I start most of my days like you. I hit the snooze button on my alarm and lay semi-awake thinking about all the things I should be doing. Then, 20 minutes later (where did the time go?!), I autopilot my way to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. While I sip my caffeine, I scan the news to see what I’ve missed overnight. I recently discovered a new perspective on the inordinate amount of time I spend reading the news each morning.
Most news stories innately hold a sales lesson. In short, reading the news can increase sales.
Here are three news stories and an accompanying sales takeaway.
When the Brooklyn Museum of Art discovered that a third of items in their Egyptian sculpture collection were fake, they found a way to create value for their patrons by putting them on display. In sales, it’s essential to create and articulate value for your leads and prospects.
… the transactional aspects of sales are disappearing. When routine functions can be automated, and when customers and prospects often have as much data as the saleswoman herself, the skills that matter most are heuristic: Curating and interpreting information instead of merely dispensing it. Identifying new problems along with solving established ones. Selling insights rather than items.
What value are you providing to your potential customers? Is it unique enough to cut through the noise?
As Buzzfeed explains, “when you type a Facebook status, suggestions are made to auto-tag other users. When you start typing “grandma”, it often suggests tagging the seminal hip-hop artist Grandmaster Flash.” The result looks something like this:
Happy Birthday, Abby! Have a wonderful day sweetheart. – Love, Grandmaster Flash
Take a moment to think about why this is happening. It’s because some Facebook users are signing their names to a post – just like they would in a letter.
We sometimes need to make assumptions in sales about the tools and processes of our leads and prospects, but it’s important to ensure we share the same understanding of how they are being used. Taking action, like segmenting our buyers, allows us to predict the behaviors and characteristics of buyers with some degree of certainty. Understanding both the proficiencies and limitations of each buyer segments enables us to more meaningfully connect with leads and prospects.
It took thirteen years for this woman to find the owner of the photo. Thirteen years. Her dogged persistence resulted in an exceptionally gratifying ending – the woman not only found the photo’s owner, but also received confirmation that all six people in the photograph were alive.
Spend some time reviewing each of your successful closes and you’ll probably notice that many of them have one thing in common: persistence. Conversely, can any past missed opportunities be contributed to a lack of perseverance? Note how you navigated both successes and disappointing outcomes and whether or not you maintained momentum throughout the sales process. Identify what went right and how you influenced that. Understanding how and why you were successful increases the likelihood of repeating that success.
There’s a lot of news out there, but it’s worth taking the time to appreciate the implications of a few each day. Doing so can help you draw noteworthy conclusions about human behavior and inform your efforts to successfully engage with prospects. So, tomorrow morning give yourself a few extra minutes with that cup of coffee while you read the news.
At Fronetics we work with companies within the supply chain and logistics industries to reach their business and marketing goals. We work with our clients to identify and execute strategies that produce results.
Is your current marketing strategy working? Does your website attract and engage? Does your website generate leads? Does your company generate leads via social media?
How many times did you answer “I don’t know,” or “no?” Be honest.
We are offering a free marketing assessment. The assessment includes a discussion focused on your current goals and challenges, an evaluation of the competitive landscape, and actionable strategies to help you grow your business.
Don’t worry, there is no fine print and there are no obligations.
I work with companies from the supply chain and logistics industries to identify and execute strategies that will grow their business. Too often I see companies who have invested time and money into developing a B2B inbound marketing strategy and have fallen flat. Here are six reasons why inbound marketing strategies tend to fail:
The ideal customer is not being targeted
A successful inbound marketing strategy will attract and engage the “right people” – ideal customers. It is therefore essential that time is taken to understand who the ideal customer is, the needs of the customer, and the customer’s pain points. Your company’s website, social media presence, and email communications, should speak to your ideal customer.
Content is not published consistently
A common pitfall is establishing a blog, but only publishing content on a sporadic basis. To establish your company as an industry leader and gain leads, you need to publish content on a consistent basis. For example, your company needs to commit to publishing blog content every Tuesday.
Content is not quality content
All content is not equal. If you want your inbound marketing efforts to succeed, your content needs to be quality content. Your content should be well-researched, sourced, and edited. Grammatical errors and misspellings are inexcusable.
More isn’t always better
It is easy to sign up for a social media account. I’ve seen many companies who have decided to jump into social media feet first and have established many social media accounts, only to become overwhelmed. If you want your inbound marketing strategy to succeed, it is more important to be active on one social network than inactive on five.
Strategy and execution are fundamentally different. Strategy is about making choices. Execution is about getting down and dirty so that the choices made can produce results. Here’s how you can get from excellent strategy to strong execution.
Strategy is the pursuit of excellence. It is more than white boards, spreadsheets, taglines, slogans, and vanity metrics. Strategy is about making choices on where to play, how to play, and how to maximize value — for your company and for your customers.
Execution is about doing the work needed to produce results within the context of the aforementioned strategy.
Here is how to move from strategy to execution.
Keep it simple.
When it comes to strategy simplicity is key.Develop a few simple but big ideas or themes that will drive your organization. Live or die by these ideas. If you develop too many or they are too complicated, you will lose focus and internal buy-in. When you lose focus and internal buy-in, execution is doomed to failure.
Involve your team.
When you pick your few big ideas (see above), make sure you involve your “front line” team. These are the people who turn action into daily routines. Their insight and knowledge are invaluable.
Be obsessed with your strategy.
If you cannot articulate the “why” of your strategy in everything your organization does, it is probably the wrong strategy. Being obsessed with your strategy means that your strategy can be demonstrated in every action, every day.
Focus on the customer.
If it is not about the customer, it is not strategic. Everything you do needs to link back to the people who are paying you… your customers. If it does not help them, it does not help you and therefore cannot be strategic.
By staying focused on these business execution strategies, you’ll be able to successfully move your supply chains from idea to reality.
What is a conversion? A conversion means action. It means that someone took some action that entered them into your funnel or moved them further down your funnel. Examples of conversions are: downloading a white paper, filling out a form, requesting information, opening an email, and becoming a customer.
By monitoring and tracking conversions you can determine what marketing efforts are paying off. Additionally, by monitoring and tracking conversions you can identify which efforts need to be re-evaluated or even discontinued. In short, conversion rates can help you measure your ROI.
Why conversion rates don’t matter
Conversion rates are not the Holy Grail of metrics. Your website should be a magnet. It should attract and engage prospective customers and current customers. Your website should serve to educate and to establish your business as an industry leader. Eighty to 90 percent of prospects are not ready to make a purchase when they first engage with your company. Conversion rates don’t capture the amount of time people spend on your website, learning, exploring, and getting to know your business. Conversion rates also do not capture the amount of time current customers spend on your website – valuing your company as a resource.
While conversion rates are an important metric to measure, remember that they are not the end all be all.
Tracking conversion rates
We created a template that you can download and use to track conversion rates and other critical metrics. While the template captures visitor-to-lead and lead-to-customer conversion rates, you can easily modify the template to include additional conversion rates that are useful to your business.
The temptation is obvious: You want to use your business blog to proclaim the virtues of your excellent products. You throw around words like “unique,” “outstanding,” “robust,” and “industry-leading.”
Perhaps you even add a blinking “Buy Now!” button at the end, convinced your reader simply can’t resist hitting it.
There is only one problem: Your sales pitch made your prospective customer tune out long before they reached the last paragraph.
Imagine the following scenario: You enter a car dealership and are greeted by an enthusiastic sales agent, grinning ear to ear. He launches into his pitch about mega sales and the best deal of the century. Any question from you is brushed aside as he has more to say about the car model that he has decided you must have. Turned off by his sales strategy, you make a quick exit.
Or think of another example: A sales representative from a company whose website you browsed a few days ago follows up with a call and leaves a voice mail. The message is friendly. She does her best not to sound pushy. She introduces her “leading” company, which offers “a wide range of services” and a “one-stop-shop” for all your needs. By the time she reaches, “I look forward to meeting you,” you’re still ready to hit the delete button. Again, the voice mail was loaded with sales lingo.
As strange as it may sound, being “salesy” is bad for business. HubSpot, a marketing consulting service and software developer, goes as far as calling it one of the “7 Deadly Sins of Inbound Marketing.”
It reads:
Sin 3: Gluttony – Don’t be gluttonous and stuff your content with information about your company products. Focus on solving problems and helping your customers and community first and not jamming your product pitch down their throats.
Let’s go back to the two examples above and transfer the line of thought to your blog. Rather than forcing your products on your prospective customers, take time to answer their questions. You are there for them. They may be in the beginning of their buyer’s journey and far from ready to sign off on a brand new car. Perhaps they entered that dealership to browse, to check out the view behind the steering wheel.
And what if that voice mail had been phrased differently? What if the sales representative had spent a moment talking about what your browsing history said about the problems you’re seeking solutions to and presented some real-life proof of how her company could help? Basically, she would have been more effective showing how her company can deliver value to you. The same goes for your blog.
Here’s what you should do:
Stay informative and educational.
Demonstrate market expertise.
Sound like a business peer.
Focus on topics and questions of crucial importance to your target audience.
