Is It Finally Time to Get Your Act Together?

Feb 132012

No, this is not a product endorsement for Sage’s ACT!, a leading customer management software. This post is about 37signals, one of Sage’s competitors or perhaps not really. Yes, both software packages have similar functions yet they are quite different.

As our company has grown over these past years we’ve had to install another level of business process to keep projects on schedule and things from falling through the tracks. 37signals has met and surpassed our expectations as a customer management solution. That’s the honest truth. This is not a paid endorsement, remember? We use all four components in 37signals’ suite: Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire.

All the packages have 30-day free trials, are easy to learn and can be ramped up over time. These options suited us well because we’re a small business and our time and resources are precious. Here’s how we use each of these packages, not necessarily how you might apply them in your business:

Basecamp – is a simple project management solution. We track all the project team members, their things to do, messages between each other, pertinent documents, schedules and files. A great fit for a small, busy company.

Highrise – this is where we keep all of our client information. We email through this app which gives us the ability to track our client conversations. We can also group certain client-types together and export their contact information into MailChimp, our email campaign service which we use to educate and nurture our clients and prospects.

Backpack – we use this for internal things like calendars, SOPs, travel details, speaking opportunities, proposals and other ancillary files. Everyone on the team can see and edit the information.

Campfire – we use this voice over the web option for our many overseas conference calls. Business is no longer done across town. We have clients in over 30 countries.

37signals has much more to offer; but remember this is not a software commercial. Find out more by visiting their site.

If you have found a different customer management solution why not share why you love your option.

Mapping Out Your Internet Strategy

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Feb 062012

The internet is a vast expanse. Millions of marketing dollars are being wasted each month because companies refuse to take the time to identify their ideal prospects. Once known, companies need to develop visibility strategy to be seen in all the right venues where their prospects gather. Assume, after some investigation, the locations where the ideal prospects were found are:

reading industry blogs
gathering on forums
subscribing to monthly newsletters
using paid search
attending webinars

Let’s say, during the same investigation no evidence was found that our prospects or the competition were found at social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook. Nor were they found at download sites such as iTunes or YouTube. For this reason, we’ll set these venues aside.

Some venues undoubtedly are more fruitful than others, but resources need to be spent wisely. For instance, working with a pay-per-lead company just takes money. They do all the advertising and then sends prospects your way. You just have to close the deal. On the other hand, running Google AdWord campaigns without the help of a PPC professional takes a good amount of money, time, and know-how.

Perhaps a good strategy would be to create a spreadsheet of the potential places your prospects might be found. Then gauge whether gaining visibility in one location vs. another takes more time, money, or skill. Let’s put together this spreadsheet of the different venues where your prospects hang out and rate whether time, money, or knowhow are going to be the determining factors in gaining visibility.

This Microsoft Excel spreadsheet gives you a jump-start on developing your own visibility chart of where your ideal prospects gather:

As you can see from this document, the ROI column shows which venue would probably give the best return on investment. These numbers are subjective until real results start coming in, but experience tells us that pay-per-click campaigns have a greater and more immediate return than sending out a newsletter.

The Money column helps identify which strategies cost marketing dollars and which simply take time and know-how.

The Notes column keeps track of special circumstances. For instance, you may need writing or marketing help in one area whereas in another area you feel self-sufficient.

There are also many efforts that draw new visitors to the website that are not listed on this spreadsheet: e-mail marketing, landing pages, search engine optimization, and backlink campaigns.

Outcome-based Marketing: The Importance of Conversion Streams

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Jan 232012

“A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.” – Henry Ford

Converting prospects into leads and leads into opportunities are topics of many a marketing and sales meeting. Many companies that offer outsourced marketing tactics try to stay clear of this discussion, perhaps for fear of having their performance measured. They are also topics that many who offer search engine optimization or pay-per-click campaigns avoid discussing. These techno companies are in the business of bringing qualified visitors to the website. It’s the job of the company that owns the website to convert the prospects into leads and the leads into opportunities.

Measuring a campaign’s performance is not difficult. Getting the desired positive results from the campaign takes talent.

Conversion streams are about getting results from marketing, prospects and leads. They need to be a combination of information, soft and hard sells, pain points, remedies and benefits, and a dose of personality. Think of a conversion stream as a river of information that offers to entice a prospect to move the buying relationship to the next level. For instance, an e-mail marketing conversion stream might be a series of seven or eight e-mails sent out over two weeks. These e-mails provide information about a product’s features and benefits coupled with a few soft and hard sell messages. Conversion streams are not the magic bullet that every marketing campaign is missing; they are just one of the tools that need to be employed to increase any marketing campaign’s success rate.

Sample Conversion Streams

To help you understand some possible conversion streams, let’s look at three typical streams that a business might employ.

A Free Trial Conversion Stream

A software company offers a 15-day free trial for prospects to try out its solution (Figure 1). The potential purchasers come from four venues—search engine optimization, Google AdWord campaigns, the company website, and the monthly eNews. During the trial the software company sends out seven e-mails while the trial is running and an eighth e-mail two days after the trial ends. Prospects can opt-out of the e-mail campaign at any time. They can also decide to purchase the software package and the e-mails will stop. Each e-mail has a particular theme and focus. The first e-mail welcomes the potential customer and makes sure the company has his username and password. There is a soft-sell associated with the first e-mail. The third e-mail is quite different. It focuses on a pain point, a remedy, and the benefits the potential customer will receive. It also includes a hard-sell, something like: Sign up now!

[Figure 1-Day Free Trial Conversion Stream]

A Webinar Conversion Stream

A marketing company offers a free webinar about the importance of branding (Figure 2). The potential clients are coming from four venues—search engine optimization, social media campaigns, the marketing company’s website, and e-mail marketing campaigns. Twenty-one days before the webinar takes place the marketing wheels are set into motion. The marketing agency sends out its first e-mail to its prospect/past client database. Every member of the marketing team changes the Status Line on his/her LinkedIn account to announce the webinar. The Status Line steers people to a landing page where they can get more information and sign up in advance of the event. Members also create a promotional ad for each of their various Groups on LinkedIn. Fourteen days before the webinar a second e-mail is sent out to the e-mail list, and the social media campaign kicks into gear. Compelling tweets are sent out to the agency’s followers every other day. On the day of the webinar, a final tweet is sent out reminding everyone not to miss this exciting and informative event. The day after the webinar everyone who attended the event receives a thank-you note and a link to watch the webinar again, over on-demand. Viewers are also encouraged to pass the webinar along to any colleague they believe would find the information of value. The link is also sent out to all those that did not attend the event. Each e-mail and social text has a particular theme and focus. The first e-mail announces the webinar and talks about the value the recipient will receive. There is a hard-sell to sign up now. All messaging focuses on pain points, remedies, and benefits.

[Figure 2-Day Webinar Conversion Stream]

An E-mail Marketing Conversion Stream

In this second free webinar offer about the importance of branding (Figure 3), the webinar is recorded so people will be able to watch it at their convenience. This time the potential prospects (the masses) are coming from purchased e-mail lists. The marketing agency sends out the first e-mail. Let’s not concentrate on the bounces or those that unsubscribe from the e-mail campaigns. Instead let’s keep track of Non Responders, those people that do not open the e-mail. The people that open the e-mail but do not click through to the offer are the Opens. The people that read the e-mail and click-through to the landing page but do not take the offer are the Click-throughs. Those that take the offer and watch the webinar are the Leads. A week later a second e-mail is sent out to the Non Responders, the Opens, and the Click-throughs. The strategy will be to change the subject line of the second e-mail to see if the Non Responders will open it. The strategy with the Opens and Click-throughs is similar. For those two groups the goal is to make the e-mail content more compelling. A second offer, perhaps a whitepaper or a case study instead of a webinar, is also possible. Different people learn in various ways. Some people like to read while others like to view the information. The same tack will be used when sending out the third e-mail blast.

[Figure 3: 21-Day E-mail Marketing Conversion Stream]

Are conversion streams working for your organization? Let us know.

This post is an excerpt from John Leavy’s latest book: Outcome-Based Marketing: New Rules for Marketing on the Web.

Avoid These Top Five Website Mistakes

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Jan 162012

website may be the first impression a business leaves with a prospect. With millions of websites competing for a visitor’s attention, the chances a company will be given a second look are slim.
First impressions are everything. Make sure your company web design is not committing these all too familiar mistakes:

The website design only has eight seconds to grab the visitor’s attention – as faster computers serve websites quicker, the visitor’s attention span shrinks. This means that companies have less and less time to attract the eye of their visitor. Most popular studies say you have less than 10 seconds to land your visitor. You message will have to be succinct, relevant, and catchy.

Does the web design create an atmosphere of trust and confidence – commerce websites that resemble dark alleys do very little business. Potential buyers are not going to share their personal, financial information with a business they do not trust. Companies are not going to hire a professional that has a website that looks like it was built by a brother-in-law over a few weekends. The website needs to look credible, professional, and secure.

Does the website keep visitors coming back to the well? – Relevant, fresh content keeps people coming back to a company’s website. People need a reason to revisit a website. This is a major reason blogging is so successful. Blogging about problems people are trying to solve or issues businesses are trying to overcome will lead to a larger readership. Think about adding offers in the form of case studies, white papers, surveys and such to attract visitors back to the company website.

Does the website design persuade visitors to take action now? – Calls to action need to be obvious, timely, attractive and compelling. There’s nothing wrong with having several calls to action on a single web page. Some website visitors will react to a paragraph of text while there may be more visitors stimulated by an image or picture. Try both.

Don’t treat every website visitor the same - Think about a trip to the zoo. Everyone who enters the front gate receives a map, and each family can head off in a different direction to see his or her favorite animals, be they lions, tigers, or bears. Letting people browse only leads to lost opportunities. Create the website with decision-making paths to lead visitors to the information they seek. Think of the main reasons visitors come to the website and create a special spot for each of their needs on the homepage. From the website homepage, create paths each visitor group can follow. Once they have the information they need, they will be ready to make their buying-decision.

Webinar Presenters - Avoid These Top Five Mistakes

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Jan 092012

Think of a webinar as your own online presentation whether a sales briefing, training session, marketing meeting or remote gathering of your team. These events are easy enough to put on. All you need is a descent digital camera, access to a laptop or desktop and an interesting presentation. Think about avoiding these top five mistakes when launching your next webinar series:

Don’t use unreadable graphics – don’t make apologies for graphics or charts viewers cannot read or understand. Don’t use them. Unreadable charts and graphs show poor professionalism in your presentation. The audience really does want to learn and hear from you, that’s why they signed up for the webinar in the first place. Enlarge a section of a graph or chart if you believe it necessary to make your point.

Don’t talk about what you don’t know – There’s a lot that each of us know and there’s just as much we don’t know. Stick with your strong suit. Talk about what you know best. Audiences are pretty savvy these days. It won’t take long for your webinar participants to figure out you don’t know the material. Don’t waste their time or purger your reputation.

Keep the pace moving – Because you won’t be able to detect if your audience is nodding off during your webinar, you’ll need to keep the online event interesting, relatively fast-paced and interactive where possible. Because the Internet has fostered such a high level of instant gratification, your audience will have little patience if things grind to a halt. Keep the pace of your online presentation moving.

Stay on schedule – before the webinar starts do a run-through and time yourself for each slide. Take a piece of paper and record what slide you need to be on for each five-minute interval in order to finish the presentation on time. Finishing the webinar five minutes early is even better. This gives you a few extra minutes to talk about what might pop into your head that relates to what you are talking about.

Too Much Promotion – too much selling during the webinar and people start leaving in droves. People may want to buy the product or service, but first they need to hear what pain it cures, what benefits it delivers. Don’t mention the product or service until half way through the presentation. This signals to the audience that conveying the information is more important than selling the product or service.

Podcast: Avoid These Top Five Mistakes

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Jan 052012

Wikipedia says “a podcast is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication.” How about we say a podcast is a video or audio file; period. It’s a presentation produced for the consumption of an audience, perhaps prospects or clients. Why might this audio/video file be created? Let’s say to to be used as a training tool, to raise the level of customer support, announce a product launch, or to reach a new audience. Work to avoid these top five mistakes that some podcasters fall victim to:

Unexpected Interruptions - The unexpected always needs to be planned for ahead of time. What if someone knocks at the office door? What if the UPS dude shows up with a package and needs a signature? What if the phone rings? What if the incoming email beeps an announcing signal of its arrival? These not too untypical interruptions have to be planned for and avoided. Hang a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the office door, mute the phone and laptop and short circuit any other disruption that may arise.

Technical Difficulties - Technical mishaps during the podcast can be avoided with proper planning and a conscience effort to do a few run-throughs from beginning to end. Don’t cut any steps short. Do the podcast from beginning to end as if there was a live audience listening. Even practice uploading the audio file to make sure your listeners will be able to hear the podcast a second time.

Ambient Noise – Most ambient noise can be eliminated, except the unexpected emergency vehicle passing the office window. During one of the podcast dry runs, record several minutes of silence and then attentively listen for any background noise. Eliminate what you can or move the podcasting session to another more quiet location.

Poor Tonal Quality – Cheap microphones produce cheap sound quality. You’ll find the microphone on your MacBook Pro or PC produce a relatively good quality sound. Do some sound level checks during the run-throughs and then play them back to make sure the tonal quality of the podcast meets your professional standards.

Unprepared – There’s no excuse for being unprepared for your podcast. You’re the one producing the video/audio file. With proper preparation, attention to details, the proper equipment, and a compelling topic, the podcast should be a raving success.

Be Serious in 2012

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Dec 182011

Be serious about delivering value in everything.
Be serious about answering your emails.
Be serious about returning your voice messages.
Be serious about delivering positive results.
Be serious about treating clients like they are actually paying your salary.
Be serious about tracking metrics.
Be serious about putting your goals on paper…a Word file works.
Be serious about positioning your company to win.
Be serious about flying with the eagles.
Be serious about being lean.
Be serious about making your company legal.
Be serious about finding a good accountant.
Be serious about being visible everywhere it counts.
Be serious about going mobile.
Be serious about writing that book.
Be serious about getting out of your comfort zone.
Continue reading »

When Prospecting for New Clients: Is No Really a No?

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Dec 122011

Those of us that try and answer every email within a reasonable time frame don’t really understand the group of people that do not seem to make the attempt at all.

When you don’t receive an answer back from a prospect you recently emailed are you wondering what the person’s answer really is? It’s understood their answer is not yes, but are they saying “no” or “not yet?” Without a clear answer it’s hard to tell whether or not they are interested in your proposal. Let’s make the assumption that people generally like to be seen in a positive light. If that is the case, then we can eliminate the “no” answer because people do not like to say no.

Avoid These Top Five Newsletter Mistakes

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Nov 302011

You might ask, “Do we really need another newsletter?” There as many daily, weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly newsletters out there than there are grains of sand on the beaches of the world.

There are informative newsletters and sales flyers masquerading as newsletters. There are simple text and HTML-based newsletters. There are one-page newsletters and others that compete in length with the United States Constitution.

At first the decision to publish a newsletter seems simple. Our competitors have newsletters therefore we need one. Theirs come out monthly, so ours need to be monthly. Theirs are HTML-based, so ours need to look the same. Many first-time newsletter publishers have made this mistake. Launching a newsletter because their competition has one is not the right reason to have a publication.