Rocket Readings

2012-02-19T18:48:00.001-08:00

The False Dichotomy of Caring or Salesmanship

The Three Stakeholder Groups Your Sales Process Serves

2012-02-19T08:51:00.001-08:00

The Three Stakeholder Groups Your Sales Process Serves:

The Three Stakeholder Groups Your Sales Process Serves is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

A good sales process can help you to win your opportunities—and faster, too. But a good sales process has three different sets of stakeholders. If it is designed and executed well, it will serve all three of these stakeholder groups.

Your Dream Client’s Stakeholders

Your dream client contacts are stakeholders in your sales process. They have needs as they go through their buying process, and if you get your sales process correct, it will serve those needs.

Your sales process will serve their buying process. It will address their needs, regardless of whether you find them without dissatisfaction, with some recognition of their needs, when they are evaluating their options, or when they are trying to resolve their concerns and mitigate risk. Your sales process must create value at every stage of your prospective client’s buying process.

Your sales process also has to serve your dream client’s needs as your future client. It needs to help build consensus and develop the relationships that will allow you to execute and manage change.

You, Your Deal, and Your Quota

It’s sometimes difficult for salespeople to believe—or remember—that their sales process is really designed in part to serve them. You also have a stake in following your sales process.

Your process should be a reverse engineering of all of the activities you must take, as well as the commitments you must gain, as you move forward from target to close. Your sales process codifies your best practices, and it helps to stack the deck in your favor. It helps you to win before there is ever a contest.

Your process helps you to win your dream client opportunity, and it helps you make your number. You are another primary stakeholder in the process. It can define the way you sell.

Your Sales Organization

While it’s difficult for salespeople to believe that their clients are stakeholders in their process, and while they don’t often think of themselves as a beneficiary of a good process, they have no trouble understanding the process serves their sales organization.

And your sales organization does need to be served by your sales process.

You sales management team needs the ability to forecast future sales. They need to provide reliable information to management so that other decisions may be made. The process provides the forecast with integrity.

The sales process also serves other processes and systems. Documentation is needed, including credit-worthiness, service agreements and expectations, and legal documents. The sales process addresses the collection of information that serves your company’s other processes and systems.

It’s often overlooked, but a good sales process can help produce the information, the documentation, and the relationships that allow for a good handoff. Getting your internal professional service firm engaged in the sales process can help you to win your opportunity—and to execute once you have.

Questions

Who is your sales process designed to serve?

What needs do your buyers have as they move through their buying process and how can your sales process serve those needs?

How does your sales process help you to win opportunities and to build a competitive advantage through your sales actions?

How does your sales process serve your organization?

When you don’t follow your sales process, what do you put at risk for these stakeholders?

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‘A’ Player Marketing Leaders - Transitioning to Inbound Marketing

2012-02-19T08:51:00.000-08:00

‘A’ Player Marketing Leaders - Transitioning to Inbound Marketing:

Marketing leaders are rapidly shifting investment to Inbound Marketing. ‘A’ Player marketing leaders must lead their teams in making the transition into the inbound discipline.

Outbound Marketing is defined as traditional marketing such as advertising, tradeshows, online banner ads, etc. --- essentially purchased exposure. Inbound Marketing by contrast is ‘earned exposure’ where prospects value content and find you. Examples of Inbound Marketing include; content marketing, search engines (SEO and PPC), social media, and blogs.

Top benefits of Inbound Marketing:

Lower Cost of Acquisition
Strong Alignment to Buying Process
Establish Thought Leadership
Transition to Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI)

Success with Inbound Marketing - Shifting Dollars

B2B and B2C success with Inbound Marketing has resulted in shifting marketing spend. This Infographic provides powerful insight into the transition:

Shift to Inbound Marketing – Increased Efficiency & Effectiveness

Not only is Inbound Marketing more effective in generating leads, it’s also a more efficient. According to eMarketer, the acquisition cost is significantly lower.

Making the Transition

Enhanced Writing Capabilities – Marketing teams can write brochure content in their sleep. But ask them to write a blog or white paper and they act like you asked them to launch a rocket to Mars. Why? Partly because legal obstacles have neutered them. Mainly because their habitual writing style is entrenched in a distant 3^rd person manner. Strong points of view are not common among feature/benefit company information. Thought leadership on a topic is not considered. Marketing teams strain to write white papers, blogs and awareness-level content because they’ve largely never done it.

Solutions:

New skill acquisition --- marketing teams have to pedal faster to keep up. Evolve or become irrelevant. Your team should become students of Content Marketing and Inbound Marketing thought leadership content.
Invest in your writing staff – Don’t add a new writer without subject expertise and expect results. New writers require painful paint-by-number direction. Be prepared to invest long-term and the investment will pay off.
Leverage subject matter experts – Product Marketing is capable of authoring high value content. However, they are almost always understaffed. Add product marketing manager(s) with job descriptions allocating a percentage of their time for writing. This is a short-cut to remarkable content.

Team Augmentation – Marketing teams may not have key roles and experience to execute inbound marketing. Consultants fill the gap. Select a consultant with a proven track record of success implementing Inbound Marketing and Lead Generation.

Solutions:

Invest in Lead Generation – Inbound Marketing will generate an infusion of leads. Best-in-class practices are required to successfully transition inquiries into sales ready leads. A sound lead management process is a requirement for successful Inbound Marketing. Leveraging nurturing and 1-to-1 nurturing through Lead Development Reps will provide you with world class lead conversion capabilities.
Inbound Marketing Specialists – Experts or consultants are required to provide technical expertise in marketing automation configuration, nurture campaign set-up, search engine optimization, search pay-per-click, social media and blog configuration.

Marketing Org Structure – Marketing objectives have evolved significantly from soft to hard metrics in the past five years. But has your structure evolved to support your new objectives? The answer is almost always NO. Don’t burden yourself with out of date structures that struggle to perform. Structure your team to perform.

Solutions:

Align to Objectives – Conduct an assessment of team capabilities by function. Perform a gap analysis on how the functions align to objectives. Map success metrics to those responsible in the organization implementing. For each objective, does it map to a single person responsible with a supporting team, or a hodge-podge of individuals in different sub-departments? Does it map to a person prioritized to achieve the objective? Is your team focused on what your CEO/President cares about most?
Restructure by Strategic Objectives – Modernize your marketing organization by identifying the functional requirements of your team needed to achieve your objectives. Develop departments based on priority areas of focus. The end result is a shift from a traditional structure (Marcom, Program, Web, Advertising, PR, Tradeshow and Events, etc.) with a tactical focus to a strategic structure with clear priorities inherent in the structure (Demand Generation, Lead Management, Field Marketing, Thought Leadership, etc.).

In summary – The key take-away for ‘A’ Player marketing leaders is that Inbound Marketing requires considerable re-invention. It’s an exciting transition that requires new capability acquisition, structural changes and embracing experts who have been there before.

This article skims the surface of Inbound Marketing. Your thought leadership comments are welcome.

Ready to be world class in Inbound Marketing?

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Put Yourself In Your Sales Reps Shoes

2012-02-19T08:47:00.000-08:00

Put Yourself In Your Sales Reps Shoes:

Once again I am inspired by the people I read and follow and this time it was Christopher Spenn, a fellow Bostonian (although I have yet to meet him in person – gotta make it happen!). He wrote a post on putting yourself in your customer’s shoes and talked about how one-sided we were in our approach and that we really don’t know what the impact is of the decisions we make unless we put ourselves in that situation. Spot on!

It made me think of an exercise I did earlier on in my career and would like to re-initiate and I encourage each of you marketers to do the same.

Put yourself in your sales rep’s shoes for one day.

Maybe it’s not the whole day. Perhaps you devote a few hours to this exercise a few times a week and if you have a tiered sales force (lead qualified, sales person, account manager, etc.), then I encourage you to devote time to ‘being’ each one of them.

Here’s how it works.

Take all the marketing materials whether it be phone scripts, emails, case studies, whitepapers, competitor matrix’s, etc. and start calling down the list.

Read the script or wing it if you don’t have one (this could be a real deciding factor as to whether or not one is appropriate for you to draft up for their reference). Start asking questions – wait, do you have a list of qualifying questions you have armed your sales force with? No? Then maybe you need to make one.

Use the tools that you provide to them (Salesforce.com is most popular I have found) and enter information in the same manner you expect them to do.

It’s important that you follow the process and don’t divert from it. The second you start using things that you have in your pocket but your sales team doesn’t, your experience is no longer real.

Reflect on your experience.

Did you realize you were getting asked questions that you don’t have answers for? Perhaps you didn’t have a case study prepared on how your product/services solves a particular problem?

Take all your learnings and draft it up with a plan to fix what is broken.

I guarantee your sales force will appreciate the effort and you will appreciate them more for what they need to go through in order to get from a cold prospect to a hot sale.

To all the sales professionals I have had the pleasure of working with, I respect the heck out of you!

Have you done this exercise or something similar? How about the exercise that Christopher conducted where he put himself in his customer’s shoes? Love to hear and share your ideas!

p.s. aren’t these shoes the coolest thing you ever saw?!?!

Business Impact of Social Media by Wildfire [Infographic]

2012-02-18T11:33:00.000-08:00

Business Impact of Social Media by Wildfire [Infographic]:

I tend to agree with Olivier Blanchard’s approach to social media ROI – that it is a financial measurement and shouldn’t include various non-financial measurements such as “likes”, comments, interaction or “brand awareness”. That doesn’t mean that these measures are not important metrics for your business or your marketing efforts – it’s that they are not measures that correlate with direct increase in revenue or reduction in costs.

When the team at social marketing platform, Wildfire, surveyed marketers to understand where they were looking for returns, many came back with three main metrics (only one of which is financial):

Changes in fan base
Revenue
Brand awareness

Obviously, the focus of this survey was skewed towards marketing, but I firmly believe there is significant business value beyond a single line of business (especially for B2B). The challenge is figuring out not necessarily where the ROI is for your business – but where the value building opportunity lies. It’s about figuring out how you and your business can “become one” with The Social Way.

Via FrogLoop.

Are You Listening to the Voice of the Customer?

2012-02-18T11:00:00.000-08:00

Are You Listening to the Voice of the Customer?:

Why Customer Insight is King in B2B Marketing

The starting point for almost all B2B marketing initiatives involves gaining insight about the customer through surveys. Regardless of whether I am doing a marketing plan, positioning study, advertisement, video, Web site or brochure, I begin the process by gaining a clear understanding of the needs, views and preferences of my clients’ target customers. Marketri clients are typically surprised when they get the survey results. What they thought was critical to their customers is oftentimes a “price to play” or simply not that important. To create marketing strategies, plans and communications that connect and engage existing and potential customers, B2B marketers need to first understand what the buyers are likely seeking. Here are some tips on how to maximize the value of your B2B marketing efforts through customer surveys:

Who to Survey?

When listening to the voice of your customer for marketing purposes, random sampling is not required! First, you should establish a clear profile of your “ideal customer.” If you had the enormous blessing of hand selecting 100 new customers, they would each resemble this profile. Select 5-20 of your current or past customers that most closely match the “ideal” to interview. The exact number of customers to survey depends on the size of your customer base and how many you currently have that meet your target profile.

How to Survey?

For purposes of assessing customer preferences and gaining insight, I have found that conducting phone interviews is efficient and effective. This format provides the opportunity to probe further if need be and clarify any customer questions regarding what is being asked. Try to keep the questions to 15 or less and the interviews to no more than 15 minutes.

What to Ask?

Here are some sample questions that we like to ask on behalf of our customers:

Overall, how would you rate your relationship with XYZ Firm?
1. Excellent
2. Above Average
3. Average
4. Below Average
5. Poor
How long have you been a customer?
How have the company’s services / products helped your business?
How did you first learn about XYZ Company?
What was your decision criterion in choosing a company to buy from?
What are the top three things that are most important to you in receiving from your provider?
Have you used other providers in the past?
- If yes, how is XYZ Company different?
Is there any product, service or solution that XYZ Company is not providing that could bring value to you or your organization?
What would you say is XYZ Company’s primary strength?
In what areas do you think XYZ Company could improve, if any?
Would you recommend XYZ Company to other individuals or companies?
Would you be willing to give a testimonial?
What publications (online or print) do you read regularly?
What membership associations are you involved with?
What conferences do you attend, if any?
Which social media platforms, if any, are you active on?
What types of information could XYZ Company provide that would be valuable to you?

In asking the questions above, you will understand your customers’ level of satisfaction and loyalty; decision process and preferences; opinion on strengths and weaknesses; and insight on how to reach them. It’s hard to believe that so much valuable information and I dare say, “marketing power,” can be obtained in just 15 minutes!

In B2B marketing, where the sales cycle is long and complex and every touch can move you towards or away from getting and/or maintaining the business, invest in listening to the “voice of the customer.”

The New Consultative Salesperson

2012-02-17T14:26:00.001-08:00

The New Consultative Salesperson:

The New Consultative Salesperson is a post from: The Sales Blog | S. Anthony Iannarino

For a very long time, successful salespeople had a very specific set of competencies. These sales skills served them well for decades and decades. But changes in society, technology, and the business environment required new sales competencies. And so, the stack of competencies grew.

In the last couple of decades, the world of business—and sales—has been racked by ever more disruptive change. Success in sales requires more—and greater—competencies.

And it requires that you, the salesperson, have the whole range of competencies.

Foundational Competencies

Salespeople have always had to ask for commitments.

They have always had to prospect for new business.

They used to have to overcome objections, which has transformed into a higher-level skill of resolving concerns and limiting risk.

Salespeople have always had to demonstrate the value of the goods, services, and solutions that sold, even though we no longer think of features and benefits alone.

They have always had to tell stories, to present.

Each of these skills is still necessary to succeed in sales. As sales grew more complex and more complicated, additional skills were necessary.

Second Level Skills

As we moved into selling solutions, the ability to diagnose, to understand a prospective business client’s needs, became critically important. Like the foundational skills, this skill is still critical and necessary.

As different solutions were sold, the ability to negotiate also became more and more important, especially as competing companies created very different levels value and different results.

Because this is true, it can be difficult to distinguish one solution—and one company—from the next. It became critical that the salesperson possess the ability to differentiate themselves and their offering.

As selling has become more complex, even the abilities to diagnose, differentiate, and negotiate aren’t enough. A still higher level of skills is required.

The New Consultative Salesperson

While all of these skills are still necessary to creating and winning opportunities, the new consultative salesperson requires additional competencies.

The primary competency for salespeople now is business acumen. None of the foundational skills or second level skills is valuable without business acumen. Of all of the skills and competencies required, business acumen reigns supreme. Business acumen is the new sales acumen.

Without business acumen, it is difficult to know how to help your clients produce better business outcomes. That’s the new game. It’s not product. It’s not features and benefits. It’s not solutions. It’s business outcomes.

Getting those business outcomes requires change. The consultative salesperson has to possess the ability to mange and lead change in their client’s organization, and in their own. The new consultative salesperson manages change.

Managing this change requires leadership skills. A salesperson may do a lot of the heavy lifting by themselves or with their small sales team, but the execution belongs to a team of people on in the salesperson’s company and in the client’s. The new consultative salesperson is a strategic orchestrator; they lead the change by leading the team.

Like no time before, when you sell it, you own it. You sell outcomes, and that means that you own those outcomes. Managing the outcomes is what new consultative salespeople do. They don’t own the transactions; their team does. But they own the outcomes, and they ensure that their clients get the benefit of their bargain by acting as part of their client’s team.

This is what is required of the new consultative salesperson.

Questions

What are the foundational skills that salespeople have always required?

What changes have required salespeople to need to acquire new skills?

What are the new skills that consultative salespeople need in order to succeed in sales?

What new skills do salespeople require to succeed for their clients?

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Sales Training: When to Get a Sales Coach

2012-02-17T14:26:00.000-08:00

Sales Training: When to Get a Sales Coach:

Sales Training Article: Sales Management - 3 Critical Times to Get a Coach

By Dan Perry, Sales Benchmark Index (SBI)

Sales management is consistently told they need to coach their sales people. Blogs are written, books are published and magazines are printed around the correct way to coach sales people. Almost all of the sales management content that is written or trained is centered on sales managers coaching their sales people. And for good reason:

Proper coaching of sales people can provide a 35% productivity increase
Training content retention improves 400% if sales people are coached within 30 days of the training event
Coaching by a sales manager to a sales person that occurs more than three days a month results in averaging 107% over quota
Situational coaching of sales reps to either tenure or performance can give over a 45% boost to their sales performance

We all know that a sales manager coaching their sales people is good for business. It is good for revenue. It is good for retention of talent. But there is a big gap in coaching.

Who is coaching the sales managers?

Let us first ask the question: Why should a sales manager (even a good one) have a coach?

Top athletes and the best singers have coaches. Kobe Bryant (recent NBA Finals MVP) and Taylor Swift (won entertainer of the year 2011) are at the top of their game. They actually have two coaches each.
Kids have coaches. Tutors help them with homework trying to improve grades. In my daughter's elementary school, 85% of the 'A' students have tutors.
Sales VPs have coaches. Our firm currently coaches many Sales VP s on numerous sales force effectiveness issues. Almost everyone who we coach already exceeds quota or will exceed quota in 2011.
CEO's have coaches. Many of the companies we do business with each year have effectiveness coaches. These CEOs all have EBITDA growth over prior year.
Surgeons have coaches. Recently my neighbor had open heart surgery. He told me before they 'knocked' him out that the surgeon was talking with someone in the operating room. When he asked later who that was, the surgeon indicated he was his coach. (This surgeon preformed open heart surgery on Barbara Walters recently)

The next question is: When should you have a coach?

Three critical times to get yourself a coach:

1.New to the company. Your on-boarding inside a company is critical to your long term success. Many organizations don't even have an onboarding program or the ability to get a coach. Yet, this is where you form the foundation for sustainable success in an organization. Make sure you understand the need for a coach. One who can help you get better in core SM fundamentals.

2.Plateau. No matter how well trained people are, few can sustain their best performance on their own. When you have reached the top in certain metrics and stalled your performance, the numbers can typically only go one way=down. Realizing when you have peaked is a challenge. Most people go into denial thinking they can get back on top with extra effort. Likely is the case.

3.Goals: Do you have a goal that seems unattainable? Do you want to be a VP of Sales someday? Do you want to consistently exceed quota? Whatever the goal, you need extra effort to achieve it. A coach can help you stay on track through execution. Especially the times when your failures exceed successes. Developing a strategy and staying tactically focused is where a coach can help.

The next question is: How do you pick the right coach?

Choosing the right coach is as important as the coaching itself. Making a mistake can set your development and performance back dramatically.

Four key areas to choose the right coach:

1.Experience and Empathy. It must be someone who has done the sales management job. To walk in someone's shoes is to really know them. The things you need coaching on are the difficult situations and critical moments. This is where most sales managers can improve.

2.Personal feedback. Every sales manager is different. Make sure your coach can personalize the feedback for you in order to understand, accept and act on it.

3.Impartial. Often the key to expert feedback, this person has to communicate a strong message without concern for your feelings. Identifying a common goal is critical to coaching to that goal. The ability to separate emotion and give the feedback as constructive is essential in your development

4.Tactical. You must be able to implement the coaching actions. If the feedback and direction is too strategic or general, you simply won't act on it. Insist the coach can provide specific suggestions you can weave into your everyday. This way you will actually do it.

If you are lucky, your boss could turn out to be the right one. Or it could be someone close to you personally:

Itzhak Perlman (the famous concert violinist) had his wife for a coach, a concert level violinist herself. "I was very, very lucky. The great challenge in performing is listening to yourself. My wife always says that I don't really know how I play. She is the extra ear." (Sounds similar to a sales manager having a one on one with a sales rep)
It could be someone who you recruit to be your coach. Probably it is someone you already know. Identifying the need and seeking out a coach is tough work. Spend time on it because it requires a high amount of self-esteem. You must be able to identify when you need the help, even if you are on top of your game.
Russ Mellott, SVP of Sales at Epicor, exceeded his quota by over 20% in FY 2011. He understood the need of continuous improvement. So, Russ hired a coach. The result: Russ rarely ever misses a coaching session. Russ consistently makes his company goal. And Russ just got promoted. Call Russ and ask him if a coach has helped him.

Metrics prove that coaching will dramatically help your sales productivity. And conversely, it will help your sales reps productivity because you will be a better coach to them. This is a critical step in the journey to be world class.

Read our sales training articles.

Fundamentals of B2B Lead Generation Programs within Key Accounts

2012-02-17T14:25:00.001-08:00

Fundamentals of B2B Lead Generation Programs within Key Accounts:

Lead Generation is broken down into 2 phases: Demand Generation and Lead Management.

Lead Generation is the process of turning inquiries, through nurturing, into sales qualified leads. Each Key Account within your portfolio should have a program that allows complete visibility to the entire sales funnel, producing a steady flow of qualified leads to the Key Account Team. The program is then measured by the return on key account marketing spend.

Our focus within Key Account Management is building awareness and interest among the targeted buyers and users. A multi-touch campaign approach is implemented to generate interactions and inquiries. The Inquiries are then nurtured and developed from the early stages of the buying process. The inquiries are then developed by offering resources and next steps that are in a natural alignment with the buying process, essentially “pulling” the prospect along while providing a helpful resource approach.

Simply put; lead nurturing is about keeping conversations going overtime, building relationships and allowing the creation of interest in the products and/or services while bringing the leads to sales-ready status. Lead nurturing is exceptionally effective in articulating your value proposition to maintain, in a subtle and consistent manner, a stream of relevant information that is important to the key accounts.

Top Five most significant findings from a recent case study:

Nurtured leads delivered 47% higher average order values
Lead to opportunity conversion rate is 38%
Quantity of Leads created increased by 25%
Quantity of Opportunities increased by 34%
Lead Quality increased by 31%

Can you afford not to nurture your key accounts? Most company’s focus their marketing spend on prospects and neglect their Key Accounts. Let’s remember these are the accounts that supply the greatest percent of revenue to the company and/or provide the greatest potential for account development. Losing or failing to penetrate one of your key accounts can be a recipe for termination for most sales organizations.

Implementing a Demand Generation program within your key accounts provides the opportunity to defend, cross-sell and up-sell within these accounts by keeping you relevant and top of mind.

In our experience some of the most effective approaches are:

Bring in a peer of the client to talk about a recent launch of your product and their success. Having a reference or testimonial to explain the value is far more powerful than having them listen to you again
Develop a custom webinar specifically for that key account focused on educating that customer on the “what if approach”
Customizing the marketing content for that key account based on the area of greatest need and interest

Key Takeaway: If you’re not nurturing your key accounts to increase wallet share, you can bet your competitors are doing this. Download our our white paper to learn more about growing revenue from key accounts.

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B2B Sales? They Could Be Called B2P Sales!

2012-02-17T14:25:00.000-08:00

B2B Sales? They Could Be Called B2P Sales!:

Companies don’t buy anything. They only invest.

This is a basic rule of selling in a B2B environment.

However, this does not mean B2B sales do not also have a big element of what I call “B2P” impact.

My definition of B2P is “business to politics.”

It refers to the impact various people can have in an organization on what is actually the right investment a company should be making.

The politics can come in many different forms, but the one that trips up salespeople the most is the politics that can from what I call the “remote influencer.”

This is the person who never identifies themselves as being engaged in the buying process, but who suddenly can wield major influence at the last minute. These people definitely exist in B2B sales.

Many times they reside in finance, but they also just as often can be someone in an unrelated department who looks for situations to poke their nose into as a way of making themselves look good.

Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for somebody to throw a salesperson under the bus as a way of making the “remote influencer” look good. This is what makes these people “remote influencers.” I hate to say it, but “remote influencer” is too nice of a description.

If you don’t think these people exist, then you haven’t spent any time working for a major corporation. I’ve found the larger the corporation, the more likely it will be for you to encounter these type of people.

Unfortunately, I can say this from both sides of the fence. I’ve experienced it as both a salesperson and as one who spent years working for several “Fortune 100″ companies.

It is impossible to identify these people beforehand. They simply appear, and when they do, it’s many times too late in the process to deal with it, unless you’ve taken the precautionary steps. The way to minimize the threat of these people is to ensure when you are selling into a large company that you have as many relationships established as possible.

Never allow yourself to only have relationships with the decision maker and the users. You have to have relationships with those people above these people.

I refer to these relationships as an insurance policy, because they can help you have in place what you need to fight off a remote influencer should they appear.

The reason to have the relationship with people above the decision maker and user is because the remote influencer’s power typically lies with the relationship they have with the more senior person. By having your relationship established with the senior person before the remote influencer enters the scene, you’ll be far more likely to minimize the impact they might have.

If you are in B2B sales, you better pay close attention to the politics going on behind the scenes.

6 Compelling Reasons You Should Use Pinterest for Marketing

2012-02-17T14:24:00.001-08:00

6 Compelling Reasons You Should Use Pinterest for Marketing:

Just recently, Pinterest hit more than 10 million unique visitors, making it one of the fastest growing websites ever. In the past six months, visits to Pinterest grew by 4,000%, receiving 11 million hits in just one week.

Despite its rapid adoption, I often hear, “I don’t get Pinterest,” or “It’s only useful when planning a wedding.” I hear you, and I felt the same way.

But let me tell you something. Pinterest is ridiculously simple, and it can make a big impact on your business. I’m not saying this for the sake of jumping on the bandwagon. It’s not “just another social media site.” This one is different. Pinterest is doing a great job of driving traffic, leads, and sales.

Here are 5 great reasons your business should start using Pinterest for marketing now:

1. Pinterest Converts More Browsers Into Buyers

What’s unique about Pinterest compared to most social media websites, is that it reduces the number of steps from discovery to conversion. This means that visitors from Pinterest convert into leads or sales faster than from other social media sources.

Take Twitter, for example. If a user sees a tweet regarding a product, it’s less likely that a user will buy that product from just one tweet -- unless maybe when it's celebrity-endorsed. Willing to fork over $10k for a Kim Kardashian-sponsored tweet? I didn’t think so.

Josh Davis of LLsocial.com clearly explains the workings of Pinterest buying behavior:

“For retailers, the path to purchase from a social network is no more direct than on Pinterest. ‘See it, like it, buy it’ happens frequently ... Even in cases where the path to purchase is not as direct, rarely do you have a social network where linking to for-sale items is done so frequently. You have clear social proof of the desire for the item, you see a picture of it, and you are only one or two clicks away from being on an ecommerce site.”

This is a dream come true for businesses. Pinterest helps increase conversion rates and reduce sales cycles. Who doesn’t love that?

2. Pinterest Drives Tons of Traffic

Ten million unique views is not chump change. That’s a lot for any website, but it's especially noteworthy for one so new. If you rely on your website to fuel your sales and marketing, you need to generate traffic in order to increase leads or sales. Pinterest is a great tool for increasing links back to your website, thus driving more traffic.

In fact, early research indicates that Pinterest is more effective at steering traffic back to a website compared to other social media sites, even Facebook. Josh Davis includes some interesting stats on his blog:

Pinterest is now driving more traffic to the Real Simple website than Facebook is.
Warbly Parker, the hip but inexpensive eye glass retailer, reports that 11% of its social traffic is coming from Pinterest. 18% is coming from Twitter.
Like many early bloggers, Kate Bryan managed a blog that was based around her interests, but it never generated many readers. She blogged about her professions of hairstyling and jewelry making, and also her craft projects. Hairstyles are extremely popular pins on Pinterest. Kate started pinning her own work and rapidly started generating traffic. In five months, she achieved over 14,000 new subscribers to her site as well as generating over one million page views from Pinterest.

We've even seen it here at HubSpot. Pinterest is already driving more referral traffic than Google+, and we’ve only just begun using it.

3. Pins Get You More Inbound Links

As marketers, we love it when people share our content and link back to us.

What’s awesome about Pinterest is that every pin includes a link, leading back to the source of the image. "Links built through images are some of the best links you can acquire when it comes to actual engagement," says John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing. About 95% of the images on Pinterest were either pinned or re-pinned from the web.

With Pinterest’s growing popularity, this could provide you with very valuable inbound links. While these are nofollow links, any link directing visitors back to your website is always beneficial.

4. User Engagement Is Addictively High

I admit it: I’m addicted to Pinterest. It happened overnight, without warning. And this is coming from someone who, just a few weeks ago, didn’t think Pinterest was worth the time. And I’m not alone. I’ve heard the same from so many others. Even for those who deny it. Yes, I see your pins on Facebook! ;)

Pinterest users are far from passive. Case in point; I can’t not share stuff when I'm on Pinterest. John Jantsch states:

“Unlike many social sites, where the game is to get followers, Pinterest users seem very content to simply find stuff and share it with small groups. Pinterest users are keenly interested in what’s hot and what’s cool – a behavior that translates well into the kind of influencer marketers desire to attract.”

This is a good sign for businesses and retailers, because it means your pins are more likely to be seen, touched, or better yet, go viral. I believe the main reason for such high engagement is that it's so easy to digest information on Pinterest merely because it’s visual. Scanning tons of images is easier and far more enjoyable than scanning hundreds of tweets, for example.

5. Pinterest Integrates With Your Website, Twitter Account, and Facebook Profile

What seems to be a critical factor to success for social media websites is connectivity. These sites can’t get away with being a silo, and Pinterest has identified that right out of the gate.

The site now connects with Facebook, according to a recent Open Graph announcement, enabling users to automatically post new pins to their Facebook news feed for others to see. This means more eyes from other channels get access to the images you post to Pinterest. That being said, for marketers, right now Pinterest only connects with Facebook profiles, not business pages, so there is no way for marketers to automatically share their pins to their Facebook pages. In order to do so, marketers must manually share the link to the pin on their business page.

However, if marketers sign up for Pinterest using the same email address used for their corporate Twitter account, they can automatically share the pins they post to their Twitter account.

Additionally, marketers can add a 'Pin It' button to their website and blog (similar to other social media sharing buttons). This makes pinning products or visual content for site visitors super easy.

6. Discover What Your Audience Loves

Pinterest is a great place to discover trends. From marketing to fashion and beyond, you can discover what people love to share. You can follow your followers to see what inspires them. This gives you an opportunity to understand what’s hot today and use that information to position your own offers and products. I would imagine that, down the line, Pinterest will eventually make it easy to see trending data in specific categories.

As Pinterest evolves, I’m sure there will be even more great reasons to get started on this fast-growing social network. Businesses are already receiving first-mover advantage in their industries by leveraging the platform to drive traffic, leads and sales. Just yesterday, I purchased clothing I found from pins posted by a women’s golf apparel line, and I never would have discovered them if that business wasn’t using Pinterest.

So, are you ready to get started? If so, learn how to use Pinterest for business using our brand new Pinterest ebook!

Image credit: Marqui

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9 Ways to Make Your Marketing Analytics Actionable

2012-02-17T14:24:00.000-08:00

9 Ways to Make Your Marketing Analytics Actionable:

Tracking your marketing analytics can provide a ton of great insight into the performance of your marketing initiatives, show your boss how marketing is faring, and help you to prove that inbound marketing is really paying off.

But that's only a small piece of why analytics are valuable. In fact, the true value of your analytics is what you can do with them. Good marketers use analytics for the first few things we mentioned. Great marketers use them to adapt, improve, and modify their marketing efforts. In other words, great marketers make their analytics actionable.

Oh, so you want to be one of those great marketers? Well here are 9 ways to make your analytics actionable.

Use Your Analytics To...

1) ... Identify Which Topics to Blog About

Use your blog analytics to determine which topics resonate with your target audience. To do so, group blog articles by topic (for HubSpot customers, export Blog Analytics and then sort in Excel) and then take a look at the views for those individual blog posts. Do you notice a trend in how certain topics perform compared to others?

Adapt your strategy to create more content about the topics your marketing personas care about, and less about the topics that don't resonate. For example, if you're a unicorn breeder and you blog about various unicorn care-related topics, you might find that your readers are more interested in topics about unicorn diet than unicorn exercise. If that's the case, you should create more content about healthy unicorn diets!

2) ... Refine Your SEO Strategy

Unless you're just getting started, hopefully you've already conducted some initial keyword research to inform your SEO strategy. But if you want to take it to the next level and start refining your strategy, the SEO analytics you've built up to this point can play a very important role in deciding which keywords to target in your link-building and content creation efforts.

Take a look at your closed-loop analytics to determine which keywords have driven the most traffic, leads, and customers for your business. This will give you a sense of which keywords people are already using to find you, and which keywords are actually sending you qualified traffic (i.e. the keywords that contribute to leads and customers). Using this information, you might want to start targeting other long-tail keyword variations based on these high performing keywords.

You can also use this data to identify holes in your content creation strategy. If you're generating a lot of traffic for a given keyword or phrase (maybe you have an awesome blog article that ranks highly for it, for example), yet none of that traffic is converting, it could be that you have no marketing offers relevant to that keyword for visitors to convert on. With that information, you could create new offers to address that problem and start capitalizing on all that lost traffic.

3) ... Decide Which Social Media Sites to Spend Your Time On

With so many social media sites at your disposal, it can be hard to prioritize how much time you should be spending on each one. Let analytics be your guide. Look at your traffic sources granularly to see how much traffic and how many leads each social media site is referring to your website. For many marketers, LinkedIn is the top lead generator among the social networks, but this may be different for you.

You should also used closed-loop data to determine how many of those visitors and leads are actually converting into customers for each social channel. Then allocate your time accordingly. If you're generating little traffic, leads, and customers from Twitter, for example, but are seeing a lot of ROI from Facebook, spend more of your time engaging your Facebook community and less time tweeting.

4) ... Determine Email Frequency

Are you emailing your list too much -- or not enough? To determine this, you'll also need to do a little testing, but the insights you'll gain from your analytics as a result will help you determine your optimal email sending frequency. First, figure out your hypothesis. Are you trying to see if increasing your email frequency yields increased conversions? Perhaps you want to see if decreasing your sending frequency results in fewer unsubscribes than usual.

Once you've used you analytics to segment your communications (see what we did there?), choose a segment of your list to use as your sample, and use email marketing metrics provided by your email service provider such as open rate, deliverability rate, unsubscribe rate, and click-through rate to establish the current benchmarks for that specific segment. Now create a series of emails, and send them using the frequency you decided upon in your hypothesis (maybe it's increasing from once every two weeks to once a week, for example). When the test is over, compare your analytics from the test against the analytics from your previous sending frequency. Do the results align with your hypothesis?

5) ... Decide Which Content to Use in Lead Nurturing Campaigns

Not sure which content you should use in your lead nurturing email campaigns? As you're mapping the content you use to a lead's stage in the sales cycle, you'll want to fill in that content map with the most successful content you have. So how do you identify which of your content performs the best? You check your analytics, that's how!

Use your landing page analytics to determine which marketing offers have the highest conversion rates and contributed to the most lead-to-customer conversions. When you're choosing the best content for a particular lead nurturing campaign, choose the most relevant offer with the highest lead-to-customer conversions.

5) ... Segment Your Email Communications

Are you segmenting your email communication? MarketingSherpa reports that emails that have been tailored to specific audiences through segmentation get 50% more clicks than their counterparts. If that's not reason to start segmenting, I'm not sure what is. But if you want to start improving the performance of your email sends through segmentation, guess what you need? You guessed it: data!

There are a number of ways you can segment your email communications: by geography (especially if you're a business for which location is a major factor), by industry/role, by content interests, by point in the sales cycle, etc. To determine which segments make the most sense for your particular business, take a look at the data you already have available. Analyze the information you gather from your leads via lead-capture forms and lead intelligence. Figure out the most logical groupings based on your buyer personas, the information your recipients want from you, the questions they might have, or their stage in the buying cycle. For HubSpot customers, the List Creation Tool makes it easy to segment emails, and the Marketing Automation Tool allows you to trigger email communication based on specific visitor activities on your website.

7) ... Improve Your Calls-to-Action and Landing Pages

When was the last time you did a little audit of how your calls-to-action (CTAs) and landing pages were faring, and how they complement each other? Have you ever? Analyzing the click-through rates of your CTAs as well as the traffic and conversion rates of the landing pages they point to can reveal a lot about how effective each asset is, and also provide hints to what can be improved about them. (Note: HubSpot customers can get this data from the Call-to-Action Module and the Landing Pages Tool, respectively.)

For example, if you have a high click-through rate on your CTA but the conversion rate of the landing page it points to is low, then you probably have a problem with your landing page. If your landing page has a killer conversion rate but you find that traffic to that page is low, then it's likely the CTA for it is the element that needs work.

So what do you do after your initial diagnosis? Start A/B testing! When it comes to CTA and landing page design, a little tweak can go a long way to improve click-through and conversion rates. Here's a great guide to landing page testing, and another one for CTA testing. For HubSpot customers, A/B testing is easy with the CTA Module and the Advanced Landing Pages Tool.

8) ... Score & Prioritize Your Leads for Sales

Lead scoring is a great way to help your sales team prioritize your leads and only work those that are qualified. If you're a business that generates lots of leads and you want to implement a lead scoring program, there's no way around it -- you're going to need to rely on your analytics to set it up. First things first: you need to decide what a marketing qualified lead (MQL) looks like for your business.

An MQL is a lead who is more likely to become a customer compared to other leads based on their demographic information and their activity on your site before they become a customer. To paint a picture of what an MQL means for your business, you'll need to gather three types of data from your analytics: demographic information, lead intelligence, and closed-loop data. Demographic information is data you gather from your lead-capture forms to tell you about a lead's role, company size/industry, etc. Lead intelligence data will give you information about a lead's interests and activity on your website (e.g. forms completed, number of pages visited, etc.). Closed-loop data can tell you which conversion events you offer on your website have the highest close rates.

Combining this data together will help you identify which criteria make for a marketing qualified lead. Then you can assign point values to these criteria depending on which are more critical than others and decide on a total score that warrants a lead being passed onto Sales. Then your sales team will have a very numerical way to prioritize which leads to work, and which leads they should let marketing nurture more.

For a more in-depth explanation of how to implement a lead scoring process, read this post. HubSpot users can leverage the Lead Management Tool and the Lead Grader App to set lead scoring criteria, auto-score, and re-score leads in real time.

9) ... Focus on the Marketing Channels That Actually Work

While we're on the topic, lead scoring isn't the only thing you can do with closed-loop data. Another very valuable benefit of closed-loop data is that it lets you compare how effective each of your channels is compared to others. Similar to how you'd use analytics to decide which social media channels are worth your time, you can use your analytics to see which marketing channels -- social media vs. email vs. SEO vs. blogging vs. paid search vs. any other channel -- are the most effective at generating actual customers for your business, and which ones are lagging behind.

If you notice that email is your best source of customers and that SEO and blogging generate few customers for your business, for example, you could be missing out on a huge opportunity. Invest time in ramping up your blogging efforts and better optimizing your blog content and the rest of your website so more people can find you through search. Or perhaps you're spending a lot of time on your social presence, but the leads you generate from social media never actually turn into customers (but leads generated from your blog have a high customer conversion rate); it might be wise to start directing more social media traffic to your blog rather than to dedicated landing pages.

Thinking critically about your closed-loop analytics can help you determine which channels are your bread winners and which aren't so you can adjust your efforts accordingly to make the time you spend marketing more fruitful.

How else can you use your analytics to make actionable improvements to your marketing programs?

Image Credit: Courtney Dirks

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Case Study:: Getting Started with Social Media Marketing: How one company went from 0 to 630,000 Facebook post views

2012-02-17T14:23:00.000-08:00

Case Study:: Getting Started with Social Media Marketing: How one company went from 0 to 630,000 Facebook post views: Social media is a channel that consumer marketers need to engage with. The challenge is finding the best way to meet the needs of your customers and prospects and also receive business value from the social platforms. This case study is geared toward the marketer looking to get started in the social channel, and looks at the strategy of a personal finance website that is focused on relatively low-key community- and interaction-based approach to social media marketing. Find out how the company created and grew its social media marketing over two years.

5 Ideas to Help You Learn More About Your Content’s Audience

2012-02-17T14:14:00.001-08:00

5 Ideas to Help You Learn More About Your Content’s Audience:

Creating great content requires more than skilled writing. It requires market research and personal conversation so that your content will anticipate the audience’s needs and be well targeted to address those needs.

Before you start to write, you need to know what information your readers will want to see on your blog, website, or social networking campaign. You need to know what will be relevant and important enough to command their attention.

So, how will you learn what’s on their minds?

You will ask, of course. But also offer a premium to thank them for their time and show that you value their input. Their information is vital to your business, so it’s in your best interest to offer something of value in return.

Luckily, this is relatively easy to do: Think of ways you can make their lives easier, more fun, more informed, or more efficient. Here are five ideas to help you learn more about your content’s audience:

1. Create a contest

Give away a valuable prize in exchange for valuable information. A giveaway, such as a top-of-the-line iPad, will attract attention. And who wouldn’t be interested in taking a few minutes to answer your questions for a chance to win something cool?

Not only can a contest help you gather information that can inform your online content efforts, but it can also be tied to your other marketing efforts. For example, if you run a brick-and-mortar business, place entry forms on the counter for customers to fill out while they are in your store (be sure to include a picture to draw attention to the prize, as well as the contest rules). Then take photos of your winner, which can be used in your online, offline, and advertising efforts. Make winning into a prestigious event with lots of fanfare — when you award the prize, it gives you an opportunity to invite local media, throw a party with lots of buzz, tweet the event, blog about it, or mention it on your website.

2. Organize an online scavenger hunt

This is an excellent technique, as you can require your audience to search your content, website, blog, and even your social networking profiles for clues. It requires them to open a channel of communication with you in order to participate.

A scavenger hunt sends your audience on a search of your website and social media outlets for answers to questions that you provide. Be sure to ask questions that inform your audience about your business, and get them to open up about the additional information they would like to have. While web-wide searches are possible, it’s best to confine the searches to your company’s online presence — where the traffic will do you the most good.

Of course, your audience needs to prove that they’ve actually found the information you want them to hunt for. Ask participants to email you the web addresses (URLs) where they found the answers to your clues. Or, provide clues that can only be solved by searching your site — such as what words pop up when the mouse is placed on a certain graphic. (A simple addition of alt text data to your image takes care of the pop-up text.)

The audience gets a chance to win a prize, and you get page views and a forum to communicate with your audience about what they want to see from your company — invaluable market data.

3. Offer a free report or white paper

This works very well for an information-hungry audience, or for audiences that work in information-rich industries, such as investments, mortgage brokerage firms, real estate agencies, or engineering firms.

At the very least, collect the email addresses of potential leads through your registration questionnaire — addresses you can use to send newsletters, email marketing campaigns, and offers for additional free content.

To capture useful information, start by creating a registration form or survey to be filled out before the report can be accessed. Make sure your form looks presentable, that is, easy to read with lots of white space so that completing it doesn’t look like an overwhelming task.

Next, create a list of 10 to12 questions that speak to the information you want to gather (this is not the place for a six-page compendium). Ask questions such as:

What social media sites do you like best?
Do you prefer to get information from a video or from a downloadable report?
Are you interested in learning how to use our products in ways you might not think of?
Do you prefer to get messages from us via an email newsletter or on a blog where you see comments on what other customers are saying, doing, and how they are using our products?

See the pattern? Yes, your questions are designed to gather market research, but they also provide clients with the opportunity to make your content better from their points of view. Be smart, and let your audience guide the contents of your content, so to speak. This provides needed information to your readers; the value to you comes from people reading your material, getting to know you, establishing a relationship, and then doing business with you. So, choose your questions with care, and make your survey easy to complete and return.

4. Provide a coupon

There is no better attractor than saving a buck, so consider using a coupon to promote sales of a product or service. If you have an item that is not selling well, this technique may be particularly helpful.

With a coupon, you can offer a discount on goods or services to entice the reader to fill out your survey, or just submit their contact information to let you know they are interested in your company. In addition to giving you the market research you need, this technique offers a couple distinct advantages:

It helps sell your product. If you need to move merchandise because it is seasonal, going out of style, or you just need to get it off your books, a coupon will help you do that.
Sales from coupons still represent real income.

5. Offer a discount on your conference or seminar registration fees

If your business runs conferences, seminars, or webinars, lowering the cost your audience will pay to attend in exchange for answering some pre-registration questions can provide several advantages:

It helps you inform clients that an event is coming up, that there is a fee to attend, and that they can reduce their costs if they register online in advance.
You promote the seminar, your expertise, your questionnaire, and your business all at the same time, and offer clients a money-saving opportunity to increase their knowledge.

As you read these ideas, we hope you were thinking about marketing, because that is what it all boils down to: hard-as-nails internet marketing. Call it content or whatever else you want, but don’t lose sight of the fact that the purpose is to make you and your business more well-known, more of an asset to your clientele, and more successful, overall.

One last thing: Be sure that you treat your content and social networking campaigns like a ball of string — an integrated effort where finding any part of it leads you to the whole. Ain’t nothing better than that.

If you’ve used any of these techniques, let us know how they worked for you by sharing your story in the comments below.

The New Revenue Engine and the Role of Marketing Analytics

2012-02-17T14:14:00.000-08:00

The New Revenue Engine and the Role of Marketing Analytics:

I keep a library of articles, blogs, white papers, etc., on B2B sales and marketing strategies. Recently, while doing some research on the topic of B2B lead development, I dusted off a great article about generating revenue in the B2B marketplace, “The New Revenue Engine: Drive Predictable Revenue by Managing Your Revenue Machine” via Modern B2B Marketing, Marketo Blog. I found the article to be more relevant now than when I first read it, so I thought it made sense to revisit the great points from the post. In summary:

The old revenue engine is focused on the sales team. When companies want to double revenue, they double their sales force. In the past, this model worked. Information that prospects wanted was not readily available with just a few clicks, so prospects were willing to speak with a sales rep to get it.

But things change. Recent years have highlighted the flaws of the old revenue machine, including:

1. It’s outdated. The way buyers research and buy solutions has changed forever, and the old sales process can’t keep up.

2. It’s expensive. Having sales reps doing their own prospecting is a terrible idea, especially for companies that sell products with less than $250,000 contact values. And even if a rep does some prospecting successfully, as soon as they generate some pipeline, they become too busy to prospect. It’s not sustainable.

3. It’s not predictable. The old revenue engine suffers from feast or famine. We see this all the time with hockey sticks at the end of the quarter, followed by complaints to marketing since there are no sales leads and the pipeline is now cleared out, followed by panicked prospecting to try to make something happen in time to make the numbers.

A sales machine on its own is no longer sufficient to drive a company’s revenue growth. Companies need a new revenue engine.

The new revenue engine consists of systematic, repeatable processes and sales to drive consistent, predictable revenue. It recognizes that demand generation is the key source of new customer acquisition, and it knows the primary job of a sales rep is to sell and close business, not create new opportunities.

The new revenue engine works best when all of these processes are in place and working effectively:

Lead generation. Marketing leads are the fuel that powers the revenue engine, so a predictable flow of new qualified sales leads into the top of the funnel is essential to driving predictable revenue.

Lead nurturing. Nurturing is all about staying in touch with prospects as they educate themselves, until they’re ready to engage with a sales rep. Since some prospects will be ready quickly, and others will take longer, it has the effect of “smoothing” out lumpy lead generation to help deliver a steady stream of leads.

Lead scoring. Scoring goes hand-in-hand with lead nurturing, since it tells you when a lead is “ripe” and possibly ready to engage with sales. The key is to focus not on self-reported and often inaccurate firmographic and BANT criteria, but on the actual buying behaviors the prospect exhibits (repeatedly visiting the website, downloading later stage content, using your company brand name as search term, etc.).

Lead qualification. Once inbound leads are determined to be marketing-qualified, don’t send them directly to an account executive. When salespeople qualify their own leads, leads get lost, and lead scoring by itself is insufficient since it at best indicates accounts that are likely to be qualified. Instead, between marketing and sales there should be a “human touch” in which someone actually speaks to the prospect to determine if they want to engage with a sales rep. If so, pass the sales-qualified lead on; if not, mark the lead as truly disqualified or more likely send it back for further nurturing.

Sales development /prospecting. This is the function that prospects into accounts where there is no active or pre-existing interest. Even companies that generate a great flow of inbound leads can still benefit from this, since (1) the competitors are prospecting into accounts, so waiting for inbound interest can be a recipe for ending up as “column b” and (2) it’s an important way to generate business in new markets where the inbound interest is not as high. Some companies have their sales reps perform this function (which can be expensive) and some have the lead qualification team do it, but some of the best companies have teams that specialize on this function alone.

Traditional sales. Even when reps get a steady flow of highly qualified leads, there’s still a lot to be done to turn qualified interest into revenue, ranging from building ROI cases and positioning versus competitors to negotiating discounts and managing contracts. The new revenue engine doesn’t change the skills and best practices that are required here, but it does help reps focus their time and energy on the activities that are most likely to drive business.

The New Role for B2B Marketing Analytics

A strategic analytic capability is essential in the new revenue engine. Marketing analytics play a significant role in identifying and prioritizing ALL the opportunities for customer and market share growth.

In addition, marketing analytics can be the foundation of sales development and prospecting.

Using predictive B2B marketing analytics, you can scale the level of understanding of the target market and create a repeatable process to identify the best opportunities by salesperson, by product/service for customer expansion and new customer acquisition.

In my view, in addition to all the great points by the author, the New Revenue Generation Model closes the loop from opportunity identification through the ultimate sale, demonstrating the success of the integrated effort while laying the foundation for a going-forward process of sales planning, territory investment, marketing investment and focus.

Why Measuring Marketing Performance is the Key to B2B Success

2012-02-17T14:10:00.000-08:00

Why Measuring Marketing Performance is the Key to B2B Success:

When speaking to marketing directors and business owners, one of the most common questions I am asked is – ‘Is all of this measurable?’ We are living in a world where ROI is at the heart of every business process and marketing is not an exception.

With the availability of tools such as Google Analytics and HubSpot there is a whole host of things that you can drill down and report on. You do, however, run the risk of information overload so what are the top three things you should be tracking in addition to measuring leads generated and customers won?

Are you getting found? Gauging SEO performance

SEO is at the heart of helping organisations getting found. But beware of the ‘snake oil’ SEO practioners out there who may bamboozle you into believing that they will get your website a first page ranking in no time. You should make sure they are delivering the goods so here are a few things you should watch over time:

1. Keyword position

After determining your most important keywords through keyword research, identify, say, your top 10 keywords. Track how well they are performing on a month by month basis. Are they generating the traffic numbers you would expect? Is this traffic converting to leads on your website? If you are getting a heap of views but no conversion, maybe you need to rethink your keyword strategy.

2. Branded vs. non-branded terms

Getting found for your brand name is important. However, people searching for your brand already know who you are and the aim of the game is to be found by new people. To grow you business you need to work on getting found for the following:

Core industry terms
Long-tallied terms
Problem solution terms;

That is, in addition to branded terms.

Are you converting, once found?

So, you have a well optimised website and are getting found by new people all the time. This is when you need to work towards converting these visitors to leads. This is achieved by strategically placing calls to action on your web pages linking to landing pages that have conversion offers and forms. So how do you measure the performance of these?

- CTA performance

You can assess the effectiveness of each of your calls to action by placing a specific tracking URL on each CTA, which will allow you to determine how many clicks each CTA has had and understand at what rate these clicks are leading to conversion. This will show you which offers are best received by your audience, something that can play a big role in defining future campaigns.

- Landing page conversion rates

Landing pages are the gateway to converting visits to leads. Each landing page should have a concise summary of what it is on offer for filling in an attached lead conversion form. To understand whether or not your landing pages are working, you need to understand their conversion rate.

There are a variety of different conversion rates you can measure:

Visitor-to-lead conversion rate: the percentage of visitors who become leads
Lead-to-customer conversion rate: the percentage of leads who become customers
Visitor-to-customer conversion rate: the percentage of visitors who become customers

For B2B marketers with longer sales cycles you’d probably want to focus on visitor-to-lead, whereas ecommerce landing pages should focus more on visitor-to-customer conversion rates.

In a B2B environment I would suggest that you aim for a conversion rate of at least 15% visit to lead. If you are not achieving this rate of conversion, a few things you should consider are:

Messaging – it is clear what the visitors are getting in return for completing the form.
Page length – is you page too long? People will turn off if they see ‘War and Peace’! Keep it short and use bullets to break it up.
Form length – the longer the form, the less the conversion. Only ask for the details you really need!

There are a host of other elements that you can analyse in addition to the ones laid out above. By using the pointers below you can really understand what makes your marketing engine tick. And by constantly refining your campaigns based on insights garnered from Analytics, you will soon be making informed changes to campaigns that will generate even more customers and leads.

So remember, knowledge is power and marketing analytics is an essential part of lead and customer acquisition!

Image source: Mason Bryant, Flickr/Creative Commons

How to Build Personas that Persuade Buyers and Increase Sales - MarketingProfs Online Seminars and Webinars

2012-02-17T13:19:00.001-08:00

How to Build Personas that Persuade Buyers and Increase Sales - MarketingProfs Online Seminars and Webinars: 'via Blog this'

INFOGRAPHIC: Recruiters Aren't Using Facebook And Twitter

2012-02-17T13:19:00.000-08:00

INFOGRAPHIC: Recruiters Aren't Using Facebook And Twitter: 'via Blog this'

Why you may need to redefine your competition

2012-02-16T17:10:00.001-08:00

Why you may need to redefine your competition:

Who (or what) does your company really compete against? For the majority of B2B product or service offerings, the answer is unlikely to be restricted to a list of conventional “competitors” that look broadly similar to your own organisation. In fact, the key to achieving your full potential probably lies in redefining your sense of who or what your opposition looks like when it comes to your prospect’s time and attention.

But before you can consider your competitive landscape, you need to be clear about what markets you are going to address, what your most valuable prospects look like, and what problems you solve for them. In fact, for high-value, considered B2B purchase environments, being clear about the “problem you solve” is critical to defining your competitive landscape.

Here’s why: your effective competition includes all of the other options open to a prospect that recognises the problem and has decided to do something about it. These options might include other vendors that look somewhat like you or seem to fall into the same category, but they also include in-house/DIY solutions, completely different ways of addressing the issue, and deciding to do nothing.

Competing against “do nothing”

Having a prospect decide to “do nothing” after a long and resource-intensive sales campaign is particularly frustrating - but it happens all too frequently. The problem simply doesn’t appear painful enough for the prospect to risk disturbing the status quo. The remedy is simple: you need to “sell the problem” before you invest a great deal of time and resource in “selling your solution”.

If you can’t get the prospect to associate some significant cost or pain with simply carrying on as they are today, that exactly what they will do. And you will have lost to that most fearsome of competitors, the inclination to preserve the status quo.

Competing against radically different options

Sometimes you won’t even recognise that your prospect might be considering a different approach to solving the problem - and if you don’t ask, you’ll probably never know, until it’s too late. So make sure that your sales people are asking their prospects how they might have tried to solve the problem before, and what other approaches to solving the problem they are considering right now - no matter how radical.

Competing against DIY

Your prospect may be thinking that they could solve the problem through their own in-house efforts - and their IT department might be encouraging them to believe it. This can be a tricky one to compete against. If they have already tried to solve the problem in-house and have failed, you can promote your expertise and track record. But if you detect that they are considering in-house solutions as a first-time fix, you might need to encourage your prospect to think about their past experiences. How many times has an in-house approach really delivered the result they were looking for on time? And how much control do they really have over in-house resources?

Competing against conventional competitors

Last of all, the obvious competition - other organisations that look like yours (and that appear to play in the same categories). Here, you need to implement a “same but different” strategy - and here’s why: if the prospect believes that they need a category of thing (be it product or service) to solve their problem, you want to get found in that category when they start searching for a solution.

But unless you want to get boxed into selling on price, then you need to strongly differentiate your company from these other players - and the best way of doing that it is explain why your organisation takes a different (and provably superior) approach to solving the problem. Most important, you need to show how and why you are different before you claim to be better - the sequence is critical.

Who (or what) are you really competing against?

So - who or what is your organisation really competing against? How good a job are your sales people doing in identifying the options that their prospects are considering? And how clearly are they able to distinctively differentiate your offering against all the choices that the customer could make?

Does Your B2B Marketing Content Address Cause?

2012-02-16T17:10:00.000-08:00

Does Your B2B Marketing Content Address Cause?:

How deep does your marketing content dive into the problems and priorities your B2B prospects are facing? In B2B marketing, we talk a lot about addressing problems, but quite often we don't talk about what that really means or how to truly help our prospects solve the systemic issues that cause the problems in the first place.

This post is inspired by the following point in a list of reasons about why managers struggle on Leadership Now blog. This is reason #9:

They Fix Problems, Not Causes. Unless the manager fixes the cause of the problems they encounter, valuable time will be spent fixing the same problem over and over again.

How often do you think about why a problem exists for your prospects? As marketers we need to look beyond the obvious and get to the root of the issue to elevate the value our content provides. That's when we start to become interesting to our prospects — when we invite them to think.

I love blog posts about people who are representative of my client's prospects. Posts about managers and leadership are really good sources of information to help you help them by gaining a bit of insight to things they may be struggling with or how they view opportunities.

This particular insight can help us begin to consider the potential causes behind the problems that prospects say they want to fix.

Here's an example:

If your prospect says he wants to improve team productivity and collaboration, why might that be an issue? Some possible causes may include:

Did the company grow too fast without the infrastructure in place to support it?
Did the company expand via mergers or acquisitions and is trying to mesh cultures?
Is the company's culture old school but the manager is trying to force the adoption of new trends?
Was there insufficient onboarding to drive adoption of the last solution he tried?
Is IT not responsive to resolving issues with the system reported by users?

Given whatever you determine might be the cause of the issue your prospect is trying to resolve, can you see opportunities to create content that helps them get to the root cause rather than just buying another bandaid?

I can see you reading this and thinking "Hey, how would I know which cause to focus on because I don't market to one prospect at a time!"

The trick to this is to figure out which are the most likely scenarios and create content that addresses those. Theoretically, in the scenario above, each of those causes may exist for some percentage of your prospects. Think about it this way, if you can validate that customers have addressed specific root causes and salespeople tell you similar stories, you know that content designed around the cause will be on target for some prospects.

Monitor who spends time with which "cause" content and continue nurturing them appropriately with extension pieces. There's always more than one angle to any story. Use as many as you think are relevant. It also makes sense to have salespeople ask what's behind the issue in their follow-up and share those insights with marketing as part of the validation process.

When marketers consider how they set up the problem-to-solution stories they share to build a buyer experience, they must also consider the longevity of customer lifecycles. After all, if the cause of the issue is addressed during the implementation of your solution, it's less likely to happen again. And that means higher customer satisfaction and adds to the value derived from each customer for your company.

Are you thinking beyond the surface of the problem when you design your content marketing programs?

What B2B Marketing and Sales Can Learn From Walmart

2012-02-16T17:09:00.000-08:00

What B2B Marketing and Sales Can Learn From Walmart:

Famous (and notorious) as a model of ruthless operational efficiency, Walmart is known for mastering just-in-time (JIT) delivery of goods – holding virtually no inventory – to extract from suppliers only what’s needed to sell. While we certainly don’t advocate that B2B marketing and sales adopt the type of adversarial vendor relationships Walmart is legendary for, its success does provide some valuable lessons.

While you may never have thought of it this way, to a certain extent marketing is a supplier to sales. Like a manufacturer supplying a retailer with goods, marketing supplies sales with leads. Sales, like a retailer, needs to convert those leads into closed business as efficiently and effectively as possible. But, like a retailer that depends on the help of a supplier to create demand and move product (through advertising, promotion and point-of-purchase strategies), sales needs the help of marketing (through branding, campaigns, content and tools) to create/accelerate demand and close business. Too often, we find that sales has a tough time asking for this help.

Tell the Supplier What You Want and Need

Walmart’s strategy is simple: Sell goods to the customer at the lowest possible cost. Its suppliers understand that Walmart wants them to drive as much of the cost out of their products as possible. Walmart employees can’t even accept a cup of coffee from a supplier – because it adds to the cost of merchandise. We recommend that sales get what it needs from marketing through a formal, structured and collaborative process to establish clear objectives, expectations, measurements and mutual respect. Service-level agreements (SLAs) are a highly effective vehicle for establishing this process, and we’ve seen firsthand their effectiveness in the work we do with clients.

The Job’s Not Over When the Goods Are Delivered

Too often, marketing views its job as simply creating demand, and considers the job done when a lead has been successfully accepted and qualified by sales. Wrong! Just as Walmart suppliers provide advertising, promotional and point-of-purchase assistance to help the retailer engage and convert shoppers, marketing should look for ways to enable sales by developing content and tools that help buyers through their decision process, using data to help determine where to target those efforts.

Data Is a Two-Way Street

Walmart’s competitive advantage is its use of data in driving operational excellence. The company collects, aggregates, analyzes and shares data with suppliers to ensure that the right products are delivered in the right quantity to the right location at the right time. Possible hurricane in Florida? Walmart alerts Kellogg’s to increase its shipments of strawberry Pop-Tarts to the Sunshine State because the data shows people buying them when power outages are likely.

In the B2B realm, sales can help direct marketing efforts to where they will be most helpful by sharing real-time data from sales force automation (SFA) systems. For example, if the SFA data identifies a “break point” where there’s high deal attrition in the sales pipeline, marketing can provide content (e.g. client success stories) and programs (e.g. executive briefings) to improve results.

Unfortunately, the typical B2B sales organization is no Walmart when it comes to data. With often minimal SFA compliance, the data shared by sales is typically not close to the amount and quality that marketing needs to drive these key decisions. By demonstrating how sales will benefit by entering this data, providing value to sales in using their SFA tools (e.g. integrating playbooks, comp management, game design techniques) and having sales managers coach their reps, compliance and data quality can be increased.

Can We Get to JIT Delivery of Leads?

As previously noted, Walmart is famous for holding as little inventory as possible. Using technology, it demands JIT delivery of goods based on what’s selling and what’s not. Now, imagine if Walmart demanded that its supplier provide four to five times the goods they could actually sell? Not likely to happen, yet it does when sales demands that a 4X or 5X pipeline be managed by its reps. Our research shows that an increase in pipeline-to-quota ratio often leads to a decrease in overall sales productivity and an increase in wasted resources (both in undeveloped leads and sales efforts that go nowhere). Marketing and sales should take a lesson from Walmart. Rather than hold inventory, sales should send it back to marketing for nurturing and development until it’s ready to close.

While Walmart has a reputation for being a demanding company to do business with, there are also many stories of the company collaborating with partners for the greater good. Case in point, Procter & Gamble (P&G) came to Walmart to share its thoughts on how to make cosmetic products greener. P&G worked with a cross-functional team to design products and packaging that were more sustainable, ultimately leading to greater sales. A great lesson on the benefits of working together for any B2B marketing and sales organization!

Some Thoughts About LinkedIn

2012-02-16T17:08:00.001-08:00

Some Thoughts About LinkedIn:

This past weekend I read a book excerpt in Fortune magazine entitled, The real way to build a social network. Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, co-authored The Start-Up of You, the book from which the excerpt was taken.

What got my attention in the first place was the opening: “Forget Dale Carnegie. He understood how important connections were, but missed out on the authenticity part which … is the key to building a truly helpful professional network…”

Pretty bold statement, right? But for many of us who use LinkedIn every day, the authors are preaching to the converted. I know I don’t get as much from LinkedIn as some, but it has become an invaluable tool.

A few thoughts for your consideration:

I use LinkedIn to help clients with blind reference checking of candidates for sales and sales executive positions. Recently a client took my advice by looking at who I was connected to that might, in turn, be connected to a VP of Sales candidate they were getting close to hiring. Bingo. I was able to introduce the CEO with a number of close contacts who generously spent a lot of time with my client. The candidate never knew the conversations took place. He was hired last week.
I always look someone up on LinkedIn before speaking with them the first time, or after not speaking with them after a long time. Amazing how things change for people. New company, new position, new contacts. Conversations are so much more productive when you get a fix on the other person’s perspective.
When someone I know contacts me to network their way into a new position, I’ll often suggest they look through my connections. I’m generally willing to make introductions, although recommending them is out of the question for me if I haven’t worked with them directly. The book makes another point. Don’t wait to start networking when you’re looking for a job. Take the time to build a network based on mutual value before that need arises. I completely agree with that.
I cull my connections regularly. I’m not a collector of connections on LinkedIn. In fact I think those that are miss the point of real networking. I believe it’s the quality of the relationships that determine how networked you are, not the number of names you can collect. For that reason I don’t accept connections from those whom I don’t know, have not been recommended to me, or with whom I don’t have something in common. I (almost always) send a reply which explains my position, assuring them that my unwillingness to connect with them isn’t personal. I expect some get offended anyway, or think I’m odd.
I feel the system is being abused when someone wants to connect with me, but can’t take one minute to overwrite the ubiquitous, “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.” Take a minute and tell me what I can do for you, or even better, what you can do for me, or even better than that, what we both can do for someone else.
Salespeople who are not looking for a job should construct their LinkedIn profiles centered on the value they have delivered for their customers through each of the positions they have held. Those who are looking for a job should stress sales performance.
I’m not big on recommendations. I have a few that are important to me, but I don’t publish others. I think they are, for many, part of a profile-expanding quid pro quo approach. In those cases, I don’t even read the recommendations.
I’m a little miffed at LinkedIn. There is no iPad app. I don’t keep up with iPad app development news. I wonder when the iPad app will happen. Anyone know?
I’ve used both LinkedIn ads and job postings. The job posting facility worked very well when ESR was searching for another analyst last year.
The groups and discussions are all over the map. Some groups are tightly controlled. That’s good. Others are like the wild West. If I want to get updates on new discussions from some groups, I get barraged with spam. If I turn off the notices, I’ll surely miss that occasional important discussion I need to know about. With all that said, I spend some time each week commenting on others’ posts.
By all means, have someone read through your profile. I have a problem with professional profiles that contain very noticeable grammatical errors and misspellings. I’ve seen some profiles where the names of companies have been misspelled by those that worked there.
I don’t quite get it when people don’t include a photo in their profile. Do they know how to import one? Do they have a photo? Do they care?
Finally, if you’re going to ask me for a favor, please don’t include me on a Linked in (or any other) distribution list. Especially don’t begin the mass email with, “Since you are someone I trust and respect…”

I’d love to hear whether you agree with my points or have others points you’d like to add. Comment below.

Get More LinkedIn Prospects to Connect With You

2012-02-16T17:08:00.000-08:00

Get More LinkedIn Prospects to Connect With You:

Sales Question:

"I'm doing my best to take advantage of "social selling" with LinkedIn but I'm having a hard time getting prospects to accept my connection requests. Any suggestions?"

Answer:

LinkedIn is a powerful social selling tool that can help you increase sales - if used correctly.

What makes social selling work for salespeople is it gives us the ability to quickly & easily get on our prospects radar. It's the ultimate channel for branding yourself as an SME (Subject Matter Expert) at the cost of virtually "free" other than the time you need to put into it.

Now when it comes to reaching out to connect with potential prospects on LinkedIn there is a default message that most salespeople use when sending their request.

It looks like this:

"I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. – (Your Name Here)”

Now some salespeople will add something like:

"You visited our both at last weeks trade show and I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. – (Your Name Here)”

The problem with the templates above is that there is nothing beneficial that would make a prospect want to accept an invite, let alone check out the requesters profile. (And you want them to check out your profile - provided you have it set up right – as it may generate an inbound lead for you… I'll write more about how to do that in the future)

Using the "What's In It For Me" Rule

So instead of using the standard boring request form that everyone else uses, try using the WIIFM (What's In It For Me - with "ME" being your prospect) version…

You'll have to create your own but here's a word-for-word connection request that I use after someone registers to view our free on-demand B2B sales skills webinar:

"Hi (prospects name)… Thanks for viewing our Voicemail Strategies webinar and hope you found it useful. I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn in case you decide I may be of some help to you in the future. - Michael Pedone"

By making it more personal and having the WIIFM message, your prospects will be more inclined to accept your request – which will help increase inbound warm leads and make you less dependent on cold ones.

Turn Your Reps into Commercial Coaches

2012-02-16T17:07:00.000-08:00

Turn Your Reps into Commercial Coaches:

The next time you head out to sell a solution to a customer, think about it from this perspective – this may be the first time your customer is ever purchasing this solution. So why do we frequently let the customer tell us how the sale should proceed? And even if they have purchased this solution before, it’s likely been years… and many of the players and much of the internal politics are now different. Do they know the best path forward?

Now think about it from this perspective – as sales professionals, it’s our JOB to sell these solutions, day in and day out, to a wide range of customers, each with a very different set of circumstances. There isn’t much we haven’t seen go right and go wrong.

All of those lessons learned are incredibly valuable, and can be used to coach the customer on how the sale should proceed. Help them avoid mistakes, prepare for obstacles or objections, and make their purchase experience smooth and easy. We call this Commercial Coaching.

We first uncovered that the best reps out there are coaching their customers through the sale in our latest work on the New High Performer Playbook. Star reps are not out there indiscriminately talking to anyone, they’re very purposefully seeking out Mobilizers to help them build the case for change and build consensus. But once stars find a Mobilizer, they don’t just hand over the reins and walk away – they very actively coach the Mobilizer through the consensus building process.

If you haven’t seen the Mobilizer and Commercial Coaching work yet, you’ll want to start there. But if you are ready to start building your own versions of the tools, then this blog post is for you.

These are some lessons we’ve learned from members across the last several months as they’ve taken these ideas and tools and adapted them to their world.

Lesson 1: Half the battle is building a Commercial Coaching mindset. You have to sell reps on the need to be commercial coaches, and don’t overlook how much of a change this is for most reps. Show them why the mentality that “the customer knows best” is a dangerous mentality. Unfortunately, that mentality incorrectly assumes the customer knows who all the key players are in their business relative to this solution, why they might object to the solution, how to overcome those obstacles and gain consensus, and how to do all of that with some political savvy. Teach reps that it’s ok to be a little more prescriptive. We’re not asking you to outright tell the customer what to do (that WOULD be bad), but to make suggestions and collaborate with the customer to come up with next steps.

Lesson 2: Build collaborative tools to help reps have constructive conversations with customers. The hardest part about having a conversation you’re not comfortable having often times is just how to bring it up. The first half of that battle is asking leading questions. The Commercial Coaching Toolkit lists out self-discovery and collaborative questions to prompt your Mobilizer for a response. But if that’s not enough, offload that burden a bit by building tools that reps can use at different stages in the customer’s buying process.

One of our favorites comes from Business Objects, and it’s called the “Sequence of Events.” Sit down WITH your Mobilizer, and together map out all the potential next steps. Or better yet, have a pre-populated one (with common pitfalls already embedded) and let the Mobilizer customize it.

That way, when the Mobilizer asks “why would that step be in there?” the rep can respond by teaching the Mobilizer the danger of not including that step and coaching them through how to avoid it.

ADP builds on that concept by building tools to coach customers at every step in their buying process – starting from the initial sales call with one Mobilizer all the way through organizational consensus and implementation of a solution.

Lesson #3: Celebrate your failures. The best way to build a tool like the Sequence of Events is to ask your reps about the worst deal that ever fell apart or got derailed. Those are all stories to build into pitfalls and embed into your Commercial Coaching Roadmap.

To illustrate this, I’ll share the story we like to tell of an enterprise software company who, after a few months of pursing a deal, got the go-ahead from the Customer’s CEO…but then found out a week later that not even the CEO had the authority to make purchases like this. Purchases of this size had to go to the board of directors for approval. Now, the good news is that story had a happy ending because they won the deal. But they had to wait TWO AND A HALF MONTHS for the board to reconvene. That’s a great potential next step to go into your sequence of events – consult the board!

If you can find potential obstacles from past deals, you can better anticipate ways to coach your customer through the difficult world of consensus building.

SEC Members, visit our new Commercial Coaching topic center for more resources and tools, or check out our webinar replay on the topic.

Why Do You Think “Profit” is a Dirty Word?

2012-02-16T17:06:00.000-08:00

Why Do You Think “Profit” is a Dirty Word?:

Seriously, I’m asking.

Why do you think “profit” is a dirty word?

If you don’t, good! You have won a lot of the battle that many salespeople face daily — they don’t believe in their price and they are even suspicious of profit.

I’m here to boldly proclaim that profit is NOT a dirty word.

In my recent book, High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale Without Compromising on Price, I explain that “when a business provides its customers with what they need and want, it is able to make a profit. The company can then use this profit to do any number of things, but one of them is to reinvest in the business in order to be able to serve customers even better.”

Before you think I’m casting stones, you should know that I at one point struggled with seeing profit as positive.

Like many of the salespeople I meet, I believed that discounting was a valid way to secure a customer that would then become a “long-term” customer. I was willing to sacrifice profit — to lessen it’s significance, in order to get a sale.

Certainly what I lost in charging at full price I would make up for in quantity, right?

Wrong!

If you run the numbers, you will see that discounting doesn’t just eat away at your profit immediately, it destroys it over subsequent sales as well.

Why?

Well, if you discount once, your customer now associates the value of what you sell at the discounted price. This is a barrier that is incredibly hard to overcome. If and when you try to re-establish the normal price at which you should have sold in the first place, the customer’s rebellion is likely to be more intense.

As a salesperson, you have to fully commit to maximizing profit.

That means you must expect the customer to pay full price right from the start. The sooner you realize this fact, the better off you are.

What if you aren’t outright discounting — but are still throwing in “extras” that you wouldn’t normally give to the customer? Sorry, but this technique squanders profit as well.

You must always be conscientious of what you are doing to shape the customer’s perception of value. Your goal is to do an excellent job determining their needs and wants — so that you can then show them clearly how you product or service is the answer. They will be willing to pay full price for something that either solves their difficulties or satisfies their desires.

Want to find out more about why profit isn’t a dirty word, as well as how to minimize “profit takers?”

Order my new book, High-Profit Selling: Win the Sales Without Compromising on Price. The book is the result of my decades in the sales profession as a salesperson, manager, consultant and trainer.

You and your company need to embrace the power of profit so that you are actually in a position to keep providing customers what they want and need!

Profit is not a dirty word.

5 Deadly Sins People Make When Networking

2012-02-16T17:02:00.000-08:00

5 Deadly Sins People Make When Networking:

We’ve all found ourselves in situations where we have to network. Either by our own choice or at the request of our employer, we attend an event where the sole purpose is to network.

Personally, I enjoy having the opportunity to network and meet new people. That’s just part of my DNA, but for others, asking them to network is like asking them to visit a dentist.

Wherever you fall on the spectrum, it’s good to know a few tips that will make things go smoother.

The 5 Deadly Sins People Make When Networking:

1. Networking with people you already know.

Sure, it’s great to catch up with people you know but may not have seen for awhile, but let’s get real — that’s not networking. The least you can do is introduce your existing network to people they don’t know.

2. Trying to meet everyone without giving anyone any real attention.

Networking is not about trying to collect as many business cards as possible. It’s much better to come away from a networking event with 2-3 relationships worth following up on in place of a mass of business cards you’ll never do anything with.

3. Spending your entire time connected at the hip with the other business associate you came with.

Split up, go your own way. You’ll meet more people. I saw an example of this recently at and event with nearly 100 people. One bank sent 3 people, and throughout the entire event, these 3 people spent the entire time talking amongst themselves and reaching out to nobody. Now that’s what I would call a waste of time.

4. Making every conversation about you.

Networking is not about you; it’s about you finding out about others. Put the ego on hold and spend your time finding out about the people to whom you’re talking and then finding others at the event you can introduce them to.

5. Failing to follow-up after the event.

I used to say you have about 72 hours to follow-up with someone after you meet them. Due to the onslaught of media and the craziness of our lives, I’d say we now have about 36 hours to follow-up with them.

Next time you’re at a networking event, don’t do one of these 5 deadly networking sins.

Yes, there are many more but these, but I see these at the worst of the worst. Most important of all is never violate #5. Following up is what a networking event is all about, and if you aren’t in a position to do that, then don’t even think about attending the event.

The Pros and Cons of Geographic Sales Territories

2012-02-16T17:01:00.000-08:00

The Pros and Cons of Geographic Sales Territories: By now it has been clearly documented that well defined and precisely aligned Sales Territories can greatly benefit the overall productivity of a Sales Team. Assigning boundaries (literal or figurative) to a group of sales professionals creates structure and results in a stronger bottom line at the end of the year.

We’ve taken you through how to design sales territories, now it’s time to figure out…

How do I get the most of out of my sales territories?

There are a variety of ways to optimize, balance, and align sales territories. The real question lies in how to select the right structure that will offer your Sales Team the most advantages and allow them to secure the most revenue each and every quarter.

Below are a few ways to increase the effectiveness of your Sales Territories:

Utilizing effective Sales Territory Software can help in this process (we’ve touched on this before).
Organizing your Sales Team by Geographic Sales Territories
Organizing your Sales Team by Vertical (or Industry) Sales Territories
Organizing your Sales Team with Sales Territories determined by Company Size

All of these sales strategies have their place, and each has the potential to benefit your company.

In this article, we will focus our attention on Geographic Sales Territories and how they can help (or hurt) your organization.

The Advantages of Geographic Sales Territories

Decrease Travel and Increase Selling Time. By assuring that all of your Sales Reps’ opportunities are centered in one general area (be that a single block of offices in New York City or a collection of five states in the Midwest) you allow them to manage their time better. Instead of spending unproductive hours in the car or on airplanes, they can maximize their time selling and landing new accounts.
Reduce Conflict Amongst the Sales Team. If you happen to have a couple of ambitious, feisty sales professionals on your Sales Team, you may run into problems on occasion centered on which team member an account actually belongs to. Geographic Sales Territories can alleviate some of this tension. For instance, an account is either in Texas – or it’s not. It’s either in the Empire State Building – or it’s not. Aligning sales territories this way decreases the potential for this type of conflict.
Strong Local Knowledge and Decreased Language Barriers. Many of today’s global territories are limited due to cultural and language barriers. These are obstacles that should not be overlooked, as they can have very real effects on the overall productivity of your company. If your global organization strategically places Sales Reps within his or her native country’s Sales Territory, these language and cultural barriers will be removed. This allows for more efficient and effective selling to occur.

The Disadvantages of Geographic Sales Territories

Limiting Growth from Ambitious Sales Professionals. One of the major risks of Geographic Sales Territories is that you may unintentionally pigeonhole an ambitious sales rep into a territory that isn’t extremely active. If he weren’t held back by the geographical constraints, he may go out and obtain new accounts in different regions. With the Geographic Sales Territories he is unable to do this.
Lack of specialization. When Sales Professionals are assigned to Geographic-based Sales Territories, they are essentially bound to the accounts present in those territories. These accounts will likely include hundreds of companies and span dozens of industries. This means that Sales Reps must acquire and maintain knowledge about a wide array of topics. While this can work out just fine, it also prevents your Sales Team from becoming proficient in any one particular topic or industry.

Examine the Advantages and Disadvantages for Geographic Sales Territories carefully. Can you see your organization capitalizing on any of the advantages? Or can you foresee your company falling into the trap of the disadvantages? Use this information to make an informed decision about how to best define and align your sales territories and maximize your production as an organization.

Still not sure what to do with your Sales Territories? Download our document on Territory Design Solutions to figure out your next step.

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Using LinkedIn Properly

2012-02-16T17:00:00.000-08:00

Using LinkedIn Properly:

In my previous post, Which B2B Social Network is the Most Valuable? I referenced the research we did through the DealmakerIndex and it was very clear that LinkedIn is valued a lot more by B2B professionals than any of the other outlets in the Social Universe. There has been much written about LinkedIn best practices, but just this week Dave Stein at ES Research put together his thoughts on LinkedIn and some observations about how it is used.

I liked very much what Dave had to say, and with his permission I have included his thoughts here. The comments in [italics] are my additions.

In Dave’s words …

I use LinkedIn to help clients with blind reference checking of candidates for sales and sales executive positions. Recently a client took my advice by looking at who I was connected to that might, in turn, be connected to a VP of Sales candidate they were getting close to hiring. Bingo. I was able to introduce the CEO with a number of close contacts who generously spent a lot of time with my client. The candidate never knew the conversations took place. He was hired last week.? [It is always very important to check references, and LinkedIn is great place to select references you might want to check, other than those offered by the candidate.]
I always look someone up on LinkedIn before speaking with them the first time, or after not speaking with them after a long time. Amazing how things change for people. New company, new position, new contacts. Conversations are so much more productive when you get a fix on the other person’s perspective.?[I’d suggest that to really get inside someone’s head, Twitter is a better place to get a feeling for who someone is. LinkedIn tends to be less spontaneous, and consequently provides less insight.]
When someone I know contacts me to network their way into a new position, I’ll often suggest they look through my connections. I’m generally willing to make introductions, although recommending them is out of the question for me if I haven’t worked with them directly. The book makes another point. Don’t wait to start networking when you’re looking for a job. Take the time to build a network based on mutual value before that need arises. I completely agree with that.
I cull my connections regularly. I’m not a collector of connections on LinkedIn. In fact I think those that are miss the point of real networking. I believe it’s the quality of the relationships that determine how networked you are, not the number of names you can collect. For that reason I don’t accept connections from those whom I don’t know, have not been recommended to me, or with whom I don’t have something in common. I (almost always) send a reply which explains my position, assuring them that my unwillingness to connect with them isn’t personal. I expect some get offended anyway, or think I’m odd.?[I couldn’t agree more – it’s about connections, not contacts. If those who you link with have a massive network, but you are not really connected to them, then it dilutes the value of your network, as they keep popping up as the link, and that sometimes gets in the way of people who you really now, and who might really help.]
I feel the system is being abused when someone wants to connect with me, but can’t take one minute to overwrite the ubiquitous, “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.” Take a minute and tell me what I can do for you, or even better, what you can do for me, or even better than that, what we both can do for someone else. ?[LinkedIn’s recent practice of continuously suggesting new people to connect with is partly to blame for this I think, but if someone does not write a personal message, then I’m with Dave here.]
Salespeople who are not looking for a job should construct their LinkedIn profiles centered on the value they have delivered for their customers through each of the positions they have held. [I think there is an opportunity to provide a quick overview of the value your current company provides, or how you can provide value to customers based on your current company's offerings.] Those who are looking for a job should stress sales performance.
I’m not big on recommendations. I have a few that are important to me, but I don’t publish others. I think they are, for many, part of a profile-expanding quid pro quo approach. In those cases, I don’t even read the recommendations.?[It is amusing sometimes when Fred recommends Jane, and Jane recommends Fred – but I don't know who Fred and Jane think they are kidding. Seriously though, recommendations are typically solicited, and are not reviews, but compliments that are asked for, and as such have little value.]
I’m a little miffed at LinkedIn. There is no iPad app. I don’t keep up with iPad app development news. I wonder when the iPad app will happen. Anyone know??[I found this LinkedIn iPad app. Can’t comment on it though, I’ve not used it.]
I’ve used both LinkedIn ads and job postings. The job posting facility worked very well when ESR was searching for another analyst last year.? [I’ve used LinkedIn for job postings regularly as we have found some great candidates that way. However, you do have to trawl through a lot of chaff.]
The groups and discussions are all over the map. Some groups are tightly controlled. That’s good. Others are like the wild West. If I want to get updates on new discussions from some groups, I get barraged with spam. If I turn off the notices, I’ll surely miss that occasional important discussion I need to know about. With all that said, I spend some time each week commenting on others’ posts.?[Much of the activity on groups seems to be consultants selling to consultants, or vendors promoting their wares. Occasionally though you can find good groups that are tightly controlled and conversations are more meaningful.]
By all means, have someone read through your profile. I have a problem with professional profiles that contain very noticeable grammatical errors and misspellings. I’ve seen some profiles where the names of companies have been misspelled by those that worked there.
I don’t quite get it when people don’t include a photo in their profile. Do they know how to import one? Do they have a photo? Do they care?
Finally, if you’re going to ask me for a favor, please don’t include me on a Linked in (or any other) distribution list. Especially don’t begin the mass email with, “Since you are someone I trust and respect…”

Beyond Dave’s excellent points, there are few questions I’d ask …

Should you always try to connect on LinkedIn with new prospects? If your competitors are watching you, you might need to be careful.
Should companies enforce a standard description of the company for all of their employees, or is LinkedIn more personal?
Is there an optimum number of connections you should have on LinkedIn? Can you really have ‘connections’ with 5000 people?

As ever, I’d welcome your thoughts and comments.

Plugging In: The Six Communities with which Your Business Needs to Connect

2012-02-16T12:21:00.000-08:00

Plugging In: The Six Communities with which Your Business Needs to Connect:

As you build, maintain, and manage your online social presence, you need to remember that communities don’t grow themselves. Whether you’re on Twitter, Facebook, or any other platform, you need to cultivate those communities, especially if you’re a small business.

In most cases, that means that you need to reach out and connect with them first. They won’t just show up on your doorstep.

In particular, as you seek to build your following and online communities, there are six main communities with which you need to connect. If you start with them, your job will be easier down the line.

1. Your local community of individuals – On Twitter in particular, you can start out by searching for local people to follow. Once you find some of the key local individuals, see who follows them or who they are following. These may be the people you see around town, and they may or may not be your customers, but perhaps they are potential customers. Or maybe they are connected to potential customers.

2. Your community of existing customers – Find them online. And use your offline presence to let them know you are online. If social media is built on a foundation of word of mouth, then your current customers will be incredibly important to you online. You need to find ways to make all of your customers aware of your online presence. Whether they are local or around the world, remind them to connect with you online.

3. Your local business community – If you are a “local” business, don’t just connect with people. Connect with other businesses. “Like” and follow their business accounts from your business accounts. Connect with the individuals personally. Even if they might be perceived as competitors. When local businesses collaborate, everyone wins.

4. Your larger industry community – If you run a restaurant, connect with other restaurants around the country as well as industry associations, food bloggers, etc. Almost every business category has both formal and informal groups and organizations designed just for them. Connect with them online and learn from them. Share ideas. Learn what works and doesn’t work for your industry peers. No matter how long you’ve been in business or how much of an “expert” you are, you can always learn from others.

5. Your internal community – Don’t forget your employees. I understand that a lot of staff members might not want to connect directly with you on Facebook, but you can create an employee only group on Facebook to enhance internal communications. You can do similar things on Google +. Many businesses struggle with internal communications, especially when they have multiple locations, and staff that works different shifts.

6. Your non-business/industry community – If you meet a plumber out on the town at night, I’m betting he won’t only talk to you about plumbing. If he does, you’ll be headed in the opposite direction pretty darn fast. Connect with other individuals and entities that share your interests. Do you like sports (or a specific sport)? Connect with those folks. Perhaps you’re interested in books, cooking, fashion, or music. In other words, it doesn’t all have to be about your business. Being well-rounded actually will help you and your business in the long run. Your customers aren’t one-dimensional, and you shouldn’t be one-dimensional either.

Have you connected with all of these communities online? You might even be surprised at how many of them overlap!

How to Map Lead Nurturing Content to Each Stage in the Sales Cycle

2012-02-16T12:18:00.001-08:00

How to Map Lead Nurturing Content to Each Stage in the Sales Cycle:

Lead nurturing is a crucial part of your marketing and sales success. Studies show that 50% of leads are qualified but aren't immediately ready to buy something from you [Source: Gleanster Research]. With lead nurturing, however, you can bring those leads through your sales funnel and garner 4-10 times the response rate compared to a regular email blast while doing it [Source: SilverPop/DemandGen Report]. To nurture those leads correctly, however, you need to somehow adjust your messaging based on their point in the sales cycle. But how do you do that?

The best lead nurturing campaigns begin with content mapping, a process in which you decide what content is most appropriate for a person to receive at a given time. And to be honest, sometimes it feels like you have to be psychic to nail it. But while a little bit of psychic ability would certainly help, there's actually a structure you can follow to map your content very accurately for your lead nurturing campaigns -- after which you can simply make tweaks on your messaging, email sending frequency, and calls-to-action based on feedback, open rates, click-through rates, and other email marketing metrics. Here's how you can map lead nurturing content to every stage in the buying cycle.

Understanding the Buying Cycle

To understand content mapping for lead nurturing, you need to understand the buying cycle. People have broken it down into many sub-stages to align with their particular business model, but it can universally be boiled down to these three stages:

Awareness: Leads have either become aware of your product or service, or they have become aware that they have a need that must be fulfilled.
Evaluation: Leads are aware that your product or service could fulfill their need, and they are trying to determine whether you are the best fit.
Purchase: Leads are ready to make a purchase.

Content mapping becomes important during these stages because prospects' needs are different depending on which stage in the buying cycle they fall into. David Skok explained the buying cycle well on For Entrepreneurs with a retail scenario. When you're walking around on the weekend and wander into a store with nothing in particular you're looking to buy, you don't want too much attention from a hungry sales person. It's annoying, because you're in the awareness stage. But when you make a beeline for the store because you need to buy a black sweater immediately, you want a sales person to approach you right away so you can find the sweater, purchase it, and get out of there. That's because you're in the purchase stage of the sales cycle.

The same concept applies when someone is interacting with your brand online. If they're just seeing you for the first time, they have different informational needs -- and thus require different content -- than someone who is ready to purchase something from you. Mapping the most appropriate content to each stage in the buying cycle will help you speak to the individual needs of each lead so you're having the right conversation with the right people at the right time.

How Content Mapping Works

Doing content mapping is very specific to each individual business -- you have a different sales cycle, different buyer personas, and different content assets and topics than other businesses -- but the content mapping structure outlined in this section will be transferable to any scenario. Here are the 4 questions you need to ask yourself when content mapping.

1.) What are the logical pathways to take a lead from awareness, to evaluation, to purchase?

Content mapping can be tricky because you have to work backwards. Start by determining the logical pathway a lead would take when navigating through the sales funnel. To do this, you'll need to lay out several scenarios in which leads convert into customers, and trace back which actions they took from their first conversion to close. If you're using HubSpot software, you can take a look at the activity history of leads to see what patterns emerge.

What pages did they visit? In what order? What offers did they convert on? What emails did they click through? Here's an example of what a logical conversion pathway might look like:

Visit company blog >> Convert on ebook call-to-action >> Click through to site on ebook nurturing campaign offer >> Navigate to Product/Service pages >> Click through to site on case study nurture email and download data sheet >> Receive free trial email >> Download free trial >> Receive coupon >> Become a customer

There will be more than one logical conversion pathway, but as you examine how your leads have historically converted into customers, a few pathways will emerge as the most common, the shortest, and the most profitable.

As you're determining these conversion pathways, you may notice that there are pieces of content, calls-to-action, or nurturing campaign emails that you aren't sending out yet, but should be. That's okay! One of the benefits of doing content mapping -- aside from improved content relevancy for your lead nurturing campaigns -- is identifying holes in your content strategy that you can now remedy.

2.) What specific content assets can be deployed along those pathways to help advance leads to the next stage in the buying cycle?

Now that you know the logical pathways a lead might take to convert into a customer, what type of content assets should they receive to nurture them along that path? It seems like the options are endless, but there are actually certain types of content that are more appropriate for certain stages in the sales cycle than others. Reference this table of content asset types that are aligned with their appropriate stage in the sales funnel.

The content assets listed in the 'Awareness' stage are appropriate for that stage of the buying cycle because they help educate your lead -- not on your solution, but on their need. The content assets in the 'Evaluation' stage, however, speak directly to how your company can help solve their needs, bridging the gap between the educational assets and product/service information. The assets in the 'Purchase' stage require more action from the lead -- actions the lead is more likely to take because they're now more educated about their problem and why your company is a good choice for solving it.

You'll notice some content asset types appear in more than one stage of the buying cycle -- webinars, for example. This is due to the content in that content asset type. A webinar from the 'Awareness' stage of the buying cycle would be educational about a general subject matter, while a webinar from the 'Evaluation' stage would be centered around your specific solution.

When assigning content asset types to the touchpoints in your conversion pathway, you should also assign topics to those assets. Those topics will obviously change depending on the nature of your business, but here's an example of how to execute this step correctly based on the conversion pathway defined above:

Visit Unicorn blog >> Convert on Unicorn Hygiene ebook >> Click through to site on ebook nurturing campaign offer "10 Best Tools for Grooming a Unicorn" >> Navigate to Unicorn Accessories product pages >> Click through to site on Glittery Farms Unicorn Grooming Case Study nurture email and download Unicorn Grooming FAQ >> Receive Unicorn Grooming Kit Coupon email >> Redeem coupon and become a customer

Notice how the content asset types move along from 'Awareness' assets -- like an ebook -- to 'Evaluation' assets -- like a case study -- to 'Purchase' assets -- like a coupon. We will examine an example of a real business' content asset types and how they map to a conversion path later in this post as well.

3.) What content assets are you missing?

At this point you might be saying, "That's great, but I don't have all of those content assets at the ready." That's ok. Remember, in addition to knowing when and where to use your content assets, part of content mapping is identifying which content assets you need to create to execute lead nurturing effectively. Once you've created your list of content assets and where they belong on the conversion pathway, perform a content audit to see what assets you already have and which ones you need to create. Then get going with content creation!

4.) How do you need to adjust the messaging in those content assets to align with the persona to whom you're speaking?

If you haven't created buyer personas yet, pause at this step in your content mapping exercise, read this guide to creating buyer personas, and create them. Pay particular attention to the question of how to identify the personas -- if you can't identify them based on their information and behaviors, you can't appropriately target your marketing to them.

For example, a company that sells personal tax software may find that they have two buyer personas -- one that is identified as a professional accountant, the other identified as an individual looking to prepare his or her own taxes. You wouldn't speak to these two audiences the same way, right? That's why it's important to not only create your buyer personas, but ask them to self identify when they become a lead so you can appropriately segment them in your lead nurturing, create content messaged just for them, and map the content appropriately.

If you have created your buyer personas, ask yourself how you need to tweak the messaging in your already existing content assets (and those on your list to create) to speak most appropriately to each persona. Some content assets you may find can exist as they are -- an FAQ about your product or service, for example -- while others may need to be rewritten -- like a case study, perhaps -- to be more easily digestible for two personas who don't quite speak the same language.

Applying Content Mapping to a Real-Life Scenario

Now you know how to map content to each stage in the buying cycle, but let's take it from (unicorn) theory to real life application. HubSpot customer Magic Software successfully moves leads who filled out a form to receive an educational whitepaper -- a top of the funnel offer -- through the 'Awareness' stage of the buying cycle to the 'Purchase' stage with these content asset types. Take a look:

Step 1: Download an educational whitepaper -- this lead is in the 'Awareness' stage and is looking to learn about integrating two pieces of software.

Step 2: Instead of pushing the lead right to the 'Evaluation' stage, this email encourages the lead to review more educational content in their Resource Center about software integration.

Step 3: Now that the lead has spent some time reading educational materials, it's time to move them gently along to the 'Evaluation' stage of the buying cycle by offering some software integration webinars. The lead is still being educated, but webinars are a more time intensive content asset to consume, and indicate a lead's willingness to seriously consider your solution.

Step 4: Still in the 'Evaluation' stage, this email makes the jump from the webinar -- educational but high-commitment content -- to content centered around the solution they offer. Now the lead is ready to read about how a Magic Software product can solve their software integration problem through its product documentation.

Step 5: Finally, this lead moves to the 'Purchase' stage of the buying cycle with high-commitment content. This email asks the lead to sign up for product training -- an offer only a lead seriously considering a purchase would redeem. Because this lead wasn't rushed through the buying cycle, but instead received content appropriate for their level of interest and education, they are in a far better position to turn into a customer.

Have you mapped content to each stage in your sales funnel? Share tips from your experience in the comments!

Image credit: Sudhamshu

Connect with HubSpot:

How To Use Social Media Internally To Build Your Brand And Business

2012-02-16T12:18:00.000-08:00

How To Use Social Media Internally To Build Your Brand And Business:

Gagen MacDonald and APCO Worldwide recently launched this fantastic infographic that does a great job of delineating an overlooked aspect of social media engagement – the benefits of internal social media to a company and its employees.

As readers of my blog know, I’m a huge champion of brand definition and purpose because that enables a company to be more meaningful to its customers lives. But too often brands fail to ensure internal alignment around a purpose, core values or mission, which means customers often hear one thing from a brand but experience another from its employees. Gagen MacDonald and APCO Worldwide do a great job of a teasing out where to start and what to focus on internally to avoid this pitfall.

What stuck me about the first section below if how how executive leadership accounts for employees perception of internal communication. At 75%, it is critical to get leadership buy-off on the need for a social media ecosystem within the company itself. It will not position the brand to be social with its customers but set a powerful example for employees to invest in social media training and engagement themselves.

In the next section, it’s critical to note that a company’s employee base – like its customers – is a media-savvy audience that judges the effectiveness of internal social media. That judgment, in turn, affects the ability of a company to attract top talent as potential employees who know only too well that a successful company must also be a social engaged company.

Finally, I have isolated the top five criteria for effective internal social media as defined by employee. What could be more important to a company that the ability to attract and retain top talent, to collaborate and innovate more effectively, and to generate business referrals. Each has a direct bearing on the ROI of social media and the productivity of a company’s workforce.

Armed with such insights, here are the steps you must take to adopt, integrate and proliferate internal social media to build employee satisfaction and your company’s bottom line.

1. Consolidate C-suite internal social media commitment

2. Establish a clear social media protocol/crisis policy

3. Share this policy with all employees across all divisions

4. Provide employees with organic social media training

5. Create a collaborative, cross-division culture that communicates using social media channels

6. Create a coordinated content calendar across different social media platforms

7. Grant employees social engagement permission and reward their participation

8. Integrate traditional, online, social media efforts to ensure a consistent customer experience

For the full infographic, click here. To follow Gagen MacDonald, click here, and APCO Worldwide here. To see all the results of the 3rd Annual Employee Engagement Study here.

What would you say is the major obstacle to internal social media at your company? What would be the greatest benefit?

The Future of Content Marketing – 6 Differences Between Good and Great [Part 2]

2012-02-16T11:44:00.000-08:00

The Future of Content Marketing – 6 Differences Between Good and Great [Part 2]:

In part one of this series – The History of Content Marketing – we covered how the barriers to entry for brands becoming media companies have fallen, and now the differences are all but gone.

But don’t start the party just yet.

In a recent study from the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, although 90% of all companies employ some form of content marketing, the majority are still struggling with creating content that truly engages their customers and delivers results for the company.

Good to Great Content Marketing

So, what separates the good from the great when it comes to content marketing? Well, that’s not an easy question to answer. That said, through all the research (both quantitative and qualitative), we’ve found six differences that are separating good to great content marketers.

1. The Focused, Educational Content Platform

Great content marketers have developed (some for many years) targeted, educational content portals similar to what media companies have been doing for decades. A best-of-breed example is P&G:

Home Made Simple – targeting “Moms” on the go
Being Girl – targeting adolescent women
Man of the House – targeting husbands and Dads

What is key about these sites is a laser-like targeting of a super niche category. Where most average content marketers fall down is by going to broad with their content focus. A key to P&G’s success is very specific content targeted to a very specific buyer.

2. Opening Up New Content/Media Markets

The best content marketers are helping to shape the story, and the terminology of their respective markets. Citrix launched Workshifting.com years ago as the online answer for those people whose offices are anywhere – the coffee shop, the airport, the home office…anywhere. The site is chock full of amazing stories to help this buyer, and is perfectly aligned with Citrix products like GoToWebinar and GoToMeeting.

The site and company, through the creation and distribution of compelling and relevant content, have defined the content market for themselves, their customers AND the media. So much so, that leading media publications such as BusinessWeek use Citrix’s own terminology of workshifting.

3. The Chief Storyteller

We are seeing more brands embrace the role of the Chief Storyteller or Chief Content Officer within the marketing organization (more here on team workflow).

Content is being created and distributed in multiple silos in an organization, including:

Social Media
Public Relations
Marketing
Email
Mobile
Search

In many of our interviews with marketers, the heads of these departments were unaware of the stories being created and distributed in other silos. This type of content workflow does not set up for a working customer experience, as content often doesn’t align.

Leading organizations are hiring individuals with strong storytelling backgrounds (often journalists and publishers) to help coordinate and fine tune the content marketing process inside and outside the organization. Examples include:

Joe Chernov, VP of Content Marketing, Eloqua
Rob Yoegel, Content Marketing Director, Monetate

4. Leveraging Employees in Content Creation

Best of breed content marketers are looking for ways to engage employees in the content creation process. Probably no better example exists than Boston-based VC firm OpenView Venture Partners.

OpenView has gone from literally no original content creation just a few years back to becoming a content marketing powerhouse by leveraging their expert employees. A full 90% of OpenView employees now blog on a regular basis. That blog is a major part of their content platform – OpenView Labs -built specifically for entrepreneurs looking for early stage funding (their target prospect).

Some of the results of OpenView’s content marketing program include:

Over 10,000 opt-in subscribers in 18 months
850% growth in site traffic
Significantly shorter sales cycle
Direct leads and sales
Over 1,000 pieces of original content, including videos, podcasts and blog articles (OpenView has an in-house studio).

For more, see the full case study on OpenView here.

5. Removing the Brand from the Story

For top of the funnel, attraction-oriented content, stories are shared at a significantly higher rate when the brand is removed from the story. That means a removal of sales pitches entirely from the content to engender trust and credibility. Examples include:

PTC – Creo Launch
Adobe – CMO.com
GE – Ecoimagination
Sherwin Williams – Stir

6. Building a Community by Leveraging Outside Experts

More and more, leading brands are working to dominate a content niche, not necessarily through internal experts, but by leveraging outside industry experts as the majority of their thought leadership content creation. According to CMI research, over 50% of brands outsource some part of the content creation process (rising from 55% to 58% year-over-year). Great content marketing means that leveraging outside content experts is a must.

Examples of influencer and expert community sites include:

This original presentation was given at Online Marketing Summit 2012, and the slides are below. Additional details on this presentation can be found at TopRank Online Marketing, who covered the event.

Good to Great Content Marketing – 6 Differences

View more presentations from Content Marketing Institute

The original post is titled The Future of Content Marketing – 6 Differences Between Good and Great [Part 2] , and it came from The Content Marketing Revolution .

5 Ways to Get Your Entire Company On Board With Social Media

2012-02-16T11:34:00.000-08:00

5 Ways to Get Your Entire Company On Board With Social Media:

Is everyone supporting social media at your company?

Are you struggling to get the support you need?

And although there are many reasons why social media campaigns fail, far and away one of the biggest reasons for failure is the lack of top-to-bottom “buy-in” from all employees in a company.

In some cases, the CEO thinks the idea is frivolous.
In others, management has their doubts.
And in a large majority of companies, employees have no understanding of what social media is, what it does and how they can play a role in its success.

This, my friends, must change.

The Time for Complete Buy-In Is Now

The time has come for companies big and small to achieve complete social media buy-in from ALL employees.

The days of, “Yeah, we let the marketing department (assuming there is one) handle that stuff and we just do what we do,” must come to a close.

In fact, if I had a dollar for every head of marketing who has approached me in the last few years and said, “Marcus, I just can’t seem to get anyone else in the company to buy into social media and assist me in my efforts,” I’d be a rich man.

So again, to say this is a problem would be an understatement.

Whether it’s an army of 1 or 1,000, when all members of a team share the same vision of success, amazing things can happen. Look no further than the business example of Apple to see exactly what I’m talking about here.

Just as Steve Jobs helped his entire company, plus the world, to catch the Apple vision, so too must businesses small and large look to help their employees have a unified social media vision.

So that’s what this article is all about. We’re going to discuss 5 actions any company, large or small, can take to achieve this social media buy-in. And once we’re done, I can’t wait to hear your further thoughts and ideas below.

5 Ideas for Achieving Complete Social Media Buy-In From All Employees

#1: Someone Must Take the Lead

Every great project calls for a great leader. And if you want your company to dominate in social media, someone is going to have to take the reins.

No, this does not mean all responsibilities fall on one person’s shoulders; rather, the person is a coordinator, a motivator and a filter for all of the company’s core content and social media.

The position we’re talking about here is sometimes referred to as a CCO (chief content officer) or a CMO (chief marketing officer), but when it comes down to it, the name doesn’t matter as much as the activities performed by that person. (Note: Even if your business is a one-man show, you still need to embrace the mentality of a CMO.)

Not too long ago, the position of chief content officer didn't even exist. Today, industry leaders like Ann Handley, CCO of MarketingProfs, are becoming household names.

When it comes to true social media success, one thing is certain—if a company’s social media marketing is left up to chance and the unguided efforts of many, it will undoubtedly fail.

#2: Educate Via an Event

In so many cases, the manner in which a CMO or CCO establishes a social media campaign is incredibly lackluster and ineffective. Here are some examples of what not to do:

Send out a sudden mass email to all company employees asking them to write blog articles.
Notify staff of the company’s new Facebook page and suggest they Like it.

The reason for this is very simple: The majority of company employees, no matter the industry, do not understand the power and potential of social media. Blogs make little sense to them. Search engine optimization and its benefits are completely foreign. YouTube is something their kids do for fun. The list goes on and on.

This is why I strongly suggest that when a company decides to start a serious social media campaign—whether it’s via Facebook, Twitter, blogging, video, etc.—that they bring as many staff together as possible for a company “social media summit.”

There is a magic that can occur when a company meets together to fully lay out there social media goals and vision, as everyone can then start off on the same page. Image: iStockphoto

During this summit, the first half of the event is really meant for education. This is where all employees can become familiar with types of social media, the potential power of these platforms, how content marketing works, etc.

Once employees understand how social media can impact the company by increasing sales, revenue and customer satisfaction (thus discovering the “why”), we can now move to phase 2 of this important summit.

#3: Encourage Employee Action

The next step of this summit is to implement an action plan of how each person in the company can make a difference. There are many examples of this, but I’ll just demonstrate one here.

When I taught at a recent social media summit for a company in Michigan, the CMO and I decided content marketing (blogging) would be the main emphasis of their social media marketing efforts. To make this happen, we brainstormed as a group (about 60 people in this case) the common questions received each day from prospects and customers. Within 30 minutes and after much participation and enthusiasm from the entire group, we had well over 100 common questions.

Later on, the CMO turned each one of these questions into the title of a blog post, and assigned each article to different employees, with corresponding due dates for each.

Now that everyone in the company understood the power and importance of content marketing, each accepted his or her role in producing the assigned article. And because there were so many employees who were now willing to take part in this activity, it was easy for this company to produce multiple blog articles a week, all without putting too much burden on the shoulders of the CMO/CCO.

This example is powerful because before the summit, the CMO had been struggling for about a year to get other employees involved with the company’s social media efforts. But now that all were brought together in a manner that not only educated but also involved all parties, the reaction to “We need your help” was completely different.

Talking about social media is one thing, but merging the brain power of everyone in an organization is truly special. Synergy Works. Image: iStockphoto

#4: Create a Company Social Media Newsletter

As with every movement, a great launch like a company social media summit is not enough to sustain the long-term practices necessary for social media success.

For this reason, I strongly urge all chief content and marketing officers to send out a regular newsletter to all employees explaining the results of their social media efforts.

Examples of things to include in this type of newsletter:

Special mentions of excellent blog articles and the employees who wrote them
Increase in the number of website visitors due to social media/blogging efforts
Leads and sales that were a direct result of social media campaigns
Positive customer testimonials/comments referencing blog posts, videos, etc.
Examples of how specific pieces of content led to a sale that otherwise likely would not have occurred
Question and feedback opportunities for the employees

As you can see, the amount of information that can be included in a newsletter like this is significant, but the importance of such a tool cannot be emphasized enough. Constant awareness is key to building long-term momentum with any marketing campaign, and by increasing this awareness, the process of making social media part of a company culture can then become a reality for any business.

Launching your social media campaign is only the beginning, but if everyone is going to work together on this, a newsletter of some type will be imperative going forward to keep everyone sharing the initial vision. Image: iStockphoto

#5: Continue Training and Education

Nothing is developing more rapidly in this world than the Internet and social media. What was yesterday’s MySpace is today’s Facebook, so staying up to date and educated is necessary for long-term success.

Just as the newsletter helps employees to see the fruits of their labors, ongoing education with respect to social media marketing allows for continual improvements, innovations and ideas to come from staff members.

For example, because video marketing is becoming increasingly necessary going forward, it’s a great idea to train all employees in the basics of producing video. Once they have this knowledge and understand how to look for content opportunities, they can then start producing product- and service-related videos that can have a major impact on the company’s brand and web presence. And the more employees who jump in, the greater the results will be.

Just because someone on your staff might not have certain skills today to help with your social media efforts doesn't mean they won't excel in that area at some point with a little bit of guidance and training. Image: iStockphoto

Your Turn

So there are 5 suggestions for helping achieve complete social media buy-in with any organization. This being said, I know there are many other ways by which companies can establish such a social media culture. As always, we’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments section below. Also, if you’ve tried any of the above steps in the past, what has been your experience? What did you do well and what would you have done differently?

What do you think? Jump in, folks. Your thoughts and questions matter. Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

Images from iStockPhoto.

Create a World of Marketing Automation Through Good Content—and Imagination

2012-02-16T10:56:00.000-08:00

Create a World of Marketing Automation Through Good Content—and Imagination:

“The way to get started is to quit thinking and begin doing.” These words of wisdom were spoken by Walt Disney who took his own advice and began building a world out of imagination—Disneyland—in 1955 with only 20 attractions. I think Disney’s advice rings true today for those considering marketing automation. From time to time I speak with marketers who tell me, “We would love to get started but we don’t have enough content.”

If you wait until you have enough content, or the timing is perfect, or your CRM platform is a well-oiled machine, another year will pass and you will have missed another opportunity to enhance your company’s revenue performance. When it comes to content and marketing automation I tell people to consider the following:

Use quality over quantity—You can effectively start your journey into marketing automation with just a few key pieces of content. An industry analyst report, a technical white paper, and a short customer case study are enough to build out a lead nurturing campaign. An investment into a webinar and complementary white paper would give you the opportunity to promote the live event and promote the archived event for months after. If you have minimal resources or budget to create content, record an employee speaker presenting at an event with someone’s personal digital recorder and then post it. Use your imagination. You may have to start by pushing out links to favorable industry articles that mention your products or services. Just make sure the content has value and is not self-promotional.
Repurpose. Repurpose. Repurpose—Think big. Start small. With a just a few pieces of quality content you can make a big impression by promoting the content through Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other social channels. You can use the content as follow up with seminar/webinar registrants—both those who attended and those who did not. Promote links to your content on materials distributed at trade shows, seminars, webinars, directory listings, and more.
Make it engaging—Be sensitive to your prospect’s attention span and schedule and make your content easy to digest and remember. Use videos as a change of pace. No matter the format of your content, the general rule is keep it short, sweet, and to the point.
Know the buyer role—As the amount of content you have grows, try to target the content by specific industry, role, and company size. If you are an international company you may also want to target your content by geography. Of course, if you are just starting out you may not have that luxury. However, pushing out content horizontally through marketing automation is definitely more effective than what you are probably doing today.
Know the buyer stage—As you become more sophisticated with your content distribution you will want to map your content to where the prospect is in the revenue cycle. Educational pieces work well during the early awareness stages. Industry-oriented pieces work well just as prospects start looking for a solution. Solution-oriented and company-focused materials are appropriate for prospects engaged in an active buying cycle.

Getting started is the key. Take small steps and implement in phases. Build on your successes. The wonderful part of getting started with marketing automation—even if you do not have all the content you would like—is that you will show the full impact that your marketing department has on company’s sales leads, opportunities, and revenue. (You may even be able to justify getting more content development dollars or hiring a staff member to write more content quicker than you think.)

While marketing automation is designed to do a lot of the heavy lifting for you, there may be a couple of small challenges to overcome along the way depending on your business processes. That does not mean you should not move forward today.

When Walt Disney opened Disneyland in 1955, more than twice the number of guests showed up due to counterfeit tickets. It was 101 degrees that day. The drinking fountains did not work. The warm asphalt had just been applied that morning and high heels were getting stuck in it. The vendors ran out of food. It was a public relations nightmare. Walt Disney continued to move ahead, adding attractions, fine-tuning processes, and tracking visitor experiences and metrics. Today, Disneyland has the largest cumulative attendance of any theme park in the world—with over 600 million guests since it opened.

What’s your strategy for content and marketing automation? Did you find these tips to be helpful? Please join the conversation in the comments section below.

4 Problems Killing Thought Leadership Marketing

2012-02-16T10:55:00.000-08:00

4 Problems Killing Thought Leadership Marketing:

Chris Koch shared Four Reasons to Hate Thought Leadership earlier this week. He made some great points in his call to end the use of the phrase thought leadership, but ultimately I disagree with his conclusion. We don’t need to stop using the phrase, we need to start using it right.

The problem is thought leadership has become a catchall for any marketing that includes content. Unfortunately, looking back, it isn’t surprising that this happened.

Here are four of the underlying problems that created the situation.

1. Thought Leadership Isn’t Created by Marketing

At the heart of the problem is the idea that you can market your way to thought leadership. The role of marketing is to shine a light on your company’s thought leaders and thought leadership. Marketing can facilitate, organize and amplify. But unless your business is marketing, thought leadership needs to come from your business.

2. Thought Leadership Isn’t a Real Priority

Your potential thought leaders are valuable people in your organization, and everyone wants more of their time. When it comes to getting time, it becomes clear that thought leadership isn’t the real priority.

3. Thought Leadership Is Human

Today, it seems some businesses are so busy humanizing their company or brand that they forget to include real humans. I see logo-ed social media accounts that don’t indicate who is behind it, or blog posts on corporate blogs posted by “admin” or “blogger”.

Notably, in this discussion of thought leadership, all of the example given were individuals, not companies.

4. Thought Leadership Isn’t About You

Marketing organizations are instinctively focused on their product, message and position. Real thought leadership needs to exist on its own, independent of your company and product. Thought leadership and “Product X is the fastest in its class” should never coexist in the same space.

In Summary

Despite the problems marketers have created for thought leadership, it is still valuable. According to Wikipedia, the distinguishing characteristic of a thought leader is

“the recognition from the outside world that the company deeply understands its business, the needs of its customers, and the broader marketplace in which it operates.”

Many other definitions would add a unique and forward-looking element as well.

This is a position that creates differentiation for a company, before getting to any individual product or service. It is not a position every company is able to claim, but for those that are, it continues to have significant potential.

We are slowly killing thought leadership, and it will be our loss if it dies. So let’s keep using the phrase thought leadership, let’s just start using it right.

Your Turn

Should thought leadership stay or go, and why? Share your perspective in comments below or with me on Twitter (@wittlake).

Super Bowl was a Two-Screen Experience

2012-02-15T12:50:00.000-08:00

Super Bowl was a Two-Screen Experience:

For decades, lots of attention has been devoted to making TV more interactive, but Super Bowl viewers showed Sunday that they already use TV in an interactive way, but with two screens, not one. And that second screen increasingly is a mobile device.

During Super Bowl XLVI, 41 percent of Google searches related to Super Bowl ads were made from mobile devices.

And that behavior is not unusual. A Nielsen poll found that about 45 percent of respondents who own both smartphones and tablets say they routinely multitask while watching television.

Separately, a nationwide poll commissioned by Velti indicated nearly 60 percent of mobile users planned to use their mobile device during this year’s Super Bowl.

The study, conducted by Harris Interactive, also suggested that nearly a third of viewers under the age of 45 would be watching the game with their device in hand, while almost half of all viewers age 18 and older expected to check or use their device up to 10 times during the game.

You might say much television viewing has become a two-screen experience, with complicated implications for content marketing or advertising. The Google data suggests users were prompted to engage more heavily with brands featured in commercial breaks during the Super Bowl. For advertisers spending $3.5 million for each 30-second spot, use of the second screen might be seen as a positive.

The Velti study found that 13 percent of viewers were likely to use their mobile devices during game play, while about 26 percent expected to use them during commercial breaks. So commercial breaks were twice as likely to be the times when users were turning to the second screen.

“Mobile is the second screen that completes the full circle of user engagement, turning advertising into content,” said Krishna Subramanian, Velti chief marketing officer.

That might be true when the content users are looking for on the second screen is related directly to a brand’s ad and message.

On the other hand, users often are multitasking in ways that compete with TV ads for attention. A study by Razorfish and Yahoo found that 38 percent of survey respondents found use of the Internet on a mobile or tablet device an enhancement to the viewing experience while watching TV.

That suggests an opportunity to build more directly on television as a two-screen experience. TV executives with long memories will remember the last 30 years of thinking about interactive TV, when researchers, suppliers and pundits looked for ways to create compelling experiences based on viewer input and response.

As it turns out, users already have voted on how they want to interact, and it involves the Internet and a second screen of some sort, including PCs, notebooks, tablets and smartphones.

The Razorfish study found the top five content categories that seem to encourage multitasking are

Reality shows
News programs
Comedy episodes
Sports events
Food programming

But most advertisers did not actively incorporate social media or overt Web addresses in their TV ads shown during the Super Bowl.

According to an analysis by Altimeter Group, 32 percent of the ads had no references to websites or social media sites, and only Best Buy had an “Act Now” promotion.

Still, the two-screen trend seems well established. TV is no longer a passive experience, but it is now interactive in ways that some might not have foreseen. And content marketers and advertisers need to pay attention to that and adjust.

Football trophy image via Shutterstock.

How to Forecast Ad Revenue

2012-02-15T12:49:00.000-08:00

How to Forecast Ad Revenue:

This is the fifth post in this series on online advertising revenue forecasting which has included thus far:

- Why do you need to reconsider your forecasting models?

- What are the current methods used to forecast advertising revenues?

- What are the required data points, for what period and from which sources, needed for proper advertising revenue forecasting?

- How to forecast your website unique visitors and page views?

I used my forecasting tool for 3 years, constantly keeping it up to date; even though some numbers started varying from month to month where projected and actuals were concerned, when I looked at quarterly or the annual forecast it ended up bang on with the actual yearend figures.

Two posts back (require data points) I spelled out which data points you needed on a monthly basis, going as far back as you could. Here I will explain in detail how to set up your ad revenue forecasting tool. Here again are the data points you’ll need:

- Monthly actual (final and net) sales figure per sales team per website, or a clustered contextually similar bundle of sites.

- Monthly budget objective per sales team per website

For this exercise, I’ve remained with the same website I used to manage as an example. You’ll see I’ve filled in on the horizontal months. They actually start at December 2005, but for the sake of clarity I’ve only shown here 2009 through to the end of 2014. In other words I’ve taken the last three years’ worth of data for forecast the next 2. Ideally, you should try to go as far back as you possibly can, even if it’s only one month here and there – it’ll give you more background on which to rely.

As I’ve stated in my initial post in this series, the websites I used to manage had sales coming in predominantly from 2 sources: a local sales team dedicated to a radio station and its website; and a national sales team that sold every website we managed and a few others. There were other sources, but for this demonstration we’ll keep it to those 2 sources.

Let us begin by plotting monthly actual local sales for as far back as you have the data up to the last completed month. Ignore the “Projected” line for the moment. You might want to add a “Budget” line to compare actual to budget, and eventually projected to budget to see if you’re likely to achieve it or not.

Next you’ll plot national sales the same way.

You’ll add as indicated a sum of both in the Total Sales “actual” line (i.e. =an13+an17). Let us skip the “initial projection of sales” and its index, along with the “Original UV projection,” we’ll come back to that in a minute.

You can click on the image below to see it full size.

Now you can calculate your Local RPMUV (Revenue Per Thousand Unique Viewer) and National RPMVU. Your total will simply be an addition of both of these. To calculate each, you’ll first take your actual local (or national) sales for that month, divided by your actual UV count for that month (divided by one thousand). The formula should look like this: =AN13/(AN3/1000).

You can also calculate your eCPM if you so desire. Here I calculated it only on page views, but you could further add a line in the traffic section of this spreadsheet for total ad impressions if you’d rather look at it that way.

Tracking your average RPMUV

In order to forecast revenue in the future, you’ll need to know the average RPMVU for a given month over the past few years. Looking at the chart above, we want to make this average in cell BX29 for local sales, and BC30 for national sales. In both you want to calculate the average RPMVU for January of every prior year you have data for. The formula should look like this for local, the same for national but on the right row: =average(BL29;AZ29;AN29;AB29;).

Forecasting Future Sales

In order to forecast what your local sales team, and what your national sales teams should achieve in sales performance for a given website, for any given month in the future, you will finally need the two pieces of information which we’ve been constructing until now:

- Forecasted monthly reach (UV) per website

- Average monthly RPMUV per website, per sales team

What we want to start filling in automatically based on our two pieces of collected and averages data starts in cell BX14 for the local sales team and BC18 for the national (again, these could be any two distinct sales teams that can bring in revenue to a particular website – they could be sitting next to each other or be in different markets, it doesn’t matter, but being in different teams with different realities affects each team’s performance enough that you cannot bundle them together). The formula for predicting what your sales team should achieve (if no major unforeseen event occurs) is by multiplying your projected reach (UV) figure for January 2013 in BX3 by your average RPMUV for the month of January up to 2012 in BL29, and so one for every month going forward. The formula should look like this: =BX3*BL29/1000.

Benchmarking your forecasts

I took the habit of benchmarking my forecasts for both reach and sales, up to 3 years out, to see down the road how accurate my initial predictions were vs actual, and how much they varied over time as new monthly actual traffic and sales figures became available. This is how you’ll know this tool works, and how you’ll convince others around you that your predictions are rock-solid.

That’s why you see line 24: Initial Sales Projection; and in line 26: Original UV projection. I recommend that once you’ve done this exercise, as I’ve shown above in image 2, cut & paste as figures (not formulas) your initial sales projections and UV projections for the coming 12 months or fiscal year.

Next add an index of that initial projection against your eventual “actual” figure to see how close you were. The index will rarely be 100%, but should be relatively close to it as an annual average – unless major events occur that you had not anticipated.

I personally went 1 step further. I tallied up in a separate sheet the annual projection next to the date, every time I made changes to this forecasting tool. Explained differently, every month when I added actual sales figures and UV numbers for every website and sales team under my responsibility (like I said before there were 4 distinct revenue sources and 14+ websites), I would in a separate sheet note the date and the new total for that year (summing the forecast for my fiscal period which followed the broadcast calendar). Every month new numbers would swing the annual total for this year, the next and the one after that a little up and down. Needless to say I did not keep those files when I left, but I can assure you that ultimately, the 3-years-out tracking swung up and down quite a bit as all manner of unforeseen events occurred and affected things, but the average remains fairly close to the initial prediction – which to me validated the whole effort.

Do you have a different and equally solid projection model? Please share your thoughts and comments.

This post was previously published on Samuel Parent’s blog on February 14^th, 2012.

Planning Your Content Marketing: Bricks vs. Feathers

2012-02-15T12:48:00.000-08:00

Planning Your Content Marketing: Bricks vs. Feathers:

Chris Sietsema is Social & Digital Operations Lead at Convince & Convert. He also runs a digital agency called Teach to Fish Digital where he provides insights on search, social media, email marketing, and analytics.

Do you remember this trick question from grade school: Which weighs more – 5 lbs of bricks or 5 lbs of feathers? Some of us (self included) were initially fooled by this obvious test of common sense, but as it relates to your content marketing, should you be focused more on building substantial content productions or presenting your audience with a steady array of minute snippets that define your brand and message?

Defining Bricks & Feathers

Bricks are larger content productions such as research reports, events, white papers, video series, mobile apps, etc. They typically require decent budget and time to produce but have the potential to make a larger splash when executed and promoted correctly.

Feathers are comprised of simple text and photo content published via popular social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, etc. Less intensive than bricks from a production budget standpoint, feathers are created consistently to maintain an ongoing stream of communication between a brand and its audience.

Deciding Between Bricks & Feathers

The graphic below illustrates the key differences between bricks and feathers for content planning and production. Here’s an more detailed explanation of the attributes you should consider.

Position / Identity

While there are varying degrees of thought leadership, larger productions allow you to position your brand as a reliable resource for superb ideas. By continuously sharing small bites of information, you would likely be considered a news maker by the audience. Both positions are attractive in their own right, but businesses which have the capacity to create and share short, informative posts on a daily basis are more inclined to go the feathers route. Those brands that simply cannot provide entertaining, enlightening and/or educational content on a daily basis (e.g. law firms, insurance companies, some medical facilities, etc.) should focus more on building bricks for the purpose of conveying their value to prospects and influencers.

Content Life Span

Video series, graphic illustrations and even research reports have a greater chance of becoming evergreen compared to your everyday tweets and Facebook posts.

SEO Potential

One key reason to consider incorporating more bricks into your content mix is their propensity to attract high quality and relevant links, a “must have” for any organization focused on improving activity from natural search. To a lesser degree feathers can be utilized more as a social signal or as a link to key content on your website/blog. If shared by key influencers, shorter posts can have a noticeable impact.

Required Resources

Simple posts merely demand the attention of a dedicated community manager to create and measure impact. Bricks, on the other hand, are typically more involved. Due to the various skills required to produce an event, a podcast, a high quality infographic or a mobile application, you could potentially include creative, technical and other marketing resources in your development process.

Opportunity Cost

One potential issue with bricks is that there is really no way to predict what will resonate. Your organization may have research to support that there is a demand for a specific piece of content within a particular medium. However, there are no guarantees that your bricks will generate interest, links, traffic, leads, sales, etc. Thanks to the time and resources needed to create bricks, there is a much higher opportunity cost when compared to feathers.

Primary Metrics

Success for feathers is often gauged by how many audience members saw a posts and, more importantly, how many of those people actually took some action (i.e. clicked or shared). In addition to those important metrics, you may find other crucial means for reporting the impact of bricks such as downloads of content, number of event attendees, leads collected in exchange for access to content and so on.

Best of Both Worlds?

Does your organization (or do your clients) produce both bricks and feathers? How do you determine what kinds of content to produce? What methods do you utilize to manage production and promotion of all that you create?

Does Your B2B Marketing Content Address Cause?

2012-02-15T12:46:00.001-08:00

Does Your B2B Marketing Content Address Cause?:

How deep does your marketing content dive into the problems and priorities your B2B prospects are facing? In B2B marketing, we talk a lot about addressing problems, but quite often we don’t talk about what that really means or how to truly help our prospects solve the systemic issues that cause the problems in the first place.

This post is inspired by the following point in a list of reasons about why managers struggle on Leadership Now blog. This is reason #9:

They Fix Problems, Not Causes. Unless the manager fixes the cause of the problems they encounter, valuable time will be spent fixing the same problem over and over again.

How often do you think about why a problem exists for your prospects? As marketers we need to look beyond the obvious and get to the root of the issue to elevate the value our content provides. That’s when we start to become interesting to our prospects — when we invite them to think.

I love blog posts about people who are representative of my client’s prospects. Posts about managers and leadership are really good sources of information to help you help them by gaining a bit of insight to things they may be struggling with or how they view opportunities.

This particular insight can help us begin to consider the potential causes behind the problems that prospects say they want to fix.

Here’s an example:

If your prospect says he wants to improve team productivity and collaboration, why might that be an issue? Some possible causes may include:

Did the company grow too fast without the infrastructure in place to support it?
Did the company expand via mergers or acquisitions and is trying to mesh cultures?
Is the company’s culture old school but the manager is trying to force the adoption of new trends?
Was there insufficient onboarding to drive adoption of the last solution he tried?
Is IT not responsive to resolving issues with the system reported by users?

I can see you reading this and thinking “Hey, how would I know which cause to focus on because I don’t market to one prospect at a time!”

Monitor who spends time with which “cause” content and continue nurturing them appropriately with extension pieces. There’s always more than one angle to any story. Use as many as you think are relevant. It also makes sense to have salespeople as what’s behind the issue in their follow-up and share those insights with marketing as part of the validation process.

When marketers consider how they set up the problem-to-solution stories they share to build a buyer experience, they must also consider the longevity of customer lifecycles. After all, if the cause of the issue is addressed during the implementation of your solution, it’s less likely to happen again. And that means higher customer satisfaction and adds to the value derived from each customer for your company.

Are you thinking beyond the surface of the problem when you design your content marketing programs?

The 17 R's of Savvy Mobile Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC]

2012-02-15T12:46:00.000-08:00

The 17 R's of Savvy Mobile Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC]:

Do you know what the top three Google searches are for mobile marketing? The first is “mobile marketing,” and the second is “mobile media.” But the third most popular Google search about mobile marketing is “What is mobile marketing?”

Data like that suggests that businesspeople are still trying to wrap their heads around this growing and evolving industry. If people are still asking what mobile marketing is, then they’re probably also struggling with how to use it to drive leads for their business.

With that in mind, we’ve written this blog post and created an infographic called The 17 R's of Mobile Marketing. It’s based on a chapter from Go Mobile, the best-selling mobile marketing book in America written by HubSpot VP Marketing Jeanne Hopkins and Jamie Turner, a HubSpot customer and founder of the 60 Second Marketer.

The 17 R's of Mobile Marketing, which we elaborate on below, should help you ease your way into the world of mobile and show you some best practices for using mobile marketing to generate leads for your business. As always, feel free to embed the infographic on your own blog or website.

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The 17 R's of Mobile Marketing

1) Review your web analytics to determine what percent of your visitors are using mobile devices to access your website. A simple way to check this is to use Google Analytics, which provides data on whether your visitors are coming in from a desktop or a mobile device. If you’re a retail location, your mobile visits may account for up to 50% of your total traffic. If you’re a traditional B2B company, your mobile visits may be closer to 15%. Either way, tracking mobile visits vs. desktop visits can give you insights into how your prospects are finding information about your products or services.

2) Relevant messages are a critical part of mobile marketing. A great way to keep them relevant is to ask people who opt-in for mobile marketing messages to indicate their interests when signing up. For example, if your company is taking part in a trade show, you might encourage people to sign up for a free giveaway by scanning a QR code at your booth. When they scan the code and opt-in, you can ask them to indicate their business interests, which will ensure that future messages to them stay relevant and meaningful.

3) Request feedback from your subscribers on how they perceive your mobile marketing campaigns. This can be done through regular email, or via a mobile survey subscribers can answer via their smartphone. If you’re requesting feedback via smartphone, keep questions short and closed-ended. Questions like “Can you rate our customer service on a scale from 1 to 5?” are great. But open-ended questions such as “Can you explain your most recent customer service experience in the form below?” won’t be thumb-friendly and should be avoided.

4) Recruit customers and prospects that are receptive to your mobile marketing campaigns. If your target market is between the ages of 14 and 45, the odds are they’re smartphone-savvy and would be likely to connect via a mobile marketing campaign. But if your target market is under the age of 13 or over the age of 65, mobile marketing may not be your best option since mobile usage is lower for those segments.

5) Registering for your mobile marketing programs should be easy, so keep forms extremely short. Forms that are thumb-friendly will get better results than forms that are longer and more in-depth. As a side note, even if your forms are short, your privacy statement shouldn’t be. Prospects and customers will want to know how their information is being used, so be sure to provide an easy way to read the fine print.

6) Rate the usefulness of your campaigns to your subscribers on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most helpful. By doing so, you’ll be able to track the percentage of your campaigns that provide high value. Why is this important? When someone provides your business permission to reach them via their mobile device, they’ve given you a very personal invitation. (Think about how many people keep their mobile phones by their beds, and this will all make sense.) Therefore, your mobile marketing messages should provide something of genuine value. In other words, be sure to send them more 10s than you send them 1s.

7) Region or location-centric messages can be very valuable to your customers – particularly if the subscribers are encouraged to visit a location for a special promotion. SUBWAY sandwiches in the U.K., for example, sponsored an opt-in SMS campaign where customers received special offers via text when they walked by SUBWAY locations. Similar location-based campaigns have been run on the B2B side of the equation, most notably at trade shows where location-based banner ads were deployed to people participating in the event. When you deploy mobile marketing messages that acknowledge the recipient’s specific location, you’ll generate a higher conversion rate. Ultimately, that results in a better ROI.

8) Reminders about time-sensitive information or tasks are another great use of mobile marketing messages. Doctors and dentists are using SMS to send appointment reminders to patients. And TV networks have run mobile ads that allow people to set up reminders on their mobile calendars about program schedules.

9) Respect the frequency of mobile message use. One study by CTIA.org indicated that text messages are read within 4 minutes of receipt compared to 48 hours for an email message. Since people read some mobile messages immediately, the wear-out factor is higher than with other forms of marketing. Keep that in mind when deploying your mobile marketing messages – too many messages will result in a high unsubscribe rate.

10) Return important notifications to keep customers updated on the status of their engagement with your company. “Your order is being shipped” and “Here is your tracking number” are two helpful messages that customers would like to receive once they’ve opted in to receive messages from you via mobile. Always include a reminder that says, “Click here to opt-out of future messages like these.” Providing that kind of flexibility builds trust with prospects and customers.

11) Respond to “Reply” texts quickly. Text messages from prospects and customers are just as important as a phone call or an email. Unfortunately, they’re often overlooked or fall through the cracks. Be sure to have systems in place that prevent this from happening since there are very few things that will frustrate a customer as much as being ignored.

12) Record and document any issues or feedback concerns, then act on those concerns in a timely manner. Sometimes this may mean a change in the campaign strategy or it may simply mean a change in tactics. Either way, by keeping track of feedback and concerns, you’ll be able to adjust your campaign and improve your results over time.

13) Responsible campaigns and programs will encourage customers to look for the next notification. Design your campaigns to be brief yet tantalizing for your target groups. A successful mobile marketing campaign provides something of value with the promise of additional value for people who stay engaged. That’s why mobile apps like Foursquare and SCVNGR often provide extra bonuses for people who “check in” more than once.

14) Referral campaigns can be a great way to gain new subscribers and customers. One way to do this is to run a mobile banner ad campaign that, when clicked, sends an email or text message to the mobile user’s friends. By providing this “forward to a friend” feature, you’ll get more bang for your buck and improve the ROI of your mobile marketing program.

15) Rely on good systems and software that not only deploy your mobile marketing messages reliably, but also measure and provide statistics about campaign performance. The old saying “Garbage in, garbage out” is as true in mobile as it is in other forms of marketing. The more reliable the data that goes in, the more reliable the results that come out.

16) Reality is that mobile marketing is new, and therefore not many companies have fully adopted a mobile marketing strategy for their business clients. While the vast majority of companies have plans to launch mobile marketing campaigns in 2012, up until recently, most companies didn’t even have a plan in place. Have patience knowing that this is a growing segment – and the growth is definitely accelerating.

17) Rapid adaptation to new trends and techniques in mobile marketing must be incorporated into your plan's strategy. If a mobile campaign is not working, or if there is a better way to implement a program, don’t be afraid to change your plans. Also, the world of mobile users often expect there to be frequent changes – so set routine changes and improvements as part of your strategy.

There are so many changes happening in mobile marketing today that it’s hard to keep up, but that shouldn’t discourage you from diving right in. The fact is, your consumers are using mobile almost every hour of every day, so shouldn’t you use it, too? Let us know your thoughts on what’s working for you in mobile marketing – the HubSpot community would love to learn from your experiences!

Connect with HubSpot:

The 7 Deadly Sins of Social Media Marketing

2012-02-15T12:45:00.001-08:00

The 7 Deadly Sins of Social Media Marketing:

Congratulations! If you’ve already realized the importance of building a business presence on the social media, you’re right on track.

However, don’t picture the task ahead as a matter of throwing mud pies at the wall and hoping they’ll stick. Nor should you assume that it’s all about setting up accounts at multiple social media channels to simply use as outlet for your promotional material.

In the physical world, as in social media, there are rules and even if they are often unwritten they are still altogether important. By failing to acknowledge such principles, you will undermine your efforts and bring about your own gradual demise.

That’s why we must urge you to be attentive not to commit the seven deadly sins of social media marketing; and if you’re not quite sure what that means, this article will keep you in the loop.

Sloth

Going nowhere fast

The most common way that most newcomers to social media fail to get worthwhile results is by failing to take proper action. There’s no point in setting up social media channels unless you plan to use them diligently to convey your messages and build your audience.

This is something you should do gradually; dedicate 30-60 minutes each day to this task and you will be on the right path.

Should you allow procrastination and laziness to get in the way of your social media engagement, don’t be surprised if nothing good comes out of it.

Gluttony

Too much, too soon

Another extremely common way to fail at building a reputable social media presence is when people attempt to be instantly omnipresent.

You set up your social media channels, and get utterly obsessed about using them, to the point it starts diverting your attention from other responsibilities.

Saturating your platforms with content and updates is unhealthy and will dilute the quality of your posts. Careful planning and pacing of your social media output are essential practices when building a healthy community for social media marketing.

You should know that peaceful persistence trumps sporadic agitation in terms of building a positive reputation. Try to favor the former, and resist the temptation of over-doing it.

Greed

A synonym for egomania

There’s a fine line between letting people know who you are and getting on people nerves because you’re excessively self-centered. If all your interventions across the social media tend to focus on yourself, you’re probably doing it wrong.

Resist the temptation of using the social media as a self-promotional tool; that should be a natural end to your efforts, rather than an artificial beginning.

Wrath

The internet is full of traps and trolls

Understand that social media users come with all temperaments and tolerance levels. Some people are nice and easy-going, some are fanatical and annoying; most are somewhere in between.

Fail to realize this and you’ll routinely lose your temper and let anyone get on your nerves. This also means that you’ll lose credibility to your potential audience who catch sight of your tantrums.

Be courteous and patient while using social media. Don’t engage with people who are obviously just looking for an outlet to their frustrations.

Envy

The grass is always greener

There’s nothing wrong with a little envy, provided it makes you work harder. There’s everything wrong with envy, if all it does is source negativity and rudeness.

If you spend more time criticizing people who are better known than you, rather than building a positive impression on your own, make no mistake: people will be able to tell that you’re actually jealous, and they will look at you as a really small person.

Stay focused at building your own popularity, rather than obsessively attacking others who have already succeeded at building their own.

Lust

Humping the legs of the bigger boys

Another good way to make a fool of yourself in social media involves stalking opinion makers and agents with large audiences, then compulsively praising them and going all the way down to licking their figurative boots, hoping they’ll somehow reciprocate your subservience.

This kind of attitude will not sit well with the people that matter, and instead will project a really poor, negative image of you.

There’s no problem with occasionally expressing your admiration about someone, provided it’s genuine; but if all you do is praise others, you’ll never have anyone look up to you.

Pride

It comes before a fall

So you always act like you know what you’re talking about, even when you don’t? Do you never admit you were wrong, even when you happened to be? Do you make a point of always showing off your wits and brilliance?

If so, we’re sorry to let you know that people are probably starting to look at you wrong. Nobody likes a smarty-pants, even if the person tends to be relevant in their interventions.

Humility is a great quality that will open many doors for you during your social media endeavors. Arrogance and pride are sure-fire ways to raise conflict, rather than instill order.

Does that help you put things in perspective? If you realize you’ve been getting caught up in some of the cardinal sins of social media marketing, that’s great news! Because it means you can now start threading a temperate path, armed with that newfound awareness.

If you liked what you read here, there’s plenty more on the Brandwatch blog and at the Slices Of Life blog, where you can find upbeat and informative articles about positive living.

Author: Pedro Cardoso, writer at Slices Of Life, has created a helpful guide on the perils of social media marketing.

Sometimes “No Sale” is the Best Deal

2012-02-15T12:45:00.000-08:00

Sometimes “No Sale” is the Best Deal:

Cash flow is the lifeline of every small business and generating consistent sales month after month is an ongoing challenge for most small businesses. Many owners struggle with ups and downs and peaks and valleys which makes it difficult to create a consistent cash flow.

As a result, they often accept deals that they shouldn’t.

A few years ago I was working with the owner of a specialty retail store and during one conversation she mentioned that she had one customer who always compared her prices to a competitor in the same mall. She went on to tell me that she always matched the competitor’s price even when it meant she sold the product at cost.

She was convinced that eventually her customer would pay full price because of the service she offered. Unfortunately, she was grossly mistaken.

You see, she had actually conditioned her customer to never pay full price because he always got the product at the lower price. The owner justified her actions by saying that she would rather get the sale at cost than have her customer go to the competitor.

This is not an uncommon mindset among small business owners.

They are so eager to capture any and every sale that they sometimes fail to think of the implications.

In the case of the store owner, she actually lost money if her overhead costs were factored into the equation. She really should have summoned up the courage to say to her price-focused customer, “I’m sorry but I can’t match that price” and let the customer buy the product from competitor because he (the customer) was actually costing her money. Since that customer kept returning to her store I suspect that he would have full price if she had stood her ground.

I have also talked to small business owners who offer a significant price break simply to “get into” a particular company. What they don’t realize is that this behavior sets the tone for future sales and negotiations.

During a sales training workshop I conducted, a participant told me that his company had finally landed a major account—one that he had been courting for the better part of a year. I knew of the account’s reputation of grinding people for the absolute lowest price and asked him if it was worth it. He shrugged and gave me a wry smile as he said, “We’ll see.”

Here’s my perspective…

If a particular sale does not make good business sense, you should probably turn it down or walk away.

Sometimes it makes sense to accept a deal with thin margins but—and this is a big one—your decision must be very strategic in nature.

If the long-term impact of accepting a low-profit deal will have a positive impact on your overall sales and/or growth, then it makes sense to accept or move forward with it. However, if the outcome is unclear, vague or uncertain, then you need to give it serious thought.

This approach is easy…at least conceptually. However, it can be extremely difficult to apply in the real world especially if you are in the middle of a dry spell or sales slump. I know from personal experience that your ability to walk away from a low-profit sale is extremely difficult when sales are tight.

That’s why I stress to my clients the importance of keeping a full sales pipeline. The more sales opportunities you have in front of you, the less likely you will feel compelled to accept deal that doesn’t make good business sense.

It’s tempting to get the dollars in the bank but if that deal ends up costing you money, you will end up in worse shape. In the long run, if you close a sale but don’t make any money from it, your cash flow will suffer.

Before you agree to a hefty discount in order to capture a sale consider if it makes more sense to walk away and say, “No thanks.” Sometimes, saying, “No sale” is the best deal for you and your business.

How Clorox used content marketing to help me fix a toilet

2012-02-15T12:41:00.000-08:00

How Clorox used content marketing to help me fix a toilet:

At 2 o’clock this morning, Clorox helped me fix a running toilet – and in doing so provided a brilliant lesson on how to build a connected brand through useful and visible content marketing.

I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of running water – a panic-inducing moment as any homeowner can attest. Fortunately I discovered a most mundane but maddening problem: a bathroom toilet that would not stop running.

Unfortunately I am possibly the most incompetent homeowner in the western suburbs of Chicago. I consider loading the dishwasher properly a major achievement in home maintenance. But at two in the morning, so long as I was wide awake, I decided to see if I could get the toilet fixed. And by God, I succeeded! The process was shockingly easy:

1. I Googled “Toilet won’t stop running.”

2. I clicked on the link that appeared at the top of the page: “How to Stop a Running Toilet” on the DIY Network.

3. Since I’m completely incompetent, I did exactly as I was instructed and left nothing to personal improvisation. The site had me onboard at Step 1, “Watch an Overview Video.” The concisely edited video, “brought to you by Clorox,” gave me some ways to diagnose the potential causes of a running toilet within 60 seconds. (In my case, the culprit was a faulty float connection, which I was able to fix easily.)

Within 60 seconds, Clorox built a connected brand with me by being useful. Instead of telling me how great Clorox is – something I did not care to hear at two o’clock in the morning – Clorox built goodwill by sponsoring content that I needed at the right time and place. When I watched the video, I was focused on stopping a problem that was keeping me awake. I found exactly what I needed, and Clorox got what it wanted, which was two brand impressions (the “sponsored by Clorox” messages that appear twice — unobtrusively — in the video voice-over).

And, importantly, Clorox was visible: the video appeared at the top of my search engine results page. Like many multi-tasking and easily distracted consumers, I lacked the energy to do an extensive search. Had the DIY page been buried inside the search results, I might have overlooked information that I needed.

Being useful and visible are two of the five tenets of brand connectedness espoused by iCrossing (the five tenets are as follows: being useful, usable, desirable, visible, and engaging, as discussed in a major iCrossing report, Building a Connected Brand). By helping a consumer in need, Clorox demonstrates how connectedness in action helped me return to a good night’s sleep in the process.

— David Deal, vice president of marketing, iCrossing

How to Create Smarter Content Using Semantic Keyword Research

2012-02-15T12:39:00.000-08:00

How to Create Smarter Content Using Semantic Keyword Research:

Ever hear two people arguing and then someone dismisses their differences like this: “Well, that’s just semantics”?

What the person means by that is the difference boils down to “just” a difference in the meaning of the words. In other words, the meaning of a word isn’t all that important.

Really?

For serious SEO professionals (and marketers), the specific shades of meaning of a word can make a world of difference. That’s why modern search engine optimization has gone beyond basic keyword research into synonym creation, semantic search optimization, and further into semantic themes.

It might sound a bit complicated, but it isn’t really. So let’s explore — what does semantic keyword research mean for your online marketing efforts?

Here’s a short guide to help you create content that attracts links, builds page authority, and ultimately rises in the search rankings by using semantic-themed keyword research.

Let’s start at the beginning

What does the word semantics mean?

The dictionary defines semantics as:

Semantics is about how somebody or something interprets a particular word.

From a search perspective, users have a very clear goal in mind when they search using a specific word.

Imagine someone searched using the word “lemon.” Do they mean the fruit? The tree? A car? The color?

We don’t know.

Hopefully, they’ll expand their search query to something like “How to avoid buying a lemon.” Even in that case, it’s not absolutely clear if they mean the fruit, tree or car. We’ve eliminated the color, but that’s it.

This is where semantic search comes in. Search engines have developed complex algorithms that allow them to understand that the best way to interpret this term is “how to avoid buying a lemon car” … in other words, a car that’s defective or of poor quality.

That’s something most 6th graders can understand, which is the highest level of intelligence for search engines, and you should understand it that way, too.

How to create “core” keywords

The work of effective semantic keyword research begins with defining your core term/s.

This is basic SEO stuff, but let’s not breeze over it — we want to build a solid foundation for the following two levels.

Using our example above, “how to avoid buying a lemon,” we would develop a list of core keywords and phrases that were relevant to that search. Just using the Google Keyword tool, I came up with this:

Notice how closely the keyword phrases are tied to our intended meaning? This means that Google recognizes the typical meaning of the phrase. There isn’t much deviation — no one is trying to avoid buying the yellow citrus fruit when they type that phrase in.

So our core keywords could look like this:

“avoid buying bad car”
“prevent buying bad car”
“avoid purchasing defective automobile”

The variation of the core words run between “avoid,” “buying,” “bad,” and “car.” We’ll dump those into what I’ll call our “core basket bucket.”

How to create “supporting” keywords

As you build this semantic theme, your next step is into the circle outside of your core terms. These are your supporting keywords, the ones you sprinkle into your content, meta sets, and headers.

For the phrase “avoid buying a lemon,” the supporting keywords would look like this:

“buying from a used dealer”
“battery life”
“good alternator”
“fan belt condition”
“dead battery”
“alternator died”
“broken fan belt”
“engine oil leak”
“mechanic checkup”

Do you see the feeling you are trying to create with these supporting terms?

You’re developing a piece of content that not only explains what can happen when you buy a car from a used dealer, but also some related topics, like how it feels when the car breaks down, and a list of things to look for when buying.

You are being instructive and practical. And the content naturally addresses the problem in its entirety — you’re not glossing over the topic.

And we’re not finished yet …

How to create “stemming” keywords

Now it’s time to step into the outermost circle of our keyword research, with keyword phrases that emphasize issues not directly related to the search. But because we are trying to predict the search, we need to think about these things.

Don’t forget that the search engine is trying to do the same thing.

For example, why is the user typing in “avoid buying a lemon”? The most obvious answer is they are a buyer and they are thinking about buying from a used car dealer or someone who is selling a car personally.

Of course, you can create two pieces of content that address both of those possibilities. But which one will the search engines deliver to the user on the SERPs (search engine results pages)?

It’s hard to know, but it’s probably going to be the most comprehensive, most authoritative piece … even if your user doesn’t need all the information. That means you need to write comprehensive content … which is where the “stemming” keywords come in.

These keywords are building a larger picture behind “avoid buying a lemon.” They’re getting to the real question the searcher is trying to answer.

Here’s what I mean:

“consumer used car rights”
“consumer law”
“used car buying rights”
“used car law”
“consumer protection agencies”

At stake here is what the user can expect his or her legal rights are, and actions they can take if they do buy a lemon and it dies.

That’s the underlying theme.

What to do with these keywords

Notice that you haven’t written any content at this point … you’ve just built three buckets of keywords.

From those buckets, you can create a rough outline. In fact, let’s build two:

How to Avoid Buying a Lemon from a Used Car Dealer

Definition of a lemon
Definition of a used car dealer
Things to inspect on a used car
When a lemon dies
Your legal rights
Who to approach and how

How to Avoid Buying a Lemon from a Private Seller

Definition of a lemon
Definition of a used car dealer
Things to inspect on a used car
When a lemon dies
Your legal rights
Who to approach and how

Keep in mind: the content within each section will have to vary to avoid duplicate content issues, and to work well for the human readers who are always your primary focus.

You will receive greater relevance weight and authority when you define terms absolutely, the way a Wikipedia or Dictionary.com does.

In addition, this research will be useful when it comes to building links to the site.

When will the authority and links come?

It is very difficult to predict for certain whether a page will become authoritative on a topic, and attract high-quality links. But, like forecasting weather, you can study the elements behind successful pages. And unlike the weather, you can apply those elements to your own work and improve your chances for a good ranking.

Here’s what we know: great keyword research alone won’t do the trick.

It’s a great start — and can help you build content architecture that leads to authoritative pages — but it’s not a silver bullet.

So here are the things you can control:

The core, supporting, and stemming keyword collections
The content architecture of the page
The comprehensiveness of that content
The usefulness and readability of that content
The promotion of that content
The measurement of users’ reaction to the content
The adjustment of the content based on user reactions

Of course what’s out of your control is other people’s reaction. Will they view it as authoritative? Will they find your writing compelling? Will they link to it? You create the best-possible content to try to influence those factors, but ultimately they lie outside your hands.

Follow the advice I’ve laid out here, however, and you will have a better chance of influencing reader reaction in a positive way, ultimately getting search engines to recognize your content as a relevant and significant contribution to the web.

Don’t forget to write for humans first

All of this sounds a bit technical. But after you’ve done your keyword prep, when you finally sit down to write, be sure you’re writing in a natural way that doesn’t smack of spam.

When done properly, SEO copywriting should never sound robotic or stiff.

Write for humans first, then gently tweak for optimization. Get in the habit of reading each article aloud to make sure your keywords are included in a natural, reader-friendly way, and read sites like Copyblogger for pointers on writing voice and other elements of high-quality writing.

Your final step is to read your content to another person and get their reaction. If they think it sounds spammy or awkward, rewrite it. Nothing will flush your work down the drain faster than a spammy article. It pays to get it right.

What do you think of this semantic-based approach to building authoritative web pages? Let us know in the comments …

About the Author: Neil Patel is the co-founder of KISSmetrics and an SEO consultant. He also blogs at Quick Sprout.

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How Clinton Managed Tens of Thousands of Contacts

2012-02-14T11:13:00.000-08:00

How Clinton Managed Tens of Thousands of Contacts:

Relationships matter. A lot. World leaders probably understand this better than anyone, and it’s fascinating to learn how people in power have handled it. Check out how Bill Clinton created a systemized approach to make sure he remembered and kept in touch with the tens of thousands of people he met:

“Clinton had built up an amazing contact network, but all the essential information about his political supporters was found in handwritten notes on thousands of loose slips of paper and three-by-five index cards that he kept in shoe boxes. Wright put all this data into a computer. The dedicated computer room in the campaign headquarters near the Capitol ran around the clock, churning out Glad-to-Meet-You letters, fundraising solicitations, special letters for first time supporters, for teachers, for the elderly… No other politician in Arkansas had anything comparable. The computer became the extension of Clinton’s tireless personality…” - In search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography

So what exactly was on these cards?

“Each card recorded a piece of his history and reflected his relentless campaign style. On the top corner was the county where the subject of the card lived, or, if the name was from out of state, the era in which that person came into Clinton’s life: Georgetown, Oxford, Yale, McGovern campaign. Running down the left-hand side of the card were dates, starting with the first time Clinton had met the person and every important contact they had had since. In the middle were names, telephone numbers, addresses, sometimes contribution amounts. Another row of dates noted when that person had received a letter from Clinton or his aides known as a GTMY: for Glad to Meet You.” - First in His Class: A Biography of Bill Clinton

Amazing. And even more amazing is that now this secret to success, a robust organizer for relational capital, is available for everyone. Mingly is designed to be like your own dedicated assistant, constantly monitoring your network and reminding you when it’s time to get in touch, so you can build relationships with people who can help you be your best.

How do you keep in touch with your growing network?

3 Ways to Use Pinterest For Marketing Research

2012-02-14T11:11:00.000-08:00

3 Ways to Use Pinterest For Marketing Research:

Barely over 1 month into 2012 and folks around the web have been dubbing Pinterest as this year’s social media site to watch. This propelled by the sudden growth in users and talk of how businesses have seen considerable referral traffic from the site. Brands like Whole Foods, Land’s End and Etsy have set up profiles and amassed tens of thousands of followers across their pin boards and profiles. Even our very own Jason Falls has been sharing his thoughts on Pinterest’s marketing potential.

A quick overview for those new to the site, Pinterest is essentially a virtual cork board where you post images from all over the web. The images are “pinned” and organized into collections called “boards” which you name based on themes, topics, or just about anything you want.

For instance, I’ve created a a board for my favorite iPhone & iPad apps linking to the apps in the iTunes App store. Also, as someone who likes to frequently cook (and eat) I created a board for dishes I want to cook and inspirational ways to present food. Each pin links to the original web site where it was originally published so I can possibly backtrack and find out how to make that great recipe I found or others who follow me on Pinterest can discover some new iPhone apps I’ve pinned.

Pinterest users can also do much of the standard stuff such as “like”, “repin” or comment on any image they find. Additionally, one of the ways Pinterest is different than other social networks in the way that users can follow individual boards that interest them instead of being forced to follow a user and everything they share. That allows folks who prefer to follow interests instead of a particular person an opportunity to do so.

That said, I’d like to share a few ways you might use Pinterest from a different angle for some quick and dirty research.

Discover What Are People Pinning from Your Web Site

When clicked, every image on Pinterest displays corresponding information like comments, “likes,” other images in the same board and more. The info I find interesting is the area on each pin that shows what other pins came from a specific web domain. Take a look here for instance. You can see all images pinnned from socialmedaiexplorer.com from all users on Pinterest. You can see right off the bat that people enjoy the infographics here on the site. Most popular after the infographics is an image of Jason’s recently published book. Remember, each of these images could have been pinned from any page on socialmediaexplorer.com. Pinterest conveniently collects them all in one place for you.

Want to try it on your site? Type the following into your browser and replace “yourdomain.com” with your own web site: http://pinterest.com/source/”yourdomain.com”. You’ll likely find out something interesting about what visitors to your web site find visually interesting to them.

Let’s look at another example with the folks at FastMac: http://pinterest.com/source/fastmac.com/. Here we can see, out of all the products that Fastmac sells, 99% of people have pinned images related to their USB wall socket. Not only an image of the product itself, but the actual ad image on the product page.

This by itself is insightful, but let’s take it a step further.

Understanding Customer Perception

It’s been said that your brand is not what you say it is, but what your customers say it is. That said, understanding customer perception is important. Pinterest can give you a little insight into that by simply taking a look at the name of the boards that users have pinned content from your web site. In the case of Fastmac, you can see board names like “Products I love…”, “I Want”, “Geeky”, “Home Decor”, “Brilliant”, “For the Home”, and “My Future Home”. If only a few images have been pinned from your web site then this might not be enough for you to care about, but with hundreds or even thousands of pins it has more meaning. Additionally, by clicking each board name you will be able to see what other images that user has found worth of shuffling into “I Want” or “Products I love…” and how many other users are following each of these boards. Similar to the common Twitter metric, the number of board followers could be counted towards the “reach” of any content shared in that specific board.

Again, let’s dive a little further shall we?

Capturing Descriptions, Comments & Board Names

Being able to take a look at what folks have pinned from your web site is one thing, but might it be helpful to capture it to cull through later? There is a quick way to capture all of the board names, pin descriptions, user comments, likes and repins all into one document. First bring up all images pinned from your web site as described previously. Now scroll to the bottom of the page. When you hit the bottom of the page Pinterest automatically loads up any additional images. Keep scrolling until no more images load. Next, hit “control + a” on your keyboard (“command + a” for Mac users) to “select all” . You should now see everything selected on the page. Open up a blank Word document and hit “control+v” to paste everything into the document. Depending on how many images there are it might take a few seconds for it all to paste. Unfortunately the images are not captured, but all of the other information including links to the boards and user profiles, will be in your document. You can also paste into an Excel spreadsheet. It doesn’t look pretty, but you can use it to review later.

The Wrap

Beyond this there is still more you can do to dig a little deeper to get to know some potential customers and even competitors more. You might take a closer look at the users who seem to be getting the most repins or likes on the images they share. What else are they into? Have they added more social links to their Pinterest profile so you can connect with them on Twitter or elsewhere as well? What might you find out if you looked up what people were sharing from your competitor’s web site?

On a side note, I have recently launched a digital marketing podcast called the SoLoMo Show. In our next episode we will be discussing more about Pinterest and its prospects as a marketing channel. Want to be a part of the conversation? Then leave us a voicemail with your thoughts on Pinterest at (415) 633-6123 or tweet us. We might include it in the show. Also, feel free to check out my Pinterest profile here. Lastly, feel free to share your thoughts here in the comments. Were these tips helpful? is Pinterest a contender or just a fad? Share your thoughts.

4 Ways to Win the Deal When You Don’t Have the Lowest Price

2012-02-14T10:40:00.000-08:00

4 Ways to Win the Deal When You Don’t Have the Lowest Price:

Some companies and salespeople feel like they can’t compete with their competitors because of their pricing. But just because you know you’re not the lowest price around doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to win the deal and it also doesn’t mean that pricing is all that your prospects can be swayed to buy with. Read on for some tips to help you position your company as the better choice — even if you’re not the lowest priced choice.

1. Demonstrate Value

Things can have major selling points based more on perception of the brand rather than based on pricing alone. Demonstrating your value will help people see that your offering is a better choice. There are various ways to demonstrate this, including:

Warranty and Guarantees. People may be willing to pay a bit more for your product because the warranty is superior to that of your competitors. And if you’re offering something with a guarantee, this also helps to minimize risk in their eyes.
Quality and Superiority. If your product or service becomes well known for being better than that of your competitors, you’ll get more clients this way. A good way to demonstrate this is via customer testimonials.
Appealing to the customer’s wants and needs. If you’re selling in person, you can find out what’s most important to the client and sell based on that need. If you’re selling online, you can do this in your copywriting. Appeal to their wants and needs. By working hard at appealing to their wants and needs and illustrating that you can meet them, pricing becomes secondary to most people.
Show return on investment. If your product or service will substantially benefit the prospective customer in some way, illustrate this. Show them the math and the pricing can become much less of a factor than before because it plants the seed that that the purchase won’t be a cost as much as it will be an investment in future ROI.

2. Customer Service

There are times when customer experience is much more important than pricing, especially if a prospective customer has had a bad buying experience with your niche in the past. If you do customer service really well, you’ll have not only a better chance of getting customers through word of mouth referrals and building a positive reputation but you’ll have a better chance of having people come back as well. Make sure you work to show them why you’re the ideal choice. (Tip: don’t just blurt facts and tell them, take the time to actually show them)

3. Set the Right Price

Some business models have more room for more profit margin. Some do not. If you’re trying to achieve huge margins when the nature of your business is a volume business and most of your competitors are charging people way less for the exact same thing, you probably won’t be able to pull off that higher pricing. Make sure you know your niche and know your competition and this will help you ensure you’re setting pricing in a competitive but profitable way. If you’re in a position to charge more, by all means, make more money, but be reasonable about it and you’ll probably do well.

4. Know Your Customer

There are times when you might want to lower your margin to win a deal. There are times when you won’t have to or where it won’t make sense to. It’s important to get to know the customers and the prospects you have so that you can set the right pricing structure to help you win and retain that customer’s business. If you’re not using a CRM tool to help you keep track of vital information, it’s wise to implement one.

Replacing “Authentic” in Social Media

2012-02-14T10:38:00.000-08:00

Replacing “Authentic” in Social Media:

Authentic. You can’t turn around in the social media echo chamber without bumping into this word. The problem is, beyond the social media land of unicorns, authentic isn’t relevant.

As I explored in Don’t Be Authentic: Real Social Media Marketing Advice on SpinSucks, we don’t really want to see authentic in social media. It is an idealized view that for most organizations is as unrealistic as it is attractive. (Aaron Wagner makes some great comments about this in the discussion here on Social Media Today as well).

Authentic is the wrong objective. What is the right one?

Be Believable

The advice to be authentic has been distorted along the way. What is important is how your audience sees you. It does not matter if that image is you with no changes or a carefully refined version of you.

1. Believable is Audience Focused Authentic creates a conflict. On one hand, you are advised to develop personas and a deep understanding of your audience in order to create an effective social media program. On the other, you are advised to be authentic to who you are. The problem is, authentic focuses on you when you need to be focused on your audience.

Believable solves this conflict. Being believable in social media allows you to deliver value, through education, entertainment or function, based on the personas and audience insight you have developed.

2. Believable Requires Good Social Media Behavior If you say one thing and do another, you are not believable. Being believable requires being true to what you say you are. It requires identifying a well rounded image you will project and never veering from it.

3. Belieavable Encourages Personality Today, brands need to engage, not broadcast. Personality creates more memorable conversation, and brands are no different. Being believable requires having a personality (or even lack of one!) that is infused throughout everything you do.

Be Believable

Being believable is about how your connections see you. Believable focuses us on why authentic mattered while acknowledging authenticity often isn’t desirable (if you haven’t yet, read Don’t Be Authentic: Real Social Media Marketing Advice now).

I would offer believable as the word Augie Ray means in his post about Chrysler, Fiat and the Brand Value of Authenticity. Augie doesn’t know if Marshall drives a Chrysler, but he believes it could be true.

This is not about authentic, it is about believable. Chrysler was believable, Fiat was just a thin marketing veneer.

Is Authentic Worth Anything?

There are hints of your authentic business everywhere, and when you deviate too far, you are no longer believable. But as Chrysler did, you can shape the image you project as long as it remains believable.

It’s time to move past authentic and the misdirection it provides and realize social media and modern marketing are about being believable.

Parting Thoughts

Always remember, social media audiences are empowered and can be ruthless in their applcation of power. Being believable means living what you say you are. Slip up and your audience will call you out. Slip up twice and they may never come back.

Your Turn

Do you agree, is it time to replace authentic with believable? Share your thoughts in the comments below or with me on Twitter (@wittlake).

Don’t Worry: Content Marketing Can’t Kill Social Media

2012-02-14T10:37:00.001-08:00

Don’t Worry: Content Marketing Can’t Kill Social Media:

Last week Michael Brenner, Senior Director at SAP and co-founder of Business2Community, released the blog “Will Content Marketing Kill Social Media?” If you haven’t read it yet, I encourage you to take the time to do so. It is a well-written piece on how content marketing is changing the B2B marketing landscape. There is a flood of comments on the post and some really great dialogue.

So will content marketing kill social media?

Here’s my take – No.

Social media won’t be killed by content marketing. I think the two really go hand in hand. To me, content marketing is all about providing relevant, consistent and valuable content for your target audiences to support and educate them. Simply put. Content marketing is present through the entire buying and sales cycle. It is in the form of videos, infographics, articles, and newsletters throughout the early stages and case studies, interactive demos, whitepapers, and data sheets help guide buyers through the later stages of the process. And to me, social media is a channel that companies can use in order to better communicate and engage with their prospects and customers. And content can be a great way to engage with a community. It gives B2B companies the opportunity to show some personality and have a little fun while doing so.

Ardath Albee chimed in and brought an excellent point to the table:

Instead of ‘content marketing will destroy social media’ how about ‘noise and selfishness will destroy social media?’”

I’d like to echo her sentiment. While social media can be an effective channel for communication, it should be left at just that. Lay off the purely self-serving posts and try to always add value rather than simply broadcasting. A great way to monitor your social outposts would be to apply Andrew Davis’s 4-1-1 rule (for every one self-serving tweet/post/update, share four new pieces of content and one re-share).

Now, what about editorial and advertising?

Brenner also asked a few questions about editorial and advertising. In general, I think the lines are really blurred for two reasons:

It is clear that editorial has changed because of the growing popularity of social media and content marketing. Since we are bombarded with thousands of promotional messages day in and day out, it is clear to see why companies and brands are experimenting with new media in order to reach a target audience. We even practice this at OpenView and I know that our portfolio companies do as well. We specifically target certain print and online publications to republish our content to extend our reach and boost awareness. One site that I have been monitoring in particular has seemingly changed to only sponsored guest content, and I imagine it is a way to earn the ever-fading advertising dollar. And it makes sense, for better or for worse.
On one hand, there is an influx of content marketing in marketplace, and many companies and brands are viewing themselves as publishers now. So the traditional publishers now have a new set of competitors that they may have never really expected.

So, let me know what you think!

Romance Your Readership, Not Your Traffic

2012-02-14T10:37:00.000-08:00

Romance Your Readership, Not Your Traffic:

Valentine’s day… a day dedicated to that person/those people in your life that are the most dear to you. If you’re anything like me though, most of your day (or at least until you get home this evening) will be spent thinking about a different group of people…the ones that visit your website. However if you’re thinking about traffic or visitors then your thoughts are misplaced: you need to be thinking about your readership.

What’s the difference between traffic and readership?

TRAFFIC is the amount of people that are attracted to your website for one reason or another. They might stumble across a link to your blog, have a quick read but generally don’t tend to stick around and won’t necessarily return. Traffic is measured very simply by the number of people that visit your site.

READERSHIP is the amount of people that are attracted to your website and decide ‘hey this is a pretty cool place to hang out’. They might comment on your content and are more likely to return to your website in the future. Readership metrics include: length of time visitors spend on your site, number of page views, number of subscriptions, number of shares, comments etc

Why is readership more valuable than traffic?

The bottom line is that readership is more likely to generate leads than traffic. An audience that is listening to what you have to say and coming back to your website time and time again perceives your brand as an industry authority and one which can genuinely help them. Your readership will share your content, building your audience for you: they become pro-active brand ambassadors in contrast to the very passive nature of traffic.

So how do you romance your readership?

In short, you need to provide people with:

a reason to stick around
a reason to come back

For this, you need:

to publish a fresh supply of high quality, shareable content (such as news feeds)
to facilitate conversation

When someone visits your website, you need to give them a reason to interact with your content: it needs to educate, add value and entertain, inspiring them to share it or leave a comment. Once they’re engaged, you should encourage the conversation instead of just letting it die with a two second ‘thanks for the comment’ reply. At the end of their visit, you want them to leave with a valuable takeaway which helps them to solve a particular problem and inspires them to come back again. Don’t leave it there though, give the conversation a chance to flourish on other channels by connecting on social media or commenting on their blog.

Sound like hard work?

Well, it absolutely is. You not only need to create the content in the first place (that’s a job in itself!) but you need to put the hours in afterwards to make sure that your content is working hard for you and actually converting your traffic into readership. At the end of the day, whether it’s your Valentine or your online audience, if you don’t put the work in, don’t expect them to either.

Would be great to hear your views below…

Savvy Toolkit - How to Build a Business Presence on LinkedIn via @hubspot

2012-02-14T10:32:00.000-08:00

Savvy Toolkit - How to Build a Business Presence on LinkedIn via @hubspot:

I am guilty as many people are of neglecting LinkedIn. Its lack of back and forth and snarky cartoons make it my 3rd favorite social media platform. Whereas Facebook and Twitter live on my desktop, iPad and phone poor little LinkedIn only gets pulled up when I actually "need" information! It is the reference desk of social media.

The thing about LinkedIn is, because it lacks videos of monkey's sneezing and rants about the short short dress your sister-in-law wore to Christmas Eve mass, it gets more credibility than Facebook and Twitter with your boss and other business professionals. Once known only as the place where job seekers and the disgruntled went to begin mining for a future job search LinkedIn has become the Who's Who of the Corporate world. The never ending on-line contact list indexed by company name and title! Your company needs to be on that list or you risk getting scooped by the competition who is doing it bigger and better.

The folks at Hubspot have crowd-sourced an eBook on How to Build a Powerful Business Presence on LinkedIn. It does require registration to download but its 55 pages of actionable content you will find well worth giving up your email address for!

The Secret History of Pinterest — REVEALED!

2012-02-14T10:26:00.000-08:00

The Secret History of Pinterest — REVEALED!:

Do you feel like you woke up a week ago and Pinterest had taken over the world? I read on Twitter (so it is true, of course) that Pinterest is now bigger than Google, will be running for President of the United States, and is recording an album of Justin Bieber cover songs.

The meteoric success of Pinterest has shocked everyone.

Except me.

I have it all figured out. You see, Pinterest makes perfect sense if you just look at the natural evolution of social media …

THE GOLDEN AGE OF BLOGGING: 2005-2009

When blogging first caught on, people actually wrote things. There was a post, comments, debate, and dialogue. But then something happened. Blogging went mainstream and became so popular that soon there were thousands and thousands of blogs. Even plumbing companies had blogs (a sub-genre known as clog blogs). What to do? Where to go? We needed something to help us consume more of these blogs quickly. So that led to …

THE GREAT ERA OF LISTICLES: 2009-2010

Numbered lists! That’s the answer! Bite-sized morsels of information like “The 10 Worst Blogging Mistakes” and “The Five Biggest LinkedIn Tips!” Bloggers learned how to dumb-down the content by counting it down! Putting a number in a headline was the key to RT Nirvana. But the information density continued to get progressively worse as companies of all sizes got in on the content marketing game. Now what do we do to communicate to people who have less and less time to read our lists? I know! We’ll make our blog posts into a picture called an infographic! This led to a strategy where companies and bloggers could communicate with EVEN LESS CONTENT!

INFOGRAPHICS A-GO-GO: 2010 – 2011

A typical well-researched Infographic

Well if people won’t even read our listicles any more, let’s turn our content into a colorful illustration. It’s kind of like using cartoons to tell your stories. Let’s not make people read. Let’s just SHOW them what they need to know. And if we don’t have the data, we’ll just make it up. Only 4.6 percent of social media users ever check a fact any way. And yes, I just made that up. See how easy that was? But soon, the web was FLOODED with infographics. We needed another breakthrough — an innovation that would be even less challenging to over-taxed web users. Let’s just cut out the information! We’ll simply show people photographs of stuff!

PINTEREST, THE NATURAL EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL MEDIA – 2012

Pretty pictures! Woot! And MORE pretty pictures! Let’s face it, that’s all we can really handle these days, right? We’re just too busy to read, think, or process an idea. Just show us a picture of a cute dog or a wedding dress dammit. Of course … It all makes perfect sense. Pinterest is truly a reflection of our society, and a natural evolution of a need to create and distribute information that takes less and less time and attention.

Where will this all lead? In my mind it can only go to …

MONDRIAN — THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL SHARING – 2013

So we have moved down the line from meaningful, debate-worthy blog posts to pictures of crafts and puppies. Where can we go from here? I think the painter Piet Mondrian had it right. When he and other painters moved their craft into a new level of simplistic abstraction, all they had left was lines and primary colors. So I predict that the next big thing will be a social platform I dub “Mondrian” (maybe I need to delete a vowel to be cool – Mndrian?) which will consist solely of colors, lines, and occasional grunts, which will replace the too-complicated “like” button.

So there you have it. The history of Pinterest and the future of social media in five paragraphs. Hope it wasn’t too much to read? 8-)

The Lead-Nurturing Payoff for the Tech Industry

2012-02-13T17:02:00.000-08:00

The Lead-Nurturing Payoff for the Tech Industry:

Lead nurturing can give tech marketers a seat at the revenue table. This report, compliments of Marketo, by independent research firm, Forrester Research, Inc., discusses how lead nurturing can help technology companies connect with their customers earlier in the buying process and stay connected throughout the buying cycle.

Download the research report to discover how to:

Expand your vision for lead nurturing
Use lead nurturing to improve marketing and sales alignment
Automate the processes of lead origination and nurturing

This must-read report will ensure you are able to build a robust lead-nurturing program that delivers more sales leads, shorter sales cycles, higher close rates, and larger deal sizes. Download the new Forrester research report today.

Is your mobile user experience fit for purpose?

2012-02-13T16:56:00.000-08:00

Is your mobile user experience fit for purpose?:

Insights and examples show why a mobile-optimised experience is becoming essential

The focus for many brands over the past ten years has been getting the fixed line website right. This is often the reason brands give for delivering their full site to customers browsing on mobiles.

The vast majority of brands – 83% according to research on UK smartphone usage by Google – still have not optimised their websites for mobile. This stat is mirrored by dismal bounce-rates for mobile sites, which stand at 88% on average. Clearly, consumers won’t hang around on a mobile site which gives a poor browsing experience!

As marketers, we need to understand how consumers use their mobiles; what are the triggers, what type of information are they looking for and in what situations are mobile used?

This can then help inform the business case and decision to adopt mobile. In this post, I’ll show how Amazon and eBay have worked to create an effective mobile experience and end with some suggested steps to make sure the mobile experience is optimal once the business case is agreed.

How do smartphone users access the web today?

The Google research I mentioned above has some really interesting insights on this. I’ve summarised the main 3 learnings I think are most important (you can download the PDF if you’d like to read the full study).

1. Smartphones are used regularly for web activities

This chart shows how frequently a smartphone is used for different activities in a 7 day period. One of the best ways for gauging active use. It also shows the increasing importance of mobile search.

2. Triggers for smart phone usage

The striking figure here, is how often smartphones are used for passing the time, showing opportunities for brands to engage and entertain. They’re also used for quick answers – here it’s important that the mobile experience means they are quick answers.

3. Co-consumption with other media is common

You would expect that tablet devices are commonly used while watching TV, but of course, not everyone has a tablet. Smartphones are also commonly used for this. So if someone searches on a brand after seeing an ad, the brand needs to be visible within the search results and to deliver an engaging experience.

Learning from how the digital superbrands and their customers use mobile

Digital superbrands including eBay and Amazon have proved the central role of mobile. Although the mobile experience may not seem like a matter of life and death, but to brands in sectors like retail and travel, it my not be far from the mark.

eBay and Amazon are now using mobile to deliver a personalised mobile internet experience built on previous shopping behaviour data which is fully integrated with your content management system, and sophisticated targeting.

This is often to the detriment of brick and mortar retailers, whose bewildered store staff are confronted by growing numbers of smart shoppers doing price comparison shopping in their stores. Many of us are intent of seeing the product in the store, checking if we can buy cheaper on Amazon, then placing the order using our mobiles and waiting 24 hours for free delivery.

How Amazon is using mobile

Amazon’s sales on mobile hit $1 billion on 2010, a figure surely surpassed in 2011 and heading north in 2012. User experience is a significant success factor.

If we take a look at their mobile site, we see Amazon encouraging use of their App together with a relevant Kindle promotion:

As you’d expect, Amazon have ported their signature personalisation features to mobile:

Peter Fitzgerald, country sales director for Google UK and former Amazon marketer, who delivered the keynote speech at the Annual IDM Lecture in 2011, likened a poor mobile site to closing your doors on the High Street for a couple of days a week. Poor sites turn away customers, and through their social networks, they turn other customers away. Into the open doors of your competitors.

How eBay is using mobile

eBay is now processing a transaction every second on its mobile platforms. Whether you’re buying a pair of skis on your smartphone or replacement cartridges on your feature phone, eBay detects your handset and delivers a consistently easy browsing experience from product search to reviews and check out. eBay’s year on year sales on mobile grew from $4 billion to £5 billion in 2011.

According to eBay’s head of retail, Angus McCarey, mobile’s effect on High Street retailers is unavoidable, and comes in the form of “shoppers hitting you in store with internet shopping in their pockets”. eBay calls for collaboration with other retailers.

eBay’s mobile experience starts with search as it should; their using the platform targeting available within Adwords to feature their mobile site and recommend the app:

On the site itself, the app is again promoted, with an option to bookmark, but through a pop-up which fades after a while so as not to get in the way of the mobile optimised experience:

The implications for other transactional sites

Retailers must act fast to make sure they are providing an optimised mobile sales channel which is easy to find, quick to navigate, and secure to transact. In a previous article I showed how many retailers were failing to develop an effective mobile experience.

But there are other good examples of mobile user experience. M&S, a true mobile pioneer, has developed a mobile strategy matching the mobile behaviour of its target audience. At the heart of its targeted mobile CRM programme, developed by Incentivated , M&S offers customers an optimised transactional mobile site which handles one-off transactions exceeding £3,000.

Specialist brands are also reaping the rewards of optimised mobile sites Kiddicare is one of the largest online retailers of baby gear in the UK, and one of the most successful brands to benefit from Google’s support in mobilising retail brands’ web presence

According to Fred Soneya, Kiddicare’s head of e-commerce, “We knew that our customers are watching product videos on mobile, they’re shopping on mobile, and they’re looking for answers on mobile, so support and community for those experiences are essential”, Kiddicare developed a transactional mobile site, with product reviews and store finder.

The site took just 7 weeks to design and build, from concept to launch, and the first order was placed within minutes. Mobile now accounts for 11% of Kiddicare’s daily revenue and this figure is expect this to grow to 20-25% in 2012.

In this post, I haven’t looked at the relative merits of mobile sites and Apps, which can provide a rich user experience to your smartphones users. As browser capabilities improve, we’ll start to see more mobile sites looking like and performing like Apps. But in the short and long run, there’s no substitute for the internet, whether accessed on PC or mobile, if you want to reach all your customers.

Top tips for brands launching mobile sites

I believe Amazon and eBay do all of these well. These are general guidelines for creating a mobile experience which works for all transactional sites:

User experience is fundamental. Make sure content is quick to find and easy to navigate
Use handset detection software. Once detected, redirect to a mobile optimised site matching that handset’s capabilities
Ensure all other media channels drive traffic to your site. Add SMS calls to action or QR codes on above the line media, mailers, point of sale materials
Use personalisation. Personalised content, derived from full integration with your CMS, encourages return visits
Evaluate payment options and optimise checkout. Minimise steps in the check-out process to reduce drop off
Test! Test the site prior to launch to remedy errors, test text and layout variables to optimise user experience
Monitor! Monitor traffic and page views constantly, and refine content in realtime

12 Ideas for Marketing using Pinterest

2012-02-13T16:55:00.000-08:00

12 Ideas for Marketing using Pinterest:

A short guide to help review if and how you use Pinterest

Prompted by interest in my first post on the marketing opportunities for Pinterest a couple of weeks ago, I thought a more considered ideas post might be useful. So I’ve summarised the key points that I feel are relevant to consider if you’re set on taking your brand onto Pinterest. I’ve not got into the mechanics of how it works, others do it better already. First things first…

A reminder – what is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a platform for crowd sourced visual content grouped into topics (mostly lifestyle at the moment). From a broader perspective, it’s a social network that allows users to visually share new interests by ‘pinning’ images or videos to their own or others’ ‘pinboards’ (a collection of ‘pins’ that have a common theme).

Crucially, Pinterest has a huge visual emphasis, a lot of shared mood-boards is how it first stuck me. It represents a collated view of a person’s lifestyle or set of interests. The benefit to the user is that I can discover ‘people like me’, and so stuff I might like.

Pinterest’s objective is to connect everyone through the things that they find interesting. Oh, and once you’ve registered with your social network of choice, you can upload directly to it, use a bookmarklet in your browser or via a mobile app, so it’s easy stuff.

Gorgeous design

The design of Pinterest is pretty unique which is adding to its appeal with non-marketing-or-tech-geeks, Mashable covered this here – essentially the user benefit is that it’s pictorial and panel orientated, highly visual and easy to move around different topics.

Text content is at a minimum and you’re not forced into a linear, reverse chronological order browsing. This makes it the opposite, from an experiential perspective, to most blogs, Facebook or Twitter.

Before you dive in

Two important questions…

Have you got enough time and resource to take on another social media outpost? It’s best to not have magpie syndrome and just dive in because you can, resources for all of us remain at a premium, no matter how hot Pinterest might sound right now. Of course, worst case, you can create an account and trial it, but consider the reality of pitching time into another outpost in the social media mix since you’ll probably have to steal that effort from somewhere else. More importantly…
Does your brand have a natural place within Pinterest? Is it a relevant part of your strategy right now? I ask this since Pinterest, as it stands at least, is all about lifestyle content and I’m assuming it always will be weighted that way. Real people sharing real stuff that they’re interested in. Of course you can come up with ideas to bridge into that (more on that below), yet I’d sense check if it feels natural for your brand at this time? If you’re already creating relevant content for a blog or a social media marketing plan then it may be a natural, low-effort step for you. The main users right now are 18-34 year old upper income women from the US, so did think about that.

So you think Pinterest is worth exploring for your brand?

Great – it’s seriously on the up as the fastest growing site, ever! This post by Techcrunch covered how the site has surpassed 10 million users after only 9 months. That’s the fastest growth ever for a standalone site. Users aren’t spending that much time at the site just yet — about 90 minutes / month, compared with 7 hours for Facebook. But it’s clear that Pinterest is a huge phenomenon. Most interesting when you consider the hype around Google+, Pinterest has also taken off among non-techies/geeks/marketers first, unlike Google+.

Ready to dive in? Our tips for Pinterest marketers

1. Register with a business email (and Twitter) on account set-up: Once you receive an invitation to sign up for Pinterest (it’s still invite only!) use the same email address you use for your business Twitter profile, then sign-up with Twitter in order you can easily share your new pins through your Twitter account. Pinterest doesn’t offer a connection to Facebook business pages, so Twitter it is. Of course, choose your company name as your username then add a company description, logo, and a website link.

2. Don’t upset fellow pinners! The site naturally discouragse blatant self-promotion. If there is a photo or project you’re proud of, great, just don’t use Pinterest purely as a tool for self-promotion.” [Read: get lost marketers!]. Think up creative ways to promote your brand on the network – showcase the lifestyle that your brand promotes. If you’re a footwear company like PUMA, a pinboard of PUMA shoes is a no-no. A pinboard of a people wearing them, especially famous folks like Professor Green, Thierry Henry or Aguero, ideally in cool places, would be much better for fellow pinners to interact with.

3. Be worth following with great visual content: To get started, spend time looking around, this way you’ll get some great ideas and a feel for how the network works.

See this post here on some of the most successful brand who are using Pinterest effectively so far. Get your great, non-promotional content uploaded – see point 2! This way, new followers will have a reason to follow your pins; just as you would populate a brand new blog before you start promoting it. What images, graphics, info graphics do you have or could you easily get together?

4. Promote your presence externally:

Add the Pinterest follow button to your website and write a blog post to promote it.
Promote your presence on Pinterest through your other social networks by encouraging your followers/fans on Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and Twitter to follow your pins!
Consider a Pinterest contest (see below).
Start following users you think would want to follow you back.

5. Create a fan Pinboard: You can allow other users to contribute their own pins to your hosted pinboards, so involve fans and customers in your marketing as you would in any other social channel. Dedicate a pinboard to your top fans or customers – ask the customer to pin images that showcase your brand within their lifestyle. Does your product allow the user to look good, be better at something, feel better – get images the illustrate that, think of it as a pictorial testimonial.

6. Oh no, another dam contest: I know, I know. Marketers and their dam contests in social networks! Yet, they work to a point in making your brand shareable. In Pinterest it’s all about the images (and videos) – what pins of your brand, products, or services could people share on a board as a part of a contest – to get what exactly? Re-pin the top boards to your own Pinterest page and ask followers to vote on the boards to select the winner. Just keep it natural and on-brand for Pinterest and the pincers, remember Pinterest’s terms of use!

7. Demonstrate an expertise on a topic: Become the go-to Pinterest account for pins about a certain subject or topic relating to your industry. You’ll see this by looking around the network. Some people are really owning certain spaces and you’d have to say there’s an early, possible gold-rush potential within Pinterest at the moment to do just that. I like this graphic designer and their logo love board - a great, simple idea. What about other forms of design, art, fashion that are so immediately relevant this way, so easily done. Harder for those of us that need to find the lifestyle link – but the principal is their with a little imagination – more on that here…

8. Learn about your buyer personas: View pinboards of your customers, learn more about who they are and what they’re interested in. Use Pinterest as a tool for understanding the interests and needs of your ideal customers. Then… show your expertise within those areas, be valuable and interesting. Very simple, and very time consuming to do it properly. Yet that’s surely the opportunity.

9. Remember videos: Pins can be videos as well as images – worth remembering! Existing footage you can use, interviews, fun stuff?

10. Integration with other channels: Do you attend or run offline events that your fan base would find interesting to see behind the scenes? How about features around the best photos and video footage – this is good for those not attending and it helps you generate buzz and promote the next event you run or will be present at. Consider online integration too – you can use hashtags in Pinterest, if you use them then create a pinboard around it, tag it with a hashtag you’re using on Twitter and Google+ and help integrate Pinterest within the campaign. You can use your Pinterest account to promote a relevant section of your site this way – driving multiple links (traffic) back to your domain around a particular topic, theme or campaing. Assuming the content is good enough of course.

11. Showcase your people: How about a pinboard that showcases life around and in your organisation, whether day-to-day stuff or events, even parties. It’s subtle, basic stuff but every little helps.

12. Measure traffic back to your website: Make sure this is all generating results and proving it’s worth your time and effort. Whenever possible, include links back to your website and landing pages in your pins. Keep track of referral traffic and leads generated from Pinterest to see what resonates and what doesn’t.

Just remember that as a social network Pinterest requires that you spend time to increase your following, engage with those followers, keep your presence updated, and generally add value to the eco-system. It’s not another magic bullet, of course.

What are your ideas on using Pinterest – do let us know!

Salespeople Should Never, Ever Do This ...

2012-02-12T16:06:00.000-08:00

Salespeople Should Never, Ever Do This ...:

When Forbes magazine interviewed me about what salespeople should never do, the five "no-nos" below immediately popped into my mind. But it was so fun thinking about them that I decided to run a NEVER-EVER contest.

This is a wonderful opportunity to learn from each other's mistakes.

Post your "salespeople should never" advice in the comments section. Make sure you tell us how you learned this lesson.
The best entries will be included in my upcoming ebook on this topic.
10 lucky contributors will also win an autographed copy of SNAP Selling.

Don't forget to share your never, ever story below. And make sure you read my thoughts too!

_________________________

5 Things Salespeople Should Never Do

Here's what I shared with the writer from Forbes magazine:

NEVER allow failure to enter your vocabulary. Redefine everything as a "learning experience" and then focus on figuring out how to get different results.

NEVER talk politics with a prospect or customer -- unless you are 100% sure you're totally aligned. And, even then it might not be smart because other members of the decision team may have different feelings.

NEVER look at your email first thing in the morning. It'll suck you in and you'll lose a couple hours.

NEVER ask questions about things that can easily be found on a company's website. You'll lose credibility and look like a fool.

NEVER look at your cell phone during a meeting. In fact, you should turn it off so you won't be tempted to check a text or see who's calling.

YOUR TURN: What should salespeople NEVER-EVER do? Share your no-nos in the comments section below.

The 4 Steps You Must Take to Stop Collecting Useless Sales Data

2012-02-12T16:05:00.000-08:00

The 4 Steps You Must Take to Stop Collecting Useless Sales Data:

One of our most common discoveries in B2B organizations is that sales managers are drowning in a sea of sales data but getting little value from all the effort spent in collecting and reporting on it. Further, even though the purpose of analyzing sales data is to support effective decision-making, oftentimes the one is divorced from the other.

How frustrating!

One of the key benefits companies realize in implementing a sales performance management (SPM) framework is that they stop the habit of collecting sales data for its own sake. What they do instead is to collect that sales data necessary to answer the vital sales questions, track performance against strategic objectives, predict future outcomes, and support ongoing decision-making. That is a tall order indeed. So how do they do it?

Step 1: Design a process for decision-making

The first thing best-in-class sales operations do to get their hands around the process for making decisions within sales. The graphic at the top represents one enterprise view of how the SPM process spans multiple disciplines within the Sales function (e.g. Talent Management, Compensation Planning, Territory Design) and requires system integration (CRM, Knowledge Management, Marketing Automation). It also needs to connect the day-to-day activity of front-line sales professionals with the boardroom strategies driving the business.

Step 2: Inventory your Decisions

The best way to do that is to first inventory the decisions made by and for the Sales organization. Find out who decides what, when, why, and most importantly, what data so they need to make that decision. It is easiest to assess and inventor decisions at three levels:

Sales Reps
Sales Managers
Sales Executives

Each of these communities will have a different set of data needs, decision frameworks, time horizons, and degree of accuracy. Sales performance management addresses each one separately to optimize the data flow to them and for them.

Step 3: Stop Reporting on ‘nice to have’ Data

Once you have inventoried the data and compared it to the decisions that need to be made the result will be a great mass of sales reporting that is no longer needed. Typically this was the fruit of some exercises long ago forgotten and no one has re-evaluated the need for the data. You can save a lot of cycles just by cutting out this legacy sales reporting activity.

Step 4: Institute a Periodic sales Data audit

So that your efforts do not become a one-off improvement, the final step is to set up a periodic audit of data collection, reporting, and usage. This job typically falls to the sales operations function and can be woven into their other annual planning tasks as it relates to the re-issuance of the corporate and sales strategies. Doing this every so often ensure that the data made available to all levels of the organization is timely, relevant, and tied to the decision-making.

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