Lead Generation & Nurturing for Your Architectural Firm - Part Three

Part three of four

This is the third installment in a four part series dedicated to lead generation and lead nurturing process. No business can be successful with new client development without a strong understanding of this phase in the sales cycle. You can read the initial installment which can be found here.

Here are a few areas to discover critical functionality indicators inside a lead nurturing marketing campaign:

• Engagement: Identify the email open and click-through rates. This data is a great starting point for your tracking efforts.
• Lead acceleration: Are leads moving according to expectation through the lead funnel?
• How does the time it takes to convert from lead to converting to a sell-ready state? Are leads attentive to your firm’s content strategy? Between nurturing campaign stages, how long does it take to move nurtured prospects into the sales cycle?
• Outcome metrics: What are the conversion rates? From initial contact (suspect) to lead, from lead to sales opportunity? How many leads begin the process? How many of them convert successfully through the entire process (closing rate)? What is your company average transaction amount (sales revenue average)? What is the entire length of the sales cycle in terms of time?

Once you establish a baseline with these and other key indicators, you can look for trouble
spots in your nurturing campaign, experiment with solutions and consider your next steps.

Going Forward From the Beginning

A fundamental lead nurturing strategy, utilizing a small amount of potential buyer user profiles, a restricted procedure flow, and some performance metrics, is an excellent place to begin. Like prospect scoring, on the other hand, direct nurturing is actually a stratagem that’s by no means concluded; there’s always room to fine-tune, improve and
expand your efforts.

In addition to incorporating improved and updated user profiles, fresh touch - points, content variety and communication avenues with your established activities, there are other tips on how to take advantage of lead nurturing, including:

• Brand Loyalty and Customer Retention: Utilize valid and current lead nurturing practices to produce more intense interactions with your current leads AND clients - including cross-sell and up sell possibilities influenced by engaging content.
• Relationship Building: Implement lead nurturing process to allow clients to get to know your firm better, provides you an opportunity to strengthen the relationship, and develop a bond so that you firm is “Top-Of-Mind,” and that your competitors become a distant memory. Assist and follow up with your customers concerning their newly purchased goods and services; supply them with help-desk support options, suggestions, provide consumer online groups for community information and facts, and various solutions.
• Remarketing: Re-evaluate each failed conversion to develop “come-back” strategies to take another pass for possible conversion. Sometimes, simple annoyances caused the prospect to fall out of the lead funnel.

 

This image displays another look at the sales funnel, and the lead nurturing process. The middle of the funnel is a critical area on which to focus, but as noted previously, doesn’t try to force your lead to a buying decision. There should be well focused energy in providing all of the information to a particular lead in this position, so that the buying decision formulates with you and the relationship you are building with them.

Lead Rating - How Lead Rating and Prospect Nurturing Interact

I would like you to understand the way in which prospect rating can help to increase your current marketing and sales campaigns. An essential prospect ranking principle - the warm lead - is additionally essential for any lead nurturing strategy.

“Warm qualified” prospects demonstrate an obvious affinity for your product or service and solutions, however, they typically do not score as significant as would the oh-so evident “sales-ready purchaser.” Identifying a warm lead using your own rating method is normally a question of time and experience. The efficacy of your system will be determined by various psychographic and demographic ranking considerations of your “ideal” prospect, coupled with your firm's practical experience going through a number of prospective buyers. Once you discover what your business’ lead scoring ceiling (the culmination of the factors compared to your ideal consumer), it’s not as difficult to be able to systemize the entire process of navigation directly to the sales staff. These folks, who are on the direct firing line of dealing with the prospective customer, must fully understand what makes the ideal time to work with the prospect. By the use of metrics (the rating system) and the prospect, they should know what stage of the buying process in which they find them. If sales intervenes too soon, there is a degree of probability that the prospect may back away, become frustrated, or seek further study with your competitors.

Timing is everything.

Lead Generation & Nurturing for Your Accounting Firm - Part Three

Part three of four

This is the third installment in a four part series dedicated to lead generation and lead nurturing process. No business can be successful with new client development without a strong understanding of this phase in the sales cycle. You can read the initial installment which can be found here.

Here are a few areas to discover critical functionality indicators inside a lead nurturing marketing campaign:

• Engagement: Identify the email open and click-through rates. This data is a great starting point for your tracking efforts.
• Lead acceleration: Are leads moving according to expectation through the lead funnel?
• How does the time it takes to convert from lead to converting to a sell-ready state? Are leads attentive to your firm’s content strategy? Between nurturing campaign stages, how long does it take to move nurtured prospects into the sales cycle?
• Outcome metrics: What are the conversion rates? From initial contact (suspect) to lead, from lead to sales opportunity? How many leads begin the process? How many of them convert successfully through the entire process (closing rate)? What is your company average transaction amount (sales revenue average)? What is the entire length of the sales cycle in terms of time?

Once you establish a baseline with these and other key indicators, you can look for trouble
spots in your nurturing campaign, experiment with solutions and consider your next steps.

Going Forward From the Beginning

A fundamental lead nurturing strategy, utilizing a small amount of potential buyer user profiles, a restricted procedure flow, and some performance metrics, is an excellent place to begin. Like prospect scoring, on the other hand, direct nurturing is actually a stratagem that’s by no means concluded; there’s always room to fine-tune, improve and
expand your efforts.
In addition to incorporating improved and updated user profiles, fresh touch - points, content variety and communication avenues with your established activities, there are other tips on how to take advantage of lead nurturing, including:

• Brand Loyalty and Customer Retention: Utilize valid and current lead nurturing practices to produce more intense interactions with your current leads AND clients - including cross-sell and up sell possibilities influenced by engaging content.
• Relationship Building: Implement lead nurturing process to allow clients to get to know your firm better, provides you an opportunity to strengthen the relationship, and develop a bond so that you firm is “Top-Of-Mind,” and that your competitors become a distant memory. Assist and follow up with your customers concerning their newly purchased goods and services; supply them with help-desk support options, suggestions, provide consumer online groups for community information and facts, and various solutions.
• Remarketing: Re-evaluate each failed conversion to develop “come-back” strategies to take another pass for possible conversion. Sometimes, simple annoyances caused the prospect to fall out of the lead funnel.

 

This image displays another look at the sales funnel, and the lead nurturing process. The middle of the funnel is a critical area on which to focus, but as noted previously, doesn’t try to force your lead to a buying decision. There should be well focused energy in providing all of the information to a particular lead in this position, so that the buying decision formulates with you and the relationship you are building with them.

Lead Rating - How Lead Rating and Prospect Nurturing Interact

I would like you to understand the way in which prospect rating can help to increase your current marketing and sales campaigns. An essential prospect ranking principle - the warm lead - is additionally essential for any lead nurturing strategy.

“Warm qualified” prospects demonstrate an obvious affinity for your product or service and solutions, however, they typically do not score as significant as would the oh-so evident “sales-ready purchaser.” Identifying a warm lead using your own rating method is normally a question of time and experience. The efficacy of your system will be determined by various psychographic and demographic ranking considerations of your “ideal” prospect, coupled with your firm's practical experience going through a number of prospective buyers. Once you discover what your business’ lead scoring ceiling (the culmination of the factors compared to your ideal consumer), it’s not as difficult to be able to systemize the entire process of navigation directly to the sales staff. These folks, who are on the direct firing line of dealing with the prospective customer, must fully understand what makes the ideal time to work with the prospect. By the use of metrics (the rating system) and the prospect, they should know what stage of the buying process in which they find them. If sales intervenes too soon, there is a degree of probability that the prospect may back away, become frustrated, or seek further study with your competitors.

Timing is everything.

Inbound Marketing and the Holidays

Does your business distribute holiday greetings to its clients or customers? And, does your business distribute holiday greetings to prospective clients or customers? It’s amazing to me that there are companies who don’t have holiday greetings as a part of their marketing plan.

Why should your business send greeting cards or e-cards?

Why do you invest your precious time, talent, and treasure on any other marketing strategies – to build top of mind awareness! And this goal is equally important whether it’s an existing client or a prospective one.

The holiday season is now upon us.

Right now, it is time to prepare your list, craft your design (or hire a firm like Zen Marketing to custom design one for you), and send a polished, sophisticated e-card to those important to your business health.

If you are a DIY’er here are some best practices tips in creating a memorable e-card, one that your customers will really want to read, and proudly display in their offices.

Is Your Plan Ready?

Getting an early start is good, but even on December 1^st there is still time. Just don’t wait until the 15^th to begin your design selection process and hope to have it delivered in time. Determine the type of e-card you want to send today! Whether printed or electronic, holiday cards enhance relationships with your customers and prospects by showing them that you care enough to remember- a card that’s thrown together won’t provide this benefit.

Thank All Of Your Contacts.

People like to be appreciated and by highlighting this you encourage them to think about the wonderful service and products your company provides. One fun tactic to garbner attention is to build in a contest or promotion into your holiday card marketing.

If your e-card recipients know they’re automatically entered for a prize (or of you tell them how to enter) you will create excitement. But keep in mind that this a greeting card not a sales pitch. So, focus on the greetings of the season warm and less on the capturing of more sales.

Ideally, your goal should be an e-card (or greeting card) that is memorable, exciting, or humorous. And remember to be creative and strive to get the right message.

Know your audience.

Depending on who you’re sending cards or e-cards to, you may want to divide your email or postal lists into segments, such as existing customers, prospective ones, perhaps even former customers, and especially referral sources. If you segment your email distribution list, consider changing the graphic and message design to be relevant to each group. If you try to send to everyone the message has to be bland and generic to relate to all groups and that is less effective.

Trying to Stay Within a Limited Budget?

E-cards are less expensive than printing and posting a greeting card, because… well, you save on printing and postage costs. An e-card lets you take advantage of moderate resolution graphics effectively or even embed video along with your message, and you can do so with a reasonable capital allotment.

You can send e-cards or greeting cards for holidays, to give thanks to customers, remember birthdays, or just let your contacts know you’re thinking of them. Instead of sending another boring email, try extending your marketing presence by sending e-card s and greeting cards.

Here are some other tips…

When you don’t have time to custom design a great greeting card, outsource it to a marketing company with a great design team. They can usually provide the mailing services as well, making it easy for your company to focus on the work at hand.

Another option is to use one of the many great graphic artists who offer e-cards via the internet. Our firm often relies on Jacquie Lawson. Jacquie is a well established English artist whose e-cards are engaging and offer terrific music with the visual beauty.

It is very inexpensive, although you cannot upload a list using this site (they abhor commercialism and don’t want to be perceived as a mass mailing house). But once you’ve established your list it is fun and easy to spot-send people cards for specific events or Holidays.

Using humor in business relationships can be tricky, but JibJab cards often have us laughing out loud.

They are renowned for their politically satirical cards but have a broad offering of birthday and holiday themes as well.

In conclusion, use special events like the Holidays to build on your marketing efforts and improve your company's top of mind awareness.

SMBs Still Favor Face-to-Face Marketing Tactics

This is a very informative and tellkoing article that I am sharing, courtesy of MarketingProfs. It mkakes a very compelling arguement about behavior but also abvout budget and behavior. Most of all it supports the paradighm shift in marketing and sales from the cold-call driven  process mentality to one created from content and driven through engagement and relationship.

Traditional, face-to-face tactics are still fundamental for SMB marketers: Personal relationships and networking (95%), tradeshows and industry events (89%), and in-person events (86%) rank as the most popular marketing tactics for finding new customers, according to a survey of small and midsized businesses conducted by Forrester Consulting for Act-On Software.

Among surveyed SMBs, content marketing (83%) is also a big part of the customer acquisition mix, followed by print advertising (77%), public relations (74%), and SEO (73%).

SMBs are using a variety of other digital tactics for customer acquisition efforts as well, such as email (72%), social media (69%), digital advertising (61%), webinars (58%), and PPC (50%).

Moreover, SMBs appear to be "doing it all" with small teams of marketing generalists.

Among those 14 different marketing tactics (in the chart above), 50% of SMBs say they use 13 of the tactics and 70% say they use 8 of them.

Below, additional findings from the study titled "Driving SMB Revenue in a Tough Economy."

Social Marketing Yielding Mixed Results

Though 69% of SMBs use social media as part of their customer acquisition marketing mix, results from those efforts across various social platforms are somewhat mixed:

• Facebook: 49% use the site and report positive results; 36% use Facebook but are unsure about results or say their efforts aren't paying off; and 14% don't use Facebook.
• Twitter: 47% use the site and report positive results; 31% use Twitter but are unsure about results or say their efforts aren't paying off; 22% don't use Twitter.
• Video marketing (e.g., YouTube): 51% use video marketing and report positive results; 16% use video marketing but are unsure about results or say their efforts aren't paying off; and 33% don't market with video content.
• LinkedIn: 49% use the professional networking site and report positive results; 29% use LinkedIn but are unsure about results or say their efforts aren't paying off; and 31% don’t' use LinkedIn.

 

Top Challenges: Converting, Closing Deals

Among SMBs, the top marketing challenge is converting more leads into opportunities (41%), followed by closing more deals from existing lead flows (39%), increasing sales from existing customers (33%), and differentiating themselves from the competition (33%).

Interestingly, marketing programs are not primary contributors to the sales pipeline: On average, only 35% of the sales pipeline is marketing sourced (attributed to a marketing program).

Also, SMBs aren't making use of marketing automation, Forrester found: Only 19% say they have implemented software that automates marketing and lead management processes.

By contrast, 56% of SMBs say they have implemented CRM technologies.

 

About the data: Findings are based on a survey of 208 marketing decision-makers in small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), from multiple industries across the US, conducted from June to September 2012.

Source: MarketingProfs

http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2012/9618/smbs-still-favor-face-to-face-marketing-tactics#ixzz2DkMuuf7N

 

Lead Generation & Nurturing for Your Architectural Firm

This is the initial portion of a four part series dedicated to lead generation and lead nurturing process. No business can be successful with new client development without a strong understanding of this phase in the sales cycle.

Regardless of the methodology of lead generation you employ, in all probability your architectural firm will spend considerable time, energy and financial resources on lead generation. Some firms utilize direct mail, telemarketing, referral or customer-based marketing, trade shows, networking and a host of other strategies to generate leads and revenues. Others use their own particular formula for marketing and advertising. Lead generation and lead nurturing are top-of-the-funnel aspects of marketing and sales in every business; yours is no different.

This article is not about the strategy, it is about the process. As an inbound marketing agency our company, Zen Marketing, is in the business of teaching businesses how to generate more leads from their websites using content, but this is not a sales pitch today. Forget inbound marketing for the time being; let’s focus on the best approach to nurture the leads that you have generated.

One of the oldest clichés in the business world is “sales is a numbers game”. The number of customer sales transactions is the direct result of the number of “touches” the suspect experiences to convert to a prospect, to a qualified lead, to a sale. A touch might be an ad in the newspaper, meeting at a trade show, phone call, direct mail piece, or article found on the website. Every business is different; every marketing campaign is different. The sales cycle is what it is for your business; you know best the period of which we are referring to.

Those attempting to generate qualified leads, or prospects, if you will, will quickly learn precisely how long and what number of those suspects and prospects result in completed transactions (aka closed sales). In measuring this, a hard truth is exposed: there is major difference concerning “qualified” as opposed to “ready to purchase.”

Here is another truth. There will always be a percentage of “qualified” leads in the lead nurturing process that simply fail to generate a sale, just as there are those that make it all the way through the sales funnel, having received all of the lead nurturing they could ever hope for, and yet fall completely out of the pool of “sales-ready” prospective purchasers.

Statistics reveal that any architectural firm can consider approximately eighty percent of qualified prospects will ultimately make a purchase; however, there is no guarantee the transaction will hit your revenue report.

Lead Generation

We won’t be spending a lot of time on lead generation, because there are so much varied approaches that there are hundreds of books on the subject available for download on Amazon. The trick is realizing the difference between a suspect from a prospect; between a “lead” and a “qualified lead.”

Successful business-to-business marketing tactics include a broad and diverse range of tactics. Some of the most widely utilized include:

• Relationship marketing
• Content or Inbound marketing
• Direct or outbound marketing
• Online marketing
• Events 
• Tradeshows
• Educational workshops

When it comes to lead generation each tactic yields some amount of leads; but at what cost? And how efficiently are the leads created? The graph below, courtesy of our partner Hubspot®, reflects the sliding scale of the costs per lead. I provide this for information only, and won’t be discussing the benefits of one over the other, as it is for your firm to decide what strategies will be effective.

That said, nearly every any business card collected at a trade show is nothing more than a link to a suspect. Chances are that the person providing the card had a fanciful notion to share it because he or she:

• Behaviorally averse to confrontation- it’s easier and safer for them to simply string you along
• Was too bashful to say that something about your product or service caught their eye and nothing more
• Something from their past was brought to mind as a result of seeing your booth
• They love collecting business cards (you wouldn’t believe the number of cards that are given out and then thrown away when the person gets home)
• They ask for more information, only to gather further information to compare with your competitors

IN OUR NEXT POST ..... we take a serious look at lead nurturing.

Lead Generation & Nurturing for Your Accounting Firm

This is the initial portion of a four part series dedicated to lead generation and lead nurturing process. No business can be successful with new client development without a strong understanding of this phase in the sales cycle.

Regardless of the methodology of lead generation you employ, in all probability your accounting firm will spend considerable time, energy and financial resources on lead generation. Some firms utilize direct mail, telemarketing, referral or customer-based marketing, trade shows, networking and a host of other strategies to generate leads and revenues. Others use their own particular formula for marketing and advertising. Lead generation and lead nurturing are top-of-the-funnel aspects of marketing and sales in every business; yours is no different.

This article is not about the strategy, it is about the process. As an inbound marketing agency our company, Zen Marketing, is in the business of teaching businesses how to generate more leads from their websites using content, but this is not a sales pitch today. Forget inbound marketing for the time being; let’s focus on the best approach to nurture the leads that you have generated.

One of the oldest clichés in the business world is “sales is a numbers game”. The number of customer sales transactions is the direct result of the number of “touches” the suspect experiences to convert to a prospect, to a qualified lead, to a sale. A touch might be an ad in the newspaper, meeting at a trade show, phone call, direct mail piece, or article found on the website. Every business is different; every marketing campaign is different. The sales cycle is what it is for your business; you know best the period of which we are referring to.

Those attempting to generate qualified leads, or prospects, if you will, will quickly learn precisely how long and what number of those suspects and prospects result in completed transactions (aka closed sales). In measuring this a hard truth is exposed: there is major difference concerning “qualified” as opposed to “ready to purchase.”

Here is another truth. There will always be a percentage of “qualified” leads in the lead nurturing process that simply fail to generate a sale, just as there are those that make it all the way through the sales funnel, having received all of the lead nurturing they could ever hope for, and yet fall completely out of the pool of “sales-ready” prospective purchasers.

Statistics reveal that any accounting firm can consider approximately eighty percent of qualified prospects will ultimately make a purchase; however, there is no guarantee the transaction will hit your revenue report.

Lead Generation

We won’t be spending a lot of time on lead generation, because there are so much varied approaches that there are hundreds of books on the subject available for download on Amazon. The trick is realizing the difference between a suspect from a prospect; between a “lead” and a “qualified lead.”

Successful business-to-business marketing tactics include a broad and diverse range of tactics. Some of the most widely utilized include:

• Relationship marketing
• Content or Inbound marketing
• Direct or outbound marketing
• Online marketing
• Events 
• Tradeshows
• Educational workshops

When it comes to lead generation each tactic yields some amount of leads; but at what cost? And how efficiently are the leads created? The graph below, courtesy of our partner Hubspot®, reflects the sliding scale of the costs per lead. I provide this for information only, and won’t be discussing the benefits of one over the other, as it is for your firm to decide what strategies will be effective.

That said, nearly every any business card collected at a trade show is nothing more than a link to a suspect. Chances are that the person providing the card had a fanciful notion to share it because he or she:

• Behaviorally averse to confrontation- it’s easier and safer for them to simply string you along
• Was too bashful to say that something about your product or service caught their eye and nothing more
• Something from their past was brought to mind as a result of seeing your booth
• They love collecting business cards (you wouldn’t believe the number of cards that are given out and then thrown away when the person gets home)
• They ask for more information, only to gather further information to compare with your competitors

IN OUR NEXT POST ..... we take a serious look at lead nurturing.

Is Inbound Marketing Effective for a Start-Up or Should I Start Cold Calling?

In a recent online post I was asked,” When starting a new business and trying to generate qualified leads, are there any tricks when you are cold calling or is it purely just a numbers game”? This is a common question, especially from start-ups with limited budgets or no history of marketing.

Consider this perspective…  

As a start up you are an unknown entity... and you have little to no track record... and no doubt you have a story to tell but who is going to take the time out of their time impoverished lives to listen to it just because you called?

What You Really Need

You really need a well designed, carefully executed marketing plan and if you don't have the capital to invest in a diverse, sustainable campaign (I'd usually suggest an inbound marketing deployment but didn't yet know his business well enough) then guerrilla tactics and networking are the best and most efficient use of your most precious asset- your time.

Cold calling is frustrating for the parties at both ends of the line. If you are inexperienced at it you'll eventually quit doing it out of anxiety and lack of results.  We published an article a while back that dives into this environment, and you can read it here.

However a properly executed inbound marketing plan can make every call a warm one, can drive leads and prospects to you (instead of the other way around) and doesn't have to break the bank to deploy. It does take time so we would plan to align it alongside some guerrilla and networking tactics as the business scales upward.

For startups with little or no capital is it still possible to create an effective inbound marketing plan? Is the time preparing the inbound marketing resources really more profitable than the older traditional methods of networking, emailing, mailing and phoning?

There is a substantial difference between a properly crafted inbound campaign and more traditional approaches- it is the sustainability of what you are creating.

With an Inbound Marketing campaign you are sharing insightful information, insights, case studies, white papers and people who have an interest in what you are publishing are seeing this. Talk about a win-win! Your story or message aligns with the interest of an audience.

But there’s more! Because it can be used, and re-used, over time the investment you make in developing your inbound marketing content can also prove effective as part of an outbound marketing process as well.

A properly crafted inbound marketing plan doesn’t have to be overly costly. We realize that not every business can justify the robust functionality of a top of the line, integrated inbound marketing platform (we use and recommend Hubspot®). But much of the knowledge and tactics we have learned working through these advanced platforms can be transferred to smaller businesses.

A Great Example

 Every sales professional who has ever been on a sales call, facing a tidy, fastidious, risk-averse introvert quickly realizes it will never be a one-call close. They also know the importance of a quality “leave behind”. So a great looking folder or press kit containing some of the inbound marketing content you’ve created for your website and blog is vital. For our clients we often include a page of testimonials, some advertising or direct mail proofs, maybe even some product information… but always with a few salient articles we have previously posted.

And almost universally we find the prospect then goes to our website to read more of our articles.

LinkedIn® users – this is an especially effective outbound activity when performed in conjunction with LinkedIn® groups. You can build your brand equity, enhance the awareness in your products/services, and drive a lot of new website traffic by sharing your posts on group pages.

Here is a Test

At workshops that I host I often ask this line of questions to the audience -

• Tell me the name of the salesman, product or brand of the last cold call you were too busy to take in the last two weeks?
• Did you (could you?) share that with others in your office or professional network?

For that matter, please tell me -

• When was the last product or service you actually bought as a result of a cold call?
• When was the last product or service you actually bought as the result of a television commercial?
• When was the last product or service you actually bought as the result of a memorable banner ad?

Very seldom do I see a raised hand.

The Best Marketers Know Sales Is Largely About Understanding Behavior

Given the behavior preferences of successful decision makers, and the challenge of managing their time and work load, it is easy to see understand why playing the numbers game of cold calling is losing its effectiveness. Sure cold calling is an expected method in certain industries and there will always be a “sales guy” who swears by its use, but that is an old paradigm in an evolving and ever-changing society.

Sure, Marketing requires an investment in time, talent, and treasure, but there but it is also arguably a better investment over the long haul. It is sustainable, measurable, flexible, and effective.

Our company has helped many start-ups expand their brand awareness and achieve their goals. Perhaps you know a start-up that would be open to speaking sometime?  

But just don't have them call...

How Architects Can Create Sustainability in Business Development

Your business development or sales organization has been very busy. Think about all that time spent drafting emails, responding to voice mails, writing proposals with little or no real relevance, pitching to non-decision makers and not holding prospects accountable to commitments… in actuality that is a lot of time NOT spent selling, it is time spent chasing!

What percentage of the overall time of your sales efforts are actually spent actually selling with new prospects? And how does your brand and/or credibility suffer from these typical but common sales activities?

Time is Your Most Valuable Asset

Consider the impact on your top line revenue if you were able to reduce the time either you or your sales people spend chasing procrastinators.

Consider the impact on your growth if you were able to double your actual time spent selling (most sales people are only in front of new prospects (outside the scope of your existing core client base).

Here is a hint: an improvement of 5%-20% of the time equates to 2-8 appointments/hours per week.

What would this translate into with regards to gross sales?

There is a marketing process that can shorten the sales cycle and dramatically improve conversion and close rates. When properly deployed it can eradicate all those annoying time wasters many sales people get stuck with while providing your brand or product with a significant boost in credibility. The common term is content marketing or inbound marketing. More about that in a minute…

How Is Time Utilized in the Sales Process?

Just think about the amount of time that gets invested into:

• prospecting and networking
• engaging
• presenting
• writing proposals

This is usually followed by the big chase with the “prospect”… and then you come to discover that your sales people were on a big fishing expedition!

Sooner or later every business owner will realize the importance of addressing this situation.

Quite often traditional sales people sit back after all of the hours of prospecting, pitching, presenting, proposal writing and chasing and go over in their own minds why the prospect, who seemed so interested yesterday did not buy today. There are shelves of books dealing with this problem in book stores. The reasons that sales people typically provide are at the very least predictable.

Do any of these replies sound familiar?

• Your price is too high!
• We need to “think it over”!
• We have decided to postpone this for now!
• We have decided to stay with our current provider!
• We chose another company!

If you had a stock portfolio that was under-performing the overall market would you keep dumping time and money into those stocks? I seriously doubt it. What you would do is you assess what you have that is working, and then determine what to keep and what to eliminate… you would cut your losses with regard to what is really an under-performing asset. Why would you approach your marketing tactics any differently?

Place Your Focus on the Plan

For our clients opportunity is not a viable strategy to business development. Our clients believe in the creation of plans, plans that are both realistic and achievable; plans that establish measurable goals and provide personal accountability. Our clients wake up every morning knowing what action items have to be accomplished, and understand how these activities align with their overall long term mission.

Can you honesty argue that your marketing and sales goals are clearly defined, understood throughout your company, and are being achieved? If not perhaps it’s time for you to seriously consider a change in your company’s approach to marketing. Beginning with the overall vision and leading through the goals, strategies, and action items necessary to achieve a result that you will be proud of. And getting off of the unsustainable cycle of cold calling, frustration, and remorse and shifting your marketing spend into a more sustainable process.

It Must Be Measurable

Adopting new marketing tactics are always met with excitement until the revenue line doesn’t grow or the results are fuzzy and non-measurable. That has often been the case with traditional marketing tactics like direct mail, newspaper advertising, and road signs. And while good marketers have adapted internet marketing best practices like dedicated landing pages and QR codes to help strengthen these traditional practices provide and provide some analysis they really cannot compare to the quality and volume of data that can be generated from an inbound marketing approach.

Again, using the stock portfolio analogy, how long would you continue with an investment advisor if all you routinely saw were the fees s/he was charging you and not the performance of the portfolio? That is very similar to what many businesses are doing- paying the fees to pump out ad’s without being able to assess the impact that ad is having on their revenue growth.

Change Your Approach to Marketing

With the proper application of a well defined plan along with a robust inbound marketing platform (we recommend Hubspot® and use it ourselves) you can consolidate almost all of your marketing endeavors into a single software-driven process. The advantages to this approach are:

• You will project your company’s value proposition
• Your target audience will understand your company culture
• The value your company brings to your clients will be broadly and repetitively understood
• You will be able to quantify which tactics are most successful and where to shift your investment of time and talent

Perhaps best of all you will share that across a blog and different social media applications automatically and seamlessly. You will now have the ability to:

• Create and/or enhance the awareness in your brand that rivals the best public relations tactics
• Repetitively establish your credibility
• Provide opportunities for interested parties to become qualified prospects
• Maintain a high level of engagement over time
• Understand where in the sales process your investment in training and continuing education needs to be applied

Get the Facts

We have a comprehensive e-book that illustrates the inbound marketing process in great detail, and would love to share it with you. To obtain your copy, with no strings attached and no sales person phone calls, just complete the short form, above, right.

And if you would like to schedule an initial assessment of your current website and see an inbound marketing quotient just drop us an email and request a complimentary consultation.

Inbound Marketing: the Best Way to Drive Sales to New Levels

Do you sometimes feel like your company is using social media and blogging but not getting the volume of leads you had hoped for? Are you stressing over the decision to invest more time, talent, and treasure into your marketing effort?

Or are you stuck in the old cold-calling paradigm? Heck, can a company survive this way in today's marketplace?

Jason Fried, writing for INC., articulates: “Existing companies always weigh the costs of new technology or talent against what it already has and usually sticks with what is familiar. Why? Because the marginal costs of using what you have are almost always lower than the full costs of investing in something new.”1

Established decisions makers don't think in terms of marginal costs. New companies don't base decisions like inbound marketing adoption on costs at all - rather they tend to pick what is best for the business. It's the key reason new businesses often displace established ones.  They have better tools.

Several of our clients had established outbound sales processes in place, lacked an email database to completely support a pure inbound marketing campaign, and needed a more rapid ramp up than an inbound marketing initiation would have generated. But, they had the vision to realize that a sales process based solely on cold calling was becoming dysfunctional.

One of them, the President of a manufacturing company, had been impressed with some of the content we had shared with them, from a LinkedIn group, and reached out to us. Yup- they called us!

We created a plan to blend the client's outbound culture with the inbound marketing process. One of the biggest misconceptions we see in interviewing potential clients is the "either/or" mentality many people have regarding these two disciplines. Outbound tactics are a great way to support a sales organization that is light on email contacts and doesn’t want to buy lists (and potentially risk being labeled a spammer. The solution we devised was to utilize Hubspot® as an internet environment to create warm calls where they might have only been cold ones before.

Inbound marketing is at its best when it supports a traditional sales effort, not merely trying to replace it. And this is never more evident than within an existing business trying to survive by using only an outbound marketing process.

We then created personas of the client’s target audience, asking and evaluating where they "play". We Identified ways to reach them with our blog, social media content, along with traditional marketing tactics. For example an architectural firm we work with found success with not only regularly posting new content on their website but also because we re-purposed the material into a great print article, e-book, or white paper and used it as a compelling direct mail piece. We made certain to add a unique URL to track results, designed a landing page specific to that audience (and message) and added a strong call to action.  Where we used to have daily quotas of phone calls, and frustrated sales people (and equally frustrated decision makers) we now have a process to drive more inbound leads plus we have the ability to measure the traffic and convert leads into prospects before the sales people even pick up the phone.

We are also using advertising using trade publications and other periodicals that fit the persona of the target audience industries. We have assigned sales people to trade shows and networking events and have armed them with unique business cards and/or brochures designed for that purpose, again all driving to specifically tailored landing pages.

And more often than not when the sales team acknowledges a response to a call to action and dials the phone the party on the other end is far more receptive to having a conversation. Our rate of new appointments has grown, and our close rates and new customer conversions will certainly follow. But that is on the sales manager… we are the outsourced marketing department, after all!

All of this has allowed the management team to consider eliminating sales territories all together and aligning salespeople into specific industries, creating expert solution providers not pitchy sales people. Imagine speaking with the sales person who has multiple success stories within your industry versus a guy who merely “handles your territory”!

Lastly, we could devote an entire article (perhaps we should) on the enhancements to organic search results as a byproduct of all of this new inbound traffic. A financial planning we enjoy working with previously invested around a thousand dollars monthly to improve their search engine results through SEO-generating activities.  With the use of good inbound marketing processes that company’s website ranking naturally improved, ultimately providing them with even more interested lead conversion opportunities.

Inbound marketing requires a good amount of time to generate momentum. Companies lacking a large existing email database to work with can see success with the adaptation of traditional marketing and sales methods to drive traffic and conversions is a great way to build the eventually conversion to an inbound only approach.

And it is far more efficient than cold calling on its own.

 

1- INC Magazine, October 2012 page 35

Inbound Marketing is the Fuel Source for Successful Sales Teams

In your organization, is customer acquisition a “Seek” or “Get Found” mentality? If it is the latter, then you are ready for inbound marketing. If your firm’s belief system is that the sales department is responsible for lead generation, then, I am sorry to say, you just don’t get it. I don’t mean that to be rude, but factual. Most, if not all organizations, can effectively use an inbound marketing strategy included in their overall marketing.

Twenty-first century marketing is about “Getting Found,” so that your sales department has interested, warm leads with which to work. When all of the components of a robust, inbound marketing program are synchronized with your sales process, great things begin to happen. Not only is sales volume increased, but also costs decrease and Return on Investment improves. Don’t believe me, check out these statistics at MacLabs.

Successful sales teams operate in a constant state of "evolvement", especially now that most customers are researching their own potential purchases online. Sure, there are those stuck in the inkpot and quill stage, but the vast majority of today and tomorrow’s client base is operating in the digital realm. What is important to note, however, is that this methodology closes the gap on the sales process by producing candidates interested in what you have to say, and minimizes the cost and frustrations of cold calling, direct mail, and other forms of the traditional marketing methodology.

Between the current economic storm in which we live, as well as the growth of social media and inbound marketing strategies, you are facing issues that require immediate action just in order to survive. Not only is your marketing department challenged with improving the quality of leads for the sales department, they must do so under intense pressure to perform. Each revenue dollar is of maximum importance, and it can be difficult to determine where to place your shrinking marketing resources for the greatest impact and return. Marketing must produce the highest possible quality leads with the least expensive methods. The sales pipeline, filled with warm leads can result in a lower cost per lead, higher conversion to sales, and greater ROI. Industry giants have taken on the mantle of inbound marketing, and are ramping up their overall marketing strategies to include content generation, social media, webinars, video presentations and “persona” interactions, but what marketing strategies are best?

It is now becoming a widely accepted statement that social media is the “new” word of mouth advertising. The rapid adoption of blogging and social media as an integral part of organizational marketing objectives equates to those companies that simply “get it.” While no panacea, blogging and social media are an important facet in twenty-first century marketing. This type of marketing is the true fuel to sales generation, and successful sales teams understand this. As prospects come to organizations, having already researched the firm, the product and the corporate philosophy, it makes good sense to have the ability to conduct an intelligent conversation with them in a language they understand. Through the provision of engaging content, informative presentations, and relationship building, robust inbound marketing campaigns can better predict results.

The following rhetorical questions and statements are offered for your thought and for your consideration. If even one of them raises an eyebrow, or poses a concern, you should consider speaking with a professional inbound marketing agency today.

• How have the buying and selling processes changed, and why your understanding this is so important.
• Inbound marketing empowers the customer engagement process through awareness, inquiry, consideration, relationship, and purchase and customer retention. Is this process actively at work in your group?
• Do you presently have the capacity to forecast your marketing budget in relation to Return on Investment?
• How does compelling, engaging information (content) generate higher quality leads and quicker sales conversions?
• Inbound marketing strategies can be time consuming, but produce dramatically improved results over time. What is the financial impact?
• What are the considerations to include in the decision to “go inbound?”

As businesses and brands, we are at the mercy of the marketplace more now than ever. Conversations about our company brands are happening across the digital landscape, regardless of our approval and often without our knowledge. This new “word of mouth” is actively occurring. Social media will make heroes of some, while turning others into goats. Without active involvement in the dialogue, we have no say in the outcomes of those discussions. A comprehensive inbound marketing strategy provides an opportunity to have your say, inform, persuade, and defend your "reason for being" in the business space with which you play

If you are ready to see a detailed approach to how a robust inbound marketing process can make your sales organization more efficient, and more productive, contact Zen Marketing Inc. today.