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Apple's ability to make desirable iGadgets designed for easy portability is beyond question. Reports emerged this week that it is planning to make a mobile device that will instead carry its users--an electric car.

Apple's plans are unclear and unconfirmed. By some accounts it has put a few hundred people to work developing cars to match Tesla, another Silicon Valley firm that makes fast and luxurious battery-powered saloons. Others reckon that it is working on a self-driving car.

Plenty of other tech firms are turning their attention to cars. In February Uber, a firm that provides taxis through a smartphone app, said it would set up a laboratory in Pittsburgh to develop self-driving taxis. Sony recently put money into ZMP, a self-driving car startup; Google has been working for years on driverless cars.

Silicon Valley is eyeing up the auto industry for two reasons. One is that technology--in the form of electric cars, driver-assistance systems and fully autonomous cars--is already altering the industry. Another is that carmakers themselves look vulnerable, thanks to chronic overcapacity, hefty legacy costs and a spate of damaging recalls.

But whatever the future of the car looks like, it will be tough to overturn the incumbents in a business where clever technology is only part of the equation. Despite a reputation, once richly deserved, for sloth in adopting new technologies, most big carmakers are pouring resources both into battery power and other alternative forms of propulsion, and into automated driving. Ford and Nissan have both opened research labs in Silicon Valley.

Tech firms may get all the attention, says Haroon Hassan of Mitsubishi UFJ, a bank, but carmakers are formidable innovators and understand their business well.

Take electric cars first. The likes of Apple may not know much about pistons and gearboxes, but the big challenge for electric cars is batteries. Battery-powered cars have many advantages: refuelling at home, cheap running costs and no tailpipe emissions. But the market for pure electric vehicles is tiny (see chart 1).

 Expensive batteries make for costly cars, and limited range and a lack of recharging infrastructure have put off most drivers. Nissan's Leaf, the world's best-selling electric car, attracted only 40,000 buyers last year compared with the 250,000 the company once hoped to shift. Tesla aspires to enter the mass market but so far it has dealt with the battery problem by putting lots of them in a big, expensive car, thereby limiting it to a luxury niche. The plunging oil price dents the prospects for electrification still further.

Still, at the moment purchasing such a vehicle is so pricey that saving money is less the point than drawing attention to its owner's green credentials. And in the future what will matter most to make the vehicles competitive is not the oil price but falling battery costs, since recharging is so cheap compared with filling up with petrol. This is the holy grail: improving the efficiency and lowering the cost of batteries to such an extent that the economics of the electric car are transformed.

The hope of would-be entrants to the industry may well be that the big carmakers have invested so heavily in internal-combustion engines that they will be loth to switch to electric power. That is overoptimistic. Even if a breakthrough in battery chemistry makes electricity competitive with petrol, big carmakers may yet be able to change course fast. Most of them are already making headway with pure electrics. The Chevrolet Bolt, for example, unveiled as a concept car in January, is expected to arrive in 2017 with a price tag of $30,000 and a range of 200 miles.

If Apple's ultimate goal were to build a self-driving vehicle, building an electric car first would not give it any particular advantage. Autonomous vehicles could just as well be powered by petrol as batteries. But at least developing and testing the highly complex software needed to control a driverless car is closer to what it and other tech firms already do for a living.

Again, however, it would need first to catch up with the established carmakers, which are also busy hiring software talent (see Schumpeter) and which have been introducing ever more sophisticated "assisted driving" features in their models, such as the ability to park themselves, and to navigate stop-go traffic unaided. The carmakers are also investing heavily in another essential step towards the fully autonomous car: connectivity features that will allow cars' on-board computers to "speak" to each other and to roadside infrastructure, so as to monitor traffic conditions.

Apple would also need to catch up with Google. The autonomous cars it has been testing have safely covered many miles on a variety of public roads, though the company still seems some way off unveiling a model that is as capable of negotiating the snow and ice of a Michigan winter as it is navigating California's sunny streets. Having once talked about having its vehicles on the road by 2017, it no longer mentions a launch date.

The head of Google's autonomous-car project, Chris Urmson, nevertheless argues that the conventional carmakers' incremental approach will slow them down, and that a leap straight into fully self-driving vehicles will pay off quicker. However, even if he is proved right in terms of developing the technology, there are two other big barriers to overcome: regulatory approval, and drivers' nervousness at ceding control entirely to a computer.

Carmakers have had to become adept at handling mountains of regulations and fending off liability lawsuits. These will be huge issues when any self-driving car is involved in an accident--which they will be, even if less frequently than ones driven by humans. Slowly feeding in autonomy may be a better way of convincing road users and legislators of the technology's benefits. In a pessimistic forecast, the Boston Consulting Group reckons demand for cars with even limited self-driving features will never exceed 25% of sales, and fully autonomous ones will account for just 10% of sales by 2035 (see chart 2).

Perhaps technology firms can accelerate the future of the car. But whatever happens, this is a difficult business to break into. Google would like the carmakers it hopes eventually to supplant to help seal their doom by building its vehicles under contract.

Unsurprisingly, none seems too keen on this. Apple's cash pile of $178 billion is more than enough to set up a carmaking division and tool up its factories. But the technology firms have no manufacturing culture, and the skills needed to market, distribute and provide after-sales service for cars is unlike anything they are used to.

In all, the tech firms may be better off working with carmakers, to develop the software that will provide the brains of the self-driving car, and to improve the range and battery costs of the electric car. In the motor industry, supplying the key parts is generally more profitable than putting the cars together, even if you do not get your company's badge on the bonnet. In the future cars will be different but the brands will probably be much the same.

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NOW WATCH: 14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do

What if I told you that there’s a way that you can boost your conversion rates by as much as 250%, generate a click-through rate (CTR) that’s 3x higher than before and cut your cost-per-click (CPC) ad spends in half?

Well, you’ve read the title of this article, so you’ve probably already figured out the secret behind these dramatic changes – spending time working in customer service.  Here’s how I made it happen…

When I first joined When I Work as the VP of Marketing, I asked to spend time working directly with  customers as part of the support team.  Throughout this experience, I joined live chats (after reviewing more than 1,000 chat logs to see how past conversations went), responded to support tickets (again, after reading through 2,000+ past examples), talked to customers on the phone and asked for honest feedback via email.  I’ll describe the results of this effort in more detail later on, but the highlights above should give you a hint at how helpful this process can be.

But this wasn’t the first time I’ve worked in customer support to get to know the needs of my target audience; I did the same thing in my past at Bridge.us.  In that instance, I was able to identify weaknesses in the company’s onboarding process and implement changes that helped drive their conversion rates by the 250% I mentioned in my first paragraph.

And it turns out, I’m not the only one who finds this strategy valuable.

Take the example of Alex Turnball, CEO and founder of the startup, Groove.  Prompted by an increasingly-high churn rate, Alex spent more than 100 hours talking to 500+ customers over the course of four weeks.  Instead of pestering them with a series of scripted questions, he started each call with the following simple prompt:

“Hey, thanks so much for agreeing to chat. I won’t take too much of your time. The conversations I’ve been having with customers have been invaluable in helping us shape the product and our plans for the future, so I’m excited to get your feedback.

My goal is to get an overall feel of how you’re using the app, what you like, what you don’t like, and what we can do to make it better. I’ll let you take the floor.”

As the result of these conversations, Alex identified seven major wins he was able to achieve:

• Uncovering the need for better second-tier onboarding to help get existing customers more familiar with Groove’s features and more engaged with the total product
• Turning unhappy customers into happy customers by addressing their concerns
• Adding to existing knowledge on the personas of the customer base, including acknowledging some surprises that led to the creation of new personas
• Building stronger relationships with customers by doing something that no other business they worked with was doing
• Getting the chance to create some quick “wows” by identifying easy fixes and addressing them quickly
• Discovering new phrases and ideas to add to company marketing copy and landing pages to better connect with prospective customers
• Gathering additional feedback by email from customers who weren’t able to chat

If you ask me, that’s some pretty powerful stuff.  Attempting to interview every customer is no small undertaking, but the information Alex gathered will be priceless as he strives to improve Groove and help it stand out from competitors.

In my case, the time I spent working in customer service helped When I Work to bring about a number of positive changes, including better-performing ad copy, a stronger user experience and an improved onboarding process.

Better-Performing Ad Copy

As a marketer, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out the problems my target customers have so that I can align my products to meet their needs and my marketing materials to reach them.  And if you’ve ever worked on building buyer personas from scratch or creating a marketing strategy for an audience you don’t know well, you know how challenging this can be.

But the thing about working in customer service is that, well, people just give you this information.  Not only do they contact customer support because they have a problem – they give you the exact words they’re using to find a solution.  When you have this information, the rest of your marketing strategy falls into place – no guessing what customers are looking for, and no projecting your experience onto theirs to uncover their problems.

One particular area where I was able to quickly apply this newfound knowledge was to our paid ads.  By adjusting my ads to include my customers’ stated problems in the form of a solution in the ad text – in their own words – I was able to triple our click-through rate (CTR) and reduce our cost-per-click (CPC) by more than half.

The great thing about this is that any marketer can apply the technique, even if you don’t have the time or the inclination to work a few days in customer support.  Simply ask the people in your company that do this type of work for a list of the ten questions they hear most often and incorporate their responses into your ads for an instant improvement.

Stronger User Experience

Often, when you’re marketing a product or developing a new feature, you try to design something that’s intuitive and that has what you think is a great user experience.  But unfortunately, what you think is a good experience can be miles away from what your customers would prefer.  You might even find that the way people actually use your product or website is different than the way you designed it to operate!

You might have thought your “innovative” styled toolbar looked cool, but if customers can’t make sense of it, you’ve ultimately failed.  And believe me, when you work in customer service, you’ll hear about it!  Customer support is the perfect place to find these weaknesses and the disparities between how you thought people were using your product and what they were actually doing.

Take the case of Expedia- the worldwide travel giant.  Even though the company is large and well established, observing the way customer support handled questions uncovered a glaring issue.  When confronted with Variant A pictured below (the original checkout form), visitors saw the “Company” field and got confused.  Thinking that Expedia wanted them to enter their bank name, they then put their banks’ billing addresses into the fields below, leading to failed transactions and eventual abandonment.

One simple tweak to a form that left this field off, and the companyincreased their profits by $12 million a year.

It can be frustrating to find out that customers aren’t using your product in the way you intended, but you have to take pride out of the equation.  At the end of the day, it’s all about your business’s bottom line.  Acting on any disconnects you uncover can help you to identify – and go on to fix – any areas of your site that are weak, confusing or unintuitive.

Improved Onboarding Process

One way to use your customer service experience to achieve the biggest improvements – whether you’re trying to increase your conversion rate, reduce churn and or simply make your customers happier – is to use the information you gather to improve your onboarding process. After all, onboarding is where you lay the groundwork for your future business relationships by shaping your customers’ expectations as you help them get started.

At When I Work, we’re constantly making tweaks to our onboarding process and have already seen a 7x improvement in the number of leads that convert to customers. One thing we noticed from our customer service interactions was that, during the onboarding process of our product, people were very confused as our program completely changes the way they schedule employees by going from a pen and paper or Excel document to an easier electronic process.

But because our electronic process was so foreign to them, our customers had a lot of questions that we weren’t doing a good job of answering.  To help get them up-to-speed, we enabled a live chat tool, featured our phone number and even linked to helpful info that would help them get setup. These changes all made a huge difference in our onboarding process, but to take things even further, we made the “Help” page on the site more prominent – all of which contributed to the 7x gains mentioned above.

Another example of using customer feedback to make onboarding improvements is what I did back when I ran Single Grain.  Every time I sent out proposals, my clients kept asking the same questions.  To help expedite the process of answering these common queries, I broke things down in a “Trust & Proof” section so that, within my proposals and the emails containing the proposals, I was able to easily include references, case studies and the logos of customers Single Grain had helped (which I often tailored to be similar to the potential client we we’re sending the proposal to).

Then, I took things one step further. I found that when people read the “Proposed Actions” section of the proposal, they were most receptive to the “Trust & Proof” information, so I incorporated our company case studies into that section . I also included the logos, customer testimonials and references information from this section when it came time to list the costs we were going to charge.  It may sound simple, but restructuring my proposals this way increased the company’s conversion rate by 17% from lead to paying client. That might not sound like much, but these easy tweaks resulted in an extra $150,000 a year in revenue.

One of the things that my time working in customer service across all my different positions really highlighted for me is that people are afraid of change – and it’s rare that they’re going to go out of their way to learn something new if it’s difficult.  But the way I see it, you have two choices: you can dismiss the feedback you receive about particular features or areas of your product being confusing as difficult customers complaining for the sake of complaining, or you can use the feedback they bring to you to improve your product.

Obviously, I chose the latter – and I recommend you do too.  By taking every piece of feedback you receive seriously (even if you ultimately decide not to follow through on it), you’ll generate the insight needed to better explain your product’s features to new customers, leaving them more satisfied at the end of onboarding and more likely to become evangelists for your brand.

Want to try this technique yourself?  Keep the following recommendations in mind:

• Always be looking for problems – If you can dedicate a few weeks of your time to working in customer service, that’s great.  But even if you can’t, you can adopt a mindset that’s always looking for problems.  Instead of shying away from uncomfortable issues, make it a priority to hunt them down and fix them.  Your attitude will go a long way towards driving positive results for your company.
• Talk to your customers frequently – Business owners frequently find themselves tied down with administrative tasks, resulting in a disconnect between their interests and their customers’ genuine feelings.  The only way to prevent this is to spend time talking with them.  No matter how busy you are, make it a point to spend time answering support tickets, jumping on the phones or email customers directly for feedback.  Not only will you get the information you need to make positive changes, you’ll make it clear to your customers that their satisfaction is truly important to you.
• Track the feedback you receive – When you’re in the moment, it’s easy to think that you’ll remember the questions your customers raised or the concerns they brought up.  But take it from me, after a few calls, chats or other interactions, they’ll all start to blend together!  Since your goal is to find the feedback that will help make your product or service better, take a few extra minutes to record it all.  Otherwise, you risk wasting your time by letting valuable information be forgotten.
• Assess your recorded feedback - To be frank, not all customers will give you feedback that’s useful or actionable.  Some complaints will be wildly off topic, while others will request such extensive customization that it would be cost prohibitive to implement in a one-off basis.  Weed out these ideas, but do look for common themes that should be addressed or issues that can be solved without significant input.  Focus on tackling these items, and keep other ideas on the backburner in case you discover innovative ways to solve them without wasting resources in the future.
• Hold yourself accountable – If you aren’t going to make changes based on your time in customer support, there’s really no reason to do it in the first place.  After assessing the feedback you’ve received relative to your ability to do something about it, set deadlines to mark when you’ll have your proposed changes finished.  Loop in your supervisor if you’re concerned that other priorities will get in the way of this implementation.
• Always be testing – A while back, I called testing my #3 skill all SEOs must have, and today, I stand by that assessment.  No matter what type of business you run, you should always have at least one test running on your website or user interface – no exceptions.  In fact, if you don’t have one running right now, use the instructions found here to go set something up before returning and finishing up this post!

As a real cherry on top, consider publishing details on the changes you’ve made to your company’s blog or social profiles.  Not only do these types of “behind the scenes” posts typically perform well, your customers will appreciate seeing you make changes based on their feedback.  Even if you aren’t able to address every single issue that’s raised, you’ll likely find that the good will your updates generate more than makes up for frustrations over problems that have yet to be resolved.

Need a little more inspiration to convince you to get started?  Check out the following case studies to see how other companies have used the information gathered by customer service to make substantial improvements to their products:

• VWO – “Basekit’s conversions increased by 25% after redesigning pricing page”
• Conversion Rate Experts – “How we made $1 million for Moz with one landing page and a few emails”
• VWO – “Adding product filters to Buyakilt eCommerce website boosts revenues by 76%”
• Econsultancy – “ASOS halves cart abandonment by removing extra steps”
• Marketing Experiments – “How a long, ugly page generated 274% more revenue”

Clearly, gathering information from customer support has been a valuable experience for me, as well as the companies in the case studies listed above, but now I want to hear from you.  Have you ever spent time on the service side of your business, or would you do it if given the chance?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

This article was syndicated from sujanpatel.com. You can view the original article here.

Let’s Make a Deal. New Research Reports that Best-In-Class Sales Coaching Can Shorten Your Sales Cycle

Richardson recently partnered with the Aberdeen Group to provide their newest research study that looks at how adding real-deal sales coaching elements to training activities achieves better business results in today’s competing market place. The research report analyzed the specific competencies around the more in-depth sales coaching tools that help shrink the sales cycle window for the most successful sales operations teams.

The study reveals several key findings, including:

• Best-in-class organizations are 26% more likely than all others to move beyond the basic, generic training on products, pricing, and messaging, to a formal one-on-one coaching methodology that is specific to individual needs in the pipeline or key accounts.
• Best-in-class organizations are 61% more often turning to external consultants and trainers for assistance
• Best-in-class organizations lead all others by a 16% margin in promoting a culture of continuous improvement by formally engaging in win/loss activities to understand why they win or lose deals

To download Aberdeen’s full report, click here on the image below:

The post Complimentary Research Study: Best-In-Class Sales Coaching Can Shorten Your Sales Cycle appeared first on The Richardson Sales Excellence Review™.

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VB WEBINAR:

Join us for this live webinar on Wednesday, March 11 at 10 a.m. Pacific, 1 p.m. Eastern. Register here for free.

UPDATE: Two guest presenters will be on hand to share their wealth of experience on marketing tech. Along with VB Insight’s Director of Marketing Technology Stewart Rogers, the webinar will feature Ryan Steingard, Director of Retention Marketing at zulily and Tia Newcomer, Vice President of Marketing at Cord Blood Registry. See full bios below!

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Whether it’s about a martech choice yet to be made, or one you’ve already invested in, making a decision on marketing technology can never be done without understanding what it will cost you – and what you’ll get back in return.

Of course, that applies to everything in the martech stack: CRM, Customer Support, Marketing Automation, eCommerce, Email Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Conversion Rate Optimization, and more.

That’s why VB Insight set out to determine the total cost of ownership across 13 major martech categories — and the ROI that can be attributed to each.

It was a massive undertaking to be sure: we analyzed 2,119 marketing technology users and reviewed data from over 100 products. The results of that analysis were then combined with over 18 billion other data points, such as sales and marketing salaries, ad impressions and conversions, martech product logins, affiliate transactions, and pricing data.

The result? An exhaustive report on the state of cost, payback, and return for marketing tech.

But to get the most important takeaways and highlights, you can cut to the chase by tuning into to next week’s webinar hosted by Stewart Rogers, Director, Marketing Technology at VB Insight.

It will be one hour no marketing leader will want to miss.

What you’ll learn in this webinar:

• Which categories and tools provide the biggest return, and which are a waste of money?
• Which are the most expensive to own?
• Which tools might be best suited to your size of organization, and which should you discount from your selection criteria?
• And how do ROI levels change during different stages of marketing and sales?
• How any marketing technology project rail to return on their investment
• Different approaches to marketing technology management, including on-premise to cloud-based solutions

Register here for free.

Speakers:

Ryan Steingard, Director, Retention Marketing, zulily Ryan’s diverse background in executive research, wealth management, and strategic marketing has made him into an innovative dataphile that excels in team building and marketing strategy. His current focus is continuing the retention marketing efforts at the Seattle-based home and clothing retailer, zulily. Ryan is a Harvard graduate with an MBA in Marketing and Finance from Northwestern University.

Tia Newcomer, Vice President, Marketing at Cord Blood Registry  After more than a decade at Hewlett-Packard, Tia joined the biotech company Cord Blood Registry, creating the go-to-market strategy that sits at the intersection of consumer, clinicians, B2C and B2B execution. Her diverse functional experience includes roles in Direct P&L Management as well as Business Development, Sales, Marketing, and Category Analytics/Data Science at both the individual contributor and senior management level.

Stewart Rogers, Director,  Marketing Technology, VB Insight  Stewart’s been involved in sales, marketing, and running software companies since computers had black screens with the ‘wide choice’ of green or orange text. When not speaking, writing or reading about marketing technology, sales force automation, web tools, and other awesome processes you’ll find Stewart helping to make VB Insight the best analysis and reports resource available to industry leaders today.

Moderator: 

Wendy Schuchart, Editor and Analyst, VentureBeat  Wendy is a technology journalist with more than a decade experience in enterprise IT. Most recently, Schuchart was the senior site editor of TechTarget’s CIO Media Group. She has also served as section editor for UBM’s Network Computing and Secure Enterprise. She is a frequent contributor to InformationWeek, Network Computing, Green Data Center, Wikibon and other leading tech publications. She holds a Masters from the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee.

Without a repeatable sales process, you don’t have the ability to qualify, advance, and close opportunities consistently. As a sales leader, are you struggling with these pain points?

• Reps taking shortcuts
• Losing deals to the dreaded “Do Nothing”
• Sales cycles that take too long

Aberdeen research shows that almost a quarter of B2B sales opportunities shift to the next sales cycle, and that means missed revenue numbers. There are many tools that can help accelerate sales cycles, but none are more effective than a salesperson that’s audible-ready to link a solution to an issue that’s so critical to an organization, the buying organization must take action.

If the problem is big enough, it doesn’t matter how much your product costs. When your entire sales team has the ability to uncover pressing problems and articulate how your solutions help correct them, they’ll be able to move opportunities through the sales process at a faster rate. The key is your sellers need the consistent ability to:

• Uncover high-level business needs
• Articulate value and differentiation based on those needs
• Position value throughout the sales process

How do you ensure your salespeople are audible-ready to move a deal efficiently through a sales cycle?

Work with them to make sure they’re staying focused on connecting your organization’s solutions with customer business issues. There’s no better way to get your prospects to see the benefit of your solutions than by sales conversations that drill down on these three components.

1. Positive Business Outcomes

Positive business outcomes are the tangible benefits that result from a buyer implementing your solutions. When salespeople articulate the PBOs effectively, they create a “stand-in-the-future” vision of how the buyer’s life could be a lot better after implementation. When drawing out the PBOs the prospect is hoping to receive, answering these two questions is critical:

• Do the PBOs identified address business-level goals or are they lower-level in nature?
• Are these PBOs compelling enough for an economic buyer to reallocate discretionary funds?

2. Required Capabilities

Required capabilities define the specific requirements that are necessary to achieve the positive business outcomes. If your buyers want to achieve X, they need to make sure Y is in place. Required capabilities are the essence of the decision criteria.

After the problem is identified, the seller and the customer must jointly develop a specific and finite list of requirements that the solution must satisfy in order to address the pain points and achieve the business objectives. These requirements should be reconfirmed throughout the sales process, especially when there are multiple decision-makers.

Here are three questions to keep in mind:

• Do the required capabilities describe the minimum requirements that are necessary to move the customer from the “before scenario” to the “after scenario?”
• Are they compelling enough for the buyer to take the next step? Remember, “no decision” is often one of the strongest competitors.
• Have you explained your differentiation in a way that maps back to the required capabilities and has meaning to the customer?

3. Metrics

Metrics define how the customer will measure success. They establish the key performance indicators that define how success will be measured once the solution is implemented.

Every one of the required capabilities should be tied to a metric. Aligning them with measurements achieves two critical outcomes:

• It provides a tangible way to demonstrate how any potential solution (yours or any other) will be judged against all others.
• It ensures that the final solution choice meets the required capabilities so well that achieving the positive business outcomes is more of a certainty, than a lofty goal.

Use proof points to demonstrate the tangible metrics the customer can expect from doing business with you. Putting evidence behind your claims of how you’re better than the competition helps your buyers see the positive business outcomes. They can also influence the decision criteria.

Remember: today’s metrics and positive business outcomes are tomorrow’s proof points. Enabling your sales team with the ability to maniacally focus on these critical components of a sales conversation will help them create urgency, turning a pipeline of opportunities into closed deals.

I bet you didn’t know today, Feb. 27, is known as “No-Brainer Day.” In honor of this oh-so-well-known day, I’d like to discuss something that really is a no-brainer for marketers: email re-targeting.

As marketers we ALL know it costs less to retain a customer than to acquire a new one. Acquisition strategies are important and a key component of any email marketing program.

However, today we will be discussing the best ways to retain those customers you have already acquired. Now that’s a no-brainer!

Email retargeting campaigns are designed to persuade a customer to purchase, complete an online transaction they began but didn’t finish, replenish a previously purchased item, or purchase a complementary item.

When done correctly, these campaigns are the most targeted and engaging messages you can deploy, as they’re not only based on profiling attributes, but also on precise customer behavior.

Here are three popular email re-targeting campaigns that are a no-brainers.

Abandonment Campaigns

Whether a site visitor has abandoned a shopping cart, a category page or even a specific product page, he or she has shown interest in what your company has to offer.

Re-targeting that visitor with relevant content in a timely manner can be impactful to your bottom line. Abandonment emails are known to be huge revenue drivers and can make up a large percentage of your overall email channel revenue.

Recent studies confirm shopping cart abandonment rates are as high as 70 percent. Not leaving that potential revenue on the table is definitely a no-brainer.

Replenishment Campaigns

You’ve overcome the biggest hurdle: you got the order! Now your goal should be to turn this one-time buyer into a repeat loyal customer.

Replenishment emails help you re-target that customer with relevant messaging that relates to their purchase. Based on data you can calculate how long it takes customers to run out of your products, when they should upgrade or be ripe to purchase a similar product.

Remind your buyers to buy from YOU again before they just perform a simple online search and choose the lowest price instead.

Product Recommendation Campaigns

Create re-targeting campaigns that cross-sell or up-sell using your own purchase history data or a third-party product recommendation engine. These campaigns are sometimes referred to as product alert messages.

It’s also a good idea to include these recommendations in other email campaigns, too.

For example: Add a right-hand rail of recommended products to your order and shipping confirmation messages or create a product row in your promotional email template where you can advertise these recommended options.

No matter what type of email retargeting campaign you’re sending, be sure the emails are straightforward and contain one clear objective: complete the conversion.

Successful retargeting email campaigns are reliant on customer data – email metrics, clickstream activity, past-purchase history, and CRM data. Chances are you already have all of the data you need even if you haven’t used it in this way in the past.

In honor of No-Brainer Day, make sure you are sending the best re-targeting email campaigns possible.

I would love to hear which re-targeting campaigns are performing the best for you.

We’re all guilty of focusing a little too much on vanity metrics. It’s not that they’re unimportant; it’s a proud moment when you hit 1 million followers or garner 2 million shares. But tracking growth in likes, views, shares, and comments doesn’t tell you anything about what you should be measuring: conversion.

Just look at Old Spice’s response campaign to its “Smell Like a Man, Man” ad blitz. It took to social sites such as Facebook and Twitter, posting 186 personal video responses from the Old Spice guy to fans. Within a relatively short time, the social media campaign racked up more than 65 million views and was thought to have provided more than 1 billion unpaid impressions.

While it created instant brand awareness and triggered a major spike in sales, the campaign pretty much ended there. Procter & Gamble did nothing to continue the conversation, failing to engage its users beyond the original video responses. You can’t help but think that the company celebrated impressive vanity metric-driven results while simultaneously missing an opportunity to solidify these newfound customer relationships.

While B2B marketers are often imitating the content tactics of great consumer content, this is a case in which consumer brands can take a page from the best B2B marketers: establish and nurture relationships with continuous content.

Large jumps in audience growth and engagement should be applauded carefully; you need to be more concerned with how your content strategy effectively drives business results. It must measure the actual behavior of prospects as they move through the conversion funnel, not just whether it brought them to the front door. So how should you measure that behavior?

1. Content scoring

Content scoring essentially takes you through the buyer’s purchase journey in reverse. Start with the purchase (or conversion stage), and work backward from there. Now, score the pieces of content touched or viewed by the customer, weighing each equally.

For example, if a lead views four content pieces before converting, assign those pieces a score of 0.25. If another lead views six content pieces, assign those pieces a score of 0.167. Do this for all leads, and tabulate the scores for all content to get your content scores. Once you compare the scores, you can see which pieces effectively drive leads.

2. Content ROI

Calculating content ROI takes content scoring to the next level because you’re measuring conversions and looking at actual sales that can be attributed back to a specific content piece. The method is similar to content scoring, but you start with the sale value. Then, you assign a portion of that sale to each content piece. From this, you’re able to derive an exact dollar value for each content piece.

3. Team performance

As content teams grow, develop a way to measure the performance of each content contributor. For example, at Pathful, we associate a range of data to each contributor, from engagement and views to leads and conversions. These can be used to develop composite scores that illustrate the impact of our team members.

You’ll start to see trends emerge. For instance, some contributors will create content that resonates broadly. Their material amasses tons of engagement or audience growth. Others speak to the needs of a niche audience, generating passionate discussions. Then, you have the contributors consistently delivering content that drives sales. All are success points, but each relates back to the health of your brand or business in different ways.

4. Channel performance

Not all digital channels are created equally, so look at how each referrer or platform drives discovery and conversions. Visitors from paid search often have a different intent than those coming to your website organically or socially, and you may find that one channel isn’t worth the time and effort, even when that channel is technically “free.”

For example, the Copyblogger team found that despite an impressive audience size, Facebook was providing little value to the growth of the business. The Facebook page had 38,000 fans, but no one was really engaging with the brand on Facebook. Instead of wasting time and energy on forcing engagement, the company decided to delete the page and devote its time to other areas that are more appreciated by its customer base. Go where your audience spends most of its time, and you’ll build value.

5. Measurement strategy

In addition to knowing what to measure, develop a means of measuring and analyzing the data. Start by mapping the key conversion steps that lead to a purchase. Then, track these key events.

Google Analytics, Omniture, and Mixpanel are some of the most popular tools. You can also use Marketo and HubSpot for lead analytics or customer relationship management and e-commerce platforms for transactional values. From there, pull together the data points manually or with the help of a software solution, such as Kapost, Salesforce, or Pathful.

When you start measuring and analyzing content performance beyond vanity metrics, you gain a better understanding of how various users interact with your content. Identify which pieces convert best, then develop more relevant content to optimize conversions. As these things align, you’ll ensure that your content marketing strategies are driving sales and making an impact on revenue and profit.

Today most marketers are converting less than 1% of all possible leads, because 90% of a buyer’s path to purchase is completed before a salesperson comes into the picture, says Forester Research. “As a marketer and business leader with years of experience in this space, I know that effectively reaching, nurturing and converting prospects has only become harder. That’s why I’m thrilled to introduce LinkedIn’s expanded Marketing Solutions portfolio, featuring the new LinkedIn Lead Accelerator,” shared Russell Glass on LinkedIn’s blog.

LinkedIn Lead Accelerator & Network Display

According to the company LinkedIn Lead Accelerator is a new lead generation and nurturing product that connects companies to the right professionals with the right content as they make their way through the purchase decision process.

In addition to this LinkedIn has also introduced LinkedIn Network Display by expanding its reach beyond the LinkedIn platform. The professional social network which has 347 million registered users has partnered with AppNexus to deliver ads based on LinkedIn data not only on LinkedIn’s site and apps, but a network of 2,500 other business-focused websites.

By combining consumer behavior with LinkedIn’s data on its users — such as their location and the industry in which they work — the Accelerator determines “what messages are going to be most relevant”. The automated system then targets those users with various forms of advertising both on LinkedIn and other sites across the internet.

Advertisers won’t know you visited their website but they would know what percentage of CMO’s from India have. Users can opt out of this form of targeting via their LinkedIn settings.

This launch also completes the integration and enhancement of Bizo’s Multi-Channel Nurturing product, which LinkedIn had acquired in August 2014 for around $175 million — 90 percent cash and 10 percent stock. Spun out from business directory Zoominfo back in 2008, Bizo was one of the world’s largest business-to-business marketing companies and controlled an advertising network that extended to more than 2,500 publishers.

As of today, LinkedIn Lead Accelerator will be available in most markets globally. Advertisers are required to sign up to use the new advertising products on a quarterly, or annual subscription basis. LinkedIn requires that advertisers must have a minimum of 20,000 visitors (or “leads”) to their website in order to sign up, but there is no minimum ad spend.

Marketers do, however, get access to an analytics interface so they can see how their campaigns are performing and the types of professionals that are visiting the website, and the cost per acquisition of a customer. But LinkedIn’s own team optimizes and buys the campaign in the background – the advertiser can’t do this from their desk at this stage.

Among early testers eCornell, Lenovo, Localytics, Salesforce, Samsung and VMware are a few of the 100+ pilot customers leveraging LinkedIn Lead Accelerator. eCornell says it doubled its landing page conversion rates, Localytics’ lead conversion rate increased by 50 percent, and Lenovo’s cost per lead fell by 60 percent.

Addressing the full sales funnel

With the two new launches LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions now has five main pieces – LinkedIn Lead Accelerator, Sponsored Updates, LinkedIn Onsite Display, LinkedIn Network Display, and Sponsored InMail.

With the new range of products, LinkedIn is now able to address the full sales funnel, first attracting customers with On Site Display and Network Display ads, moving them down the funnel with Sponsored Updates and Sponsored InMail, and helping with the final stages of customer acquisition through the Lead Accelerator.

LinkedIn, which made $455m in revenue and accounted for 20 percent of group revenues in 2014, now hopes to capture a bigger share of $50Bn B2B market. The ad industry finds the move interesting specifically the alliance with one of the best DSPs, AppNexus but isn’t happy with the approach to the agency space. “LinkedIn’s approach to the agency space is all wrong. LinkedIn should be looking at self-serve. Agencies don’t want managed buys,” said Ciaran O’Kane, CEO and founder of the adtech trade news website ExchangeWire to Business Insider.

He further explains: “LinkedIn could own all the B2B advertising space out there if they wanted to, they have the best B2B data in the world. But they need to have a coherent ad tech strategy.”

LinkedIn’s first step into adtech might not be encouraging to agencies, but it is in line with its goal of making its B2B marketing division a $1 billion business by 2017.

Turning visitors to your site into customers doesn’t require a degree in rocket science, but you do need to pay attention to what your customers want and do your best to deliver it. One tool many small businesses don’t use is the highly-targeted landing page.

Let’s say you sell credit card processing software, and you have several target markets: small businesses, restaurants, and farmer’s market vendors. Now, your restaurant leads might not buy your software if they click on a site geared toward farmer’s market vendors. The last thing you want to do is alienate one customer base by not talking directly to them. You’ll have a better chance of landing more customers in each category if you spend time customizing each sales funnel.

Start With Targeted Content
Solid marketing strategy begins with content creation geared toward each of your customer types. Targeted content can be published on your business blog or guest posts you write for other sites. But keep in mind: each article should have one audience. You’re not trying to talk to everyone who needs credit card processing software, but rather a very specific type of person. You want people to nod their heads and say, “she’s talking to me!”

Create a Killer Call to Action
On each page of content, give readers something to do with a call to action (CTA). A compelling CTA tells readers to buy now, click to learn more, download a free whitepaper, or call to schedule an appointment.

Make your CTA clear, simple, and easy to find. The offer you present can be targeted to the audience and echoed in the content. For example, if you write a blog post called “5 Reasons Small Businesses Need to Accept Credit Cards,” your offer might be to a free whitepaper entitled “10 Steps to Accepting Credit Cards.” You can predict that people who read the article will be interested in the whitepaper, so you’ve already prequalified your lead.

Push Them to Your Landing Page
When people click your CTA, they should go to a landing page meant especially for them. Remember: you’re not trying to be all things to all people with a single landing page, but rather offer content speaking to one slice of your customer base. The landing page should promote the offer you mentioned in your content: a free whitepaper, free consultation, or other enticement to sign up for your email list.

Capture the Lead
Don’t overlook the most important step of this entire process: collecting your lead’s information. Make signing up a condition before they access your irresistible content. Use a lead-collecting CRM like Insightly to easily create a form asking for important data. Once a lead enters information, it’s added directly to your CRM database, where you can start marketing to that prospect.

Spending time on lead management and customizing your offers and landing pages for a specific audience will drastically increase your close rate, and keep you from chasing the wrong leads.

This post is the first in a two part series. Oftentimes, marketers create content that isn’t focused on closing deals. This content isn’t relevant to the customer and often fails to create better sales experiences. Yet, with all of today’s digital tools and automation software that is available to us, customers have higher expectations. They don’t respond to irrelevant messages anymore. In order to have better sales conversations, you’ll need more targeted marketing. That’s where having explicit buyer personas comes into play.

The importance of buyer personas for sales conversations

Sam Kusinitz from Hubspot defines buyer personas as “a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and real data about your existing customers”. The key words in this definition are market research, data and existing customers. By conducting thorough market research based on your existing customers, you’ll be able to understand the true value of your product, but also your customer’s situation. You can uncover key criteria and specific business needs that are important for your marketing.

Research by ITSMA uncovered that only 44 percent of B2B companies use buyer personas. In other words, more than half of the B2B companies out there don’t have an idea whether or not the content they create is really relevant. This ultimately results in a blame game between sales / marketing, resulting in bad sales experiences and lost revenue. Marketers don’t know if the content they create is relevant and salespeople fail to provide value.

So, how do you create a world class buyer experience? What exactly should you look to uncover in your market research? To put your mind (and budget) at rest, I can assure you that you don’t have to hire a market research agency. Most of these questions can be easily answered by asking your account managers or with a simple phone call to your customers. Things like role within the company, pain points, specific business needs, evaluation criteria are really what you’re aiming for. The folks over at Hubspot created a great post that will help get you started.

Sales driven content strategies

Content marketing can be used in two ways, like a net or like a spear. Use content like a net and you’ll target a lot of different personas. Yet, how effective is this strategy? How exactly does such a strategy deliver value to a specific persona? Consider that piece of content a jack of all trades, but a master of none. It’s not really going to guide the customer down the sales funnel, and neither will it help your sales rep having better sales conversations. In today’s age, marketers should aim towards being super relevant. I imagine this type of content as a spear. Sharp, fast, and only targeted at one thing. Delivering value to a specific buyer persona.

Remember, the research into your buyer’s needs and pain points? Now is the time to create content that is hyper relevant. Keep in mind that, as a marketer, the content you create is also important to the buying stage of your customers. Your buyer persona specific content should also address different parts of the sales funnel.

In theory, you’ve got top, middle and bottom-of-the-funnel content. Usually, top-of-the-funnel content is what you’ll create to attract people to your website and to generate leads. Middle and bottom-of-the-funnel content is what you’ll create to support your sales team. The lower in the funnel, the more your customer/prospect knows about your product. That means that the specific needs for content are different, depending on the buyer stage. As you can see, every stage in the buying process is a different conversation with different content.

Stay tuned for the next post where I’ll explain how to do an audit of your existing content and how to structure your sales conversations. If you’d like to learn how to create sales driven marketing for the later stages in your sales funnel, download this free ebook.

This blog post originally appeared on the Showpad blog.

Mindfulness and meditation offer a host of benefits that we're still learning about via scientific studies. Information is Beautiful's infographic below reveals the effects of meditation and mindfulness practices—from boosting concentration to making us more empathetic .

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Apple has placed a 12-page advertisement showing the Apple Watch and it various styles in the March issue of Vogue. 

The ads don't show anything new we haven't seen before, but it says a lot about the way Apple is positioning the product. For months, the company has been reiterating that the watch will be designed as a watch first and a gadget second. Now, it's clear Apple is trying to capture the fashion world's attention by placing a giant spread right in the center of Vogue.

Here's a look at the ad. 

The first photo shows the stainless steel Apple Watch with a Milanese loop strap. 

Turn the page, and you'll see the watch with a silver aluminum case paired with a lime green sports band. 

And here's what the space black link bracelet looks like. The watch face itself is cased in stainless steel.

This may be one of the most expensive Apple Watch variants. It's made of an 18-karat Rose Gold case with a rose gray modern buckle.

The last two-page spread showcased in the spread shows what the bright blue leather loop strap looks like.

The final page of the ad flaunts the 18-karat Rose Gold case with the white sports band.

This isn't the first time we've seen a tech company try to promote its wearable products within the fashion world. Intel recently partnered with Opening Ceremony and Barney's to create the $495 MICA bracelet. In 2013, Vogue also published a 12-page spread showing off Google Glass.

The Apple Watch will be launching in April, and the company is holding a media event in San Francisco on March 9, where it will presumably unveil pricing and availability details. The least expensive version of the watch is priced at $350, but Apple hasn't announced how much the more premium models will cost. 

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NOW WATCH: 14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do

Freelance video production is an amazing job, one adorned with interesting locales, weird and wonderful clients, and occasional brushes with stardom. In a week, a freelancer might go from shooting a CEO interview video, to attaching a GoPro to a hang glider, or running after soccer players with a MoVi.

Fun? Yes. Absolutely. But there’s a price. And the tools of the trade don’t stop at gadgets and hardware.

Today’s freelancer needs to be a production manager, editor, motion graphic designer, client relationship manager, and more.

Fortunately, the tools available for pros have never been better, or more affordable. Let’s take a look at a few of our picks.

Editing and Post Production Tools

1. Adobe Creative Cloud
Price: $10 – $50/month

This one goes without saying (but we couldn’t not mention it). Adobe’s Creative Cloud gives you subscription access to their entire suite of creative applications. The highlights, for those keeping score, are Premiere Pro, After Effects, SpeedGrade, SoundBooth, Photoshop, and Illustrator. A creative could just about run their business with this investment alone.

2. HitFilm 3
Price: $299

Those looking for an alternative to Adobe, Autodesk or Apple’s offerings will find solace in the wildly capable, totally affordable, HitFilm 3. HitFilm has taken the best of a handful of applications and brewed its own all-in-one editing, VFX and 3D application. Crammed with powerful compositing tools, the ability to import and manipulate 3D models, and all of the editing power of one of the large players, HitFilm 3 is an outstanding addition to any workstation

3. Clipwrap
Price: $49.99

Those who use it know that there are times when it’s just easier to wrap some footage and get editing. Clipwrap takes the guesswork out of HDV and AVCHD footage ingestion by allowing footage to be wrapped in popular formats such as ProRes and DNxHD. The wrapped files can also be optimized for editing apps such as Premiere, FCP, FCPX, Avid Media Composer, and even iMovie. Quicker than transcoding, Clipwrap can grab joined or non-joined files, right from a connected camera.

Effects Tools

4. Red Giant Universe
Price: $10 – $99/month, $399/lifetime

Red Giant changed the way plug-in users and VFX companies looked at buying and implementing effects tools. With Universe, subscribers have access to a selection of free tools – good ones – and a library of premium effects – both ranges are huge, and growing constantly.

5. 4KFree.com
Price: Free

The latest offering from Rampant Design Tools is their craziest yet – 4K visual effects, tools, and backgrounds, absolutely free. These are the same tools and effects available in their paid packages – not all of them, and not in 5K ProRes, but a handful of 4K mp4 versions. These are drool-worthy drag-and-drop visual effects and optical light effects captured using a RED EPIC, all created by a three-time Emmy Award-winning visual artist. A must for editors, motion graphic designers, or photographers.

6. Zaxwerks 3D ProAnimator 8
Price: $449

A designer can’t have enough tools for modelling, titles, and object extrusion. Sold as either a standalone tool or as a plug-in for After Effects, 3D ProAnimator 8 is the latest in a long line of killer 3D apps out of the Zaxwerks stable. It has straightforward options for extruded, textured text and objects within seconds, and for more complex animations, PA8 offers pro features such as ambient occlusion, depth of field, image-based lighting and procedural randomization. The best part is real-time 3D rendering: working without waiting to see what’s been created is a breath of fresh air.

7. VideoCopilot Element 3D V2
Price: $99.95 upgrade, $199.95 full version

Andrew Kramer and Co. recently rolled out their latest 3D object and particle rendering engine as a plug-in for After Effects. Impressive modelling tools such as bevel and extrude, and 3D bend and twist make this more than just another extrusion tool. The addition of soft shadows and ambient occlusion, as well as a raft of add-on model packs, make this a must-own.

8. Mocha Pro
Price: $495 upgrade, $1,495 full version

Imagineer’s Mocha Pro is the industry standard for planar tracking, object removal or roto work. The difference between point tracking and planar tracking is Mocha’s ability to analyze an entire plane. When tracking with Mocha Pro, multiple surfaces can be simultaneously tracked. Very accurate and powerful. For a version of Mocha that you probably already have on your workstation, check out the version that ships with Adobe After Effects.

9. Cinema4D Studio
Price: $3,695

3D tools are becoming more common on the market for effects artists but there are only a handful of full-blown 3D applications. Cinema4D is a doozy. This is seriously one of the most powerful and intuitive 3D applications available today, with tools for character, hair and physics rounding out the already-impressive object modelling tools. Like Mocha Pro, a Lite version of Cinema4D ships with After Effects.

Stock Footage/Templates

10. Pond5
Price: Prepay Credits

Pond5 was a late entry to the stock footage and template market, but over the last few years they have gained steam – and built a heck of a library. Stock images, After Effects templates, 3D models, stock music and sound effects round out their offerings. Weekly freebies and a great contributor program make Pond5 a solid choice for extras to finish off a project.

Business tools

11. Wistia
Price: $0 – $100/month

A worthy competitor of video juggernaut YouTube, Wistia offers video marketing tools that keep a client informed of progress once a video is online. Deep analytics offer insight into video performance, embedding tools allow for customized implementation into most web platforms, and customized XML sitemaps will help Google know where videos are hosted.

12. Studio Suite Xi
Price: $400 freelancer account – $2,160/year pro account

AlterMedia’s Studio Suite has been keeping studios organized for years, and their latest offering takes the experience even deeper. These are the tools you need to effectively run a professional studio, from booking studios and edit bays to tracking equipment and billing based on actual usage of assets. While not as easy to pick up and run with as some of the cloud tools on the market, Studio Suite Xi’s power and depth make it essential for companies of any size looking to run a studio efficiently.

Lucky #13. Well, I had to plug a tool that I’m quite partial to.

13. Wipster
Price: $0 – $100/month

In short, Wipster has taken the pain out of video review and approval. Notation tools allow for comments to be made directly on top of videos by team members and clients, with the ability to point to a specific area of the frame. My favourite part of the tool the ability to drag an updated video atop the last uploaded version as well as the ability to archive videos. The pricing model takes some adjustment for small users so take a look at the free account to start out.

There are a multitude of things that can destroy a Demand Generation Strategy, but the two biggest culprits are having a short-term vision and lacking alignment with sales. Here’s why you need to avoid them at all costs.

Short-Term Vision
Building a perpetual demand generation program almost always involves quite a bit of change management within an organization, not to mention the building of new content and most likely, some data cleansing and new technology integration. To do these things right, it takes time. Companies who think they can slash content needs or Band-Aid old or inferior technology in order to launch a program faster are dead wrong.

Sure, you can do those things. But you certainly won’t get the results you’re hoping for. Limiting the development of new content is the go-to solution for companies looking to cut timelines down. And it’s easy to understand why, as content development is both time-consuming and costly especially if done on a global scale with translation needs. However, your content strategy should be created to align to each step of the buying process for your targeted buyer personas. Odds are you have more than one buyer persona and each one has unique needs. Thus, you need content that will specifically appeal to each persona. You also need content that will Engage, Nurture and Convert your buyers along the path to purchase. This cannot be accomplished without a significant investment in fresh, compelling content. Always remember that in order to fulfill your strategy, it’s better to do things right than to do them right now.

Lack of Alignment with Sales
Even the best marketing strategy in the world will fail if sales isn’t part of the broader team who develops and executes upon it. Imagine spending months getting your marketing automation platform integrated with your CRM system, new third-party content created, and lead scoring models built. Then, imagine launching your program and generating 100 qualified leads in the first month only to have them sit idle without sales follow-up leading to poor conversion rates. Perhaps the leads sit idle because the sales organization doesn’t know the new process you want them to follow? Or worse, they have traditionally discounted the value of marketing leads and haven’t been educated on the new, improved program that marketing has created. In either case, despite a well-honed strategy, the program would be an epic failure.

Getting sales leadership on board with the strategy from the beginning will ensure quite simply that what marketing is building meets the needs of sales. When building the lead qualification strategy, sales should be the key driver. After all, they know better than anyone else what constitutes a “qualified lead”. Leaving them out of the discussion will always guarantee low conversion rates and ultimately, program failure. Remember, if your new program has a more sophisticated qualification process than the current one, the quantity of qualified leads being passed to sales will actually decrease. Having that conversation with sales early in the process is crucial for the “quality over quantity” message to resonate and begin to sink in.

For all of these items and more, not gaining sales input and approval will most surely prove to be detrimental to marketing’s efforts and leads to failure in strategy in the long run.

Author: Jennifer Harmel @JenniferHarmel2 Executive Vice President, Demand Process Strategy Practice and Principal, ANNUITAS

Marketers, how many times have you heard sales assume that we give them nothing and our communications are not customer centric?

Sigh……. I was once one of those reps, tied up in the day to day doldrums of prospecting, working deals and closing. I gave little to no thought on the efforts of marketing. Sure, it was great when the occasional marketing event would happen in my patch of dirt, but apart from that, we were as distant as could be.

Sadly, this is the state of affairs in many organizations. The lack of a two way dialogue between sales and marketing has many side effects, the most impactful of all is missed revenue. How can a communication gap cause us to miss revenue targets? Let me be clear- the realm of revenue contribution from marketing comes in various forms. Let’s explore just one aspect today- the dreaded cold call.

Would you be surprised to know that for revenue teams that actually collaborate and follow best practice (i.e. Sales + Marketing = Revenue Team), average marketing contribution for closed revenue is roughly 30%? Say whaaaaaat?

In case you blatantly ignored the bold letters, this is the average. Teams that have been perfecting revenue marketing for longer see even higher rates.

Allow me to paint two pictures here. Which one sounds better?.

The Cold Call

It’s 8:00 AM- cold calling time. You hope you can reach the executives on your list before they really begin their day. You have a list on the screen, either one you bought or downloaded. The only information about the contacts is their name, title, phone, email and hopefully an org chart. You spent two hours the day before researching 10 companies, building a value statement you hope is somewhere close to combining their situation with a pain point or solution fit. The call hours begin; it’s a good day. You reach three people. One was the wrong contact. One hung up after 45 seconds. The last listened for a minute, then asked you to send them some information about the company that they will read.

The Warm Call

It’s 8:00 AM- prospecting time. You hope you can reach the executives on your list before they really begin their day. You have a list on the screen that came from marketing. This list contains relevant profile information as well as digital body language.

Example: You notice that the head of the department you sell to under the executive team has visited your website product page and downloaded a few specific white papers. This person has also been consuming thought leadership your company has disseminated around the same topics. It’s focused around ROI. You also see that a manager at this firm has been looking at similar information. The manager has shared the content socially and asked how it relates to helping daily efficiency. You are able to see all of this within 3 minutes. The result is that you reach 10 people that day because you focus on calling people on the list who show online behavior at the same hour. Eight talk with you for a few minutes. Of the eight, three ask for information and a follow up call in a week. Five contacts schedule a second call to go into more detail.

The second scenario sounds a whole lot better. Right?

HSN's sales are soaring. 

The TV shopping network's sales grew 14% in 2014, compared with 4.1% growth across the retail industry.

HSN's growth, which is largely driven by its apparel and jewelry business, comes at a time when Americans are increasingly spending money on other categories, like healthcare.

We spoke to HSN Inc. CEO Mindy Grossman on how the retailer is thriving in this challenging environment. 

1. Customizing online experience. 

About half of the HSN's business is now from online shopping. 

HSN has been working to make every customer's experience different, Grossman said. 

The brand tailors product offerings based on the customer's browsing history and past purchases.

Even marketing is tailored toward what the customer has responded to in the past. 

For example, customers who bought something after receiving an email are more likely to get emails from the company in the future. 

2. Offering exclusive products. 

HSN wants to make sure that other retailers don't carry its products.

More than 70% of the items the company sells are exclusive. 

Grossman said that this approach helps the retailer avoid the promotional strategy that many retailers experience.

"It's important to ask yourself 'why would the customer want this product,'" she said. "Offering exclusive products gives you a new value proposition, it can motivate the customer to buy what you're selling." 

3. Changing the digital experience.

HSN has poured resources into redesigning its website. 

The retailer has also created niche online shops for categories like vitamins and closet organization. 

"Shoppers can get overwhelmed, so curation is important," Grossman said. 

HSN also has personalities like Colleen Lopez curate items online for shoppers. 

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NOW WATCH: 5 Ways Retailers Trick You Into Spending More Money

Publishing content is essential to growing business. The challenge is consistently producing quality content that buyers want, as well as finding time to create the content. These three tips from Michael W. McLaughlin help you handle both. 

What if we told you that persona-based approach to messaging is potentially hurting your cause rather than helping it?

A recent Harvard Business Review article* cites a set of surveys which found that, on average, 5.4 people now have to formally sign off on each B2B purchasing decision. If you’re following a persona-based messaging approach, that means you have a good amount of message tailoring to do, right?

The problem with this hyper-segmented approach is that the decision makers end up receiving starkly different pieces of information. As a result, you risk highlighting the divisions that exist between them instead of the challenges they share. That can effectively pit stakeholders against each other and create the kind of stand-still that leads to a “no decision.”

The authors of the article write:

…personalization has a dark side. When individuals in a buying group receive different messages, each one stressing that an offering meets his or her narrow needs, it can highlight the diverging goals and priorities in the group, driving a wedge between members and hindering consensus.

The implication for suppliers is clear: The best way to build customer consensus isn’t to do a better job of connecting individual customer stakeholders to the supplier but to more effectively connect customer stakeholders to one another.

To truly persuade someone to make a change, your messaging should aim to identify and address the higher order business challenges found in the situation they share, not in each individuals’ narrow priorities and needs. These issues transcend the needs of individuals, helping you rally decision makers to consider the strategic outcomes at risk and the solution requirements to resolve them.

That’s how you can help drive consensus instead of division in a consensus-driven sale.

The Fundamental Attribution Error

Imagine that you’re driving on the freeway when another driver abruptly cuts you off. What’s your first reaction to this erratic driver? In all likelihood, you’re going to immediately think he or she is a jerk.

The reason? We tend to attribute most behaviors, good or bad, to someone’s personality or disposition, even though they’re much more likely to be dictated by situational factors. The erratic driver could be late for an important meeting at work. He or she might be rushing to the hospital due to a medical emergency. The list of possible situations goes on. The point is, these situations are more likely to be the cause of the white-knuckle driving than some deep-seated character flaw.

This calculation is known as the Fundamental Attribution Error, a behavioral science term which posits that humans tend to overestimate the effect of a person’s disposition on their behaviors and underestimate the influence of their specific situation.

With persona-based messaging, you’re essentially committing the Fundamental Attribution Error by assuming that the disposition of your individual influencers is a more important factor than the current situation they all share and are trying to improve. That approach won’t help you tell a compelling story that shows how your prospect’s status quo is unsafe. To do that, you have to address the higher order problems that clearly demonstrate how your prospect’s status quo situation—not a narrow set of responsibilities and related needs—is preventing them from achieving their desired business outcomes.

* http://cvi.to/1vGRnIi

Marketers in 2015 face many of the same questions that marketers did in 2014—or in 1914, for that matter: “What do my customers want?” “How can I find out what they want?” and “How will I know if what they want changes?”

Fortunately for today’s marketing organizations, the answers to those questions are more accessible—and actionable—than ever before.

Consumers now generate tremendous amounts of data in the course of living their lives. Their brand preferences, their style, their interests, the way they consume information, their shopping habits are all out there. Put it altogether, and it’s a gold mine of information marketers can use to target potential buyers more effectively.

But for many marketers, this gold mine is overwhelming. They don’t know how to process all the information available to them or even where to start, and consequently, they’re waiting too long to react. What happens then? Not much. (Or not much good, at least.) Remember, unused data and/or old data deliver the same results: Marketing campaigns that guess at what your customers want, rather than targeting what your customers have told you they want.

The days of drawn-out market cycles based upon gut instincts are long gone. If your approach to data-driven marketing doesn’t reflect the following three success factors, you’re probably letting some significant opportunities pass you by:

• You analyze data in real-time. Too many marketers look back across months to get their insights. Instead, they should be looking back across weeks, days, or even hours. If you can’t take immediate action based on how your campaigns are performing and how your users are interacting with your messaging, you could be chasing an opportunity that simply doesn’t exist anymore. Historical data matters, yes—but it matters within the context of what’s happening right here and right now.Real time marketing requires a slightly different lens, too. To develop the most accurate customer story, marketing strategists must figure out what data matters most, and what data is just a distraction.
• You bake flexibility into your campaigns. Every aspect of your campaigns should be ready to pivot according to your real-time consumer insights: your messaging, your offers, your geographic or demographic targeting, and so on.If you’re seeing a change in how users are responding to offers, or you anticipate a change is on the horizon, you need to be ready to adjust accordingly. Then, you need to be ready to adjust again. And again.
• You have the tools and skills in place to be agile. If you’ve got all the blueprints and building materials in hand to construct a house, but you don’t have the tools and tradespeople to do the job, chances are, you won’t end up with much of a house.Using customer data effectively requires marketing analytics tools and skillsets, too—including the right training for the people who leverage the information to recommend shifts in strategy. If the systems you’re using aren’t driving proactive action, then it’s time to take a good look at what’s not working—and to upgrade in favor of an agile approach.

Data may still seem intimidating to many marketers, but in 2015, the days of feeling too overwhelmed to act are becoming ancient history (at least as far as the modern speed of digital omni-channel marketing is concerned).

Now is the time to take advantage of the incredibly rich information your customers generate, and to evaluate the tools, strategies and campaigns needed to keep pace with their demands. The impact of data-driven marketing will be tangible for your customers—and the impact on your bottom line will be just as evident for you.

Last October, Internet Retailer published its 2015 Guide to B2B eCommerce. In it, the editors heralded that U.S. B2B eCommerce companies would generate $1 trillion in sales in 2014, significantly surpassing B2C eCommerce sales. With so many sales opportunities on the line, it’s not surprising to hear that B2B businesses are upping the ante when it comes to marketing their companies.

Although there can be some overlap in regard to how both B2B and B2C businesses go to market, there are a few specific methods for B2B businesses to leverage that can drastically improve the way customers interact with their digital assets.

The following are best-of-breed features and functionality that need to be on a must-have list when business leaders look to re-platform or enhance their online B2B business. By employing these features and functionality, B2B businesses can make it easier for their buyers to conduct business with their organizations.

Automated contract pricing and purchasing

When you automate contract pricing and purchases with your customers, clients and business partner community, it’s easier to internally manage relationships, roles, entitlements and workflow approvals based on predefined rules and contract terms. It also is a major perk for the individuals that do business with you. When tactical tasks can be automated, more time can be spent on strategy.

Self-help services

By providing self-help services to your buyers, it enables them to submit their own orders and review their order history on their own timeframe. When you can allow buyers to manage more of their own sales orders, it frees up time for your own sales force to spend more time hunting for new buyers versus managing current ones. After all, almost all things in life have been automated and digitized. So shouldn’t that be the case for B2B transactions, as well?

Centralized control

Centrally managing all your selling channels – B2B, B2C, call centers, kiosks, microsites and mobile – from a single access point or multisite hub reduces operational and duplication costs while sharing digital assets commonly shared between sites to amortize operational costs. Centralized control also streamlines the process of ensuring brand and product integrity as well as sales execution of site-specific campaigns and promotions.

The benefit of consolidating web sprawl into a multisite installation is the seller’s ability to manage a single set of assets, which are shared among the many sites, as cost effectively as possible. Digital assets that can be shared are the catalog, presentation logic (HTML/CSS – look and feel of the site), marketing campaigns/promotions, business policies (same payment/shipment policies) and pricing.

Master catalogs

A master catalog can leverage filters to allow buyers to view and manage only those products of the master catalog they have the ability to purchase and resell; entitle buyers to access a subset of your master catalog. A master catalog can also leverage pricing rules to re-price products based on the price list offer minus a mark-down percentage.

Responsive design

More than 50 percent of eCommerce traffic today is through mobile devices, proving that responsive design isn’t just for B2C sites. Therefore, if you want to give your B2B customers the same experience that B2C consumers enjoy, responsive design is a must. Busy B2B professionals are looking for digital support through their smart phones and tablet devices, not just for purchases, but for browsing, as well. With responsive design, a web page automatically adjusts to fit the screen resolution or device size – providing a consistent user experience no matter the touch point.

Tools with business users in mind

In today’s fast-paced world, workloads are growing in size – especially for the IT team. When a business leverages tools that come bundled with eCommerce solutions, like a page layout tool designed with business users in mind, marketers can compose their own web pages without having to rely on the IT department. When these tasks can be offloaded to business users, digital initiatives can launch according to the marketing department’s timeline as opposed to IT’s. This also allows the IT team to focus on their ever-growing list of technical to-dos.

Robust search

If a customer can’t find what they’re looking for, they may be compelled to look and then buy elsewhere. A robust search solution, however, can allow buyers to find products faster. This can include search features like faceted search, search-based merchandising and product recommendations, all supported by business user tools that enable product attribute-level control.

Multi-faceted search allows buyers to specify one or more product attributes to drill down and return a short list of products versus returning a large amount of data based on general search terms for the buyer to filter through – a time consuming and unproductive effort; extend search to include not only the product catalog but the entire B2B website, as well.

It’s also recommended that buyers be given the ability to sort by rules defined and managed by the marketing team to return search results prioritized on high/low inventory levels, most/least expensive product categories, brands and product ratings, just to name a few. Type-ahead prediction and autocomplete functionality for search terms are also essential for providing a buyer with a time-efficient way to find products. For example, when a user starts typing in search terms, autocomplete can dynamically return predictions in the form of a dropdown pick list.

In the end, automation can always serve as an effective method to streamline operations so that businesses can focus on strategic initiatives as opposed to dealing with tactical tasks. More importantly, these robust technologies will ultimately create a B2C experience for B2B users, making it easier for them to conduct business with you – a win-win for everyone.

*Editor’s Note: Recap post of the Deck presented at Sales Hacker Series in San Francisco on February 3rd, 2015 by Emmanuelle Skala, VP of Sales at Influitive.

The reality of our world is different. People have actually gone as far to say that sales people will be extinct at some point in the near future. People are asking: “Do you even need a salesperson anymore? If you can get all the product information you want, if you can find third-party product reviews on websites, if you can hear what buyers are saying on social media, if you can get a free 30-day trial, then why do you need salespeople?”

Now, I believe that we still play a huge role in the buyer ecosystem, but the world IS changing. And the fact that all the information, peer reviews, and social media is out there, means that we really need to rethink our approach to selling.

How Do We ReThink The Approach To Selling?

There are three things that we do at Influitive to rethink our:

1. Database
2. Network
3. Sales Process (Surround Selling)

ReThink Your Database

CRMs have been around for a while, marketing automation has been around for a while and we all think about both of those systems as a repository to capture our leads, contacts, accounts, forecast, etc. If that’s all you’re using it for, you’re missing a HUGE opportunity. We all buy sources of data to fill in demographic information into our databases, but what’s really hard to get is that data you can’t get from another database. Data you can’t buy. Non-Demographic data.

For instance, for us at Influitive some of the things that we look for is:

• Does a prospect have a lot of product reviews?
• Does a prospect have a lot of case studies?

If they don’t, then they’re potentially a good prospect. But again, I can’t buy that sort of information. So what we do is we use our CRM to capture all the non-demographic data about our existing customers AND our prospects. But how do we do that? We do that by building an Ideal Customer Profile by identifying key characteristics of a good fit, and then we outsource our list of top accounts to Virtual Assistants and they fill in all the meta-data that we need.

• How many reviews do they have?
• What marketing automation system are they using?

By having this data about our customer and our prospects we can tailor the right messages for when our SDR teams are calling out. SDRs can then see that a prospect is using Marketo, for instance. Now that SDR can match that up with our existing customers who also use Marketo and say “You’re using Marketo, so is XYZ” or “I noticed you have very few product reviews on your website and that was the same problem that DocuSign had.” All that data is now in front of our SDRs.

When you have a handful of customers, it’s pretty easy to memorize. But when you’re above 100 customers or so, you can’t possibly know all the stats about every customer and sync those up with all the stats about every prospect. It also allows for our SDRs to be what we call “audible ready” so if they actually get someone live, now they have all that rich customer data and success stories in front of them. We have really targeted messages and really targeted campaigns. Marketing can take the data and run a campaign that’s specific around NPS scores, for example, for prospects that use NPS scores and leave out the ones that do not.

ReThink Your Network

The challenge here is that when you’re hiring a team of SDRs or a team of AEs, they don’t come with a LinkedIn network of 5,000 people. They’re not connected to C-Suite people who you’re trying to sell in to. And frankly, that makes it hard to start social selling. So the first thing that we do when onboard at Influitive is make sure that everyone pumps up their own LinkedIn profile and tries to get people to write reviews about them.

If you haven’t done this recently, ask one of your customers or someone you closed a deal with recently to write you a review. If you’re an SDR it could be someone you had a great conversation with. Ask them to do a review of you on LinkedIn. People are checking out your profile. If you have reviews on there from customers it’s going to help you sell and build your network.

Next, connect with your customers. You may be a brand new AE, but you’re in a company that has existing customers. Go out and connect with every single one of your existing customers. They’re not going to say no to a connection of a product they’ve purchased. Even if you don’t know them, or who sold the deal, connect with them. Once you’re connected with your customers, it becomes really interesting to match up your prospects to your customers.

For example, if I’m prospecting into SalesLoft. I’m trying to get to Kyle Porter, but I don’t have an existing relationship with Kyle. But it turns out that Kyle has a relationship with somebody at InsideView, who is a customer. Now, if I make that connection I don’t necessarily have to cold call Kyle. I can just connect my customer to Kyle. Be a matchmaker, “Hey Kyle, I’d like you to meet the CEO of this company (who happens to be a customer of mine). Blah Blah.”

Once you’ve connected people your company is going to come up in conversation. You’d be surprised of what can happen when you make those connections. Be matchmaker, not a seller.

ReThink Your Sales Process

I am a huge advocate for getting referrals. As a sales person you should be thinking about how you can get referrals all the time. Every interaction. You’re an SDR and you get a “No,” ask for a referral – “This sounds like this might not be a good fit for you right now, but is there anybody in your network who you think that this might be a good solution for?” Why not, right? Who knows what they know.

Even if it is a “Yes.” Say – “Great, I’m looking forward to that demo. But hey, before I hang up with you I’d love to know, since you were interested I was wondering if anyone else in your network might be interested that you recommend that I call.”

Always ask for a referral. You had a great demo. Ask for a referral. 38% of my pipeline comes from referrals, and that’s because we’re relentless about asking for referrals.

Audio Recording of Emmanuelle’s Presentation:

 

The post ReThink The Approach To B2B Selling appeared first on Sales Hacker.

How to Determine When A Lead Is Sales-Ready written by Guest Post read more at Small Business Marketing Blog from Duct Tape Marketing

Today’s Guest Post is by Ellen Gomes – Enjoy! 

Relay runners know that the exchanges make or break a race. The same is true for businesses of all sizes. Whether you’re an enterprise industry with huge marketing and sales teams or a small business owner piecing everything together yourself, figuring out when a lead is ready to buy can be tricky business with potentially serious consequences.

Leading scoring is how successful business of all sizes “practice” the exchange. It is a key element to lead nurturing that helps companies determine whether prospects need to be fast-tracked to sales or nurtured further. There are four basic dimensions to lead scoring:

1. Lead Fit
2. Lead Interest
3. Lead Behavior
4. Buying Stage

Each dimension will help you assign a number value to actions and characteristics that create a “score” for each lead. All you have to do then is determine what score makes him qualified for a sales contact.

Lead Fit

Scoring lead fit means collecting some data on your prospect. You can collect data with online forms for gated content or registrations.

•  Demographics—This consists of information on the lead himself, such as his job title, years of experience, etc.
•  Firmographics—This is information you want to capture about organizations, like the company size, revenue, and locations served.
•  Budget, Authority, Need, Time (BANT)—This is more advanced qualification, but can tell you where the lead is in the buying journey by collecting information on her budget, purchasing timeline, etc.

Calculating an initial lead fit score will help you focus on those who might actually become sales.

Lead Interest

Determining lead interest involves monitoring a prospect’s interest in, and interaction with, your content and networks. This score will tell you how interested someone is in your brand, in addition to your information. Monitor behaviors like email opens and click-throughs, social media engagement, and downloads.

Lead Behavior

Monitoring lead behavior starts to move beyond determining if a lead is a good fit, to determining where she is on the buying journey. These scores are developed and honed over time, but if you know your audience and your industry, you can put together a strong initial estimate.

Consider which behaviors and online activities tend to correlate with leads which eventually become customers. Those are “active behaviors,” and should come with high scores. Conversely, “latent behaviors”—like early-stage content and blog posts—earn much lower scores.

Buying Stage

Determining a lead’s buying stage is the final touch to pinpointing where he is on the buying journey. One simple way to structure and score the buying stage is to align it with a traditional sales funnel.

•  Early Stage—A person who is aware of your business but may or may not ever become a qualified lead. She will read blog posts, download infographics, and share funny videos.
•  Mid Stage—This is when a person becomes a lead. He has engaged with your content over time, and displayed some of the usual buying behavior. He has moved on to content like buying guides and ROI calculators. He may have contacted you for more specific information.
•  Late Stage—These are qualified leads that would either pass to sales or start receiving content like pricing, demos, and discount offers.

Once you establish criteria for your buying stages, it will be much easier to score leads and get an objective perspective on where they are on the buying journey.

Lead Nurturing Means Lead Scoring

Businesses that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at a 33% lower cost, and the metric for effective lead nurturing is a strategic lead scoring system. This process can help SMBs from the start, and scale as the business grows into an enterprise.

If you don’t have a system in place for scoring leads, it’s never too soon or too late to start, and no business is too big or too small. Start at the top by identifying some of the simple lead fit data points that characterize your target audience, and then score your current leads against them. Before you know it, you’ll be nurturing more effectively, timing sales calls perfectly, and closing more business.

Author: Ellen Gomes is a Content Marketing Specialist at Marketo and co-author of The Definitive Guide to Lead Nurturing—a newly released eBook that offers unique insights, and practical lessons for nurturing leads like the pros.

In part 1 of this series we discussed the troubling statistic that 70 – 94% of leads generated by marketing are ignored by sales. Part of the problem is the misuse of valuable data that results from marketing contact. The first type of data we’ll look at is what we call the “pipeline” disposition*. A “pipeline” disposition is a prospect that is just one or two touches away from being converted to a sales-ready lead.

Inside sales support reps, just like field sales reps, are attuned to opportunities that are not immediate, but likely imminent. At the same time an inside sales support rep is working to identify leads for your team, they should also be identifying prospects that are just one or two “touches” away from being ready to pass to sales. In our work for clients we find that 20 – 40% of pipeline dispositions are converted to high quality, sales-ready leads. So, rather than generating five leads for every one hundred suspects, you can generate 1 – 2 more incremental leads from just five prospects that are labeled as “pipeline.”

With a pipeline disposition, while the company and contact are qualified AND show interest, the timing isn’t right. The prospect is involved in another “fire-fight” and needs time. Or, the prospect is at fiscal year-end and buried. Or, perhaps they need time to allow your product or solution value and/or differentiators to settle in their minds prior to moving forward. Whatever the reason, staying in front of the prospect (via value added emails and occasional telephone contact) is critical to maintaining position in the account and converting a higher percentage of the pipeline dispositions to fully qualified leads.

The difference between a lead and a pipeline is often subtle. So much so that many companies think they are sending sales-ready leads to sales, when in fact, they are actually sending pipeline dispositions. But why split hairs? Because, when pipeline dispositions are delivered as sales-ready leads, sales is set up with false expectations. Inevitably, they engage prospects with the wrong approach. As contacts put off responses or fail to respond altogether, over time, sales becomes jaded—thinking marketing delivers nothing but poor quality leads.

Handing a lead off to sales when it is not sales ready is wasteful, yet prevalent.

In the next installment we will talk about another type of valuable data: “nurture” dispositions—how and why to nurture them.

Read the other posts in my "Nurturing" series:

Part 1: Why Are Leads Ignored by Sales?

Part 2: This post

Part 3: Maximize Revenue with Lead Nurturing

Part 4: Multiply Lead Generation Results with Nurturing

Part 5: Reach Out to the C-Suite, They Will Respond

*Disposition - noun: the classification of a prospect account as determined after a cycle of lead qualification activity; verb: to classify prospect accounts using a cycle of lead qualification activity. Standard PointClear disposition categories include: Lead, Pipeline, Nurture, Disqualified, No Response, Bad.

In professional services marketing, it’s likely that at one time or another, many of your clients discovered your firm through face-to-face networking. The importance of networking has not gone away. However, as digital marketing has outgrown traditional marketing in certain ways, social media platforms have revolutionized networking by providing online venues for building relationships and demonstrating thought leadership.

Our research on 1,028 professional services buyers shows that six in ten now turn to social media to check out firms before they purchase. Amazingly, it also reveals that social media presence is now even more critical than client references.

If you haven’t yet dabbled in social media or are just taking your first steps into it, you may feel uncomfortable with these facts. After all, they reveal an inconvenient truth—if you want to grow your business, it’s time to get serious about social media marketing.

LinkedIn for Business Development: Getting Started

So, how should you get started? Long-term you’ll discover that layering several social media platforms together will give you the best results. However, it’s best to begin with a solid foundation on the one social media platform that matters most for professional service firms—LinkedIn. That’s because it’s populated by educated professionals sharing the latest ideas.

After building a strong LinkedIn profile for each of your key business development team members, use the following three steps as a guide:

1) Participate in LinkedIn Groups

You will meet people who have shared professional interests by joining LinkedIn groups. Before choosing groups, decide who in your target audience you want to reach. Remember, in B2B sales there are usually multiple people who influence the buying decision.

You want to find groups that appeal to each of the people who play a role in the decision-making process, broadening your reach. For example, if your firm helps both sales and marketing professionals, you may need to join both the ‘Sales Best Practices’ group and the ‘Content Strategy’ group.

To discover the groups in which your decision-makers and influencers participate, look at the profiles of clients and prospects. Often they will list the groups to which they belong. Check out these groups to determine which ones are the most active. The more discussions that are in progress, the more likely it is that you’ll be able to find ones to which you can add value and show your thought leadership and meet new prospects.

You can get your feet wet in a group by answering questions or commenting on topics other group members have raised. Alternatively, to gain even greater visibility, you can initiate a discussion.

Just as in live networking, leading a discussion with a sales pitch will put a quick end to conversations. So, if you link to content to start a conversation don’t be self-promotional.  Instead, mix other blog posts and articles in with content your firm produces. A good guideline is four pieces of content curated from other sources to one of your own.

By bringing up hot topics and discussing the key issues your prospects and clients are grappling with, you can establish your firm’s management as thought leaders, showing your expertise.

SEE ALSO: 3 Ways High Growth Firms Use LinkedIn Groups to Increase Visibility, Connections and Lead Generation

2) Drive Traffic from LinkedIn to Your Website

There are several ways that LinkedIn can also drive traffic to your site without spending a dime. And we have seen that more traffic leads to more conversions (folks downloading content and filling out contact forms, for example), which results in more new business opportunities. Let’s take a look:

• First, visitors may be directed to your website from the group discussions. At Hinge, we’ve seen this tactic drive a significant amount of new LinkedIn traffic to our website.
• Second, when someone completes a search for a professional who can help them to solve a problem, one of your company’s leaders may rise to the top of the search results. If his or her profile includes a link to your website in the ‘Contact Info’ section, as it should, the searcher is just one click away from your site.
• You can post your content in LinkedIn’s news feed and it will be shared with all of your connections who may read and click through to your website.
• Lastly, if you’re willing to make an investment, you can take advantage of LinkedIn’s sponsored updates and pay-per-click ads that allow you to precisely target your audience.

People who come to your website from LinkedIn do so with some familiarity with your firm and its leaders. Thus, when they arrive, they’re more likely to convert into a qualified lead.

3) Connect with Potential Prospects

If you’ve done your marketing legwork, you have outlined the qualities of your ideal client. Most likely, you’ll find these potential prospects on LinkedIn.

However, you’ll need to connect with them to start a direct conversation. The best way to do this is to find a connection that you have in common and ask him or her to introduce you virtually. Make this process as easy as possible for your contact by explaining the value you offer their connection and including brief email language for the introduction.

If you want to take this process to the next level, consider investing in LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator. This tool allows you to search LinkedIn more efficiently and delivers up to 700 search results at a time. It also enables you to reach out to prospects with whom you have no connection by using InMails, emails that LinkedIn guarantees they’ll deliver.  And if you send easy-to-read InMails that promise a benefit to the reader, they may start a conversation that leads to a sale.

Thus, using LinkedIn for business development is powerful. You can build relationships that are not limited by geography, become known as visible thought leaders, and increase web traffic and conversions.

LinkedIn is the primary social network for professional services firms – it’s where you future clients are sharing relevant information and discussing industry trends. By participating in groups, sharing content in your LinkedIn’s news feed, and connecting directly with those who match your client profile, you can reach your target audience easily and efficiently.

To learn more about how your firm to create a powerful LinkedIn strategy, check out our free LinkedIn Guide for Professional Services Executives.

On LinkedIn? Join us on LinkedIn and in the Professional Services Executive Forum.

People keep saying cold calling is dead, but many successful businesses rely on cold calling to drive revenue. Whether they're Fortune 500 companies or high-growth startups, they all have sales reps eagerly dialing numbers day in and day out.

But if you're still doing cold calls like it's 1995, you might as well not do it at all. Too much has changed in the past 20+ years, which is why we've put together these 28 cold calling tips for startup founders and sales pros who want to make more sales and close more deals.

Get exclusive access to the free B2B cold calling course to learn how to cold call like a pro.

1. Should you use a sales script?

Spoiler alert: The answer is yes, you should. Discover the benefits of working with a script, and how to use it in the most effective way to evolve as a sales team.

2. How to create a sales call script [Free template]

A basic fill-in-the-blank sales script you can use to start making your first calls today. If you think selling is difficult, don't know what to say, or feel overwhelmed by complexity, take refuge in simplicity.

3. The successful B2B sales call blueprint

One of the most important things when cold calling is to have the conversation mapped out in advance. Here's a clear way of structuring your sales calls.

4. Common sales objections any sales rep needs to learn to overcome

The three most common objections you'll encounter when doing cold calls. Prepare and practice your answers to these in advance.

Most sales reps fear these objections because they derail their sales conversations. But YOU will look forward to hearing them because they help you move the sale ahead.

5. How to respond to "Send me more information"

The seemingly most innocuous way prospects use to interrupt the sales conversation. Pretty early on in the call, many people will ask you, "Can you send me some more information? I'll review it and get back to you."

New and insecure sales reps eagerly oblige: "Of course! I'll send it your way." They send out the email, and that's it. Maybe one or two timid follow-ups, and they file the lead away.

Here's what you should do instead.

6. Are you pitching prematurely?

This is a very common mistake sales reps make on the phone. They launch into their pitch way too early, without first understanding what the prospect wants.

Here's how you can figure out a) the exact right moment when you should deliver your pitch and b) how to customize your pitch so that it makes the prospect want to buy from you.

7. How to captivate your prospect's attention

Once you've got a decision maker on the phone, how do you captivate and keep their attention? It's not enough that they hear you speak—you have to make them really listen.

Some people possess the charisma and showmanship that naturally mesmerizes their listeners. If you don't, you'll need to master the mechanics of getting attention. Here's a simple 3-step process to get your message across.

8. Afraid of cold calling? Turn your fear of failure into fearlessness

Entrepreneurs often struggle when they start doing cold calls. They hate calling others to drum up business and they're not good at it either. Their approach is too timid and they give up too soon when they encounter resistance. They don't manage objections well, and fail to produce results.

It's not lack of skills that trips them up, but cold calling reluctance and insecurity. Here's a confidence hack to help you overcome this.

9. NEVER multitask during sales calls (and how to avoid distraction)

Doing cold calls can turn into a rut. Calling up leads, trying to get to decision makers, hearing the same objections again and again...it's tempting to entertain your brain with more interesting distractions. Here's why you should never do this, and how to get your focus back.

10. Sales mindset: How to recover from a bad sales call?

When cold calls go wrong, they can deflate your sales soul. Here's how to stay buoyant when confronted with failure (or ill-tempered prospects who behave abusively to you).

11. Cold calling conversion funnel metrics & benchmarks

Want to get better results from your cold calling efforts? Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to strategically improve your outbound phone sales approach. Want to know how you're doing in different stages of your sales process? The benchmarks will tell you!

Should you dial more numbers?

Do you need to improve the quality of your leads?

Should you focus on crafting a better sales pitch? Or rather work on a more effective opening?

There are many opportunities to optimize your sales process; this post provides a framwork to identify where you can get the biggest wins with your B2B cold calling efforts.

12. Why most sales voicemail messages suck

A sales rep leaves on average 70 voicemails per day, requiring 60 seconds each, which adds up to approximately 25 hours per month. To make a time consuming task even worse, the typical voicemail sucks!

Too many sales reps speak too fast and ramble, filling the message with lots of “um’s” and “ah’s”. Then, potential clients have to listen to the voicemail three to four times, just to write down the callback number.  That’s why messages are deleted, and prospects never return calls. 

A good voicemail sparks interest. It’s well-planned and compels the recipient to phone the caller immediately.  Revamp your sales voicemail messages right now!

13. Cold call productivity hack: Leave pre-recorded voice messages

When you're dialing numbers, you'll end up in many people's voicemail. Nothing gets more annoying than saying the same words to a thousand different machines.

So just record one perfect voice mail message in Close.io, and whenever you hear that BEEP, click a button and your pre-recorded optimized voicemail will be played back, while you can already get on the next call.

14. How to close more deals on the phone (Webinar recording)

Here's the recording of a 47 minute webinar on how to sell on the phone. If you've read the articles, this is a good way of tying it all together and consuming the information in a different way to deepen your learnings.

15. How to call prospects who opened your email

Are you sending out cold emails and tracking the email opens (using sales software like Close.io for example)? It's a great strategy to then follow up with a phone call with those prospects who opened the email. But don't make the mistake most sales reps make when doing these calls.

16. Never talk price before value

If you cold call a prospect and they want to know the price, how do you respond? Most sales reps know that they shouldn't just give out the price, but just telling the prospect "no" can be too confrontative. Here's how to handle this scenario effectively.

17. Cold calling? You lost me at hello!

If you’re doing cold calls the way most sales reps do it, you’re already losing out with the first words coming out of your mouth.

18. 3 questions to ask yourself before making that sales call

Most sales reps think deals are won or lost when you’ve got the prospect on the phone. They’re wrong. You win or lose the deal before you even pick up the phone and dial; it’s your state of mind that determines the outcome of the call more than anything else. I have three questions that I ask myself before every crucial sales call: Why? What? How?

19. Cold calling: The ethical bait-and-switch trick

The bait-and-switch is a device often used by scammers, but it can be applied by ethical companies that have their customers' best interest at heart too.

20. Cold calling: How to respond to "I don't have time"?

Unless you happen to cold call someone whose office has just caught on fire, it’s pretty likely that “I don’t have time” is just a polite way of saying “Go away,” or “What you’re offering is not a priority for me.” After all, if they really didn’t have time, they would have just hung up on you.

And yet, your average salesperson still hears “I don’t have time,” stammers, gets nervous, and hangs up. It’s a difficult objection to deal with—we’re not used to responding proactively to “I don’t have time.” You can’t really argue with it, because who are you to question whether someone really has time?

A great salesperson, however, finesses this objection around into further conversation. A great salesperson hears “I don’t have time” and recognizes that it’s time to drive home the core value proposition that will get that customer to stay on the line.

21. The fastest way to become a cold calling pro

Want to know what the fastest and most effective way is to become great at cold calling? It’s a simple two-fold approach that anyone can follow and doesn't require expensive sales workshops or coaches.

22. 2 common B2B SaaS sales objections (and how to handle them)

"One of the myths of SaaS is that the products are so good, so easy to use, so quick to deploy...that the product sells itself." However, that myth won't protect you from the following 2 objections:

1. “Your product is too expensive.”
2. "Your product doesn’t have the right features.”

Let’s get into how you can move past these objections and keep the focus on value.

23. How to deal with hostile and aggressive prospects

Your prospect has completely lost it. He's shouting at you over the phone, making ridiculous demands. Your ears are ringing and you have a massive headache. After a while, you can’t take it any more, and just hang up the phone. He was completely out of control—a saint would've done the same.

Except that's the wrong approach.

You can’t control why the bully is the way he is, but here's how you handle one.

24. Sales conversations: How to make tight-lipped prospects talk

Successfully qualifying a prospect depends on your knowledge of their situation. However, how can you pitch your solution if they refuse to share information about their situation?

Let's explore why prospects are tight-lipped and how to make them talk.

25. Data-driven sales: The 3 cold calling metrics that matter

When it comes to tracking sales data, some sales managers don’t know where to start. But the process doesn’t have to be difficult.

If you already have a sales model that’s predictable and scalable, you only need three metrics to transform your team’s cold calling performance. Here’s how you can effectively track the sales metrics that matter.

26. Controlling sales conversations: 3 steps to keep your sales calls on track

It’s not always easy to get a sales call back on track, especially when you’ve let the prospect take the lead. But the truth is, most salespeople aren’t great at leading conversations. When prospects refuse to answer questions—or they have an endless number of objections—salespeople rarely know how to regain control.

Take the lead on sales calls—and close more deals—with this three-step framework.

27. When a prospect hangs up on you, this is what you need to do

No one likes getting hung up on, but you can’t let one sales call ruin your day. Just take a deep breath and ask yourself, “Is this result any different than if I’d never made the call?” Then focus on why the prospect hung up on you, so you don’t make the same mistake twice.

28. This is the #1 reason why cold calling campaigns fail

Want to run a successful cold calling campaign? Focus on the one metric most sales managers ignore: reach rates.

Whether you’re new to cold calling—or you're dealing with disastrously low reach rates—explore these five ways to ensure your team’s sales success.

+ 1 bonus story: From cold call to $17 billion startup: How Uber got started with sales calls!

If you lack motivation or start to lose faith in what cold calling can lead to, remind yourself of this success story: Uber is one of the most innovative and disruptive success stories in recent times. They've got a very strong technology culture and are recruiting top engineering talent like crazy.

That's why it's even more remarkable that they got started not by leveraging some advanced, groundbreaking tech-solution...but rather by old-school cold calling. Sign up for the free B2B cold calling course now.

Have a cold calling tip of your own? We'd love to hear which tactics and methods you've used to become more successful when selling on the phone. Leave a comment below :).

GET YOUR FREE B2B COLD CALLING COURSE NOW

This post is part of a new series featuring 3rd-party integrations with Close.io. Want to build a Close.io integration into your own app? Check out our API.

Drip is lightweight marketing automation built for startups.

It allows you to instantly capture leads from every page of your website, warm them up with a pre-written sequence of behavior-driven emails, and track how engaged they are through lead scoring and conversion tracking.

We're happy to announce Drip's integration with Close.io is now live!

This integration allows you to capture leads in Drip, nurture them with behavioral email, and add all (or only your most engaged leads) to Close.io for manual follow-up.

"Our customers have asked for more full-fledged CRM capabilites, and Close.io was our first choice for an integration. Using Drip to capture and nurture prospects and Close.io to follow-up with your hottest leads is a stunning inside sales combination." said Rob Walling, founder of Drip.

Interested? Have a look at Drip.

6 Ways Your Company Culture Can Boost Your Hiring Process

It is difficult to identify the kind of talent needed to keep your sales team on a path to success.

Too often, individuals look great on paper, interview well but lack the necessary Drive to thrive in a sales environment.

Marketing your company’s culture is one way to attract candidates who will be long-term producers for you.

No one enjoys working for an overly competitive and hostile company. Similarly, companies cannot thrive with sales reps that do not fit into the corporate culture.

Unfortunately, sales teams struggle to find success when individual goals do not align with the company’s mission. Frequently, it leads to employee dissatisfaction or costly, unsuccessful hires.

So how do you market your company culture to attract the kind of talent you need and stand out from the competition?

 

1. Work Your Value Proposition into Your Culture

Most job candidates research companies online before applying or heading into an interview. Creating a positive online presence makes your company appear attractive and is vital to publicizing your value.

Of course, online marketing always runs the risk of attracting the wrong types of candidates. Be sure to carefully tailor your brand and personalize your message in the right forums for the best chance of attracting the right sales reps.

Today, people value intangible benefits as well as the common financial benefits that most companies offer. Effectively sell the advantages of your compensation package, especially those that show how extraordinary your company is.

Highlight paid vacation time and any other incentives your company offers to employees. Value propositions that seamlessly fit into your company culture are selling points that can easily set your company apart from other companies.

Competition for top sales talent is high and companies often have similar benefits, so providing unique benefits will help you stand out.

Flexible work schedules are highly valued, as are offices that allow team members to be comfortable and work in an environment conducive to productivity.

Exceptional benefits packages often are comprised of a unique culture/benefit combination. Technology giants like Google offer flexible workspaces and offer team lunches on a regular basis.

Many of these benefits have underlying value for the company too. They encourage togetherness and socialization among employees. In a sales environment, this is incredibly valuable.

 

2. Highlight Your Company’s Mission

People do not choose a job based on benefits and compensation alone. An increasing number of Americans now work longer hours and often look for jobs that provide fulfillment in multiple ways.

Show potential employees that your company’s purpose is based on a higher mission or goal. Companies commonly brand themselves as “green” or “family friendly” in an effort to attract individuals who also value those qualities.

The overall mission of an organization can serve as motivation when selling becomes hard or other tasks become mundane. Your company’s values serve as a banner that drives people to work together toward a common goal.

 

3. Make Candidates Feel Exclusive

Exclusivity yields enchantment. Everyone wants to be part of something special, and they will go to great lengths to make it happen. It makes people feel important and necessary. That kind of value gives a candidate the necessary push to choose one company over another.

Candidates who score well on a sales test likely understand their value to your company. Appealing to a top contender’s emotional side can encourage this notion of exclusivity and uniqueness.

Let them know that as a part of your company’s sales team, they will be set apart from the competition. They were already special because their set of skills beat out a pool of applicants who all wanted the job.

 

4. Work with Your Sales Candidates

Every salesperson has a unique set of skills that complement the rest of the team. Create a management structure that works with employees, enhancing their individual strengths and adequately compensating for their weaknesses.

People who feel that their company cares about their individual advancement as well as the company’s goals will develop a stronger connection to the company and gain the full employment experience.

Create an environment that supports employee growth, even if it seems like it does not directly align with company goals.

Many companies have moved away from policies that support educational achievement. Companies that offer tuition reimbursement or other supportive educational packages stand out because they manifest a culture that promotes personal and professional growth. The whole person matters, not just the bottom line. This arrangement directly benefits companies looking for candidates with Drive who will take management roles in the future.

 

5. Encourage Creativity and Innovation

If you already evaluated a candidate with research backed sales testing, then you know whether he or she has the potential to become a top producer for your company.

The innate traits measured in those sales tests include Need for Achievement and excellence in work, Competitiveness and Optimism. Individuals who score high may thrive better when provided with an environment that is open to change and innovation.

Sales is a fluid industry. It requires implementing different strategies in different forums to see results. A sales team that understands the endgame and each other will work efficiently and cohesively to improve the sales process.

Empowered to make impactful decisions, these sales reps require little oversight. These are the sales teams that are highly valuable to companies.

 

6. Consistency

Whatever method your company chooses to sell a great corporate culture, make sure it is authentic. Any inconsistencies or a disingenuous message about corporate culture are red flags for job seekers.

Companies hate to hire individuals who cannot live up to the potential reflected in their interviews and conversely, new hires will not be happy if their perception of the company is proven false shortly after beginning employment.

 

 

Do you have any other company culture strategies that have successfully attracted Driven salespeople? We would love to hear about them! Please feel free to share in the comments below.

 

The post How to Use Your Company Culture to Attract Driven Salespeople appeared first on SalesDrive LLC.