Consistently generating sales qualified leads in the enterprise is a constant struggle for outbound sales development teams. This presents a significant challenge for the 93.4% of companies that conduct outbound prospecting, and particularly for the 54% of organizations that have …
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Venture Capitalists See Content Across CompaniesKyle Lacy is the Head of Marketing Strategy at OpenView Partners, a venture capital (VC) firm. Before joining OpenView, Kyle led the global content marketing team for ExactTarget and the Salesforce Marketing Cloud. He is also the author of “Twitter Marketing for Dummies,” “Branding Yourself,” and “Social CRM for Dummies.”
Kyle’s time at OpenView is split about 50/50 between OpenView’s brand (events, website, content) and consulting with their portfolio. On OpenView’s content platform, OpenView Labs, their guest and internal writers create content for practitioners as well as thought leaders. (Kyle also writes for Convince & Convert!) They work to create content from the top down and bottom up.
VCs like OpenView learn a lot from working with multiple companies at the same time. Kyle notes that this means you can develop processes that can be replicated, whether it’s a go-to market strategy, pricing strategy, or content strategy.
“Content is a part of every single piece of a business. If you can’t tell that story the right way to the person you need to tell it to, to that persona, then you’re not going to be as successful as businesses that can do it really well.” —Kyle Lacy
“We’ve seen a massive uptick in investment in content because people are starting to realize that that’s what sets you apart. That’s what makes you unique is the story that you tell. It’s a part of every business, so it’s extremely important.” —@kyleplacy
“Content is really just teaching.” —@randyfrisch (highlight to tweet)
“Done is better than perfect. I think that people think so much about buyer personas that they just don’t ever do it because they’re just too busy doing just random campaigns or one-off projects.” —@kyleplacy
“It’s easy to talk about buyer personas. I think a lot of people talk about it, but not a lot of people do it.” —@kyleplacy
“Future marketing is definitely using data for personalization.” —@kyleplacy (highlight to tweet)
“The person that’s going to download your thought leadership report might not be the person making the final decision, or vice versa, on the software. So you have to understand what different points in the journey are happening, and then who are the people that are looking at the content to push to the end goal.” —@kyleplacy
“There are processes that you can apply to anything that—if done over the course of time—can work.” —@kyleplacy (highlight to tweet)
“Early on in my life, I wanted to be a Civil War reenactor, which is really odd.” Kyle was obsessed. He’s seen the movie “Gettysburg” about 65 times. “I basically wanted to be Martin Sheen as Robert E. Lee in ‘Gettysburg.’ I had the entire Union suit. I had to buy a drum—I was too young to own a musket, so I had a drum for a drummer boy.”
Moving into high school and college, he was more into music business and recording studios before he got into marketing. “But my heart still lives within that 1855 to 1865 time frame.”
This broadcast features answers on how to create and deliver successful online training and what your customers are expecting. Danny Iny has spent considerable time studying and deploying his findings in courses that are achieving tremendous acceptance from his students. He shares key recommendations about Pilot Courses, the importance of personal coaches for each student and dives into the pricing models that are working today. If you have knowledge that you want to share with others in a training setting, you will learn from this interview originally broadcast on September 22, 2015, just a few days after the release of Danny’s latest book on this topic: Teach and Grow Rich. I recommend this book and have now read it twice in the span of a week since its release.
Original article: What It Takes to Deliver Successful Online Training
©2015 Fill the Funnel. All Rights Reserved.
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Breakdown of a crisis: the 4 questions you need to ask yourself and how social media analytics help at each stage of the crisis management. For this article, all the data was pulled using the Talkwalker social intelligence tool.
So you have a social listening system that is showing you the latest mentions of your brand in real-time. You even have a series of social media analytics related to each mention: sentiment, reach, engagement, author, place of publication, some information about the author.
While this is a great start to building a solid online reputation monitoring system to detect early-warning signs of potential crises as described in the “pre-crisis” phase of crisis management, once you start seeing negative articles flowing on the web about you, it’s a matter of knowing how to react, in an orderly fashion. First of all, you will need to:
– Understand the cause of the negativity and how legitimate or erroneous that information is;
– Understand the intensity of the crisis and how much it has spread and where exactly in the vast expanse of the social web.
Looking at the volume of mentions for both the Volkswagen scandal and Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn, we discover the cause of negativity (widely known by now, and confirmed by this theme cloud) to be about Volkswagen’s violation of the Clean Air Act exposed by The Environmental Protection Agency.
Top themes around Volkswagen as detected by social media analytics tool Talkwalker
It’s been everywhere in the news. We’ve all read stories about Volkswagen, its software to fool regulators, and unforeseen developments worthy of a Hollywood scriptwriter. In this case avoiding all negativity is going to be impossible but a more attainable goal would be to prevent sustained levels of negative buzz, and to decrease the level of negativity in the reaction from the community. In Volkswagen’s case, the peak of the attention on social media happened on Sep 23rd, 2015 at 5pm CET following the news about Martin Winterkorn’s resignation as CEO of the group. Since then, the volume of mentions decreased back to an average of 2,000 mentions per day, 10 times less than during the peak.
Among the 259,100 social mentions picked up by Talkwalker in just 4 days, the peak of nearly 20,000 mentions happened on the third day and the active sources are Twitter, online news, newspapers, and blogs by volume.
A social media world map will give you immediate insight into the volume and sentiment of mentions across the globe
Additionally, it’s interesting that despite the Volkswagen brand having taken a big reputational hint, they may feel some relief at the fact that this crisis hasn’t had a major impact on their other brands from a reputation standpoint, as shown on the following graph for Audi, Lamborghini, Bentley, Bugatti, Skoda and Ducati.
The anatomy of your crisis should be well understood before you move to the next step, which consists in taking the right actions.
The answer is: yes. But we are not always dealing with a one-time complaint on Twitter. If your case is serious and is making a substantial impact, you’d better have a plan in place and execute it in a timely manner. As Sofie de Beule recommended on Social Media Examiner: “Come up with a variety of scenarios, so you can take control of any situation when the time comes […]. Additionally, create a social media committee that involves people from the entire company and meets on a regular basis”. Arm yourself with a team of community managers who will know exactly how and what to answer to individual complaints and criticisms. For example, the Volkswagen community management team spread the official communication from their CEO to a series of complains found on Facebook and Twitter.
Example of community management action taken during the crisis by Volkswagen official Facebook pages
Bad buzz can come to a point where it’s almost not viable to answer each and every criticism published on the web. An official press release or communication is a useful way to defuse a tense situation (see real-life examples of how Buffer, Fontaine Santé, or J.C. Penney responded in a crisis situation). When the gravity of the situation needs an immediate solution that goes far beyond reputation management techniques, a necessary corporate action needs to be taken. Winterkorn’s resignation made an impact that is clearly shown in the following graphs.
As stated previously, it’s essential to reduce negativity in order to avoid a snowball effect, as a bad reputation can have a financial impact on your stock price.
Volkswagen’s stock price evolution in the past month. Source: Google Finance
Absolute figures clearly show a large majority of negative mentions about Volkswagen:
More interesting is the evolution of sentiment towards your company and your brand. Since Winterkorn’s resignation, social media buzz has dropped and negativity has decreased. Spike analysis for sentiment over last four days looks like this:
Negative results linked to Volkswagen have decreased since Winterkorn’s resignation, which triggered a buzz peak
Taking full responsibility for the issue is the first step that will make the media more open to listen to what you have to say on behalf of a company. This is exactly what Volkswagen’s ex-CEO did when he issued a filmed apology for cheating emissions test, which was shared through the company’s official YouTube channel almost immediately after the story broke, and on their social channels.
The second step consists in maintaining and making the corporate values known, implying there is a strong value mission and quality of service/product that will carry on after this “hiccup”. Working at the heart of the deep, underlying issue and making any changes known in a “Crisis FAQ or message board” will have people focus on how you are working on your problem and gather their complaints in one single place at the same time. It’s all a matter of taking back control of your reputation !
Do you have any other tips for crisis management? Would you have wanted Volkswagen to react in a different way? Come back regularly to our social media analytics page dedicated to Volkswagen for an updated status of the company’s brand health, or monitor any other company’s potential warning signs on Talkwalker’s Crisis Management IQ App.
Photo Credits: Business Finance News
If you’re producing content for YouTube, you already know the benefits of the platform. Every day, viewers watch hundreds of millions of hours of video content on YouTube – and every year viewing stats increase at an astounding rate.
While YouTube is the undeniable King of Video on the Internet, it can still be a bit of a passive experience. If you have a product or service to sell, you need engaged viewers who don’t just watch your content, but act on it as well.
With email marketing, it becomes easier to build a loyal audience for not only your YouTube channel, but your business as well. While there are a number of benefits for using video in your marketing strategy, we’re going to look at different ways to encourage viewers to sign up to your email list and increase engagement.
But first, let’s take a look at why tying email marketing to your video strategy is important in the first place.
Email is still one of the best ways to keep in touch with an audience. Why? Because it allows you to connect with them in a place they check every day: their inbox.
While YouTube does send email digests about your content to your subscribers, it also contains content from other channels to which they’re subscribed. And not only will your content have to compete with others, viewers also have the option to turn off these email notifications altogether.
When you have your own email list, you’re able to communicate exclusively with an audience of engaged viewers who enjoy watching your videos and are interested in your products or services. With email, you can let viewers know when a new video is released, or share other content they might find valuable, such as a blog post or ebook. And as you build trust with your subscribers, you can use email to educate them about your products and their benefits.
It’s simply a win-win.
Thankfully, there are a number of ways to turn your YouTube viewers into email subscribers. Let’s begin with step number one.
When you have a loyal YouTube audience who enjoys your content and looks forward to new videos you post, they’ll be more willing to receive communication from you on other channels. To develop your fanbase, there are three key factors that will be essential to your success: consistency, on-screen personality and communication.
While your video content should help influence a viewer to sign up to your email list, that might not be enough to get them to subscribe. To get them to sign up, try offering an incentive such as a free ebook, coupon or exclusive video in exchange for their email address.
If you’re a photography blogger, you might give away a free ebook of your favorite photos with how-to tips on camera gear and settings. Or a clothing store owner might offer an exclusive discount to your email subscribers that can be redeemed on their first purchase. Whatever you decide to offer, it should relevant to your niche and deliver additional value to your subscribers.
Turning a viewer into an email subscriber isn’t always easy, but don’t be afraid to talk about your email list directly in your video. If you feature yourself on camera, tell you viewers about your incentive and encourage them to sign up for your email list to receive it.
YouTube also has some tools that will display text within the video, and they’re perfect for capturing your viewer’s attention. Here are my favorites:
Cards, which are visible in the YouTube player on both desktop and mobile devices, are an interactive element that are overlaid on top of your YouTube video. On a desktop, cards will be displayed first as a teaser with a line of text. The link will still be accessible when viewers hover their cursor over the video player and click the “info” icon.
Here are the elements you can customize on a card:
You can also control when the teaser text is overlaid on your video by moving the card around the timeline of your video, as shown below:
Annotations are another way to add interactivity to your videos. With annotations, you can add a text block on top of your video, position it and link it to your sign up form.
There are a number of display options such as a speech bubble, title, spotlight, label and note. If you’re in the video, clickable annotations come in handy because you can physically point to it so people won’t miss it.
Do note that annotations only display on desktops, so your mobile viewers won’t see anything in that space if you’re pointing to it. Annotations can also be turned off by viewers in the player settings.
Here are the elements you can customize on an annotation:
The description text of your YouTube video allow for your people to find it in search, but be sure to mention your email list and incentive (if you offer one). An effective description should accurately describe the content of your video, and link to your website and sign up form.
If you’re using tracking links in your description text, consider using a URL shortener such as the one provided by Google or Bitly, as the full URL will be displayed in the description.
Once you’ve captured the email addresses of your YouTube viewers, you’ll need an autoresponder series that welcomes them to your list. This is also a good opportunity to share more information about yourself and what subscribers can expect from your emails. If you promised an incentive such as a free download, be sure to deliver that as well.
Aside from providing a welcome autoresponder series, you can keep in touch with subscribers by sending one-time broadcast emails every time you upload a new video to YouTube. These broadcasts can be much more personal than the automated emails that YouTube generates, and you can customize the message to include additional information about your paid products as well.
YouTube is a great platform for attracting new people to your brand. And when you add email marketing to the mix, you gain a unique opportunity to build an engaged and loyal audience.
Now that you have the tips you need to turn your YouTube viewers into subscribers, you’re ready to get started!
Have you found success turning your YouTube viewers into loyal email subscribers? Tell us about it in the comments!
Email marketing is an amazing tool – when it works. It’s still the strongest connective tissue in the digital ecosystem, and generates the highest return on investment of any marketing channel. Despite email’s maturity, most marketers are still figuring out how to integrate targeting information from social media.
The problem has been limited access to data with the emphasis on historical behavior, transactional and click data, – leaving marketers with the task of piecing together a puzzle to identify the factors leading to conversions.
Now, in part to decreasing cloud-storage, processing costs and greater ease of integrations, marketers can tap into a goldmine of social insights to enrich email targeting. This new view takes advantage of publicly available data on social media so digital teams are able to track an individual’s current behavior, preferences and values including – the social networks where they’re spending an average of three hours per day, what they talk about, how influential they are, and many other crucial insights.
This article explores how connecting email to social media drives engagement and how to apply it to your own engagement initiatives. For those who make it to the end, we’ll even throw in a special offer.
Social insights are a combination of social data and social listening collected from social media platforms in relationships to your CRM or email list. Many marketers refer to this as social insights, instead of just social media, because this “insight’ is in relation to your CRM or email list. It’s the social side of your audience which allows you to know people better so you can personalize your communications and drive engagement for higher conversions.
Social Insights Include Social Data: Social data refers to “data individuals create that is knowingly and voluntarily shared by them.” These powerful insights have fundamentally altered how digital teams approach marketing and are even likely to play a large role in determining the next president. This is the data side of social media, which for marketers translates into understanding:
It’s important to note that while matching your email file to social data provides a valuable new information, it’s not a tactic for acquiring additional emails from social networks. Reputable providers should never send you emails associated with a Twitter handle or a LinkedIn account.
Many CRM’s and email providers are starting to include social data into their product and typically integrate with third party providers to enrich social data with audience profiles.
Social Insights Include Social Listening: The real power of social insights is social listening, also known as social media monitoring. This allows marketers to identify and segment people who are talking about their campaigns, programs, hashtags, products, etc. Listening offers the ability to track trending terms and hashtags on high value groups like influencers, customers or donors. It’s also helpful in learning audience preferences, what they like and don’t like about your offering, so you can adapt your products and marketing content.
Most marketers haven’t bothered trying to segment with social insights because until recently, the technology has been expensive and cumbersome. The challenge has been the unwieldy amounts of unstructured data which has prevented efficient segmentation for most digital teams. In addition, around 90% of all data has been created in the past 2 years. It’s estimated that 80% of the information generated is unstructured data located in content which is growing at twice the rate of structured data.
Social Insights on Your Email List / CRM: Social insights on who is the question. Do you need social insights from your existing contacts or for a target audience for which you don’t have information? If you’ve already built a healthy list over 20K, look for a solution that offers social insights on your CRM, instead of globally. On the flip side, if you’re a startup with a small email list, or perhaps want to tap into a new market, look for global monitoring features.
We generally recommend integrating social insights with your CRM or email so you have information on your core audience. By combining these two data sets (social data and listening), email addresses become real people with lives and jobs, families and friends, interests, and shared values.
Social insights allow you to better understand your email list so you can personalize communications that drive engagement for higher conversions.
According to one study by the Aberdeen Group, 96% of organizations believe that email personalization can improve email marketing performance, improve click-through rates by 14%, and lift conversion rates by 10%. The DMA also found that segmented campaigns drive a 760% increase in revenue. While there are dozens of ways to personalize content, at the end of the day, personalization is about sending relevant content, when it’s top of mind.
So when a supporter or customer says “Just love X“,
you send a triggered email that says “Let me tell you about our X offer”.
Personalization isn’t sending one off emails, though doing so can be an effective tactic. Rather, in the context of social insights it’s the ability to group people based on key social mentions, so you send relevant content.
It’s about getting people to open, read and take action on an email about their favorite program or product. It’s knowing who you should ask to join your influencer program because you know their reach, what they talk about on social and their past history. It’s knowing when, what and who to send your amazing content to. Effective personalization connects and converts.
By automating emails based on social mentions, American Rivers sent highly targeted emails asking their supporters to sign their petition within 24 hours of the mention. Each time a supporter mentioned “grand canyon”, they were put into a group receiving an automated email asking them to sign or share their petition.
The result: 24% conversion rate, 2400 new signs ups and 0 unsubscribes.
Social data gives marketers an unprecedented insight into the lives of their audiences and delivers multiple opportunities for personalization, far beyond surveys or focus groups. Knowing the shared topics and hashtags of your people points you in the direction of the best content to use and key conversations to join through hashtags.
Since relationships are formed around shared interests, consider leveraging hashtags to foster “thicker” engagement – the foundation of strong communities, movements and marketing campaigns that convert. Find where the key conversations are happening around relevant hashtags. Get in there and do your thing.
Real-time monitoring of your audience is a new tactic in shaping your content delivery and demonstrate that you’re in touch with your people. For example, if the Bernie Sanders campaign would have matched their email file to social, there’s an excellent chance they would have seen that #blacklifesmatter was a top hashtag and avoided a PR disaster. Social listening offers a great second opinion (that’s data driven!).
On average, the top 5% of your email list reaches 85% of your entire network reach. Said another way, this top 5% reaches 200x more people than in your email program. Social media influencers are game changers not only because of their network reach, but because they are better messengers to their followers.
The theory of change here is that reviews, recommendations and content have a greater impact coming from someone like ourselves, who we know and trust. It’s the difference between walking up to someone and saying, “Hey, check out my awesomeness” or having a friend say it for you, in their words, to their own social network.
The basic goal with influencer engagement is to tap into their networks and ask them to share your content. Connecting email to social helps you find influencers who you’ve already recruited, who are already on your email list or CRM. An email profile enriched with social listening also allows you to reviewing their profiles for reach and topic relevance.
Let’s say you’re BMW and your marketing campaign is to generate buzz around the new “7 Series” by having users share their experience. In addition to including 25,000 people to share their early experiences on social with an early unveil, this campaign could also segment by key social mentions and influencers (and very well may have). Here’s a basic breakdown:
Segment by social mention: Include a segment of customers who already talk about key terms on Facebook and Twitter such as “BMW”, “7 series” or “ultimate driving machine”. Anyone already talking about your area of focus would no doubt be thrilled to participate, give great reviews and eventually serve as ambassadors in some capacity.
Segment by influencers: These are the people that can extend the reach and impact of any marketing campaign when both values align. An interesting segment would include “citizen” influencers who are motivated by their love of driving as a personal hobby, have Klout scores of 40-50 and 1,000+ connections. Such reviews coming from “everyday” people not only seem more authentic, but have a wider social reach. VIP and professional influencers are also key in generating buzz and should be included in the marketing mix.
Keep in mind if you’re growing your email list, you’re continually adding new influencers. A key difference with engaging these 3 types of influencers is approach and rules of engagement.
Example of a personalized ask to influencers
We’re sending you this email to thank you for your past involvement the #ultimatedrive campaign and to let you know about an exclusive opportunity to participate in our product (or program) launch next month. We can see you’re also a social media pro and would love you to share your opinion about our new product with your followers.
Basic filtering with social data:
Donor retention is an ongoing problem for many nonprofits. The 2014 Fundraising Effectiveness Project report showed that the median donor retention rate was 43% in 2013. Broadly speaking, donor revenue often depends on how engaged an audience is with their programs. The more engaged, the higher donations per-supporter.
Retaining donor engagement is, in some ways, more difficult than recruiting new donors because of higher expectations around personalization. Social listening is key to donor retention as it gives organizations an unprecedented view into their donors’ lives and an opportunity for richer engagement. Combined with CRM data, revealing prior-interactions and 3rd party data like demographics and wealth — organizations can put together a sophisticated picture of each donor, including their propensity and capacity to give.
Meet Susan. She’s a past alumni donor who gave $500 over that past 2 years. She never attended an event, but reads your email, lives in New York and married. You know this from your current CRM. Her last gift was $100 about 6 months ago. It’s reasonable to send her a donation request for 25% more. But what if you found out that she gives to 3 other groups, has net worth of $2M, household income of $200K, and she’s not a social media influencer but she talks about a related issue on Facebook, which is her platform of choice.
How would your ask change? You’d of course ask for more based on social wealth data and tie it back to the topics she’s posting about (animals/goats). Using social data and social listening you can look at this as a new opportunity, or really a missed opportunity, depending on the action you take.
Ready to connect your email with social insights? Our free Audience Insights Report matches a subsection of your email list with over 100 social networks to help you to understand who your supporters are. Here’s a sample report so you can see exactly the type of infographic we’re able to create on the house. Insight to your audience allows for greater personalization to radically increase audience engagement and expand reach of your campaigns so you can
By incorporating what is already known about your audience with real-time social chatter, and social data, the modern marketer has the information needed to provide a real-time personalized responses at scale by matching email to social insights.
Attentive.ly drives engagement by turning your quiet supporters into vocal advocates.
Sales professionals have an arsenal of sales tools at their disposal, but one of the most powerful sales tools is the sales demonstration. Delivering an impactful sales demonstration is not as easy as it may seem. It certainly takes practice and refinement, and once a sales professional approaches the demonstration as an art, rather than as a set of rigid guidelines, the sales demo flows a little more easily. If you’re struggling with turning your demonstrations into customers, try some of our suggestions and strategies and tweak them to make them your own.
Preparing for your sales demonstration is half the battle. You need to be focused, prepared for your specific audience, and convinced that you have done all that you can to get your prospect to view the demo as a valuable use of time. Think back to your high school English classes: if you had a stellar teacher, she probably told you always to consider your audience before writing or speaking. That advice holds true in your sales demo.
You need to approach the demo from your potential buyers’ points of view. Anticipate the questions, concerns, and hesitations they will bring to the demo. But, be cautious: don’t assume that you know all of their needs. Have a list of questions in mind to ask to help you zero in on their needs, and remember to be prepared with follow-up questions that drill down to their motivations.
Another pre-demo strategy is to put yourself into the mindset of a conservative buyer. Your client may be leery of you and your product because of its cost, potential to disrupt established business practices, etc. Your prospect also may not be as ready and willing to make a final decision at the demonstration, and you need to know how you will handle the hesitation. Be prepared to schedule a follow-up call and confirm the details before you leave, to transform your prospect into your customer.
It is important to remain focused during the delivery of your sales demonstration. Keep tabs on your prospects’ body language to gauge interest. You should make sure that you are engaging your prospect with visuals and hands-on opportunities to interact with the product. This will generate interest and establish a sense of ownership of the product for the potential buyer. Provide samples, pictures, videos, or other tools to help you spur interest and convey ownership; these proof devices provide tangible evidence of what you are saying. This will help your prospects to trust you, so that they are more inclined to become your customer.
This also is your chance to evaluate your prospects’ needs and timeline. The questions we mentioned earlier are an integral part of the sales demonstration. To ensure that you are getting as much useful information from your prospect as possible, make sure that you ask follow-up questions when she makes comments or asks questions about the product. Get to the heart of her needs by asking questions that force her to give specific answers, rather than a “yes” or a “no.”
Another questioning tip for use during the demonstration is to enquire about the prospect’s motivation for allowing you to demo in the first place. Asking a question such as, “What prompted you to look into our product?” is more powerful than asking, “What are your needs?” The buyer should reflect on his needs, challenges, desire to change, timeline, etc. when you frame your question about his inspiration for meeting with you, rather than asking him point-blank about his needs.
Of course, listening to your potential buyers is just as important as questioning them. You need to be sure you are taking the time to hear their answers, rather than half-listening while planning your next question or move. Listening closely enough to potential buyers gives you the opportunity to examine their needs and challenges through their answers and shows that you will be a valuable partner in the future.
Babette Ten Haken, founder and president of Sales Aerobics for Engineers, LLC, explains that the steps you take after your sales demo are just as important as preparing for and delivering the sales demo. She offers five important things to consider after you demonstrate your product for potential buyers. We highlight our three favorites below:
1. Be proactive and anticipate closing opportunities: Consider the factors that play into your prospect’s decision to buy: corporate culture, timeline, and decision-making process. Then, make sure you are “ready to act on these factors and impact their decision to buy.”
2. Collaborate with your sales engineer at every step of the demo process: Take a team approach to the demo with your sales engineer. Collaborate to gain a better understanding of your potential customer and to determine the best approach for your potential buyer.
3. Identify additional opportunity in your prospect’s culture: Divide and conquer your potential client’s team with your sales engineer. Identify which contacts are better for each of you to approach and increase your chances of getting more of the stakeholders and decision makers to choose your solution.
Sales demonstrations are a powerful sales tool when you refine the art of delivering them, fully prepare prior to the demonstration, ask questions of your prospects and listen to their answers, and follow-up correctly. This preparation and hard work will help you turn your demonstrations into customers.
For 7 essential strategies for leading a stellar inside sales team, download the free Salesforce e-book.
What problems are your buyers looking to solve?
Like you, I’m frequently bombarded by online ads and self-promoting emails from companies trying to convince me to buy their products. The drumbeat of self-promotion is incessant. And like you, I ignore the vast majority since they’re not relevant to my current business needs.
In B2B marketing and sales, we frequently look at the seller’s perspective, considering sales stages, the funnel, conversion metrics, and more. Certainly this is critical to a business since the sales funnel efficiency has a significant impact on revenue. Much has been written about getting more inquiries, the B2B sales funnel and the buyer’s funnel. In fact, I recently wrote a post about how to use Marketing to shrink the B2B Sales cycle. There’s much a company can do to optimize and shrink its effective sales cycle.
The B2B Buyer’s Perspective
But let’s look at the sales funnel from a slightly different perspective — from the buyer’s vantage point. In the B2B marketplace, the buyer has increasing control over the sales process. And buyers are using that control to manage the entire engagement on their terms. Given this, more buyers are hesitating to engage with sales until they’re ready or have a need to engage. As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, nearly 93% of B2B buyers would rather buy online than from a salesperson. But we know they will engage if we can help address their needs.
Get a Higher Percentage of Sales Ready Leads through Better Education, Not Better Sales Messaging
It can be harder to come up with good topics that appeal to your buyers. The sales team is a great source, as they frequently hear needs and objections from prospects. Other good sources for ideas can be test marketing with PPC, search analysis, and trade publications. Here are some example questions:
Why are your buyers looking at your products?
What problems are they looking to solve?
What will motivate your buyers to engage with the sales group?
Business buyers are looking for answers to these types of questions before they’re ready to engage in the sales process. By focusing on the buyer’s perspective, you attract, nurture and engage more prospects through educational messaging instead of sales messaging. We continually see this supported with higher email click through rates, better landing page conversions ratios, and most importantly, more sales qualified leads.
An Example – The Buyer’s Perspective Wins
Here’s an example of the change based on our experience. We (FusionMarketingPartners.com) worked with a client that was frequently emailing to their large house list. Led by the VP of Sales, the focus of their emails was self-centered: their solution, why buy from us, why we are so great, etc. As a result, their emails were getting a low percentage of views and almost no click- throughs. In fact, they were performing well below ratios for their industry — an average open rate of 16.8% and average click-through rate of 2%.
By changing to an educational theme narrowly focused on their target market’s pain points, we saw a significant increase in email engagement. In this example, the numbers improved dramatically as people were much more interested in topics they cared about. This is just one example; using this type of messaging strategy, we’ve seen email open rates as high as a 50% and click-through rates as high as 33%.
At the Top of the Sales Funnel, Focus on the Buyer
This focus on the buyer’s needs and perspective is especially critical at the top of the sales funnel. Even if a new inquiry isn’t ready now, informational offers continue to be an effective method of nurturing and reengaging prospects.
Every situation is different, but by switching to a problem solving and educational style of messaging, prospects are more likely to engage with your company. When you focus on their point of view, you’re more likely to move prospects through the top of the funnel and deeply into the sales process.
For the last decade, retailers have all followed a very similar strategy: collect as many email addresses as possible and then send them the maximum number of promotional emails they feel their subscribers will take – without unsubscribing.
Guess what? Those days are OVER.
Today, consumers are absolutely inundated with generic promotional emails – and very few are ever opened.
Why?
Simple. The information being dumped into their inbox isn’t personalized – and therefore, it’s just spam.
The very fastest way to alienate your subscribers (and burn out your list) is to send them generic promotional emails – and lots of them.
Let’s be honest, this “batch ‘n blast” approach is pretty much just spam.
An example of what I’m talking about: I’m a subscriber for a fairly large online retailer and I get anywhere from 7 to 10 emails a week.
Worse than the volume of emails is that NONE of these emails are personalized to me.
Don’t you think they’d have a better chance of getting me engaged if they actually took the time to get to know what I’m interested in and then communicated with me in the channels that I use most? (in my case, mobile)
Of course they would.
When I talk about personalization, I’m not referring to starting off the email with “Dear Trent,”.
Instead, I’m talking about making the content of your emails relevant to the data that you have collected about me.
I’m talking about data like:
Data like this is pretty easy to collect if you are using the right tools, and you have done a good job of creating a well-crafted onboarding sequence using progressive profiling.
With a well-crafted onboarding sequence and progressive profiling in place, retailers can lay the foundation for a much more engaging relationship with their subscribers.
Ok…enough talk about what not to do, right?
How about an example of 1:1 digital marketing done correctly – along with the numbers to convince your CMO that it’s going to pay for itself.
Meet Room & Board, a 30 year old retailer that sells home furnishing. Room & Board has stores in Minneapolis, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Costa Mesa, Washington, D.C., Seattle, Boston, and online.
No, that’s not a typo.
In the video below, you are going to see how Room & Board achieved a 2800% ROI on their investment in the Salesforce Marketing Cloud (disclosure: I work for Salesforce) and how doing so helped them to:
Here’s a snippet from a case study on Room & Board that was just published.
Do you recognize the power of 1:1 digital marketing and want to emulate Room & Board, but aren’t sure how to get started?
If you don’t already have CEO buy-in and an unlimited budget, I would suggest you take baby steps.
To succeed with the type of marketing Room & Board is doing, you will want to begin by focusing on two key areas:
Engaging customer journeys start with knowing what people are interested in. Get that part right, and the rest is a lot easier.
For the purposes of this discussion, there are two types of data that we need be concerned with: what you tell me (explicit) and your behavior (implicit).
To collect explicit data, once a website visitor becomes a subscriber, redirect them to a preferences page and then use this page to ask them what they want to hear about.
One thing to be careful of is asking for too much data up front. Instead, you’ll have far greater success by asking for the most important stuff first, and then using progressive profiling to ask them more over time.
Examples of things you might ask include:
Collecting and using implicit data is something that Room & Board has gotten very good at doing.
Implicit data is the type of data that you collect by tracking what individual consumer’s behavior.
Things like:
Using this type of data, in my opinion, is where the real opportunities lie because you can use this type of data to ensure that you are sending the right message to the right person at the right time.
If you want to maximize engagement with your subscribers, simply sending them promotional emails isn’t going to get it done.
Instead, you are going to need to create customer journeys that leverage the data I talked about.
When you combine the power of data with customer journeys, the content you send it going to be so much more relevant – and that is going to help you realize substantial increases in engagement and conversions, just as it did for Room & Board.
So what should you create journeys for? Just about anything you can think of.
Here’s a few ideas to get your mind going:
Now here’s the really cool thing about customer journeys: they can be created in such a way as to be unique to each person! That is why the data is so important.
Without the implicit & explicit data, all you can do is send generic promotional messages and hope for the best – something that you probably already know doesn’t work as well as it used to.
Once you have mastered collecting data on the customer journey, I suggest you move into cross-channel journeys.
Once you have laid a solid foundation using what I’ve described above, I would encourage you to expand into more than one channel.
The channels I’m referring to are:
Social is very powerful for acquisition and customer service.
Mobile is another very powerful channel because the vast majority of your subscribers probably read your emails on their phone. Why not offer them the ability to receive SMS or Push notifications? There many use cases for this.
The most frustrating part of a job search can be the waiting.
We often wait days or weeks to find out if we landed an interview. Then we wait again to hear whether we're invited back for round two. Then we wait some more to learn if we got the job.
But if you're a young job seeker who happens to meet and make a fantastic impression on Mark Toro, managing partner and chairman of North American Properties—Atlanta, you could be offered the gig on the spot.
In a recent interview with Adam Bryant of The New York Times, Toro said he'll "sometimes hire someone young even if we don't have a job for them."
"[Those are] the kind of [people] you meet and within the first 30 seconds you know you want them on your team," he explained. "It's about bright eyes. You know it when you see it. They're happy and they want to learn."
For more senior people, he takes a different approach — but one that's equally interesting.
"We'll get them in front of every person on the leadership team, and I'll get feedback from them separately so that they don't influence each other's reactions," he told Bryant. "We also want to meet their spouses over dinner and watch how they interact. That can be very telling about who you really are, and because the interview process is so imperfect, we've got to get every data point we can."
SEE ALSO: 12 signs you're about to be promoted at work
More and more companies today are focusing their marketing efforts towards lead generation campaigns. What exactly is a lead generation campaign? It simply means creating a campaign to gain more leads, like the e-mail addresses of potential users or clients. With e-mail leads, companies can build their databases in order to include more people in […]
Nadya Khoja contributes a monthly column on Infographics. Nadya is a Visual Content and Digital Marketing Specialist. She is part of the team at Venngage, an online infographic maker. Nadya has a B.A. with Specialized Honours in Devised Theatre and a Master's Degree in Digital Media with a focus on Audience Engagement and Immersive Experiences. When she has time, Nadya directs, produces and sound designs for experimental and interactive performances.
Use Calls To Action In Your Infographics To Generate Leads by Nadya Khoja -Maximize Social Business
It’s important to make eye contact when you’re talking to someone, but too much eye contact can be creepy. What’s a socially awkward person to do? Try the 60 percent rule of thumb.
Investing in early-stage companies can be highly risky and equally rewarding. I recently began investing in startups as well and even shared the philosophy of how entrepreneur’s should pay it forward in this article. Despite being fairly new to the startup-investing world, I have spent considerable time learning about the same, by putting my money where my mouth is. I have now made well over 20 investments and even seen some of my portfolio companies raise follow on financing rounds at high multiples, within just 4 months of embracing angel investing. With this post, I hope to share what I have learned about angel investing using crowdfunding.
First, let’s understand when and why a startup raises capital. Mentioned below is how I see startup fundraising efforts from private investors. May differ from how others see the same.
Using crowdfunding for making startup investments
Startup investing used to be for very wealthy individuals with strong networks. With the passing of the JOBS Act, you only need to be accredited and have access to the Internet to get access to investing in what could be the next Instacart or Uber. Entrepreneurs can now openly solicit investors for funding—through ways as simple and direct as tweets and status updates—and potential backers can easily find information about cash-hungry startups on the Web.
Investors can also join online syndicates, which usually aren’t as exclusive as real-world angel groups. So, fledgling angels can pool their cash with other investors and make much smaller bets on companies, sometimes as little as $1,000.
With the advent of crowdfunding, a lot more individuals are getting the opportunity to participate in startup growth via angel investing. The top sites per my analysis are AngelList, WeFunder, FundersClub and MicroVentures.
Benefits of investing via crowdfunding
Once you decide to explore investing in startups via crowdfunding, you will realize that there are more investment opportunities being pitched to you, than you have the appetite for. This can initially be overwhelming where you are not sure what startup to back. All pitches seem like legit. So how do you filter the best from the rest?
Subscribe to the right syndicates on AngelList
Arena Ventures has been THE BEST syndicate I have subscribed to. With a mission to create 10,000 angels in the next few years, they lead by example by putting their money where their mouth is. I say this due to the following reasons:
Please let it be noted that I have no affiliation to any of the individuals mentioned in this article. Any references are purely based on merit.
Some other syndicates on AngelList that I highly recommend backing are ones led by:
Also, websites like WeFunder are an excellent avenue to invest in Y-combinator graduated companies. The founder, Mike Norman often himself invests in deals listed by the platform.
Lastly, do yourself a favor and read this case-study on Angel List published by Harvard Business School. If you are an entrepreneur/investor in the crowdfunding or peer-to-peer lending industry, this is a must-read.
According to Content Marketing Institute, 47% of B2B marketers say that their biggest content marketing problem is creating content that allows their brands to engage with readers.
In other words, nearly half admit that they don’t know how to make content that interests their audience. I’m sure a similar statistic could be found with consumer marketers.
Ask yourself: Does your brand content fall into this category? Are readers turning away from your brand because they don’t find the content you produce to be as engaging or authentic as it should be?
Let’s hope not.
In the same survey, customers also indicated that trust in a brand’s content is three times as important to them as trust in a brand’s own employees. Clearly, it’s important to your content marketing success that that the content you create is highly relevant to your brand (i.e. more brand-centric).
Brand-centric content, in its simplest terms, is content that is highly focused on your brand. This focus means that you pay particular attention to each of your brand’s unique characteristics, which encompasses everything from design to personality to the types and topics of your content.
By intentionally creating brand-centric content, you’ll be able to boost engagement with your brand as readers begin to recognize your content more and more (whether they see it on your own website, on social media, or even on another blog).
Here are five practical strategies that you can start implementing today to boost brand engagement with more brand-centric content:
As a brand grows and matures, its design is bound to evolve. For instance, over the past seven years, Marketo’s logo has developed into a more minimal icon:
This sort of design change isn’t an issue, because for one, it takes place over a period of time, not instantly, and two, the basic layout and primary color remain the same.
However, dramatically switching up brand design and color scheme without any sort of prior notice can be a significant deterrent to creating the sort of brand-centric content that readers will recognize across the internet.
Let’s say the design of your marketing site revolves around red, white, and blue. Once a visitor stays long enough on your site, they’ll begin to associate your brand with those colors.
Now say that the same visitor comes across an infographic of yours that’s been syndicated to a different content network. The said visitor really likes this infographic and decides to engage with it both by sharing it on social media and by leaving a comment.
But because you haven’t paid attention to brand colors (your infographic uses different shades of red, orange, and yellow), the visitor doesn’t recognize the infographic as one of your brand’s productions.
The result? A squandered opportunity to turn an average visitor into a loyal follower.
Sometimes, you won’t find it as easy to maintain the design of a content piece, depending on your distribution. For example, if you convert a blog post into a SlideShare presentation, then there’s not too much you can do about the design of the page where your presentation is posted. SlideShare’s own black and grey tints will of course be dominant.
What you could do, however, is ensure that instead of the default hues, your PowerPoint slides use a background and text fonts that match your typical brand colors and/or blog typefaces. You could even stick a scaled-down version of your logo into a corner. That way, when a visitor sees your presentations, they’ll be significantly more likely to recognize your brand as the author.
Quick tip: Use this infographic to help guide your design process.
Another way to ensure that your content marketing strategy stays true to your brand is to standardize your brand voice.
Your brand voice has to do with how you express yourself in your content. Nearly all of your brand’s communication materials will carry your voice, whether we’re talking advertising campaigns, marketing slogans, white papers, or blogs.
Brand voice incorporates elements like sentence structure, formality level, language (e.g. American English vs. British English), colloquialisms, and more. By selecting and standardizing voice across all marketing materials, visitors will be better able to pick up on and identify your content.
Here are a couple things to remember when choosing voice for a brand:
Interactive content is quickly becoming one of the most popular current trends in marketing. According to a 2015 DemandGen survey, over 90% of customers favor visual/interactive content, a stat that’s up from last year, indicating upward movement.
Interactive content can come in many shapes, sizes, and formats, but a few common ones include quizzes, contests, polls, and surveys.
These content formats coax visitor interaction with your brand, resulting in higher engagement levels and more participation and involvement from your followers.
User generated content (UGC) is a unique content type that many brands today haven’t experimented with. The defining trait of UGC is that it’s created by your customers and web visitors, not by your own marketing team.
UGC campaigns have immense potential not only to boost engagement with your brand, but also to go viral across the web.
Take the example of Belkin, a company that creates protective cases for smartphones and tablets. In 2013, Belkin partnered with LEGO to come out with a line of LEGO builder cases for iPhones. When the product launched, Belkin encouraged all of their customers to instagram pictures of their custom-built cases with the hashtag #LEGOxBelkin.
Hundreds of buyers took Belkin up on their suggestion, which also resulted in some decent press coverage for the company. I myself am a Belkin customer!
When you publish a piece of content, ask yourself this question: is this piece of content something that I want people to associate my brand with?
The content you publish—yes, every single piece—needs to align with your brand values.
Your brand values are a BIG part of your business’ mission statement. I’ll borrow an example from Groove here, a company that sells a customer support SaaS. On their “About” page, they discuss how their product’s main values are simplicity and ease of use. Groove’s goal is clearly stated: they want to help small businesses make their customers happier and their employees more productive. When you look at the content published on their customer support blog, and at the reputation they’ve earned in their industry, it’s clear that Groove has stuck to their values and that their mission statement has helped them to become a success. Your content ought to be based around similar values that define what your brand is trying to achieve as a company. Remember: don’t just think in the short term. As the product/service provided by your brand evolves, so will your priorities and values. Keep in mind whatever long term targets/goals you may have when formulating brand values and create content centered around them.
Branding is a crucial component to a successful content marketing strategy. If you’re not already using these five strategies to help keep your content brand-centric, then start doing so today. If you don’t, you could be missing out big-time.
What other tips do YOU have for making your content more brand-centric? Let us know in the comments section below!
What is in your wheelhouse — your area of expertise, the place where you operate with confidence and skill? Do you even know the areas in selling situations where you perform best? Most salespeople can’t articulate their strengths, and they rarely, if ever, receive feedback from sales managers about their strengths.
When it was once common wisdom to focus improvement efforts on eliminating weaknesses, research is now finding that building on strengths has better outcomes. Over the past dozen years or so, studies have found that focusing on strengths, sometimes called strength-based leadership, results in better performance on the job. Specifically, employees who focus on their strengths are more likely to achieve their goals, experience less stress, have greater energy, be more engaged on the job, have higher levels of self-esteem, and be more confident. Just as important, they are more likely to remain with their employer longer.
Too many salespeople avoid this type of self-discovery altogether, leaving development and coaching efforts to their sales manager. Instead, every salesperson should take responsibility to identify and understand their strengths in the selling environment, especially in today’s highly competitive and constantly changing business landscape.
A strength-based conversation is critical to the salesperson’s career and for his/her own personal satisfaction at work.
Many Richardson clients begin their journey in sales performance improvement by identifying core competencies. Then, they conduct assessments of their team to build a talent inventory.
Richardson, in partnership with Caliper Management, offers TalentGauge™, online predictive sales assessments that help determine whether the right people are in the right roles. By completing a thorough questionnaire that evaluates behaviors and motivators that drive success, salespeople are rated based on specific predictors of performance.
Each sales assessment is tailored to the company, based on sales skills that have been identified as most critical to success within each role. This isn’t a pass-or-fail test, as results measure the potential of individuals to perform in a certain role based on actuarial science, along with identifying key motivational characteristics.
For example, an individual might value being seen as having achieved top status with the field, so any public recognition of achievement would be highly encouraging. With this knowledge, the sales manager can set measurable goals and objectives that can be rewarded with perks or visible kudos, inspiring that individual to take even greater efforts and earn more recognition.
By participating in sales assessments, individuals can see where they shine and then focus on those strength-based areas. Just as important, sales managers get clear direction on the natural strengths and development opportunities to help their team grow and improve.
Learn more about Richardson’s sales assessments – click here
* CSO Insights
The post Predictive Sales Assessments Can Help Gauge Strengths appeared first on Richardson Sales Enablement Blog.
Like any ambitious business person, you want your company to grow. That probably means you'd like to expand into the foreign markets — especially that giant European economy.
But to crack the market in Europe, you'll need a base. What parameters should you consider before expanding there?
You'll have to do your research and due diligence, of course, but it's likely that you'll consider four factors: location, talent, governmental policies, and quality of life. And for all of those reasons, Switzerland is your best choice.
Switzerland is surrounded by Europe's major economies: Germany, France, Italy, and Austria. It's right in the heart of Europe's most densely populated area. And getting around the country is simple, too: According to the World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report 2014 - 2015, Switzerland is in the top five for infrastructure; its highways, roads, and public transportation are among the best in the world. And next year, the recently completed Gotthard Base Tunnel (the longest tunnel in the world) will dramatically decrease travel time between Switzerland and Northern Italy.
That same WEF report also ranks Switzerland as the most competitive country in the world. Perhaps that's why major IT, tech, and pharmaceutical companies operate from there. One reason the alpine country is competitive is that it's internationally minded. Aside from its trade agreements with the European community, Switzerland has free trade agreements with an ever-growing number of countries all over the world. Switzerland also ranked second in top destinations by average job value of investment project by the IBM Global Location Trends report.
But Switzerland goes beyond location — there's also its access to a well-trained workforce. Almost half of all employees in Switzerland work in areas requiring highly skilled workers, and the country ranks among the best in the world for the availability of highly qualified talent. The workforce is skilled because the academic education there is supplemented by direct, practical apprenticeships.
The literacy rate hovers near 100%, and most citizens speak English. The country is home to several highly regarded universities and research centers, along with such research-intensive companies as Roche and Novartis. There's also its financial sector, which is legendary.
According to the European Patent Office, Switzerland has more patents per capita than any other country. It's a country known for its ability to turn research results into marketable products. And businesses located in Switzerland also can rely on free movement of workers within the European Union and European Free Trade Association. And because the infrastructure is so good, the commuting is great. That means you can expand your operations within Switzerland, without worrying about having to relocate your employees.
The Swiss government operates much like one of its famous chronometer watches. It has a stated goal of treating companies and potential investors like customers. Advisors are readily available to guide business people through the process of making a move there.
Swiss employment laws are very liberal and the labor market is only loosely regulated. The country's federal taxation system is attractive for both individuals and companies, and agreements with all major industrialized nations ensure that companies only pay tax in one country of business.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that Switzerland often tops quality-of-life surveys, as well as lists for the best countries in the world for expatriates.
Crime is very low and the standard of living is extremely high. Everything works. And then there's the obvious beauty of the country itself. The home of the Matterhorn, Switzerland has mountains, lush green valleys, plentiful parks, lakes, and hundreds of ski regions. The cities are walkable, too, with ancient cathedrals and castles.
As a business maneuver, you can't go wrong with Switzerland.
Find out more about starting a business in Switzerland.
This post is sponsored by Switzerland Global Enterprise.
Join the conversation about this story »
Linkedin Groups can be a great pond to fish in for your marketing efforts. You’d be surprised at the connections you can make by just making it a point to join, listen and participate regularly in groups that are related to your business. While LinkedIn is usually associated with B2B businesses, owners of local or B2C companies can also use LinkedIn Groups to network with business development partners, civic leaders and other people who might be helpful to know. Check out these 7 tips — from beginner to ninja-level — for smart ways to use LinkedIn Groups as part of your marketing strategy.
1. You can only join 50 LinkedIn Groups at a time, so you’ll want to choose wisely. Consider, too, the realistic number of LinkedIn Groups your schedule will allow you to interact with in a meaningful way.
2. Know a few people who mirror the professional interests or aspirations you have for yourself or your business? Check out the bottom of their LinkedIn profile to see which Groups they belong to. They may be good choices for you to join, too.
3. Before you join a Group, make sure that its quality meets your standards.
The discussion area is dedicated to actual dialogue. It’s a ‘no links zone’. To start a the discussion area, please submit a question or comment to the group that stands alone without links to outside promotions.
Adding a link in a response to someone’s question is absolutely appropriate, as long as it furthers discussion and has context around it.
4. When you start a discussion, or comment on someone else’s discussion, the headline that appears under your personal LinkedIn profile will be visible. So be intentional when choosing your headline as it’s a great way to reinforce your or your company’s branding — everywhere on LinkedIn but especially when participating in a Group.
5. If you comment on a discussion and want to make sure you don’t miss out on the ensuing responses, use the Follow option. Depending on the settings you use, you will be able to get emails sent to you to keep you informed of others’ reactions.
6. LinkedIn generally forces you to pay for the privilege of sending InMail to people who are not among your 1st degree connections. However, you can actually send a free message to anyone who is a member of the same Group as you, even if they are not your first degree connection. This is great for reaching out directly to potential leads, especially if you’ve already warmed them up by conversing with them. Here’s how it works.
7. If you create your own LinkedIn Group you can send an email to all members once a week. Yes, an email. That lands in their actual inbox, outside of LinkedIn. Of course, with this power comes great responsibility to make sure your group is well-managed, frequently updated and worth your members’ times. But doing so can provide you with a great way to spring to the forefront of your members’ attention.
Over to you…how are you using LinkedIn Groups? Have any favorite Groups you would recommend to the rest of us?
How to quadruple your profits with half the effort by harnessing 5 simple strategies that will BLOW UP your revenues within the next week or month?
If you want to make money online in the shortest amount of time. These 5 discoveries make it possible to be profitable within DAYS of starting IF you use these particular conversion components in your sales funnel.
Who wants to do things the hard way anymore trying to make money online? Not me, and definitely NOT you.
So let’s dive in and see what I’m raving about in the IM space…
Here are the 5 best ingredients for ANY successful sales funnel, that will bring results. It’s pretty much a given that sending people to a dead end sales page doesn’t work like it did 15 years ago online, now it’s more about the conversation and the engagement.
So here’s my “Top 5 Cheats” to reduce your time in the trenches trying to figure this whole Internet Marketing thing out, and get making money.
Component 1 – Compelling Lead Magnet
It all starts with offering your visitors some valuable information (report, pdf, cheat sheet, short video) in exchange for their email. Now the purpose of the lead magnet is two-fold. One, to get a maximum amount of people opting into your list.
Two, to get your subscribers to CONSUME your lead magnet (value) which in turn leads to sales.
Do you see what’s happening?
You start off your relationship with your leads with value.
This BUILDS TRUST.
Some of your prospects may buy immediately after checking out your lead magnet while others (even if they don’t buy immediately) will look forward to your future emails and buy sooner or later.
Always remember, a well-built conversion system makes immediate sales as well as sets up TONS OF FUTURE SALES.
Now as far as lead magnets are good to use, here are a few examples that could work well:
Try this out and you will start seeing increased engagement and more sales. Your lead magnet could be an audio or video or pdf (cheat sheet or report) or anything.As long as it conveys value while selling your offer, it’s GOLDEN.
Component 2 – List (Generating Traffic And Building A Quality Subscriber List)
Getting quality traffic and building a quality list of interested subscribers is very crucial. Combine that with a solid marketing process and a sky is the limit for you.
Here’s the issue, though….Most marketers make the mistake of thinking that success boils down to finding that magical SECRET traffic source that will unlock all the sales and profits for them.
Nothing could be further from the truth. While getting good traffic & leads is essential, what you do with it makes ALL the difference in the world. An average marketer and I can use the SAME traffic source and while he will struggle to break even, I could be hitting 300% – 1000% ROI, and laughing to the bank.
So get good traffic and leads and learn how to turn that into BIG PROFITS.
As for getting traffic and leads, I personally prefer email drops (solo ads) and banners the most. Once you test and find the right process, there is some incredible scaling power with these two. Of course other strategies like Facebook Ads work great too.
Component 3 – Front End Offer Or Core Offer
It’s the main product (or products) that you sell to your subscribers. Core offer could be a front end offer like MTTB which leads to high ticket offers. Or it could be a high ticket offer itself, either which sell like hotcakes.
(I have my own that is integrated into my own “killer funnel”, and converts like crazy!)
Component 4 – Series Of Relationship Building And Persuasive Emails
If you have been marketing online for some time now, you would know how much successful marketers (myself included) emphasize the need for writing and sending engaging emails to your list and blog readers.
Why do I say that? Because it freaking works. And works BIG TIME.
Here’s a fact: There is no greater asset than having a solid relationship with your list or blog readers.
A good email series not only sells your core offers & front end products, but it also builds a great relationship with your list which leads to SO MANY MORE future sales (and backend sales too).
Many people follow me on my blog, keep reading my emails and BOOM…on one fine day they buy a $2000 – $10,000+ product from me. So here’s my advice: If you want to kill it online, master the art of writing fun filled persuasive emails and your business would grow faster than ever.
Component 5 – Super Value Based And Persuasive Webinar
Let me tell you this. Webinars are game changers. Webinars are simply online seminars where you invite people to attend an online presentation at the particular time. Create one that your subscribers love and you will see sales FLOWING in left, right, and center.
There is no strategy that can bring in sales as fast as a well-executed webinar campaign. Why do you think all top earners use webinars so much?
It’s because they produce massive sales….
So there you go. These are the 5 main components of a KILLER conversion funnel. I am going to go IN DEPTH about the game-changing sales producing strategy (webinars) and how you can use them in your business very shortly via Youtube video’s and more In-Depth blog posts.
I am also going to reveal the RESULTS I got via webinars and using a high converting funnel, and some of the stuff I reveal may be just jaw dropping.
Some of the benefits to having a killer sales funnel are:
If the experts are correct in that in the next decade 70% of the workforce will be millennials then it isn’t much of a stretch to believe they will also be part of the decision making team sales professionals are going to have to deal with in the future. This challenge is going to be monumental if non-millennials don’t make changes in the way they approach millennials.
You see millennials eat at Taco Bell for breakfast, use Uber, scan most documents (not read), can sit on the internet for hours at a time, and live by their electronics…especially their cell phone and Apple computer. They communicate differently with one another and the world for that matter. They have opened the world economy with Facebook, twitter, and Instagram. They communicate with other millennials all over the world. They are dragging the once stodgy banking industry into the next century with text based deposits, on-line banking, and their use of Apple Pay or Google Pay instead of cash. Millennials have an uncanny command of YouTube. Just about anything you want to learn can be gathered from somewhere in the bowels YouTube.
We must address the elephant in the room by asking the key question: How do you effectively appeal to this generation of future decision influencers?
Today’s Marketers must create programs that take into consideration how millennials think and communicate. First however you need high quality content. Research, white papers, statistics, articles, etc. are all required to resonate with a millennial. The twist however is you will need to take each piece of content and break its message down into 140 characters. You see, this is how millennial’s think, in 140 character pieces. Once your library of content is complete, you then need to embark on driving millennials to your content.
There are several ways to reach a millennial starting with the obvious approach: Social Media or what is sometimes called “Social Business”. Twitter for example is currently in the center of our (USA) political campaign. Every time Donald Trump tweets something it makes the next news cycle. Trump currently has about four million followers. Here are a few others you may be interested in:
It is astonishing that Katy Perry, Barack Obama and Taylor Swift have over 200 million followers. You do realize there are only about 350 million people in USA. Think of the influence they have on the millennial population. In an instant they can send a message to millions of people all over the world and get feedback immediately. Notice also that YouTube has over 50 million followers, and Instagram has just over 40 million followers.
Other social media options must include LinkedIn. This is a social media tool it appears is going to resonate with most generations. It is a great way to perform research, job hunts, and of course get introductions from your contact base. Millennials are starting to jump on board the LinkedIn train.
Finally I would suggest you add YouTube videos to your website. My millennial son lives by YouTube. He will watch a video to learn nearly anything from fishing to cooking and everything else in between. This form of “soft” selling is a great way to bring a millennial to your website. They have the patience to watch YouTube, but not take a phone call from their Dad.
Next, you may try a simple email marketing strategy. This is getting more difficult however because of all the SPAM filters and SPAM Assassin programs being used by corporate America. You really don’t know if your email made it to the intended party or not, despite what the email marketing statistics say. If you are able to put together a campaign that gets mind share all the better. The point is that you need to reach out and offer the content you have created so the intended party doesn’t always have to go looking for it.
Constant touch like twitter, Instagram, or even LinkedIn articles are a key factor to staying relevant. It may not seem like you are gaining ground, but you will over time because this is how the future buyer is communicating with masses.
Michael is the Author of ROI Selling, Why Johnny Can’t Sell, The Key to the C-Suite, and his upcoming new smash hit Adapt or Fail (Available in October 2015) is available for Key Notes, workshops, or breakout sessions. Contact Michael at 262.338.1851 or email him at mnick@roi4sales.com. Visit www.roi4sales.com for more information.
The post Millennials: Decision Makers of the Future? appeared first on ROI4Sales.com.
“There are good playbooks, and there are bad playbooks.”
That was the simple but provocative thought behind the conversation Eric Nitschke, managing director at Corporate Visions, had with Howard Kamimoto of NetApp and Jay Costello of NACCO. The three shared a few best practices for sales playbooks in a sales enablement breakout session at Conversations That Win. Here are some of the most important guidelines they touched on for creating not only good, but great playbooks:
There's a reason why teachers instruct students to make an outline before they start writing a paper. With a defined outline, writers ensure they address each point in the correct order. Without an outline, writers sometimes forget to include a crucial argument, or construct their paper in an illogical manner.
Think of a defined sales process as the outline of selling. Without a concrete sales process, reps create their own strategies, which gives rise to two negative results:
So, how can you make a sales process that works for your team? Start with a sales process template.
If your team doesn't work from a standardized sales process, check out the graphic and sales process template below. The graphic depicts a basic 10-step sales process:
Ready to build your own? Use this sales process template to outline your sales process and share it across your team.
Working from this template, you can customize a sales process that will work for your team. Too many steps? Cut a few. Too few? Add some. But whatever you do, define a sales process -- and hold reps to it. To learn more, check out these sales close rate industry benchmarks next.
We have become more demanding as consumers due to the amount of information and choices now available to us.
As e-commerce continues to erode the concept of brand loyalty, marketers need to work even harder to stand out. Brands must adapt to stay competitive by collecting actionable data to build a more in-depth picture of visitors to their website.
It may be easy to fall into the trap of trying to appeal to all visitors who share similar demographics such as age and gender. But with 82% of consumers wanting a more personalized shopping experience, the broad brush approach is likely to fail.
So how can you generate insightful data on customers and use it to improve conversion rates?
The simple answer is by creating buyer personas.
Creating buyer personas helps to break down the complexity of the customer data you have gathered through research and analytics into insightful audience segments.
Good buyer personas when researched well, can be an effective lead generation and customer retention tool, but they require time and effort from marketers.
So how do you go about creating them?
If there is not enough actionable data yet, your personas will most likely be based on hunches, instead of evidence. As you begin to utilize analytics tools and research more, your personas will evolve and become more refined.
For startups and smaller businesses who may not have enough data yet, the most effective way to understand your target audience is by analyzing your competitors. Established businesses should already have basic analytics tools, such as Google Analytics set up.
But to gain better insights into your target personas, research is the answer.
By utilizing tools, such as Survey Monkey or simply picking up the phone to your customers and incentivizing this process with a prize draw means you are more likely to get a more accurate picture than hunches and educated guesses.
Here are some things to consider when researching and building personas for your target audience:
The next step is to bring all of the data gathered together, introducing names and images will humanize your previously faceless audience.
Here is an example of how a B2B software company would approach a persona:
The information gathered from your research should enable you to target ads more effectively, but also inform what products and services you should provide that will best meet the needs of your target audience.
With your buyer personas defined, it’s time to build a tailored marketing campaign that best appeals to their drivers and pain points focusing on these three tips to start with:
1. Spend time on your website. Use Advanced Segmentation tools to see how your target buyers interact with your existing site. This will give you a clear picture of whether it is enticing them to stay or causing them to exit, informing you about which areas of your site and content to build upon.
2. Every piece of content you produce going forward, be it blogs, videos, or even emails should address your target personas’ needs, problems, and interests. Generic content, such as an email blast sent to everyone, is unlikely to generate interest or ultimately conversions.
3. Create landing pages for different personas. This will increase the likelihood of lead conversions. Each of your personas will have different pain points and motivations for and it is important to address these factors when building your landing pages.
Buyer personas will not only turn your website into a better sales tool, but will also support your sales team. By leveraging the information gathered from the buyer personas, your sales team can personalize and focus on key drivers and pain points.
Personalization is more than just a name in an email. The information gathered from buyer personas will focus your marketing strategy to be more about personalization and less about lead generation.
Personalized marketing when done correctly speaks to the customer and genuinely addresses their values, needs and desires, when done badly prospects are likely to walk away and shop elsewhere.
Buyer personas should be a truly collaborative project involving every department. This will not only help focus the business on a common end goal but provide additional insights to refine and evolve personas.
This post originally appeared on Decibel Insight’s blog.
Cold calling is one of the most frustrating responsibilities many — if not most — sales reps will have to put up with at some point in their careers. It has a less-than-stellar conversion rate, and anyone conducting it is bound to face rejection after rejection before they manage to see success.
Still, the method is effective enough to remain a key activity in several sales org's wheelhouses — as an estimated 69% of buyers have accepted cold calls from new providers.
It's a tricky process to navigate with a lot of room for error. Here, we'll review some of the common cold calling mistakes that tend to trip reps up and go over how those pitfalls can be addressed. Let's dive in.
Ask anyone who has done it consistently, and almost all of them will tell you: Cold calling can be an absolute nightmare. According to Gartner, 48% of salespeople are afraid to pick up the phone and make cold calls.
The vast majority of cold calls go nowhere — LinkedIn found the practice only has a conversion rate of around 2%, and it typically takes a rep 18 or more dials to reach a single tech prospect. It's a process rife with rejection, frustration, and occasional personal attacks.
That's often enough to take the wind out of even the most willing, eager, motivated sales rep, but letting the tougher parts of the process get to you is one of the bigger mistakes you can make while cold calling.
Understand that cold calls are difficult and often fruitless by nature. Your low conversion rate isn't a reflection of you as a person. Rejection is a fact of sales life — especially in the context of cold calling.
Start thinking of rejection as another aspect of the job — something you need to learn how to power through. Keep your legs moving, and put any bad call behind you as quickly as you can. You're bound to convince a prospect somewhere down the line, so keep at it until you do.
Effective cold calls are almost always guided by some degree of direction and structure. Resources like call scripts and pre-call checklists can set a course for productive conversations — and while they shouldn't be followed religiously, consistently trying to wing cold calls without them can be tough.
Sales enablement resources for cold calls help you follow standards for your sales org's messaging, give you reference points for the key conversational elements you need to address, and help you set a call straight if your prospect goes too far off the rails.
That's why sales orgs take creating those materials seriously. According to The HubSpot Research Global Sales Enablement Survey, 39% of sales orgs prioritized creating call scripts in 2020 — along with 37% that prioritized putting pre-call checklists together. If your company has these resources available, it's in your best interest to reference them.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this section, sales enablement resources like call scripts aren't meant to be abided by religiously with no room for improvisation and finesse — but you shouldn't ignore them entirely.
Take a thorough look at the sales enablement materials your sales org has to offer. Understand the key elements they cover. Know the talking points you should be addressing. Have a general picture of what an ideal call looks like, and use all of that knowledge to thoughtfully structure your conversations.
You don't want to sound like you're reading to your prospect, but you don't want to find yourself figuring everything out as you go on a cold call. Strike a balance between the two — leverage your sales enablement materials without relying solely on them.
You never want to go into a cold call completely blind. Prospects don't want to be treated like another name on a list. Their businesses have unique issues that warrant equally unique appeals. You need to have some picture of who's on the other side of the call if you want your conversations to be productive.
That might sound like a tall order, as you could be making hundreds of calls per week — but if you want to get the most out of your calls, you can't treat your prospects as a monolith.
You might be touching base with companies operating across various industries and verticals. Make sure you have a picture of the specific needs and interests that come with those qualities.
Crunchbase found that top sellers spend an average of six hours every week researching their prospects. You don't necessarily have to block out massive portions of your schedule to pore through every page of a company's website before you reach out to them.
But you do need to take the time to develop a solid picture of the challenges similar businesses generally face — along with some baseline intel on the organization itself.
There's a line between being disarming and being unprofessional. Prospects don't want to talk to someone who comes off as too stiff, robotic, and impersonal — but that doesn't mean they'll be receptive to someone who sounds like they have their feet kicked up on their desk, solving a Rubix cube like the call doesn't matter to them.
Every cold call reflects on your company, one way or another — and most potential customers don't want to do business with an organization that doesn't take itself seriously. So using overly familiar language in a casual, jaded tone doesn't register with most prospects.
Opening a call with, "What up, dude?" and using too much slang throughout a call undermines your ability to convey legitimacy and develop trust — so you need to know when to pump the brakes on being too comfortable.
Every cold call needs to have some kind of personal touch. It should be relatively free-flowing and unimposing — but all of that needs to be underlaid with professionalism. Strike a balance between casual and informed.
Leading with "Hi Jim!" is appropriate — starting with "Jimbo, my man! How are we doing, bro?" isn't. A cold call is an opportunity to cast yourself as a trustworthy, consultative resource for a potential customer. If you talk to prospects like you've known them since middle school, they're going to be too skeptical to take you seriously.
Cold calling is every bit as grating as it is ultimately effective — and there's plenty of space for hitches and hiccups while conducting it. When it comes down to it, the keys to avoiding those mistakes are composure, patience, and persistence.
Stay cool, understand that you'll be in for a rough ride, and keep at it until you thrive. If you can remain on top of all of that, you'll be in a solid position to avoid the common cold calling errors that trip even the best sales reps up.
This post originally appeared on HubSpot's Marketing blog. For more content like this, subscribe to Marketing.
When your job is to close leads, it can be all too easy to think of every new lead as just another name on a call list.
But never forget that behind every ebook download form and every demo request, there
are real human beings. Human beings with mood swings, families, insecurities, and personal and company goals.
If you knew these individuals personally, would you play mind games with them? Probably not. So why do so many salespeople opt to play mind games with leads and prospects? You've bought plenty of stuff before: Think about how you like to be treated when you're going through the buying process.
You might think that mind games are just another part of the job, but we want to show you the data behind why these games will make you lose leads. Check out the SlideShare and statistics below to learn more.
Only 1 in 50 deals are struck at a first meeting. (Source: The Marketing Donut)
63% of people requesting information on your company today will not purchase for at least 3 months -- and 20% will take more than 12 months to buy. (Source: The Marketing Donut)
Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost. (Source: Forrester Research)
Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. (Source: Aberdeen Research)
2% of sales are made on the first contact, 3% on the second, 5% on the third, and 10% on the fourth. (Source: The Marketing Donut)
80% of sales are made on the 5th to 12th contact after the first meeting. (Source: The Marketing Donut)
44% of salespeople give up after 1 follow up. (Source: The Marketing Donut)
If you don't want to tick off your leads, download our ebook How to Lose a Lead in 10 Ways -- and make sure you're not making these mistakes and costing your company new business.
Time and time again, I see leads in new client’s systems that are supposed to get contacted. Yet, they just sit and begin to grow mold like the old bread in the back of your pantry.
The quick answer is “just call them,” but that’s not always the right solution. These aging marketing qualified leads (MQLs) result in wasted investment and lost opportunity.
Does this sound familiar? Here are some of the top reasons–some valid, some not. If you think you don’t have the issue, go into your MQL pantry to do an assessment—you might just find a little mold.
Responding to Leads within an Hour Generates 7x the Conversations. Harvard Business Review
Harvard Business School Survey of Business on how quickly it responds to leads.
The Marketing Mistakes
An MQL is a lead that Marketing deems qualified enough for a Sales rep to call for further qualification.
If Peggy Rock left the company six months ago, there is no need to have MQLs assigned to Peggy. Or, if leads from the UK keep getting assigned to the Germany Sales rep, that’s not a recipe for success.
25 percent of Fortune 500 managers change jobs each year. Human Capitalist
Solution: Assess your lead assignment rules and make changes as needed. On an ongoing basis, run a weekly report of leads by lead owner to make sure leads are getting assigned to the right person.
This situation happens when organizations loosely define MQLs as any leads that enter the system. For example, maybe the 20 people who requested more information at a recent trade show are MQLs, but the 500 attendees should not pass to Sales as MQLs.
Alternatively, some Marketing teams are measured on MQLs produced. The team then sets the bar low so leads artificially move to the MQL stage when the leads should really sit at a pre-MQL stage.
The end result of either of the above is Sales won’t waste its time on the mislabeled MQLs. This causes MQL inventory to rise and hurts Marketing’s credibility with the Sales team.
Solution: Marketing needs to work with Sales to develop a two-way relationship. Don’t practice premature MQL-ing. Say it five times: “I will not pass bad leads to Sales.”
This is a big one. It’s the end of the quarter and a quota-carrying Sales rep needs to hit quota. Where do you think that Sales rep is going to focus? Calling new leads or getting the signed proposal in the door?
Solution: Consider moving to a Business Development Rep (BDR) model.
Best practice organizations don’t rely on quota-carrying Sales reps to manage new leads. Instead, the companies focus on dedicated roles where the division of labor is split between closing and lead development. In these organizations, it is the responsibility of BDRs to follow-up in a timely basis. Instead of revenue, BDRs are mostly compensated on meetings created.
Nearly six out of ten companies front-end their closing reps with an SDR team. Bridge Group 2015 SaaS Inside Sales Survey Report
There is no big book of MQLs that gets dropped on reps’ desks every day. Sales reps need to know how to find and manage the leads in your CRM.
For example, I was recently working with one rep that had no idea where to find his territory’s leads. What was happening was the leads were physically assigned to someone else so he had none under his name. When he adjusted his lead view to his territory (instead of his name), all of the leads showed up.
Solution: Whatever process your organization follows, make sure Sales manages its leads in a consistent manner.
This happens a lot with new reps or when a company adopts a new process. Here, a rep sees the MQL lead in the system, calls it, but doesn’t change the lead status. There is no way to tell if the rep followed up if the rep doesn’t tell the CRM that the lead was called.
Solution: Train, train and train again. Changing the lead’s status is as basic as it gets but some reps need a little hand holding.
It seems like common sense that Sales reps should jump over MQLs like white on rice but that doesn’t always happen. Marketing and Sales leaders not only have to agree on follow-up timeframes, the groups must also make sure that urgency trickles down to the Sales reps making the calls.
Solution: Make sure Sales reps know the proper SLA of your organization. If follow-up for an MQL is two days, every rep should have that timeframe on the tip of their tongue.
Companies with an SLA tend to have higher marketing budgets. Hubspot
System issues do happen—so expect them. Sometimes, lead scoring is off and leads get tossed to MQL by mistake. Or maybe a list was uploaded incorrectly into an MQL status. Oh yeah, I’ve made that mistake a few times.
Solution: Roll with the punches. These issues will occur on occasion. Don’t let these become a reason not to follow-up on the best MQLs.
“These leads *&^%” is something you may hear from reps. The reps may be right but the only way to tell is to follow process.
For example, if reps follow up with a group of eBook MQLs according to the SLA timeframes and the opportunity conversion rate resembles a lottery winning percentage, it might be time to reinvest marketing dollars elsewhere.
Solution: What cannot happen is to let those leads sit untouched. Management must enforce the process, stressing the importance of future improvements.
Many times, Sales reps have their own individual processes for working leads. John may work MQLs out of a lead queue while Sara may run a weekly excel report and call MQLs on Friday.
Solution: Consistency. Make sure reps follow the same process for MQL follow-up. Hold team sessions so reps can share best practices among team members.
Sometimes MQLs hit the system with emails only, so Sales has limited data to follow-up. “How can I call when there are no phone numbers?”
Solution: At the very least, this is a productivity/efficiency issue. There is this thing on the Internet called Google and it works pretty well for research. Yes, it’s an extra step for the Sales rep, but letting an MQL sit because there isn’t a phone number is not a best practice.
For companies that want to get serious about making its Sales team more productive, consider data appending services from NetProspect, ZoomInfo, and others. These services will try to match your leads against their own databases and append the phone number if available.
The World Cup is awesome. Youtube is great. We all get stuck there sometimes. However, if the distractions are causing work to suffer, it may be time to adjust polices or make a change.
Solution: This is a management call. Hopefully your reps are hitting their goals. If they are not and you find reps watching Youtube’s greatest hits daily, you may need to make a few changes.
via GIPHY
To summarize, a lead follow-up process is not as simple as it seems. When assessing your MQL follow-up system, ensure that your organization follows a consistent process to bring the right leads to the right Sales person at the right time.
And stay away from moldy bread.
How to Be Strategic Using LinkedIn To Generate Leads written by Guest Post read more at Duct Tape Marketing
Having a LinkedIn account is essential to not only expand your social media presence but to generate leads. But it’s not enough to create your profile and let it just sit there — that isn’t going to generate leads. You must utilize the tools in LinkedIn to make your account work for you.
Using the basic search feature is pretty much the same as using any standard website search. Type in a person’s name, company name or keyword and hit go. This is fine if you know the name of the company or person you’re looking for, but sometimes we’re looking for connections in a specific target market. So using the Advanced Search feature may be a better use of your time when trying to generate targeted leads.
There are several search filters on the advanced search page you can use to narrow down your findings. They include Location, Industry, Function, Seniority Level and Company Size.
We work with a lot of Building Service Contractors who would like to connect with Facilities Managers in various target markets such as medical offices, universities, and commercial office space. In the example below, we used the Advanced Search function to find Facilities Managers for Medical Offices in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area.
Notice that the filter for “Function” has been grayed out. Depending on your level of membership, you may or may not be able to access all advanced search functions in LinkedIn. The right side is Seniority Level, and I checked Manager, Director, and VP, as I’m looking for decision makers.
After looking at search results, I found a “Suspect” from Allina Health Care, which has medical offices throughout the Twin Cities. The suspect is the Director of Operations, Business Development, and Corporate Security. He provides a detailed description of his job responsibilities on his LinkedIn profile (see screenshot below).
Notice that his position reports directly to the President, so he is a high-level connection. He also lists the positions and departments that report to him, including the Director of Facilities Management, who would likely be responsible for outsourcing building services such as cleaning. Many Building Service Contractors also provide security services. Notice in the last highlighted area, that he is also in charge of Corporate Security.
On the right side, you can see that Jon is a 2nd level connection on LinkedIn. So if I felt comfortable contacting my 1st level connection, I could ask for a 3rd party introduction. Warm introductions like this are always met with a better response than a cold contact.
Finding targeted prospects is important and connecting with the right people is the best way to generate leads on LinkedIn. By utilizing the Advanced Search functions, you are likely to find the people you most want to connect with.
Another way to get new leads is to cultivate the relationship you have with your current clients. You should be connecting with them on LinkedIn and viewing their connections as possible new connections for you.
Also, start operating under the policy that everyone you meet or have a conversation with is a potential LinkedIn connection. If you meet someone in line at Starbucks and have a 30-second conversation that leads to an exchange of business cards, connect with them on LinkedIn. They could be a potential client and better yet, they may be connected to that ideal client who is looking for the services you provide.
Joining groups is another great way to connect with potential clients. There are two things to remember when using a LinkedIn group to generate leads. The first is that you may not want to start your own group unless you already have a following of engaged prospects and clients. The easier way is to be active in whatever groups you do join. Giving valuable advice and sharing great resources is the best way to engage with the people in your groups. So participating important because you can’t be found by people who are looking for your service if you are silent.
Lastly, make every connection personal. If you connect and immediately try to sell to them, you will alienate your new connections. Take the time to connect on a more personal level and help them along the way. If they run a business, learn more about it and stay on top of what they are up to; even if it doesn’t have much to do with what you do. You just may have a connection that needs what they have to offer, and a referral is a great way to get their attention.
If you want to look like an expert in your field, then you must do what the experts do — ask engaging questions, share useful content and create original content. Sharing content instead of making a hard sell makes you more approachable and trustworthy. Don’t make them feel as if you are there just to get your hands on their money. Instead, put relationship-building and helping others behind your intentions.
You can share your content in two ways.
LinkedIn is a phenomenal tool for businesses to find leads. It is by far the leader for B2B companies versus other social media sites like Facebook and Twitter because it is used primarily for business connections. If you use it right, you are sure to get lots of targeted leads. And if you put some time and energy into those leads, they are sure to turn into clients and that will ultimately grow your business.
Jean Hanson is a long-time entrepreneur, co-founding two commercial cleaning companies, running a virtual assistant business, and in 2005, launching a business portal for commercial and residential cleaning business owners. Jean is also a Certified Consultant for the world-renowned Duct Tape Marketing System. For more tips like this one sign up for Strategic Marketing Tips at MarketingSystemsByDesign.com.
Lead generation often focuses on one thing above all others – funneling as many leads as possible into the sales pipeline. That’s a good thing; it helps make sure your sales reps have plenty of qualified leads when it comes time to close those deals.
But what if your lead pipeline has sprung a leak? What if you’re spending your energy pouring leads into a defective lead system that’s gushing those high quality leads you labored to create?
Tightening up lead tracking and lead management is a critical step before you begin pouring leads into a system that might not work as well as you think it does.
Here are six steps to assure that your lead tracking and management is on-point, and that every high-quality lead is captured, managed, and nurtured effectively.
Marketing can be a jargon-fest. If you’ve been in the industry for any period of time you probably recognize and even use terms like “omni-channel activation,” “KPIs” and “cross-platform consumer engagement.”
With all the insider lingo floating around (which, often, different people define in different ways), you need to make sure that your company’s sales and marketing departments agree on, and are actively using, the key terms they share, for more precise communications (and reduced miscommunications).
This is especially important in the critical discipline of lead tracking – which has a language all its own. Your teams need to understand your organization’s lead tracking terminology and use it effectively. Here’s a peek inside the lead-tracking dictionary:
Lead tracking is a dual-department affair. Leads funnel into the marketing department and then get passed to the sales department to be converted. This should be a very smooth, choreographed pass.
Communication between these departments is essential. If communication breaks down, leads absolutely will get lost in the communication gap. Set up regular meetings to make sure everyone is on board with the process, so all leads are carefully passed off from marketing to sales. And make sure that lead tracking is done in an organized and consistent manner across the two departments.
Content is the carrot that draws leads into, and then through, the buy cycle. Make sure your content creation team is firing on all cylinders so that informative/educational content such as fact sheets, expert articles, blogs, and/or infographics are in plentiful supply for all potential customers.
When content informs and engages leads, they move further down the buy cycle, converting through the stages from a marketing-qualified lead to an “opportunity.”
Keep in mind that leads look for different content during different stages of the buy cycle. They move from engagement (blog posts, expert articles) to education (eBooks and webinars) to decision points (product fact sheets and pricing guides).
A content calendar will assure that your content team is creating the right type of content on a continuous cycle. As you generate more eBooks, blog posts, and webinars, track the performance of each piece of content and continually tinker with headlines, tags and distribution methods to make sure you’re getting the most mileage out of each piece of content.
Pursuing the wrong lead while a truly sales-ready “client” passes you by is a missed opportunity that can be traced back to improper lead scoring. Lead scoring identifies your best leads, singling them out for more nurturing and individualized attention. If your lead scoring system is broken, your entire team can be off-kilter. Sales teams can be following up with the wrong people, for the wrong reasons. Highly targeted content can be dropping into the inboxes of people who can’t make the purchasing decision on your product.
To effectively score leads, make sure that your lead is interested (score them higher for filling out forms, clicking emails and downloading eBooks) but also make sure the lead is your target buyer (how many employees work at their business, what industry are they in, are they an executive or an intern?). When these lead scoring guidelines are finely tuned, make sure they are adopted and understood by all lead-generating and lead-nurturing team members.
Lead flow should look like a map that shows each action by the lead and the corresponding action by the marketing and sales teams. Think of it like this:
Tracking this lead flow is critical to identifying any gaps in the process, and making sure no leads are overlooked or dropped. Create this lead documentation and tracking program and then monitor it consistently.
Most leads don’t move through the buy cycle on their own prerogative, or they move fitfully. Lead nurturing is where the sales and marketing team can speed the plow, increasing the lead’s velocity and the likelihood of conversion. Remember you are in a competitive environment. Your lead is most likely looking at multiple competing products or services. Other companies are most likely hitting that lead with emails, phone calls, and content.
Over 67% of marketers see an increase of at least 10% in sales opportunities from nurtured leads; 8% see greater than 30%. “The 2014 Lead Nurturing Benchmarking Study,” Demand Gen Reports
Collect all of your tools and target each lead with the appropriate content. If the lead is on the verge of buying, set up a full demo. If they are a further away from a purchase, educate them with an infographic, video or white paper.
Nurturing takes time and tact. Deliver value to the lead and help them with their decision without being pushy or annoying, and watch them mature in ready-to-buy customers.
Has your lead pipeline sprung a leak? Learn how to plug those holes and make sure every lead is being nurtured by downloading The Ultimate Lead Management Playbook to build or beef up your company’s lead management team.
Editor’s note: This post is an excerpt from The #FlipMyFunnel eBook from Terminus.
As modern B2B marketers, we’re lucky enough to witness some of the most dramatic shifts in marketing strategies and technologies. One of the most pivotal changes of our time has been the transition away from a traditional sales and marketing funnel where leads come in the top and follow a linear path from awareness to purchase.
This traditional approach bears one primary goal in mind: to capture as many leads as possible at the top of the funnel and drop them into the sea of marketing and sales communications. The new account-based marketing movement quite literally flips that funnel on its head.
Account-based marketing starts with identifying your best-fit customers. While a lead generation model based on the traditional funnel might begin by selecting a set of channels, a more logical first step is to identify a set of potential customers first. In a marketing landscape that is increasingly focused on the customer’s needs, not the marketer’s, why start anywhere else?
Let’s use a simple analogy. Say you’re going fishing and you’re hoping to catch a few trout. You can throw a giant net into the water and catch a number of fish at once — that may or may not be trout — or you can specifically identify the trout you’re after and reel it in from there.
Now, in the world of fishing, those extraneous fish caught in your net might not be such a bad thing, but step into the shoes of a B2B marketer, and those fish just become clutter in your database — and quite frankly, a waste of your time and money.
Let’s go back to our funnel. With your best-fit customers identified up front, it’s much easier to allocate resources and budget where they’re going to be most effective. Armed with the knowledge of your customers’ pain points, motivations, and interests, you can target them on the channels they’re using with messaging that’s been developed specifically for them.
78% of CMOs think custom content is the future of marketing. (Demand Metric)
Don’t worry, I’m not talking about money right off the bat, I’m referring to the conversation with your sales team and other key stakeholders that needs to happen for marketing to be truly effective. As Craig Rosenberg, co-founder and Chief Analyst at TOPO, wrote on his blog, “Account-based marketing requires a truly coordinated effort between sales, sales development, marketing, and executive staff.”
Let’s use the example of a healthcare company that’s trying to sell to both employers and brokers. A conversation with the sales team can reveal a specific geographic area that the company is trying to gain a foothold in, a target company size, and a list of potential employers and brokers to start with. Since these are two different audiences, the marketing team can use sales intelligence to dive deeper into the specific messages that might resonate with each audience, given their pain points.
42% of salespeople don’t feel like they have the right information before calling prospects. (CSO Insights)
Once you’ve started identifying your best-fit customers with the help of sales, actually finding them might seem like a daunting task. However, there are plenty of technology platforms designed to do exactly that. Let’s take a look at a few of the potential technologies that might make up your “marketing stack” in this first stage of the flipped funnel.
It’s worth noting that while these prospecting tools can provide a lot of powerful data, they should not be used to generate lists for email purposes without the recipient’s permission. The preferred way to use this information — and the way that adheres to best practices — is to place it in the hands of sales reps to reach out via phone, then add the recipients to email programs only once contact has been made. However, in the case of account-based marketing, account-based advertising campaigns can be run simultaneously with these initial sales conversations.
Once you’ve identified your target accounts and started building up your marketing stack to supplement the efforts of your sales reps, you’re ready to move on to step two: Expansion.
The post Flipping the Funnel: Account-Based Marketing Puts Customers, Not Channels, First appeared first on OpenView Labs.
Every company selling products or services has a busy season. Whether it’s seasonal or around a holiday, every person in the customer service and sales should know when this is and is prepared to maximize on opportunities. I originally wrote this as an internal sales preparation strategy whenever someone new was hired on our sales team to help them understand the sales schedule for our industry.
I encourage you to continue to read below, but the whole point is that we need to take advantage of when our buyers are in a buying mood. There will be times when it is slower than normal. Hopefully, these strategies will allow your sales team to plan ahead use this time wisely to get ready for the next sales season.
Some of you reading this will be thinking that there are no sales seasons and that sales happen all year long. There are some of us in business development that work in an industry that has a short selling window. Another example maybe those who are selling sponsorship packages or tickets to an annual event, they have a short sales window. For those of us who find ourselves in a short sales window, keep reading!
The high point of a sales season, if it exists, is important to maximize every opportunity during a short period of time. This window requires every sales representative to be armed with material and prepared to make successful presentations.
Sales seasons may also dictate when companies will seek new employees. There is a good chance you were hired when the company was not as busy. Good sales managers will hire someone from the sales team months in advance of the height of their busy season to spend extra time getting the new hire acclimated to the company environment and products or services.
Also, it is important that every sales representative is available during the busy times. That means try to avoid taking vacation, getting married, planned surgery’s (unless of course it is an emergency), taking training or professional enrichment classes.
I used to work in an environment where the sales season was really only happening in the fourth quarter. Those other nine months I would have sales meetings, software demos, share insightful information via emails, and generally get to know my prospects – building a foundation for later. I knew that all this was building up to a strong fourth quarter.
Typically this down time is when your prospects are likely very busy and cannot even focus on having a conversation with you, so it made little sense to try to schedule a meeting or demo as you are not likely to get one. I did get meetings, of course, and even then I was told that the decision would have to come at the end of the year. That is great if the meeting occurs in September, but it’s not so great if the meeting occurs in May.
When September rolled around, I would start to get calls so that we could continue our initial discussion many months before. In these nine months, I considered my off-season. When I was not interacting with a prospect or generating new leads, I would spend a lot of time in the off season preparing marketing materials for the end of year sales push.
This included putting together a leave behind packet and any other marketing material that may have required some assembly. One place I worked had nice looking folders with their products and services inserted but on thick card stock. SA Interactive recently created this envelope packet that was very similar.
Other times we would have to special order marketing materials which would take a few weeks to produce and send to us so we had to make sure we ordered this well in advance of any trade show and the end of year sales rush.
The off-season was a time to review what marketing materials we used, and if necessary draft new content for marketing pieces, proposals or new products. We also conducted a good deal of training where members of the sales team would host training sessions with the rest of the company to help them understand the importance of business development, how we approach it and what their role was in the business cycle.
We liked to refer to them as a classroom series with fun, team-building exercises thrown in to make other employees more comfortable enough to spark a conversation that would later be turned over to the sales team as a softer prospect.
Finally, take some much needed time off! Get out of the office, recharge your batteries, schedule to get married, come and visit Louisville, Kentucky! Most companies will likely encourage this and in some cases even provide flex days where you get perks like working from home, or coming in late and leaving early on your flex days. I have even been in companies where an off-site strategic planning session was scheduled and in other instances we had a boating outing followed by a cookout to help build team unity.
Here are a couple of examples:
I enjoyed my time working so closely with Members of Congress and their staff. Selling solutions to them was interesting and fun, but I do wish that the sales season was much longer.
