5 Reasons To Be Authentic This Holiday Season Posted on December 8, 2016July 12, 2018 by Jessica Lunk One of the best parts of the holidays is getting to spend time socializing with family, colleagues, clients and partners. As your small business takes this opportunity to reach out to your network through email campaigns, holiday cards, invitations, and parties, what impression will you give? Throw a kicka$$ holiday party. Or a geektastic holiday party. Or a timeless and traditional holiday party. Being authentic means hosting the party you’d want to go to – whether it’s at a dive bar, your office, or an upscale venue. You’ll feel comfortable in your skin, so your guests will, too. And don’t be afraid of kicking up your quirky factor a notch – whether it’s having your intern dress up as your company mascot, or using your team’s mixology skills to create a signature drink. Unique and memorable activities will have your guests talking about your party long after it’s over. Finally, your holiday party is all about showing appreciation for your employees and customers. In fact, a study from TINYpulse shows that a little recognition can go a long way in boosting the happiness of your employees. So throw them a party that aligns with your company’s culture and values. It’s well worth the cost to recognize your team for a great year. Give the best gift. Everyone can smell a lame corporate gift when it comes across their desk. And there are plenty of options for creating a gift that’s authentic to your business. Ditch the calendar magnet with your logo on it, and send something from the heart. Are you a sartorialist that has an awesome brand? How about some cool socks, like these from Litmus: Have a cause close to your heart? Make a donation in your client’s name (just not to the Human Fund). There’s plenty of bad swag that will be received during the holidays. So tap into your culture and send an authentic gift that your customers and prospects will appreciate. Help your customers get know you. If you are sending holiday cards to customers, it’s tempting to treat it as another task you need to check off your list without giving it much thought. This is the year to retire your generic “Season’s Greetings” card with signatures of everyone in the company and think outside the box. This is the perfect opportunity to showcase your company, your culture and your people to your customers – so don’t squander it. Whether you put together a silly photo or craft an awesome video (like the folks at Unbounce did), let a little personality shine through. Give your customers are reason to stay, renew, upgrade, and do all of the things that continue to grow your business. Make the right holiday hires. December might not seem like the best time of year to bring on a new hire, but it’s actually an ideal time for small businesses to tap into the talent pool since competition for top talent is low. If you’re hiring this season, making sure you bring on the right fit is essential to your success – especially for small businesses where every team member makes an impact. Staying authentic during the hiring process is crucial to bringing on the right talent. So skip the suit and tie if it isn’t normally your style when interviewing a potential employee. Aligning your culture isn’t just an exercise to give you the warm fuzzies…there is real incentive. One study of 1,400 North American CEOs and CFOs found that: More than 90% said that culture was important at their firms. 92% said they believed improving their firm’s corporate culture would improve the value of the company. More than 50% said corporate culture influences productivity, creativity, profitability, firm value and growth rates. Only 15% said their firm’s corporate culture was where it needed to be. There’s value to staying authentic during the holidays. By showcasing your true colors, you can build fierce loyalty among your customer base, attract prospects who are aligned with your brand, find the perfect talent and keep your current team happy and engaged.
How to Make the Most of the Holiday Downtime for Your Small Business Posted on December 7, 2016November 18, 2022 by Erin Posey The holidays are a crazy time for retailers, but if you run a B2B company, chances are business falls off during the December holidays. Many of your clients have tapped out their budgets for the year and may be closing for a week—or even two—at year’s end. And that can mean a somewhat slow start to January. In December, consumers are having all manner of holiday specials repeatedly shoved in their faces and the last thing they are thinking about is answering a sales call. They’re in holiday mode and putting off thinking about purchases, new budgets, capital expenditures, software upgrades and the like until the new year. That means you’ll likely have from mid-December to mid-January as downtime, but downtime doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do. If you use the slow period wisely you’ll set yourself up for a very good first quarter. Here are some ways to take advantage—yes, advantage—of the holiday (and post-holiday) lull: Get smart. Slow periods are the perfect time to do some continuing education, learn a new skill or finally figure out that new accounting software. You’ll find a variety of online offerings at Lynda.com, everything from courses on web development and design to managerial economics and customer service quality standards. There are also a wide array of sales training and leadership training courses online, like CustomerCentricSelling, AchieveGlobal, MindTools, TEDTalks, GrowthHacker.TV and those from the American Management Association. You can also begin working your way through all the business books and industry articles you’ve been wanting to read, and to look ahead to next year to see if there are any industry events or workshops you will want to attend in 2017. Spruce up your marketing materials. The adult attention span is short, and getting shorter—it’s down to a little more than 8 seconds now, and that doesn’t give you much time to catch a busy manager’s attention. Use the downtime this month to reassess your sales and marketing collateral and identify what needs to be updated, corrected or just revamped. Make it stand out with elements like good storytelling, compelling visuals and straightforward, uncomplicated information. This way, when you reconnect with leads after the holidays, you have everything you need at hand–fully updated and ready to go. Don’t forget to review your sales presentations, proposals and quotes. Update your digital presence. Here we are, at the end of another year. How has your business changed? Does your website reflect what it is today—not what it was when you first started (or first built the website)? If not, add some fresh content, update your “about the company” page, your “media” page, staff page, add FAQs that may now be needed, new photos, update the blog, and make sure all the pages load and links work. Clean up your social media. For most of the year you may feel a bit overwhelmed by the need to post frequently on social media. Now is a good time to prune your presence if you’re stretched thin and not making much of an impact. Pick one, maybe two, channels to focus on–those that reach your target customer, develop your brand and ultimately drive potential clients to your website. If your average customer, for instance, is not on Instagram, you don’t need to be there either. Using social media strategically is not about racking up followers; it’s about meeting your potential customers where they are and driving them to your website. Aim for quality in posting, not quantity. Prepare for tax season. No one wants to think about paying taxes next year, but it’s far better for your sanity to start prepping things during the holiday downtime. In January, when things begin to pick up and are soon full-steam, you’ll wish you had a slow week to organize your paperwork. Now is the time to gather and organize expense receipts, mileage logs, payroll information and other tax-related paperwork so that when it’s time to meet with your accountant, you aren’t scrambling last-minute to pull it all together. Additionally, this downtime might be a good chance for you to look into tools like Expensify, Quickbooks, Freshbooks and Harvest to get organized and make sure your books are on the right track for 2017. Set your 2017 goals. In the same way you set personal goals for yourself during time off over the holidays, you can—and should– set professional goals. Take time first to reflect on 2016. Review sales, marketing and profit strategies and assess what worked and what didn’t, and ways you could improve things. Then create goals around that, which can include sales, contacts, number of presentations the business makes, new skills you personally want to learn, books you want to read, papers or articles you want to write. Thank your customers. Especially for a small business, it’s possible to thank each and every customer in a personalized way, maybe sending a small gift or a handwritten note. It keeps you top-of-mind as the year comes to a close and may even result in an end-of year sale. And finally, thank your employees, suppliers and your personal support network of friends and family. Thanking clients is something most business owners remember to do, but it’s also important to thank those who have worked hard for you and supported you during the year. They are the true heart of your business.
5 Shows To Watch For Small Business Inspiration Posted on December 6, 2016 by Jonathan Herrick As a small business owner, it’s most likely hard to find extra time to sit around and watch television. And once you do find the time, it might be hard to justify using that extra time to channel surf. But the tube holds more small business inspiration than you may think. From new shows to old favorites on Netflix, they can be a wealth of knowledge for your business – from innovative ideas to solutions to common problems. Looking for ideas on what to watch tonight? Here are five shows that will help you overcome obstacles you find in your small business and reach new heights: Shark Tank In this popular reality TV show, entrepreneurs in need of funding present their ideas to investors, or the ‘Sharks’ as they are called on the show. Shark Tank can be a great way to get your creative juices flowing by exposing you to new ideas in the marketplace and showing you how entrepreneurs developed them. By listening to their pitches and studying what works and what doesn’t, you can better prepare your own pitches, whether they are for lenders, investors or potential partners. By watching it regularly, you can learn to identify red flags in businesses that tend to drive investors away and close gaps in your own business plan before they derail you. If the original Shark Tank isn’t enough for you, we recommend Beyond the Tank to get an inside look into what happens after the initial show.The Sharks dig into the businesses to get a clearer idea of where they are investing their money, you’ll have a chance to learn from their observations and advice. Why learn everything by trial and error on your own when you can soak up valuable lessons from the comfort of your couch? The Profit Self-made millionaire Marcus Lemonis knows a thing or two about starting from scratch. As an entrepreneur, business owner, investor and philanthropist, he’s more than qualified to be giving struggling small business owners advice and investment. By the end of Season 3, he’d already invested $35 million into small businesses across the U.S. We’re big fans of The Profit here at Hatchbuck; any friend of small businesses is a friend of ours. Use your holiday downtime to catch up on the first three seasons so that you’re ready to watch Season 4 kicking off on August 23, 2017. Kitchen Nightmares In this show, failing restaurateurs get help from well-known chef Gordon Ramsey in putting their eateries on the map. Tough-talking Ramsey pulls no punches in diagnosing what’s wrong—whether it is terrible food, awful décor, incompetent managers or poor communication between employees—and helps turn the situation around before it’s too late. Even if you don’t run a restaurant yourself, by watching this show you can learn about the blind spots that cause small business owners to make poor decisions, why quality control is so important, the financial factors that can lead to failure—and turnaround techniques you can use if your own business falters. If you’re having a rough day, watching the owners of the restaurants on this show reach new heights will give you a boost of encouragement. Silicon Valley If you work in the tech industry or brush up against it, you’ll find it hard to stop watching this satire about the Silicon Valley startup scene. Set in a startup incubator, it chronicles the misadventures of Richard Hendricks, a brilliant but socially inept engineer who designs a new way to make large files smaller and launches a company called Pied Piper. As Hendricks and his team try to grow the company, they face challenges ranging from lawsuits to companies trying to steal his idea. Hopefully, you won’t face drama like this in your business, but you can learn a lot about how to avoid getting duped from some of the realistic scenarios in the show. The Apprentice With Donald Trump preparing to take office as president, previous seasons of The Apprentice are fascinating for many reasons. Whether you voted for the Donald or not, this blockbuster reality show offers interesting lessons in leadership and managing people that may give you valuable ideas for your own business. And if you are searching for inspiration to tunnel around obstacles that are blocking your success, the most successful contestants on the show will give you the massive dose you need—even if you’re the only one in your business with the power to say, “You’re fired.”
Get More Engagement With These 10 Holiday Email Marketing Tips Posted on December 5, 2016July 12, 2018 by Jessica Lunk Email can be a powerful marketing tool for the holiday season. But this time of year, email messages can easily get lost in the shuffle. A lot of your competitors are in the midst of a year-end marketing blitz; they’re going after the same customers you are desperately trying to win over. And these customers have a lot on their minds! On both the business and personal fronts, they are bombarded with distractions that could very likely keep them from noticing you. The good news is, you can use email marketing to cut through the clutter, drown out the noise, win their attention and end the year on a high note. Check out these 10 holiday email marketing tips. Tip 1: Emulate Successful Email Marketers See something inspiring in your inbox? Try to emulate it in your own marketing. Obviously, this isn’t a call to plagiarize or steal, but to understand what makes great marketing work. By re-imagining an aspect of an email that catches your attention, you’re really uncovering why it’s so effective. So go ahead, unravel that clickable subject line and see if you can make it work for your audience. Or scour the web for your own funny gif to see if you can boost the click-through rate on your nurturing email. Tip 2: Run a Contest to Grow Your Email List Everyone loves giving and gifting during the holidays, so what better time of year to run a contest? Whether it’s awarding the best “tacky Christmas sweater” a discount or raising awareness for a cause you want to support, contests can do wonders for your social media presence, as well as grow your list of email subscribers. For instance, CrossFit is running a video contest that requires you to login or create an account to enter – an effective way to capture new contacts in their target audience. Use name and email address for entries, and spread the word through social media and to your current email list. Make sure you include a way to share the contest in your emails and on your contest landing page. Tip 3: Send Your Subscribers Something Unexpected Take a break from your cadence of lead nurturing emails and give your readers a reason to take notice. Even if you’re doing a great job of sending valuable blog content and resources to your audience, taking an unexpected turn is a solid approach for getting noticed in the inbox. This Holiday Calendar from The Starr Conspiracy, a marketing agency out of Forth Worth, TX, is a great example of how you can do something fun and different for your audience. Shaking things up on the content side is a great way to remind your audience why your brand is special. Tip 4: Send “Twelve Days” Emails One of the most effective resources on our website is our Lead Generation Course. This is a series of tutorials sent via email over five days. You can create your own email course and even give it a holiday theme with “Twelve Days of Emails.” This might be a great opportunity to send a series of emails delivering useful content that keeps you in your customers’ minds and builds goodwill, trust and credibility that leads to more sales. Tip 5: Cross-Promote With Strategic Partners Partnerships with vendors, customers and other businesses who aren’t competitors but have a similar audience can grow your reach during the holidays. Cross-promote each others’ brands. For instance, you could each offer a discount to the other’s audience. Or you could partner to create a holiday-themed resource and cross-promote to each others’ email lists. For example, at Hatchbuck we teamed up to create a resource for small businesses marketing on a budget with our partner, Kabbage. Tip 6: Focus On A Great Reader Experience Your email audience is super-distracted during this time of year. So once you win their attention with a clickable subject line, you don’t want to squander it with a bad-looking email. The experience of opening and reading your email is just as important as the content you provide. Eliminate clutter, and focus on one call-to-action per email. Quick Tip: Simple, one-column email designs will look best across all devices – from the desktop to mobile. Send a test email to yourself to make sure your email looks as good in your inbox as it does in your email builder. Finally, don’t be afraid to test a text-based version of your email. It might resonate with your audience and feel more personal in an inbox chock-full of HTML email blasts. Tip 7: Remember The Procrastinators Do you know anyone who procrastinates when it comes to gift buying? A lot of us do. And lots of us are guilty as charged. So why not send out one or more emails directly aimed at this audience? For B2Bs, the end of the year is wrapping up, and the new year is right around the corner. Give them a specific reason to come in and buy early – whether it’s investing in new technology, hiring a consultant to analyze business processes, or making that big equipment purchase before the year is out. Tip 8: Consider The “Anti” Black Friday Approach Black Friday deals start Thanksgiving week and stretch through Cyber Monday. While B2C retailers might need to participate, as a small B2B, consider giving your audience – and your team – a break to recharge. Absence from the inbox during Thanksgiving and Black Friday just might mean you can stop competing with the noise and make a greater impact on other days or in other ways. You can even make it a movement, like REI did with their #OptOutside campaign. It just might resonate in a big way. Tip 9: Reflect Back. Look Forward This time of year, we naturally tend to reflect on the year past and start thinking about the one to come. As a thought leader with a pulse on your industry, this is a good time to email content related to one or both. Reflect on the major changes in your industry over the past year, or make predictions about what’s to come. Tip 10: Give Your Business An Awesome Gift The right tools can make all the difference in turning your holiday email marketing dilemmas into email marketing success. An all-in-one sales and marketing platform integrates your list of contacts with your email marketing tools. This means that as you email your audience, you can measure their engagement with your emails and track their activity on your website. The more you learn about your audience, the more personalized your messages can be – and that’s a foolproof way to get noticed in a busy inbox any time of the year.
Will Your Small Business Finish the Year On a High Note? Posted on December 2, 2016 by Erin Posey Before you fast forward to a New Year’s resolutions, take a step back and answer these questions. Are you looking to finish the year strong? Or are you just waiting for it be over hoping to get a fresh new start in January? Are you busier and more productive than ever? Or are you just coasting through the final days of 2016? Regardless of how your year is going, you can (and should) finish it on a high note. Not only that, but during the next month, you can build momentum and lay the groundwork for a successful start to 2017. You just might be surprised what you can get done in a short amount of time if you set goals, focus on them and eliminate distractions. But First: A Spring Cleaning In December? So expect to have a successful conclusion to 2016. But before you proceed with the rest of the year, take a breather. If need be, and if possible, take a little time away from work to recharge and recuperate this weekend. Then decide what you want to accomplish during the remainder of this year and figure out a game plan for getting there. Look for things that are holding you back, and eliminate them. Do you need to declutter your office? Do it. Do you need to drop some commitments that are taking too much of your time and energy while delivering minimal value? Do it. Over the next several weeks, you are going to be busy. So you’ll need to free up some time. How? Look for sneaky time thieves that cause your productivity to plummet – like surfing the web for holiday gifts or checking your email 30 times a day. Or worse, going through your day reactively instead of proactively. Until the end of the year (and to build momentum for next year), work in a productive fashion, uninterrupted by meaningless, low-value minutia. Focus on the most profitable, high-impact activities you can to make sure your business is in a sweet spot for 2017. Is there a high-value task you’ve been putting off that could have a positive impact on your business now and next year? Maybe it’s a website upgrade. Maybe it’s implementing a new, more powerful CRM system. Whatever it is, get it done. Housekeeping Tips to Prepare for 2017 Make Sure Your Team is On The Same Page With 2017 Goals Have you noticed your employees lagging (like your customer engagement) during the holiday slump? Schedule a group lunch or team building activity to informally discuss business goals and aspirations for the new year. Take a step back to make sure everyone understands their purpose on the team and in your business and collectively agree on where you want the business to go over the next 12 months. Allowing team members to discuss personal and professional aspirations as a group will help your team feel unified in their motivations and ready to tackle 2017 together. Make Sure Your Customers Know How Much You Appreciate Their Support Just like your employees might need a morale boost at the end of the work year, make sure your customers know how important they are to the livelihood of your small business. Shoot them a quick email, send a sweet treat or even better, write a thoughtful, handwritten note. It’ll go a long way to make them feel special and will get your team in the holiday spirit. Make Sure Your CRM Is In Tip-Top Shape There is nothing worse than coming home to a messy house after a long workday. How do you think you’ll feel coming back to your sloppy CRM in the new year? Spend a few hours alongside your team cleaning up your contact records, following up on any forgotten leads and making sure that you tools are in order before shutting down for the holiday season. It’ll be worth the frustration and wasted time in 2017 to tackle the mess while it’s still fresh in your mind. Make Sure You’ve Got Your Q1 Marketing and Sales Strategy Set We mentioned the annual sales and marketing checkup earlier this week, but we’ll say it again. There’s almost nothing more important to your business than checking in on the health of your sales and marketing strategy. Check in to see what’s fallen through the cracks, what needs to be reworked in Q1 and where you’re excelling. A fresh start for the new year will make coming back to work more enjoyable and make your team more effective to set you on a path for your best year yet.
List Segmentation Tips to Drive More Sales Posted on December 1, 2016January 8, 2021 by Jonathan Herrick List segmentation is one of the secret weapons of email marketing. Studies show that segmenting your emails can boost your conversion rates by more than 200%. It’s simple; not all customers are the same. We all differ as human beings; we have different needs, tastes, habits, desires, and motivations. Rather than treating each customer the same way, why not take a personalized approach? There are many ways you can get more personal with your prospects and customers. Here are a few strategies to get you started. Demographic Data Demographic data includes basic characteristics such as gender, age, location, job, salary, and so on. It’s this very basic information that should be at the core of your segmentation strategy. Often it’s not necessary to go beyond the basic demographic segments to see dramatic results. For example, just by segmenting its subscribers into male and female, an online clothing brand, Johnny Cupcakes, increased click-through rates by 42%, conversion by 123%, and revenue by 141% for each campaign. So when it comes to demographic data, it’s smart to start simple. To form your first segmenting strategy based on demographics, you can begin with these buckets: Location: Show customers a popular product in their location or even use local information for special promotions. For example, popular hotel chain, Red Roof Inn, used weather information to target customers with cancelled flights. Gender: Men and women shop differently and purchase different products. Naturally, if you’re a clothing brand, you want to target each segment with relevant products. Job title: Especially for B2B businesses, job title determines decision-making power. If you’re an accounting firm, an HR or finance manager might look into your services, but a CFO will be the final decisionmaker. Customer Sign-Up Date Different subscribers are at different points in their sales cycles. Some are repeat customers; others haven’t even made up their minds to purchase your product or services. Naturally, you should treat everyone differently and adjust your marketing message accordingly. At the very basic level, you want to onboard your new users as soon as they sign up. These people are not as familiar with your product or services as long-time customers, so you need to get them through the process of onboarding. Likewise, you can reward or up-sell your long-term customers. This means you can strengthen their loyalty. Or, if you’re let’s say an enterprise SaaS company, offer an advanced plan at a discounted when the time is right, as their team has most likely grown over time. Behavioral Data Behavioral data allows you to understand what products your customers prefer, why they’re buying, and how they are using them. Use this data to send relevant emails and promotions. What they buy: Amazon is the best example here. The company uses past purchases to promote relevant products to its customers in the form of emails and a recommendation engine. The moment Amazon implemented this strategy, its revenues went up by 29%. Currently, 35% of its revenues are generated by the recommendation of relevant products. When and how often they buy: Knowing when and how often your customers buy can help you determine the timing of your email campaigns. If some customers make most of their purchases around Christmas, that’s the time you want to reach out to them with your promotions. Why they buy: Are they using your products as gifts or are they buying for themselves? Are there any features they care about more than others? Use that information to tailor the value proposition in your emails. Email Client Data At the very basic level, you want to segment your users between the ones who primarily read their emails on mobile or tablet devices and the ones that use a desktop. At a minimum, your emails should be optimized for different reading experiences. Whether your subscribers are on Android or iPhone can make a difference too. There are also different email clients like Apple Mail, Gmail, and Outlook. The truth is, segmentation is the missing link in your email marketing strategy. In fact according to DMA, in 2015, segmented, targeted, and triggered campaigns generated over 77% of total email marketing ROI. When you take a personalized approach to your marketing through segmentation you’ll boost conversion rates, drive more sales and nurture your audience more effectively.
It’s Time For Your Annual Sales and Marketing Checkup Posted on November 30, 2016July 12, 2018 by Jonathan Herrick It’s hard to believe that a new year is right around the corner…. Just as your annual checkup is a great way to ensure you are meeting your health goals, an annual sales and marketing checkup is a great way to make sure your business is healthy and meeting its goals. Below are five of the most common issues affecting small businesses. Fortunately, each issue has an easy fix, allowing you to make your business healthier than ever before! 1: Contacts are not organized or stored in a central place. Organizing and storing contacts helps safeguard your business from many things that range from simple inefficiency all the way to key staff leaving and taking the contacts with them. How to fix it One of the key features of CRM for small business is its ability to help store and manage your various contacts. This ensures that all of your team is on the same page with where hot leads are within the sales funnel as well. 2: Lack of communication between sales, marketing, and support. Selling is all about timing, and a lack of communication between different teams can kill deals. Moments of poor timing such as sales contacting someone to pitch a new product while that person is in the middle of resolving issues related to previous purchases can be catastrophic to building relationships and closing sales. That customer is almost certainly in no mood to hear about a new product and may be quite offended that your company hasn’t fixed one thing before trying to sell him another. How to fix it You should already be using small business CRM to automate (and personalize) your follow-ups to customer correspondence. A strong CRM also allows sales and other members of your team to see all history of customer contact at the touch of a button. Not only will automation ensure prospects are taken care of through the entire process, but sales members are more equipped to pounce on “Hot” opportunities and customer support team members are up to speed on any issues that might have happened in the past. 3: Inaccurate records and absence of customer history on file. Speaking of customer faux pas, one of the chief dangers of having inaccurate records is that you might end up making a passionate sales call to someone who turns out to already be a customer. This is a lose/lose scenario: time and resources have been wasted by the sales member while the customer craving personalized service is starting to think he’s just another number…and one that hasn’t been kept track of! How to fix it Correct use of small business CRM will ensure that all records and customer interactions are available to all team members. This not only avoids the aforementioned offensive call but ensures that futures sales calls target the hottest leads that have already been properly nurtured through state-of-the-art email campaigns and other forms of automated marketing. 4: Cold calling instead of following up with warm leads. The cold call is well-named…after all, it can feel like a chilly experience. While hot prospects that are visiting your site are neglected, valuable sales time is wasted with people that don’t have any engagement with your company. After all their called cold contacts for a reason. How to fix it There is a smarter way. When it comes to customer interaction data, small business CRM puts important data right at your fingertips You can pinpoint with complete accuracy if a customer has visited your website on multiple occasions, read any of your blogs, and responded to any forms or calls to action on the site or via email. In short, cold calling can be left back in the refrigerator while your team uses this information to call only warmed up, hot leads, in a more personalized manner from now on. 5: Opportunities slipping through the cracks. One of the double-edged swords of doing business is that the more business you conduct, the more missed opportunities accidentally get created. For instance, it’s easy for someone to lose a note reminding them to contact a promising prospect in the shuffle and hustle of a busy day of meetings. In the time it takes sales to find that note – if they ever do – that prospect has moved on to another business. How to fix it In cases like this, small business CRM lets you instantly upload important notes and key information into a shared database that the entire team can access. Not only is your sales team not going to lose any more activities, but even if sales is too busy to immediately contact that prospect by phone, they can be nurtured via automated marketing that makes the prospect feel special and catered to. Using small business CRM in smart and creative ways should be just one part of your marketing plan. In fact, that marketing plan is more important than ever if you want to stay competitive and relevant in the 21st-century marketplace.
Want To Turn Lost Leads Into Revenue? Posted on November 28, 2016 by Jonathan Herrick To succeed in small business marketing, you must build and maintain an effective plan for converting more leads into qualified prospects ready, willing and able to buy from you. The process is a fragile one. No matter how hard you try, you will have leads that get “lost” and drop out of the lead nurturing process. In today’s always-on culture of 24/7/365 digital engagement, people are distracted by the never-ending stream of online content — not to mention life’s day-to-day crazy activities. Even if they really want the solution you offer, only 50% convert into a lead and only 25% are sales-ready. When leads ARE lost, don’t fret. You can still take steps to try and get them back on board. Here a a few ways you can re-engage lost leads that have somehow slipped through the cracks. An Ounce Of Prevention… There’s an old saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Make this philosophy an integral part of your marketing, and your life will be a lot easier. So what can you do to try and keep leads from leaking out of your sales funnel? Examine your lead generation process to find out where it is breaking down. The problem could be friction – it could be too difficult to sign up or to download and access your content. Image Source: Conversion XL It could be your content and copy that is causing the problem. Is your content compelling and engaging, or “stuffy” and boring? Is it focused mainly on you and your product, a very common, costly mistake, or focused on your reader and how you can help them solve a pressing problem? How effective are your content titles? Do they grab and keep your reader’s attention or do they pretty much guarantee your content will be ignored? Are you even selling the right product or service to the right market? This is important. You wouldn’t try to sell steaks to vegetarians. So make sure the group you are trying to sell to wants and can afford what you offer. One of the beautiful things about marketing, especially digital marketing, is that it can always be improved and optimized. Lead nurturing effectiveness is no exception. One step you can easily take to find out where leads are bailing on you is to ask them. You can either email them, call them or send a quick and easy survey. Regardless of how you choose to try to re-engage lost leads, you will need to look at re-engagement as a multi-step process, not a one time event. If they don’t respond to your first, or second, or third contact, try again! WIIFM? Want to succeed at re-engaging lost leads? Remember this question: “What’s in it for me?” Whenever you ask your lead to take an action that will involve taking another step toward a sale, he’s asking himself this question (at least subconsciously). Ask yourself why he would want to re-engage with you. Then give him a powerful reason(s) to re-engage. That may involve a special purchase arrangement with powerful bonuses and financial incentives. It may mean that you need to craft special content. Maybe you need to pick up the phone and call him. You want to use the often forgotten, but still effective offline tactic of direct mail. Have You Considered Retargeting? Some leads may fall through the cracks because they forgot about you. This may be because your content delivery and nurturing activities were not well-timed. It could be because your lead got distracted by the chaos of life. But regardless of why it happened, there’s a marketing technology solution you might want to consider: retargeting, sometimes called remarketing. We’ve all seen retargeting at work. You visit a company’s website. Now, when you go to other sites, you see ads reminding you of your visit. Retargeting is an effective way to remind lost leads about your business, products and services. You can harness the power of retargeting to spur reengagement. However, don’t proceed blindly or without a solid plan, including an ironclad understanding of what it will cost you. Before you just dive in, check out helpful online resources such as this retargeting how-to guide Closing The Loop So what do you do if you have tried and tried to re-engage a lost lead? Eventually, if they don’t respond, you will want to let them go. As a last-ditch effort before you purge them from your list, you might want to send an email such as this one: An email like this will lead to three possible outcomes: They will reply telling you they are still interested. You can re-engage them at this point They will reply and tell you they have chosen another option. It happens. You can either move on (this may be your best option), or try to keep convincing them to re-engage with you (and potentially waste a lot of time). They don’t respond. Your best bet may be to purge them from your list. Not all leads are created equal. Trying to re-engage leads that are truly dead will sap your energy and cause your productivity to plummet. You need to let them go Let’s say you’ve succeeded at re-engaging a lost lead. Congratulations! But your job isn’t done. Before you start trying to re-engage ANY lost leads, you better be sure you have a solid lead nurturing process in place so you don’t make the same mistake and lose the same lead twice. By following these simple and actionable tips, you’ll convert more leads into revenue and stay top of mind as your audience makes that always important buying decision — hopefully that decision is to buy from you.
7 Considerations When Choosing Sales and Marketing Software Posted on November 25, 2016July 12, 2018 by Jessica Lunk Good, better, best – if only it were that easy when choosing sales and marketing software. Automating sales and marketing requires many considerations like features, price, usability and support. It can be tough to compare products apples to apples. Some solutions are stand alone-for instance, you may need a technical resource to integrate a marketing automation platform with a separate CRM system. Others package marketing automation and CRM all in one. So, if you’re evaluating sales and marketing software, it’s going to be difficult to rely on a simple good, better, or best rating. What may be best for a Fortune 500 company won’t be well suited for a small business or solopreneur. Likewise, a B2C business will need a different set of features than B2B. While you’re in research mode, you’ll find that analysts and review sites tend to use a quadrant or grid structure when comparing sales and marketing solutions. This structure can help you find the right intersection of usability, customer satisfaction, and market presence. G2Crowd uses their CRM all in one grid, while Gartner publishes their Frontrunners Quadrant. Marketing automation is still the new kid on the block when it comes to sales and marketing technology and new platforms are popping up every day. So how do you choose the right one for you? Here are some considerations to make: 1: Address the Right Audience Do you sell to businesses or to consumers? The distinction between B2B and B2C can make a difference when evaluation sales and marketing platforms. A B2C business might require an ecommerce component and the ability to track purchases. A B2B business may need a way to manage and track several relationships at one company and track deals through a sales pipeline. Understanding how you’ll target your audience can help narrow your focus when choosing a platform. 2: Decide on All In One vs. Best of Breed There are two routes you can go when it comes to sales and marketing software. You can take a best-of-breed approach and purchase a CRM and marketing automation platform separately and integrate the two. Or, you can choose an all in one CRM that comes with marketing automation out of the box. There are advantages to both options. A lot of it depends on your level of expertise and the resources you have at hand. A small business will probably get all of the functionality they need with an all in one solution – without the expense and headaches of integration. On the other hand, a larger company may need more robust functionality and have the technical resources they need to integrate systems across their organization. 3: Nail Down the Right Features In the search for software, there will always be the must-have features that are non-negotiable for your business, the nice-to-have but not necessary features, and the features that you’ll never touch. Getting the feature set right can be crucial for ease of use and user adoption. You have to balance the functionality you need to grow and scale without taking on a bloated software that’s too difficult to implement and get off the ground. If you’re new to sales and marketing software, here’s a comprehensive list of 33 marketing automation terms to know. 4: Ensure Ease of Use User adoption is key for businesses implementing sales and marketing software. Will your sales team be able to easily navigate the CRM? Does your marketing team have the functionality they need to reach out to your audience? User adoption is key to success, so involve end users in the decision-making process. The worst thing that can happen for your business is implementing a new system meant to streamline tasks and boost productivity only to cause employees to find ways to work around the system because it’s too cumbersome to use. 5: Get the Proper Training Another key to user adoption is getting the right training for your team. Sales and marketing software can be super easy to use, but the strategy around your sales and marketing process can get complicated. Make sure you consider how much training you’ll need. Most vendors provide training to some degree. Some vendors require that you purchase a training package, while others offer free training to get started or offer training packages a la carte. You may decide that the standard training is all your business needs. Or, if you need help with your sales and marketing strategy, you may decide to hire a marketing consultant in addition to investing in software. 6: Access the Right Level of Support Once your business is up and running on sales and marketing software, even small issues that crop up can put a glitch in your day. Understanding what type of support your software vendor offers prevents major headaches or misunderstandings should an issue arrive. Do you need phone support? Do you prefer live chat or email correspondence? Is access to support 24/7 necessary, or can you get by with just business hours? Do you need to purchase a support package or upgrade to a higher level of support? Once you’ve gotten your sales and marketing process ironed out and implemented sales and marketing software, you’ll want to keep everything running smoothly. 7: Be Realistic When it Comes to Pricing Sales and marketing software has proven to help businesses capture and convert more leads at a lower cost, making it a sound investment for your business. However, unexpected expenses – like the cost of a developer for a custom integration or a hefty startup fee – can quickly through your budget off. At the same time, free or low-cost solutions don’t always come with the support you need to fully realize the benefits of the software. It can quickly become more hassle than it’s worth when you discover you don’t have help with your sales and marketing strategy or that a feature set doesn’t work as you expected it to. It’s all a balancing act – features, pricing and support major categories to consider when choosing marketing automation software for your small business.