If you own a business or manage a web site, you’ll appreciate the video on this post by Hannes Johnson.
The guy’s not a bad rapper and he hits all the key do’s and don’ts of search engine optimization.
Enjoy!
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Archive for the ‘Search Marketing’ Category
Brian Carroll just posted a great podcast on his B2B Lead Gen blog.
Its well worth a listen!
Very interesting perspective - sales people are the 2nd choice of prospects for information, 1st choice being your company’s website.
Think about that for a minute…
The sales person ultimately becomes the guide. Shepherding the prospect through all the information available on your site so they can make an informed decision. When you’re traveling, a good guide asks a lot of questions to get to know what you’re interested in and then steers you in that direction.
So a really good sales person that asks questions, identifies pain, etc. is perfect in this “future sales” role.
But most organizations are not hiring and training sales people this way. I do love a good strong cold calling closer. I hope we can keep a few around just to admire!
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I know, you’ve heard it before. And yes, I know how difficult it is to truley measure your marketing and sales activities.
That doesn’t change the fact that its true.
You’re guessing if you can objectively analyze how leads flow through your marketing and sales machine. If you’re guessing, you’re going to be wrong a lot.
It’s my belief that its not as hard as it seems. Its just like every other challenge you’ve overcome in building your business - you finally have to buckle down and decide to get it done, no matter what.
Here’s an example of the kind of thing we’re looking for:
Click here if you can’t see the image for an example of what I’m talking about. You can download the actual Excel sheet here.
If you can’t answer these questions - you’ve got problems:
- How many leads came in last month from each primary source - Cold Calls, Website, Direct Mail, etc.?
- How many of those took your desired action - talked to sales, signed up for the webinar, etc.?
- How many of those were qualified as a real prospect by your sales team?
- How many of those are in your current deal pipeline and for how much money?
- How many have closed?
- How many have you lost and to which competitor?
With this kind of information, you can determine what the value of each lead, from each advertising source, is worth? How many of them close and for what average value?
I know you understand how valuable this information is. The problem is that your marketing and sales processes are not organized enough to measure the data.
So here’s my advice - STOP MAKING EXCUSES! Just do it!
If you have to, log it all in a spreadsheet. If you clear your calendar for a week and just walk around asking sales people about each lead, you’re going to learn a ton that you don’t know and you’ll get this done.
All you really need to do is to start logging every new lead into a spreadsheet or database somewhere and then updating with info about what happens to each lead.
When you start out, you’ll probably be able to measure only one or two points in the process accurately. That’s OK. That’s progress!
As you begin to track things, you’ll be able to identify ways to track the process more thoroughly. You can add columns to your spreadsheet or fields to your database as you go.
I can tell you from first hand experience that you’re going to be surprised by what you learn from this process. Things you’re currently assuming about which leads are most valuable and which aren’t are going to be turned upside down.
Measuring your marketing and sales funnel in this way is going to unlock tremendous value in your business!
Let me know how it goes!
Craig Klein
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In my reading over the last couple of days, I’ve run across a few articles that any sales and marketing professional should appreciate. Enjoy!
20 Questions to ask yourself to help tune in on your “True Calling” - http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/03/12/reflections-on-money-20-valuable-questions-to-ask-yourself/
A few tips on how to manage a conference call - http://www.salesteamtools.com/2008/03/06/bad-conference-call-etiquette/
Results of a survey on the top frustrations of workers - http://workingsmarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/02/workplace-frust.html
A visit with Michael Gerber and how to apply the E-Myth principals to Contact Management - http://actblogger.com/2008/03/11/gerber/
How to welcome new visitors into your on-goinig email campaigns - http://emailmarketingfeed.wordpress.com/2008/03/12/a-few-good-welcome-emails
Are you focusing on the decision maker too much and ignoring the “influencers”? - http://www.salesteamtools.com/2008/03/12/are-you-too-focused-on-the-decision-maker/
I hope you like ‘em!
Craig Klein
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I’ve got a young family and so, I don’t get “out” like I used to…
Last week, I let an old college buddy talk me into meeting him out for a beer or two after work.
Didn’t spend too much time or have too much fun but, the topper was when I walked outside, I discovered my car had been broken into and my computer stolen.
Ouch!
When your technology is ripped away, you realize what it really means to you.
The good news - So many of the systems I depend on are hosted on the web that I was able to get the things done that needed to be done.
The bad news - you get things the way you like them with time. When its all disrupted, you can function efficiently and its frustrating.
All this made me realize how much I depend on Internet based marketing efforts. I spend a couple of hours a day tweaking PPC campaigns, blogging, etc. and it works.
And still, when I ask most of my clients if they’re marketing on the Internet, I hear “Well, our website is almost ready for release.”
Its like I’m in a parallel universe. My clients have almost no experience with the kind of marketing I take advantage of everyday.
For any sales person or business owner in any industry, you have got to try it. I know you’ve read all the stuff online about “Cold Calling is Dead”, etc. Its not dead but, there darn sure is an easier way.
When you reach out to someone through traditional advertising or cold calling, you start an education process that may lead to a purchase after a few steps.
When someone searches for you online, you already know they want what you have.
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Okay, this is just good fun stuff… See the most frequently viewed videos of 2007, as ranked by Hans Johnson.
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That’s right, I said “put them in a bucket”…
Of course, what I mean is to categorize them. There are all kinds of potential markets and customers for your business out there. You need to know which ones are the most profitable for you. I call them “buckets”.
You can only carry 2 or 3 real buckets at a time. Its the same in marketing your business. You have to divide and conquer. Each bucket has certain needs.
If you’re not sure which buckets are most profitable, then identifying the buckets and who’s in which one is the first step.
The pay off is that you can then create touch marketing campaigns that are extremely effective and affordable. Of course you can target your sales approach to each bucket also. The bucket analogy has to do with the touch marketing part though…. Your marketing campaigns pour leads into each bucket and then your sales efforts pour money out of the buckets!
Bottom line, if you better understand who you’re dealing with, you can better serve them. So keeping detailed notes and files on each customer is a way to “know” everything about them but, its hard to quickly use that information.
If you identify objective facts that define each bucket, you’ll be able to quickly ask a customer a few simple questions and know a LOT about them.
So, how do we know what the key facts are?
Some things are obvious - industry, size (employees, revenue, locations, etc.), title, income, etc.
Pick one of the most obvious and easily identifiable things you need to know about a prospect and make a list of all the possible categories - if its industry, then your list might be Real Estate, Financial Services, Residential Construction, etc.
Now, imagine that you’re at a cocktail party and a friend is telling you about his uncle who he thinks might be a prospect for you. What would you ask your friend about him? The key here is not to focus on what you ask your prospects. That’s because you often can’t ask them questions as directly as you would like to. So, imagine your asking a 3rd party who knows them and trusts you. There’s nothing you can’t ask.
You’d ask your friend things directed at understanding whether you should spend your time pursuing his uncle right?
What is the problem or desire your product or service addresses? What can you ask your friend to know if the prospect has that problem or desire?
These are the questions you need to get written down.
Now keep the answers to these questions front and center for everyone on your staff. Your receptionist should know exactly which bucket a customer is in immediately when the call comes in.
Happy selling!
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For those of you that don’t quite get what all the hype about Social media advertising is about, Danny Sullivan’s article in Ad Age explains why social ads don’t have the same potential as search ads.
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A “put off” is something a prospect says to “get rid of you”. To get you off the phone or out of his office. To end the meeting and move on with his/her day.
Examples:
- “Send me your brochure and I’ll get back to you”
- “Can you send me your basic price schedule to review?”
- “Let me talk it over with my team and I’ll get back to you”
Countless pages in sales books and hours in sales meetings have been spent addressing techniques for responding to put offs - to prevent yourself from being “put off”. A typical response might be “If I agree to send you my catalog, will you commit to talking with me for 15 minutes next Thursday morning?”.
How about using a Judo approach? Wiki defines Judo as “the principle of using one’s opponent’s strength against him and adapting well to changing circumstances. For example, if the attacker was to push against his opponent he would find his opponent stepping to the side and allowing his momentum to throw him forwards”
So, here we are spending considerable time and money developing online methods for our customers to obtain the information they need to make a purchase decision and to make the purchase itself.
And the customer just wants to end the conversation with the sales rep. Many times its just because there are other pressing matters that need attention.
So when the customer asks for your price list, how about directing him to the online sign up page on your website? Now their only a credit card number away from a purchase, rather than just waiting to receive something from you.
If you design your site to include other actions that a prospect can take prior to purchase, such as sign up for a webinar, subscribe to your newsletter or blog or view an online demo or presentation, these things become measurable steps in your sales process.
So, when the client gives you the brush off, you move him to the appropriate step in your process and agree on next steps.
Go through this exercise - write down the top “put offs” you hear from prospects. Then identify a corresponding piece of information or action you can direct the prospect toward on your site for each put off. Now you’ve got them going to the store in order to move on with their day.
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Well there it is! If you have anything to do with marketing or selling, you need to read IBM report, “The End of Advertising as We Know It”, I picked up on TechCrunch!
Its a validation of all the trends we sense in the industry with some fascinating stats and trend data. There’s a power shift underway and this report spells it out in detail. Knowledge is power.
Enjoy.
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