Has marketing missed the mark?

February 22, 2013 Leave a comment

What makes a great Marketer?

The best marketers are thought-leaders. Not only are they acutely aware of the drivers of their results, but they have a deep understanding of consumer behaviors and point the organization forward to be prepared for trends and shifts in their behavior.

Hubspot Marketing BenchmarksThey love [useful] metrics, as this guides their efforts to show better returns over time, not the same or worse.

Great marketers are aware of these consumer behavior shifts before they are even perceptible to most in the organization.

As a result, you see this most quickly reflected in the marketing in ways that connects deeply with consumers and resonates more so than the common marketing in the marketplace.

Good marketing takes work, but what does it take to be best-in-class? Furthermore, how do you compare against your industry?

Find out with HubSpot’s latest study, Marketing Benchmarks from 7,000 Businesses.

Download the Marketing Benchmarks Report

This brand new report dives into how you can increase your traffic and leads by improving a variety of marketing assets, including:

- Web Pages
- Blogging
- Landing Pages
- Twitter
- and more!

Get a clear idea of how much more you need to do to see the results your organization needs. Download the report to see if your marketing is hitting the mark.

Filed under B2B, B2C, Blogging, Content Management, Direct Mail, Email Marketing, Facebook, Keywords, LinkedIn, Marketing (General), Marketing Insights, Marketing ROI, Prospecting, SEO, Social Media, Social Posts, Twitter Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

LinkedIn: Are you in the Top 1%? If so, bummer!

February 13, 2013 2 Comments

LinkedIn Top 1%LinkedIn recently reached out to 10 million of its members with a ‘Congratulations’ for having one of the Top 1% [or Top 5%] most viewed profiles in 2012. This was their way of ‘thanking’ those that contributed to its 200 million member milestone.

Great news, right? Not so fast. That all depends on why people are seeking you out. For many, I suspect they are down right proud of such an accomplishment…one in which they had no idea they were shooting for until LinkedIn said, “Congratulations.”

As for me, I am a bit more cynical on why people are looking at my profile that often. Is it because I am special? Can’t be. I know me. So what, then?

With social selling becoming a much more significant way to prospect, what LinkedIn may actually be calling out is that those in this elite group are getting the top 1-5% of the solicitations from hungry sales people. So my special notification from LinkedIn would have been more appropriate, had it said…

“Jeff, congratulations! You are in the Top 1% that is most likely to get solicited!”

Of course, I am over-generalizing in terms of how this is used and I certainly realize the many benefits of being found where people are searching, but it is interesting seeing the different perspectives on the topic.

For instance, the other day I read a post of one SEO Consultant on his achievement of the Top 1%. I was surprised to see Mr. SEO quickly cite his top reason to how many first-level connections he had. He went on to share that he receives 15-20 connection requests from strangers per day. His subsequent reasons then pointed to Keywords and frequent Updates to his LinkedIn status.

One of his readers commented on his post that they too made the top 1%, but have less than 10% of the connections he has, and spends little to no time at all on their LinkedIn profile. He responded by saying, “I believe if you had more connections you would definitely do even better.” Hmm?!

So what gives? How do two people with completely opposite profiles and far different behaviors in their dedication to their LinkedIn profiles end up with the same result of a top viewed profile?

Turns out that keywords are pretty important, after all. Even more so than number of connections, Mr. SEO.

So, if you are looking to increase solicitations from prospectors, make sure to research trending keywords that relate to you and include them in your profile. Do this, and YOU TOO can join the ranks of 10 million other members to balance the load of solicitations you are sure to receive.

Filed under Email Marketing, Keywords, LinkedIn, Marketing (General), Marketing Insights, Phone Sales, Prospecting, Sales (General), Sales Insights, SEO, Social Media, Social Posts

Example of Challenger Marketing

October 9, 2012 1 Comment

Following is an example from Group Publishing using the Challenger approach in its marketing messaging on a direct mail piece. The aim was to disrupt the status quo for women’s ministry directors doing retreats the same old way that they have done for years. To be more specific the status quo for directors was to hire an inspirational keynote speaker for the weekend in order to help enable more women to connect with one another and carry on in weekly women’s bible studies and groups. The problem was that women would come away from the retreats inspired, but still not connected to a larger body of women in their church.

Group Publishing recognized that while their chief aim was to create connections, the method of doing a ‘speaker-based’ retreat actually created the problem, instead of solving the problem of women connecting. Why? Consider the room setup when you go to hear a keynote speaker. Which way are the chairs are facing? They are all facing forward, of course…towards the speaker, not towards each other. Therefore, at best, one could hope to relate to what the speaker was talking about, but no real connections were formed with one another. It’s the wrong format.

Group’s solution was to provide a retreat kit that not only saved the expense of a costly speaker, but more importantly was designed to create intentional interactions between women by focusing on the dialogue between women, not on the speaker.

Following is one of the initial marketing pieces designed to get women thinking differently about the retreats they have been doing for years.

Challenger Marketing Example

Challenger Marketing Example

The result? The Group Ministry Consultants were inundated with immediate responses and repeated references to the marketing pieces themselves.

In fact, Women’s Ministry Directors were even calling Group Publishing to get more copies of the direct mail piece to use as invitations after they purchased the Group Retreat Kit.

The campaign was followed up by matching the website to the style and messaging of the direct mail piece. Is it a perfect Challenger marketing piece? Probably not, but it challenged the status quo in a way that women in ministry could relate to, so I would call that a success.

What examples would you like to share?

Filed under B2B, B2C, Challenger, Challenger Marketing, Direct Mail, Email Marketing, Marketing (General), Marketing Insights, Messaging, Resources, Sales (General), Sales Insights Tagged with , , , ,

Stop Asking Your Prospects Why!

August 21, 2012 1 Comment

Why QuestionsGetting deeper in conversations is a problem many people deal with. If you are struggling with this in your conversations, then perhaps you need to consider HOW you are asking your questions, not WHY. Huh?

It is very natural for us to ask a person a ‘Why’ question when asking about something that isn’t working or is broken. That said, I would encourage you to think back to your childhood when you were asked a ‘Why’ question by a parent (e.g., Why did you do that?). I don’t know about you, but for me, I immediately mounted a defense every time that kind of question was asked. After all, who wants to be treated as if you did something wrong?

When you ask questions that begin with ‘Why,’ you almost guarantee the first word of their response will start with ‘Because.’ How often have responses starting with ‘Because’ won the deal? You see, ‘Why’ often times puts a customer in a position to defend or justify ‘why’ they made a decision, a change, etc. Consider the difference a question beginning with ‘How’ can make when asking about a decision or a choice made versus ‘Why.’

  • Why did you choose that particular solution? Asking why they did this can imply that you think they have made a bad decision and often leads to the prospect spending the rest of the conversation on making sure you know they had good reasons to change to whatever they are using now. In fact, your intended proposal would require them to make another change to your product. If they did feel like you were questioning their reasoning, how might that predispose them to respond to your proposal?
  • How did you decide on this solution? Asking how lends itself to more of an explanation of the process they used, which can surface very useful information.

For clarity, I am not at all advocating the banishment of asking ‘Why.’ It can, in fact, be very effective when used in the right context and circumstances. As with all things’ use your judgment. Then next time you get a defensive response from a customer, perhaps consider ‘why’ that happened.

Filed under B2B, B2C, Direct Mail, Email Marketing, Marketing (General), Marketing Insights, Messaging, Phone Sales, Problem Solving, Prospecting, Sales (General), Sales Insights, Sales Questions Tagged with , , , ,

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