters. Email marketers can build successful collaborations with any number of people including colleagues, clients, suppliers and industry thought leaders and other influencers.
5. Rock Star Credentials: Lemmy’s rock star credentials go way back. Long before he formed Motorhead, he played in the seminal underground acid rock group Hawkwind. Prior to this, he was a guitar technician for Jimi Hendrix. (How much more rock ’n’ roll could you be?) As email marketers, it’s not our job to simply drive leads and sales. We are here to make people really care about our businesses and, as such, we’ve got to demonstrate that we truly believe in what we are doing.

Do your email marketing campaigns rock? Could it be time to take a leaf out of Motorhead’s songbook and start making some noise? Share your comments below:

Photo: Dena Flows

Social media is an essential part of the marketing mix. Even if you’re in B2B. Even if you’re in a “boring” industry. Even if you’re an introvert.

Here’s why:

• Social media is becoming as important to customer service as the telephone.
• Social media is indispensable for promoting your content.
• Social media is one of best ways to get leads.

Not sure about that last one? In Ascend2’s 2015 Leads Nurturing Trends Survey, social media holds third place for the most effective online channel for generating leads. That’s clearly not as effective as email, but social holds its ground.

The view gets even better if you look at cost per lead. That’s what Software Advice found when they surveyed 200 B2B marketers late last year:

Those two charts paint a promising picture. Of course, the effectiveness and cost per lead that you see from social media will be different. Your results will depend on your content strategy, how much time you can invest with social media, and which tactics you use.

There are dozens of tactics for getting leads on social media – more than I have space to mention here. Some are more effective than others. The ones mentioned below tend to be the most successful. They’re also easiest to do.

1) Get smart with LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is the big kahuna for social media lead generation. There’s a whole book’s worth of things to tell you about how to use it. If you’ve got time, two books I’d recommend for B2Bers would be Josh Turner’s Connect and Melonie Dodaro’s The LinkedIn Code.

If you don’t have that much time, consider reading Act-On’s eBook, 10 Things B2B Companies Should Be Doing on LinkedIn.

No time for even an eBook? Here’s the thumbnail version:

• Include a call to action to download a resource or to follow you online in your company page’s profile description.
• Use showcase pages to spotlight key products or services you offer.
• Hone your search skills for Advanced Search.
• Participate in LinkedIn Groups.
• Make sure you have a solid content marketing strategy – and that your LinkedIn updates reflect that.
• Use LinkedIn Publisher.
• Encourage employees to support your efforts – to be “brand ambassadors”.
• Sync LinkedIn with your CRM and other marketing automation software.
• Want more engagement with your updates? Add more images and videos.
• Add keywords to your profile, especially in the “Specialties” section. Your page will get more views.

2) Participate on Quora and other Q&A sites.

Any time someone asks a B2B-related question, there’s an opportunity for lead generation. So a whole site dedicated to asking and answering questions should be a good place to hang out, right?

Quora is a good place to start. There are thousands of topics and hundreds of thousands of users – it’s a busy place. That means there are plenty of opportunities to demonstrate your expertise. Sites like Yahoo Answers, Reddit, and Stack Exchange are also nice opportunities to help others … and in turn, help yourself.

3) Participate on industry forums.

Quora and other mainstream Q&A sites are good, but some industries and areas of expertise are so specialized that a general business site won’t help you attract many serious buyers. In those cases, industry and association forums shine.

These are the sites where industry insiders often hang out. There’s usually very little sales spam, so it’s an environment where peoples’ “sales blockers” may be lowered a bit. Just don’t come on too strong with a direct sales pitch or you might get banned.

If you’re going after a very sophisticated B2B buyer, or you offer products or services that only a very narrow niche of businesses need, try industry and association forums first. Sometimes conference forums and chat rooms are good, too.

4) Leave thoughtful, positive comments on industry blogs.

This is another twist on “demonstrate your expertise as a way to attract leads”. But blog commenting goes further than just making you look smart. Each comment you leave creates a link back to your site. It’s usually a no-follow link, so it’s not too big a win, but it’s a reasonably safe way to build relevant, quality links. Assuming, of course, that you’re leaving comments only on sites with high authority.

But that’s not all. Commenting on blogs also gets the attention of the author, who is often also an influencer. Commenting on influencers’ blogs and guest posts is one of the best ways to get their attention.

And finally, blog commenting gets leads. It’s especially effective if you share some real-world experience. Don’t name clients specifically, of course. But you could say something like:

“We recently worked with a company in the X industry, and tried one of the techniques you mention in this post. It worked really well for us, but we had to do these things differently….”

That’s a nice way to affirm what the blogger wrote, add a useful insider tip, and demonstrate you know what you’re doing. Not only that, but you’re getting results for your clients. That’s some pretty good advertising.

5) Add an overlay app for your curated social media shares.

As you probably know already, it’s good social media etiquette to share other people’s content – aka “third party content”. And you’re supposed to share it a lot: Some sources recommend sharing 80% third party content, with just 20% of your own stuff.

Occasionally marketers worry about sharing so much third party content. They feel like they’re just sending people away to another site, never to see them again. This is a reasonable concern… but there is a way around it.

Several overlay services, like Snip.ly or Linkis, let you add an overlay to any third party content you share. So if you shared, say, this update:

You’d be brought to this page, where Evernote’s overlay and call to action might tempt you back to their site:

Snip.ly lets you embed an opt-in form to your overlays. You could also promote your newest content marketing asset. You can even run A/B split-tests.

Setting up these overlays will add a step to creating your social media posts. It will take more time. But if you can create an overlay that reliably attracts good leads, the extra step could easily be worth it.

6) Promote “old” content.

Far too many content marketers make this mistake: They publish a big new piece of content, promote it for about a week, and then never share it again.

This is a huge waste of work and resources. Please – it is OK to reshare “old” content. Anything less than six months old is usually recent enough to reshare.

Fortunately, this is super-easy to fix. Just queue up a few months’ worth of shares for every major piece of content you publish. Share each content asset at least once a week.

If you’re worried about boring your audience, mix up the updates. Use different images. Excerpt different parts of the content. But please, don’t let all that great content sit unused gathering digital dust.

7) Use SlideShare

I have a challenge for you, B2Bers: Convert every successful blog post you wrote last year into a SlideShare. You’ll have a terrific way to repurpose your content, a nice way to gain some inbound traffic, and a new lead generation channel.

Just don’t be surprised if it’s a somewhat buggy lead generation channel.

What do I mean by that? Well, SlideShare has changed the setup, costs, and accessibility of their LeadShare program several times. Often they don’t announce or even explain the changes… you just suddenly have a new option in your account. Or suddenly some options are gone.

Even now, there appears to be no information on their site or in the help pages about what they charge per lead. When I set up a new LeadShare campaign while researching this article, the price they named for my leads was “$8.00 per lead – Introductory pricing”. That’s too steep for my budget, but maybe it won’t be for yours.

They’ll also charge you $5 to get started. And as you poke around the support section you’ll find quite a few puzzled LeadShare users.

I really like this platform and their lead generation tools. But SlideShare seems to still be figuring out how they want to execute the LeadShare program.

If that all sounds like too much of a hassle or just too expensive, there is a way to skip it: Just add your own links and calls to action in your SlideShares. Send the traffic to any landing page you want. At least for now, that’s free. Just know that you can’t add links to the first four slides of your SlideShare… at least until the rules change again.

Back to you

Those are just a few of the ways to attract good, affordable leads on social media. There are many more. If you’re using one of the techniques mentioned here, or if you’re using any others, please leave a comment. Tell us how they’re working for you.

If you’d like to learn more about how to use social media to grow your business and generate leads, take a look at Act-On’s free eBook: Likes are Great. Leads are Better. In this eBook you’ll learn six important ways to turn your social media followers into customers.

China kicked off 2016 by scaring the entire world with a stock market drop that proved contagious, at least for one nerve-racking trading session.

But right now, that's really the least of the country's problems. The most pressing issue is how to fix the economy.

This chart from Bank of America Merrill Lynch shows the ratio of job-offers-to-seekers. It's the worst chart in China.

For years it seemed that there were plenty of jobs to go around for everyone looking for one in China.

The pace of rural workers moving to cities to find work and older people leaving the labor force was keeping the market tight. Then, as GDP growth slowed, the jobs seemed to evaporate.

Chinese authorities knew this would happen eventually, that the jobs in cities would fill to capacity and the migrant worker deluge would have to end.

It's just that it happened before anyone thought it would, before the purchasing power of those with jobs was strong enough to support the domestic development of jobs for those without them, especially people in the country.

Unpleasant shock

Now officials have to grapple with saving jobs in a rapidly slowing economy. Indicators are flashing red, sectors that used to carry the economy — like manufacturing and property — are floundering, and the yuan has been depreciating against the dollar since the end of November.

It's the depreciation of the yuan that is bringing this chart back to the forefront of everyone's minds.

The real China nerds out there trotted this job-seekers-to-offers ratio chart out back in August when the government devalued the yuan by almost 2% after Chinese exports cratered by almost 9%.

The export number was dramatic and it grabbed all the headlines, but analysts argued that this jobs-offers-to-seekers ratio was the real reason the government acted so aggressively.

"I suspect the breakdown of the upward trend in the job offers-to-seekers ratio came as a major shock to the Chinese authorities," Nomura economist Richard Koo said in a note following the devaluation.

"This development underlines the severity of the current slowdown and is probably part of the reason why the Chinese government has begun to roll out stimulus measures in earnest."

A promise is a promise

By allowing the currency to depreciate, the government is making Chinese goods more competitive. On the other hand, it also risks capital flight at a time when it needs all the cash it can get.

On top of that, the People's Bank of China has to spend reserves to guide the yuan down gently, and that is soaking up cash at a pace. In short, this is risky endeavor. 

But according to analysts at Bank of America, the job-offers-to-seekers ratio is so ugly, the government has to take that risk. 

From the note:

So, what’s the most important factor influencing the Chinese government’s decision on RMB? We believe that, like for most other governments, it’s jobs, particularly those in manufacturing (goods export is more sensitive to currency level than service). As stated earlier, RMB devaluation will make Chinese manufacturers more competitive in the global market, thus creating more jobs. It’s as simple as that...

...Given that economic growth has slowed down sharply over the past few years and will likely continue to slow, it seems to us that jobs pressure will continue to mount... Please bear in mind, the job-offers-to-seekers ratio in the chart is for urban areas only so it doesn’t cover migrant workers who lost their jobs and decided to return home. Recently, we have seen many anecdotes of mass layoffs by the likes of steel mills and coal companies and this should start to bite at a certain point.

China’s social harmony is based on the premise that the country’s leaders will deliver prosperity and growth. If people don't have jobs that promise is broken. If promises are broken people get angry, and that can lead to the government's worst fear — social unrest.

So someone's got to do something about that ratio.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Martin Shkreli may have hung up on an FBI agent live on video hours before his arrest

The art and science of landing page optimization dictates that consumers should click through links taking them to relevant secondary pages. Marketers in the know actually create multiple landing pages that support traffic segmentation not only by user type but also by geo-targeting. That said, there is plenty that can go wrong here. When your bounce rate is eclipsing your conversion rate by leaps and bounds, it is time to see if you are committing one of the deadly mistakes.

1. No Product Picture

Your potential buyers want to see your product. Too many businesses launch directly into a marketing presentation without offering an attractive image of the product. Even if you sell a service, consider the value of presenting a staged image that shows your representative performing the service.

2. Clutter

When you sell your home, the first thing a real estate professional tells you is to remove the clutter. When you sell a product online, does it not make sense to do the same thing on your landing page? When you have a variety of images with varying sizes, info-graphics, testimonials and videos cluttering up the page, you detract the would-be buyer from clicking the right links.

3. Having too much Text

Having too much test on the landing pages of your website is not helpful for your visitors. Keep in mind that the landing page should get the user’s attention and make him/her understand the basic features of your product or service. The rule of less is more applies in this situation. Present the most important aspects of your product/service and provide them a way to read more details if they want.

4. No Buzzwords

Each product or service has its buzzwords. Yet did you know that these terms are organic and therefore subject to (in) frequent change? Do you want to sell services related to “social media marketing” or “online marketing?” Believe it or not, the number of hits each buzzword receives tells the story of what is currently in.

5. Questionable Call to Action

Although it is frowned upon to put “buy me” in all caps on your page, there does need to be a very clear call to action. Tell the consumer if you want a buying decision, a newsletter signup or a request for a free trial product. Not only do you have to define your goal for the page and the action that you want the consumer to take, but also present it toward the top of the page. Eye-tracking charts have proven that this is the money spot.

6. No A/B Testing

You do not know that your landing page works well until you have tested it. No amount of theoretical planning can predict how the consumer reacts.

7. Lack of Trust

Another reason why you might have low conversion rates is because the potential clients that visit your website do not trust you. In order to resolve this problem make sure you have a well-designed website which is an indication that you are a serious company.

Contact us today if you are ready to learn more about landing page optimization and work with someone who can get it done right.

WASHINGTON — Weeping in unashamed public anguish for the youngest victims of his country’s intractable machine-gun mania, U.S. President Barack Obama claimed—for at least the 21st time—the executive authority to institute “common-sense” new restrictions on the sale and possession of firearms Tuesday, yet another attempt to bypass a trigger-happy Congress that even Obama admitted has almost no chance to succeed.

The President’s words fell upon a gallery of unutterable grief at the White House: family members of innocent citizens who were killed in wholesale massacres and intimate murders both infamous and barely noticed. They included the parents of several of the 20 Grade 1 pupils who were slaughtered in their classrooms by a heavily armed Connecticut madman; the families of university students, Sikh and Christian worshippers who were mowed down by rifle fire within their own unfortified sanctuaries, and the kinfolk of individuals who were slain without warning or mercy at drive-throughs and parking lots and shopping centres across a nation where more than 30,000 people a year perish at the wrong end of a gun.

Watch: Barack Obama’s remarks on gun violence

Obama cited manifold advocates of “common-sense” gun control that included the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., senators of both political parties, president Ronald Reagan, and even his own Texan predecessor, George W. Bush, noting that Bush once announced his own support for “background checks at gun shows or anywhere to make sure that guns don’t get into the hands of people that shouldn’t have them.”

“I’m not on the ballot again,” the sitting—though increasingly lame-duck—President said in the gold-panelled East Room, where the bullet-broken body of the assassinated Abraham Lincoln once lay in state. “I’m not looking to score some points. I think we can disagree without impugning other people’s motives or without being disagreeable. We don’t need to be talking past one another. But we do have to feel a sense of urgency about it. In Dr. King’s words, we need to feel the ‘fierce urgency of now.’ Because people are dying. And the constant excuses for inaction no longer do, no longer suffice.”

On Wall Street, stock in gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson rose 11 per cent in Tuesday trading. The company’s shares have nearly tripled in value in the past 12 months.

Reaction from Republicans was immediate and even anticipatory. Hours before Obama spoke, Jeb Bush, the former president’s brother and a (currently) bottom-tier candidate for the Republican nomination to replace Obama 54 weeks hence, lambasted the expected initiatives as “an utter disregard for the Second Amendment.” This, of course, is the clause in the nation’s 225-year-old Bill of Rights that protected—and still protects—any man’s right to stalk a squirrel or wield a musket against a re-imposition of tyranny from the Throne.

“Barack Obama has proved again why he will go down as one of the most liberal and divisive presidents in the history of our nation,” candidate Bush said. “Liberals like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton seize on every opportunity to advance a gun-grabbing agenda.”

“Obama is obsessed with undermining the Second Amendment,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, another presidential hopeful. (There was no immediate comment from @RealDonaldTrump.)

On Tuesday, Obama outlined three specific areas for executive action.

“Number one,” he said to applause, “anybody in the business of selling firearms must get a licence and conduct background checks, or be subject to criminal prosecutions. It doesn’t matter whether you’re doing it over the Internet or at a gun show. It’s not where you do it, but what you do.”

The President also announced his intention to hire 200 more federal agents to enforce existing firearms regulations, and called for an increased emphasis on mental health screening and record-sharing as part of the licensing process.

“I’ve said this over and over again . . . I believe in the Second Amendment,” Obama stated. “It’s there written on the paper. It guarantees a right to bear arms. No matter how many times people try to twist my words around: I taught constitutional law, I know a little about this, I get it. But I also believe that we can find ways to reduce gun violence consistent with the Second Amendment.

“The gun lobby may be holding Congress hostage right now, but they cannot hold America hostage. We do not have to accept this carnage as the price of freedom.”

Obama’s tears barely had dried before an executive of the National Rifle Association declared, “The American people do not need more emotional, condescending lectures that are completely devoid of facts.”

Congressional Republicans weren’t any more conciliatory. The chairman of the House judiciary committee said Tuesday that his members will “closely monitor the administration’s actions and consider whether legislation is needed to further protect Americans’ constitutional rights.”

And the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, charged, “Rather than focus on criminals and terrorists, he goes after the most law-abiding of citizens. His words and actions amount to a form of intimidation that undermines liberty.”

“Yes, it will be hard, and it won’t happen overnight,” Obama acknowledged. “It won’t happen during this Congress. It won’t happen during my presidency. But a lot of things don’t happen overnight.”

The post Obama’s ‘common-sense’ gun plan—and the too-common response appeared first on Macleans.ca.

Returning to the office after a long holiday break leaves employees feeling more lethargic than well rested. More than ever, the start of the new year can prove to be a challenging time to help your employees find a work-life balance that incorporates the self-care that they need. If you’re supervising members of the ambitious and always-connected millennial generation, this can be an especially daunting task.

Millennial Values

Research highlights some important information about millennials. They rarely take breaks, they value meaningful work over vacation time, and they’re almost always connected to some type of media platform — switching their attention between devices 27 times an hour on average. They have entrepreneurial aspirations and long for career advancement — as well as the ability to use their mobile devices to work on-the-go as needed.

The combination of all of these factors creates a perfect storm for employee burnout and dissatisfaction. Since 70 percent of millennials have their sights set on finding new jobs as the economy improves, you need to find a way to keep them happy despite whatever looming deadlines the holidays have bestowed upon you. One way to do that is to encourage self-care and helping them unplug is a great way to start.

Unplugged Self-Care

One of the immediate benefits of unplugging is the ability to focus more within — something that many refer to as mindfulness. At first glance, the concept of mindfulness may not seem like a fit for the business environment. However, if your millennials can learn to unplug, slow down, and practice some self-reflection, it will not only help them, but also lead to better productivity in the long run. In fact, research from INSEAD Business School found that doing just 15 minutes of meditation focused on mindfulness can lead to more rational business decisions. 

Achieving better mindfulness can be the catalyst for a plethora of self-care benefits, which can start with the simple act of unplugging from work. Within a list of self-care tips from professional clinicians gathered by SocialWork@Simmons, we’ve identified six themes that align with the benefits that unplugging can provide for your millennial crew:

1. Better boundaries. If an always-connected lifestyle includes always being connected to work, employees never have a chance to draw a line in the work-life sand. For millennials, this work-life balance is highly valued and unplugging to create better boundaries can help them achieve it.
2. Increased effectiveness. Millennials like to work hard and play hard. Having the permission to unplug gives them the freedom to pursue the latter so that when they dig into the former they can do it more effectively.
3. Improved relationships. When millennials take the time to unplug, they’re able to better focus not only on the moment at hand, but on the person in front of them. Device distractions are increasingly notorious for negatively impacting relationships, which are essential for receiving much-needed support from family and friends.  
4. Better exercise. With the growing array of devices, wearables and apps, “unplugged” exercise is increasingly a thing of the past. However, being unplugged from work duties allows millennials to work off some stress without being interrupted.
5. Ability to focus on spirituality. Several of the experts listed cited a focus on spiritual practices as important to self-care. Certainly, that’s difficult to do if one is focused on checking the latest project updates at work.
6. Better rest. The advice for obtaining needed rest ranged from afternoon naps to regular vacations. Regardless of the solution that fits each individual’s needs, the message is clear. Everyone needs to unplug and unwind to give the mind and body a chance to refresh and renew.

The pressured pace of the start of the New Year after the holidays may seem like the least desirable time to start empowering the millennials on your team to take care of themselves. However, this ambitious generation will not only appreciate the fact that you care about their needs, but will also pay you back with a level of productivity that everyone will benefit from.

What do bacon vodka, wilted flowers, and hand underpants (yes, there’s such a thing) have in common?

These are examples of niche enterprises that cater to very specific audiences. As marketers, we usually prefer popular brands or companies (such as those in the food, digital, or retail sector) whenever we handle advertising campaigns. But promoting niche businesses can actually be more fun and rewarding than well-known ventures.

Just like these companies, you need to think outside the box in order to maximize the efforts of your niche marketing project. (highlight to tweet) Don’t just stick to regular social media tactics or blogging. When it comes to niche products and services, you will need customized marketing strategies.

1. User-Generated Content

Whether your client sells surfboards or custom crystal jewelry, they could definitely take advantage of user-generated content to showcase merchandise without looking promotional. Great examples include Instagram photos or Vine videos.

User-generated content is one of the best marketing tricks to use because it works two ways: It’s like free advertising for a company, and it’s a chance for the business to create a connection with people who already love their products. And what’s better than new customers? Repeat customers.

BaubleBar, an online jewelry store, is a master at this technique as they feature Instagram pictures of people wearing their merchandise. All you need to do is use their special hashtag #BaubleBar when you post your selfie, and you could be featured on the company’s awesome account.

2. Choose Advertising Platforms Wisely

As the saying goes, you can’t serve two masters at once. If you want long-term success, you need pinpoint accuracy for attracting your target audiences.

Promoting businesses on social media such as Facebook and Twitter is huge these days. However, they may not be the best platforms to use for niche products because they are often saturated with too much noise from competitors and Internet trolls. So what do you do? You limit your visibility to highly relevant platforms.

This could mean dismissing more popular methods such as Facebook ads. Remember: You don’t need to be everywhere at once! Not only is this process expensive, but it’s also a lot of effort for little return. Be specific about your goals first, and then tailor ideas to meet those objectives.

A niche that’s rather difficult to promote is construction. But luxury home builder Toll Brothers were able to rise to the challenge. They understand that their customers usually prefer to visit real estate sites directly or receive email newsletters instead of simply hanging out in social media. With help from retargeting techniques and Google Display Network, they were able to increase their number of qualified leads and CTR.

3. Partnerships

Aside from a great product, what fuels customer satisfaction these days is experience. Give people the whole package, from placing an order to product delivery, and you’ve got them hooked for life. However, running a small niche business is usually taxing (especially for enterprises with a small staff) in itself. Marketing is not always a priority, and businesses want to keep costs low to accommodate more pressing expenses.

Here’s where the power of experience comes into play again: Why not team up with experts to spread awareness and showcase your business’ unique selling point?

Ride-sharing app Sidecar did this in 2014 when they partnered with famous bloggers to create a one-of-a-kind experience for their customers. Three famous bloggers were chosen to decorate three sidecars. Riders could then snap a selfie in the beautifully-themed sidecars to win a month’s worth of free rides. The campaign was a success and helped promote Sidecar as a leader in delivering unique shared riding experiences.

4. Don’t Forget Offline Marketing

Although we now enjoy the fruits of the web, nothing beats good old-fashioned offline marketing. After all, not every target segment can be reached using mobile apps. This is particularly useful for niche businesses—it allows people to touch, hold, and sample your clients’ products. Plus, offline marketing tactics such as using business cards, pamphlets, or coupons give customers a physical connection with the brand.

Offline methods don’t have to break the bank. There are plenty of ideas to get started, such as attending local events as a guest speaker or donating discount cards to a charity of choice. Sierra Nevada Brewery takes on another strategy by opening their doors to curious customers for brewery tours and craft beer tasting. This has gained them numerous featured mentions in local magazines (both in print and online) and even on Tripadvisor.

5. Leverage Sustainable Mediums

Niche businesses, especially those who want to be here for the long haul, need sustainable marketing. A great example of a sustainable medium is video. Its rise to fame is more than a fluke; in fact, Cisco predicts that by 2017, 69% of online traffic will be due to video binge-watching.

Handerpants, the product that originally started as a gag gift on Amazon, remains a force to be reckoned with thanks to thousands of videos on YouTube. It’s not just Handerpants themselves that are uploading the content— most of it comes from their customers. The original video is about six years old, yet people are still enamored with this curious accessory.

Just because your client is selling something that seems offbeat or strange doesn’t mean it’s going to be a marketing flop. Today’s strategies are no longer reliant on rules. Make ‘em or break ‘em! You can be as creative as you want (with permission from your client, of course) as you think of clever, new ways to promote a niche business. Whether you choose a video campaign or a taste-testing event, always keep your client’s goals in mind.

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For years now, sales managers have been held accountable for one thing: generating as much revenue as possible. Other responsibilities like managing profits and margins could be taken care of by other executives because nothing was to interfere with closing deals. However, that is all changing. Aberdeen Research shows that 58 percent of sales organizations say bottom-line management responsibilities are now the norm, with Best-in-Class companies being 40 percent more likely to support this philosophy.

In a rapidly changing sales industry faced with job uncertainty, managers are wise to adapt to this shift if they want not only the best results, but to future-proof their own careers and reach the C-Suite. As a result, sales managers need to start thinking beyond just closing deals and making money, and learn how to be better people managers so they have a more accurate picture of how the team is performing.

However, this road is not without its challenges: far fewer manager-rep relationships exist in the same physical location.

According to Aberdeen’s Sales Performance Management research, 43 percent of B2B sellers are now remote or field-based. Couple that with BYOD selling and it’s harder than ever for managers to be involved in the key interaction point: the phone conversation between buyer and seller. The lack of insight into this activity creates a significant barrier to effective managing and coaching.

How to overcome this challenge

The data analysis tools within sales effectiveness platforms have a very important thing in common: an understanding of how past sales activities have generated specific results. Since, in reality, most teams do not hit their numbers every month, a wise sales manager with C-Suite ambitions will implement a methodology based on the types of activities that are most likely to deliver the desired results. Managing to a proven standard will not only drive your results but will also paint a realistic picture of where you stand against goals and enable more accurate forecasting, which is what the C-Suite wants to see.

To build team-wide success, managers need to leverage these data-driven insights into the activities that sales reps and channel partners conduct every day. Turning this knowledge into coachable moments will contribute toward expanding the pipeline, growing the top line, and moderating the bottom line.

Don’t forget to refine your people skills as well. Reaching a leadership role does not mean there isn’t more to learn; in fact improving yourself only gets more crucial from here on out, especially when it comes to effectively managing people – both employees and clients. Regularly engage with everyone. Listen and learn from them to understand what they are really communicating, through words or actions.

Employers will always value those who have the skill of interacting with other people, so do more of it. The more expertise you can develop in empathy, teamwork, and communication, the more ‘future-proof’ you’ll be.

The Bottom Line

C-Suite positions are held for proven business leaders. Sales VPs with no experience managing revenue and cost columns are unlikely to join the executive table. As a result, companies are starting to hold their sales managers accountable for accurate forecasting. The most efficient way managers can excel in this regard is to dig deeper than the deals closed and tap into sales intelligence data to see how these deals are really being worked. You’ll be able to understand which activities are paying off and which aren’t, enabling you to develop a sustainable method of performance excellence that will catch the attention of the C-Suite.

Sales leaders who manage rep activity and deliver accurate forecasts will not only keep their jobs amidst the rise in sales technology, but will rise through the ranks.

Imagine a world where businesses could identify opportunities and concerns associated with each of their customers before they happen—and then take action by delivering relevant, valued conversations and offers to them in real time? Chances are that company would have little issue with retention rates and loyalty, and they would be likely to make every interaction more profitable. That’s the promise of customer-centricity.

Customer centricity is not just making vague commitments to “put the customer first” or “provide outstanding service.” It’s about building the business around the needs, preferences, and actions of customers—at the individual level—on an ongoing basis.

Consider the following:

• According to Dr. Peter Fader of The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, companies that are able to identify and maximize the value of their best customers have the potential to increase sales by 17%.
• Research from Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company shows increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.
• A Deloitte & Touche report calculated that customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than their peers.

These findings tell a powerful story on the importance of customer centricity to companies.

Many companies collect and store vast amounts of customer data, but it’s fragmented—stored in discrete, application-specific silos that prevent a full understanding of each customer. By freeing this data—and merging it with additional data from external sources—to better understand and appeal to customers at the individual level, companies are able to deliver more personalized service. Customer-centricity is being enabled due to some key emerging technologies, including:

Mobility

According to Forrester Research, global smartphone penetration by population was 28% in 2013, and will grow to 50% by 2017. With 3.5 billion subscribers expected by 2019, smartphones and other mobile devices are rapidly becoming the primary means by which people manage their daily lives—communicating, navigating, capturing images, making purchases, and more. In the process, they are also generating a massive—and growing—amount of data of potential value to the businesses that serve them.

Social Media

“Word of mouth is the best advertising.” Today, “word of mouth” happens prominently on social media. According to research from A.T. Kearney, social networking is the number one online activity worldwide, consuming an average of 48% of people’s Internet time. Kearney’s research also reveals that social media has a significant impact on consumer buying decisions, particularly among the young. More than half of consumers under the age of 46 responded that they frequently or occasionally base their purchase decisions on what’s happening in their social network, and among those aged 16 to 25, the response was 67%.

Companies that seek to reach, understand, learn from, and influence these consumers need to master data collection and analysis from social media sources.

The Internet of Things

According to Cisco, the number of Internet-connected devices will grow from 13 billion to 50 billion between 2013 and 2020. As Internet-connected sensors get embedded into more physical objects, companies that can collect and analyze that data will find new ways to anticipate customer needs and deliver value to them at the right moment.

Big Data

Fueled in part by the Internet of Things, social media, and mobility, the amount and variety of data being generated globally is rising at an astronomical rate. It’s estimated the digital universe will grow from 3.2 zettabytes to 40 zettabytes between 2014 and 2020.

Add to this the rapidly-growing amount of customer data that companies are collecting and storing in data warehouses, including credit card transactions, product preferences, and purchase behaviors. Within these torrents of information are nuggets of data about each consumer, which can reveal their habits, preferences, dislikes and needs.

A number of technologies have been developed to enable organizations to better manage their big data assets. The open-source Apache Hadoop ecosystem is one of them, which includes: Apache Hadoop for distributed storage and processing of very large data sets; Apache HBase non-relational distributed database, which provides a fault-tolerant way of storing large quantities of sparse data; and Apache Spark, a cluster computing framework that supports repeated querying of data in cluster memories, which is particularly suited to machine learning.

Together, these technologies provide the means to extract valuable insights from big data.

Advanced Analytics

On top of big data alone sits advanced analytics, which is required to gain benefits from big data. According to Alexander Linden, research director at Gartner, “Advanced analytics solves problems using predictive analytics and prescriptive analytics. Predictive analytics predicts future outcomes and behavior, such as a customer’s shopping behavior or a machine’s failure. Prescriptive analytics goes further, suggesting actions to take based on the predictions.”

Taken together, these developments provide a rich, previously-untapped, and growing opportunity for companies in all industries to achieve greater customer centricity and open doors to new revenue and profit growth. Though it seems that everything we need to become customer centric is available, most companies are struggling to get there. Stay tuned to this space over the next few weeks as I detail some ways to unlock customer centricity, along with the challenges and opportunities facing customer centric organizations.

Whether you are a new inbound marketer or a seasoned pro, it is not uncommon to make some mistakes or blunders along the way.

Here are some of the most common inbound marketing blunders that are made by marketers all over the world:

1. Guessing on Buyer Personas

Buyer personas are the most important ingredients of inbound campaigns. Personas reveal about user engagement with ideal customers, the topic of conversation, and how to fulfil their needs. Most inbounders though simply guess and make up their own buyer persona profiles.

Creating a comprehensive buyer persona is tedious and exhausting but it is really important since it gives a great picture of the prospect. It helps if one listens on social media, and takes inputs from the sales team, among a plethora of other data sourcing tactics.

It is understandable why marketers resort to making educated guesses about persona details. But this mistake can cost you a lot of backtracking, editing, and extra work after the campaign flops.

2. Trying to Do it All

Ever tried to monitor Facebook, Twitter updates, add blog posts to StumbleUpon, and engage on other social sites all at the same time? It is unmanageable to say the least and hence new inbounders try do everything from content to social commenting to email at once. If resources are too thin, work will suffer a little bit.

An Inbound effort should be a collective effort from different people and should have a streamlined approach from the ground up with tasks such as content downloads, calls to action, campaign mailers, landing pages, etc. One should be realistic about what one can do well, and get it done efficiently.

One might have to put off lead nurturing to create blogs for a few days, but that is the way to go.

3. Throwing Money Into an Unmonitored Campaign

This mistake will make your boss question your real value as a marketing resource. Ad placements for social media to align with inbound efforts is absolutely essential but unmonitored campaigns are bound to hurt your company bottom line.

One should be optimizing PPC campaigns on a daily basis. So one could be sure that the money is well spent. A campaign yielding negative ROI is sure to hurt job prospects too.

Prove your value as a marketer as paid campaigns are monitored on a daily basis. One might be surprised as to what is performing well and the insight derived from a single successful marketing campaign will provide insight for the next, building a strong framework for marketing strategy in place.

4. Losing to Shiny Object Syndrome

Are you eagerly awaiting to work with Pinterest or Instagram or Snapchat for business? Stop it right there. You might well be suffering from the shiny object syndrome.

It is good to experiment and diversify efforts and strategies in marketing. One should find new ways to explore but only in controlled and informed environments.

One should pursue them with caution and allocate a small budget to try it out. Never throw the entire budget before one has done their homework.

Start everything that is new on a small level and with its success, start increasing the resource allocation depending on the nature of results and prospects. Do not overlook your objectives in the bargain and keep it specific. Your goals should be based on business requirements and the target demographic. Inbound marketing should revolve around the market that speaks directly. Figure out exactly about the prospective buyers and see your target before pulling the trigger on starting a new channel or a campaign.

5. Leaving Out Local

Local Inbound Marketing is important to a business since marketing strategies are nowadays based only on specific regions. Most businesses skip the language, geography, and sites on the keywords list when connecting with the audience and prefer using generic terms. Specific language matters in more ways than one.

6. Lacking Quality, Quantity, or Purpose

You might have plenty of ideas for content, strategy and engagement at the start. But in 2-3 months, you are out of ideas. Or you might have loads of ideas for content but there was no plan in place related to the execution and visitor engagement.

Effective content creation is important in both quality and quantity terms. Your white papers should be very insightful and helpful for the target audience. A clear call-to-action should guide users as to what next to do on your site. Regular publishing of quality content is important to attract new visitors into marketing qualified leads, and new customers.

7. Making Social Media Content Personal

You started a Facebook account, Twitter account and LinkedIn account for your business, but you treated the social sites personally or did not use one of the social sites after a while. Your Instagram did not reveal the true nature of the business or the veracity of the offerings. Every corner of social media should focus on a unique aspect of your business, on a consistent basis.

8. Avoiding Analytics

One should use the analytics platform on a consistent basis. One should orient your SEO around specific keywords for the visitors. Analytics give a second chance to find relevant customers. Using the analytics framework is important in attracting attention to your business with measured and systematic marketing approach.

Sports are highly emotional. The players are excited, the fans are all-in on their team, and the atmosphere inside a stadium can be electric.

For the players, that electric atmosphere and the emotion from the fans might be the difference between winning and losing. This support is called home-field advantage and it’s something every team strives for.

But how much of an impact do the fans really have on the team? Does the emotion of the people watching really impact the mentality of the players and how they perform?

Turns out, it does.

According to psychologist and author Sherrie Bourg Carter, emotions can be contagious. When fans are screaming, hollering, and cheering on their team, it affects how the players feel about their performance and can boost how well they’re playing. If the fans’ behavior becomes more negative, however, the players’ emotions will nosedive.

This research doesn’t just apply to sports, however -- it’s also relevant to sales. If a salesperson is happy and excited when speaking to a prospect, Carter’s research suggests that the prospect will respond to these emotions and might just “catch” them.

And this is important considering a study from Carnegie Mellon University which revealed that emotions play a direct role in decision making. For example, if buyers enter a decision down in the dumps, those feelings will impact how they think about their options. On the flip side, if the buyer is excited and happy when deciding, they’ll likely be more positive about those same options.

With this study in mind, reps would be wise to start every day with a sunny attitude and spread those positive emotions to their prospects (which then transfer to the decision). Happy rep, happy prospect. It's as simple as that.

Below are three tricks reps can use to get into the right mindset before connecting with a potential buyer.

1) Start the day with a favorite playlist.

By listening to a playlist of their favorite songs, reps can raise their contentment levels and feel better about their day ahead. According to a recent study, music makes people happier, more relaxed, less anxious, and less overwhelmed.

2) Have a cup of coffee before the call.

When reps consume caffeine before a call with a prospect, they are more likely to be focused as well as enthusiastic as they answer questions and educate the prospect.

3) Recite positive affirmations.

Positive affirmations can improve self-esteem, and higher self-esteem makes it easier for reps to project positivity when they’re working with prospects. In turn, buyers can feed off the rep’s “I can do this” mentality.

In sales, it’s up to the rep to build a great relationship with the prospect. The rep is who the prospect is relying on, and who they are speaking to regularly. When the salesperson is positive, research suggests that the potential buyer will be positive too.

You cannot form solid connections without a firm foundation of trust. Trust brings buyers and sellers together and keeps them together. A lack of trust inhibits buyers, and a breach in trust shuts them down completely. Trust is vital to forming buyer/seller connections. When it comes to establishing trust to help sales pros can connect with […]

The post 12 Surefire Ways to Connect With Buyers appeared first on People First.

Influencer marketing has become a powerful marketing channel, but like social media, marketers have struggled to measure it in tangible ways. Once the Holy Grail for assessing marketing campaigns, impressions and pageviews are no longer the sole metrics for determining a campaign’s success, especially in influencer marketing. While these can be useful key performance indicators (KPIs), most impressions are merely an indication that someone grazed over influencer content and don’t offer insight into referral traffic or consumer interaction.

In order to really understand the effectiveness of an influencer campaign, monitoring deeper social and engagement metrics have become the main priority of marketers. These include statistics around Facebook “likes,” Twitter “tweets” or even Pinterest “pins.” The action the audience took after they viewed and engaged with branded content is a true indicator of how well-received that campaign was. In 2016, however, we’ll see additional metrics crop up that are becoming equally as important as social measurement.

New measurement is on the horizon
Next year, companies will measure not only the reach of an influencer, but also the reach of their followers– the ripple effect of great content. Expect to see social theme tracking, as well, which shows consumers’ purchase intent and how they engage with products, promotions, prices and availability. By tracking this data in real time, marketers can identify pieces of content that have the potential to go viral and the impact of sentiment over time.

An increased focus on algorithms and historical data in 2016 will enable marketers to better predict what kind of and how many interactions followers will have with an individual influencer, allowing for marketers to offer guaranteed audience engagement before a campaign even begins. The deeper the data analysis, the more marketers can fine-tune influencer campaigns.

Time spent with content will be the next big metric
Guaranteed engagement, virality and brand sentiment are all important for understanding the successfulness of campaigns, but it’s pinpointing time spent with content that is going to be the next big metric in influencer marketing—Facebook is one of the first companies to recognize this.

In June, Facebook launched an algorithm that factors in the amount of time users spend with content on their newsfeeds. Facebook knows it isn’t always as simple as measuring likes, comments or shares when determining whether content is meaningful; how long someone spends on each story is a valuable way to understand if content actually resonated with a reader. For marketers, knowing the time readers spend with influencer content on channels outside of Facebook can help determine if a campaign is relevant or if it needs to be reworked.

Whether advocating for influencer marketing or trying to master the right approach to an existing influencer initiative, defining campaign goals and tracking performance is key. For many marketers in 2016, this means a shift to using only engagement metrics that indicate people’s relationships with brands. With Nielsen reporting that consumers are five times more dependent on content today than they were five years ago, it is imperative to be able to analyze the effectiveness of branded content or risk losing sales in the long-term.

Over the past 20 years, information technology and digital channels have changed the way consumers shop for products ranging from cars to homes to electronics. Those forces are dramatically changing the way B2B companies and their customers approach buying and selling, too.

Business buyers are more connected and informed than ever before. Sellers must respond. For buyers and sellers alike, this creates complexity, anxiety, and opportunity all at the same time.

From the buyer’s perspective, information technology and digital channels provide access to information and enable self-sufficiency. When a buyer wants to learn about virtually any product or service, an internet search yields thousands (if not millions) of results, including online articles, videos, white papers, blogs, and social media posts. In addition to supplier websites that showcase specific solutions, there are likely to be online sources (ranging from the self-serving to the unbiased) to help buyers learn and compare solution alternatives. Buyers can also use self-service digital channels for new or repeat purchases and for training and support. Using information technology and digital channels, buyers can take over many steps of buying that salespeople once cherished as their source of value.

Buyers are at different levels of self-sufficiency: any single buyer can be at one level for some purchases and at a different level for others. Sometimes buyers prefer to eliminate the salesperson completely. According to one corporate technology buyer: “Our supplier’s customized self-service purchasing portal makes it easy to place reorders, track shipping, and return products hassle-free.” Other times buyers seek help from salespeople. The same corporate buyer relies on salespeople when evaluating new technologies: “It’s more efficient to work with a few trusted salespeople, compared to spending hours on my own sifting through all the information and misinformation that’s out there.”

Because of the diversity of buyer self-sufficiency, the traditional methods sellers use to customize their selling approach for customers are no longer enough. Considering factors such as customer potential and needs is still relevant. But today, customer knowledge/self-sufficiency is a growing driver of how customers want to buy. At one end of the spectrum are the “super-expert” customers, skilled in gathering information from many sources and self-sufficient in using that information to make purchase decisions. At the other end of the spectrum are the “information-seeking” customers, who want help with examining and evaluating the plethora of information. Many customers are in between these two extremes, or are at different points at different times or for different purchases.

Smart sellers match their selling approach to the customer’s level of buying knowledge and self-sufficiency. For example, when leaders at Dow Corning observed in the early 2000s that some customers wanted an easier, more affordable way to buy standard silicone products, they created Xiameter, a brand that includes thousands of less-differentiated products sold exclusively through a low-cost, no-frills, self-service online sales channel. Customers who desired a higher-touch approach could still purchase products under the Dow Corning brand name, which also includes specialty silicones backed by research and technical services.

As sellers need a more customized approach to reaching customers, they have a big arsenal of data and technology at their disposal. Systems (e.g., CRM), tools (e.g., data management, analytics), infrastructures (e.g., mobile, cloud), and information (e.g., big data) give sellers knowledge about buyers and enable sales force members to make smarter decisions. And sellers who once connected with customers primarily through personal selling can now use an array of digital communication channels to supplement or supplant face-to-face sales efforts.

Consider the impact of information technology and digital channels from the seller’s perspective. Here are examples from several industries.

• Finding banking customers: “Social media allows us to cost-effectively reach out to more prospects and showcase our services.”
• Understanding specialty chemicals customers: “Big data and analytics help us improve customer targeting and achieve more cost-effective deployment.”
• Acquiring advertising customers: “We now have richer demographic information to help us create more powerful sales messages, resulting in more sales.”
• Serving and growing business logistics customers: “Our salespeople use a business review app to guide quarterly account reviews with major customers. By sharing data about performance and cost savings, these discussions enhance customer value and retention.”

Information technology and digital channels can help sellers become more effective and efficient, but they can also be a source of disharmony and confusion if implemented without thought. Too many sellers have wasted millions of dollars on sales technologies such as CRM systems and data warehouses that never lived up to their potential.

Success for sellers requires many sales force changes beyond information technology and digital solutions. To start, salespeople need new competencies. Customers are no longer interested in meeting with “talking brochures,” so salespeople must do more than share product information. They must adapt to each customer’s level of knowledge and self-sufficiency. They must use email, social media, webinars, video conferencing, and other tools judiciously to maximize their own productivity and make things more efficient for buyers. They must help their companies coordinate customer outreach across multiple communication channels to ensure buyers get a well-orchestrated and consistent message.

For example, in the pharmaceutical industry, gone are the days when the majority of physician education occurred through face-to-face contact between salespeople and physicians. Companies are now tracking individual physician communication preferences and are reaching out with the combination of face-to-face visits and/or digital methods (e.g., websites, email, podcasts, virtual detailing, video conferencing, mobile apps) that best meets each physician’s needs. Salespeople need competencies as orchestrators who can ensure an effective and efficient connection.

Developing new sales force competencies is just a start. Sales leaders must also reengineer their sales forces by implementing changes across the entire range of sales force decisions: roles, size and structure, hiring, training, coaching, incentive compensation, performance management, and sales support systems.

Most people think of LinkedIn as a place to just upload their resumes.

But if used properly, LinkedIn could actually help boost sales and grow your entire business.

Ken Krogue, founder and president of Insidesales, a sales software maker last valued at $1.5 billion, and Jamie Shanks, managing partner of Sales for Life, a sales training company, have put together an eBook explaining how to maximize your sales through LinkedIn.

“LinkedIn is not a repository for your resume,” Shanks writes. “It’s a place to actively drive business.”

We sifted through the eBook and picked the 19 best tips on how to use LinkedIn to grow your business.

SEE ALSO: Salesforce's most successful salesman made tons of money by following this secret playbook

Grab your name

Make sure your LinkedIn profile URL is short and simple. Use your name, but if it’s not available, pick something about your industry, because the default URL is a messy combination of numbers and letters.

Use every one of the ‘groups’

As a LinkedIn member, you can join up to 50 groups. Make sure you join the groups people in your industry are joining, and the ones in specific verticals that decision-makers like VPs of sales and sales directors are a part of.

Save your InMails

InMail is a paid service that lets you send private messages to LinkedIn members. But you can send private messages to people in the same group without using the InMail service. It’s a great way to establish a relationship with potential buyers without having to pay for the InMail service.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

It’s widely known that when it comes to academics, people learn differently. Some people can just hear or read about information and internalize it, others need to write it down or verbalize it, and others need to see or graphically visualize it before the information really takes root.

Well, the same goes for the business world. Just because you’re out of the classroom doesn’t mean that you’re not constantly taking in information, learning, and then applying it to solve challenges.

In fact, the best marketers are the ones who are able to take in a wide array of information, often from various sources, analyze it, and derive powerful insights that make the customer experience better and, eventually, impact the bottom line.

For some marketers this is done in spreadsheets or other common report formats. For others, it requires creating visualizations.

One of the most important visualizations for B2B marketers is the pipeline funnel — being able to see how prospects filter through every stage from open leads to the closed-won deal. It’s one thing to see a marketing report spreadsheet with hundreds or thousands of cells and be able to pick out the few numbers that are important to you at the moment (e.g. 10,000 people filled out a form last month, 600 were marketing qualified, and 300 are now sales opportunities); it’s another to see the flow of prospects as they go through the stages.

Initiative A:

vs.

Initiative B:

When visualized, marketers can quickly and easily compare what the funnel looks like based on certain variables. With the two data sets above, it’s much easier to see through the visualizations that there is less drop-off in Initiative B’s funnel. Even though they produced the same amount of sales opportunities, Initiative B did it far more efficiently.

You would come to the same conclusion eventually by looking at the spreadsheet data, but with the visualization, seeing the greater funnel efficiency happens instantly.

The differences in how efficiently leads flow through the funnel based on variables such as lead source could potentially reveal important areas of improvement or funnel stages that need more marketing attention. Once identified through the visualization, one could dig deeper into the data and find root causes.

Essentially, visualizing key marketing data (like the pipeline) allows B2B marketers to look at their metrics from a different perspective — one that is often necessary for breakthrough insights and ideas.

With that in mind, Bizible recently released two FREE apps on the Salesforce AppExchange that help B2B marketers visualize their pipeline data:

• Lead Source Marketing Funnel
• Campaign Member Marketing Funnel

Lead Source Marketing Funnel

The Lead Source Marketing Funnel app allows marketers to quickly (less than 5 minutes) take their existing data in Salesforce, choose which data they want to look at, and turn it into an easily digestible pipeline (marketing and sales) funnel.

Marketers are able to toggle between lead sources to create source-specific funnels, as well as choose the time frame of the funnel.

One of the key features of this app is the ability to quickly see stage conversion rates, which shows where leads are dropping out of the funnel. Because customer journeys vary greatly from company to company, general benchmarks for stage conversion rates aren’t particularly helpful. By filtering the pipeline data by time, marketers can compare their current performance against historical performance (month-to-month changes, for example) to identify spikes, valleys, and other trends.

For B2B marketers, it’s less about trying to beat benchmarks that may or may not be relevant or directly comparable. Rather, it’s about constantly refining your processes and improving on your own performance. The Lead Source Marketing Funnel app is a great tool to help marketers do exactly that.

Campaign Member Marketing Funnel

Similarly, the Campaign Member Marketing Funnel shows how leads flow through the funnel from lead creation to customer, but with this app, marketers are able to sort their pipeline data by campaign instead of by lead source.

It’s a convenient (and free) way to visualize campaign performance based on the entire pipeline, rather than just lead generation.

Give it a shot and see how what your pipeline looks like!

People Buy Stories Before They Buy Stuff written by John Jantsch read more at Duct Tape Marketing

I’ve been writing about the use of story in marketing for years. I remember when I first started telling people over a decade ago to make their clients the hero of their stories and to use their personal stories as foundational marketing elements they were dubious at best.

Today, every marketer understands the value of story as a way to sell just about anything. But, still, few understand the right way to use story and narrative as a way to guide people on the perfect journey.

This is due in large part to the fact that it takes some skill, a bit of hard work and perhaps, more importantly, patience. A great story has many significant elements and to have the greatest impact each element must be built in a certain order – much like the foundation of a house must be laid before the walls and roof have a place to stand.

The good news is that I believe there’s a framework that any business can adopt and that framework is evident in just about every great story told throughout time.

Any screenwriter making a living today uses this same framework to draw us in and take us along with them on a journey.

After you read this post, you’ll also have the tools to build this same framework for your business and use it as the basis for just about every marketing decision you make.

Your core story and the narrative technique described below will work to help cement your brand in the mind of your ideal client, but it is equally effective as a framework for a product launch or email autoresponder campaign.

The framework relies on the three key elements: The ideal client persona, the core story and the journey goal map (based on the Marketing Hourglass.)

The ideal client persona

The term persona is borrowed from the theater. An actor may receive a script, and the persona is the description of the character played by the part. If an actor is to understand the character they must know a little about what drives them, what they believe, what they fear, and what they desire.

Audience Audit, Inc did research on small business personas for Infusionsoft and created some great examples of how you might describe a segment of your marketing.

They give the segment a name and then describe them with a handful of core words as well as some background on what they believe.

“Passionate creators – Creativity, optimism, service

This segment believes that passion is one of the most important qualities of a small business owner. They are proud of the job-creation engine that small businesses represent, and value having the ability to serve a customer well.

Passionate Creators are interested in creating something unique, making a difference in the world, and driving economic growth. They are dramatically more optimistic than other segments, and the most likely to report that small business ownership has contributed to improvements in their overall attitude, time availability and financial security (versus if they had a corporate job).”

You can read the entire small business market survey here

Another resource I often point to when discussing the topic of personas is Adele Revella’s Buyer Persona Institute. http://www.buyerpersona.com/ Revella is a past guest on the Duct Tape Marketing podcast – you can listen to that episode here. http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/customer-personas/

How to craft the right story

As stated above, there are elements that make a story both a good story and the right story. For most businesses this isn’t about telling some riveting tale that makes for good entertainment, it’s about demonstrating you are the right person to help the reader achieve what they want to achieve.

Make them the hero

First and foremost, if you intend to create a story that your prospects care about you must position them as the hero of the story. Most businesses go on and on about how great their business, product or service is, and frankly, that’s the last thing a customer cares about.

Think about every great story you’ve read, you love the story because you connect with the story’s main character. For your story, the main character must be your ideal customer persona and not your business.

Your customer or prospect has problems, and it’s your job to guide them on a journey to solve that problem and achieve their ultimate destiny.

I know that may sound a bit dramatic, but doesn’t that sound a lot nobler than just selling them stuff?

I work with small business owners, and I can tell you that no one wants the world’s greatest marketing consulting – the hero of our story wants freedom, control, growth, and creativity and it’s our job to guide them down the path to leads to just that.

Help them understand their problem

One of the first tasks is to help the hero understand the real problem they face as it’s often not what they think it is.

Now, sometimes this can pose a real challenge as selling a solution to a problem people don’t even know they have is a tough path to trod.

The real key lies in the persona. So often what people want in life can be achieved once they let go of many of the symptoms of what’s holding them back.

Often we have to show prospects what letting go and refocusing on what matters looks like before they start to see that as the answer.

Our story must both reveal the real enemy and prove that we know who and what it is. You build a great deal of trust through empathy.

In our case, the real enemy is time, focus and fear. When we address these elements, we can start to reveal what a solution could look like in the context of the real problem.

Reveal the authority to guide them

Of course, once your story connects with their real problem you must be able to reveal you and your business as the one who can guide them to where they want to go.

Every great hero meets a mentor or guide along the journey that gives them the knowledge, tools and confidence to take up the journey.

Think

• Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber
• Gandalf and Mithril armor
• Dumbledore and Harry Potter’s wand

Admit it, the idea of playing the role of Obi-Wan for your prospects has to be a lot more fun that just being the head of marketing.

Paint a better picture

One of the keys to moving your prospects down the path is to inspire them by painting a picture of what it could look like if they had the real problem handled.

A vivid picture of what a small business owner’s day could look like if they installed a marketing system – right down to how they would feel on that day is a great way to lead your prospects to make a change.

Challenge them to succeed

Finally, you must be able to challenge them to take action. This part of the story might be referred to by marketers as the call to action, but for it to be powerful, you must also help them understand the cost of not taking action.

Generally, people are more motivated by what they might lose than what they might gain and when you can help them see the true cost of not acting as well as the value of succeeding when they do act, you can start to position what you do as an investment rather than a cost.

Marketing is almost always seen as a cost – when it’s seen as an investment the dynamic of the sales conversation changes dramatically.

How to craft the right journey

Once you understand the hero of your story and the challenge you can help them solve you have to move to understanding the journey itself.

As a prospect searches for solutions to questions, problems and challenges known and yet unidentified you have to use your marketing to address the questions and goals they are bound to have during each stage of the journey.

You must get involved in their journey as early as possible, and you can only do this by addressing them where they are. If you simply jump to promoting what you sell before they’ve even concluded that you address their challenges, you’ll be forced to hard sell.

But, if you wait until they’ve concluded on their own that your category of solution is that answer to their prayers, you’ll be forced to compete against everyone else who says they do what you do.

When you understand the goals and questions your prospects are facing during each phase of their buying journey you can create content and campaigns aimed at these specific desires.

For example, here’s what the journey goals for a small business looking to grow more profit by working with a tax advisor might look like.

• Know – To learn the best, most profitable ways to run and grow their business
• Like – To better understand what other people are doing to lower expenses
• Trust – To understand what’s possible and legal
• Try – To see if any of the proposed savings apply to their situation
• Buy – To experience a process that feels very professional and give hope of substantial savings
• Repeat – Understand other ways they can gain wealth and possibly set up business to sell
• Refer – To feel proud telling another business owner about a very smart decision they made

As you can plainly see the idea of cutting taxes doesn’t even appear until about midway through this journey. The consultant selling tax consulting, however, must look to become the guide first by building trust teaching ways to run and grow a business.

Understand your customers, make your prospects the hero of your marketing story and then guide them to success. That’s how you build a business that both succeeds and matters.

If you’re an overachiever I also suggest that you read the following:

• Save the Cat – Blake Snyder (Storytelling from a screenwriting perspective)
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces – Joseph Campbell (The classic academic tomb that reveals why we like Star Wars so much)
• The Writer’s Journey – Christopher Vogler (A very practical text for understanding the role of mythology in story)
• resonate – Nancy Duarte (A presentation framework based on the hero’s journey)
• Storytelling with Data – Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic (Sometimes you must use numbers to tell a story! – Edward Tufte for the Internet age)

December’s blab chat was full of powerful takeaways from Jacco van der Kooij, Craig Rosenberg and Kyle Porter on moving past elementary sales development metrics. We shared Jacco’s top piece of advice for SDRs and his 3 metrics to measure for success, and now we’re onto Kyle’s metric for sales development efficiency.

The #1 metric in sales development is one we touched on in the 5 Common Questions for Scaling a Sales Development Team, and it remains Kyle’s top KPI metric: the sales development efficiency rating.

Here’s the idea:

Let’s say you’ve got 2 Sales Development Reps, Spencer and Susan, who set up 30 sales accepted leads in the month. Each of these 30 appointments are equally qualified — it’s equal pipeline opportunity.

On the surface, both Spencer and Susan have given the organization in equal amount of value. Spencer had to approach 3,000 different accounts in order to get those 30 appointments, while Susan only had to prospect 400 accounts to get those 30 appointments.

From a VPs of Sales and inside sales development leaders perspective, Susan is way better for the organization. She’s helping out in a number of different ways. She’s creating an environment that’s scalable, more predictable, more cost effective and efficient, and doesn’t cause harm to the organization.

Here’s why:

1. She’s saving the complexity, cost and time around data management. If she’s only going after 400 accounts, and they’re splitting that amongst their team, it’s easier to manage that information coming into the system.

2. She’s not scorching the earth as she goes through prospecting (unlike the thousands of accounts that it took Spencer). The most important aspect of this is when Susan is prospecting — and touching people with more personality, more customization, more intentionality about converting that account — she’s not eating up all of the other prospects the other SDRs could be approaching.

This is beneficial because, in most organizations, when a rep has a meaningful interaction, other reps can’t touch that person for 40-60 more days. But by being more efficient in her process, Susan is eating up less of those opportunities for the rest of the organization by not sending out blasts or having non-meaningful or non-personalized connections.

The tip here: take a smaller amount of accounts and go deeper with them. Pick the accounts that you want. Pick the accounts that you need. Pick the accounts that you can win, and then surround them with all of your touch points. Don’t just touch them two times (which is the average amount of times that sales reps are touching their prospects) but touch them the amount of times that it takes in order to convert them.

This level of depth is what allows Susan to able to focus her intentionality on individual accounts, and make those relationships better. She and the prospect understand one another. They’ve gone deeper, and that lays the groundwork for a more effective sales cycle.

But why is this not commonly understood in the marketplace? 

Well, when you look at those two reps, they have the exact same number. Spencer went home and said, ‘I got 30.’ Susan went home and said, ‘I got 30.’ And they likely got the same commission for those 30 that they brought in since they’re the same pipeline opportunity.

They’re the same qualification, but the rep doesn’t realize the bigger effects. The rep doesn’t realize how this affects the organization 6 down the road (or even a month down the road) and they don’t understand the downstream implications.” – Kyle Porter

Look at number of accounts you were able to convert over number of accounts you tried to convert, and watch that number grow higher and higher. In great sales organizations, that number is close to 10% in some places for outbound sales development to pick the account they want to get and then be able to close them within a month or a quarter.

Talk to your leadership team and lay out these two paths. Path A, the scorched earth policy, and Path B, personalization, customization, account-based sales development — where you’re not focused on volume, but on conversions. The second path is always the one chosen by business leaders.

Sales Development Reps need to start thinking this way — and their team needs to start coaching them to think this way.

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Want to get more power packed information from some of the top dogs in sales development? Register for this month’s Blab chat between Kyle Porter, Chris Pham, and Robby Allen next week on January 12, 2016 (WHOA 2016!) at 2pm EST.

The post Sales Development Efficiency: Not All Appointments Are Created Equal appeared first on SalesLoft.

I lean pretty heavily on my editor.

She provides insights that take my posts from average to good to great. In addition, she has set up defined steps I can follow to ensure I get my post right.

When the system we’ve established breaks down, I can determine what didn’t work and where I need to improve. This system plays a major role in my day-to-day success.

Sales works in a similar way.

Each team has a defined sales process they lean on in order to be successful. But what happens when that process starts to break down?

Think about it: today’s buyer is different than the buyer the traditional sales process was created for. As the buyer changes, shouldn’t your process change too?

Below are four signs that your sales process is broken and what you can do to fix it.

1) Too few warm leads.

The first sign of a broken sales process is a lack of warm leads entering your pipeline. Sales reps often rely on purchased lists to generate leads, or cold-source prospects based solely on their LinkedIn title instead of their level of interest. These ineffective strategies cause breakdowns in the sales process because reps are reaching out to prospects that haven’t expressed an interest in their product and might not even need or benefit from what the rep is offering.

Instead, reps need to pursue prospects based on what they do, not who they are. For instance, who’s a warmer lead: A prospect who has never visited your company’s pricing page and has no idea who you are, but has the title “CFO” on their LinkedIn profile? Or a finance manager who checked out your prices five times in the past two days and just opened your latest email? It’s a no-brainer.

Your CRM can be a critical tool in identifying buyer interest. For example, HubSpot’s free CRM shows reps when prospects visit their website and open their emails -- not to mention that it contains 19 million leads searchable by industry and company size. Instead of reaching out totally cold every morning, try waking up with a full warm pipeline.

2) Dismal connection rates.

Simply put: Cold emails and cold calls are fading -- fast.

A study from Leap Job discovered that only 2% of cold calls result in meetings. If reps are only booking two out of 100 prospects for meetings, that could signify a break in the sales process.

Developing rapport and building a bond with a prospect online before reaching out is a method reps should consider. By identifying where prospects hang out online, reps can engage buyers in conversation, have constructive debates, and begin to add value. And this means that when the rep eventually reaches out via email their name will be familiar to the buyer -- increasing the likelihood of a response.

3) Poor follow up etiquette.

Reps who send worthless follow up emails to prospects a million times a week are unlikely to hear back because prospects are in search of value from sales reps. When a prospect receives constant “just checking in” emails, they don’t see a return on the time they are investing and might not respond.

Reps should instead focus on providing value to the buyer as well as guiding prospects -- not forcing them -- through their individual buying journey on their unique timeline. There are a multitude of ways to provide value in a sales email, so there’s no excuse to send pointless messages.

As Andy Paul writes in Amp Up Your Sales, any touch could be the deciding moment a prospect becomes a buyer or passes on your product. With this in mind, make sure each and every touch offers value.

4) Bailing on the relationship once prospects buy.

Reps need to be proactive with current customers, not reactive. Salespeople who only respond to customers when they hear from them three times in a row aren’t setting the right precedent.

Being proactive means listening to feedback and checking in regularly instead of only when a customer has an issue. By engaging with customers often and ensuring they are doing well, salespeople can build credibility and trust, and keep the client around for the long haul.

Customers also help generate referrals. As opposed to reaching out to new prospects cold, reps can rely on current clients to provide warm leads, which close at much higher rates than non-referred prospects.

A rep is only as strong as the sales process they rely on. As the modern buyer changes, a company’s sales process needs to change too. The old playbook is fading out as a new one emerges. The reps who focus on building relationships, educating, and guiding their prospects and customers are emerging as leaders in the field.