Online courses are a great way to build a business. They’re also a great way to get better-qualified clients, or build an additional revenue stream by providing an alternative to your services.

But sometimes, things don’t go as planned. Your course isn’t selling as much as you’d like, or worse, it’s not selling at all.

There’s a methodical analysis you can perform to see if you can spot the problem. Of course, this is the same analysis you should perform before you create a course.

In this episode of Unemployable with Brian Clark, Brian discusses:

• How to be absolutely sure what works
• Why re-examining existing market demand is step one
• How incorrect pricing can kill your sales and profits
• What to do to increase your targeted reach
• Copywriting techniques that work for courses
• Testing demand with the MVP process
• How split-testing reveals the truth

Click Here to Listen to
Unemployable with Brian Clark on iTunes

Click Here to Listen on Rainmaker.FM

About the author

Rainmaker.FM

Rainmaker.FM is the premier digital commerce and content marketing podcast network. Get on-demand digital business and marketing advice from experts, whenever and wherever you want it.

The post Why Don’t Some Online Courses Sell? appeared first on Copyblogger.

A new report published by IDC paints an intriguing picture of the wearables market as it looks in the middle of 2015. The market grew 223% over the course of the previous year, and Apple—new to the sector and with only one wearable to its name—was bested only by Fitbit, in terms of devices sold during the last three months.

That puts reports of rather underwhelming Apple Watch sales into perspective. (Apple hasn't released official figures of its own, of course.) While the smartwatch has yet to make an iPhone-like splash so far, with nearly 20% of the market, but it's already threatening to dominate the nascent wearables movement. 

See also: How Wearables Startups Can Overcome The Hardware Challenge 

Considering the Apple smartwatch only went on sale in March, that's an impressive return—though, obviously, Tim Cook probably hopes for more. 

Still, for those just entering the market, there's still potential. Some might even take this as good news: With Apple lifting the profile of the whole industry, even those turning up later may still capitalize on an expanding opportunity. 

Where The Competition Stands

The report shows that Samsung, which was in way before Apple on the front lines of this new wave of wearable tech, languishing down in fifth place. Just ahead of Huawei and Jawbone, it weighs in with 3.3% of the market, despite issuing out various models of wrist-worn devices. The South Korean company saw wearable tech shipments drop from 800,000 in Q2 2014 to 600,000 in Q2 2015, according to IDC's figures.

See also: Why Apple, Google, And Samsung Want To Lock You In With Wearables

In total, 18.1 million wearables were shifted in the second quarter of 2015, compared with 5.6 million in the same quarter the previous year. Of those, 4.4 million devices were made by Fitbit, and 3.6 million devices were Apple Watches, if IDC's calculations are accurate. 

Apple's lead, however, has another global competitor nipping at its heels: Chinese tech juggernaut Xiaomi is right behind it, with 17% of the world market. 

Wearables: Smart Vs. Basic

As for the top two, IDC analysts believe Apple could be number one by the end of the third quarter, because it has something that Fitbit doesn't: a smart device with a third-party ecosystem behind it. 

The WatchOS 2 update, coming this fall, will allow developers to run apps natively on the Apple Watch. 

Fitbit's "dumb" devices haven't been doing badly though: The company's 159% growth in sales over the year is not to be taken lightly, and IDC thinks there's more to come. "Fitbit resonates with customers because it has remained true to its simple value proposition of tracking fitness to encourage healthier lifestyles," the report explains, "rather than promising the multi-purpose functionality that most smart watches have sought." 

Xiaomi and Garmin made up the rest of the top five, and IDC sees a divide between wearables powered by a fully realized smart platform (like an Android Wear watch or the Pebble watch) and more basic fitness trackers that stick with integrated functionality. According to sales last quarter, two out of three "smart" wearables (capable of running third-party apps) were Apple Watches. 

See also: 5 Things You Need To Know About Xiaomi

One challenge facing wearable makers, whether they're trying to compete with Apple or Fitbit: setting appealing prices, while still offering enough features to make their products more compelling than the established leaders. 

But there's good news with the findings, too: "[Apple's] participation benefits multiple players and platforms within the wearables ecosystem, and ultimately drives total volumes higher," says Ramon Llamas, research manager for IDC's wearables team. "Apple also forces other vendors—especially those that have been part of this market for multiple quarters—to re-evaluate their products and experiences." Take note Samsung.

"Fairly or not, Apple will become the stick against which other wearables are measured, and ... everyone will be watching to see what other wearable devices it decides to launch, such as smart glasses or hearables," adds Llamas. 

Images courtesy of Apple and Fitbit; chart courtesy of IDC

For the first time this year, the number of Millennials will exceed Baby Boomers in the workforce. For many companies, the inside sales function has become an attractive opportunity for these young adults to hone their professional skill and leadership potential. Yet, onboarding them effectively offers a new set of challenges for companies stuck in traditional approaches to sales enablement.

Here’s why.

For the most part, Millennials have grown up with devices and technology to help them find whatever they need, when they need it. For example, if they want best practices on social selling, it’s unlikely that they will see the value in signing up for a two-hour training course when they can just watch a YouTube video – using whichever device they prefer.

In addition to technological freedom, these next-generation sales people prize workplace collaboration, innovation and flexibility above all else. They are great digital multi-taskers, expect rapid career advancement, and enjoy the ability to analyze trends, monitor activity or otherwise get feedback on how they’re doing virtually on-demand.

So the challenge of ramping Millennials and sustaining the skills that matter most is at the same time critical and challenging, requiring new and creative approaches to influence and retain them. With these preferences and characteristics in mind, here are three tactics that can help you prepare your business to succeed with this next-generation sales force.

Mobility

There’s no question. Millennials value mobility. Eight out of ten Millennials reach for their smartphones first thing in the morning, and 87% say that the phone never leaves their side, day or night, according to a survey by Mitek and Zogby Analytics.

They also value social media integration and cloud-based access. And, because Millennials expect technology to work for them, and not the other way around, mobile sales enablement solutions need to by fast and effective. The bottom line is that if you’re going to attract, train and retain the very best Millennial sales talent, then your business has to start thinking differently about how to engage them.

Motivation

Millennials are accustomed to moving quickly from one task to the next, so ensure that your sales enablement approach is at the same time fast, effective and simple.

Command of the Message® customers leverage spaced-learning platforms like Qstream. The software  makes it easy for reps to respond to simple, scenario-based challenges using any mobile device in just minutes. Challenges automatically synch across devices so they never miss a question, and onboard social, reputation and game mechanics keep them engaged as they compete for points on a leaderboard based on their responses.

Also, keep in mind that Millennials generally prefer to share ideas and information with each other, rather than listen to a “talking head” in a traditional training course or sales meeting. So be sure to keep it collaborative.

One of biggest motivators for this generation, however, are opportunities for career progression. Simple steps are satisfying because they guarantee a shorter time spent in one role with strong promise to move to the next level on their team or into a new role altogether. If you can create a sense of organized career development, research shows you’ll be more likely to keep your new Millennial hires from making quick lateral career moves.

Performance benchmarks, whereby attaining a level of topical proficiency, combined with a particular business result, creates eligibility for a higher level designation, such as senior specialist or team lead.

Micro-Coaching

According to MTV’s “Millennials in the Workplace” study, eight out of 10 Millennials reported needing regular feedback from the boss in order to perform at their best.

Technology should be incorporated into your coaching rhythm, making it easy for managers to provide feedback and direction on particular topics or skills. Based on responses to scenario-based challenges, Qstream’s data engine suggests targeted coaching actions into a real-time dashboard that pinpoints gaps. This type of “micro-coaching” helps supervisors provide the most relevant strategies, ideas, techniques and tips closer to the point of need.

Keep in mind, too, that unlike generations before them, Millennials are fearless when it comes to calling high. And, most sales mentors agree that it’s better to shape these ambitions than squash them, so be sure to offer the coaching they need to be successful.

At the end of the day, rather than try to fight Millennials’ social appetite, career ambition, and need for instant gratification, businesses should be trying to adapt to their preferred methods of self-improvement.

Jon Loomer has been using Facebook for business since 2007. And despite the ever-changing landscape, Jon has continued to thrive by marketing on the platform. Jon is now a leading Facebook marketing expert, and in this episode of Technology Translated, it’ll be clear why.

When host Scott Ellis asked Jon to come on his show, he had no idea what a treat his listeners were in for.

By the middle of this episode, listeners will recognize the gold mine of information Jon is sharing, including how he executed one campaign that converted Facebook fans to email subscribers at the whopping rate of 92%.

It might sound to good to be true, but tune in and hear Jon describe how he did it, and it’ll all make sense.

In this 24-minute episode of Technology Translated, host Scott Ellis and Jon Loomer discuss:

• The state of Facebook business pages
• How to build your Facebook audience the right way
• The audience targeting priority list
• The best starting point for Facebook marketing success
• A dead-simple breakdown of Facebook retargeting
• The Facebook tools you’re not using enough
• How to build a targeted email list through Facebook
• How to filter out the wrong audience to get to the right one
• What delivering value before you ask for anything really looks like
• Jon’s two pieces of advice for anyone just starting out with Facebook advertising

Click Here to Listen to
Technology Translated on iTunes

Click Here to Listen on Rainmaker.FM

About the author

Rainmaker.FM

Rainmaker.FM is the premier digital commerce and content marketing podcast network. Get on-demand digital business and marketing advice from experts, whenever and wherever you want it.

The post Two Ways to Turn Facebook Fans into Paying Customers appeared first on Copyblogger.

When it comes to email design, it’s easy to get carried away.

You want your message to stand out in the inbox and grab your audience’s attention, but there’s also the risk that you could be going overboard with the emails you create.

Consider these two email examples — which would you prefer to see in your inbox?

As you can see, sometimes a more subtle design will be the best choice for getting your message in front of your target audience.

And if you’re already using an email marketing service to do your email marketing, you’re in luck.

You don’t have to be an expert designer to create emails that look great in the inbox.

With the right template and a few simple design best practices in mind, you’ll be able to design an email that looks professional and will grab the attention of any reader in any inbox.

Let’s take a look at two of the places where the right design choices can make all the difference — colors and fonts.

Finding the colors that fit your brand

Colors are an important part of your emails because they can carry meaning, trigger memories, and evoke emotion.

In fact, colors have been found to increase brand recognition by up to 80 percent. And 85 percent of shoppers buy a product because of its color.

Colors can even trigger different emotions and associations. Think about how color conveys meaning in your daily life — stop signs are painted red to get the attention of drivers, but it’s unlikely you’d want to paint your business’s walls the same shade.

Here are some common color associations to consider, based on data collected by Kissmetrics:

Use the colors that match your brand and don’t go overboard. Two to three main colors will be all you need to make an email pop.

Be sure to match the colors in your emails with those found in your logo and on your website with tools like Color Cop for PC users, or Digital Color Meter for Macs, which allow you to pull the RGB or Hex value of the colors on your website or in your logo. You can then enter these values into your Constant Contact account and we’ll provide the colors that match.

Additionally, try using Color Schemer to help you identify color harmonies and come up with a pleasing palette of colors to pull from.

Here’s how yoga studio, extendYoga, incorporates their branding and uses a consistent color scheme across their email and web presence:

Using fonts that work

Similar to colors, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the number of options you have for fonts. If you already have a font that you’re using on your website or blog, consider using the same font to create a recognizable look and feel.

Again, only use one or two font types within your email to maintain a clean look and readability. If you feel the need to add a little variety, you can sprinkle in the bold and italic styles of the fonts you choose to work with.

When choosing a new font, consider the difference between serif and san serif fonts. Serif fonts have small curls at the end of each letter and are considered more traditional. These fonts typically work best for printed materials.

Sans serif fonts, on the other hand, are easier to read on a screen. Sans serif fonts include Arial, Verdana, and Helvetica. These fonts are considered more modern and are compatible with many other fonts.

It’s also important to think about where your emails are being read. When you view an email on your computer or mobile device, your browser is reading code that tells it which font to display. If the font is not available on a certain computer or device, your browser substitutes the font for one that is available, which can make your email design look different than you intended it to.

Stick to standard web-safe fonts or edit the style sheet in your email to choose which font will appear as a substitute.

Overall, readability is your biggest priority in font choice. Of course you want to find a font that fits your brand, but typically, it’s best to err on the side of clean rather than silly and playful. Using a font that’s too comical is the equivalent of wearing a clown nose to a networking event. No one is going to take your business seriously.

Mobile tip: With the majority of emails now read on a mobile device, it’s also important to make sure your font size is readable on a small screen. We recommend using 22-24pt for header text and 14-16pt for the body copy.

Looking for more email design tips?

• Make sure you’re avoiding some common design mistakes with the help of our recent YouTube video.
• Unsure if you’re doing enough to brand your email? Here are six steps to take to brand your email like a pro.
• Want to know how long your email should be? Read up on our most recent data on how the amount of text and images impact email click-through rates.

While celebrities have always been viewed as influencers, savvy businesses are now making room for a more organic endorsement model. The idea is to adopt a broader definition of what makes someone influential for your brand: a defined voice in your niche, a strong online following, an engaged and ready-to-act set of followers, success working with like-minded businesses, and a proven track record of solid ROI.

Independent website publishers are open and real with their readers, which drives their credibility. Their readers value their opinion in that specific niche and look to them for new trends and ideas. Overall, customers trust them more than almost anyone else when it comes to making purchasing decisions. And while it’s hotly debated whether these new “influencers” are the real deal or just a walking #sponsored #ad, here’s what I think. Influencers have established their credibility and trust because they only endorse what and who they really believe in. Even if you know they are being compensated to “promote” a product, it’s done on their terms, in a way that resonates with them, and ONLY if they believe in the brand and are confidently able to recommend it in the first place. Oftentimes, I find myself scouring my go-to blogger sites for their take on the best leather jacket, or that perfectly cropped skinny jean, or that delicate timepiece. I know they are often being paid by the brand – or through an affiliate program – to market these products, but so what? I trust their recommendations. With style bloggers in particular, they tend to be walking billboards; so, if I like their personal style, I know I can trust their recommendations too. And when it comes to marketing bloggers, I often look to them for what products and solutions I can use to streamline my SEO and content marketing processes. I’m always looking for ways to simplify the timely tasks that need to be done but shouldn’t take up the bulk of my time. Social media scheduling and management, content curation, contact and outreach management, all that good stuff.

It’s the reason why we call these publishers ‘influencers’ and why they’re on the radar of businesses, brands, marketers, and PR representatives alike. Daniel Newman does a great job of describing the rise of brands as media companies on Social Media Today. Newman states, “As reported rates of trust in traditional advertising continue to sink to levels well below 50%, brands are going to continue to invest in channels that increase trust. This means we will see more informative content and very likely more influencer driven content where brands seek out persons that already have the trust of a certain audience type.”

A business can gain trust from potential customers in multiple ways but the fact remains true: customers will always trust the unbiased view of real people over your own shiny marketing message. So, if you want to gain trust with them, there’s never a better time than now to jump onto this new endorsement model. Here are just six simple tactics you can use NOW to gain trust from your customers through influencers.

Look for real engagement

It’s not uncommon for marketers to handpick influencers based on the size of their social followings. And while this can often be an accurate measure of influence, it can also be entirely flawed. Many influencers are buying their way to social media stardom through bought followers, which, in turn increases the perceived value of their audience. While a large following can certainly be indicative of influence in your niche, paying attention to real engagement and positive sentiment are far more accurate measures.

Go for relevance over mass reach

Whereas larger influencers don’t always find the time to engage with and support their audience, mid-size influencers often do. The Technorati Digital Influence Report states that 54% of consumers believe that the smaller the community, the bigger the influence. Customers put more trust in smaller communities, which is far more meaningful when it comes to conversions. If you’re targeting a very specific niche, go for relevance over mass reach.

Reward your advocates

An advocate is someone who loves what you’re doing and goes above and beyond to positively promote it without expecting anything in return. These may not be large influencers with tremendous social followings, but they have the ear of their friends, peers, and colleagues who just might be your next customers. The benefit of working with your advocates – as opposed to celebrities or even bloggers, for example – is that it’s not a one-off thing; they will continue to share the love as long as they believe in your business. That means the payoff can be huge.

If you want encourage your advocates, make it easy for them to share the love by rewarding them. There are endless ways you can do this: sneak peeks of product launches, exclusive offers through email or even Snapchat, asking for their opinions, acknowledging them through a monthly feature on social media or your blog, offering advocate-only events, or giving them early access to new arrivals, product features, or store openings. All of these are great examples of giving advocates the proper tools to engage with your business, spread the word, and send genuine referrals right your way.    

Run an Instagram takeover

Using Instagram influencers humanizes your brand and offers a compelling story from the customer’s perspective while still weaving it into your own brand story. Hand the reigns of your Instagram account over to a respected influencer in your industry. Not only will this expose you to a new audience, it will also help to establish more trust and clout with your current customers. This tactic can add insta-credibility to your business, as your customers will see that you’re partnering up with some pretty interesting people in your industry.

There are numerous ways to run an Instagram takeover. You can enlist an influencer to run a contest, capture an event through their own lens, show off a city district, promote a store opening, share a hotel stay, the options are endless (and super entertaining for your followers)!

Enlist thought leaders

B2B companies will find that co-creating content with thought leaders is a great way to add credibility to their business. Identify some of the major thought leaders in your industry – perhaps ones that have previously participated in co-created pieces – and enlist them to weigh in on topics that are insightful to your customers. Their perspectives will reinforce your core messaging and add credibility to your topic. By enlisting the help of thought leaders, it’s highly likely they will share this content with their own following too which, in turn, creates a lot more buzz around your business. Additionally, if the piece is really strong, you’ll likely be able to garner shares from other publishers too. Creating highly shareable, useful content that adds social proof to your influencers is always a win-win.

Let influencers do the talking

Give influencers full reign to share the experience they had with your brand. Independent website publishers have such strong connections with their readers because they’re committed to open and honest dialogue. Trying to limit their editorial freedom will only turn off the influencer or make the content feel contrived. As marketing legend Seth Godin states about trust, “I think that it’s human, it’s personal, it’s relevant, it isn’t greedy, and it doesn’t trick people. If the recipient knew what the sender knows, would she still be happy? If the answer to that question is yes, then it’s likely going to build trust.”

The best way to collaborate with influencers is to have an open conversation and nail down a partnership that can benefit both of you. Always remember that when it comes to influencer-led campaigns, trust is key and is the single most important way to ensure success; if not, the whole thing can come off as disingenuous and neither of you will benefit from that! Figure out a strategy that best meets your goal of building trust. Is it a co-created piece of content? A brand ambassadorship? An Instagram takeover? Decide together how you can best reach this goal.

Did you know that Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” was actually just an allegory for the changing nature of the European sales model in the early 19th century?

While that might just be an urban legend, sales is once again undergoing a universal and fundamental change in order to meet the demands of a more informed and increasingly digital world of prospects.

The convergence of marketing and sales, combined with the wealth of data that modern technology has made available to prospects, has led to the emergence of new ideas like “social selling” and “smarketing.” The sales rep is no longer in charge; in fact, it’s quite the opposite, as prospects now hold the power. This change in the buyer-seller power structure demands a corresponding change in the way sales reps interact with prospects. It’s no longer about selling, it’s about helping.

In the coming year, the functionality of sales technology will change to reflect the evolving role of the salesperson. It will no longer serve to automate the tasks of salespeople, but will focus on personalizing the sales experience to each prospective customer. It will necessarily make buyers feel like more than just a name on a list.

The modern buyer’s demand for a help-oriented salesperson is the reason HubSpot created Sidekick, and motivates every new innovation we make to our free HubSpot CRM. These tools create value by helping reps document each step of the sales journey, providing context for every prospect interaction.

In order to get a better idea of what the future of sales looks like, we polled a few of the most innovative minds in the sales arena to get their “forecasts.” Their guidance is a good starting point, but it’s up to you to shape your business strategy to accommodate the changing landscape.

Some of you may have heard of it… A bunch of you hear how obsessed some marketers are over it… What am I referring to?

Marketing Automation.

This is a hot topic right now in the world of digital marketing, but most companies still have no idea about what it can do for them.

Marketing automation is the process of streamlining certain processes such as lead generation, email marketing, social media management, lead nurturing, and segmentation. Please don’t think it is limited to just these processes, I just named a few.

Best of all, it can be used for business of all types, whether you find yourself in the B2B or B2C industries. Did you know that 79% of top-performing companies have been using marketing automation for more than 2 years?

So you’re feeling a bit left behind? Let’s get you caught up!

How can Marketing Automation help your business?

Every business strives to save as much time and money as possible. This drive leads every business owner to seek out new forms of technology that can help them achieve better use of their resources. Marketing automation software is the efficiency-enhancing solution that can help business owners meet their specific needs.

Choosing the right platform for your company can be a tricky process, but once you have accomplished that step, the rest is cake!

When do you know if Marketing Automation is the solution for you?

There are a few questions to ask yourself if you are considering a MA (marketing automation) platform:

• Are you generating a steady flow of new leads?
• Are you generating a steady flow of qualified leads?
• Are you developing content consistently?
• Are you nurturing your leads?

When answered truthfully, these questions can lead to a positive sign that you are ready for a MA platform. The secret here is to remember that MA software doesn’t just do marketing for you, it will help to scale your successful efforts.

So what are some common features and functions?

MA software can all include a wide range of features, but most stick to a general set of core features including:

• Email Marketing
• Landing Page Builders
• Form Creators
• Campaign Management
• Social Media Marketing
• Lead Scoring
• Lead Nurturing
• CRM Integration
• Marketing Analytics

When used correctly, all of these features can help you accomplish multiple marketing efforts to a large scale audience in a short amount of time.

Where is the ROI?

Companies who adopt an MA strategy can expect to see more production out of their sales team, and higher revenue. 78% of successful marketers cite MA systems as most responsible for improving revenue contribution.

In a benchmark study by eMarketer, research found that B2C marketers who are using automation- including everything from birthday emails to cart abandonment programs – have seen conversion rates as high as 50%.

ROI matters! MA adoption is tied to annual revenue, as itemized below. (Raab Associates, Marketing Automation 2014 Industry Overview, Feb 2014)

• 60% – large companies (> $500M revenue)
• 10% – mid-sized companies ($20M – $500M revenue)
• 5% – small companies ($5M – $20M revenue)
• 3% – micro companies (< $5M revenue)

The proof is in the pudding. Marketing Automation can bring true value and ROI to your marketing efforts if used correctly.

So what do you think? Will this be a path for your company?

Please share your comments below, I would love to hear more about your experiences.

By now, you’ve probably heard that every tech company should be using storytelling as a means of relating to their potential customers and encouraging adoption. Just like a product story, you need to know and create your customers’ stories. Why is this important? In short, the better you know someone the better you can provide them service, solutions, and a place of trust. Ask yourself, “Who are my customers?” If you don’t know the answer, or you only know their job titles, it is time to get to work. It all starts with buyer personas.

What is a Buyer Persona?

Buyer personas are a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer. You develop personas using real data and inferences based on your experience. Buyer personas should include information about goals, main motivations, demographics, and behavior patterns (and what actions those patterns trigger).

A buyer persona is not the same as a target market, a job role, or a real customer. They are also not dependent on specific tools or technology to exist. Instead, a buyer persona is created when there are:

• Common, shared behavior patterns
• Identifiable pain points (professional or personal)
• Universal goals or hopes
• Common demographic and biographic information

How to Create a Buyer Persona

Creating a buyer persona can take a lot of work, but your marketing and sales experience will be much more enriched. Remember that buyer persona creation is ongoing. You made add or remove personas as you learn and research more.

Here are a few tips for creating buyer personas:

1. Establish Your Ideal Customer – Be detail oriented and look through everything, every piece of data you have, to learn who you ideal customers are. You may be surprised.
2. Utilize What You Have – You may not know the answer to every question. It’s ok. Start with what you have.
3. Create a List of Questions – The best way to create personas is to interview the list of ideal customers you created. If you don’t know what to ask, SmartBug Media offers a free ebook full of helpful questions you can add to your list.
4. Determine What You Have to Infer – What questions you are asking your customers is determined above. Next, you will need to decide what information will need to be inferred. (For example, if your product caters to women in their 50s, you may infer that the woman has had children at some point…most likely).
5. Choose an Image – You will need an image that encompasses your persona. Is your persona a woman in her 50s who is upper middle class in Texas? Find an image of a woman (not a real customer) that matches your findings.
6. Choose a Name – Using the example above you may call your persona Texas Tori. The name should remind you of which persona it is and have a standard name to add believability.
7. Create a Persona Workheet – A persona sheet will include the image of the persona and 5 – 10 important findings. Print them out, give them to sales and encourage colleagues to use the personas name when speaking about prospects, leads and customers.

An Example of a Persona Worksheet

Have you created buyer personas for your company? Are you using them? Let us know in the comments!

Imagine a lead discovers your product at an industry conference. After seeing your presentation, she stops by your booth and gets a quick demo. Later that week, she checks out your case studies, pricing page, and then gives you a call.

If you’re only using online marketing data, you’d think your case studies and pricing page are absolutely brilliant! They’ve warmed the lead right up.

In reality, that’s not the case.

Offline channels played a big role and this is why connecting online AND offline marketing data (omni-channel) is so critical. In this article, we discuss the 5 questions marketers think about around B2B omni-channel.

1. How Is B2B Different From B2C Omni-Channel?

Unlike B2C, there are no brick and mortar stores for most B2B brands. B2C marketers think about the implications of in-store location tracking and simultaneous mobile website visits.

B2C marketers are concerned with mobile touchpoints as consumers watch TV ads, shop online, and surf the web without moving their lower extremities.

Basically, they think about this:

On the other hand, omnichannel marketing is how B2B marketers understand the performance of offline channels like events and conferences, outbound calling, content syndication, and webinars.

Omni-channel for B2B marketing gives marketers a completely connected view of each channel and an understanding of the entire customer journey.

2. How Do I Handle Key Transition Points That Happen Offline?

Establishing key transition points is an important step for understanding how efficient marketing teams are at getting prospects through the funnel.

If a key transition point is an offline channel like events and conferences, not incorporating that channel into your attribution model may undervalue the influence it has in getting prospects to pick up the phone and call your sales rep.

This would be true if your customer journey takes a route such as the following. A prospect finds your brand on paid social, downloads content, meets a rep at a conference booth later that month, and then becomes a sales opportunity.

The image below shows key transition points and the associated online or offline channel. Without a connection between the two, marketers don’t see when lead conversions happen, or what channels the conversions happen in.

Omni-channel is how B2B marketers identify and track key transition points that happen offline.

3. How Can We Better Understand The Customer Journey?

How many of your sales opportunities found you through an online channel first? How many opportunities found your brand offline first?

Questions like these grow exponentially as you add more channels. When online and offline channels work in concert to move prospects through the funnel, it’s difficult to know the order of which prospects discover your brand and engage with your online media.

While we draw fancy funnels that are shaped like triangles, in reality, the journey through your funnel is more like a pinball in a pinball machine.

Omnichannel marketing answers big questions like, “What web pages do prospects look at after interacting with offline channels like events and webinars?” and “Do most prospects discover our brand through offline or online channels?”

Knowing the complete buyer journey means knowing how to make the journey shorter.

4. Can We Better Understand Customers And Channel Performance?

The customers that come from offline channels may be different than the customers who come in from online channels.

Customers may come from different size companies, have different job titles, have different average time-to-close rates, and have different average deal sizes depending on the channel. These are all insights that can help marketers understand who the buyers are.

Furthermore, knowing time-to-close and average deal size helps hold vendors in charge of offline channels accountable to opportunities and revenue.

By connecting offline and online channels, marketers can compare content syndication performance with channels like paid search and event sponsorships.

Connecting online to offline channel data adds more marketing channels to track — as if we didn’t have enough channels to track already. But measuring the offline channel performance is obligatory for marketers who track everything back to revenue.

How does ROI compare between an event sponsorship and a paid search campaign? Knowing these numbers requires comparing two different channels using a consistent metric: ROI.

While events have non-monetary value, like brand awareness and new relationships, performance should still be measured to determine which events deserve sponsorship the next year.

Marketers can compare deal size to channel and determine which channels create customers who spend the most, or remain customers the longest.

5. How Do B2B Marketers Create A Better Customer Experience?

Isn’t it nice when you walk into a restaurant, the waiter asks, “The usual?”

A sales lead who has interacted with a sales rep at an event is different than a sales lead who has only clicked on an online ad. One is warmer than the other and is more familiar and comfortable with your brand. Now imagine knowing that before you call them.

It’s a different conversation when a lead has already met someone from your team. There is familiarity and rapport already established.

Connecting online and offline channels brings predictability. Like B2C brands can “predict” what you’re looking for online, B2B marketers can predict how familiar prospects are with your brand, and what prospects are looking for, by knowing every channel the prospect has interacted with (online and offline).

(Bonus) What Tools Are There For B2B Omni-Channel Marketing?

In this post, we’ve identified the major questions marketers have when it comes to marketing, and we discussed the challenges marketers face when they don’t have an omni-channel marketing (connecting data from online and offline channels) perspective of their customers.

As more channels continue to be added and the customer journey continues to become more complicated, an omni-channel perspective will only become more important.

We recently announced a new feature that does just this. For more information be sure to read about omnichannel marketing for B2B on MarketingLand.

There is a huge yet relatively staid part of the U.S. market that most investors haven't been paying much attention to. 

The events of the past few days might force them to sit up and take note. 

U.S.-based exchange-traded funds have swelled in size and now hold more than $2 trillion in assets. 

There are stock ETFs designed to track the performance of indices like the S&P 500 and the Dow, and ETFs for bonds and other assets. 

They are supposed to be relatively boring. They provide investors with a quick and inexpensive means of getting exposure to various markets.

But on Monday some stock ETFs fell further in value than the indices they were supposed to be tracking. 

That means that ETFs, which are essentially baskets of stocks, ended up performing worse than the stocks inside the basket.

That set alarm bells ringing. 

Deutsche Bank's David Bianco said in a note on Tuesday: "We are a bit bothered by the extent of 'flash' dislocations in many large cap stocks and especially by huge disconnects (albeit brief) between several major broad market ETFs and their underlying indices.

"Corrections are never orderly, but this is a blow to both institutional and individual investor confidence."

A separate computer glitch blocked mutual and exchange-traded funds from pricing their securities on Wednesday, according to a separate report in The Wall Street Journal.

The glitch hit a number of big mutual fund firms, including Federated Investors, Prudential, Guggenheim, and Voya Investment Management, according to the report.

It is a reminder of how structurally important ETFs have become to the market — and how big an impact they can have when there are problems.

There were 1,411 exchange-traded funds domiciled in the US at the end of 2014, according to data from trade body Investment Company Institute. The funds had assets of close to $2 trillion, with an estimated 5.2 million US households holding ETFs. 

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has previously voiced concerns over bond ETFs, saying it isn't clear how easily they could be liquidated in a period of stress.

Given the events of the past week you can expect more attention to be paid to the funds in future.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here are some incredible toys hedge fund boss Steve Cohen has bought with his billions

Before he became the co-founder of Pinterest, Ben Silbermann moved to California and started working for Google in customer support before eventually starting a business.

He says, of his then move from Des Moines, Iowa, to the Valley:

Being close to people that inspire you is a very good first step.

Fittingly, that’s exactly what his company, Pinterest, now makes possible: Allowing people to get close to the brands, products, and people that inspire them.

With Pinterest now accounting for 25% of retail referral traffic and driving 4x more money per click than Twitter, Pinterest has proven its power as a massively effective place to connect with your audience. And many brands are considering whether they need to give their Pinterest marketing a bit of a push.

Are you one of them?

I collected data on how best to answer the question of whether Pinterest is a good fit for you and, if it is, how to grow your brand visibility and audience reach through the platform.

Ready to start building your brand on Pinterest? Let’s talk about some ideas that may work for you.

Is Pinterest the Right Social Media Fit for Your Brand?

Before we talk about growing your audience, however, one of the most important questions to ask for any business or brand is: Is our audience worth growing on Pinterest?

As of April 2015, Pinterest had 72.8 million users, with 85% of them being women. In fact, looking at the statistics, you can see why Pinterest is a social network that most businesses cannot afford to ignore and may even need to take precedence over all your other social media marketing.

• Percentage of all US social media users that use Pinterest: 30%
• Percentage of Pinterest users that are from outside the U.S.: 40%
• Pinterest’s growth in users outside the U.S. in 2014: 135%
• Average time spent on Pinterest per visit: 14.2 minutes

Here are some questions that might help in making that decision:

1. Are you already getting Pinterest traffic?

Before you do anything else, get a hold of your Google analytics traffic stats and look through quickly to see if you’re getting any referral traffic already through Pinterest.

A good way to to do this is to follow these steps:

1. Log in to your Google Analytics account.
2. Scroll down the left-hand menu and look for the option titled “Acquisition.” Click on it to open up a sub-menu.
3. Select “Overview.” You’ll see a pie-chart detailing which percentage of your users is coming from Organic Search, Referrals, Direct, Social, etc.
4. In the list at the bottom of the page, you’ll see all the different sources of your traffic. Click on Social.
5. This will open up a another list that will show you, in numbers, how much referral traffic you received from each social media channel in the last month. Do you spot Pinterest anywhere?

You might be surprised by how many people are already pinning images from your website or blog.

While this is especially true for businesses that place a high value on images, such as those in retail, fashion, food, and travel, I was quite surprised to find that I already had a Pinterest audience in the high hundreds for my own business, which caters to freelance writers.

2. Do you have visual elements to your business or can you introduce some?

Like I mentioned above, Pinterest brings obvious benefits to businesses that are big on visual content, but creative and out-of-the-box thinking can help you find innovative ways of communicating with your audience even if you’re in the service sector or have a business (such as insurance) that doesn’t directly translate to a visual medium.

For instance, many authors create Pinterest boards with book cover images or images they find during research for their novels. Freelancers share neat home office spaces.

3. Do you have a constant stream of good images coming through or do you have the resources to create them?

Creating images centered around your brand takes time, focus, and a lot of thought. If you’re a one-person brand currently focusing on sales and strategy, it may not be the right time for you to be putting all that effort into creating original images.

Does your company have the resources to create a constant stream of images or the funds to hire out this part of the process? If not, it might be a better idea to wait until you do.

Here’s a handy list we put together of 23 tools and resources that will help you create images for social media.

4. How much do you care?

Finally, no matter your business—visual or not—if you’re interested in using the visual medium to further your brand, you can push through all the hurdles and bottlenecks and make your brand shine.

Good questions to ask are: How much time do you spend on Pinterest? Are you often curating images in your head? Do you look at boards from other brands and have ideas on how to make them better? If you answered yes to those questions, you should be on Pinterest.

How to Massively Grow Your Audience

1. Pin consistently and frequently

As with most other social networks, consistent and frequent sharing can often be the key to building an audience and keeping them engaged with your content.

Timing can be important, too, though with global audiences, it’s often better to spread your content out over a span of the whole 24 hours so you’re leaving out people in other time zones. This exposes you to more of your audience more frequently and often leads to more pins, shares, and comments as a result.

P.S. You can easily do all this and more with Buffer.

With frequency, more is often better, we find, with 5x a day being optimal. Some experts recommend as much as 15-20x times a day, but if you’re a small company or brand, it’s better to pick a lower number and stay consistent than to do higher numbers intermittently.

Here’s an infographic we created that tells you, in a glance, what kind of frequency and topics you’d do well aiming for:

2. Pin good quality images only

In 2013, Philadelphia-based startup Curalate, which calls itself “the world’s leading marketing and analytics suite for the visual web” did some intense number-crunching on a database of 500,000 images to try and figure out which images did well on Pinterest and why. On the request of Wired.com, they then undertook the massive task of finding the one perfect Pinterest picture that encompassed all the elements of a popular Pinterest image.

This image from cooking show host Paula Deen won out:

The image, called “Aunt Peggy’s Cucumber, Tomato, and Onion Salad” has been repinned 307,000 times, liked 8,000 times, and commented upon 300 times.

So, what makes a perfect Pinterest image? These are the winning characteristics:

• No human faces
• Little background
• Multiple colors
• Lots of red
• Moderate light and color
• Portrait style

You’re not always going to be able to create the perfect Pinterest image. But incorporate enough of these characteristics and you’ll frequently be able to create a viral one.

3. Write keyword-rich descriptions for pins and boards

Unlike Twitter and Facebook where content is shared quickly, read quickly, and disappears quickly, Pinterest boards are, for the most part, evergreen. What this means is that while you may create a board and pin an image today, it may still be relevant to readers, especially new ones, months and even years from now.

That does, however, depend on one crucial factor: You have to be found.

Three months from now, if a Pinterest user is looking for wedding dress ideas on Pinterest, will she come across your bridal boutique’s designs?

In order to make sure that she does, you’ll want to make sure that both your pins and your Pinterest boards are tagged with keywords and that the descriptions themselves are keyword-rich and specific. Optimize your pins. Don’t overthink this too much. Most people who search don’t go for fancy terminology. Instead, when we’re looking for something, we often go with the very basics: “white” or “lace” or “long train.”

Last year, Pinterest launched its Smart feed, which took away the chronological nature of pins. Much like Facebook, in order for your pins to reach the top, they now need to meet certain criteria. Peg Fitzpatrik outlines them in this brilliant post for Social Media Examiner:

• Pin Quality: Your pins move to the top of the queue if they’re high-quality images with substance.
• Source Quality: While it’s great to share pins from your own website, it’s an even better idea to pin images from other sources, especially high-quality websites. This gets your pins seen in ways and reach audiences that you otherwise couldn’t with your own website, especially if you’re still new and building your brand.
• Pinterest Rating: According to Pinterest’s blog, your pins are likely to get more traction if they are high-quality images that are clear and relevant, have minimal text and no borders, and include great, helpful pin descriptions.

Similarly, you’ll want to make sure that your pinboards are organized. This not only helps with the optimization and finding of your pins but is also a great way to encourage Pinterest users to browse through specific boards that pique their interest. For instance, if you’re a travel company, consider adding boards for countries and specific locations, sure, but perhaps you could also create boards for “treehouse hotels” or “Not-to-miss train journeys.”

In a post that explains how she grew her Pinterest following from 1,000 to 4,000 in 3 months, blogger Dannielle Cresp writes:

I organized my boards into categories that are relatively narrow. I split the 4000 pins I had in “For the Home” into boards for each room type. It took 6 days, but my followers jumped after that. Make the board name clear, it can be a fun name, but make it easy for people to know what you’ll be pinning to it.”

4. Confirm your website

Confirming your website on Pinterest can be a good first step in building trust with your new audience. Once you’ve done this, you’ll be able to see your logo or profile picture on Pins that people saved from your site. You’ll also have access to web analytics in Pinterest Analytics.

To do this, follow the following simple steps:

1. In your settings, click ‘Confirm website’ in the Website field.
2. Follow the instructions on the next page. You can verify with an HTML file or a meta tag.
3. Once your website’s confirmed, you’ll see your logo or profile picture on Pins that people saved from your site.

5. Use rich pins

Pinterest defines rich pins as

Pins that include extra information right on the Pin itself.

There are six types of rich pins:

1. App Pins include an install button, so Pinners can download your app without ever leaving Pinterest. (For now, App Pins are compatible with iOS apps only.)
2. Movie Pins include ratings, cast members and reviews to help Pinners learn about new flicks.
3. Recipe Pins include ingredients, cooking times and serving info to get Pinterest cooks excited to hit the kitchen.
4. Article Pins include headline, author and story description, helping Pinners find and save stories that matter to them.
5. Product Pins include real time pricing, availability and where to buy. Pinners may also get notifications when prices drop more than 10%.
6. Place Pins include a map, address, and phone number.

As you can tell, rich pins are a fantastic way to have your content stand out amongst the rest of the Pinterest crowd and give your products a bit of visibility and boost. It helps, of course, that the pins themselves catch a pinner’s eye because of their attractiveness and are very retail friendly, which means that in many cases, Pinterest users can interact with or buy your products right from Pinterest itself.

6. Optimize your website to be Pinterest friendly

Once you start getting serious about Pinterest, try to take steps to make your website Pinterest-optimized as well. The more you tell people about your Pinterest presence, the more likely they are to check you out there and follow you. Even regular Pinterest users need to be reminded, sometimes, of what you’re doing on Pinterest and doing so will encourage them to repin your content, as well as share and comment more.

The easiest way to start the engagement using your own website is to use these handy Follow and Pin It widgets that Pinterest offers. This ensures that when visitors to your website like something they like, it’s easy for them to pin it or share it simply and with the click of a button.

Another way to create user engagement from within your website is to promote individual boards by embedding them in blog posts and other content. It’s sometimes helpful to focus on getting followers for individual boards than it is for your entire account, so work on promoting your most popular boards to your audience.

On the Pinterest page itself, you might want to put your most popular boards on top so that website visitors who decide to check out your Pinterest page can see, at a glance, the boards that are most likely to interest them.

7. Build a community

Like with all other social networks, your brand on Pinterest will grow in proportion to the effort you put in towards becoming a part of the community. A good way to start doing this is by following other boards in your niche and forming relationships with the people and contributors behind them.

Further, try and take advantage of group boards, which are run by a single administrator but allow pins from multiple contributors on a subject. By harnessing the power of group boards, you can gain access to an audience that may be interested in your products and services, but that may not have heard of you before.

Finally, take the time to comment on popular pins and repin others. Mention other brands and people by name when you can when pinning from their blogs. This puts into place the reciprocity effect in a way that introduces you to people positively and gives them the opportunity to further share your work.

8. Be useful

“Social” is a key component in any social media effort and Pinterest is no exception. Try and go in with the mindset of helping your users and customers and creating an amazing experience for them, visually and otherwise, and you can’t help but succeed.

Over to you

What have been your best Pinterest brand-building strategies?

I’d love to hear about what steps you’ve taken towards your own Pinterest marketing efforts and what has led to the most growth and success for you on the platform.

GUEST:

Familiar names dominate the top of the app store charts … how do you compete against Clash of Clans and Candy Crush?

Paid app install campaigns can deliver short terms gains, but also some of the worst user quality scores and ROI. It’s a user acquisition model that requires outbidding the market for an app install, and the ultimate winner is the one with the highest lifetime value (LTV). These campaigns are winner-take-all, with no second place. In other words, it’s a game few can afford to play — unless you can find an advantage.

By developing your organic acquisition channels through app store optimization, or ASO, you can gain an edge on the competition. Not only can ASO net you additional organic users, but it can also make your paid efforts more effective.

How does it work?

Users acquired from organic marketing efforts, or installs from app store search, monetize better than users acquired via paid channels. They typically stay active within the app longer than paid users.

If you acquire half of your users via organic traffic — with these users monetizing better than those from any other channel — your app ends up with a higher average LTV. You can then use this high average LTV to increase your paid ad spend and maintain the velocity required for ranking at the top of the charts, turning leads into more organic installs.

In other words, organic mobile marketing and ASO subsidizes your paid user acquisition efforts.

Enter the rise of organic mobile marketing: You promote your app by positioning it for discovery and conversion by a relevant target audience.

Mobile has matured beyond CPI

App store search is the most common way users discover and download new apps. But with 1.5 million mobile apps in both the Apple and Google Play App Stores, app discovery presents real challenges for both users and app publishers.

App store optimization addresses the entire app funnel, including how to position your mobile app for organic discovery and conversion by your target audience.

Users behave differently in mobile vs. web

There are a host of services that attempt to predict app store search using Google web search data as a proxy. Many of these services have tools that even look like the Google Keyword Planner, which is a free and easy-to-use tool.

You should not use web search as a proxy, replacement, or predictor for app store search, though. Users search in the app stores differently than on the web.

According to moz.com, web search queries tend to be “Do,” or transactional queries; “Know,” or information queries; and “Go,” or navigational queries.

Eighty percent of app store search, on the other hand, tends to be 2-3 word phrases related to app features. Single-word app and brand name searches make up the balance.

A search for “mall” in Google or Bing will yield directions to the closest mall. Searching for “mall” in Google Play will yield a plethora of mall-based simulation games. User intent is different when searching the app stores, and thus the way users search is very different than how they search the Web.

Understanding how their target users search app stores enables publishers and marketers to carefully craft their app listing to include the creative elements and calls to action specifically for their intended audience.

Is your target audience searching for “photo albums” or “photo collage”?

If your app includes both features but your audience is searching for “photo collage,” this impacts your entire app store funnel. If the way to describe the feature is interchangeable, the data is telling you to refer to “photo collage” instead of “photo albums.”

App store discovery and search algorithms

Knowing what features your audience is searching for and the specific phrases they use to find them affects your app’s category, including which keywords you target in your app listing in your descriptions and potentially even the app’s name/title.

The goal is creating the best basket of keywords that maximizes coverage of relevant search terms from your target audience, in a category that best matches the market’s expectation for similar apps.

When selecting keywords, remember that Apple and Google have always been vigilant against inappropriate keyword stuffing. Use keywords only in an appropriate way. Don’t include brands and long strings of keywords that don’t really represent your app.

There have been rumors about an algorithm change within the App Store recently; however, most apps that have seen declines are those that abuse the system. It appears that apps using reasonably consumer-friendly descriptors were not affected, and the change was focused on those with blatantly stuffed keywords in long titles that created a poor user experience.

Conversion

If users never find you, your conversion rate is guaranteed to be zero. A lot of the optimization effort is spent on how to maximize discovery from an ultra-relevant audience.

Equally important is converting these views to installs and users.

The app name/title, the icon and ultimately screenshots, app preview videos (optional), and ratings are the deciding factors for many potential users.

You already know what features you want to highlight and how to communicate the way your app addresses users’ specific needs because you have app store search data on your audience.

A well-made app addressing an identifiable market that still struggles with discovery would be well served to investigate organic mobile marketing and app store optimization, starting with relevant audience search coverage and optimized creatives that convert views into users.

Organic marketing creates a defendable position

Mobile app publishers without a single paid install can reach the top of the charts by addressing their target audience so well that organic downloads and ratings drive them up past apps that stopped spending (and thus potential users stopped finding them).

Tapping into organic app traffic while strategizing your organic mobile app marketing is a defendable position that returns far greater value and ROI than buying installs.

There is more than app store search

While app store search is the main driver of app installs overall, combining traditional marketing with data gleaned from the app stores provides a valuable and often untapped channel.

The fastest growing channels for acquiring mobile users are social networks.

In fact, the biggest social networks are increasingly mobile apps themselves.

Consider:

• 92 percent of time spent on Pinterest is mobile
• 86 percent of time on Twitter is mobile
• More than 50 percent of YouTube views are on mobile devices
• Facebook traffic is at least 68 percent mobile, with mobile ad revenues making up 73 percent
• Instagram is almost 100 percent mobile

This trend of mobile user growth from social networks is expected to continue to expand as direct app installs and app links are adopted across these and other platforms.

As the world of mobile continues to rapidly expand, organic marketing efforts should begin to shift their focus to reevaluating their apps’ target audiences. Armed with data on what queries users are using to look for apps, marketers are better equipped to position their app for discovery in the app stores and in booming social networking sites.

Dave Bell is the cofounder and chief executive officer of Gummicube. He is responsible for overseeing the business strategy, including growth and market development. Dave has over 15 years of experience publishing, marketing, and distributing mobile applications and games across carrier, direct-to-consumer and app store channels.

With the various new forms of technology, there have never been more ways to enrich your life as an entrepreneur, reach your target audience and grow your business. The only problem is, how can you manage everything? Software, apps, and other tools might help, but the overwhelming list of tasks can be excessively time-consuming if you are a solopreneur.

A solution that is exceptionally effective is to outsource your administrative and back end tasks. Some business owners balk at the idea, wondering if they will have enough resources and comfort level to make it feasible. However, statistics compiled over the last decade have revealed a growing trend, with over 43% of companies now using outsourcing to help successfully manage their business operations. It makes perfect sense, since the more power we have behind us; the more work we are capable of doing. You can achieve more by doing less.

If you are new to the outsourcing concept, these 5 high-level steps can help you streamline this process and get the ball rolling to free up your time and your mind.

1. DETERMINE WHAT YOU CAN OUTSOURCE

Typically, at Ace Concierge, LLC we assess the type of tasks associated with your business functions and daily management. They might fall under two categories: highly repetitive tasks, such as data entry, social media management, and blogging; or more specialized knowledge, such as accounts payable or web design. You may also have your own list according to your industry and niche in addition to the day to day necessities of processes and procedures. Once we have determined a list of tasks you’d like to outsource, we can determine the skill level needed and begin to narrow down your options.

2. WEIGH THE COST VS BENEFITS OF OUTSOURCING

Begin with determining your own time value and where you should prioritize your efforts. If you tend to bury yourself in the daily minutia, for example, social media, editing, proofing, or curating content, it is here you need to ask yourself if this is the best value of your time? Is this your expertise, why you started your business? More often than not, it doesn’t represent your core genius, won’t provide an immediate return and isn’t a fundamental function of your company. While these tasks and activities represent daily necessities of an online presence, they don’t embody the crux of your knowledge and capabilities.

As an entrepreneur, your time needs to be protected, leveraged and highly valued. Outsourcing maintains these properties keeping you highly effective and focused on your business, growth, development and other primary structures of operations. Delegating allows you to forgo other things you would pay an actual employee, such as insurance, training, extra office space, supplies, and benefits. Instead, you are only paying for the project time which is a tremendous cost savings.

3. DECIDING WHO TO OUTSOURCE TO

One of the most popular questions we get asked is, “Who should we use? How do we know they’ll do a good job?” As the old saying goes, “You get what you pay for.” There are many opportunities to find cheap labor from developing countries, but the difference in hours, language barriers, and skills can sometimes pose a problem. These are options you must consider, especially if you are presenting their work to your own clients.

Consider partnering with another entrepreneurial like-minded individual as they will understand what it takes to own and operate a successful, viable company. If you only choose someone based upon price, a “one-off task master” then that is all you will receive. Point A to Point B with nothing in between. Think in terms of a virtual business partner who has your best interests at heart. Someone who invests in you, your time and your company to help you achieve your goals.

4. CREATE A PLAN AND EXPECTATIONS

One mistake we frequently hear from business owners is frustration when a project is delivered and it’s not what was expected, it wasn’t on time, or it was not successfully executed. Clearly plan and outline for accountability and outcomes, keeping all lines of communication open. We try to stress the importance of a strategy that all agree upon to ensure that all needs and requirements are met or exceeded. It is difficult enough to give up what you have always done so it’s vital to create a solid foundation with dialog, expectations, and feedback.

5. RELINQUISH CONTROL

The hardest step business owners tend to have is relinquishing control and letting the person or business you’ve hired do their job. Remember, you’re outsourcing for a reason. You need to focus your time and energy on other more important, high payoff activities relative to your business. It doesn’t make sense to outsource a project or task and manage it from afar. If that’s the case, you should save your money and do it yourself!

Assigning the control to someone else can be nerve-racking, especially if you’ve been involved in every aspect of the business from the start. As Ace Concierge, LLC has continued to practice outsourcing ourselves, as well as accomplishing administrative tasks and business management operations on behalf of our own clients, we’ve seen an increase both in productivity and the efficiency with which we can grow our businesses.

Leveraging time, expertise and a team is a growth mentality. It’s worked for us, and we’d love to show you how it can work for you!

With aggressive growth on the horizon, it’s time to make the transition from start-up stage to an established brand. But how can you make sure your marketing keeps up?

Successful Companies Use These 4 Steps to Scale Their Marketing

You’ll be on the right track by following these four tried and tested steps to scale your marketing.

1. They Identify a Clear Strategy

It is worth mentioning that as companies grow, to effectively see return on their marketing efforts, companies need to identify clear strategy, goals and targets. Kapost reports how a survey revealed for 69% of marketers, their go-to marketing strategy is to understand buyer needs.

Start with and always come back to your buyers’ experience and your strategy will lead to healthy ROI as you scale.

2. They Develop a Systemic Process

Taylor Radley at Content Marketing Institute identifies an important next step once you’ve identified your marketing strategy: develop a production process. She’s referring to a go-to sys
tem that enables your staff to work and collaborate according to a pre-determined and well-considered plan.

As marketing is the life-blood of any business, ongoing marketing without hitches is crucial to ensure effective brand management at ROI when you scale your marketing. Identify your “who, what, where, how and why” and lead your team, particularly where content production is concerned.

3. They Hire the Right Staff at the Right Time

They say that the key to success in business is the ability to delegate, the ability to find the right people and lead them to succeed at a shared goal. The same is true for your marketing goals. You just can’t go it alone if you intend to create a consistent, steady stream of top quality content or executing different marketing channels.

Sam Slaughter at Contently recommends not only hiring to scale, but hiring at just the right time. If you are at the stage of just creating one-two blogs per week, it doesn’t make sense to hire a whole team of editors and writers internally.

However, once you start to stretch your team beyond their capacity, it is time to invest in hiring the right talent. You’ll need to ensure you can keep up with your marketing gaols without compromising quality as you grow. For this reason, hiring and team culture should become part of your strategy, which in turn can become integral to your marketing processes.

4. They Automate the Right Areas

Jenna Hanington reports for Salesforce that, businesses that use marketing automation in order to nurture prospects see a 451% increase in qualified leads.

That’s perhaps why Neil Patel at Quick Sprout points out that, as soon as your marketing needs begin to build, you’ll start to waste money on redundant tasks that don’t require any expertise to execute. Such tasks would include emailing new customers or emailing your users or subscribers every time you post new content.

You’ll want to maintain the personality and personal touch in your marketing as much as possible. However, as you scale, maintaining a one-to-one communication channel between everyone interested in your brand just isn’t possible. More to the point, it may not be necessary. Automation of key, repetitive and low-skill tasks will be fundamental in scaling your marketing.

Key Takeaway: Start with the Why and How, and the Rest Will Follow

One of the greatest challenges to business scaling their marketing is to achieve growth without compromising the effectiveness of marketing, or the personality of your brand. Scaling your marketing involves a clear strategy and a clear route to execution without the need to micro-manage every step.

Focus on the Why and How repeatedly to market your business at seemingly unfathomable scales.

Image credit: Entrepreneur Media Inc.

Image credit: Crowdsource

You may have seen that humorous State Farm commercial where a guy keeps saying “I’ll never” to the many big changes in life: getting married, having children, moving to the suburbs and — the mother of them all — buying a minivan. In each case, however, the very next scene reveals he’s in fact done that particular thing. And he comes to be grateful for it all, with State Farm by his side.

This commercial clearly illustrates the company’s target market: people who are building lives together and want insurance they can count on for all their needs. Forget the competition, State Farm is for them.

This is what I call being “shamelessly exclusive.” Having the ability to say “no” to others in favor of your ideal buyer.

The most profitable companies in the future will be those who, like State Farm, choose a target audience. Why? Because markets are rapidly growing and adding new buyers. That means more demand of time and energy for selling. That is, if we keep thinking all buyers are created equal.

Too many sales teams sell to those who don’t meet ideal targets or who won’t ever buy. The best companies I work with, however, clearly define their target market, target the right customers, and sell only to them. They say “no” to buyers who don’t match their criteria.

Think about it. Being shamelessly exclusive frees up time for your most promising customers, allowing you to reduce closing cycles and sell more with less time and energy. Another bonus? With an ideal target, you can customize your information to attract that target buyer (as explained in my previous article Control the Info Flow.)

Now you’re thinking, “Great! But how do I get started?!” It takes two steps to find your target clientele. First, identify what they look like.

Go for ‘value’ and ‘interest’

Base your best buyer list on your most lucrative and sustainable clients — making them your benchmark. Look at your current customers and ask yourself:

• How valuable are they to me?
• How interested are they in buying?

Better yet, consider the figure below, Your Best Client:

List the companies that have “Value To You” vertically and “Interest In Buying” horizontally. Place those that match both criteria in the bottom left square. Then, record the clients with both characteristics in the top right quadrant.

Now, note any further similarities:

• Are they from specific industries?
• Similar in size?
• In similar geographic areas?
• What’s their organizational structure? (Public, private, family owned, non-profit?)
• What’s the title of the buyer?
• What’s the average order size?
• How long did they take to close?

Once you’ve answered these questions, you’ll be closer to finding your best client. Let’s now move on to step two.

Choose your market segment

This time, we’re identifying your ideal niche within an industry. By doing this, you’ll build solid relationships and establish a proven reputation more quickly than with a broad market approach. You likely have ideal customers and segments now but — if you’re like most salespeople — they’re a small portion of your client list. And you haven’t clearly identified them!

Ask yourself, “Who are my best buyers?” In the business market, your ideal clients might be the biggest companies — Fortune 100 if you sell internationally or the largest businesses in your area if you sell locally.

If you’re in the consumer market — a banker, retail store owner, or medical practice — your top customers are likely in the best neighborhoods. They have the most money and biggest sphere of influence. Look at your client list, identify where your best ones live, and then market to more customers in those neighborhoods. You’ll use the same amount of effort to nurture this ideal buyer as a general buyer — and I guarantee it’ll bring you higher profits!

Further consider what your current clients all have in common:

Are they:

• Privately held or publicly traded?
• Government organizations or consulting companies?
• International or domestic?
• All run by women?

Once you’ve found that common thread weaving together this “best of the best” list, use the same criteria to be shamelessly exclusive with potential clients.

Hit your highest numbers

Donald’s goal, when he first came to me, was to reach a million dollars in sales from temporary staffing jobs. His database revealed his best customers were in one specific market. We told him, “Be the number one provider,” for all the companies with that particular need.

Next, we recommended he expand that group. Since the customers were all food producers, we asked him to consider the beverage, dairy and pet food industry. To branch off from that one target he was pursuing. As a result, Donald exceeded his target by 90 percent. Instead of a million in sales, he achieved $1.9 million! He zeroed in on a market and expanded to even more ideal clients. He displaced the competition by becoming an expert in his area. Sales became effortless. Amazingly, Donald achieved this record-smashing growth while those in his staffing market were being upended by the recession!

Targeting and becoming specialized works for small companies like Donald’s as well as for large firms. Consumer credit giant Experian segments its most strategic sellers by target market. Antivirus giants Trend Micro and McAfee also create sales teams by market size, and The Royal Bank of Canada divides its sellers by product type and scope of market. All are great examples of companies in a “nonstop sales boom.”

We’ve now found your ideal buyer and you can start being shamelessly exclusive. Find what works best for you. Whether it’s focusing on a specific geographic area, product specialty or service offering, the possibilities are endless. The key is finding customers you enjoy working with and vice versa. Determine their needs and concentrate on selling in a way that fulfills those needs.

How does your sales development team target the right the customers? Would you add any other tips?

Momentum Worldwide came out with a very insightful marketing chart for 2015. I’m curious, what catches your eye most?

Among the most important lead sources, email marketing stands out as a clear winner. It barely loses to social media and SEO in inbound effectiveness, and surpasses every other outbound lead source by a significant percentage. In other words, email marketing is, pound for pound, still your best source for quality leads. (highlight to tweet)

This should come as no surprise. Email marketing is the modern form of direct response marketing, which has long been revered as the most effective form of marketing.

David Ogilvy, the founder of mega-agency Ogilvy & Mather and a former door-to-door stove salesman, often criticized inbound marketing (what he called “general marketing”) for being ineffective and unscientific by comparison. And freelance direct response writers are easily the highest paid freelance writers, with members of AWAI taking home millions just to write sales letters and email marketing campaigns.

So why are marketers so focused on inbound lead generation these days? It seems like blog posts, social media, and SEO have far surpassed email marketing in terms of priorities, but email is probably still your best bet to convert leads and upsell existing customers.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at what these five companies have been doing with their email marketing.

Argos

Argos, a UK-based toys, trinkets, and home furnishings retailer implemented a new basket abandonment email.

They retarget customers who abandoned their online shopping cart with personalized follow up messages in their inbox by using browsing data and email engagement. The follow up email would offer up to six alternative products that the customer might be interested in, based on what’s in their abandoned cart, as well as their demographic information.

Although this might seem a bit underhanded, Argos was obtaining all their information legally, and the campaign bolstered their conversion and revenue.

Birchbox

Instead of trying to squeeze in a promotion at the bottom of an email, Birchbox smartly sends email subscribers a follow up email where they claim to have “forgotten” a discount code to Rent the Runway, a dress rental company that fits their online profile.

There’s no hidden metrics here, but it’s a brilliant example of smart, strategic marketing psychology. Do you really need to see the numbers to believe that this got more email subscribers clicking than a tacked-on promotion at the bottom of another email might have?

Dell

Dell may not be known for any recent innovations, but the hardware powerhouse still knows how to pack a punch. After launching a GIF-heavy email marketing campaign, Dell lifted their revenue by 109%. Not too shabby for a brand many assumed had no more fight left in it.

This is both surprising and unsurprising. It’s surprising because video, rather than GIFs, is the trend for both emails and landing pages. But it’s also unsurprising because, by bucking this modern trend, Dell is staying consistent with its old-school brand and feel, which I’m sure its email subscribers appreciated.

Hammock

Hammock, a creative agency, has its work cut out for it when it comes to email signups. Most agency email subscribers are B2B clients, and they already receive so much email from agency account managers, projects managers, and creatives that they would need a very compelling reason to read any more agency email.
Yet Hammock managed to increase open rates by 48% for B2B companies.

Their secret? Simplifying content. Hammock’s !dea Email is, in their own words, “One bright idea, every two weeks.” They even poke fun at it by calling it their “un-newsletter.” But hey, it works.

Zumba Fitness

Not only is Zumba taking the nation by storm, but Zumba Fitness, the company behind the sensation, knows how to do email marketing like a 21st century contender.

Each year, Zumba Fitness hosts an Instructor Convention, which instructors at its 200,000 locations are encouraged to attend. In 2014, Zumba decided to kick off their Instructor Convention sign up with an email that included a compilation video of past Conventions. What made this email video special was the call-to-action at the very end, when an invitation with the recipient’s name appears.

This little bit of personalization worked. Zumba Fitness saw a 50% click-to-open rate with this email. According to MailChimp statistics, the average open rate of a company with over 50 employees is 23.61%, meaning Zumba Fitness beat the average by over 100%.

Then again, maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised with Zumba instructors like this guy. An Instructor Convention is probably a dream come true for him.

Get more content like this, plus the very BEST marketing education, totally free. Get our Definitive email newsletter.

       

In honor of the end of summer, we cracked open a few Bud Lights on a Friday afternoon to talk about “which comes first, sales or marketing?”. In this week’s podcast, we conver topics including:

• Can companies successfully implement inbound marketing without making changes to their sales process, team or department?
• Is your sales team prepared to work inbound leads?
• How to involve your sales reps in your inbound marketing strategy

Listen to the episode to hear it all, or read the show notes below.

Listen to Episode 13:

Read the Show Notes:

Kathleen and I have been participating in a Sales Mastermind group that HubSpot organized for the small number of their partner agencies that have begun to offer sales advice to their marketing services clients. The group has been a fantastic forum for sharing challenges relating to sales and marketing, and one of the themes that has come up again and again is that marketing and sales are often silos, with little collaboration or alignment.

Our involvement in the Mastermind group got us thinking about the connection between sales and marketing and asking the question, can you do inbound marketing without addressing your sales team/process/etc.?

Is Your Sales Team Prepared to Work Inbound Leads?

Recently, we had a prospective client that is considering hiring us to help with their inbound marketing. They have a sales team of about 10 people and are a technology reseller. Many of the leads that they get are from a channel sales arrangement with one of their technology vendors, and they have a lead-to-customer closure rate of 50% on those deals. John Shea, our Director of Inbound Sales Enablement, would say those are “layups” not leads because they are pretty much sure things.

This got us thinking that we should have a conversation with the prospective client early in the sales process to make sure they understand that the inbound leads they get will be different – and require a different sales process – than the channel sales leads they get from their vendor. As a marketing agency, introducing this concept can be risky because it involves making changes in the sales department, which is not typically a department we’re talking to at this stage. But, its also a necessary conversation to have in order to set us up for a successful agency-client relationship.

What’s the problem? In this case, inbound leads will most likely have a lower lead-to-customer closure rate than the referrals they are currently getting. Under their existing commission structure, this creates a disincentive for their sales team to work inbound leads. Instead, the company needs to consider identifying someone to serve as an inside sales rep and charge them with working the inbound leads and getting them to a point where they can pass them off to the outside sales reps to close.

How to Involve Your Sales Reps in Your Inbound Marketing

Another concern raised by this prospect was that they didn’t want to burden their sales reps by requiring them to write content in support of their inbound marketing strategy. We hear this a lot and its a legitimate concern. Your sales people need to be selling, right?

The good news is that there is an easy solution to this problem. Simply create a dedicated email address (such as “content@xyz.com”) that your sales team (or other customer-facing employees in your company) can blind copy when they are sending emails that contain information that could be used to create a blog or other piece of content. The emails should go to your marketing department, which can save them in a “content bank” and then draw upon them when they need ideas for new blog posts, ebooks, etc.

We’ve been using this solution here at Quintain and also with our clients and have come up with an easy way to remind sales people to BCC the content@ address when they are sending emails. It’s a mousepad that will sit on their desks and they will see every time they go to hit the “send” button. Check it out…

Want one of these mousepads for yourself? Just tweet us @Quintain using the hashtag #hesaidshesaidpodcast and mention the mousepad and we’ll send you one (if you want to order custom mousepads like these for your team, let us know – we can help you with that too!). If YOU create mousepads like these, be sure to tweet us a picture of them.

Which Comes First?

So back to the question… which comes first, marketing or sales? Like most big, strategic questions, the answer is “it depends.” In our case, most companies come to us for help with inbound marketing and to try and force them to change their sales organization before working with them on marketing would be disruptive. Nonetheless, its important to identify early on that there might be challenges with sales down the road. Otherwise, when your inbound marketing starts to work and your sales team gets those inbound leads, they are going to think they suck because they are much more difficult to convert than the referrals or channel sales deals they are getting.

This dilemma doesn’t just apply to companies doing inbound marketing. Forrester did a study that found only 8% of companies feel their sales and marketing teams are aligned. This highlights the need to elevate the discussion about sales and marketing within the company. Often, when companies get interested in inbound marketing, its because they have a sales problem but don’t know it. They think they just aren’t getting enough leads and believe that inbound marketing will solve that. Inbound marketing WILL produce more leads, but if those leads aren’t nurtured by marketing and worked by sales, they aren’t going to convert into customers and this isn’t going to solve the company’s problem.

This is a difficult challenge to face at the departmental level because department heads (whether in sales or marketing) have a natural incentive to protect their turf. By contrast, C-level execs are uniquely positioned to take a bird’s eye view of the whole company and address alignment issues.

Can You Do One Without the Other?

I wonder, if you’re not doing inbound marketing, what ARE you doing? Doug Davidoff of Imagine Business Development (a fellow member of our Sales Mastermind group) says “sales consulting without inbound marketing is glorified cold calling” and he actually won’t do a sales consulting engagement without some element of inbound marketing because he believes it is so important to create content that can support an effective sales process.

Gone are the days of “I’m going out prospecting to look for clients.” These days, your clients are all online. You can work LinkedIn and find prospects or go on Twitter to build relationships. The concept of the salesperson as “hunter” is no longer as relevant as it once was. Today, its more about being a “trapper” and having salespeople who can recognize a good lead “in the wild” – on social media, or when they convert on an offer on your website, etc.

#INBOUND15

As I’m sure you can tell, the topic of sales and marketing alignment has been a hot one around here. In fact, Kathleen will be speaking at HubSpot’s INBOUND conference this year as part of the Partner Track, and the topic of her presentation is all about how inbound marketing agencies need to be offering sales consulting services. If you are a HubSpot partner, we’d love to see you there. We’ll be sharing exactly what we’ve done to build a sales consulting offering and including some takeaways that you can use immediately in your agency.

Finally, a favor to ask…

Do you enjoy listening to us debate inbound marketing and sales? Want to learn how to improve sales and marketing alignment? Consider subscribing to He Said, She Said on iTunes or Stitcher (the links are up above).

We’d also love if you would review the podcast. Your feedback is really helpful to use and we’re always looking to hear from you about what topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes.

If you have an idea, give us a shout out on Twitter using the hashtag “#hesaidshesaidpocast” and make sure to tag @Quintain.

If you DO tweet us using #hesaidshesaidpodast, there’s a special gift in it for you. We’ve got some new SWAG in at the office, and we’ll send some to you if you tweet us! 

The Godfather of Content Marketing has struck gold again. Content Marketing Institute founder Joe Pulizzi has a new book that will hit shelves and Amazon carts this September.

His newest book, Content Inc.: How Entrepreneurs Use Content to Build Massive Audiences and Create Radically Successful Businesses is a delightful blend of inspiration from Joe’s personal experiences building Content Marketing Institute and advice businesses can follow to create an actionable content business model.

Content Inc. takes readers down the logical path from starting their journey, to monetization and creating next-level content.

When the Godfather releases a new piece of content it is always worth a read. If you don’t, you may have to answer to his loyal base of subscribers and followers. Below are some highlights of Content Inc. as well as an exclusive interview with Joe on his new book.

What You’ll Learn in Content Inc.

By focusing on building an audience first and defining products and services second, an entrepreneur can change the rules of the game and significantly increase the odds of financial and personal success.
– Joe Pulizzi

How to Lead with Goal Setting

There is a big difference between inherently having an idea of what your goals might be, and actually getting them down on paper and persistently working to achieve them. Even though this book is largely about content, Joe makes sure to emphasize that you should document all goals, personal and professional in order to be successful. This approach can help you prioritize and scale your business model.

The 6 Step Content Inc. Model

This book is built around what Joe calls the “Content Inc. Model” which is a six step process marketers can follow to efficiently and effectively develop a winning content marketing program. What are the steps?

1. The Sweet Spot: A blend of your  core knowledge and passion.
2. Content Tilt: Defining what makes you different from your competition.
3. Building the Base: Determining which content distribution channels will be your foundation for publishing.
4. Harvesting Audience: Leveraging different methods to draw in new audience members.
5. Diversification: How to break out from your base distribution channels and build additional streams.
6. Monetization: Once you’ve scaled your model, how will you use it to generate revenue?

Real-Life Examples of Why Content Inc. Works

Content Inc. has a high impact ending. After we’ve been instructed on the six steps, given prompts for action and resources for more information, we have the best part; examples. Readers can gain inspiration from hearing more about how companies like Razor Social, Lego, Marriott and more have found success from following the Content Inc. Model.

From the Mouth of the Godfather of Content Marketing

This book review wouldn’t be complete without some additional insight from the author, Joe Pulizzi. Here is how Joe describes the notion of Content Inc. in his own words:

Who is Content, Inc. for?

The book is perfect for two audiences.  First, for startups and small businesses, Content Inc. can serve as the underlying business model for long-term growth.  Build a loyal audience and sell them whatever you want.  Second, the book can really help marketers in larger companies who need to be change agents.  Marketers looking to build a valuable audience in a specific content niche – that ultimately will help them drive more leads, more sales or new lines of revenue.

In chapter one you talk about “Beginning with the end in mind”. What impact has goal setting had your own career?

My life changed for the better when I started to do two things.  First, write down my goals (with actual pen and paper).  Second, review those goals daily.  You have no idea what kind of impact this can make on your life.  It’s such an easy thing to do that no-one does.

Another concept you reference is about “Unleashing Your Passion”. How did you find your passion for content marketing?

I don’t like the idea that marketers only sell and don’t make positive change happen.  That’s why I love content marketing.  You can increase the bottom line while, at the same time, help your customers live better lives or get better jobs.  Content marketing is the only kind of marketing that provides ongoing value, whether you purchase the product or not.  Isn’t that what all marketers want to do?  Provide real value?

What are three things you want people who read Content, Inc. to walk away understanding?

1. That the way we’ve been launching and growing businesses is not right anymore for how people consume information.  Building an audience around valuable content is the absolute best way to start and grow a business for the long-term.
2. That even though Content Inc. is not a get-rich quick scheme or will make immediate impact in your business, if you follow the six steps and consistently execute on the idea, you will be successful.  Any sized company can do this.  Any company or person can follow the six steps.  I love it because it’s democratic.  Bigger budgets don’t necessarily win.
3. The competition can copy everything we do as companies except for one thing – how we communicate.  That means delivering an amazing content experience to our customers on a regular basis is THE most critical thing we should be doing as marketers, business owners and communication professionals.

What Should You Do Next?

The way that Joe structured Content Inc. is incredibly powerful. He provides enough information to make the content actionable, without creating paralysis from information overload. If you’re looking for a content model to follow, enjoy a good story, or just want to know more about the man behind Content Marketing Institute, I would strongly recommend pre-ordering a copy of Content Inc. on Amazon.

The book will be released on September 8, 2015 to coincide with the annual Content Marketing World event hosted by Joe’s team in Cleveland, OH.  

The TopRank Marketing team will be in attendance, and our CEO Lee Odden will be speaking on the topic of Participation Marketing: How to Co-Create, Optimize & Socialize Content With Influencers.

We are very excited about Content Marketing World and look forward to learning from some of today’s top content marketing experts and connecting with other passionate content marketing individuals. See you there!

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© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2015. | Book Review & Interview: Content Inc. by Joe Pulizzi | http://www.toprankblog.com

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Is your homepage compelling enough to capture the attention of each and every visitor? What if that visitor is from the healthcare industry? And the next one is from financial services?

More and more marketers today are realizing the importance of having dynamic, engaging websites rather than generic ones. However, they still struggle to ensure that their homepages meet the needs of their most important visitors.

Real-time personalization is the key to having a website that captures the attention of multiple audiences. In this post, we’ll share four simple but effective steps to help you understand and get started with B2B website personalization.

1. Measure Your Baseline

Start by understanding the activity that’s already happening on your site.

Ask yourself these questions to determine where you stand:

• Who’s coming to your website?
• Are they finding what they need?
• Are they finding the content you want them to find?
• Or are they not coming at all?

Once you understand where your base is, you can move forward and build your strategy out from there.

Some of this information lives in your analytics tool, and you can find it by looking at your standard metrics: page views, entries, and exits. But to find the information you need to personalize your website, you’ll need to look at that data from an account or segment perspective.

2. Segment Your Audience

According to research conducted by Demandbase, 82% of B2B visitors are not potential customers. To reach the 18% that matter, you need to narrow down your view. And the way to do that is through segmentation.

Segmentation is the process of dividing prospects or customers into specific groups based off of similar needs or attributes. Common segments for B2B sites include verticals, company size, sales stage and customers, among others. Once you have those segments, then you build personalization strategies based on the need of each particular segment. Your personalization strategy should include messaging specific to each particular segment that will resonate with them, but also help you achieve your business objective with each segment.

For example, you probably have customer growth objectives for each of your current customers. And in order to achieve those goals, you need to upsell or cross-sell new products to those customers. So let your website personalization do the heavy lifting for you! The experience they receive when they visit your website should talk about that next product or solution – easy as that!

3. Craft the Right Message for the Right Audience

Some marketers think that they have to create a new set of content for each one of their segments. This, as we all know, would be a very time-consuming process. The truth is you can leverage the content you already have.

You probably already have a relevant white paper, case study or eBook. You just need to tweak the copy that introduces the piece, craft a more compelling call-to-action or add relevant imagery to the landing page.

A B2B website homepage without any personalized content.

For example, you can take the latest eBook your content team just produced and tailor it to serve the healthcare industry. By adding healthcare terminology, highlighting your current healthcare customers and swapping out graphics for relevant industry imagery, you can transition the piece to fit the needs of your healthcare website visitors.

The same B2B website homepage personalized to visitors from the healthcare industry.

The homepage to download page flow for personalized content

4. Measure Your Message

After you’ve drafted the key messages, taglines and imagery for each one of your segments, you can determine their performance through a series of A/B tests. This is where tools like Optimizely come in. You can test, iterate and change messages to best fit the needs of your prospects.

Once you’ve identified that a specific message resonates with one of your segments, you can begin to roll it out to your site.

It’s important to remember that personalization is an ongoing process that you do and measure consistently. So you should always be tweaking and measuring the effectiveness of your message.

Conclusion

You know that you need to give your prospects a relevant message, but what you really need to do is scientifically test a hypothesis to see what headlines, calls to action and imagery resonate with your key audience.

By relying on evidence-backed data—rather than hunches and guesswork—you set yourself up for higher engagement, more conversions, and ultimately more revenue.

If you’d like to learn more about website personalization, please register for our upcoming webinar, How Citrix Cracked the Code on Personalization.

Most marketers and business owners already realize the necessity of lead generation for their company’s success.

However, they should also understand the importance of another critical component of their sales funnels: lead conversion.

The steps that it takes to convert leads into customers may seem arduous to some. But, in order to thrive and survive, your business needs clients.

Your business may have no trouble acquiring leads. But what if there is something “broken” in your lead nurturing process which keeps those leads from moving through the funnel?

You may be asking yourself, “Why am I unable to convert leads into customers”?

A little background on the lead conversion process may help answer that question.

What is the difference between lead generation and lead conversion?

Leads are people who express interest in learning more about your company and its solutions.

They may find your website online and either fill out your contact form, send you an email, or call you.

Or maybe you may have spoken to them on the phone through a cold call, and they agree to a meeting with you and/or your sales team.

Either way, these are leads, and they have ended up at the top of your sales funnel.

Although it is possible at this stage to automatically convert leads into customers, it is highly unlikely.

All leads are in different stages of their purchasing process when they find you; some come to you and they are ready to give you their money. Others are only at the beginning of their purchasing cycles and are simply gathering research in anticipation of a future purchase.

About half of your leads are somewhere in between.

It is these “somewhere in between leads,” that you will need to nurture. In other words, your primary role shifts so that you take these leads by the hand, so to speak, and gently guide them through your sales funnel, all the way to the bottom of the funnel.

Lead nurturing is critical during this part of this process. According to stats recently published by HubSpot, nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. (via The Annuitas Group).

It’s safe to say that lead nurturing makes a big difference, don’t you think?

And then, once your leads arrive at the bottom of the funnel, they are either converted into customers…or they have decided it’s time to move on.

Three ways you and your business can more successfully convert leads into customers

1) Develop and customize your sales pitch – and deliver it with confidence

Brooke’s recent post, “Sales 101: How To Communicate With Confidence” provided an excellent 5-step process for educating potential customers about your company and its products/solutions.

She explained the importance of selling them the experience of your company, as well as showing them what benefits they would receive if they do business with you, rather than your competitors.

You should also take the time to research and customize your sales pitch based on your leads’ specific wants and needs. When doing so, you are more likely to make a good impression and move them closer to conversion.

2) Convert leads into customers by creating the content they crave

Providing your leads with the content they find is most relevant (and valuable!) to them at the “right time” of their buying cycles is another good way to enhance the nurturing stage of lead conversion.

As a marketer or business owner, you need to make sure you understand your potential customers’ purchasing cycles. This helps you create the content they really want when they want it.

Think of how you can use content to interact with your leads and encourage open lines of communication.

3) Keep your online audience coming back for more

Without a doubt, understanding Google Analytics and the various reports and statistics related to your website traffic is a must. This helps you determine which type(s) of content your audience – and potential customers – finds to be most useful.

Taking these actions provides you with better opportunities for achieving both lead generation and lead conversion.

Plus, it’s a win-win situation since your audience will find value and education (and possibly entertainment!) when visiting your site and viewing your content.

So, are you ready to take your leads through the journey towards lead conversion?

Which path do you think might work best for you and your business to convert leads into customers? I would love to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to leave your comments below.

As companies focus on growth, sales leaders need new approaches and field-tested strategies to increase efficiency, boost effectiveness and close more deals. Today’s high-performing companies consistently strike that critical balance by addressing the needs of their sales teams, their customers, and the technology that helps connect there. Here are five proven ways sales leaders can use technology to improve their sales productivity strategy and enable their sales teams to sell smarter and faster.

Prioritize the Customer

Hyper-connected buyers are searching, posting, tweeting, reviewing and texting their way through the sales cycle, working with their peers to identify the best possible solution for their challenges. In fact, it’s estimated that 84 percent of senior B2B buyers use online technology like social media to help them make their purchasing decisions.

Accenture calls this the Nonstop Customer Model, which is more dynamic, accessible and continuous than the sales cycles of old. To compete and win today, sales organizations must anticipate buyers’ needs by investing in sales technology that surfaces information and insights to deliver personalized interactions at exactly the right time – whether that’s an email, call, proposal or contract.

Establish Clear CRM Objectives

CRM is the center of a sales team’s universe, and it works best when salespeople make it a “one-stop shop” to access the systems and information they need to create, nurture and close a deal.

However, salespeople only have incentive to incorporate CRM into their daily lives when it helps them be more efficient and effective. Sales teams work best when they can focus on customers, not tools – so sales leaders must set clear CRM objectives that make it easy for sales teams to adopt and deliver consistency and accuracy throughout the sales process.

Identify Influencers and Champions Faster

It’s easy to fall into the trap of making sales more about dashboards. But ultimately, people want to buy from people, not lines or entries in a CRM. With the right technology, sales teams can access relevant data to identify the decision-makers, measure engagement and build relationships that close deals.

Sales leaders must choose technology that makes it easy to determine who’s engaging most with the sales materials they send. By leveraging data from CRM and other technology, sales teams can derive valuable insights into prospect engagement they never had before: who opens, views and forwards sales materials. With that information, salespeople can build stronger relationships, close more deals and crush their numbers.

Combat App Creep

Choosing the right technology also means using it wisely. With enterprise companies using an average of 397 cloud apps, the weight of too much tech can become a drag on sales productivity. The adoption of a dizzying array of apps leads to “app creep,” the sales-slowing reality achieved when disconnected solutions fail to deliver any discernible gains in efficiency or effectiveness.

Eliminating app creep requires determining which tools sales teams use most, mapping those tools to the sales process, and ensuring the tools will scale as the organization grows. It also requires sales leaders commit to regularly evaluating the sales technology their teams use, and retiring outdated or underused apps.

Adopt Electronic Signature Now

When it comes to increasing sales productivity, numbers don’t lie. A recent Aberdeen Group report found integrating electronic signature into the B2B sales cycle can more than double a sales organization’s productivity. Companies surveyed that use electronic signature sent an average of 22.6 sales documents per rep per month, while sales teams that didn’t sent just 10.4 documents per rep per month.

Implementing electronic signature makes it easier for prospects to “say yes” from any device, anywhere. Educating both sales teams on the convenience and legal validity of electronic signature can put them at ease and accelerate the sales cycle. Each of these tips offers practical advice sales leaders can implement today to deliver results for their sales teams.

The post 5 Ways to Improve Your Sales Productivity Strategy appeared first on OpenView Labs.

Our data driven world is enabling marketing and sales teams to develop strategies based on metrics and statistics. While this new metric-driven approach is undoubtedly beneficial, the sheer amount of available statistics can be overwhelming.

But, within the context of these metrics, businesses can determine the amount of time it takes to turn a prospect into a paying customer, what we like to call the “Prospect Duration”. This number will vary from business to business, but it’s important for each business to understand their number, and to strive for improvement.

Why Prospect Duration Is Important

There are few things more valuable than time.Knowing the length of time your typical customer spends on your product’s buyer journey is mutually beneficial for both you and your prospects.

Why? Understanding your Prospect Duration enables you to refine your sales automation around a metric driven exclusively by actual customers. Metrics like overall conversion percentage, while worth monitoring, includes many prospects who will never become customers. This can distract you from improving your actual buyer journey.

How to Compute Prospect Duration

Every business is unique, and it’s important to compute this percentage in a way that is accurate, fair, and simple.

The on-boarding process for my company’s product contains several steps. Our customers first experience a learning curve since we offer a niche service. Next, there is work and time involved in setting up an account and writing of ad copy. Lastly, there is our pay-wall. We offer a free trial, but we do require the entering of credit card details.

Here’s the formula we use: Segment this metric month-by-month to see how you are improving. Keep in mind the most recent months will be lower by default. You may also want to utilize the median as a factor, as it lowers the volatility caused by an older prospect converting and throwing numbers off. The key is to have a metric that is easy and accurate, so that you can monitor and benchmark improvement goals.

It’s also very important that the genesis of each prospect is consistent. When nurturing leads, you may want to expose potential customers to varying landing pages and/or personalized experiences. This is great practice and its importance should not be discounted. However, when measuring Prospect Duration, it is important that all “leads” are becoming “prospects” at the same point in their customer journey.

What’s a Good Number?

That’s easy; a lower number than what you have right now! Your Prospect Duration, no matter how you compute it, should be trending down as you advance your nurturing strategies.

The average length of time it takes a LeadServe prospect to become a paying customer is 25 days. The median length of time is slightly lower at around 17 days.

What does this tell me about our customers’ buyer journey? Should I be concerned about this, or happy?

A longer prospect duration indicates a product with a steep learning curve and/or a potentially time consuming onboarding process. While neither scenario is ideal, they may be a necessary evil of offering your particular product.

Tennis great Arthur Ashe wrote, “Success is a journey, not a destination.” The same is true for improving your Prospect Duration. Your work will never be done, the number with never be zero, and you will never run out of challenges. Don’t focus on where you are, focus on how to improve.

Getting Started With Lead Duration

Start at the top of your funnel. In other words, focus on the aspects of your buyer journey that affect the most accounts. Take a look at the diagram below.

The funnel cloud on the right is much larger than the one on the left. However, if you look closely you’ll notice that only the top two funnel layers have been expanded. The bottom two are the exact same size. This exemplifies the impact of making improvements to the top of your funnel. If you needed to land a shot, you’d much rather throw the proverbial ball at the second funnel.

An example of a top-of-funnel improvement would be an improvement to the UI on your payment page (a step that everyone must complete). An example of a bottom-of-funnel improvement might be enhancements to international targeting features, a requirement for only a small portion of our customer base. You should never write-off a bottom of funnel improvement, but weight it accordingly.

Conversion rates will probably never stop being important, worthwhile numbers to track. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have complimentary metrics that help paint an even clearer picture. Prospect Duration isn’t a perfect science, but it helps keep pulse on the average length of time a customer spends as a lead in the funnel—something conversion rates alone can’t provide insight on.

In the world of B2B, whitepapers are one of the most effective marketing tactics for reaching your colleagues and clients. They offer companies a chance to highlight their industry expertise, as well as their ability to deliver a quality finished product. They can accomplish marketing objectives from attracting customers to creating a brand personality.

However, whitepapers can also feel like an untamed frontier. And let’s be honest…they can also feel like a one-way ticket to snooze-town. But whitepapers don’t have to be boring, in fact, they shouldn’t be. With so many companies interested in pursuing whitepapers as a key marketing tactic, where can you find the most compelling, successful examples to learn from?

Here are five whitepaper examples demonstrated by companies that are leading the vanguard of great whitepapers that become significant assets to a content strategy.

1. Tantalizing Titles from Pardot

For almost any form of content—be it a whitepaper, a news article, or a novel—the title has to hook your reader. After all, the title is the introduction to your written work. It should be informative and intriguing, an honest statement of what’s within while withholding just enough to pique interest.

Pardot has honed the skill of writing a compelling title. Their whitepapers have succinct names, but the promise of useful information draws a reader in. Many of the titles promise a thoroughness that would negate the need for any other resource. Once you’ve read the “Social Media for Events Marketing Handbook,” what else would you need to know on the subject? Same holds true for “The Marketing Automation Success Kit;” the title promises that if you want to succeed at marketing automation (and who doesn’t?) that you should read this paper.

Other titles offer a unique spin on the common tropes of whitepapers. For instance: “A Sales and Marketing Love Story.” That’s a title that creates happy feelings in the reader while promising to teach them how to improve their interdepartmental relationships. Swoon!

2. In-Depth Detail with DocuSign

The big lesson from DocuSign is that you shouldn’t be afraid to get technical. Electronic signatures can be linked to some complex issues, such as data security and government compliance. That’s important not just for DocuSign’s employees, but also for its customers. If your readers have tracked down your resources page, then they’ll want to learn as much as possible about your product. Give them the full experience!

DocuSign has a huge library of whitepapers, including ones that highlight how the company’s services impact different elements of business. It covers topics ranging from financial processing to customer experience. The library also covers the impact of electronic signatures in various industries, such as health care, insurance, and banking.

Even with the more technical industries and business departments, whitepapers should break down complex concepts into simple ideas that readers of any experience level will understand. Make your subject matter approachable in these educational publications. Think of each piece as taking the reader through elementary school. You start with them in kindergarten, then they gradually learn more and more until they’re fifth graders. Nobody starts off their education in fifth grade, so give your readers the appropriate preparation to get there.

3. Consistency Matters at LinkedIn

It wasn’t for nothing that LinkedIn secured the number one spot on Kapost’s Top 50 list of content marketers. The social network has created a sizeable library of whitepapers, and one of the most striking traits they offer is consistency.

First off, you’ll notice consistency in the visual style. The latest publications feature a distinctive look to their art. For instance, the paper titled “Three Types of Thought Leadership” shows light bulbs on the cover. That theme carries through the entire book, with a light bulb photo as the background for nearly every page. This approach of presenting a unique art style revolving around high-quality photographs makes LinkedIn’s whitepapers stand out and convey authority in their space. The photos also subtly demonstrate the investment the company has made in presenting its material. One professional photograph per page costs more than a stock design that is reused for every page, which can cheapen the look and feel of the asset.

Consistency is also a part of their content topics. LinkedIn has an ongoing series called “The Sophisticated Marketer” that covers topics central to the marketing field. Creating well-planned serial content is a smart way to retain readers. Once they have a positive experience with one entry in the series, they’ll be more likely to keep an eye out for your other publications under that umbrella.

4. Outside Experts Team Up with Tableau Software

One of the best ways to present yourself as a master in your field is to feel confident enough to look outside your in-house content. Tableau Software has many of its own publications in its resource section, but it also includes papers from Forrester, The Economist, and Gartner. It also has publications about other common tools that its clients would be using, such as Salesforce.

This approach of combining material from many sources is a more honest reflection of how your clients do business. They use many tools in tandem and they seek out multiple sources of information in guiding their business choices. If you have good relationships with other industry leaders, then reflect those ties in your whitepaper strategy. Share their content on your website, or collaborate on original publications that combine your different areas of expertise.

5. Content Findability from Marketo

So you’ve created a set of whitepapers and you’re excited to share the content with your customers and prospects. The critical last step of your whitepaper strategy is to make them easy to access. Many brands simply give a list of downloads, maybe organized alphabetically or by publish date. But from the reader’s perspective, that’s not necessarily the most efficient way to find the content that you’ve worked so hard to create.

Marketo has nailed this final element of a whitepaper strategy. Not only does it have piles of useful information, but it has organized its resources website to make that information easy to find. Its resources page is divided into a few general topics, which are further split into subcategories. That navigation can all be done in the main bar of Marketo’s website.

Once you select a topic, you’ll see a search bar for that category at the top of the screen. There’s even a drop down menu so that you can change topics quickly. An easy search system lets readers find exactly what they need. If they opt to just browse, there’s a complete list of whitepapers for that topic below the search field. Visitors can choose to look at them by publish date, by most viewed, or by most shared.

The reader experience should be just as much a part of your campaign as the content itself. Be sure to think about presentation every step of the way.

What about you, fellow marketers? Are there any other great whitepaper examples you’ve seen in the B2B space?

Social media and email marketing are two of the most widely used digital marketing tactics. They’ve both had their ups and downs over the years, and been subject to wild speculations, but they’re still here and still performing. People will just laugh if you say “email is dead” anymore. And while some companies still struggle to prove ROI for social media, at least now everybody knows it really can be done.

To illustrate how important both social and email are for marketers, look to this chart from Gigaom Research’s 2015 “Workhorses and dark horses: digital tactics for customer acquisition” study. 86% of marketers use email marketing. 72% use social media. Those tactics take up the #1 and #2 spots.

If so many of us are doing both email and social, why not sync them up? As you know, in marketing 1+1 often equals 3, not 2. That’s because coordinated efforts often snowball to become more than you hoped for. It’s why we’ve all been talking about integrated marketing for so long.

Unfortunately, integrating email and social is too often a low priority. It’s not as sexy as big data, and it’s admittedly probably not going to be as effective as a testing program. But with so many opportunities to enhance social and email with each other, it seems too bad to leave this work undone.

And yet, that’s what’s happening.

Check out how low integrating social media ranks for UK email marketers in this 2015 study from eConsultancy. When asked which three areas of email marketing they intended to focus on for 2015, fewer than one in ten email marketers said integrating social media with email marketing made their top three list. Ouch.

How survey respondents answered the question “Which three areas of email marketing do you really need to focus on in 2015?”

Again, to be fair, trying to squeeze every single integration opportunity out of social media and email integration probably won’t net you the same returns as some of the other marketing priorities on that list. But it’s still worth doing.

Integrating social and email gets even more attractive once you see how easy it really is to do. These aren’t projects that take four months and $40,000 to implement; we’re talking about fixes that could be done in an afternoon by two or three people.

Add all that to the fact that most marketers (and most of your competitors) aren’t doing this. Now it actually starts to look like a nice opportunity to get ahead.

And we want you to get ahead. So to help you get more out of both your email marketing and your social media marketing, here is a herd of ideas for how to integrate the two channels. I’ve started with audience-building tactics first, then shifted to content swapping.

Oh yeah – if you’re hungry to get more mileage out of the content you create, a closer partnership between email and social might just be the ticket.

How to use your social media assets to build your email list

1. Add an email sign-up tab to your Facebook account.
   Facebook’s new Call to Action buttons offer seven types of calls to actions: Book Now, Contact Us, Use App, Play Game, Shop Now, Sign Up, and Watch Video. Use the Sign Up call to action so that all your Facebook work will now contribute to growing your email list.

2. Announce your new emails in your Twitter feed, a Facebook update, and anywhere else you’ve got a social presence.

3. Occasionally pitch joining your email list in your social media updates.
   This is especially effective if you’re about to send an email that’s got exclusive content (i.e., content that’s not available to anyone who isn’t an email subscriber).

4. Use SlideShare’s lead generation contact form.
   SlideShare is a terrific way to take blog posts and other content marketing formats and spin them into more content and more interactive content as a SlideShare. It is especially well-suited to B2B marketers.

And – you can even build your email list with it. SlideShare’s lead generation set up lets you control where and how the lead generation form will pop up.

5. Test Twitter’s lead generation cards.
   These aren’t cheap, but if you have budget and are willing to test creative, settings, and audiences, it is possible to build an email list as affordably on Twitter as on Facebook or Google or anywhere else.

This image comes from a blog post on Twitter’s ad site, click the image to view the full article.

6. Run a Facebook contest to build your email list.
   These work best for converting existing Facebook followers into email list subscribers. If your number of likes on Facebook is really low or you don’t have much of a presence on this platform, contests can generate disappointing results.

Improve your chances by offering an unusually good prize, and make it something your ideal clients or customers would especially covet – not just another iPad… or iPad mini. Cool those may be, but tie your reward to your brand in some way if you can.

You’ll get higher value contest entries if you offer a prize that’s tailored to your audience. For example, Honeywell could have offered a security system here, instead of an iPad mini.

7. Add annotations to your YouTube videos. Make them a call to action to join your email list.
   Annotations are a way to add clickable, embedded links in your videos. You can add a bunch of YouTube-based annotations to let people go to different YouTube videos. But you also get one very special “Associated Website” annotation that lets you send people back to another website… or to a landing page on your website that captures email addresses.

You can reuse this Associated Website annotation link in all your videos. That is, you get only one Associated Website link, but you can use it in every video.

8. Use an embedded overlay in the links you share on social media to create an email opt-in form.
   Many of us like to curate content from third-party sites. This is better than just sharing your own content because:

• It makes you look like an authority in your niche
• Some research has shown people believe 3^rd party content more than content provided directly by a business
• It reduces how much content you have to create

But some marketers hang back from content curation because they don’t want to send people away to a third-party site, never to see them again. Fortunately, there’s a workaround: You can add an overlay to any page you send people to. You just need a special kind of link.

The Equity Directory shared a link to a site in their Twitter feed. The tweet did well – it got retweeted several times, including this particular retweet that I found:

When you click on the link, you’re brought to the site. But there’s also an overlay at the bottom of the browser screen, prompting you to join The Equity Directory’s email list. Every link they share on social adds this overlay opt-in.

The tool they used to do this is called Snip.ly. It’s good, but there are other tools that create similar overlays. Most of them have free trials. After that, it’s about $30 a month.

How to use your email list to build your social media following

1. Include social sharing icons in your email messages.
   This is one of the most basic ways to integrate your email marketing and your social media marketing. It’s super-simple, and most email service providers give you a little social media icon widget to add to your email templates.

So don’t get it wrong.

Wrong? Yep. This is one of the worst email usability mistakes I see. The social icons are there, but they’re so darn tiny that you’d need a magnify glass to find them.

Don’t make it hard for people to click the icons in your emails. Make the icons at least 44 x 44 pixels wide, and add a buffer area around each icon. That way people can click the correct button with their thumb.

This example is not so good (it’s from an email footer):

This is good:

2. Include a specific call to action to follow you on social media in your emails.
   This is easy. Just add some short, nicely formatted copy about the benefits of following you on social media. Usually there’s room for this in the footer area, but if you really want to get more followers, add it to the body of the email.

3. When people have finished the email opt-in process, give them a prompt to follow you on social media, too.

This confirmation page includes a call to action to follow the company on social. The promo is a little small, but I bet they get new followers from this.

They just stepped up to get emails from you. Maybe they’d like to connect on social media, too.

4. Provide social links for unsubscribes
   When people unsubscribe from your email list, it may not mean they hate you and never want to hear from you; maybe they just get too much email. When they are on the final confirmation page, ask them to follow you on social media. They might want to stay in touch, just with fewer emails involved.

This SmartBrief final unsubscribe page prompts me to finish a survey and to download their app. Why not add a prompt to follow them on social media, too?

5. Embed “click to tweet” text snippets to make it easy to share your emails.

Results in this:

How’s that for making sharing easy?

Use the content from your social media updates in your emails, and the content from your emails in your social media updates

1. Include mentions of your most popular social media updates in your email messages.

Here’s a section of an email newsletter that announces an upcoming Twitter chat:

2. Announce contest winners and other social media events in your email messages. The strategy: publish email content to social media, and social media content to emails.

This is from a Tile email, announcing a Facebook contest:

How are you integrating social media into your marketing campaigns? Are you using each one to grow the audience of the other channels? You can also find more information on how to integrate your social media into the other channels of your marketing campaigns with this eBook, “5 Ways to Integrate Social Media Across Marketing Channels”

Demand generation is a necessary function that bridges the gap between the sales and marketing departments. It creates and nurtures demand for your product or service while focusing on Return on Investment (ROI) for the company.

Demand generation has five main goals:

• Connect marketing and sales
• Generate qualified leads
• Qualify and rank prospects
• Nurture leads to avoid missing opportunities
• Measure ROI

When a company is trying to establish itself, it can be hard to determine where to start and how to boost demand. Check out our list below of demand generation basics to help you get the ball rolling in the direction of becoming a demand gen pro.

1. Define Goals and KPIs Clearly and Early

It is important for the sales and marketing teams to be on the same page. They need to have the same goals and definition of a “strong lead” etc., otherwise the marketing team will be sending the wrong type of person over to the sales team, and the sales team won’t be able to close the deal because the lead wasn’t that interested in the first place. The earlier you define your goals and KPIs, the faster your sales and marketing teams can begin to work together to close customers.

2. Create Content Your Audience Loves and Trusts

Content is an important part of demand generation because it allows you to speak to your current and potential clients, while giving an identity to your company and brand. Content should be focused on your customer’s needs, not a strict promotion of your own services. Educational and thought-provoking articles will also help boost SEO, making it easier for potential clients to find you in the future.

Tracking who interacts with your content– through comments, shares, or even likes– allows you to follow up and nurture those leads to move them further through the funnel. Also, social shares create brand awareness and free advertising for your company.

3. Nurture Leads to Build Relationships

The online culture of today means that potential customers begin researching your company and product, long before they are ready to buy. It is especially true in a B2B marketplace where the sales process can take several months to close. This is where lead nurturing comes in.

Lead nurturing develops relationships with potential customers through every stage of the funnel and provides information and resources to address customer needs. It keeps your company and product on the client’s mind. With the long B2B sales process, it’s easy for leads to go cold, and if you’re not nurturing them, your competitors probably are.

A great way to do this is through social media and email campaigns.

Social Media

Social media allows you to directly interact with individuals who are interested in your product and create group conversations around topics relevant to your industry. When a lead or active customer comments with a question, it’s important to respond promptly with an answer that develops an identity for your brand. Those asking product-minded questions are basically walking in your front door and asking you to sell to them.

Email

Email campaigns are an easy way to keep your name in front of a potential customer. Once they’ve filled out a form or downloaded an ebook, you have their information and can target them with emails. You cannot be spammy though, or the client will be annoyed and turned away from your product. It’s important that the emails are personalized and relevant to the client’s wants/needs so they know they are valued and vital to the company.

4. Score Leads to Determine Sales Readiness

Sales and marketing should work together to develop a lead scoring model that ranks the “readiness” of each lead to buy your product or service. Scores can be based on various demographics, what actions an individual took to become a lead (did they read a blog post or did they spend time on your pricing page, for example), or a number of other factors.

What’s most important though, is that the sales and marketing teams have the same scores for certain types of leads and have a mutually agreed upon ranking system. That way, as leads are passed along everyone is on the same page and knows how ready they are to buy.

Lead scoring means that fewer leads will be passed along to sales, but the leads that do make it will be of much better quality because they have been highly evaluated. Better quality means the sales team won’t waste time contacting leads who aren’t yet ready to buy, which saves the company time and money.

5. Focus on Customer Happiness and Success

It’s not all about developing leads and selling your product. A successful business is built on relationships and keeping current customers happy. Word of mouth advertising is gold so there’s nothing better than having strong, positive feedback from customers. Those customers will then be walking billboards for your business.

That positive feedback doesn’t come without trying, though. At Bizible, we implemented a customer success team to make sure we’re always available to answer questions, educate clients on our product, offer troubleshooting support, and help clients dive deeper into data so they can improve their own marketing strategies.

There’s no one thing you can do to permanently create demand for your product or service. Demand generation is a constant process that is always evolving and should be evaluated and improved upon frequently.

If your company hasn’t staffed an offshore team to build a B2B house file and make calls, you should start to consider this as an option. We went the route of a managing a dedicated team versus outsourcing because we saw the long-term advantages of investing in skills development and lower turnover. In comparison to call center outsourcing, direct staffing takes more time and effort and reduces call volume. However, in the long run, if you’re a B2B solutions provider, developing front line personnel for sharp discovery skills will be worth it.

So here’s the economic argument and meat behind my recommended B2B Growth Hack. Given a base cost of $1.50 – $4.00 per hour and free cost of Google Sheets, this is definitely one of the best B2B Growth Hacks I have to offer businesses of any size. And the best part is you can get this rolling with only a day’s work. All you need is a process, a shared Google Sheet, an account on Elance or Upwork to source you team, and an activity dashboard to avoid reporting drudgery and maintain accountability. For instruction I’ve prepared the following materials:

1. A video summary video of how to setup your Google sheet and a Sales Development Rep activity dashboard.
2. A sample Google sheet that you can make a copy of.
3. A few resources we’ve used to build our pipeline.

Instructions’ Video

To work on the process during this video tutorial, you can use our sample Google Sheet. Click here and find your sample sheet.

Staffing Options:

For the sake projects, you can hire resources from the following portals.

• LinkedIn
• Elance
• Upwork

Lead Generation Resources:

Whether your just getting started on looking for solid alternatives to test, we’ve worked with all of these resources and recommend given them a shot. In an upcoming B2B Growth Hack we’ll show you how to dashboard the performance of these resources.

Here are our top recommendations that are all under $1,000.00 per month:

1. Business 2 Community

Pros:

A fast economical way to get your content syndicated and build about 10 new leads per day.

Decent firmographic information you can use for targeted messaging and prioritize follow-up

Con:

You’ll get a lot of anonymous email addresses (e.g. gmail.com addresses) and the veracity of the self-reported firmographic information brings validity into question.

2. Datanyze

Pros:

Solid capabilities with firmographic looks ups, a flexible query engine and the ability to query if your targets are using competing products is pretty awesome.

Cons:

It takes a bit of effort to pull the data, but we’re still getting used to the tool. The price of $10,000.00 is a con if you’re not prepared to systematically work these contacts.

3. LinkedIN

Pros:

Inexpensive way to methodically build a highly targeted contact database and test introduction messages.

Cons:

LinkedIn connection building is clearly overused so you’ll need to be targeted and thoughtful with connection messages.

4. Lead Ferret

Pros:

For what you pay the data is definitely solid enough to test your messaging and make inroads into target accounts and industries. In fact we use it to augment what we don’t get from Datanyze.

Cons:

There’s not much left to be desired given the low cost, but it could use more functionality for pulling list queries.

We will keep on posting such growth hacking techniques on the regular basis and help you accelerate your business growth. This is part of our Makesbridge Education program, where we’ll help business professionals to upgrade their knowledge and grow business fast with the use of technology. If you want us to touch a particular area or topic, don’t forget to share with us.